Five things to talk about meme
Mar. 12th, 2009 06:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanaquiljallComment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your blog and elaborate on the subjects given.
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falcon_horus gave me Through The Looking Glass, John/Kate, beta, dog-tree, writing.
Through The Looking Glass
This is pretty much the first story I wrote in the SGA fandom (if you don't count a couple of drabbles) and it's still the longest thing I've written in any fandom. It took me over a year to write, and is the only thing I've posted chapter by chapter as I was writing. It's told from the point of view of Kate Heightmeyer and is about how she copies (or doesn't) with the events of Season 1.
I'm fond of it for lots of different reasons (even if re-reading it now makes me want to rewrite bits of it). It was the story that ended a fairly long writing drought for me. It provided a lot of "fanfic as therapy" for some events that had happened in RL over the previous couple of years. It's won some awards (yay!). And, oh, yeah, it was how I metfalcon_horus, when she sent me a review. {{{hugs}}}
John/Kate
This was a ship that I never really expected to get into (let alone love so much) but it got hold of me slowly while I was writing Through the Looking Glass. Kate and John were supposed to just become friends, except somewhere in chapter three, they started flirting with each other....
I think they're a good couple because I see Kate being supportive of John without being pushy or demanding. I think she'd be able to get him talk about what's bothering him without frightening him off, and I think she'd understand his need to do dangerous things and give him his freedom even if she hates him being in danger. I think John would bring Kate out of her shell, make sure she doesn't always put herself second, and stop her being so serious about life. Plus I think they'd have a lot in common (I made them both college football fans - if for rival teams) and a similar sense of humour.
I wouldn't say it's my only OTP, but it is my favourite one.
beta
I spend a lot of my fandom time beta reading for people (includingfalcon_horus *g*) and I really enjoy doing it. One of the reasons I enjoy it is that I'm lucky enough to work with a bunch of really good writers who write stories that are great, but which I want to help them make outstanding by careful and rigorous betaing.
By rigorous, I probably mean meddlesome *g*, although I do try hard these days not to "take over" authors' stories, even if I have a tendency to rewrite sentences....
The people I beta for seem to appreciate my ability to poke their muses by saying stuff like "I'd really like to see what so-and-so is thinking here?" or "I need to see more description here", and I think I do a fairly good job spotting plot holes, canon inconsistencies and so on. Don't much like doing pure spelling, punctuation and grammar nitpicks, although I can.
And I think I'm probably a better editor than writer.
dog-tree
This is a tree - well, actually, a bush - on the common near where my mum lives that gets decorated every December with Christmas decorations and cards/pictures of dogs by the dog walkers who use the common. It's always really pretty and I enjoy visiting it and reading the messages when my mum and I take her dog out. One of the really nice things about it is that it began as a spontanous gesture by one person around 20 years ago but has since grown into a community event. When the dog tree is decorated, it becomes a focal point for everyone's walks.
writing
I write in two ways, professionally and personally. Professionally, I've been a freelance technology journalist and copywriter for almost 20 years. Personally, I've been writing fanfiction for around eight years, writing mainly in the Tolkien, SGA and SPN fandoms, with occasional forays elsewhere.
I do enjoy writing professionally - I can't imagine doing anything else I'd enjoy so much and it's provided me with a good living as a freelancer (if not so much in the last couple of years with the economy tanking - more work right now would be nice) - even if it sometimes feels very formulaic and like I'll scream if I get asked to write another standard case study. But there's a lot of enjoyment to be had doing the best job possible within the parameters of the client's expectations.
In terms of fiction, I used to write a lot as a teenager (very badly - I am so glad I got my MarySue phase out of the way before the existence of the internet!) but stopped for about 15 years because I realised I wasn't very good at it and just didn't have enough life experience to write rounded characters well. My professional writing satisfied my creative itch for a number of years, but I started writing fiction again when I got into the Tolkien fandom. I was very lucky in the first few years to work with some excellent betas who pushed me really hard and taught me a lot.
