SG-1 Fic
Slash, Gen, drabbles: under construction

NCIS
Slash, Gen

Essays
Bait and Switch: Sacrificed to the Gods of UST

How to Teach Men to Write Women

The Problem with NCIS is the Writing

Can we please be DONE with the bigotry?"

Insert Pretentious Writerly Title Here, or How I Got Where I am

This is the first day I've been able to watch the news since Friday. I want to hold my kid, but she's across the country, so I have to wait until she gets home this week. I'm not much of a poet, but sometimes things bubble up and need to be said so I write them. I just very rarely share them. I feel the need to share this one. I'm putting it behind a cut for anyone else who is having trouble with having the tragedy in their faces at the moment.

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xanthe is starting her journey from just being a fic writer to writing both fic and original work. (Congratulations!, Xanthe!) I was reading a post of hers on LJ and it reminded me of my own journey, which then got me thinking that maybe it would be useful if those of us who've made the jump were to talk about it. If nothing else, it would be fun to see what paths others took. :-)
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Wow. That feels so weird to say. Though, she doesn't check into the dorm for another couple of hours yet. Still, she left for school yesterday at too-damn-early o'clock (with a big ass suitcase that weighed 49.5 pounds LOL). Her other bags were lighter. LOL

And I may have just sent her a care package. LOL

At any rate, getting her off on this next stage in her life has been a bit up and down. I know I still have prompts from July (what do you mean it isn't still July? I protest! :-). I've got some for pay stuff pounding on the door, and that's got to come first (see primary subject of this post), but I'm dying to get back to the prompts. They're fun. :-)

Just wanted to say "I live!"

Prompts Closed (Still some available on Dreamwidth.)

Okay, so I've been in a bit of a slump. I've been hip deep in original work (yay rent!) but lately it's been like pulling teeth to get any words out. taylorgibbs talked me into (okay, I was thinking about it after reading her latest, but she urged me to go ahead) trying this as a way to prime the pump. So, here goes.

Tell me a story I haven’t written, and I will give you a comment!fic about it. Might be a few sentences, might be a couple of comments. If it grabs me by the throat and won't let go, I might end up doing more, who knows. :-)
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So. My kid's going to college.

She didn't get into her first choice schools, but she did get a very nice offer from one of her second tier schools, Hofstra University in New York. It looks like it's going to be a good experience. It's a small school, with a low student:teacher ratio. It's on Long Island and located *just* outside of Queens in Nassau County, I believe. I could be wrong on the county.

While we're still pursuing additional scholarships and grants, loans are going to have to make up the balance of her funding.

I've been digging around looking for funding sources and it hit me. I wonder if there's a way to go directly to people who might want to donate money directly to a kid's education. I recently heard about something called Kickstarter which is a way of doing "crowd funding" for creative projects like movies or software or whatever.

Why is there no crowd funding for education? And if there is, anyone know where it is?

So, I've been writing, but just not fic.

Of late, though, it's been like chipping each word out of stone. I love the characters, love the stories, well, most of them. LOL But I love the money I'm making on them, which is almost as good. :-)

Last night I was working on something I'd started last fall and had left half done. I really do love this one (don't remember why I shelved it, but I don't think it was intended to be shelved this long). I had this image in my head that I wanted to get down on the page. It was a fairly uncomplicated scene, a memory the protagonist was reflecting on. I'd fix the image in my mind and suddenly there were no words.

This isn't the first time this has happened. In fact, it happens with distressing regularity. Sometimes I can manage to still process language at the same time I've got a strong mental image, but other times it's like my language centers go offline (Broca's such a slacker) while my visual cortex is holding the image for me. Then, if I activate the language centers, the visual cortex goes off line.

My grayware needs dual processors. LOL!

I really should dig into this and see what I can find out about it. But not right now. The urge to research is strong in this one. :-) I could easily follow this down the rabbit hole for weeks before coming up for air. :-)

In the meantime, I'll just keep muddling through trying to "flip the pages back and forth" fast enough to get the words on the page.

So, there I was, messing around on Twitter this afternoon and someone mentioned Wide Sargasso Sea. They were talking about the movie, but it struck a chord and I went to look it up. I'd heard of it, but couldn't quite remember what was special about it.

