Last night: Two machine-loads of laundry, two sinks full of handwashing, unloaded dishwasher, exercised. And read a book
Tonight: Washed all my sweaters and the afghans and put them neatly away for the summer. Watched West Wing. Read a book
I figure, two or three more days of this, and you ingrates will be begging me to go back to obsessing over Spike! Begging me!
I'm so amazingly boring.
Posted by AnneZook at 09:27 PMLast night? I read a book. All evening. Heh. Heh.
Also, for any Kind Friend wondering why I'm not e-mailing her back today? Stupid e-mail program keeps going down on me and I've been forced to work all day!
Posted by AnneZook at 03:30 PMI should be working, of course, but I'm approaching the start of this week cautiously.
I overslept. Sort of. The alarm kept going off, and I kept not getting up. I wasn't precisely late, but I didn't have a lot of time to spare by the time I was ready to head for the car.
While waiting for the elevator, I dumped a full cup of coffee on the hall carpet, so I had to go back into the apartment, start another cup of coffee brewing, get some rags to soak up the spilled coffee, and dig out the Resolve so I could spot-treat the hallway carpet.
This is never a good start to a day. (I suppose some would think that the public hallway carpet wasn't their problem, but I see it differently.)
I need to cut my fingernails. I caught the apostrophe key with the edge of a fingernail first thing this morning and now I can't get the stupid cover to stay on.
Five minutes ago I figured out I've had my contact lenses in the wrong eyes for the past four hours. (It may sound minor to some of you, but I assure you that having the world snap back into focus is a lovely sensation.)
I'm hoping that the new clarity of the computer monitor, and of the notes I made on Friday, will go a long way toward erasing my continuing indifference to the work I'm paid to do. It bothers me that, after close to ten months of employment, I still haven't managed to gather any enthusiasm for this job. I mean, I have plenty of time to dink around, no one looks over my shoulder or sets impossible deadlines for accomplishing things, and I'm overpaid. What's not to like?
And yet, day after day, I come in, think of a few useful things I could do, and fail to do them. I don't really miss being a workaholic, but I do wish my work ethic would at least visit me from time to time.
On the other hand, it visited me last week and I worked all week to get some material written that Alvin wanted to take with him on his trip today. And then late in the week, the client called and cancelled the meeting, so I had to drop everything, including the on-the-verge-of-completion projects to spend two hours arguing with Orbitz and canceling the car and hotel reservations. So, even when I do work, it's wasted time.
I'm making excuses. Right now, at this moment, I could pick up the phone and call any of six people with whom I'm supposed to be establishing a business relationship. The fact that I'm not doing so is what I need to focus on.
Okay, enough of that.
I had a nice weekend. A very nice weekend. Cleaned out the hallway closet (a once a year, day-long exercise), made six trips to the dumpster to get rid of unloved debris, cleaned the bathroom, dusted, bought three new shirts, and ate out twice. I bought some other stuff, too. I don't remember what it all was at the moment, but I'm sure it was all lovely.
Put like that, it doesn't sound like much, but I also slept until 10:30 Saturday morning (no doubt exhausted by the press of non-work last week), watched three movies, read 3-1/2 books, and drank innumerable cups of coffee.
Okay, it still doesn't sound like much, but I think you had to be there.
I had a nice weekend.
Speaking of me (Heh. Heh. Egomania!), I took another look at what I wrote last week and confirmed my previous decision to bury the prose in an unmarked grave. I did come up with one thing I want to keep for whatever story I might wind up writing, and that's Walter's grumpy reflections on the dearth of romance in today's society. (Hopefully this will be funnier than it sounds.)
He finds Mulder...less than convincing in that area. I do see Walter as a romantic kind of guy, really. I can understand why he was less than bowled over by Mulder just dropping a casual, "hey, you wanna do me?" into a conversation. Once Walter stops brooding over this, I guess Mulder's going to have to put some real effort into the situation if he wants to get what he wants.
Also, I have to work SB into it somehow, because I haven't written a story with a peculiar sex toy in quite a long time.
I was recently reminded, by someone who doesn't mind dredging up my past sins, of a particular excess committed in reference to a tiny cowboy hat and some other accessories. Also, a fire hydrant, if I'm not mistaken, although I don't remember such a thing and refuse to believe I wrote anything of the sort.
(I consider such reminders to be unforgivable acts of memory from people who usually pretend to be my friends. Do I remind any of you of the more embarrassing things you've written? I do not. Let's have a little charity in return, okay?)
Anyhow, that's my concept for the story so far. I hope it suits JiM's demands. It's all she's likely to get. Some yakking, maybe some arguing, some weird behavior from Mulder, that kind of thing.
In the meantime, though, I'm still more interested in the OaT story.
