Apollymi ::||:: Dark Passion Play

I'm definitely having some issues remembering to do this. I'm trying to get better, but sometimes I just plain forget. At least until lunch time. Why it's easier to remember then, I don't know, but it is.

It's been outrageously hot for April-May so far. I've been spoiled on our winter. I want the winter weather back! Not in the least because I hate when warm weather comes with all its attendant bugs. Bugs bugs bugs. Cockroaches, mosquitoes, gnats, fleas, and all the other icky, nasty, mean things.

I've been having some sort of weird issue with my right hand. It wouldn't be a big deal at all, except for that I write with my right hand. It's definitely my dominant hand... and lately when I try to close my hand or pinch my fingers or hold a book page open, it starts hurting then trembling then twitching. It's actually a bit painful and I would really like it to quit. I looked up hand tremors -- and it's one of the early symptoms to entirely TOO many things: carpal tunnel, repetitive stress, calcium deficiency, vitamin D deficiency, thyroid problems, Parkinson's, epilepsy... The list goes on and gets progressively more terrifying. I would much prefer one of the first 4 than the last 3.

I don't know... It's not like it's all the time or anything and it's not like I have great joints. Maybe if it keeps up beyond next week, I'll see about making a doctor's appointment. I just hate going to the man; he always so condescending, and it always takes so long to get an appointment. Yeah, we'll see.

Everyone I've ever talked to has said that if you don't like your primary care physician then fire them. I doubt I'd be able to find a good one, so I'm not sure on the wisdom of bothering.

When I get home, I'm going to install my copy of the Rosetta Stone program and German 1 on Wraith, so I can keep up with my studying while I'm on the go. See? I can be smart sometimes. (Or as Katsuko would put it: I can be a smart cookie for not being a cookie. I forget which one of us originated that expression, but we like using it.)

And now to see about trying to get some writing done before I'm gone for the weekend.

So I'm doing my post of the week a little early this time. Usually I do them on Fridays, but I figure: why not, while I'm here?

After some pestering, my copies of my books should finally be on the way. The USPS website swears that the books came into Tallahassee today. They might even be at my house by now. I remember I promised one of the 6 to Dirj, but other than that, I can't remember. Dirj, the stuff you ordered from me will be in the box with the book: the first 6 FMA books and the Millennium Kingdom doujinshi. At long last, I know. When they got returned to me the first time, I told myself I'd send them when I sent your copy of the novel. I wasn't counting on all this dicking around. So...

daimeryan_rei, you might need to remind me of which doujinshi you ordered. I'm pretty sure it's not in the right box anymore, thanks to moving. What records I can find at the moment while I'm at work say that it was the Millennium Kingdom remix. If that's not right, let me know, okay, sweetie? I won't mail till I hear from you, just in case.

Of course, all this depends on if Cacoethes updated my address when I moved like I asked. We'll see.

There's a lot of "We'll see" where all this is concerned.

So I did a video post yesterday. Mostly, it''s me babbling, but there's a lot of babbling in there about the books and such. That's rather important I'd guess.

That's a lot of what's going on now: writing and editing. I'm probably going to be trying to do more video blogs (vlogs is apparently the word, though it sounds like something that involves whips and chains) now that I have the hard drive upgraded and such. I still need to upgrade the memory on my laptop, but that's a fight for another day.

In fundraising news, the latest attempt failed as well, so I gave up and started shopping used. I managed to get an iMac G5 (a PowerPC, not an Intel, which is quite all right) for what I had of my own money, even though now it means I'm very broke. Well, not very broke -- I can afford to eat better than ramen or mac and cheese -- but not exactly as comfortable as I'd like.

Hopefully copies should be shipped out now for Amaranth, at least from the Cacoethes site itself. Regarding Amazon, I'm not sure. It's finally back in stock, but it says it would be 3 to 5 weeks before it would ship. That's not a lot better. This is so frustrating!

...at the rate people (and in some cases, I use that word only because I assume they are indeed homo sapien) are frustrating me, I'm going to have to make an icon to use that reads: "The world is a mess, and I just need to rule it." Of course, though, then I'd need to find out how to create a secret lair; that's apparently a necessary property.

But yeah, that's about it. Ciao, my lovelies!

Okay, over on the el Jay, I'm trying to keep up a New Year's promise to make a post a day. So far, I'm even succeeding. Now I'm going to make a promise to make at least a post a week here, even if it's just a "hi, I was here" type of thing.

