Exploding Poohsticks

Dear Brain,

When I tell you we need to table all fic until Bastille Day, that is SO TOTALLY not your cue to go get hijacked by RPS tennis bunnies. OMGWTFTOPSPIN.

Ribbons

P.S. For the love of Bartenieff, stop sulking about how slow you are to learn dance combinations. This isn't grade school PE revisited: you've got better hair and clothes, you're in it for the workout, and it puts your rank-amateur classes into perspective. Yes, your butt and belly look huge in the studio mirrors, and you've got the Arms of Complete Clueless Placement-What-Placement? Flail 90 percent of the time, but you are literally twice as old as most of the students and some of the instructors. Your friends didn't have to tell you you looked hot in the short clingy purple dress last night, and yet they did, so shut up, enjoy that, and do your crunches already. Sheesh.

Today's NaPoWriMo prompt from Poetic Asides was "travel." I started to write about Amsterdam, but somehow ended up with this:

Souvenir

( Last summer, while in Chicago, I gave away )

Oh, and I've got two cinquains in the new issue of AMAZE. One of them was inspired by the Japanese Festival of Seven Herbs.

In other news, all y'all can go ahead and laugh at me: I have indeed been staying up until stupid hours with part 3 of "Not As Dumb" -- and I think it's on the verge of done. (The smut's been deferred to part 4, however - there's a reason I've mentally labelled this fic "The One Where the Characters Will Not Shut Up"...). I'll post it in a day or two (i.e., after I finish this Sunday's sermon, and provided I don't find anything unspeakably irreparable when I go tidy it up).

Remember a couple weeks ago, when I begged the boys to go back to their own story and start talking to each other already? And remember how I decided yesterday, oh, how much harm could there be in visiting them for a couple hours before dinnertime?

...Here's the weekend report. The story is looking more and more like a six-parter. The fest gods have got to be laughing at me, considering all I had in mind when I claimed the original prompt was a drabble.

... and speaking of springkink, the new round of prompts is now available for signup. There are at least four prompts for FAKE (not all of them from me), two for Harudaki, and one for Umaimon Kuwasero available for claiming. No, I'm not touching any of them, but it'd be really cool if some of you did, especially considering the minimum's only 100 words. *is so Not Subtle about catapulting bunnies at friendslist*

ETA: I keep forgetting to mention that I did finish the Embracing Spring ficlet, and it was beta'd by the ever-encouraging geri_chan, who has a story in the fest as well that's both wicked hot and a fun study of several secondary characters (especially given how said characters are notable in how they don't like being secondary, which is admittedly a theme I am myself drawn to). I ended up calling mine "Gimlet"; my working title for the series is "Squeeze," but first I need Ryo and Dee to get to that Crisco. *resumes glaring at characters*

ETA 2: I'm currently wearing a tank top with the word "POWNED" on it -- it's the name of a heavy metal band for which the painter of my Mom's house is the lead singer. When he saw the logo, my husband demanded, "What's that 'O' doing in there?" -- the same thing I did when I grabbed the shirt this morning. We both spend way too much time online, is what.

Dear Detectives Maclean and Laytner:

Guys, behave already. Enough of your straying into the universe of my Embracing Spring ficlet. I'm aiming for less than a thousand words, so there won't be enough scenes for you to steal (even if the darn thing balloons to two or three K), and it's a Nitta fest, so I'm not about to indulge in an Exposition of Doom to explain how the hell you ended up staking out Roppongi clubs in the first place (especially considering that, in my fanon, neither of you speaks Japanese).

Do me a favor, please: get yourselves back into the story that IS about you and get on with yelling at each other about what you've each been holding back. I mean it. There's some majorly kinky sex ahead for you, but until you come clean about some of the things you haven't been telling each other, your clothes are staying on and the Crisco's staying in the kitchen.

[Don't give me that look, Ryo. It'll be worth it. You'll see.]