With my roommate out of town for the next five days, I plan to re-watch episodes and figure out a way past a little plot-related dry spot I've run into.
I need the guys to mess something up (well, that won't be hard), but in a particular way. so that they're giving a particular task as punishment, you see, and then can mess that up, and then be punished with this other particular task that I haven't entirely figured out yet.
That's all I'm giving you. If I tell you the entire story now, no one will even pretend to go and read it when it's done.
I will say that large portions of the story were inspired by The Art of War, for no better reason than I decided they could be. There's some good stuff there, trust me.
(In TAoW, I mean, not in my story.)
(Funny is where you find it, okay? I found 'funny' in TAoW before this Iraq thing and I'm hoping recent events haven't spoiled the mood.)
(Can we elect someone different next time? I hate getting government in my slash.)
"Voices" are always a problem when I haven't been watching a show recently. It's impossible for me to capture the characters voices and mannerisms in any convincing or recognizable fashion unless I've been immersing myself in episodes. (Another thing I accomplished this weekend was to make a list of XF episodes I'll have to re-watch before I can write that story.)
Of course with my roommate out of town for the next five days, it's quite possible I'll spend every spare minute sitting in a chair and reading. That's what I usually do when I'm left to myself for any length of time. Being alone for a few days is just license to sit and peacefully read a book (or a dozen books) with no one reminding me to do anything more 'productive' or more likely to contribute to the betterment of society.
My interest in the betterment of society tends to be like my interest in working, or sleeping, or paying bills. It's an okay way to spend the time you're not allowed to spend reading a book.
Right about now, you're asking yourself, "Is she making this entry because she had something to say, or because she just thought she should make a new entry," right?
I ain't telling.
Posted by AnneZook at 11:48 AMPardon my absence.
I've had a remarkable number of bloggable thoughts jostling in my head for the past few days, but Circumstances have, as Circumstances occasionally will, intervened.
We've been having a drought in Colorado for the past three years. I'm sure many of you are aware of this. For those grateful that said drought has been broken, please send me money via PayPal.
Like when it only rains after I've washed my car, this time we're getting a solid week of rain because we had the carpet cleaned in our apartment. It's...damp at our house. It's been damp for what seems like eons. The carpet may not dry until 2004, who knows? Or it may rot away, hence the demand that you send money.* We'll probably wind up having to pay for it because jinxes aren't covered in the management company's insurance or something.
No Spike BtVS thoughts at the moment. I missed Mal's Caleb's appearance last week due to a defective VCR. (For those interested, the defective component was the user.)
Mars, Venus, Blah, Blah, Blah
However, speaking of Spike (and aren't I always?), I'm less than amused by the tedious TNN rechristening itself as Spike TV. It's typical, isn't it? A channel devoted to women is giving the future-affirming "Lifetime" moniker. A channel devoted to testosterone-targeted entertainment for men is named "Spike." Fast, violent, and final.
At this point, I just deleted about 900 words on the Mars-Venus theory that such diametrically opposing naming conventions reinforces. Those grateful for this show of forbearance on my part should send money.*
Descartes and Spike
I was also going to write more (well, I haven't written any yet, but I threatened to once, so it's not precisely a Mad Tea Party thing) about Cartesian dualism, based upon my current reading material, "The History of Knowledge" but it occurred to me that no one but me would care and that by the time I'd "thought" the essay in my head, I already knew what I was going to say so taking the time to type it all out would be merely transcribing, a thing I loathe.
Still, don't send Gratitude Money* for that one yet. It's all tied up with my half-baked theories about Spike BtVS and may yet see the light of day. I'm still brooding over that "soul" thing, and the way that vampires are supposedly not the people whose bodies they inhabit in spite of retaining the personality and memories of those people.
No, I wouldn't send money.* I might yet care enough to write it all down and inflict it upon the world.
In other news, I'm a raving egomaniac.
Well, okay, that's not news to anyone who knows me, but it's connected to this next bit of rambling and I always think it's good to get your premise out fast.
In another forum, I ran across (finally!) an answer to that age-old question, "Why are so many people in fandom so determined to push themselves and their idiotic and embarrassing opinions out in public?"
Okay, let's try that again, with a little courtesy this time.
Why do we see so many 500-part 'stories' that are essentially rambling dreck and yet for which the authors still demand a constant stream of praise? Why are so many people so loudly obnoxious on lists and in discussion groups? Why do people with very little to say insist upon saying it again and again? (Why are you looking at me?)
Okay. Not much courtesy in that, was there?
Once again, with restraint.
Why do people post stories, or beginnings of stories, and then post a note saying that if they don't get enough strokes and feedback, they won't finish the story and, further, they'll leave mad?
Why do people demand "payment" for the stories they choose to write and to share with others, as though the sheer act of creation was not, in and of itself, enough payment?
