Randominity
Oct. 14th, 2003 08:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynStuff that has been richocheting around in my empty head:
1. Today is the one year anniversary of my LJ. I'm not sure what that means, exactly. A year ago,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
merryish convinced me, with her infectious enthusiasm, that LJ wasn't the root of all evil in fandom, and that since I missed writing reviews and essays, it might be a good way to get more involved with Buffy fandom, especially, as I was having a hard time getting connected with people and places I could have discussions about the show.
There are times I think I should have always kept it from being personal in any way, and also times when I wonder why I do it at all. It's helped me make some wonderful friends in the fandom; it's also helped me get back into a kind of writing that I guess I'm better at than fiction, I'm starting to think -- essays, personal discourses. But it also feeds on my biggest insecurities, those big hairy mastodon-sized issues I have with lack of self-esteem, rejection, being excluded, or ignored. There's something about, say, the act of posting about a story and getting hardly any responses, or spilling your guts about something important to you and hearing nothing in response, that can feed on anyone's insecurities, and it's a weird concept, anyways, to be publicly doing either of those things, or any of the other things we use our LJs for. Or at least, for anyone who's me. ;-) I've never quite figured out how I really feel about it.
LJ reminds me all too often of the pain of junior high and high school, of being excluded or feeling unworthy, yet going, "Hey, look at me! Please?" Especially if you let yourself do the dreaded comparison -- someone posts about staring at the floor for hours (this is all just made up as a for instance, it's nothing and no one specific I'm using as example) and they get 40 responses; you post about a new story and get five, and then wonder if that means anything. This is a trap that I've seen happen in e-mail lists before, where people get angry that when they post, no one responds, but when others post about anything, they're deluged with responses -- and LJ seems to amplify this kind of situation. (Or at least, for self-loathing individuals like me.) I've never quite got a handle on it, there are times I have to stop myself from seeing LJ as an extension of the high school cliques that scorned me; I have to remind myself over and over that I'm an adult and this is not that world. LJ is cool; LJ is also weird.
2. My furnace is fixed, as is the sewer clean-out that the guys discovered was dripping because of a wrong-sized cover onto the dirt floor, starting a mushroom colony (and no, I have no idea whether they were "good" mushrooms or not, but since they were growing in sewer drippings, I'm thinking not), thus explaining the earthy smell coming through the vents when the furnace kicked on. That was $660 I hadn't anticipated spending, and now the trip back to England, Wales, and France I'd been hoping for next spring will not happen. And I'm very disappointed.
3. Yesterday was apparently Beta Appreciation Day, but I did not know this. I think I'm mostly pretty appreciative of my editors all the time, or at least I hope -- I thank them on my web site, shower them with thanks when they finish editing something, etc. Althoughsweet_ali could probably confirm whether I'm a stingy Scroogey boss writer or not, since she's done the vast majority of the beta work for me in the past year, and I adore her for it. Hopefully she is not huddled, waiting for the lash to come down, muttering about what a Simon Legree I am.
But it left me with a strange feeling, because... I will never get thanked for beta appreciation day since no one lets me beta their work. Sniff. I offer constantly, yet no one I know takes me up on my offer. I assume that, for people who know me in RL, this is because they're afraid of me. I'm an editor by trade, and maybe they think I'll drive them into comas by explaining why the nominative case needs to be employed in this sentence, or the dangling modifier makes this whole part unintentionally hilarious, or "don't you know that this use of the subjunctive is just wrong, you hack moron?"
I feel like those street people who try to wash windshields of cars stopped in traffic, hoping for a handout because I gave them "services" that they didn't want. Or something. I've had a lot of people tell me that you can't beta for people in other fandoms -- but I believe this is a spurious allegation. Most of us are at least familiar in a cursory way with our friends' fandoms, and characterization or interpretation of canon isn't necessarily the only thing a beta should be offering a writer (in my world, anyway). In fact, if the writer is decent enough, quibbling over differing interpretations of characterization shouldn't even happen at all -- a good writer will have an interpretation that they've backed up with the writing, so then they wouldn't have to bicker endlessly over minutiae of canon or character with a beta, and those unfortunate hexes on the beta's future generations, or impolite name-calling in foreign languages, wouldn't have to happen.
