a fool's musings

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Fool, said my muse to me,
look in thy heart and write...

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the five Ws, or, all about me

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current mood: current mood

"pathological and unbalanced"

Items of Interest

    Music
  • Walk On - U2
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  • If I Can't Change Your Mind - Sugar
  • Sick of Myself - Matthew Sweet
  • Town Called Malice - The Jam
  • One - U2
  • The Space Between - DMB
    Books
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2002-01-27 - 11:26 p.m.

the goddess within

The goddess quiz. Beth sent it to me. Love Beth.

My results were a tie:

See which Greek Goddess you are.

See which Greek Goddess you are.

And you know, I think that fits.

~victoria



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2002-01-27 - 9:34 p.m.

A Modest Proposal

Y'know, it really pisses me off when I settle down on the couch, ready to watch one of my shows, and IT ISN'T FREAKING ON.

No Alias tonight.

Waaah!

Oh well, next week starts Feb sweeps, which means new eps all around, eh?

So, talking with Mom about book burnings and bannings and removing Harry Potter from the schools, and I think I have the solution to the problem.

Save the books.

Burn the people.

I mean, have you seen the list of books people want banned?

It's here.

A Wrinkle in Time?

The Great Gilly Hopkins?

James and the Giant Peach???

Are these people on crack?

Feh.

I think we'd all be better off as a society if people who couldn't handle new ideas weren't allowed to push their love of ignorance off on the rest of us.

You don't like Harry Potter [or Slaughterhouse Five or Forever] - don't fucking read it. But don't tell me that I or my children can't.

***

In other news, got to thinking a little about some of the stuff I've said recently regarding feedback, and I decided I wanted to be a little more clear about what I mean.

There was talk about author worship on glass_onion and zendom recently, and we all know it exists. There are some authors in every fandom who could fall asleep, head on the keyboard, post the results, and get glowing feedback.

You know it. I know it. The American people know it.

And if others pointed out the deficiencies of said approach to writing, the fans of the author would jump up and down and cry persecution, not to mention the author herself.

I discussed, a while back, the idea that such fic goddesses are highly uncomfortable with that designation because they still see themselves as unpopular and outsiders.

It's possible I am the very proof of this theory.

I don't claim to be a goddess. I know, per my experience, that I don't get that type of acclaim. As I've said, to me, that type of standing is about the recs, the word of mouth stuff, and I don't see that about me. I'm not mentioned when someone new asks, "What are the classics of the W/R genre? What authors are can't miss?"

And then a dozen people post with their list of three or four names, all of whom would be on my list as well. The ones who began it all: Diebin, Donna, Misty, Molly, Elizabeth. From the later folks, Jenn and Terri.

I'm not trying to come off as whiny or unhappy about my feedback. I'm *so* not trying to do that. I'm just stating the facts *as I know them* in response to a discussion that intrigued me.

So, to anyone who ever sends me feedback, I love you and want to have your babies.

To everyone who doesn't, hey, that's your choice. Whatever. ::resisting the urge to do big puppydog eyes and whine, "Why don't you love me?":: *g*

But anyway, that's where most of this has come from, and yes, as Meg tells me, I need to get over myself.

~victoria
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2002-01-27 - 2:45 p.m.

experiments in style

Sarah T. asked some very interesting questions yesterday:

If you're a writer, do you consciously try to push your generic or stylistic 'limits'? What makes you decide to do so? Does it work? How does it feel when an experiment, in your own judgment, fails?Do you find that writing in different fandoms causes you to push these limits? At what point should you simply say, 'This is me, this is what I am, it's a mistake for me to try to be anything else' and work within the limits you've discovered for yourself? Are there things you want to try, but haven't? Are there things you'll never try--not because you object to them aesthetically, but because you think you're not suited to them as a writer?

Do I consciously push myself to try new things? I'd say yes - to a degree.

I write what interests me. I've written both past (most everything I've written. Best-Laid Plans, In Plain Sight, etc.) and present tense (The Space Between, A Thousand Words, Learning to Accept); first person (Learning to Accept, Best Laid Plans, Envious Moon), third person limited (32 Flavors, Chasing the Blast) and multiple POV stories that are narrated by different people in different sections (Parallax, Untouchable Face). I've written unreliable narrators (Untouchable Face, Very Sickness of My Heart). I've written AUs in which I thought I was successful at keeping the characters immediately recognizable and yet sufficiently different because of circumstances (Soiled Dove, Off the Corner, Consumption [I hope]), and future-fic (Harbor in the Tempest).

