It's weird to be back in LJ land
It really is different, being back in LJ land. I used to sit in front of a computer all day solving problems, and checking my email/ comments/ lj entries between other tasks, or while processes were running. I had my headphones plugged into my laptop and my ears all day, and the music provided a soundtrack to my day. I had lots of commute time to ponder story ideas and daydream scenes.
Now, I teach all day, and only get to a computer to enter my attendance or perhaps check my work email. No music at all, save the whining of students who think my expecting them to read 20 pages is really unreasonable, not to mention the even more unreasonable expectation that they will turn in papers and homework, on time, proof read and reasonably correct. I hate that part of for profit education: the way it panders to the lowest common denominator in such a way that someone like me, with pretty minimal "do your job and try" expectations, has to fight with students who are more energetic about trying to get you to lower your standards than they are about actually doing work to improve themselves.
I have a colleague who is himself a published author, and he has observed that teaching is one of the worst day jobs for an aspiring author, because it is so very exhausting.
Long way of saying that now, being at my laptop listening to music, as I used to when I wrote, is very strange. I'm trying to find a rhythm, both with that and with the whole conversational aspects of lj. So if I do or say anything stupider than usual, please chalk it up to newbie syndrome and forgive me.
On the writing front, I did get into my story by just starting "anywhere" and trying to explore what it was that interested me about the story in the first place. The first image I had for In Loco Parentis was of Snape holding an infant Harry-- even after I discovered that age regression fics were a dime a dozen, I still liked where I thought that could take me into Snape's character. Later, in the last couple of sections I posted, I started seeing ways to explore Hermione and her temptation to use the Dark Arts. Getting back behind her eyes to observe Harry and be there for him gave me some 500 more words than I had before. It's a start. But I am so dreadfully unfocussed these days (and just now, fighting a cold.) The hard thing about all this is that those characters just don't catch my attention as they used to. I probably need to go back and read some of the fics that gave me more to go on than canon itself. Malora recently posted a continuation of her masterful "Never Say Remember", and its view of this world's Snape and Harry and an alternate universe's version of each has beautifully rendered characters worth exploring and caring about. I'm pretty sure I recc'ed this a long while back on The New Library and here-- check my recs tag and see what you find.
There's another symptom of my unwiredness-- not having the energy to dredge up the link and pop it in here. Sorry for that.
There's also the existential angst I'm dealing with just now, which I will not go into at present. Except to note, that this, too saps one's strength. Or maybe that's just the cold.
Hugs to all.
Now, I teach all day, and only get to a computer to enter my attendance or perhaps check my work email. No music at all, save the whining of students who think my expecting them to read 20 pages is really unreasonable, not to mention the even more unreasonable expectation that they will turn in papers and homework, on time, proof read and reasonably correct. I hate that part of for profit education: the way it panders to the lowest common denominator in such a way that someone like me, with pretty minimal "do your job and try" expectations, has to fight with students who are more energetic about trying to get you to lower your standards than they are about actually doing work to improve themselves.
I have a colleague who is himself a published author, and he has observed that teaching is one of the worst day jobs for an aspiring author, because it is so very exhausting.
Long way of saying that now, being at my laptop listening to music, as I used to when I wrote, is very strange. I'm trying to find a rhythm, both with that and with the whole conversational aspects of lj. So if I do or say anything stupider than usual, please chalk it up to newbie syndrome and forgive me.
On the writing front, I did get into my story by just starting "anywhere" and trying to explore what it was that interested me about the story in the first place. The first image I had for In Loco Parentis was of Snape holding an infant Harry-- even after I discovered that age regression fics were a dime a dozen, I still liked where I thought that could take me into Snape's character. Later, in the last couple of sections I posted, I started seeing ways to explore Hermione and her temptation to use the Dark Arts. Getting back behind her eyes to observe Harry and be there for him gave me some 500 more words than I had before. It's a start. But I am so dreadfully unfocussed these days (and just now, fighting a cold.) The hard thing about all this is that those characters just don't catch my attention as they used to. I probably need to go back and read some of the fics that gave me more to go on than canon itself. Malora recently posted a continuation of her masterful "Never Say Remember", and its view of this world's Snape and Harry and an alternate universe's version of each has beautifully rendered characters worth exploring and caring about. I'm pretty sure I recc'ed this a long while back on The New Library and here-- check my recs tag and see what you find.
There's another symptom of my unwiredness-- not having the energy to dredge up the link and pop it in here. Sorry for that.
There's also the existential angst I'm dealing with just now, which I will not go into at present. Except to note, that this, too saps one's strength. Or maybe that's just the cold.
Hugs to all.