So... You know I don't think I've ever taken the time to note down all my journals. It's actually a sadly impressive list:

LiveJournal	InsaneJournal
Antania Apollymi Caitlyn_Stryker CaptMoonie ESM KatherineWrites SamMalloy Symfora Takatori_Mamoru VP_Lina	Apollymi ApollymiLJ ESM KatherineBell Melinoe Makari Symfora
Other Journals
JournalFen Apollymi Inksome Apollymi

That's everything save the author blog, the MySpace, and the Facebook... which I can't really use all that often because my father has found me there.

Anyway, it's almost lunch time and I'm awaiting Katusko for foods. She says she's about 5 away, so I'm gonna quit this now and start heading outside.

So, yesterday's whinging aside, this week isn't going *too* terrible. Yesterday was just so bad and so long that it felt like it was pulling me under. Today is a little better. I'm working on trying to deal with everything.

I've been running a virus scan on my work computer since nearly 10:30-ish. Sometimes I despise McAfee.

My home PC's monitor has gone on the blink -- literally. So any home computing that's getting done is being accomplished from the MacBook until I can get up the other $600 towards a new desktop. This time I'm taking no chances and will be getting an iMac. It's what I wanted and couldn't afford last time. I am in the process of doing upgrades on the laptop too, just in case getting the money up for the PC takes longer than I'm expecting.

I'm going to be taking classes again during Summer Semester, A term to be exact. It's the 13 week term. If all goes as I want, I'll be in Introduction to German 1120. If I can get financial aid other than what the job provides, I might try to take one more class: Ancient Mythology. But that's a big if.

Anyway, due to the new financial constraints on me, I won't be going to Dragon*Con this year, not unless someone buys my ticket, my hotel room, and my gas to get up there. I don't exactly see that happening. I'm not a popular enough author yet to be a guest they'd sponsor to show up.

But on that note... Amaranth: The Preterhumans Book 1 is now up on Amazon.com, now with the cover picture showing. One of the people who pre-purchased a copy says that Amazon is telling her it should ship today; another told me April. I guess we'll see, but it will be shipping out soon.

And that's about it. I'll be over here, doing my line-editing homework or working on editing Hunter's Path. I want to start sending it around to people soon: agents, publishers, etc.

Sometimes I wonder...

...why I have online journals that no one but me reads?

...why I have instant messengers when no one IMs me?

...why I bother writing when no one reads what I write?

...why I bother trying to get published when the book either doesn't show up or doesn't sell?

...why *I* even bother... period?

Okay, here's a simple equation for you.

Li-chan + insomnia = cranky!Li
Insomnia - porn = sleep
∴ Li+chan + porn = sleep

Therefore, porn, Li-chan, porn.

I so suck at updates, I'm so sorry!

I've been fanficcing like a mofo. I think in the last two months I've done about two chapters of one series, one chapter of another one, and a preview to yet another one. In order, those would be Belladonna, Whoever Brings the Night, and Route 666. I've also been glancing over Third Chance for a chance to expand on it. I like that one; it needs to be finished. Vidi too for that matter.

Line-Editing is going well. I'm about a week ahead on most everything I need to get done for it. That's pretty nice -- and maybe a little surprising for me. Not that I was a procrastination monkey the first time I went through school, but I was certainly never ahead of the class.

As part of the class, I've managed to secure an editing project for a fellow student's novella. It's only about 61,000 words, and I've managed to secure a $20/hour rate on it. I'm hoping it'll take a while because...

...my home desktop is dying. When I bought it two years ago, I upgraded it within an inch of its life; it started out at 512mb RAM and 120GB hard drive, but now it's 2GB RAM and 220 HD with an external 500GB HD. Honestly, I've spent more on upgrading it than I did on buying it. And now, already the fucker is dying. The DVD-R drive is gone, so I can't even clear off stuff from it to disk. I can't run Word and Excel at the same time. Sometimes I can run Firefox and iTunes at once. And Photoshop? That requires closing everything else -- and sometimes going into the Task Manager and closing background programs.

Now, all I could scare up for Sir Saves A Lot (formerly Kaichan) when I bought him was $300. My sister had bankrupted my mum again, my grandparents already pay too much for me, I didn't feel right asking my friends for money (nevermind that half of them owe me money), and so Oyaji was my only source of the extra funds needed. The limit he said I could put on the card he loaned me was $300. Have you ever tried going to a computer store with only $300 and trying to find something worth half a damn? Especially when you're an Apple person?

