This is my story

Writer's meme! (courtesy of gregx)

1. When did you start writing?
I've been telling myself stories (using glass, ceramic, and plastic animals, mostly) for as long as I remember. At least as far back as age 4. But I didn't start putting words to paper until 7th grade.

2. First drafts: Handwritten, typed, or some combination?
I handwrote until I got a typewriter. I typed until I got a computer.

3. Do you keep any kind of notebook or writer's journal, and if so, what kinds of things go into it?
I do, but I'm less than diligent with it. I need to do better. I want to babble endlessly about my characters and the process of writing, so that's where I do it.

4. Do you set any quotas for your work (number of words per day, number of hours per day, etc.)? Why or why not?
Only in November, for Nano. I don't because my real life is so restrictive. But I should anyway!

5. Are you most comfortable writing short stories, novels, or something else?
Novels. Short stories are hard! Heck, I tend to not even have my characters nailed down until I've done 80 pages.

6. What's your favorite kind of story to write?
Fantasy and Regency romance.

7. Talk about a story of yours that was easy to write and one that was difficult to write, and why.
Wow, that's a toughie. All my stories tend to be easy in some places, hard in others. But, OK, let me try to nail two of them down. An easy one was my published short story, "The Sow's Ear". It took me only two hours to write and polish almost to its current form. I had the final image in my head, and the rest just came. A hard one has been "Prelude". The characters of Cowboy Bebop are hard to write, and having to make sure that I get all the facts scattered throughout the show has been complicated and nervewracking! But the hardest is trying to make up activities for a couple of gangsters. I'm just not a criminal type, I guess.

8. Which of your characters is closest to your sense of self? In other words, who do you most identify with in your own work to date?
Although I never seem to tire of my own company, I think I'm pretty boring. All my characters have some part of me in them, but not much. It's much too interesting to explore new people. But if I have to nail one down, then Georgie from Mr. Harding Proposes.

9. What work are you most proud of right now?
I want to say "Redhand", because that's the one that I want to succeed. But the truth is, "Prelude".

10. What do you feel your strengths and weaknesses are as a writer?
Strengths: I write fast and reasonably well, and I'm good with characters. Weaknesses: A tendency to cliches, and being a bit too sparse.

11. Name a few writers who have influenced you or your work in some way.
J.R.R. Tolkien, Shakespeare, Georgette Heyer, Cecilia Holland, Harlan Ellison, Anne McCaffrey, Barbara Hambly, Nora Roberts.

12. Talk about something you've written that you later found embarrassing for some reason.
Awww, come on! This is painful! Some things I've written that I've found embarrassing are sex stuff, and I can't write about that here!

13. Talk about the earliest stories you remember writing. What were they about?
The very earliest was a spoof of James Bond, seen from the eyes of a super-intelligent German shepherd dog. The dog was the spy's pet, and he was the one who actually did all the cool, heroic things the "hero" got the credit for. Mercifully, that never went far. After that, I jumped into fanfics about Francis Crawford of Lymond (whom y'all won't know, most likely) and Star Trek.

14. If you knew you would be successful, what would you most like to write?
Fantasy.

15. What inspires you?
The characters. I love the characters. Seriously, when I get stuck somewhere, or mentally jammed, I can break the jam by just throwing in some random character. And sometimes, those characters decide they want stories of their own!

16. How many projects do you tend to work on at once?
I generally stick to one at a time, but if the Muse pops me on the head, I'll sidetrack until I satisfy her, then go back to one again.

17. Who reads your work before it's released to the public? Do you have beta readers, a critique group, etc.?
I have a couple of good friends who beta-read for me, bless them. And my roomie, also to be blessed, who has read almost everything I have ever written.

18. When you're not writing, what do you do for fun?
Read, watch movies, and play a couple of video games.

19. Advice to other writers?
Read a lot. Read stuff that is well-written - it does rub off. Write - all the time, whenever you can. Don't be a perfectionist, just keep getting better. Remember writing is a craft as well as an art.

20. What are you currently working on?
"Prelude", of course. Two connected Regency romances. Some RK fanfic. And in the wings waiting to be edited are two Regency romances and Redhand.

21. Share the first three sentences of a work in progress.
The first three sentences of Redhand ~
Naia shifted the weight of the pack on her shoulders and tried once more to pay attention to what her teacher was doing. Enath, the village shaman, paced slowly around the spiral set in the ground, her long, grey-streaked braid swinging as she bent to study it more closely.

Naia knew she was supposed to be learning.

I am such an idiot. I forgot to do this:

Happy Birthday JessKat!!!!

About AL ~

I've been doing a lot of research (I hope my boss doesn't read this), a lot of thinking, and a lot of talking to friends about AL. The result is that I am going to let the site go.

