graculus

Okay, so I was curious...

I have 88 stories on AO3 at the time of writing, with a grand total of 662,705 words. Guess those novel-length stories really help, huh? At the moment it works out at 27 in Magnificent Seven, 22 in the TV version of UNCLE, 18 in Stargate SG-1, 12 in the movie version of UNCLE and 9 in Wild Wild West.

Top 5 stories by hits:
1. More Than Meets the Eye - 5155, Man from UNCLE movie
2. Larger Than Life - 5129, Man from UNCLE movie
3. The Games Agents Play - 3096, Man from UNCLE movie
4. Modus Vivendi - 2945, Man from UNCLE movie
5. Exigent Circumstances - 2187, Man from UNCLE movie

Yep, I see a bit of a trend here, a short-lived flush of interest in a particular fandom just as people were wanting to read it, on trend for once! My first Magnificent Seven fic appears at number 7 on the list, the first fic for the TV version of UNCLE crops up at number 8. The big jump for hits for the first two is also probably affected by my posting them as WiP.

Top 5 stories by kudos:
1. Larger Than Life - 355, Man from UNCLE movie
2. More Than Meets the Eye - 245, Man from UNCLE movie
3. Vitality - 144, Man from UNCLE movie
4. Togetherness - 117, Man from UNCLE movie
5. Modus Vivendi - 117, Man from UNCLE movie

Another strong showing for a certain fandom. I'm quite pleased to see Vitality and Togetherness cropping up on there, because you kind of expect longer fic to get kudos more?

Top 5 stories by bookmarks:
1. Larger Than Life - 99, Man from UNCLE movie
2. More Than Meets the Eye - 49, Man from UNCLE movie
3. Obligations - 30, Magnificent Seven
4. Modus Vivendi - 27, Man from UNCLE movie
=5. Exigent Circumstances - 25, Man from UNCLE movie
=5. Three's (Not Always) A Crowd - 25, Man from UNCLE movie

Yay, a fic from another fandom finally makes it onto the list, as does my ridiculous threesome-of-convenience fic, which I had a lot of fun writing.

So, I've been using this website called 750words and it's really helped me to get a reasonable amount of writing done in terms of fanfic, and those days when I can't turn my hand to that I just blurt out whatever's in my head. I'm currently on 226 days and nearly 208,000 words written since August (which is cool!).

Because of my previous computer dying and the fact that I'd backed up some of my fic-in-progress but not all of it, I had to go through the tedious process of taking out the other hard drive and putting it into a caddy so I could connect it to my 'new' PC and access the files. That proved significantly easier than I'd expected would be the case so it means I now have an extra external hard drive to save stuff on as well, which is cool. The way forward is definitely multiple copies of things! :P

Because I have a very ad hoc system (which closely resembles and is in fact identical to 'not having a system at all') when it comes to the fic I'm writing, I'd completely forgotten what I had in progress and keep going 'oh, that's the fic where X happens' when I open up a file, which I find amusing. At the moment I'm about 18,000 words into a marriage of convenience fic (well, it started off like that and mutated a little!) and enjoying myself immensely with it - I've read a bunch of these and never got around to writing one myself, so that's something new. If anyone is actually interested in what I'm writing, please ask and I'll tell you more!

One of the other things I'm trying to do while I'm off work is figure out the rest of the plot for a couple of incomplete stories which are up on AO3. I keep telling myself I won't post stuff as works in progress and then go and do it again, so I have a couple of things which I've just left hanging. Not good. Hence also my desire to finish off the various long things I'm working on before posting, rather than falling into that trap again (and again).

This afternoon, I spent a bit of time uploading one of my old SG-1 stories to AO3, which was pretty appropriate as it was my AU novel 'Benedictus', which I wrote for NaNoWriMo back in 2005 or 2006. I don't usually re-read stuff, particularly things that are that old and for a fandom I'm no longer in, but I thought it holds up pretty well and it's 85k words so that'll keep some people happy just on word-count alone.

BTW, all the best to anyone who's attempting NaNoWriMo this year!

In more recent fanfic news, I just broke the 75k words barrier for UNCLE movie fic, helped immensely by a certain AU prompt on the kink meme which is currently just under 20k words and probably about half-finished. I am apparently constitutionally incapable of not getting carried away when I come across a good prompt, particularly one where so far Gaby has had to rescue both Solo and Kuryakin (on separate occasions, not at the same time) - tonight's instalment will see Waverly finally turn up as well, so the gang's all here! :P

Because I've been working on a number of fics (at least 2 and more usually 3) at any one time, taking it in turns to do a bit more on each one, I'm still not back on the old stuff yet so let's stop making promises about when that's going to happen... ;)

Well, this whole 750 words thing still really seems to be working - as I write this, I'm on a 33-day roll and have written just over 35,000 words during that period, pretty much all of which is UNCLE movie fanfic.

