So. Trying to ease back into work--there are people in my life who don't think that what I do is terribly interesting or worthwhile, and even I admit that it's only recently that it's become a gainful employment once again. So I don't tend to recognize that it's possible to overwork myself, my dreams aside. But then you look back and realize that I put out an e-book and two Fifteen Minutes (HEY DID YOU HEAR ABOUT NEW MOON IN FIFTEEN MINUTES? BECAUSE THAT'S STILL THERE) in the space of about six weeks, and that's a lot of mental effort. I mean, narrative fiction is one thing--but humor can actually be kind of nerve-wracking, because (as I'm so fond of saying), it's either funny or it's not, and if you're any good at it, you know when it's not, and you just have to sit there sweating blood until you come up with something that is. Which is why I love a nice rambly entry or recap that just happens on a whim, because it's not me trying, and it doesn't involve breaking out into metaphorical hives. So my point, and I did have one, is that I'm having to recognize that maybe I am just a little bit burnt out right now. But the more time you take off from something, the harder it is to get back into it--think of how much you dread going back to work after several days off--so I spent yesterday setting up footnotes on New Moon, should something else in the house blow up and I find myself ever needing to do a third e-book. Just putting in the numbers and reminders to myself ("Talk about that news article for this one, here's the link"), which I also did last November for the Twilight 15M, and let me tell you, a year later, that really came in handy. So I did that to ease myself back into footnoting, so on and so forth.

I think one of the things I'm going to try to do is be a bit kinder to myself, in terms of work. What I really need to do, I think, is stop trying to create deadlines and expectations for myself--which sounds odd, but the thing is, the ones I create are stressful, self-defeating, and counterproductive. I think you do need discipline, but I need to live more in the present with it--put in the daily hours and work steadily and do my best, but not worry as to whether that "best" is good enough, and if I'm "on track" and set all these grand unattainable plans, because that does not produce results for me. In fact, it makes me kind of crazy, and the best things I've done in my life were, in fact, the things I did on a whim and with no expectations. That may not work for you, but it seems to work for me. So I'm going to try to live more with my best efforts in the present and stop trying to stress myself out about the future.

(I have a Zen Garden app on my phone that starts up with little sayings, and one of them was, "To a mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders." I think it's a little like that.)

Meanwhile, in other news, we're supposed to get snow tomorrow (YAY), and the dogs are deeply depressed because it's too cold for them to go out and play (I'll let them out after lunch, once it's warmed up a bit). Also, I think my birthday present to myself will be a whole mess of eyeshadow samples from Aromaleigh, since they're only $1 each anyway, last a good long time, and you can get as many as you want. (Aromaleigh: TLE approved.)

A few quick links:

'The 40 Year Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall and Felt Superbad About It' is Sadly Real and Has a Trailer. And sharp-eyed folks on Twitter noticed that a certain sparklepire shows up at 1:37. (BEHOLD.) Way to steal from the easiest target ever and still fail at humor, guys.

New Moon retold with lolcats.

Vampirism Does Not Make Stalking Attractive. I think I might actually buy this shirt to sleep in. You know, as a precautionary measure.

Full info at Neil Gaiman's Twitter: "Scary and sad: Paralyzed & abandoned by insurance -The Full Story."

Remember the Twilight hate questionnaire a lot of you guys filled out? Well, octoberland's article is up now!

From oasis_beatles: megmatthews20 needs eye surgery related to Marfan Syndrome, can you help? hope_in_sight is running a general/fandom auction to raise the $1500. As far as vouching for the validity of it, I recognize Meg's username as a longtime reader/commenter here (I was actually kind of shocked when I saw who it was for, the name was so familiar to me). I haven't seen her comment in a long while, for reasons that should be obvious.

Also, I know there were a couple of similar reader requests in my LJ messages, but I swear to you, my inbox has eaten them. I rarely if ever delete messages there, and there's at least two I can't find now. I have to add, though, that I'm very wary of posting requests for causes that can't be easily verified, so keep that in mind.


