picked a handful of violets in my name

apparently I'm writing things again!

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 00:52:42 GMT

Lissa Valery (older than she looks, sacred knight of her adopted hometown)

"It is true, I was born in the hills far to the west of this city. But I was a sickly child, afflicted with the curse that sometimes befalls my people. I had been born away from my true home and would wander the earth until I found it, or wither to nothingness. This city of Auriel is my homeland. I am not a citizen born, nor even yet sworn, but I am Paladin and this place is written on my bones."

Ruth Behrman (teenage assassin, very angry that her parents are dead)

When his blood stopped flowing, Ruth wiped the knife off in his matted blond hair and tucked in back into the sheath strapped to her thigh. Then she took out a sack of salt and a bottle of kerosene from her bag, and set about reducing the last of her vendetta to ash.

Julia Sgraffa (apparently unkillable, but otherwise pretty ordinary)

"I. Uh. I definitely went splat. It was awful. I don't think human beings are supposed to feel that level of organs going squish, I think we're supposed to die before it registers."
"And yet, you're looking remarkably well. Completely uninjured."
"Yeah. I know. I got up, lost my lunch because, seriously, awful - and anyway, the short version is that I apparently don't stay splatted any more. I hereby volunteer as self-replenishing cannon fodder, if required."

(Lissa is the divinely appointed protector of the city! Ruth's parents belonged to the order of assassins who do the dirty work that people like Lissa aren't supposed to do! Julia was just Lissa's best friend and guide to Life In Auriel, and now she's all special! Together, they fight crime!)

(I have another thing in progress, too, but no one has final names yet and everything is just porn so far.)

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Thu, 30 Sep 2010 02:38:37 GMT

Recently

Work, mostly. solarcat and I are going to Garment District and maybe some other places this weekend, for Killjoys costuming purposes. (I also need to figure out a Ramona Flowers costume, since Cory has decided that's what we're doing for Halloween, since I'll be in Grand Forks and all.)

Ellie and I spent some time last night talking about our plans for revamping the apartment. The main thrust is to make our space better for our creative pursuits. So much of it depends on her having the time and spoons to build new furniture, so no idea when any of it will get done. I can post an outline of our plans, with crappy diagrams, if anyone is interested.

Links

via saystheheart: Safeword, the s&m superhero

Married to the Sea: new uniforms

via cofax7: Gerald M. Weinberg: What’s Been the Effect of Banning My Stuff?
Whatever it was intended to do, banning things increases interest. When one of the Pope’s Cardinals banned The DaVinci Code, lagging sales picked up and made a few more millions for Mr. Brown. Banning Harry Potter had a similar effect for Ms. J. K. Rowling, now richer than the Queen.

(Tangent: I once got to attend one of Jerry's workshops. He and my dad go pretty far back; we would usually pay him a visit when we took our road trips to New Mexico. Jerry knew I was working on a novel, he was running a writing workshop and it was going to be pretty fiction-oriented, and he hadn't seen Dad in a while. So Dad and I took a week off work/school and went. It was awesome.)

(And another tangent: Wow has my life been full of fantastic opportunities and experiences that resulted directly from grown-ups taking a chance on me. Including my current job.)

Plans

I am considering StrowlerCon, but would need roommates. I also need to run it past Ellie and see if she wants in.

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Sun, 08 Aug 2010 05:08:18 GMT

Notes

Ask Me Anything still open for questions.

Recently

Ellie has painted the front room! It's light blue now, instead of salmon. I approve.

Also, I'm sneezing myself to death. IDK why. *drowning in own snot*

( 7 links )

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Not dead.

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 04:53:53 GMT

I promise I will update with actual things from my life! Some time later today (as it is now technically Monday).

But for now, the links: ( 10 links )

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liiiiiiiiiiiiinks

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 00:52:12 GMT

( 13 links )

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moar links

Wed, 12 May 2010 06:00:21 GMT

( 20 links )

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I warned you that this would be long.

Mon, 10 May 2010 09:32:19 GMT

skip=400

Since Saturday morning. (I mean, I do use Dreamwidth as my feed reader, but that's still a lot of posts.)

( 26 links )

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Fri, 07 May 2010 03:42:23 GMT

Today's Daily Song is not a single song! I have zipped eight songs from the supplementary playlist for And In Darkness, Light, the name I use for stories about Marcus (currently in progress: a trilogy plus some other stuff).

And In Darkness, Light (Supplementary Soundtrack) 47.2mb

( tracklisting )

( how the music for AIDL works )

If I post about the actual content of AIDL, in terms of themes and plot and everything, that'll probably go in auriel, but I'll link to it the next time I update my journal.

