So, I think most folks on the flist are aware that there's another Fanfic Award thing going around - Words on the Wind. I know zilch about it, I have little to no intention of becoming half as involved as I am/was in the CoT awards, and for me, it's mostly been under the radar.

Today, I got a notification that one of my stories was nominated. So first, thank you to whoever nominated it. I'm very flattered that you remembered the story and took the time to enter it! I don't get many nominations, so I treasure every one of them.

Moving on....I'm not sure I should accept the nomination. The nominated story? Is the remix I wrote a few months ago. Specifically, Finding Rose (The Forty-three Days Remix) from the chips_remixed challenge over the summer. The story is mine - but it's based off something someone else originally wrote.

One could argue that I'm simply describing fanfic in general. Hush, you.

So I'm not exactly sure this is something I should accept, and I remember this seemed to be a discussion a while back. (Or maybe this was strictly among the mods at CoT, I can't remember.) Should an author be nominated for a remixed fic? Is it fair to the author of the original fic on which it was based?

Hence...poll. What thinketh you, flist? Do I accept the nomination or not? Mind, I don't have a CLUE what category it's in, although I suppose I should find out.

Poll #1483634
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 15

Should I accept the nomination?

Cleo: Good morning! Don't forget my breakfast!
Me: Cleo, it's 4.30 in the morning.
Cleo: No, it's not. It's 5.30, and breakfast is in half an hour.
Me: Actually, Daylight Savings started yesterday. It's 4.30, and breakfast is in an hour and a half.
Cleo: What's Daylight Savings?
Me: We turn our clocks back an hour so we can save daylight. Basically, instead of going to work when it's dark and coming home when it's light, I'll be going to work when it's light and coming home when it's dark.
Cleo: That's stupid.
Me: Tell me about it, cat.
Cleo: Anyway, breakfast.
Me: Is in AN HOUR AND A HALF.
Cleo: I don't do Daylight Savings.
Me: You and the cows in Indiana.
Cleo: BREAKFAST. BREAKFAST. BREAKFAST. BREAKFAST. BREAKFAST.
Me: ARGH.

Nano word count: 1,229 this morning. I don't like Daylight Savings much, but at least I'm waking up an hour early so I can fit some writing in before work.

Having just seen SJA episodes five and six (those would be the one with the Doctor), I have only this to ask:

( Minor Spoilers. Or major, depending on how you look at it. )

Today's Nano Word count: 0. Yup, that would be correct, not one word. I have been either goofing off or completely productive on the non-writer front, depending on how you look at it. I've made banana bread, chocolate & pepper cookies, cheese blintzes, purchased a non-stick 8" crepe pan for the cheese blintzes (I made crepes! From scratch! It was way fun), mailed two boxes (well, one box and one tube, really), and nearly completed a cross-stitch key-chain. And swept and cleared out the cobwebs forming on the porch. I also discovered two dead crickets, recognizing Cleo as a mighty huntress, and bringing her Confirmed Cricket Kill Count to Three.

Odd rejection in yesterday's mail. This place sent my query letter back to me. I can't decide if that's just what they do, or if it's supposed to me, "Egad, woman, you write so badly we don't even want to contaminate our recycling bin with your disgusting query letter."

• Leave me a comment saying "Resistance is Futile."

• I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity

• Update your journal with the answers to the questions

• Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions (I'll also answer more, if asked)

( On Philosophies, on Fandom, On Writing )

I finally remembered to do the actual sign-up for this year's Nano - which apparently starts on Sunday. (I was not paying attention. Oops.) I have an idea, but I have NO idea if it'll actually take 50K to write it, plus I'll have major editing on the project4editrx cookbook to complete, not to mention a husband to entertain and the conclusion of Water Music to edit, so this may be extremely entertaining to watch me try to do this.

Anyway, if anyone's doing Nano, and wants to friend me over there, here is my profile. I've got it nice and updated. I have no title as of yet. Hopefully something will occur to me, because with me, if things go untitled very long, they tend to stay that way.

