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| 2007-12-15 14:53 |
| Two recs |
| Public |
| recs |
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Two things.
Firstly, By Candlelight, for ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) lupinslittlesis by such_heights, rated PG. Summary: They sit together, still and warm and silent, as midnight draws near on Christmas Eve. Characters: Remus/Sirius with a sidenote of Molly. This is simply lovely, and really put me in the mood for Christmas.
Secondly, an art rec: Big Damn Emotional Journey by seviet. It's a series of pictures illustrating the emotional journey of Harry and Ginny, and it's utterly beautiful. Full of lovely moments (several sunlit days, maggot-in-the-hair, stealing Gryffindor's sword for Harry, Quidditch, the Chamber of Secrets...It covers the full gamut of emotions, I think. My favourite is the last one, of Ginny running after the train in book one. It's always been one of my favourite images of her.
In other news, I've finally worked out where my Yuletide story is going, which is a huge relief, particularly as it doesn't need to be very long. With regard to other writing, I'm going to commit myself to half an hour a day while we're on holiday, which should be enough to keep everything ticking over in my mind, while not stressing me out.
Off on holiday tomorrow! I probably won't post again before Christmas, so happy Christmas/Hannukkah/time off work/whatever you celebrate!
xx
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Got one horrible bit of work out of the way, after working all weekend (I think I worked all last weekend as well, but I can't actually remember) and then until 2 am last night.
Finished and uploaded one fest fic. Then realised I'd exceeded the word limit. *cries*
Got started on the next one (deadline in a week). Have written over a thousand words, but one of the main characters has gone missing, and nobody (including me) knows where he is.
Had two glasses of wine on Sunday night and that got me drunk enough to sob all over boyfriend when he suggested that I should do some exercise. At least this is a sign that I've been eating healthily, as when I eat crap it takes a bottle of wine to get me drunk. *nods*
Got Fire From Heaven by Mary Renault from the library. Also got Magic and Madness by Justine Larbalestier, which is proof that writing a blog is good for business. I love her blog.
Noticed that I seem to have schizophrenic reading habits: on one hand I'm reading Our Mutual Friend and War and Peace at the same time; on the other, I've developed a thing for YA fantasy. I suspect this is because the books are quick and don't require the emotional & temporal investment that adult fantasy does.
Spent an inordinate amount of time this week planning what books I'm going to take to NZ. Currently: Afterwards by Rachel Seiffert (lovelovelove), Fire from Heaven, The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney and something by Sarah Waters.
Book club is reading Have His Carcase by Dorothy L Sayers. This is both exciting and slightly nerve-wracking - what if they all think it's crap? I have faith in Peter and Harriet, though.
Read more good fic. OK, I was always going to like this one (Alice! Augusta! Neville! Longbottoms photography!), but it's very well done with an absolutely beautiful ending. I heart Augusta in this story, and Neville's maturing is utterly convincing. A Certain Light by anonymous tells the story of various Christmases in Neville's life.
There is also lots of lovely looking stuff up at rs_small_gifts which I hope to read soon.
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| 2007-12-03 21:12 |
| (no subject) |
| Public |
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hp_holidaygen has started with a stunner again. Angels and Ministers of Grace (Snape, Harry, PG-13) is a beautiful take on a postwar Snape, backed up by exceptionally atmospheric writing.
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I'm not Australian, although I live here. I did not get a vote yesterday. But this makes me feel a lot better about the world.
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| 2007-11-14 13:28 |
| (no subject) |
| Public |
| food |
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Firstly, I posted some photos over on LJ of my recent trip to Japan, along with a few pics of Sydney and New Zealand. You can view them here.
For the past few months, I have been frequenting a website aimed at encouraging people to live more healthily. It's not a bad site at all, and I've found the running forums particularly helpful. I have learned two things, however:
1. Most people cannot spell. It's easy to forget this in fandom, where we all read and write so much that a relatively high level of spelling is inevitable (at least on my flist).
2. People eat really, really odd things. Case in point: this recipe was selected as the editor's choice yesterday.
( Pesto scramble )
I'm sorry - microwave the salad? Isn't the whole point of salad that you eat it raw? Also, what on earth is "egg substitute"? How is this "healthy eating" in any way, shape or form?
!
Still on the subject of food, I found my first truly vegan cheese in Australia this weekend. It was vile :(.
