Fanfiction, goals, reading
Jan. 4th, 2005 03:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tarigwaemirLowell House, on the Feast of Ste. Elizabeth Ann Seton
Announcement: I posted the Sandman FST to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
fst two days ago, if anyone is curious and doesn't check that community on a regular basis. Tryogeru and I worked on it together all day last week--while I was sick with fever and she was narcoleptic from being stuffed with too much food--and I uploaded it as soon as I got back to Cambridge. An FST that's made when one person is probably delirious and the other half-asleep is probably not a very good FST, but people seem to like it anyway, thank goodness. ^_^ And last time I checked my webstats, more than half the people who downloaded had commented, so the leeching problem has definitely gotten a lot better.
While pretending to work on my lab report (hah!), I've managed to update my writing site and FF.net account. (Nothing new, all stuff that's been posted on this LJ already.) Within half an hour of submitting a batch of stories to FF.net, I received an anonymous review telling me to stop writing and get a job, which I suppose was rather insulting, but at the moment it seemed more like chastisement from above to get back to work. >_> Instead, of course, I go to the Yuletide archive and start reading fics right and left. It's amazing (in a good way, I mean) that people would think of all these fandoms; there is fanfic for literature that I would never have even thought of as fandom material, and the result is brilliant. E.g. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight--it would never, ever have occurred to me that one could write fanfiction for that. I admire the ingenuity of the requesters almost as much as I admire the writing of the authors who fulfilled their requests. Wow.
And really, there are all these brilliant works of writings by authors I've never heard of before because I stay mostly in anime fandoms (except for an occasional visit to Harry Potter). I've made a resolve to either post more fanfic recommendations here or start a recs LJ because there's definitely many stories that are worth remembering. (Oh my gosh, there was a whole slew of Greek mythology fiction that blew my mind away. If any of these fic writers publish books, I want to know, darn it.) But after finals are over, of course. I also really, really want to participate next year (I love requesting fics, after all >_>), but that requires me to do a New Year's Resolution challenge (i.e. write a fic for one of the unfilled requests). Heh, nothing in the world is free, is it? >_< But who knows, maybe I'll go out on a limb and write the Sozaburo/Okita fic that was requested for Gohatto in a fit of procrastination (and then Tryogeru will die from happiness, I'll bet, if I don't die first from laughing at myself).
Goals for reading period:
1. Be productive, and study effectively/thoroughly/efficiently. (The last two may counter each other in the realm of possibility intersecting with my inherent fallibility.)
2. Finish a Winamp skin.
3. Write something interesting. (I managed to write this past semester about as much fiction as I did in the entire two years before, and I want to keep up the trend. Any suggestions? As a given, though, it will be short and plotless.)
4. Live in the library...as soon as I finish this lab report which requires me to work at my desktop.
5. Update the book blog.
Re: the last item on the list, I managed to finish Samguk Yusa over the break and am practically finished with the first three books of Brust's Vlad Taltos series. Finally I succumbed and just bought The Book of Jhereg, in hopes that my New Year's money provided enough insulation for the extravagance (it cost $16), and now I only have about fifty pages left to go. And Daera's coming back to Cambridge tonight, with the rest up to book eight, and despite goal 1, you know I'm going to spend the hours between 11 and 1 reading myself to sleep (like I did all summer). I should also hurry up and finish Freedom & Necessity so I can return it to her. (I think I have a little over a hundred pages left? I stopped reading after September because school took over.) Anyway, that means the book blog will receive a major update, once I muster up the discipline to sit down and write about the books. (I've been trying for years to make notes on every book I read because I hate it when I have an idea that I know is from a book somewhere, but I can't remember what or which book and then am forced to leave it out of the paper because I can't cite the right source. Also I hate it when I remember a really good story I read but not the author who wrote it. Anyway, I did a pretty good job over the summer, and I want to keep it up, which shouldn't be hard since I don't read all that much anymore anyway.)
Yours &c.
Announcement: I posted the Sandman FST to
fst two days ago, if anyone is curious and doesn't check that community on a regular basis. Tryogeru and I worked on it together all day last week--while I was sick with fever and she was narcoleptic from being stuffed with too much food--and I uploaded it as soon as I got back to Cambridge. An FST that's made when one person is probably delirious and the other half-asleep is probably not a very good FST, but people seem to like it anyway, thank goodness. ^_^ And last time I checked my webstats, more than half the people who downloaded had commented, so the leeching problem has definitely gotten a lot better.While pretending to work on my lab report (hah!), I've managed to update my writing site and FF.net account. (Nothing new, all stuff that's been posted on this LJ already.) Within half an hour of submitting a batch of stories to FF.net, I received an anonymous review telling me to stop writing and get a job, which I suppose was rather insulting, but at the moment it seemed more like chastisement from above to get back to work. >_> Instead, of course, I go to the Yuletide archive and start reading fics right and left. It's amazing (in a good way, I mean) that people would think of all these fandoms; there is fanfic for literature that I would never have even thought of as fandom material, and the result is brilliant. E.g. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight--it would never, ever have occurred to me that one could write fanfiction for that. I admire the ingenuity of the requesters almost as much as I admire the writing of the authors who fulfilled their requests. Wow.
