thursday.

[sunfright]

Gave up and gave my journal here an Amazon theme. Have face-claimed Connie Nielsen as Hippolyta from Wonder Woman for this character, so that should explain the choice of side banner gif and new default icon.

I have so many ideas for so much ballet femslash, and I just need to finish this fic first. Insert smol tear here.

I've read through the first four months today (generally happy with it, though last part of April might require some editing or rewriting) and sent it off to my beta, so now I need to get May outlined properly (I've done keywords for the first three days) and start writing. Today has been totally lazy otherwise, however, and I haven't really been motivated for much of anything, so I don't know how much I'll get done. There's always tomorrow, of course, but the next two days are kinda packed with other stuff, so this feels like an opportunity wasted, pretty much. Sigh.

Ah, well.

Nothing to do about it.

I'm making chamomile tea right now, I drink so much of that stuff, you'd think my sleep pattern would be better, haha. It is really soothing, though.

Why do you always get a burst of creative energy at the end of the day when your body's too tired to do anything about it? Asking for a friend.

Now, t e a t i m e.

Comments

[rafiwinters]

Yay for fic! I'm wondering do I need a beta reader for mine. Of course, my current project isn't even half-outlined yet, never mind actually written, so for now it's a moot point...

[sunfright]

I always try to get at least one beta for mine, if they're more than 2000 words or so, because I'm so horribly ESL and it shows, so getting someone to fix it up for me language-wise is a really good thing.

However, I think having a beta is valuable insofar that you find out about reader experience before posting and you can get a lot of good notes for editing and such that might be helpful also in the future.

I warmly recommend it!

[rafiwinters]

I ran across the betaplease comm on your profile! I joined up (ooh, that sounds very military, which was not what I mean... lol) and will make use of it. Thanks for the (possibly-inadvertent) pointer. I think I do need betas, though at the moment I'm not sure what I'm going to write next. :-)

[sunfright]

betaplease is a great place! It's really helped me a lot. I hope you'll find it useful as well.

Though, yeah, it's about getting the idea for something to write first, lol. Wish you good writing when you get to it!

[rafiwinters]

So... what sort of thing do you write? Fanfic, original...? And/or do you beta-read for other people?

[sunfright]

At the moment, I write fanfic mostly, but for fandoms that are so obscure and/or small that they probably read as original stuff to most people? The fic I'm working on at the moment is a fanfic for a Danish poetry collection that's only available in English due to my very unofficial translation of it, for example. Then, there are all the ballet fandoms that are also small and obscure and probably read as original, too.

I haven't beta read for anyone in English yet! I have done some beta work in my original Danish, but due to ESL-ness, I can't give much feedback on language and grammar and such when I read stuff in English. I do, however, consider myself a good analyst of texts and could probably give feedback on stuff like reader experience, plot development, character portrayals and symbolism/imagery as a whole. Not something I've tried, but I don't think I'd be opposed to it.

[rafiwinters]

As you'll see in my other comment, I did a good bit of writing today. I don't know if you are interested in my particular fandoms at all...? The Man from UNCLE is the one I'm working in right now.

[sunfright]

I haven't seen the movie (or TV show, I think, there was, right?), but I'm peripherally acquainted with the movie and could probably do some reading-up on Wiki and such.

As I'm very busy, writing-wise, right now myself, I don't think betaing anything currently is a good idea, but if you have anything you want looked at on the other side of April, we could talk about it then? I have some limits for how long and such fics can be, for me to read them (I'm very bad at very long texts these days), and some content things I'm not willing to read, but if we're a fit, I'd be happy to look at something for you. :)

[rafiwinters]

Thanks for offer! :) I'm not sure we would be a good writer/beta pairing, given what you said. My stories tend to be pretty long (the novel that I finished recently and am in the process of posting is over 150,000 words, for instance) and there is some potentially-triggering content in the background of my version of one of Our Heroes, depends on what your triggers are.

There was a TV show in the... I wanna say the early 1970s. It was hilarious and kind of cheesy but I love it. I think you can get it on YouTube. The movie was much more recent. The movie versions of the characters and the backstory are completely different from those things in the TV series. Also very good--just different. I think the movie is also on YouTube.

My stories are based on the TV show.

[sunfright]

Yeah, it's really important getting a beta who's up to speed on your style, format and triggers. That's one of the reasons I like betaplease so much, because you present your story there and whoever feels comfortable about or interested in it will grab it and help out. That way, you can meet betas you match. I wish you luck with it, definitely!

I think I've seen the movie once, I seem to remember fragments of it. I'd never heard about the TV show but it sounds fun! I hope you get some good writing done with your story and find the right beta for you when you're done!

[rafiwinters]

Re: beta reading, I think having a complete stranger do it will work better for me than having a friend or J (my wife) do it. Friends have been reluctant to do it, and when they did it could be awkward; likewise awkward when J has read my work. I think a beta reader off of betaplease would feel more objective to me. Neither of us would have to worry about the beta's feedback making a friendship or marriage awkward. Also there's the fact that my friends and J aren't necessarily well-versed in the conventions of fanfic, whereas someone I meet on betaplease would be, if I post specifically looking for such a person.

The movie is hilarious. You can rent or buy it on YouTube. You don't need to have seen the TV show to love it.

[sunfright]

I definitely feel the "find an objective pair of eyes" thing and that was why I initially used betaplease. Now I know my beta better, I think, and that does something else to the betaing process, but the fact that we started out strangers was a really great tool and gift. I think it will be the best for you, too!