a miscellaney
Dec. 28th, 2013 03:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardMan, we still don't have any snow out here, which is pretty unusual for this time of year -- there's not much on the Pass, either, which isn't good. We had a little snow last week, but it melted by the next day. We actually have some new grass, so it feels more like February or March than December. On the one hand I'm glad because I'm not terribly fond of snow -- and I really hate driving in snow -- but on the other hand I'm starting to freak out for generalized reasons. (No snow now means far less snowmelt later on, for one, but on the other hand I just panic really easily even over things that I have no control over.)
*
Christmas happened -- my dad's still in Thailand, or maybe in Cambodia, who the hell knows, but my cousin Maya and her son Kenzo came over from the West Side. Kenzo's three, so if you're thinking that the number one thing I said was, "KENZO NO" or the slight variant "KEN-CHAN NO," then you'd be right. There was a lot of hiding in my room. Interestingly, I basically talk to Kenzo the same way I talk to the cat. I have no idea what that says about me.
Maya is moving to NYC to get her RN; her sister Ami and her family lives there, and it's on the other side of the country from her currently imprisoned ex-husband. While she's in NYC, Kenzo is going to Japan to live with my aunt and uncle (and grandmother), which ought to be hard on both of them. My aunt Michio wants Kenzo for three years, but we'll see. My cousin Takahiro, who's my age, is currently still at Eihei-ji, in training to be a Buddhist priest like my uncle and grandfather. The ultimate idea is for him to take over the temple, like my uncle did from my grandfather; as far as I can tell Taka doesn't have much choice in the matter, though apparently after he finished at Eihei-ji he wants to move back to Hawaii (he was born there; Maya and Ami went to school there, but Taka sort of...got kicked out...and did most of his schooling in Japan) for a bit and get his degree in business. Currently the family's like, hmm, if Taka doesn't want the temple then we'll train Kenzo to have it.
Sometimes I wonder if my family actually stepped out of second century Rome. There's been a temple there for over a millennium, I can't remember how long my family's been connected to it -- I'd ask my mom, but she's on the phone right now. It's all very traditional in some ways.
Anyway, it was nice to see Maya and Kenzo again; since they're moving in January, I don't know when I'll see them next. Once she's established in New York I'll have to visit, since I haven't seen Ami since before Alyssa was born and I've never met her husband, and one of my best friends from undergrad lives in New York too -- I haven't seen her since graduation last year either.
I got a Kindle Fire for Christmas, which means that I may eventually read some of my massive collection of ebooks on an actual ereader instead of on my laptop, which is what I usually do. Currently it's sitting on my bookshelf while I continue to read ebooks on my computer, though I did download the Comixology and Dark Horse apps so I can read comics on it.
*
Currently I'm working on the fifth fucking draft of Bottom of the River 6, which has already bounced through numerous scenarios and three different POVs while I try and figure out what the fuck I'm doing. (In case anyone was under the impression that I was an organized writer: HA HA HA no. I know the quote-unquote big twist of River and roughly where the story is headed, but I keep getting bogged down in details. It used to be a much more straight-forward murder mystery, then Shara-Von switched from being a junior senatorial aide to being a former spy, so it's switched genres slightly from being a murder mystery to being more a political thriller, sort of) This isn't helped by the fact that my hands and wrists have been acting up again recently, so I'm less willing to spend extended periods of time typing.
I've got about 1200 words of Wake the Storm 3 written, but I think I'm going to cut and rewrite about half of that so the scene makes sense. Wake is meant to fall into six parts, of which 3 is the least developed, because I realized belatedly that if I was going to go ahead and introduce Luke and Leia into the story I should probably do something with them rather than just bring them in for kicks. 4 is the showdown with Palpatine in the ruin of the Jedi Temple (I am so looking forward to writing this scene), 5 is an Obi-Wan POV showing what's going on in the PT timeline (hint: nothing good), and 6 is the final confrontation.
I currently don't have beta readers for either story, so if anyone would be willing to step in on that front, I would really appreciate it.
*
I just saw Veronica Mars season one for the first time -- yes, I know, I actually was around when it first aired, but I didn't get the channel it was on. Right now the DVDs are sitting next to my Farscape DVDs, so it looks like Veronica's staring at Crichton going, "Dude, you got PROBLEMS."
*
I keep meaning to do book recs and Star Wars recs, but I keep forgetting. BAD BEDLAM. (Although if there's a specific SW thing you want to ask about -- at this point I can pretty much expound on most things except the OT and post-OT EU and the video games -- feel free to do so. I know I want to do a rec post for the KOTOR comics and Knight Errant, which are both set in the Old Republic. And Dark Times, because holy crap, Dark Times is BRUTAL. A lot of the PT comics EU -- I'm thinking of the Darth Vader comics here, and a little bit of Empire, which I haven't read all of yet -- are brutal, but GOD DAMN. And Legacy, which is set 130 years after RotJ, and is brutal in a different way, and also features the most manpain protagonist I have ever met. If Anakin Skywalker comes back from the dead to tell you that you've been making poor life choices, KID YOU'VE BEEN MAKING POOR LIFE CHOICES. But Legacy also has one of the most interesting female characters in the EU, so there's that.)