(See: Original Story, often referred to as the O.S., which has remained untitled since 2003. It had a title for about twenty minutes once. It didn't take.)

I was hoping to do a write-in for Nano on Sunday, but looks like all the write-in things are way off in the boonies. The closest one to me is in Manassas. This is criminal. It's not that I mind Manassas, but there's write-ins in Fairfax and Vienna and even one a HALF MILE FROM MY HOUSE, except they're all in the middle of the week at the ridiculous hour of 3pm. Argh.

In other writing news - I've been having a bit of a slump recently. The Jack at Woodstock story went off to a brilliant, funny, clever start. It stalled. The attempt to write the next part of Crossroads was absolutely fantastic....it stalled. We will not speak of the epic poem.

Yesterday, I breached the hurdle, wrote a sweet, funny, fluffy little ficlet with just a hint of bittersweet (as I do), and now I'm writing a companion to it.

They're OT3. wendymr will probably laugh her head off.

*

The cross-stitches for the next Support Stacie auction are done. I might do one more bookmark, but I've switched back to poor neglected Erised, because I'm about ten lines from finishing Page Five, and I really want to finish Page Five.

Still rejections for TRT. I need to get back on sending out queries, I've been slacking the last week or so.

Another day, another rejection - which brings me up to 11 rejections out of 30 queries sent. (Some of the non-responses count as a rejection, I know, but I haven't figured out which ones yet, and I'm not overly worried about them.)

On the plus side, while it's a form letter, this one appears to have been actually SIGNED by the agent in question. And this was a snail mail query that asked for both a synopsis and the first 30 pages. I send them query - synopsis - excerpt, in that order. This came back excerpt - synopsis, out of order. So I'm going to take that as a good sign.

(Even if it probably means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. When one has 11 rejections, one takes the good stuff where one can.)

(For instance, this evening's good stuff would be a SIGNED form letter, which I haven't received before. Also the garlic chicken pizza heating up in the oven. Yum.)

In other news: there are 113 recipes for the project4editrx cookbook, plus about five others in my inbox I haven't processed yet. Yay, recipes! About half of them have been claimed for testing, and half of those have been tested. Yay, testers! Want to help test, or contribute a recipe? Go here, or ask me here!

I got another rejection for TRT. WOO-HOO!

(Well, it's either WOO-HOO, or cry.)

In other writing news, I have two half-chapters to write for Water Music, and then it's done. Two half chapters, because I only wrote half of Chapter 16, and half of Chapter 17, and they are halfs I can smoosh together and call a whole. I should finish Chapter 16 tomorrow, and may be able to finish Chapter 17 (and thus THE ENTIRE DAMN STORY) by the close of the weekend. This is rather exciting.

Once that's done, I can concentrate on the Jack-at-Woodstock story. And then I can finish Smurfy-Wurfy, and then the epic poem, and someday, I might even get around to wiggiemomsi's Lost Fic. Which is not actually a fic based on Lost, but I'm calling it the Lost fic because I keep getting lost when I try to write it. It's got a fantastic beginning. It just sort of has no middle, and no end. Kind of a dilemma, really.

Also, I know what I'm writing for NaNoWriMo this year. Of course, I'm not sure it'll take 50,000 words. But we'll see.

So I check my email this morning, and I find ----

Another rejection!

This time from someone I sent a query letter LAST NIGHT.

I thought 24 hours was fast --- HOW ABOUT SIX?????

And it was sent out at 4am. So the question is, was the person actually reading her email at 4am? And if so, why on earth was she up at that hour, poor girl? And if not - was it the intern? (In which case, poor intern.)

Ah well. Letters continue.

I just sent the first two query letters off by email. Eek. I'm going to hide under the bed now.

Or possibly make dinner.

I hate query letters, btw. To me, they always sound like a bad summary on ff.net. "I don't know, just r/r! tee-hee, lol!"

