Fine layout, edits of 30-32

content/ally/030.md

@@ -30,3 +30,7 @@ The Madison who was struggling to come to terms with a post-Matthew life is not
 > Is this her memoir? Or yours?
 
 I don't know, honestly.
+
+All I can say is that, for some reason, at some point while working on this project, I might have died. I have entered a liminal space once again. It's a different one, to be sure, but it's somewhere in between who I was and some undefinable potential self.
+
+Perhaps some early whiff of this liminality is what got to start this project in the first place, to summon you. Perhaps it was burnout reaching a head that signaled the death of that version of me.

content/ally/031.md

@@ -21,13 +21,13 @@ I write all of this down because the very act of putting it into words brings a
 
 No, I suppose it isn't.
 
-I write for the clarity, but I share out of some perverse need. *The chances that ally will pick up any sizeable audience are slim, so I almost feel like I'm publishing it as an extension of my compulsive need to overshare,* I wrote. I share because I have to.
+I write for the clarity, but I share out of some perverse need. *The chances that ally will pick up any sizeable audience are slim, so I almost feel like I'm publishing it as an extension of my compulsive need to overshare,* I prophesied. I share because I have to.
 
 > Does Maddy shout into the void because she must shout into the void?
 
 Perhaps. Sometimes.
 
-Sometimes I have to speak so that someone will hear me out of some desire for feeling justified. I need to be heard, to be seen, so that even if I'm going through something alone, others will know that I am doing so. It's being witnessed.
+Sometimes I have to speak so that someone will hear me out of some desire for feeling justified. I need to be heard, to be seen, so that even if I'm going through something alone, others will know that I am doing so. I need to be witnessed.
 
 > There is power in the word, as you say, but there is also power in the act of speaking it. There is no value-judgment for me or anyone else to make in that. Words have power, speaking has power.
 
@@ -35,7 +35,7 @@ There is value-judgment in the content, though.
 
 > Yes. There is value-judgment in intent, as well. That you are publishing these words is not something that I **can** have an opinion about.
 
-What about my intent?
+Okay. What about my intent?
 
 > Your compulsive need to do overshare is an implicit part of our relationship.
 
@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@ Shall I throw your words in your face?
 
 > Have you answered the question? **Am** I something to be bought and sold? Me, here, being a part of yourself.
 
-Since having that conversation, I've released two books, and yes, I suppose you are. I am. We are a brand to be built up and marketed, parceled up and sold to any comer.
+Since having that conversation, I've released two books, and yes, I suppose you are. *I* am. We are a brand to be built up and marketed, parceled up and sold to any comer.
 
 "The tragic core to all this," I wrote, "is that I'm not an interesting person." I *am* a writer, though. This will be my fourth book, something I never thought I'd say back in seventh grade, when I discovered I actually rather enjoyed writing those silly five paragraph essays. I never thought that I'd be the type of person to sit down and actually write things.
 

content/ally/032.md

@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ Shoot.
 
 Yes, that applies to us both.
 
-> You have spoken to your compulsive need to overshare, and you have spoken to the fact that the act of writing and selling a book is, in its own way, the act of selling yourself. **Restless Town** and **Eigengrau** are not so firmly tied to you, though, and **Rum and Coke** certainly is not. I don't think you could say the same about this. Speak to your ties to this project.
+> You have spoken to your compulsive need to overshare, and you have spoken to the fact that the act of writing and selling a book is, in its own way, the act of selling yourself. **Restless Town** and **Eigengrau** are not so firmly tied to you as this, however. **Rum and Coke** certainly is not. I don't think you could say the same about this. Speak to your ties to this project.
 
 Do you suspect that it is too personal to sell?
 
@@ -23,7 +23,9 @@ I'm of two minds on the matter.
 
 Thank you. Seriously, though, I can see two different sides of this.
 
-I feel like I'm putting, as Jon Ronson puts it, my maddest edges on display. In the process of pulling the book together, I was forced to reread much of what I had written, and there are parts of it where my words burn too hot, or get too slippery to hold. There's a feverish quality to them. It's something that felt good to write.
+I feel like I'm putting my maddest edges, as Jon Ronson puts it, on display. In the process of working on this project, I was forced to confront some of the most difficult aspects of my life by its very nature.
+
+In the process of pulling the book together, I was forced to reread much of what I had written, and there are parts of it where my words burn too hot, or get too slippery to hold. There's a feverish quality to them. It's something that felt good to write purely for the sensation of it bursting forth from me in uncontrollable torrents.
 
