Kimberly Hirsh

I’m thinking about adding an Ask Me Anything’s page to my blog. But I also might just sometimes make a post soliciting questions. What questions do you have? They don’t need to be specific to me or my expertise.

I added a Shop page to my website! Right now all that’s there are my Notion templates (all pay what you can, $0+). In the future I hope to add a Books I Recommend section with affiliate links to Bookshop.org and a Books I’ve Written section. Affiliates get 50% commission.

I originally posted this on Facebook on March 17, 2016.

I’m only 9% Irish, but I sure love Saint Patrick’s Day. I think most of my affection for it comes from St. Patrick’s Day 1991, when my sister, our mom, and I arrived at our Tallahassee church for the last round of the church’s progressive dinner, and my dad, who had been living in Durham for more than a year, surprised us by showing up. Will and I have a picture from that Saint Patrick’s Day hanging on the wall of our parlor.

Shang-Chi is all “1996” and later is all “PRESENT DAY” and it’s confusing how those aren’t synonyms.

Colored a page from Dover Coloring Book Fairy Fashion by Scott Altmann. I’m using jumbo crayons so I don’t get hand cramps. Coloreds this Canadian fairy in honor of Robin Scherbatsky and Cobie Smulders.

🔖 Read Storytelling and the Craft of Quiltmaking. 🧵

As promised, here’s a walkthrough of my thought process for playing Wordle. This is the game for 03/14/2022.

I begin most games with the word ATONE. This uses 5 of the 6 most frequent letters used in English (etaoin).

After this, I know that the word will have T and E in it. I have eliminated one possible position for each of those letters.

My next goal is to do two things:

1. Systematically eliminate other location possibilities for T and E.
2. Include as many of the remaining letters from the 12 most frequently uses letters as possible (i shrdlu).

So I try TIERS, which moves T to the beginning and brings in I, R, and S.

This locks E in the middle position, tells me that I chose the wrong position for T, and lets me know that S will be in there somewhere, but not in its current position.

I actually get a bit less strategic now. I only have two more possibilities for where T could go, so I figure I’ll try it at the end, as that seems more likely than the next-to-last place. That leaves me with 3 possibilities for S, so I start with the first of those. Now I’ve got to fill in two letters. So far I’ve got S_E_T. I try not to repeat letters this early on, which eliminates a lot of possibilities. I look at what’s remaining from letter frequency (HDLU). I consider and reject words with repeats like SHEET and SLEET. I think through other possibilities and settle on SLEPT.

Now I’ve got 4 out of 5 letters and know their positions, since L is in the word by not where I put it first. I’m looking to fill in the blank for S_ELT.

This is when I just start looking at the keyboard and plugging letters in. Swelt? Shelt? Skelt? Sbelt? Those aren’t words. What about SMELT?

At first I think that can’t be right, it’s just a joke word as in “He who smelt it dealt it.” But then I remember no, you can smelt iron, because smelt means “to melt or fuse (a substance, such as ore) often with an accompanying chemical change usually to separate the metal” (Merriam-Webster. (Also it’s a legitimate past participle of “smell” so " He who smelt it dealt it" is perfectly good English .)

So I try it.

Boom.

I hope this is helpful as you build your own Wordle workflow. Take care!

Added “A very enterprising, mildly annoying young lady” to my bio. Thanks, #TurningRed!

🍿 Watched Turning Red. Highly recommend. Perfectly captures being 13, navigating our own growth and our parents’ expectations, and the way these questions stay with us in adulthood.

I haven’t watched it yet but I’ve decided The Adam Project is a sequel to 13 Going on 30 and nothing will convince me otherwise.

Finished reading: Shang-Chi by Gene Luen Yang Vol. 1: Brothers and Sisters by Gene Yang 📚

The Klein Librarian for Science Fiction at UC Riverside sounds like a pretty cool job.

Want to read: Information Hunters by Kathy Peiss 📚

Whoever wrote that thing about how 13 yos don’t write fanfic has everybody on Twitter talking about their Sailor Moon fanfic. I wrote mine (the redemption of the Spectre Sisters) at 14. (Also had a Star Wars fic where my sister was sister-insert version of Luke & I was Leia.)

I like to ask from time to time and I haven’t in a while: what’s my brand?

Finished reading: How to Make a Living with Your Writing Third Edition by Joanna Penn 📚

Great advice on creating multiple income streams as a writer. Tons of recommended resources and helpful questions to consider.

🍿 Watched Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga because it was nominated for a Hugo. I had a lot of fun with it. I like this kind of gentle performance from Will Ferrell & Rachel McAdams always makes me happy.

We are at DEFCON Falling Asleep to Mr. Rogers.

I don’t share my daily Wordle result, but I do play it most days. I get it in 5 or fewer tries 94% of the time, 3 or fewer 32% of the time. I wanted to share what I do in case it spares anyone else some frustration.

The first key is to memorize this combination of nonsense words that will help you remember English letter frequency: etaoin shrdlu.

I try to start with a word that uses five of those letters.

Next there are two tricks I rely on most of the time:

1. Familiarity with common letter combinations/placements
2. Systematic movement of yellow letters

The first one involves things like knowing that H is often part of a two-letter combo like SH, TH, or CH, and that these combos usually occur at the beginning or end of words. Likewise thinking about how there are vowels in most words, different things that often come before E at the end of a word (like ATE, ACE, ALE), or how two letters often appear together (like UI).

As for the second: once I get a yellow letter, I try words that use that letter in different positions so I can eliminate places where it doesn’t belong.

The last thing I do before random guessing is look at the unused letters on the keyboard and try to build words combining them with the pieces I already know.

I hope this has been helpful. I’ll try to post a sort of “play-aloud” with screenshots and my thought processes soon.

In case you’re wondering where my head is at, I spilled the PCR testing solution while trying to test my kid, had to ask the pharmacy tech for a new vial, am terrified that I fucked up the test somehow & think I’m the worst. We may be seeing a depression relapse here.

Will the giant invasive ballooning spiders eat the mosquitos in my yard? If so, I don’t welcome like ALL of them but you know, a couple would be okay. In the yard. Not in the house if I can help it. (I’m from Florida so the part where they’re the size of a kid’s hand is meh.)

Pro-tip: brains work better when you feed them.

Finished reading: Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore 📚

So great. Cashore gets five genres in this book and each one is a delight.

I changed my goal for April’s Camp NaNoWriMo. My goal now is to publish 22,500 words on my blog over the course of the month. I’ve changed my username over there to kimberlyhirsh, so feel free to find me and add me as a buddy.

Finished reading: The Immune System Recovery Plan by Susan Blum 📚