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Normally fandom_wank makes me sad, but it's been highly amusing recently. Although I'm actually starting to feel sorry for Steve Vander Ark - or I was until I watched those videos of him comparing JKR to Umbridge and talking up the fans as if he was trying to mobilise them for some sort of attack. It kind of squicked me and made me laugh at the same time.
Talking of squicking, I read Carry Me Down by MJ Hyland the other week. I hated it, but that's probably a compliment to the writer, because I can't believe she wrote it to be enjoyed. ( Read more... )
Unlike The Book Thief, which I reread last month and was pleased to discover that I loved just as much the second time through. Yay for fresh writing, vivid characters and Death as a narrator!
I'm currently listening to Double Vision by Pat Barker, and it's as if she opened up my head and spread the contents out on the page. That makes it sound rather onanistic (perhaps it is), but I just can't believe how much the story resonates with me. Partly it's the setting (the forest around Chillingham in Northumberland), which appeals both for its familiarity and its remoteness, and partly the characters (many of whom are dealing with grief and/or trying to get on with their lives following some kind of trauma). It's about the effects of war and destruction on the human mind, and this is reflected in the immediate setting by the devastation of the foot and mouth epidemic.
It also features a relationship between a forty-year-old man and a nineteen-year-old girl. I was moaning about this trend in literature a few months ago ( and now I shall expand further: )
Perhaps it works for me because these characters are real for me in a way that Chad and Melissa (an unholy couple if ever there was one) and Howard and Victoria aren't.
Anyway, I'm enjoying Double Vision a lot. Perhaps this will be the impetus I need to pick up the Regeneration trilogy again - I read and loved the first book, but never got any further.
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| 2007-11-03 15:27 |
| Not that anyone cares, but... |
| Public |
| random |
| rainbow lorikeets |
| harry/ginny |
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Hey! I (and nellie_darlin) predicted that Harry and Ginny would get together because of a Quidditch victory. H/G drabble from June 2005 - Nell needs to take credit as well, since she requested it.
I told you you wouldn't care. *g*
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| 2007-10-29 08:35 |
| (no subject) |
| Public |
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So it seems that this is what happens if you try to enter the USA these days and you look a little different.
(For the record, apart from the hippy name, Kate Magic Wood looks pretty normal to me.)
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Here's a little something I've been working on in spare moments.
Title: Afterthoughts
Author: lyras
Summary: Tonks gets a few things off her chest.
Word count: Just under 1,000.
Rating: R for sexual references and language.
Pairings/characters: Remus/Tonks with past Remus/Sirius. Teddy.
Notes and warnings: Afterlife fic. Punctuation/grammar abuse. I'm not really sure where this came from. Constructive criticism is always welcome and appreciated.
( Afterthoughts )
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| 2007-10-24 22:26 |
| (no subject) |
| Public |
| life, work |
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*sigh* The problem with being self-employed is that it's easy to fall into the trap that everyone else puts you in of thinking that you have time for everything. So I find myself planning lots of tasks for my mornings: journal, run, shopping, washing, cleaning, writing...and then before I know it it's nearly midday and I haven't started my work yet. In the best case scenario it means I have to work a couple of hours later that evening; in the worst case, I end up spending the next few days doing nothing but work, meaning that when I emerge bleary-eyed and brain-dead, I have to (or more usually fail to) spend my hard-earned rest time catching up on life stuff.
Can I get off the world, please? I'm tired, and I seem to have lost the knack of saying no to clients. Also, as wanderlight said earlier, seven hours' sleep would be really, really nice one of these days.
I know there are lots of mothers on my flist; can any of you recommend a good "what to expect during pregnancy"-type book? It's not for me - at least it is, but for research rather than practical use! Any suggestions gratefully received.
To end on a cheerful note: this made me giggle. (Um, poss not safe for work.)
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| 2007-10-23 08:32 |
| (no subject) |
| Public |
| tired |
| wank |
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Is there any possibility that JKR is a nice woman who is very lucky and, having written a series of best-selling books with fans clamouring for more information, is simply trying to give them what they want?
Is there any possibility that, having sold quite a lot of books and become one of the richest women in Britain, she is really not that worried about making more sales?
Is there any possibility that she did not kill off a gay character because he was gay? You know, like all those issues that have been discussed since, oh, the second or third books about how the mentor has to die to allow Harry to carry on alone?
