radfrac_archive_full (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
radfrac_archive_full) wrote2004-11-04 05:36 pm
radfrac_archive_full) wrote2004-11-04 05:36 pm
Mr. Excessively Italicized Guy
Candy Update
Birthday thanks to grumpy bastard
The red spherical ones are cinnamon jawbreakers
The smaller sherical green ones seem to be... apple jawbreakers?
The cubic sugary ones that look like jujubes are actually blocks of very dense citrus-flavoured sugar
The little rosebuddy things (deceased) had coconut in them
The mini-turtles went first
Me Update
Hi-ho. Yesterday's grumpy post has gone Private so that I can consider my folly at my leisure. You'll just have to reflect on my folly from afar. Something about birthdays just wrecks me. Actually, anything that's about people appreciating you, or failing to, wrecks me -- giving or receiving. Did I appreciate right? Did I appreciate enough? Was this the appreciation you were looking for? Why don't you appreciate me the way I want to be appreciated?
Eugh.
*Boy* am I moody. What with the whole turning my life upside-down and giving it a good shake thing.
Thinking longingly about sodding about in my house in my undergarments writing books. Speaking of garmenture comma suitable for writing in, even though the rads are apparently permanently on in my apartment, it's not always warm, especially since I leave all the windows open all the time (I sort of need to for ventilation). I think I need some good slobbing clothes. All I have right now are a pair of baggy track pants that aren't actually track pants; they're leggings, but I can't come right out and admit that to you. I've had them for six or seven years. They have a big bleach stain down them, and did I mention they're leggings?
I'm just saying. Writing Wear. Like sportswear only not sporty.
In between feeling titanically sorry for myself last night, (no, really, I almost sank), I made a really good dinner of vegetables cooked in a little olive oil, and a huge amount of polenta (I didn't actually mean to make that much. It just sort of happened.) It was both filling and comforting, and more to the point, it was very cheap, which bodes well for the next oh say twenty years of scraping by.
>Fairy Tale Update
Bits from surlalune, a site for Fairy Tale Studies, of all wonderful things:
It happened one evening, when the Prince had gone to bed, and put out the candles, and all were at rest and in their first sleep, that he heard the sound of some one stealing through the house, and coming cautiously towards his bed; whereat he thought it must be some chamber-boy coming to lighten his purse for him, or some mischievous imp to pull the bedclothes off him.
***
[Footnote] 8. Threw him with all her might against the wall: The earliest versions of the story [The Frog Prince] have the princess committing an act of violence which breaks the spell instead of the now famous kiss. Most often the frog is thrown against the wall, but in some versions he is beheaded or his skin is burnt. Sometimes, simply sleeping in the princess' bed is sufficient to break the spell. Maria Tatar notes that "passion rather than compassion leads to a happy ending" to this tale (Tatar 1988).
***
Faithful Henry had been so unhappy when his master was changed into a frog, that he had caused three iron bands to be laid round his heart, lest it should burst with grief and sadness. The carriage was to conduct the young King into his Kingdom. Faithful Henry helped them both in, and placed himself behind again, and was full of joy because of this deliverance. And when they had driven a part of the way the King's son heard a cracking behind him as if something had broken. So he turned round and cried, "Henry, the carriage is breaking."
"No, master, it is not the carriage. It is a band from my heart, which was put there in my great pain when you were a frog and imprisoned in the well." Again and once again while they were on their way something cracked, and each time the King's son thought the carriage was breaking; but it was only the bands which were springing from the heart of faithful Henry because his master was set free and was happy.
* * * * * * * * *
Did you know that fairy tales were all categorized and numbered? "This tale is type AT-425C"? I sort of like that. I know it's a bit clinical, but sorting and organizing such nebulous things appeals to me. Like a tackle box full of amoebas.
Hmm, which is funny, because I'm letting the categorization sound like it's part of the tales, and of course it's not. It's imposed after the fact, with all the bias that implies. Only now I want to write a meta-fairy-tale, that encompasses absorbs and mutates all the categories.
Scary Social Update
I decided it was about time I Friended all the LiveJournals I like to read, so yesterday I went on a Friending spree. (This makes new entries come up on your friends page every time the journallers (journalists?) update, so that you don't have to check every page.) Immediately one of the journites posted asking new friend-ers to comment and say who they were. She turns out to be an editor, and I was like, hmm, what can I say?
