A Mighty Fine Life

+ People like my bigbang fic! \o/ Because I am far too involved in my own creations, if you managed to slog through all 47k of it, feel free to ask me questions about the universe or whatever. I will send you lots and lots of babble about it. :D

+ AND ALSO, Lucas was twittering about super powers in the last couple of days. I MAY HAVE SQUEAKED.

+ Speaking of bigbang, roseclaw's fic is up! Usurping Oberon, in which Chad is King of the Evil Fairies. It is AMAZING.

+ Drew Seeley is starring in a Hallmark Movie, y'all. About being a teenage dad. For serious:

Freshman Father is based on a true story about a young man (Seeley) whose high school sweetheart becomes pregnant and accompanies him to Harvard. When she gives up and goes home, he has to juggle school and all the challenges of being the single parent of a newborn. The movie will premiere on Hallmark in 2010.

HEEHEEHEEHEEHEE.

+ BASEBALL. Last night's lose was just stupid. But I had originally predicted Yanks in 6 due to a loss from Andy and an AJ implosion, so if they win tomorrow (knock on wood) I'll be correct! THEY HAD BETTER WIN.

+ My mom is visiting for the weekend! She says hi. :)

+ AUGH, WORK. That is all. I'm sure you understand.

So I guess sometimes I don't actually post for a couple of weeks at a time. Whoops? But fun and exciting things have been happening lately. By which I mean...

+ VACATION, WOO! I treated myself to one! On Thursday I flew down to Georgia to visit second_batgirl and spent a long weekend with her. It was, as you can imagine, awesome. Mostly we just hung out, but we did also go visit the World of Coke. It was ridicumazing. I bought an adorable tiny keychain with a smiling Coke bottle on it. (This should surprise no one. COKE MAKES ME SMILE, OKAY?)

+ BASEBALL! So how 'bout them Yankees, huh?

+ FANDOM! hsmbigbang began posting today, hooray! And a few days ago, I received the mix for my fic and it is brilliant. ♥

+ WRITING! I've been doing some. It's pretty cool. Hopefully I will have a revised manuscript by the end of the year. We shall see, anyway.

+ READING! Been doing that, too! Justine Larbalestier's "Liar" is fantastic, you guys. It is a psychological thriller, which in this case mostly means "total mindfuck."

+ HEAT! They turned it on in my building last night. This is exciting, because I haaaaaaate being cold. Even if the radiator is ungodly loud and rattly; I'll take that over being cold any day. (It also makes the air very, very dry; I have a bowl of water sitting right next to it tonight to hopefully help combat that until I can get a proper humidifier.)

+ FANDOM AGAIN! So, uh, I think I'm going to the premier of I Kissed a Vampire tomorrow, because it's free, and, y'know, Lucas Grabeel will be there. So it seems like the sort of thing I should go to. (I missed the premier of Free Style with Corbin while I was in Georgia, alas. But hey, HSM boys, if you want to keep hosting free events in NY, be my guest!)

I did something last night I haven't in quite awhile: I stayed up until 1 AM writing Newsies fic. Possibly because a deadline was involved. I was going to write something sort of meta about how prompts don't really work for me at all as a way to inspire writing, but then I ran across this meme from roseclaw and decided to post that instead.

The Hypothetical AU Meme: Take any one of the fandoms you know I write in (or think I should), and give me a type of AU (space opera AU, pirate AU, superhero AU, Ancient Rome, etc). I will then explain what story from your chosen fandom I would write for your chosen type of AU.

I don't waaaaaaanna go to work today. I'm not sick, just meh. But I will go. Sigh.

More importantly:



Well, of course I am in. It's only 10,000 words. (Yeah, I said only. The last one shot (uh, the one before that, rather) I wrote was 9,000. And I already have about 80% of my plot. It... Uh, will be longer than 10,000 words, I think.)

Okay. Work. Right.

A meme! From harmonyangel: Leave a comment asking me for commentary on any of my fics (or at least a chapter therein, 'cause damn, some of my fics are long). I will provide it! (Probably over at my writing journal.) Fun times. My Newsies fic is scattered about, but can mostly be found here; my master list of HSM fic is here.

