Website, writing, noise, plants, photos
May. 12th, 2006 12:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tarigwaemirLowell House, on the Feast of Sts. Nereus and Achilleus Pancras
I am so screwed for this paper, but never mind that.
1. New version of my writing archive is finally up: .infinity. Isn't it pretty? I like it much better than the old layout. The code is more elegant too, by my standards. It's complete with all the fics I've written up to now, except for the multiparts (of which I only have three) because I got so sick of coding. Although I downloaded a nifty new text editor from Cnet which has made coding a much more enjoyable experience. (It's called EmEditor Free, for the curious.)
2. I was reading through various fic blogs this morning and realizing just how little I think about writing, my own or others. I wonder if that's the sign of a science-centered post-secondary education. My own writing, especially the short, static kind, tend to function through various arbitrary rules I impose while in the midst of writing. The rules mostly concern style, diction and punctuation. I won't let myself use dashes in certain fics, for example, while in others I use every sort of punctuation imaginable. I'm also really obsessed with rhythm and meter, which is odd considering I'm a terrible poet. There's a word that I've been meaning to change in a certain fic, but I've been dragging my heels on it because the only replacement I can think of changes the phrase to four syllables instead of three. My sense of meter isn't conscious though; it's just the sound of reading my writing out loud in my head as I write.
I was rereading my Gundam Wing fic (the first fanfic I ever wrote, all the way back in tenth grade) as I was recoding the source, and I was so embarrassed that I wondered why I was even allowing it to remain on the web. Probably as a reminder to myself what not to do in writing. The problem is that it's too obviously a self-insert...which is an easy mistake to make when writing in first person. The OOC moments pain me, as does the heavy-handed transition between scenes. The only real merit to the fic was the chance to verbalize what I thought about the series and about Heero in particular, but that all got very muddled. It would have worked better as an essay.
There are two concerns I have about my writing at the moment: its tendency to resort to glibness--a pretty turn of phrase or self-absorbed imagery--to replace actual substance, and its occasional heaviness of language that results from awkwardness. Density isn't the issue--dense prose isn't heavy as long as it flows--it's gracefulness that's difficult to achieve. There's also the additional concern of being unable to write anything longer than 500 words, but since I have no great ambitions in this arena, I've more or less resigned myself to being a dilettante. (Still, I'm often tempted to write a real story for once...I just never know how to actually execute it. -_-)
3. Argh, the music from the Bacchanalia (otherwise known as the Lowell House spring formal) is so loud. I mean, if I had nothing better to do than to listen to music, I wouldn't mind because it's swing after all, but swing is not what you want to be listening to when you're trying to manufacture reasonable-sounding nonsense about phylogeography.
4. Today I went to the Plant Biology Symposium, which was fantastic. I mean, even as someone working in an Arabidopsis lab, I was convinced that plants were the right organisms to study. The theme of the day was epigenetics, and I'm wondering whether that oughtn't be the focus of my personal statements for graduate school. I also got to see David Bartel, he of the self-replicating ribozyme fame, and remembered exactly why I put MIT on my grad school list in the first place. (A soft-spoken man, but with a sense of humor...and apparently the famous plant biologist at Rice, Bonnie Bartel, is his sister(?). What a family!) Also heard Robert Pruitt--he of the hothead reversion controversy--and felt once again excited about the whole RNA reservoir model. For that alone, I think I would consider working with Arabidopsis in grad school. (I have nothing against Arabidopsis actually--I really like working in a plant lab right now--but I've always felt that the biological problems I'm interested in would be better addressed through yeast or bacteria. I forget that there's a lot of potential in plants too. Of course the reason why I keep forgetting that is because there's comparatively much less funding for plants. >_<)
5. Apparently everyone's yearbook photos look horrible. Mine are no exception. I thought a professional studio was supposed to utilize blemish correction and all those fancy techniques to make you look better than you actually are. Instead I look worse than I usually look in the photographs on my digital camera. -_- That hasn't stopped my parents from ordering a horribly expensive portrait, which I'm sure will join the ranks of school photographs decorating our house. (I have a school photo for every year since prekindergarten.)
I'm in a horribly chatty mood. No, self, concentrate on phylogeography of Arabidopsis accessions! Focus, focus!
Yours &c.
I am so screwed for this paper, but never mind that.
1. New version of my writing archive is finally up: .infinity. Isn't it pretty? I like it much better than the old layout. The code is more elegant too, by my standards. It's complete with all the fics I've written up to now, except for the multiparts (of which I only have three) because I got so sick of coding. Although I downloaded a nifty new text editor from Cnet which has made coding a much more enjoyable experience. (It's called EmEditor Free, for the curious.)
2. I was reading through various fic blogs this morning and realizing just how little I think about writing, my own or others. I wonder if that's the sign of a science-centered post-secondary education. My own writing, especially the short, static kind, tend to function through various arbitrary rules I impose while in the midst of writing. The rules mostly concern style, diction and punctuation. I won't let myself use dashes in certain fics, for example, while in others I use every sort of punctuation imaginable. I'm also really obsessed with rhythm and meter, which is odd considering I'm a terrible poet. There's a word that I've been meaning to change in a certain fic, but I've been dragging my heels on it because the only replacement I can think of changes the phrase to four syllables instead of three. My sense of meter isn't conscious though; it's just the sound of reading my writing out loud in my head as I write.
