nickelmountain

I can't believe I keep forgetting to do this! Thank you to brynspikess for the lovely shiny v-gift!

I only have one class on Tuesdays, so I wanted to spend today avoiding my homework by recording the fic I chose for chromatic_podfic. That's due March 2nd, and if I wait much longer it'll get crowded out by the 40 page paper that's due later that week. Which I haven't started writing yet. Which totally isn't my fault. Which I actually had to have a meeting about with people at my school, and they agreed it wasn't my fault. SO THERE.

*ahem* Anyway. IN ADDITION to an un-started 40 page paper, a short presentation, and two midterms in the next two weeks, I'm working on my chromatic_podfic, a podfic for crinklysolution for scarleteenfans, and my podficbigbang. In addition to three or four other podfics in various stages of planning and/or completion.

And! Hey! You can still win my podficcing services in support of Planned Parenthood at fandom_helps! Bidding is open until 11:30 EST TONIGHT! And despite the dubious state of affairs described in the last paragraph, I actually have a pretty fast turnaround time on podfics won in charity auctions. Two weeks to a month, usually. (Just, um, not the next two weeks. Probably.)

I also still have a podfic up for auction at fund_jcollins. That auction closes on March 7th.

Also, I talked about The Walking Dead in my last post, and then watched the most recent episode...I really can't endorse that show. It has such an incredible look to it, but the content is pretty fucking misogynistic. And not in an intelligent, meta-textual, commenting-on-human-nature kind of way. It's not that humanity collapses and the survivors revert to base primate behavior...it's just dumb. The amount of time I can forestall disappointment in a bad show is directly proportional to how excited I was about it before it aired, and The Walking Dead finally crossed that line for me. It's been too dumb for too long.

Oh hey, I realized I started a thought like five paragraphs ago and never finished it. I was going to record podfic today. But instead I'm drinking hot tea and Emergen-C and downing cold medicine that makes me do loopy things like get distracted mid-paragraph and wander into a monologue about zombies apropos of completely nothing (as you do)...

I think I'd better get out of this post while I still can. TL;DR: I have a cold. That's all I really meant to say. That, and thank you to brynspikess, whose v gift was a pleasant and welcome surprise last week.

I'm so far behind on LJ, it's not even funny. A belated happy holiday/end of year/winter season to everyone, and belated happy birthday wishes to brynspikess, colls, and fishpatrol!

I just finished up the family obligation portion of my winter break, and I have the rest of this week and all of next week before the Spring semester starts. Time to catch up with fandom. I have fics to read, podfics to listen to, recs to write, and a bunch of comments to leave. I also have two comms to work on, several podfics to record, and some other podfic/fandom-related posts to make.

I'll start things off with a podfic end-of-year wrap-up. I've seen a couple other people do this - I think it started with paraka? Anyway...

( 2011 Podfic Wrap-Up )

Oh, also, I finally put all my podfic up on AO3. So, that's there now, if you're interested.  

Making another update to my Master Podfic post, I realized that I have now posted a total of 20 podfics, and five of those were posted within the last five days. O_o

There are several small, boring factors. A slow start to the semester, a cooperating voice, a drive to make up for the podfic failure that was May, and a desire to get over 100 points in amplificathon this year. Which I have now done. I realize others have earned that many points in a single post, but for me? This is victory.

Next week one of my coworkers is on vacation, so I'll be working five shifts instead of my usual three, and on top of that I'll have two midterm exams. I anticipate school getting more intense in general. But - I'm still participating in pod_together, I'm still recording several Pecks on the Lips and one or two Makeouts for podfic_project, and I still have Lilac City and Dazzleland to record. I expect that each of the last two individually will total more hours of recorded podfic than I have done in 20 podfics so far.

So, yeah. I don't anticipate maintaining the roll I've been on. I hope to keep a more regular recording/posting schedule than i had last semester, but it won't look like this. Sadly.

That said, this has felt awesome.

 I have two more weeks of classes before the Spring semester is over, and everything is due next week. Two presentations and three papers, and then I'm in the clear until June.

I have podfic plans. Oh yes I do. I am excite.

I wanted to record a ton of podfic over winter break, but that break was swallowed whole by Christmas. May, however...requires very little of me. I'm starting it with a trip out to see nwhepcat  for a fangirl weekend to celebrate surviving the semester, and I'm ending it with nwhepcat again at wiscon . With fannish bookends such as those, how can May be anything but awesome?

( This is my plan: )
Anyway. Back to paper-writing and presentation-preparing. And also: Friday night, why must you tempt me so? Friday Night Lights, Supernatural, and Fringe all in one night? I mean, sure, I'm used to watching Fringe on Hulu the next day, but it's the principle of the thing. So much awesome, and I have to resist and avoid spoilers until my schoolwork is done.

Sigh.

 So really, I am going to post more recs. I swear. 

