Becca Stareyes

So, I found a bunch of old series posts that I'll be refurbishing for fandom_of_one. I'll post links if I write anything -- check it out for rare fandom goodness, or just books to read.

Criminy, I just realized I was planning on being away for the Bujold fic festival. And I still need to finish both fics I signed up for. And the mrcaex picture I'm months behind. And I have a hat to make, and two outstanding applications for digital_dive/. (That and needing to fend off a third character -- no, I am not allowed to play anyone from the DC universe when all I've read is Birds of Prey and comics blogs. And, no, I am not allowed to buy the DVD for the TV series of that show. At least, not until I finish Babylon 5 and PlanetES. Not to mention Twelve Kingdoms -- which I wanted anyway, but bought partially for CJAS viewing.)

( Slayers is my morning cartoon )

I probably don't have time to watch "The Boiling Rock" before I need to be in for work. I'll have to watch it and "The Southern Raiders" after work. Which puts me exactly one day behind everyone else, but what are you gonna do?

avafest

In the interest of promoting the Avatar Fandom on IJ, I made a fanfest. All of you Avatar fanfic writers and fanartists, go over there and get ready to wait.

So, it's been a twenty-four hour period since I burned my thumb on the baking tray. The burn hurts when I bend my thumb too far, which is why it is staying bandaged -- a bandaid wrapped around the joint of my thumb immobilizes just enough that I can't bend my thumb far enough to hurt. I did take a peak under the bandaid today and got a bit worried. So, I read that first degree burns are dry and red, second are red, can be wet, and blister, and third tend to be dry and black or white. Currently the burn on my thumb feels like normal skin, except I burned off some of the indentations. It also is red around the edges of the burn, but is a paler sort of pink in the center.

On the other hand, third-degree burns aren't supposed to hurt like hell -- I kept my hand under running water for ten minutes, because taking it out meant that my hand felt like someone had run it over. (And not just because cooling the tissue ASAP is generally a good idea to stop the damage)

Really, it's mostly that I don't remember enough about first aid. I need a refresher course -- the neext time the Fire Station near where I live offers first aid and CPR, I'll sign up.

Well, that and I am such a hypochondriac when it comes to injuries.

I wrote about 600 words this morning, and did some crocheting. I also promised myself I'd pick up some DevArt drawing memes and work on those for practice. And got more ideas for the Avatar AU fic idea that is building into another albatross. I'll wait until after this week to do anything on that -- no sense starting anything when the finale is so close. And maybe I should finish my Slayers albatross before that -- at least write the third part of the trilogy and get the first part ready for beta-ing. (Damn, am I going to start calling every novel-length work of fiction I write an albatross?)

Speaking of Avatar, I wonder how iTunes is going to handle giving me the episodes they owe me, since Nick is airing the last half-season over a week? Which... well, it's nice that I don't have to wait, but it's a bit unusual to say the least. (I guess they found the flaw in finite series -- once it's down to the wire, people don't want to pick it up, but they need to finish it or else they get lynch mobs.)

Not that I don't prefer finite series to the never-ending cartoons of my youth. (Or rather, I like having both the kind where all you need to know is the premise of the series, and the kind where it is telling one story in episodic form, and anything in the middle.)

So, I just watched the first episode of Slayers Revolution. I also downloaded the first two scanlated chapters of the manga. Here are my thoughts.

( It's Independence Day! Let's celebrate by Blowing Stuff Up! Lina, you first! )

Break from A Exam studying -- have a book series review!

Has anyone ever had the experience where they didn't enjoy a book (or enjoyed it less than they might have) because it was about something they didn't think it was about?

I read Lilith Saintcrow's Dante Valentine series, about a Necromance(r)* bounty hunter. The first book involves her getting hired by Lucifer (yes, that Lucifer, even if most Judeo-Christian theology Does Not Apply) to chase down a renegade demon who was also a serial killer who killed Dante's lover, Doreen. And...( SPOILERS for the first two or three books! )

So, Lilith Saintcrow and Dante Valentine -- it was a good set of books, but it's not you; it's me. Also, I just bought the first Jill Kismet book and I just hope that Jill remains distinct in my mind from Dante. I mean, I like sarcastic, strong women with interesting abilities and angsty pasts as much as the next person, but I like them to be different.

Just spoke to two people from Cornell Housing (I think...). Apparently they were looking for a grad student who had been sleeping in the stairwell that leads to the roof, and wanted to speak to him and make sure he had somewhere to live and was generally okay. Since one of my officemates keeps weird hours (read: there was a time I had stayed around here until 2 AM playing Axis and Allies, and he was still in the office working when I left), they wanted to make sure it wasn't him.

( How was my weekend? )

Well, back to work. These papers won't read themselves.

Dear Escaflowne Muse,
Midnight when I am trying to sleep is never a good time to hit me with the cure to my writer's block. Never.

-- No love,

Becca Stareyes

In other news, this morning I got about 100 words on my Dresden Files 7 days fic, made some notes on In the Shadow of the Flames (I need to rewatch or skim Escaflowne, to get the layout of the Crusade) and started a new short Escaflowne fic (Monsterslayer is the working title). One of the ones I've been threatening to write for years. 250 words so far.

