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suricattus

12:49 pm - ah, the Virgo writerbrain.

The past week, foreshortened by recovery and then my mom's birthday dinner and the lecture, has been much about me utterly unable to focus. I didn't know why - my brain WANTED to work, and there is, dog knows, enough work for me to be doing....

And then I thought about what I'd said in an earlier entry, how my apartment didn't seem quite 'right' to me, when I got back, and thought about past periods of distraction, and went "oh." Because I'm very smart, but sometimes not so bright.

So today - in between passes of writing - has been all about cleaning and sorting and the usual summertime rearranging of furniture (moving the sofa so it doesn't block the AC, etc). Because I am very fond of CatSitter B, but her staying here had made it not-quite-so-much-my-own-place. And now it's mine again, properly sorted and everything where I want it to be.

I suspect the focus will be much more, well, focused, going forward.


(it had BETTER be. So damn much to do OMG)

seabream

07:34 am - A classic five things

1. Yes it's been awhile. I've been reading still, albeit less frequently than in the past, but a series of events flattened me in terms of my belief that I could write intelligibly, so I've been holding back from saying much. I'm not done dealing with that, but it's been long enough.

( InsideOut )

( Mirror views )

( Reader welcome )

( Birthday wishes )

edited to fix site account links

This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth at http://seabream.dreamwidth.org/26866.html, where the entry has comments. You can comment at either site.

timprov

05:41 am - QOTD

Minnesotans are nice; they're also a small and homogenous group. There are 5 million nice people in California, too, but they're surrounded by 32 million rude people. If you turned Minnesota into a giant salt shaker and sprinkled its citizens all over France, you'd get California.

alecaustin

11:39 pm - Some thoughts on the line between Fanfic and Original Fiction

A caveat, before we begin: Not only am I speaking in generalities, but I haven't kept a close eye on fan studies for the past few years. So this may well not be as novel or useful a perspective as I think it is.

Anyway, I've been suspicious of the claim that there's no fundamental difference between fan fiction and original fiction for a while now, in large part because many of the examples people invoke to blur that line strike me as dubious. That said, I was only recently reminded of how I articulated it to myself a while back, which is that I feel like works like Wicked and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead have a fundamentally distinct attitude towards their source material than much-- perhaps even most-- fan fiction.

Fan fiction, in general, is invested in a particularly mode of engagement with its source text. Reverence doesn't quite describe it? But there's a concern for forms of textual (or emotional) fidelity to the source material in even the most deconstructive and recombinatory works-- a sense that even if you took Shinji Ikari and Asuka Soryu Langley and made them the Eleventh Doctor's companions, they should still be recognizable as themselves, via some combination of reference points. If you're doing a Tough Guide pastiche, you need to hit the right tone and textual form. Etc.

How I interpret this is that in fanfic, direct discourse with the source material is important, as is shared knowledge between the author and reader. In Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, it matters that the protagonist isn't just some random kid-- he's Harry revised in a specific way. If you add Ensign Mary Sue to the Enterprise, it matters that it's the Enterprise, however AU everything else is. You can't or don't want to file the serial numbers off of most fanfic, because they matter: they're why readers care about the work in the first place.

When work is less engaged with one or more specific texts and more about a larger genre or sub-genre discourse, when reverence and the specifics of textual derivation and deviation cease to be important... That's when I feel works cease to function as fanfic. I can describe A Choice of Damnations as "Isildur and Boromir team up with the Nazgul to take on Morgoth/Cthulhu", but that's not actually what's going on in the book-- it's a gesture at presumed common reference points, not a marker saying that the book is a direct response to Tolkien, because it's not.

