elanya

So, keeping a journal up to date that is basically a record of the monotony of my life - is that interesting? Is it useful? Is it just my mood tonight? I feel like it is the easiest way to have something to say every day, and that if I don't make an attempt at a habit I'll fall back to hardly posting ever. But it is also making me wonder if I couldn't have something more interesting to talk about. But since I'm not really sure what that would be, I guess I'll stick with this. It just feels like the easy way out - like maybe if I did have something more to say, I would make an effort? I dunno! Since it is still before midnight, I think I'll do a chocolate box reveals post. So - watch this space?

...It's here! Chocolate Box Reveals!

So, I missed a post yesterday, and as self-punishment I am making myself write (or at least start) one-on-one my phone on the way up to the museum. Today I am going to continue looking for some stuff at SA, and then scan it if I do. I enjoy having concrete things to do!

I went to an art show yesterday by the Shadowood collective. It was really cool! They had a bunch of original works, and then a wall of mini prints. I bought one of the latter, because it was $35 and not like $1500 like the originals I was oggling! The name/theme of the show was "Do we make you uneasy?" And it was nice creepy surrealism stuff - right up my alley. The print I bought was a black cat with white eyes, so less creepy than most of it.

I've been working on my scarf/shawl, and am almost to the first bead! I am going to have to improvise a tool, though, so we'll see how that goes. There are only four in this chart, but I think more in the next, so I may break down and buy one.

I did manage to convince my gm to let my character have some beneficial effects from a dog animal companion for Thirteen (Fantasy colonial call of Cthulhu). So hopefully I will be less susceptible to madnesses :p I had been planning to take some kind of raptor for him initially, but in the last story there were some dogs that belonged to the antagonist. We used them to track him down, and now that he's been dealt with (shipped back across the ocean to live in a monastery for his own good), someone needs to look after them, right? I like the narrative arc of it, because at first I couldn't make a handle animal roll to save my life, so clearly it took them a while to warm up to my character, and now they're going to follow me everywhere! Dogs! There is some other stuff which makes it work out really well too, as the dogs were there when the creepy blue tentacle lion thing appeared out of nowhere and eviscerated his sister, nearly one-shotting her D: And then I failed my san check... Anyway now I will have dogs! They will be a great comfort, because you can pet them, and also they will freak out when there are invisible aberrations around, and my character can otherwise relax. Dogs are so good :3 Of course now I am writing the story of how the transition to them being Kahon's dogs goes, because that's how I roll.

Right now I have two journals - this one, and one for writing (measured_words). I mean I guess technically I have an imzy too but I always for get about that, and I don' think anyone really moved to there that I engage with much? I totally engage with people on LJ and DW, Right? ....Right? >.>).

I used to post fic directly to my writing journal, in the pre-AO3 days, and there is a lot of old stuff, and original stuff, there. Then I used to post links to my AO3 in my writing journal, and then I posted fic roundup, but lately all I *really* use it for is exchanges. So I am wondering if it is worth keeping, or if I should just transition to doing all my exchange stuff over here? I think I already confuse people to some extent because my AO3 name is my writing journal name and not this one (or one of the derivatives.... I'm Lan in yulechat, which is short for Lannie which is short for Elanya. That journal has my writing *history*, though. If I start posting exchange letters here.... I guess probably it won't matter; I can just say that if people want to look at older letters and such, they can look there?

I guess I'm not totally sure what function it serves any more, really. People who want to read my fic can do it on AO3 and subscribe there if they're interested, and I can just as easily post roundups here as there if I get back in the habit. While I have been writing some original fic, the last time I posted anything to my writing journal was.... *checks* okay I guess it was March. I thought it was longer ago than that. I also did the AO3 stats meme in that journal early last yeas, so maybe it isn't as neglected as I thought :p Still, most of the people who read this are fannish folks, and I presume that even if they weren't interested in the stories, writing memes, drabble challenges (I need to finish that last one still -_-), etc, they wouldn't be offended to see them here. I usually link them here anyway, and that's how I get half my traffic.

Also, I have been reading stuff about the LJ servers moving, and I'm not totally sure I want original fic living there anymore, and have been considering deleting that journal and just keeping the mirror on DW. I guess maybe it's too late at this point, if it is already there. I would want to make sure I didn't lose a any comments before deleting, and I'm not sure how I'd go about that.

Really, though, any change smacks of effort. I can't even get with it enough to change my icons - I'm not convinced I'm really up to a restructuring of my journals...

