Measi's Musings

Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category

The official plug…

I will be writing again for the Support Stacie Auction, being held April 3-6, 2009. (link above). I’ve pledged for one 5,000 word fic (bids will start at $10) in one of the three fandoms: Doctor Who, Torchwood, or X-Files. Prompts, rating, pairings, etc. are up to the winning bidder’s choice. The only restrictions I’ve asked for are no requests for babyfic, wedding fic, or songfic, and if asking for a Doctor Who fic, please limit scope to sometime in the New Series, as my Classic Who isn’t yet up to snuff for writing.

AND…

AND…

my special offer for the auction is that if bids go above $100 for my fic, anyone bidding $100 or over will also get a fic of at least 1,000 words according to their requests as well, to be finished after the winning bidder’s fic. (And knowing me… any of that fic is going to go at least 3,000 words, honestly).

So bid! Not just on me, though – bid on everyone!

I’m really not sure how, between the time I posted last night and this morning when I got to work that my “Time Lord Tricks” icon (about sexuality and seduction) had changed to something about Texas and the death penalty. That was NOT my doing. While I may have smirked a bit at the message on it, it’s not something I’d ever be attaching to my journal, especially in an icon… and especially attached to a fanfic I was promoting.

Needless to say… I’m a bit horrified at the moment.

So if it offended anyone, please accept my apologies. I didn’t put it there. Honest to God, I didn’t. But it showed up on my journal, so I feel it necessary to apologize regardless of how it got there. As soon as I found it there this morning, I deleted that icon entry entirely from my userpics list. I’m bummed that my time lord tricks icon is gone – but better that than what I saw on my journal this morning. ;P The odd thing is that my credit for the REAL icon that was in that slot was removed, too – so I’m completely befuddled as to what happened.

Passwords to my journal are now changed, all that jazz, just in case. *shudder*

Anyway…

I’m both relieved and happy to hear the fic is being well-received so far. I’m honestly surprised at the number of “is there more?” questions. I hadn’t planned on it, to be honest. But wiggiemomsi, who bought the fic in question, also suggested a return to that universe. So I suppose that yes, there will be. As of yet, I don’t know what form it’s going to take, however.

We’ll get there. In the meantime, after some thought on the train this morning, I’ve signed up for the next installment of Support Stacie. The next auction is April 3-6th. Yay!

ETA: Which reminds me. I don’t have enough Nine icons. *sigh* Suggestions?

I’ll admit that I’ve been in a meh mood about blogging lately so I haven’t been around LJ often. Part of it has just been a pullback after all of the fandom b.s. over the last several months (and taking a breather). Part has just been that frankly, I don’t have a lot I’ve felt like writing about. And really – in a lot of ways I just don’t feel like I have anything interesting to say. *shrug*

That being said, I hate that with the exception of a few very filtered entries, my journal has really only been filled with dragon eggs for the last several weeks. And that needs to change. I’m also debating whether to start posting most stuff in unlocked entries again, and just say “eff it” to all of the crap that’s gone on. Filtering myself into a lockdown, and then forcing myself to further filter due to the people who were on my friends list has honestly hurt my writing style. A lot.

Thankfully, I’ve done a lot of sweeping. And I’m thinking I’m okay.

So for giggles, here’s just a “what’s Mel been up to lately?” life recap post…

Writing Stuff
I’ve been doing a lot of writing, both fanfic and casual fiction, but not getting anywhere near where I want to be. That’s frustrating. I’m now two months late on my Support Stacie fic – mostly stuck because NC17 was requested, but I just can’t get my brain to go that route right now. *sigh* (and of course, forcing makes it even worse). I’m now also late on an OT3 fic, although the deadline was a bit looser on that one. I do think that my OT3 writing is being affected by the Stacie fic situation. I’ll just try to keep plugging… somehow.

Once these two fics are done, though, I need to take a break from fanfic for a while. Just to focus on other projects, I think.

Travels
This past weekend Erich and I headed to Chicago to celebrate the wedding of our friends myownwench and jgulner. We had a great time, despite some extremely crappy weather on Saturday and Sunday. Neither of us had been to Chicago before. To be able to fly from snowy teen-degree Rhode Island to a sixty-five degree Chicago and sprawl out on the Navy Pier on Friday, complete with mini-icebergs in Lake Michigan, was a blast.

