a fool's musings

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

Warning: Adult Content

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current mood: current mood

"pathological and unbalanced"

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    Music
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2002-07-05 - 10:52 p.m.

i suck

I suck.

Stupid zoo fic.

that is all.

[current mood: grrr...]
[current music: ]
[random quote: ]

~*~

2002-07-05 - 9:12 p.m.

more rambling on writing

So I lied.

I didn't buckle down and answer email this afternoon.

I watched Gosford Park and took a nap.

Great movie, btw. I think, on rewatching, it very possibly should have won the Best Picture Oscar, if LotR couldn't.

Plus, mmmm... Clive Owen.

Beautiful Mind shrinks in my estimation every time I think about it, though Crowe's performance was quite good, accent notwithstanding.

So I'm answering email now, and cruising blogs, all to avoid the zoo fic.

Sigh.

I'm now wondering how many people will remove me from their links after that last entry. Part of me wants to edit the controversial parts out, but that's no fun.

Eh, I'll get over it, if people do decide to unlink me.

Anyone got any good zoo anecdotes they want to share?

I mean, I've got some ideas, and it'll be a short fic - 3000 words, if that. Not that I typically sketch out how many words a story is going to be. I'm not that structured. I write until the story is finished. Sometimes I rush the ending.

I also tend not to get a lot of writing done here at the 'rents. I dunno why. Writing seems an awful lot like work, lately, too, which it didn't used to.

I had a great analogy for it this afternoon, which I've since forgotten.

I used to write slowly until the story took over, and then it was just a rush to get it all down. Yeah, I'd bog down sometimes, and walk away and come back (sometimes *months* later), but I could always count on that *click* that would send the story off and running on its own momentum.

That doesn't happen as much anymore.

I don't know if it's *me* or if it's the type of story I'm writing or what.

I mean, what I've got of Consumption was written in one long spurt last fall, and then nothing since January, really. I sort of know where it's got to go and what's going to happen, but I can't seem to get through one or two necessary conversations, and I'm also worried about Scott's arc. It's got to be believable, you know?

Psychokiller is another long one, though it shouldn't be anywhere *near* as along as Consumption - it should probably top out at 20K words. If I do it right. *g*

I've got to get over my antipathy to plot. Really. Because it's holding me back. I just... it's never been what's interested me. I was always more interested in shipping than in plotting. In my own head, in my own Mary Sueing, it'd always be, "And something else is going on. Don't worry about it." and I'd play out the important relationship scenes in my head.

So I'm beginning to think "original fiction" may be beyond me, simply because the whole idea of setting up and plotting a whole story ... bores me to tears, especially with characters I'd have to make up myself.

Huh.

that's a really bad realization for someone who planned to write novels for most of her life...

God, now I'm depressed...

~victoria

link

[current mood: waaah!]
[current music: Saturday Night's All Right for Fighting - Elton John]
[random quote: I think of you in riddles, 'cause words get in the way]

~*~

2002-07-05 - 1:45 p.m.

me and my big mouth

One day away, and my inbox explodes.

Sheesh.

I've spent the last two hours just catching up on my friends list and starting to wade through the RPF discussion on Glass_Onion.

I think I've made my own position clear. I don't like it, I don't read it and I think it's wrong.

When I say, "I think it's wrong," I don't mean, "I think it's wrong for me but other people can go to town."

I mean, "I think it's wrong. For everyone. Full stop. Period."

I don't much care for moral relativism, whereby something is wrong for me but right for you. If something is wrong, morally or ethically speaking, I'm gonna pretty much say it's wrong across the board.

Will I qualify it?

I certainly will.

To use an issue that is far more important and ethically dangerous.

I think abortion is morally wrong.

Wrong, wrong, wrongity, wrong-o.

I also think abortion should remain legal.

Because I live in a country where my religious views should not and cannot be enforced by the state. (and yes, I love my country, though I don't love everything about it and think we've got some big idiots in office right now, for whom I did not vote, btw. In fact, one of the things I love *most* about the US is this very fact [at least in theory. In practice church and state have never been separate, and they're' not now, but we can keep working towards it as a goal, right?]. I am in no way anti-patriotic, and well, let's just say that since my reaction to 9/11 was intensely personal and involved family members and friends, I'm not going to knock what the armed forces are doing, and in fact in my more hawkish moments, I long for them to wipe those damn terrorists off the face of the planet. As painfully and as completely as possible, and *fuck* their rights. But that's neither here nor there.)

