I get the occasional mail from Tarot.com. I should really unsubscribe, but I keep seeing things like:

"Shake things up as Mercury opposes Uranus"

"The Moon reveals your dark secrets"

"Venus and Pluto: Consult the ancient love oracle"

"Neptune is Direct"

And tonight's, and a personal favorite:

"Venus and Mars are locked in a lovers' embrace."

Heh heh heh. :)

ETA: *snort of laughter* The song I was listening to at the time of this post? Comes from the album "Mars Loves Venus."

So here's something I'm pretty sure I've never posted, but with the 2009 Ficathon submission deadline coming up, it seemed as good a time as any to put it up.

Rating is R-ish for some sexy imagery and probably a bit of swearing. Because a bit of swearing always gets in there, somehow. Original theme was "group interaction."

( Her flight arrived early )

( Commentary )

Thank you for reading, always. :D

Iconning and capping are two things I find quite relaxing. I think it's the level of focus; no matter how frustrating it can be, the fact that you're concentrating so hard on this one thing to make it look right in your head sorta...pushes away stress. Or channels it in a different direction, one that ends with a product instead of random RAR.

Project #1 is to do some capping of Chapel from TOS. I have a strange motive for this, I admit: I'm looked for a picture raynos can put a tiara on. (Look, it's a 'fic thing, okay? In the JTK + Chapel story, he...puts a tiara on her during a shopping trip. Pure indulgence on my part.) But I also like some of the random pics of Chapel and McCoy, so here's two so far.

( Disks and smiles )

The second project is Doom. By which I mean the movie, although there is a certain amount of personal DOOOM involved. See, I set an autocapping run and went off to work and came back to a looot of pictures. And I should do that run again, really, possibly to get slightly better caps out of the deal. (Large pictures! Small file size! Hmm...)

( Catching the Grim Twins. No, seriously... )

Both galleries are on my Scrapbook, and I will probably be throwing images at them pretty steadily. This month is going to be MADE OF STRESS, YAY.

Just for shits and giggles. And because I'm an academic and so I like to see things ~summarized.~

Overall Word Count: 75, 474

Stories Worked On: Their Song, multiple bits of it; Six Ways V; two openings for "Platters," the ficathon 'fic; "The Mechanics of Massage," the worst PWP evah; "Skills and Rumors"; "Jim Kirk's Amazing Adventures in Life Debts" aka "Jim Babbles at Christine"; "Inbetween," the PWP for Pea; "JT Kirk, ROMANCE NOVELIST"; "If and When," the military AU; the alternate ending to "Skills and Rumors"; "Need"; "Russian Folk Tales"; "CMECs"; "not always as it seems." 14 and a half, or so?

Medium Used: The laptop, with writing in chat being a strong contributer to that word count up there.

We'll just leave it that I wrote to quite a bit of music, not all of it "good."

Best Time for Writing: Somewhere between 10:00pm and 2:00am. Everything really seems to come together during those hours.

Thing I Usually Did to Slack: Played Peggle Challenges. I am now working on Peggle Nights challenges. They are much harder *woe*

General Thoughts: Would get me kicked in the butt by certain people, so I'll leave those out for now. Suffice to say, stuff, I have learned it! Things, I need to work on them! Yeeees.

I wrote this last week, and even though it's finished I just keep tinkering with the damn thing. So I'm just gonna post it and be done with it and what tinkering I need to do (oh yes, middle section, I am looking at YOU) I can come back and do later. Yeah. Later.

Be warned: there is swearing! Though not as much as you might think, given how drunk some people get here.

( not always as it seems )

( Commentary )

It's the Final Week of the TAR Challenge! If you haven't seen the previous entries, the TAR (Ten-Aino-Ray) Challenge was six weeks of challenge writing for the three of us ladies. The challenge: meet a daily word count, six days a week, in order to hit a word count for the week. If you didn't, there was BATSU!-punishment. At the end of the week, a summary would be posted with the word count for that week, along with other random trivia and tidbits on the writing process.

So let's see how this final week shaped up, shall we?

Word Count: 20, 866. No, I have no clue how I did that, either.

