while they did live happily ever after

ALRIGHTY LJ

NOBODY IS POSTING (INCLUDING ME)

who actually still visits this site on a regular basis? And what, exactly, is that regular basis? This is just me being curious I'm not going to go anywhere and half of us are also Facebook friends but you know.

ALSO if you are not spending time here, are you spending it on another site, or are you too busy being consumed with ~*~real life~*~?

also I am trying to decide which project I should work on over this whole nine-month deployment thing. I am slowly getting more settled and accepting that This Is My Life ("yeah! I spent the majority of my first year of marriage apart from my husband! so much for 'alone time before having children'" mostly I jest but it is partially true sob) and so once I beat ME2 and then ME3 and Kaidan comes back and tells me he's sorry and he loves me and I can say IT'S OKAY, I LOVED YOU ALL ALONG much to Quark's disgust as that happens and I get on a schedule (studying Old English? Who has to study for a...language course...sob) I will be WRITING and I have to finish Godbaby fic

(snippet NO STEALING: The pounding grows quieter. I am afraid to look over the wall, and I do not know why. I have only ever spoken to Mother and to the elves. Mother taught me a greeting, but I do not know if the girl—if it is a girl—will understand me. And she is only one person, and Mother told me to find a town. I think that if I wait, she and the animals will go away. I am good at sitting still for hours, at hiding from the sight of those around me. I will wait.

The grass itches at my hands, but I do not move. The smell of the animals is strong and unpleasant, but I do not cough. The sun becomes brighter and brighter in the sky, and sweat drips into my eyes, and I barely blink. I am not here, I think. I think of nothing else.)

but also I want to work on a novel so that WP has something to read that is my fanfiction. Top choices are Goblin Novel (probably he would like it best, but it needs serious serious work because I wrote it during first semester senior year which was INSANE and Pictash spends a lot of time in a library doing research) and 2010 NaNo That Went Nowhere (the two main characters don't have names, also they are basically a younger version of Nevalle and Tanithar) (her name is either Theresa or Tabitha, but Tabitha is too close to Tanithar and I don't like the way Theresa looks, though I like the sound of it) (anyway it's my Generic Fantasy Novel in the same way that the Goblin Novel is my Subversion of the Generic Fantasy Novel). SUGGESTIONS WELCOME.

okay okay time to go eat lunch and borrow Quark's shower and pay my rent and get a library card WOOT.

♥

eta: MY UPSTAIRS NEIGHBOR IS WATCHING SLEEPING BEAUTY is it wrong to want to knock on their door and tell them how cool they are. (Actually I think they have small children, but still. This has made my early afternoon.)

Goose just finished Rebel Angels and now she is reading The Sweet Far Thing and she keeps asking me questions that just supports my suspicion that I need to reread that trilogy. Oops!

I showed the SyFy Alice to Quark and she liked it! I got to be ~*~mysterious~*~ and withhold information from her, which drives her crazy, because she likes to know she won't be disappointed and I don't believe in spoilers. THIS IS WHY WE ARE BEST FRIENDS: ULTIMATE COMPATIBILITY.

( books other people got me )

( other things I got, or, One Day I Will Master the 'List' Instead of the 'Block Paragraph' )

Anyway let's see OH I also saw Tangled with my sisters, anyone want to discuss? I know Jak did over at her LJ. I should do that.

OH OH OH I FINISHED ARIEL'S CHRISTMAS PRESENT but I can't share it with y'all yet because she hasn't read it I am THE MOST IMPATIENT FOR THIS TO HAPPEN stupid houses with no internet. BUT I THINK IT TURNED OUT OKAY I mention this also because like I have two more plot bunnies alongside the two I still have to write alongside the OTHER two I still have to write and they are all Dragon Age fic. Anyway we haven't unlocked Office on this computer because I hate Office 2010 with a fiery passion and just want my Word 2007 or whatever installed. Whichever one doesn't involve those stupid tabs at the top. This might seem neurotic, but you know, some people have to have unlined paper, others have to have fancy pens, some people like their netbooks, I want my old Word back. IT'S PART OF THE CREATIVE PROCESS, OKAY. I WANT TIMES NEW ROMAN, SINGLE-SPACED, NO STUPID GAPS BETWEEN PARAGRAPHS, THAT IS ONLY FOR THE INTERNET.

oh my goodness, first world problems.

