Scribblings and What-Nots

Meme snurched fromfriendshipper

Pick a paragraph (or any passage 500-1000 words) from any fanfic I've written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what's going on in the character's heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you'd expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

My fics are mostly Stargate Atlantis and Star Trek Enterprise, here and here.

I'm interested to see what gets picked and from where. So...humor me, okay?

Annie

...new art supplies, and a lockbox to put them all in to prevent them being used to make my bedsheets paisley-colored!!

Seriously. My son used my Faber-Castell brush pens (which aren't cheap) to retailor my bedsheets. I wasn't sure whether to laugh, cry, or frame the fabric. >.< Keep in mind that he's got his own crayons, markers, paper and watercolor paints. (Non-toxic and Crayola).

And did I mention chalk pastels are a b***h to get out of clothing???

Gah!

Annie

Let's see, today I...

1)put away lots of laundry. You have no idea how it piles up after a while when you have 3 kids and 1 hubby.

2) Cleaned out my closet. I can actually see the floor now. And I have 2 trashbags full of old clothes to give to Goodwill tomorrow.

3) Bought some art supplies to work on my various Christmas presents for people.

4) Hubby's still working on the family geneology project for his parents. My contribution is a set of family crests for the more recent branches of the immediate family (Dameron and Dingman on his dad's side; Cotton and Rosenbaum on his mom's side).

5) Did a little research on my side. Mine's really complicated because my parents are from the Philippines and it's tough when you don't have access to records. I'm mostly working on what I've heard from family stories. My mom's family is from Batangas City, which is a pretty well-to-do area. According to her, her father was the police chief, who died in a streetcar accident in the '50's, long before I was born. [And from what I gather, being a police chief can be a hazardous occupation there]. Dad comes from a fishing village in Cavite. He has 13 sibs, Mom has 12, so you can see this will be a bit of a challenge.

6) Found several books I forgot I had: a copy of "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint Exupery (copyright 1971), "The Book of Five Rings" by Miyamoto Musashi (1982), "The Languages of Pao" by Jack Vance (1958, one of those 40 cent sci-fi novels), "The Book" by Alan Watts (1972), "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan (1980), "The Woman Warrior" by Maxine Hong Kingston (1976), "The Book of Merlyn" by T.H. White (1977) and even a copy of "Captain Horatio Hornblower" from 1939.

So it's been really busy, bu not too bad, despite the cold weather. I'm already counting the days till Spring and we aren't even officially in winter yet!

Annie

Nominations for fics have been closed and it's time to vote. The ENT Fanfic Twitter Group will re-enact one of these stories from Dec. 15-18, and you get to help decide which one!

Information from the ENT Twitter blog here.

From December 4th – 10th vote on which of the following stories you want us to play out on Twitter by donating to the Make-A-Wish Foundation (America or International). The story with the highest dollar amount of donations wins!

To ensure that your donation is tallied:
Use this link to donate, or choose the “email” or ecard” option in the donation process on the MAWF website.
Indicate your vote (“Story1”, “Story2”, etc.) in the “In honor of” section of the ecard.
Recipient’s email address should be entwitterfic@gmail.com
In the “personal message” area, please indicate the actual donation amount. If you’d rather not say, that’s okay – we’ll simply count your vote as “$10”.
You can leave the rest blank or fill it out as you like.

Story 1: “Glitches”

Story 2: “Just One of Those Days”

Story 3: “Raining Coconuts”

Story 4: “Reed’s Raiders” (will be adjusted to fit our twitterfiction time period)

Story 5: “The Hiccup”

Story 6: “Zanthian Zing”

Our twitterfiction group will re-enact the winning story from December 15-18th (depending on the length of the story).

THANK YOU!
We’d like to take this opportunity to thank all our followers for the interest you’ve had in our Twitter-based fanfiction. We truly enjoy tweeting these stories and interacting with you all. We’d also like to thank the fanfiction writers who’ve allowed their stories to be used to support a good cause. You’re awesome, thanks!

