(everyone's different, so adjust to taste)

• Check for 'comfort' entertainment: I often reread a few books I've had since being a teenager (known comfort) or trashy fanfiction (new but I don't feel bad about not paying full attention) to provide enough distraction to rest in these situations.
• Depending on the relational dynamics, either offer to screen comms or suggest do not disturb for notifications with checks at specific times of day. Even people wanting to support can be a huge drain.
• Avoid the news if possible. Stuff out there can be important and meaningful, but sometimes we don't have the emotional bandwidth to deal with it.

I'm running courses for under 18s on creating #interactivefiction (specifically, #visualnovels ) but I just had a request from one of the parents for an adult version of the course.

Would you, or anyone you know be interested in a short course on writing interactive fiction? Would probably run at around 5 hours over 5 weeks, homework optional, costing around 55 GBP.

More about me/the existing courses at thinkersmeetup.com/scholars/...

(Please share if this seems even vaguely interesting)

So - week starting the 12th I'm starting a new run of Coding Games with a Story, a five week course teaching young people how to write interactive fiction (in the form of visual novels, using Ink). Build stories that change based on the player's choices while learning about both good story telling and telling computers to do what you want - and then publish your experiments for other people to try.

For people who already know the mechanics of writing interactive fiction (taught at one of my courses or not) and who want the encouragement and structure of a writing club to build a full game, I'm also starting the Interactive Fiction Writing Club.

So - know anyone 9-18 who wants to tell stories that are also games? Nows the time for them to sign up!

You can find the courses I'm running here: thinkersmeetup.com/scholars/...