Hiding fandom in the underwear drawer since 1977

I have, finally, a complete draft of the NBB.  Now it is time to edit, with the wonderful help of autumnia who has patiently endured my early draft, complete with misspellings and typos.  Amine_eyes was going to help too and I'm just so lucky to have such great support.  (I've been through a real bout of the OMG IT SUX recently.  autumnia has kept me from chucking it all into the river).  It needs work, but it is getting there.  I am so fortunate and absolutely giddy with the prospect that heverus will be doing the art!!

There have been distractions, some good (cyndisuesue visited unexpectedly and this was divine!) and others not so good, especially some very serious illness among several in my village.  Also the state of the US political dialogue has been especially grim and I find myself in a perpetual state of grimace, and I'm not sure that following the Think Progress tweet feed has been good for my blood pressure. 

Also, today, I timed the distance it takes for an egg to fall with parachutes of varying sizes for my teen's science project.  We did this about 20 times and happily the egg broke on the last round, thereby proving up the hypothesis that even a small parachute is better than no parachute.  Words to live by, yes?

Which come to think, is a bit of a metaphor for the NBB.  I keep thinking that, gosh, I've not done anything but the NBB for months.  Except that NBB author sign ups were on October 23 and since then, I posted chapters 10-14 of Apostolic Way and the recent chapter of Harold & Morgan and just wrote the NBB from scratch.  Never tell me the word count, but I'm sure that's over 100,000 words since October 30.  So... yeah...

I read the Hunger Games and really enjoyed it.  I know the basics of the whole story and we are all now eagerly awaiting the release of the film which so far seems terrific.  Yeah, I know, trailers, but still, I am enjoying what I see.

Some true delights come from adaese and wellinghall who have provided pictures of the Cat Window at the Oxford Museum of Natural History and a link to a page of Sir Gwaine and the Green Knight on display at the Bodleian Library at Oxford.  This was C.S. Lewis' own edition, with his own annotations, and edited by JRR Tolkien and EV Gordon.  So, I shall share the pretty pictures and they are in my Scrapbook.

 
Source             





I have been watching Once Upon A Time, but if they don't get make it less monochromatic fast, I may drop it in disgust.  I am getting really fed up with the default to the Disney-ification at every turn.  Disney cast members in the parks and the adveritising on the show are more diverse than the show itself. 

With more of my RL and Old Fandom Friends migrating over to this account, once I came clean with them about this latest fandom obsession focus I think I might start posting the occasionally personal over here, which means F-locking.  I mention this only because some people I hear from pretty regularly don't have LJ.  It's not that my RL is so very interesting, but just a head's up.

Contrary to the notice you might have received, it is not my birthday on January 1.  My birthday (a horrendous, shocking, terrible, giganormous milestone) passed without comment in October.  So, it's been, gone, and I'm older than compost and very much feeling it. 

I've seen an uptick in readers, with guest Kudos for Unquenchable Fire (the Narnia/Temeraire xover) on AO3 (the most popular thing I've written, it turns out) and favs and such for the older stories, particularly By Royal Decree and the seldom read/reviewed/recc'd Palace Guard.  So, should you quiet types come by, thank you!  I greatly appreciate it and I'm always curious how you found the stories and what you thought of them.  I seem to have, on the other hand, lost a number of regular readers, so I do hope it's just the distraction of the holidays and Yuletide. My enormous thanks and gratitude to those who commented on or reviewed the latest updates to AW.  It's the best present ever for me and thank you.

( For Anon Reader Tess (in which Ruth gets really tetchy about her BF Tom Clark) )

I've been pushed into hosting part of a New Year's Eve party.  It is supposed to be progressive and reflect the New Year's foods/traditions of the country where it is turning midnight over several hours.  So I snagged the appetizer part, beginning at 7:30 PM, at which point, New Year's will have just passed in the UK.  I am ordering trays of chicken tika, samosas, tandoori, and paneek panir.  We are serving Jamaican and Canadian beer, aged Scotch (from Scotland), Australian Shiraz, South African white wine, and I've got champagne (from France) that I've plastered "Aquitaine" on to.  Har Har. 

Work has begun on the Big Bang.  amine_eyes has graciously offered to assist with some technical and Brit speak bits but if there are any of you out there with some background in the Brit part of D-Day, military service, common language among the light infantry NCOs, and what not, please drop me a line.  Help.  I need it.    For instance, I was writing something last night and someone poses the questions "Maybe the food would be better?" and I got stumped by whether a light infantry corporal from London, training in 1943 at a base in Bulford would say any of the following in response:  

• "When pigs fly." [era appropriate] 
• "When Hell freezes over" [militarily appropriate] or
• "When [insert football team] wins the Cup."   [I did look it up and Manchester United was very poor in the years leading up the War, so wondered if that would work, for the time]. 

That is all.  Happy New Year.  My sincere and deepest thanks to you all.  I am deeply grateful for this community and for the friendship and support.   

She has about 5 of these in various stages of dismemberment

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I have been meaning to get a picture of this for a long time.

I believe that my Narnia Fic Exchange is complete.  snacky  has been awesome with suggestions but she's running the NFE with caramelsilver .  Is there someone out there with a really good eye for detail?  Every time I look at it, I find new typos and some assistance would be great.  It's a few thousand words, but I think it's a pretty easy read.  If you are interested, please email or post or PM me.  I've had a huge amount of fun with this and the prompt has been a delight but it needs a very thorough going over.  I may even GASP print it. 

Also, something exciting!!  I've met in person Tasty As It Gets and l_a_r_m and lady_songsmith and now I'm meeting someone else from the rthstewart/Narnia side of my life!  This week!  I'll not mention her name unless she is shy.  I am, however, very excited, and my great sadness is that more folks are not able to join us!

Norway, of course, is in all our our hearts this weekend.  I recall very well those feelings during 9/11 and how long they lasted thereafter.  May you be comforted. 

SIGN UPS ARE OPEN FOR THE NARNIA FIC EXCHANGE!!  GO GO GO!!!  Sign up!  WRITE!



( whinging about Harold and Morgan and chapter 10 )

 

There are some new readers, yes, aehtna, Miseria-Veritas, and traveler from nowhere I am looking at you.  Thanks for the alerts and favs and if you have a question, feel free to drop by over here on an anon basis.

( This isn't the thud of story fail, is it? Really I'm just over-caffeinated.  )