And I never realized how long and tedious it was to do it!! O_o Ugh. But I got it done. It's here on my LJ and my archive on DW. I've always loved Peter Grodin's character, and I wasn't too happy when they killed him off in the 1st season. So I resurrected him. (OK, so it's an AU.So what?) And as I've commiserated with a fellow Brit, "Why are the characters from the UK either always 1)killed off or 2)the bad guys who want to take over the world?" Is it the bloody accent? (And I'm a native-born Brit, so I'm just wondering).

( A bit of a rant here...under the cut )
Forgive the rambling...I'm extremely tired and out of sorts right now...

I need some tea and a lot of chocolate right now.

Annie

Reminder:

You have until midnight tonight to recommend your favorite ENT fanfic for the ENT RP Twitter group to re-enact to raise money for the Make-A-Wish-Foundation!

Please help us. Voting will be from Dec 4th-7th. You can vote by donating to the Make-a-Wish-Foundation and the most popular fic voted will be re-enacted from Dec 15-18.

All the details are here. Please help support this worthy cause this holiday season! Thanks!

Annie

The Enterprise RP Twitter Group is doing a TwitterFic to raise donations for Make a Wish Foundation International. Basically, people nominate an ENT fanfic that they'd like to see re-enacted on Twitter from Dec 15-18. Although the deadline date says 11/30 on the site, the nomination process has been extended.

Here is the info, posted on the ENT RP blog on Wordpress




Rules Regarding Story Submissions:

Get permission.
We will check to make sure we have the original author’s permission before a story is approved for voting. Please make sure you get permission before suggesting someone else’s work.

Keep it PG.
We strive to keep our TwitterFic as “PG” as possible for our audience. That means no slash or explicit scenes. Subtle innuendo is fine. Tucker doesn’t cuss much more than “damn”. We will do an “onscreen kiss” but – though we don’t actually tweet the actual words – we do “fade to black” on suggestions of anything else.

No Mirror Universe cross-over stories.
Our MU counterpart group has something else planned for the holiday season.

Bring it back to zero.
You can give our heroes a really hard time, or make it really funny. Time travel is fine. You can submit something heartbreaking (or bone breaking), romantic or frightening, create some misunderstanding between one or more of the couples or do what ever you want to make things interesting. Just be aware that – at the end of it all – we will bring everything back to the way it was before the story began.
Be aware of the details of our version of the Star Trek: Enterprise universe.
For an orientation to the status of the characters in our version of the Star Trek: Enterprise universe, please see our summary of past original stories at “What’s happening now.” Some important details we’ll need to stick with includes, but is not limited to, the following:


The year is 2156, today’s date. This is two years after the second-to-last episode of the television series.
The Earth/Romulan war is currently going on.
Travis, Hoshi and Malcolm were promoted during the course of our stories recently. (Lieutenant, Lieutenant and Lieutenant Commander respectively.)
We have two established, ongoing relationships – TnT (Trip Tucker and T’Pol) and R/S (Hoshi Sato and Malcolm Reed). We’ve also suggested there’s something going on with Travis and Liz Cutler but that’s not set in stone. Captain Archer is available for alien romances. ;-)
We ignore the information on the characters given in the last episode of the television series.
It’s perfectly okay to submit a story that only focuses on two or three of the characters. Just be aware that we will add a scene or two in order to involve all our main Star Trek: Enterprise characters: Archer, T’Pol, Tucker, Reed, Sato, Mayweather and Phlox.

We reserve the right to make changes as necessary and to approve the stories that will make it to the voting stage.

Finally, THANK YOU!
We’d like to take this opportunity to thank all our followers for the interest you’ve had in our Twitter-based fanfiction. We truly enjoy tweeting these stories and interacting with you all. We’d also like to thank any new fan fiction writers who’ve decided to offer up their story to support a good cause whether it makes it to voting or not. You’re awesome, thanks!

Submit a story now! send an email to EntTwitterFic@gmail.com and include the title of the story, and a link to the story’s location in a fanfiction archive.

Snurched from cedarrapidsgirl and countless others...

Just in for a fly-by post...

