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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
- It's 2024 in Harry Potter world.
- Suddenly, wizards from the past are popping up all over the place as if they'd Apparated through time instead of space
- Resurrected wizards include Tom Riddle, Death Eaters, and Grindelwald. Chaos, and mayhem ensues. Everyone panics1.
- He's a Ravenclaw reporter-wannabe.
- It was the book canon's fault that he is a thoughtful, quiet second son that is close to his Dad and looks just like him
- It was my fault alone when in the process of tweaking his bio, I made Al into a list-loving dork, an equal proportion mix of Sherlock Holmes, Sheldon Cooper, and pre-Pon Farr Spocklet.
- Your character gains depth as they interact with others and they never stop changing as a person
- In character driven writing, strong plots help, a lot
- Ask the players involved before sending your character to walk around poking others' characters, most likely they'll laugh and let you
- There's no beta-readers. Get the words out while the reaction's still fresh in your head and let the others do the same. There will be typos and missed commas.
- Practicing to write dialogue driven conversations
- Discovering the importance of speech patterns (you discover early on that you hear how your character sounds and whether they're tired, happy, or angry when they say it)
- Rapidly producing a large body of text that would drive any sane beta reader nuts with errors
- Constant POV storytelling. It jumps like a ping-pong ball all over, unless one of the players consciously maintains distance.
- Strict control over the characters, you never know who'll show up, and where they'll drag you next
- Procrastination purposes. It'll eat up your spare time, and take a huge chunk out of sleep time too, beware.
| Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 | ||
|
auburnnothenna |
10:21p | Holiday Happiness to All And I do mean all, I know Christmas isn't everyone's holiday, it's hardly my holiday since I self-identify as an atheist, but there can't be any harm to wishing good things and happiness to everyone, right? Birthday happiness to my bestest wifey, ![[personal profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small} eretria, too, since I may not get back online until after her natal day.My AO3 dashboard says I have a Mystery Story/Gift for Yuletide! Yays! To my dearest writer, I will do my best to read it the day after Christmas. It will be extra special on Boxing Day. Now, normally, this sort of sappiness gags me, but just for once. Joy to the World. This entry was originally posted at http://auburn.dreamwidth.org/232821.html. where there are |
|
telesilla |
4:39p | Greetings from...here! Well, we're in VA* now. We got in just fine after just missing what's being called the Blizzard of 09. There's snow everywhere and it's very pretty. And cold. Really fucking cold. In spite of that, we had the window open for a while last night, Nancy's cousin keeps the house pretty warm and between the forced air heat and a massive hot flash, I was burning up. I've actually been writing, mostly poking at "A Friend of the Devil." Not much else to say. Hope all of you are doing well! *Near DC. And while I would have loved to arrange some kind of meet up with those of you on my flist who live in the area, for a lot of complicated reasons, it's really not possible this time around. |
|
bethbethbeth |
9:55a | Attention; prospective yuletide pinch hitters; Passing a message on from ![[livejournal.com profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif) elynross regarding pinch hits for Yuletide:Apparently Yahoogroups has changed some policy, and the wave of pinch hits sent out has DISABLED MY YAHOO ACCOUNT. I can't post to it to tell the pinch hitters why I'm not responding to claims. Of the 20+ groups I belong to or own, only 3 are displaying, presumably because the rest are on the email address that has been disabled. I... am not a happy camper. (original LJ message here if you want to comment) This entry was originally posted at http://bethbethbeth.dreamwidth.org/52079 |
| Monday, December 21st, 2009 | ||
|
mirabile_dictu |
