The Fourth Wiggins

Moving to Dreamwidth

Fri, 01 May 2009 23:41:09 GMT

I've opened an account at Dreamwidth, and I'll be posting there from now on. You can continue to follow my posts as zvi explains. I realize this may be inconvenient for some of you, and I do apologize for that.

I'll continue to follow my LJ friends and comms, and will retain this account for commenting, comm participation, and the like.

What's a secondary IDE channel?

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 21:50:27 GMT

More pertinently, why does its failure keep my computer from working? I woke up to this very unpleasant message Sunday morning, and have been offline since then, and likely will continue so until I can stop playing phone tag with the service technician.

If you need to get a hold of me, a few of the ottawa_slashers gang have my number.

Life without computer is too strange for words. I'm reading, like, paper books. How weird is that?

Writing Year in Review

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 02:16:04 GMT

A bunch of folks over at thedailywriter are doing these to kick off the new writing year. My achievements in creative writing during 2008:

I drafted about 200 000 words of fiction.
- Half was original fantasy fiction for my NaNoWriMo novel, which has the kernel, I think, of a good book.
- The rest was split between the beginnings of three fanfics: a Dark Angel, a Dark Angel/Supernatural crossover, and a J-Squared story.
I posted two short ficlets, one for Dark Angel and one for Buffy.
I learned that the story element that I refuse from the start to have anything to do with will turn out to be the crucial element that I have to write to make the story work.
I wrote the most emotionally naked scene I've ever done.
I wrote RPF, which a year ago I wouldn't even read.
I wrote furry, even though it wigged me out.

That's a much longer list than I expected. And boy, howdy, was it ever hard to stick to positives.

ETA: How did I forget the Giles/RayK bodyswap? That one MUST BE FINISHED.

Fic: missing u

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 12:17:52 GMT

Title: missing u
Author: Diurnal Lee
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel
Pairing: Spike/Xander
Genre: Pre-slash, epistolary
Rating: Teen readers
Warnings: Strong language, mature concepts
Word Count: 1950
Spoilers: Angel Season 5
Summary: After Harm's Way, Spike returns to L.A. with a mission--one that unfortunately involves Xander.
Notes: Part of the btvs_santa 2008 gift exchange for whyskeyeyes who wanted Spander with a happy ending. I

Spike checked the window . . .

DA Fic: Dirty Job

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 11:50:48 GMT

I'm consolidating my fics in one spot, so you'll be seeing reposts like this one over the next few weeks.

Title: Dirty Job
Author: Diurnal Lee
Fandom: Dark Angel
Genre: Gen
Rating: Teen readers
Warnings: Strong language, gore
Word Count: 500
Spoilers: Post-Freak Nation
Summary: Logan catches Alec doing something unexpected.
Notes: Written for the Hodgepodge Challenge at otw_onlinecon using the prompt: Alec and/or Logan, protective impulses

Command was hopping . . .

What Is Evil?

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:25:29 GMT

A few days ago, njc2007 talked about an answer than sprang, fully formed, visciously drawn, and passionlessly delivered, to her lips in response to an ethical question. I know I've answered questions before without conscious processing or formulation of the answers, but I think never in the articulate way she described. My unconscious answers tend to be either very metaphorical, wandering attempts to attach words to non-concrete thoughts, or else abrupt single-word labels that conceal way more than they reveal.

One of the latter was my response to the question, "What is evil?"

"Neglect," I answered, then promptly started to question that, trying to think it through logically, which of course doesn't work well with this kind of bone-deep knowing. On the surface, something like murder--which qualifies as an evil act in my worldview--doesn't seem very neglectful, at least not in the way that we commonly define neglect.

I've had a couple of years to pick at it, though, and the belief remains rock-solid. Evil == Neglect. I think where it comes from is my deeper belief that we, as sentient components of the universe, bear a responsibility for the choices that we make with respect to the universe and its other components. It's the mindful abrogation of that responsibility that qualifies as neglect for me.

By this definition, I commit evil a lot. And people wonder why I'm so hard on myself.

What is evil to you?

Working Around the Transit Strike

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 02:37:28 GMT

I've arranged for the use of a car during my house sitting stint, but I'd still like to carpool whenever possible to minimize my traffic and greenhouse gas contribution. Starting next week, I'll be commuting from Rockcliffe Park to the Merivale/Colonnade area. If you know of anyone who overlaps that commute, I'd like to get in touch with them, please.

(With apologies for cluttering your flists with minutiae.)