The *government* has to remain neutral until all parties reach consensus. Murder is wrong. Burglary is wrong. Therefore we have laws against them, laws that go back to the code of Hammurabi, 7000 years ago (and I think you'd be surprised at how much of English common law, on which much of American law is based, has in common with the code of Hammurabi. Much more than with, say, the Napoleonic code, which is obviously far more recent.). Society reached a consensus, and nothing in the past 7000 years has really challenged that view.

Your rights, such as they are, end at the tip of my nose.

Abortion, cloning, DNA manipulation, etc. etc. All of these things are the result of new technology (well, *safe* and *healthy* abortions are. Honestly, I can unbend my moral code enough to realize that women have always had and will always have abortions and therefore, it's best to have them legal, and medically sound and safe than it is to go back to back alley wire-hanger botchings), and so all of them will take years and years and years to hash out, because society will have to deal with their effects and see where we end up.

So, RPF - not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. It's an invasion of privacy. A yucky one, in my opinion, that shows clear disrespect for the people involved.

So I don't read it and don't like it and, on the subject of N'Slash and other boy bands, don't get it, 'cause those boys are 1. ugly, and 2. not-very-talented.

It's a whole different kettle of fish when the people are dead. But honestly, I wish people would leave Marilyn Monroe alone. She, and JFK, are like the prototypical RPF subjects, and I for one am sick of it. In the media.

Otherwise, with dead people? Go to town. Write about Old Hollywood, or the deMedici, or Caesar and Cleopatra. Knock yourself out.

Huh.

And all I meant to talk about was yesterday.

Which was loads of fun. Two rounds of cutthroat family pool-volleyball.

Well, not really volleyball as there was no net and no points. It was basically all of us in the pool trying to keep the ball in the air.

The pool water was so wonderfully comfortable, like a warm bath. And for once that's not an exaggeration. I guess the heatwave really warmed it up, because it was about 80 degrees.

So lovely. Perfect for cooling you off from the heat, but not cold enough to make going in all at once a heartstopper.

I guess that's all for now. I'm sure someone else will say something in response to this, which will send me scrambling to defend myself, or at least make me want to.

So, you know, feel free to comment as always, but I'm not going to get into the abortion debate with you, nor anything else of that nature.

~victoria

link

[current mood: ornery]
[current music: Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd]
[random quote: We're just two lost souls living in a fish bowl, year after year...]

~*~

2002-07-04 - 1:35 p.m.

Happy Fourth

Happy 4th, y'all.

Happy Birthday, Mary Ellen.

Once again being rushed out the door.

Possibly zoo fic later, if it ever works out...

This is as patriotic as I get:

Be safe with those fireworks... and don't drink and drive.

~victoria

[current mood: patriotic and rushed]
[current music: Stars and Stripes Forever - Sousa - really...]
[random quote: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal under God]

~*~

2002-07-03 - 9:57 p.m.

ChLexy goodness

Whee!

ChLex! By Jenn!

There's gonna be some bitter "my ex-fiancee is getting married to the love of my life" sex!

Now if I could just get through the damned set up and get Clark and Lex to the zoo, I'd be happy.

~victoria
gearing up for the excessive displays of nationalism sure to occur tomorrow. And yes, I mean *nationalism*, which is a bad, as opposed to *patriotism* which is a good...

[current mood: itchy]
[current music: Mets-Phillies on television]
[random quote: \"God is greater than that we can imagine. Therefore, God exists.\" Frank Pembleton, quoting St. Anselm, H:LotS]

~*~

2002-07-03 - 12:22 p.m.

a reasonable expectation of privacy? Not on the internet.

Been pondering netiquette and blogging.

Right now, there aren't any hard-and-fast rules, but as the phenomenon continues to grow, I think it becomes important for bloggers in fandom to try to lay some groundwork in this area.

The X-Files fandom is going through some growing pains on this issue, because yesterday, some links to fic writers' blogs were posted on a posting board, and those writers didn't take it kindly.

Now, it seems highly disingenuous to me to believe that anything you put out on the internet and don't password protect is private.