6:37p | Happy Solstice! xposted to IJ and LJ According to the Weather Underground, here where I live we had 9 hours and 29 minutes of sunlight today. Tomorrow we'll have just two seconds more. There's a slim crescent moon and after a rainy day the sky is clearing and the stars are coming out. I've been taking a little break from fandom and the journals, spending my time writing my never-ending Teyla story (almost 35,000 words at the moment, with more to tell; my god, I love Teyla and I have so much to say about her!) and running all kinds of errands that have unexpectedly cropped up. However, darling Tex is holding her Casa McShep festival till January 1, 2010, so I did post a little story over there, The White Island. Other than that, I plan to remain away for a bit longer. I feel I just got too caught up in some stuff and that's unlike me. At least, I think it's unlike me, but who the hell knows. I do know that I'm missing wonderful stuff, but I'll catch up eventually. Thank god for the SGA Newsletter. So. Six years ago, the final chapter of The Lord of the Rings movie, The Return of the King, was released. Eight years ago, the first movie, The Fellowship of the Ring, was released. And ten years ago, principal photography had begun. I note these dates because six years, the very night The Return of the King came out, my husband was hospitalized and I was crazy with fear. He had a long, hard recovery; in some ways he will never recover. I joke that I've had three husbands: before, during, and after the experience -- and fortunately, I like the "after" version of him quite a lot. But this time of year remains difficult for us. Even though good things have happened since (we found him better doctors, I got a much better job, we moved to a beautiful place), during this dark time of the year I get afraid. I cry more easily and more often, and everything feels tender, almost sore. I'm always so glad when the holidays are over and the new year has begun; I feel more hopeful for the future then. I also mention those dates because The Lord of the Rings is inextricably bound up in my memories of the bad days. I've said this before and I'm sure I'll say it again, but the Lord of the Rings books, movies, and fandom saved me. All you Lotrips folks kept me going. Writers and artists and readers, people I met in RL and those I didn't: I am so grateful to you. Thank you for helping me through those dark and sad days. Here's a song I think is fitting: Hope for the Hopeless, by The Frenzy (at Sendspace). |
|
ac1d6urn |
8:36p | Looking for a Hermione... Er, would anyone be interested in writing Hermione Granger in Breaking_Point RPG? Yell, comment here, or contact Titti@LJ or IJ. The mods are currently looking for one to fill in on short notice. They've got a list of other wanted characters that didn't make it to the cast page yet... |
|
bethbethbeth |
3:26p | This is a dreadful week... I've been seeing far too many sad stories on my f'list recently (and one of them - about Brianna Lacey, a missing 15 year old from Chicago needs all the signal boosting it can get), but this story hits far too close to home... We learned yesterday that schadenkatze, someone I've known through fandom for more than a dozen years, lost her life to in a house fire early Sunday morning. Her twin schaden_freude (another long-term friend, and someone who had suffered a major loss not so many years ago), was only able to help their elderly mother from the home the three shared. The house itself and almost everything it contained was, as you might imagine, a great loss, but the loss of her twin sister is...unimaginable. *** From the Springfield News-Leader: Three people in the home -- a mother in her 80s and two daughters -- were asleep when the fire began. Scott said the deceased -- one of the daughters -- died from smoke inhalation... The mother was in serious condition at St. John's Hospital. *** Through the end of the month, lunaris1013 is taking up a collection on behalf of the Seacouver Social Club (a group formed via alt.tv.highlander during the days when much of fandom centered on newsgroups). I am only too aware that times are difficult for so many people, but if you can afford to donate anything at all, paypal links can be found on Dreamwidth and LiveJournal. And if you can't afford to donate, good thoughts for her mother's recovery would be more than welcome.This entry was originally posted at http://bethbethbeth.dreamwidth.org/52056 |
| Sunday, December 20th, 2009 | ||
|
auburnnothenna |
