Beauty and the Tragedy- [The Last Place on Earth]
Song: "Beauty and the Tragedy"- Trading Yesterday
Fandom: The Last Place on Earth (2002)
Program Used: Sony Vegas 8
Details: 42MB; AVI
Description: Rob/Ann. Two strangers take a journey through the Sierra, Nevada mountains together. Their lives would never be the same.
Download: @ MY JOURNAL

Includes Embedded Video, YouTube Link and Download Link.

http://feeds.hpana.com/~r/HPANA/~3/e4tiDrS0ZY4/news.21033.html

What a great way to start off 2010. The teaser trailer for "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" is now online. Please note: This is the same teaser that was released on the :Half-Blood Prince" Blu-Ray back in December, but is being officially released for the first time today.

Title: Wake
Author: cupidsbow
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairing: No Pairing
Rating: PG-13
Music: 'Juliet' by Russ Nixon, and The Tempest IV.1 read by Joseph Fiennes (from When Love Speaks)
Summary: We are such stuff as dreams are made on...
Note: Thanks to Hope for the beta.

Download: FileFront (7.84 MB). (You can find my other vids here.)
Streaming: You can stream this from FileFront -- just click on the 'streaming' button.

Just another soap opera love scene (One Life to Live):





Just another wedding. :)

This is the way it should be. No fanfare. No political commentary. No holding back out of fear of offending. Just treated the same as anyone else.

Is there any way of getting this film played at dragon con or the creators as guests?

I just saw it yesterday after hearing about it for months and it is the best film I have seen in 2009.

Its for free on Hulu.com



The films web site
http://www.DoubleEdgeFilms.com./

After checking around on line a bit it seems this film was really saved by the fans.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1071804/

My fiance is auctioning off the cheetah used in this video to raise money to buy toys for toys for tots... Let me know if you see yourself in this video, I'd love to compile a list of people in it!

If you don't know what Bam said the lady is... well, check this out http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Bam%2C%20said%20the%20lady&defid=4176617

Browncoats Unite!

Vidder: Athar (Nanceh89)
Fandom: Doctor Who
Title: Doctor Who: O'Death
Song: O Death
Artist: O Death Remix for CW TV (Supernatural season 5)
Warnings: Spoilers for "The End Of Time part one"
Characters/Pairings: The Doctor, The Master
Summary: "It's a tale of the gods... but gods who are fallible..." (David Tennant)

Links to watch and download can be found HERE at atharriordan 

So as to not limit knowledge to those who are members of the community (omikuji_project ), I have two Omikuji-related announcements to make.

1. Omikuji will now come out on the 15th of every month, because practically everything in my world is due on one first or another, and it's been impossible to make that deadline. Everything will stay the same, just on the 15th instead of the 1st.

2. On April 1st, I will be releasing an anthology of all the Omikuji stories to date. There has been discussion of what form this will take on the community, so if you are not a member, please do join. It will definitely include all the stories, and excerpts from the letters that accompany them. The introduction will be written via the classic each-person-writes-a-line game over on omikuji_project .

I am still seeking cover art--there was talk of an Omikuji-member created art piece for each story, but unless they're all spoken for I don't think that's workable, so let me know if you want to claim a story or create a cover design. If you have any skills that would be of help (interior layout as well, hollaback.) One Omikuji-soul has already recorded an audio version of one story--if people want to take this on, I'd be thrilled to put out a crowdsourced audio anthology as well! But I want the Omikuji family involved in this as much as possible.

The anthology will come out through Lulu. Which makes this my first officially self-published project. I felt it was best, as this has always been a grassroots, crowfunded creation, to continue in that vein and not seek a press to publish it. Lulu puts out a good product and I'm hoping this will be a beautiful object as well as a testament to two years of family, love, wax, paper, and art. Thank you to everyone who has made it possible.

I will likely put one of these out for every two years that the Omikuji Project continues.

Finally, if you are new and confused and do not know what the Omikuji Project is, all the info is on my website.

I forgot to mention! New episode of Made of Fail is up. "It's like... fudge... made of out PEANUT BUTTER."

Meanwhile! Right after I posted that last entry--seriously, I hit "post" while putting on my shoes--I went out and saw Sherlock Holmes again, this time with my mother. ( More Holmesian nerditry )

(For those of you wondering when I'll ever shut up about Sherlock Holmes: IT'S NOT TWILIGHT, OKAY? So shut it and count your blessings.)