Also, I'm having doubts about my plan to contact literary agents first. I'm fairly sure this is cold feet, but all the same. Maybe I just should go straight for the publisher? Argh.


Poll #1453270
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 24

Sharon should:

Also, on an unrelated note:

I went to see Julie & Julia this weekend with some friends. I half expected to walk out wanting desperately to cook things with cream and butter....

Instead, I came out wanting desperately to debone a duck. Why? I have no idea. Except that I own both volumes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking (the second one is a first edition! And is signed!), and I've made chicken a la Julia, chocolate mousse a la Julia, and ratatouille a la Julia.

Now, I'm thinking it's time to debone a duck, a la Julia.

(I might blog about it, provided that my hands aren't overly ducky and I can take pictures as I go.)

( And since we're talking about a movie about blogging anyway.... )

This is, of course, entirely rambly and could probably be put better if I had more time to think about it. But I am queen of unfinished thoughts this week, and this would be the current unfinished thought of the moment. I also have to go downstairs and start the green beans that will go with the steak and potatoes for tonight's dinner.

(We had intended to also grill corn on the cob, until I read the recipe and discovered that corn needs to soak for about 2 hours before grilling. And unlike Julie Powell, I do not relish eating my dinner at 10pm, therefore, green beans. We'll survive.)

SO, in conclusion (YES, I DO HAVE ONE):

1. Meryl Streep was a very good Julia Child.

2. Amy Adams is far too adorable to make a convincing bitch.

3. Always soak your corn for two hours before putting it on the grill.

4. If someone blogs and no one answers, does the cat really care as long as dinner is on time?


Also, I still want to debone a duck.

Weird dream last night, probably precipitated by the fact that I woke up at 2am with cramps, and ended up sleeping sitting up on the couch downstairs. I dreamed that for some reason, Bill and I bought a new house, and I was seeing it for the first time. The kitchen was...weird, and little, and every appliance in it (fridge, dishwasher, oven, even a deep-freeze) was avocado green. I don't think deep freezes even were made in avocado green, but nevertheless, there they were. It was kind of frightening.

Although - when I was growing up, our fridge was avocado green. That fridge was older than I was; it died while I was away at college. Apparently, when the repairman announced the time of death, my mom was already in the car, ready to go to Sears and pick out a new one.

Weird dream, plus I slept late - I only woke up about half an hour ago - so now my whole day feels a bit off-kilter. I finished editing the Phantom/Doctor Who fic for momdaegmorgan yesterday, and it's off with one of the usual suspects for betaing. I looked at the O.S., laughed, and put it away again. I wrote a query letter for Two Roads Traveled, but I'm going to write two additional scenes for it so the query letter is probably a bit premature. (But I've never actually written a query letter before, so maybe an early start isn't a bad idea.)

It was an okay day - helped mostly by the fact that the morning was so incredibly busy I didn't even have time to think about writing or fanfic or anything.

Of course, by noon my eyes were killing me - the first of the month are always computer-heavy days, and I totally spaced this morning on the fact that it's JULY now, and wore my contacts instead of my glasses. Owowowowowowow.

On the bright side - having my brain totally clear of anything related to writing was good, because when at last I had a moment to breathe, I came up with the writerinatardis story. And oh, it's good. It's enormously clever. It's one of those things that I'm sure half a dozen others are going to think of, so that's kind of worrying, but I think it'll be fun to write.

So yeah, it still sucks that I lost four chapters (half! HALF!) of momdaegmorgan's story. But I have a three-day weekend (which I also only just realized today), and Bill will be out of town, and I plan on settling in and writing like mad.

And maybe going to the Smithsonian's Folklife festival. We'll see what the weather's like. I'm very good at writing on the Metro.

Huh.

I finished the Nano novel this morning, and I only figured it out half an hour ago. I probably would have realized this at the time, except just as I was typing the last few words of the scene I'd been meaning to write, Bill wandered into the office around 9am.