[Added: That is, what can I say that won't make me sound like an idiot?]
"Well, I know I read exactly like every other wannabe author, but it's okay, this time it's different."
Then she posts saying she's irritated at how boring and self-absorbed most people are. Which I am trying very hard to take as a comment on the election.
[Added: Rather than a confirmation of my Worst Fears about my magical powers of Irritation.]
(There were a bunch of others, too, not just me. Still. I don't really want to talk to anyone in the field until I'm actually in the field. As opposed to on the verge here, pulling on my socks and yelling, "Guys! Aw, c'mon, guys! Wait up!")
Instant critic (just add self-awareness): I also notice that there's a kind of generic LiveJournal style and that from reading so many of them I'm starting to acquire it. I'm very easily infected by other people's prose. I don't like to write after reading something in a style I'm not trying to emulate, because it always gets in there. I have the Short-Term Imprint Brain of the Century.
Which segues nicely into
Note artful use of cut tags, above.
Reading Update
There are only about 250 pages, or the length of an ordinary, shortish book, left to JS&MN. It hasn't entirely lived up to my earlier ecstasies. There are a number of redundant and repetitive scenes that could have been collapsed. I'm divided in my reaction to the structure. My reading preferences line up with docbrite's writing ones; she said that she wished she could just write about her characters' everyday lives without having to worry about making things Happen. When I'm reading a book, especially a spec book, I'm often annoyed that the characters and setting I'm enjoying end up getting twisted around a conventional plot arc. I feel cheated and frustrated. I'd rather just read about the characters Doing Stuff.
JS&MN doesn't do that, but I don't really find myself satisfied by it. Instead it feels stagnant, like Something Should Be Happening.
So. There you are. The critics are never satisfied.
{rf}
Birthday thanks to grumpy bastard
The red spherical ones are cinnamon jawbreakers
The smaller sherical green ones seem to be... apple jawbreakers?
The cubic sugary ones that look like jujubes are actually blocks of very dense citrus-flavoured sugar
The little rosebuddy things (deceased) had coconut in them
The mini-turtles went first
Me Update
Hi-ho. Yesterday's grumpy post has gone Private so that I can consider my folly at my leisure. You'll just have to reflect on my folly from afar. Something about birthdays just wrecks me. Actually, anything that's about people appreciating you, or failing to, wrecks me -- giving or receiving. Did I appreciate right? Did I appreciate enough? Was this the appreciation you were looking for? Why don't you appreciate me the way I want to be appreciated?
Eugh.
*Boy* am I moody. What with the whole turning my life upside-down and giving it a good shake thing.
Thinking longingly about sodding about in my house in my undergarments writing books. Speaking of garmenture comma suitable for writing in, even though the rads are apparently permanently on in my apartment, it's not always warm, especially since I leave all the windows open all the time (I sort of need to for ventilation). I think I need some good slobbing clothes. All I have right now are a pair of baggy track pants that aren't actually track pants; they're leggings, but I can't come right out and admit that to you. I've had them for six or seven years. They have a big bleach stain down them, and did I mention they're leggings?
I'm just saying. Writing Wear. Like sportswear only not sporty.
In between feeling titanically sorry for myself last night, (no, really, I almost sank), I made a really good dinner of vegetables cooked in a little olive oil, and a huge amount of polenta (I didn't actually mean to make that much. It just sort of happened.) It was both filling and comforting, and more to the point, it was very cheap, which bodes well for the next oh say twenty years of scraping by.
>Fairy Tale Update
Bits from surlalune, a site for Fairy Tale Studies, of all wonderful things:
It happened one evening, when the Prince had gone to bed, and put out the candles, and all were at rest and in their first sleep, that he heard the sound of some one stealing through the house, and coming cautiously towards his bed; whereat he thought it must be some chamber-boy coming to lighten his purse for him, or some mischievous imp to pull the bedclothes off him.
***
[Footnote] 8. Threw him with all her might against the wall: The earliest versions of the story [The Frog Prince] have the princess committing an act of violence which breaks the spell instead of the now famous kiss. Most often the frog is thrown against the wall, but in some versions he is beheaded or his skin is burnt. Sometimes, simply sleeping in the princess' bed is sufficient to break the spell. Maria Tatar notes that "passion rather than compassion leads to a happy ending" to this tale (Tatar 1988).