That's probably the best I can do on the courtesy front, so let's move on.
I ran across someone willing to stand up publicly and admit that they, and in their opinion most of us, don't get enough attention from other people. This person argued that most of us thrive or wither based upon our contact with Actual People. Based upon the affirmation of existence and worth we receive, or don't receive, on a daily basis from those around us.
So, all of these people I diss for demanding "payment" for the "work" (Hah!) they put into writing aren't trying to get "paid" at all. They're only writing* because they see that as an avenue for gaining attention, for gaining acknowledgement of their existence from other people and they're just not shy about demanding the attention and affirmation they're seeking. That's either honest or pathetic, I can't decide which. Maybe it's both.
(* If you think about it, this explains the mind-numbing volume of crappy fiction out there. They're only writing to get attention, so they don't care much about the actual writing.)
This is sad. I mean, I set out to be nice on this topic.
I was going to say that this blog entry made me finally, truly understand what all of these desperately screaming for attention fans are feeling, and here I am being all rude and stuff.
That's because, as I said previously, I'm a raving egomaniac who finds it inconceivable that anyone's opinion on any subject could be more interesting to me than mine, so mostly I don't require a lot of feedback for what I write or my opinions as expressed here. (Fortunately, since I don't get much feedback. It may be a chicken-and-egg style problem. I've occasionally wondered if I got a lot of feedback, how that might have changed my perception of the same, but I'll never know. It's quite possible that I'm taking this lofty, superior attitude toward feedback because my Inner Child got its feeling hurt when no one sent any. I mean, I doubt it, because my Inner Child is rarely interested in anything but potato chips and re-runs of Andy Griffith, but it's possible.)
Also because the people I care most about in my life give me plenty of attention and positive strokes, so I'm not starved that way. So, you know, I'm sending love and gratitude to the people I love, and you know who you are.
I'm a raving egomaniac and if not for your care and attention, I'd be a hundred times more obnoxious than I am, and the world really doesn't need that much more negative karma, does it?
Okay, enough with the mushiness already.
Speaking of writing
I did a trifle. It might be optimistic to call it the start of a story, so we'll think of it as a writing exercise. A purely mechanical placing of consecutive words in sentence format. This is in response to the demand (albeit a gentle and pleading one) for new XF. At some point, I'll go back, watch an episode or two, try and remember who these guys were and how their voices sounded, and write an actual story to fulfill my commitment. For anyone who cares, it's M/Sk and a first-time story.
In the meantime, I have to admit that my current OaT story attracts me more. Mostly because I've already got a story, and half a dozen humorous scenes, plus a sketch of most of the plot. Also because I wasn't as invested in OaT and am not suffering the trough of depression over how it sucked. I know the show sucked. It did have brilliant moments, though. And it's amazingly slashy, it's wide open for story possibilities, the boys are pretty, there's angst, there's comedy, and there are plot holes you could drive a slash convoy through. With all of that gong for it, it seems a little greedy to demand that it also have been quality entertainment.
In closing
I had more to say, but I've forgotten what it was.
I had a whole other bloggable topic with a snappy punchline (well, maybe it would have possessed one) and everything.
To recap:
It's raining.
Television is weird.
Read Descartes.
I'm a raving egomaniac.
I love my friends.
Looked at dispassionately, this is hardly the stuff of deathless entertainment for the casual reader, but thanks to #4 I don't have to care.
* Please don't actually send money.
Why do I claim to "hate" television?
"Extreme Makeover," the series version of a special ABC ran earlier this year that featured a trio of participants going through extensive plastic surgery.Things like this are why.
Also, this:
AMERICA'S STRANGEST FAMILIES (CBS) - More details have emerged about Gay Rosenthal's reality project at CBS. The series, now titled "America's Strangest Families," will feature three oddball clans each week showing off what makes them so weird. Viewers then get to pick the freakiest of the freaks.They'll never top that fun-loving bunch in "Home" so why do they try?
Bah. Okay, what else is ghastly in television? Or at least potentially ghastly? (All information courtesy of the futon critic.)
AMERICAN PRINCESS (NBC) - The Peacock has committed to six episodes of the reality project from the U.K.'s Granada TV. The series mixes elements of "Cinderella" and "My Fair Lady" as a group of regular Janes is sent to England for a sort of royalty boot camp.Let's be honest. Most of us could use a little of that kind of class. Still, I won't be watching it.
CASINO EYE (NBC) - Frank Santorelli ("The Sopranos") has been added to the cast of Peacock's drama pilot about the security surveillance team at a Las Vegas casino. He will play the right-hand man to the team's leader (James Caan). Vanessa Marcil ("Beverly Hills, 90210") is on board.I love James Caan, but not.
