I may or may not be re-reading the entire Hunger Games series because I may or may not have signed up for a ficathon because I may or may not be toying with writing my first fanfic in years.

I am sufficiently terrified. I am so rusty at writing anything. I have lost my muchness. It used to flow so naturally, and now I critique every turn of phrase. (Basically, I am saying I might need a beta, so halp.)

The thing is, THG is the only universe I've felt interested in writing in for a very long time-- much like LJS fandom, it's because the fanfic is quite often much better than the actual published material. The characterization more nuanced. The world-building more fleshed out. It helps that fanfic doesn't have to be YA-marketable, of course. I love seeing the seedy underbelly of The Capitol that the books could only hint at. There's so much left to be explored.

Okay, so. I need to get un-rusty. Way back in 2006, I did a writing challenge where people suggested one-word prompts. I wrote little vignettes about the words suggested-- some fandom-related, some not.

I will write vignettes about the first TEN words given to me. Suggest away!

ETA: Words-- Slighted, Minister, Cat, Elsewhere, Twirl, Fissure, Translate, Avenue, Loss, Eyeshadow

Room for one more.

I needed a place to compile all my little TKD Vignettes. New ones need to be written soon! And I think I want an icon. Must search stock soon. I'm picky.

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April is poetry month, and I've been writing some new pieces, but they're not ready yet. So, for the rest of the month, I'll be posting bits of old and new poems. Here are some of my older poems that are still fit for public consumption.

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( Lacuna.Collapse )

I think I've chosen my Montana backstory location. I needed somewhere small, but big enough to have a high school and be within an hour's drive of a psychiatric hospital. I needed woods, preferably near mountains. And rather poor-ish.

I think I'm going to go with Hamilton, Montana.

If any of you live / have lived / have traveled extensively in Montana, I'm interested in input.

I need to just suck it up and realize that I need to live without pumpkin ice cream. The first time I bought it, our refrigerator went up, and I was left with pumpkin soup. The second time... well, the storm we had yesterday knocked out our power, and it's still not back on yet. It was pitch black when I walked in my house last night, and I had to carry a candlestick Victorian-horror-novel style in order to get ready for bed. I was really happy that I didn't have to use the restroom, though, 'cause no power on earth can make me walk into a blackened bathroom with only a sputtery candle if there's a huge mirror right in front of it. Nope.

So now, it is not simply my neck that's sore, but my whole entire back, because I was so cold last night from not having heat in November that I woke up several times curled into fetal position. My fish are totally giving me the "bitch, please-- you need to take our finny little asses back to the pet store" look. By the way, I did get a second betta-- a tiny little pale white female whom I've named Nigiri. White as snow, how appropriate.

Well, we should have light and heat by the time I get off work today. There was a crew out on the corner, and presumably, it's being worked on.

Oh coffee, thou fount of life, bring warmth back into my stiff little fingers.


So, my research is mostly done for my new novel, and I have 95% of the plot and novel structure outlined. I know my characters pretty well. The only thing left is to nail down specific locations, and to do that, I have to research Montana. I need to find an area that's densely wooded, and somewhere hikers sometimes go. Maybe somewhere with rarely-traveled bluffs or cliffs. Remote, but within about two hours of a small town that's large enough to have a hospital and sanitarium. I'm also nailing down my Maryland location. It looks like I'll be using Granite, Maryland as a setting-- it's wooded (near Patapsco State Park), it has a moving body of water (the Patapsco river), it's in/near a suburb of Baltimore, and it has a small-town feel. Dixie and I are going to do a drive-through sometime on Saturday so I can get a better feel for the area. I need to look into the local papers for the area, but I think it's pretty set. I like the name, too. It's cold-sounding. Stark and grey, just like the scenescape I have in my mind-- desaturated November days after the first major cold snap. The leaves are off the trees and browning along the paths, but it's not quite cold enough to snow, so everything is chilly and damp. Granite. It sounds unforgiving.

Saturday night, the writing begins.

Eeeee!