For someone who has spent the better part of 50 years with a book in her hands, I'm remarkably unwell-read in many areas of literature. Periodically, I try to remedy that hole in my education. I still haven't made it through Pride and Prejudice, but it's a great cure for insomnia, if, sadly, only temporarily.
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If you didn't watch this live streamed on Saturday night...

If you didn't watch the recorded Youtube Vid...

Carve out 2 hours of your life and watch this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qlUG8F9uVgM

Give it close to 18 minutes before it starts (no, I have no idea why it takes that long), but sit down and watch it.

Aside from it being good theater (Cloony, Pitt, Martin Sheen, JLCurtis, Bacon, to name a few - http://www.afer.org/8losangeles/), it's *important*.

Taken from court transcripts, it presents the view of the "Pro-Prop 8" "arguments" that proponents of Prop 8 didn't want the world to see.

Seriously. Watch it. "Putting fear and bigotry on trial" is exactly what it is.

NO8, folks.

This morning has been an emotional roller coaster. The trigger was something so incredibly trivial, but the response I've seen online has me alternating between white hot anger and unutterable sadness.
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A little something my kid sent me... she knows her Mom well. LOL!





(Though, for all I know, one of you made this and it made the rounds months ago. LOL)

When a story (regardless of medium) can keep me engaged from start to finish, I call that a well-told story and move on. I rarely worry too much about the holes that come to me after the fact. Though, those post-consumption holes will often determine if I read or watch it again. I greatly prefer things I can enjoy multiple times.

My biggest problem with Housekeeping was that it didn’t keep me engaged *during* the episode. I was so excited about the premise. This was an arc I was looking forward to seeing the resolution of. Then I found myself distracted by a character’s hair rather than listening to two characters’ dialog simply because the dialog had no impact on the story. And for me to get distracted by a hair style is, um, well, it takes a lot.

When I see episodes like this (regardless of series), I have to wonder if they just didn’t have enough A-story to go around (criminal, given the strong potential for this arc) or if Someone From On High, and out of the creative chain of command, decreed that the B-story needed to happen. The end result is usually a mess, as this was.

The only tension or excitement I felt in the entire episode was during that one scene between Tony and EJ. Michael Weatherly and Sarah Jane Morris are *so* good together. Even though I wanted more in terms of information from it, the emotion was excellent – it was the kind of scene MW never gets enough of. What kills me is that he seems to get them mostly in these uneven episodes. It’s almost as if they know they have a weak story, so they’re going to use his incredible strength as an actor to try and pull the story’s fat out of the fire. While I’m sure that’s gratifying to a point, it’s *got* to be aggravating over time. His skills are so under-utilized.

The climax was, anti-climactic. I never felt any threat at all. I suppose that could have been the direction rather than the writing, but I suspect not. Anyone can have an off episode, but Terrence O’Hara’s track record is better than that.

B-story killed A-story’s pacing (heard Video Killed the Radio Star yesterday – sue me LOL).

Mostly, I spent the episode wishing for a red pen.

“Why is this conversation in here? It has nothing to do with the story.”

“This is not how this character would respond in this situation.”

“This character would never do this.”

“It was obvious that [spoiler] was going to happen from the moment the scene opened. Fix it.”

And so on, and so forth. If a friend had given me a manuscript with these kinds of problems, I would have marked it up and sent it back for major revisions. The biggest problem with Housekeeping is there wasn’t enough story on the page… and there should have been. Instead we got filler – Mexico (please, please, no more, we beg you), relationships, non-relationships, weird conversations from and to nowhere. Where was the killer stalking his prey? Where was the danger? Where was the suspense?

This season as been SO well done, it was just a real shame to see such excellent performances wasted on such a weak script.

Just thought I'd pop in and say, I live, and not only that, but I'm going to try to dust this puppy off.

I miss it.

I miss you guys.

I miss there being a version of Star Trek on tv.

Oops, sorry, okay, not really. I *do* miss having a new version of Star Trek on tv. LOL

About the only thing of note that's happened lately is my alter-ego getting some paying writing gigs that are turning fairly, if not lavishly, lucrative.