HEARTS AND MINDS (HBO) - HBO has give Bruce Zabel's ("Dark Skies") drama series a pilot script order. The project revolves around the world of military intelligence and the twin tasks of fighting terrorism and building nations. Previously, the pay channel had only committed to a treatment of the idea.This wins the prize for the most egregiously, suspiciously topical concept for a show that I've ever seen. I'm disgusted by the title alone.
HENCH AT HOME (ABC) - Tracy Pollan ("First to Die") will star in hubby Michael J. Fox's ABC project. She'll play Kay Hench in the comedy pilot which stars Craig Bierko as a hockey player who winds up spending more time at home after his career suddenly ends.Because unemployment is always funny.
MR. AMBASSADOR (NBC) - Megan Ward ("Boomtown") has nabbed a role in the NBC/Touchstone comedy pilot. Rupert Everett headlines the series which features RonReaco Lee, Meredith Eaton and Derek Jacobi.I don't care what Honeybunch says. I love Rupert Everett.
PEACEMAKERS (USA) - The cable network has committed to eight episodes of the western in addition to its two-hour pilot. The series stars Tom Berenger as a tradition-bound federal marshal in the Old West of 1882 who clashes with his young sidekick, a Yale-trained exponent of the newfangled science of forensic investigation (Peter O'Meara). The drama is set to bow later this summer.Hmmm.
SIXTEEN TO LIFE (WB) - Jon Tenney ("Get Real," "Kristin") will star as a down-on-his-luck father who's taken care of by his 16-year-old daughter (Sprague Grayden) in the Frog's comedy pilot.Because incapable parents of minor children is such a funny concept. Anyhow, Molly Ringwald undoubtedly did it better in "Pretty In Pink."
SKIN (FOX) - D.W. Moffett ("For Your Love") has joined the cast of the drama pilot from Warner Bros. TV and Jerry Bruckheimer Prods. as Skip Ziti. The series is described as a modern-day "Romeo and Juliet" set against the backdrop of the adult film industry.Kill. Me. Now.
STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH YOU (NBC) - Emmy winner Timothy Busfield is set to star opposite Annie Potts in the Peacock's comedy pilot.Good casting.
THE MULLET BROS. (UPN) - David Hornsby ("Six Feet Under") will play one of two boys with the unfortunate hairstyle in the UPN comedy pilot presentation. John O'Hurley ("Seinfeld") and Loni Anderson ("WKRP in Cincinnati") has signed.They gave a hairstyle a series? McSwain is going to love this one!
THE POOL AT MADDY BREAKER'S (FOX) - Jodi Lyn O'Keefe, Jill Ritchie and Reagan Pasternak have been cast as the three leads in Fox's comedy pilot about three 28-year-olds who were popular in high school but went nowhere after that. Nicholas Brendon ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer"), Eric Nenninger ("Malcolm in the Middle") and Matt Bushell ("Angel") are set as Jeff, Bob and Rodger respectively.Xander fans will probably be happy. Posted by AnneZook at 09:48 AM
Fans Rejoice
TOUCHING EVIL (USA) - Peter Wingfield ("Highlander: The Series") has signed on to the cable channel's two-hour backdoor pilot. Based on the british series of the same name, jeffrey donovan stars as a detective who focuses on solving shocking, high profile crimes after surviving a gunshot to the head.
VEGAS DICK (UPN) - Vincent Ventresca ("Invisible Man") has nabbed the title role in UPN's drama pilot presentation. Katherine Heigl ("Roswell") is on board UPN's drama presentation about a former con man who ends up the inhouse detective at a hard rock-like casino in Vegas.
Posted by AnneZook at 11:48 AM
Upcoming DVD Releases
"King of the Hill: The Complete Second Season" ($39.98) - November 11
"Will & Grace: The Complete First Season" hitting stores on August 12
"Kingpin" on July 22
"Angel: The Complete Second Season" ($59.98) - August 19
"N.Y.P.D. Blue: The Complete Second Season" ($59.98) - August 19
"24: The Complete Second Season" ($59.98) - September 2
"Futurama: Volume 2" ($49.98) - September 2
"Saved by the Bell" on September 2
"Family Guy: Volume 2" ($49.98) - September 9
"The Shield: The Complete Second Season" ($59.98) - October 7
"Dark Angel: The Complete Second Season" ($59.98) - October 21
"The X-Files: The Complete Eighth Season" ($149.98) - November 4
"M*A*S*H: Season 5 Collector's Edition" ($39.98) - December 9
"Lost in Space: Season One" ($79.98) - January 13, 2004
No dates announced:
"Firefly.