Virgo:: Sometimes, Virgo, you're too damn smart for your own good. You may describe a problem so brilliantly, for instance, that you think you've solved it merely by talking about it, and never get around to actually fixing it. On other occasions your fine mind runs amuck in an orgy of razor-sharp analysis, cutting things apart in order to understand them but not putting them back together again. I beg you not to indulge in these excesses during the coming week. Your intelligence will be soaring beyond even its usual exceptional levels, and it would be a shame for you not to capitalize on it momentously.

My writing of the Tam Lin YA novel is on hold.

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Bellydance was hard last night. Intermediate is going to be a challenge for me-- I really have to work to make my hands and my body rolls more graceful. I definitely left yesterday feeling like I got a hell of a workout. I need to be more bendy.

Tonight, I'm going to see a co-worker's band play at the 8x10. After that, I'm going to drink a bottle of pinot in the bath. Because it's been that type of month.
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I leave you with this for discussion-- What is Fantasy?

I was discussing fantasy writing with a friend yesterday, and he said that he doesn't consider writing that takes place in our physical world to be true Fantasy writing. Essentially, that true Fantasy writing takes place on another world. For instance, he said, he would not consider most of Neil Gaiman's writing to be Fantasy. And then I just boggled, because dude. Neil has received some of the world's top Fantasy awards. He's been featured in some of the world's best Fantasy anthologies. I started to go down a list of Neil's writing to explain exactly how Neil is a flagship Fantasy writer, but at that point, he wanted to "agree to disagree." (Of course, I then said that I would drop the subject, but I wouldn't agree to disagree because I was right, goddamnit. Sometimes, I'm stubborn like that.)

Anyway, I was arguing that that's not so-- even sci-fi today can take place in our physical world-- Earth. Neil Gaiman might be shelved in the fiction section of bookstores, but he'd also be in the Fantasy section. (And indeed, Gaiman's American Gods, the book we were initially discussing, is shelved as Fantasy at Barnes & Noble, Borders, and is listed as Fantasy at Amazon.Com.) Why? Because according to Wikipedia:

Fantasy is a genre of art that uses magic and other supernatural forms as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. The genre is generally distinguished from science fiction and horror by overall look, feel, and theme of the individual work, though there is a great deal of overlap between the three (collectively known as speculative fiction). In its broadest sense, fantasy covers works by many writers, artists, and musicians, from ancient myths and legends, to many recent works embraced by a wide audience today.

Therefore, even if a story takes place physically on Earth, the use of magic and mythology qualifies it as Fantasy. The fact that Neil's work contains Gods and monsters and trolls and humans-turned-into-goats and ghosts and... well, it all makes him a Fantasy writer. Well, technically, it makes him a speculative fiction writer, but that's still a sub-genre of Fantasy. Which isn't to say that he only writes Fantasy, but that has been the bulk of his oevre. Fantasy is not just Ursula LeGuin, and dragons, and building the newest version of a neo-medieval world. It's diverse and complex and prone to crossing over into other genres.

It appears that my friend was basing his assertation of the Fantasy genre solely on one of its subgenres-- High Fantasy. You know, Tolkein, Narnia, D&D. While all of those things do qualify as Fantasy, they don't hold a lock on what Fantasy is. Essentially, everything from Gaiman to Stephen King to Highlander to Buffy to steampunk to Sword & Sorcery to War for the Oaks and Tithe to Jacqueline Carey's alternate histories all fall under Fantasy, even though they may fall into differing Fantasy subgenres. They also may cross over to other genres as well, but they still qualify as Fantasy. Anyway, so here is a great big list of Fantasy subgenres.

So yeah. All you writers and illustrators and librarians and publishers out there... what makes something Fantasy to you, and to the publishing industry at large? I want discussion, yo.

ETA: Lol. Coincidentally, today is Neil Gaiman's birthday.

I have been sucked into Supernatural, and it's all aggiebell's fault. She tempted me with the shiny first season box set-- I'm not even eight episodes in, and I'm fangirling Jensen Ackles in an entirely embarrassing manner.