Is there any possibility that, in fact, there are other characters whom she thinks of as gay, but it simply hasn't come up in conversation? (I'm sure it will after this...)
Is there any possibility that Dumbledore did not spent 150 years pining for his teenage crush, it's just that JKR didn't think to mention that, just as she didn't actually mention that he did spend 150 years pining for his teenage crush?
Is there any possibility that JKR did not carefully plot which character to out?
Is there any possibility that she is not intentionally playing up the christian symbolism in the books, and rather the US media is playing up that aspect of her interviews, because christianity seems to be big business in the USA whereas it's pretty much a non-issue in the UK?
Is there any possibility that she is not actually plotting world dominion/laughing at fans/cynically attempting to attract new markets?
If people hate JKR/her books/her moral views/her characters so much, why keep talking about her? There's plenty of other shiny stuff out there.
Hi, fandom :(.
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I've not had much sleep recently. On nights when I haven't been out, I've been working until bedtime, and since we got back to Oz I've been going to bed at midnight and waking up at six pretty much consistently. I figure something'll give at one end or the other eventually!
Anyway, I didn't sleep well on Thursday night, mainly because I was stressed about the amount of work I had to do on Friday, so I woke up at five. Started work at eight; finished...at four am.
Time to cut down on the work again, methinks.
Anyway, I managed to sleep until about eight, so I won't be doing much today! What I *will* do is take my notebook down to one of the local cafes and write for a while. I've been so busy recently that the idea of cafe writing suddenly sounds like a real treat.
My Yuletide assignment (speaking of people not getting much sleep, I'm so impressed that they managed to match everyone up so quickly) is fab. Am happy, and I know exactly what I'm going to write.
I'm tempted to write one of those "Dear Yuletide writer" letters, even though I'm pretty sure my requests were fairly clear and not too constraining. But I'm so enjoying other people's letters, and I keep popping over to my recipient's website to see if s/he has posted one, so perhaps my writer is doing the same to me?
I'm still updating my Delicious recs; the next job is to go through all the stories I've ever recced on my LJ and check that they're listed. Here's the current list, though:
Gen stories
Het stories
Slash and femslash stories
Art recs (only a few here because I am woeful at bookmarking art)
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| 2007-10-03 17:05 |
| (no subject) |
| Public |
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Still here except not. Been on double-shifts all week in a belated attempt to pay for gallivanting all over the UK and Japan, and have just agreed to work the next 40 hours out of a possible 50 (so yes, my 10 free hours are supposed to include 2 nights' sleep). I'm not sure this is very good, but I'll certainly enjoy my Saturday after all that, and I do need the money. Plus my client is very, very grateful.
*waves forlornly*
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Gosh, that subject sounds emo, doesn't it? I am not emo, I promise. I just liked the sound of it.
Just got back from an evening out with my best friend from school, ( Read more... )
Am snatching a quick half hour on the computer (and I know I sound like a spoilt child, but jesus, dial-up is a nightmare) before bed; tomorrow we have a wedding and then we essentially spend two days travelling back to Oz. After that, we're entertaining guests for a week, and then I should be back around properly, with a new laptop to boot.
One good thing that happened today: I found an old notebook with some scribbling in, including a line I loved so much that I thought someone famous must have written it. But it was just me; one of my early attempts at fanfic, in fact. That was quite a nice feeling.
Predictably, the writing hasn't been going smoothly during my travels. ( Read more... )
So, yeah. I've had a fantastic time over the past few weeks. It's been so good to see all my friends and family again, and meet all the new babies. But now I'm ready to go home; I'm ready to see my little organic shops again, and have a veggie breakfast in my favourite cafe, and go running along the beach and then up to the North Head. I'm ready to earn some money again (yikes!), see all my friends, and get back into my writing stride.
Boyfriend and I need to have a serious discussion about our future, or where we want our future to be. ( Read more... )
Fannish thing one: I am really looking forward to rereading all the HP books, now I know how the series ends. shocolate mentioned rereading PS, and the bit where Harry swallows the snitch, and I got a bit sniffly. Has anyone else started rereading yet?
Fannish thing two: RIP Robert Jordan.
Fannish thing three: Clearly I am overemotional at present, because I burst into tears watching Tim Henman saying his farewell this afternoon. How fitting that in his final match he ensured that Britain will be back in the top flight of the Davis Cup. Fare thee well, Tim, and thanks for all the highs. We've been lucky to have you over the past 14 years or so.