Meanwhile: omg so cold. I love it. It's already one o'clock, but it's still only 26°F, which means it only gets colder from here. In fact, we've got snow predicted for Thursday. The dogs are bored out of their minds because I won't let them stay outside longer than ten minutes at a time; I'm under a fleece blanket (NOT A SNUGGIE) in the den at my laptop, and I had to put on my huge floor-length coat and my gloves just to take them out front. (I do have a pair of full-coverage gloves, but I put on my favorites just because they are pretty: fingerless gloves recycled from toesocks, because a hole got into one of the toes, and they were too awesome to throw away. Bonus photo feature: My stubby little hobbit hand.)




(Speaking of accessories: the purse I decided on, because it's simple, and the grey-on-black paisley is interesting but casual. I'm going to try to fix my faux Fendi for more stylish occasions, but this looks like a good everyday bag. And it's from Etsy, yay.)

And I think I had something else to mention but I can't remember what but I'm sure I will later. Very busy, tons of work, trying to alternate footnotes with novel-writing, yay.

Lots of people (and especially kids) ask me if I've always enjoyed drawing Dragons. The truth is, I was never really a Dragon guy until I tripped over them in writing the Imaginarium Geographica books. I wanted to reference the old mariner's map with the warning "Here, there be Dragons", and because of that, I felt there needed to be Dragons in the story itself. And since the books would be illustrated, I needed to sit down and figure out how someone who'd never drawn a Dragon actually draws a Dragon. So I did.

I think it's possible that four years in, I may finally be getting the hang of it.  Below, the Black Dragon, from the book in progress.

So Realms of Fantasy is having an all women-authors issue.

And how do you feel about that, brain?

Well, it's always good for women to get published. But on the other hand, I feel certain that there have been all male issues without calling them THE ALL DUDE REVUE. By definition, herding women authors into a single book or magazine and proclaiming it special for their appearance there is, well, segregation, and has an ugly implication that they won't be appearing in regular issues.

Of course, women do appear in RoF. Maybe not with the density we'd all like to see in a field in which women are doing thrilling, daring work, but they appear. So a special issue is all the more emoticon-inducing.

And if this issue doesn't sell, will it be used as an excuse to buy fewer stories by women in the future? Who knows?

But brain, isn't this what we want? A high percentage of female authors in a table of contents? Well, 50% would be good. 40%, too. But creating Very Special Issues once in a 15 year run isn't the same as addressing the problem head on by understanding the psychology at play and changing the editorial paradigm. It's just a bone, thrown.

I guess I prefer Weird Tales' approach, which is to do an issue dealing with gaze and gender, inviting writers specifically to contribute, and welcoming both genders as long as they engage with the subject matter.

I also shudder to think what the cover will be on this. It's gonna be bad, y'all. Bad.

All in all it feels a bit like a way to shut up those of us who criticized the magazine. And this sort of thing never shuts anyone up. Will I be submitting? Prooobably not. The email issue remains, and I don't have a lot of time this year--again with the issue of I get asked personally for stories too often to regularly submit blind.

I think I'd be happier about an All Email Submissions Issue. That would actually address one of the criticisms, and not discriminate against any one group (people who submit on paper can also submit online, I promise), and would be interesting: would quality drop, as has been claimed? Would the workload become untenable, as has also been claimed? Even better, email with numerical codes so that authorial gender was unknown, as in the famous orchestra experiment. I would submit to that so fast.

Because really, I fight the women's visibility issue all the time, by working as hard and as much as I can, as well as I can, and being in those ToCs, with my oh-so-feminine name right up there next to the male ones. I fight that fight, every day. It's not a Very Special Episode for me, it's my whole life. And that's tru for most women writers, I think, if not all of us. The way to win this fight is not to submit to segregated spaces, but to exist unashamedly and frequently in public ones.

But no, we have the hoary old moon-hut issue, where all the ladies sit together and don't touch the boys' stories with their cooties.

And the cover. Well? Boobs, chained women, girls making out, or disembodied ass? Taking all bets!

Alice came back through the looking glass,
Older and wiser and sweeter than honey wine,
Sings on the stage like a white rabbit angel,
Cheshire-clever and hard to define,

And Alice says, "Sometimes it's ravens and writing desks,
Sometimes it's something more simple by far,
And the times when you're running as fast as you can
Are the times when you're running to stay where you are,
Where you are."

