So I started setting up that Etsy shop at last. It's not very fancy; there's only a few things on it right now, but...um...if you're on Etsy, maybe you'd want to go look at it?

If nothing else you can look at all my exercises in marketing-ese.

I've also learned that Matt Bomer (from White Collar) was in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2: The Beginning. The modern version, not the original.

Neither of them could elevate the pain parade movies they were stuck in, sadly.

---

I don't know why, but organizing and labelling the scarf section at the shop made me feel quite accomplished. It was a big section! And I organized it and labelled it and restocked it and made it look tidy! Apparently I'm now in charge of the scarf section and keeping it stocked, as well as in charge of the Facebook page! FUCK YEAH I AM THE BEST EMPLOYEE EVER.

Which makes me feel kind of terrible about going to a job fair yesterday and actually having people ask for my resume, establishing contacts et al. I've been working at the shop for over a year now! I've got more responsibilities! I'm good at what I do! Oh, wait, you say there's a full-time position somewhere else? Okay bye guys. Don't forget to say nice things about me to prospective employers!

I know there's no real reason to feel guilty about this - I had never planned to stay at the shop forever - but I don't want to just jump ship when I'm good at what I do there. Maybe I can volunteer on nights and weekends.

Or maybe, just like every other time, no one will hire me and the point will be moot. But hey, there were some organizations at the job fair who were actually looking for communications people to translate medical literature! That's pretty much what I do and they seemed pretty excited about my applying, so. We'll see what happens.

---

So the "DVD Commentary" fic meme is going around, and while normally I skip it because I don't write nearly enough to justify using this meme, but it's been a while, so:

Pick a one-shot or a single chapter from one of my multi-chapter fics and I will do a DVD-style commentary on it. You know, writing process, places the story might have gone, scenes I ended up not writing, stale jokes...you know, stuff.

---

Sleeping time now. I'm actually getting back on track with schoolwork! It's amazing. Everything feels manageable.

What I was supposed to be doing today: writing an article for a web magazine, which might count as a publication and is due - oh yeah - tomorrow.

What I actually did: Watched up to Episode 15 of Generator Rex. Tried to resist picking up yet another fandom. Realized that this show hit about every single one of my narrative gen-kinks and gave up the whole resistance business. Perhaps a fandom pimping post later? Perhaps. I'm rather excited, anyway

Oh, and reading about craparse, poorly drawn yaoi where shoulders are four heads wide, the uke has one expression, and the sparkly waves of kawaii leap off the screen to smack you. It's rather entertaining. (WARNING: contains rape, abuse, general NSFW-ness, and really terrible art.)

MY LIFE IS A SERIES OF POOR DECISIONS GUYS.

Speaking of poor decisions, a meme from ivy_chan  ! Memes are cool.

Pick a pairing from any fandom I'm in, and come up with a location and/or situation, and I will write you commentfic about the kiss that happened in that context.

I should finish that article now.

1. The bad news: I managed to overdraw my checking account yesterday. Only by a few dollars, and I was able to quickly transfer some money from my savings and avoid fees and things, but it was still an unwelcome moment of panic, and now I have very little money left in either checking or savings. :( Which is all on me, since I've not been very responsible with my money, but it doesn't help that I haven't earned any since last summer. Fortunately my parents were kind enough to front me parking fare until I start getting my paychecks from Fair Trade Shop, but even so. I am used to having some stuff saved up! Being broke is not good.

The good: Fortunately, there is more of this!

a. My laptop lives! She also runs a bit faster now that all the stuff's been cleared off, and now I can leave all my school documents and things on my external drive. The only major losses: about 500 words total of fic (everything else that hasn't been saved is posted up here; thank goodness for my attention-whoring) and all my bug photos. Which is what I'm most sad about, but most of those are on my Dad's camera so hopefully I should be able to retrieve them, and if nothing else they're all posted on DA so I can go get them there.

Oh, and all my bookmarks are gone. That's going to be the hardest thing.

b. I have done my first paid week at The Shop! Not gotten paid yet, though, but it's nice just to have a job, and I think I am doing it reasonably well. I give the Fair Trade Schpiel. I convince people to buy things. The whole deal.