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| 2007-09-16 16:40 |
| (no subject) |
| Public |
| hols |
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Hello! Am sneaking a few minutes in an internet cafe before I work out what to do with myself tonight until my friend gets back from France to let me into his flat.
I'm having a brilliant time - it's so great to see everyone again. Except that I'm feeling a little sniffly at the moment because I've just said goodbye to my four-year-old niece, who cried and wouldn't let me go, thereby making me feel very guilty and like a bad auntie and godmother.
I keep meeting new babies ( Read more... )
I've been checking the flist for the past week (on bloody slow dial-up - those of you on dial-up, how on earth do you stand it?), but I missed a week or so before then, so please shout if there's anything you want me to know.
Oh! Japan was fantastic. Stayed a few nights each in Tokyo and Kyoto, so a good combination of urban madness and idyllic rural shrines. Will post some photos when I get back to Australia ... which will be in a week and a half. I have a ridiculous week lined up: six different locations out of seven nights. But still, it'll be great to see everybody. I even have a nice outfit lined up for the wedding next weekend.
And now, I must use the rest of my internet time to book train tickets. Hope you're all well! xx
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I wrote this story for an exchange, and I love it, far more than you're supposed to love your own stuff. In a 'kill your babies' sort of way (as in, you should consider cutting any part of your story that you really love, just in case that comment alarms anyone!).
Anyway, it was written pre-DH, so I'm going to take it on the plane with me today and work out what I need to do to make it DH-compliant, and then hopefully it'll get posted on Monday or Tuesday.
Can anyone tell me once and for all what colour the Death Eaters' masks are? The last time I researched this on the Lexicon, I ended up going with white, but now I'm worried that that was wrong. Should they be black? (I always thought they were black until the fourth film came out.)
I also have a theoretical question which is under a cut, because it contains a small spoiler for DH. ( That secret-keeping business. )
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| 2007-08-21 11:51 |
| (no subject) |
| Public |
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This LJ/IJ/GJ/JF thing is terribly confusing. For the moment, I'm cross-posting to LJ, IJ and GJ (here). I've given up on trying to track everyone down on all the different sites until I get back from the UK. But I'm still worried that I'm missing people. If you are only posting to InsaneJournal, please could you let me know so that I can keep track of you? Thank you.
Am feeling tired and lazy, and would quite like to waste the entire day eating bad food and messing around on the internet, so am also vaguely sulky because I have work, exercise and errands to do. And writing, but that's not on my hitlist, because I'm enjoying it a lot at present. In fact, I've been averaging 1,000 words a day on the original story that has been languishing in obscurity since last year.
The downside to the writing, and to rearranging my priorities - as I did during my enforced period of computerlessness - is that I've realised that this blog, or at least certain aspects of it, need to take up a lot less time than they do at present. I need to earn money and I need to write, exercise and do various other things that make life livable.
So I won't be posting much fanfic (there is one coming up which I am dying to post, though), and the chances are I won't be reading much, either. I still have my favourite characters and pairings, and I'm still feeling the HP love. I'll still be checking my flist. I'll still be beta-reading. But if you're here mostly for the fic and you want to defriend, then there won't be any hard feelings on my side.
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| 2007-08-17 14:53 |
| (no subject) |
| Public |
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Thank you so much to the person who nominated Visitors for a Quill to Parchment award! I hope you're reading this, because the email informing me of my nomination was a much-needed bright spot in an otherwise horrible week. So thank you for cheering me up.
In further evidence of my withdrawal (from LJ) symptoms, I had a dream that parthenia14 and I were going clubbing. We never actually got anywhere, although there was a lot of wandering around in the dark and following the sound of loud music. She also did my nails: sparkly silver with a top layer of baby pink. They looked lovely!
I have a borrowed computer again, so am here, sort of. Shiny new laptop will not arrive until the end of September. Also, I will be away for almost all of September, because we are GOING HOME, YAY for a few weeks. London, Sheffield and Newcastle, here I come!
I've recently started watching a few author/book-related blogs, and it's fascinating listening to their day to day ramblings. My current favourites are Neil Gaiman and Justine Larbalestier, while Bookslut is a great way to keep up with literary news. There must be loads of others out there, though - please point me to any that you know of!
(Cross-posted to GJ and LJ.)
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