"Malcolm in the Middle"
"The Simpsons"
Other distribution deals in the works:
"Homicide: Life on the Street - The Complete First and Second Seasons" on May 27
"Little House on the Prairie" later this year
"It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie," also later this year
"Providence: The Complete First Season" in October
"Rebecca's Garden" also in October
"The Dead Zone: The Complete First Season" on June 17th.
"Profiler: The Complete First Season" on June 24
"Soul Food: The Complete First Season" set for a June 24 release.
After the sins of the weekend, which included getting drunk on Friday night and having to have a cab called to get me home and then suffering the discomfort of a thankfully mild but persistent hangover on Saturday, I'm feeling somewhat...chastened.
So, I came in today full of virtuous intentions and I'm going to get some real work done this week.
Except for right now, when I'm blogging and stuff, of course.
First things first, of course.
Spike. BtVS. They seem to have started over with the reruns, so I'm going to quit taping the daily repeats for a few weeks. I have S1-S3 on DVD, after all. I did get to watch last week's Tuesday night episode, which was a repeat for those au courant with the current season, but not for me. Now, of course, I know that Spike was apparently rather thoroughly evil at some point in his vampire past. Still doesn't explain why he's so mellow by the time we meet him, but whatever, okay?
During last night's shower (I hope that's not TMI. The fact that I bathe, I mean.) I was contemplating this whole "first evil" thing. While naturally remembering that there are still large gaps in my knowledge of this season's events and that I have only the vaguest memory of the first encounter with The First, I have to say I'm not buying a lot of this.
If this massive evil is so massively evil and powerful, what is it with all the parlor tricks and games it's playing with people? Why not just take out the Slayer's support group? I don't think anyone could deny that Dawn and Xander, at least, would be pretty easy targets, even if you're just a street mugger. For the First Evil, not even Giles or Willow would probably be a challenge, would they?
And why lurk around in the shadows brooding over its agenda for so many years before striking out? What is empowering it at this particular time? Is it one of those cosmic alignment of the stars things, or did it just get bored with its hell dimension? What is its plan, anyhow? To wipe out humanity, or what?
What is its agenda for Spike (well, I know we don't know that yet) and will it turn out that Spike's inexplicable passion for Buffy was, all along, rooted in some maneuver of The First's, being merely a ploy to insure that this tool would be on-hand at the appointed moment? (I don't get the Buffy thing, as I've said before. Willow, aside from the whole lesbian thing, would have made more sense to me. Her character is much more interesting and more layered than Buffy's. Still, I try to remain aware that I have a blind spot.)
Surely there's more to its power over Spike than that easily avoided song "trigger"? Was that a ruse, intended to prevent the gang from finding out what was really planned for Spike?
Is this show falling apart, or is this entire season some complex web of deception that won't be revealed until the last minute? Has it become a mishmash of imbecility (What is it with the fluctuating number of "potentials" running around? Are there only three or four of them, or are there about twenty? Depends on what scene you're watching.) or is there some incredible subtlety at work?
Why is Spike so impossibly sexy when he's, you know, dead and murderous and evil and stuff?
Don't ask me.
Even if Spike shows up on Angel yet year, which I understand is a rumor that's been floated several times, I won't be watching. It's not that the SpikeLove has waned, it's just that I discovered that Angel shows opposite West Wing. It's a pity, but maybe it was just a rumor anyhow.
Enough of that. What else is happening in my life?
Inexplicably long pause ensues.
Doggone it, I'm not just a collection of addled hormones brooding over a dead guy! I'm not!
I've been thinking about sex lately. Not, you know, in terms of sex, so don't get that TMI queasiness and run away. I mean in terms of writing. About the "place," if you will, of sex in fanfiction.
(As always, when I discuss "fanfiction" I'm talking exclusively about slash unless I specifically say otherwise.)
I like stories that don't have graphic sex in them. It's enough to hint at what's going on and then move on with the story. The whole, tab-A-slot-B thing is pretty tedious after the first four or five hundred times you've read it, don't you think?
Really, long before that.
It's not because I've lost interest in men doing men or anything. I think it has more to do with (here we go again) the lack of decent, or even consistent, characterization in fanfiction stories.
I think I could still get very interested (Heh. Heh.) in the idea of Mulder and Skinner doing the deed. I'm reasonably certain that reading about Krycek would still raise my temperature noticeably. Jim and Blair? Fraser and Ray? Still enticing ideas.
In theory.
In reality? Maybe it has something to do with that "wave theory" or something, but on those rare occasions I go out looking for fanfiction, I'm not finding stories with anyone I recognize in them. And while I object to no one's interest in porn-for-the-sake-of-porn, it's really not my cup of tea. Especially when it's all so poorly written.