Exasperatedly yours,
Ribbons

Today's subject line comes from a poem by Hafiz that begins, "Admit something: / Everyone you see, you say to them, 'Love me.'"

142 words today on Not as Dumb. With yet another OC ambling in from left field.

geri_chan's comment detailing which dog breeds correspond to various Harudaki characters -- I have no words, because I am still laughing too hard to come up with them.

Read scans of Vassalord v3 yesterday, and my print copy of Yellow v1. Also came across scans of a manga titled Welcome to the Chemistry Lab. Who knows if it's any good, but with a title like that, of course I'm going to peek at it at some point.

The Talking Library shares a parking lot with a County Clerk branch, which means the congestion's impossible the last and first business day of each month (when people queue up to renew their car tags), so it turned out to be the perfect morning for a 6.5-hour shift: the first two hours were devoted to the Tennessean (which is fading right before our eyes -- the editorial section is literally half of what it was, and at least one funeral home lists its website in lieu of actual obituary details for its clients), and the rest to wrapping up The Red Necklace, which added up to twenty episodes (roughly twenty pages per half-hour).

The to-do list is reproaching me, but I am heading to bed anyway: I don't think I've caught the latest whats-it that knocked out at least three members of the chamber choir over the weekend, but I am definitely inordinately achy and out of sorts, in spite of copious quantities of both sleep and dried squid over the past forty-eight hours (in spite of being relatively well-behaved the forty-eight hours before -- I stayed in Friday night to work on a business tax return, and haven't touched any alcohol since Wednesday). I'm hoping more sleep and orange juice and Greek yogurt will do the trick...

Chouette! ;-)

I got myself up at 5:45 a.m. for this morning's Talking Library shift... only to find out that the sound engineer was dealing with car trouble, and there was no backup, so the reading had to be cancelled. So that was an hour's round-trip for nothing -- but the morning was already pretty, and I beat the school traffic home, even with a stop for gas, so I'm not too cranky about it.

It also means I got home early enough to listen in on the visits from the cabinet guy and the general contractor, and dived into my second breakfast (leftover fajita fresca), and got going on the current I-Will-Not-Panic-But-How-Did-This-List-Get-So-Long? list, which included refining and posting yesterday's sermon on country dancing.

On Saturday, I also hammered out a thousand more words on part 3 of Not As Dumb, which brings it up to about 2500 words, plus a couple pages of handwritten notes... and I'm tabling more work on it until after Easter, even though I'm itching to spend more time with it: the images of the whole chapter are so, so vivid and vibrant in my head, but there are at least two major chunks of plot that haven't quite settled into place yet, and a good part of that is me needing to do more reading and thinking about the characters' world. Which I can barely wait to do, but there are other promises that are more pressing, and they'll definitely take up most of March and probably beyond.

(I admit that my eagerness to get this story done is also because I've come across way too many FAKE novellas that got abandoned mid-saga, and the thought of being lumped in among those makes me inordinately twitchy. But I am a slow writer, and it took me over a year to finish "Just Like Strangers Here" -- which, come to think of it, was a much shorter story with a less complicated plot. Oh, ack. I need just to chill out and do justice to the fool thing once I can get back to it. And Mochimune/Miyasaka is getting deferred to 2010 or 2011, and if no one's still interested by then I'll cannibalize those notes for original fic.)

On a much more mellow note, the page proofs for my chapter ("The Potterverse and the Pulpits: Beyond Apologia and Bannings") in Reading Harry Potter Again arrived in Saturday's mail. Soon to show up at a library near you! (Or, if not, there's interlibrary loan...) Whee!

It's been a skull-squeezing week so far, in both bad and good ways. ( The bad: food poisoning. )

( The good: progress on plotting 'Not As Dumb' )

---

In a private discussion, a friend posted a variant of a 5 things meme:
Comment on this post and I'll tell you five subjects/things I associate with you. Then you post them in your journal and elaborate.

