2002-06-04 - 10:29 p.m.
And now I'm playing games with the language.

Okay. Sorry. Still having my ass kicked by the story I'm writing ... it's something like 13,000 words, and not even half done. Out of the seven chapters I have so far, chapter 3 is still sitting there like a burr under my skin, nagging at me. I think it's because I have no problem sounding like a prissy Brit -- Wesley is the man -- but my nerd-credentials have slipped enough that writing Jonathan has become difficult.

Anyway. That's for my writing session later tonight. I'm going to re-script the mass meeting in chapter 3 until I can visualize it happening in the show. That ring of canon is what makes fanfic great, otherwise it's just wishful thinking and garbage. I can't abide silly happyfic any more than I enjoy depressing deathfic.

Anyway, for them that care, my current tale is From the Shadows, and I'd adore it if you sent me helpful criticism. Trust me, my ego as a writer is enormous, you're not going to hurt my feelings by telling me that X phrase would never come out of Y character's mouth. I'd much prefer honest criticism than brainless praise any day of the week, because the first will make me better while the second will make me lazy.

If you go to read that and think Huh?, remember it's a Buffy/Angel crossover fic, and belongs in a series, whose earlier parts are linked on my main fic page. I'm maintaining a polite fiction for ff.net that Jedi Buttercup and Shellpatine are two different people, but you guys know better.

Anyway, now that I've finished tooting my own horn, what's left to say? Not a hell of a lot. Mom asked me again this weekend where I pick up "language like that", and I finally flat out told her "everywhere but here, Mom, everywhere but here." And she seemed shocked. Yeah, the world's not that pristine place you raised me to believe in anymore. Sorry, Mom.

I watched an X-files MOTW episode from season 4 today and laughed myself silly. I forgot how absolutely splendid X-files really was back in the day. Too bad the promise fell flat on its nose more often than not by the time they dragged along into seasons 7-9. The only, and I mean the only, great innovation in the last two seasons was Agent Doggett, whose babies I would not mind having.

Kidding. Really. I'm not quite that obsessed with the small-screen world. *grin* I have, however, told my brother that I'm giving up EverQuest in favor of writing, and he's not too happy with me. I'm trying to get him to name me a storyverse to build him a fic in, to make it all better, but all he can come up with is CSI, and damned if I know enough forensic detail to do a proper job of that. CSI deserves more than I can give yet, in the authoring department.

Two people called Mom last week and told her about a database job posted on a uni website not far from here, and she immediately decided it was From God, nevermind that I met only 1 of 8 qualifications, and that only weakly. I didn't mail the application off, didn't see the point in wasting that much time on a lost cause, but I can't tell her that. She would say, "What do you have to lose?"

Do you really want my answer, Mom, is what I would be thinking. Do you really want to know that despite the fact that it would double my salary, I don't give a shit, because I don't want to have to work that hard. What I really, really, really want to be doing is writing novels for a living, and that's not going to happen in mind-boggling programming jobs that wring every erg of brainpower from me during the day and leave me too limp-noodled to "practice" with my fanfic at night.

Well, the planet is populated by fools, and I'm proud to say I'm one of 'em. An intelligent fool, one would hope, who knows her own folly and tries to find the gold in every clump of mud. Anyway. I'm getting all sentimental-like with the language again, and that's never of the good.

Later. Blessings.