(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: lolcats, makeup, movies, shopping, trailers, twilight, vampires, writing
Current Mood: working
Current Music: Heather Nova - "Like Lovers Do"

Stiiiiiilll worrrrrking on New Moooooon. To that end, does anyone have a still/screencap of that really ridiculous, blatant fanservice moment when Jacob takes off his shirt to, like, dab at Bella's head? I mean the exact moment when he takes it off, you know the shot. It's an illustrated Fifteen Minutes, and the more on-the-nose the picture is, the better the punchline will work, and I only have shots from later in the scene. I just really don't want to Google for it, you know? The internets scare me.

(I'm wrestling with the last few problem scenes and trying to go back and polish the finished ones while I rack my brain for something interesting. It's running long--well, by "long" I mean "the standard 5000 words that most of the older ones are," but Twilight has kind of taken the place of the Harry Potter fandom in terms of OMG YOU LEFT OUT MY FAVORITE PARRRRRRT complaints. Within the stuff I felt compelled to include, I'm trying to tighten as much as possible. Also, the coding on this one has been a bitch because I tried to get fancy with a text effect. Fnarr.)


(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: m15m, my life is so hard omg, questions, twilight, writing

Ran a low fever today, because apparently we are still on this. I'm spinning my wheels on New Moon between cough syrup-induced comas and not getting anything done. Outstanding. And tomorrow being Happy Eating Day, I doubt I'll get much else done then, either. God, I want my life back.

Hm. Well, I think what we need is some cute. If you are in the Homewood/Birmingham (AL) area, there is a three-month-old puppy at our vet's who is in need of a home. They have dubbed him "Snoopy," but obviously he could be renamed:





Also, here is Sam home fresh from his bath this morning:




Now to decide if I want to pass out again or not.



(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: cute, dogs, health, my life is so hard omg, picspam, sam, writing
Current Mood: working

So it turns out that we're not out of the Compocalyptic woods yet, kids. (Don't panic! It's not that bad.) I've finally set Lizzie up at my desk--which I haven't worked at for nearly four months now, by the way--and it turns out that... she doesn't fit. See, it's a huge desk with an attached shelf overtop, and it's divided down the middle by a... well, a divider. And each half is only just big enough to fit the laptop--not really anything that attaches. You know, like the wireless unit for a keyboard and mouse, or headphones, or the iPhone jack, or ANYTHING AT ALL, really. The divider doesn't run all the way from the back to the front of the desk--if I pull the laptop out, I can fit attachments in... but that's all the way to the edge of the desk, so there's no room for a separate keyboard. I'm so disgusted, I can't even tell you.

(Also, I looked at the wireless mouse, and it is completely alien to me. Great.)

So what I'm facing here is the prospect of buying a second desk. I love this desk. I don't want it to go anywhere. Also, there isn't any real possibility of it going anywhere, because I'm not even sure how we heaved it upstairs in the first place. So I'm thinking it might be possible to find a light, cheap desk--a glorified table, really, if I can get one at the right sit-down height--and put it against the foot of my bed. I am really running out of room in my room, but this is the simplest solution I can think of.

So until then, I'm stuck with the flaky touchpad mouse and the keyboard I'm not quite used to, but, like I said: it's kind of on the level of complaining that my diamond shoes are too tight.

Been resting mostly--slept in this morning, since the dogs are off getting their baths to be all shiny-fresh for Happy Eating Day. Still trying to work on New Moon in Fifteen Minutes--I am this close to busting out the 5x8 notecards all hardcore "I are srs writer"-style, just because I get completely overwhelmed by my sea of notes. FYI: I have never had to use notecards for a Fifteen Minutes before. Don't ever say I don't love you.

Meanwhile, this breaks my heart: Chris Weitz finally admits that New Line screwed The Golden Compass over. 

Weitz claims that New Line didn't trust him to handle the content of the book, that the film was taken from him in editing. Heavy-handed hacking resulted in losing nearly 30 minutes of footage from the film, and neatly exercised the edgy thrust of Phillip Pullman's book. "It was an utter violation of my status as a director and the worst thing that has happened to me professionally ... I was treated badly, it was almost like they never read the books. They seemed frightened of offending the right." Out of loyalty to the cast and crew, Weitz said he "bit through my tongue" when Compass was released.