There has been a lot of Bailey's in my life over the past say half of a week, so...lakhen? saba? thīke? IT WOULD HELP IF I KNEW HOW TO SPELL THESE WORDS. I will be back to you with the proper spelling. I'm 90% sure it ends with "saba thīka hai." (Anyone on my flist speak Hindi? Anyone?) (Apparently the alphabet is really easy to learn?) (This is one of my goals in life.)

I think it is time for a new layout. Suggestions? Themes it would make you happy to see every time you wandered over to my journal? I'M TAKING THEM.

I say to myself, Self, you ought to write the Lay of Laemira, and sing her praises, and let everyone know just what kind of ridonkulous playthrough you had hint: you suspect very few people go the route you did ever, let alone on their first try. It's more a completionist route than anything else.

And then I move from my PC to my laptop and in my head Morrigan espies a drunken Alistair, and then Quark is sleeping, and an hour hour and half later I have two three pages written, and help.

oh wait I think it finished itself, oh good.

...Jak I completely blame you for my love of this trope. IT IS CERTAINLY JAK'S FAULT, AND NOT MY INNATE LOVE OF KIDFIC.

1) Year-old Zutara fic! Woo!

2) this line will not leave me alone:
"I am a mage, Alistair. And they wish to make you king."

/angsts all over everything with her tiny broken heart

3) RASHAKA, YOUR FIC IS LANGUISHING ON MY HARD DRIVE, BECAUSE ZUKO'S VOICE FLED MY HEAD AND REFUSED TO RETURN. I am marathoning season 1 on Saturday, though, so hopefully I will be able to finish it.

1) So, in the song "Bad Romance," which I love a lot and which you should listen to, she repeats the line "I don't wanna be friends" multiple times.

Having listened to the song, do you think this line refers to
a) the fact that she wanted a solely sexual relationship
or
b) the fact that they are friends but she wants to be more?

I am doing an informal poll, and your input is welcome.


2) I wrote my Nietzsche paper in an hour (literally) and then lo and behold my knee started going all crazy on me and my good knee started tickling and so I ended up emailing the paper in and sitting on my futon with an ice pack, WOE.


3) I have grown very attached to this cover of Coldplay's "The Scientist," in a "I listen to this over and over again and want to write."


4) Speaking of writing, this is me NOT starting my post-season-3 Katara fic that I spent three hours plotting the other night with nessismore. (Y'all, I hit all the plot points. I even, like, made decisions, where normally I just keep changing it over and over in my head--I had to pick and go.) I really ought to go ahead and get the prologue down before I forget it.


5) I haven't talked about my life in forever, but I haven't really had any crazy adventures or done anything particularly fun lately. I mean, I've had fun, but I've also had a lot of long conversations that amount to "I am screwed once I leave this institution," and that's just not much fun to talk about.


6) A Room with a View is up on YouTube in its entirety, JUST SAYING, if you want to celebrate mah birfday the way I will be celebrating it. (Singing along to "O Mio Babbino Caro" is optional but encouraged. Bonus points if you can do a crazy operatic soprano not-glissando between those two syllables of "bello.")


7) Sophos's face is up, and it is appropriately pretty.


8) Idk, is there anything y'all want to hear about from me?


9) I took Pictash into the creative writing club and they liked him! (He is the singer in this post.)


10) As for that icon meme everyone's been doing, here's my answers from September. (Not!surprise: my answers are mostly the same.)


♥

The "You Should Write..." Meme!
my thread here

because I am a sucker for writing-related memes.

I'm thinking about doing the first line meme with some of my original stuff, and then comparing everything!

On a side note, who wants to read a complete original thing with an eye towards helpful criticism? It's only 28K, I promise...

also if I have ever promised you comments on something and then failed to deliver, it is purely because I suck. D:

also why oh why is there no acoustic version of "Over You" by Daughtry? Because that would make my life complete. Trufax.

So I’m trying to write this Avatar fic—or maybe a multitude of them, I dunno, because I keep hitting a roadblock.   styromgalleries and I talked about this some the other day, which reminded me that I wanted to do a big post asking for characterizations thoughts on the post-finale conundrum that is canonical Avatar ships.

 

(Basically, I want to write a Zutara fic that keeps everyone in character, and I’m finding it a bitch. Read on.)

 

( a brief trip through Jade's mental processes )

 

 

( a return to the original topic at hand, and a discussion of Zuko and Aang (who are, though I never say this explicitly, very very close friends, duh) )

( the snag that is Katara )

 

 

( the problems )

 

So basically, if you have any quibbles with characterization or canon support or plotness, or spot any holes I left uncovered (and remember, I don’t have an actual plot—this is all character stuff), please tell me. I really want to write a fic that doesn’t just break Kataang up for the hell of it, or take place in a universe post-break-up—and maybe I’m not giving post-finale Zutara fandom enough credit (and granted, I haven’t done much searching of the fanfic these days), but I somehow doubt there are a lot of fics that tackle this. But I’m going round and round in circles on this, and so if you see a place I can get onto the straight track, that would be awesome.

