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Posted 15 years agoNaNoWriMo
Posted 15 years agoI've been a bit absent and absent minded lately, but that's due to diving into National Novel Writing Month. 50,000 words in 30 days. It's a hell of an exercise!
I'm not particularly aiming to hit that word count marker, though if I do I'll be impressed. I'll tell more about the story I wrote, heck I might even post it here. It's not furry, but that wouldn't take much doing to change.
I'm not particularly aiming to hit that word count marker, though if I do I'll be impressed. I'll tell more about the story I wrote, heck I might even post it here. It's not furry, but that wouldn't take much doing to change.
Origins Meme.
Posted 15 years agoFrom 
silverautomatic though I found it on a few other users' journals. Can't find my home town, so I'll do my home state.
1. Go to Google and type, "You know you're from (your city or state) when...." (hit "I'm feeling lucky")
2. Cut and paste the list.
3. Bold the items that apply to you.
YOU KNOW YOU'RE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA IF...
1. You've never met any celebrities. (I have, though you might not know who they are/were.)
2. Your idea of a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor on the highway.
(No, though I know someone who almost collided with a stray cow.)
3. "Vacation" means going to the family reunion.
4. You've seen all the biggest bands ten years after they were popular.
5. You measure distance in minutes. (Nope. I use miles and major roads.)
6. You know several people who have hit a deer. (I have. Didn't get my bag limit because I ran out of cars!)
7. Your school classes were canceled because of cold. (...Almost. They've been canceled on account of snow and ice a few times, but hurricanes are the most common offenders.)
8. Your school classes were canceled because of heat. (I never saw that happen!)
9. You've ridden the school bus for an hour each way.
10. You've ever had to switch from "heat" to "A/C"
in the same day. (AND BACK!)
11. You think ethanol makes your truck "run a lot better."
(If I had a truck, it might have held up to hitting a second deer...)
12. You know what's knee-high by the Fourth of July.
13. Stores don't have bags; they have sacks.
14. You see people wear bib overalls at funerals.
15. You see a car running in the parking lot at the store with no one in it no matter what time of the year.
16. You use "fix" as an adverb. Example: I am fixing to go to the store.
17. All the festivals across the state are named after a fruit, vegetable, grain, plants, or animal.
18. You install security lights on your house and garage and leave both unlocked.
19. You think of the major four food groups as beef, pork, beer, and Jell-O salad with marshmallows.
20. You carry jumper cables in your car. (Despite having a much more reliable car now. I keep 'em around to give people jump starts.)
21. You know what "cow tipping" and "snipe hunting" is.
22. You only own 3 spices: salt, pepper, and ketchup.
23. You think everyone from a bigger city has an accent.
24. You think sexy lingerie is a tee shirt and boxer shorts.
25. The local paper covers national and international headlines on one page but requires 6 pages for sports.
26. You think that deer season is a national holiday. (I don't, but I know lots of people that do...)
27. You know which leaves make good toilet paper.
28. You know that going "barefootin" is one of the great joys of life. (Not advisable around here. Too much pavement, gravel, broken glass, hot sand, and don't forget chiggers.)
29. You find 90 degrees Fahrenheit "a little warm."
30. You know all 4 seasons: Almost Summer, Summer, Still Summer, and Christmas. (Still Summer is when the hurricanes show up.)
31. You know if another South Carolinian is from the Low Country, the Sand Hills, or the Piedmont section of South Carolina, as soon as they open their mouth.
Horry County doesn't have an accent per se as much as a pattern: they speak in a very fast and choppy mumble.
32. There is a Dairy Queen in every town with a population of 1000 of more, except for Orangeburg which has Dairy-O.
33. You actually get these jokes and forward them to all your friends from SC.
silverautomatic though I found it on a few other users' journals. Can't find my home town, so I'll do my home state.1. Go to Google and type, "You know you're from (your city or state) when...." (hit "I'm feeling lucky")
2. Cut and paste the list.
3. Bold the items that apply to you.
YOU KNOW YOU'RE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA IF...
1. You've never met any celebrities. (I have, though you might not know who they are/were.)
2. Your idea of a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor on the highway.
(No, though I know someone who almost collided with a stray cow.)