Her response to my comment was:

1. poetry
2. sermon
3. joy
4. Tennessee
5. ribbons

( my elaborations )

Huh. I wrote more than I thought...

( what I wrote/drew )

( what the numbers say )

( Reflections )

See this post for header info. This post goes into the wherefore, what-in-the-world-spawned-THAT, gratuitous wibblings/wailings, etc.

( Other Work for Us to Do )

About the next four stories -- these were all intended as additional rather than primary gifts. Since my wholly optional mission was to scatter some shiny silver nonpareils across the frosting rather than producing the cakes themselves, I could tell my tendency to try cramming kitchen sinks into prompted fics to go circle some other drain (especially since, in the case of the three manga-based stories, I was working only from the info in the Yuletide letters -- the original prompts weren't visible to me until mid-day Christmas Eve), so these got written more quickly and with significantly less self-inflicted angst than my usual efforts.

( Room )

( Witches Can Be Right, Giants Can Be Good )

( Ten Hats and a Gallon )

( Filling )

(1) Note to self: when you are doing your best take of Plath's "The Beekeeper's Daughter," it helps to have the mic on. *facepalm*

(1a) An aside to the rest of y'all: I'm doing a series of poetry readings as a giftie to red_day_dawning over at red_day_love. (No author tag yet, but clicking the mp3 tag should filter 'em for you.)

(1b) Some of you should also check out the comm because of torino10154's sweet, short Snupin-lets.

(2) Fic rec: geri_chan's Kentucky Fried Christmas (Haru wo daiteita). Spot-on characterization and a nice read on Christmas in Japan.

(2a) Mini-Christmas Romance fest currently on at youka_nitta.

(3) I'd hoped to finish at least one more treat for the Yuletide fest (not linking at the moment because of server congestion), but between work and church obligations, it's looking less than likely. Ah well. Considering the fandom in question had less than a half-dozen participants (out of over 1600) offering to write for it, odds are it'll be available as a New Year Resolutions prompt, and if it's not, I can always write it as a non-fest fic if the bunny's still alive and kicking after the reveal.

(3a) Besides, I've posted four full-length stories already. What can I say? So much shiny...

(4) Very few people come specifically to Nashville for its own sake, but it happens to be on the way to many other places, which is lovely: Monday night, an old flame on his way to Georgia treated me to a glass of hard cider at the Three Crow Bar, and yesterday two friends from New Orleans came by with satsumas, which was cause a-plenty to gather around my momentarily-cleared dining-room table with a bottle of 21 year old Glengoyne (marvelous) and a packet of Planets (meh). Good times. :-)

Onwards! *blows dark chocolatey kisses at all y'all*

*looks at the latest plot that just hopped in*

*utter horror*

*scrambles to dodge Imperius*

[Uploaded my assigned story Friday night (#136!). I have other things due. Brain, WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME!?]

(1) There is currently a lovely, well-displayed origami exhibit at Toronto International Airport. Some of the fabulous creatures (a phoenix made out of twelve sheets of paper, for instance) made me think of you lot:

From UK 2008

( more photos under the cut, click images to enlarge )
(2) Bilingual in-flight magazine + gate announcements = pretty cool

(3) There's an echo-ey sculpture here called Titled Spheres. I couldn't resist a couple of "A-roo"s while walking through. *sheepish*

Now to go back to throttling JJ working on the fic-chapter I had hoped to wrap up last night. Damn those characters and their hidden depths! ;-)

[continued from this entry]

So what does this mean in terms of my fascination with Ryo Maclean and Dee Laytner?

( spoilers for FAKE beneath the cut )

(And, on yet another tangent, it's probably no accident that I'm attracted to Ryo and Dee because of how they stand out apart from the herd: when you get right down to it, my basic Snape/Lupin dynamic could be summarized as "two guys who never truly had a prayer of fitting in with the rest of society eventually realize that their soulmate is someone likewise deeply damaged and similarly ruthless when circumstances and/or love compels him to be."