Obviously other people can and do feel differently about this topic. But in light of all this, I don't feel like Rosencrantz & Guildenstern is about Hamlet in the way that most Harry Potter or Twilight fic is about the source text in question. For the much same reasons, I don't feel like Wicked is all that concerned with fidelity to Oz. To my mind introducing them into discussions of fanfic is both a bit of a red herring, and an attempt to leverage taste hierarchies to give fanfic a better reputation. (The latter isn't necessarily illegitimate, mind you-- most criticism is an attempt to skew the conversation in a way that strikes the critic as congenial-- but it's as blatant a grab for social capital as claiming Frankenstein as the first SF novel.)

Anyway. That's where I'm coming from on this one. Hopefully someone other than me will find this useful or thought-provoking.

barbara_hambly

07:34 pm

I often feel quite guilty (like today), writing about terrible things like murder and slavery and virulent pre-Civil-War racism and having such a ripping good time, chortling to myself as Ben January and E.A. Poe trade wisecracks - solemn horribleness of subject matter deserves a more sober attitude. If I were spiritually more developed I'd have one.

Incidentally (on the subject of not being spiritually developed AT ALL), I have an essay about the 9th Doctor Who - the season in which the show was re-booted - in the upcoming collection, Chicks Unravel Time, edited by Deborah Stanish and soon to be out through Amazon. (If I were more spiritually developed I'd remember the publisher off the top of my head, too...) Stanish and her co-editor (Myers?) collected, I am told, a woman writer, artist, fan, or whatever for every season of the show: according to the ad I saw, Diana Gabaldon (whoo-hoo!) contributed her thoughts on one of my favorite Companions, the wonderful Jamie McCrimmon (still, I believe, the longest-running Companion). (Well, with one thing and another, they ALL run a LOT....)

I've recently realized that the lovely Cupcake isn't so much a tuxedo cat: with her little white gloves on her front feet, she has short white stockings on her back feet, with sketchy, trailing lines of white higher up the legs, giving the effect of a garter-belt. Thus, it isn't a tuxedo she's wearing but a French Maid outfit. No wonder Gus follows her around the house.

mrissa

08:22 pm - Grandma turns 80.

Today is my grandma's 80th birthday. We're having a big party for her on Sunday--where by "we" I actually mean my folks are doing all the work--but today is the official date. I don't mostly put birthdays on here because I don't want it to seem like a statement if I miss one. But 80, 80 is a big, round number. Eighty is a thing.

Grandma is my last grandparent standing. I mean, I have Grandpa Lyzenga, but I married into him when I was full grown rather than having memories of walking with him when I was tiny; and as much as I will sometimes introduce Aunt Ellen and Uncle Phil as my Lingen grandparents, and as much as they are doing their darnedest, they are in fact a really really special great-aunt and -uncle, which is its own thing and not to be denigrated.

But Grandma has enough personality for four grandparents all by herself. (So, I know firsthand or hear quite vividly, did each of my other grandparents in their own ways. Lack of personality: not an issue in this family.) Grandma is an Energizer bunny. I wrote in her birthday card that she embodies the adage about blooming where one is planted, and I really think that's true. She does well with new people and new situations. She just dusts herself off and tries again, whatever she needs to try again, and I have never once heard of a situation she couldn't eventually make that work in. Never once. Her persistence inspires me. I hope it lasts long past 80.

suricattus

07:17 pm - oy, cats.

Seeing me eat sauteed string beans, Boomer has decided that he too, must have sauteed string beans. In order to keep his nose out of my food, I gave him a piece. So far, he has sniiffed, licked, toothed, and otherwise pushed the bean around, but hasn't quite convinced himself to eat it.

But he is still quite interested in what's on MY plate. Because that's got to be better, right?

e_moon60

05:14 pm - Green One Off Needles

Green One, (3rd pair of socks, first green)  seemed like such an easy-going, cooperative pair of socks at first.  The cuff ribbing...the careful decrease to a narrower part of the ankle below...the successful eye-of-partridge heel flaps.  All was well, it seemed. 

