This journal is a tad inactive for the time being.
I use it mostly to get news from friends and post at communities.

That said, I am still around and you are free to add me if you want. Just don't expect me to post very often (although I will comment on your journal whenever possible). Likewise, you can send me messages and comment on any posts! I'm quiet, not dead.

Looking for fanfics?
As of January 2013, almost all my fanfics have been moved to Archive Of Our Own. From now on, I'll post them directly there. Of course, I'll also post them in fandom-related communities here on LJ, but I will no longer post the fanfics itself in my journal.


Thanks for understanding!

Dear eBay seller,

It's okay if you don't want to send things to my country. Yeah yeah, it's a far distant land and if you watch the news and The Simpsons, you won't get a very pleasing picture of it. It also has incredibly slow customs, that really get on my wick, but which I have learnt to cope with by breathing deeply and having faith. So far it has always worked.

And for the record, I never ever left negative feedback because it took too long to deliver. I pride myself on having some connection with my reality.

But I digress. Like I said, it's okay if you don't want to ship to my country (even though you say that you'll ship worldwide). I won't have a nervous breakdown if you believe my country shouldn't belong to 'worldwide'. But please.

Please.

Just let me fucking know.

Don't leave me hanging. Don't say you'll check the price and never do. Don't say that you are willing to ship when you are not. Just give me a straight answer. Sorry, but no. I'll be a tad disappointed, but I'll survive. I will. I'm resilient - you have to be to live here where I live. We develop an iron tolerance to frustration.

And don't get annoyed when I ask if you are willing to ship your item to my country. Seriously. I'm only asking because I want to buy. I'm only buying through eBay because I can't possibly get it here. It's not a conspiracy to make your day miserable.

Thank you for understanding.

Best regards,

N.

~*~

Alright, I got it off my chest. I've been more than a little bothered by the rude responses and treatment I got from some eBay sellers just for asking a question. So maybe I don't come from a 'respectable' place, I'm still a human being with a full-time job and an international credit card, which enables me to be a consumer. And I think my English is fairly decent so there's no reason a seller should answer me as if he was talking to a shaved she-monkey.

Anyway... I've got better fan-related news: I finally got my hand on the box set The Kinks at the BBC. And I found it here, at a local store that imports CDs, DVDs and the like (no dallying with rude eBayers). It was a bit expensive, but worth every penny.

I plan on making a detailed post about it with pictures!

I was wondering if any one else feels mentally exhausted after writing certain stories. Specially when you are forcing yourself out of a writer's block.

Write, read, feel unsure, get up, smoke a cigarette, sit down, choose a good music, try to write, turn off the music, write, read, delete, re-write, get up, drink something, sit down, read, tap the keyboard idly, wonder if it's too soon for another cigarette.

That is, when you have enough free time to do all that (which I seldom do).

I just finished a story yesterday... I'm not completely happy about it, but I figured that if I kept writing and editing it I'd just drive myself insane without actually improving it. I have two other fanfics on the way, but after my ordeal I feel like my mind has gone blank.

I don't know if this happens because I write in my second language (English), not in my native one. I love English and I've been fluent for many years now. But I confess that I do struggle sometimes while trying to write decently in it (not just a whiny post such as this one). It kind of feels like I'm squeezing my brain. My greatest fear is that this struggle will show in the text, that the prose may appear stilted because of it.

They said good reading is damn hard writing. Problem is that I'm never really sure if it's actually good reading, only that's helluva painful writing.

Raymond Chandler said: Throw up into your typewriter every morning. Clean up every noon.

I guess that's the spirit.

I should have known when I signed up for two Christmas exchanges that eventually I would regret my choice, even if I do feel excited about them. It's a rather oxymoronic emotion, hard to describe. You want to write, and at the same time, you wonder why the fuck did I agree to write for someone I don't even know, stupid me!.

I'm working, albeit slowly. In the first case, the story requested by my exchange partner is proving to be quite hard to write convincingly and I'm still not that familiar with the characters' voices yet. Thus I've been plodding wearily through dozens of false starts. In the second case, my other recipient has gone MIA (maybe affected by the Sandy Hurricane and whatnot) and doesn't unlock the post in which her prompts are.

If she never unlocks it I may have to write whatever 3:10 to Yuma story that pops up in my mind. That could be noxious (for her).

I have also been nudged none-too-gently by my muse regarding three plot bunnies in three different fandoms:

The Doors: a story happening in 1965, when Ray and Jim met at the beach and decided to form a band. Jim moves in with Ray and his girlfriend (later wife) Dorothy, and I wanted to focus on the time they shared homes. I have lots of material on that era and did a good amount of research. I just haven't had the time, specially with my obligation fanfics having priority now in November.

The Kinks: I'd love to tackle this one - because it's a fandom devoid of fanfics! Unbelievable! I know it's horrible but I've been leaning towards incest here... there's just so much pathos in Ray and Dave's brotherly rivalry (a polite name for 'jumping at each other's carotids like rabid rottweilers'). Dave is bisexual, but I don't think he'd ever bang his own brother... the plot bunny won't leave me, and the lack of KinkSlash compels me. Argh.

Pink Floyd: The Roger/Syd fanfic that happens in present times. I am considering putting this one in more capable hands. I planned to add some supernatural element, but mostly it's about Rog and his memories (as Syd seems to play a huge part in them). The idea is interesting but somehow it feels beyond my abilities, I think I'd make it rather kitsch and I hate ruining a good idea!