So I settled on a Compaq. I should have known better. Compaq has been bought out by HP, you see, and I had an HP that both the fans quit working on and the harddrive caught on fire. You read that right: on fire. As in it melted. Yeah, I was none too happy on that, nor was I too happy having to make the Compaq worth half a damn. RAM ain't cheap, after all.

So anyway, now that it's giving me fits, I'm putting back for a new computer. This time, my money is going towards an Apple. I'm eying a refurbished one through the Apple store or the FSU computer store. Still, that's $1549, of which I have $150 set back. I'm living very paycheck to paycheck as it is, thanks to FSU's budget crisis. I'm doing more and more work, but getting absolutely no more pay. I won't start getting royalties off my books until at least March or April, and class, work, and writing leave me no time for a second job (or would that be 3rd or 4th job?). I could call in all the money I'm owed, but the people who owe it to me are even more broke than I am.

Therefore, I've set up a fundraiser for getting the money up, here on Fundable.com. Any assistance would be most appreciated. The thing with Fundable is that it's either all or nothing. If all the money is raised by the deadline of 03 March, then it gets sent on to me. If not all of it is raised, if it's even $5 short, it all gets refunded to the people who pledged it. So chances are, you could pledge however much you want and it'd probably end up getting refunded to you because I've only secured $50 in 3 days.

And in other news, I'm still waiting to hear back from Cacoethes about Verdant. We'll see what goes on there.

Everyone and their mother is blogging on the inauguration today... so let me join the fray.

Several of us sat down in the conference room here at the library to watch the inauguration on the TV rather than join the hooligans downstairs. I even ordered pizza for us. (Which means Katsuko and I have pizza we can have for dinner tonight.) We watched from 11:30 till almost 1:00.

I was very impressed with the pomp and circumstance of the actual inauguration. I had to bite back laughing when Justice John Edwards screwed up the Oath of Office, but I tapped it down. All of us were extremely happy to see Aretha Franklin sing: she was fantastic. The poet could have been left off, though: her reading was very stilted, monotonic, and poorly visualized. She sounded like she was reading to a 5th grade class for them to take notes of the poem and analyze it.

Warren's invocation did nothing but make me giggle at how he enunciated Malia's name. Several of us were rolling our eyes during that. Lowery, on the other hand, was amazing. He had a sense of style that just was fantastic, he had the proper cadence for speaking, and I adored his closing:
"We ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to give back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right."?

All in all, a fantastic example for the first inauguration I've ever gotten to watch.

MAH ICONS.

default	oldest	newest
saddest	happiest	angriest
cutest	sexiest	funniest
fave ship	fave fandom	fave animated
best quote	best textless	best stolen idea
use the most	favorite

HOW MANY ICONS DO YOU HAVE: 277
OUT OF HOW MANY AVAILABLE ICONS SPACES: 500
IF YOU COULD BUY SPACE FOR MORE, WOULD YOU: Hells yes!
DO YOUR ICONS MAKE A STATEMENT: I like wayyyy too many fandoms
WHAT FANDOM DO YOU HAVE THE MOST ICONS OF: Doctor Who
AND THE SECOND MOST: Yu-Gi-Oh
WHAT SHIP DO YOU HAVE THE MOST ICONS OF: Cain/DG from Tin Man
ARE YOUR ICONS MADE MOSTLY BY OTHER PEOPLE: Unfortunately, yes
DO YOU MAKE ICONS: Sometimes
ARE THEY ANY GOOD: Sometimes
ANIMATED ICONS ARE: FUN!

DO THE MEME.
Coding can be found here

So, I managed to get into Line-Editing. I have my textbook on order through Barnes & Noble, because no one in town has it, not even the two bookstores on campus. Now that's just frelling weird IMHO.

I didn't bother looking into a new second class to take. One per semester will probably do it for me for now, since it's graduate level. I'm damned glad FSU pays for it; otherwise, it'd be over $800 per class, and I just don't have that kind of money.

I'm a couple more paragraphs into the novel I started working on yesterday. I know, I know, slow going. I'm trying not to rush this one.

And in Preterhumans news, all I have left is a fight scene (damn) and getting Lizzie into her new place. (And yes, Katsuko, introducing Fernando. I am going to be keeping him.)

And now to finish getting ready for work. Later!

So, I have good news and I have hair-pulling news.

Hair-Pulling News:
I have spent the entire day thus far on the phone with the Hershell A. Smith Health Center at my old university trying to my medical records sent over. First, they would be sent by 10. Then it was they would be sent by noon. Then it was 2:00.

