This is largely for my own reference, I'm sticking it in my memories so I can add to it and (hopefully) cross things off over the year.

I would include Sarah Rees Brennan - The Demon's Lexicon but it looks like it's not coming out until next year. :(

Sheila Burnford - The Incredible Journey
Paul Gallico - Jennie (out of print D:)
Paul Gallico - The Silent Miaow
Paul Gallico - Thomasina
Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey - Cheaper by the Dozen
Garry Kilworth - Hunter's Moon: A Story of Foxes
John Marsden - The Tomorrow series
Tamora Pierce - complete the Circle of Magic quartet, + The Circle Opens

hp_wankfest

done
and
edited.

I should save East's bio here. Move on, nothing to see past here.

( laaa )

MAH HAIRZ IZ RED.

But longer and darker than in the icon. Sry.

I got hair dye on my clothes. >.>

Played a lot of Sims this morning - I made Demelza a one-person hippie house, and then she married Theodore. She's a doctor. A specialist, actually, which is like three quarters along the career track or something ridiculous like that, and funnily enough she was only going to take the medical track job for a couple days until something more suited to her came up, but she turned out to be really good at medicine.

Theo is in politics. Not much of a surprise there, I think, though I was planning to hold out for science. He and Demelza are madly in love and get jealous quite easily if they see each other hugging or dancing with other people. Theo is highly amused by Demelza's bohemian streak, and she makes him stop taking himself so seriously all the time. She can fix anything that breaks and flaunts her independence because it makes him get up early to cook her breakfast to prove he's not entirely useless. Is it sad that Sims games make me want to ship these random pairings? :P

I'm tempted to make another house with some of my original MUD characters, but I have no idea what jobs some of them would have. Rizu, probably either military or law enforcement, I guess. Karya? Fuck if I know. She's a nature/weather priestess! There isn't a hippie track, or if there is, not in the only expansion I have.


eta: I'm trying to pick my prompts for a second piece for hp_wankfest. I've also confirmed that the generic "glasses" is not actually on the table, hence I will have to edit my first piece to highlight something else as the object... Too complicated!

eta2: www.handjobadvice.com. No, really. Just what it says on the tin.

eta3 (sry sry): I just stumbled across a really good Demelza PB. I don't know why, she just really appeals to me as Demelza. I think it's the playful, sultry, long flowing hair, loads of different clothing styles, etc. There's also Jessica Stam who'd be interesting to use as someone who wasn't entirely on the straight-and-narrow, a con-artist type, simply for the vastly different appearances. :P

I'm having a crappy day, brainwise.

On the other hand, I will be participating in hp_wankfest, I'm 95% decided on what I'm going to write, and I'm quite looking forward to it.

But I wish people in my RPGs would post more.

I think I'm going to go dish out some more ice cream.

I have a job interview in, like, thirteen hours. I have to have a shower, because if I have one in the morning my hair will probably still be damp when I get there, and I very clearly remember that lady in charge of the IN2WRK course last year saying never turn up to an interview with wet hair. I'm trying to remember what else she said.

I want to work. If I do not work, I will go crazy. I will sit in the corner of my room gibbering madly and rewatching all my dvds over and over until I can recite every single one of them word for word.

On the other hand, I'm slightly terrified of actually being given any kind of responsibility that I'm actually getting paid for after all this time.

By the way, I'm fairly certain that Oscar Wilde was completely mad for young, extremely attractive, faintly feminine, pouty, petulant, egocentric, spoiled, fanciful prettyboys. I can say this because there is one in everything he ever wrote and they are always the object of much passion from an older male character. I got the idea that Zacharias would like Oscar Wilde's work on a whim, but I'm really starting to see merit in it, considering that he is a young, extremely attractive, faintly feminine, pouty, petulant, egocentric, spoiled, fanciful prettyboy.

I should take my medicine before I forget. Somebody please kill me. I am going to shower now.