The wedding itself was very nice – a pretty and heartfelt ceremony for two fantastic people, followed by a good party that went past midnight with lots of dancing and goofing off. Really can’t beat it.

Oh – and if you ever go to Chicago, you must eat at Glenn’s Diner. We saw it on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives on the Food Network just a week before heading out west… and it was fantastic. It’s a bit pricey ($17-22), but very, very good and worth it in my opinion. Some very different fish selections than you’ll normally see.

Work
Work’s been stressful, and I admit that I’m very frustrated with the situation. I love the company I work for, but I’ve got a growing resentment regarding the people I work with… and having gone to my manager about it, now know that I have absolutely no solutions beyond the traditional “put up and shut up” about it.

I know I’m good at what I do, and I take pride in my work. I’m not just there to get a paycheck – if that were the case, I definitely wouldn’t be traveling 90 minutes each way. The downside of being good at what I do and taking pride in my work is that because I’m willing to take the responsibility, I see the two people I work with taking advantage of that. It’s expected that if a project’s going to go later than our scheduled hours, I’m the one staying. We’ve been on an adjusted work schedule since October when our receptionist went out for double hip surgery. One of the women I work with volunteered to work every morning starting at 8:30, and then the other two of us work the afternoon shifts. When early morning admin is off or having to cover the mailroom because THAT clerk is out, then the two of us who cover in the afternoon have go come in early. Well… I’ve wound up having to cover six of those so far this year, and nine since October, including working THROUGH the office Christmas party. The other girl has worked that extra phone shift… once.

And when I pointed this out to my manager, I got absolutely no help on it. In fact, she claimed that both of them are getting glowing reviews – completely OPPOSITE of what I’m hearing from people, who come storming to me to complain about the stupid mistakes and attitude they get from the others. I suggest they take it to my manager, but they tell me that they get blown off about complaints.

So yeah… despite carrying a heavier workload because extra afternoon person sucks, both personality and work-output wise… I’m just expected to put up and shut up. More and more people are either waiting until I’m by myself in the administrative assistant cube to give work, or just not bringing it to our department at all because they don’t want the other two working on their projects.

And of course, I’m happy to do the work. BUT… I’m also getting major attitudes from the other two, who of course, I’m making look bad by actually DOING MY JOB.

The whole situation is souring me. I’m tired, I’m frustrated, and just need a venting session. I keep reminding myself that I need to be thankful I have a job. That because I live in one of the states with an over 10% unemployment rate, I can’t do anything to risk it.

But it’s getting harder to get up in the morning, knowing that I’m going to have to put up with the crap again.

*sigh*

Health
On the downside – I really need to get in soon to get my blood pressure under monitoring. Three separate times over six months, my reading was at roughly 140/90. Considering I was at 115/75 consistently (even at my heaviest weight) until very recently, I’m wondering what’s up. I’ve been watching my sodium intake in the meantime, since it’s the easiest thing to keep an eye on.

On the upside – I’m somehow down two dress sizes. My clothes still fit me, but I’ve gone down a couple dress sizes… and a bra cup size. Not complaining about this. Not sure how it’s happening, either.

But I’ll take it.

And I’ll look forward to the weather getting better so I can take advantage of it and get some good walking in.

So yeah, that’s basically everything going on in my head these days.

Very quick sum-up:

Family medical crisis averted
Lots of WoW – ding! 79
Lots of snow
Lots of fic pondering, but not much writing (working on that)
Not a long weekend for me – I iz at work.

Now in depth… behind the cut…

Back at work after the long weekend, and I definitely have a case of vacation-itis. Very slow, very meh. It’s probably a good thing it’s quiet today, as I’d be moving too damn slowly otherwise.

I spent Sunday doing anything but Who. (for what it’s worth, I still haven’t watched the Confidential from Saturday, nor the Christmas one. *shrug*) I don’t think it helped my mood any that after all of the b.s. on Saturday, BBC-A was showing Silence in the Library, which I do enjoy – but the timing was just not good. I definitely couldn’t sit back and watch Who after the b.s. I’ll be taking a few weeks off from watching eps, I think. Aside from fanfic – which is all AU anyway, I think I’ll be on a nice quiet break from fandom entirely.

