Brief Update...and a Message
FF.net irks me in so many ways. I wouldn't use it at all except, well, I kind of have to when it's the only place where a fandom tends to post its fan fiction. And one of those ways it irks me is in the inability to respond to readers who have disabled private messaging and don't give an email address that the author can use to reach them.
To that end, I'm going to post a brief message here in hopes that one day maybe the user who goes by the name Ehecatl on FF.net might stumbled upon it here and see it.
**
Thank you.
That is, by far, one of the most humbling, amazing, encouraging reviews I've ever received on any story. I am floored. I toyed with the idea once of becoming a professional writer, and I still hope to get the novel I'm working on finished and published one day, but I don't write for the money or the recognition or to become the world's greatest writer. I write because I need to write, because it's a way for me to reshape and clarify my own views on certain issues in life. Beyond that, though, I write because I see problems in the world and need a way to communicate them and attempt to address them and propose my vision of how things might be changed and improved. Since I'm not a speaker by nature, that's why I've resorted to using fiction as my vehicle. Everything that you pointed out in your review...that was exactly the message I was trying to convey in the Whatever Will Be series. I know not everyone will enjoy it (obviously, since the person who reviewed right before you couldn't even finish reading the final story and was extremely harsh with it and with the view I portrayed in it of love), and everyone has the right to their own opinion, but to know that at least one person has taken that message away with them, that the story has touched them in the way I hoped it would, that it rang true for them...I am delighted. Thanks to your review, I know the story was a success and that the years I spent working on it weren't wasted.
If you ever do see this, please, please email me (my address is listed on FF.net), because I have plenty more I'd like to say in response to it and to discuss further with you about it. But the bottom line is, thank you, not just for taking the time to read this story, but to write such an incredible, heartening review.
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To everyone else on my f-list reading this...hi! *waves* No, I haven't vanished off the face of the earth. I've just been extremely focused the past how many months on finishing up that Tales of Symphonia series I had been working on before grad school starts for me in, oh, a little over a week. It's finally finished now, so hopefully I'll be around a little more regularly again. Look for a complete update soon. And hopefully now, in whatever spare time I have around doing lots and lots of homework for school, I can get back to working on the non-Stargate version of Frozen Flame! *hears crickets chirping* ...Anyone here still remember that story? Anyone at all?
Oh, and in case anyone here is interested in reading the series I just finished writing, it's either on FF.net, or on the web site I created for it at: http://smb814.shahrazad.net/WWB/index.
I know not everyone on my f-list knows anything about Tales of Symphonia or the characters of Zelos or Sheena, and obviously not every reader enjoyed the direction I went with it since, after only one day, it had already received a review trashing it, but I was extremely happy with the end result. In fact, it's up there with Frozen Flame as being my favorite story I've ever written. Just so you guys know I haven't been completely neglecting Frozen Flame the past three years for no reason. :)
But for now I'm off to take care of a few other pressing things. I hope everyone on my f-list is doing well!
Wow, LJ. Really?
Facebook crossposting? Don't like, don't want, won't tolerate.
Twitter crossposting? Don't like, don't want, won't tolerate.
Livejournal? Keeping my fingers crossed that they change this cross-posting nonsense ASAP, or I'm going to have to seriously consider deleting my posts here and moving them all over to DW.
In other words, PLEASE DON'T DO IT. I can't imagine any of you on my f-list would, seeing as most people appear to be even more upset about it than I am, but still...just don't. If I wanted everyone in the world to see my f-locked posts, I wouldn't have f-locked them. And if I find out someone's been crossposting stuff on my LJ, I will ban and block you.
(Although I am amused by the fact that in under 24 hours, the original LJ announcement post already has well over 5,000 posts. Looks like LJ really hit a nerve with this one, eh?)
Can this summer be over now?
My house is fine (so far, although we're apparently getting more rain tonight) but apparently our offices are lost causes. All the carpeting was soaked with not-clean water, computers that were sitting on the floor (like mine) were submerged, boxes were wrecked, papers were destroyed...it's a huge mess. We had at least 2-3 inches in the hallway there last night. The loading dock, just down the hall from us, was completely submerged -- those giant garbage bins where all the garbage collected in a university goes? They were *floating*. PC Support lost a good amount of their stuff, too, since their storage area is also right down the hall from us.