*rereads last tangent* And I wonder why my PWPs invariably spiral out of control? Jeez, Ribbons, talk about self-honesty...)

(And all of this said, I'm not sure I'll be doing any justice to the theme within the current fic -- it's not where the plot sprang from, and it's not the kind of story I've previously spent much time trying to write -- but it is giving some shape to part 3 that hadn't materialized before last night, which is good, because I really do want to finish this sucker sometime before Valentine's Day...)

[still with me? the squid'll be up in a minute, in the next post]

So, yesterday ended up draining me a bit more than I expected - estate stuff in the morning and extended wrangling with technology in the afternoon - so I treated myself to a margarita with dinner (brisket-avocado-spinach quesadillas at the Alley Cat), which was tasty but also made me too sleepy to socialize afterwards, so I headed up to bed soon after we got home.

Since I'm currently obsessed with sussing out the springkink-fic is heading, I picked up Peter Brookesmith's Sniper: Training, Techniques and Weapons (St. Martin's, 2000) for a bit of reading, which turned out to be the perfect choice. You know that happy moment when a character comes into sharper focus at multiple levels -- that is, not just the version you're writing for a fic, but the one within the confines of canon? I went to sleep happy, because I've had several clicks of that kind during the course of drafting parts 1 and 2 of this fic (including one last week where I wrote a sentence, reread it, and only then realized, "Holy shit, so that's part of their dynamic too").

[The daft thing is that all of this excitement is extraneous to the actual story -- it's about how writing the story intensifies my pleasure in being a fan, and wholly irrelevant in terms of whether other people will find the fic sufficiently engaging or entertaining. On the down side, I feel more than a bit foolish expending this much time and mental energy on a fic that maybe seven people will read and two might actually like (the fandom is small). On the up side, it's exhilarating when a story insists on shoving me out of my ordinary groove and into a new-to-me landscape (which would be why you patient ones end up with all these teal deers about process galloping atcha).]

Anyhow, last night's unexpected revelations came when I was reading Brookesmith's discussions about how snipers are regarded by their fellow soldiers:
( the loneliness of the long-distance sharpshooter )

[continued in the next entry...]

Busaikko-san, you are a NUT. And I freaking adore you. Domo arigato gozaimasu!!!

(A surprise package showed up today. From Japan. Its treasures include a squid-mobile. Photo TK!)

---

Writing log
LJ-springkink fic: finally broke past the paragraph I'd been pummelling into existence the past two days. 935 words today + some new insights on canon + several hours of research ...and an unexpected OMC, who ended up being a major reason the additional research became necessary. (And most of it won't even appear in the story -- it's just me wanting my timelines and schedules to correspond at least glancingly with canon and reality.) Seriously - 652 words in, I tried to put some words into a canon character's mouth, but they didn't ring true, and I couldn't think of anyone else who would say them -- and then the OMC suddenly sauntered into the scene with both a name and a personality, and the dialogue's got the right snap to it again, and his presence sorts out some other plot issues I hadn't dealt with yet, but ACK, this started out as a short fluffy PWP and so far there's been one belt unbuckled. Why have I not learned to run like hell whenever a prompt crooks its finger at me and asks, "Got a minute?"?

Yuletide fic: wrote the first half of the first line last night. The assignment is very well-suited to me, and yet it's something I wouldn't prompt myself into writing on my own, so yay algorithm!

...that one's spent too much time writing HP fic when one types "to snape out a comeback" and, for a brief-yet-too-long second, it doesn't look wrong.

Finished revising part 1 of the brain-chewing-up fic a minute ago. There was a single paragraph that took like fifteen drafts and WAY too many hours to get right. I'm not feeling sanguine about my ability to finish the damn thing on time, but there'll be at least 2000 words to post by then, and probably another 2K: it's one of those fics I can't not work on, even though it won't be all that special and I'm unlikely to net many comments for it, because I'm in love with how it's making me learn more about the characters and the world they're from, which in turn keeps reshaping the story in my head, which in turn forces me to consider how and where to place certain scenes and stretches of dialogue within the story (part of the problem with the first draft of part 1 is that some of it didn't need to be in the story at all, and some of it needs to not show up in the story until part 2 or even part 3).

