Year-End Clean-up and New Year Start-up

[corilannam]

I'm finally feeling social again after hibernating for most of the holidays.  I don't feel particularly rested, but I have renewed mental and creative energy, thanks in great part to yuletide writing and making a good start in reorganizational efforts at home.

So a few things to start the new year while I try to readjust to working a full day:

First and most happy, now that she's posted it, I can finally show off the beautiful and exciting Christmas present that destina gave to me and mboyd -- our very own Fire from Heaven story.  It's called Out of the Pressing Crowd, and it's wonderful hot Alexander/Hephaistion, and it's here.  Go, enjoy, leave her feedback, and then join me in marvelling at how lucky we long-starved Alexander/Hephaistion fans have gotten this year.

My main fannish New Year's Resolution this year is to be able to fill out the year-end writing meme in December without feeling embarrassment over how little I've actually accomplished. This means changing my current writing method, which is to flit from shiny project to shiny project without actually finishing anything unless under an imminent and inflexible deadline. Focus!  It's all about focus!  It will remain to be seen whether this has greater success than the last two years, when I resolved to finish one story every month.  That one usually found me sometime in April or May, frowning and saying, "but drabbles count, right?"

Of course, I'm starting at a disadvantage, since my first project has to be getting my already written TPM zine story into some kind of readable shape.  Imminent deadlines! Wheee!

But not so imminent that I didn't let myself get to read on the bus again this morning -- I finally got to start Long Way Round, which is enormously fun so far.  There are definitely times when I want to know as little as possible about actors in their personal lives, but the more I see of Ewan just being Ewan, the more I adore him.  If nothing else, the fact that he was reading Solzhenitsyn while traveling across Siberia would have won me forever.

I'm still seriously considering changing my LJ name to something boring but recognizable like corilannam.  There was a time when I thought I'd use this journal for RL purposes as well, but since it's become almost entirely a fannish thing, it might as well be more obvious who I am.  Then I can avoid the "oh, that's *you*?!" reaction I get every couple of weeks.

And I'll depart with one hypothetical question that I've been pondering -- does RPS become more moral, less moral, or equally as moral/immoral if you're slashing two gay porn stars?

Comments

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

I think you should be able to harness some of this "writing under pressure" energy and translate it to the times when you're not actually writing toward an immediate deadline, right? There has to be a way. I've just heard you agonizing for so many years over how slow a writer you are, and it's so wonderful to watch this happen for you.

As for your last question: I don't think of real-person fiction as having squat to do with morality, but you've got me wondering who you're slashing *this* time ...

-J

[marzilla.livejournal.com]

I wish I could figure out how to bottle that yuletide energy. I could get so much done... sigh. Well, maybe I'll just pretend it's still yuletide (except for the part where I don't get any sleep). Or hire a large tatooed man to stand over me with a club and a "deadline." *g*

And it was a hypothetical question!! I was just talking about gay porn with someone the other day, about how unsatisfying it usually is for slash fans. And I thought about how if you were going to slash gay porn, it'd be looking for the emotion in the midst of sex rather than looking for sex in the midst of emotion (which is what a lot of traditional slash does). And then I wondered how far you'd have to go into the actors' personae (since they're playing "themselves") you'd have to go to qualify as real RPS, and whether or not the fact that they do have sex with each other at all affects the RPS debate.

I actually tend to think I'd group it closer to slash about the tAtU girls than I would to slash about, say, the LOTR guys or other mainstream actors. What difference that makes on a practical level, I don't know, but hey, a girl's gotta have something to think about on the bus. *g*

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

if you were going to slash gay porn, it'd be looking for the emotion in the midst of sex rather than looking for sex in the midst of emotion

You know, when you put it that way, it actually sounds interesting. :-)

-J

[marzilla.livejournal.com]

See, I'm not *just* being pervy. ;-)

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

I used to be the world's slowest writer, and even solid deadlines didn't help me. Then, this past year, something changed. Unfortunately, I can't tell you what it was. I think I did do better in the area of focus, but it wasn't actually a conscious thing, so I really can't feel accomplished about it. I can, however, feel accomplished about the stories that resulted. *G*

As for RPS, I don't think of it as moral or immoral. I think of it as yum (Gale Harold/Randy Harrison, Viggo Mortensen/Orlando Bloom), not-so-yum (any configuration involving one Hobbit/one non-Hobbit), and damn scary (straight up Hobbits). Obviously, other people's mileage varies.

[marzilla.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm hoping at some point something will just click and let me write fast. It does every once in a while, but I'd like it to be permanent!

And I think any slash with Viggo has got to be yummy, though I like the idea of Hobbit RPS better than I do Hobbit FPS, which just disturbs me. *g*

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

See, I'm hoping this past year wasn't just an extended-but-still-temporary run of faster output. I've had that happen before, just not for such a length of time.

And Viggo slash can be scary, depending on who his partner(s) is. Though I agree Hobbit RPS is more palatable than Hobbit FPS, but that's like saying Spam is better than Cheez-Whiz. It may be better, but that doesn't mean it's good.