well - I'm not going to get any serious writing done tonight.  This is all my brain's giving me at the moment:

It was Tuesday.  Again.  Tuesdays seemed to happen fairly regularly around these parts.  In fact, I was suspicious of their frequency but kept it to myself.  After all, if I mentioned it other people might just think I was weird.

But there it was - Tuesday again.  Everyone needs a Tuesday sometimes I guess and this was mine.

It's even worse that it's giving it to me in a Sam Spade kind of voice.  Anyone want to take the next few sentences and then pass it on from there?

so - one of my friends proposed this challenge and since we're writers and readers here I thought - 'It's go time'.

Without using the words 'citrus' 'orange' or 'fruit' describe the flavor of an orange.

I came up with 'bursting, sharp, tangy, wet'. 

bonus round was: describe the flavor of citrus.

so... everyone remembers Ralf, right?  Teeny, tiny, sweet, slightly dense Ralf of the romantic hijinks?  Well, he's not so small anymore.  But considering the way he sleeps - well, let's just say the fact that all that blood is regularly rushing to his head apparently explains a whole lot.  He's such a little dude.

( cut for flaunted nudity )

I finally made it home!


it was fun, it was busy, it was interesting (in a good way, not in the 'I can't think of anything good to say' way).  Still busy catching up but in the meantime, happy Passover, all!

first off - thank you so much to everyone that has been so informative in response to my avatar out of character question.  It helped me hugely - and the fact that everyone gave reasons was a God-send.  Thank you so, so much.

You see, I've got this fear with my writing.  I've possibly always had it - but it's come into focus since the last Twilight book was published and it's regularly in the back of my mind when I write.

For clarification, I've never read the Twilight books so I can't say they're good or bad.  I find myself indifferent to the story idea and seem to have an inbuilt prejudice against things that are flamingly popular anyway.  That said, several of the communities I hang out in or visit do have Twilighters and the anticipation when the last book was coming out was... vast.  Then the last book came out.

The wailing was able to be heard even in the non-Twilight forums.

Not having read the books I can only speak from what I heard but according to a vocal number of fans, the characters in the last book were out of character noticeably and the ending was disappointing - a let down when they'd had their hopes so high.  Granted, there's no way any author can live up to every fan's desires and hopes (and with Twilight I'm sure the hopes were sky high).  And granted, there are always going to be readers that think you're not writing your characters properly *cough*.  But the amount of negative response to the last book seemed excessive to me to simply be a few fans who were disappointed their 'team' didn't end up with Bella.  It seemed, to me, reading what I did, that the author had lost her thread and simply written a book because a book needed to be written.  When original characters you've created aren't acting in-character anymore - that's a sure sign something went wrong.

As a writer, I take very seriously the trust my readers give me when they start one of my stories.  I do this because I've been on the reader side of the fence often enough to know how it feels.  As a reader you invest yourself both time-wise and emotionally in someone else's world and you hope - God, you hope - that it pays off in the end.  Writing, I admit, I have to follow my story where it goes and there's not much choice for me on that path (hell, half the time I'm not even consulted!).  That doesn't mean that, as I get close to the end I don't start obsessively checking for loose ends and gnawing away at whether the ending is going to be satisfactory or not.  It was the major concern of mine when I wrote Tales Within Tales for instance.  I needed so badly for that last chapter(s) to leave the readers with the sense of satisfaction and completion and healing that they'd invested all that energy of theirs into reaching.  I asked two other author's I respect and trust to read those last chapters before I posted just to make sure it ended right.  Not necessarily the way someone wanted it to end but in a way that was right and felt as right to the readers as it did to me.  Granted, I may not have accomplished that for everyone (I've had at least one wistful notice that I didn't include a sex scene - lol) but it seems I managed for the majority.  Commandment One of writing is:  Thou shall NOT bore thy readers.  Somewhere shortly after that should come 'thou shall not betray their trust'.  Which isn't the same as running them through the emotional wringer - heck, what kind of author doesn't enjoy doing that?  It's just that everything has to be worthwhile at the end. 

