| (no subject) |
[Nov. 12th, 2009|10:10 pm] |
Dear Yuletide Author,
First of all, thank you so much for whatever it is you're going to write for me. This is my first time doing Yuletide, and I'm super excited about my requests and my offered fandoms both. I'm looking forward to having a lot of fun reading and writing this year!
Secondly, I'm about as easy as they come with my requests. ( How easy am I? )
Once again, thank you so much in advance! |
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| On Viable Paradise |
[Oct. 22nd, 2009|08:09 pm] |
First of all, if you've ever even thought of applying (and maybe if you haven't): apply apply apply. I've been wanting to go to VP for years and never had the guts to apply before this year, and it turned out to be one of the best experiences of my life, let alone one of the best things I've done as a writer.
I could go on about what VP is like, or what I did while I was there, or how great everyone was, but there are plenty of other rundowns that will tell you that. Instead, I want to talk about the biggest single change in myself that has come out of it so far, because I only just realized it tonight:
I am not embarrassed to write anymore.
I don't mean that I used to be embarrassed that I wrote, although I didn't tell people about it often; I found it almost physically difficult to write because I was embarrassed to be putting words on the page. Even if no one was going to read them, but especially if they were. It made me the world's worst fest participant, because it was always very hard for me to write the stories I'd signed up for; I felt ashamed the minute I sat down at the computer.
That seems to be gone now. One of the things that attracted me most to VP was something I saw about it online (unfortunately I've forgotten where): VP is a space where you can take yourself seriously as a writer. It was absolutely true, from the very first day ("We are all writers") to the conversation I had while hanging out at the airport with one of my fellow students at the end of the whole thing. A space to take myself seriously. And suddenly I don't feel so embarrassed anymore.
It's still hard to submit stories, but that's gotten easier, too; taking myself seriously means that I don't just write when I feel like it and then let it sit on my harddrive forever.
I don't know if any of this means that I'll ever be published, or anything like that. But I'm absolutely sure it has made me a better writer, and at least as long as this lack of embarrassment lasts, a little more comfortable in my own skin. And those two things alone are totally worth the price of admission. |
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| because posting to lj is *like* writing |
[Aug. 16th, 2009|09:49 pm] |
I'm making an effort to write every single day. Getting accepted to VP was, in a weird way, a wake-up call: Yes, you really could be a writer, maybe, but you have to actually work at it. I've always been in the habit of writing whenever inspiration struck (or when I had a deadline); this frequently translated into every day, but it also translated into picking up and dropping projects as the new shiny caught my interest. I've wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember, but I've never really worked at it before. That's got to change.
So I (re)joined ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) novel_in_90 and I'm really trying to put at least 750 words a day down on the page. They don't have to be amazing words - that's what rewriting is for. They just have to be words that make sense and move the plot along. And so far it seems to be working, if I can just stick with it. 21 days makes a habit, right?
The problem is that in a weird way I'm afraid of writing when I don't have a spark of something driving me. There's always that voice in the back of my head saying "You suck" unless I'm writing something that comes like magic and makes me feel like I'm great. Which I guess is what I have to get past.
And it's also why I'm writing this post instead of working on the novel. Because I'm typing, so it's like writing, but I don't have to do the Big Scary and actually flip to the Google Docs tab. Argh. Taking myself out back for a talking-to now. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 27th, 2009|03:38 pm] |
I seem to have committed drabble (well, a triple-drabble really) as a pinch-hitter in ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) mctabby's Cats' Birthday Drabblethon. This was the first HP I've written in a really long time, and it was like putting on an old comfy t-shirt. Oh HP fandom, I missed you! |
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| Maine!! part deux |
[May. 5th, 2009|03:04 pm] |
Maine House OKs Gay Marriage Bill
Also, HB436, New Hampshire's marriage equality bill, goes back to the New Hampshire House tomorrow. Call your state representatives, New Hampshireans New Hampshirites anybody living in NH! |
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| It's a trifecta! |
[Apr. 29th, 2009|03:57 pm] |
HOORAY NEW HAMPSHIRE!
The House still has to approve the Senate version (they passed their own bill last month), and then the Governor has to sign it, but that's three states in one month! |
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| this is just to say |
[Mar. 30th, 2009|11:17 pm] |
Castle makes me inutterably happy. It's not a deep show, or a complex show, but it's just so cute and funny and I just have a big silly grin on my face after every episode.
Also, Nathan Fillion remains incredibly pretty. |
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| Musings on what is probably only a current topic to me |
[Mar. 10th, 2009|02:21 am] |
You know, when I comment snarkily to my bf about how very very annoyed I get at all the knee-jerk "human cloning is profoundly wrong" bs that flies around without even a single solitary reason offered as to why (because "human cloning" actually means "mindless humans grown in vats for the purposes of harvesting their organs, or something equally nefarious", natch) --
-- the last thing I expect in response is an argument about how growing humans in vats for the purposes of organ-farming is wrong.
I mean, no shit, unless you've somehow also engineered the ability to make sure that they're literally brainless as well*, in which case:
a) I can't imagine the organs are developing properly, and
b) why aren't you capable of growing the organs separately, or inside a non-human animal, which as far as I understand we are much closer to being able to do than growing an entire human, to the extent that we're anything like close to being capable of either, and
c) this has what-the-fuck-all to do with arguments about taking a human ovum, giving it a specially-primed new nucleus and then treating it exactly like an IVF embryo?