Also: 7 Threatened Fanboy Responses to New Moon. Which really piss me off, by the way. There's a line between "The Twilight movies are ridiculous and I disagree with their view of the world" and "OMG SOMETHING LIKED BY GIRRRRRRRRRRRRLS." I was glad it didn't outgross The Dark Knight because the latter is one of my favorite movies, not because such an event would shrivel my e-penis, BOYS.

(Also-also: apparently you can now talk to your kids about Edward Cullen and drugs at the same time.)


(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: computer: lizzie, computers, his dark materials, movies, sparkle motion, twilight, why we can't have nice things, writing
Current Mood: still kind of weak and dizzy

Saw New Moon again today, because Mom wanted to see it--and, once again, the movie broke down at a key scene. This time they actually gave us free passes afterwards (which I intend to use on Sherlock Holmes next month, kthnx), but the lesson I think we should all take away from this is: don't go see a Twilight movie with my mother. Or, at the very least, warn a theater manager beforehand. She liked it, although she says she got bored during the Jacob third of the movie. I come by it honestly, people.

Still working on New Moon in Fifteen Minutes (although apparently not fast enough, judging by a number of inquiries sent in). Mostly it's my head cold that's holding me up--we're progressing to an itchy dry cough and sinus-exacerbated migraines now. I took another nine (Jesus, nine?) pages of notes at this viewing, mostly because I wanted to nail the stuff that pisses me off, instead of just going BULLSHIT LOVE TRIANGLE WHAT IS THE POINT WHATEVER I DON'T CARE. (Although that would definitely shorten the word count, and you know how much I enjoy accomplishing that.) The problem, though, is that this isn't 2012, where "No one cares about these characters" is a legitimate, objective statement. Seriously, no one cares. BLOW STUFF UP. Whereas I find Jacob to be a character in need of a far better story, and the love triangle to be, as previously stated, a badly-conceived, pointless, bullshit waste of time, but that's not universally agreed upon. Particularly in the eyes of Team Jacob. Who I am pretty sure will eat my face. I mean, the pro-sparkilarity slant will probably piss them off anyway; let's not borrow trouble.

Oh, meanwhile: I mentioned talking to a reporter from the (I will now reveal) Hartford Courant. (Article here.) Turns out my part (and that of a Hartford professor as well) got edited out for space considerations, which is okay. I mean, I was expecting to be in all of two sentences anyway. However, I am the one who gave the writer a crash course in the hilarrible world of the "Twilight" "Saga," and you can see my influence in the first few paragraphs. Let me just say, if I say nothing else, that it's not so much that the books themselves are dangerous or horrible or bad influences or [insert feminist/sociological complaint here]; it's that we need to talk about those issues in hopes of neutralizing them. A lot of girls and women read these books, enjoy them, and walk away unscathed, because they're just books. Unfortunately, we've also seen a number who don't. I'm not saying that there's any one truth here, in terms of whether these books do or do not harm whoever in whichever way. I'm just saying, clearly they've eaten society's brain at this point, and it's the sheer number of people who read them that give them their power. It's the zeitgeist now, so we need to be having these discussions, and it's the discussions themselves--there are no "answers"--that will keep us on stable ground. So, I'll say it again: Parents, talk to your kids about Edward Cullen. And drugs, if you get around to that.

(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: m15m, movie discussion, movies, my mother, the more you know, twilight, writing
Current Mood: phlegmish, like the people of Phlagnders

So I'm still getting used to the keyboard (you know how laptop keyboards are more compact) and the touchpad mouse, since I haven't installed my wireless ones yet (for some reason, I never seem to hit the M key on this one hard enough), but: LIFE IS AWESOME. Also, I get to stay logged into everything (I cannot even tell you how happy this makes me), and I have all my pet programs back, or at least the ones I've remembered to go download so far (INCLUDING SEMAGIC, HUZZAH). I'm currently set up in the den with the dogs, rather than holed up in my room the way I usually would be, and I kind of love it.

My cold is still pretty gnarly; it's at that point where you can tell you're going to have to get snarflier before you get better, you know, as it progresses through the Stages of Phlegm, but I'm holding up. My nose is itching off my face and kind of hurts, plus the chest congestion and all, but I've had it worse.