Besides, it's all about the first thing any decent editor learns when we get into this field -- the power of the query. If you're not super familiar with the psychological makeup of a character from a fandom you're not in, you ask questions, which gets the writer to thinking about how their presentation might affect readers both familiar and unfamiliar. I think that's a good thing. Even if you and your beta don't share the intimate knowledge of so and so's boxers or briefs choice, or whether they prefer the left or right side of the bed, you can still get things like tone, structure, grammar, etc. out of a halfway decent beta.
I used to get asked once in a very, very great while. And a lot of those folks who asked me weren't in my fandoms, but I knew enough about story to help them. It's been weird, having this experience and knowledge and enthusiasm, and knowing I can't share it. (Not that I necessarily want to share it with hack morons, but you know what I mean.)I'm the Horshack of fans, always raising my hand, offering, but the Mr. Kotters call on other people. ;-) And I also realize that I'm utterly alone in my belief about this, and have been told dozens of times that people won't read out of their fandom, and they won't beta, either. I do both, but I guess I'm kinda strange.
4. I don't like either Eve on Angel, or Lauren on Alias, but for different reasons than it seems others don't. I've seen both actresses in other things, and neither of them struck me as very good. That's my major objection -- they're both relying on simpery mannerisms to try to seem either sexy or appealing, but they're not strong enough to carry off these fairly significant roles. Eve's actress is trying too hard for the sophisticated saucy thing, and she doesn't have the gravity as an actress to carry it off; Lauren's is relying on her overbite and giant-sized lips, but she's just dwarfed in talent when she's in a room with pros like Carl Lumley, Victor Garber, and Ron Rifkin -- not to mention Jennifer Garner. If Lena Olin comes back, she'll be eaten alive. Plus, I want an explanation for the super posh English accent from an American senator's daughter from Virginia.
5. I think my new secret shame is going to be Tarzan. After cringing through just the Mitch Pileggi scenes (he looks so good! Wrinkly, but good! And all his Mitchly mannerisms are back in full force -- the head twitch, the squint, the shoulder roll...), I gave the full episode another try, and it wasn't that bad. Stupid idea, but then, so was Birds of Prey, and I liked that. I'm sure it will die; I'm hoping WB will keep showing it on Sundays early, so that I don't have to rely on my faulty memory to tape it when it's on opposite Alias.
1. Today is the one year anniversary of my LJ. I'm not sure what that means, exactly. A year ago,
merryish convinced me, with her infectious enthusiasm, that LJ wasn't the root of all evil in fandom, and that since I missed writing reviews and essays, it might be a good way to get more involved with Buffy fandom, especially, as I was having a hard time getting connected with people and places I could have discussions about the show. There are times I think I should have always kept it from being personal in any way, and also times when I wonder why I do it at all. It's helped me make some wonderful friends in the fandom; it's also helped me get back into a kind of writing that I guess I'm better at than fiction, I'm starting to think -- essays, personal discourses. But it also feeds on my biggest insecurities, those big hairy mastodon-sized issues I have with lack of self-esteem, rejection, being excluded, or ignored. There's something about, say, the act of posting about a story and getting hardly any responses, or spilling your guts about something important to you and hearing nothing in response, that can feed on anyone's insecurities, and it's a weird concept, anyways, to be publicly doing either of those things, or any of the other things we use our LJs for. Or at least, for anyone who's me. ;-) I've never quite figured out how I really feel about it.
LJ reminds me all too often of the pain of junior high and high school, of being excluded or feeling unworthy, yet going, "Hey, look at me! Please?" Especially if you let yourself do the dreaded comparison -- someone posts about staring at the floor for hours (this is all just made up as a for instance, it's nothing and no one specific I'm using as example) and they get 40 responses; you post about a new story and get five, and then wonder if that means anything. This is a trap that I've seen happen in e-mail lists before, where people get angry that when they post, no one responds, but when others post about anything, they're deluged with responses -- and LJ seems to amplify this kind of situation. (Or at least, for self-loathing individuals like me.) I've never quite got a handle on it, there are times I have to stop myself from seeing LJ as an extension of the high school cliques that scorned me; I have to remind myself over and over that I'm an adult and this is not that world. LJ is cool; LJ is also weird.