My feeling is that if one posts something publicly on the internet, people are going to find it, and these authors who are upset should know better. *shrug* Just because one doesn't advertise one's LJ (and I do. It's linked on my site and in my sig usually, 'cause well, my whole purpose behind the diary was to discuss writing and such publicly, and I don't really write much private stuff, so *of course* I want other people to read, and offer opinions) doesn't mean that people who know one from fandom aren't going to find it, and read it if it's available.

See, having learned fairly early on in my whole blogging career that lots of people I never expected were reading my diary *and* telling other people about it, I have no expectation of privacy. I stand by what I say, though I occasionally end up apologizing for the manner in which I say it.

Anyhow, I don't think there *is* a reasonable expectation of privacy with something that's posted on the internet and isn't password protected.

Yesterday, I found that my LJ came up on a google search, even though it's supposed to be protected from that. So anyone who thinks that someone who likes their fic *isn't* going to find their blog (if they're using the same name) strikes me as being naive, perhaps willfully so.

Having read through the thread, I don't think the people on that board had any malicious intent. They were just geeked that they could learn more about their favorite fan writers. Which I understand.

I think it'd be *nice* if they'd asked before linking, but again, I don't think it's *necessary*.

See Bonibaru for a more pithy statement on the subject. *g*

However, and this is a big however, there's a difference between providing linkage, and providing content.

There seems to be a disconnect on the whole idea that while something is public, it's still not good netiquette to take it from one forum to another without the author's permission.

It's not good netiquette to take a post from a list and post it on a newsgroup without permission, or vice versa.

Hell, back in my Usenet days, if I found an interesting link on one newsgroup that applied to another, I credited the person (e.g., "here's a link to a great article on Buffy. Found it on ath." Or something similar).

The internet is just that - everybody is interconnected, and nobody is that far away from you.

If you don't want people reading your journal, friends-lock it.

Now, as far as non-blogging people - it's hard to explain the sense of intimacy and yet public sharing that blogging carries with it.

I've explained it a couple times in email, and thought I did a diary entry, but I can't find it. When I get on the laptop, I'll look for the thing I wrote and post it if I find it.

But the thing is this - in fandom, bloggers are a loose-knit confederation. I read many diaries and LJs for people in fandoms for which I've never even watched the show (Stargate, Farscape and The Sentinel come to mind), because they're interesting in what they say about writing and fandom, and in some cases, how they talk about their lives.

I've read the journals of a couple people who were "outed" on The Haven, simply because they appear on my Friends of Friends list. That means that anything by friends of people on my friends list that isn't privacy locked is open to me and anyone else who clicks on that link.

And someone thought their journal was private.

::rolls eyes::

Anyhow, blog-to-blog linkage and conversation is one thing. That's expected, I think, by most people who keep a blog/LJ/diary.

Taking stuff from a blog and posting it to a list or a newsgroup strikes me as wrong (and not just because it happened to me).

What it does is takes away my ability to respond to people who disagree with me, if my words are taken and posted somewhere that I don't have access to.

If you disagree with me, talk to *me*. I have an email address, a guestbook, a LiveJournal and the ability to get notes through diaryland.

That's my personal issue, and my personal belief. I'm willing to engage in discussion with anyone who writes to me (and I will do so in a manner appropriate to the note. If you're polite, I'll be polite. If you're not, well, all bets are off.), but I can't do that if I don't know that you have a problem with something I've said.

For those of you who are completely clueless as to netiquette, here's a quick primer. It's a little outdated, but still useful.

I think the same ground rules should apply to blogging as newsgroups and mailing lists.

Mostly, if it seems like a bad idea, it probably is.

Until someone somewhere comes up with the Generally Accepted Netiquette of Blogging (and what are you all looking at *me* for? Get to work on this now!), this will have to do: "Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat." (from Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten)

Yeah, I really like that quote.Got a problem with that?

Feel free to let me know.

Also, only 12 shopping days left 'til my birthday.

Just so you know.

~victoria

link

[current mood: snarky]
[current music: Baby, You're a Rich Man - The Beatles]
[random quote: \"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.\" Dick, _Henry VI, Part 2_, Shakespeare]

~*~

2002-07-03 - 1:33 a.m.

Mary Sue, I (don't) love you

Strange... in looking over "Drowning in Memory" (thanks for the comments, Khaki. I'll get back to you soon), I'm struck again at how my Mary Sues are never love interests. At least, not in XMM.

Cecilia was a MS and she was Logan's freaking daughter.

Logan's not even in Drowning.