***
Faithful Henry had been so unhappy when his master was changed into a frog, that he had caused three iron bands to be laid round his heart, lest it should burst with grief and sadness. The carriage was to conduct the young King into his Kingdom. Faithful Henry helped them both in, and placed himself behind again, and was full of joy because of this deliverance. And when they had driven a part of the way the King's son heard a cracking behind him as if something had broken. So he turned round and cried, "Henry, the carriage is breaking."
"No, master, it is not the carriage. It is a band from my heart, which was put there in my great pain when you were a frog and imprisoned in the well." Again and once again while they were on their way something cracked, and each time the King's son thought the carriage was breaking; but it was only the bands which were springing from the heart of faithful Henry because his master was set free and was happy.
* * * * * * * * *
Did you know that fairy tales were all categorized and numbered? "This tale is type AT-425C"? I sort of like that. I know it's a bit clinical, but sorting and organizing such nebulous things appeals to me. Like a tackle box full of amoebas.
Hmm, which is funny, because I'm letting the categorization sound like it's part of the tales, and of course it's not. It's imposed after the fact, with all the bias that implies. Only now I want to write a meta-fairy-tale, that encompasses absorbs and mutates all the categories.
Scary Social Update
I decided it was about time I Friended all the LiveJournals I like to read, so yesterday I went on a Friending spree. (This makes new entries come up on your friends page every time the journallers (journalists?) update, so that you don't have to check every page.) Immediately one of the journites posted asking new friend-ers to comment and say who they were. She turns out to be an editor, and I was like, hmm, what can I say?
[Added: That is, what can I say that won't make me sound like an idiot?]
"Well, I know I read exactly like every other wannabe author, but it's okay, this time it's different."
Then she posts saying she's irritated at how boring and self-absorbed most people are. Which I am trying very hard to take as a comment on the election.
[Added: Rather than a confirmation of my Worst Fears about my magical powers of Irritation.]
(There were a bunch of others, too, not just me. Still. I don't really want to talk to anyone in the field until I'm actually in the field. As opposed to on the verge here, pulling on my socks and yelling, "Guys! Aw, c'mon, guys! Wait up!")
Instant critic (just add self-awareness): I also notice that there's a kind of generic LiveJournal style and that from reading so many of them I'm starting to acquire it. I'm very easily infected by other people's prose. I don't like to write after reading something in a style I'm not trying to emulate, because it always gets in there. I have the Short-Term Imprint Brain of the Century.
Which segues nicely into
Note artful use of cut tags, above.
Reading Update
There are only about 250 pages, or the length of an ordinary, shortish book, left to JS&MN. It hasn't entirely lived up to my earlier ecstasies. There are a number of redundant and repetitive scenes that could have been collapsed. I'm divided in my reaction to the structure. My reading preferences line up with docbrite's writing ones; she said that she wished she could just write about her characters' everyday lives without having to worry about making things Happen. When I'm reading a book, especially a spec book, I'm often annoyed that the characters and setting I'm enjoying end up getting twisted around a conventional plot arc. I feel cheated and frustrated. I'd rather just read about the characters Doing Stuff.
JS&MN doesn't do that, but I don't really find myself satisfied by it. Instead it feels stagnant, like Something Should Be Happening.
So. There you are. The critics are never satisfied.
{rf}
writing clothes
(Anonymous) 2004-11-05 06:06 am (UTC)(link)For instance, when your writing is going well you could keep the ear flaps buttoned, when things were bad you could pull them down around your, well, ears.
Just a thought. Better than stretch pants anyway. I had a pair, and when I wore them my then partner would call me "droopy drawers"
Love,
Bee
p.s. I don't know if that is the way to spell that kind of drawers. Oh well. When it comes down to it, spelling just doesn't Count.
schmaltzy or sublime?
(Anonymous) 2004-11-05 08:22 am (UTC)(link)E.
Ah, polenta
(Anonymous) 2004-11-05 06:08 pm (UTC)(link)I have a pair of slobby pants that are officially pajama bottoms of which I am inordinately fond. They're ridiculously comfortable, were outrageously cheap (I try not to think of the garment workers in Thailand) and in their own way reasonably stylish. You can't have them, but I'm heading south in a few days and will keep an eye out. Can't find anything quite like them in our hometown, or, indeed, our homeland. I pair the pants with old, oversized computer geek tee shirts for the full effect.