So... hi! And *INCOMING*!

So, I was cooking dinner last night and wanted to do something different with the vegetables. Oven fried chicken (okay, Shake and Bake - hey, it's good - don't judge :-), mashed potatoes and then "some vegetable". :-)

I looked in the fridge and dug through what I'd bought for stir fry (need to get corn starch today) and found some sugar snap peas and some carrot discs (need to get shredded carrots, too). So, kid doesn't care for cooked carrots, but sugar snap peas are one of her favorites (she'll snack on them raw when she can).

So, I pulled out the sugar snaps and the carrots and pondered. Looked at the vegetables, looked at the spice rack, noticed the skillet and had a thought.

Put the skillet on to heat up, added a little olive oil to the skillet and let that warm. Then I put in about a teaspoon of minced garlic. Browned that a bit, then dumped in the sugar snaps and about half as much of the carrot discs. Got that all lightly coated with the olive oil and garlic, then sprinkled in some Provencal herb mix on a whim. Stirred that in and proceeded to finish up everything else while that cooked on medium heat. I did add a little water at one point, which helped heat and soften the peas and carrots. It cooked out by the time it was done.

When I served it up, the vegetables were hot, crisp, not at all oily and tasted divine. Even my kid who doesn't like cooked carrots LOVED it. It went amazingly well with the spicy Shake and Bake.

Simple, healthy, very, very tasty.

Title: Interlude 1 - Stallion
Genre: slash, genderbend (trust me :-)
Category: AU, PWP, Kink
Spoilers: None
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 3,195
Pub Date: July 2011
Warnings: Ah, those kinky shifters. Sex in "incompatible" forms.
Summary: Some taboos are made to be broken, but Tony's new kink could cost him Gibbs.
Author's Notes: Thank you to my beta, taylorgibbs... she made sure my liquid muse didn't get me into trouble... um... more trouble. This is one of what may be a series of PWPs in this universe. Gonna have to see what pops into my head. :-)


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(WOW! Two posts! :-)

I'm sitting here watching some of the Life After People episodes on my DVR. I love this show. Talk about fertile ground for growing SF story ideas.

The episode I just watched was about what happens to things like roads and cars and so forth. At the end, after all the refineries have burned and Detroit is nothing but a wetland with oak trees, it reminded us of the three moon rovers left by the Apollo missions.

Imagine a futuristic archeological "site survey" wherein planets found to be devoid of intelligent life (or maybe just industrialization/radio waves) had their moons or other local airless bodies checked to see if there was anything left there. And only if something was found could funding be gotten to fully catalog the entire system. And oh, the grousing in academic communities because such a policy ignores pre-space societies.

So many bunnies, so little time.

Greetings from the void! LOL!

My intentions to dip back into LJ on a regular basis hasn't worked out so well, but I have been lurking here and there.

Will attempt to lurk more loudly.

I'm writing. Working on an NCIS AU (paranormal/mpreg/boss!Tony - yes, I know, never take the easy route) as well as some pro stuff. I've still got some ideas for SG1, but I need to sink into the good seasons again and try to wipe away the stain of S9 & S10. They really did a number on my interest level.

My kid's finishing up her junior year in high school. Simply amazing. LOL! She's still dead set on majoring in film and ultimately working in Hollywood. Oh! Oh! She wrote a play in a school sponsored workshop that's a semi-finalist with our local big theater (their resident playwright ran the workshop). One of 12 out of 300. Very proud of my kid. :-)

My current plan is to move to LA once she heads off to college (assuming she doesn't end up going locally, which isn't likely, or at least not likely for long). I just don't see any reason to be half a continent away from my kid. Besides, while I'll never be able to offer her much in the way of financial support, if things get bad for her, she can at least always crash on my sofa until she gets her feet under her again. While she may be going to school on the east coast, this would give me a chance to get established out there. Besides, it seems like a good time to make a major change like that. And, if she spent summers with me, she could maybe pick up some work in Hollywood.

We'll see what happens between now and then. Nothing is certain but change, after all.

I refuse to have my kid sleeping on a subway or a bus or whatever because breaking into such a competitive business can take a while.

