Category: other

I guess this is just a note to myself. ^^;

I didn’t forget about this but drifted far and away as real life kept happening. At some point, it even felt like I no longer had the right to finish it because too much time had passed.

Then one day, a friend and I were discussing NaNoWriMo. I hadn’t actually done (completed) it but wanted to, while she had already participated once; she asked me if I had ever written fiction before, and at first I didn’t want to admit writing this because fanfics have a particular reputation (as I noted in another post). But she wanted to share her stuff with me for critiques, so I thought it fair to share my one and only fiction attempt, just to show my writing style and how I handled things like dialogue and pacing.

Funny thing happened while re-reading the chapters of Syncope, though (I mean besides that awkward embarrassment and mystified feeling that I actually produced it): I’m now feeling the motivation to complete it. Maybe having someone to share in the whole process will help a lot more in keeping the momentum going. So yeah, I don’t think there is anyone left who is interested in an old anime series’ fanfic, but I want to properly finish this just to say I did.

And it’ll be good practice for NaNoWriMo. Or maybe I’ll actually write a huge chunk for NaNoWriMo.

I’m also in grad school and working full time, so everything gets pushed again. Which seriously sucks.

I’ve been trying to learn Scrivener for both Syncope and another personal project. Normally I’m very good at figuring out software without help, but this seems to have a high learning curve… :O But it’s supposed to be awesome for my kind of informational/outlining/chunky pre-writing stuff.

I’ll master it even if it kills me….. . . . . . . >_<

Happy winter solstice and other related end-of-year holidays. ^_^

with the job hunt.

[le sigh]

I thought I could avoid the corporate drama at Ultra Big Company while contracting, but apparently that was simply not meant to be.

Ferchrissake.

As to the cancer comment I left a while ago…

Said person finished chemotherapy earlier than expected. ^_^
Much stress is now alleviated, though they’re not out of the woods yet.

Onwards.

I finally got around to adding excerpts to the chapter category page, which means if you click on “fic chapters” in the left Categories menu, every chapter post in that list will show the first paragraph. May help in quickly identifying which chapter has what.

In the meantime, I’ve started editing 1.7 and onwards, having finished 1.1 through 1.6 some weeks ago. There are still a lot of little things that I’m letting slip by for now, though—like replacing double-dashes with proper em-dashes, fixing all “smiles don’t speak” technicalities.

:(

Apparently there are still registration issues. And PHP errors. Which I don’t get. So I’m opening non-registration comments as well, but requiring the usual name/email/whatever, and of course, I have Akismet installed.

The biggest problem with piecemeal software upgrades across core and plugin apps is that stuff will often break. Hmph. At least I’m pretty sure the contact form still works. I think. Huh.

Thanks to zelene2004 for the nudge and nonpresence for being patient and helpful.

Some quick notes:

-Updated the WP software and a whole bunch of plugins, so hopefully any technical issues have been cleared up. Also added a contact form in the About section. With login/reg troubles, I can also manually add users. *It appears WordPress updated to 3.1 only a few days after I originally posted this, so I’m back to updating plugins. If you don’t interact with the website besides just reading, though, I doubt you’d notice anything different. ………@&#^! Well, apparently in updating the theme, I accidentally overwrote the little custom changes I had made at the beginning. Poop.

-Never did complete NaNoWriMo. ^_^; November was just shetty; December wasn’t much better, since I was sick for pretty much the entire month with chain colds and a sinus infection. Fun! Maybe next year.

-I have a love-hate relationship with the last 1.12 chapter, which I’ll explain in another post so instead of bludgeoning it yet again, I think I’ll write another free-standing omake chapter to get my virtual pencil moving. I’m sure I had this idea before, but I’ll make it happen, grawr! It’ll probably be about Nao, her mom, and Shizuru, with appearances by Mai and Natsuki. Or any other ideas other people have—I know there were suggestions somewhere buried among all the comments, but I really don’t remember. Hmm. along with some history of this fanfic.

-I’ve decided to post a teaser chapter or two on Fanfiction.net. More feedback is one way to keep me motivated… I wish I could disable all commenting on FFnet, but oh well. I’ll figure this out a bit later. It seems FFnet doesn’t allow my preferred format of “every other post is notes,” so I’ll just try to direct people to this site.

-I have the entire Mai-HiME series in my possession once again, so time for rewatching. :D (Boy, I’d forgotten how cheesy some of the anime was. And how good the music song was.)

EDIT:
I’d forgotten how much I hate Shiho. And the nun—UUUGH hate the nun! And… Mikoto. She’s… annoying. ^_^; I highly doubt I’ll add any of them to the story, though Mikoto would have the highest chance of appearing, but I don’t think I can pull off her idiosyncratic speech.

Ep 20 comments: I realized there was probably a scene error when Natsuki met with Shizuru and then pulled Yukino away. I find it weird that she would just run back to Shizuru instead of getting into the fray (looking for Mai etc.). And how would Shizuru get her school uniform out of the burning dorm building (first time Kiyohime shows up, saving Natsuki)? Also, I never noticed the First District sunglasses people standing behind chibi-Mikoto in the flashback after she killed gramps.

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As of 2/26/2011, I have more fully copyedited chapters 1.1 through 1.6 based primarily on two reviewers’ detailed critiques. I’ll be waiting a bit to get on with 1.7 through 1.11 (mainly because I have this nasty habit of not stopping, which meant that I stayed up until 3:00am Friday night chugging up to this point).

I’m waiting to hear back from another promising job lead, which will hopefully lead to a roughly 1-hour round-trip commute instead of this over-3 right now. Meanwhile, I’ve also started my Nanowrimo project, so other hobbies will come to a halt for this. (Syncope has been smouldering there behind my shoulder, kind of like an evil goblin-possessed pile of paper ready to pounce and burn me to cinders… I’ll get back on that as soon as I force myself to finish Nanowrimo and thus get my pen working again. Yea! It’s basically a new experiment in writing philosophy and style for me.) Moving again in less than a year. I hate moving. And someone very close to me has been diagnosed with cancer.

Moving right along, it seems.

Well, I hit a rough patch as my job search stretched on longer and longer than I hoped it would, and with that I got a bit depressed and stopped doing anything creative. (I mean, how can I waste my time inventing stuff when I could be doing something productive that actually pays my rent, bills, and groceries? Psychologically, it just didn’t work at all.) :(

But recently, I was smacked with some great luck finally and hired for contract work. The commute is over 3 hours long round-trip, but shet, I’m gonna make this work. Things are looking up now that I don’t have to worry about what food I can buy this week or next, which means I can feel my creative juices starting to flow again.

I mean, I’m thinking about NaNoWriMo even. That’s crazy.

Sorry for the horrible wait yet again, all two of you who still keep track of this LONG-running fic, but I swear to all that is covered in cinnamon sugar and piping hot from the oven (err, I wasn’t eating fresh snickerdoodles lately, nope), this will get finished. Fecking yeah.

Sometimes it really does feel like the world is conspiring to keep me from doing stuff I want to do. Like finish this chapter and entire part. Bleh-desu.

Kateigaho International magazine. In English with romanized terms, available with overseas subscriptions… Wish I had the money!