Both are gen stories.

Thalia, in Childish Things, started as a bit of a Mary Sue, but come on, who imagines themselves a sex worker who's being *dumped* for the Jedi Code?

But that story demanded a female love interest, because 1. it had to parallel Anakin/Padme, and 2. Qui-Gon is dead, and even if he isn't, that relationship wouldn't have worked for #1.

The only true Mary Sue is Frankie in Xander Steps Up, and she was written that way on purpose. It was totally planned. I knew I was doing it (i.e., Mary Suing), and somehow, that makes it a wee bit better.

And again - summer fling. No lasting impression on the Xand-man. No saving the world, no dying tragically. Just some knowledge of vampires and a cool tat.

I wonder if that means I'm good at stifling my MS tendencies, or if I just don't come up with compelling perfected versions of myself in my fantasies... *g*

Hmm...

Other stuff over in the LJ

Got a Mary Sue theory to share?

~victoria
I should be sleeping

link

[current mood: sleepy]
[current music: Peggy Sue - in my head *g*]
[random quote: \"This is the crack team that foils my every plan? I am deeply shamed.\" Spike, BtVS]

~*~

2002-07-02 - 2:42 p.m.

Books and laundry

So bored.

I was thinking today that I'd love to have the guy in the laundromat's job.

I dropped off 10lbs of towels for washing.

He weighs 'em. He writes down how much it costs. He does laundry.

Admittedly, this particular laundromat is in a crappy neighrborhood, and it has no AC, but isn't that kind of a nice life, once you get past the reflexive 'yuck' of handling other people's dirty laundry?

Of course, then I was in B&N buying Coraline, and I thought, hey, I'd like to work here. Maybe as a reshelver or one of the people who mans the reference stations or even a buyer or something.

And then I paid for all the books I bought, and Coraline was only one of 'em (I was doing really well until I walked past the "Great Summer Reads" table.

And I was lost.

Dammit.

I should know better. I *do* know better.

And it's not like i'm not planning on going to the Coraline signing next week at the big B&N down on Union Square. So I didn't even need to buy the freaking book today. But the bookstore was calling me, and I had to go.)

So when I got the bill for the books I knew that life in a laundromat was not for me, as I couldn't afford to do this on a biweekly basis on whatever a guy in a laundromat makes.

Sigh.

So yeah, planning on getting to the Coraline singing on 7/11. I know Melymbrosia mentioned going... I figure I can get him to sign my copy of Brief Lives, as a birthday present. And if I have to buy another copy of Coraline, I'll get that signed and give this copy to Alyssa or something.

In other news, I've been dumping fic snips over in the LJ - the snips that will probably never make it to fully realized stories. You can go look at them here.

I'll probably be adding to the collection as I weed through the WIPs. I've got a lot of WIPs. *g*

Oh, what books did I buy?

Confessions of a Shopaholic, A Shopaholic Takes Manhattan, Anil's Ghost, The Secret Book of Grazia de Rossi, and, on the non-fiction front, A Cold Case by Philip Gourevitch.

Sigh... Books...

Will I ever have time to read them all?

Gonna eat my pizza now...

~victoria

link

[current mood: profligate, bored and hungry]
[current music: Out of My Brain on the 5:15 - the Who]
[random quote: Oz: Hey, you got a table. Willow: I had to kill a man. Oz: Well, it's a really good table.]

~*~

2002-07-02 - 10:30 a.m.

'the things they carried'

Finished The Gates of Anubis last night.

I liked it, though it did drag for a short bit about 1/4 of the way in. In between the time he hears Yesterday and identifies its source.

But it was good fun all around, and while my head always hurts at the time travel paradox thingy, Powers managed to handle it adroitly and intelligently.

So thanks, Melymbrosia, for reccing it to me, and yeah, I'd recommend it if you're looking for a good, exciting, *intelligent* time travel book.

Now I'm onto The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. I've only read the first chapter - started it on the train this morning - and it's already breaking my heart.

They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing-these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide, and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of all, for it could never be put down, it required perfect balance and perfect posture. They carried their reputations. They carried the soldier's greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment. They crawled into tunnels and walked point and advanced under fire. Each morning, despite the unknowns, they made their legs move. They endured. They kept humping. They did not submit to the obvious alternative, which was simply to close the eyes and fall. So easy, really. Go limp and tumble to the ground and let the muscles unwind and not speak and not budge until your buddies picked you up and lifted you into the chopper that would roar and dip its nose and carry you off to the world. A mere matter of falling, yet no one ever fell. It was not courage, exactly; the object was not valor. Rather, they were too frightened to be cowards.