To date I've posted 6 stories for that fandom on AO3, though one of them is incomplete - that latter one started because someone suggested there should be a fic collection celebrating Napoleon Solo's apron and that started me thinking about fantasies and suddenly I was writing roleplay fic (of which the apron-related story is chapter 1). The only problem with continuing that has been thinking up suitable roleplay options, particularly for the OT3. Any (non-rapey) suggestions gratefully received...

I'm also writing something else for the kinkmeme, which has all sorts of ideas posted to it - it's a real microcosm of current fandom interests in a lot of ways, especially with the appearance of ABO and its associated issues that will probably get handwaved over because of reasons. Still, plenty of ideas out there for when I get the current one written, though I still have 1930's AU fic to finish (damnit!). I have a printout of what exists so far for that one and just have to take a good run at it - I can get that started at least by the end of the month. *sigh*

A lot has changed since I got into fandom, back in the late 1990's. That was also when I first got online and it was dial-up, which seems like another world completely - I regularly ended up paying extra at the end of the month because I'd exceeded my allotted time online.

At one point we were downloading episodes of SG-1 in what everyone referred to as 'squinty-vision' because the resulting files were huge (in relative terms) but the video produced was tiny and so you'd have to squint to figure out what was going on or even to tell non-speaking characters apart sometimes (the joys of a series that takes place mostly in a setting where people wear uniforms, I guess!). Those files still used to take literally hours to download, so I used to set them up before I went to bed and hope the download wouldn't crash overnight.

And then there were the mailing lists, long before the advent of LJ, and their own particular way of doing things. Some fandoms still have them and they're ticking over, but most of them have (understandably) gone the way of the dinosaur when LJ became the main place for fandom to be.

Now, bypassing the rise and fall of LJ, a lot of fandom is on Tumblr, which is by no means the right place for anything other than lots of 'ooh shiny' given the way it does things. And there's definitely a place for shallow and pretty, but that doesn't mean it works for anything else. So it's quite amusing (in a sad head-shaking and remembering we've been through this before) that some folks now on there are all 'oh, Tumblr is changing and fandom should leave'. This started last year, iirc, when Tumblr was bought by Yahoo and people starting having minor freak-outs. Yes, you should leave and come back to LJ and/or Dreamwidth where we can have proper discussions about things without horrible nesting issues.

I wonder where we'll end up next? ;)



Meanwhile, in related news, I'm happy to say that I'm managing to write at least 750 words every day and am currently on a 16 day streak. After a very scientific method of tossing a coin on August 31st, I also signed up for the month challenge on 750 Words, which gets me another badge and my name on the Wall of Awesomeness if I manage it. I am apparently much more easily motivated (in this case by small internet pics of animals and birds) than I ever imagined would be the case!

Now, after months of my subconscious going 'pfft, call yourself a writer, you can't even manage to sit down and do anything!', we've now moved onto 'oh, so maybe you can write everyday, but what you're writing is shit' which I guess is an improvement? Yep, just over 15,000 words and maybe some of it is crap, but at least it exists.

Been posting on the new UNCLE kink meme which is a bit of an odd experience, all this anonymity and so on - boy, there are some really 'interesting' prompts on there! And yes, I'm writing movie fic but plan to use the same method to break the deadlock on my two existing public WIP as well as clear out some of the other stuff I've had lurking on my hard drive, some of it literally for years.

Thanks, Calvin and Muad'Dib for getting that particular earworm stuck in my brain, helped by a vid for Almost Human I was watching the other day...

And so, we are heading inexorably toward the end of February and all sorts of stuff is going on. Well, maybe. Probably not as much stuff as all that, to be perfectly honest, but some.

First off, so far this year I've been trying to widen my repertoire in terms of what I cook. I remember reading something somewhere that said most people basically cook a handful of different things over and over, but I decided I wanted to add to my list of possible recipes. This has been assisted by an Android app called ChefTap which lets me take recipes from blogs etc. and strips them of the extraneous texty-bits then sends them to my tablet. I've not had any absolute disasters so far, but there have been a few things I won't be trying again and a few I will, though probably with more garlic and spices in some cases.

I also just, courtesy of Pic for 1000 posted the first fic I've written in a year, in fact since the last challenge they did. So, I can still write, I just haven't. No particular reason, except that the WiPs I left behind are looming over me, I guess and I suck. No news to anyone.

