The community you wank off to

Title: The House on Mango Street
Author: Sandra Cisneros
Number of Pages: 110 pages
Book Number/Goal: 67/75 for 2009
My Rating: 4.5/5

This is a series of vignettes about Esperanza, a pre-teen girl growing up in a latino neighborhood in Chicago. It's very, very short, even shorter than the 110 pages it appears to be, because each story starts halfway down on the page, and often end with just one paragraph or a few lines on the next page, so there's a ton of empty space. The stories are all just little ordinary things, like reading somebody's memories rather than A Novel. I enjoyed it a lot.

Mooch from BookMooch.

Title: Sex, Lies, and Audiobooks
Author: RaeWhit ( aka joanwilder)
Team: Snitch!
Genre: Alive and Kicking (EWE)
Prompts: Secrets and Lies, Coming Home
Rating/Warnings/Kinks: NC-17, mild bondage, whipping
Word Count: 48,000+
Summary: Belonging and deserving, needing and wanting—desires of the human heart that Severus and Harry must face when they're forced to the little village of Lochdubh to settle a very late codicil of Albus Dumbledore's will.

Author Notes: The village of Lochdubh and its inhabitants in this story are the property of BBC Scotland (from the series Hamish Macbeth). All things Harry Potter belong to J.K. Rowling et al. I'd be remiss if I didn't express my appreciation to Rudyard Kipling for his masterpiece, Captains Courageous.

This is my journal posting of my 2009 Mixed snarry_games fic. My heartfelt appreciation to jadzialove for the excellent beta reading, to whitecotton for help with Scottish-izing my Scottish, and to sestra_prior for her assistance with British questions.

This is posted in six parts; subsequent parts have been linked.

( Sex, Lies, and Audiobooks--Part One )

Please see Part One for story header.

( Sex, Lies, and Audiobooks--Part Two )

Please see Part One for story header.

( Sex, Lies, and Audiobooks--Part Three )

Please see Part One for story header.

( Sex, Lies, and Audiobooks--Part Four )

Please see Part One for story header.

( Sex, Lies, and Audiobooks--Part Five )

Please see Part One for story header

( Sex, Lies, and Audiobooks--Part Six )

Two weeks' worth of bridge2sickbay drabbles and teenyfics. Prompts are the cut tags. There are 21 different things here (good grief) in 5300 words.

Last week the prompts were single words.

( Scotty/Gaila - Brownies (100 words) )
( Kirk/McCoy - Romance (300 words) )
( Kirk/Spock/McCoy/Uhura - Complete (250 words) )
( Kirk/Gaila - Cartography (150 words) )
( Author's Choice - Ring (Gaila/Joanna, 450 words) )
( George/Winona - Dance (450 words, ouchy) )
( Kirk/McCoy - Issues (125 words and Flora being a smartass and using an archaic definition) )
( Ensemble - Home (Spock-centric, 250 words) )
( Author's Choice - Bear (Jim and Joanna, 550 words) )
( Kirk/Spock - Brief (250 words) )
( Pike/Nero - Intimacy (550 words, ouchy) )

And this week, the prompts were song lyrics.

( Author's Choice - I see your true colours, that's why I love you (Pike/Gaila, 150 words) )
( Author's Choice - No, it's not regret, just remembrance, is all (Spock/Uhura, 100 words) )
( Kirk/Author's Choice - I'm only happy when it rains, I'm only happy when its complicated (Scotty, 100 words) )
( McCoy/Nero - The devil went down to Georgia, he was looking for a soul to steal. (100 words) )
( Kirk/McCoy - It's only fear that makes you run / The demons that you're hiding from / When all your promises are gone, I'm the only one. (250 words) )
( Sulu/Chekov - I am spinning and spinning but I don't think that this is the wind. (425 words) )
( Pike/Anyone - A little less conversation, a little more action please. (OC, 450 words) )
( Sulu/Chekov - If I knew the way, I would take you home. (100 words) )
( Kirk/McCoy - I keep a close watch on this heart of mine. (100 words) )
( Scotty/Gaila - Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries, That all started with the big bang! (100 words) )

I originally posted this at http://florahart.dreamwidth.org/1003944.html. Comments may be left here or there; you can comment there with OpenID even if you don't have an account.

Title: Propositioned
Author: alisanne
Rating: PG
Pairing: Severus Snape/Lucius Malfoy
Summary: Lucius makes a good point.
Word Count: 100
Warnings: None that I am aware of.
A/N: Written for magialuna, who correctly guessed my snarry_ldws fic. Magia requested Snucius, prompt: distraction
Beta: sevfan
Disclaimer: The characters contained herein are not mine. No money is being made from this fiction, which is presented for entertainment purposes only.

( Propositioned )

The music awards:

Shakira has women ninjas!

bulletpoints!

- Although I managed surprisingly well on cards last year, there's no way I'm going to manage this year. I'm slightly bummed about this, but I think I'll just resolve to send more random letters throughout the year as that's way more fun to receive.

- I made adorable cupcakes at work again. I wish I had an excuse to make them at home, or a whole lot more people to foist them off on.

- The last two episodes of Fringe made me all excited and giddy, even with a brief Not Sure If Want moment in there. I need to get over my tendency to want to fit things neatly in canon and just write the smushy porn that I want to write.

- There is absolutely no way to reply to an anon thread with you as the subject without a) being a dick, b) encouraging the drama, and c) being a dick. I replied anyway.