Following closely behind that for me is that the characters have to be believable.  What author doesn't worry about one of their main characters being an unnoticed Mary Sue?  But I also worry, I think we all do, about keeping our characters consistent.  Perhaps even more so when we're borrowing a character we love from a fandom.  We can play with them and twist them through new hoops but we love the characters we love for a reason and that's the core of them that we try never to change.  Sometimes, experimenting too far with how much I can twist them, I worry about losing them.  My readers trust me to love and respect the characters as much as they do (and more than some writers *cough*ffnet*cough* seem to).  so yeah, I worry when someone tells me I'm abusing Cloud and he's drastically out of character.  I worry because I'm well aware that I could easily be so close to the situation that I can't actually see what's really going on anymore.  I worry that I might have lost him and not even realize it.  And so I need eyes other than mine from writers and readers that I know know what they're talking about to tell me 'yes, no, stop, go'.  It means the world to me when those people come up along side me and bring in clarity with them. 

on that note, I've started chapter 4 of avatar ;)  Since I can't glomp everyone, that's going to be my 'thank you'.  You guys were all just exactly what I needed. 

I love the internet.

need a second - third, fourth, etc - opinion.  I've got green eyes and am doing a Tifa cosplay.  Trying to find the right color contacts.  So...


possessed

or


cherry hazel

or for that matter does anyone have any other contact places/colors they'd recommend?  I'm open to options :D  Don't have to figure anything out right away.  Megacon isn't until the middle of March.

razzies

also of note:

I taught a cardio kickboxing class today, and for my own amusement, I put in the victory theme from Final Fantasy after the last song. The entire class (regardless of age) got the reference, and a few even did FF-style victory poses. IMMD

Driving home yesterday I passed three bikers, all in black pants/tights. One was wearing a gold shirt, another a blue shirt, and the third…a red shirt. All I could think was "Poor, expendable red shirt, you’ll be dead before you cross the street." IMMD

it made my day

once again our story starts with the words:

"Why Tam shouldn't be allowed to go near Amazon.com when she's stressed..."

did you know they've got a Japanese section?  did you know it's got stuff that regular Amazon.com doesn't offer...?

yeah.  about that...

so demonegg and I were talking last night and I think we've coined a new phrase. 

Writer's Blah

I think you writers get the idea already.  It's not the dreaded writer's block - it's the blah where you could write... if only you could get motivated.  It's the doldrums of high seas sailing - er, writing.  The course is set, the sails are loosed, everyone's ready to go (a rare treat considering cantankerous characters), and yet - nothing.

I'll be the first to raise my hand and admit that mine comes in cycles.  Without fail it seems to hit me halfway through a story.  I start with a bang, turn out chapters a day, slow down to a comfortable groove after a bit and settle into a rhythm, and then - one day - I just don't feel like writing.  So I don't.  And one day turns into a week.  And a week turns into a month...  Without fail it seems I go about a month, a month and a half in which I write absolutely nothing with spurts into the occasional 'not applicable at all'. 

and of course, I always panic somewhere into the second or third week.  I spent a good ten years of my life not being able to finish a story to save my soul and even though I've got several under my belt now, the old fear still hits.

why am I rambling along pointlessly?  'Cause, and it's just a suspicion, I've got a feeling I'm not the only one that's been hit with the Writer's Blah at the moment.  Personally, I'm going to blame it on the weather and the end of the year/beginning of the year stress. ;)

Just figured it out.  For new year's my resolution shall be...

to be neater.

And not in the 'cooler and more hip' kind of way but in the less cluttered type of way.  Not the 'put the knick knacks up on ebay' kind of way but in the 'throw away the envelopes that come with your bills because you know you pay everything online anyway' way.  Not in the 'cleaner' way because that would imply uncleanliness on my part originally and would also indicate more housework but in the 'throw away the Victoria Secret's catalog as soon as it comes instead of letting it sit on the bathroom counter for a month because you only ever ordered one thing out of it and that was for your Tifa cosplay because let's face it you need a LOT of help in one very physically specific way in that area and we're talking more help than even a Victoria's 'increase your cup size' bra can do for you' and you think everything is over priced in there anyway' kind of way.  In the 'do you ever even look at those free recipes you get in the mail', in the 'do you really need all that stationary when you haven't written a letter in over three years', in the 'good LORD! are those Outback restaurant drink mats you've saved?!' kind of way.  This year is the year I resolve to have fewer migrating piles of paper, random shirts 'just waiting to have a button sewn back on', and books stacked in bookcases instead of across whatever flat surface I happen to be walking passed at the time.

I would also like this to be the year I finally get a book published.

And a pony.  I want a pony.  Made of solid gold!