amypond45 | Entries tagged with personal

Having seen others do this end-of-the-year wrap-up thing, I'm not going to feel too shy about doing it myself. Seriously, there's value in taking stock of last year's accomplishments and setting goals for the coming year, right? And there are times when I really need the encouragement and motivation that creative accomplishment provides, so there's that, too.

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This week is the one when I feel least in control the whole year. Christmas is coming up, I still have shopping to do (little stuff for stockings, so I can't just order them, not that they'll come in time anyway!) I have to work every day but Christmas this week, when I really need to stay home and get ready for Christmas. I have piles of unwrapped gifts in the closet, haven't finished the grocery shopping for those weirdly different-because-they're-supposed-to-be-special Christmas Day meals, and now we've decided to go to the midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, after working all day and trying to get said gifts wrapped. All I want to do is drink!

Fandom-wise, on the other hand, things are awesome! I finished my

spn_j2_xmas story, Roses in the Rain, and I really loved writing it. Also loved writing for the

spn_bigpretzel Holiday Drabble Challenge, which ends today, although I couldn't quite keep up with my goal of a 100-word drabble each day! (I only wrote four.) I'm deep into the porny thing I'm doing for January

smpc and I have a wildly out-of-control draft for

sammybigbang. Got the draft in for

spn_reversebang this past week, but it needs work too, so. I haven't had enough time to read all the wonderful fics coming out this month, but I adore the wonderful, twisted xmas fic written for me by

dimeliora so please check it out here.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, and much happiness to all!

Just finished my fic for

spnopera and I'm in agony. This is torture, I say, PURE torture! Why did I do this to myself? How can I write something with such a blatantly sad ending? I always try to leave things open-ended, the possibility just beyond the end of the story that maybe, MAYBE this time, something good will come out of the pain and sorrow and TRAGEDY of these boys' lives! This was supposed to be FUN, damn it! Now everybody's gonna hate me when they read it and I don't blame them. Me too! Wahhhhhh!

This is NOT anyone's fault but my own, needless to say; the wonderful mods of this challenge are fabulous people and extremely talented writers, so I have only myself to blame for my own misery. I hope I've learned my lesson and next time I'll choose a comedy (Marriage of Figaro, maybe?) I just like the aria so much and I couldn't resist the thing with the hair *sigh*. I'm doomed.

Woke up early to work on my bb story and managed to delete the entire thing. All 15K words, just gone. No back-up. Then I broke my glasses. Walked to the optomotrist to get my glasses fixed in the snow and got attacked by a dog. No broken skin, luckily, just shaken up...

Can I just go back to yesterday and start over, please???

I'm still feeling a little giddy! Got up early cuz today was my posting day on my very first challenge fic for the SPNKinkBigBang on tub! I posted it first on AO3 cuz it's way easier than this place, but I'll try to get that done later today or tomorrow.I can honestly say this has been the BEST experience I have had since joining this fandom. Having the privilege of collaborating with smalltrolven, who kindly beta'd my fic, offering innumerable suggestions and endless encouragement, and the amazing talents of winchesterchola, whose artwork has brought the story to life in ways I never imagined, has just blown me away and now I am dead. I'm still shaking, and probably will be for awhile over this experience! I just feel profoundly lucky and so, so happy it's a little ridiculous! I LOVE YOU ALL AND YOU'RE ALL SO BEAUTIFUL! (who needs drugs? ;)

Current Mood: giddy

I don't know how Jane Austen could write at the dining room table. All I did today (oh, besides the usual cooking, cleaning, and snow removal) was respond to constant cries of "I'm bored!" and "what are you doing?" whenever I started to try to concentrate. My only real writing time is 5:00 a.m. before everybody gets up, but once the kids and hubby get up it's just not happening :(

Thanks to the lovely

elwarre, I finally got most of my fics posted here! After struggling with this platform for more than a year, I finally feel like I'm getting the hang of it. Win! And just in time to post my first-ever challenge fic for http://spnkinkbb.tumblr.com. So I spent yesterday and today posting fics -- practice, practice, practice! and shoveling snow (endlessly). Last weekend it was awesome, reading a

runedgirl fic as the snow fell, but this week we're all feeling pretty sick of it. The snow on either side of our driveway is taller than Sam!

