EXCHANGE INTERFACE

All right. So.

If I were to sign up for the atlantisbigbang challenge this year, what story would you suggest I write given that I have to write 40,000 words pretty much from scratch?

They've got a plotbunny post over at the community, but, well, you know me and my character and pairing choices - they don't run to fandom tastes. So, my request is that you throw an SGA plotbunny at me that you think I'd like to write (and that you'd like to see me write) and we'll see if it sticks.

Plotbunnies of Doom, Plotbunnies Of Awesome, Pre- Present- Post-series epics, Alternate Universes, Fusions, Crossovers...

My current bargain with myself is this: if I can get satedan_grabass written by the 31st, I'll sign up for atlantisbigbang and we'll see where it takes us.

(Also: they need artists! I'm just sayin'...)

atlantisbigbang


I'll make the 40K; I'm just not sure I'll finish the story.

And a lot of scenes seem to end with them making a getaway in a 'jumper. I'm worried that this is growing sligthly repetitive. Okay, so the first time is them and the Genii, the second time is them and the local fauna, and the third time is them and the Wraith. And there's at least one more 'get into the 'jumper and fly off'...so I feel like this is getting repetitive. :/

Finish first, then let the editor out.

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Ladies Big Bang is apparently due 1st September if you don't mind not getting a creative work with it. 31st July is just the due date for getting a draft in so someone can make a corresponding artwork. Or something. I know I have an artist for each of my Black Jewels Merlin stories, because she offered, so...

Maybe it's still a possibility...

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SciFi Big Bang depends mostly on how flexible they're going to be about the "need for a draft" date. If the posting date is sometime in September then it might be do-able. If not, well, the John/Teyla Black Jewels Atlantis story will probably end up sitting in abeyance forever. I need a deadline for longer stories these days.

I've contacted the mod; I haven't checked my mail yet, and can't for another few hours, thanks to work and it's draconian internet mail restrictions.

Fascism makes trains run on time? o_O
okay, so that's not strictly what the article is about but...where would you pull the answer "fascism" from in response to the question "what makes trains run on time?" WHERE?

Avatar: The Last Airbender? Not any more! Meet The Legend Of Korra!
ps: A female main character in a steampunk Hong Kong? SIGN. ME. UP.
ps2: if anyone wants to give me Avatar: The Last Airbender DVDs for my birthday... *cough*B1&B2readingthisentry*cough*
ps3: mind you, it's already created A:TLA ship-wank.
we can't stop here, this is ps-country!: Oh, f-list, say hi to my family, who read this to work out what I'm doing when I'm not in my batcave room.

Is there anyone who has the desire and can afford to come cruising with me in 2011 or 2012, perchance? You could start saving now! Southampton to New York? San Francisco to Sydney? The Carribean? I'm doing Europe next year (Paris to Prague with my parents and other family friends), but as enjoyable as I anticipate that being, I'm hoping to get to D*C again and maybe a cruise in 2012. I'd rather travel with friends, though...

And oh, the joy of work. Last night, someone deleted the middleware system (it acts as the go-between for a lot of our interfaces) that I work on. As in, deleted deleted. Kaput. Gone. Fwoom. It's an ex-system. Luckily, it wasn't the system in which I'd done all my work, it was the 'testing' system rather than the 'development' one, but it does mean that, instead of getting all my stuff done today and having a work-free weekend...I'll be working on the weekend to implement the stuff I should have been implementing today.

Also: Auditors. There's a reason Pterry made them the bane of the Discworld, but these are less the kind that rage against the chaos of life (big-A Auditors), and more the mundane kind that rage against the lack of project documentation (small-a auditors).

Backstory: this project is about 5 years old. The most recent documentation I have on this section I'm working on (interfaces) is from 2007. For the last three years, our focus has been on fixing what the hired contractors initially screwed up - the things they told us were working but aren't or don't work the way our business needs or which work as long as the stars are in the correct alignment, smoking shovelfuls of coffee are burned like cloudy incense, and the great sacrifice of pizza is made in appropriate propitiation of the gods of programming - and getting everything working.

It doesn't help that I hate documentation. I do it, but it's not something I would choose to do.

So I think I do not translate well to auditor-speak.

When the auditors come and ask:

"Please provide evidence of the edit checks or validation rules which ensure that data leaving the sending system has a format acceptable to the receiving system. If such edit checks are not available, please explain why."

I suspect my response of:

"We don't have validation rules. And the checks aren't available because nobody programmed them into the interface"

while technically correct, is not actually what the auditors want to hear.

What they want to hear would appear to be:

"Here is the list of programs with validation checks, and the document covering the processes and reasoning behind their processings! I wrote it in four hours on Saturday when I could have been writing my Big Bang fic."

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Atlantis Big Bang is moving along; I only got about 1700 words yesterday, but I was hoping to get about 8K written over the weekend, in 750-word block stints. Plot is plotted, scenes are being nutted out, the tricky part is finding time to write. And then the discipline of actually sitting down and writing out everything in my head and turning off my inner editor.