11:48p | randomly twitching Holidays are engineered to make me feel inadequate, angry, and anxious. It's an awful sort of amorphous anxiety that you can't do anything about, because it's not based on anything real. I do not like this one bit. Oh, yes, and I don't want to go to dinner at my stepsister's on Christmas Eve. I really, really, really do not want to. She's a lovely person and her husband can actually out-do me on the silence front, I like her kids, I have no problem with dogs and cats, and I just don't want to goooooooooooo. I want someone to pay me to be a hermit. Plus, sleep would be nice. Really nice. Then my brain would work again and I would, say, remember that the car won't shift out of park without my foot on the brake. Ten minutes I spent thinking the tranny had quit out of the blue. Good notes in an otherwise crummy week: I got a nice story for SGA Santa and got mine turned in before deadline and I uploaded my Yuletide effort (after fighting with AO3's interface). So I'm caught up except for the Apocabigbang fic I haven't even outlined. Which may be the first thing I ever default on; I don't know. I've got enough GT&T written to post if I can scrounge a beta up. I'll do that after Christmas. It's not really as much as I'd meant to finish for this part, but it's a decent spot to break it and I want to get something up before the end of the year. God, I really want this stupid holiday to be over this year. This entry was originally posted at http://auburn.dreamwidth.org/232599.html. where there are Current Music: Adam Lambert - Whataya Want From Me |
|
telesilla |
3:23a | Oh fun.... I'm not going to go into all the icky details, but the 24 hours before this trip have been...well kinda crappy. But! We're packed and ready to go and apparently, there will be a runway for our plane to land on once we hit the Right Coast. We're not entirely sure what our internets access will be like for the first part of the trip so I might be even worse about answering comments than I usually am. Because I won't be here on the 21st...  Blessed Yule to all of you! *facepalm* I don't even know what day it is anymore |
| Saturday, December 19th, 2009 | ||
|
auctasinistra |
10:12a | Those who think I should post more often.. ...might want to rethink that. As I was thinking this morning about the idea of a bumper sticker that reads "BotR ships Legolas/Aragorn," I realized why LotR fandom has never done the cute portmanteau-ing of ships. I mean, Legogorn? Borodo? Aralas? Gimomir? Frogorn? Samdalf? It just doesn't work. Current Mood:  contemplative |
| Friday, December 18th, 2009 | ||
|
telesilla |
3:28p | stuff and things and gifts! [comments enabled all over] First off, I want to say "thank you!" to whoever sent me the Hungry Lucy CD. :) I'mma make sure to load it onto my Nano for the trip! Secondly...OMG, you should see the scarf I got from wyomingnot it's all fuzzy and purpley and glittery and fun! Thirdly, while we made cookies the other night, we opened presents because we're not taking gifts for each other on the trip. I got some chocolate (including a Vosages bacon bar that I haven't tried yet), a tie-dyed shirt, a pair of fleece arm warmers with gears and hearts silk screened on them, a very cool steampunky wire-wrapped key necklace, a bead necklace and a ginormous book about food. It's a collection of essays on food and taste in history and it's a a lot bigger than I expected and heavy; I won't be taking it on the flight. And that's about it. Thank you again Wyo and mysterious CD giving person! |
| Thursday, December 17th, 2009 | ||
|
auctasinistra |
7:19p | I don't usually do these... ... which, as anyone who's ever looked at my journal more than twice knows, is a huge understatement ... ( meme ) |
|
dementordelta |
9:05p | The (Much Belated) State of Clank and Chains Hugs: Big hugs to everyone who sent snowflake cookies! And to ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} sillypowers and gblvr for the non-snowflake gifties! You guys rock!Cards: I'm enjoying all the holiday cards coming in! I don't put up a tree so having festive (and sometimes porny) cards around really brightens the holidays! All my fannish ones went out last week—will post the artwork by the lovely veridian_dair after the holidays!Actual Fannish Content: The folks over at ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} severus_sighs did artist and author interviews last month and you can find mine, over here!Fests: I haven't had a chance to read many, er...*checks* Er, actually nope, none, no fics...Any Snarry Holidays recs? |
|
bethbethbeth |
