A short unscientific poll of the flist on the topic of that Other Fannish Journaling Service that metafandomwank is busy wanking about right now. The goal is to figure out how annoyed you'd all be if I moved over there.

( You know what the cut's for... )

Big Bang's a bust; Spring with Xan is unsprung; all my ficathons are belong to failure. That leaves summer_of_giles, the seasonal fest I want to make a splash for because, well, isn't it obvious? Signups are open now. I'm probably going to pick a time in mid-July, one day or maybe two depending. My tentative plan is to choose a longer story and finish it. But which one?

You know the drill: you vote, then I write whatever gets the fewest votes because I feel sorry for it.

( FicPoll Mark XXIII, behind the cut... )

The difference between me and you, oh flistians: I have no idea who Loreena McKennit is, but have been thinking that a few tracks from Trentemøller's The Last Resort would fit in well with the current writing soundtrack. ( Remainder of the wittering cut... )

( In re wittering: a brief poll. )

Birthdays! I missed some birthdays! tx_cronopio, spiralleds, and nelldance, I hope you had the loveliest of days, with appropriate celebratory food and loved ones both four-footed and two-footed to share with.

Man, I'm in a bleak mood today. Depressive and Marvinish and why do I bother with any of this? Everything I write sucks and nobody reads it and I'll never manage to scrape up the work ethic to finish my Big Bang story never mind write that original novel that I've had outlined for a year now and oh god I'm so depressed and there's this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side and...

Yeah, shoot me if I keep that up any longer. Say something distracting. Or give me something to do.

Hey! khaoschilde's latest Giles manip is cheering! (Borderline NSFW, which is obviously why I haven't looked at it yet. Cough.)

( No, wait. That gives me an idea. )

I wonder: does trepanning relieve headaches? I'm almost willing to try it. I did have entirely Eeyore-ish entry of whingitude here, but I have deleted that nonsense and replaced it with the usual frivolous and possibly amusing poll.

( Read more... )

Nothing quite like being stuck on four stories at once. "Liegeman" is wedged because I'm convinced it's boring; the Montana story is stuck in worries about present vs past tense; the post-Eyghon story is under lockdown because I believe it retreads territory others have covered before & better; the Big Bang story is in stasis because I'm not yet ready to do the work of re-outlining.

Time to start another story, obviously.

( Tenses: a very biased poll... )

PS: I moved from outlining the GEB (an eternal golden braid) descent-into-hell story into writing actual prose for it. So yes, I carried out my threat to start another story. I love writing Ethan's point of view. Oh, I am going to make Giles suffer in this one. Yay.

It's been two and a half months since my last ficpoll. Noes! Polls are such fun! I love the way I do exactly the opposite of what you vote for. Anyway, my weekend is looking like it's going to be hectic, but I have one quiet Friday evening to spend as I wish before I start running around. Your mission: to vote on how I'll spend it.

( No guarantees I'll do anything other than watch Top Gear, mind you... )

Because doing something twice makes it a tradition, I hereby declare it a tradition that I give you a ficlet spam day on my birthday, which is coming up later this month.

I did this last year and I wrote, well, not all the prompts but a lot of them. (Check the next day, too.) So there's a non-zero chance you'll get a ficletty thing! Perhaps all your own, perhaps to share with somebody who prompted similarly.

And so, without further ado, ( the poll behind the cut! )

So! Metafandom's been pretty dead recently, but has picked up this week with a couple of links on the topic of sex in fanfiction. The discussion starts here and continues here. ( An flist-sparing cut here... )

So the deadline for kink_bingo round 1 is Sept 1 and I was noticing that I have a few nearly-complete bingo lines and a few nearly-complete ficlets on my card. But neither GX in Cleveland nor Blackmailverse backstory have anything to do with the WIP I'm trying to finish. I am terminally unable to decide anything.

( And you know what that means... )

I am about to get into the bath with a notebook, a pen, a Lush bath bomb, and a lot of muscles sore from this morning's set of thrusters. Which, I must say, were less prawny and more barbell-riffic than you might expect from that name. But before I do so, here's a gratuitous poll!

( Behind the cut! It's FicPoll Mark XVI! )

I've been staring at khaoschilde's new manipulation of young Giles all day. The Giles of "Gas-Ring Alchemy" looks like that, though he's a bit shaggier. Add to this her manip of young Ethan looking properly Seventies-haired, and you have 'em close to how I see them. (Both images are shirtless but otherwise worksafe.)

None of this has been helping me write anything in an unrelated storyline with an approaching-fifty Giles in Cleveland with a mop-headed Xander. ( And I'm stuck, so therefore... )

I'm going to go finish reading Bujold's latest Sharing Knife book in the bath, with Lush. Meanwhile, you can tell me what I'm going to do with myself this week. ( Yes, behind the cut it's a POLL. That never happens around here. )
ETA: Now that I think about it, that really should have been "Chandleresque".