There's a fourth bunny that I haven't given much thought yet, a Sal Paradise/Dean Moriarty fanfic. I re-read On The Road in Mexico and boy, how I love that book. I know these guys actually stand for Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady, but I think I'd rather write about their fictional aliases instead of the real people, for a change. It's just an idea, I don't even know what it'd be about or in which moment of the book it'd happen (because I prefer things to happen as in-canon as I can, although I tend to fail in this aspect when writing Floydian fics).

Long story short, I really need to sit down and write the Christmas fanfics, so I can move on to my plot bunnies while they are still jumping about. I write for others to read, but I also write for my own amusement

Good news! I went to my favorite second-hand record store and guess what I found there for a very reasonable price? The Zabriskie Point soundtrack!



So what?, you ask. It is relevant to me that this is the older double edition, the one that comes in a fatbox cd case, safely tucked inside a rather psychedelic plastic slipcase. It also comes with a thick, deluxe booklet talking about the making of the soundtrack - and the absolute failure of the film itself.



Now, the soundtrack is very good, and it has some uncommon Pink Floyd jewels, along with very good stuff by Jerry Garcia! The film may have been a major flop, but the music was worth it.

I have a soft spot for fatbox cases... they have gone out of fashion and nobody releases albums in them anymore. I don't mind digipaks (I have some Jazz and Blues collections in such things, tho' most of my stuff is in jewel cases), but the fatboxes have a special room in my heart. And in my small CD collection!

And talking about Antonini's film, I remember reading in Jerry Hopkins' No one here gets out alive that, originally, The Doors' L'America had been created for Zabriskie Point, but then it was turned down and became part of their album L.A. Woman. Wikipedia confirms it in the article about the soundtrack.

I was surprised they do not mention that in the rather comprehensive booklet that comes with the soundtrack - but then again I suppose they preferred to focus on the songs that actually made into the film (although the second disc is all about songs that did not make part of the final soundtrack, even though they were made for the film).

Rolling Stone's You Got the Silver was featured in the film, but is not in the album. According to the booklet it was due to licensing restrictions - what a shame!

Anyway, I think L'America should have been included because nothing is more suitable for a film happening in a Californian desert than The Doors... Alas, not even Roger could suss out what the hell was going in Antonioni's mind, don't think I stand much of a chance myself.

And a curiosity: Richard Wright wrote a long composition called The Violent Sequence for the film, but it was also rejected (no shit!). It would later become the base for Us and Them, from The Dark Side of The Moon. Those who have the Immersion Box Set have this song... unfortunately, it was not included in the soundtrack along with the other unreleased tracks.

Still, a wonderful purchase!

I work in a publishing house. I graduated in Journalism, but my passion for books has always been much stronger than my passion for, well, journalism, so in the end I never quite practiced it. During my time there, to get some extra money, I worked in a second-hand bookshop... the salary was ridiculously low, and often late, but my sheer love for books kept me there for more than an year.

Anyway, during my journalism course I also learnt how to make films (I wrote a rather embarrassing script when I was 17), edit videos and sounds (which is one of the things I'd like to do if I didn't work with books) and, presumably, write.

Writing has always been the most difficult thing. Still is.

I suppose it should be something simple - sit and type. But we know it's not, or else every blogger out there would rival Jack London or Georges Simenon. I often remember the Nietzschean quote: the author must keep his mouth shut when his work starts to speak. I felt it in the flesh while reading more than 10 books of philosophy/sociology just for my monograph about a magazine for men... when the time came to put the words on paper, I was pregnant with ideas and it all came not easily, but naturally. I was ready for it.

The more filled with ideas and knowledge about your subject you are, the better you'll write about it. I won't get here into style, that's another topic, I'm talking about subject. And it works for research, for novels... and for fanfics.

I was re-reading aphroditemf's beautiful fanfic Greasy Spoon and her comments on it (I am always interested in other people's process of creation), and she talked there about "real-life" fanfics not being as well-researched as they could be. She is right - most of fanfics, specially slash, happen in an isolated bubble. Two guy shagging in an random room somewhere in the world. Not that this kind of thing cannot happen, but no man is a "spherical cow in a vacuum". A well-researched context can definitely enrich the narrative, not to mention help the author to grasp the characters and their individual voices better.

Very well. So, I'm still struggling a bit with my runaway muse (she is only interested in poetry these days) and as I pondered about this, I began to think that maybe I have a huge gap in my research. It's not to say I have not read Pink Floyd books, biographies and interviews, but maybe I need more - something is missing. I'm guilty of writing "two-guys-in-a-random-room" stories, and while I don't regret writing them, I do think now they could've been better developed.

It was not simply aphroditemf's comment that made me think of it. Today I was making an ebook (it's one of the many things I do here), and while working on it I read some parts of the story... It's a fictional novel based on real people, and while the author's style is not one of my favorites, I admired him for the intense research he put on this book. And he did not fell into the trap of turning his narrative into an essay, so he could showcase his enviable bibliography (some people do it, and it's pedantic unless you are writing a thesis). There was a good balance. The story flowed, because the author had a helluva information under his belt and knew when to use it and when to rely on his imagination.

What is my conclusion? I need to sit down and study a bit more. I have been a lazy writer! And the Pink Floyd is one of my favorite bands in the world - I want my contribution to the fandom to be a good one. Oh, but why take fanfics so seriously? It's not fanfics, mon cher ami - it's writing that I take seriously. Why make it shitty if I can make it better?

I think I barged into the fandom in a wave of fiery passion, when I discovered that people really wrote Pink Floyd fanfics. I was excited! With so much Fire and Water in my natal chart, I'm prone to that. But now I need to collect my wits and do some research. There are plenty of books on Pink Floyd out there.

I trust the muse will return when she has material to work with.