Not exactly in the best of moods, but I'm planning on turning that around with some artwork. I managed to upload some pics to my DV account, but Shockwave Flash keeps crashing on me. I usually use picknik.com to do my photo editing. Did quite a bit of writing yesterday, mostly on some upcoming stories on my AU Switcheroo series and posting my SGA Big Bang story here and in my archive. Also looking ar some old (non-Trek) fantasy stories that I haven't worked on for a while.

My house still looks like a hurricane hit it. I really need to get cracking on some cleaning...

Will write more later,
Annie

John, Ronon, Rodney and Teyla are swapped with their counterparts from a very different universe. Both teams must find a way to return to their respective universes before the changes in space-time become irreversible.

Carson/Teyla, Rodney/Katie, Radek/Jeannie Grodin/Weir

PG-13

62738 words

Notes:
1) I refer to the SGA team in our universe by first name and in the "Britgate" Universe by last name. So "John" is Colonel Sheppard, while "Sheppard" is his counterpart. There are a few exceptions. "Peter" is Peter Grodin, "Ronon" is Ronon in either universe.
2) In the Britgate Universe, the "City" is sentinent and when Atlantis refers to herself or the Expedition refers to her, the words "City, Her, She and My" are capitalized. This is NOT a typo.
3) This story is definitely AU, but it references episodes from all 5 seasons of Stargate Atlantis. One scene in particular is a combination of two Rodney/Katie scenes from "Sunday" and "Quarantine", slightly altered.

( Chapter One )

Atlantis, Present Universe

( ChapterTwo )

( chapter three )

We got back from the in-laws' last night, after a long 9 1/2 hour drive from Virginia. I'm glad we're home and the kids are able to decompress and relax because the visit was NOT relaxing at all. We drove up Wed. morning/afternoon/early evening up Interstate 85 through Richmond and I-95 to Fredericksburg, VA (about 1/2 hour south of Washington DC). Ran into traffic both in Richmond and just outside F-burg. The kids were OK, but they definitely aren't wild about long car rides.

In-laws live in a gated retirement community. House is not kid-proofed, with leather couches and recliners that rock back and in-laws have a musical clock that plays tunes on the hour, every hour. Most of the visit was spent stuck at their house (since nothing was open on Turkey Day), so the kids are going nuts. MIL, by her own admission, doesn't do well with kids she can't talk to and rationalize with, and we have three kids that are 6, 3, and 13 1/2 months, and the older two are autistic w/sensory issues. So she spent a lot of time telling the kids to calm down, sit quietly and shut up. Like that's really going to happen, even with "neurotypical" six and three year olds. Plus MIL is pretty OCD about neatness and cleanliness, so she was trailing after the kids, picking up after them.

FIL had a stroke last month, so he's not up to chasing after his grandkids, much as he'd like to. He did get along famously w/Michael and Christina (when he and MIL weren't lecturing them, that is). We met some of the their neighbors in the community...one of them commented that it was "nice to see young kids around this time of year." There was an older couple who lived nearby who happened to share the same last name. They're definitely related in some way (the gentleman, who's 90, looks a lot like Robert's grandfather (FIL's dad)). During the visit, FIL introduced Robert as "my son, the computer engineer", and me as "the housewife, who looks after the kids." >.< :-/ :-X I was like, "WTH??" And Robert added weakly, "She writes too..."

OK, that's support for you.

We took the kids to Old Country Buffet for TG dinner and the kids behaved. Sarah was in fine form, chatting loudly, much to the amusement of the older couples eating nearby. Christina ate a lot, and Michael snitched most of the freshly-baked rolls.

Since the kids' schedules were off, bedtime was pure hell. Christina and Sarah woke up in the middle of the night, screaming their lungs out. Both Robert and I were up at 2 AM in the morning (Thurs. night, Robert got exactly 1 hour of sleep). Didn't help that my in-laws blast the TV (they're both slightly deaf) at 11 PM at night. ARGH!