What decided me for sure was discovering that the site really requires a dedicated server or VPS, and even if I found one which I could afford, the technical expertise required to run it is far beyond me.

I hate to do it. AL has been around so long, and there are so many people who love it! On the other hand, there are other things in my life that I'd like to focus my attention on, such as my writing. So although I'm really sad, I believe I'm making the right choice.

However! I do not want to give up all my friends from AL, nor - of course - my fascination with animation. The AL forums WILL be restored (soon!) and, I hope, stay active.

To all of you - the folks who have been with me all these years, and those new folks with your fresh enthusiasm - I can only say, I'm sorry, and thank you for making me feel like a special person and for helping to create the little web-world of AL. As I have often said, y'all are wonderful.

I forgot to mention the AL forums!

I expect Matt to get those online again sometime in the very near future. They are not affected by the account suspension of AL, which is with Draknet, not Cap n Bells.

No matter what I decide about AL, I will definitely continue with the forums!!! I don't want to leave all my friends.

I want to answer the comments from my last post here, so I can share with those who might not read comments and replies.

cindy_73, you're one of several people who were poised to post on AL, either with harems, fanfic, fan art, or new pages. I had a backlog of about 350 messages from those people I call my "overachievers", who flooded me with contributions. I really hate that these things will never be done now.

I am considering putting up an attenuated site, but I really don't have the heart to do it, at least not right now.

AL has been a huge responsibility for me. For the last 10 years, I have worked on it virtually every weekend. Although it's been a great joy, it's also been a heavy burden. So its loss is creating a lot of mixed emotions in me. I'm a bit numb, really. Stunned. It's been such a big part of my life. I can't make up my mind if I've lost something precious, or gained more time and energy to devote to other things, like my writing. After all these hours of thinking about nothing else, I'm still not sure.

mirana, to answer your questions: It's a Gig of transfer. (It's approximately 1.5 Gig in files.) Your ideas are good (and I plan to use them on my other sites for sure), and there are .htaccess files in my directories at Draknet (I just didn't know what they were for!). However, I'm not sure even those measures would help. There are more than 6,600 pages in AL, and more than 54,000 images. Every month I added approximately 30 more pages and perhaps 500+ more images, and there was no sign of stopping. (Which is impressive, and says a lot for the animation fans, but still a problem!) Also, the fact that it was being attacked every 10 seconds concerns me greatly. I really hope one of those attacks didn't backtrack to dragonfare.com and create the hacking problem that poor Matt has now, although I don't see how it could, since that link isn't in the main AL pages. Also, Jen is a smart lady and very kind, so if she tells me I need a VPS or dedicated server for AL, I believe her, and if she doesn't want to host fantasykat.com any more, I can't blame her, since that's become a hacker's target. Matt tells me a dedicated server would cost $75-$100 a month, which is way out of my reach. I really do appreciate your attention and the time you took to help me, and I value your expertise! Thanks. But I think the problem is too big for any kind of patch at this point.

kyranthia, as you can see above, AL is far too big to put on any regular commercial site. Most sites consider 1Gig/month to be generous, and AL was doing more than 1Gig per day. Even if I cut off the remote linking, there would still be a LOT of hits, each of which involves downloads of images, so my common sense tells me that I'd need that dedicated server that I can't afford.

Another alternative I considered was scattering the site through several hosts and domains. But since I loathe advertising, I wouldn't use free hosts, so that would end up costing me about the same as a dedicated server.

I'm still not sure what I'm going to do, but at least at the moment, I'm so overwhelmed that I can't think clearly. The first thing I have to do is sort out my feelings and decide if I even want to continue AL, in part or in full, and then, if I don't want to put down the burden/joy, decide what form it should take. I just don't know right now.

Thanks, everyone, for your sympathy and dismay. I really feel as if AL is a much-loved site.

Well, I guess AL is toast.

Here's an exerpt from what Jen, my host's owner, sent me. (And what a wonderful person she is, to answer me literally within minutes, at this hour of the day!) ~
=============
....At this point, the site really can't be on a shared host.

[here she gave me some figures on my usage]....in other words, you use 1 Gigabyte of memory on average per day for your site.

....Because the server's been running ok, and we had a special deal, I let it go - but this is not new. These images are being remotely loaded from all over the Internet, the site is attacked once every ten seconds, and your site alone needs 1 Gigabyte of memory all on its own each day - the site needs to be on a very robust VPS, or a Dedicated server. The resource usage has gotten so out of control that its taken down apache 3 times in the past 48 hours, and it was suspended - even suspending it, however, didn't stop the issues, as your images were being remotely loaded from so many places the hits on the server continued we had to terminate the account just to get the server to come back into normal operating parameters.

...in my opinion, this site cannot be housed on a shared server due to its resource usage.
=================

Since I don't have a dedicated server - and wouldn't know how to protect one or what to do with one if I had it - I really don't think I have a choice. I think I'm going to have to end AL now, just after its 10th anniversary.

