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Grub Street
Curl up in a ball and cover you head with your arms.
27 August 2010 @ 06:49 pm
29 November 2009 @ 05:28 pm
Yesterday I went to Tate Modern and walked inside a giant box. Inside it was EXISTENTIAL ANGST. (Miroslaw Balka's How It Is really merits its own post, but I'm feeling very lazy right now.)
I'm also reading Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, and the following quote managed to cheer me up in a horrible sort of way:
It doesn't matter how good you are as a writer. It doesn't matter how bad you are as a writer. It doesn't matter if you're famous, or if you're a nonentity. It still won't save you from self-doubt.
At best, being a good writer might help you to pay the bills. It might make you popular. But it won't necessarily protect you from yourself.
So, you might as well stop fretting so much about being good, and write anyway.
I'm also reading Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, and the following quote managed to cheer me up in a horrible sort of way:
...I tell my students that the odds of their getting published and of it bringing them financial security, peace of mind, and even joy are not very great. Ruin, hysteria, bad skin, unsightly tics, bad financial problems, maybe; but probably not peace of mind. I tell them that I think they ought to write anyway. But I try to make them understand that writing, and even getting good at it, and having books and stories and articles published, will not open the doors that most of them hope for. It will not make them well. It will not give them the feeling that the world has finally validated their parking tickets, that they have in fact finally arrived. My writer friends, and they are legion, do not go around beaming with quiet feelings of contentment. Most of them go around with haunted, abused, surprised looks on their faces, like lab dogs on whom very personal deodorant sprays have been tested.
It doesn't matter how good you are as a writer. It doesn't matter how bad you are as a writer. It doesn't matter if you're famous, or if you're a nonentity. It still won't save you from self-doubt.
At best, being a good writer might help you to pay the bills. It might make you popular. But it won't necessarily protect you from yourself.
So, you might as well stop fretting so much about being good, and write anyway.
24 November 2009 @ 08:30 pm
'The owl, of course, is the national bird of Kitsch...'
You know it's true.
Also I just read an entertainment blog that described movie!Dan's Antarctica suit as 'Snowboard Liberace'.
Cannot unsee.
You know it's true.
Also I just read an entertainment blog that described movie!Dan's Antarctica suit as 'Snowboard Liberace'.
Cannot unsee.
22 November 2009 @ 07:11 pm
...I shall rectify this with Rafaella Carrá.
( This lj cut contains impeccable hair control. )
( This lj cut contains impeccable hair control. )
21 November 2009 @ 07:53 pm
Whenever I'm in danger of taking fanfic too seriously (it's an occupational hazard when you invest time and effort in something), stuff like this comes along. Or I think of Cassandra Claire.
Ahhhhh fanfic.
Ahhhhh fanfic.
19 November 2009 @ 09:18 pm
12 November 2009 @ 11:11 pm
Post ten of any pictures currently on your hard drive that you think are self-expressive.
* NO CAPTIONS!!! It must be like we're speaking with images and we have to interpret your visual language just like we have to interpret your words. *
They must ALREADY be on your hard drive - no googling or flickr! They have to have been saved to your folders sometime in the past. They must be something you've saved there because it resonated with you for some reason
. * You do NOT have to answer any questions about any of your pictures if you don't want to. You can make them as mysterious as you like. Or you can explain them away as much as you like.
( Cut. )
* NO CAPTIONS!!! It must be like we're speaking with images and we have to interpret your visual language just like we have to interpret your words. *
They must ALREADY be on your hard drive - no googling or flickr! They have to have been saved to your folders sometime in the past. They must be something you've saved there because it resonated with you for some reason
. * You do NOT have to answer any questions about any of your pictures if you don't want to. You can make them as mysterious as you like. Or you can explain them away as much as you like.
( Cut. )
10 November 2009 @ 02:01 pm
Title: Last Days of an Unreal City - Chapter 10 - Jus in Bello
Characters: Rorschach/Nite Owl II
Rating: PG-13
Word count (this section): 5406
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Alan Moore.
Summary: AU. The Cold War reaches its ultimate conclusion, and Rorschach and Daniel are among the survivors when the East Coast is attacked.
Many thanks to![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
runriggers for the beta.