Trying to write 1,000 words a day and starting to get into this new fic. Young Sam is so addicting!

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: "Break On Through" by the Doors

Spent the day inside, baking cookies, watching the snow fall, posting fan fiction. School is canceled for tomorrow, so with both kids home I may not get any more time to myself, so at least I got several stories imported from AO3 today. Thanks to the wonderful

elwarre, who helped me remember how to code (something I haven't done while raising kids so it's been awhile!) I get a little obsessive when I have a project (my personality type sorta comes out Sam Winchester every time) so I've still got work to do, but have mostly managed to import my ten best fics so I'm hoping to get some feedback. Or at least they're posted here in time for the challenges I have on my calendar cuz I have deadlines and they're not about work or kids! I feel so free!

Current Location: home
Current Music: "Jessica," by the Allman Brothers

It took me three hours this morning, after watching the latest episode, but I finally THINK I've got my fic posted. I need to practice because I've joined three challenges and will need to post those stories eventually. So I broke the thing down into eight chapters, posted each one with tags and edits (too much space between the paragraphs -- is there a way to delete these en masse like I can do in Word? That would so much save time!) then the Masterpost with all the links to the individual chapters. Then I get emails for each chapter, like I posted them as separate entries! Which I guess I did, but what a pain! Not to mention I've probably flooded other peoples' inboxes -- so sorry! I guess I need help. How do I -- oh wait, maybe if I post each chapter privately? Then just the Masterpost can go public? Oh. Well, that was embarrassing!

Signed up for the 2015

spn_j2_bigbangand the

spn_meanttobechallenge and am feeling positively giddy with excitement! The spnkinkbb has been such a great experience I can't wait for more! Loved "The Hunter Games," and it's got me thinking about where things are going and what I can do to fix it, which is all I've been doing with my fiction for the past six months, I think. I'll try to post two or three of my stories here if I can over the next week in anticipation of the spnkinkbb postings in mid-February (because I need the practice!) They're already up over on AO3, but I need to try to post everything over here too, so. Also on fanfiction.net, I guess, where I opened an account about a year ago and haven't been back since! Oh well..Why do I have to work again? Oh yeah, that little pesky thing called money. I guess I need it, even if I wish I could subsist on pretty pictures of Sam & Dean and wincest fanfiction alone!

Finished! Story complete at 55K words (WHAT THE HELL!) so now it's time to edit and proof and LET GO. Wahhh! I swear it's like giving up a kid or something! I just don't want to leave these babies! But I have to believe they'll be fine, all will be well, etc. because it's all I can do. I have to be a responsible adult and move on to the next project. I HAVE TO!

This story has such a deep, emotional effect on me, I can't possibly explain it. I read FANGASM and Fandom at the Crossroads and it doesn't quite explore how deeply the individual person is effected by this story -- for me, it's as much a PERSONAL journey as a desire for community that hooks me so deeply. I've spent a year on my own, mostly, with this fandom -- writing, writing, writing -- because I feel I HAVE TO EXPRESS what the Winchesters' story makes me feel, whether anyone reads what I write or not.

But of course I'm human, and so I'm a social animal, and the need to connect -- to make my story matter and count for something -- brings me to communities like this one and the wonderful people I'm meeting through LJ and tumblr (how sad is it that I have NO ONE in my personal life who understands how important this story is?) and so in the end Lyn and Katherine are right, of course.

So here I am, finishing my first SPN challenge, joining this amazing fandom despite my innate shyness and introverted nature. So grateful, so humbled, so ridiculously excited!

Yes, it's true. I'm finally, gainfully employed. Didn't think it would EVER happen, but life has a way of throwing me curves and I don't even play baseball, so I guess I'm lucky. Sure didn't see it coming, after six years of looking for steady employment and finding nothing but part-time and parenthood (NOT that I'm complaining!)

