hmpf: (weirdface)
Here's an amusing little website: http://iwl.me/ (Yes, I'm procrastinating from finishing up my cover letter, doing the dishes, and making dinner.)

When I copied a bit of "Normal" in the box there, it told me I wrote like Arthur C. Clarke.

When I copied a bit of "Names" in there, it told me I wrote like Ian Fleming.

When I copied a bit of my single real bit of slash in there, "Together", it told me I wrote like J.K. Rowling. Now, *that* caused me to do a bit of a double take, because that piece? *Not* written in anything approaching Rowling's style at all. So I figured it must be reacting to certain bits of the vocabulary ("wizard, Dementor, lycanthropy...")

So I tried to find a part of the story without any of these key terms. Turns out the single sex scene is. So I entered that into the box - and still got J.K. Rowling.

For about five minutes I was mightily amused by the idea that I write gay werewolf sex like J.K. Rowling.

Then I took another look and, alas, there was still a "Padfoot" in there. Drat.

When I removed that, I wrote like David Foster Wallace.
hmpf: Cole and Ramse from the show not actually called "Splinter" (Default)
Five or six years ago a writer whose stories I enjoyed a lot "gloveslapped" me to make me write more Harry Potter fic.

HP is emphatically not my fandom; I still haven't read the last three books[*], and wouldn't be in any particular hurry to do so... if it weren't for that long-ago challenge. See, I did adopt a bunny there that tickled my fancy in all the right, angsty ways. The bunny was ridiculously AU even then; I suspect it's even more wildly AU now, after the end of the series. It required me to resurrect a character who is canonically dead, and kill off nearly everybody else - and to do so plausibly, in a way that does not feel gratuitous and self-indulgent.

And that is only the beginning of the ways the cards are stacked against this project ever succeeding. There is also the matter that my conception of, and love for the characters is nearly entirely based on hopelessly outdated fanon - and I *like* it that way. I don't *want* a more accurate version of these characters, because the vague and conjectural version I have appeals to me. I like the areas of uncertainty that I can fill with my own ideas; I also like the fanon that at the time had developed to fill these areas of uncertainty. I don't care that it's been overtaken by canon! So, if I continued this project, I would essentially be writing OOC knowingly and on purpose.

Plus, it's slash, and I'm not good at writing relationships. Plus, it's plotty, and I'm not good at plot.

And yet... this bunny inspired me like little else has in ten years of fannish writing. It caused me to write *pages* in one sitting, which is something that, normally, just. does. not. happen with me. And, rereading some of those pages now, I still get goosebumps all over. This is not the best writing I've done; far from it. But it hits all the right buttons. Oh, does it ever.

And for that reason I am wondering if I shouldn't promote it to a more prominent slot on my projects list again. It's been basically on hold for the last three years or so; it had too many things going against it. But, yeah - this is *good* angstporn. And shouldn't I be striving to give more of that to the world? ;-) Or, heck, never mind the world: *I* want more of that.

Any Remus/Sirius person in the audience I could talk this over with?

(I have a sense of déjà vu about this post. I think I may have posted something similar before tagging was possible on LJ.)

[* Yes, I've written fic about one of those three unread volumes. Yes, it's entirely possible to write fic about something you haven't read.]
hmpf: Cole and Ramse from the show not actually called "Splinter" (Default)
A great discussion at [livejournal.com profile] musesfool's journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/musesfool/391203.html?view=2649379#t2649379, about Sirius and Remus. Many of the points made there fit rather well with what I'm *trying* to convey with my own S/R fic, which can be found here: http://www.allabouthmpf.com/together.htm. (German version forthcoming; already being beta'd.)
hmpf: Cole and Ramse from the show not actually called "Splinter" (Default)
without warning when the pressure becomes too much.

I've been away from LJ for a few (2?) weeks, I think, and I feel terribly out of the loop, but what with getting sick and having to prepare for the 'Zwischenprüfung' and England and other stuff I simply *had* to reduce my online life. Drastically. Again.

So I moved to my parents, 'cause 1.) their place is much less hot than mine - where I live it was virtually impossible to concentrate on *anything* in the last few weeks, and 2.) they only have the most rudimentary online access. I've been barely able to check my mails, once or twice a week. Which was good for the 'Zwischenprüfungs' preparation. It was also good for my writing - I've written a lot, 'cause, you know, you can't cram knowledge into your head 24/7. ;-)

Now I'm back home, and back on line, though I still have four more days of revising for the exam before I can join the online community as a full time member again (wish me luck on Thursday...).

So, this is just an apology to everyone who hasn't heard anything (or very little) from me recently. I haven't forgotten you. I'll be back soon.

And, before I sign off to return to the bronze age ;-), a short fandom activity update:

- My first HP (and first slash) fic is almost finished, I'm going to do a last revision tonight. Actually, I sent what I thought was the final version to K'immie who's agreed to be by britreader already, but I discovered I had to rewrite part of it later. I rather like the story so far (only time will tell if I will still like it when I re-read it in a year or so) - in the two or three weeks I've been writing it's been rewritten close on 20 times, and I think it's really pretty good by now. Or at least as good as I can make it, with my still limited skill. It's short (4 pages, which seems to be my standard length for 'quickies') and depressing, as it should be. It's called, not without some degree of irony, 'Together'.