Chapter Index.
( Horses' heads in people's beds. )
Characters: Rorschach/Nite Owl II
Rating: PG-13
Word count (this section): 5406
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Alan Moore.
Summary: AU. The Cold War reaches its ultimate conclusion, and Rorschach and Daniel are among the survivors when the East Coast is attacked.
Many thanks to
runriggers for the beta.Chapter Index.
( Horses' heads in people's beds. )
09 November 2009 @ 03:54 pm
Chapter 10 of Last Days is being beta'd and tidied up.
Oh look it's a video of a guy having a Saprophytic fungus pulled out of his naval cavity while awful 80s music plays in the background. The last few seconds made me do a Wilhelm scream. It's like his nose is giving birth.
I've realised that if I have to choose between using prose that's dispassionate and potentially bland, or using prose that's evocative but potentially narmy... I'm probably going to go with dispassionate and bland. I live in mortal fear of being narmy. Which is funny, because 1) I am a huge sap, and 2) fanfic really isn't a genre that's known for its restraint, and 3) I'm sure that I'm sometimes narmy without realising it, anyway. No writer is safe from narm. It's like farting, everyone does it sometimes. EMBRACE THE NARM.
That said, I have no qualms about being intentionally ridiculous with Nite Owl and Rorschach, because... Well, they're Nite Owl and Rorschach. Nite Owl is the lonely, dejected science-baby of Ted Kord and pre-Miller Batman, and Rorschach is so hardboiled that he shits wide-angle lenses. They're a bit silly. (And sad. And strangely endearing. And occasionally horrible.)
'Zugzwang' is a marvellous word.
Adrian Veidt would probably enjoy chess boxing. It is a gentleman's sport.
03 November 2009 @ 12:55 pm
I was originally going to post this when, you know, I'd actually finished the fic, but I ran out of patience and decided that I might as well post commentary as I go along.
( Hurm. )
I'm sure I'll find more to waffle about. In an ideal world, this post would have been a nice and tidy essay-thing... But this isn't an ideal world, and I just wanted to get some stuff out my system and navel-gaze a bit.
( Hurm. )
I'm sure I'll find more to waffle about. In an ideal world, this post would have been a nice and tidy essay-thing... But this isn't an ideal world, and I just wanted to get some stuff out my system and navel-gaze a bit.
01 November 2009 @ 05:02 pm
I am a little bit horrified that I would have never heard of Atmosphere if it wasn't for the internet.
I mean, hell, I'm female, I had a conservative upbringing, I grew up in the suburbs, and I'm so white that I'm practically fluorescent. That's... not exactly the sort of background that's conductive to getting into hip hop. But...
...Excuse me, I have something in my eye.
I mean, hell, I'm female, I had a conservative upbringing, I grew up in the suburbs, and I'm so white that I'm practically fluorescent. That's... not exactly the sort of background that's conductive to getting into hip hop. But...
...Excuse me, I have something in my eye.
28 October 2009 @ 05:23 pm
28 October 2009 @ 12:40 am
The White Mists of Avalon: Thoughts on Morgana's Race actually made me start to watch Merlin, just to see firsthand how Morgana and Gwen are portrayed within the series. (I, erm, don't feel particularly interested in the male protagonists. Yet. Maybe they'll grow on me.)
I'm deeply suspicious of pseudo-medieval fantasy worlds that look clean.
I'm deeply suspicious of pseudo-medieval fantasy worlds that look clean.
24 October 2009 @ 06:09 pm
Title: Last Days of an Unreal City - Chapter 9 - Shadows in the Fog
Characters: Rorschach/Nite Owl II
Rating: PG-13
Word count (this section): 4787
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Alan Moore.
Summary: AU. The Cold War reaches its ultimate conclusion, and Rorschach and Daniel are among the survivors when the East Coast is attacked.
Many thanks torunriggers for the beta.
Chapter Index.
( Not subtle. )
Characters: Rorschach/Nite Owl II
Rating: PG-13
Word count (this section): 4787
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Alan Moore.
Summary: AU. The Cold War reaches its ultimate conclusion, and Rorschach and Daniel are among the survivors when the East Coast is attacked.
Many thanks to
runriggers for the beta.Chapter Index.