Missing my show, of course. Wishing I could stay in the world I've been writing. Wee!chesters and schmoop and cuddling and oh hell, lots of brother-loving and I don't want to leave! But the end is near -- if I can get this thing done this weekend it's off to my awesome beta and the incredible artist who are both blowing my mind with their insights and support. It's been an incredible journey, thanks to them, and I feel so so lucky I can't even express.

If I can just let this thing go I can move on -- is this like childbirth? NO, it's more like letting the first child go after 18 years of constant companionship!

Okay, so I started writing and posting fan fiction about one year ago. One year and one month or so ago, to be semi-exact. The first story was awful, duh, ( Read more... ) but the muse was with me and my excitement about this show was overwhelming so I got a few good lines in here and there. That was about this time last year, and I didn't know what I was doing so I followed Lyn and the Fangasm stuff and based on what she said I did my best over here at LJ but it had been so long since I did a fandom (ten years!) that I really couldn't get the hang of it so I got hooked on tumblr and ended up finding friends there, so. But eventually I ended up back here bc this is where so much great fan fiction is made and I NEED IT. Vidders, writers, artists to help me make sense of this amazing story and I NEED to write about it, so.

Anyway, I'm a little tipsy and I have to work tomorrow but at least I get Christmas off and I'm still so ridiculously clueless and lonely in this fandom that here I am writing this at 10:00 p.m. the day before Christmas Eve how pathetic is that?!

Also, I'm totally procrastinating bc I'm getting towards the end of my latest long fic and it's scaring the shit outta me. It's long and it's SO emotional and I'm having the most AMAZING experience with the most incredible beta and gorgeous artist and I'm --

Okay, time to stop. This is going on way too long!

So just signing off, and may you all have a less-than-horrific Christmas with someone who cares about you as much as you deserve.

Srsly, why do I love New England weather? Maybe because growing up in Portland, Oregon where it was always rainy and grey in the winter makes me appreciate all the sunshine and bright whiteness of New England in winter. Also, after years of living dirt poor in a fourth-floor walk-up, finally having a house of our own in the woods with a fireplace and a Christmas tree feels so Norman Rockwell I'm puking in my mouth a little. In a good way. It doesn't hurt having a day off after working fourteen days straight, yeah. I was starting to worry I'd never get over the 15K-word-hump on this story, but now it's flowing again so everything's fine. Heard from my lovely artist http://winchesterchola.tumblr.com/ and am feeling a little overwhelmed.

Back to work!

So. Making progress on this latest story, my first fic for a Big Bang challenge. No beta yet. Wondering how I can find one...need to ask someone. This is all so new and weird! Next check-in is Monday. I have about 18K words now and still getting fresh ideas. The mid-season finale gave me another story about their growing up days! So excited to see if I can include that somehow!

Writing for my first challenge and am so excited I feel like somebody gave me a pony! Plus a wonderful illustrator has agreed to make art to go with my story, how utterly amazeballs is that?! Also I've got my first gig as a beta to a wonderful, brilliant author whose work I adore and admire SO MUCH it just feels unreal to be emailing back and forth with her. I don't think I could be more excited if I met Jensen Ackles or Jared Padalecki in person (how else do you meet someone? In unperson?) Anyway, now I need to take my own advice and get down to work. These things don't write themselves, do they?

Working on this endless fic about baby Winchesters. It's too cute for its own good, of course, but I seem to need to do it anyway. It's taking forever! I've got over 55,000K words written and I've been revising and revising. It's got a lot of stuff I love - Time Travel, Canon-Divergence, John as a struggling single dad. Plus grown men trying to take care of babies. Oh, and did I mention multiple Sams and Deans? Definitely a major kink for me, I guess, seeing as how I seem to write a lot of stories with more than one of each. Not sure what that says about my state of mind, but since this show inspires me to do more writing than I've done in the past fifteen years, I guess it's