I tend to stick to the same pairing, so there I'm monotonous, but I've written comedy (Flirtation 101, The Real Slim Shady), "angst" (Long Hard Road, Keep It Like A Secret, Very Sickness), noir (Soiled Dove, Jim Morrison's Dead), romance (Complications, sort of, Mutant Bride *g*, Touch of Frost), happy endings, sad endings, unresolved endings, and a healthy helping of stripper!fic, which I think grows out of my noir obsession.

Is it conscious? Some of the shorter pieces are intended as exercises in style, since I don't feel I have much in the way of a recognizable style, though I'm told my writing is recognizable to people who've read enough of it.

I follow whatever interests me. I've written everything from PWP (Bikini Kill) to rapefic (The Long Hard Road Out of Hell) to slash (Caveat Emptor, Alive and Dying, Counting Down). The only thing I've never done is straight-up action/adventure. Also, I don't write much gen/noromo/casefile fic, though I suppose In the Service of the Queen comes very close to being episode-like.

And oh, the thing about second person people are mentioning, I will never write that, because I *loathe* second person stories. I can think of two, off the top of my head, that I liked, and I think it's *such* a gimmicky way of doing things that it totally violates my own personal ethos of making myself disappear as much as possible from the story.

Hmm...

I honestly think the only thing I've really "failed" at in writing is creating an original character. Cecilia in Ties That Bind is... stereotypical, and Frankie in Xander Steps Up is an admitted Mary Sue. Aimee in In Plain Sight is the closest I've come, I suppose. Patrice and Daisy were both stock, 2D characters and were meant to be that way.

But then, as I've mentioned, I'm not one of those writers who looks at what I've written and cringes. I mean, in some cases I do, but for the most part, I'm fairly happy with my work. I don't know if that's a sign of an overinflated ego or some serious denial at work, but there it is.

Yeah, there are certainly some stories that need reworking, and some that didn't work quite as well as I'd expected or planned, but overall, I think it's fairly obvious which stories I worked hardest on, and that are dearest to my heart - those are the best ones. And it's obvious which ones just sort of started boring me (Second Chances) or that I was never truly invested in to begin with (Two Out of Three Ain't Bad) or that were just written to appease someone or prove a point (Trust and Other Games We Play).

I think I've accepted that there are certain types of stories that don't particularly interest me (hurt/comfort, torture for the sake of torture, unrelentingly dark fic, i.e., angst for the sake of angst) and certain techniques in which I'm not, as a writer, comfortable.

~victoria

PS: All stories listed here are available at my site.

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2002-01-26 - 11:00 p.m.

tension about tenses

Gah!

Can you tell I've been away all day? Now I can't stop adding to my damn diary! I'm like a junkie at the K-mart of crackhouses... "Attention shoppers, crack has just been reduced to $7 a vial. Yes, for the next two hours, all blue tops are only $7, marked down from $10 by your friendly neighborhood drug dealer! Come and get it while you can!"

So I was doing my blog-rounds, reading various people's journals, as I'm wont to do each day, and Thamiris had an interesting question about tenses - i.e., past v. present, and why we choose what we choose to write in.

My response is this [also posted in the comments in Tham's LJ]:

Typically, I find present tense best for short character vignettes in which some introspection is done or a real life-change occurs. I think two of the best things I've written are in third person present tense (The Space Between and A Thousand Words, if anyone's actually interested), but I don't think the narrative of either could be sustained much beyond the thousand words each uses.

Otherwise, to me, it's an intrusive technique, and one that definitely shows I'm reading a story. It's not as intrusive as second person narration [which, thank god, isn't prevalent because it's rarely done well and I don't like it much even then], but to me, if you're telling a story - which is the whole *point* of writing - the story should have already happened.

I have used devices like letters [unfinished epistolary fic languishing on my hard drive], dreams and journal entries to insert some present tense narrative into a past-tense story, and I think it can enhance the work if done correctly and sparingly [and if it doesn't confuse the reader *g*], but yeah, past is my tense of choice when writing something with a plot.

Present tense is a lot easier for newer writers, much as first person can be, and I think it provides a veneer of intimacy that a lot of fic writers like.

Me, I'm big on authorial distance and filtering myself out of the story, so I like third person past, and have been contemplating trying a true third person omniscient narrator.