( links )

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Thu, 06 May 2010 05:07:13 GMT

Today's post is slightly late. I went to work and was super-productive! And then I did stuff other than read my dreamroll when I got home, and then Ellie and I went to get groceries. And then we didn't finish dinner until half past ten. /o\

Daily Song (right-click): Taking Back Sunday - Sink Into Me

I wore a skirt today!* I also made a very poor decision with regards to shoes. I've worn this pair before, but I guess never without socks or tights or something. I could feel that they were rubbing on my heels, but I didn't pay much attention until I was already at work and had a bunch of boxes out, since it didn't hurt that much. And then I happened to actually look at my feet, and there was kind of a lot of blood going on. I had to use four bandaids from the archives supply (normally reserved for treating paper cuts, methinks), and shall be wearing sandals for several days, until the wounds heal.

*Skirts are a big deal for me, since they take more effort than pants. I find them harder to coordinate with tops, and I tend to get nasty razor burn when I shave my legs, and I have to figure out shoes (since socks look dumb, and I don't own many pairs of stockings/pantyhose, and *points up* going without is not always feasible), and they're harder to wear in cold weather. So my skirt collection is sadly underutilized.

( three weeks for dreamwidth links, part whatever )

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Unreliable narrators

Tue, 04 May 2010 08:23:51 GMT

requested by blnchflr

Unreliable Narration in Auriel, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Protagonists' Issues

Background: When I refer to Auriel as a body of work, I refer to a group of unfinished (and, in some cases, unstarted) novels and stories about several characters, tied together in some cases by relationships between characters and in other cases simply by all happening in the same city around the same time.

( Onward! )

So, in short, I love the idea of characters who pass incomplete, flawed, delusional, or false information to the reader, and I love writing them.

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zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 01:54:44 GMT

I took some nyquil a few hours ago because I think I have a cold. It has helped with the epic sneezefest, but now I feel really fuzzy. Apparently, it takes a full dose of nyquil to make me feel like I do at three in the morning (see icon); if I take just one gelcap, I can pretty much function normally.

Daily Song (right-click): The Distillers - Drain the Blood
I have been listening to this a lot lately.

( Here are the links I've collected so far. )

Now I sleep.

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oh make me over

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 03:21:57 GMT

In my enthusiasm for this whole enterprise, I'll be continuing the daily link roundups. I never thought I'd be that kind of blogger, but I seem to have developed the habit, even before I was doing a specific kind of link-gathering. But while link-collecting is a useful service, I also want to be making other posts, especially in the context of three_weeks_for_dw.

One thing I'd like to do is provide a new song every day!

Daily Song (right-click): Hole - Celebrity Skin
Within the first week this song was on my ipod, it went straight to the top of the most-played list. It remains in the number one spot, with almost three times as many plays as the next song down.

blnchflr has asked me to write about unreliable narrators, although this will take a few days. (I shake my fist at the end of the semester.) I am still accepting prompts, questions, et cetera, via comment/pm/email/carrier pigeon.

View Poll: Some ideas I already have...

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eleventh hour

Sat, 03 Apr 2010 03:58:07 GMT

follow still-technically-friday!
academia is for academics. They have a friending meme up.
anchises writes excellent jdn. You may want to brush up on Mezzanine (product of synecdochic and ivorygates) beforehand.
brackets, for all your tournament needs!

As far as napowrimo goes, I'm doing all right. I managed to write yesterday and today, but only late in the day ("oh shit, gotta do my poem"), and they're essentially remixes of older poems I've written.

I definitely have a huge problem with consistently being able to write poetry. Sometimes I get into the groove (usually coinciding with poetry-writing courses or segments of courses, which is convenient and suggests it's more about habit than some kind of cyclical inspiration thing).

I haven't done much Auriel stuff lately, either. I haven't worked on the Big Damn Map for a week or so, and I haven't been writing for *cough* way too long. Ugh ugh ugh. Poking through my journal from mid-2007 to whenever I started the next one, I've found some little tidbits that might prove inspiring, tucked away amongst bandom squeeing and notes from Italian class. Because I'll take that kick in the pants now, even if it fucks with my ability to write poetry this month.

Bleh. On that note, to bed with me.

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Let's see how this one goes.

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 05:14:33 GMT

Signed up for 12in2010. I am aiming for 12 completed stories. Length, content, style, and other such things don't matter. I just want to get a dozen of my stories done, so I can feel like I haven't wasted a third of my life.*

I also signed up at copper_street for a 2010 overall goal of 200k words. Should be doable.

* Yes, this means they'll be auriel stories. And I designed my goal to force myself to post them.

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LJ: beware the RTE

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 02:03:57 GMT

azurelunatic: PSA: RTE data loss warning | azurelunatic: PSA: RTE data loss warning

If you have the <lj user> tag more than once in your entries, with a user first and then a community, the RTE is eating the data between those tags.

Bug only seems to be occurring on LJ.