Fangirling Is Fun

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 04:39:38 GMT

I have so much fun at the ottawa_slashers meet-ups that I look forward to them for weeks, and tend to linger for hours on the day. I walked for two hours to get to today's, and it was so very worth it.

Today's group was small, but the conversation was busy, with so many recs flying about that I can barely remember them after the fact. And we talked about doing something like write-ins for an assortment of fanworks media, which will be SO COOL.

And I've just noticed that I failed to post on Friday. How did that happen? Dear brain, your swiss cheese impersonation impresses no one.

Still no progress on my exchange fic, though thanks to an excellent suggestion from njc2007, I've rewatched some Buffy episodes in the last two day. Here's hoping it helps!

Character Laryngitis

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 03:05:18 GMT

I took a first stab at my BtVS holiday exchange fic this morning, and I failed utterly. I've lost the characters voices. What happened? I know these characters. I used to do them okay. I even thought I was pretty darned good at the POV character's voice. Sure it's been a couple of years since I read or wrote much in the fandom, but I wasn't expecting them to just pfft! vanish away.

I lost my actual voice a little over a year ago during a nasty bout of the flu. The laryngitis lasted more than a week, and was frustrating and amusing by turns. I'm still waiting for the funny to appear in my current predicament.

Actually, now that I think about it, all my writing lately seems weirdly stiff to me. Ugh.

Episode Re-somethings: Supernatural 4.01-4.04

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 04:50:32 GMT

The trouble with mainlining episodes like this is that they get jumbled together in my head. Especially those episodes that follow the tiresome formula familiar from--did it start in season 2?--in which the otherwise interesting story of the week is capped by a talking heads infodump of shocking expositoriness and angst.

But.

Awe. Some.

Stuff that freaked me out:

Dean's flashbacks. I see them when I close my eyes. Feels like, "Eek!" every time.
Dean's emergence and trip to the store. It was like the opening scene to a post-apocalyptic film, with the weird, overbright light, and the blasted trees, and the total lack of people. I wondered if he was in some new iteration of his person Hell, one in which humanity is gone and he is completely and utterly alone. Dean would--not do well in such a Hell.
I couldn't tell whether the rugarru guy was going to eat or rape his wife.
Burnt out eyes and bleeding ears.

Things that made me go, "Hmm.":

How did Azazel guarantee that his chosen parents would have a child of exactly six months of age exactly ten years after sealing their deals?
Do rugarru (sp?) become fertile just before they enter their metamorphosis stage? Or is the metamorphosis triggered by pregnancy of their mates?
When Elkins came for the Colt, did he talk to John or Mary? Or did he just steal it back?
Witnesses are insidiously scary, because something about them makes even the most knowledgeable victims fall under their spell. That hunter in the opening scene looked seriously badass, and we know what Bobby and the boys are like, yet they all let the things chat them up and get too close, even though they knew better. Oh, wait--Sam didn't, did he? Is he immune to insidious witness badassery because of its Lilith origins?
If all roads lead to the same destination, how can "we" not know where Sam's dark road is headed? Angels are confusing.
Does Ruby have to do everything Sam tells her to?
Hunters, hunters everywhere.

Awesome!

Is it possible that the acting coming from the Js is even better this season? How is that possible?
Badass Hunter!Mary!
Castiel. Just, yes. So not on Dean's side. And it's so cool that he comes across as alien, but still manages screen chemistry.
Brother versus brother smackdown in the works. Damnit. Hurts my heart in such a good way.
So does the whole family history of desperate demon dealing.
So does Sam with the lying about who he is.
And Dean with the crisis of faith in who he is.
Azazel still being Azazel, even faced with a hunter who thinks he knows some'pn 'bout some'pn.
Bobby's panic room.
Sam and the amulet.
Dean wearing Sam's clothes.
The cool effect when the anti-witness spell swept out from Bobby.
Meg. Hendrickson. Ron Resnick!

So, yeah. Not too dark. Can I work with these arcs with the fic idea I have in mind? That remains to be seen.

Playing Supernatural Catch-Up

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 13:52:30 GMT

I won't get to post tonight, because I'll be at a friend's late, mainlining Supernatural season 4 episodes.

I'm weirdly nervous about it. I'm mostly unspoiled for the season thus far, but I've absorbed an impression that it's darker. What if it's too dark for me?