9:40a | Fests and Whatnot What season is it? It's fic/art exchange season! Okay, not that I've really had a chance to read much of anything yet since I'm hip deep in final exam grading (and finishing my yuletide fic, a process which is swiftly approaching the OMG BEARS! phase *g*), but I did want to draw your attention to the two other fests I'm currently participating in:1. snapelyholidays. I haven't received my story yet, but for those of you who, like me, love Snape in all pairings, this year's assortment will make you think it's your birthday! Along with the always welcome Snape/Harry and Snape/Lupin and Snape/Hermione, we've already had Snape paired with Lily and McGonagall and Regulus and Sirius and Dumbledore and Lucius and Neville and Filch and Moody and Slughorn and Shacklebolt. Wheee!2. And then there's Good Omens. The go_exchange is one of my "must-do" fests each year, even though I'm only on the periphery of that fandom, and one of the reasons is because of stories like the one I received this year: a long, wonderfully written, future history that's only dystopian to the extent that a canonical Apocalypse is dystopian, which...oh. Hmm. No, okay, go back to where I said "wonderfully written" and then add original and clever. "World Without End"...go read!Oh, and just as an addendum: I will be running hp_beholder (the fic/art exchange designed to get some loving for the most unloved of HP characters) for the third time. Sign-ups will commence at the end of January/start of February (to give everybody a chance to recover from the holiday fic blitz). And just so you know, I'm giving each new participant this year a car! (*is a lying liar who lies*)This entry was originally posted at http://bethbethbeth.dreamwidth.org/52041 |
| Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 | ||
|
telesilla |
6:47p | Not all here 'sup internets? I've had a couple of bad days, topped off by the car (the old one, not the newer one) not starting this afternoon. We're kind of rushing around frantically to get ready for our trip. We'll be gone from the 20th through the 1st, so I'm trying to get enough laundry done so we have clothes. It's complicated by that fact that we're going places that are much colder than Sacramento, so that part's fun. Xpost from http://telesilla.dreamwidth.org/103 |
| Monday, December 14th, 2009 | ||
|
telesilla |
11:14p | My part of the conversation... ... will be held primarily on DW. Every post after this one will direct comments back to DW. Anon commenting will be enabled as long as no one abuses it and, as always on DW, you can comment using OpenID. |
|
telesilla |
9:12p | You know, I suspect this won't matter... God, I am SO tired of watching LJ do STUPID STUPID stuff and having people in fandom just shrug and go on with business as usual because, as someone recently said: "LJ's where the conversation is." Right now a bunch of us are pretty pissed off that LJ's gone from three gender options (female, male and unspecified) to two. And if you guessed that those two are "female" and "male" give yourself a pat on the back. You know why they're doing it, don't you? So they can do a better job targeting ads. Read all of Syne's post, too. You can't just get out of this by choosing one option or the other--specifying one of two genders will be mandatory on account creation. And if you don't get that this is offensive, then really, I've got nothing to say to you. Fortunately, both rm in a post here and thingswithwings in a post here do have things to say.I'm sure this will mean a few more people come over to DW or even IJ, but for the most part, fandom won't care. I'd love to be wrong, but each time LJ does something stupid, fandom's just shrugged and kept the conversation where it is. I don't know what it is and God I wish I did so I could figure out what to say to get people to realize that things like this hurt people. We could host the conversation here on DW, if, you know, fandom gave a damn. ETA: Supposedly this was a mistake although LJ's response sounds a little like backpedaling. See the ETA on this post and the question in the comment I linked to. |
|
bethbethbeth |
11:33p | Because it wouldn't be theholiday season without LJ acting like asshats. Take a look at this charming news from synecdochic about LJ's decision to make Gender a mandatory field and only allow the options 'Male' or 'Female.'Even if I didn't have friends who identify as transgender or genderqueer, I'd still be disgusted by LJ's shortsighted and, quite frankly, hateful decision, because...what will our next mandatory binary choice be? “Black or White?” “Christian or Atheist?” How many ways can you imagine you being written out of the equation? Read the relevant linked posts, consider changing your gender listing to unspecified' while you still can (if you haven't already done it), and consider – one more time – whether it might not be smarter to leave LJ once and for all. This entry was originally posted at http://bethbethbeth.dreamwidth.org/52016 |