They got here at 2:30. My registration window opens at... 2:30.

So I faxed them over to Thagard Health Center here at FSU & said "please call me when these are entered, so that I can register". O.o Still nothing.

Good News:
All the papers are now in the appropriate hands, so hopefully I'll be able to get registered soon, maybe even today. The sooner, the better.

Okay, so, I'm terrible. I haven't written a word today -- and I think I might be a bit happy with that. It was nice to relax for a day.

I made a jumbo pot of easy curry for lunch and peanut butter vegetable soup for dinner. The latter is coming with me for lunch tomorrow, while the former is going with Katsuko. Other than cooking, though, all I've done has been play games on the computer and watch episodes of NCIS... because that show is my crack. I'm especially fond of the first two seasons, but that's just because I still prefer Kate to Ziva. But that's neither here nor there.

Tomorrow it's back to work time. At 2:30, I get to register for classes. Hopefully, I'll be able to get into my one class. Latin, it turns out, is a 4 credit hour course, while Line-Editing is 3 hours; the university will only pay for 6 credit hours, so it's one or the other. I can't go over, even by just 1 credit hour. Sucks, huh? I guess I'll be sending Katsuko to the Latin 1 class with a tape recorder for me. It'll be just like auditing the class.

desolate03, I think I'm about to take advantage of that notebook you gave me. I finally hit upon an idea of how to do one of the novel ideas I've been pondering on. (Though I'll admit, I might recruit your assistance in scripting/wording any and all porny bits. You remember what happens when I try to write the porn: the giggles start.) It's a terrible thing, huh?

And now to bed for writing briefly then sleep until about 5:45-ish. I asked Katsuko to just open my door when she gets up for her shower in the morning, so that I'll have plenty of time to get pretty in the morning.

Later!!

Roo seems to think he can keep me from recording another video blog with him in it. Silly kitty...



And Aya is just lazy

Holy loyal readers, Batman!

I just got a PM from one of my most loyal FanFiction.net readers to say that she had preordered both Amaranth and Verdant in print and that she was eagerly looking forward to reading both of them.

Holy shit. I mean, holy shit. Even my family hasn't bought their copies yet.

In other news, I'm currently working on the next chapter of Whoever Brings the Night. Once that's finished, then (probably) it's over to Belladonna or Route 666. I need to finish my sekkrit project. I mean, while I'm watching Pretty Guardian Sailormoon, I might as well take advantage in being in the right frame of mind for it.

Oh, Roo found Cracker again. Greatttt... (My father had a cat, Q, who his dogs killed. We inherited all Q's toys, including a little bird that makes chirping noises when it's bumped. It's loud and annoying, so I named "Polly Wanna Cracker" or Cracker for short. Yeah, I'm weird.) I swear, though, that I have never seen a cat love a toy quite like he adores this little loud thing.

I have an idea for another novel I want to do. When I originally came up with the idea, it was for a YGO story, though, so I'm not too sure on how the conversion should go over... other than that I might genderflip Ryou and Mokuba. Hmm, maybe Yuugi too. Other than that, I'm not too sure. The original idea did rely a good deal on the YGO back-story... though there is a very sad part of me that wants to rewrite Metal Heart as a novel. I know, I know: bad me, no cookie.

Work starts back on Monday and (hopefully) classes should start up on Tuesday. If all goes like I want it to, I'll be in Latin 1 and Line-Editing. I'm working on a Graduate Certificate in Publishing and Editing... and I just want to take Latin. FSU will pay for it, so why not, you know.

I did a little girly splurge yesterday. I've been in a girly mood lately, but then, I've always loved makeup. (I did help a friend make herself look like she drowned when she dragged me to see Titanic, but that's neither here nor there.) MAC, Coastal Scents, and Makeup Junky are my girly hookup; I want to go Urban Decay, but I can't afford them. Anyway, I picked up a couple of things from the MAC store, a pair of rainbow striped tights from Goth Trend/Hot Topic (even if I wasn't in there for that -- I was looking for a Grumpy Bear shirt), and a new pair of sunglasses from Claire's.

I think we have one or two more errands to run, but I really can't remember as I am decaffeinated at the moment. Katsuko has to bleach out her hair today, so that it's ready by Monday. I'm sure there was something else, though, and it's just not coming to me. No big shock there.