(All that said, writing "Those I Can Save" was like this, and that turned out well, so hey, maybe my brain will crank into full gear now that it's finally squished itself through that Strait of Messina The Paragraph That Would Not Gel...)

Bookmarking lots of goodies to read later (like in January, at this point), but I couldn't resist checking out LJ-ladycat777's bit about Barack Obama discovering the Stargate Program, which includes this gem:

It could be a test, but Barack doesn't think so. At least, not the kind of aggressive, thrust-chinned tests he's still being given by most of the military personnel he meets. Winning them over is frustratingly slow going, but it's not unexpected and Barack knows he can out-stubborn anyone but his wife.

Very fried and frustrated with self at the moment, but I also got told after this morning's sermon that I had beautiful hands. I'll seize my cheer where I can...

A Massive (Literally) Guilty Pleasure: reading through the ginormous RPF character lists on the Yuletide Master List of Fandoms/Characters. (Nothing against RPF, but these are Really Long Lists and I Ought to Be Doing things that Pay the Mortgage, but they comprise such a staggering collection of recorded geekery/potential horror that I cannot tear my eyes away.)

And I'm trying to resist the temptation of "RPF-20th c. Scientists," but it's going to be a near, near thing.

I am also exceedingly amused that the RPFs on the ineligible fandom list (for not being rare/obscure) are "The Daily Show" and "Good Eats/Mythbusters."

Here's the official pre-signup info post with lots of useful links on how to have the mostest fun at the clambake.

I don't know if it'll be on this year's list, but I did catch sight of Verbotene Liebe on the Master List.... *cheerfully baiting friendlist*

Sorted out some of the off-kilteredness of the current fic (currently at 2K), at least in terms of identifying where its dead spots are. I don't know if I can fix them in fourteen days, so, I dunno. For now the plan is to keep researching/writing it at full scale and then to scrape out some sort of stand-alone drabble if need be.

New fic: When the Night Falls on You (FAKE, Ryo/Dee (and arguably Lupin/Snape, heh), 2000 words), in honor of lore.

busaikko!Snupin sighting: The Muggle War, an unfinished piece. This was for a Fantasy Fest request I'd made before DH, which was worth it not only for what did get written, but also for the discussions preceding it (I'd forgotten karasu_hime's reaction to my anon comment -- rereading it just now made me grin like a maniac. And further up in the comments there's Lore not-so-innocently observing that the prompt might have been cast as busaikko-bait to begin with).

Speaking of being a maniac, I'm now up to 1479 words and five six bulletpoints on the current fic. ( meditation on wordcount gone gonzo )

[On a side note, I really, really should know better than to visit tvtropes.com at this hour. I nearly quit writing two minutes ago after reading the entry on Badass Bookworms (OMG SO GUILTY...*flails*), but dudes, now I'm going to have to try writing a Crouching Moron Hidden Badass, just because.

*stares with dismay at the sentence I've just written*

WHERE THE HELL DID YOU COME FROM AND WHAT THE HELL DO I DO NOW?

Send plot-hatchets. Fic eating head. *whimper*


ETA 1:11 a.m.: 669 words tonight. Go me! *wipes drops of blood off brow and falls into bed*

Title: Harried
Words: 200
Fandoms: FAKE and HP
Pairings: Dee/Ryo; reference to Snape/Harry
Rating: PG
Summary: Green eyes. Black hair. Forever breaking rules. Harry Potter? No, Dee Laytner.
Warning: Noncon involved, and I'm mean to Snape and Lupin. Please don't hate me -- that's just how the bunny hopped.

( So help me God, we are NEVER going to England again.... )