My in-laws have friends who live in Richmond who have been known the family since before Robert was born. They have a newly built lakehouse on Lake Anna (In Louisa County, about 60 miles west of Richmond), so it was decided that we should visit them. Mike and Joann are very nice and gracious, they gave us the house tour and the kids had a blast. Mike actually had the patience to sit with my son and look through a book with him, and go through counting the numbers from 1-10, and tickling Christina. He's really a big kid at heart (he and Joann have 2 grown kids; their daughter just got married a couple of months ago). Some people have a natural knack with kids, and Mike definitely has it (as my in-laws don't).

Unfortunately, that meant leaving from the lakehouse tacked on an extra 2 hours to the return trip. We could have waited until today (Sat.) to head back to Charlotte, but I was NOT going to spend another hellish night at the in-laws' house. We left Lake Anna at about 11:30 AM, and didn't get to Charlotte until about 8:30 PM. That included a stop for dinner and a stop at Northgate Mal in Durham. That also includes a 1/2 hour delay at South Hill, VA, when the gas cap of the van got stuck and in trying to get it *unstuck*, Robert broke the handle of the cap off. Luckily, there was an Advance Auto Parts store across the way from the gas station (South Hill is a major hub for the i-85/US 58 corridor). The guy over at Advance was really nice and helped get the gas cap unjammed so we could put gas in the van. Nice guy didn't even charge us for the service.

We did stop by the drive-thru Starbucks at Concord Mills, our little indulgence for surviving the TG holiday.

Robert found out some information about his mom's family and is now searching for some stuff on Ancestry.com. There's so much geneological focus on his dad's side (been here since before 1640, traditional Southern family), that MIL's family tends to get overlooked. So now, he's got a more complete picture of the family tree...MIL's family comes from the Midwest (Iowa, S.Dakota, N. Dakota, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin). Not surprisingly, the female branches of the family tree (including mine and MIL's) tend to get ignored/overshadowed/overlooked, which is a shame, considering our kids have family that are spread across the globe now.

Don't get me wrong...my in-laws can be nice and generous people. But their self-absorption can be astounding at times. And I wonder where my husband gets his Aspberger's tendencies and my kids get their autistic tendencies from? Actually, not really.

Annie

( Chapter Four )( Chapter Five )

( Chapter Eight )

( Chapter Nine )

( Chapter Ten )

( Chapter Eleven )

( Chapter Twelve )

( Chapter Thirteen )

( Epilogue )

I'm on my third cup, BTW. Technically, I shouldn't be drinking it because of my RA, but for some weird reason, it seems to have the opposite effect from normal. My joints actually function after I've had a cup. Today just happens to be unusual that I've had to have more than 1 cup.

My hands feel better to the point where I'm doing some of my old cross-stitch. I haven't picked it up in more than year, since before my youngest was born. It hurt too much, but now I'm working of a couple of Native-American themed ones that I really want to get done and hang up. One is of a maiden with two mountain lions, the other is of a shaman and a snowy owl. (Doesn't count the samurai one I need to finish, or the "Cead mile failte" Gaelic one, or the overly complicated "Spring Maiden" one that's been unfinished for oh, five years now? Or how about the Dragon Maiden one or the "Women in Traditional African costume" one? That one was fun to work on...so many colors!!!)

Also worked on a couple of Artist Trading Cards (ATC) and I'm planning on resizing some of my art pics this afternoon to put on my Deviant Art account. Plus, finally got started on my ENT/SGA crossover story. If I get the first chapter done, I may post it in my story archive. (Writing Across Universes, link in sidebar). And for the record, don't despair, fans of my AU Switcheroo series. New stories will go up in the same archive before the end of the week (YAY! Finally!) I took them off ff.net about 6 months ago because of attacks by trolls masquerading as "concerned critics" and some plot problems. Some people were wondering "WTH?" and I was reluctant to tell anyone why (after being accused of being unreasonable because I wasn't following canon and not following someone's OTP. *rolls eyes*)

Hmph. Bring on Captain Sato! :-)

Annie

This year, the Enterprise Twitter RP Group is doing a TwitterFic for a Good Cause for this holiday season.

The information is here on our Wordpress blog. Basically, you can nominate your (or someone else's fanfic) for us to re-enact on Twitter. Once nominations are closed, you can vote on your favorite and donate to the International Make-A-Wish Foundation. We'll tally up the votes and the winning fic will be the one we RP.

