Writing and reading update

[mafief]

Writing
Lets see… Ain’t happening much these days. I’ve lost track of words I’ve written and what not. I managed to participate in Watson’s Woes, which I’m very proud of myself for what I did. Beyond that big push, it’s been a struggle. My class is kicking my butt and taking my creative energies and when I typically write. Figuring out my new time management schedule is a major priority right now, since I want to still write.

As for communities, I have kept up-to-date on the canon readings for Sherlock60, but I haven’t written a 60 word story for it in ages. I think I will adjust my commitment to that and just do the readings. Need to go back through and comment on the stories that have been written and cheer on that one person. For the others… I’ll continue to lurk and attempt when I can.

Ignoring how writing isn’t happening these days, I can still dream and doing some pre-writng with projects. Thus, instead of clearing WIPs off my list, I’ve managed to add to them. I have two stories I want to write for BBC Sherlock, but I am honestly terrified of that fandom. Reading through the comment section on some of stories in the fandom is not for the faint of heart.

Reading
I’ve been reading (listening to audiobooks), which I’m counting towards the creative writing process. Somewhere I read that reading is breathing in and writing is breathign out. Sure, I’ll go with that.

Finished
Lab Girl - Hope Jahren
This is one of those books that fell under the ‘I should read this’. It has been on the ASBP (American Society of Plant Biologist) summer reading list and a friend suggested it.

The book is a memior of Jahren’s life and her interactions with one of her science buddies. She’s a geochemist who happens to study plants. She grew up in a Swedish (maybe? forgetting details) community and didn’t speak much of emotion or how to express it. She has manic depression and wasn’t on medication for a while. She’s soly devoted to her work, period. She is a wife and a mom and has a best friend (Bill) who has been working for her since the beginning. Her and Bill go on science adventures to conferences and to collect samples. Bill is her right hand man and does a lot of the lab work.

I got a audiobook loan from the library and listened to it. Dr Jahren read the book. Her voice is nice to listen to. She pronounces ‘roots’ as ‘ruts’ and her pronouciation of my study plant (Arabidopsis) was odd, which makes since beause she never uses that plant and isn’t in that community. She describes in detail sterile technique (I almost fell asleep during this chapter). She puts in anecdotes about plants, which I like but most I know already and some are over statements. Her writing style isn’t my favorite. It’s like she finally got to use adjectives and adverbs that we never use in science and had at it.

Overall, I hated this book (yes, I know that is a strong word). I wanted to throw my phone across the room a few times and once I needed to stop the book, cool down, and have my husband listen to the offending passage. Besides my viseral reaction to the book because I lived this life for a while, it is a nice glimps into what is considered typically and (often) exhaulted in science, from the perspective of a female scientist. Other people do like this book a lot because of that reason, so I wouldn’t let my reaction to it prevent you from reading it.

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage – Haruki Murakami

The book starts of with the main character thinking about death for so many years. Yup, it’s going to be one of those topics… The main character is trying to figure out why the 4 other people (whose names refer to colors and his doesn’t, thus he thinks of himself as colorless) in his group of friends immediately stopped talking to him and completely cut him out of the group years ago. He goes on a journey to try to figure this out. There is a random mystical element in it that I didn’t understand, but it had the desired effect of adding doubt into the reader.

What was odd was reading a sex scene from a guy’s perspective. I’ll assume that 99.9% of the fanfics I’ve read thus far have been from a non-male. What was focused on before, during, and after the act in the guy’s work was very different from what I’ve noticed from a female’s work. So I found his scenes rather jaring and overal strange.

It was OK. His writing was interesting, and produced the desired ‘wait, what?’ about half-way through the book. The book ends unresolved about a potential love interest, which I don’t really like in this book (other works have done this and I’ve been OK with it, but not this time). I have another more popular book from this author marked, so I’ll give him another go. Honestly, I chose this book from the library stack because it was short and the cover was cleverly done and I wanted to read something from that author. Man, I wish published books came with short AO3 tags.

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter - Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
This book was so much fun to read. I adore Aziraphale and Crowley and almost wish the book had more interactions between these two characters.

We were covering a prophecy in the OT in my church group. My unhelpful brain kept adding phrases about the ineffiable plan and I’m trying very hard not to giggle. I passed this book along to my husband, who loved it as well.

There is a series coming out with David Tennant as Crowley and Michael Sheen as Aziraphale. Those casting choices are so dang perfect, and I’m wicked excited for that to come out!

In-progress
I’ve been using my libraries ap for loaning audio books. Here is the BIG catch with that: they send back the books on you after a week. When I finally find time to listen to a book in the car kid-free, I’ll get half-way through the book and it sent back almost immediately after. Grr! Some of the books I’m trying to loan have a very long waiting list, and my hold is back at the end of the line again. I’m finding this whole process extremely frustrating. Thus, my in-progress books are way to many and I don’t exactly remember where I am in some of these books because they send it back before I got to mark my progress. In any case, these are the books I’m trying to finish:

Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
A Man Called Ove
The Immortal Life of Hebrietta Lacks
Coraline

Comments

[mafief]

BBC Sherlock:
Thank you for your opinion on that. I was hoping for thoughts from those who have been there before. :) I like the idea of moderating comments. I haven't had to do yet, and really don't want to... I thought about just posting on DW for a bit, just to put it somewhere before finding more confidence and post it else where.

I've gotten about halfway through both Curious Incident and Immortal Life, and really like both. Immortal Life is written well and respectful for the topic. It's bringing up a lot of conflicting ethical issues as I go through it, so lots to think about. I do highly suggest that one. :)

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

My policy is to never, ever engage with negative comments. In my opinion, you can't win and in my experience, in all cases, but one especially persistent annoyance, this has meant they stopped at one comment and left me alone. You can also disable anonymous commenting. I just had an anonymous commenter lecture me about how women don't think any different from men based on something I put in an old fic. Not abusive but just 'whatever.'

Almost all of the comments I get are positive, but here are some that are kind of annoying that I've gotten:

-telling me not to appropriate his culture for my 'little stories' (when I put a Chinese fable in one of my fics)
-Forgiving me for 'what I did to them.' (Which I think was put Holmes & Watson in a threesome with Victor Trevor, but I'm not certain. I did a lot of things to them in that fic :/)
-John wouldn't cheat on Sherlock! (on an open relationship poly fic that was properly tagged)
-This is scary! Sherlock and John should talk! (on a horror fic where miscommunication was part of the plot).
-unsolicited critique (which I never want), unsolicited advice (which I never take) and even (once, perhaps the most annoying) an American Britpicking me and being wrong.
-not properly tagging, which is a valid criticism. I fix things (add tags and warnings--but I still never reply to the comment itself) and I think I do better than I used to in preventing such comments but it still crops up when readers are surprised by how dark a fic is. Sometimes in the haste to get a thing posted, I forget and sometimes I forget that other people are triggered by certain things, like death and suicide and whatnot, which don't trigger me.

I've not had full-on trolls so I can't speak to that.

[mafief]

Thank you for describing your experience. It helps see what sort of comments you've gotten and your reaction towards them.