I'm trying to get back to work now--had a day off, as it were, to freak out over the new laptop--now that I've successfully delivered 2012 in Fifteen Minutes and survived the New Moon preview on Wednesday. I'm not even going to pretend that New Moon in Fifteen Minutes is something Of Which We Do Not Speak, because we've all known since they greenlighted the movie the very day after Twilight was released that I would be doing it. So I'm working on that--couldn't sleep last night due to congestion, so sat up and wrote about six pages on it by hand (this is not all that much, though), and handwrote a bit more this morning. It's really intimidating, not just because I've got the Twilight one (which turned out pretty well) to live up to, but I've also got the last one I did--2012, of course--to live up to as well, since that turned out unexpectedly well. (Probably because writing these for five years with a determined focus on getting better at it has... well, in fact, gotten me better at it.) So I guess you could say that the problem with working on growing as a writer is that you have to keep growing, and sometimes you end up rocking in the corner and twitching a bit because of it. But really, my performance anxiety isn't as bad as it was last year, probably because I've got more time to wrestle with it. Please, let me somehow find a way to see an early preview of Eclipse next summer, I've been ever so good.

Speaking of which, I don't know that I've seen this posted anywhere:

Oh, and we'll be recording the new Made of Fail on Sunday, BECAUSE I HAVE A COMPUTER AGAIN AND I CAN.

P.S. I'm a Master Sparkler Taunter!



(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: computer: lizzie, computers, health, m15m, made of fail, movies, podcasts, twilight, writing
Current Mood: happy, if snerfy

Mistaken for someone interesting, I have been interviewed at blogcritics.org. (We did it in October, so mentally replace "next month" with "this month.") In what is probably a first, I am actually asked about The Secret Life of Dolls a good bit. Also discussed: The Third Man, nineteenth-century fancrazy, and my newest "hobby."


(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: books, dolls, interviews, m15m, movies, writing

I have a few links I want to talk about, but I feel too scattered at the moment to really pull those together. I will say, in terms of working on the "Vampires" e-book, that I sat down with a calendar and started working backwards from dates that are already set in stone:

1) New Moon comes out on 11/20 or somewhere around then, I don't know. That weekend, something.

2) My understanding is that we're going to record a podcast (not specifically about New Moon, but it will help to have seen it) that Sunday, 11/22.

3) I don't like to put out Movies in Fifteen Minutes entries until the Monday after a movie has come out, at the earliest--reader statements like "Now I don't have to see the movie!," while well-intended, are probably not going to endear me to whichever Studio Powers That Be. So I want to at least give any given movie a full weekend, since nowadays that's the most important time period financially anyway. SO MY POINT IS, I'm assuming that I can't not do "New Moon in Fifteen Minutes," so that would go up no earlier than 11/23.

4) I want to give myself at least a week of rest between the e-book and the Fifteen Minutes. Therefore, working backwards, I would want to have "Vampires" on Lulu by 11/16.

5) That's two and a half weeks or so from now. I know a lot more about the process of actually "publishing" the e-book now--how to convert the wonky footnotes to PDF (or who I need to do that for me, rather), how to navigate Lulu, and so on. But I would still like to give myself a week of padding to take care of problems, wait on people to get back to me on certain issues if necessary, do my obsessive proofreading, so on and so forth.

6) Therefore, I need to have a readable draft of "Vampires" by 11/9.

7) That's eleven days from now.

8) I've never made a deadline in my LIFE.

9) I did 90% of the work on Van Helsing and Dracula last year, though, when I was doing the previous, longer, more complicated incarnation of the e-book. It's mostly Twilight I'm dealing with right now. I hesitate to say "I can totally do this," in a Famous Last Words kind of way, but theoretically: I can totally do this.

10) Oh God I totally can't do this.

So basically, that's what's going on at the moment--I'm trying to work myself into an It's Go Time, Bitches mindset on the front end of the process and have plenty of emergency padding on the far end in case shit happens, because you know it totally will. I should probably refrain from testing Twilight merchandise during this time, in fact--sweetdragon tried some assorted Twilight chocolates the other day and they nearly killed HER.