Interesting people who have been in the shop this past week:

i. A couple of Korean ladies who neither spoke nor understood English, thus our transaction was completed almost completely in gesture.

ii. An elderly man missing some of his front teeth, and who smelled very strongly of alcohol; when he came into the store, he told me "Things don't make sense, and that's why I drink. I like everything in a room to be the same." And from there he just went around and looked at things, and asked what they were made of, and seemed surprised that everything was handcrafted. When we got to the section with the chessboards he moved the pieces into a position that he told me was the most difficult position in chess, hwere even seasoned pros couldn't tell how the game was going to go from there. And then, after a while, he left.

I think he might have been homeless, but either way, I just felt like I should talk to him.

iii. An adorable young Japanese couple, who also didn't speak a whole lot of English, but who kept laughing and teasing each other - the boy kept trying on huge straw hats and asking his girlfriend if he looked cool. Also notable for being the only time I've heard an actual Japanese person use the word "kawaii".

iv. A lady who used to be a buyer for kisii soapstone statues in Kenya (which is one of the things we sell), as well as a gemologist before that, so she was really knowledgable about our stuff and told me a lot of details I didn't know about how the jewlery was made. I told her (in the course of making conversation) that I'd wanted to be a gemologist when I was little; her resopnse was "You should do it! You just need to take a couple of courses to get certified!" Maybe if I don't get hired for anything long term, that's what I'll do, hah.

v. The librarian from my elementary school! And she remembered me! She asked me how I was doing, and was surprised to hear that I had graduated from college already. She's apparently retired from the library, though.

One thing hat I thought was funny was that she told me the reason she remembered me was that when I was in first grade I decided to rewrite the ending of a fairy tale into something I liked better, and she'd always thought that was funny. Which I thought was funny too, but at the same time does make me despair a bit that I will ever be able to write anything other than fanfiction. Because you know how most people who grow up to be writers make up stories when they're little? Yeah, no, I've pretty much been writing fanfic forever and it's all I'm good at, writing-wise. :( Though at least maybe this means I'll grow up to be good at theoretical or academic work because I'm good at looking at stories and their parts and how they work. 

(Fun fact: I "wrote" my first ever fanfiction before I knew how to write. When I was four I would make up continued adventures for the characters of The Rescuers Down Under and make my parents act them out with me.)

c. I went to see MegaMind a couple of days ago before work (I had a gift card for the movies) and quite enjoyed it! It was cute, and fun, and the title character was adorable and dorky and generally lovely. But the really sad thing is that I think this movie might actually be what jump-starts me into writing fic again after my long funk.

( Cut for mild spoilers. )

...also I may have come out of the movie shipping MegaMind/Minion a little bit. WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT JUDGING, OKAY. Besides, I'm half-convinced we were supposed to.

d. Speaking of movies (but on a completely tonally different note) Black Swan comes out on December 1 and the most complete cut of Metropolis yet is being released on Blu-Ray. Can I tell you how excited I am? I'm a lot excited. And maybe I can ask for Metropolis for Christmas and that'll be incentive to finish up my half-assed Disability Studies thesis on the artificial body and how Metropolis engages with it in relation to mechanization of labor. 

e. In front of MegaMind there was a real honest-to-goodness trailer for Transformers: Prime and it's gonna be here in just over a week! NEW CANON SO EXCITE.

---

I finally don't have work tomorrow! Not that I don't like my job, not at all, but I am also rather fond of the idea of having a day off, especially since I'm working Black Friday. Sleeping in tomorrow, woo.

I don't think I should have to give kids candy if they don't even bother to put on a Halloween costume. >:( Kids these days, don't they know all the hard work and dedication we used to make our parents put in for a little free candy? No respect, I'm telling you, none at all.

1. So, the rally on Saturday! My uncle and I drove, so we avoided what I heard were impossible Metro crowds and actually managed to arrive at the rally before it started. Unfortunately we weren't that early, and ended up standing almost ten blocks back from the stage; because Comedy Central had only applied for a permit for 60,000 attendees, they could only set up speakers and Jumbotrons 3 blocks from the stage at the furthest. So we couldn't see or hear anything most of the time, and we ended up cutting and running after "Love Train" finished because, hey, at least we showed up. But the atmosphere was worth it - everyone was friendly and having fun, and people would cheer when other people managed to climb trees to get a better view, and lots of people asked to take pictures of our sign, which was amusing.