(NB: 'Humping' in this case means carrying.)

Sigh.

Beautiful writing about a bad situation from a man who was there.

I'm thinking I ought to give up on the Logan in Nam fic in the face of this, because there's no way I can say it any better than O'Brien just did, and basically, the story is about Logan telling Rogue the futility of war for frontline soldiers, and the monotony and how it's just a matter of getting up and hoping and not hoping and managing to live from one day to the next, and while for Logan it's not that big a risk, for everyone else it is, and he doesn't want to see her in that situation, if she becomes an X-Man.

And could that sentence be any longer?!

So yeah, pondering Logan in 'Nam. '67 seems a good year. Or possibly '69. I'm not sure. I think I have notes somewhere. And possibly with "Gimme Shelter" blaring on my walkman, and visions of choppers and China Beach, I'll still do it. I'm thinking Logan is a sniper, and he hooks up with a patrol and things get FUBAR and he remembers...

I don't know.

I've at least begun the bloody knuckles scene of psycho killer, though. Just have to work through the very elliptical L/R conversation, in which neither admits they have feelings for the other. I don't think there's going to be any RST between them in this fic. I dunno. Same with Day's Hard Light. You know how there's pre-slash? I think these (like Caliper) would qualify as pre-het. *g*

And speaking of Caliper - it's up at the site, if you're in the mood for a little gen fic.

~victoria

link

[current mood: good]
[current music: Shattered - the Rolling Stones]
[random quote: Pride and joy and dirty dreams will keep surviving on these street]

~*~

2002-07-01 - 4:15 p.m.

style influences the fandom which influences style...

Just a quick note about the style entry below.

I don't know if it means anything, but Lost and Found was written fairly early on my fanfic "career" (October 2000).

The Ghost In You was written during the heyday of L/R fandom (January 2001).

Redecorating was written in February 2002, in response to an opening line challenge.

So I don't know if you can say my style has evolved at all, because looking at my very first fic, and the very last thing I posted in XMM (prior to Language, because that's a complete stylistic departure and a gimmicky fic), from Enough for Now to Object of His Affections, I think I might have *deteriorated* as a writer in some ways. Hmm...

Or just gotten lazy in my main fandom, because I'd say All Summer In a Day is pretty good, but it's Smallville, not X-Men.

Which brings up another question - how much does *fandom* influence style?

I mean, SV is full of people imitating Te and Jenn, and full of people writing present tense thought pieces.

How much of that is the influence of the fandom on the writer? How many writers who came from other fandoms see a major change in their style after a couple of months in Smallville?

Anyone got an answer? Anyone care to share?

I don't see any change in my own, per se, though I have made a sea change from mostly a happy/fluffy writer in XMM to a definite angst girl in SV...

~victoria
looking through the WIPs to see which ones will never get written... possibly some snippage later on...

link

[current mood: thoughtful]
[current music: Sweet Emotion - Aerosmith]
[random quote: \"Let me give you some advice, Tim. Never try to hustle a Sicilian.\" Al Giardello, HLotS]

~*~

2002-07-01 - 12:38 p.m.

Tham's Style Challenge

Tham's style challenge:

The Challenge

Have you ever tried to define your style, to break it down and represent it in a short paragraph? In a previous discussion here, marinarusalka and I worked out that all writers have styles; it's just that sometimes we associate the word with more flamboyant, word-conscious writers. Style can be terse, metaphoric, verb-driven, theatrical, sparse...Sometimes it changes, too, depending on the narrator, the context. Some speakers will require a more forceful, spare style; others will encourage the details.

My real question is: if you had to define your fiction-writing style, what would you say? Can you write a paragraph or ten in which you define your own style, including examples from your writing?

I've always maintained that I do not have a recognizable style.

At least, to my own mind, I don't.

I think I write mostly dialogue, internal and external. I guess I'd go with "spare" or "sparse" or "clean."

::nods::

Clean is good. I consider that one of the highest compliments anyone can pay me.