First of all, my stats, as they currently stand:

1/11/08, 02:00:  3K
1/11/08, 14:00:  5.5K
1/11/08, 22:47:  7.8K
2/11/08, 14:16:  9,769
2/11/08, 22:31: 12,551

Oh, sorry, what is that, over 10K in the first two days?  Why yes, yes I think that's me.

I just gave my novel the title Se Reveiller, which, uh, just means "to wake [oneself] up" in French, but it's one of the novel's themes (personal awakening, anyway), and it's in French so everything sounds better.  Mostly it's because my profile page looked very sad without any sort of title on it.

Let's see, what else have I noticed...my inner editor is being surprisingly quiet right now, partially because I have yet to actually reread anything I've written, and partially because...I don't know where she's gone, which scares me.  I'm actually kind of struggling with myself right now, because my first NaNo, my inner editor was in full gear, but that meant for the most part I could post what I had written without having to edit it too much, whereas right now, I have no idea what kind of condition my writing is in.

So would it be better to take a little more time, and have something I'm more satisfied with, straight-off-the-bat, or is it better to just go and worry about it all when I'm done?

I mean, since NaNo last year, I have finished Not Yet by Lightning AND edited it, and finished Falling Slowly and begun the long, somewhat arduous process of editing it as well.

I should explain here that I infinitely INFINITELY prefer the term "edit" to the term "rewrite," even if often what I'm doing involves rewriting sentences...or paragraphs...you know.  To me, "rewriting" comes with this image of sitting down with a blank piece of paper and starting over completely--I mean, not completely, but without all the things you've already written, because they weren't good enough so you have to rewrite them.  I find the image/idea of "rewriting" singularly exhausting.

Editing, on the other hand--whee!  Editing is going back to those sentences and saying "ugh, you're crap, GOODBYE" and "oh, you'd be so much better if I would just switch those around, look, that's lovely," as well as occasionally giving yourself the opportunity to say "you know, that was very well-done the first time around, bravo me" and "holy crap, what did I mean by this?  Why did I write this?  Why does it feel so important?  HOW DO I MAKE THIS BETTER HELP."*

*this is the step where Quark shows up and graciously lends her assistance

Anyway, the point is...what else have I written since last year?  A little bit of Zutara fanfic.  The Most Perfect Enchanted Fanfic Ever If I Do Say So Myself.  Quark's birthday present.  Three pieces to go into the Unrequited collection.  But somewhere in all this, I have apparently learned how to make myself write?  How to just sit down and start writing and pick up steam as I go?

I kind of miss those moments of inspiration, though, when I'd suddenly have an idea and a conversation and bam I would produce something kinda cool and there it would be, all complete and pretty, with minimal need for editing!

and somewhere between starting this post and and finishing it, I got totally sidetracked by things like LEGOFIC and GENERAL INSANITY, and so I have lost my train of thought.

I've already killed off two parents!  And I have at least two more to kill!

I'm really enjoying what I've written so far, and I think I'll probably go back and edit it and add more scenes--I appear to be exploring the theme of friendship, and it's turning out to be a really fun theme to explore.  Who knew?

The whole atmosphere of writing in France--I spent Saturday afternoon walking around the center of town, up and down cobblestone streets near houses that have been there for, oh, several hundred years, you know, walking by that castle that's been around since, say, 1300-something--is really invigorating.  As is the fact that I cannot get distracted by the internet.  Finally, it's turning into a blessing!

Anyway, good luck, everyone!

Aw man I am rewatching Avatar.  And remembering Experiment.  Aw, those were the good old days...

ANYWAYZ I haven't done a meme in ages, and Jakia said that all the cool kids were doing this one (well, she said "my whole f-list" and I figure her f-list has got to be full of cool kids), and so here we go!

Give me one of my own stories, and a timestamp sometime in the future after the end of the story, or sometime in the past before the story started, and I'll write you at least a hundred words of what happened then, whether it's five minutes before the story started or ten years in the future.

AND/OR

Does anyone have any questions about any of my stories, or would be interested in a fic commentary? Or maybe a question about my writing techniques, such as they are?

Ask and you shall receive.  :-)