Dorothy writes to the folks back home,
Says "the weather is lovely," and "wish you were here,"
Walks by the lake when the rainbows come,
Laughs like a whirlwind, loves without fear,

And Dorothy knows that the answers you offer
Are just as important as those that you keep,
And the places you find when you don't know you're looking
Are the ones where your roots can grow healthy and deep,
Dig in deep...

( And oh, you girls, you'll find your way home one day... )

Song: Crashed (acoustic)
Artist: Daughtry
Program: Sony Vegas 7.0
Fandom: Doctor Who.
Pairing: Nine/Rose (plus a tiny bit of Eight at the beginning).
Summary: How Rose Tyler helped the Doctor heal after the Time War.

youtube and download link HERE @ dizzycolors  

Title: Happy
Fandom: Harry Potter
Artist/Song: KoRn - Dead
Vidder: condnsdmlk
Spoilers: Used footage from all movies, but no real spoilers
Summary: Harry wants to be happy, J.K. Rowling clearly had other ideas.

Download and notes here

I wrote this for a guest-stint on Jeff Vandermeer's blog last year. I'm posting it here so those of you who didn't make it over can see it, but also so that I can read it again and remind myself of the Total Truth of what I said. For every sad Cat in snow, I also have a Kitty Says Fuck Yeah--only none of you can call me Kitty, only justbeast gets to. And even he usually says koshechka. Grr. Am fierce, and not soft or cuddly at all.

Rar.

I post it late, because it is something I wrote ages ago, but you all will see it in the morning, and it'll still be nice and warm for you.

This, of course, has nothing to do with my current deadline. I have no idea what you're talking about.

How to Write a Novel in 30 Days

Jeff did a piece called How to Write a Novel in Two Months a little while back, and when I read it, I smiled, because I’ve run that race, too. I wanted to post my thoughts on speed-writing, as I have many—and now, through the power of bloggery, I can put my essay right next to his! It’s like some kind of crazy magic. And because Jeff nailed a lot of the nitty-gritty, things, I can just blather. Best of both worlds!

So here’s the thing–I am a fast writer. I think this is a skill I developed in college, a combination of stress and a vital part of my personality: I am incredibly lazy.

Because I am incredibly lazy, it is very easy to convince me not to work, since I don’t want to work anyway. Which led to an abnormal number of papers completed the night before they were due…and then the early morning hours before they were due, then the not so early morning hours*…And if even once I had failed to turn in a paper, failed to churn out twenty pages on gender anxiety in Gawain and the Green Knight, if I had even once failed to get an A, I think I would have rethought my methods and come to some sort of conclusion about work ethics.

Didn’t happen.

So what my brain learned was not what it should have learned, namely that this sort of thing is about as risky and dumb as huffing whipped cream canisters. My brain learned that there was no deadline it couldn’t meet.

This is a dangerous thing for a brain to know, and I recommend failure to meet deadlines to everyone. Human behavior means doing something until it doesn’t work. This sort of thing still works for me. I do not expect it to work forever, and frankly, it giveth and it taketh. You get the work done fast, but your body is shredded and you end up with the interpersonal grace of Gollum on a meth binge.

But you’re not going to listen to these warnings.

The 30 days is an arbitrary number–it is kind of an absolute minimum for me**. I haven’t pushed myself to see just how fast I can turn out a novel, but I don’t trust myself with less than 30 days. I’m not crazy. Obviously, Nanowrimo influences that number (50k in a month, at something like 1400 words a day, is not actually very hard if you’re a fast hand at the keyboard and don’t have a day job) and now it can be told that I did Nanowrimo in 2002…sort of. See, those were heady days. I was 23. I was all balls-out and brazen and come-here-world-I’m-gonna-take-a-bite-out-of-you.

You know, totally different than now.

So I just did it on my own in early October (at the same Rhode Island Starbucks where Tobias Buckell started his first novel, as we discovered this summer) and I clocked in at a lot less than 30 days. The result? The beginning of my career, and how I met Jeff.

The key, really, is to never learn you can fail.

I really enjoy timed writing–with deadline from without (editor) or within (online project, personal goal, etc). I think it’s because I enjoy obstructions. Things created within boundaries, where the boundaries become part of the object, creativity fueled by restriction. It lights me up inside–your mileage may, of course, vary. This is not how I write every novel–it took me six years to write The Orphan’s Tales. As I said, I don’t recommend this: first of all, no one will think you can have possibly produced anything good in that time, because time spent = quality, obviously, and no other factors come into play. Second of all, you absolutely have to play by this first rule. No exceptions, no hall passes.

