Standing On Boxes

For some reason… I ended up working on a later part of “The Apprentice” (Part 7) instead of parts 4-6 like I should have.

Idea for a new fic… one of the Lost Relative fics. Only a basic outline for the first part so far…

I’ve changed my fic rating page. It isn’t perfect but it no longer has the MPAA ratings on it. I’ve also started going thru all of my fics to change them. Going by ratings – Most of my fics seem to be approximately the same. Not too much violence, no sex, occasional subtext. Kind of boring.

Just haven’t been in the mood for much writing the past 2 weeks.

Minor update to the next part of The Apprentice – still needs the sword fight scene to bridge to the next part and tweaking of the rest of it.

Minor update to the next part of The Summoned – not too happy with it. What has ended up on screen so far is not how I have it in my head. Yet.

Looks like the Motion Picture Association of ‘merika might be going after people who use their rating system for rating fan fiction. Only one fic site seems to have gotten a “Cease and Desist” letter (and can prove it) in the last week… and there haven’t been any press releases or anything like that from the jolly folks in Encino or their lawyers or any other proof… and none of the huge fic archives like ff.net have mentioned getting such a letter (I’m assuming that if they have.. their lawyers are checking into it…)

So it could be a hoax or someone is out to get that one fic site.

But just in case… TtH is planning to change to a different rating system. As soon as that happens I’ll use that for my fics here on my blog.

Finished posting my four Faith-centric fics to the Faithful-Chickies mailing list. Some minor tweaking. Managed to avoid any real revisions though I tried to change one of them slightly so my newer story “The Apprentice” lines up better with the universe it is set in.

Is it just that I haven’t noticed it before or are the jelly beans in bloom early this year?

Last year I actually managed to write a Valentines Day related chapter for a fic. (See the ‘A Girl and Her Toys.’ ficlet in the ‘Girl in a Bar’ series.)

The closest I’ve gotten this year was a reference to an unwritten “Eerie, Indiana” chapter in my story “The Apprentice”… but no actual story. Maybe next year.

Part I of Summoned is moving too slowly. Ugh… I know where the BtVS portion is going (slowly) but the “Keeper” portion, you’ll notice, is kind of sketchy. I had a cute idea – Diana and Sam arguing about something but I can’t figure out how to get the idea moving as an actual story.

There are often days when I just want to read fan fiction, not write it. Not sure why. Usually certain kinds of fics fit the criteria. I might spend the evening reading B/F or B/T or crossovers or anything else. It really depends on my mood. Today… the fics I’m interested in are the ones over at CJ’s Place. CJ writes crossovers. Heavy on the NC-17. But that isn’t why I read CJ’s fics. I actually tend to skip the sex scenes. His Buffy and other characters seem very out-of-character at times

But… his Buffy has a certain charm. An energy. An enthusiasm that the canon Buffy lost after too long in Sunnydale. His Buffy may occasionally have a rough time but you know she’ll come out on top in the end. She’s fun to read about/spend time with. Even though she isn’t a canon character.

Not too shabby considering the ear buds don’t stay in if you fall asleep wearing them.

Ah… the Good Eats Thursday double feature. The Sugar episode followed by the Honey episode (Not really the names of the episodes.) The infamous “Bee puppet” episode…

It is possible to have too many episodes of a show on during the week. Too much AB for me. We’ve almost reached saturation here. Though not as bad as the Emeril overdosing they subject us to.

Only one new G.E. episode a week.

It suddenly occurred to me this morning why I’ve had (and am having) problems with my fic The Apprentice. It’s not the plot but the approach. It is, at the most basic level, a buddy fic (with road trip fic overtones) but I’ve been writing only one of the characters – essentially just the road trip part of it. The parts that really work are the parts where the focus is on both of the main characters. Need to fix things.

Updating info about characters and stories in my Red Raider AU. It really needs a complete redo. Some day.

Want an iPod Shuffle?

My local CompUSA has a waiting list for the Shuffle (and the Mac Mini). Best Buy, on the other hand, has plenty.

Notes:

1. You have to let it charge for 4 hours the first time you plug it in. The charging light turned green after 2 hours.
2. My older iBook only has USB 1.1 so copying music to it takes a while.
3. I need to re-import/redo many of my MP3s on my iBook. The bit rate is too high -I can’t fit a lot of music on my new Shuffle. It’ll also save me space on my iBook.
4. Not a fan of the ‘ear bud’ headphones that come with it. Need to get something else.

A basic/crude translation of the series timeline for my Red Raider stories. The original is in OPML. Can’t seem to upload it to my blog tonight.

Note: I’ve also updated some of the other background info… but it is a bit ugly since it’s a direct conversion of the OPML to html. Just a bunch of nested lists.

Is it just me or is “Black Pig” as the theme ingredient just wrong? And not just part of the pig but ALL of it…

The Iron Chef (Sakai) went to school (Jr. High?) with his competitor in the Black Pig Battle…