cu-kid9

You ever hear people say that you have to treat your readers as if they are stupid? Which, of course, means that you have to spell every little detail out. I hate it when people say this because I like to think that there are some rather intelligent readers out there! However, it does seem that in some fandoms you just have to treat them this way. Most of my stories have started with these snapshots in time. Sometimes I build on them, sometimes I don't. I say just do it, write what you want and ignore the silly little fanbrats who feel the need to be over-informed. And when they complain just give 'em the finger...or a little

Hah. I don't think there's anything original out there anymore... But I think that an old idea with a good twist that's well written would go over well. I haven't written anything about other pairings simply because I just haven't thought of an idea for them that I like yet. Even if you can't write creatively, I'm sure that you could give input! Sometimes people who don't take part in the writing process have the best ideas

Maybe all of us not-Sess/Kag fans should ban together and start writing fics collectively so we can pump out more in shorter periods of time, thus upping the amount of our desired pairing. That's really the only solution I can see to making a difference. Because, really, if we're going to complain about the ratio of Inu/Kag to Sess/Kag fics or lack of other females being written as main characters, then we should certainly be doing something about it...

I'm responding to this as a reader instead of a writer because, as a writer, I haven't had this problem...yet *knocks on wood* I agree with canterro that a long period between updates can be discouraging as a reader (especially if the story in question is particularly long). On the other hand, if the story is exceptional, I have no problem going back and re-reading it to refresh my memory. One of my favorite Inu writers took over a year (maybe two!) to update her fic. But it is so well-written that I went back and read it from the beginning. Maybe it's a little easier for me to understand since I can sympathize with lack of inspiration, time, and motivation (I'm currently suffering from all three ). I would not, however, have a problem with a favorite author writing something on the side while in the middle of a story - the whole reason they are one of my favorites is because I love their writing. I'll take what I can get and patiently wait for the update. Your reviewer(s) who complained probably can't understand what it really takes to write. Sometimes I think people who don't write think that you can just sit down and voila! you have ten-thousand words written and a chapter that is fabulous, with your plot solid and your prose sparkling. But it takes just as much energy as it does time to create some days. And then you have the added neurosis of just being a writer, where you feel like nothing is good enough, that everything you wrote is a huge stinky pile of poo, and there's no way you could ever let anyone read it. Inu readers seem to be particularly ignorant of these problems. I would like to know just how many of them could sit down and bang out a 50,000 word story in a matter of weeks that was spectacular... I suppose, as frustrating as it can be, you just have to ignore those people and think to yourself, "Yeah, but you probably can't do what I'm doing" even though that sounds terribly pompous and condescending.

I've written a lot of these, but I don't post them. They stay in a folder that I like to think of as "unfinished ideas," although I will probably never add anything else to them. I don't really know what to do with these other than just tuck them away because I don't think anyone else would appreciate them. Actually, I take that back. I've posted one story that took place maybe over the matter of a few hours, but there was not much back story and it was mostly a writing exercise that turned into a PWP But, it was also a fanfic, which may not count since people familiar with the subject would already know a little something about the characters regardless if it's AU or OOC, or whatever...

Oh, ewww I kind of realized after reading all the responses to this, that it's sort of amazing how choice words can really make something sound either fabulous or terrible. I've found the exception to my rule about not delving into someone's bellybutton - men with flat stomachs who have very little to dip into at all. Hard not to wash it out when there isn't really anything to wash out in the first place, I guess... Oh, and Zyx, I totally feel you about the cleaning out under your nails thing. I do that obsessively all the time.

My reviewers are usually the #1s and #4s. I usually don't get too many that are in all caps and nearly unreadable - it's usually either or My #4s are usually more like "I love it. Update soon." Err... While getting a review from the last group isn't nearly as satisfying as getting one from Teh Awesome, I don't complain about them, usually - at least they reviewed

I have Natalie Goldberg's Wild Mind - which is just wonderfully quirky enough to make me not feel like I'm reading a book on writing - and So You Want to Write. That one has just sat on my shelf for a while, though. I also have The Artist's Way, which isn't really about writing, per se, but more about trying to get back in tune with your muse/creativity/whatever you want to call it. I find it immensely helpful when I have writer's block to go through some of the exercises in there and remind myself how to tell my inner-editor to shut the hell up.

One of my all-time favorites!! Such a good book (especially once you get through that whole middle section). I've read it three or four times. People always give me a funny look when I say it's the best book written about getting revenge, but it really is.