Stories Worked On: "Need," the Chapel + McCoy-ish brain monster (seriously, that story idea looks like a gila monster in my head); "Russian Folk Tales" (V/K) and "CMECs" (Chapel/McCoy) for the "Book of Love" song prompt; "not always as it seems" (Chapel/McCoy and also Kirk), the random snippet based on something kasuchi said that balloooned into a story.
Amazed! Caveat: Three of the four of those listed above? Have an ending. That means I actually finished THREE THINGS in a week. "CMECs" would've gotten done, too, but I ran into the old "drawing it the heck out" disease. It'll be interesting to see what finished form that ends up in.

Stories Written in My Head: The Drunk Bones section of "The Great Babbling of Jim and Christine"; chunks of the smut for the alternate ending to "Skills and Rumors." I actually have no smut muse right now, but man, working it out is apparently a good way to get me to go to sleep. Also, my brain found a song and possible plot for my Ficathon 'fic, which, WHEE, it's about damn time! (And Mentia the MP3 player obliged that by playing the heck out of that song this week.)

Medium used: The laptop wins again! As does writing in a chat box with the Laydeez, especially Kitten. Yall are way too good for me!

Music of the week: Paramore's "Decode" came back strong this week. My random fascination with the Killers' song "Daddy's Eyes" also showed up (it's...really not a McCoy song, my brain just keeps making it into one). "Neon Moon" is still great to write to. I had Damien Rice's "Volcano" on for much of the writing of "Need," and threw in some Vienna Teng on top of that, too. One song on repeat: it's awesome!

No Seriously, I Did: Actually finish three different stories this week. One is still locked down because I want to go through it one more time before I put it up, even though it's really a scrap, and an awfully dorky one at that. (Drunk Kirk is fun, okay?) I know some writers are really good at that finishing stories thing, but I have not traditionally been one of them, so wheeeeee!

General Thoughts: Wow. This was fun! Not just because I got hooked into a new fandom and OTP (thank you, Nony/Sil!), but because it just felt good to get out there and streeetch the writing muscles. I've actually been writing Their Song fairly steadily for the past few months, but it had started to stall out on it, and the combination of new fandom + challenge allowed me the writing break that story probably needs. It also was damn good therapy for personal reasons I won't get into to let my mind go roaming the fiction corridors. Having that word count hanging over my head gave me something to do besides mope in the evenings.

Of course, now I've got a shit-ton of academic stuff to do before school starts. If anything, though, I've learned that once I get started, I can plow through an awful lot. Amazing how the laws of Inertia apply to the brain, too!

And because writing may be a lonely process, but that doesn't mean you do it alone, the shout-outs:
hallowd came up with this idea one Saturday morning, then set us all on fire to do it. We didn't spend much time together during the challenge, but she remains AWESOME for her work. Plus, she gives damn good toast!

raynos and I spent more time together (as we do), hand-holding and encouraging and speccing with each other and tearing our hair out together and just...being partners. Bunches of <333s, Peababy!

Speaking of partners, kasuchi got me into Chapel/McCoy, and even though she went to another country, has been all over keeping up the writing of it. We've laughed together, we've specced out CRAZY CRACK "FIC together (because Kitten is a fuckin' genius, GD!), we've written bits of our own 'fic at each other...it's been a big dork collaboration, a ton of fun, and shit-tons of inspiration. Plus it's fun to just wind her up and watch her GO. <333 Kitten <333

venusorbit1 has been my writing encouragement for months now, and I do not give her enough love for it. She saw me through parts of "The Necklace," then the move into Their Song, and has been steadfastly awesome through the whole of it, even when my brain got eaten by another OTP. All while working on a TAR challenge of her own, not to mention being one of the best encouraging voices in our little chunk of fandom. V, do you realize how much you rawk? I HOPE YOU DO.

And I wouldn't have had that new OTP without the work of silverlining_99, who wrote some amazing Chapel/McCoy and then didn't kick either Kitten or I out of her comments when we got dorky all over them. She was even cool when I started writing in her comments! And then came over here to leave comments, too! While continuing to write awesome 'fic! Nony-Sil--baby, you're amazing.