(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: dracula, m15m, twilight, vampires, van helsing, writing

So. Not feeling much better; spent the weekend in a very grim, self-pitying funk. But I'm going back to work ("work") today because you have to move on with life. I think I'm actually going through kind of a post-partum project-completion slump, what with the first e-book finished. The only problem is, I now have to finish the second one, which casts a sort of "Sorry, your princess is in another castle" pall over the whole thing. C'est la vie.

Also, I should probably get on this Twilight tea-tasting thing. (That's our godforsaken vampire-related beverage. I was not lucky enough to get any TruBlood--sadly, because I hear that stuff is actually really good, a blood orange-flavored soda or something.) Question: what's the best way to make hot tea? I usually drink iced tea, so I have no idea--water at an actual boil? Steep for five minutes? I don't even know, and I don't think these things came with instructions. I'm probably going to make all three samples at once and get it over with--swish and spit if it's really awful, I guess. God help us all. But especially me.

Meanwhile, a college friend of mine is a movie critic now, and he announced that he could get me a screener copy of The Twilight Porn (tagline: "When you can fuck forever... you can fuck everybody"). I've never even seen actual hardcore, and I don't think my embarrassment squick could handle starting with this, but I know of someone else who might be willing to take that bullet. We'll see. I know I keep trying Twilight products "for science," but I don't love nobody that much, least of all science. "Twilight porn" is an extremely uncomfortable phrase as it is; these are two words that do not want to be in the same sentence together. Twilight is huddled in the corner weeping, and porn is banging on the quotation marks trying to get out.

Also-also: The Sparkenpire is now available at Toys'R'Us. You can, in fact, see the actual sparkle coating if you zoom in. (It's getting to be the season for Twi-spam, isn't it? I'll corral those into separate entries after this, for convenience of avoidance.) In cheerfuller Barbie developments: Debbie Harry, Cyndi Lauper, and Joan Jett dolls.

(In response to "Hello, my name is Twilight and I am a Dracula": I R not a Dracula!)

And finally: Tour of Terror II dates and locations have been announced. This time it's at various Hot Topics AND Nordstroms! I KNOW YOU ARE EXCITED. (All the replies to my link on Twitter were along the lines of "NOT MY CITY, OH GOD NOOOOOO.") The closest it gets to me is the ATL, which is still too damn close. (I don't know what Atlanta did to deserve this; it already got burnt to the ground once.) Invest in riot gear. You're going to need it.


(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: actual sparkle motion, barbie, cute, depression, dolls, drinkage, for science!, movies, sparklemas, tea, tour of terror, twilight, vampires, writing, wtf

Not doing so well at the moment--I think I'm going through another bad patch. Tearful, depressed, pity party for one, that kind of thing. It could be chemical or hormonal or seasonal or circumstantial or who even knows. I'm still under a good bit of stress at the moment, so I doubt that's helping. It's just something you work through, I guess. The majority of the commentary for Van Helsing and Dracula was written last year, so while it obviously needs freshening and updating, that's a ton of work already behind me. So there's that, at least.

Tags: depression, m15m, vampires, writing

O hai there is still an e-book. And will be, until the end of time or Lulu, whichever comes first. Sample screencaps and how to PayPal instead if necessary are here.



Completely sluggish and irritable, which sounds like a classic case of PMS to me. A number of things I need to get done, like a new doll entry and, oh, THE NEXT E-BOOK, but would rather curl up in the recliner and sulk. Fnarr.

New Jane Eyre adaptation (DO NOT DISAPPOINT ME).

Essential plot twists for writers.

So it looks like it's exactly one month until Sparklemas. Sarcastic yay. I am adamantly refusing to watch any clips, because I actually get bored at movies if I've seen too much of it beforehand. Still not sure who all I'm going with; I get informed a lot by various people that I WILL be going to see the movie with them, but who knows how that'll actually shake out.

Meanwhile, I hear that the Official Drinkable Merchandise I promised to try For Science has arrived, and will reach the house whenever my mother brings it home from the post office. God help me.

("Hello, my name is Twilight and I am a Dracula.")

