1. Lookie what triestine sent me! ( Tentacled toys! )

I have so many mixed emotions seeing all the Yuletide squee on my flist. I mean, on the one hand, OMGYuletide! On the other hand, because I will be traveling around Yuletime, I didn't sign up, so I can only longingly look at all the icons and posts and squee and such. Also, I haven't written anything in decades. Or so it seems. And I have other ( Read more... )

( wibbling on fic-in-progress )

David Hewlett has a blog. Available in syndicated form at davidhewlett. (Thanks to iibnf for the pointer!)

delurker has made an inspired manip: The Darth Vader Code

cupidsbow is writing fannish haiku!

The inuvikdotcom due South festathon looks like a lot of fun, but I'm restraining myself from participating as I have ( too many current ideas and WsIP that I want to get written. )

Today's assignment in china_shop's Fandom Appreciation Challenge is to write a love letter. I've really enjoyed some of the love letters to particular fandoms, and to fandom in general, and to certain characters (whom I also love love love!)

I've been thinking about some of the issues that were raised by aubrem's post last week about recs, feedback, and honest ( Read more... )

Recently I've been doing a lot of both beta-editing of others' stories, and revising my own stories after beta. One writer posted a story that I'd made some general comments on how a particular section needed revision - she'd revised it, but in the posted version I could see a few errors that made me wince, because I just knew readers would think ( Read more... )

It seems to me that the word "beta" has lately been undergoing a semantic shift. By no stretch of the imagination am I a fandom oldbie, but when I started writing fanfiction three years ago, it rapidly became clear to me that "beta readers" for stories were the equivalent of "beta testers" for software - friendly users who would serve as a first ( Read more... )

According to my flist, it is Beta Reader Appreciation Day. Really, every day that I get feedback on one of my stories is Beta Reader Appreciation Day, because I know that those stories wouldn't be nearly as good without the keen eyes and discerning tastes of my betas.

Thanks go out to franzeska, makesmewannadie, eumenides1, sparrohawk, and z_rayne, who have done occasional (and excellent) beta ( Read more... )

A lot of fairly sophisticated writers who are relentless self-editors don't see the need for a beta editor. Their stories are usually free of the grammatical and spelling errors that mark the work of poorer writers; they certainly don't need someone for the technical fixes. But really, this type of editing is the least interesting (and least ( Read more... )