|
telesilla |
7:11p | Is there some kind of game? Some of the guys either next door or across the courtyard are yelling excitedly every once in a while. Based on the timing, it sorta sounds more like a football thing than a basketball thing. In other news, I have a headache and I hate hate hate social anxiety. The amount of time I had to spend talking myself into making a simple phone call is ridiculous and absurd. On the good side, I made it and have an appointment with an optometrist on Saturday, the day before we leave. |
|
ac1d6urn |
7:30p | RPGs, the other collaborative fiction sinick, devious RPG-dwelling creature that she is, has introduced me to my current addiction: the RPG called Breaking Point, which has a few interesting twists.Now, I play Albus Severus Potter. I am not the first player to take him on, and he's had some interesting biography facts handed down: Imagine, if you will, a short Clark Kent, sans the Superman suit3 underneath. Without the slightest possibility of there ever being a Superman suit. What is there instead is curiosity and logic. This RPG is fun! Everything went rather well for Al in his neat information bubble reinforced with books and newspapers, until his brother was cursed and Al witnessed (and helped) Snape save him. After some careful analysis of the situation, he concluded that Snape was a logical and rational creature worthy of interest and interaction. Of course I should mention that Snape only tolerated Al seasoning his cauldrons until he learned what Al does for a crust. Well, maybe he said it with a bit more character and a bit less emo. Sinick plays him and she watches her exclamation marks, as well as the emo. Then Al suddenly declared to his dad that Severus Snape was the best thing that happened to them since sliced bread and gave his father, the Ever Suffering Boy Who Lived, an intellectual finger and a few new gray hairs in the process. It all went from there. Soon into playing Al I realized a few things about collaborative writing RPGs: It's good for It's bad for So, here you go, RPGs for fiction writers, in a nutshell. If you want to join us, there's still plenty of characters left to resurrect, play, and puppeteer, such as Luna, Pansy, Bellatrix, the Lestranges, or whoever else comes to mind up to and including each one of the giant squid's tentacles (he is giant, and multi-limbed, he deserves multiple accounts, I say.) 1. And has hot, meaningless sex2, if you're into that sort of thing 2. Except for Dumbledore, who is just happy that his (boy)friend's back 3. Note, if your mind jumped to Clark Kent in his birthday suit, I am not responsible, it's all your mind's fault. Stop now. Proceed with reading. |
|
auburnnothenna |
3:25p | Mystery Christmas present or Letter bomb? All right, who sent me something priority mail from Galaxy Media in, um, Georgia? It feels about the right size and weight to be a hardcover book. Whatever it is, curiosity is killing me, but in a good way, so many thanks! Oh, yes, murron, I got your gorgeous postcard. So pretty. I've stuck it up over the desk. Blessed be.This entry was originally posted at http://auburn.dreamwidth.org/232385.html. where there are |
|
icarusancalion |
1:35p | SGA Santa fics are here! sga_santa is off and running, and posting fics. Already. We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas.... Hung out with wolfshark yesterday. In RL she's a solid, reliable sort with a healthy dose of sardonic humor. Just the type of person you'd want to run comms and see projects through to the end. *tips hat to Sharkie*And I've now been informed that Victoria Bitter of "Bit Of Earth" donation scam infamy (who absconded with tens of thousands of dollars and tricked Sean Astin into supporting the not-actually-a-charity) has joined the HP fandom. Bitter is refusing all donations -- unless you insist. In which case there's a PayPal link. *head scratch* Do I have a PayPal link? Should I have a PayPal link? I mean, if you absolutely insist.... |
|
icarusancalion |