3. "Vacation" means going to the family reunion.
4. You've seen all the biggest bands ten years after they were popular.
5. You measure distance in minutes. (Nope. I use miles and major roads.)
6. You know several people who have hit a deer. (I have. Didn't get my bag limit because I ran out of cars!)
7. Your school classes were canceled because of cold. (...Almost. They've been canceled on account of snow and ice a few times, but hurricanes are the most common offenders.)
8. Your school classes were canceled because of heat. (I never saw that happen!)
9. You've ridden the school bus for an hour each way.
10. You've ever had to switch from "heat" to "A/C"
in the same day. (AND BACK!)
11. You think ethanol makes your truck "run a lot better."
(If I had a truck, it might have held up to hitting a second deer...)
12. You know what's knee-high by the Fourth of July.
13. Stores don't have bags; they have sacks.
14. You see people wear bib overalls at funerals.
15. You see a car running in the parking lot at the store with no one in it no matter what time of the year.
16. You use "fix" as an adverb. Example: I am fixing to go to the store.
17. All the festivals across the state are named after a fruit, vegetable, grain, plants, or animal.
18. You install security lights on your house and garage and leave both unlocked.
19. You think of the major four food groups as beef, pork, beer, and Jell-O salad with marshmallows.
20. You carry jumper cables in your car. (Despite having a much more reliable car now. I keep 'em around to give people jump starts.)
21. You know what "cow tipping" and "snipe hunting" is.
22. You only own 3 spices: salt, pepper, and ketchup.
23. You think everyone from a bigger city has an accent.
24. You think sexy lingerie is a tee shirt and boxer shorts.
25. The local paper covers national and international headlines on one page but requires 6 pages for sports.
26. You think that deer season is a national holiday. (I don't, but I know lots of people that do...)
27. You know which leaves make good toilet paper.
28. You know that going "barefootin" is one of the great joys of life. (Not advisable around here. Too much pavement, gravel, broken glass, hot sand, and don't forget chiggers.)
29. You find 90 degrees Fahrenheit "a little warm."
30. You know all 4 seasons: Almost Summer, Summer, Still Summer, and Christmas. (Still Summer is when the hurricanes show up.)
31. You know if another South Carolinian is from the Low Country, the Sand Hills, or the Piedmont section of South Carolina, as soon as they open their mouth.
Horry County doesn't have an accent per se as much as a pattern: they speak in a very fast and choppy mumble.
32. There is a Dairy Queen in every town with a population of 1000 of more, except for Orangeburg which has Dairy-O.
33. You actually get these jokes and forward them to all your friends from SC.
For once, a meme I may take a whack at...
Posted 15 years ago1. When did you start writing?
Been coming up with stories for a long time, though I often find I'm more interested in specs and designs that weave into narratives.
2. First drafts: Handwritten, typed, or some combination?
Typed. Most of the time I can't read my own handwriting, editing stuff is far easier on the 'puter, and I type far faster and with fewer errors.
I once transcribed a 30-second TV commercial at a speed that astonished a coworker.
3. Do you keep any kind of notebook or writer's journal, and if so, what kinds of things go into it?
I've been keeping a journal for a long time as a general journal, including anything from weather conditions and what happened during the course of the day to what I ate and what exercise I got. Not as a writer's journal so much as just a dumping ground for my thoughts.
4. Do you set any quotas for your work (number of words per day, number of hours per day, etc.)? Why or why not?
Nope. Usually I write when I have time between all the other things I'm involved in!
5. Are you most comfortable writing short stories, novels, or something else?
I often start with an outline (and I found that TVTropes.org was a great place to get ideas together!) and see where it goes from there. What started off as a short fanfic ballooned into almost novel length. I try to write short when possible, but that doesn't seem to be possible.
6. What's your favorite kind of story to write?
Something that I can actually finish! See #11 for influences, I rather like technical details if they play nicely into the story.
Particularly if the fact that Chekhov's Gun is a Mosin-Nagant turns out to be an important clue.