- There is absolutely no way to blog/tweet/mention replying to an anon thread with you as the subject without encouraging the drama and being a bit of a dick, but it made me laugh. Oh, people.

- I had this big complicated adventure dream with JDM in it last night. It was awesome. Then I had to get up and go to work, which was less awesome, even though our new brunch cook made me Huevos for breakfast.

- Speaking of our new cook, she's been teaching J how to make stuff. Including this awesome grilled tomato salsa which is downstairs right now, calling to me. She's the best.

- I severely need a nap, but if I sleep now I'll wake up at the time which I should be going to bed. Conflict.

Title: Dangerous
Author: alisanne
Pairing: Neville Longbottom/Bill Weasley, Kingsley Shacklebolt/Charlie Weasley, Severus Snape/Harry Potter
Word Count: 400
Rating: R
Warnings: Everyone is GAY! *g*
Beta: sevfan
A/N: Written for angela_snape, who successfully guessed which story was mine in the last week of the snarry_ldws competition. Her request: Neville/Bill, Kingsley/Charlie, Severus/Harry, with the prompt: applause.
Disclaimer: The characters contained herein are not mine. No money is being made from this fiction, which is presented for entertainment purposes only.

( Dangerous )

Worked in the yard for 3+ hours today; raked (w/ SO's help) 10 bags of leaves, also planted about 100 bulbs (daffodils, crocuses, iris). Am now tired and sore. OTOH, I slept in till almost 9, so I'm less tired than I might be.

Have also talked with my mom, and am about to go start cooking soup and chicken. SO is walking Juno with the neighbors and Scruffy. Was too brain-dead to work on resume etc., but maybe will manage a bit after dinner, and also plan to read for tomorrow's class.

The first two need to be made about 3 days ahead; I'm not doing the pickled peaches for Thanksgiving this year, but I'll make the cranberry relish tomorrow. Not making pumpkin pie this year either although I expect it will be around, just made by someone else.

• Pickled Peaches


• Cranberry Relish


• Pumpkin Pie

Did I mention that today is the extension deadline for Snupin Santa and that 22 people still hadn't turned in their gift as of this morning? Yes, really. Twenty-two. I counted three times to make sure I hadn't miscounted due to excessive boggling.

As of this evening, lo these many hours later, one of those 22 people has turned in their gift, and two of those 22 people have asked for more time, because 2 1/2 months isn't enough. >.>

This entry was originally posted at http://scribbulus-ink.dreamwidth.org/516200.html. It's cross-posted to LJ and IJ, and comments are enabled at all three journals.

Good news on the work front: My tutoring job is going to give me 16 hours a week as of Dec. 1, which is great. It's an improvement.

The pay rate is good, and it gives me the required experience I need for teaching. (90 hours is the magic number. I'll have it by the end of December. Then I need a year of school for the teaching certificate.)

Unfortunately, it's not quite enough to live off of.

I don't have a car in car-dependent Maryland, so I'm having to ask "mommy" for rides to work, to interviews. I have all the time in the world to write -- yet can't find the space because I have to write around other people's schedules.

It's been four months and I'm getting the feeling she's burned out. As am I.

I want my life back.



Quantifying a life.

( When I drove across country to Seattle in 1996, I had a car. )

Aside from the degrees, how did I end up with less than when I started?

Mousie report.

Some of you may recall this post wherein a family of mouse babies took up residence in one of my fleece jackets (in a box that happens to be outdoors). I discovered this when I pulled my jacket out of the box, scattering mouse infants everywhere. I removed my other jackets, packed the box with newspaper, and used newsprint to scoop the littles back in the box.

A week later I discovered I'd missed four mouse babies, who'd fallen into a box I took inside. Noooo....

Then the temperature dropped and I thought the outdoor mousies were history.

Three weeks later ...

I'm happy to report that the mouse babies survived, and have moved on. But the nest is clearly there, and there are no apparent corpses.

Proof of life: the fleece jacket was not so lucky, sacrificed to the cause. The Mousies chewed a few holes.

Unless Rainy Pass can fix it.

In the form of a list!

• Deadline to sign up for a holiday card from me is December 7 -- that's when the art supply place claims it will deliver my blank cards, heh.


• I launched my fine art site and totally forgot to tell y'all -- Antemortem Arts is open, and I've even put stuff in my Etsy shop.


• I have exactly 3 pieces of fan art left to do, and then those commitments are fulfilled. Since they're all due for Xmas (2 HP Holiday Card Exchange cards, and my own HP Xmas card), I'll be all done by the end of the year. Weird!


• I found betas for accioslash's LLM fic, and it will be posting in santas_lap along with the Sirius/Neville I still have to finish, oops.


• I've been making some quiet writing progress on various things, including a certain person's incredibly belated prize fic (one more scene and it's done!), a chapter of the no-longer-New Thing that I probably ought to post to swtalmnd_nano, and little dribs and drabs to my other three WiPs that aren't for any fest or person or anything.


• Coconut Cocoa Tea ftw.

*falls over in gratitude*

Dear God, I hope my recipient likes it!

People always ask me about Buddhism ... and I'm caught flat-footed. You should ask a good Buddhist!

Well we're in luck. And online, too.

Tulku Orgyen has offered to help anyone with any questions about Buddhism: http://twitter.com/TulkuOgyen

Retweet, tweeters.

And thank you, Tulku Orgyen, for letting me pass the buck.