I have clean prose. I aim for fluid or liquid or lyrical, but rarely achieve it. I use lots of short sentences and one sentence paragraphs for punch, but can on occasion spin out a long, Faulknerian sentence that goes every which way. My betas are constantly at me to chop those up.

I'd say I'm workmanlike, with rare flights into descriptive fancy, usually when describing a person or their feelings, but rarely in the description of the location or surroundings.

I don't think you could pick my writing out of a lineup, though I was proved wrong on that when we did just such an experiment last summer - Jen, Meg, Pete and I all wrote a snippet of about 500 words, all revolving around the same brief scenario - Buffy tells Willow that Xander has been hurt - and presented them to Dot to idenitfy, sans names. Not only was Dot able to identify me, so were a few people on the Unfit list, when we later posted the snips there.

I think, though, that you'd have to have read a whole shitload of my stuff to be able to do it.

So clean, workmanlike and heavy on the dialogue. Not too many stylistic tricks, like fragments, but dialogue does overlap sometimes, or interrupts or is fragmentary, as real conversation is wont to be.

Okay. Let's choose stories at random and pull out a paragraph or two...

::closes eyes and clicks randomly::

From

Lost and Found, the X-Men/Homicide crossover and one of my earliest stories:

"Detective Kellerman?" The speaker was a medium-sized woman he guessed was about his own age, though she gave the impression that she was older. Her face showed evidence of a hard life. Her hair was mostly gray and hung past her shoulders in a frizzy mass. She had a deep southern accent and an air of resignation, acceptance of what life had dealt her, which he bet a lot of people mistook for stupidity.

Details clicked into place in his mind. Husband left her for someone younger, won't pay alimony or child support. She's probably living in an unkempt rowhouse in Pigtown.

"How can I help you, Mrs.," he paused slightly, "Smith?" Why can't they ever be original? he wondered idly, directing her to sit in the client's seat while he slid behind the desk.

Her hands worried at the strap on her black handbag. They were big-knuckled and rough-looking. Mrs. "Smith" had washed a lot of dishes in her time, he thought.

"I'm tryin' to find my daughter," she said, throwing all his preconceptions to the wind. He hated the search, so often fruitless, for missing kids. People only came to him when the police turned up nothing, and by that point, it was usually too late, in one way or another.

Hmm... more description than I would have guessed, actually, but simple stuff. All of Mrs. "Smith" instead of the office or something. And I think I nailed Kellerman's cynicism.

From Redecorating:

She'd kissed him and boarded the jet.

And now she was dead.

He fell to his knees on the carpet, metal-reinforced bones denting the floor even through the extra padding she'd insisted on, and pressed his face into the comforter that still held their mingled scents.

For the first time in the twenty years he could remember, he wept, in bitter, wracking sobs that made him feel as if he would never stop, could never stop.

Finally, he climbed into the bed, wrapped himself in the sheets that still smelled of her, and willed himself to sleep, so he could dream that she was in his arms.

Hank found him that way an hour later, and hadn't the heart to wake him.

Yup. Short sentences, terse even. Sensory descriptions are almost non-existent, because while there's the carpet and the comforter and the scents, I don't tell you what anything looks like, or smells like. I really should work on that.

From The Ghost In You:

He saw that Scott was right when he walked into the bar. It was a cozy little pub, all dark wood and moose antlers. The people who frequented it were fishermen, and he could smell their profession from a mile away. He didn't know how Marie stood it.

She had her back to him as he walked in and slid onto a stool at the end of the bar closest to the door. She was busy serving some food and he watched how her hips swayed as she moved, and how her jeans pulled tight across her ass when she bent over the bar.

He lit a cigar and waited.

One of her customers pointed out that someone new had come in. He saw her eyes flick to his in the mirror and then widen in shock. She pulled a bottle of Wild Turkey down off the shelf, picked up a glass and sauntered over.

"That it, sugar?" she asked, pouring the bourbon into the glass, as if he hadn't broken her heart and sent her running across the country.

He nodded. "How much?" he said, as if he hadn't driven six thousand miles to find her.

Okay, a wee bit more description here, but still, short sentences. People talking elliptically, hiding their feelings. Which is a Logan thing, I think. I mean, he doesn't like to talk or even think about his own feelings, though he'll ponder someone else's, if that person is important to him. So there's a lot of pregnant pausing when he narrates, as he tries to avoid showing too much emotion and attempts to puzzle out the other person's emotions from their scent and body language.