The sound of someone in the office stifling a sneeze so it squeaks in their nose sounds exactly like the noise my cat makes before she hacks up a hairball. I automatically tense at that sound, because it usually happens at 4am in the morning, under my bed.

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On fandom's latest facepalm: medie has a very good post about the reaction to the SPN J2 love-in-Haiti story. So does harriet_spy.

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atlantisbigbang progress:

Plus extension for a month! ( which actually produces a dilemma )

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I find it hilarious that lightning hit a huge statue of Jesus outside a church in Ohio and burned it to a crisp. Actually, it's the debate about 'what message is God trying to send us' that I find truly hilarious. Maybe God is saying that, IDK, you shouldn't build a giant lightning rod of a statue out of flammable material?

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Have finished Stealing Fire and it was very good! I liked Lydias and the other characters in 'Stealing Fire', the story was excellent, the drama well-paced, and the ending had a nicely lyrical feel.

( The Numinous Trilogy: short thoughts on main characters )

Hah, and you would not believe the hunt we had in Galaxy Bookshop, Clarence St to find it! I checked the shelves. Not there. I asked the assistant, who said they had two copies in. He checked the shelves. He thought it might be in the new incoming books. (And he thought jo_graham was an excellent writer!) What followed was the sift through two trolleys of unshelved and unsorted books and then a careful scrutiny of the 'new releases' shelves...and we found it!

I was late for dinner with my parents and one of my mother's oldest friends. Oops.

Um. And that was last Thursday. I bought three books that night, and read through Kris Longknife: Audacious, Stealing Fire on the weekend. I am now halfway through Kris Longknife: Intrepid... (gwemegil, I think you'd like Kris, if you like Honor Harrington.)

For the Q&A and/or commentary on the story/writing process, were there any particular questions that people wanted answered?

I went into the 'gen' section, fully prepared to read kristen999's fic, then spotted siriaeve's fic summary...and Teyla won out over John.

Both are very well worth the time to read! (Once you finish mine, of course! *g*)

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The Language Of Hard Nouns by siriaeve
Teyla-centric gen, with incidental Teyla/Michael, and background Ronon/Elizabeth and Ronon/Keller.

Teyla raised shaking hands to her face and traced the lines of her cheekbones, along smooth skin that was suddenly cooler to the touch, running her fingertips over the two slits in her cheeks which had not been there before. A strange cry forced its way out of her throat, high and inhuman; and that, she thought, with a sudden, dizzying clarity, was appropriate. How could she be human now; what was she anymore?

--

Imago: The Tao of John by kristen999
John gen, with team, and Elizabeth and Carson.

Imago: a creature in its final stage of development. John receives a gift that might be used to destroy the Wraith. It might also kill him. Can his team convince him that the cost is too high?

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I'm feeling rather faint. It might be time for dinner...

Other than one moment of abject terror in which I thought that my edit had gone wonky, I've subbed the final draft of my sgabigbang: The Astonishing Persistence Of Memory - Past Time - coming to a site near you!

I have a headache, I haven't had anything to eat yet today, and I'm planning on going to a gym class this afternoon, and cooking dinner at the parentals' this evening. I'm just about to go get something lunchy.

And I want my new drawing tablet! Which is another kerfuffle entirely, but they seem to have taken my money and have sent nothing to me in return as yet. This is very worrying. I've sent them a mail, we'll see whether we get any response, or if that's a $350 write-off. (I damn sure hope it ain't.)

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I'm still waiting on four entries for the John-and-Teyla Thing-A-Thon. I'd like to know if they're going to be in by the 6th August. (Thanks for getting yours in, Pen!)

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mahoni? The story is definitely SGA/Bones - I'm just struggling a little to work out how to angle some of the interactions, since I can't have absolutely everyone running all over the situation. It's just not feasible. And it's getting very complex.

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Notes have begun for The Astonishing Persistence Of Memory sequels - Present Tense, and Future Imperfect. I got unexpectedly broadsided with possibilities while at work yesterday. Opened up a mail and just started typing it all in. But that's all for later.

I really do have to finish Shermer: In The Game and Pegasus Ascendant in the next couple of weeks - I'm tired of having half-finished stories all over the place.

Uh, I'm sorry I left this so late, but if my alphas for sgabigbang are available tonight, I'd like to speak with you about my story!

In about 8 hours, I'll be deleting both journals again until Saturday morning (the US's Friday night). I'll be back for the premiere, without a doubt.

Another 5,000 words and I can put the sgabigbang to bed!

To those who endeavoured to distract me this morning. It was very very helpful - I solved two problems and started work on a third! Y'all should distract me more often. :D

big bang count: 35,000
sections to go: 7 (Rodney, Ronon, Teyla, John, John, John, Teyla)
days left: 19
screaming, flailing, panicking: lots