For dates and how to help, click on the link above.

Thanks so much,
Annie :-)

PS: Please feel free to spread the word on your own LJs and blogs! Thanks!

I had the worst time at the pediatric neurologist's today. We only see the woman every 6 months and she's very task-oriented and direct. She wanted me to schedule a battery of tests at CMC Main and appts. to the pediatric psychologist for my 2 older kids. I'd been hesitating to do it because of 1) insurance issues and 2)whether or not they'll show any new information. We've already had EEGs (no indication of seizures) and a really unsatisfactory meeting w/a child psychiatrist. Those new tests (and the subsequent MRI) are EXPENSIVE as hell, and we have financial issues and conflicts with our health insurance. (Hubby's work is switching to another---cheaper---carrier.) We had genetic testing done on Michael and Christina earlier this year and we're still having problems w/coverage for that.

And she couldn't understand why I was reluctant to schedule all those appts. And then she pulled the guilt trip: she implied I was a "bad mother" because if I really cared about my older daughter's health and welfare, I would immediately do as she said.

EXCUSE ME???? I'm trying to consider my options and I'm a BAD MOTHER for not doing all this six months ago, never mind we were dealing with financial crap and Michael's behavioral issues at school, not to mention other problems at the time. And pray tell, how the hell are we going to PAY for all this??? The doc's office is in a swanky part of town, so I suppose that means our insurance will pick up the tab for everything including the tests, the MRI AND the genetic testing. Not to mention the fact that they want to medicate my 3 1/2 year old daughter on antidepressants??? Um...no. COVERAGE DENIED.

And guilt-tripping me was NOT cool. What, am I going to be turned to DSS for "not caring" about my daughter? (BTW, a vengeful mom's group did that to me once. Luckily, the social worker handling our case agreed that there WAS no case).Believe me, if money was not an issue and there was every indication that we COULD swing this, I could. I WANT to know what's going on with my autistic kids. If I could afford it, I'd do all those tests in a heartbeat.

Before anyone condemns me as thinking about the bottom line first, I want to say that my kids mean the world to me, and I'd do anything for them. But right now, reality really, really sucks. My family isn't poor, but we sure as hell aren't rich, and our health insurance won't cover much after hubby's company changes providers.

Other moms have warned me not to show any negative emotion when dealing with this particular doctor. But this just upset me and pi$$ed me off to no end. I'm most probably going to find another pediatric neurologist.

And to all my virtual friends...thank you for all the hugs and reassurances that I am NOT an awful mother. You know who you are. :-)

And I'm not locking this for a reason. Special needs families run into financial issues a lot when caring for their kids and it can add up after a VERY SHORT amount of time. And we deal with other problems too. Unless you've been there, or know someone who's there, it's hard to relate. I'm really tired of the "oh, you poor dear", the pat on the head, and "God bless you and good luck", as I'm sent on my way.

A highly irate
Annie

...that needs a LOT of chocolate.

The leftovers of Hurricane Ida blew through here two days ago: cold, wet, rainy, etc. So I've been stuck in the house for the past 2 days. I managed to get out to the mall earlier this morning. I don't know if it's the alignment of the stars and the moon or the weather or what, but both girls have been complete divas today. Doesn't help that my RA symptoms are out in full force. My fingers, wrists, shoulders, back, elbows and knees are swollen like hell. I can't take my meds because otherwise I'd be useless all day, and I can't afford that.

Nevertheless, I've been trying to keep a positive attitude. Still fixed a jewelry chain despite my bad hands and working on some writing while Twittering. (I'm the Goddess of Multitasking, natch). Let's see if I can do this without making too many typos.

And SGA Big Bang 2009's website is finally LIVE!! My story, "Through a Cracked Glass" is here with wonderful artwork by miso no tsuki. And check out secondalto's story "Alive Beside You" which I had the honor of beta'ing, with an awesome wall paper by Torri012. And my other beta ladyamarra's artwork here.

Speaking of SGA...my son got into my DVDs. I'm on a quest to find Season 2. I found 1 and 3. SIGH!!!!

Later...
Annie