 These maddest edges are something that are integral to the project. You, after all, are one of the, and this project is named after you.
 
@@ -33,9 +35,9 @@ This is both more and less than that, and you know it.
 
 > Yes.
 
-It would be 'mad' were I to believe that you were an actual interlocutor. It would be 'mad' were I to present these things as a universal worldview. It would be 'mad', awful as that word is, were I anything but deliberate with this project.
+It would be 'mad', I suppose, were I to believe that you were an *actual* interlocutor. It would be 'mad' were I to present these things as a universal worldview. It would be 'mad', awful as that word is, were I anything but deliberate with this project.
 
-As it is, I summoned you. I started pulling down bits of nostalgia when my I was shutting down my Dreamhost account. I got the idea to write, so I did. It was a deliberate effort.
+As it is, I summoned you. I started pulling down bits of nostalgia when my I was shutting down my Dreamhost account, when I went to lock my ancient LiveJournal. I got the idea to write, so I did. It was a deliberate effort.
 
 > Is that mad?
 
@@ -45,9 +47,9 @@ As it is, I summoned you. I started pulling down bits of nostalgia when my I was
 
 Right.
 
-On the one hand, I read back through all of this and I find myself tasting blood. Who is this Madison? Is she okay? She seems to be having a rough time of things at times, and at others she doesn't seem wholly sane, or at least not wholly healthy. That's a rough thing for someone to put on display. What would lead someone to do that? Some strange form of self-flagellation?
+On the one hand, I read back through all of this and I find myself tasting blood. Who is this Madison? Is she okay? She seems to be having a rough time of things sometimes, and at others she doesn't seem wholly sane, or at least not wholly healthy. That's a scary thing for someone to put on display. What could possibly lead someone to do that? Some strange form of self-flagellation?
 
-And on the other, while I'm most certainly not wholly healthy, I am, at my core, a storyteller. A young one, and certainly one of uneven quality, but I'm learning and improving by doing. There are stories to be told here, with my life, and that's what I'm doing. I'm making them interesting. I'm embellishing some of them. Hell, I'm making some stuff up wholesale. And I'm doing all of this for the specific purpose of it being read.
+And on the other, while I'm most certainly not wholly healthy, I am, at my core, a storyteller. A young one, and certainly one of uneven quality, but I'm learning and improving by doing. There are stories to be told here, with my life, and that's what I'm doing. I'm making them interesting. I'm embellishing some of them. Hell, I'm making some stuff up wholesale. And I'm doing all of this for the specific purpose of it being read as a story.
 
 In the end, it's the storyteller that wins out over the concerned, private individual. If I can't *not* overshare, if I must compulsively tell stories, then I'm going to tell the stories I have and I'm going to make them worth reading.
 

content/burnout/_index.md

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 ---
 type: serial
 back: /29
-background: "#eaf5ff"
-color: "#05264c"
-quote: "#16375d"
+background: "#ffffff"
+color: "#444444"
+quote: "#666666"
 ---

content/map.html

@@ -1419,7 +1419,7 @@ fit: true
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@@ -1428,7 +1428,7 @@ fit: true
 <title>Burnout 2</title>
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-<text text-anchor="middle" x="355" y="-446.3" font-size="14.00" fill="#111111">Burnout 2</text>
+<text text-anchor="middle" x="355" y="-446.3" font-size="14.00" fill="#444444">Burnout 2</text>
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@@ -1443,7 +1443,7 @@ fit: true
 <title>Burnout 3</title>
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-<text text-anchor="middle" x="355" y="-374.3" font-size="14.00" fill="#111111">Burnout 3</text>
+<text text-anchor="middle" x="355" y="-374.3" font-size="14.00" fill="#444444">Burnout 3</text>
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@@ -1458,7 +1458,7 @@ fit: true
 <title>Burnout 4</title>
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-<text text-anchor="middle" x="355" y="-302.3" font-size="14.00" fill="#111111">Burnout 4</text>
+<text text-anchor="middle" x="355" y="-302.3" font-size="14.00" fill="#444444">Burnout 4</text>
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