Two highlights of the signage: Someone in full old-school Cobra Commander costume holding a sign reading "Fear the Rise of the G(Cobra-Symbol)P", and someone up about a block from me holding up a banner that read "Dean and Castiel have a more profound bond", which made me laugh rather a lot once I figured out what it said- which was unfortunate because there was pretty much no way to explain what I was laughing about to my uncle and his friends.
 
2. So did anyone else get very few trick-or-treaters this year? A lot of my co-workers got very few when they normally get lots, and we had maybe ten groups the whole night when we're usually opening the door all night. And as mentioned above, a lot of them had no costume and didn't bother to even engage in the formality of saying "trick or treat". And I don't think you should get candy if you're going to put in that little effort, okay, if you're going to shake me down for candy you could at least work a little for it.

3. I might possibly have a job! The place I volunteer just got a sales position open, and while I don't know how much I'd get paid for it, it is something, at least, and the shop isn't as crowded in the holiday season as something like Wal-Mart (where I'm pretty sure employees have been trampled to death on Black Friday). This does present the potential problem of me having several doctors' appointments and things scheduled during the next few weeks that might screw up my working schedule, but still. POTENTIAL EMPLOYMENT, YEAH. \o\ /o/

4. Thought about maybe doing some kind of analogue to NaNo this year, wherein I would at least try to write every day, hopefully at least 500 words, and have at least one long fic or three short fics finished by the end of November.

And then I had two whole days where I didn't get anything written, and have been in a funk since the last week or so where I hate my writing and drawing and am convinced that I will never create anything that anyone can enjoy boo hoo woe is me. So there's that plan pretty much shot. Anyone else have days like that, and any advice on how to get over them?

It would be very nice to just freewrite, put down anything that comes into my head. But it doesn't work like that, alas.

5.  Speaking of writing, I have something I'd like to ask you all about concerning beta-ing.

I...haven't been using a beta lately. And that's bad, because I also have a tendency to miss typos and, especially, tense changes. Mostly because, once I've finished writing something, I'm generally so tired of looking at it that I can't see it objectively anyway and don't want to look at it anymore. And while I could certainly take the time to correct typos and mistakes if a beta pointed them out, after I've completed a story and organized everything and gotten the plot all in order I don't want to have to rewrite huge chunks of it.

Besides, while I'm quite open to suggestion and outside ideas while I'm still hashing out a story (which is why, ideally, I'd have co-brainstormers rather than a beta for the finished product, to talk things over and bounce ideas off of, but then it has to be a story I'm comitted to and I have to keep track of everything and also I'm bad at replying to e-mails), but once I've got things set enough to actually write I'm generally pretty attached to the order of events and some turns of phrase in a fic. Having to change a large part of it will throw me off or I'll feel like I'll have to rewrite almost everything to make new sections (suggested by a beta) fit.

I've been thinking about requesting a beta just for grammar, spelling, and mechanical errors, but I feel like that's being really stuck-up, like "oh my stories are perfectly plotted there's nothing you could possibly do to make them better". And it's not true, I know that, a lot of my stories would be vastly improved by thorough crit, I'm just too damn lazy and self-loathing to want it, hurr. But even having a SPAG beta is better than having no beta, right?

Uuugh, writing is hard you guys. :( And there are so many things I'm almost done with but the few unwritten sections are driving me up the wall. Not the best position when you're already in a why-do-I-bother mood.

6. To make things worse I've been thinking of trying to do something more with that Sari/Bee/Twins fic, but every time I try to think of a direction for it to go it starts becoming all ~serious business~ and you really can't have that when you're writing about robot puberty. I mean, either one of the twins blabs to Sentinel about their being a techno-organic among the Autobots and he wants to know why Optimus has been hiding this from him and there's ~drama~ or Sari somehow manages to damage her body why trying to figure out what exactly it does and there's ~angst~ and idek, I just wanted to write crackfic, dammit, why can't I do that. D:

7. Also Amazon apparently cancelled my order for the Almanac Volume 2 because I forgot to renew it, so now I'll probably never get my hands on it unless I'm willing to fork over $300 on the secondary market. Why exactly is this thing so hard to get a hold of?