Oh: regarding the last post... Heeheehee. Yes. $3 margaritas are very good things. \o/

Um, so, I bought most of a new wardrobe today. I spent an incredibly amount of money, but I swear none of it was frivolous -- anyone who has seen my wardrobe (such as it is; there should be quotation marks around the word, honestly) knows I needed some new clothing. And I found the absolute most adorable, cutest winter coat in the entire world. I'm pretty sure. (It's purple. It looks like something Kenley would design on Project Runway -- very early 60s. I look like a plucky girl reporter. It is SO CUTE FOR REAL.) So there's that.

Aside from that, I managed to somehow update all three of my non-LJ blogs this week. It's remarkable, really.

Feminist nerd blog: ABC Family's "Greek": Surprisingly, Really Good! (It is. I swear. You should all watch it: every episode is online at abcfamily.com. DO IT. Come on, the really attractive naked boy in the cowboy hat in my new icon is the male lead! You know you want to see that.)

Active Voice: Two Mini-Reviews: Bruce Coville’s “Alien Adventures” and “Unicorn Chronicles” . What it says in the title. Bruce Coville rulez!

Tweenage Wasteland: The Suite Life on Deck. You guys, it was bad. Even for the Disney Channel. Even for The Suite Life. Really, really bad.

OH! And I cooked dinner, specifically with plans to save the extra for lunch tomorrow. I never do that! (It's veggie fried rice, if you're curious. I expanded the list of "things I can cook" another meal. Now I can have spaghetti OR rice, thank you very much...)

ETA: YES, I CAN SPELL "COAT," SHUT UP RACHEL.

Writing-wise, this has been a crazy productive week for me. (Word count will be posted at temira as usual tonight.) Here's what I've written online of late:

- Another Situation at the feminist nerd blog, about what happened when poisonivory and I went to a baseball game and I got very angry at some ill-behaved fans.

- Old School Review: The Protector of the Small Quartet (First Test, Page, Squire, Lady Knight), because my dad (yeah, he has an LJ: loondave4824445) mailed them to me weeks ago and I felt I should actually read them. Too lazy to read they review? They scored four cupcakes.

I also just finished rereading the first two books in he Unicorn Chronicles, because second_batgirl gave me the third book for my birthday! Now that I remember what happened in the first two, I can read the new one. I also recently finished Eight Men Out, because I am still building up my nerdy baseball knowledge. It was pretty awesome.

ETA: I seem to be Twittering the VMAs. Here.

Woke up with a splitting headache this morning. It's mostly gone away, in that now it only attacks me if I move. Thus I am curled up on the couch, watching baseball and rolling my eyes. Oh, Yankees. Your shit: get it together, plz?

I have had no attention span for writing lately, which is really, really unusual for me. But I seem to be capable of short things, so... Leave me a prompt and I will write you a drabble or ficlet. You know my fandoms, y/y? I'm especially in a Chad/Ryan mood, if that helps.

So in the time I was basically computerless:

1) I (finally) went to the dentist. I have four cavities, which will be filled over the next month or so. On the one hand, this sucks. On the other hand, considering I've had no dental care at all for two and a half years and I thought I was going to need a root canal or something, it's not that bad. I didn't especially like the dentist I saw, but the convenience of his office being in the same building where I work can't really be beat.

2) Tuesday evening was feminist SF book club! We read an Ursula LeGuin collection, which I thought was very good, even if it isn't what I, personally, would pick up for fun. Last time I went, the discussion was kind of meh; this time it was great and smart and full of people thinking about things and disagreeing politely and generally being awesome. I'm so pleased, let me tell you. (And afterwords, a coworker [who also is part of the club] and I went out for ice cream. Well, sorbet on my part. But it was fun times.)

3) Yesterday, harriet_vane and I finally went and saw some apartments with our realtor, who is a very nice guy. Knock on wood, we found one we loooooove, and so began the process of nabbing it. Such things can always fall through, so I'm trying not to have my hopes up too high, but it would be so fantastic.