Suddenly dizzy
Like the presence of you is unexpected and insincere
Can't think can't see
And I wonder that I'm not past this yet
Feels like I could touch you if I tried
But I've jumped off that cliff before
Spent too long tangled and twisted and mired
How I wish
How I wish
But this time, standing here
I look down
See the angry, cutting rocks
And believe
Irrevocably
In gravity

Ex-sangs, I found it. :D This post makes me feel all sorts of things that I can't put into words. Playing Zacharias, and all the research I did, the length of time I spent putting myself into his shoes and thinking about his beliefs, are the main reason I'm now interested in Judaism.


( my favourite RP post, under the cut )

Wheeeee. I have changed my Brenna Dunstan, Hufflepuff class of 96, to Leanne Wickham, Gryffindor class of 97. It took me a while, but I did it. The only things I have not done - Appearance/PB (waiting to see what the head mod says about the PB I want, otherwise I'll use someone else and redo the appearance bit) and the writing samples.

I loathe writing samples.

I feel it is time to finish my ice cream. And pee. The mod I was talking to seemed quite happy for me to app another character (it is the place I was gonna play Liam) so I'm fairly sure I'll get in (knock wood) and hopefully having a game going will give me something to, you know, get out of bed for. Also get my creative juices flowing (and that always sounds dirty to me) before NaNo starts.

x-posted to greatestjournal


eta: my laptop charger is coming on MONDAY between 7.30am and 5.30pm. YAY. Hopefully at least one of the two book parcels will too, I ordered them Sunday/Monday and shipping is 6-10 days.

1. I have just had a scrummy sweet chilli fish stir fry, followed by a plate of vanilla ice cream. In retrospect the ice cream was a bad idea, as it is freezing out, but I am still happy in the tum.

2. I think I have figured out the reason for the great difference of opinion my brother and I are having over the whole cooking dinner thing. See, when he cooks, he does things like roasts and chicken and lasagnes, which all take, you know, upwards of 40 minutes. Me, I learned to cook when I went flatting. I wanted things that were quick and easy to make and also tasted good. My idea of a good meal is something I can slap together in ten minutes, quarter of an hour. Thus, he wants me to cook because he doesn't have time, and I sit around wondering how the hell he doesn't have time - in my view, saving ten minutes isn't worth having to eat reheated food.

Now that I've figured this out, it makes a lot more sense.

I rather suspect we have very different ideas of exactly how much a serving is, too. I'm much more inclined towards eating small portions at a time and grazing most of the day. But that isn't news, I have to consistently remind myself to cook "extra" when I'm making dinner.

3. Why is 90% of the HP fanfic I see here some combination of Lucius/Draco/Snape or Snarry? I can only think of one H/D I've seen, and that used to be the Big Thing In Fandom. It's really depressing. As a general rule, incest is one of my three avoidances - incest, bestiality and real person fic. They get increasingly less flexible as the list progresses. I don't mind Blackcest as much as other cests. Bestiality is a mind over matter thing - I came across a fic back in ST fandom where a dolphin fellates Harry Kim and was squicked out, but a story where Padfoot licks Remus a lot the morning after a full moon was fine. RPF, though, I don't have exceptions for.

4. I need to finish my 30_somethings, but as my mood has deteriorated I've lost my creative energies. They're very much at an ebb. >.>

5. Bloggish seems to be working for me again. *clings to Forest Green*

Things!

I have finished both my apps for Locum, as Sheena informed me that they know how I write so I don't have to do all the writing samples. Of course I'd already done one of them, but it saves writing the other three. We were being mighty silly, as we do, and I commented that for the "Experience" bit in the OOC info I put "RP Experience (links if possible): I have no experience. I have never arrpeed before. *crycry*"

It is slightly funny to think that Sheena and I have talked almost every day for the last year. Except when she went on holiday.