As for your snobby editor, that was serendipity rapping gently at your door and asking if you wanted to play. Don't back away from such things. If need be, run onto the field in only your socks. Might be rather a freeing experience. And most people are boring and self-absorbed. Especially editors...
Never fish with amoebas - they're hard to hook, you can't eat the catch, and if you release, they'll spread something nasty. However, organisation is a wonderful thing. A great distraction from actually dealing with chaos. Fairy tales - the real ones - are so wonderfully nasty. A meta tale might be very good fun. I liked the side bars in story of Jack and the Fairy King. Run with it. *ed*
The more you write about JS&MN the more I am convinced you must read Jasper Fforde. When you're done, or possibly just a bit before, see if you can pry number one from The Other C's grasp. They must be read in order, though each theoretically could stand on its own.
Final note: my own candy intake has consisted of peanut butter cups for the last two days. I purchased a 1.5 kilo bag of them post Hallowe'en. Save me from myself. I will eat them all before they have a chance to go stale. Who needs cheese for the Informal Meeting? Red wine and Peanut Butter Cups! Let the revolution begin!
\i/
Re: Ah, polenta
Pleeeeeeeeease don't alienate my potential future community members before they've even met me.
[Note to such: I'm terribly interesting *once you get to know me*, and on the whole I come down on the pro-editor side of the debate.]
Peanut butter, wine, cheese. Sunday? Or Sunday Next (When I shall be elsewhere employed?)
{rf}
Sunday's good
(Anonymous) 2004-11-06 02:09 am (UTC)(link)Alienation is good. Really. Makes you seem aloof and mysterious. Keep 'em wanting more. Editors will start beggng to read your stuff. At heart their all massochists. Besides, who's gonna listen to me? *aaack!*
\i/
All very well, but...
(Anonymous) 2004-11-06 08:06 pm (UTC)(link)Abject apologies for my misuse of" their" for "they're" in previous posting. Have undertaken several self-flagellations in penetence.
\i/
well yes of course i am
{rf}
Re: All very well, but...
{rf}
Re: Ah, polenta
Let me assure you that
the dangers of keeping peacocks
I've been meaning to thank you because your journal is so useful. It's been a terrific resource, and a great read. I was a bit embarrassed to post a comment over there, though, what with being no one in particular. So I suppose I'll just post it here. Although quite honestly I'm a bit embarrassed here at the moment.
I think I'll shut up now.
{rf}
Re: the dangers of keeping peacocks
LOL! I caught the reference to
I personally adore
As for commenting -- go ahead; I don't know many of the people who do comment. I will not make fun of typos, spelling or grammatical errors (glass houses, and all). I don't really bite. Much <wry g>.
Re: the dangers of keeping peacocks - especially in Moose Country
(Anonymous) 2004-11-11 03:22 am (UTC)(link)It's not necessarily the tail that makes me arch...it's an excess of time and lack of other things to do [and probably a lack of wisdom]. Hope you enjoyed the salon. Think next one we'll spend less time building furniture and more time discussing in a drunken haze. That is the general purpose of the salon, no? That and being arch. Damn, and I never should have let you think other than that I was clever with the "their" posting. So much better to be clever when you don't know your doing it...
Swanny, boring, self-absorbed, not-nearly-so-clever-as-I-like-to-think
\i/
(had I known real people - in very fetching cartoon hats by the way - might read something I'd posted and take it even remotely seriously I'd never have written a word - well, maybe still would have said no to freezing cheese. Just because you can doesn't mean you should - cheese is already preserved milk. Let it stay perfect as it is.)
Re: the dangers of keeping peacocks - especially in Moose Country
>I'd posted and take it even remotely seriously I'd never have written a word
That's the beauty and peril of LiveJournal -- people are Actually There -- not inert texts, but at the very least self-generating ones (if you take the more conservative positions on the existence or not of other people) -- and all the lovely stories ANSWER BACK.
Peacocks are marvellous creatures, descended of giants, and hundred-eyed in their watchfulness. Let alone that facility with furniture design and wide knowledge of Wines, Cheeses, and other salon essentials. (Um, I think that's the name of a shampoo line, but never mind.)
I think I'm going to turn the cheese freezing debate into a LiveJournal Poll, just because I've never done one.
{rf}