1. I posted a tutorial on how to set up an OpenID account on Journalfen to getting_started, so if anyone has JF comments importd here that they'd like to eventually claim, they should mark it. (metafandom is still linking to the draft version of the tutorial, but hopefully that will change.)

/me officially washes her hands of S2 forever.

2. /me has sauntered vaugely downward into the #dw irc channel. Curse you, Opera, why did you make that so easy?

If previous experience with IRC stands, I will stay in channel for about a week, and then get behind and never go back. But hEll bot is adorable.

3. damned_colonial posted this meme:
Comment on this post. I will choose seven interests from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so others can play along.
...and I told myself that the next time somebody I read posted it, I would do it. So:
( local politics, regional soft drinks, spike jones, the primordial ass, crossovers, fleegix, and oracular pigs )

PS: Is anyone else getting an occasionally-recurring error when they try to preview from the web interface? I keep getting: [Error: Can't call method "imgtag" on unblessed reference at '/home/dw/current/htdocs/preview/entry.bml' line 106. @ dfw-web02]

Unblessed indeed, DW. Unblessed indeed.

So, if people ask me what fandom I'm in, I have two options: pull out the long text file that I use when I'm offering to beta or write in a multifandom fest; or say "just fandom!"

I have been "in" a fandom a few times, in the sense of really working to build relationships and creations within a particular canon, but I never quite felt comfortable; we were brought together by one thing only, and it was fun, but just by nature of being limited to that one shared interest, there was a lot of conformity and round pegs jammed in square holes. And then I went multifannish, and then panfannish, and then just plain fannish, and this is where my head belongs, really always has. But right now, I'm, to a really kind of strange extent, keeping my fandom-as-community separate from my fandom-as-creativity.

( By which I mean... )

So one thing I'm hoping my new fresh start here will do is help me make a place where I can be panfannish, butterfly around and be attached to no particular fandom, but still be both productive and connected in a new way. I'm going to keep my JF account, and keep posting there the kind of things I've been posting, and try to post here the sorts of things I've been failing-to-post there, and build a network that'll help me do that. I think the watch/trust split will help with that, too; I can have reading-people and interacting-people and they can be both, but they don't have to be.

We'll see if it works!

(So far, so good. This was originally going to be a very different post about how cool it is that, according to del.icio.us, the most common fandom tags for fanfic at the moment are Merlin, bandom, SGA, SPN, Torchwood, Harry Potter - and Yuletide. Apparently I am not the only person who's engaging through tiny fandoms as much as large ones!)

Today I went to the monthly fannish stitch'n'bitch that synecdochic has started giving, where there was much talking about NaNo but very little actual *writing* nano.

I did, however, pass around my planning notebook and have everyone writing something that should go in my novel. So, for the record, what the denizens of the Baltimore fangirl stitch'n'bitch think I should write about:

- ritual dance. Have one of these already! Actually two or possibly three, depending on where the line between "dancing" and "mating" and "murder" is.

- a product all your characters use, complete with a brand name and marketing. Don't have one, but know exactly where it can go in, for at least most of the characters.

- surfing on supernova shockwaves. ... I have surfing on air puddles, and on gravity waves, but I have no supernova. This one will take some shoehorning.

- Library dragons (and yes, I do mean mythical firebreathing dragons!) I will probably cheat and have these be in a VR interface, but I can totally do. (I already have a "scene in a library" dare from LT's nano group.)

- Traditional "bardic" tale with a twist ending (and a female with spine.) ...depends on whether it has to be singable?

-Boys sexxin'. This happens around my characters, but I had not yet decided whether do actually put in a sex scene or two, so that solves my dilemma.

-Advent calendars for all occasions! Heh. I can do at least a couple of these, no problem. Though they may not have chocolate in. And only one of my major characters would get the Advent reference right away.

-Penguins! - I agree, multiple penguins! This had me stumped, but if alien-creatures-that-are-penguins-under-vaguely-phenetic-classification count, then I know exactly where to put multiple penguins. They get to save the day!

-rats, polka dots and musical lessons too, because a reality warper wants people to be happy! I will have to think about this one. There may be knitting involved. --dude, this could totally be an *FTL piloting sim*.

-darjeeling tea. That, I can do.

-snakes (goa'uld or no). Should be doable as at least a passing reference, though my worldbuilding tends to lean more toward tentacles.

-a mythological creature coming to life. I will have to decide how far I can stretch that one.

Okay, let's try this again.

The lists of free books have been updated. I am giving away all the books tagged "togoaway" in my LibraryThing Account.

You can see the list at my LibraryThing account here, or if LT is being buggy, it's up my webspace here.

I am also giving away books from my Dad's library, here at Librarything and and here at my webspace.

If you want any, leave me a comment with titles, and I will send them to you for shipping costs or less. Get me your email address (either here or at thisaccountname at yahoo) and I'll get back to you early next week for details once I've actually pulled out your books.