All before work.

Herein lies reviews. And also My Thoughts on Romance.

So, this time, I'm reviewing Blue Moonby Lori Handeland, Naked in Death by J D Robb (aka Nora Roberts), and The Sharing Knife: Passage by Lois McMaster Bujold.

( Read more... )

And, in the time it took me to write these reviews, I already read two other books. And need to reshelve all of mine. And maybe find a spot for a new bookshelf.

So, about half of these I got thanks to buying two books of short stories -- My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding and My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon and reading them on the bus when I visited my friend Katie. I had mostly bought them because Jim Butcher had thrown in a Dresden Files short for both of them -- Wedding featured the wedding of Billy and Georgia the werewolves and also Murphy meeting Bob, and Honeymoon had an adventure with Harry and Miss Gard (Johnny Marcone's supernatural security consultant).

The short story books themselves were decent -- there were some hits and misses in there, but it had a wide variety of authors, generally centered around the urban/historical fantasy and romance. So, I picked out a few authors I had liked the work of, and bought their books. (Well, ordered them through Paperback Swap -- I had a bunch of credit stored up.)

Between that, some recs form fiends, and a new book in a series I read coming out, I had plenty to read when I visited Colorado.

( Long Reviews are Long )

And, I'm turning this in for now. More later!

Wrote 400 words on In the Shadows of the Flames. Unfortunately, most of it was rewriting Chapter 2 (which was now part of Chapter 1) since the muse decided it wanted only one POV (except it wanted to keep a first-person Celena prolog), and most of the scenes worked from Allen's POV. Knowing my luck, I'll get halfway through and the muse will change its mind.

I also need to work on some fanart for ides_of_march.

Fics written in 2007
( A meme... )

Amusement is hearing one of the professors say 'I don't know what he was smoking' with regards to a non-Cornell astronomer's forecasts about what a future instrument could do in a decade.

(I'm not naming names here -- because EVERYONE in astronomy knows one another. Seriously.)

--
( Spoilers for Avatar 3x08 -- the one that airs in the US next week )

( More writing stuff )

So, I've been on anti-aniexty meds for about a month now. It's a bit annoying, since it seems like I now need an extra hour of sleep, even if I take them near bedtime. Of course, that could just be grad school.

Apparently they also make one have more vivid dreams. I've had three dreams in the last week

( Tripping out on antidepressants )

The funny thing is that I can trace the dreams to what I was thinking about before bed -- either a book I was reading, something I did on the net before bed, or planning fanfic. Normally my dreams are weirder than that.

Can I just express my undying love of Avatar? It's my journal -- of course I can. Spoilers for unaired episodes 7 though 9.

( No, Fire Lord Ozai, <i>you're</i> not wearing pants. )

Something's gonna break between now and episode 12 (at midseason). Either with Zuko, with Iroh's escape, or with the Avatar.

So, I watched The Avatar and the Firelord. Good episode, even if it was a bit info-dumpy regarding events of 200 to 100 years before the present.

( Spoilers and Musings )
I predict massive amounts of reincartnation fic from this episode. Not that it already doesn't exist.

Would someone be willing to look over a Harry Potter fic I wrote*? It's post-DH and focuses on Narcissa Malfoy and Andromeda Black. I ask here, before I make a post at a beta reading community.

* I've written a grand total of ONE HP fic. And somehow, a fic from 'I dare you to write Lord Voldemort/Gilderoy Lockhart slash' doesn't quite give me the confidence to write without review in the fandom. (Man, I really need to write more slash or saffic, just so that's not the only slashy fic on my resume.)

So, I spent an hour cataloging my fics (well, I still need to do the drabbles and ficllets, which is most of them). Eventually I plan on using PHP/MySQL to retool my website's archive into something cool, but it means having a database ready -- that's not the masochistic part, but I'm getting there. Which means fic word counts. Which means getting the counts. Which means opening a lot of stories I haven't read in years...

... my God, my old fics sucked! And, no, that's not an invitation to go read them and tell me otherwise. I'm kind of glad my first two (finished) fics aren't on the net anymore. Though my third fic (the only thing I saved from my time in Digimon fandom) is at least a 'if I gave it a total rewrite, it might be better than half the stuff the fandom puts out'. The other stuff that's about its age is probably in the same boat -- it was mostly written in my silly fanbrat stage.

No, I'm not deleting them. Someone, somewhere, might like them -- after all, they are properly spelled, of a reasonable length, somewhat shippy and have enough characterization that a name swap would be noticable. For fandom, that's not that bad.

Also, eee! My Avatar: The Last Airbender boxset came today! (As in, I had to pause to sign for the package while writing this entry.)

Slayers Fanfic
Breaking Out of Limbo -- Zelgadis/Filia, PG

Original Fic
First Date -- G (Related to Novus Ordo Saeclorum, a RPG I'm in. Katt Silverwing is jchaos's character)
A Custom Worth Importing -- PG (Loosely related to Phoenix Dawn, my old webcomic)