silver

I still can't write that story, a story, any story for that competition. I think I'm paralyzed because (though it's not entirely conscious) I think of the judges, and how they will see any of the stuff I write - what if it's not appealing? Do they want what's conventionally accepted as literature? I bet any weird stories are right out.

*dithering* My icon (dw) is sadly appropriate.

Also, I have yet to find a setting or plot for Nano, and I still am procrastinating on any number of writing assignments. Oh, oh oh....

This is backdated (date: October 4, 2010) to keep the signal boost on top.

I posted a story on AO3. My reaction: ♥ ♥ ♥

You may consider this as my official squee post for AO3.

Having struggled with fanfic.net's !@#%^&* method--especially the really dumb way of uploading documents, as in it's hard to edit in author's notes in later, have to manually add scene breaks after the asterisks disappear--it's so amazing. Edits can be done on the same page (ZOMG). Character pairings, not just character tags (but ff.net has added the latter, which is nice). You can add trigger warnings! (actually, favorite part about this, since I don't write triggery: it forces authors to either declare their triggers or 'choose not to warn'). Adding author notes! Control over who sees it! Even different skins! A mod-system that's talking to the users!

Don't know much about OTW, as I haven't been really involved in that corner of fandom for a long time--the only reason I've discovered AO3 is because of the help_pakistan effort--but for AO3 alone, they deserve a boatload of internets.

I wrote a long post with this title. It promptly disappeared when I switched from HTML reader to Rich Text. I haven't the heart to type it up again (it was very long, full of random side notes and strange things) so I'm just going to assume one of the fates has indicated that she does not like my post--more likely than not--and so ate my post. (Actually, I think maybe I put in the WRONG CODE FOR THE CUT *hits self on head* OH VERY SMART.) Except writing nothing would feel very strange. Hence this mutant paragraph. Heh.

Apparently:



Which means that I've got to read his (I'm going to assume from the name) writing.

Usually when I write in either French or Chinese--wait, scratch that, when I attempt--I open up another Word document, because compared to writing in those other two languages, English is a breeze. Analogy: because I'm far better in English than any other language (which, to be honest, I feel kind of bad about), it always feels like I'm trying to make really fine jewelery with thick gloves on. I know exactly what I want to say, exactly how it should come out--in English. In the other two languages, I'm stretching frantically for the words I know--and they all seem awkward, already-used, repetitive. In English, I have the luxury of fretting about the wording; sometimes in French, I'm utterly at a loss to find the word I'm looking for.

Oh, and also this. I have a book of poetry that I keep in my bathroom to read when I'm brushing my teeth. It's actually really nice, because it's a textbook of sorts, and has all sorts of wry commentary in the back of the book, but also this quote from Octavio Paz, who is, unsurprisingly, both a poet and a prose writer:

First: that is an elegant, beautiful metaphor for this. For me, personally, though, this is interesting. My parents learned English in school, sure, like Canadian children learn Spanish and French as secondary languages in school (Quebec, of course, excepted). But it wasn't until they moved to Canada, in their twenties, before they really used it. The language they had lived with all their lives was not English; the idioms and classics they studied were not English, American, or Canadian. I was born in Canada, raised in North America, and consequently speak English better than I do my parents' language, though I am fluent enough. Like Paz: "I consider myself to be a descendant of [well known writers of Spain]...and yet I am not a Spaniard". I am, I suppose, a strange conglomerate of languages, halfway in English, and halfway in another.

Sorry about the vagueness. I'd rather not put too much personal info on my LJ; I'm kind of paranoid.

I searched up "mixed metaphors" today, and ran across this gem of a website--it's hilarious in a *facepalm* sort of way. Still excellent for giggles. http://www.jimcarlton.com/my_favorite_mixed_metaphors.htm

In other news: OK, Les Miserables is definitely an elongated, highly-populated tale of redemption. I can't even count how many characters fall and are redeemed, except apparently Justice is not quite as adept...

Dear Dr. Gabaldon:

In regards to this article** , I have a few things to say. I get that it's not fun to see your characters mangled, dragged through God-knows-what, and being generally transformed into things that they shouldn't be.

However.


( 1-13, why fanfiction is not the eeeevil. And more! )

Sincerely,
silverflight

P.S. I think that the more I think about this, the more points I have, and so I'll just stop right here. But I just wanted to say--I really do love your books, Diana (may I call you that?) but that post you made was disillusioning.


*edited after realizing what a ginormous post this was; it's been cut
**edit number two: I think she's just removed both posts: the rant one and the follow-up one. If you really want, here's the cached link: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:BBBatogaEfkJ:voyagesoftheartemis.blogspot.com/+voyages+of+the+artemis+cache&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca   To all out there: the internet is forever.

[Error: unknown template qotd]
It's kind of interesting how people are taking this question: some are answering it, straight up, and adding justification either for or against; others are squabbling over semantics (or telling everyone it's about semantics), or bashing the question (I paraphrase: "This is such a tiny issue; if we're caring about this, what about all those human injustices?") and the random spam, of course.

What's neat, though, is to see how people judge words. There are some that say changing the word doesn't make a difference, especially for the pet--they don't, to my knowledge, understand English/human language all that well. There is no point in changing this thing, say this group, and it's just quibbling over a set of words which are similar anyway.

And then there are people who feel that those words do have power. And frankly, though I don't care whether pets have guardians or owners, I agree with this. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" was either a sarcastic remark, or a statement from someone who hadn't felt the lash of words. The vocabulary I use influences the way I say what I my thoughts, how others interpret this, and thus the meaning they draw from it. Do not tell me that formal language, of which I am now using, conveys the same impression that colloquial English does. If I suddenly use words that are everywhere in daily life, I come across differently. Words have power. Sometimes more than we think it does.

 

( Story under the cut )

 

Amazing thing: I have both the time and the idea (that sounds like it'll work [!!]) for a story, something I haven't done since the dying days of November, when I scrambled to put 10K words in on the 30th. Hooray! And hopefully I can upload something tomorrow for brigits_flame .