More pertinently, what if the arcs move in a direction that won't work with the crossover fic I have in mind? I want to write and post it more-or-less in realtime, beginning and going AU from about the last episode in February. That will mean keeping on top of new episodes after hiatus, I know.

DA Fic Recs Updated

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 04:51:08 GMT

A friend who wants to try fanfic asked me for some recs, and I sat down today to select a few. As a result, I've got about four million browser tabs open, my entire fanvid collection playing on repeat, a sore ass, and a horrible fear that I will somehow do it wrong and wind up turning her off the stuff. What if our tastes happen not to intersect, and she figures since she doesn't like the ones I suggest, she won't like any?

And why does that worry me so much, anyway?

In the end, I simply sent her links to crack_van and to the Dark Angel rec list I started last year. And because it is woefully slim, I added a couple of recs to it: "Friction" by Baloo and "All the King's Horses and All the King's Men" by Alyse.

I'm supposed to record "All the King's Horses" after I finish editing my current recording. I've had it printed out for MONTHS. Maybe I should add finishing my podfic projects to my roster for December. It depends on whether or not the local transit workers' strike happens, because if the buses are running, I'll be housesitting across town, away from my computer with its mic and audio file editor.

I have so much to say . . .

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 04:53:18 GMT

. . . that my awareness of the time and effort involved in untangling and sorting it into some sort of coherence keeps me from saying much of anything at all. Like, seriously, I just spent twelve minutes staring through my monitor while trying to think of how to say what I want to say about saying what I need to say. As usual, I got nowhere.

I wish telepathy were a viable option. It might also be great if I could scoop out the contents of my mind, spread them out on a huge surface, and push them around like puzzle pieces. Tangibility would be so awesome.

Fruit abuse made my day

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 03:16:05 GMT

The flimsy plastic bags you find on rolls in produce departments are NOT designed to hold five grapefruit. Trust me on this. Grapefruit all over the floor.

This morning, when someone commented that her grapefruit didn't want to leave with her, I asked if it had good reason. She replied that she slaps her fruit around at home, and word had probably gotten out.

I laughed to the point of tears. And even though my day otherwise sucked beyond the telling of it, all I had to do was think of this morning and I started giggling again. I told her that she made my day.

I . . . don't know why I found this so funny.

Radial Symmetry

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 04:08:46 GMT

To help modulate the post-NaNoWriMo blues I've experienced each December, I signed up for two writing challenges. I got my assignment for the first--a BtVS gift exchange--today, and it is so wide open that I feel sort of floundery about it. Which is maybe a little hypocritical considering how stifled I feel when given too narrow a set of criteria.

(Then again, Raising Hell has far too many writing prompts up for December. While none of them particularly speaks to me, I am SORELY TEMPTED to use them all in one fic. Maybe even a serious fic; it'd only need to be crackalicious on the meta level. Metacrack? Is that a word?)

The second writing challenge I've officially joined is NaBloPoMo, which means you'll be seeing a post from me every day in December. My intent is to learn the habit of thoughtful posting, if such a thing is possible for a randomly organised internal thinker.

In aid of varying up the look of my posts a little bit, I drew a small set of rudimentary icons yesterday. I've just noticed that the default one is radially symmetric. This motif appears in a lot of my doodles and artwork. It's even in my nanovel, as the organisms doing a lot of the ecological niche duty of trees had the same symmetry.

I wonder why I keep coming back to it. Is it just that there are only so many simple symmetries? Or does it have a deeper meaning? I did, after all, draw this one to be my everyday, I'm-okay-and-I'm-me icon.

Fic rec: Spn RPS meets Anne of Green Gables

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 02:35:35 GMT

I'm filled with giddy delight by poor_choices's desecration of Anne of Green Gables with J2 slash, of all things. Jared TOTALLY WORKS as the gawky, dreamy orphan, and I'm finding the AU takes on classic Green Gables situations both clever and fun. Currently tagged as The Going to Hell Verse, because apparently, that's what happens when you porn Green Gables.

Hrm. Now I'm wondering if there's any 100% Green Gables slash out there. And whether there should be. And whether the Anne books have been podficced yet.

Would you pay to read original serial fiction?

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 01:10:52 GMT

Holly Lisle is talking seriously about publishing an ezine for SFF prose fiction in serial form.

Current Model for the Zine
Earlier Version with further feedback

I'm really excited about the idea, because, seriously, to me it'd be like being able to buy only the Space channel, instead of having to get the whole cable package with its endless channels of crap; because I love to invest myself in good serial characters' stories, whatever the format; and because Holly has a particular mandate to publish new pro authors, which on the one hand -- admirable and cool -- and on the other -- hey, could be me.