So yes – lots of WoW on Sunday, plus a brunch out with Erich, lots of laundry and a belated New Year’s good luck meal of pork chops, sauerkraut, and mashed potatoes (a family superstition). All came out well.

It was a good weekend overall. I accomplished a few things off of my to-do list for January – the biggest being an overhaul of my office. I managed to get most of my fic writing done that I wanted to accomplish, and I’m not worried at all about finishing it up this week. Laundry is all washed, although it needs to be put away.

I’m very happy to have an office again – and it’s much better than ever. It actually looks like a finished room, finally. I just have some small sorting projects left to do and some extra defurring to do on the pampasan chair, but I can sit down and I can enjoy the space. The new bookshelves from IKEA just make the room look more organized. And really, just walking by it this morning and NOT seeing the god-awful pit of despair was wonderful. I’m not kidding when I say that the room might have been just a bit less scary than the rooms you see on How Clean is Your House?. It was really, really gross and embarrassing.

Now to just get WoW reinstalled on the desktop.

I treated myself to a teapot, too. My office gave the other two admins and me each a gift certificate to Amazon for $50. I’ve been needing a teapot – my small Chinese one had a cat-related breaking incident (and honestly was too small anyway). I found this one and liked the style of it, plus the small loose tea scoop and wood board it comes with. So hopefully in a few days, it’ll arrive. I have some absolutely divine Mint Chai I picked up at Wegmans in November, and I want to be able to brew a pot at a time.

Goals for this week: Finish my fic, get to at least level 77 (if not 78) in WoW, and make sure I can relax this weekend.

I hope everyone had a relaxing weekend, full of whatever you celebrate, or productive in resting, recouping, and re-energizing if you don’t.

Ours was very quiet and uneventful. We went to bed on Christmas Eve with about six inches of snow on the ground. Got up on Christmas morning, and the grass was bare. Completely melted off, with the exception of the plow piles on the curbs (and as of Sunday, those are gone, too). Amazing.

Since Mom cancelled out on her trip up from Pennsylvania with my brother in tow, we really didn’t have any plans. All three of us got up late, bummed around for a while, and then headed out around 1 or 2 to find Chinese food.

We drove for a little while, starting first on Wickenden Street, then making a circle literally around College Hill before finding ourselves in North Providence. Nothing had been open. It was a quiet, bright, warm day, and we enjoyed the exploration around the city. I’d checked for places open before we left (just in case), and saw that MuMu on Atwells Ave was open for Thanksgiving, so I presumed they’d be open for Christmas.

And yes, they were. The only thing open in Federal Hill. Seeing Atwells Ave dead silent was just creepy. For anyone who knows Providence (and particularly Federal Hill) – we had our pick of parking. No cars anywhere on the street. This is a Very Weird Thing.

The food at MuMu was fantastic – in fact, quite possibly the best I’ve had since moving to New England, outside of the very authentic “I don’t know what I’m eating and don’t want to know… because it tastes good” food you get in Boston’s Chinatown. Nothing was greasy, everything had lots of flavor and the presentation was great. We shared a scorpion bowl (in a beta fish bowl… hee!) between the three of us and stuffed ourselves on a variety of foods. We will definitely be going back there.

After dinner, we just came home and bummed around. Watched the new Who episode, which I thought was cute but definitely not my favorite of the pack (of the four Christmas specials, it’s sitting tied at the bottom with Voyage of the Damned). Lots of World of Warcraft. I finished the couple bubbles I had to level to 75 – and then by yesterday levelled to 76. Otherwise we’ve been doing a lot of the low level quests available to gain reputation with our faction’s cities. Both of us are gearing to get the Ambassador, Exploration and the Loremaster achievements. Erich has already gained Loremaster of Outland and Eastern Kingdoms. I have only Northrend to finish exploring. Geekdom geekdom, yadda yadda yadda.