I think it was leftovers from an old roommate - he was one of those people who just threw books away (sacrilege!). I just can't bring myself to even think about reading it, though... I feel like I read slowly when it's something I'm reading for enjoyment or it's one of those books that has so much detail that I'm afraid if I skip something, I'll miss an entire plot element. Did you borrow the Follett book because you wanted to read it? My mother has a tendency to just give me books that she thinks I'll enjoy - which I sometimes do - that's how I ended up reading Abundance and Special Topics in Calamity Physics. She gave me another one called A Thin Place, which I just couldn't get into. It had a sort of Tom Robbins/Skinny Legs and All element to it, where the inanimate objects started thinking/talking...but it wasn't done nearly as well as Robbins, I don't think.

I wouldn't be able to not write them. If I get parts of a story stuck in my head that I really want to write, I just write them and get back to what I should be writing later. For me, I think, it's easier this way because then I'm not constantly distracted with thinking about those scenes that I want to write while I'm working on what I should be writing.

Sometimes I buy books that are rather lengthy just for the challenge of them (it's even better if it's a hardback with really little font!). But that's just one of my weird...quirks, I guess I sped through the first three of Saintcrow's Dante Valentine series (so good!!), finished up Hamilton's Danse Macabre and The Harlequin (I'm starting to burn out on these. Anyone else feel that Blake is rather...omnipotent and Mary Sue-ish?), and am now trying to get myself back into "traditional" fantasy with Elizabeth Hayden's Elegy for a Lost Star. For some reason, I'm just not that interested in it. The first three were great, the fourth I was so-so about, but I'm only eighty pages into this fifth one and am just rather blah about it. I'm kind of forcing myself to read it, though, because the only other books I have on my shelves that I haven't read are Capote's In Cold Blood and Hubbard's Dianetics, the former of which I'm sure is good and the latter of which I'm just not up to (I don't even know where I got that...I'm pretty sure I didn't buy it). Some of the books here I've read or am familiar with and others sound really interesting. I'm going to check out the Stackhouse series, for sure. Has anyone read House of Leaves by Danielewski? I keep seeing it at the bookstore, but it's in trade paperback and priced just high enough that I have a hard time justifying buying it on only one recommendation...

Well...I think if I were a rich boy, I would probably have more than one car. Some of my favorites might be the Alfa Romeo Spider (this, I think, is the '08 model that's priced somewhere around $200,000), the Lotus Elise (there are different series of these), or the McLaren F1 (these are pretty rare, maybe only 200 made). I'm not really up on my motorcycles, but there is the MV Agusta F4 CC, which is not only really freakin' expensive and fast, but there are only 100 of them. Hope that helps a little!

I would have to second this. In fact, when reading your post, I was thinking to myself, "Hmm, that actually makes some kind of sense." What's the point of writing fanfiction for something if you're just going to write it the same way it was originally done? It defeats the whole purpose. I say ignore the people who have a problem with this and write your story the way you think it should be written.

What genre is this series? I'm always looking for recommendations for good vampire/supernatural beings series because the ones I tend to pick up at the bookstore always seem so...rote to me.

I conveniently "forget" to wear my name tag sometimes (hey, if my manager isn't going to bust me out for it, it's not my problem...). Where I work, we're supposed to use the person's name at least three times when we're talking to them, but I find that not only awkward, but sometimes impossible since I can't even begin to pronounce some of my customers' names (even if they say it first). The only time I don't find someone calling me by my name creepy is if they're a repeat customer and I've actually talked to them about things other than business. Oh the cell phone thing. I totally feel your pain on that. Where I work, we have to be interactive with the customers, ask them questions and such. If someone comes to my counter on their phone, I just ignore them. Or, if they answer in the middle, I'll wait - forever if need be, I'm just stubbornly patient enough - until they finish their oh so important conversation (seriously? You couldn't have waited five minutes to tell your mother all about the vacation you took three weeks ago?!). Sometimes I'll do other things like answer the work phone or help other customers. Sometimes I'll talk over their conversation. My whole feeling on it is we could have been done in five minutes, but since you feel like being a dick and wasting my time, I'm more than happy to waste yours. Jerks. Another pet peeve is people who think it's my goddamn fault that they just spent fourteen hours traveling. Look, I'm sorry that you've had a shitty day and that O'Hare is the worst airport in the freakin' world, but it's just not my problem. It wasn't my fault there were high winds/torrential downpours/tornadoes/freak blizzards in the middle of the summer. I'm not the one who lost your luggage or got de-icer all over it, so don't take it out on me, okay? I'm behind in watching recent movies (totally want to see The Orphanage), but I heard that The Strangers was supposed to be really good.

I actually don't mind reading young adult books. I'll have to check out the Dark is Rising series. I've also been told to pick up the Twilight books. Anyone read those? They've gotten rave reviews and the girl at the bookstore said she read the ones that are out and is anxiously waiting for the next. When I was in high school, the popular vampire series was the Vampire Diaries, by L.J. Smith...which I still re-read every so often... I finished the Saintcrow book I picked up...read it in one day because I just couldn't put it down Now I have to get to the freakin' bookstore again to pick up the next ones because the end of this one sort of irked me...I'm hoping the issue will be resolved in either the second or third book.

