Writing and some memes...

[newnumber6]

So, this weekend I've been focusing on editing, trying to bang into better shape a short story I finished a while ago. I'm still relatively unskilled in editing. It's usually one of the things I never get around to once the story is finished. In a few cases (like workshop entries), I give it a couple cursory passes, usually correcting problems I noticed while writing. This time I'm trying to be a little more systematic. I'm sure it's a fairly standard method, a multi-pass approach. After the first cursory general passes, I try to make sure each one with some kind of tentative, vaguely-defined goal, but not so exclusive that I won't fix other problems if I notice them. One pass might be focused on adding/improving descriptions of people (something I always suck at). Another might be focused on removing redundancy and redundancy. Another might be devoted to setting up a point of the plot that is important later, or improving character interactions, etc.

So far? It seems to be going fairly well, I definitely see an improvement from where the story was before. I can't really objectively tell how good it is... to me, it's still crap... but it's slightly less crap. May need a few more passes before I'm ready to consider thinking about trying to eventually work up the nerve to submit it.


Anyway, some memes.
Go to the Wikipedia home page and click random article. That is your band's name.
Click random article again. That is your album name.
Click random article 15 more times. Those are the tracks on your album.


Band Name: Guru Muni Narayana Prasad
Album Name Spinal moblization (which I guess means it's dancable, or the title is ironic)

Tracks: (and my commentary about them)
1. List of Illinois county name etymologies (combining my love of obscure list with my love of etymology and my ambiguous feelings towards Illinois, this somehow be a catchy rock number that becomes the new state song of Illinois)
2. Rivington Street (A song of alienation in the heart of New York. Alienation because I've never been there and feel left out.)
3. How We Rock (speaks for itself. In this song we would talk about How We Rock)
4. Tom Brevoort (hahaha, I swear that was random, the laws of Chaos must know I'm a comic geek and think I would write an ode to a Marvel comics editor)
5. Charles Robert Jenkins (hmm, somebody who was accused of defecting in the Korean war, I could maybe see his story being interesting enough to memorialize in song)
6. Irving_Ben_Cooper (no comment, every album has a few songs that just shouldn't be there)
7. Expanse, Saskatchewan (because my album needs Canadian content)
8. Listen to the Scatman (apparently I devote a portion of my album to tell listeners to go listen to another artist. I like it, it reflects my self-loathing)
9. Bryan Robinson (I don't care about football or sports in general so this probably would be a song about a guy made a celebrity for doing nothing at all).
10. Jerry Brandt (I seem to be writing a lot of songs about people I wouldn't care about. Maybe he's our manager)
11. Maud_Olofsson (I suspect this would be an experimental mashup of the "And then there's Maude!" theme song and the Swedish Chef from the Muppets.
12. Mix_100FM (Oh, great, now I'm whoring out song titles to radio stations in New Zealand. Man I'm hard up for exposure)
13. South African Army Engineer Formation (This one at least has a cool sounding name, even if I have no idea what it would be about.)
14. Apocalypse_Memories (Because no album from me would be complete without at least one Cthulhu inspired song! Or, since the book is a Buffy book, maybe it'd be about that)
15. List of Naruto episodes (seasons 1-2) (Combining my love of obscure lists with my complete disinterest in anime. I suspect my actually joining a band despite my quite often stated lack of any particular interest in music, combined with the desire to write songs about anime, is a sign I have been taken over by an alien entity, probably bent on world domination. THESE ARE THE WARNING SIGNS.)


Stolen from just about everybody! Take the first sentence (or two, or three, or however many it takes to make sense) from the first post of each month this year. Voila! - your Year In Review:


January: Biggish Random Post:
First, Dream Foo. Both actual dreams, and lucid dream strategy.

February: Random post! No segues!:
My thumb's sore. And not quite as opposable as usual. Am I devolving down the evolutionary chain? Or perhaps I just hurt it playing Ultimate Spider-Man. Probably the latter.

This year, I'm going to try really hard not to post a depressed, ranty, V-Day post. Because really, it's all been said

March: The move from hell:
No, I'm not posting from beyond the grave (unless the afterlife looks remarkably like my new apartment), although my body still feels like death would be a welcome rest.

Now I don't claim to be the most savvy teacher type, chock full of life-experiences to give my comments an air of credibility, but I do have one piece of advice to impart. Some words of wisdom, if you will, to take with you on this journey through life:

Moving during a blizzard is not an ideal situation.

April: (no topic):
Okay, I've been MUSHless for too long. And despite my earlier vow never to admin a MU* again, I've decided the only way to get the kind of MUSH I want to play in is to run one. It's just gone on too long where I see a MU* that's sort of promising but then one big thing ticks me off and I have to back off it.

I'll probably run it off XET's former site. I've not yet settled on a theme, but I've narrowed it down to a few options:

May: May day! May day!:
This is a special alert:

Happy Birthday 80sfiend!!!!

(also on that same day, a movie quote quiz.

June: A bunch of assorted stuff:
Okay, there's these commercials for this movie called 'Nancy Drew', about some teen girl outcast who solves mysteries. Come on, can't anyone come up with any ideas other than ripping off Veronica Mars? ;) (Oh, hush, I know Drew came first, I'm just kidding, but the commercial does give me a bit of the same vibe, even though they're outcast for different reasons). Maybe if the movie does well, for the sequel they'll adapt the controversial "Key in the Clock" (so many swears).

July: Have a big cup of Meh.:
I don't know what's with me lately. I guess I'm technically depressed, but in terms of objective feeling, 'numb' is more accurate. Everything feels like meh. I feel withdrawn and bored and don't feel like doing the things I normally do when bored. Can't work up the enthusiasm. And I feel out of touch with people, unconnected.

August: New Comic Day + Work and Book Foo:
This week I got just one book.

New Warriors #3 (some nice moments here, still enjoying the series)

September: Book Foo!:
Finished: Cyteen, by CJ Cherryh
Starting: Stations of the Tide, by Michael Swanwick

Cyteen wasn't as bad as I feared it would be. When it started, I feared I was bouncing hard off it. (More behind the cut, relatively spoiler light)

October: Got Mightiness?:
STOP MESSING WITH MY FANNISH HEART

November: NaNo Day 1, in which the universe expresses its displeasure at my participaton...:
So, I started, and got a good clip going. I not only met my word goal for the day, but also my word goal for tomorrow (which I wanted to do because I suspect I'll need the ability to take breaks to refresh myself and get new ideas).

Then, late in the day, I'm relaxing, and suddenly, the power goes out, for the whole block.

And I wonder... did I save?

December: Some Random Foo:
Just a bunch of random stuff. Some segues inserted for your protection.

TVwise we're getting very close to the TV Dead Zone, with nothing new going on.


Fan Explanations!

I consider myself knowledgeable about most of my fandoms. So, if there's ever anything you wanted to know about the universe or story of one of them, whether it's a serious or tongue-in-cheek question, ask! Maybe you want to know why the aliens in Stargate all speak English, or where the Doctor got his sonic screwdriver. If I know the answer, I'll answer it. If I don't, I'll make one up to the best of my ability to sound convincing.

Note: Because this involves making things up, I'll only answer questions about in universe matters. So I'll answer a question about why a character left, but not why the actor did.

Comments

[80sfiend.livejournal.com]

Yay I'm the topic for May. XD It helps that my birthday is May 1st, but still. :D