On Friday, Erich had to work. I did a bit of project work but not as much as I’d hoped – some beta work, some fic drafting, but mostly just recouping because I’ve been exhausted at work. I made a delayed Christmas dinner – a new roast recipe I found on Recipezaar that had a lot of very positive rankings (4.5 out of 5). I followed the recipe exactly, but sadly it’s probably the blandest pot roast I can recall. Not sure how that happened, considering the recipe had quite a bit of grated horseradish and dijon mustard in the mix, but both tastes were virtually eliminated in cooking. It was wonderfully tender and the carrots and potatoes came out nice and tender – but the roast and broth gravy were a disappointment flavor-wise. Thankfully for the leftovers, I still have plenty of the grated horseradish to top the meat slices. And if need be, I’ll make the mustard sauce I normally use to make mustard carrots.

For Saturday, we spent most of the day up with friends, catching up with a couple of the guys who have moved out of New England but were home for the holidays. A massive Risk boardgame battle ensued, as well as some Rock Band goodness. Relaxing, nothing particularly special, but good to see them and spend some time. A couple of the guys are pressuring me to take part in Erich’s Star Wars d20 campaign, but I honestly am enjoying my time NOT gaming these days. I just can’t handle the 6-12 hours sitting in a chair like they can. My attention span to that just isn’t good anymore. And honestly, I have other things I want to do – writing, WoW, stitching (one of these days), and just getting a few little projects done.

Sunday was project day – going out to get me a new monitor since my desktop LCD has decided to start draining itself (and therefore turning black) – they were out of the type I wanted, so we’ll go back later. Went to Home Depot for a couple things, and the pet store for the standard supplies. We also took down our tree. I prefer to keep it up until the first week of January, but this year it just could not happen. The tree stopped taking on water a couple weeks ago and was tinder dry, so fire safety had to rule the day this year.

So now I’m back at work for another short week. I took Friday off to allow for another 4-day weekend, and I’m hoping to be a lot more productive. Erich’s gaming on Saturday, which should allow me plenty of time (and quiet) to finish my Support Stacie fic for wiggiemomsi. If work continues to be dead quiet this week, I’m planning on spending a lot of time going through beta work for others so it makes me look busy.

And then to figure out what I’m doing New Year’s Eve. Anyone up for anything?

Posting both fics last night has made me feel a heck of a lot better today. They were big deadlines looming that I absolutely wanted to do on time, and I did… so yay! It’s a little weird – and daunting – to have your husband beta things. Particularly smut fic. I don’t know , it’s like there’s a weird line there – fanfic smut should not be shared across the marital relationship.

Meh, I’ll get over it. And he did just want I asked him – check to make sure my verb tense is okay, and if anything jars, give me a heads up so I can rework.

(He’s a much faster beta than I am, by the way. I realize now that I do, in fact, suck.)

Also got to the post office this morning – sent off a couple small packages, bought a crapload of stamps. My first batch of cards is going into the collection box over my lunch hour. I have a few family and friend cards left to write, but for the most part I’m in good shape to get everything in the mail with plenty of time, I think.

So it’s now down to getting some promised beta work done, start drafting my Support Stacie fic, and just getting some other cleaning projects done around the house.

Hard to believe it’s only a week until Yule and a few days extra until Christmas. Where the hell did this year go? And why is it December and feeling like early May? (Yes, I know you guys in the Midwest are icicles right now… ugh! Stay warm!)

Random question – I stopped posting my journal entries from the UK trip due to personal craziness, but I’m going to have some extra time again now that the chaos of the holidays are over. Is it something that’s now a “old news, move on” thing, or is there anyone who wants them posted?

The good thing for this weekend is that both of the pieces I need to post for ficathons by the 15th are written. Erich’s doing the beta for me (a bit weird, considering one is rather… smutty). A bit of a relief, although I get tired of being right to the wire like this. *sigh*

I know that both dameruth and misssara11 have written pieces for me this week – I hope to be sitting down to relax and read them tonight, once I know my obligations are all set. (an early thank you to both, since I’m always excited to read special fic!)

Christmas cards are finally done – I’m mailing them off tomorrow. aibhinn, I’m also mailing your RSC items tomorrow – two separate packages, FYI.