4) Work has been work. To make up for the time I've been off getting my teeth cleaned and trying to find a place to live, I stayed crazy late a couple nights and came in early, too. Which sucked and was pretty exhausting. Ah, well. Sadly, it's just going to get crazier; between the big-ass conference at the beginning of August and the week I'm taking off for the move, it is going to be super stressful and annoying. Groan.

5) July 4th! Pretty much my favorite non-present-giving holiday, because I looooove fireworks. poisonivory is coming out to play, and she and harriet_vane and I are hopefully going to go see the giant show. Hooray! Also: long weekend! Double hooray!

6) I read Suzanne Brockmann's Hot Target, and you should too! You know, if you like WWII (or WWII movies), trashy romance, trashy gay romance, hot Navy SEALs, and -- especially -- dreamy gay-in-denial actors with substance abuse problems and daddy issues. (And who doesn't?)

7) I have a Twitter, if you are a person who likes to follow those. It's mostly mundane stuff and complaining about work, though.

8) I have written jack shit. I know I should just get back to work, but I had such momentum built up in my projects that now that Teh Novel has been wiped I'm just exhausted and having trouble forcing myself to get started. Maybe this weekend. We'll see.

Oh, Johnny Damon, you sexy Geico caveman, you!

This week's bloggery (I was oddly productive):
- Silliness at the srs bznss blog: New York City Deathsport, or, the many ways I've almost died on my afternoon commute home
-Book review: Nobody's Princess by Esther Friesner. Spunky young Helen secretly trains to be a warrior. Four cupcakes.
-Exceedingly short: A stupid picture of Zac Efron at the stupid picture Zac Efron blog Tweenage.

My cat was so confused about why we insisted it wasn't dinner time for her an hour ago. Lilly doesn't understand springing ahead. But to be fair, springing ahead sucks.

This weekend pretty much epitomizes "lazy" in that I've been wearing my pajamas since I changed into them friday night. I should probably shower. I've been kind of sick, though; I finally seem to have caught the cough Rachel's had for the last month, so I keep breaking into coughing fits. Meh.

I was goign to run laundry, but that hasn't happened yet. We'll see. It probably won't.

However, because I did want to do something productive (other than getting some writing done, finally) I did pay my bills and do my taxes today. Good news on that front! Where as last year I owed a kind of ridiculous amount of money -- I was freelancing for part of the year, and not having anything withheld, which kind of bites you in the ass at tax time -- this year, I am getting a refund! Hooray! Also, I made almost twice as much in 2007 as in 2006, but that's probably because instead of working retail, internships, and freelancing for significantly less than industry standard, I worked two salaried jobs. So I guess I should stop using the "growing up sucks" tag, since that's kind of the good part. I mean, having to have a job and go to work even when I really really really don't want to sucks, but on the other hand, income is good and tax refunds are good.

It will all go into savings, btw. Rachel and I are both saving up to move this summer. Because we're close and all... But a two bedroom apartment would be nice.

Incidentally, Newsies peeps, the most recent post on newspaper_row has a link to Trey Parker's photo gallery, which has a handful of Newsies picture I'd never seen before. The guys playing dice is now my desktop, replacing Lucas and Corbin for the first time since August. They're kind of awesome and totally worth checking out (especially if you, like me, always want more pictures of Blink).

Heyyy, this is yoinked from ryuutchi and I'm pleased every time it goes around. So.

Every person who wants to gets to request a drabble (real drabble: 100 words exactly) from me. In return, you have to post this in you journal and write a drabble for me.

Post all fandoms you're willing to write for. Your friends can pick a relationship, a story arc, a missing scene, or pretty much anything they want, unless the author has previously mentioned that they will not write it. They comment with what they want, and you write drabbles and post it in your LiveJournal.

Fandoms: Newsies, HSM (Chad/Ryan, obviously, but I'll try anything else that isn't Ryan/Sharpay, because ick), Sky High, VM (I still haven't seen much of s3, so nothing requiring spoilery knowledge), FNL, early-season West Wing, Terminator...other things you can think of that I'd know, I'm willing to try. (No Supernatural. I always say I'll try it, and invariably never come through on it. Oops.)