The present tense stories usually demand that tense, and don't work well when changed to past tense, because of the structure of the sentences and the language used, but as I said, it always makes me feel as if my metaphorical slip [i.e., that I'm writing a story] is showing.

Obviously, mileage varies.

Sarah T. also asks some good questions about experimenting with style and content, but I don't have enough brain power at the moment to write something up, so I'll do that in the morning, I think.

But very interesting questions, both.

~victoria

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2002-01-26 - 10:20 p.m.

Art of the Mix

More mix tape madness:

Art of the Mix

Thanks to Pete Milan, aka "Other Pete" for the linkage.

I'm such a happy mixmistress at the moment.

Also contemplating the long list of guys named Peter who've floated in and out of my life... but we won't go into that here.

~victoria

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2002-01-26 - 9:11 p.m.

the new house

Busy day, probably not of interest to any of youse (sic), but finally got to see the inside of the parents' new house.

Very nice.

It's a ranch, which is what my mother wanted -- no stairs -- except down to the basement, which is finished, and has its own full bathroom, well, it's got a shower stall, not a tub, but still, that gets the job done.

Marg and Anthony painted the room that's going to house Daddy's PC and desk etc. Mommy wants the whole house painted white, even though we've all tried to convince her to add some color, even if just in having Marg do some stenciling up by the ceiling. Mais non.

Mary Ellen and Sal showed up and the kids all played for a while before M&A got down to work on the painting and M&D went to King Kullen.

So I entertained Alyssa and Anthony instead of writing, as I'd planned, and then Helen and the kids showed up, so there was much shrieking and running. Then Frank showed up with pizza and zeppole and dinner was had.

And get this - on the way to the house, we went over the highest point on the island. I honestly thought the whole thing was flat, but these hills, while not impressive to anyone from a place with real mountains, are pretty damn hilly.

I mean, at the top of the tallest one, you could look back and see the ocean, which is pretty damn cool.

So that was the day in a nutshell.

Fun. Tiring. I packed a bag with my notebook and all my drafts, and didn't get a word of writing done until I got home. Just a wee bit on Time's Fool. I'm hoping to skip over most of the actual Rogue/Alex stuff to get to the good parts, but I know there has to be *something* there. I mean, if it were a movie, I could get away with a cute montage of Alex and Rogue going on dates and being mushy, but in writing I have to actually describe some of it.

Since it doesn't appeal, Logan is going to do most of the describing, since it doesn't appeal to him either. *g*

I'm hoping I can finish that one up fairly soon, and get back to work on Consumption, which I've been putting off. Sigh.

A writer's work is never done. *g*

~victoria
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2002-01-26 - 12:47 a.m.

magic in three easy lessons

'nother great link from Pete: The Escapist: Random Encounter

for all those idiots who want to ban Harry Potter.

~victoria

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2002-01-25 - 10:48 p.m.

Rescue me!

All right, just made me a set of rescue disks, because I had a scare when I turned the laptop on and got nothing but a blank screen.

Aaaaiiieee!

You know, this is going to date me [as if I haven't done that numerous times already], but I remember when a boot disk was one 5 1/2" floppy. And I remember using one on the old IBM XT I worked on at RIRM. I'll never forget the day I upgraded that old warhorse to DOS 6.0 and the boot disk didn't work, and I was on the phone with Daddy, staying late in a panic because I knew MTS would have a hissy fit if I destroyed the departmental PC.

Turned out I had two floppies, hadn't labeled them, and was trying to use the blank one as the boot disk.

Ah, me. The old days...

So the training was actually pretty interesting. I was a little late [one of the boys called for my help as I was packing up. Typical.] so I had to sit right up front, which I *loathe*. I always sit in the back if possible.

I made Leslie miserable for weeks after she made me sit up front at some session at Meeting World two years ago. *g*

Anyhow, since I was right upfront, I couldn't fiddle around [and the training PCs didn't have internet access. Sigh.], and the trainer spent a lot of time leaning on my table. So she saw me reading and moving ahead.

Heh. Still got the "good student" vibe working for me. Of course, the class was filled with "career secretaries", a group which I've recently joined, I guess, of the type who complain every time something is upgraded or changed, and many whispers of "The old system was much easier. So much better" could be heard throughout.

People are very change averse. I'm no exception, though technology changes don't bother me so much nowadays. Of course, I *hated* moving to Windows from DOS. I loved DOS.

I know. That makes me weird.

Well, it's one of the things that makes me weird.