Feh, I should quit whining and get off the computer, given that this window has been open since about 2 p.m. Don't want to ruin my eyes. Sorry for being a terrible commenter and all.

Breaking News: Drawing is even more slow and frustrating than writing. I ended up with, like, five faces. After a million billion years.

So I'm guessing it'll be a while before I can post anything on DA, then.

Figured I might as well put them up here, plus some more of the photos from my garden. Now that fall's started in earnest there are fewer and fewer bugs for me to photograph, and that makes me a bit sad.

---

( Drawings back here, mostly of faces. )




And now, photos!

( Photos, mostly of bugs. )


I've got an interview tomorrow! Which means I should go to bed. That huge Real Life post I've been meaning to make will have to wait. Wish me luck.

So mainly I've been watching movies and waiting around until someone hires me. Occasionally writing, and going to parties, I've been doing that too.

I've been to see The Other Guys, Despicable Me, and The Expendables; really enjoyed Despicable Me, both because I'm a great big sucker for adoptive families and unlikely parent figures and because I want a crowd of Minions all my very own. The other two were okay; The Other Guys never really topped its first fifteen to twenty minutes and a lot of the jokes went on too long, and The Expendables was...okay, let me put it like this:

Me (thinking): You know, considering how completely straight this movie plays masculinity and gender roles, you could read some interesting commentary on the ways that the masculine ideal uses - indeed requires - the feminine Other/object for self-definition.
Stuff Onscreen: *bang bang pow punch*
Me (thinking): The woman becomes a metric by which masculine worth is measured; perhaps, beyond the simple morality via object-response and the ideal of the innocent or pure "Other" untouched by human (ergo male) life, you could see an element of the idea of anima, or feminine soul - I mean, it's certainly still not a benign view, but -
Stuff Onscreen: *KABOOM*
Me: *leans over to brother* Wait, why did they blow up the church again?
Brother: ...I have no idea.

...So yeah. That happened.

Oh, and a pair of wasps of some variety mated on our chives today when I tried to take their pictures. I thought about taking pictures of that because I'd never seen it before and it was the only time I could get them to hold still long enough to photograph, but really, I like it to think I haven't reached such a disastrously low point in my life that I'd spend time photographing wasp pornography. Still perversely interesting, though.

It's rather dejecting, sitting around filling out more and more applications and having nothing really to do except wait for reply e-mails and calls. I go out with my friends, and it helps and I love them all to bits, but there's still that feeling of inevitability; I know that eventually I'll probably get a job, even if it's in retail (because even the retail and restaurants around here don't have many openings), but it just feels like I shouldn't even bother applying because 'm overqualified for one-quarter of the jobs and underqualified for all the rest.

I should have finished my double major. Even if it made me miserable, even if it took me an extra year of school. Maybe at least then I'd be qualified to work as a lab assistant. I don't know.

Since the ficlet project has appeared on my flist a couple of times, I thought I might give it a try. I really shouldn't, since I'm finally making progress (slow, inching progress) on one of my springkink  fics, but the thing is I've been writing mostly scenes and disconnected fragments, nothing complete. And I need to work on that, or at least on writing something short so maybe when I write fic claims I can stop letting them balloon out into thousands and thousands of words.

So, here it is:

The first commenter on this post gets to request a ficlet by naming a fandom from the list of fandoms below, a character or pairing, and a brief prompt. I'll write a quick ficlet based on that prompt, and the first commenter on that post (you don't have to comment on the fic itself when you do so, though if you wanted to do it later I certainly wouldn't complain) gets to name a fandom, characters, and prompt, and so on and so forth until I get tired.

Fandoms I'm comfortable writing:

( Behind the cut! )

A few notes on preferences: I'd prefer not to go any higher than PG-13/light R for this project (smut takes time and frustration); I'd also prefer not to write noncon, heavy kink, deathfic, babyfic, or anything above PG for the Toy Story stuff.

So, yeah. Let's see how this goes.

For once it's not 1 a.m.! I'm impressed.