100 words

~ schizoauthoress ~ Leave a comment

I like to joke with my friends that the definition of “drabble” is the hill that I will die on in fandom. In the grand scheme of things, it’s a small issue.

But words mean specific things. I’ve misunderstood words — and thus misspoken or mistyped sentiments — and suffered for it enough times that avoiding similar mistakes in the future is… very important to me.

Just now, I wanted to be sure that the word I was thinking of (milieu) meant what I thought it means. It did not.

So I searched for a new word, because words mean specific things.

****

A drabble is 100 words, no more and no less.

Drabble sounds like “dribble”, true, but you cannot use it for any disjointed meditations on fandom that leak from your brain. Ficlet — a small fic, a short piece of writing — is a perfectly cromulent word for your purposes, folks! There is no need to misuse the word drabble when categorizing your output.

And I think I feel so strongly about the definition of drabble because I work hard at making sure that my drabbles are one hundred words. If I ever find that they aren’t, I go edit the piece.

****

I think I’m pretty good at writing drabbles. I’ve worked hard to become good at writing drabbles.

It has gotten to the point where I write stories made up of drabbles — a “drabble chain” where each section is exactly one hundred words in length. Some sections can stand alone, and others need to lead into the others, but each ‘link’ in the drabble chain fits the definition of a drabble.

I’ve changed how I draft. I type in online word counters and I forgo HTML coding until the piece is finished, because the backslash in closing tags confounds the counter.

****

I was recently struggling with a story (for my 2019 personal goal).

I had one scene written, and one scene planned out so that I could see it playing in my head. The scenes take place on different days, and nothing I came up with to the bridge the gap was working for me. It rambled on, it felt fake, or called for far more research than I was willing to do.

Then I decided, it really only needs to be a short moment. Why not try a drabble?

And the drabble worked! Alle-freakin-luia, I could get on with it!

****

I’m pretty proud that I’ve found my forte when it comes to fanfiction. I’m not really any good at most things I attempt — jack of all trades, master of none — but writing drabbles works for me.

Hell, sometimes — though this is admittedly rare — trying to work in the drabble format gets the ideas flowing so well that I abandon the format to write a one-shot.

(I call it what it damn well is when I’m done — a ficlet, a fanfic, a one-shot, open-ended — not the drabble I started out trying to write! Words mean things!)

It’s wonderful when that happens.

*-*-*-*-*

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I’m perpetually confused by so-called “fans” who hate on the significant other of the celebrity they claim to be a fan of.

Like…? You have absolutely no chance to get with this guy. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Why wouldn’t you be happy for him, being in a relationship with someone who makes him happy?

There’s no call to be so nasty or to make up lies. I mean, it’s one thing if the person is bad. But when they’ve done nothing wrong and you’re just tearing them down for being with your celebrity crush…

Man, I’ve got paranoid delusions and I know that kind of thing is messed up.

do I have the time…

~ schizoauthoress ~ Leave a comment

….to transcribe these drabbles I handwrote today, format them into a drabble chain story, and post them to my library Dreamwidth?

If I start, I will be compelled to finish. But I worked 10 hours today and work 10 hours again tomorrow. My left eye was already twitching this evening, and I am worried because when I was recovering from last week’s hellish three-day migraine, it lingered on the left side of my head.

I am still ahead of my writing goal for this year (based on the number of stories I am trying to write and post per month). But I was hoping to have something for the 20th and it’s the 22nd…

Ah, I don’t know.

Why even have a replace by date if it’s wrong?

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I’m so annoyed. I get on the bus this morning and tap my bus pass (a reloadable card), and it says “Card is expired”, then “Card Read Error”…

I have a pass that s good til the end of the month. I paid nearly $60 for it, dammit!

The card itself says “Replace Card by Sept-2020” on the back.

And yet the physical card apparently expired TODAY. What in the wide world of sports???

Pain is a constant

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I know I haven’t written here for a while. Mostly distracted by work, and trying to get in enough “me time” to recharge. (This weekend was spent in several full on depression naps, which does kinda suck.)