(I do know what I want my new icons to *be* at least, but I need someone to take the photos for me :p)

I made a sorta half-assed reveals post over in my Writing Journal(s):

On LJ | On DW

I wonder if at this point there is much point keeping them separate, but it is habit now! I like my stories, but the collection is full of other great stuff that is worth reading too!

*waves at Journal land*

So, I was considering doing a year-in-review writing post, and it got me thinking about something that has been on my mind a bit lately, which is how I use my two journals - this one and my writing journal. I feel like big posts on writing probably do belong over there, but maybe people over here would be interested to. Does it make sense to just leave links here whenever I post stuff like that over there? Or is it probably safe to assume that anyone who would care to read about my writing as well as possibly read my actual fiction (mostly fanfiction these days) would have just subscribed directly? I'm not sure so.... if you have an opinion, let me know?

Is anyone still reading this? Is there anything you would like me to try posting about more? I would kind of like to do more regular posts on something or other, but I'm not sure what there is that I can keep myself motivated to talk about. I'm lazy, you see, and I spend most of my time online either chatting or writing or both. I don't feel like I have a lot of complex thoughts on things these days, or if I do I don't have the ambition to write them out on my own. Maybe I should do one of those things where people give me topics for each day for a month and I try to have something interesting to say about whatever?

I'm still sort sick right now, so my motivation is extra low. But I have things I both need and would like to do on the academic front - I need to do *something* with my dissertation, I am just at a loss what it should be. I'm not sure how to synthesize my data down to something manageable for an article and what I would say if I wrote one. I still can't get over the feeling that I went about things all wrong and that I'm not really qualified to have a doctorate, no matter what the nicely framed paper on my wall claims. I do have some obligations I have fallen down on fulfilling as well that I need to step up and do, most of which involve sending (printed, in some cases) copies of the dissertation to various folks. This is a bit of a digression, but I suppose the connection is that I was hoping to rely a little on LJ as a source of external motivation as well - somewhere to report to about my progress the way I did (or tried to do) when I was writing. I'm not asking for anything from whomever may be reading this, but if you feel like poking at me it wouldn't go amiss either.

Would you like to know what I am up to now, Other than work? There's not much - having finished with yuletide, I don't have a lot else on the go writing wise. I signed up for Trope Bingo for the first Time, and I am waiting for a picture to come to me to write a Treehouse Reverse Bang for the Books of the Raksura, but I don't have any concrete ideas. I'm about 3/4 of the way done with my current knitting project (the Night Vale socks), though I'd hoped to be done by now and may have been if I hadn't been ill. I'm planning to start my vest next, with the yarn I got from tethys123, and maybe keep something smaller to carry with me for bus/lunchtime knitting, but we'll see. Not much else on the go, sadly!

So as others have been saying of late, I'd like to try using dreamwidth/livejournal more. I don't do much with it these days - I don't even use it for lists as much as I used to, though I really should try. I can't decide if this current desire is simply a mark of a slow day at work (That will be changing soon, I'm sure) or a desire to procrastinate All The Things, or something else. Maybe its the new year, but I doubt it - I've never been much of one for resolutions.

So, I have been thinking a lot about writing lately, because of Yuletide. I have also been doing a lot of writing, also for the same reasons. There are so many good writers who participate. it makes e think - I'm not a brilliant writer. I'm a good one, and maybe sometimes good enough, but not really brilliant. But there are some people whose work I always stumble in to who write so beautifully and so interestingly and I wonder where in me I can find that? There are things I do in my writing that I'm aware of but not sure how to change - I spell things out too much. I am not good at evoking without describing, sometimes. I let myself get bogged down in details. I worry that all my internal character voices sound alike. I dunno. I'm not having a big 'oh gods I'm terrible' crisis of faith or anything, I'm just not sure what the best way would be for me to push myself to do better. Maybe I need to try writing different kinds of stories? One of the things I like about Yuletide is that it does tend to push at my boundaries and often I do find things I like beyond them.

I'm still/always fighting with myself about the sorts of things I spend my writing time on too. I'm not very marketable, even in the fanfiction world. I poke at corners of things, or I explore ideas rather than people. Or I write people no one else has any investment in other than myself and a handful of others. Should I be happy enough with that? I don't know why I'm so driven to seek acknowledgement/praise for things - I think it is because I don't really trust myself to value my own talents properly. I'm too much in the middle of the pack to gauge (well maybe not the dead middle - say closer to the front but nowhere near the lead), for the most part, and I can't decide if I'm pulling ahead or falling behind. I think if I could draw more attention on my own merit I would feel more secure, maybe? I expect this is an all-too common condition.

Later today maybe I will instead write about all the crap I'm *supposed* to be working on :D