Rule #1: Be a Genius

Guys, I cannot stress this enough. See Kerouac’s Belief and Technique for Modern Writing. Rule #29? You Are a Genius All the Time. (Yes, I have that list nailed above my desk.)

I don’t care what kind of writer you are. I don’t care how many rejections you’ve had, I don’t care how long you’ve been doing this. For 30 days, you are a genius. Everything that flows from your fingers is pure light. You do not have the luxury of not being a genius–not being a genius is laziness and sloth and you just can’t tolerate that shit right now.

Writing this fast is an act of unadulterated, stupid, blind faith. Faith in yourself, in your voice, in your story, in your sheer ability. If your faith falters, you lose time. In my experience, if you’re working on a 30 day cycle, you can afford to lose maybe three days (non-consecutive, if you lose three straight days you’ll never recover) to self-doubt, internal criticism, and not being a genius. More than that and you’re running up against words-per-minute, and when you get down to it, typing speed is actually a big factor. Us Millenials who grew up in chat rooms have generally fabulous-fleet skillz, but seriously, this is no time for long-hand.

2. Tell Everyone

Make sure everyone knows what you’re doing. This will provide the heady ingredient of shame to the proceedings, and I find that shame is an enormous motivator. If you fail alone, in private, no one will ever know, and you can claim that writing a novel in 30 days is impossible, for hacks, etc, with impunity. If you post to your blog and tell all your friends, you have to admit to it if you fail. This is assuming you are not subject to the major reason for speed-writing: you have a deadline and you watched Alias reruns instead of working until the last possible second.

It’s also important that your partner and social group knows not to expect you to be anything like human for the next month. Fortunately, you’re a genius, and geniuses are never expected to conform to primate behavior standards***. Just, you know, apologize later. If you are very lucky, you might have a partner or friend who is willing to provide any combination of the following salves for your chafed genius muscles: food, quiet space/leaving you the hell alone, a clean house, inspirational backrubs, crazy-ass genius sex.

But probably not.

3. Be Crazy

Jeff said that one ought not to try for much more than a transparent style when writing at breakneck speed. I, rather predictably, disagree. If anything, I’d suspect this doesn’t work so well for complex plot than complex language, but that’s likely because I find language easier than plot. Pick what you’re best at, and make that the focus of this marathon. I rather think that no technique is better suited to beatnik-pomo-style crazy writing than this–let go of your internal editor, of the ways writing is “supposed” to be (hint: it’s not supposed to be done in 30 days), any ideas your English professors might have given you about literature, and just open your brain onto the computer. Direct flesh-to-motherboard communication. Remember, this is blind faith we’re talking about. You are St. Teresa, and you are here to be transfigured. This is radical, revolutionary trust that what you are creating is worth the world.

You may not actually end up with a novel at the end of the month. But you’ll have something. Kerouac said not to be afraid to be a crazy dumbsaint of the mind. Quite so.

4. Sacrifice Your Body

Come on, you weren’t using it anyway.

The fact is, this sort of thing is a horrific strain on your human suit. You stay up late, you eat whatever is easy, you have to ice down your wrists at the end of the day. You burn your brain out, no joke. Make time for recovery afterward. Get out of the house occasionally, to Toby and my Starbucks, or the front lawn, or a laundromat. Look up at the sky. Accept the fact that you will fall down on your household chores–which is why this sort of thing is usually a childless writer’s gig–and that several times, you will literally want to die rather than write another word. Keep going. Talk to marathon runners. Rejoice, and conquer. Die, if you have to. Then get up and get back to work.

5. Don’t Fail

You don’t have time to fail. You don’t have time for writer’s block. You don’t have time to wibble.

And if you don’t fail this time, you’ll never learn that you can fail, and every time you don’t fail, your faith in your ability to not fail will grow until one day you’ll wake up and you won’t be a failure at all. It’s kind of awesome, if you can manage it. But the key is not failing, and the key to not failing is stupid dumbfuck faith that you won’t fail. Life is circular like that.