And really, there are all these brilliant works of writings by authors I've never heard of before because I stay mostly in anime fandoms (except for an occasional visit to Harry Potter). I've made a resolve to either post more fanfic recommendations here or start a recs LJ because there's definitely many stories that are worth remembering. (Oh my gosh, there was a whole slew of Greek mythology fiction that blew my mind away. If any of these fic writers publish books, I want to know, darn it.) But after finals are over, of course. I also really, really want to participate next year (I love requesting fics, after all >_>), but that requires me to do a New Year's Resolution challenge (i.e. write a fic for one of the unfilled requests). Heh, nothing in the world is free, is it? >_< But who knows, maybe I'll go out on a limb and write the Sozaburo/Okita fic that was requested for Gohatto in a fit of procrastination (and then Tryogeru will die from happiness, I'll bet, if I don't die first from laughing at myself).
Goals for reading period:
1. Be productive, and study effectively/thoroughly/efficiently. (The last two may counter each other in the realm of possibility intersecting with my inherent fallibility.)
2. Finish a Winamp skin.
3. Write something interesting. (I managed to write this past semester about as much fiction as I did in the entire two years before, and I want to keep up the trend. Any suggestions? As a given, though, it will be short and plotless.)
4. Live in the library...as soon as I finish this lab report which requires me to work at my desktop.
5. Update the book blog.
Re: the last item on the list, I managed to finish Samguk Yusa over the break and am practically finished with the first three books of Brust's Vlad Taltos series. Finally I succumbed and just bought The Book of Jhereg, in hopes that my New Year's money provided enough insulation for the extravagance (it cost $16), and now I only have about fifty pages left to go. And Daera's coming back to Cambridge tonight, with the rest up to book eight, and despite goal 1, you know I'm going to spend the hours between 11 and 1 reading myself to sleep (like I did all summer). I should also hurry up and finish Freedom & Necessity so I can return it to her. (I think I have a little over a hundred pages left? I stopped reading after September because school took over.) Anyway, that means the book blog will receive a major update, once I muster up the discipline to sit down and write about the books. (I've been trying for years to make notes on every book I read because I hate it when I have an idea that I know is from a book somewhere, but I can't remember what or which book and then am forced to leave it out of the paper because I can't cite the right source. Also I hate it when I remember a really good story I read but not the author who wrote it. Anyway, I did a pretty good job over the summer, and I want to keep it up, which shouldn't be hard since I don't read all that much anymore anyway.)
Yours &c.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-04 10:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-05 09:11 pm (UTC)My blockmate, Daera, recommended Brust to me last year and insisted, as you did, that I must read in publication order, so in publication order it is! As for my impressions of the books right now...well, the Jhereg books (at least the ones I've read so far) provide everything that I like in fantasy books: interesting social structure, political intrigue, crime underworld, assassins, so it's impossible for me to not like the books. ^_^ Forgive me for coopting an earlier metaphor, but I guess one could say that it serves a lot of my squids on a silver platter. XD I'm having such a blast reading the series. I do think that Brust's writing tends a little too much towards exposition at times, but his storylines are so interestingly convoluted that I don't really mind. Personally, I'm most impressed by his worldbuilding. It's pretty subtle too because he doesn't show it off like most fantasy authors, but one can definitely tell that he thought out a pretty detailed and long history behind everything. XD I just hope I don't end up reading the series instead of sleeping.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-05 09:28 pm (UTC)Heh, sounds like we have a good overlap of preferences. Phoenix is perhaps the high point of that theme. I find the exposition in the Vlad books to be fairly sparse compared to the exposition in the Paarfi books, though.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-05 04:56 am (UTC)Anyways, ganbatte on your to do list! Looks like aproductive time for you (bG!)
cheers,
muri
Still sighing over the nice "begining of spring" parallel with Hikaru and Akira. I really do like the idea of where do they go once Hikaru beats Akira for the first time. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-05 08:57 pm (UTC)And yes, I love Sandman too! Neil Gaiman is really an amazing writer. That series is so complex and beautiful and profound and...perfect! ^_^ If you do end up downloading the FST, please let me know if you think it fits. >_>;;
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-07 01:29 am (UTC)(I'm waiting until they have enough scanlated and are past any stomach dropping points. It's the only way I'd survive reading the manga, I swear. ~>_<~! Otherwise, I go crazy speculating. Meh.)
I can't get the FST to show up. I think I have to join the community *heeee*. But I am very psyched that you did it for Sandman ... it is indeed one of the best things I've read, comic or otherwise. I love the overarching themes of the book ... and the way it goes into so many different matters. Neil Gaiman rocks muchly!!
Anyway, heeee, I will get to your DN stuff sooner or later, you can count on it! I enjoy your style way too much not to.
cheers!
muri