And even if you assumed that some company were unethical and reckless enough to do that (and I harbor no, or at least I hope very few, illusions about the fact that many would be, were it economically and legally feasible) for the purposes of organ harvesting or human experimentation - why are they not doing that now and simply either buying children or surreptitiously paying surrogate mothers to bear them? Human eggs can be had for about 5K the dozen. Sperm can be had by the millions for a ten-spot. Combining the two, and implanting the result, is sufficiently well-understood that the whole process can be performed at retail for a few tens of thousands of dollars. Hell, there are millions of already-mixed-up embryos just waiting for a nice warm womb to call home, that can probably be had cheaper than the raw materials. All of this is much much cheaper than setting up an entire lab to do human cloning. So why isn't there a giant black market in IVF'd-to-order babies for the Pfizer-Merck-Clairol market?
...oh, right. Because that's already illegal on so many levels that creating someone's decades-removed twin has nothing to do with it.
Did we actually have debates, back when the first test-tube baby was conceived and born (aside: I am not sure why this is in my head, but for some reason I always picture Louise Brown as being conceived In Space), about whether they'd be human? Like, did people actually think it was wrong because somehow the babies born as a result would obviously not receive the same rights and protections at law that babies conceived the usual way would? Because I'm not old enough to remember, and barring bizarre misconceptions of science like the one the boyfriend is guilty of (ie, clones are not humans grown in vats, no matter what your favorite fiction may tell you), I really don't understand why it's such a big frigging controversy.
* If they are, in fact, literally brainless, I relegate the topic to the realms of something I consider inevitable, which is that the first vat-grown meat** to hit the market will be closely followed by the first business to traffic in certifiably vat-grown human flesh for consumption, to which I say ew and worry about questions of provenance but cannot actually declaim as intrisically wrong.
**Yes, this is the kind of thing I think about, a lot of the time. |
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| I'm making a paperclip Eiffel Tower. |
[Feb. 22nd, 2009|03:45 am] |
So, having watched the first couple of episodes of Dollhouse, and having read everyone else's reactions, I don't find a lot to disagree with, in terms of the fact that Dollhouse is creepy and skeevy and wrong, and both way too much the Joss I know and not enough (in terms of dialogue etc) the Joss I hope for, and I don't necessarily trust that Joss is capable of recognizing and dealing with the skeeviness he's created in a way that actually makes it worth it. Last night's episode really drove home what it was that creeped me out the worst about the show, though: ( cut for spoilers )
And then there's the fact that I've read the alleged original pilot script, and it's so much better than either of the two episodes that have aired, and I can actually find the Joss in it (see post subject), unlike the episodes that have aired. It actually makes me want to watch the show. Did we know that ( spoiler )? Because I totally missed that, if so. The show that it lays out is so much more convoluted, and contains so many more realized (in that one episode) factions, and seems at least somewhat more aware of the creepiness of the premise - it's just all-around so much better than what's actually aired.
Dammit, FOX, why do you make everything suck? |
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| Oh, right, this is what it feels like. |
[Feb. 16th, 2009|04:21 am] |
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I think I'm feeling fannish again for the first time in a very long time. First there was the contact high I started getting from everyone going crazy over Merlin (and agh, where do I get that anyway? since everyone is so excited), and then (late, as usual), I realized suddenly that everyone raving about Avatar: The Last Airbender weren't just blowing hot air (so to speak). In short ja;lj;asjas oh yes, this is what it used to feel like, hooray. |
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| This is why I like my boyfriend |
[Jan. 9th, 2009|11:42 pm] |
...
the boy (11:19:59 PM): Odin has some serious angst, though!
the boy (11:20:13 PM): He knows that winter is coming, and there's nothing he can do about it!
magistera (11:20:18 PM): Willow seems somewhat peripheral to Season 8. I'm a little worried about the sexy goddess/demon thing, though.
magistera (11:20:39 PM): That's the kind of thing that always ends up bad in Jossland.
the boy (11:20:52 PM): I feel like I am not getting enough credit for working the Stark words into my Odin/Xander comparison!
magistera (11:20:56 PM): lol
the boy (11:21:10 PM): That deserves more than an ex post facto courtesy lol!
magistera (11:21:50 PM): We do not lol!
the boy (11:22:11 PM): HEAR ME LOL
magistera (11:23:04 PM): What is dead cannot lol!
the boy (11:23:04 PM): but lols again, stronger!
magistera (11:23:26 PM): Valar morglolis - all men must lol!
the boy (11:24:04 PM): Azor Ass'hai requires the blood of kings to lol!
magistera (11:26:18 PM): I feel this is all going to end in fire and lulz.
the boy (11:26:58 PM): I don't think that I can top that, so you win. |
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| alslkjdlkassjdas |
[Jul. 20th, 2008|09:47 pm] |
OK, Dr. Horrible, okay. Okay. I am not in any way dying over lkjhasldkjhasldkjhasdslkjh neil patrick harris and nathan fillion and GOD DAMN YOU JOSS OK YOU OWN ME ALREADY IS THAT ENOUGH??? I don't really know what else I can say.
THE HAMMER IS MY PENIS.
ETA: I LOVE NEIL PATRICK HARRIS SO MUCH.
Son of ETA: BURN! Everything you ever wanted...
So apart from keysmash. Um. Andrew, yes? SO MUCH ANDREW. AND ALSO kasjhdkaJHdkahd. GAH. |
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| O_O |
[Feb. 1st, 2008|10:27 pm] |
The air conditioner just fell out of the window.
And we're on the 4th floor. |
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| Robert Jordan is dead. |
[Sep. 17th, 2007|01:45 am] |
I'm not quite sure what to say. Any number of jokes are no longer funny; and all the defenses are tainted. So I'll just say: I loved his books at a time when I really needed to, and y'all who didn't can suck it, because the world is a little darker without him.
Death is lighter than a feather, dude. I hope it worked out that way for you. |
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