annerb

'Uh, what the hell just happened?' otherwise known as 'Annerb's written another weird and vague fic that makes my brain hurt.'

( Wherein I blather on about writing and authorial intent. Or something. )

In other news: MALOMARS. YUM.

I probably spend more time than I should thinking about writing (rather than, uh, actually writing), but something on my mind lately is the issue  of knowing when a fic is really done and ready to post. 
So, I'm curious.  Writers, I'd love to hear about your process.  How do you know when a fic is done?

Just a thought I'm having about all these secrets.  Why do we post them?  Why would we even want to?  Obviously they're about self-realization. It's one thing to suspect something of ourselves, it's another to write it out in indelible ink (or pixels).  I think most of us get that. But why share it? The reactions to the secrets are what I find interesting.  The secrets aren't about forgiveness or absolution.  No one is asking to be fixed. For the viewer of the secrets, maybe we just hope to produce a moment of amusement or camaraderie, but even greater than either, the hope that it might spark a moment of self-reflection in others.  I gauge my reaction to each and every secret, very interested to see what they reveal about me.  And so far, it's been fascinating.

We should start a comm for the *really* juicy secrets.  You know, that one you made but were too hesitant to post. :)

This post is brought to you by Annerb's NaNo word count which is currently right on schedule and has therefore gifted Annerb with twenty minutes of fannishness for good behavior.  May she use it wisely.

moonshayde has a cool discussion in her journal about whump and why some of us find it so damn appealing. My five cents. And don't forget to hit up gunhilda's Masterlist of Sam Whumpage if you haven't already.

gabolange pointed out a very interesting article on fan vidders (basically an interview with the uber Luminosity).  Did anyone else know that there is a fan movement to start the nonprofit Organization for Transformative Works that aims to iron out the more legally grey areas of fanworks?  Ok, I may have lost a lot of you by this point (hell, I seem to have lost my point entirely), but boiled down, what am I trying to say?  I luvs you fandom, every cracky, wonderful, stubborn, stupid, squeeful corner of you.  And yes, that includes the ponies.

Anyone who's ever been interested in writing a novel and owns a Mac, I was pointed to a very cool software package that is free (though you are reminded that donations keep the awesome software coming).  It's called Jer's Novel Writer and can be found at Jer's Software Hut.  I'm still playing around with it, but it looks pretty cool.  Plus, he was witty and engaging enough to get me to read his entire software agreement so he must be on to something (and no I wasn't just looking for yet another way to procrastinate NaNo sprints, really).

And lastly, because I am curious and I had a similar conversation with holdouttrout a few days ago: How did you discover livejournal?  Did you find it a daunting or unfriendly experience to establish yourself here?  I've heard criticism that LJ is cliquey, hard to navigate, and generally less personal than say, the yahoo lists or such mailing lists.  Thoughts?  Are we LJers isolationists? Elitists?

Phew.  And that is twenty minutes inside the mind of Annerb.  Hope you enjoyed your stay.  Look both ways before crossing the street.

Fanmix question: Ok, I get that a fanmix is a sort of soundtrack for a fic or pairing or some fannish theme.  I see them posted sometimes, usually with a pretty graphic, but my question is about the actual file itself.  What's the usual format for something like this?  Is it a single mp3 file with all the songs on it?  And what about the obvious legality issues?  I was just considering making a fanmix for String Theory and figured you fabulous people out there might be able to enlighten me.  Is there even interest in a fanmix?

Ten more days until I give up writing fanfic for an entire month. *whimper*  I think I have accepted that I will default on the FinishAThon.  I feel really bad about it, as I have never not finished a ficathon before, but my brain got invaded by a different fic these last few months and where the muse goes I just quietly follow.  I still plan to get back to it come December. *fingers crossed*

rigel_7 startedcrackified_gate and I don't know how we all lived without a comm dedicated to crackfic before now.  Go, join, and post some crack. Maybe this will be the impetus I need to finally finish holdouttrout's Sam/Thor birthday fic.

Oh, and I just just re-read surreallis's Bird Stealing Bread for the 12-millionth time and I still love it to almost unhealthy degree.  There's just something about Jenn's Jack and Sam.  And in honor of the SG-1 gen day I rec Dira Sudis's With The Dying.  It's Daniel and AU Teal'c at the end of Moebius and it buuuurns.

Ok, that's enough randomness for today.

Can a Woman be President of the United States of America?

I was skimming metafandom, as I am wont to do sometimes, looking for something that was not about strikethrough '07 or whatever silly name they have for general wankopolpsery, and stumbled upon and interesting little ditty about Buffyverse and Angst (two of my favorite things!) by luciademedici.  Besides finding great comfort in knowing that someone else loves to reduce themselves to tears with the season two finale, I found it an interesting claim that angst has a bad wrap.  As a minion and instigator of angst myself, perhaps I have simply been kindly isolated from this abhorrence of angst (or maybe Stargate fans are made of sterner stuff. ;)  But the explanation for why certain people feel the need to hate and/or avoid certain genres/pairings/yada yada is getting really old.  "There is so much crap out there that readers never get past the first inevitable eye-sporkingly bad fics."  Maybe true, but I have seen this used to explain any and all negative reputations earned by any sub catagory.  I refuse to believe that writing good fluff or humor is any less difficult than writing good angst.  And as for pairings, sure by sheer numbers there is a lot more Sam/Jack and Jack/Daniel stuff out there than anything else, but pure percentage-wise?  I'd hazard there is the same good to not-so-good ratio of fic in any category be it Sam/Cam or Lorne/Giant Squid.  There are two things to be learned here: 1) There is a lot of crap in ALL types and finding good fic is difficult in all of them, but no where near impossible.  Have a stout heart, roll your sleeves up, and dig in.  2) People are dumb.  There, I said it.  And I do include myself in people, so don't get too freaked out yet.  My point: People will hate things.  People will draw conclusions based on small samples of data (it's called stereotyping and also sometimes 'polling').  Some people will even go out of their way to shriek these conclusions from the top of the nearest comm as much as they can.  You hate angst?  Big deal.  It's your right.  Never going to read any of my fics because I have a 'rep' for angst?  I don't care.  And neither should you.  If you are gunning for universal likeability and approval, in fandom or elsewhere, you're going to discover long, drawn out disappointment (one might even say angst :p).

This all just boils down to one more type of wankery.  Blindly hating anything or getting pissed off that people blindly hate something are really two sides of the same coin.  Because maybe people like to be stereotyped to some degree, it makes us vs. them, and isn't it ever so pleasant to be "us" ?  If you think I'm being unfair to the beleaguered 'us' who are disparaged by 'them', just look how little time it takes for a defense of angst (genre/pairing/yada yada) to turn into a put down fest on whatever is considered to be the opposite camp.  "Who the hell would want to read fluff anyway?"  "Only people with no imagination/wit/sanity would prefer fill-in-the-blank."  Ah.  Community through wankery.  Fandom is such an amazing microcosm of the real world sometimes, isn't it?

And no matter how appealing it is to think "Oh!  I'm so persecuted and misunderstood!  And it's because Angst is ever so much harder to write," I know that is just my own dumb side speaking and I am deciding to ignore it out of respect for my flist, who is in no way from one camp or mindset (thank the gods), and out of respect for myself. To be honest, right now neither 'us' nor 'them' is looking rather appealing.  I think I'll stick to 'me'.

ETA: And don't forget to read the greatest Lorne/Giant Squid comment fic OF ALL TIME.