I'm not usually one to swoon over pretty boys... erm, okay, so maybe I am, but at least not ones who used to be in soap operas (and I know this because my mother is a hardcore Days of Our Lives fan). I didn't expect much from him in the way of acting, though. Pretty boys (yes, Tom Welling, I'm looking at you) aren't generally cast because they're the most gifted thespians, you know what I mean? Though Jensen/Dean hasn't been given any really meaty scenes thus far, I can say that damn, he is fun to watch. And it's not just the pretty, I swear. I love the way he does sarcasm. He's like Sawyer on Lost, only I actually give a shit. He had me from the very moment he called Sam "Dr. Venkman." My heart was his. Lalala. The wedding will be in Hawaii, please RSVP. Lalala.

Okay, enough. It's a fun show-- better written and acted than I expected. Not exactly Buffy, but then again, what is? And there are great guest stars. I've seen Sarah Shahi (oh my god, marry me, my love) and Amy Acker in the first couple of episodes. Plus it doesn't hurt that there is extreme eye candy in both sexes.

Nano is coming slowly. I'm a pressure writer, so I didn't expect to have so much apathy about it. I think it's that terrible thing known as "real life." Real life of late has made me want to pull the blankets over my head and not come out, so you'd think that'd transfer to writing a seventeen year-old girl, right? Apparently not.

I have noticed something, though. It is infinitely easier for me to write when I'm playing in someone else's universe. Growing up, I read a lot of LJ Smith, and I know her characters backwards and forwards. So it stands to reason that some of my favorite writing that I've done is in that fandom. I have a handle on Gabriel's voice, so writing it is second-nature. I think part of my problem is that I don't know my main character. She's the weak link in the story. I've got the plot. I finally have my villain nailed down, and the male lead is easy enough... but the heroine? I'm terrified that she'll be every bit as exciting as matzoh bread. Argh. Teenaged girls. What is there to say that hasn't already been said?

Briefly, I have signed up to write my annual fanfic. I generally only write one a year, and it's generally a Secret Santa-type deal. Considering I was pleased as punch with my submission last year to LJSanta, I figured I'd do it again. I might post it here sometime, even though virtually no one I know outside of fandom-types has ever even heard of LJ Smith, and so you'd all be lost, but it'd be good for posterity's sake, I guess. Though I suppose I'd have to pretty it up a bit--it was posted with a few grammatical errors that make my inner Virgo gnash her teeth. Eh. Such is the pain of writing an entire short story in four hours. It was fun, though. I killed off about half of LJ's most beloved characters and got to write in a really interesting crossover-'verse. It was a good exercise.

ETA: OMGWTF, Livejournal? I am so tired of this thing not working. ARGH.

I'm in the middle of outlining the novel that I am completely not writing for NaNoWriMo.

Considering that this concept has been bouncing around in my head and written out in various incarnations over the course of three years, many of my ideas feel a little stale. I have a prose outline that covers the big plot points, and now I'm mostly working on the details which could use a little fresh blood.

So. Help.

Virgo:: French author Andre Gide said, "The color of truth is gray." Make that your watchword, Virgo. Resist the temptation to fall in love with bright shiny red facts or alluring azure maxims. Run like the wind from anyone who tries to sell you a story about good guys in white hats versus bad guys in black hats. The more comfortable you are with veracities that have the hue of dirty dishwater, the more likely it is you'll see things exactly as they are, free of delusions and deceits. Halloween costume suggestion: any elaborate, intricate getup, like a commedia dell'arte character's outfit, that's all grey.

1. I'm setting up a work-related tag. Thus far, I've only tagged back to March '06, but I'm going to set a goal for May '05-- I want a tag for post-college work stuff. That'll cover Cory, AME, and the new job. So I'll get to revisit oldies-but-goodies, like the time the guy with the gun asked me out to dinner, or the time bounty hunters came looking for my cousin. Good times.

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9. Anybody got some recs for good, creepy ghost stories? Maybe that are stored on the web somewhere? I'm in the mood for a good creeping-out.

10. Also on the docket for tonight-- hardcore outlining for the NaNoWriMo novel that I am totally not signed up to write. *shifty eyes* Totally not.