- I got feedback! For 'Mann Mit Mantel', which still is my most popular piece, but still... it's been so long since I last got feedback for that essay that I don't even remember. Probably a year or so. (The last feedback I got for anything was in March, for 'Epilogue'.) Anyway... that considerably brightened my day, and strengthened my resolve to rebuild my website as quickly as possible.

- The Scape Sisters have been at it again... We had a fun-filled evening yesterday, collecting material and creating the concept for a Scorpy/John vid, as well as trying to fill the holes that still plague our Braca/Scorpy vid. Sometime during the evening - we were watching 'Into the Lion's Den', loudly expressing our delight at all the John/Scorpy goodness - I remarked that we were like three old beer-bellied men watching porn... the Sisters didn't disagree.

- I re-read some of my old fics. Lots of stuff I would change now. But I guess one has to stop rewriting sometime, and just accept that a story is finished, and that one never will reach perfection, anyway. 'This Is Your Time', though, is so bad it really hurts. I probably should take it off my website, but then, I have the soul of an archivist - I want my *complete* works on my site. But maybe I should move it further down the fic list, so it isn't the first thing people will read.

- Scapekid has beta'd 'Simple Things 1: Rise and Shine' for me. I've had some issues with parts of that story for some time, though I'm very proud of other parts of it (namely the Chiana bit), and Scapekid had issues with exactly the same parts, and helped me a lot by clarifying what the problem is/might be. I've had the story removed from Leviathan, and will resubmit it when I've done a thorough revision. No compromises this time. (Last time I submitted it I had a nagging suspicion that something was wrong with the story, but couldn't put my finger on the problem, and so submitted it despite the feeling.) Who knows, I may even get feedback this time, if I manage to make the story as good as possible. ;-)

- And even more news from the writing front: for no good reason at all I translated my HP fic to German! And I even like the German version! Of course, now that I'm about to change a few things in the original English version I'll have to change the translation, too, but overall, I'm really pleased - even though it was a very fast translation, done in about 2 hours.

- Last, but not least, I'm soon going to be blue again, soon. A whole bunch of people from the farscaped mailing list will go to the Bochum comic fair 'cause Virginia Hey will be there, and we'll have a Scorpy and, well, me as Zhaan. Only this time I'll try and make the costume and make-up more convincing. We'll have a table there and will try and promote Save Farscape. :-)

Well... so much for my geek activities. I'll sign off now. Too much to do still...
hmpf: Cole and Ramse from the show not actually called "Splinter" (Default)
HP fanfic, or rather, S/R fanfic has corrupted me. Totally. So, today, while I was trying to listen to Dr. Copestake, a pair of muses sat on my shoulders and started whispering to me, or rather, started holding me hostage at wandpoint. . . to write slash. Harry Potter slash.

Laugh if you have to. It might be the best reaction. It's probably what I should have done, although the class would have certainly thought I'd lost my mind (and they wouldn't have been half wrong, either!) Instead, alas, I started scribbling, and I was still scribbling two hours later in 'Introduction to Cultural Theory' (Bourdieu and DeCerteau - see, I *did* listen, at least a little bit.)

Of course, the frelling muses had to turn up at a time in my life when I have *absolutely* no time to spare due to a multitude of demands from too many directions on the sparse time I have left before I leave for my semester in England. Luckily, this Friday through Monday I'll be on an excursion (sharing a tent with someone I can only describe as the last true 'gentleman archeologist'), which would prevent me from getting anything 'serious' done, anyway, and so I'm planning to use what little spare time I will have on that excursion to write. If I manage to sew the bits and pieces I have now into something resembling a coherent story by Tuesday, I may even submit it to the Fill in the Blanks challenge.

Sheesh. I never *asked* for a slash muse, did I?

Let's hope tomorrow's Farscape Season One night won't wake the Farscape muses, as well. I really couldn't feed any more muses right now.

And now, to make up for the loss of time of the excursion, back to my regularly scheduled Zwischenprüfungsvorbereitung. I still have a whole book on the bronze age to read today, and it's already 23:00!
hmpf: Cole and Ramse from the show not actually called "Splinter" (Default)
writing, painfully good fan fiction, my priorities and other related issues, but the frelling bronze age daggers won't let me.

So, instead, here's simply a link to the latest example of painfully good fan fiction that I've found:

'Thing', by Cimorene and Wax Jism. Warning: slash (R/S, cause I admit unashamedly to having become a puppyshipper): http://www.waxjism.net/pickle/stories/thing.html

(Edited to add: Just took a look at the website this story is hosted at and must confess to my total non-understanding of many slashers' fascination with boy bands and other Pretty Young Men. Not to mention the need to *slash* them. Yuck. Oh well, the story I just recced is still great.)

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