I like Krycek. (Well, as well as anyone can "like" a dishonest, murdering thug, but it seems, as time goes on, that my capacity for liking that kind of person is greater than I'd anticipated, but that's not really the subject here, is it?) I like his twisted brain and his flexible ethics and his sliding between catastrophes, escaping disaster by the skin of his lying teeth. I like Mulder's perverse, pretzel brain. I like how Mulder's perversity and Krycek's twistedness can mesh like puzzle pieces and I really like the erotic fireworks that can ensue.
I'm phenomenally less interested in reading about some whiney character coincidentally named Mulder having badly written sex with some inexplicably psychotic character coincidentally named Krycek.
Hmmm. I dunno.
Am I less interested in XF fanfiction because of the sucky characterization that dominates the fandom or because the writing is so bad? And ditto for the other fandoms I used to write and read.
Anyhow. That wasn't really today's point. I meant to contemplate the appearance of graphic sex scenes in fanfiction. The bottom line is that I'd happily trade a dozen graphic sex scenes, even three dozen, for one decently characterized story.
And I like a story in my story. I have nothing against a PWP, but I really prefer longer, plot-driven stories, when I can get them. And first times. I'm a sucker for a well-written first-time story.
Mostly I'm just off fandom. It happens to all of us from time to time. I have other things I want to spend my time on, other interests I'm currently re-interested in. Whatever it is that I get from fandom, I'm not interested in at the moment, preferring the payoff from my other hobbies.
Fandom eats your life. Especially if, like myself, you tend to be a bit obsessive under the best of circumstances. (I mean, what is it with the Spike thing, okay? I don't go for blonds, the whole vampire thing is something I outgrew when I was fourteen, he's too in love with women to be slashable, and he became a whiney lapdog instead of an interesting character. Bleah, okay? Make him leave me alone!)
Ahem.
I'm not saying that a brilliant new show couldn't revive my interest in fandom, of course. It happens. But I'm remembering that my last hiatus lasting for about a decade, give or take a year.
On the other hand, and quite inexplicably to me, I'm sort of interested in writing again. My OaT story is actually coming along. Slowly, but it's working. I have vague but potential ideas for that XF story I promised JiM.
Why is lousy fanfiction encouraged in fandom?
(Why did my brain jump from JiM encouraging me to write a story to people who encourage lousy fanfiction? Actually, that's not that much of a mystery.)
Are fans really so desperate for stories, any stories, that they encourage even the worst of writers to keep churning out reams of dreck? Yes, it seems that they are.
I mean, what is it with those 58-part failures of plot and characterization, anyhow? Why is anyone reading that stuff? Why does anyone encourage those authors to keep pumping the handle on the sewage tank?
In a sane world, those authors would be fined a substantial amount for every writing sin they commit, but instead they get lavished with praise and encouraged to turn out ever-increasing amounts of brain-damaging compost.
It's not that, when considered dispassionately, I object to anyone's right to suck. They've all got a right to suck, even those among them who suck beyond rational excuse.
I think I object to a system that discourages honest labeling. (And it occurs to me that I've been here before. Probably several times. How predictable I'm becoming. Maybe next time I'll write about the liberating glory of RPS or the intellectual stimulation of crossing over cartoon/anime characters with live-action characters or something else both improbable and untrue.)
(I should stop dissing RPS. I won't have a friend left pretty soon.)
Anyhow. Honest labeling.
"This sucks, but if you're new to the fandom and completely desperate for something to read, it won't actually make you want to commit hara-kiri when you're done.""Don't read it. Trust me. No matter how desperate you are for a new story, you're not this desperate."
"Doesn't suck as badly as a lot of stories. If you work at it, you can almost find recognizable characters."
"Hallelujah! A real story!"
"Read this one only if you hate the characters."
"Author has inserted self with disastrous results."
Now I've entirely forgotten where I was going with all of that.
I guess I'm saying that I don't want to read fanfiction because I've been reading good pro fiction for quite a while now and so little fanfiction even pretends to measure up. But I'm going to go ahead and write new fanfiction because (a) I feel like it, and, (b) nothing appeals to me less than reading something I myself have written, so I won't ever have to suffer the consequences of my own suckage.
Also. POV? Don't wander from one POV to another. I hate that. Forget what the writing books tell you. You can't do it. I mean, it can be done. You just can't do it.
The next person who needlessly pads their word count by retelling every scene from an alternate character's POV without adding anything new to the reader's understanding of what's going on is going to get bitchslapped from here to Detroit.
The next person I catch doing it so that they can insert luminescent descriptions of the beauty of a quite unremarkable character will have their keyboard confiscated.
(Worse than deliberate attempts to switch POV are those inadvertent moments when the reader finds themselves in an alternate dimension from an unheralded and probably unintentional POV shift. The next person I catch changing POV in the middle of a paragraph is moving to number one on my hit list.)