In work news, it's all looking pretty positive - my boss keeps saying nice things about and to me, which is all very lovely. I've got a month left till the end of term, as none of my students are doing exams till later in the year, and I'd like to say I'm ahead of the game in terms of planning but that would be A Big Lie. In real terms, I'm roughly a week ahead in lesson plans at any one time, which is a bit crap but can't be helped as it takes me much longer to do anything since it's all new. Because I inherited this class from someone else, partway through the year, I'm also playing Make Sure You've Covered Everything so that we'll have a whole term left to go over things again as needed before the actual exams happen.

In the longer term, the local college does a full teaching qualification over 2 years of evening classes, which is also cheaper than doing the thing full-time, and I may well be doing that from September one night a week. Which means shifting my current class (apparently now All Mine for the foreseeable future as I haven't crashed and burned) but April is the time for talking about next academic year's plans. I will also be asking about getting more hours because I really (financially) need to be doing at least 5-6 more hours teaching per week than I am currently signed up for.

Full teaching qualification also = more money per hour than I'm getting now, so it'll pay for itself in a relatively short space of time once I've got it. More options in the longer term too, a real case of delayed gratification though... *sigh*

I'm still trying to read as much potential Hugo stuff as possible and was pleased to see at least one thing I've nominated there pop up on the Nebula list. I'm not sure if that just means I like the things a lot of other people like or that it's objectively good or whatever. Anyway, if you're interested in what kind of thing I'm reading, check out here where things keep cropping up. Likewise, if anyone wants to follow me on Goodreads, drop me a line in the comments with your user name and I will add you.

Yep, somehow it is December already. So much has changed over the past 12 months, though my state of mind is at least significantly more healthy than it was at the end of 2012. So that has to stand for something and who knows what 2014 will bring?

Work-wise, I had a delightful surprise the other day when I went into work expecting/dreading the idea of two long shifts with N (the subject of my previous post) only to find that she had been sacked! I was surprised too - since we only have a couple of weeks left of term and it's a term-time only job, I was fully expecting any change (if it actually happened) to take place then, thinking the path of least resistance was the likely way forward. So the major headache about the job I'm currently doing has been removed and now all I get to bitch about is the crazy hours. ;)

I think I've previously mentioned that I'm currently doing a course which gets me a preliminary qualification to teach adults - I'm particularly interested in doing basic literacy, numeracy and IT skills, though I'd need to do a further course to be fully qualified. I could also do an ESOL module and potentially look at teaching abroad if I was so inclined.

The only minor issue at present with my course is that in January I have to do a 30-minute teaching session to the rest of the group on a subject of my choice and am currently stumped as to subject. Don't you have an interest, I was asked? Hmm, I'm not sure a comprehensive knowledge of sexual positions and lube choices obtained via reading gay porn is necessarily what they're looking for. ;)

I also decided a few months back to put two of my current WiP on AO3 as I go along, in the hope that this would guilt-trip me into writing more. To nobody's great surprise, it really hasn't, though I'm sure the 3 people who actually read what I write are terribly disappointed. Yes, I am a terrible person. No, I don't really have an excuse; I could blame it on my crazy working hours, but that would be a lie. It's just laziness, pure and simple, and while I hate that this is the case, that doesn't stop it being true. All that stuff about 'a writer writes' just makes me think 'huh, I guess I'm not a writer then' because I just don't have that need to get things down in words a significant chunk of the time.

( The fandom meme )

Day 16 - Your guilty pleasure show

I'm not sure it counts as a 'guilty pleasure' if you don't feel guilty about it (and hell, why should anyone feel guilty about what they enjoy, f*** other people if they make you feel that way, even if they/I think what you like is dumb...) but the show I got completely hooked on unexpectedly is a reality show called Catfish. I've also got quite a soft spot for Ramsay's Hotel Hell, which is real car-crash TV, but there's just something about Catfish that makes it the winner of this category.

Basically, it's a show following on from the premise of a 2010 documentary of the same name about online relationships - it's hosted by the guy who was the subject of the original documentary, who now basically goes around the US meeting people who are in online relationships and investigating whether or not the person they think they're involved with is actually the person in real life.

Anyone who's ever been online can probably figure out what the answer to that is going to be, with some really gullible people out there and also some who are clearly not wired up correctly (it's amazing how the 'oh, I had low self-esteem so I pretended to be someone prettier/more successful' line gets trotted out). Also, people, do you not use Google? If your online boyfriend tells you he's a successful rapper and is touring, wouldn't you just be a little curious to see what's online about him? Anyway, yes it's all faked but that doesn't stop it being entertaining as all hell.


In other news, I'm trying to make some headway on my trope_bingo card and have posted the first story (Maker, a Wild Wild West fic) on AO3 - I'll do a proper post here and on trope_bingo when I have a few more done. I'm also still working on my 1930's UNCLE AU fic.