1:18p | Switches to beta mode. When the muse falls silent ... edit. For the first time in years, I'm doing as much beta reading as writing. A friend gave me a newspaper article. The time spent actually writing equals the amount that gets written. I can take a hint. *gets back to work on that comic McFluff* Current Mood:  accomplished |
| Sunday, December 13th, 2009 | ||
|
auburnnothenna |
6:19p | Yip yip yippee! with added rec sga_santa is posting!::stares:: There's a 33,000 word McKay/Keller story. ::whimpers:: Even though I know it will make me unhappy, you know I'm going to read it. ETA: I did read it and liked it. There's nice science fiction/horror movie premise, enough plot and action to satisfy me, and very well-done treatment of Rodney and Jennifer's canon relationship, Rodney's canon friendship with John, and the consequences of how the team changed over five years. This is probably the first Jennifer Keller with Rodney McKay that I've liked. Can't put my finger on how she's different than other versions, except that -- okay, this Jennifer isn't trying the manage and reshape Rodney. Maybe that isn't so canon-like -- it's better. As for John, well, you're left feeling rather as I imagine Teyla often does: torn between cuddling him and giving him a good thwap to the back of the head. Then going and finding whoever screwed him up so wonderfully and beating them with sticks for a while. I recommend this fic to anyone, even McKay/Sheppard 'shippers, who doesn't have an automatic allergic reaction to the het pairing. I think gen readers would enjoy it as well. Rated for sex, it would be completely PG. Devil and the Deep Blue Sea Also, this: Wordtwist is really, really bad for productivity. And very frustrating because it accepts the weirdest non-words ever and then won't recognize blivet! This entry was originally posted at http://auburn.dreamwidth.org/232055.html. where there are |
| Friday, December 11th, 2009 | ||
|
telesilla |
7:14p | To those who celebrate... Happy Chanukah!! |
|
mirabile_dictu |
6:39p | Seriously self-indulgent post about bread xposted to IJ and LJ I love bread. I have always loved bread. Bread for breakfast, for dinner, for dessert, any and all kinds of bread. For several years, we went without because Webster had been diagnosed as having celiac's disease. Celiac's is "a digestive disease that damages the small intestine and interferes with absorption of nutrients from food. People who have celiac disease cannot tolerate gluten, a protein in wheat, rye, and barley. Gluten is found mainly in foods but may also be found in everyday products such as medicines, vitamins, and lip balms" (from here). It was a pain, especially living here in the Wine Country where our artisan breads are known and loved. Within three miles of where I live is a world-renown bakery, and fewer than thirty miles away are a number of others equally well known. For my birthday, we go to a restaurant in San Francisco with its own bakery that puts the most delicious bread imaginable on the table, with fresh local olive oil. We had to give all that up for years. I know that others suffer much more, and that we are lucky. And we were luckier than we knew because eventually Webster got a new gastroenterologist who ran the tests and discovered that, whatever is wrong with him, celiac's isn't it. We could eat bread again. Almost at the same time, I discovered the New York Times's recipe for no-knead bread. When I was a kid I'd made bread a lot; I loved the kneading, and watching the dough rise, and oh, the flavor. But when I grew up I somehow lost the knack. The bread wouldn't rise. The crust was too hard. The bread lacked flavor. I decided that the yeast no longer loved me, and gave it up. But now, armed with the NYT recipe and medical permission to eat gluten again, I tried my hand. We loved the results. Unlike me, Webster hadn't grown up in a house with fresh bread, so this was new to him. At first, he would eat about half a loaf at one sitting! Oops. Not good for his tummy, even if he could eat gluten. But it was soooo good. Not long ago, I started hearing about another no-knead recipe, Artisan Bread, one that lets you make one big batch of dough and then bake whenever you want (recipe here). I think MRKinch mentioned it? Whoever did, I bless her. Now we have fresh bread literally every day, and if Webster wants something dessert-ish and quick, I turn some of the dough into little cinnamon buns or plain rolls that he slathers in strawberry jam. I'm so enthusiastic about my breadmaking that I've documented it! So if you dare, here is ME making BREAD! ( Seriously, links to BIG pictures of me making bread ) |