I think a lot of the time people can't distinguish con-crit from just plain criticism. The writer takes everything personally, which I suppose I can understand given the amount of blood, sweat, and tears that some of them put into their work. However, I do agree that being able to take it is one of the most valuable things a writer can learn to do. I have a reviewer who constantly points out mistakes, or places that she feels don't work or are weak in my stories. She doesn't beat around the bush about what she feels is wrong, but isn't rude about it. I absolutely adore her for it and have come to look forward to her reviews almost more than anyone else's. I think this depends on the beta and the story. I beta for someone whose native tongue isn't English. If I see certain non-standard mistakes, I'll point them out. But sometimes I'll encourage her to write in a way that isn't so rigidly correct. I think it really depends on the tone of the story and, I think, whose point of view it's from. If the narrator of the story is, for example, a street thug and it's written in first person, there's no way I would expect it to be written in a Jane Austen tone - I would expect slang, cursing, and a lot of improper English.

Is that Peter S. Beagle? It sounds familiar, but I don't think I've actually read it. I have read A Fine and Private Place and The Last Unicorn (both of which I recommend if you like fantasy and Beagle). I usually read mostly fantasy and sci/fi as well, but I've been straying from the genre lately...

I see all kinds of threads around here about movies, shows, and what people are writing (obviously), but what about what we're reading? I'm constantly looking for interesting books - sometimes the weirder, the better. I once read a 100 page book that was all about a man's trip up an escalator back to work. Crazy boring, you say? You'd be surprised. I highly recommend it (The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker). I just finished Abundance by Sena Jeter Naslund. It's a fictional account of Marie Antoinette written in first person, starting from when she enters France at fifteen and ending with her death. I will admit that there was a middle section in there that I had to kind of barrel through, but for the most part it was full of wonderful little details (there are one/two page chapters that are letters that Antoinette and her mother write to each other), and of course beautifully tragic - but I've always loved her story. I also just finished Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl (yeah, I'm one of those people who reads multiple books at once...), which isn't as smarty-smart as its title suggests (although it's kind of amusing to tote it around and see people's reactions when they see it or ask you what you're reading). It's about a young girl who's professor father drags her around the United States and a murder. The embellished language got tiresome about two-thirds of the way in, but everything falls together so crazily in the end that you just have to finish it (although, I will admit to being just a tad pissed at the end). I just went to the bookstore and picked up Working for the Devil by Lilith Saintcrow. Anyone heard of or read this? It was one of those books that I picked up because the cover caught my eye (while I don't tend to judge a book by its cover, it has been the main reason I buy one more than once). That and the quote by Publishers Weekly, which says the protagonist is "brave, charismatic...with a smart mouth and a suicidal streak." Sold. And I picked up the next two I need for the Anita Blake series. Here's my qualm with this series and the author (and I don't want any boos from fans because I do own 15 of the Blake series and even picked up her Ravenloft book, so shhh!) - I'm not entirely sure I really like the way Hamilton writes, but there's something highly addictive about these books...they're like smut-coated crack and I can't quit them. Ugh. So is anyone else out there reading anything interesting? I've still got forty bucks in gift cards to the bookstore burning a hole in my pocket and need recommendations!

Why? The reason I ask is because I don't understand the reasoning behind thinking that you should be miserable. And that is an excellent movie. I saw it years back and was really bummed that it was remade - Hollywood inevitably messes up good Asian horror films.

Well, I'd say that as long as you're doing what makes you happy, then just keep on doing it. My personal opinion? I'd probably start doing the same thing, if I were you, just sort of as a middle finger to the person who dumped me ("See?! There are people who want me. Ha!"). I mean, she dumped you, after all. There's no reason for you to just sit around and wallow. Mourn your past relationship if you must, but move on and, most importantly, don't look back.

Does talk to/hanging out with/flirting/etc. with this girl make you happy or in any way hurt anyone else?

*snickers* Ruin a perfectly good pair of shoes that way... Don't get me wrong, I'm totally a closet romantic and the idea that there is one person out there that will be a perfect match is a lovely one. And I know all about having reality warped - it's how I managed to stay in a crap-ass excuse for a relationship for three years. Perhaps it's experience and time that have convinced me that "the one" is a great idea for a movie, but is realistically flawed.

I don't know if you're the only one...but I can honestly say I've never thought that when washing it. And I agree - wash your bellybuttons! It's just good hygiene...even if my tongue isn't going to come anywhere near it...