Tags: cute, drinkage, harry potter, jane eyre, m15m, movies, sparklemas, twilight, vampires, writing
Current Mood: cranky
Current Music: Kings of Leon - "Use Somebody"

Okay. Frisk your couch cushions for spare change, because I think we're going to have the annotated Harry Potter 15Ms e-book up and running by Sunday night. (Sunday nights are apparently good for selling things--ending auctions, for example--because everyone's sitting around at their computers unable to go out and do anything fun because they have work/school the next day.) Five dollars ($5), and if you feel I am somehow vastly underselling myself, as people have insisted, you can buy multiple copies, since it's just a digital file anyway and you won't be wasting trees. So this way, it's priced to attract the vast majority of people who aren't quite as invested in the whole Compocalypse saga, but you can spend more if it is just eating you up inside omg.

Also, I have been so restless with the technical aspects of the process dragging on that I have actually started footnoting Twilight for next month's thing. (I will probably do these two sets and then cool it for a while and work on actual narrative projects. It's just that I have the vampire-related commentaries mostly done from working on them last summer, so... what the hell, why not. Also: my God, the repair bill dogpile.)

P.S. If you think the yawn thing was bad, imagine what it was like for me reading all your comments with the word "yawn" in them.

P.P.S. I almost forgot--a survey for the Twilight haters, if you could help octoberland out.

P.P.P.S. Thanks to quietselkie , it looks like I'm going to have another bit of edible Twilight merchandise to test For Science. I just hope it doesn't lay me out the way the conversation hearts did. That dazzle coating did vile, vile things to my intestinal fortitude.

Tags: for science!, harry potter, m15m, twilight, writing

I'm kind of limp and draggy today which is absolutely fine because I plan to do NOT A DAMN THING TODAY. I finished my final proof yesterday (I still have to check a DVD for a few things, blah blah finishing touches blee but ALL THE LINKS HAVE BEEN CLICKED and ALL THE CROSS-REFERENCES HAVE BEEN CHECKED, hallelujah), and I pretty much plan on having pancakes for lunch and watching Hitchcock movies all afternoon. If I am very lucky, there might even be bacon.

Also, I think my mother feels kind of guilty about the Cleo Saves Her Family initiative, because she saw a guy selling jewelry at the [university center] yesterday and picked up a couple of moonstones for me. The key is from the 1890s; I don't know why the guy was selling keys, but he was, and Black Ribbon starts in 1889, so that's why she got it for me. Aw.

Tags: black ribbon, hitchcock, jewelry, writing, yay!

Wow. It is really kind of ridiculous how good I feel when it's sunny and how bad I feel when it's not. I joke about being solar-powered, but I'm starting to wonder.

Anyway, the entire rest of the week was nothing but nasty grim weather (although it was nice to listen to the rain at night). I'm still proofing the e-book somewhat obsessively (but then, I do this for recaps and Secret Lifes and 15Ms as well), and I'm doing a final read-through--is that really necessary, you ask? Because I asked myself the same thing. And in re-reading the notes for "Prisoner of Azkaban," I found one (1) typo, one (1) bad link, and one (1) incorrect footnote cross-reference (yes, even considering that I've figured out how to F9 and sync them all automatically). So of the three things I was looking for, I found exactly one each--which is enough to prove that I have to keep going.

But it got to the point where I wrote the introduction yesterday, worked on a few non-e-book things, and then just... packed it up for the day. (Well, the chimney guy showed up, so I had to pack up anyway. Turns out our "chase pan" is badly rusted--he took pictures on his phone and showed me--so there's yet another repair bill to add to the pile. Not sure how much it'll be yet--he has to work up an estimate and get back to us.) I made myself some soup and a sandwich and camped out to watch an old Katharine Hepburn movie--Undercurrent, which was pretty good, except that the end kind of fell apart. ( Major spoilers )

So there was that. That was pretty entertaining. And I didn't do a lick of work the rest of the day, and both my eyes and my intestinal fortitude feel a lot better for it today. Yay.


ETA: And there's an incorrect link on "Goblet of Fire." Sarcastic yay.

ETA: And there's a cross-reference that's just wildly incorrect. Outstanding.