Fifty thousand done. I mean, not the story (the majority of it is, I'm halfway through the climax), and it's all pretty bad. But I did it!

I've been wondering this for awhile. Some writers I've observed seem to format everything as though it's for the internet; some never do until they actually post stuff online. So how do you paragraph? Feel free to add detail in comments if you've got stuff to say.

Poll #1088275 writing habits
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 153

When typing prose of whatever sort, how do you handle paragraph breaks?

I primarily write for...

Has writing for online publication changed your pargraphing habits?

So my headphones had been slowly dying for a long time, and finally gave up entirely on Friday. I stopped at the CompUSA across from my job to pick up a new pair, and while I was there, a Miley Cyrus song came on. I'm used to hearing Miley Cyrus and of course began to lip synch and dance, as I generally do. It wasn't until I picked up a set of headphones that I realized it was actually coming from overhead speakers and not just my own music.

Unrelated things: I updated Active Voice.

Also, who all on the flist is doing Nano this year? Usually there is a huge amount of chatter about it by this point, but it seems like fewer people are into it this year. I, on the other hand, am actually doing it for the first time in three years (my fourth time total), and am very psyched. Mostly because I just figured out my whole plot. It just unraveled in front of me! Awesome! So of course, daily wordcounts and occasional excerpts will be posted over at temira.

What I'd really like to be doing right now is lying around on my couch like some kind of giant slug. It feels like a weekend to me, very disjointed; it's funny how quickly I got used to working full time. And now I'm not and it's disorienting.

I began trolling job listing sites yesterday and updated my resume. Actually sending out cover letters begins today...BAH. I hate writing cover letters with a deep passion. They are EXCEPTIONALLY difficult.

So what I'd like to do is keep sending out applications, at least a few a day. Rachel is also home; hopefully we will be doing deep cleaning of the apartment, which kinds of needs it. I'd also like to get some writing done. I seem to somehow be writing a HP, Marauders-era fic (wtf? I have no interest in HP fandom!) that will never see the light of day, but I'd also like to update what I've already got going and get some serious work done on one of the many non-fic type projects. I don't know which one or anything yet, though.

Sigh.

Cheerfully yoinked from statelines.

here's your chance to ask me any questions about my writing/fic/originals/process/inspiration/etc., in any fandom i've written, up to including my "interesting grammar" and "style."

Woo!

Alas, my fajitas don't seem to have survived the reheating process and were rendered uneatable. Ah, well.

Last night was fun; there was a long waiting period to be seated, but Leah, Margot, Sam and I hit Margaritas, and had fabulous Mexican food (hence the fajitas) and, well, margaritas. I may have been a bit tipsy. Oops.

In other news, I finished the rough draft of a YA scifi novel, and now am left staring at it, wondering, Now what? It's a little disconcerting.

I have exactly one week of Brandeis class left. Also (sniff) one week of my internship left. And yet, massive amounts of work to do. Which... kinda blows.

Speaking of blowing, if Mussina doesn't strike someone out, I swear to god, I will hitch a ride to Baltimore and scold him.

I'm not enitrely sure what I'm trying to say in this post, but I guess it's more of a theoretical question: how do you feel about explaining your writing to other people?

I'm a fantasy and scifi writer, and when I'm not writing fantasy or scifi, I write fanfic. I've become much more able to say, "Yeah, I write fanfiction; it's just a hobby," and shrug when people point out the loser-dom of it all, because it is something I enjoy, and I got sick of being judged for that sometime in high school. But I still feel kind of odd explaining the scifi/fantasy stories to people who aren't among my close group of friends, like writing is perfectly respectable, but I'm not writing a "real" genre.

I think this comes out of a conversation I had with Jess over break. The upshot is, I want to wite the stories that I enjoy, with fun characters and a happy ending. I have no aspirations to be deep, or moving, or make people think; all I want to do is tell stories. So why can't I explain that to people?

I know that Jess [poisonivory] feels some of this. I think lynstraine does too (just a guess) from presenting fantasy elements of writing to her class. And most of my friends are scifi/fantasy people, so why is it still so awkward?

(Also, dude, scifi is playing Farscape reruns, at least two in a row. Thanks, Farscape.)