Speak Stiltedly and Wear a Yellow Shirt

Will wonders never cease? I got an honorable mention in AAA this year:

Many congratulations to Penny, who won. That’s yet another contest she’s now disqualified from entering, and as for me, it’s my muse, not my talent, that will keep me out of AAA next year. B’Elanna the Canon-Correcting Muse is just too tired to work her way to the top of the fanfic mountain.

Seema isn’t talking, but it looks like I won a little award in the ASC awards, too. The Newsgroup Recommends only three stories in the VOY Holiday category, one of which was mine, and there are three prizes per category. Ergo, one for me! Time to get working on that acceptance speech - a bird in the hand and all that…

I’m on the move with Moveable Type (obligatory link to your right). It took two days of tweaking to get it installed - not full-time tweaking, just the-boss’s-back-is-turned tweaking - but it’s lovely, don’t you think? And this is just the default template - just wait until I yellowize it. Then I’ll really be bloggin’.

The coolest thing I’ve found so far is the category archives - so, for example, there’s a page auto-generated for the entries I categorized as blog war. The easy import of all my blogger entries is a close second for coolest MT feature, though.

This isn’t even the only site update. I’ve also added a filk, The Simple Joys of Captaincy. I had the idea for that filk very early in my fanfic career - the last edit date on the file before Sunday was October 17, 2000. I feel bitter and old.

One thing I’m not bitter about, though, is the ASC Awards. People have been so nice, and I’ve never thought it was just a popularity contest. All contests, like all elections, are fundamentally unfair, but as Trek contests go, ASC seems pretty fair to me. I read (or at least started to read) almost every story in the VOY categories, and I didn’t find any that were unfairly neglected by the voting public. The only possible exception would be VS7.5, and I think it was pretty clear that that suite was just too much reading for the ASC public. Individual long works, like Meg’s Borg novel and “Lt. Keegan”, did get attention despite, in the latter’s case, being by an unknown.

Maybe people who gripe about ASC haven’t seen what goes on in er contests. For example, I entered two of my best-received ASC stories in a pairing contest - in fact, I wrote DQ Babes for that contest - and neither of them placed. I’m not usually surprised when I lose contests, but I thought at least “The Dance” might win in the friendship category. I’m not complaining either; I can certainly understand if people don’t have time to read fic by an unknown or if they prefer a different approach to the pairing. I’m just saying, as someone who’s worked the contest circuit, that ASC is as good as it gets.

Thank you Seema & company for all your hard work!

I almost forgot one last benefit of the April contest follies: 22 new quotes from fanfic.

Run for the Roses

As mentioned in an earlier blog, I entered the Awesome Author Awards again this year. Jade has also entered, and the stories are now up for reading and voting. Of course there’s no hope for us little people, since EJ and Monkee are in the mix. Nevertheless, if you can spare some time from the much larger ASC Awards, there’s an endless supply of nearly fresh J/C fic waiting for you:

Just to prove I’m not bitter, I wrote a filk about AAA: Vote for the Roses. AAA actually gets me all sappy and maudlin about Voyager, though I’m not sure why. In fact, one of my AAA entries, A Light Beyond, was written, not out of the sappy J/C sentiment on its surface, but the sappy end-of-VOY sentiment underneath.

Seven seasons of the voyage was not enough; one season of writing fic could never be enough…

Batlh pothl law` yIn pothl puS

It’s up. That was even more hellish to convert to HTML than I expected - I did it all with style, especially the float element. Janeway: The Musical! a.k.a. Filk of La Mancha is available for your humming-along pleasure. Here’s the summary:

It’s been a long time coming - the first filk of the album was my first filk ever, lo those eighteen months ago. Afterwards I talked a lot about filking the whole musical, and even filked a song or two at a time, but I finally sat down and forced myself to finish it this past weekend.

There are plenty more filks, including another whole album, on the filk page. I’ve also put up a Copyleft page and Jade’s new story, No Mere Fantasy, which she co-wrote with Consy. I think that qualifies as a site update, even without the face-lift.

Everyblog

You know that add a new blog link on Blogger? It’s tempting me. All the moribund pages here, like the Buffybot Memorial, could become blogs.

Nah. I can’t afford the maintenance, but I am planning a facelift for all the non-Trek pages. Also, the latest Buffy script, 112doublemeatpalace, is now searchable in the wiki. Gotta link that thing…

Once Twenty-Eight

O blog, I hardly knew ye!

I don’t know how I got so busy, either. I certainly have no fic to show for it, though I did see the Patriots come <>this close to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory like a real New England team.

It’s just going to be one of those years.

As part of the Feedback: Get Over It backlash against the Feedback Now! movement, I hereby absolve all my readers of feedback guilt. If you’ve sent me email in the past, you’ve done your bit. Let the newbies do the young-and-enthusiastic feedback thing.

Of course that’s easy for me to say when I’m not writing anything. And it doesn’t apply to the ASC Awards, either. (Pardon me while I shudder at the thought of all the VOY I got behind on.) I am *not* reading VS7.5 just because they posted it to ASC. Penny is wonderful, and I’ve always meant to read Rocky’s longer stuff, but I just don’t have a virtual season’s worth of free time in my life. Does “I’m sure I would have loved this if I’d had the time to read it” count as feedback for the ASC Awards?

In the spirit of brevity (fic fragments are supposed to be brief, Lori) and muse exhaustion, I think I’ll join the lemmings and go into blogfic. It’s about my speed these days.

But wait! I did have something to say. My rant on Fic Taxes is up at Zendom, as is the ongoing feedback survey. There are only a few days left to take the latter.

Buffy Transcript Search

New at Jemima’s Wiki Wonderland is Buffy Transcript Search, an exciting service with a boring name. Find your favorite lines! Research snakes and ascensions.

How long it will be before I hear the big cease and desist is beyond me - if that day comes, I’ll set TWiki to search the scripts and then redirect to Psyche, in her legal limbo across the sea.

Also updated are the Voyager quotes, for Lori, and a stray quote that got onto the Buffybot Memorial Page.

Check out the BlogWars page for the latest in wookie warfare. There’s an X-File, more incitement from the cowardly Swiss, and a whole new universe opening up in Lori’s blog. (Everyone join in with Marvin and groan, “Oh, not another one.”)

Veronica tells me that Demon Casablanca Blog has moved to its own page. Veronica also recommends BitterSweets? for the upcoming holiday.

Speaking of despair, I entered the AAA. Here’s the evidence:

In response to popular demand, the BlogWars are now linked in the wiki. And, by the way, there’s a wiki. It’s TWiki, not the UseModWiki I used at the J/C and C/7 wiki sites. Authentication isn’t working yet, so you’ll show up as TWikiGuest. Don’t bother to register yet. I’m working on cookie authentication, like UseModWiki’s.

The TWiki also has a Zendom section and Trek and Buffy areas for future use.

Happy Birthday to Seema!

There have been a few more volleys in the Blog War, duly linked in the Guide. I took the liberty of titling the untitled.

Veronica informs me I’m terribly behind on Demon Casablanca Blog as well. Sigh. I’ll redo that link list soon…