That's pretty much it for the moment. I was probably going someplace different when I started this, but I really should be spending my day figuring out how to turn a 1584k jpg into a 45k gif that doesn't look like an abstract sketch on-screen.
Posted by AnneZook at 12:52 PMBored of working, ate too much lunch, feeling like a nap. Tomorrow is Finally Friday, but between now and then, I have to get through 3 more hours of actual work.
Or at least look busy enough to pass for someone who is working.
I'm reading a fascinating book but I'm not going to tell you about it because I'm annoying that way. It's really cool and occasionally gross and sometimes emotionally upsetting.
That's all you get.
In other non-news, a Kind Friend to whom I just offloaded passed along a box o'books told me that I forgot to put my return name and address on them. Apparently she had some internal debate about the wisdom of opening unidentified packages in these days of terrorism and bioterrorism alerts before she decided to live dangerously and cut the tape.
I don't know why she didn't know they were from me. Sheesh. I told her only three months ago I was going to send her a box of books. Maybe she has memory problems.
Last night, my brain suddenly spoke up to remind me that I might, just possibly, have committed to turn out a new XF story within six months of Escapade. I mean, I don't remember making an actual commitment, but something tells me I was penciled in as agreeable to the idea anyhow.
I remember, vaguely, what the characters looked like. I remember they were pretty cool in the first four or so years the show was on. I'm a little fuzzy on the rest of it. I could, of course, re-watch episodes, but I don't think I've attained the necessary distance from the disaster yet.
(I may be developing some kind of brain disease. If I type a word that ends, for instance with 't', as in "don't" and then the next work begins with 't', as in "think", my fingers have taken to typing only the first 't' of the pair. It happens rather consistently. It could be a conservation move, of course, but it could be a brain disease. I doubt that my physician, if confronted with the information that I'm losing 't's and 's's, is going to show much sympathy.)
(The above digression was brought to you courtesy of a highly sugared dessert item.)
Other people around the net are getting heads of steam up over the cancellation of various shows. Although I understand many of these were amazing works of art, I didn't watch any of them, so I'm not particularly involved with the topic. That's one advantage of watching very little television. It lowers the odds that some beloved show will get the axe. I picked up "Monk" last summer and it was fabbo. It was also renewed, so I have that to look forward to this summer.
I've been watching CSI since the first episode and since it remains one of the highest-rated dramas on the screen, I don't think it's in any imminent danger of dissolving into mist.
I watch West Wing, for which the ratings aren't as good, but they're not bad, either.
I miss the heck out of Sam Seaborn. Don't get me wrong, I like the new guy. He's totally cool. I just miss Sam's silken articulacy. There's really no other character on the show who can say the things Sam said, in the way Sam said them.
Ah well. The show isn't cancelled. That's the key thing. And Josh remains aboard, a vital element to my enjoyment of the program. And CJ. CJ rocks. And I love Margaret. And Charlie.
Okay, I love pretty much everyone on the show. I miss Sam's voice, though.
I quit watching Andromeda partway through season two and I'm astounded that it's been renewed for a fourth season. Astounded and appalled.
Okay, maybe not quite "astounded" when I remember that a recent TVGuide promoted the show as one of those on the air today that's ideal for you to sit down and watch with your small children. Maybe TV is a wasteland for that kind of thing and all twenty-three people who watch television with their eight year-olds are now tuning in.
What happened to the intelligent, thought-provoking show I watched that first season, I don't know (Psss. It was Star Stupidity and Corporate Greed!), but if it's now being touted as ideal fodder for the under-ten demographic, I'm glad I bailed on it when I did. I'm pleased to see that Keith Hamilton Cobb finally got out of his contract, and plan to never think about the show again.
I don't really have anything interesting or startling to share, so this isn't likely to get interesting at any point, okay?
I'm just saying. If you have something better to do, now would be a good time to trot off and get started on it.
Dum dee dum Two hours and twenty minutes left.
There's just nothing to say about the office, okay?
I've been working. Alvin's been working. The Chipmunk hasn't been heard from since shortly after he heard we wanted a divorce. The Terminator has decided to move on to "new opportunities" so she won't be popping in and driving everyone nuts any more. Buehler has, for some reason, decided I'm funny, so he speaks to me when we meet. The Brother Darrell has (brace yourselves) spoken to me three times, quite voluntarily, in the last week. The Other Brother Darrell has been pulling a fair share of 24-hour workathons and he talks to everyone, albeit not very coherently.
I'm still hard-up for a new fandom. I mean, sure, there's the Spike BtVS thing, but that's really more about obsessing over one facet of the mythology of the show, mixed with a heaping helping of hormones over one character than a whole "fandom' thing.