7. Talk about a story of yours that was easy to write and one that was difficult to write, and why.
Easy: Remarkably enough, the fanfic I mentioned above. Based on Alex Reynard's "Dangerous Lunatics," I found a superpower idea that had been floating in my mind for some years finally found expression and crystallized in a character. Each time I opened the file I ended up expanding a sentence into a few paragraphs, and sometimes a sentence became a page. I still need to work on a Curb Stomp Battle scene.
Hard: This one so far remains abandoned. I heard Loreena McKennitt's song "The Bonny Swans", a song that retells an old folk tale. I thought it was a nicely written allegory of forensics; I started putting that into a story, and it sort of stalled out. I may post the working notes with the admonishment that it'll probably never be finished. I'm still not sure why I stopped; maybe the characters just stopped speaking to me, it was pretty plot driven. Might work better if I revamp it into a CSI fanfic.
8. Which of your characters is closest to your sense of self? In other words, who do you most identify with in your own work to date?
Thus far, my recent character Melissa Larson (Again, see the fanfic mention above). I was like that in grade school, way the hell ahead in some respects, way behind in others. The influencing works both ways: after I started writing the story, I found that several elements worked better if she could use a radio; I ended up getting my FCC license after about eight months of really working on the story. Being a Crazy Prepared Genius will take a bit more time...
9. What work are you most proud of right now?
Right now the Dangerous Lunatics Fanfic; it's the most complete thing I've written so far.
10. What do you feel your strengths and weaknesses are as a writer?
Weaknesses... Lack of time. Lack of training. Lack of organization and coherence.
Strengths... I haven't been writing enough to know yet. My literate style, maybe? I know what I like to read, and I try to write that way.
11. Name a few writers who have influenced you or your work in some way.
In no particular order: Alex Reynard; Tom Clancy; all the folks that were involved in the now defunct roleplaying forum MasterZDM.com.
12. Talk about something you've written that you later found embarrassing for some reason.
Very few of my written works have escaped my hard drive, so that's hard to answer. Just about any story I tried to tell prior to the last ten years I might consider an Old Shame.
13. Talk about the earliest stories you remember writing. What were they about?
The earliest one I recall was a Scooby-Doo-ish comic that my mother and I scripted and she drew. A reported ghost turned out to be a man in disguise. The "unmasking" scene showed where the disguised guy got shot in the butt.
14. If you knew you would be successful, what would you most like to write?
Let me flip that around: If I knew I wouldn't have to worry about income, what would I like to write?
Probably fiction of some sort. I like the greater flexibility of furries, since an awful lot still goes.
15. What inspires you?
Concepts. I had the rawest idea for Melissa's powers since about... 2002, I think. I started to use that with my MasterZDM character, but then he turned into a Genius Bruiser and went in a bunch of other directions.
Since about 2000 or so, I've been discovering subcultures, "worlds beneath the world", Groups that come together and form a society of their own. Furries. Geocachers. Ham radio operators. Political action groups. Songwriters. The lists go on.
16. How many projects do you tend to work on at once?
Just written ones, maybe two or three at a time. Everything else I'm into (see #18) brings the project total to a few dozen!
17. Who reads your work before it's released to the public? Do you have beta readers, a critique group, etc.?
Want to join up? I'm still looking for beta readers and critique. So far I've run my major fanfics past
alexreynard and 
alfador, since they were based on their combined work. 
drakiskier has commented as well, hope I can keep him around!
18. When you're not writing, what do you do for fun?
I sing with a choir, fart around with computers, draw, play bass, ham it up on the radio (I mostly use digital modes on the HF bands), and look for geocaches when the weather's nice, crack puns.
I hold down a day job. And cram sleep in there somewhere.
19. Advice to other writers?
You're asking ME? As far as writing goes, I'm still a n00b!
20. What are you currently working on?
Fanfics for two of Alex's settings dominate my written output at the moment. Just today I read back over a couple chapters of Professor Bob's "Kayla" story, and had an idea come belching out that needed to be taken down. I think it's a side story that NEEDS to be written, but may not even fit into the story continuity.
21. Share the first three sentences of a work in progress.
(Skipping a few quotes at the beginning to what I actually wrote...)
Satan's office is an example of what most of Hell has to deal with on a daily basis: Paperwork. Lucifer himself processes a few hundred thousand tons of it every hour, and the legions of Hellguardians who volunteer for desk jobs have similar workloads. Hell's staff tried going paperless more than once, but getting everything implemented just didn't work.
