So I'm going to bitch about this.

When someone surprises you and you jump, you START. You don't "startle." You simply start. To startle is to surprise (someone else), not to jump because you've been surprised. That's why the Victorian ladies would say "Gracious what a start you gave me."


Sheesh.


Petty rant over

Edit to add: Petty rant not quite over because I just thought of another fandom-wide (well, and wider) abomination. It's "homed in," not "honed in." To hone is to sharpen something. You can sharpen your focus on something, yes, but you would hone your focus, you wouldn't hone in. To home in is to center on a specific target. So you hone your focus in order to home in on your target.

Petty rant over now. Probably. Except I always enjoy when other people post their own grammar peeves too, so please feel free.

... just because it occurred to me that this is no longer out there and, what the hey, I had some time to kill. "The Lily of the Valley Affair" from "Taken to the Cleaners" (Loretta's e-zine which became a "real" zine) is available in PDF form in case anyone is interested. Just post here with your email address, or email me - lee_the_t at verizon dot net.

It's a long gen story.

As directed by the wise Dr C (st_crispins) I'm just going to name, here, the authors that have given me the most pleasure in MFU. I'll inevitably leave out people whose work I've enjoyed, so apologies in advance for that, but these are the ones who're leaping to mind as the authors I've read and reread.

Nataliya
Di T
Loretta Ross
Nyssa
Taliesin
Jane Terry
Jane Fairfax
Veronicaluv
Dr C herself
Tgabrielle (aka Murphy)
Kate D
PR Zed
Patricia Foley
RAC

Their stuff can be found on the sadly moribund File 40 and http://chromeandgunmetal.com/chrome/index.html

Day 30 – Do you have a favourite fic you've written? What makes it your favourite?

Rainbow (MFU) and Covenant (HP). They’re the fics where I did the best overall job. There might be others of my fics that have, say, a bit that I like best overall, or dialogue I like best (I really like the whole bit in Anything where Napoleon works his way through the laser research site, because it's rare to see Napoleon in action-man mode), but these were, I think, best quality overall, where I came closest to the story in my head.

Day 28 – Have you ever collaborated with anyone else, whether writing together, or having an artist work on a piece about your fic?
No. I don’t see how it’s possible! In fact, once I polled some people in HP about how they collaborated because I simply can’t imagine it working (even though it clearly does – many collaborations are just fantastic). I can’t imagine writing a story with someone else and either enjoying the process or having it come out well, even though I’ve seen that it can happen. Fascinates me.

In HP a couple of artists have done art for my stories (Lizardspots did a sort of comic strip, trekkiegrrl and yael created single scenes), not in collaboration but just because they felt like it. It's very cool to see how other people interpret scenes, and how close they sometimes come to what I was seeing in my head. I don't know if that's coincidence or simply that I described it effectively - you really can't know - but it's very cool to see how others visualize my words.

Day 26 – What is the oddest (or funniest) thing you've had to research for a fic?
Nothing funny or odd; the closest to “odd” (as in out of my own “ordinary”) might’ve been the geographical research I did for “Rainbow” and “Half Truths” or the laser research for “Anything.”

Day 23 – When you post, where do you post to? Just your journal? Just an archive? Your own personal site?
My LJ, any easy archive that I know about. If it’s work, I won’t do it (like if I have to jump through hoops to join or whatever). I love self-loading archives.


Day 24 – Beta'ing – How many betas do you like to use to make sure there aren't any major flaws in your fic? Do you have a Beta horror story or dream story?
I don’t use betas. :-) I heartily approve the concept, but am comfortable with presenting my work as is, warts and all. I very much enjoy creating something that’s wholly mine.

Day 21 – Sequels – Have you ever written a sequel to a fic you wrote, and if so, why, and if not, how do you feel about sequels?
Yes. If my “muse” says there’s more to the story, I write it. It’s never a conscious, logical decision. The sequel just comes to me. I’m neutral about the concept of sequels.

Day 19 – When you have bunnies, do you sit down and start writing right away, or do you write down the idea for further use?
Depends. If I fear losing a good idea, I’ll write it down right away on whatever’s handy. Sometimes, though, the idea develops better when it’s stewed a while in the back of my brain.

Day 17 – Titles – Are they the bane of your existence, or the easiest part of the fic? Also, if you do chaptered fic, do you give each chapter a title, or not?
Most of the time the title comes to me as I’m writing, and it feels right and organic and makes me happy. Once in a while that fails and I struggle to come up with a title that seems to suit. I’ve titled chapters in my original fic – never in fanfic - I don't separate short fiction into chapters, and none of my fanfic stories is long enough to be considered anything but short fiction.