"What time did you you have to take the car for its oil change and safety inspection?"

"Eight a.m.....Shit!"

So it wasn't until this afternoon, having had the car oiled and inspected, picked up lunch at Subway, watched a bit of Bill's NetFlix movie (The Seven Samurai), and wrote another CoT review, that I realized....

I finished the Nano novel this morning. I just looked, and there aren't any more scenes to write that I can think of. (I'm sure I'll think of some eventually, but not just now.) I've read through bits of it this afternoon, fixing small things, adding other things, and the like. I have no idea if it's any good or not. Final word count: 95,162.

It's even got a title, which is more than I can say for the O.S., which may never actually have a title.

The next step, of course, is have someone read it over, and tell me what the heck's wrong with it...but I don't want to send it out quite yet. There's a promotion for the folks who finished their novels at Nano - a free proof copy from some company connected with Amazon - but I'm not sure I want to do that quite yet either. (I have until the end of June.) At the moment, I think I'm going to just sit here and marvel at the fact that I actually finished.

And didn't even know it!

Gacked from shinyopals - the Commenting Meme thingie.

( I feel very loved. )

Edited to add: I wrote fic. Off an idea I had while doing those reviews last month. I came home, and sat down, and wrote it. And it's AWESOME. Well, I think awesome. Sweet and slightly cracky, and I'm pleased as punch. HURRAH.

Also, runriggers says she'll finish the beta on wiggiemomsi's Support-Stacie-While-Owning-the-Who'verse fic, so I'll post that in the morning. HURRAH again!

AND, I held a baby at work today - a co-worker in another office brought in her twins. They are very little and very cute and one of them fell asleep in my arms, because I have the Magical Arms of Aunt Sharon, in which babies fall asleep like MAGIC.

I wrote a chunk of Two Roads Traveled tonight, on AU Stephanie's road, and it's probably awful, but it flowed, and I'm awfully pleased with it anyway. And I know where it's going, if not how to get there, quite, but I'm feeling excellent about it anyway.

And on the other road, I've got John figured out, and his relationship with his dad, which is turning out to be kind of important, and so I'm all sorts of happy with that, even if I might not be able to work it into the finished story, although I think I might find a way, because at the moment, he's just being a Bastard, and this at least gives him reason for why he's a Bastard. So hurrah for that.

I'm somewhat perplexed by the repeated posts about the death of LJ. I went ahead and backed this up on IJ (azriona over there too, but it's much more boring to see). Which is nice, but I'd really miss the comments, should LJ really disappear, and those didn't transfer. And I can't for the life of me get any other system to work. I swear, I'm not stupid when it comes to computers, but I can't get the backups that save comments to actually download. Sigh.

Anyway - Goals for the Month:

1. Finish the first draft of Two Roads Traveled. This involves two, maybe three more scenes.

2. Finish the next part of Water Music, or at least a good chunk of it. Oh, and write that Sarah Palin/Doctor story I promised.

3. Try to get five stories of the CoT Round 2 Nominees read/reviewed a week. This is a MUCH lighter load than the last time, and will make February much nicer. I'm still not going to post the official reviews until February, but I can at least get them written.

4. Start working on the next Broadway Musical. Which will be Hair. Because I came up with a good song for it. And I own the soundtrack. Mwahahahaha.

5. Find a better writing icon.

Hmm.

I'm having the worst-worst-worst time getting back into the swing of writing. I don't know if it's because I'm still somewhat winded from all those reviews, or if it's because since I worked on those reviews, I got out of the habit of writing.

Either way, this isn't good. I need to work on Two Roads Taken (which is the new name for the Nano novel, incidentally - I think it might stick). I have a list of fanfic to write. I have to do the next Broadway Musical. The O.S. still looms like crazy. I owe about three people letters, and there's about four of you who have fics that I desperately want to review.