Also amazing? himawari, who is not only a continual source of inspiration provided at the uncannily right moment, but who has also been incredibly GGG about watching stuff with me, be it the dubious works of Karl Urban or the amazing ones of Simon Pegg, not to mention random eps of TOS. Plus, while I love all of you Ladies, there is a particular pleasure in being able to write for Mari for once. You will get bad-ass!Bones, darlin', I promise.

And last, but not least, hoshizora. We don't write the same fandom. We don't spec much together at all. Hell, we barely look at each other's prose. But we often wrote at the same time, in the cool and calm of the night, and that sense of both of us DOING IT helped me in getting it done. <3!

*sap sap sap*

Okay, this is long, so I'll post the overall results in another post.

I am apparently having a scraps (that is, random unbetaed off the cuff ficlets) sort of week. So here's another one (of two), inspired by way too many listens to this song. ~I love it when you read to me, and you can read me anything~

The V/K is sorta of a random, floating excerpt from Their Song, that giant 'fic I keep talking about. It's random in the sense that I've placed it on a night that doesn't exist. ;) But I hope you like it anyways, V.

Thanks to hoshizora for the prompt. :)

( Russian Folk Tales, V/K )

So I was over at the Kink Meme today, readin' Sil's prompt responses (she has three of them up there! one with more than one part! WOO-HOO!) and feeling grand, when it came to me that there seemed to be a running theme of McCoy taking care of Chapel. Wouldn't it be fun, I thought, to turn it around?

And then this thing crawled out of my head, going "Wriiite me, wriiite me." It turned out...a little different than I'd expected.

Let me be clear here: this is a finished thing. It is also unbetaed and rather rubbishy. But since I spent the whole damn afternoon and evening wrestling with it, I am just going to post it and let it go at that.

( Need )

Our penultimate week! I think.

And if you haven't been paying attention before, the TAR (Ten-Aino-Ray) Challenge is for the three of us to write a certain number of words a day, culminating in a certain number of words per week. If you do not meet your goal, there is BATSU!-penance for the writer to do. Each Saturday, we write up a report of our week's activities, including any funny asides and (in my case) about nine paragraphs of writing babble.

Word Count: 13, 692
Caveat: Not counting words produced in chat with Kitten
Second caveat: Or any plotting done this week, even if it was done in dialogue.

Stories worked on: "Jim Kirk Babbles With Nurse Chapel," Their Song, and the alternate ending to "Skills and Rumors."

Stories worked on in my head: Jim Kirk, ROMANCE NOVELIST and "Inbetweens," the PWP for Pea.

Medium used: Lappie still coming in strong, with word processor + MSN chat an excellent way to get words out.

Music of the week: "Neon Moon" by Brooks and Dunn is an awfully good song to write to. I also used some Killers, "Greater Lights" again, "There, There," by Radiohead, other random songs. Oh, and last week Mari introduced me and Pea to the song "Southern Manners" by The Watson Twins, which in association with McCoy and Chapel has become UNBEARABLY SEXY. It's not an exact fit, but the chorus has lines that just work. I am saving it for "Inbetweens" porn.

( Writing babble (it's really long) )

Writing Thought for the Coming Week - Find your ending. It'll turn your VOID into a tunnel with a light at the end. (It'd better.)

It's that time again! Time to recap what I, Ten, have been doing as part of this challenge that Aino (hallowd) and Ray (raynos) have taken up. To recap for those just joining us, the challenge goes as follows: We set a daily word count for the week (minus one day off), and each Saturday we have to write up a report with our total word count and any funny asides we are capable of.

And I keep writing this thing later and later, because Jim Kirk keeps jumping all over my thoughts. He's such a pain in the ass who will not shut uuuup.

Word Count: 11, 179 words
Caveat: Not counting chunks I've written in chat with Kitten, because I'm not sure how to, since they're half-spec, half-'fic

Stories worked on: Let's see, how many tabs do I have open here? Seven! So that would be: "Jim Kirk's Amazing Adventures in Life Debt," Their Song, "Inbetween," the beginning of the JT Kirk, ROMANCE NOVELIST, "Skills and Rumors," "If and When," and a teeny bit on "Mechanics of Massage." Oh, and a possible opening for "Starbase 19"? There was spec on a few more, including THE ADVENTURES OF BAKKUN, but we'll not go there for now.