For the kind of permanence needed for Hell's Records, these just can't be created out of thin air or portaled into existence. Copies can be summoned, but someone has to make all those forms for the original files...
Been coming up with stories for a long time, though I often find I'm more interested in specs and designs that weave into narratives.
2. First drafts: Handwritten, typed, or some combination?
Typed. Most of the time I can't read my own handwriting, editing stuff is far easier on the 'puter, and I type far faster and with fewer errors.
I once transcribed a 30-second TV commercial at a speed that astonished a coworker.
3. Do you keep any kind of notebook or writer's journal, and if so, what kinds of things go into it?
I've been keeping a journal for a long time as a general journal, including anything from weather conditions and what happened during the course of the day to what I ate and what exercise I got. Not as a writer's journal so much as just a dumping ground for my thoughts.
4. Do you set any quotas for your work (number of words per day, number of hours per day, etc.)? Why or why not?
Nope. Usually I write when I have time between all the other things I'm involved in!
5. Are you most comfortable writing short stories, novels, or something else?
I often start with an outline (and I found that TVTropes.org was a great place to get ideas together!) and see where it goes from there. What started off as a short fanfic ballooned into almost novel length. I try to write short when possible, but that doesn't seem to be possible.
6. What's your favorite kind of story to write?
Something that I can actually finish! See #11 for influences, I rather like technical details if they play nicely into the story.
Particularly if the fact that Chekhov's Gun is a Mosin-Nagant turns out to be an important clue.
7. Talk about a story of yours that was easy to write and one that was difficult to write, and why.
Easy: Remarkably enough, the fanfic I mentioned above. Based on Alex Reynard's "Dangerous Lunatics," I found a superpower idea that had been floating in my mind for some years finally found expression and crystallized in a character. Each time I opened the file I ended up expanding a sentence into a few paragraphs, and sometimes a sentence became a page. I still need to work on a Curb Stomp Battle scene.
Hard: This one so far remains abandoned. I heard Loreena McKennitt's song "The Bonny Swans", a song that retells an old folk tale. I thought it was a nicely written allegory of forensics; I started putting that into a story, and it sort of stalled out. I may post the working notes with the admonishment that it'll probably never be finished. I'm still not sure why I stopped; maybe the characters just stopped speaking to me, it was pretty plot driven. Might work better if I revamp it into a CSI fanfic.
8. Which of your characters is closest to your sense of self? In other words, who do you most identify with in your own work to date?
Thus far, my recent character Melissa Larson (Again, see the fanfic mention above). I was like that in grade school, way the hell ahead in some respects, way behind in others. The influencing works both ways: after I started writing the story, I found that several elements worked better if she could use a radio; I ended up getting my FCC license after about eight months of really working on the story. Being a Crazy Prepared Genius will take a bit more time...
9. What work are you most proud of right now?
Right now the Dangerous Lunatics Fanfic; it's the most complete thing I've written so far.
10. What do you feel your strengths and weaknesses are as a writer?
Weaknesses... Lack of time. Lack of training. Lack of organization and coherence.
Strengths... I haven't been writing enough to know yet. My literate style, maybe? I know what I like to read, and I try to write that way.
11. Name a few writers who have influenced you or your work in some way.
In no particular order: Alex Reynard; Tom Clancy; all the folks that were involved in the now defunct roleplaying forum MasterZDM.com.
12. Talk about something you've written that you later found embarrassing for some reason.
Very few of my written works have escaped my hard drive, so that's hard to answer. Just about any story I tried to tell prior to the last ten years I might consider an Old Shame.
13. Talk about the earliest stories you remember writing. What were they about?
The earliest one I recall was a Scooby-Doo-ish comic that my mother and I scripted and she drew. A reported ghost turned out to be a man in disguise. The "unmasking" scene showed where the disguised guy got shot in the butt.
14. If you knew you would be successful, what would you most like to write?
Let me flip that around: If I knew I wouldn't have to worry about income, what would I like to write?
Probably fiction of some sort. I like the greater flexibility of furries, since an awful lot still goes.