Now I enjoy writing, but wish my muses were more cooperative and that I had more time to write fiction. (Need to win the lottery....!)
falcon_horus gave me Through The Looking Glass, John/Kate, beta, dog-tree, writing.Through The Looking Glass
This is pretty much the first story I wrote in the SGA fandom (if you don't count a couple of drabbles) and it's still the longest thing I've written in any fandom. It took me over a year to write, and is the only thing I've posted chapter by chapter as I was writing. It's told from the point of view of Kate Heightmeyer and is about how she copies (or doesn't) with the events of Season 1.
I'm fond of it for lots of different reasons (even if re-reading it now makes me want to rewrite bits of it). It was the story that ended a fairly long writing drought for me. It provided a lot of "fanfic as therapy" for some events that had happened in RL over the previous couple of years. It's won some awards (yay!). And, oh, yeah, it was how I met
falcon_horus, when she sent me a review. {{{hugs}}}John/Kate
This was a ship that I never really expected to get into (let alone love so much) but it got hold of me slowly while I was writing Through the Looking Glass. Kate and John were supposed to just become friends, except somewhere in chapter three, they started flirting with each other....
I think they're a good couple because I see Kate being supportive of John without being pushy or demanding. I think she'd be able to get him talk about what's bothering him without frightening him off, and I think she'd understand his need to do dangerous things and give him his freedom even if she hates him being in danger. I think John would bring Kate out of her shell, make sure she doesn't always put herself second, and stop her being so serious about life. Plus I think they'd have a lot in common (I made them both college football fans - if for rival teams) and a similar sense of humour.
I wouldn't say it's my only OTP, but it is my favourite one.
beta
I spend a lot of my fandom time beta reading for people (including
falcon_horus *g*) and I really enjoy doing it. One of the reasons I enjoy it is that I'm lucky enough to work with a bunch of really good writers who write stories that are great, but which I want to help them make outstanding by careful and rigorous betaing.By rigorous, I probably mean meddlesome *g*, although I do try hard these days not to "take over" authors' stories, even if I have a tendency to rewrite sentences....
The people I beta for seem to appreciate my ability to poke their muses by saying stuff like "I'd really like to see what so-and-so is thinking here?" or "I need to see more description here", and I think I do a fairly good job spotting plot holes, canon inconsistencies and so on. Don't much like doing pure spelling, punctuation and grammar nitpicks, although I can.
And I think I'm probably a better editor than writer.
dog-tree
This is a tree - well, actually, a bush - on the common near where my mum lives that gets decorated every December with Christmas decorations and cards/pictures of dogs by the dog walkers who use the common. It's always really pretty and I enjoy visiting it and reading the messages when my mum and I take her dog out. One of the really nice things about it is that it began as a spontanous gesture by one person around 20 years ago but has since grown into a community event. When the dog tree is decorated, it becomes a focal point for everyone's walks.
writing
I write in two ways, professionally and personally. Professionally, I've been a freelance technology journalist and copywriter for almost 20 years. Personally, I've been writing fanfiction for around eight years, writing mainly in the Tolkien, SGA and SPN fandoms, with occasional forays elsewhere.
I do enjoy writing professionally - I can't imagine doing anything else I'd enjoy so much and it's provided me with a good living as a freelancer (if not so much in the last couple of years with the economy tanking - more work right now would be nice) - even if it sometimes feels very formulaic and like I'll scream if I get asked to write another standard case study. But there's a lot of enjoyment to be had doing the best job possible within the parameters of the client's expectations.
In terms of fiction, I used to write a lot as a teenager (very badly - I am so glad I got my MarySue phase out of the way before the existence of the internet!) but stopped for about 15 years because I realised I wasn't very good at it and just didn't have enough life experience to write rounded characters well. My professional writing satisfied my creative itch for a number of years, but I started writing fiction again when I got into the Tolkien fandom. I was very lucky in the first few years to work with some excellent betas who pushed me really hard and taught me a lot.
Now I enjoy writing, but wish my muses were more cooperative and that I had more time to write fiction. (Need to win the lottery....!)