2. My furnace is fixed, as is the sewer clean-out that the guys discovered was dripping because of a wrong-sized cover onto the dirt floor, starting a mushroom colony (and no, I have no idea whether they were "good" mushrooms or not, but since they were growing in sewer drippings, I'm thinking not), thus explaining the earthy smell coming through the vents when the furnace kicked on. That was $660 I hadn't anticipated spending, and now the trip back to England, Wales, and France I'd been hoping for next spring will not happen. And I'm very disappointed.
3. Yesterday was apparently Beta Appreciation Day, but I did not know this. I think I'm mostly pretty appreciative of my editors all the time, or at least I hope -- I thank them on my web site, shower them with thanks when they finish editing something, etc. Although
sweet_ali could probably confirm whether I'm a stingy Scroogey boss writer or not, since she's done the vast majority of the beta work for me in the past year, and I adore her for it. Hopefully she is not huddled, waiting for the lash to come down, muttering about what a Simon Legree I am.But it left me with a strange feeling, because... I will never get thanked for beta appreciation day since no one lets me beta their work. Sniff. I offer constantly, yet no one I know takes me up on my offer. I assume that, for people who know me in RL, this is because they're afraid of me. I'm an editor by trade, and maybe they think I'll drive them into comas by explaining why the nominative case needs to be employed in this sentence, or the dangling modifier makes this whole part unintentionally hilarious, or "don't you know that this use of the subjunctive is just wrong, you hack moron?"
I feel like those street people who try to wash windshields of cars stopped in traffic, hoping for a handout because I gave them "services" that they didn't want. Or something. I've had a lot of people tell me that you can't beta for people in other fandoms -- but I believe this is a spurious allegation. Most of us are at least familiar in a cursory way with our friends' fandoms, and characterization or interpretation of canon isn't necessarily the only thing a beta should be offering a writer (in my world, anyway). In fact, if the writer is decent enough, quibbling over differing interpretations of characterization shouldn't even happen at all -- a good writer will have an interpretation that they've backed up with the writing, so then they wouldn't have to bicker endlessly over minutiae of canon or character with a beta, and those unfortunate hexes on the beta's future generations, or impolite name-calling in foreign languages, wouldn't have to happen.
Besides, it's all about the first thing any decent editor learns when we get into this field -- the power of the query. If you're not super familiar with the psychological makeup of a character from a fandom you're not in, you ask questions, which gets the writer to thinking about how their presentation might affect readers both familiar and unfamiliar. I think that's a good thing. Even if you and your beta don't share the intimate knowledge of so and so's boxers or briefs choice, or whether they prefer the left or right side of the bed, you can still get things like tone, structure, grammar, etc. out of a halfway decent beta.
I used to get asked once in a very, very great while. And a lot of those folks who asked me weren't in my fandoms, but I knew enough about story to help them. It's been weird, having this experience and knowledge and enthusiasm, and knowing I can't share it. (Not that I necessarily want to share it with hack morons, but you know what I mean.)I'm the Horshack of fans, always raising my hand, offering, but the Mr. Kotters call on other people. ;-) And I also realize that I'm utterly alone in my belief about this, and have been told dozens of times that people won't read out of their fandom, and they won't beta, either. I do both, but I guess I'm kinda strange.
4. I don't like either Eve on Angel, or Lauren on Alias, but for different reasons than it seems others don't. I've seen both actresses in other things, and neither of them struck me as very good. That's my major objection -- they're both relying on simpery mannerisms to try to seem either sexy or appealing, but they're not strong enough to carry off these fairly significant roles. Eve's actress is trying too hard for the sophisticated saucy thing, and she doesn't have the gravity as an actress to carry it off; Lauren's is relying on her overbite and giant-sized lips, but she's just dwarfed in talent when she's in a room with pros like Carl Lumley, Victor Garber, and Ron Rifkin -- not to mention Jennifer Garner. If Lena Olin comes back, she'll be eaten alive. Plus, I want an explanation for the super posh English accent from an American senator's daughter from Virginia.
5. I think my new secret shame is going to be Tarzan. After cringing through just the Mitch Pileggi scenes (he looks so good! Wrinkly, but good! And all his Mitchly mannerisms are back in full force -- the head twitch, the squint, the shoulder roll...), I gave the full episode another try, and it wasn't that bad. Stupid idea, but then, so was Birds of Prey, and I liked that. I'm sure it will die; I'm hoping WB will keep showing it on Sundays early, so that I don't have to rely on my faulty memory to tape it when it's on opposite Alias.