Tags: m15m, movie discussion, movies, writing
Current Music: The Donnas - "Take It Off"

Yesterday afternoon, Mom decided that she needed a new pair of black heels for work, so I decided that leaving the house was relevant to my interests and went with her. Here's what I posted to Twitter as we went:

http://twitpic.com/k9pd5 - Where I am right now
Shoe porn. Note the supercute plum-colored shoes in the middle.

http://twitpic.com/k9pdv - Boots
They remind me a little of Violet's boots in the Lemony Snicket movie, with the cutouts and all.

http://twitpic.com/k9pfz - Right half of top floor of my favorite bookstore
I couldn't even get the left half of the store into the frame. It has an ESCALATOR, y'all. That's just the floor with the kids' books and the magazines. The lower floor is the one with the adult books.

I also passed Sparklepires 'R' Us shortly thereafter, but I was on the other side of the corridor with a kiosk between me and the store, and I already felt too much like a tourist, what with the picture-taking, as it was. And you know, I knew that the merchandise would be 82% Twilight-related, but I didn't expect to be able to see it FROM TWENTY FEET AWAY. There were three-foot dueling Edward and Jacob portraits up IN THE ENTRANCE. It was kind of amazing, actually.

http://twitpic.com/k9piu - Mom's favorite store for purses
My mother has a serious weakness for purses. Really big ones, too. So we went and browsed, as she could not resist the Rabbit's Tale's siren song.

http://twitpic.com/k9ple - I stayed over at this wall
I am not so much with the purses, but I am very much into the huge funky earrings.

http://twitpic.com/k9pps - Bracelets
You can't see too well, but there are bangles with rhinestone tiaras on them. I... I kind of wanted one.

http://twitpic.com/k9tr5 - WTF, y'all
This is a genuine photo I took with my iThing in the women's department (you can see the shoe department in the background). Yes, I actually WENT BACK to get this picture, it was so amazing. Apparently The Artist Formerly Known as the Dread Pirate Lestat shops at Belk's now.


Still working, by the way. I'm at the really tedious "clicking links to make sure I didn't put the wrong ones in" and final proof-reading stage. I'm just anal enough that I have to do this myself. I'm also hearing that if I want to preserve all the formatting, I'm going to need to use some Adobe Acrobat program, so I'm looking into that. I spent most of the weekend in a foul black funk wanting to punch people in the head (everything that could go wrong did, basically), and it's only 9:30 and already today is 200% better. Also, I LEFT THE HOUSE yesterday (obviously), which did a lot of good. Also-also, I bought chocolate (Cadbury) and booze (Woodchuck Amber), either for future head-punching emergencies or to celebrate when I finish. Probably both.

Tags: appropriate responses to bad situations, bad days, chocolate, drinkage, jewelry, leaving the house omg, m15m, picspam, shopping, twilight, writing, wtf
Current Music: Garbage station on Pandora

Okay, so: please recommend me some kind of free software to convert a Word document to a PDF file. I went to download.com and got the most highly-rated one, Foxit Reader, but then it turned out that you'd have to pay for the Creator part, and even if you just used the free evaluation version it would put a watermark on each page of your PDF and I'm sorry, I'm not selling that, that's just tacky. I would keep browsing the listings, but I'd rather ask y'all than go through the download-hate it-uninstall process umpteen more times. So. All I want is something to turn my heavily-footnoted Word document into a PDF file that will preserve the hypertext links and aforementioned footnoting. Gah.

What with all the formatting headaches, I'm probably not going to be ready to go by Monday. But we're still talking about the home stretch, rather than a month from now.

Also, while it's going to be as simple and unfancy as possible, because at $5 for 125 pages and 460+ notes (sample footnote), I think you can handle that, I have decided that the title page will say,



I'm just easily amused at this point, I think.

Tags: m15m, my life is so hard omg, writing

It is October! I need to remember to change my calendar.

(Still truckin'. Getting down to the final details, which are often the most difficult to track down, which is why I put them off to the end. Involves a lot of screaming at now-defunct fansites, apparently.



ETA: Holy shit, you guys, I think I just finished. I mean, there's some really tedious checking to do, but... the actual work part is done. Wow. I kind of don't know what to do with myself.

Tags: halloween, m15m, writing

More brilliant sunshine today; feeling good, except weirdly queasy, not sure why. Fortunately, I have an eight-pack (they make them in eights now?) of Coke in little bottles, so that should help.