***

I have written almost 4000 words today. Not sure how that happened. Going to finish this entry and see how far I can get.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I will be 22. I have to go to work for 9am (my finding aid is ready to level up, although it will probably need a lot of work after Boss and I go over it), but classes don't start until the 11th.

ETA: By the way, guys. I do not answer my phone if I don't recognize the number. If you have my number and want me to ever pick up the phone when you call, PLEASE email your phone number to sofiaviolet@sofiaviolet.com, so I can add you to my phonebook.

This message brought to you by someone calling from a 631 number and not leaving a message.

ETA2: If you don't have my number but want it, email me! Though again, please give me your number so I know who the heck is calling/texting me.

ETA3: Broke 5k. I have no clue how, since I just sat around notficcing with myself. \o?

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Fri, 18 Dec 2009 02:47:31 GMT

Look, I wrote stuff!

(The wall is actually a real place in my neighborhood, though auriel is a fake place in my head. I walk past the wall every day. Maybe it will give me something I truly need, one day.)

***

All the MCR fans reading this journal have probably already seen morebliss's Gerard Way picspam/quotespam, but my mom hasn't. (We are crossing our fingers so hard that they play New Orleans in June, so I can take my parents.)

Speaking of my parents! They will be here on Saturday!! !!!!!!!

***

( Mainly intended for people who are seeing this on LJ... )

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Follow Friday. Spring registration.

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 04:24:35 GMT

( Follow Friday: all-communities edition )

As always, please share your Follow Friday posts at followfriday.

***

Today is Dad's birthday. (I am not actually sure if he still reads this. Mom does. I already said 'happy birthday' on the phone, but it doesn't hurt to mention it again.)

I've bugged my honors advisor again, about the junior/senior project this time. It's not a requirement for the honors program (one can earn a course distinction and/or project distinction, and I'm on track for the former), so unless the history department will let me count it as my capstone, I don't think I'll do it. The effort:tangible-benefit ratio just isn't good enough.

( blah blah spring blah )

Why yes, yes that is two days off and no class earlier than half past one in the afternoon. *smugface*

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NaNoWriMo update.

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:38:07 GMT

Words: Well, uh. That's the thing.

Word tells me I have 6180 as of writing this entry. The NaNo word counter tells me I have 6267. This is good, actually, but the discrepancy is really bugging me when it comes to my super-detailed spreadsheet.

I am doing fine with regards to standard NaNo targets, but my personal goal was 2500 per day, and I haven't hit it yet this month. I mean, I have some excuses - burlesque on the 1st, random Amanda Palmer show on the 2nd. And it doesn't help that I'm behind three of my writing buddies right now (of seven who actually seem to be doing NaNo this year). Way to make me feel inadequate, guys (I still ♥ you).

Here, have a quote from the part of the story I'm not supposed to be working on yet:

He ducks his head, bites his lip – he's going to puke butterflies all over her if he opens his mouth, 'I like you' and 'I'm nervous' and 'please be okay with me' and 'please believe I'm okay.'

Perhaps I should do something with brother_marcus? I mean, I am writing his story for NaNo.

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Not a real update.

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:16:51 GMT

Ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Or any sort of question, really.

I hope to get something relatively substantive up in the next few days, but a quick list:
* Work continues to be good.
* I haven't been doing enough writing and it bugs me.
* I haven't been doing enough anything lately, except for going out, and it bugs me.
* I know what I'm doing for NaNo (two ideas, actually - focusing on the more heart-wrenchingly miserable one, but will switch to the other one whenever I cannot go on *hands*).
* I suspect I need to go back up to 250 mg. Maybe even 300, but I'm scared to try that again since my memory was so badly affected last time. We'll see how I do between now and my next appointment.

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Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:11:48 GMT

( things I spotted on etsy, version I Can't Wear That To Work! )

hederahelix: Sizeism in fic and society

'Cis' is hostile? I remember being quite pleased the first time I became aware of 'cis' and related terms - it filled a lexical hole that I had not realized was there.

Weird passage of time at work today - doing really tedious stuff apparently makes the day fly by. Probably because I can devote a portion of my brain to pre-writing.

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On warning for triggers.

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 22:20:11 GMT

I don't write fic, so my personal warnings policy is kind of pointless.

But I do write fiction not immediately traceable to a source canon, and my current publishing plan should I ever actually finish anything is "on my website with a virtual tip jar" - you bet your ass I'm warning for shit, because that's the standard of the community that taught me to write and to love writing.

I don't write rape scenes - I can't bring myself to do it and I don't really want to anyway. But in the story I'm working on right now, two characters discuss and enact a rape fantasy in a minimally skeevy way,* and I have restructured the story such that a reader could skip that entire section and only miss out on a bit of character development.

My purposes in writing that scene are:
1. examine my own issues with rape fantasies, based on my personal history,
2. emotionally affect readers who choose to read that scene without causing them harm,
3. demonstrate the characters' trust and ability to communicate,
4. possibly comment upon noncon/dubcon tropes - depends on how the scene goes and how meta I get.