Also! Have another weird LP rip. This one appears to be the soundtrack of a son et lumiere production given at Gizeh of the pyramids in 1961. Full of bombastic classical music and very British historical voiceovers and random, old-fashioned translations of Egyptian texts. Fun! It's one mp3, because there were no natural breakpoints, 50 minutes. Here History Began.mp3


..also, as part of my ongoing effort to be less lurky online, I'm friending some of the people I've been watching through friendsfriends. So if I've just friended you, Hi! I've been watching you! Claim some books.

So, we have recently cleaned out our book collection, and as a result, there are a whole *ton* of books I am getting rid of: lots of older SF particularly, but also some general fiction and some non-fiction.

If anybody on my flist wants any, I will send them to you for the shipping costs (if the shipping turns out to be <$1, like for one paperback, or I can just give them to you in person, it will be free.)

Claim them in a comment here, and then I'll get in touch to get your address and confirm your claims.

I'm not guaranteeing condition, and it's first come first serve 'cause I'm also offering these in a couple other places.

Everything tagged _togoaway in my LibraryThing account is going.
LINK TO LIST OF FREE BOOKS.
(There are ~650 books up for grabs, but you can sort the list by any of the columns to make it easier.)

Also up for grabs is what's going from my Dad's collection, here, another 215, mostly non-fiction. Same procedure.

ETA: Time out. Okay, the site I was going to use for this is currently having major issues, so there will be a new give-away post when I figure out a new way to post the list. Feel free to use this one meanwhile if it works for you.

So I have been trying not to get to emotionally involved with the politics (though I still want to do that "Sarah Palin or TGP: Who Is More Qualified?" point-by-point comparison), but I have been following fivethirtyeight.com pretty closely. And OMG, if Obama takes the South? That will be not only win, it'll be the most important thing to happen in American politics in my *lifetime*.

***
Anyway.
1. Comment on this post.
2. I will give you a letter.
3. Think of 5 fictional characters and post their names and your comments on these characters in your blog.

stellar_dust gave me "D".
...I had a list of twenty-five characters to pick from, and that was before I checked my notes. So, um, have the short list as meme x 3.

And hey, while I'm at it, why not give me two numbers between 1 and 15 and I'll write you a comment-fic where those two characters meet. :D (Random or calculated, I don't even care.)

( Five Large Fandoms )

( Five Small Fandoms )

( Five Nonexistent Fandoms )

...Yeah, I should probably stop there. Even if it means I have to leave out David Starr, and Mike Doonesbury, and Dick and Dorothea (the D's), and Diana Fowley, and Dick Grayson**, and Dickon Sowerby**, and Daystar, and Death**, and Doli the Dwarf, and ....

(** marks characters I have either written in fic or tried to write.)

Relief is the feeling of going back to your journal a year ago to see what your resolutions were, and discovering that you didn't record any. \o/

Everybody is posting their LT readlists and yuletide recs again, though. Last year, I actually did manage to do more paper-book reading; this year, I will actually keep a list of what I've read, so I can see how much it is. And last year, I did manage to keep a bookmarks file of good fic I've read; this year, I will actually post some actual recs and actual feedback.

... Those seem like high enough goals.

Did I mention that I got 62 more books this holiday?

mmmm. Books.

Also, YULETIDE!!!
I need to get back to my feedbackers tonight. Meanwhile, just for fun, ( here's a yuletide retrospective )

Also, is it only me this always happens to? The first piece of feedback I got after the archive went live was in fact for a piece of SGA flashfic that had gotten a total of four comments in the previous three years. It seems like getting feedback for one story draws it for others - others that are posted in completely different places for completely different communities with no visible connection whatsoever.

wtf27. Because I am insane, and it's been too long since I've done a writing challenge.

001.	Genderswap.	002.	Transformation (animals).	003.	Transformation (inanimate).
004.	Wings.	005.	Tentacles!	006.	Mpreg.
007.	High School AU.	008.	Apocalypse Now.	009.	Supernatural (creatures).
010.	Supernatural (powers).	011.	Fantasy AU (traditional).	012.	Fantasy AU (urban).
013.	Fuck or Die.	014.	Pornstars.	015.	Hookers.
016.	You see, I woke up gay.	017.	Trading Places.	018.	Forced Union.
019.	Timeshift.	020.	Aliens.	021.	Doppelganger.
022.	Twins/Non-Canon Siblings.	023.	Out Of Time.	024.	Slaves.
025.	Media Crossover.	026.	Spies and Agents.	027.	OMG we forgot ____.

This is my writing journal, intended to inspire me to discipline in my writing.

It's NaNoWriMo, and I am going to write a nonlinear postmodern epic on the fracturing of content and attention in the era of pop culture.

In other words, I'm going to write whatever I can make myself write, as long as it's fiction or fanfiction and at least 1700 words every day. So no, I'm not really doing NaNoWriMo.

The actual fiction entries will largely be friendslocked. There may be public entries that consist of methods, babbling about process, or links to resources or other writers. If you want to be friended by this journal, leave a brief comment here saying why I should, and I'll add you.