Medium used: The lappie primarily, MSN chat secondary, though I did look at my notebook this week.

Music of the week: Pretty random, that, though I did finish off "Skill and Rumors" smut to repeated listens of Matthew Good's "Weapon." Oh, and "Set the Fire to the Third Bar" got in there, too. But mostly random.

Writing Thought of the Week - There is a plot bunny pen in my head, and they've started BREEDING. It's fun to open a new file and throw words down to see where things are going, too. But I can prioritize and finish things, too...really. ;)

Writing Thought for the Coming Week - You may want to start figuring out some plot for a couple of those up there. Plot can be fun, too!

Or the post where I jot down all the random ideas I've been writing or itching to write. All nuTrek (aka AOS, aka that Star Trek movie that is out in theaters right now) based, but includes both ideas based in canon and ones based in slightly AU-verses.

( The OTP that ate my brain )

...and here I thought I'd end up writing carefully crafted, linguistics centric stuff. Um. Ha.

So this is what I need to mix into finishing Song and my ficathon entries. Hee hee hee MAN. It'll be interesting to look back at this at the end of the year...

Here's the chunk of words I wrote at Mari and Pea tonight.

I am looking forward to seeing where this one goes.

Also way unformatted. Formatting has been mostly fixed, and new parts are being added.

( Kirk has a thought )

To recap: I'm participating in the TAR Challenge (Ten-Aino-Ray) for the next six weeks (well, I think we're down to three weeks now) or thereabouts. We set a daily word count for the week (minus one day off), and each Saturday we have to write up a report with our total word count and any funny asides we are capable of.

Word count: 15,635. *scratches head* Which is not exact, because kasuchi and I did bits at each other, but that's what I've got down in a doc.
Caveats: Part of that word count is up for a serious rewrite, which should shorten it. But it counts for now.

Stories work on: A completely different fandom and OTP ate my brain this week, resulting in big chunks of three nuTrek stories: "The Mechanics of Massage" (or some such title); a comment 'fic we'll call "Skills and Rumors" for now; and a whole lot of random inspired by raynos and himawari that I'll just call "Jim Kirk's Amazing Adventures in Life Debts" or...something close to that. It needs thanking, that title does.

Medium used: Lappie, but three different, um, semi-mediums? Meaning I didn't just write in a doc file; I also wrote in comment boxes and, tonight, in the MSN chat window.

Music of the week: "Jai Ho" *wince*; "Halo"; "Where the White Boys Dance" (it's so catchy!) and "The Peanut Vendor." I let iTunes off shuffle to crawl down my recently added music, and that was pretty nice, too.

( Writing Babble )

Writing Thought for This Week: Try not to psyche self out when it comes to plot needs. The Realism Brain and the Writing Brain tend to cooperate, but since they do, when the Realism Brain goes "What are you SMOKING?" it totally screws up the Writing Brain. Tell it to shut up and go pout and it can come back and fix things later. Dammit.

AKA the Chapel prompt for Pea and Mari

It's already 1200 words. MONSTER. CREATED A MONSTER. Also, I need an appropriate icon for this pairing, so we'll just go with curves at the mo'

( Graveyard ramblings in Sickbay )

To recap: I'm participating in the TAR Challenge (Ten-Aino-Ray) (huh, if we'd gone Aino-Ray-Ten, it would've been the ART challenge! Next time *g*) for the next six weeks or thereabouts. We set a daily word count for the week (minus one day off), and each Saturday we have to write up a report with our total word count and any funny asides we are capable of.

Word Count: 10,394
Word Count caveats: A chunk of that is the start of a rewrite. Another chunk of that I wrote just now so I'd get to 10k. (It's a fun scene. I should go try to finish it after this, even if I am writing ahead.)
Fun word count fact: My goal for a week is, um, 3000 words? I wrote pretty much all of that after writing my report last week. I had smut to get through!

Stories worked on: Their Song (6RW) and one of the Ficathon 09 possibilities (two drafts of that opening), which I will now give the random, tentative title of "Platters." Well. Mostly random. :)

Medium used: Partly computer, but a big scene in Song got its start in my little Moleskine. Which I've now retired in favor of a "Note to Self" notebook, may it serve me well.

