mood: excited and pleased
music: We Don’t Care – Akon

she said she wants to bring me to bring me to her world
she whispered some words
that damn near made my toes curl
she said she’s got that
that i have never seen before
and if i get the taste
i’ll be coming right back for more

To loosen up the atmosphere around here, yes?

1. I have a secret thing for Joel Stein, the LA Times/Time Magazine columnist. I was secretly excited to read his Facebook article and learn random facts about him.

2. I apparently really like funny writers. Well, I guess I’ve always adored funny people, and I do love reading, so combining the two is positively wonderful. I have a not-so-secret thing for Chris Baty, the man in charge of NaNoWriMo. But I do secretly miss his pep talks. I’m glad that I bought his book, No Plot? No Problem!

3. Speaking of NaNoWriMo, I’m a couple thousand words from the end of my novel and I am super excited to print my first draft. For only $5, we get to print 250 pages at the computer center here, and we even get free binding! Aah, I can’t wait to read the whole thing, however shitty it may end up. I hope that I finish soon.

4. I’ve been reading Frances Potter’s fics in the past few days, and man, have I forgotten how exquisitely talented the classic Harry Potter fanfiction writers are. Her language is absolutely beautiful. This, my friends, is why I always say that fanfiction has spoiled Harry Potter for me — fanfiction authors write better about the world that JK Rowling so ingeniously created than JK Rowling writes about it herself.

Harry Potter flopped onto the sofa and let out a long sigh of contented satisfaction. Allowing his body to mould into the soft cushions he sprawled spread-eagled, legs stretched out before him, arms almost at right angles to his body, palms facing upwards.

He felt as if he had crawled inside Harry, inside his skin and bones, within those thoughts and memories. Held softly and safely within those arms and soul. . . .

Occasionally the softness of a kiss would be reinforced by a swift nip of teeth or the scrape of a nail. Sometimes he would feel the fleeting touch of Harry’s hair brush against him and he decided that if he were to die today, he would, at least, have this memory to take with him.

What I look for in a work of fiction is beautiful, exquisite diction. Writers like Frances Potter, Aja, Maya, Furiosity, Cinnamon, Rhysenn, McKay, Arionrhod… (Oh gosh, I can’t even begin to name all of the big authors in the Harry Potter fandom.) They know how to manipulate language, how to give depth to every character, how to make someone weep. I commend Rowling for the fabulous world she created, but the fact remains that she was writing children’s fiction, and her writing reflects that. Rowling’s writing? It doesn’t hold a candle to the beauty that is good Harry Potter fanfiction.

5. The weekend is here… You know what that means? It means that it’s time to watch X-Men: Evolution with Mark and play WoW! And even better — it’s a THREE day weekend! Woohoo! I’m going to frickin’ ding 73 on WoW by Monday night for sure. Super excited.

6. YGO! Series 0 Observation: LOL @ RANDOM YUUGI DAYDREAM FACE WHEN RYOU IS INTRODUCED AS NEW EXCHANGE STUDENT (Heartshipping, FTW!)

7. This isn’t so nerdy, but… I can’t wait to spend tomorrow with Mark!

Geez, it’s like fanfictional suicide trying to read Isis-Malik siblingfluff and then attempt to write in-character Bronzeshipping (Yami no Malik x Malik) into my novella…

-_-

I WON NANOWRIMO.

This has been my wish for almost a decade. Euphoric doesn’t even begin to describe this feeling.

A million thanks for everyone who has supported me through this, especially Jayne, Mark, Kelly, and Diana. Extra thanks go to Jayne for encouraging me to do this for myself this year and for cushioning me throughout the month with extra support when I was stressed out about plotholes and lagging word count. But still, the greatest thanks go to the twelve-year-old Elaine, whose imagination had no limits. The plot and the original characters of Duelist’s Point was composed by her, and I wrote this story in honor of her and left many traces of her dialogue in the manuscript as a tribute. I’d like to think that she would be absolutely delighted to see Pann, Mikaa, Celestine, Lei, and the others come to life.

It never fails to amaze me, what an impact I made on the Darkshipping fandom. I was twelve. Twelve! And I had high schoolers and college kids and adult-adults respecting me, reading my stuff, gushing about it. I even hosted a pervasive fanfiction event; it’s fun going through the old Darkshipping LJ comm archives and seeing people talk about it. Amphitrite’s Darkshipping Ficaway indeed… People are STILL reading my Darkshipping things, still favoriting them. And miraculously, I’m still churning them out.

Fanfiction is my Myspace/Facebook. It’s where I got to meet the most amazing people, who would never even turn my way IRL, who saw a part of me that nobody else ever did, who love and compliment my work without being obligated to at all. It’s where I still get the biggest ego-boost ever (way bigger than being admitted to Cal), where I know that I am loved by many (Favorite Authors!) and where I know that I made an impact on people’s lives.

I love the Internet.

I have spent the past two months writing, writing, writing. I’ve been having the time of my life. Before high school, it was easy to write chapters for five different stories at the same time, but once high school began, it was near impossible to get any writing done during the school year. Thank god for the summers, during which I went crazy writing CATCF and Cars–both of which were a delight to be completely immersed in. Ever since school started and especially after everyone left for college, though, the part of me that craves reading/writing has been deliciously sated. I write in class, I write at work, I read at home; it’s a fantastic life, really.

This year, I decided that I would give NaNoWriMo a try. Ever since 2002, two different epic plots have been spinning around in my head–one original and the other fanfiction (Yu-Gi-Oh!), affectionately dubbed “Epic Novel Thingy” and “3D”, respectively. I’ve written many parts of both, but as some of them came into being when I was twelve, a lot of them aren’t exactly the best, most well-thought-out things. So this year, I read the NaNoWriMo website and found out that their purpose is to get authors to get off their asses and write those damn ideas that have been floating around in their heads. And I thought–”Well, why the hell not?” So I decided that this year, I’m going to give my epic YGO! fic a try. It’s not super plausible. It doesn’t make total sense. It doesn’t really fit into the timeline anywhere. It features way too many pairings and original characters. It’s a little too…”I-came-up-with-this-when-I-was-12″… But… Well, why the hell not?! So I’m going to do it. I’m going to attempt to write 50k+ words of action, adventure, romance, and drama. AND I’M GOING TO LIKE IT.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of pre-writing and planning for this epic story, and it’s been a lot of fun. I’m really excited to get started. Even if I don’t win (read: finish all 50k words), I’ll at least have gotten off my butt and started on the damn thing, right? And, well, the story is so shitty (to an outsider, anyway; to me, it’s fucking brilliant, LOL) that it won’t matter if I have to write it under a time constraint! Yay!

So yeah. Don’t bother me when the next month rolls around. But do cheer me on!

I’m just glad that I’m finally getting a chance to do this, after years and years of being too stressed out by school to get involved.