Of butterflies and other elements of lively chaos
Hi all! Holy cow, is it seriously that long since I updated? What the hell happened to the year 2011???
For those who sent comments, reviews, inquiries etc...thank you! Always great to know people enjoyed my fics years later, and yes I am still alive and doing well. Still at the same job, though not quite so busy. Still watching over the Spawn of Mal as she tackles life like it's a rugby match. Still somehow keeping a house going - oh, we do have a new addition. Because my husband and I are clinically insane to the point where someone should probably warn child services about us, we decided about a year and a half ago that our lives were not busy enough until we'd acquired a dog. We went to the city pound and brought back a pair of large ears, four long legs and a big brown nose. I'm told there's a german shepherd mongrel somewhere behind all that. This animal took three days to turn me from an inveterate cat person to a reluctant but resigned dog lover. She also tackles life like it's a rugby match. So much energy bursting out of the house at the seams...The secret to eternal youth -or at least the secret to not feeling considerably older than you are - is to not have dogs and kids, people. Note that.
The running joke that I call 'my spare time' has been filled with reading, movies and playing RPGs (Bioware owns my soul, yes, even after the ME3 ending debacle). I can rec some of the stuff that's entertained me in the past year, if anyone's interested and still reading this journal.
Probably most people reading this are more interested in my creative drive. How's that doing these days? Pretty good! I am constantly making up stories in my head every day, and will probably do so until I'm 101 and completely gaga. But putting down in writing the stories that shimmer around in my brain is HARD. It's a lot of work, of course, and it's also...a little painful. A story is like a brilliant, unique butterfly fluttering around in my head. If it's a good one, I float along with it, wearing a goofy smile on my mug that my nearest and dearest have gotten used to. But to write that story down...I have to observe that butterfly more closely, then I have to capture it, kill it, dissect it, then rebuild a mechanical version piece by small piece over a matter of months, sometimes years. I'm awfully proud of the results (modesty is for the birds). I look back at these everlasting mechanical marvels I've sent flying around the internet, and sometimes I'm amazed - 'Holy shit, I wrote that? It's really good!' Yes, I'm ever so glad I wrote those down, even as I recall sweating blood over every sentence ^^; But...it's not the same butterfly. There's been times, even when I was still writing, when I put my hands around one of those drifting creatures, then changed my mind and released it. Sure, it's ephemereal like that; I won't remember that story a few months from now. But it's not something somebody else would want to read, and also I don't want to go through the process with that one. Let it flutter away. These days, I can't seem to garner up the impetus to nail down these whisps, I'd just rather enjoy them while they last then let them fade.
The storytelling gene is still there, mind you. The urge to share those dazzling bobbing blobs of color and fluff, to make people smile, and cry, and visit another world for awhile...Yeah, still got that, but did I mention it's bloody hard work?
I do have a chapter and a half of the next Outlands arc written, and I would really like to finish up what I have of that story written up in notes. I don't know if I can find the mental space to write in these days, but I'd really like to try over the summer, which is usually slow time for me anyway. I like that series. After that...well, that's the future.
Oh, a few days ago - this is a true story with no exageration - my 5-year-old spawnlet came up to me and in her inimitable punctuation-free way told me a long and complicated tale about the giant rabbit - who was mean to start with but was really nice actually - and he fought off the pack of mean wolves with the aid of a pew-pew gun and a tree, used in ways that were not quite clear to her audience right then and there, but I'm sure it was fabulous. So yeah, the future. Even if I can't come up with anything anymore, just give it another ten years and it'll be fine.
For those who sent comments, reviews, inquiries etc...thank you! Always great to know people enjoyed my fics years later, and yes I am still alive and doing well. Still at the same job, though not quite so busy. Still watching over the Spawn of Mal as she tackles life like it's a rugby match. Still somehow keeping a house going - oh, we do have a new addition. Because my husband and I are clinically insane to the point where someone should probably warn child services about us, we decided about a year and a half ago that our lives were not busy enough until we'd acquired a dog. We went to the city pound and brought back a pair of large ears, four long legs and a big brown nose. I'm told there's a german shepherd mongrel somewhere behind all that. This animal took three days to turn me from an inveterate cat person to a reluctant but resigned dog lover. She also tackles life like it's a rugby match. So much energy bursting out of the house at the seams...The secret to eternal youth -or at least the secret to not feeling considerably older than you are - is to not have dogs and kids, people. Note that.
The running joke that I call 'my spare time' has been filled with reading, movies and playing RPGs (Bioware owns my soul, yes, even after the ME3 ending debacle). I can rec some of the stuff that's entertained me in the past year, if anyone's interested and still reading this journal.
Probably most people reading this are more interested in my creative drive. How's that doing these days? Pretty good! I am constantly making up stories in my head every day, and will probably do so until I'm 101 and completely gaga. But putting down in writing the stories that shimmer around in my brain is HARD. It's a lot of work, of course, and it's also...a little painful. A story is like a brilliant, unique butterfly fluttering around in my head. If it's a good one, I float along with it, wearing a goofy smile on my mug that my nearest and dearest have gotten used to. But to write that story down...I have to observe that butterfly more closely, then I have to capture it, kill it, dissect it, then rebuild a mechanical version piece by small piece over a matter of months, sometimes years. I'm awfully proud of the results (modesty is for the birds). I look back at these everlasting mechanical marvels I've sent flying around the internet, and sometimes I'm amazed - 'Holy shit, I wrote that? It's really good!' Yes, I'm ever so glad I wrote those down, even as I recall sweating blood over every sentence ^^; But...it's not the same butterfly. There's been times, even when I was still writing, when I put my hands around one of those drifting creatures, then changed my mind and released it. Sure, it's ephemereal like that; I won't remember that story a few months from now. But it's not something somebody else would want to read, and also I don't want to go through the process with that one. Let it flutter away. These days, I can't seem to garner up the impetus to nail down these whisps, I'd just rather enjoy them while they last then let them fade.
The storytelling gene is still there, mind you. The urge to share those dazzling bobbing blobs of color and fluff, to make people smile, and cry, and visit another world for awhile...Yeah, still got that, but did I mention it's bloody hard work?
I do have a chapter and a half of the next Outlands arc written, and I would really like to finish up what I have of that story written up in notes. I don't know if I can find the mental space to write in these days, but I'd really like to try over the summer, which is usually slow time for me anyway. I like that series. After that...well, that's the future.
Oh, a few days ago - this is a true story with no exageration - my 5-year-old spawnlet came up to me and in her inimitable punctuation-free way told me a long and complicated tale about the giant rabbit - who was mean to start with but was really nice actually - and he fought off the pack of mean wolves with the aid of a pew-pew gun and a tree, used in ways that were not quite clear to her audience right then and there, but I'm sure it was fabulous. So yeah, the future. Even if I can't come up with anything anymore, just give it another ten years and it'll be fine.