( * Potentially triggering footnote about my past abusive relationship and rape. )

***

• kalpurna: ways to hide your warnings, if you're worried about spoilers
• blackboggart: on artistic integrity and artistic responsibility

tangential to the warnings issue: terminology
• were_lemur: discussing terminology: rape/non-con/dub-con
• solarcat: defining dub-con and non-con, also available on LiveJournal. Comments and good discussion on both entries.

I'm so used to encountering the terms "non-con" and "dub-con" in fandom that I don't have any trouble parsing them in fannish contexts like headers. But I do find them troubling - each term is vague enough to encompass a pretty huge range of situations (see above links), and I don't like the way they tend to sanitize rape-in-fiction. I don't dislike it enough to get very upset about it, though.

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My notebook is falling apart, you guys. :(

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 02:38:18 GMT

I mean, I've been carrying it around since last March. It's a 5-subject composition book, and I tend to write pretty small. Lots of pages. Lots of words. It survived my MCR trip last May (without getting barfed on, which is more than I can say for my pants), and I've brought it with me almost everywhere.

The front cover is starting to tear away from the binding, and the entire cover/binding is separating from the pages. I need to repair it somehow. I think the answer is... duct tape. It usually works. Or I can ask at work, since someone there has probably done a wee bit of conservation on something.

One of the reasons I love writing in notebooks is that I can ignore my inner editor. I have to keep going - damn the plot holes and the continuity fail - or else pick a different scene to start writing. I do more writing on my computer, but sometimes I just need a notebook. If I'm feeling distractable, especially.

Of course, I look for all sorts of ways to make myself write. Unfortunately, I can't participate in kink_bingo because I don't write fanfic, but I am going to use their list as a way of prompting myself. Writing a random sex scene is a good way to get in my daily words, and sometimes it's helpful with regards to characterization.

bexless: Size Queen. Femmeslash om nom nom. Written for kink_bingo.

If you post cool content but you didn't have me friended on LJ, I set up a feed on DW (since I was only seeing your public posts anyway) and defriended you on LJ. I'm trying to centralize myself on Dreamwidth as much as possible. I won't abandon my LJ-based friends, but if I was just a follower, then whatever.

Someone is setting off fireworks, and has been every night since Saturday. It's annoying and it really upsets my upstairs neighbor's dog. >:(

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Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:23:06 GMT

I finally caught up with my June targets (one bad day took about a week to recover from), and I'm only about 4000 words behind my 2009 targets. Currently at 10475 for June and 157494 for the year. This is good.

Does anyone still need/want a Dreamwidth invite code? I sent one to an anon commenter back in mid-May and it's still unused. :\

Back to Boston tomorrow. :(

IDK if I want a nap, or to fight through the post-lunch/zomg HOT drowsiness. We took a very nice drive on the way home from lunch, though. Whee pretty houses.

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Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:41:25 GMT

Still in New Orleans. Most of what we wanted to do has been done, which is awesome.

I'm getting back into the groove of writing my daily words - April was a busy month for me, and May was kind of a flop. I'm not doing anything crafty while I'm in New Orleans because I don't have my stuff, but I need to come up with some good metrics for evaluating my crafty output. That might be good to track in terms of time, because I can spend a lot longer on a painting than a pendant. Unless I want to track my handmade endeavors separately - jewelry by the piece, paintings by time, knitting by... idk, since I'm still smack in the middle of learning how to knit.

Whatever. Point is, I will eventually need a better spreadsheet.*

We're having crawfish etouffee (I hope that's right) tonight, but it'll be quite a while before it's ready. *sigh* I've already had two snacks and I'm getting hungry again already.

* I use a spreadsheet full of equations to help motivate myself, because it's very effective to watch the numbers change across the entire spreadsheet.

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I am enjoying my Friday.

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 22:09:19 GMT

I love my job. :D Just throwing that out there.

( podfic blatherings )

My alarm clock might not be broken after all. *stares at it suspiciously* I'll test it out tomorrow. And speaking of broken stuff, I really hope my mom replaces the CD player in her car before I come home. I want to give her lots of music for her commute! And listen to it with her while we drive to the mall/French Quarter/Magazine Street/grocery store/Elmwood/Taqueria Corona/Five Happiness/assorted delicious New Orleans restaurants.

music for my mom (also taking suggestions lol)
• Leathermouth
• Fall Out Boy (Folie A Deux, since she has their other albums already)
• Thursday
• Patrick Wolf

I am about 4000 words behind on my writing, but I feel pretty okay about it. Because writing is important, but so is having a life where I run into people I know and hang out with friends and leave my apartment. Besides, this weekend is looking quiet, so I can catch up some. And really, what's 4k, in the grand scheme of 410k?

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