It's breaking my heart.

Oh, great. Now not only was the splash page for AL hacked, but the rest of the site - on another host! - has been suspended. WTF? This is so discouraging. First the computer dying, then all this mess, I feel like I should probably just give up.

Dragonfare.com got hacked. Now, why would anyone hack that?

I'm finally posting the new RK stories! The rest under a cut to have mercy on my flist who aren't into RK.

( Hikaru fics )

I took Beau to the vet yesterday. Poor guy, he's been feeling bad for a while now, but we ignored him because he wasn't in pain (or so we thought) and we had Itso's last days on our mind. However, we did notice that Beau was spending about 90% of his time sleeping, and the rest of it sitting by the waterbowls. So I took him in, fearing the worst. Ha. His arthritis is bad (whose isn't?) and he's got a bad ear infection (he's prone to those), but otherwise he's fine. So I have stuff to stick in his ears (he loves that - NOT), and another idea for his arthritis. I was trying daily Cosequin powder, but it was impossible to get it down him. Believe me, I tried everything. Even when I mixed it with fish oil and rubbed it on his paws, he went to the other cats to get it licked off. *sigh* However, 1/2 a baby aspirin twice a week will help him, according to my vet, and I can shove pills down his throat. So I hope in a few weeks he'll be livelier.

I spent the rest of yesterday working on the name change for AL. I'm a bit startled at how many places the name had to be changed, and, of course, now my lovely image from Sher for the main page is useless. I "patched" it, since it'll be a while before I can replace it. :( All her logos will probably be useless, too. If I had thought of that before, I might not have changed the name! I'm not sorry I changed it, however. At least now, before I tell someone about the site, I don't have to explain that it's not exactly what it sounds. Tonight I will have to upload 5000+ files, not counting images from the updates, since the title is in the header of every page.

( Random musings about Samurai X  )

With a few glitches - I had to call my dad twice - my new PC is up and running. I've got nearly everything loaded onto it now, and I've played with some of the new programs my dad loaded for me. It's GREAT! Next week I'll do an AL update at last.

coastal_spirit having done me the honor/favor of beta-reading my two Reunion stories, they're pretty much ready to post now. I've sent them on to zora113 and will wait for her comments first, as she is my Kenshin expert. I hope she likes Conversation as much as coastal_spirit did! That was a difficult and very important scene.

I will be posting two of the other three Hikaru stories on the website I have for her, and I'll post the links here if anyone is interested. Since they aren't really RK stories, no offense taken if you're not! As for the third one, I'm not posting that anywhere. *sweatdrop*

Itso is gone. His symptoms worsened, and although he wasn't in pain and seemed alert and "himself" most of the time, I had been warned by the vet what to look for. She didn't even want me to wait until Saturday - she was afraid he'd slip into a coma before then, even. So I took him today. He didn't much like having something over his face, but once he was asleep, he went down quickly, quietly, and peacefully. It's so hard to believe he's gone, though. I still remember clearly his first day here, when he stepped out of the box Randi brought him home in, and he looked around like, "Well, this looks like a fine place to live." And that was more than 17 years ago. I really can't write any more right now.

I did get my new computer, and I'm setting it up now. More about that later, too.

My new PC will be here on Thursday!!! YAY!!!

Prop 8 was upheld. I can't believe that California, of all places, is so benighted. FEH.

Someone suggested a cute name for AL: Animation Fascination. Yes, it's not "AL", but it's... bouncy!

A couple of memes, both, I believe, from coastal_spirit ~

Your result for The Social Persona Test (What kind of man/woman are you?)...

The Librarian (QTBF)

Quirky Traditional Beta Female

Take The Social Persona Test (What kind of man/woman are you?) at HelloQuizzy

(Somehow, I think I must have clicked the wrong choice somewhere.... or maybe not.)





I'm a HUMOROUS SxS fic!!!
Take the quiz: What kind of SxS Fic Are You?
It’s easy to make a joke out of any romantic relationship between a loudmouthed, hot-headed, somewhat simplistic roosterhead and a calm, sarcastic, single-minded wolf. Throw in a couple of the other easily-goofy RK characters and you’ve got a potential comic masterpiece. So SxS humor, when an author has a talent for amusing readers in the first place, is a simple enough thing to pull off. Just don’t let either of them hear you say so.


( And speaking of RK, more story babbling, cut for the uninterested )

More good news. My dad has finished building my new PC and will send it on Tuesday. I may even have it up and running by Saturday. Whoohooo!!! And it's going to be fast, much faster than my old one.