I've started looking into video blogging since I finally found a freeware video-audio recording program that would work on my Macbook. I've only done one so far, and that was me and Roo testing it out. (If anyone knows of a freeware better than BabyaTV, please let me know. It tends to record at ungodly large sizes, like 1600x1200.)

So whenever Katsuko deigns to get out of bed, we'll start the day; I've been up since about 8:30, since the kitties don't like both moms sleeping. Back to work on WBtN! Later!

So I finished my 24hour_themes stories last night and got the last one posted today (like 5 minutes ago). That's a huge relief. My completed table is here, because I rock that damned hard. And because I'm so damned proud of those stories.

And now Katsuko and I are going to go run our errands: pay rent, eat lunch, and buy groceries. Upon return to the Ponderosa, I'm gonna get back to work on Ash and try to get those last 10,000 or 15,000 or so words to boogie on out.

Later!!

Okay, somehow it's 2009 already. Yes, I was up at midnight.

This was the first year I actually drank on New Years Eve. Okay, so it was sangria, but, still... alcohol(ish)!

I have made it through all my fanfiction on the DarkMagick.net revamp. I have to finish the YGO recs page before I'm willing to declare myself done, though. It's sort of slow-going, but it's picked up a lot since I downloaded KompoZer. It's all the simple stuff from Frontpage that I loved without all the tricky "gotta know Adobe's way of doing things" that the new Dreamweaver does. And I like being able to hit two buttons and have a new line of a table just show up. Plus, freeware.

And my coffee seriously needs to hurry the hell up.

Okay, and I guess it's time for New Year's Resolutions again, isn't it? I'm going to be rather brief with mine this year, I think. Let's see:

* A post a day all year, barring LJ being stupid.
* Finish Ash.
* Write Azure.
* Write the other story kicking around my head (yes, the gay romance).
* Maintain weight at 140 to 145. (I'm 5'8"; that's a decent weight for my height.)
* Body toning would be good, but I know my free time.
* Don't drop out of classes.
* Eventually afford iMac 20" and upgrades to Macbook.

See? Rather simple for me compared to previous years.

And now back to the goddamn Recs page. (Maybe I should rename it that.)

Wow, it's been a long time since I last blogged here. I check it every day, but blog? Not so much.

Mostly, I've been working on the updates to The Preterhumans series. Amaranth should be out soon, and I've been speaking to my author liaison regarding Verdant. I'm going to resume work on Ash after the New Year.

I'll be starting classes in January as well: Latin 1 and Line-Editing. I'm doing to be getting a graduate certificate in Publishing and Editing. And the Latin... Well, that's just me wanting to learn it. I'm hoping I can get into it. I'll find out on Monday.

I've also been working on a major overhaul of my main website, DarkMagick.net. I have 2 sections to go: the recommendations page and my monster-long epic crossover Gods and Other Creatures. Right now, the revised site is only available at http://www.darkmagick.net/test/. I should be done with Gods today, and I want to have the recommendations page at least functional by tomorrow, if not completely filled in.

And that's what I've been working on in a nutshell.

During October and November, I wrote 98,000 words on Ash. To me, that's a pretty huge amount. Amaranth was about 80,000 words, while Verdant was about 90,000 words. Ash, however, isn't done yet. By my best guestimates, it has 15,000 to 20,000 words still to go... mainly because I have to write what I hate most: a fight scene. I DETEST writing fight scenes. This one snuck up on me.

I am, however, taking a break from writing on Ash for a little bit, since - you know - I've been marathoning it the last two months.

I have some ideas of things I want to work on, aside from fanfiction, during my break between Ash and Azure. We'll see what comes of it. If I do pursue and finish any of these ideas, I already have a press picked out. Recent readers should enjoy these: they're closer to what I've been writing on the fanfiction scene lately.

And I'm 3/4 of the way through White Night, the 9th book in The Dresden Files series. Reading Chapter Eight nearly made me sporfle curry, I was laughing so hard, but the whole damned book is just wonderful.

And now to get ready for an early day at work.

So, I have an odd question.

If a character is pretty much a spirit and is referred to as "the God King of the Primordium" (but whose original body is, well, ambiguous to say the least), what gender would you classify them as?

From just that, I personally would say "male".

Okay, now suppose this spirit of a "God King" is possessing the body (or shell of a body) of a female. What gender would you now refer to this entity as?

This is where I get confused.

Finally, if you were to pair this God King (in the female shell) with a male, would that be considered het, slash, or something in between?

Thoughts? Comments?