Music of the week: "Inertia Creeps" served me well for the smut again, though a chunk of it was written to "Halo," too. And I'm sure I had something dubious on for other sections. Possibly "Jai Ho," much as it pains me to admit that ;) Also possibly "An Audience with the Pope," which I admit freely!

( Writing Babble )

Writing Trick to Try this Week: More notebooky writing. Might make a good post work writing exercise, a sort of chill out thing. Also, pens + paper = WHEE.

I suspect these will always come in the late evening, because that's just how I roll.

Words for the week: 3708
Stories worked on: 6RW aka Their Song (I think, at its word count, it gets the italics); "Six Ways V: Her Bright Idea.' Time was also spent writing out something like the overall plot of the Torchverse. ETA: Oh, and about a sentence of "Kiss the Rain." I'll get there, Neph, I will.
Medium used: Computer. But both work computer and home lappie, with work writing happening in an innocuous WordPad doc. Shh, don't tell, 'kay? I did some DRAMATIC! plotting in a notebook, too, come to think of it.
Music of the week: "The Peanut Vendor," Anacani. I finally ripped it to MP3 last week, I was listening to it so much. Relatedly, my musical horror of the week was learning that EVERYONE HAS COVERED THAT SONG. DAMNIT.

( Babbling )

Things I learned from the Ladies: I apparently need to try writing on a train! Though with what, I dunno. Also, chat is good for spec, but you'd best SAVE SAID SPEC if you want to use it again.

Normally around this time of year I start doing writing challenges. This is where the Sweetpea Challenge and Summer Sweetness came from, as well as last years Thirty Days of June challenge that...I didn't do so hot on, so no one saw it. *laughs* But since it is tradition and all, I have a new challenge for the summer!

It is called The TAR Challenge. The goal is to write at least 500 words a night for...some undetermined period of time(hallowd, are we clarifying that?); Sundays, I think, are optional, but otherwise it runs Monday - Saturday. Every Saturday, the challengee posts a basic report on number of words done, what they worked on, and any number of other funny comments they want to make about the work they did. I expect I will have many of those.

So here's what I plan to work on this summer.

( To-Doom List 1 )

I've always felt it's better to overdo the to-doom. Obviously. This is gonna be a busy, busy year for me...

So here's a "Tiki Lounge" post, only in longer form.

( Rant rant rant )

( Six Ways IV 1 )

( Six Ways IV 2 )

( Six Ways IV 3 )

And now I sleep. I HOPE.

venusorbit1 tagged me for this one, with the choice being either Minako or Nephrite. And since I'm on top of my grading, I will do both!

( Minako )

( Nephrite )
I want to tag everyone on Serenity and Endymion, because I am always curious to see how people think of those two...

I have just had "Here In My Room" on for the past thirty minutes to write to.

I suspect tomorrow night, it'll be on for the whole two hour span. Or at least part of it.

Like it was when I wrote Bodyguard AR smut.

Did I ever thank you for that?

If not: <3333333333333333 THANK YOU! <333333333333333333

Love,
Ten

After I wrote a ginormous scene on the Necklace (two weeks ago tomorrow), I thought it best to give my mind a break. Even with the story gnawin' on my mind, it seemed a good time to let it simmer (and let the plot straighten itself out) before I went back to do another large chunk. To take time out, I started on Six Ways IV, which I thought would be an easy little piece.

It died on me. I got right up to the BIG SCENE and the story collapsed like a soufflé.

Okay, thinks I, I go back to the Necklace early.

Then I got hit by an idea. A terrible, awful, wonderful idea. Which then took the place of the original Six Ways III, which was about V & K at college. I may write it another time; it was short and sweet.

I thought this idea would be short, too. Taut. Noirish. It was a style I'd written in before, and I was excited to try it again.

Ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha oh yes, you see where I'm going here.

I never meant these Six Ways to get over 5000 words. They're supposed to be ficlets, damnit, not HUGE SPRAWLING STORIES. Except now I got me a sprawling story, and I have to see it through to the end. 'Cause hell, I want to know how it ends.

So here's a snippet, before the story grows beyond an LJ post.