I was able to do some writing and am very happy to say that today I finished all three Hikaru stories. I still have to do an edit on all three, probably a very heavy edit on the one I started and finished today (the conversation between Hikaru and Kenshin), but I'm pretty happy with them. Now maybe RK will leave me alone and I can get back to writing other stuff. Although Hikaru isn't quite finished with me yet - there are two more scenes she's bugging me to write, scenes which I wouldn't share but which want to be written.

I slept 12 hours last night. Good grief.

I am trying to come up with another name for my animation site. The word "lust" is becoming even more of a problem than it used to be. I'm getting some good suggestions on the forum, but if anyone on my flist has an idea, that would be cool.

A little more upbeat post this time.

When I called the courthouse, they had already withdrawn the warrant. It was just a mistake - "the file got separated" - and I got a nice apology.

My dad thinks he'll be building my new PC beginning Thursday! Woohoo!

Of course, nothing can be all good. I got stung by a wasp while feeding the horses. Luckily, I'm not very allergic to them, so it's already almost stopped hurting.

Well, this has been a pretty bad weekend.

First, we got a notice that a warrant has been issued for my roomie's arrest. Apparently the woman at the courthouse lied to me - twice - about a letter being sufficient. So tomorrow I've got to try to get that straightened out.

Then it turned out that the problem with my PC was not the hard drive. After I went through all the trouble of getting it set up and had loaded some programs and started the gadjillion Windows upgrades, I went to bed, and this morning it wouldn't boot to Windows, not even from the Windows CD. My dad, who knows his stuff, says it's the motherboard, so I have to get a new PC. Bad news, and even worse news, I have no money and no credit. However, on the good side, my dad is letting me use money from my retirement stock-trade account, and he's building it for me. This makes me really happy, because I've always wanted one that he's built - they're much better than what I can get from Dell or Gateway or whatever. Still, until I get it, while I can use my roomie's laptop to get onto the Internet or to write, I can't use it to update AL, so who knows when I'll get to do another update? It'll be a big one. *wince*

The third thing, and really it's trivial but still upsetting, is that I didn't get to see the new Star Trek movie today like I planned. The theater's website said there was a show at 2, but when I got there, it was at 1:30, and I arrived at 1:35 with the anticipation of getting some food, since I hadn't yet had lunch. I really hate coming into a movie when it's already started, partly because it's rude to the other viewers, and partly because I am generally early to everything. The next show wasn't until 4, and I wasn't going to wait. I have far too many things to do around here to drive up there again, so I'll just go next weekend. But I'm so mad, if I had any other half-decent option for a place to go see it, I would.

I also can't work on my Aoiya battle story, as I don't have the software for that, either. (The new Office documents can't be opened by Office XP.) However, to salvage something out of my weekend, I am writing some other Hikaru stories instead - one when she was a little girl, and one (I hope) where she and Kenshin try to find new ground on which to exist together, now that he is no longer "her little boy" and she's finally seeing that. I won't be posting these, since I don't expect anyone to want to read them, but I would still like to have them written. :)

To anyone who is looking for me online.... Saturday I have to replace my hard drive. If all goes well, I'll be back by late Saturday afternoon. If all does not go well, then God only knows.

That last entry was crossposted from Dreamwidth. I thought I'd give that place a try. There's not much going on there, and I might give up on it before there is, but who knows? It's definitely easy to crosspost, so I might put all my creative stuff there and crosspost here.

I have codes, if anyone is interested. I also started what I believe is the first general animation community (heh) and joined a couple of Regency romance communities.

The publisher of my ebook version of MHP has a... uh... whaddyacallit, an email newsletter list thingie. Anyway, someone posted on it about Torrent stealing ebooks, and suggested a search on your own title. So I did a search on Mr. Harding Proposes and got a very pleasant shock! At a place called Dear Author, someone posted a review of the book and regretted that it couldn't be purchased any more. (That was when I was with another ebook publisher.) It was a really good review, both the bad and the good of it, and I was thrilled. What a great thing to happen today, especially since I have been unable to finish Reunion thanks to my coworkers interfering with my lunch hour.

Itso is still with us, if anyone is wondering. I had a long talk with my vet, Trish, and then with my roomie, and this is what we've decided: at the moment, Itso is in no pain (he's nauseated a lot, but not hurting); he's acting normal, cheerful, loving, and except for the weight loss, there's no sign that he's sick; we can prolong his life by giving him subQ fluids three times a week, at a cost of about $50/month, roughly. With all these factors, but mostly because he doesn't seem to want to leave us yet and we don't want him to be gone, we're going to do the fluids and wait for the end, rather than put him down now. I figure most animals let you know when they are ready to go, and he definitely hasn't given the matter any thought, so he deserves what we can do for him. I had to make the call - I always do, that's my job here at the house - and that was my decision. I have to admit that my roomie was pleased with that decision (Itso is her baby), although she was willing to accept and support whatever decision I made.

( Hiko/Hikaru babble )