Just to be random, this is some of the music I'm listening to right now. The first one on there, Calling Again, is by a band I used to love when I was in high school, and in fact the original three members used to go to my high school and one of them went to church with me. Of course after their first album they toured America and when they came back they'd turned into just another drossy pop band, but the first album was great.

And as I said last night I've found some of my old poetry. It is here for your reading pleasure. Apart from ee cummings, feel free to guess which poet I really liked at the time. :P It's most obvious in the last one, and partly in cartography.

( Second Love (Poem for the Night) )


( Eastern Lust Triptych )


( cartography of the final days )


( How to Catch a Butterfly )


( Phone Call, Wednesday Night )


( A Song For Chris )

I just added half a dozen odd fics to keisarmy. Only the ones I don't hate. :P I reread them all as well, which was fun. There are some I wrote before Half-Blood Prince came out. Nothing older than that, I think, though I'm pretty sure I do have things that were post-GoF, just, uh, not good ones.

The funny thing is, despite being a rabid Zerry-shipper these days, my three favourites are Dancers (Zacharias/Daphne), Glow (Cedric/Zacharias) and A Good Run (Zacharias/Ginny). Though the hints of romance in Dancers and AGR are very very minor parts of the story. They're also part of the quartet of short stories that were Zacharias+otherpersonfromoneofthe houses - A Good Run for Gryffindor, Flight for Hufflepuff, Chicken Scratch for Ravenclaw and Dancers for Slytherin.

Then I wrote Really Good Quidditch Players and had two for Gryffindor, which wasn't nealy as pretty. :P Re-reading that made me remember my plotbunny for Hermione and Zacharias at the Slug Club Christmas party, though, which was not so much going to be a sequel to RGQP because they're a lot more civil at the party than would follow after how he responded to the invitation.

Really I just like Zacharias when he's antagonising people and being a brat.

It's fun watching how writing style changes, though. In some of the pieces for 30_somethings there are comedic asides, the whole mood is quite light-hearted. Like, "Anthony appears not to find this amusing. Really, Zacharias thinks, he is incredibly under-appreciated." Whereas when I read AGR and the older fic like that, it's a lot more emotive and somber. There aren't so many quips, extra details and things. It's a lot more upfront, without the subtleties and different layers. Which isn't a bad thing - I still like AGR, I still like Glow, I'm still getting feedback for Glow. It's just a different style.

I have definitely grown as a writer, though. I think this is really just a sign that I have more range now. I can write quiet reflection, I can do Daphne's moral dilemma on whether to choose idealism or her family, I can do the resignation and defeat of Zacharias when faced with his only visitor after the final battle, or Terry's quiet hopefulness and reading too much into things. But I can also do the magic of going to the Yule Ball with a boy who seems so incredibly sure of himself, and wondering why he asked you because that's everything you're not. And I can do Zacharias' more usual quirkiness, coping with stress and indecision the only way he knows how, by making himself into something larger than life and inherently noticeable.

Of course, I still struggle madly with anything that's longer to write than one sitting, my plots are weak and my endings leave a lot of things wide open and loose threads everywhere, but you know, that's okay. Because everyone has more to learn, and I'm only 22, and I have time to either figure out how to fix that stuff or refine the art of writing in a way so that it doesn't matter, to just avoid my weaknesses and focus on my strengths instead.

And the continuity in my 30_somethings is absolutely horrid. Zacharias' father has two different names, he and Daphne are happily (or not) talking about letters from her parents a few scant weeks after his father dies, and there's mention of his father going into St Mungo's for some unquantified illness but he dies as a victim to some kind of violent crime. So, you know, pretty much all of it's related to his father. :P A. Smith interferes with the space-time continuum!

And, uh, this was going to be a couple of sentences about re-posting fic, and instead has gone off on rambling tangents about writing. Terribly sorry.

I, also, am joining the cool kids at 30_somethings.

( I picked Zacharias, you should not be surprised. )

For now I should sleep, I guess.