So this week, I’m going to focus on getting some beta work done for avoria, and start drafting my piece for wiggiemomsi for Support Stacie. And maybe… just maybe, I’ll get my office tidied up so I can start writing there for the winter. I need to put a lot of work into scrubbing it – I haven’t really been in there since August or so. I’d planned to do some work on it today, but my back’s very sore… I think I just slept wrong last night, but I admit I’m overly paranoid about it right now.

So I’m spending the downtime playing WoW. I levelled one of my lowbies to 30 and got her first mount (sooo much cheaper than when I got my mount for Tennetty!). I levelled Tennetty to 73, and she’s now halfway to 74. Cowtastrophe is about 1/4 away from 61. Slowly but surely.

The weather’s been odd this weekend. We were NOT among the millions affected by the ice storm, thankfully. Rhode Island just got a crapload of rain. A few of our friends did lose power, still out now on Sunday evening. Said friends were able to find safe places to stay, thankfully, since the temp dropped very low last night (mid teens). I guess tomorrow’s supposed to be quite warm again – somewhere around 60 degrees. No wonder I’m still feeling like I’m fighting off a bug. *sigh*

Looking forward to our office party on Tuesday – we’re going to the reopened Hard Rock Cafe, now that it’s moved to Faneuil Hall. And we’re having a Rock Band competition. Heh. Should be interesting. As long as I’m not forced to sing!

Dear fellow MBTA travelers who were trapped on the 7:35 Providence train:

I realize that when we get in an hour late due to yet another engine breakdown, I totally understand the attitude of “screw it, I’m already late” and you decide to take your dear sweet time.

HOWEVER… morning trains generally involve this glorious invention called coffee to get the body moving. And when the train has been forced to sit dead on the tracks for an hour, that coffee generally has had time to work through the human system, and the bladder goes into distress whilst waiting to get to a place guaranteed to have an accessible bathroom – which sadly is NOT Back Bay station, even though it’s the first stop past the breakdown. As you all know – there may or may not be a bathroom on the morning train. AND, even if there is one – it’s impossible to know which car it’s in, nor if you will even be able to access it due to people having to stand in the aisles because the train is so full.

So really – get off the phone, stop walking at the same speed the train-pushing-a-train crawled along the tracks for 40 minutes from Hyde Park, and MOVE YOUR ASS into the station, so the horde of women driven to madness due to needing to pee can get past you to go to the scary bathroom they’d otherwise never want to use. Short urethras and all that make for some desperation when you’ve thought about nothing but having to pee and how to prevent yourself from having an accident for over an hour.

Thank you.

(why no… um… I have no personal experience with this issue this morning… why do you ask?)

——

Writing update:

Draft for hearts_in_time – done. Although if I have time, I may further tinker with it. Needs beta work.

Draft for oh_she_knows – mostly done… although smut bunnies decided to make a housecall. So currently, the Doctor is having a glorious time kissing Rose. My posting window’s the 11-15th, so I’m in good shape there. Needs beta work.

Support Stacie auction – waiting my instructions from wiggiemomsi *waves since she’s now on my friends list). I’m plotting with wendymr regarding our joint win for dameruth. And I think I’ve decided what I’d like to request from clevermonikerr. Maybe, hopefully… *strokes chin thoughtfully*

And I have so many weird broken draft attempts for the first two that I just couldn’t get moving in the timeframe I had available. Hmm….

Overall, I do feel good right now. Scary – when do I ever feel good in regards to writing deadlines?

—–

It’s quite cold out there today, and the sea is the prettiest shade of bright blue right now. Not a cloud in the sky. Absolutely lovely.

—–

It’s clearly winter because I’m waking up with somewhere between 2-4 cats on the bed every morning.

—–

Apparently Erich managed to finally get Hoodsie to purr last night. Given that I have yet to hear this personally, I still disbelieve. But it’ll be a wonderful breakthrough if this cat purrs. We do get chuffs from him, and he does breathe very heavy at times when you pet him, so he’s been *close* to purring… but not quite.

We’ll see.

Traumatized cat with major abandonment issues may be headed for a big breakthrough sign of being domesticated again.