 The reason I don’t credit Nanowrimo is not because I don’t think quality can be produced in 30 days. That would be a silly opinion, considering. It’s because they don’t think quality can be produced in 30 days. Their whole site is about producing crap and having it be okay to produce crap. It is okay. But I don’t have time to produce crap. Life is too short to produce crap. And the only way I know how to do this is to be absolutely convinced that what I’m writing is gobstoppingly amazing.

And I can only maintain that sort of conviction for short bursts. Say, 30 days.

______

*This is where being a classicist REALLY pays off. Ain’t no English class (see what I did thar?) can lick you–you know most of those tunes before you set foot in the room, and your base of knowledge is broad enough that you can sound damn smart in a number of varied fields. I in no way mean to imply that in graduate school I did the research and the composition the day the paper was due. That would be crazy.

**I’ve done the 3 Day Novel competition–they expect you to produce something like 30k words, and that’s a novella at best.

***DO NOT DRINK ALCOHOL. You are not that kind of genius.

http://feeds.hpana.com/~r/HPANA/~3/nMN9KNiK4UM/news.21032.html

As we mentioned earlier, a preview report of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" was set to be released in the February issue of Empire Magazine. A scan of that article is now online for your viewing pleasure.

Joel Hodgson (the founder/original star of MST3k) appeared at Dragon*con with his newly created "Cinematic Titanic" crew back in 2008 (I think it was 2008, or was it 2007?). Anyway, he just did a recent interview where he proclaims Dragon*con his favorite convention, calling it more "pure" than SDCC. ;)

Link: An Interview with MST3K and Cinematic Titanic's Joel Hodgson

Couldn't resist and had to share. ;)

I have seen quite a number of costumes/ outfits made from duct tape, electrical tape and static tape in my many years at the convention.
I thought I would share some pictures from Duct Tape Prom to inspire you towards greatness in your fabrications for the year(s) to come. Some of these kids have made some real works of art.
Enjoy!!

http://www.guidespot.com/guides/duct_tape_prom_pictures

Since It's been almost two months since I posted the group originally, and we still have people requesting to join at the topic pages back, I thought I'd repost it for the new year.



Inspired by a group my friends did at Otakon, i've decided to see if people would be interested in doing a "Gaggle of Gagas" group at D*C. Everyone would be doing a different Lady Gaga outfit (since she has so many!) and we'd meet-up for a photogathering.

Would anyone else be interested in joining this group? I bet we can get more Gagas than Otakon did!




Taken outfits:

Black "Max" -Bad Romance Reference - wicked0witch
Minnie Mouse - Paparazzi Reference - jj9437
Police outfit -LoveGame reference- sweetnovicane
Outfit TBD - stardust462
Blue Pool -Poker Face reference - jessichan99
Black outfit W/ mask - Poker face reference - anariazar_rel
Yellow and Black crystals dress Reference- ravenmist7
White crystals dress Reference- ravenmist7's sister
White VMAs Performance Outfit - reference - Jos - No LJ account
Fame Monster Cover - Black wig - reference - to_no_avail
Disco Ball Dress - Glastonbury Music Festival - Reference - whimzii
White "Max" - Bad Romance - Reference - CC.com - Kudrel
Outfit TBD - Roxana Meta
Disco Stick outfit - Love Game - Reference - panda_pantz
Crystal rosaries - Bad Romance Reference capndani
Silver Gyroscope - Bad Romance - Reference - nyssa
Zebra dress- Just Dance Reference - cc.com - Iycis
Red Leotard - Beautiful Dirty Rich - reference - No LJ - Kris
Crystal bidding Outfit - Bad Romance Reference - u2ecila
Razor Blade Glasses - Bad Romance Reference - psycho7772
Red Lace - Bad Romance - reference - arlette
Polar Bear - Bad Romance - Reference - Kartos
VMA red Lace Acceptance outfit - VMAs - Reference - Burton
Leather Jacket outfit - Love Game - reference - Taylor (no LJ)
Pleather Dress - Paparazzi - r eference - lenina
Disco Bra - Just Dance - Reference - jellibean
Red Riding Hood - reference - baw61983
Red Latex dress- Royal variety Show - reference - Roxana Meta

(Sorry about the showing HTML on the last one. o.O)

I shoveled the four or five inches of snow we got today. It was so fluffy and light, it was like that fake snow they use on TV.

I once spun out on a night with snow like this. I ended up nose-first in a deep ditch. The car and I were unscathed. It was like crashing into a feather pillow.