I was rereading my Gundam Wing fic (the first fanfic I ever wrote, all the way back in tenth grade) as I was recoding the source, and I was so embarrassed that I wondered why I was even allowing it to remain on the web. Probably as a reminder to myself what not to do in writing. The problem is that it's too obviously a self-insert...which is an easy mistake to make when writing in first person. The OOC moments pain me, as does the heavy-handed transition between scenes. The only real merit to the fic was the chance to verbalize what I thought about the series and about Heero in particular, but that all got very muddled. It would have worked better as an essay.
There are two concerns I have about my writing at the moment: its tendency to resort to glibness--a pretty turn of phrase or self-absorbed imagery--to replace actual substance, and its occasional heaviness of language that results from awkwardness. Density isn't the issue--dense prose isn't heavy as long as it flows--it's gracefulness that's difficult to achieve. There's also the additional concern of being unable to write anything longer than 500 words, but since I have no great ambitions in this arena, I've more or less resigned myself to being a dilettante. (Still, I'm often tempted to write a real story for once...I just never know how to actually execute it. -_-)
3. Argh, the music from the Bacchanalia (otherwise known as the Lowell House spring formal) is so loud. I mean, if I had nothing better to do than to listen to music, I wouldn't mind because it's swing after all, but swing is not what you want to be listening to when you're trying to manufacture reasonable-sounding nonsense about phylogeography.
4. Today I went to the Plant Biology Symposium, which was fantastic. I mean, even as someone working in an Arabidopsis lab, I was convinced that plants were the right organisms to study. The theme of the day was epigenetics, and I'm wondering whether that oughtn't be the focus of my personal statements for graduate school. I also got to see David Bartel, he of the self-replicating ribozyme fame, and remembered exactly why I put MIT on my grad school list in the first place. (A soft-spoken man, but with a sense of humor...and apparently the famous plant biologist at Rice, Bonnie Bartel, is his sister(?). What a family!) Also heard Robert Pruitt--he of the hothead reversion controversy--and felt once again excited about the whole RNA reservoir model. For that alone, I think I would consider working with Arabidopsis in grad school. (I have nothing against Arabidopsis actually--I really like working in a plant lab right now--but I've always felt that the biological problems I'm interested in would be better addressed through yeast or bacteria. I forget that there's a lot of potential in plants too. Of course the reason why I keep forgetting that is because there's comparatively much less funding for plants. >_<)
5. Apparently everyone's yearbook photos look horrible. Mine are no exception. I thought a professional studio was supposed to utilize blemish correction and all those fancy techniques to make you look better than you actually are. Instead I look worse than I usually look in the photographs on my digital camera. -_- That hasn't stopped my parents from ordering a horribly expensive portrait, which I'm sure will join the ranks of school photographs decorating our house. (I have a school photo for every year since prekindergarten.)
I'm in a horribly chatty mood. No, self, concentrate on phylogeography of Arabidopsis accessions! Focus, focus!
Yours &c.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-12 04:29 am (UTC)I was rereading my Gundam Wing fic (the first fanfic I ever wrote, all the way back in tenth grade)...
... Link? :D *am curious* I'm willing to be that it's not nearly as bad as you think and I never knew you wrote Gundam Wing fics.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-12 04:32 am (UTC)First fanfic I ever wrote, waaaay back in sophomore year: Human.
I also have an unfinished multipart that's down at the moment on my site but it's still up at ff.net: Returning.
There are about three or four people who are patiently waiting for me to finish that fic...I don't have the heart to tell them that I probably never shall. >_>
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-12 04:41 am (UTC)I have people randomly reviewing my old, old fics back when I was thirteen-fourteen. I feel the same way. (It's probably even more difficult to tell them that "sorry, uh, I pretty much write all slash now...")
Please excuse my nonsensical ramblings. *procrastinating*
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-12 05:00 am (UTC)Procrastinating as well. >_>;;;
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-12 04:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-13 01:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-12 05:07 pm (UTC)(Isn't it some sort of rule that all yearbook pictures are supposed to come out bad? o_o)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-13 01:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-13 06:06 pm (UTC)That sounds like thought to me! From what I've seen, most people who write a lot don't think too much about what they're doing when they're doing it. The benefit of writing a lot is that the process becomes internalized and you don't have to think about mechanics anymore, you can concentrate on overall strategy. Like kendo practice drills.
I still think about mechanics when I write -_- I set myself "goals" for each fic. I think: in this story, you will cut down on the exposition, because it is interupting the narrative. In this story, you will be descriptive, because you're bad at it and you need in to practice. In this story, you are writing from the POV of a non-sympathetic character, you need to be very analytical. Sometimes I know the effect I want, but I don't know how to achieve it - that's frustrating.
The thing that's really bugging me about my writing right now is how often I borrow phrases from myself. Maybe no one else notices, but there are certain expressions and words that I overuse. That's more true in blogging than in writing, but it's much worse in writing and it bothers me.