So tomorrow I'm going out to see the new house. Should be interesting, talking about change averse. I don't know how I'm going to handle this whole moving thing. I mean, it's all right for us kids to move around, but the parents are supposed to *stay put*, be the anchor, the place we can all run back to in case of emergency. And they still will be, except they'll be 60 miles away from me now, instead of literally around the corner.

Hmm...

~victoria
current mood: sleepy
current music: Long Snake Moan - PJ Harvey "It's my voodoo working" *g*



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2002-01-25 - 12:07 p.m.

It's all in the mix

Cool thing I found - mix-tapes.diaryland.com.

Well, I think it's incredibly cool, because I'm constantly making tapes - CDs now - for people and for myself.

I put the track listing for the CD I made Jen up there. I need to mail that, but I'm enjoying listening to it quite a bit. It's all about living with the mix for a while before sending it off. Of course, this isn't a rewriteable disc, so if I didn't like the mix, I couldn't fix it, but let's face it, with shuffle, I'm no longer in control of the flow anyway (and I can't tell you how much that disturbs me. Yes, I *am* a control freak. ;)

I should have been a DJ. Vin Scelsa has my dream job.

Sigh.

Maybe someday.

~victoria
PS: I misspelled "Boy" on the track listing. How the hell I typed "Bow" instead of "Boy" is beyond me, but I am a doofus. That's going to bug me for days now, because I can't edit it...

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2002-01-25 - 9:47 a.m.

Meta musings

Actually have a bunch of work I have to get done this morning, because I'm going to training this afternoon.

Training I didn't find out I needed until this past Tuesday, and today is the last class and damn, I have NO interest in learning this stupid software to take attendance.

Crap. Can't they just use Excel like normal people?

So I've been doing a lot of thnking [a dangerous pastime, I know. *g*] and I adore all the meta-discussion of fandom and writing etc., even if no one ever actually *answers* *my* questions [and I have a list. A real list, not like one of Pete's fictional ones], but I'm learning I spend all my time thinking about meta and then no writing gets done.

Which is interesting.

Maybe not to you, but for me it is. Considering how much I actually enjoy writing while I'm doing it, I spend an awful lot of time avoiding doing it. I don't know why that is.

Could it just be that sometimes it feels like work, and (as if you couldn't tell, as I type in my diary instead of doing my mailings that have to get done before I leave at 12:30 today to go to LIC) I am a procrastinatrix extraordinaire? Or just a lazy bastard, anyway.

But I have a feeling that at some point, the meta sucks the fun out of the actual fic, much like the discussion started sucking the fun out of Buffy for me, which is one reason I dropped out of the ngs. The show's waning creativity and relatively crappy writing may also have something to do with it as well, but I find it much easier to slough off a bad BtVS episode if I'm not rehashing it from all angles 24/7, you know?

So yeah, I can see that fandom is weighing heavily on a number of people, and though I don't know the details [and don't want to], I don't want that to be me. I mean, yeah, I have my own fandom issues, which make me queasy when I think too long about them, and spend too much time formulating responses to questions about them, and that also detracts from the writing...

Anyhow, my list of meta questions, which will have to get more in-depth discussion from me at another time, includes: why is slash allegedly inherently "superior" to het or gen fic? Who made slashers the top of the fic pyramid? And why? Also, do people really believe fic is trangressive? That it means something, signifies something more than a bunch of people exercising their talent and getting their rocks off, at base? I mean, yeah, the sociologic/anthropologic ramifications are truly interesting, the way a fandom builds a community and how it grows and dies, but that works for non-fic types of fan forums as well - I mean, you could look at atbvs or ath and do the same sort of study, except that it's discussion of the ur-text (i.e., the show) instead of the creation of new texts based on the ur-text. I'm also still pondering the question of marketing and how people place their fic, and how I personally market it, and I do, I admit it. Still waiting to hear on the foof v. angst question, which everyone sort of avoids every time I bring it up somewhere. And I also am wondering about direct links and people who don't like to be archived and what the whole reasoning is behind that, 'cause it doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but then, see marketing question...

So let me go back to compliance letters so I can go get trained this afternoon - i.e., sit in a stuffy room for 4 hours bored out of my skull, drinking bad coffee and spending four hours away from my email. I think that might kill me.

victoria
current mood: contemplative
current music: The Shining - Badly Drawn Boy



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The painting is "Boreas" by John William Waterhouse. Again, not a muse, but I like her. She suits the color scheme.

The quote is from Sir Philip Sidney.

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