I'm applying for jobs, though getting a bit frustrated by the amount of duplication on the various websites I've been asked to use, have signed up for some volunteer work (waiting to hear back on that) and am due to start a couple of courses next week. Since I'm getting JSA, I thought I might as well benefit from stuff where I don't have to pay course fees and am starting a preparatory course for teaching adults (I've run training before but have no formal qualifications so this is step 1 in getting those, as an option) as well as trying out Tai Chi. Since I am the least coordinated person I know, the latter should be very interesting!

So, in the interests of furthering my chances of writing stuff for trope_bingo, would anyone like to have a go at explaining to me the what makes something a crossover fic rather than a fusion fic, preferably citing examples of fandoms I actually know something about (i.e. not Teen Wolf or Supernatural)?

Because I have managed to get a card with both and can't really see what the difference is from the definitions linked from the community...

*points to title of this post* Though I'm not certain it's really a Bank Holiday as the sun is shining...

Been back just over a week from my trip to the Outer Hebrides but still haven't quite got my bearings yet or indeed unpacked completely. It was an odd trip, mostly because I'm not that used to staying in B&B - hotels have been much more my thing and it's quite a different approach, particularly for the anti-social amongst us (me, in other words). The only downside about travelling on your own - which is otherwise great, because you get to do exactly what you like, no need for negotiation or compromise - is that you get to listen to the inanity of other people without any kind of buffer.

The Hebrides themselves are extremely beautiful. I have hundreds of pics I need to sort through and that was despite the fact there were a couple of days where the weather limited what I could do. The way of life is like stepping back in time - the resident population of the entire archipelago is only about 28,000 and even when you add tourists (considering I was there at the start of their tourist season) it's never going to be that busy. Most of the time, wherever I was, I had the place to myself. The top half of the islands, everything is closed on Sundays and even outside there, most shops close at 6 and restaurants don't serve food after 9.

There were lots of people cycling the islands (which seemed like quite a masochistic pursuit to me - they're not that hilly, but the weather is very changeable and the wind can be evil) - not to mention the hordes of folks with campervans. This is a place where the majority of the roads are single track with passing places, which takes a little getting used to, as does the cavalier attitude of the livestock to the concept of vehicles. I'm used to sheep, though the Hebrides sheep are much more cocky than any I've encountered before - I'd been told that sometimes you have to 'nudge' them with the car to get them to move, but fortunately I didn't meet any that were quite that recalcitrant - and then there's the Vatersay cows. Yes, the cows on that particular island are notorious for their liking to lie down in the road, not to mention apparently making a special detour to it when it comes time to defecate, since there seemed to be more cowpats on the road than in the surrounding fields.

I'd hoped to get the chance to do some kayaking while I was up there, but sadly it was a little too early in the season, so if there's anything that gets me back there then it'll probably be that as much as anything else. That and just how relaxed the place is, if you get into the swing of things there, not to mention the fact that while it's supposed to be one of the best places in the UK to see otters I didn't manage to spot a single one. :(

In other news, before I went away I've been doing some work on the house and garden, discovering yet more joys of BIY (bodge it yourself) from the previous owner. This is a guy who thought it was a really good idea to just plaster in water pipes running along an outside wall without insulating them first, so that when the inevitable burst pipe happened one winter I ended up with a massive mess before I could get the burst fixed. Those pipes have now been boxed in instead, in case of future calamity.

He'd also built a raised bed in the garden which was falling apart, so this year I decided to pull it to bits and replace it. Digging down, I discovered that he had pulled up a bunch of paving slabs underneath it (fair enough) but had then just thrown the resulting rubble into the raised bed with the earth. I now have a nice pile of broken slabs to dispose of, but I do have a proper raised bed in which I am attempting to grow vegetables. At present, pumpkins (which are finally coming up even though I planted them before I left for Scotland, delayed by the poor weather), garlic and beans.

I had all sorts of plans for catching up with various shows and writing too while I was away, none of which really amounted to anything, though I did read a lot of fic. When it came to updating the recs pages on my website, I discovered all sorts of issues with them which led to a complete overhaul and this led to a general sort-out over there. All sorts of things were on AO3 that weren't on my site and vice versa, though the latter is mostly stuff I can't quite bring myself to re-read (SG-1 fic, I know your ears are burning...) and I'm not sure if it should be more widely shared. Or if there are even still people reading that fandom, fcol. ;)

Also I have written a thing, (a Magnificent 7 fic) which makes me hope that I can continue to make some progress on the other stuff I need to finish.

Okay, I think that's sufficient rambling for now...