Got a good bit done yesterday--outlined that new story idea I had in mind, and a possible book series arc for it. (This is how these things work with me--I suddenly come up with an idea, go to town with it, and then set it aside for later, occasionally picking it back up now and then. That's life on the Story Farm.) I'm going to have to do a good bit of anecdotal research into the paranormal (yay! reading books!), but I can't really tell you what or that'd give away the story.

Think I'm getting very close with the Harry Potter e-book thing--we're mostly down to the most tedious aspects: proofreading, checking links, filling in last-minute holes, and syncing up footnote cross-referencing. (That is to say, if I say "See note #89," note #89 better actually be the one I'm talking about. You have a new thought and add a new footnote, and you've fucked up every single instance of "See note ##" for the whole document. So I'm also going through and making it less specific if I can--"See the note about blah blah blah on the blibbity blee scene"--if I think you can find it without a number.) It's still a significant amount of work, but each round of revision is shorter and more technical. You can see the end coming.

(And then once we're done, it'll be time to start the vampire set! OH GOD.)

Also: It looks like I'm scheduled to do another episode of Made of Fail, huzzah!

Also-also: What the hell, y'all. What the hell. As Unlucky Bear put it, the werewolf fanservice poster looks like a boy band called All Fur One, and I don't even KNOW what's going on in the main one. I didn't even notice The Demon Jasper up top at first. BAD PHOTOSHOP. BAD. NO BISCUIT.

Tags: harry potter, health, m15m, movies, twilight, writing

I am sure you will all be glad to know that I do not have the hamthrax (as many people have called it). Mostly I just had some severe chills (that Advil easily knocked out for however long that particular dose lasted, although they would then come back pretty strongly) and pronounced fatigue, but no actual fever (or if I did, it was very low--I didn't actually take my temperature). I knew I was sick, though, when I was too tired to go downstairs and write (type), even though I was full of ideas. I even tried to read, but kept falling asleep. Woe. And then I woke up today and the sun was blazing through the windows and I felt FANTASTIC. A little weak, and I'll probably pass out again this afternoon, but: FANTASTIC. So I am, in fact, downstairs right now trying to work on the Harry Potter thing a bit more, and if I'm very good, I'll let myself work on my new story idea. Oh, and on a new doll thing.

Tags: health, writing

Okay. Today was also pretty bad, but I think I'm going to be all right. At various points in my hormonal cycle, there are days when I feel like I could lead a revolution... and there are days when I can't deal with a papercut. I think last week had a few of the latter. (Honestly, I should just know by now that any instance of a mental No One Will Ever Love Meeeeee pity party = automatic Papercut Day and and should be disregarded in its entirety as such.) So. Things not going great, but I feel less overwhelmed.

A few interesting things:

"In before copious whining about how LJ operating like a business stifles their freedom," or, LiveJournal will now let you put Google ads (and profit from them) on your own journal. A lot of people have asked if I could do this or encouraged me to do so (back then, I said I was pretty sure you couldn't). I still don't know about it, though. If it pisses people off (and believe me, there are tons of people on the internets who accept sites that always used ads but flip the hell out when other sites start using them, omg hdu sell out, etc.)--losing your readership for a short-term gain is a long-term financial risk, if you look at it that way. How much money do you actually make off these things? Would it even be worth it?

Meanwhile, my New Moon recap has been quoted twice in Twilight and Philosophy (see "search inside this book" and put in "cleolinda"). SUCK IT, WIKIPEDIA, I AM NOTABLE.

(Actually, looking at the page on me, I believe the "Tiny Things, Tiny Minds" review linked at the bottom--is that the one where I was partially blamed for the imminent fall of Western civilization? Because I considered putting that on my resume. For real.)

Speaking of the sparkle,


Hey, I nearly bought that bedspread last summer. Decided it kind of clashed with the wolves, though.



Meanwhile, I have another new story idea, but it feels more like a book series and I don't know if I have the mental resources for that right now. Maybe it's one of those that I just end up tucking away (on the "story farm," as I think of it) for later.

Tags: bidness, depression, livejournal, movies, twilight, writing