These are the offices they moved us into last summer. I'd like to know who thought shoving us in a basement that has been known to have flooding issues in the past -- and then not *telling* us that we'd be smart not to keep anything, like our computers, on the floor -- would be a great idea.
So now we're temporarily moving...somewhere...while they redo things due to 'environmental concerns.' We're not sure where yet -- probably to the downtown campus. Yippee, I love that drive so very much at rush hour in the morning and at night. I'm supposed to run in and pack up anything I think I might need for the next month. I don't have a clue where to start, especially if all of our stuff is going to be boxed away and unreachable for the next month.
Annual reports are coming due next month. So are handbook revisions. I was supposed to do a beginning-of-the-year supply order. And, oh yeah, school is starting next month so we have to get everything ready for that, too!
Apparently they sent out an email saying we weren't supposed to go in today, but I ended up going in anyway because a) I don't turn on my computer during a lightning storm, so I missed it when they sent it last night, and b) the email server was down this morning when I tried to check it and so I couldn't get that message.
Yep, this summer's been a real blast.
On the bright side, we're dogsitting for a darling puppy. She's a little time hog, and she always wants to play, and she's not exactly housebroken yet, but at least she's cute!
Hopefully everyone else's summer is going better than ours is!
"It's a cabinet. It opens in the front."
This is a link. You click it.
Sorry, poor peasant dudes. I'll try to behave better next time.
Edit 1: And now I'm trying to remember RPGs that actually scold you for snooping around in other people's houses and trying to take what you find. I know there are some, but I'm drawing a blank on which ones. Anyone remember?
Edit 2: And what the heck happened to my mood theme? Did LJ change some settings and now I have to go flip a switch or something to turn it back on?
She Lives!
YES, I AM STILL ALIVE, AND YES I AM STILL DWELLING IN LJ-LAND.
Sorry about the bold capslock, but, well, after a particular near-defriending instance last week because of my lack of living-ness, I thought it might be appropriate to emphasize that. :)
So anyway...hi, everyone! To everyone new on my f-list (or who hasn't actually seen me post anything since they friended me)...er, sorry about my lack of posts. I work fulltime at a university and am usually far too tired when I get home at night to write coherent LJ posts and, well, basically do anything except mindlessly browsing the internet and playing an occasional video game. Weekends aren't much better, since I have to share the internet with my family and catch up on everything else that I didn't get done during the rest of the week. So that leaves the bits and pieces of downtime that I have at work to actually post something...and, well, let's just say this semester has been THE busiest one I've ever seen. Seriously, I don't know why it was as crazy as it was (maybe it was the fact that the chair position of one of the programs I work for split into two, with two new people covering it, both of whom are highly strung at times?), but it was, and it took until last week before I finally caught up with all the major stuff on my plate. Hence why I can finally post here again. :)
So, since it has been so many months, I'm going to resort to the number list again in my efforts to cover everything.
( This is way too long so I'm cutting it to save your f-list from being completely overwhelmed. This cut covers Work and Vacation. )
( Current writing status/progress/miscellaneous info be here. )
( Video game talk be beneath here -- includes mentions of Tales of Vesperia, various other Tales games, Tales of Symphonia: Tethe'alla OVA, the Phoenix Wright saga, Brave Story, and one or two others. )
( A brief update on my Japanese studying progress, and some TV talk! )
( Chuck )
( Lost )
( Supernatural )
( Stargate Universe )
( A few other TV shows, like NCIS, Leverage, The Office... )
( And a few other miscellaneous life things. )
...And I think that covers the main things from the past few months. I'm cautiously optimistic that I'll be able to post more regularly again, but that depends entirely on how busy work is these next few weeks. And how distracted I get by writing and by working my way through more video games on my *gulp* 170+ video game backlog.
Take care, everyone, and I hope everyone on my f-list is doing well! :D