( Not subtle. )
22 October 2009 @ 01:47 pm
Goddammit, I just spent half the morning reading a decent essay on how bromance movies try to dismiss their own gay subtext.
20 October 2009 @ 07:21 pm
So, the guys reponsible for Hot Fuzz have found Hot Fuzz slash and... They're actually really cool about it.
D'awww.
I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about creators finding slash fiction. Fanfic gets a lot of flack because omg, people are writing stories for the fun of it, how unproductive, smutfic gets a lot of flack because ewwww porn*, and slashfic gets a lot of flack because OH NO, THE GAY. So, I rarely expect people to be terribly tolerant, and whenever I see 'outsiders' discuss slash, I'm always half-expecting them to freak out over those icky hormonal women** with their icky sentimental romance fiction. And, y'know, I'm fairly thick-skinned (haters gonna hate), but no-one likes to be told that their hobbies make them a freak. (If you don't mind me, I'll be over there, squatting inside the slash ghetto and hissing at people.)
*If you write porn, then you're only doing it because you're lonely or a pervert... Unless you're doing it for money. (Writing for money is acceptable, although it's not something you that you should necessarily be proud of, unless you write Literature.)
The internet has told me this, so it must be true.
**Obviously, not all slash writers are women, but I've read many complaints about slash that've had a component of sexism to them. MANLY STORIES ABOUT FIGHTING AND BLOWING THINGS UP = GOOD. GIRLY STORIES ABOUT FEELINGS AND RELATIONSHIPS = BAD. FEMME THINGS: GROSS. LET'S GO PUNCH STUFF IN A COMPLETELY NON-SEXUAL MANNER. HUAAAAARG.
@edgarwright Me and @simonpegg once wrote some Nicholas Angel and Danny Butterman slash fiction. It was called HOT FUZZ…(applause)
@edgarwright I too am deeply flattered by the slashers. I say all power to handstitched homoerotica.
D'awww.
I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about creators finding slash fiction. Fanfic gets a lot of flack because omg, people are writing stories for the fun of it, how unproductive, smutfic gets a lot of flack because ewwww porn*, and slashfic gets a lot of flack because OH NO, THE GAY. So, I rarely expect people to be terribly tolerant, and whenever I see 'outsiders' discuss slash, I'm always half-expecting them to freak out over those icky hormonal women** with their icky sentimental romance fiction. And, y'know, I'm fairly thick-skinned (haters gonna hate), but no-one likes to be told that their hobbies make them a freak. (If you don't mind me, I'll be over there, squatting inside the slash ghetto and hissing at people.)
*If you write porn, then you're only doing it because you're lonely or a pervert... Unless you're doing it for money. (Writing for money is acceptable, although it's not something you that you should necessarily be proud of, unless you write Literature.)
The internet has told me this, so it must be true.
**Obviously, not all slash writers are women, but I've read many complaints about slash that've had a component of sexism to them. MANLY STORIES ABOUT FIGHTING AND BLOWING THINGS UP = GOOD. GIRLY STORIES ABOUT FEELINGS AND RELATIONSHIPS = BAD. FEMME THINGS: GROSS. LET'S GO PUNCH STUFF IN A COMPLETELY NON-SEXUAL MANNER. HUAAAAARG.
19 October 2009 @ 08:47 pm
I have a love-hate relationship with Ex Machina, but...
I know that she has the character development of a rock, but gaining mind control powers and turning evil has increased Suzanne Padilla's hotness quotient by a thousandfold.
God, I'm shallow. :/ (She's probably going to be killed within a few issues, anyway. I'd put money on it.)
I know that she has the character development of a rock, but gaining mind control powers and turning evil has increased Suzanne Padilla's hotness quotient by a thousandfold.
God, I'm shallow. :/ (She's probably going to be killed within a few issues, anyway. I'd put money on it.)
14 October 2009 @ 12:51 pm
10 October 2009 @ 04:52 pm
09 October 2009 @ 08:51 pm
It's a good job he's fictional, or he'd probably poison my wine. (Yes I suck at making covers I KNOW.)
( Just sing out a Te Deum when you see that ICBM )
( Just sing out a Te Deum when you see that ICBM )