Random flashfic poll today, because I'm in a terrible mood and having a hard time outlining a serious story because [tedious explanation elided to the relief of all concerned]. And the Doctor Who/Fray/BtVS crossover tagfic prompt is awesome, but it'll take me some thought. And thought is not on the list today.

So! Pick a kink_bingo prompt from my list. Warning: not all prompts for the faint of heart, though some are fluffy, so they're ( behind the cut... )

Brainlock. I'm slowly figuring out ways to shed the stress of my working week, which has just been crazy in strange ways since my company got eaten whole by a much larger one. I'm having trouble with the task. All I've done is poke at outlines for stories that I decide are junk. Bah. I can't finish anything at the moment. The internal editor is too nitpicky.

I need a jumpstart. And I haven't done a poll in ages. That means: time for FicPoll Mark XIII, flashfic edition!( Your Giles-related story wishes are... )

Random link of the day: the Penny Arcade game!

It's absurd, because I have only one of five hurt/comfort stories written, and because I have as yet not started my spring_with_xan story (due May 11). But I'm already fussing about my summer_of_giles story. There are a bunch of possibilities, some of which are scarier than others.

So! A purely advisory, I-promise-nothing poll, ( after the cut... )

In other news, I'll be at constrictcon this year. Have booked all things that need booking. Hrm, except perhaps for a rental car.

Right! It's been, like, over a week since the last poll, so it's time for a new one! Don't worry. I know in advance that Blackmail will win the poll, so I'm already working on it. But I like to observe the proprieties. And write polls.

( FicPoll Mark XI, beginning of April edition... )

Yes, it's time for another silly poll! Today I poll you on what I should write next in a fast flash-ficcy way, to be finished and posted tonight if possible.

( FicPoll Mark X after the cut... )

ETA: "Allamagoosa", by Eric Frank Russell.

Look, what good is being home, tired, and unable to go to sleep for jet-lag-management reasons if I don't spend the time writing silly polls? Here's one on the West Wing boxed set that should be sufficiently silly. ( After the cut... )

I can't settle to writing anything. My brain is bouncing around like a kitten who's just stuck her head in your coffee cup. Therefore, ficletspampoll that rules from the center of the ultraworld (aubry mix mk 2). Posting will commence Christmas Day, because I have it off from work. Also, because there seems to be some kind of tradition of giving people presents on or near that day, and I'm quite certain I enjoy doing that.

I'm forcing you to make choices and not check everything because I hate you. Also because I want to know what you desire most.

( Ficletspampoll Christmas Edition after the cut... )

I'm drinking morning coffee, leveling fishing in WOW (which is as tedious as you might think), and poking at a few stories. Which leads me to ( FicPoll Mark VIII! )

Yes, it's true, my birthday is coming up. However, I don't need presents. Or anything. I have way too much stuff in my house, starting with thousands of books, continuing with more CDs than I want to admit, and moving along to the Giles action figure problem.

On my birthday, I give things to you. Like a hobbit does. Mathoms. Because I'm selfish and wish to use you to solve my clutter problem. Only I'm not together enough this year to mail out lots of little packages to people, so I think the right idea is ficletspam.

And you know what that means. ( That means ficpoll time! )

Tomorrow I'll write and post a < 2000 word continuation of one of two in-progress things. You can help me pick which one!

( Fic poll Mark VI: Xander vs Buffy )

Okay. Let's suppose you could have one WIP continued in a frenzy of fast half-intoxicated subconscious-rules maybe-not-polished writing. Which one?

( The inevitable poll! I love polls! )

Your random link for the day: British magician/psychologist Derren Brown shows Stephen Fry a magic trick. Fry's reaction is priceless.

Got nothing done yesterday, 0 items from my to-do list. Let's try again today. Well, the Ethan ficathon promotion item at least got one half-hearted post to tweedandtea. So I'm at .5 out of 4. But instead of doing anything useful this morning, I hit you with a poll:

Day #2 at summer_of_giles. To continue a WIP or not?

( I love polls! )

( The Doctor Dances; not really spoilery... )

Your random links for today, choose one: Managing Humans, a new book on managing software engineers that looks interesting; and a brief interview with Brian Eno, my art hero, on the eve of the US premiere of "77 Million Paintings". Or hey, how about this Salon article on the current Austen mania, which says: Part of what differentiates this round of Austen consumption from dozens of past infatuations is the degree to which the satiric acid of Austen's work seems to have been drained and replaced with 100-proof, widely accessible romance. And if you're curious about the Kipling story, you can read it online.