So the big question is, is there a market for this thing? I think there might be. After all, serial fiction is a mainstay in comics and television, and there are a heck of a lot of novel and movie series that get a lot of audience.

Goodness knows serial prose fic is all over online fandom, and lots of fen live for it. But is that just because we're playing what-ifs with shared cultural stories, something that'd be absent with original universes? Is it just because WIP authors are trading fic parts for feedback in some complex exchange of encouragement, ideas, criticism, fanservice, and general fennish squee-wank-wail? Is it just because it's free?

My main beef with WIP is the uncertainty principle. Most of the time, I have no confidence that the author knows where their story is going, that it will have that satisfying internal story logic. I don't know when to expect new parts, or whether the thing will ever be completed. And chances are good that I will never find my way back to the story even if it is continued. Perpetual fictus interruptus; something that I need never fear with this zine model.

So am I imagining that there must be customers out there for this crazy thing?

Day 7: 3119 words

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 04:19:02 GMT

A tertiary characters who was to serve as one of the token adversaries for the heroine suddenly became a love interest for another main character. (Maybe "lust interest" is a better term.) Apparently, the dilettante has a thing for the duty-bound intense type. Or maybe I do, since this fellow is owning the better part of my attention just now.

Day 6: 747 words

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 04:12:34 GMT

I screwed around yesterday. Token words courtesy of waiting for the other players to show up for last night's game.

Day 5: 2059 words, freakishly inspired

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 04:51:23 GMT

So, somewhere along the highway to Montreal some weeks back, I flashed a cool initial concept montage of my heroine while listening to Afro Celt Soundsystem. Now it seems to have become her soundtrack. Experimentation has shown that her scenes just flow out while the ACSS is playing. I suppose there are worse soundtracks to be stuck with as character anchors.

Day 4: 4080 cheap, cheap words

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 01:48:27 GMT

Most of what I wrote today was flat out worldbuilding, thinly disguised as As you know, Bobs, and sometimes not disguised at all. I feel all tawdry and stuff, so I'm upping my target word count to 55k to win.

The auditorium at the OPL is an odd sort of locale for a write-in. It'd be almost cool and grotto-esque if it weren't for the bright stage lights. Also, much lower turnout than I expected for a weekend afternoon -- possibly because the weather was lovely.

Day 3: 2003 words

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 03:23:19 GMT

Realisation #1 - I had the two male characters playing the wrong roles. Let the magic swappiness ensue!

Realisation #2 - I'm really obsessed with blue hair lately.

Realisation #3 - I value the prettiness of my NaNoWriMo progress graph way, way too much. I'm all agrump because the website is down, so I can't update my wordcount, so my graph will show a sad, sad plateau.

Day 2: 2045 words

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 01:31:47 GMT

The trouble with writing speculative fiction off the cuff is that the lack of worldbuilding begins to make itself really obvious right away. All I've done so far is to introduce the three main characters in conflicts that were meant to highlight their central Issues. I used encounters with people who'd push those buttons so that I could concentrate on the interractions and sluff the surroundings.

Okay, so I'm a fool.

I've introduced more secondary characters and extras than I know what to do with. I'm swimming in more person and group and place names and cultural terms and effects and goals and customs than I can possibly keep track of. I'm drowning, people.

And I've yet to get any of the MCs in touch with each other. At least that gives me a short-term writing goal for the weekend.

Day 1: 5074 words

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 03:45:37 GMT

So, once again, despite plans to plot and etc. in advance, I'm starting NaNo with a few vague characters and setting, and a kind of a theme of a theme. And once again, magic happened anyway. I put my heroine in a dark alley, started rambling, and suddenly knew who she was hiding from and more importantly, how she had to be found by them to really introduce her big issue. Bam. I wrote a creepy, actiony, tension-filled chapter to kick off the novel, and chewed through the word count.

I started to flag early into hour 4 of the write-in, though I'm not sure whether because of the late hour, the length of time I'd been writing, or the lull that the next chapter brought to the action. Any of those could be chicken or egg, really. Were I of scientific bent, I'd experiment . . .

Ottawa Slashers

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 18:04:15 GMT

So, like, most of my little flist are in Ottawa, and I think about half of you write or read slash. cough lazigyrl cough You should totally join us in the Glebe this Sunday to talk slash, if you're free. Check out ottawa_slashers.