And yet....not a word. *sigh*

I've cleaned the bathrooms, my normal cure for writer's block, and not a word moves. I've cleaned the kitchen, and not a word moves. I'm about to start taking down the Christmas tree....and I'll bet not a word will move. I'm about ten minutes from attacking the closets in the extra bedrooms. Argh.

So...I hate doing this, it never seems to work well. But....prompt me. Help me out here. Feel free to give me a shove in the write direction. (Pun intended.) I'm shoving all the fic-writing memes in here I can think of:

My master fic list is here.

1. The TimeStamp Meme: request a fic that takes place a specified amount of time BEFORE or AFTER the fic in question.

2. The DVD Meme: request a DVD-style commentary of any fic on the list. (Chaptered fics, you get one chapter, not the whole thing.)

3. Pairing Meme: Give me a pairing, I'll give you a fic.

4. Truth Meme: Ask me question about anything I've written - Doctor Who fanfic, Harry Potter fanfic, Original Stories, whatever - and I promise to answer you truthfully.

Yeah, that should cover it. Are there any memes out there I've missed?

The problem with being sick at home is that lying in bed, when you have little to no energy do spare, gives you plenty of time to think.

1. After plowing through three of the four Doctor Who novels received for Christmas (The Stone Rose, Feast of the Drowned, Resurrection Casket), I turned to another book Bill got me: Julia Child's My Life in France. It's fun reading, both from the aspect of learning about Paris after the war, and how Julia got her start in cooking, except there's one notable drawback, which is that it tends to make one hungry. She talks about eggs, and cream, and chickens, and bouillabaisse, and shallots, and while my chicken-sweet-potato soup is very good, it's not cream, and eggs, and roast chicken, and shallots.

( On Cooking and Writing and what they have to do with each other. )

2. I am still absolutely exhausted when it comes to fanfic. I think EGT said it best in response to a review I left her - to paraphrase, it's not good when reading/reviewing becomes a chore. I think, trying to review the nominations for the Children of Time awards (the winners are posted, btw, and I'll do a post on that at another time), I did exactly that. I turned reading and reviewing into something of a chore.

A fun chore, one that was infinitely rewarding, but then, so is vacuuming.

My current line of thought is this: although I said I would, I'm not going to go back and review every story I missed. There are two reasons for this. One, because there are over 400 stories nominated, with more nominations to come in the new year. I'm crazy, not stupid. Chances are very good that the stories I did not review and did not win will be nominated again. I'll get to those first, or try to do so, because yes, I do plan on doing this again with the next round.

And two: because it shouldn't be a chore. And going back to review stories will be exactly that: a chore. I can't promise to try to review every single story that is nominated. I understand that there are going to be 100 categories on this round (which, if you ask me, borders on overkill, so I'm hoping that number is incorrect), and even if the nominations are limited to 15 stories apiece, that's a lot of stories. Again, crazy, not stupid.

3. Thank you to those of you who sent holiday cards. I haven't said thanks before, so I'll do so now. They all hang along the stairwell leading from the ground floor to the second floor, where we spend most of our time, and it's fantastic to see them all hanging there whenever we leave or come in. So, jlrpuck, wildwinterwitch, runriggers, and wiggiemomsi, thank you bunches. :)

And if you sent a card, and I didn't list you, blame my stuffy head, and not me.)

4. Cleo likes my new bathrobe. It is fuzzy. She likes fuzzy. She's been lying on my knees all day, and this eveing, started kneading my stomach. It was extremely ticklish.

5. Rum balls are good for colds. So sayeth I, anyway.

My brain rebelling (or perhaps it was the hand controlling the mouse), I read bits of the Nano Novel this morning, instead of fanfic.

Do you know - it's not half bad. It needs a little work, and I've got two scenes I've thought to write in the meantime, and several that needs some serious editing and rewriting. But all in all - I very much enjoyed reading it this morning.

Hmm!

Incidentally, I've got a title for it now, or at least the latest working title: "Two Roads Traveled". I figure that'll last at least another month. Opinions, please.

( Word Count, and what comes next )