I haven't forgotten the idea of carving out a new corner of quasi-reality and starting a new, more exclusive kind of fandom.
I'm leaning toward making it a kingdom. I'd like to be king and then there's all the opportunities for patronage. You get to wear great costumes, too.
I haven't forgotten about it, but I'm not really interested in it at the moment. I just wanted to say that if I name the new neighborhood, "elysium", then the new fandom would be "elysiumdom" which has a certain charm. It's like an IQ test. Anyone who can't say it, or spell it, can't join. We could be "elysiods" too, which would make us almost strange enough to be scary. Or, better yet, we could be "elysiosts," a word guaranteed to spark fifty fights over pronunciation.
Think about it, but don't give yourselves a headache.
I just remembered that I have a 2:30 meeting.
Posted by AnneZook at 02:47 PMCurrently I'm being driven crazy...well, okay, that's not true, but I'm somewhat frustrated...by requests from someone who is apparently blogging in Swedish and who wants me to go read their blog.
Do I strike you as a person who speaks Swedish? Of course not. And, unfortunately, I can't find an on-line source for translating from Swedish. (Well, I found a primitive one, but I just don't have time to sit down and translate an entire web page, one word at a time.)
Anyhow. I'm sure he's a great guy with many interesting things to say and I regret that I'm going to have to write back and explain to him that it's not that I'm having trouble with "some of the language" on his page, it's that I can't read a word except for the ones he posts in English.
I mean, he's in Sweden, anyhow, according to his last note to me. I assume he's writing in Swedish, but I can't even be sure of that. I have a vague memory of his having told me once before that he was, at least at the time, in Austria. Maybe he's just in Sweden now temporarily or something.
I'm giving this more thought than it deserves, aren't I? Still. It's very sad to be an ignorant American sometimes.
I'm avoiding working at the moment. It's boring to write papers on subjects you don't understand and don't particularly care about, okay? I finished one a few minutes ago and then realized that I'd forgotten to put in all the salesy stuff about how wonderful our system is and how everyone should use it. Bleah.
Spent a fair amount of time yesterday getting caught up on the week's accumulated Spike BtVS episodes. A lot of repeats of episodes I've already seen, so I didn't have to spend the entire day at it. I also got to watch the first-run episode that CP (she's such an angel) loaned me.
Many thoughts, all jostling frantically for release in my head.
Why does everyone who gets vamped become a nearly unrecognizable monster (personality-wise, I mean), except for Spike?
William's mother became quite the uberbitch, didn't she? She seems to have been overtaken by a vampire of significant ickiness, what with the whole sex-with-mommy motif. I'd say she was the one with the issues, and not William. I mean, based on the theory that the "personality" of the person vamped is reflected in the vampire, she was a woman with a few problems, right?
But is that true? About the carry-over personality, I mean? I'm not sure I buy it.
There's Angel. An average sort of an idiot, from what I've seen of him historically, but he became a major force for the dark side, post-vamping. Decimating gypsy encampments, driving innocent girls to insanity, etc.
Drusilla's a harder case to figure what with the madness and all, but certainly her lunatic post-vamp personality bears no noticeable resemblance to what we saw of her before.
And Mom, as seen this past episode, well, in that era it's true that women had major acting to do, but did she have all of that Freudian weirdness stored up inside of her before getting bitten? The flashback is ambiguous, at most.
But Spike? Just post-vamping, when he turned his mother, he was little different than he'd been before. In the slayer-slaying flashbacks, when he took the first slayer, he was still Spike. All fighty and stuff, yeah, but hardly in the grip of some overpowering evil force.
When Angel is Angelus, you can feel the evil. Even when he's demon-controlled, Spike's just...Spike. Sometimes a little crankier and more prone to biting than other times, but none of the psychopathic traits that seem so clear in Angel and Drusilla. I continue not to buy the description of him as a major force for evil. I'd suspect he was more trying to live up (down?) to Drusilla's expectations than anything else.
Anyhow. Moving on.
Okay, so now Buffy is willing to kill anyone who stands between her and success? She'll sacrifice friends, family, anything necessary.
Except Spike.
If I'm not mistaken, at the end of that episode, she rather definitely chose Spike over Giles, even.
And I'm watching this and thinking that now she's ready to kill her little sister but not a guy she's not even willing to admit she's in love with?
What kind of plot-related reason can this have? In the end, will it be Spike who saves the world?
Stay tuned for no additional discussion.
Posted by AnneZook at 04:06 PMBlogger doesn't allow those "cutaway" things that let you post sekrits and people don't have to read them unless they want to. That means if I hear potential next-season spoilers about a show, I can't post anything about it for fear of making people angry.
Anyhow, I haven't forgotten that it's April 1. It could always be an April Fool joke.
Posted by AnneZook at 03:42 PM