Just for variety, a Rogue POV, from Time's Fool:

Rogue thought furiously. Over the years, she'd been afraid this might happen -- Logan only kept this apartment so that he didn't have to bring his women to the mansion. But she'd never actually met one of them, so they'd always seemed a little unreal.

"Cleaning service," she croaked, which wasn't entirely untrue. I do his cleaning and his laundry, and pick up his mail when he's jackassing around the country, she thought, trying to ignore the woman as she headed into the bedroom with the laundry bag.

She wrinkled her nose at the heavy scent of sex that lingered there. The sheets were a mess, the comforter on the floor. She sighed; she hated making the bed. She knew he'd do it if she didn't -- he was a neat-freak, probably a leftover from his time in the military -- but she really needed to get those sheets off. The smell of him mixed with the blonde was bothering her immensely.

"He just went out to get some cigars," the blonde said, having followed her. "I didn't believe him when he told me it was the maid's day off, but I guess he wasn't lying."

Rogue bit her tongue. She knew he was just joking when he said stuff like that, but she wasn't exactly thrilled to be relegated to "maid" status. Though maybe if she wore that sexy outfit... Stop it, Rogue. He's never seen you as a woman, and he's not going to start now. You're over it, girl. Stay that way. But she couldn't help it. Her first long-term relationship had broken up a few months ago, and she was still feeling the loss. Greg had moved away from the mansion, and she didn't have to see him every day, but the wounds on her heart were still fresh. Especially considering he was still calling her, wanting his stuff back. As if she had any desire to keep his stupid Grateful Dead CDs. She didn't even *like* the Dead.

She leaned the laundry bag against the dresser, forgetting all about the sheets. She couldn't be here when Logan came home. It was bad enough that he'd know she'd been here at all. "I'll be back at a more convenient time," she told the blonde, brushing past her and going to the door.

Hmm, longer, more involved sentences than with Logan or Kellerman, definitely more internal monologue, though I do that with Logan, too.

I suppose this is also different in that it's an expository lump, so maybe that's why the sentences are longer - I'm *telling*, as opposed to *showing*, another tendency I need to work on.

I hate exposition.

So, there you have it.

I think my style is pretty much what I think it is, but if you have thoughts, feel free to share 'em.

~victoria

link



[current mood: thoughtful]
[current music: Love Reign O'er Me - the Who]
[random quote: The night is hot and black as ink, I try to sleep and I lay and I think, ooh, God I need a drink of cool. cool rain]

~*~

2002-07-01 - 9:37 a.m.

men again

In the guestbook, Cschoolgirl makes some very interesting comments on my whole "where are the real men in movies today?" thing. Her theory is (and I'm just summarizing here) that a lot of the actors I've called "boys" or said that they look like they're locked in perpetual adolescence, they've grown up on screen with me.

Take Tom Cruise. Please. (Sorry. I have a borscht belt comedian inside, itching to break out at the most inopportune moments. Dunno why. Call me Shecky. Call me Henny. Just don't call me late for dinner. Ba-dum-bum Oy. Make it stop!)

Ahem.

Tom Cruise.

Aside from the fact that he *looks* like he's still in his mid-20s, I first saw him - or actually *noticed* him - dancing around in his underwear in "Risky Business." Then there was "All the Right Movies" (jock), "Top Gun" (fighter pilot) etc. etc. So *of course* I have a hard time picturing him as say, Atticus Finch or Sam Spade (or a character in that grown-up mold). He's like your little cousin Mikey. He could be 6'4 and 220, married with four kids, and he's *still* gonna be "little Mikey" to you. As I've been on the receiving end of this, I can see it has some merit as a theory.

Anyhow, it also gives me the excuse to daydream about various hot guys in various states of undress as I contemplate them either growing up onscreen (come on - anyone out there who saw "ET" in its first run ever going to see Henry Thomas as anyone *but* Elliot?) and men who've erupted fully grown onscreen, and therefore have a more manly presence, because I've never seen them play anything else (Hugh Jackman, anyone?).

It's a theory, anyway. *g*

I'm currently contemplating Thamiris's style challenge. Will get back to youse on that.

Plus, answering The Beta Question over in the LJ.

~victoria

link

[current mood: okay]
[current music: Rust Never Sleeps - Neil Young]
[random quote: It's better to burn out than to fade away, my, my, hey, hey]

~*~

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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.

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