My neck and arms have been super sore for the past two days. I must have tweaked something in my neck during all those depression naps. I’m working through it, but consider this me also noting the beginning of the pain. I hope it doesn’t last but must be mindful that it might.

Got a package to mail after work, then I might have time to stop and buy new towels at the housewares store…

Persimmons are weird…

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I freakin’ love persimmons, but they are weird.

I prefer the Fuyu persimmons — they’re not nearly as astringent as Hachiya persimmons. Hell, sometimes I get lazy and I eat them whole (to my grandma’s consternation). But the grocery store was out of Fuyu and I had to settle.

I’m just not very good at picking ripe fruit. I’ve gotten better about avocados, but most of the time when I select a mango it’s green. So when it comes to Hachiya persimmons, which feel like they coat my tongue in chalk if they’re astringent/not quite ripe, I am a little gunshy.

Actually, now that I think of it, it’s kind of funny that I have fruit-based memories associated with both of my grandparents. For grandpa, it was eating tamarind together (even though I bought the less sweet kind on accident). For grandma, it was sharing slices of Fuyu persimmon together. Even now, when I go to the grocery store and I see those things, I think of them.

I use tamarind in my cooking sometimes, but I’d never want to have a persimmon-based sweet. There’s something special about those taste memories, and I don’t care to change my associations.

I always, always forget how much fun I have writing vampires…

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…. until I write about vampires again.

I’ve been writing a few short pieces (longhand, hardcopy) over the past few days. It’s all stuff that comes later in the timeline, because my brain never works in a linear fashion when it comes to plot. I don’t like bouncing around timelines too much… for one thing, I think it confuses readers. For another, it’s harder to make sure I don’t contradict myself, since I’ve already got something published to the Internet and all.

I’ve never really bothered to think through why I like vampires. It’s funny — in reality, the sight of blood makes me woozy, and I can’t stand getting my blood drawn during my physical. And yet I have so much fun reading and writing about the bloodsucking restless undead.

I suppose most of what I read — and definitely what I write — doesn’t fixate so much on the blood drinking. It’s generally glossed over, obscured in poetic or vague terms. What I really like is the concept of a connection between a vampire and the one who turned them — what several fanfiction stories I read called “the sire-childe bond”. (Exactly where did that come from, I wonder? When I search the term “childe”, I see that it’s an archaic term for ‘a youth of noble birth’… and that amuses me even more, because none of the vampire characters I’m writing right now are anything close to nobility.) There’s a part of me that longs to be understood. I’m sure my mental illness exacerbates the feeling of being misunderstood, the sneaking suspicion that I’m a nuisance and nobody wants me around. Something like “the sire-childe bond” is pure wish fulfillment for me.

Wouldn’t it be lovely to have someone who just… knew you?

Does it ever actually work out that way, though? I’m not sure. It’s a nice concept, though… maybe I’ll play it straight this time.

The blogs are not in order :(

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So I only now realize that the import is only partial.  When I have less than a day to go before the purge hits. Sure, my blog doesn’t appear to be flagged, but I have no faith in Tumblr not to screw things up royally.

Also, this blog is not supposed to have any of my Tumblr posts on it. However, I cannot delete the damn posts that did import. It constantly thinks and thinks about maybe doing a mass-delete, but then it says “error deleting” and also “error emptying Trash” when I try to do that.

I wanted a clean break from the old site.  I wanted things to just… stop. I didn’t want to have to deal with Tumblr at all after the purge.

You can’t always get what you want…

The blogs are in order :)

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The back up is in place where it’s supposed to go. I’m having trouble mass-deleting the posts that came here due to my error. I’m going to try to keep up with this WordPress and my Dreamwidth, once I figure out where fandom and all my friends have settled.

Of course, I’ll have to study how to work with WordPress, since it’s unfamiliar to me. I’m thinking after Dec-17. I’m trying to get all the fanfiction in the proper place for now.