( Sway with me )

So when I sat down to write this weekend, I thought to myself, "Self, you don't have a second of six for these six ways. Everything else is all figured out, but what's your second?"

I mentioned this to Pea in chat, and my vague idea, and then suddenly the vague idea exploded and even though it was going on five in the morning, I hunkered down to write it out. I churned out the first 1000+ words, came to a good stopping point that could actually be an ending, then passed it over for a read. Tonight, I sat down to finish it...and ran into snarls...and then they wouldn't stop talking..and I finally found some semblance of an ending. It does not, sadly, end with boning. But there's some potential! In there! Somewhere! Possibly!

I should warn that the language is much less formal than what is generally used in the Silver Millenium, which was a fun change-up for me. Oh, and there's swearing and uncivilized language. Right there in the second line and everything!

( Six Ways II: His Wounds )

*bounces* Hey, it's more Sailor Moon stuff!

Yes, yes, I know what I should be writing. But I've had these little bits, these one shot stories, in my head, like a Five Things, only in the loosest sense possible. Five Things Stories usually have some sort of theme, or some binding thing, running through them. These don't quite qualify. For one, there are six of them. For another, the binding theme would have to be really general, something along the lines of "Six AU Scenes For a Pairing I Am Crazy About."

Rather than call it that, we'll just call it "Six Ways," as in "Six Ways of Looking [at a pairing I am really nuts about]." And leave it at that. So yeah, there's five more of these coming, as soon as I can pull them from my brain. And they're all one-shots, even if they have as open an end as this one does. Have fun filling in the blanks, yall!

( Six Ways I )

Okay, I may have to go back and add an ending to that, but otherwise: one-shot. Finished. WHEE, DONE. :D

I was gonna start a thread about this at the Shitennou forums, but then I realized it would mostly consist of me bitching about the woes of writing overlapping stories, along with *headdesking* over the antics of the main characters of the Necklace. And how much I love Jade. Which I've even got raynos doing now, because he gets all the good lines. Overall it sounded more like a journal thing than a forum thread...and hey look, I've got this journal right here...

For the unitiated, the JBS = Jewelry Box Stories = a set of four stories written for *cough* Sailor Moon *cough*, set in the Silver Millenium, where *anything* can happen. Because canon is all unspecifically specific that way. (I wonder how many people have included Serenity's "Witch"? It's a canon detail I sometimes think I've dreamt up, along with Mars swearing her chastity to Serenity. Though that could've just been uneven translation...anyways...) They're all named after a piece of jewelry--one of these days, I'll write a frame for that--and I've been working on them on and off since, um, 2004. (Bleach people, you have NO CLUE, ahahaha!) I've finished one--"The Bracelet"--and have been poking at "The Necklace" recently. The other two, incidentally, are "The Ring" and "The Earrings," because I am all completely uninformed about jewelry straight laced like that. And really, how could I fit in "The Clitorial Hood Piercing"? This is *Sailor Moon*, after all.

( And now we get to the bitching )

( For VV01, a snippet )

43,216 / 50,000 (86.4%)

So I didn't beat NaNo. Obviously.

However, during a month in which -
-I helped host and run a conference
-I gave two quizzes in my class, among other teaching duties
-I found out some fun medical news

I managed to do 43,000 words. Which is probably about 12,000 words more than I did last time I tried NaNo, and about that many more than I've written during my "high productivity" fic months. (Except for one period between November and December of 2005, when I first got into Bleach. But I wasn't working as much then.)

So I'm kinda proud of it.

I'm also kinda proud of the fact that I really can write large chunks of text in a small amount of time, that I managed to think up half a plot and get it down, and that I wrote everywhere. I wrote in the car, I wrote at home, I wrote at the Lab, I wrote at a friend's, I wrote in restaurants and even outside. I probably would've hit 45,000 if I hadn't had weird things happen to me the final Sunday of NaNo. I might have hit 50k if I'd managed to work in one more day of writing.

So it's doable. Even if I can't write a full novel in that amount of words, I could probably do that many words in a month. And that's good to know.

Now: to finish off said novel and work on some old memes. I owe fic bits, commentaries, and some porn. All of which I'm looking forward to much more than I was when I started writing at the beginning of the month, which...YAY MUSE. YAY.