Besides, the climate in LA would probably be much more pleasant for me. The older I get the harder the wet summer heat hits me... and let's not even talk about Houston winters. Much worse than LA winters (ignoring their freakish snow this past year - snow would at least be interesting :-). I'd just have to get used to earthquakes. LOL!

Like anyone reading this won't get *that* reference. :-)

I have long hair.

I didn't used to. I've worn my hair anywhere from about an inch and a half all over to, well, where it is now - just about down to my waist.

I have *never* had hair this long, and it's kinda cool. :-) I generally wear it in a pony tail or up in a bun, but there's nothing like the sensuous feeling of it swinging down my bare back, or mostly bare back, depending on circumstances. ;-)

Now, as those of you who've ever experienced the joys and heartaches of long hair will know, there are downsides... like split ends, oily roots, dry ends, all that fun stuff. So I've been working on solutions and I've found one I like.

The old fashioned, simple, homemade, hot oil treatment.

I bought some cheap, store brand olive oil (cuz, it doesn't have to *taste* great, just be oily :-) and some honey.

4 tbls oil
2 tbls honey

(I might need more next time - hair is looooong - cut that in half for normal hair ;-). Mix it in a baggie, then warm it in a cup of water (formerly boiling), apply it to dry hair, wrap in a plastic bag (grocery store bag worked great) and let sit for 15 minutes (the warmer it stays, the better). I ended up in the shower after 5 minutes (that's how long it took to clean up after applying the oil) and let the hot water run over my head (and took care of other shower related tasks) for the rest of the ten minutes. Shampooed as usual and viola! Man, it's soft, and nice and SHIIIINEEEEEEEEE. :-) I'll be distracting ADD folks for miles. :-)

I do think I'm going to find myself a nice squeeze bottle with a good cap to use. I'll mix up a batch and then warm the whole bottle and use it that way. It should make the whole process much simpler. Ooh, I've got a honey bottle that's almost empty. Maybe I'll use that.

When USA announced their forthcoming movie starring Mark Harmon and based on the 10th of John Sandford's "Prey" novels, a couple of friends of mine insisted I'd read them.

Forcefully.

:-)

So, I gave the first one a shot.

That was what, two weeks - 10 days ago?

I just finished book 7.

I *love* these books. :-)

Lucas Davenport is a Minneapolis cop... who also designs games. In fact, he designs them so well, that he's made himself a bit of a personal fortune at it. He drives a Porche, games with nuns and is the go-to guy in the department whenever they catch a weird one. Lucas regularly puts two and two together and comes up with the square root of 17. He's the one the chief sends out to talk to the media... and sometime to play them. He's also killed more people on the job than any other cop. Lucas also loves women. Just as many as he can manage.

The series starts in the 80s (there are something like 20 books now) and it's interesting to read, now, about a time before cell phones and when computers were odd little things that had to be explained to the audience. :-) Watching technology blossom over the years covered in the first 7 books has been fun. :-) The 10th book was published in '99.

If you pick them up, try not to be put off by some of the more subtle (and not so subtle) sort of passive bigotry. That doesn't last and it's interesting to see it drop away as the books march on through time. Some people may be put off by the way Lucas sleeps around, but I found it only a problem in terms of the problems it caused him. He doesn't treat his lovers poorly, he just has a little trouble sticking to one woman at a time (and, IIRC, he never denied that it was a problem or that it was his own fault - just a weakness on his part). It strikes me as a realistic portrayal of a guy who's more than a little screwed up on his own, but not in a terrible way and he seems to grow past it a bit.

If you like your serial killers twisted and your cops bordering on it at times, pick these up. There's a reason Sandford's other self has won a Pulitzer for journalism. His style is fast paced and interesting and the man has definitely done his research.

So, the Pan-Fandom Kink-a-thon Community has been created. It still needs a coat of paint and some furniture and so forth, but hey, it's there.

I'll give folks a chance to go join up, but then I'll post the Design Contest!!! Whoo-hooo! Gonna put out a call for comm designs and the winner gets...um.... my undying thanks? I'll get together with the other mods and we'll see if we can come up with something better than that. Maybe the winner's name used in a fic or something.

I still need to post the Eternal Bunny Hutch post as well as a welcome to the dungeon post.