Until the rejoin, at which point...the heel flaps weren't as stretchy (besides being 2 stitches narrower and the top of foot also being 2 stitches narrower.   I had to change gussets to help with that...and then try to adjust (with frequent try-ons.   First they'd be really tight, then (when I let off on the decreases) suddenly they'd be overly loose.  And the attempt to graft/Kitchener the toes shut...worst so far.   Each pair has been harder--this pair was impossible.    I was trying to do it flat, off the needles, using cooking twine to hold the stitches:

The idea was to stuff the end of the sock to make a rounded-nearly-flat work surface, and I'd be able to see what I was doing.   There's a separate piece of twine through each  needle's worth of stitches--6 front, 6 back.  (Tied up here to they couldn't come loose   I *still* could not see what I was doing.  The stitches "shrank" without the needles in them.   I had directions.  I had watched the video again.   I had directions in front of me; I understood the directions...but I could not see the stitches, or the results of what I was doing, except as a confusing mound.   The first rounds tried to crawl back down into the fabric...I undid them and started over.  Yes, I'd done things in the right order but they didn't look right.  I did them again.  And again.  By the second or third stitch, there was a mound of yarn...and time (more than an hour...considerably...) was passing.   Frustration built.  Laundry needed to be put out.  The other sock had barely started its toe decreases. 

I gave up and ran yarn through every stitch and pulled the toe together.  OK, it's a sock, it's not the best sock, but it's a sock. 

The second sock, I left on needles, except changing to a smaller size needle right before trying to graft the toe, thinking that might help.   No.  This time I gave up faster (family had come back from the city--the solitude in which to say things to the yarn, the needles, etc., and the lack of interruption was over) and purse-stringed that one, too.    It's annoying--I was able to do it with Red One and Blue One, both of whom have imperfect but definite grafted toes.    But here they are, Green One socks on feet, off the needles.  They're comfortable.  I can walk in them, in shoes or out.

               

The thicker heels do help with my wider-heeled walking shoes, but also (and understandably) push my foot forward in the shoe a little.   Although these fit better in some areas than previous pairs, they're still a bit big where I had to change the rate of decrease at the gussets.   Learned a lot, but it's still not the perfect pattern. 

On the very bright side, I now have three pairs of socks.

ellen_datlow

05:21 pm - My schedule at Fantasticon in Copenhagen June 1-3rd

For anyone near Copenhagen next weekend I'm a Guest of Honor with Alistair Reynolds at the Danish annual convention Fantasticon. For anyone in the vicinity, here's a link to the website and my schedule: (I'm not sure what a few of the panels will entail but am assured I will be told :-) )

http://fantasticon.dk/fantasticon2012/

Friday 17:00-17:20, Kultursalen
Opening ceremony
Everybody

Friday 17:30-19:00, Cafeen
Videnskabcafeen: The dead, the undead and the vampire romance
Ellen Datlow, Stig W. Jørgensen, Steen Langstrup, Gert Balling (m)

Saturday 12:00-12:50, Kultursalen
Stories we haven’t seen: The good short story
Ellen Datlow, Knud Larn, Henrik Harksen, H.H. Løyche, Ralan Conley (m)

Saturday 2:00 p.m. to 2:50 p.m., Heerupsalen
interview Ellen Datlow
Ellen Datlow, Ahn Lars Pedersen (i)
Saturday 15:00-15:50, Kultursalen
Genres – Necessary distinction or annoying restriction?
Ellen Datlow, Alastair Reynolds, Anne-Marie Vedsø Olesen, Stig W. Jørgensen (m)

Saturday 20:15-??, Festsalen
The banquet

Sunday 13:00-13:50, Heerupsalen
The fairy tale in modern fiction
Ellen Datlow, Nicolas Barbano, Lars Ahn Pedersen (m)

Sunday 17:00-17:50, Heerupsalen
The last panel – final remarks before the convention (end the world?) ends.
Ellen Datlow, Alastair Reynolds, Klaus Æ. Mogensen (m)

prettymuchpeggy

12:00 pm - Happy Birthday.

Happy Birthday to perkk!

Current Mood: chipper