*
Christmas happened -- my dad's still in Thailand, or maybe in Cambodia, who the hell knows, but my cousin Maya and her son Kenzo came over from the West Side. Kenzo's three, so if you're thinking that the number one thing I said was, "KENZO NO" or the slight variant "KEN-CHAN NO," then you'd be right. There was a lot of hiding in my room. Interestingly, I basically talk to Kenzo the same way I talk to the cat. I have no idea what that says about me.
Maya is moving to NYC to get her RN; her sister Ami and her family lives there, and it's on the other side of the country from her currently imprisoned ex-husband. While she's in NYC, Kenzo is going to Japan to live with my aunt and uncle (and grandmother), which ought to be hard on both of them. My aunt Michio wants Kenzo for three years, but we'll see. My cousin Takahiro, who's my age, is currently still at Eihei-ji, in training to be a Buddhist priest like my uncle and grandfather. The ultimate idea is for him to take over the temple, like my uncle did from my grandfather; as far as I can tell Taka doesn't have much choice in the matter, though apparently after he finished at Eihei-ji he wants to move back to Hawaii (he was born there; Maya and Ami went to school there, but Taka sort of...got kicked out...and did most of his schooling in Japan) for a bit and get his degree in business. Currently the family's like, hmm, if Taka doesn't want the temple then we'll train Kenzo to have it.
Sometimes I wonder if my family actually stepped out of second century Rome. There's been a temple there for over a millennium, I can't remember how long my family's been connected to it -- I'd ask my mom, but she's on the phone right now. It's all very traditional in some ways.
Anyway, it was nice to see Maya and Kenzo again; since they're moving in January, I don't know when I'll see them next. Once she's established in New York I'll have to visit, since I haven't seen Ami since before Alyssa was born and I've never met her husband, and one of my best friends from undergrad lives in New York too -- I haven't seen her since graduation last year either.
I got a Kindle Fire for Christmas, which means that I may eventually read some of my massive collection of ebooks on an actual ereader instead of on my laptop, which is what I usually do. Currently it's sitting on my bookshelf while I continue to read ebooks on my computer, though I did download the Comixology and Dark Horse apps so I can read comics on it.
*
Currently I'm working on the fifth fucking draft of Bottom of the River 6, which has already bounced through numerous scenarios and three different POVs while I try and figure out what the fuck I'm doing. (In case anyone was under the impression that I was an organized writer: HA HA HA no. I know the quote-unquote big twist of River and roughly where the story is headed, but I keep getting bogged down in details. It used to be a much more straight-forward murder mystery, then Shara-Von switched from being a junior senatorial aide to being a former spy, so it's switched genres slightly from being a murder mystery to being more a political thriller, sort of) This isn't helped by the fact that my hands and wrists have been acting up again recently, so I'm less willing to spend extended periods of time typing.
I've got about 1200 words of Wake the Storm 3 written, but I think I'm going to cut and rewrite about half of that so the scene makes sense. Wake is meant to fall into six parts, of which 3 is the least developed, because I realized belatedly that if I was going to go ahead and introduce Luke and Leia into the story I should probably do something with them rather than just bring them in for kicks. 4 is the showdown with Palpatine in the ruin of the Jedi Temple (I am so looking forward to writing this scene), 5 is an Obi-Wan POV showing what's going on in the PT timeline (hint: nothing good), and 6 is the final confrontation.
I currently don't have beta readers for either story, so if anyone would be willing to step in on that front, I would really appreciate it.
*
I just saw Veronica Mars season one for the first time -- yes, I know, I actually was around when it first aired, but I didn't get the channel it was on. Right now the DVDs are sitting next to my Farscape DVDs, so it looks like Veronica's staring at Crichton going, "Dude, you got PROBLEMS."
*
I keep meaning to do book recs and Star Wars recs, but I keep forgetting. BAD BEDLAM. (Although if there's a specific SW thing you want to ask about -- at this point I can pretty much expound on most things except the OT and post-OT EU and the video games -- feel free to do so. I know I want to do a rec post for the KOTOR comics and Knight Errant, which are both set in the Old Republic. And Dark Times, because holy crap, Dark Times is BRUTAL. A lot of the PT comics EU -- I'm thinking of the Darth Vader comics here, and a little bit of Empire, which I haven't read all of yet -- are brutal, but GOD DAMN. And Legacy, which is set 130 years after RotJ, and is brutal in a different way, and also features the most manpain protagonist I have ever met. If Anakin Skywalker comes back from the dead to tell you that you've been making poor life choices, KID YOU'VE BEEN MAKING POOR LIFE CHOICES. But Legacy also has one of the most interesting female characters in the EU, so there's that.)