Life is hectic. My old boss, who I liked a lot, moved to California last month. My new boss has been on the job for a couple of weeks, and I think she's great, but she keeps handing me projects. Nickelhusband made the mistake the other day of saying something dismissive about my job, and I just about bit his head off. (Yes, it's retail, and no, it's not important or culturally valued, but oh my god, directly managing a hundred people is hard fucking work.)

At the moment, I'm putting off doing my statistics homework. I'm in my second week of an online class, my final prerequisite for grad school in the fall. I'd rather be recording. I'm woefully behind on a podfic that I'm really excited about making.

Which brings me to this: general-jinjur.dreamwidth.org/642493.html

I came across it on metafandom , and it made me think. I'm still new to recording, and haven't been personally exposed to a lot of the issues she's talking about and responding to. I haven't come across anything to make me tired in the way she describes. I'm naive, I guess. I'm basically a lurker at heart.

But she talked about the experience of reading - not listening, but reading - and a lot of things clicked for me. The intimacy, in particular. Like a lot of people, I have issues in this area. I stopped writing fiction because it was too intimate, too personal. I didn't want to let anyone get that close to me. I've spent all my adult life so far trying to tear down my own walls and let people in. I think recording stories allows me to be intimate, to let people into my life in a real, physical way, while still maintaining a certain distance. It's my voice, my laptop humming a little too loud in the background, my cat crying at the door, and what I'm reading is a very specific representation of my interest and passion. But because it's not my story, there's still a filter. I'm expressing myself openly and honestly, but sideways. 

Here's something personal: the last story I finished recording was, in large part, about cancer. I'm a survivor of childhood cancer, and I recorded the first half of that story during a very recent cancer scare, in the couple of days before my thyroidectomy. When I listen to it, I can hear a certain roughness in my voice, which I know is from the lump that was growing in my throat. By the second half of the story, the roughness is gone. I'd recovered from surgery, and the pathologist had confirmed that everything was benign.

I wasn't able to tell people I loved what I was going through. But I was able to express it in the story I chose, and in the hints of stress in my voice. I'll gladly sing praises about the writer's talent and vision, and I'll always be grateful to her for writing that story and allowing me to post it. But reading it? Was about me. 

It's noon already, and I really need to finish my homework. I hope I've been coherent and constructive. And I will resume my recs soon. Really.

 So, I have a few projects in the pipeline, in various stages of completion.

1) Two podfics - one short, one massive, both so much fun to read. Sadly, they're on hiatus while my voice recovers. More on that later.

2) I have a fic in mind. Maybe one multi-part fic, maybe five separate fics. I'm in planning and research phase right now. The plot bunny got me, and oh my god, I want to write this story. Which is intimidating as hell, because a) I've never written fanfic before, and; b) Years since I've written any kind of fiction. Years. 

3) I'm home from work for the next few days, and I've really been meaning to put together some shout outs/recs of fics I've read/listened to over the past few months. I also have a long list of fen I need to leave comments for. I've been a little better at that recently, but old lurker habits die really hard.

Also, personal project 4) I need to reach the fuck out to people. Fandom people, RL people, people in general. I've been kind of a lurker IRL, too. Which truly sucks. For instance, I had surgery a few days ago. Total thyroidectomy. Two nights in the hospital. I still haven't written to my best friend in Austin to tell her, and I actually spent a lot of time wondering whether or not I should mention it here. Why would I not tell my friend about my surgery? Because I'm stupidly private. And because at some point in my childhood, probably in the few years following my treatment for AML, it was drilled into my head that it's my job to be okay. So when I'm not okay, I need to keep it to myself. Fucked up, right?

Sigh. My voice, as I mentioned, is out of commission due to my surgery. It should be back soon, and I'll jump back into recording. Until then, expect a few more posts in the next few days singing praises of stories I've read, listened to, and loved. And maybe, just maybe, a first fanfic. 

Another beautiful day in Chicago. It was a snowy/sleety freezing mess yesterday, and it wasn't exactly warm today, but the sun made all the difference. We took the bus out of our neighborhood to this little vegan cafe, and then walked around checking out record stores. I paid fifty cents for a vinyl copy of Lionel Richie's Can't Slow Down, which includes "All Night Long" and "Hello", and a dollar for a Love and Rockets button. (The Hernandez bros. comic, not the band.)

We both go back to work tomorrow. I know employment is not to be taken for granted, but still.

I've had Austin on my mind all day. We're going back in May for a friend's wedding, and I've found myself really looking forward to it. Chicago is the place for us for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which being that I still don't have a driver's license, but there's something special about central Texas. Things that annoyed me while I lived there seem endearing now.

Plus, I hear the Whole Foods on Lamar sells vegan donuts now.

Also, I think I'm being stalked by a plot bunny. I've had this idea for awhile now, and I've mostly just ignored it. I'm a reader, not a writer. It's been something over eight years since I finished writing any piece of fiction. A few false starts, no endings.

I don't know. We'll see. I make no promises. At this point, I'm just looking forward to recording my next podfic.