—–

OK… need to work now.

- Mel.

Any Sisters who know the date of 1st Degree, could you let me know? I’m figuring it’s fairly soon, unless they’re waiting until next term to kick off MC period.

On a similar note… I got a preliminary email regarding the 25th Anniversary event, but there weren’t any details about what’s going on at said event, and ticket prices go up immediately after the new year. *sigh* I’d hope we’d learn what’s going on before that price increase. Maybe it’s just me, but while yes, I do plan on going… I’d kind of like to know what the money’s going toward. Especially since there will be a 25% ticket price increase in January. I don’t mind a surprise during the event, but to keep it completely in the dark just doesn’t sit right with me.

Maybe it’s just me. *shrug*

My fanfic writing is worth $65, according to the winning bid for the Support Stacie auction, which was won by wiggiemomsi. I have to admit that I’m a bit intimidated by it all, but I’m excited to get started… and I hope she’s pleased by the result. Meanwhile I have dameruth and clevermonikerr under my control (*insert evil grin here*). No, seriously… I’ll be kind.

Okay… almost to work. More later.

Anyone available this week to beta? I have one draft complete, and one draft I intend to have completed tonight that will need a lookover. Deadline I’d need them back is December 10th. Neither will be more than 2,000 words. One’s Nine/Rose, the other is 10.5/Rose (and if I can keep it in control, will be leaning Adult.

Support Stacie Auction

The auction ends approximately 12 hours from now – so please go bid! There are three additional eBay auctions to help the cause. If a sibling or child asked for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for a Wii, PS3, or XBox, you can get a copy signed by the voice/face actor of the main character in the game… buy it AND have the money go to a good cause.

My fic is currently sitting at $65. I’m going to match the final auction amount. So go bid! Get together with other people and do a collective bid if you’d like.

Info for bidders

Where to place bids

Who is Stacie?

Holiday Cards

I definitely want to get mine out this weekend if at all possible, so if you would like a card, please go HERE. I’ve updated that post with usernames of everyone I have to date, between my own post and popping around to other peoples’ posts.

One other thing before I go hermit to get my current writing projects done…

The Support Stacie auction is open – go bid! There are quite a few lovely people on my flist willing to write stories, and it’s for a fantastic cause. Quite a few fandoms are being offered. The auction is only open until December 1st, so you do need to jump in right away if you’re interested.

Info for bidders

Where to place bids

Who is Stacie?

I had my hair re-foiled today and cut. It looks spiffy (and VERY BLONDE). Nice and light, very soft layers. I hope it’ll hold up a bit better than my last cut, which I felt went too flat and was too heavy on the bottom so it hung limply. bleh. I’ll post a picture tomorrow, once it’s been done by me instead of the hairdresser.

Having UTI issues tonight – they came on VERY fast and have been very annoying (and painful). Thankfully we have some amoxicillin in the house that Erich was prescribed as a cautionary (in case you get a secondary infection) measure that he wound up not needing to use. So I’ve started myself on them, have my cranberry juice, and we’ll see how things go. Hopefully it clears up so I can head to the sorority tea tomorrow afternoon. ;P

I have banana bread in the oven – I bought the bananas after my haircut, figuring I’d be making it Monday or Tuesday when the bananas were overripe. Put them up on top of the fridge, and the tops promptly broke from the bunch. So… yeah. I guess they’re ripe. So woots… banana bread tonight.

Erich and the guys are playing D&D downstairs – I’ve regulated myself to the bedroom for the most part. Currently watching Voyage of the Damned (they’re climbing the staircase at the moment), and then will watch Partners in Crime, which will be very different I imagine now that I’ve SEEN the places that episode were filmed. I imagine it’ll be a lot of “HEY! I KNOW THAT PLACE!!!”

If my innards allow, I’ll be working on my fanfic for different ficathons tonight. I have a pretty clear draft in my head that I can at least sketch out. If innards do not, I’ll be playing some more World of Warcraft… if I can get onto Eonar, at least. Last couple nights has had a 500+ queue to get on due to the expansion.

Back to Who… oh, poor Kitchen 5.

So yeah, that’s me. What’s everyone else up to?