Sunday morning coffee
I've started adding author tags and some other random content tags to giles_fic_recs. I'll probably do a few as a meditative exercise whenever I'm stuck. Patterns in the content tags will emerge as I go, and then I'll have established a good base tagset.
The joy all over the flist at the latest Dr Who makes me think two things. One, I note that I have watched exactly one ep of Who from start to finish in my life, and that's the one with Tony Head in it. But a Netflix disk with #9 just arrived, so I'll be fixing this sometime soon. Two, geographical boundaries and networks and broadcast rights are now meaningless to tech-savvy TV viewers. Who fans in the US watch every episode when it is first aired in the UK. This is going to change how television works eventually. Hm. That is the sound of a Silicon Valley programmer wondering how to find the next startup to join.
Discussed the action sequence in the current story with Mr Pedia over our weekly dinner out last night. He, as usual, asked various savagely pointed questions about my antagonists and why they were doing what they were doing, what they got out of it, and so on. Then he reminded me of the principle of "no straight lines through the plot", though he didn't put it that way. It's fine for the hero to make plans. Not so fine when those plans work out. We also discussed the importance of the moment where the hero makes the emotional choice to throw out self-interest to do the right thing. (C.f. Buffy in "Prophecy Girl", perhaps my favorite Buffy in the series.)
I emerged from dinner thinking, yeah, that was obnoxious but useful. I now have a clearer idea of my opponents and what they're doing, and how the final big fight needs to go. Too bad I can't get him to read a draft of this. His mockery of all non-gen writing is also savage, and this story is most definitely non-gen.
Anyway. The Ethan ficathon needs more pimping, so I will go drink my second cuppa coffee and find clever ways to pimp that aren't too spammy. And I might achieve a draft of "Thusia" today. Nothing like feeling Thursday's deadline breathing down the back of my neck to keep me focused...
The joy all over the flist at the latest Dr Who makes me think two things. One, I note that I have watched exactly one ep of Who from start to finish in my life, and that's the one with Tony Head in it. But a Netflix disk with #9 just arrived, so I'll be fixing this sometime soon. Two, geographical boundaries and networks and broadcast rights are now meaningless to tech-savvy TV viewers. Who fans in the US watch every episode when it is first aired in the UK. This is going to change how television works eventually. Hm. That is the sound of a Silicon Valley programmer wondering how to find the next startup to join.
Discussed the action sequence in the current story with Mr Pedia over our weekly dinner out last night. He, as usual, asked various savagely pointed questions about my antagonists and why they were doing what they were doing, what they got out of it, and so on. Then he reminded me of the principle of "no straight lines through the plot", though he didn't put it that way. It's fine for the hero to make plans. Not so fine when those plans work out. We also discussed the importance of the moment where the hero makes the emotional choice to throw out self-interest to do the right thing. (C.f. Buffy in "Prophecy Girl", perhaps my favorite Buffy in the series.)
I emerged from dinner thinking, yeah, that was obnoxious but useful. I now have a clearer idea of my opponents and what they're doing, and how the final big fight needs to go. Too bad I can't get him to read a draft of this. His mockery of all non-gen writing is also savage, and this story is most definitely non-gen.
Anyway. The Ethan ficathon needs more pimping, so I will go drink my second cuppa coffee and find clever ways to pimp that aren't too spammy. And I might achieve a draft of "Thusia" today. Nothing like feeling Thursday's deadline breathing down the back of my neck to keep me focused...