Another 'Personality Test'...

Oh, I can never resist these things... The words for this (including the long version) are rather apt, though, I must say. And as for my 'color code' being purple... Who's gonna argue with that! :-D

My only niggle is with 'traditional values'... I mean, I do actually believe in values such as honour, honesty, integrity, and even duty, which I suppose are thought of as traditional. But I also very much believe in values such as tolerance - for people of all races, genders, sexualities, ages, and so on. And that doesn't strike me as very 'traditional'. I also very much believe in change - not for its own sake per se, but as a necessary and vital part of life.

So - hhhmmm. [ponders]

Trying to think of a witty way of saying 'Yet more Merlin fic!'

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Writer's Block: Left Behind

[Error: unknown template qotd]As I have kinda mentioned before, I think we human beings are each made up of both matter and energy. The matter is our bodies, obviously, and the energy is our live force or soul or what have you... And when we die, we lose that energy, it returns to the universe. There is a law of physics that says no matter or energy is ever created or destroyed, it is simply changed into something else. (This is just me and my belief system, of course. Your mileage may vary.) So I think there's no ongoing identity or consciousness or memory, but our life force or energy automatically becomes something else within the universe.

I would like my body or matter treated accordingly. Much as I love graveyards and headstones and such, I don't want my matter to be stuck inside a coffin forever after - I want to change into something else and reconnect, re-mingle with the universe. Cremation and then scattering my ashes somewhere, or mixing them into the soil and planting a tree over me, would be very apt. Or one of these 'green' burials, where it's just me and a shroud and the earth. That all sounds good.

Of course, the other thing to take into account is that I'll be dead, so it really won't matter to me what you do! ;-)

The comforting thing about this belief system is that no one's ever really lost. My darling father, who died so very many years ago, is still part of me in all kinds of ways (my memories, my DNA, my values), but also still part of the universe. Just not quite in the same configuration, that's all. I miss him, but he's also still here with us. And what can be wrong with that?

Another month, another crisis of confidence... Ho hum!

I'm sure you're as tired as I am of me starting these posts about my novel with the comment that the previous month was both good and bad! But, guess what? It was. Hey, maybe that's just life. Or writing. :-)

I had a terrific run first thing in the new year, but then things came a cropper again, and mundane life got in the way, not to mention more Merlin fic. Current word count: 38,560, which isn't bad, considering. (Although I've probably written more words than that in Merlin fic, in rather less time!) And I wrote the 'midway' point of the novel - by which I mean not necessarily the bit that falls exactly halfway, but the point where things take a significant turn, and hopefully take on a more significant meaning. Though this then makes me wonder if it's going to be long enough. I was hoping for 80k words, but surely it must be at least 60k. Oh well, we'll just have to see! I am assuming that as I now start building up towards the climax, I will be covering scenes in more detail, and that will bulk it out a bit.

I have had fun reading The Democratic Genre: fan fiction in a literary context by Sheenagh Pugh. It does what it says on the tin, exploring fan fic as a valid literary genre all its own. An approach with which I totally agree. But Pugh did make a couple of points that kind of undermined my pro fic ambitions. Both things I already knew, but the context brought them home. First is that it's hard to get professionally published, and only a small fraction of manuscripts ever get transformed into books. Second is that the pro fic writer often receives very little in the way of feedback from or contact with reviewers or readers. And obviously writing in fandom wins hands down on both counts. It's hard not to get distracted by Merlin fic, when I can 'publish' it right away and receive nice supportive comments not long after that! Quite apart from the fact that it has more sex in it.

Which I suppose led me to conclude yet again that what I want in my life is (a) to try writing pro fic and seeking publication - at least until I find the head/brickwall interface is getting too damaging - and (b) to keep happily writing slash fic no matter what. If I do all of that, then I'll be as happy as I can manage to be. At least, that's the current plan.