15. What inspires you?
Concepts. I had the rawest idea for Melissa's powers since about... 2002, I think. I started to use that with my MasterZDM character, but then he turned into a Genius Bruiser and went in a bunch of other directions.
Since about 2000 or so, I've been discovering subcultures, "worlds beneath the world", Groups that come together and form a society of their own. Furries. Geocachers. Ham radio operators. Political action groups. Songwriters. The lists go on.
16. How many projects do you tend to work on at once?
Just written ones, maybe two or three at a time. Everything else I'm into (see #18) brings the project total to a few dozen!
17. Who reads your work before it's released to the public? Do you have beta readers, a critique group, etc.?
Want to join up? I'm still looking for beta readers and critique. So far I've run my major fanfics past
alexreynard and 
alfador, since they were based on their combined work. 
drakiskier has commented as well, hope I can keep him around! 18. When you're not writing, what do you do for fun?
I sing with a choir, fart around with computers, draw, play bass, ham it up on the radio (I mostly use digital modes on the HF bands), and look for geocaches when the weather's nice, crack puns.
I hold down a day job. And cram sleep in there somewhere.
19. Advice to other writers?
You're asking ME? As far as writing goes, I'm still a n00b!
20. What are you currently working on?
Fanfics for two of Alex's settings dominate my written output at the moment. Just today I read back over a couple chapters of Professor Bob's "Kayla" story, and had an idea come belching out that needed to be taken down. I think it's a side story that NEEDS to be written, but may not even fit into the story continuity.
21. Share the first three sentences of a work in progress.
(Skipping a few quotes at the beginning to what I actually wrote...)
Satan's office is an example of what most of Hell has to deal with on a daily basis: Paperwork. Lucifer himself processes a few hundred thousand tons of it every hour, and the legions of Hellguardians who volunteer for desk jobs have similar workloads. Hell's staff tried going paperless more than once, but getting everything implemented just didn't work.
For the kind of permanence needed for Hell's Records, these just can't be created out of thin air or portaled into existence. Copies can be summoned, but someone has to make all those forms for the original files...
I know we've all done one of these at some point...
Posted 16 years agoI found this while I was digging around in some old files on my computer. I'm not sure when I wrote it.
"What follows is an old abusing of God's patience and the King's English."
--W. Shakespeare
And a new abuse of an old tale. Prepare for a storm of cliche...
Little Red Riding Hood would regularly go visit her Grandmother at her cabin in the woods, quite often bringing a basket of food along for her trip - not necessarily for Grandma, she can still cook and take care of herself. Little Red Riding Hood frequently brought home a heavier basket, as her Grandmother was very fond of baking peanut butter cookies. However, today was Saturday; she normally went on Sundays, but Little Red Riding Hood's mother figured she could give Grandma a surprise. Little Red Riding Hood gathered her basket and her parents almost shoved her out the door.
As she was headed to her grandmother's cabin, a wolf called out to her, "Hey! Are you on your way to your grandmother's house?"
"Which grandmother?" she asked, and before the wolf could say anything else she darted off on a different path, having been warned repeatedly about talking to strangers. Plus, she's no fool in the ways of tracking and deceptive trails. The wolf waited for a moment, growled, then ran for a telephone.
Little Red Riding Hood was a little out of breath when she got to her grandmother's cabin and knocked on the door. The only answer to her knock and call was a soft moan.
"Grandma?" Little Red Riding Hood called again, took out her spare key, and opened the door. The house was neatly kept, as might be expected of an elderly female who has gotten over the "empty nest" stage. The smell of fresh-baked peanut butter cookies hung heavy in the air, although a whiff of something that went stale a while ago still lingered. She heard her Grandmother moan again. The sound came from the bedroom.
Little Red Riding Hood quickly put her basket down and went running. She'd awakened her Grandmother from bad dreams several times before, dreams that made the old woman moan, but this didn't sound like the same kind of moan. Was she in trouble? Grandmother's health was excellent, even though her eyesight was going. As she came to the bedroom door, she heard the sound of heavy panting. This frightened Little Red Riding Hood!
"Grandma?" Little Red Riding Hood exclaimed as she opened the door, then three voices all yelped at once. Little Red Riding Hood had caught an old wolf in the middle of... shall we say, 'eating' her Grandmother. Grandma didn't mean to knee the old wolf in the head when she jumped.
Little Red Riding Hood backed away from the bedroom door, and bumped into the younger wolf she'd seen before. "Dad, do you EVER answer yer cell phone?" he exclaimed in an annoyed tone.
"Grandma, why didn't you tell us you were seeing someone?" Little Red Riding Hood asked, as she clapped her paws over her muzzle in total embarrassment. Her pointed ears were flaming as red as her hood. Who would have imagined that someone Grandma's age could be that darn frisky? Although it has been a few years since Grandpa died...
Little Red Riding hood could only shake her head. Mom and Dad were probably doing the same thing today, hence why she was ushered out of the house on a Saturday morning.
After that embarrassing episode, the two families of wolves got along quite well...
Comments, flames, derision, etc. are all welcome.
Inspired party by a picture of a sexy anthro wolf wearing absolutely nothing but a red hood and cape. Artist was listed as "Stephanie K", I think it was on VCL, but I don't remember for certain.
"What follows is an old abusing of God's patience and the King's English."
--W. Shakespeare
And a new abuse of an old tale. Prepare for a storm of cliche...
Little Red Riding Hood would regularly go visit her Grandmother at her cabin in the woods, quite often bringing a basket of food along for her trip - not necessarily for Grandma, she can still cook and take care of herself. Little Red Riding Hood frequently brought home a heavier basket, as her Grandmother was very fond of baking peanut butter cookies. However, today was Saturday; she normally went on Sundays, but Little Red Riding Hood's mother figured she could give Grandma a surprise. Little Red Riding Hood gathered her basket and her parents almost shoved her out the door.
As she was headed to her grandmother's cabin, a wolf called out to her, "Hey! Are you on your way to your grandmother's house?"
"Which grandmother?" she asked, and before the wolf could say anything else she darted off on a different path, having been warned repeatedly about talking to strangers. Plus, she's no fool in the ways of tracking and deceptive trails. The wolf waited for a moment, growled, then ran for a telephone.
Little Red Riding Hood was a little out of breath when she got to her grandmother's cabin and knocked on the door. The only answer to her knock and call was a soft moan.
"Grandma?" Little Red Riding Hood called again, took out her spare key, and opened the door. The house was neatly kept, as might be expected of an elderly female who has gotten over the "empty nest" stage. The smell of fresh-baked peanut butter cookies hung heavy in the air, although a whiff of something that went stale a while ago still lingered. She heard her Grandmother moan again. The sound came from the bedroom.
Little Red Riding Hood quickly put her basket down and went running. She'd awakened her Grandmother from bad dreams several times before, dreams that made the old woman moan, but this didn't sound like the same kind of moan. Was she in trouble? Grandmother's health was excellent, even though her eyesight was going. As she came to the bedroom door, she heard the sound of heavy panting. This frightened Little Red Riding Hood!
"Grandma?" Little Red Riding Hood exclaimed as she opened the door, then three voices all yelped at once. Little Red Riding Hood had caught an old wolf in the middle of... shall we say, 'eating' her Grandmother. Grandma didn't mean to knee the old wolf in the head when she jumped.
Little Red Riding Hood backed away from the bedroom door, and bumped into the younger wolf she'd seen before. "Dad, do you EVER answer yer cell phone?" he exclaimed in an annoyed tone.
"Grandma, why didn't you tell us you were seeing someone?" Little Red Riding Hood asked, as she clapped her paws over her muzzle in total embarrassment. Her pointed ears were flaming as red as her hood. Who would have imagined that someone Grandma's age could be that darn frisky? Although it has been a few years since Grandpa died...
Little Red Riding hood could only shake her head. Mom and Dad were probably doing the same thing today, hence why she was ushered out of the house on a Saturday morning.
After that embarrassing episode, the two families of wolves got along quite well...
Comments, flames, derision, etc. are all welcome.
Inspired party by a picture of a sexy anthro wolf wearing absolutely nothing but a red hood and cape. Artist was listed as "Stephanie K", I think it was on VCL, but I don't remember for certain.
