dbskyler

I've figured out that if I go to www.delicious.com -- which is a fairly widely used bookmarking site -- and type in my fanfiction author name, I get a list of my stories that have been bookmarked by other people. My results?

-- 5 for "Fallacy Somewhere"
-- 3 for "Upgrade" (my Yuletide Red Dwarf story)
-- 2 for "Miles from Aberdeen"
-- 2 for "Rosemary" (that was a surprise; I'm fond of it, but it's not one of my more favorited stories on Teaspoon)
-- 1 for "Turn Again" (and yeah, I need to FINISH that)
-- 1 for "Nameless"
-- 1 for "Break of Day"

You guys should all try it for your own author names -- it's fun!

And speaking of my fic "Break of Day," you will never guess what I came across while doing random Google searches on my author name:

Someone has actually translated my fic into Russian! No, really!

I'm just completely blown away that someone went to the trouble to translate one of my fics. It is quite possibly the most awesome thing I have ever come across on the internet. The translation even requires a footnote since I put in a silly aunt/ant joke that doesn't work in Russian. (Truthfully, it probably doesn't even work that well in a British accent, but I put it in anyway.)

( more on the translation )

fic_rush starts in a few hours, at midnight GMT! I'm away tomorrow, but I hope to join in tonight and definitely on Sunday. Hope to see some of you there!

From http://bigf.eu/news/Fourth-Doctor-Rumour-Control:

"Tom Baker would like to confirm that ‘warm contact’ has been made with Big Finish and that he's ‘enthusiastic’ to work with us . . . Executive Producer Nicholas Briggs: ‘Tom and I have been communicating about possible projects for some time. There is really no firm news other than that, but we are both keen to make something happen. Lis Sladen, Louise Jameson and Nicholas Courtney have also expressed an interest in being involved"

Okay, so obviously this is all just preliminary talks that might fall through -- or Tom might do it, but not with Lis involved -- but just the mere possibility that Tom and Lis might get together again in a Doctor Who production makes me so over the moon, I can't even express it. In fact, I'm a little shocked at how much I want this to happen. I suspect there's a part of me that's been waiting for it ever since I first saw "Hand of Fear."

There's an auction going on of Doctor Who props and costumes, and I thought it was kind of interesting -- then I took a look at the full catalog, and they don't just have New Who, they've got stuff going WAY back! There's one item from the Third Doctor era, then a nice selection of Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctor items. So, I just had to share with you all some highlights:

-- a dinosaur model used in "Invasion of the Dinosaurs"
-- a sarcophagus cover from "Pyramids of Mars"
-- Time Lord costumes from "The Deadly Assassin"
-- Nyssa's costume from "Castrovalva"
-- an Ergon head from "Arc of Infinity" (come on, who wouldn't want that?!)
-- Seventh Doctor hat, handkerchief and scarf from "Time and the Rani"
-- Ace's costume from "Dragonfire" (yes, including the bomber jacket)
-- The Kandyman from "Happiness Patrol" (let me repeat that -- THE KANDYMAN FROM "HAPPINESS PATROL")
-- A cheetah person costume from "Survival"

There's stuff from New Who, too, including costumes and a section of the TARDIS (!). Sadly, the bus from "Planet of the Dead" has been withdrawn. Well, what would I do with a bus? But how cool!

You can see what's up for auction here: http://www.bonhams.com/cgi-bin/public.sh/pubweb/publicSite.r?sContinent=EUR&screen=catalogue&iSaleNo=18192#

The lots are basically in order by age, so click on the last page to see the oldest stuff, and work backwards from there. Or click on the "view whole catalog" link.

If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend "10 Steps to Crazy Ten", a picspam (accompanied by very funny text) by _thirty2flavors. It's extremely good - especially the "pro tips"! (Spoilers through Waters of Mars.)

The state of my fannish life:

( ramble on Yuletide and finding Who-related stuff while unpacking )

Okay, I am seriously considering going for Yuletide this year. If I do it, I want to:

a) consider my story a gift to the recipient -- to really try to write them a story that I think they will like, not just write the story that I most want to write out of the options the recipient presents; and

b) consider it a writing challenge, and go into it knowing that I may be stretched as an author.

However, as someone who writes almost entirely G-rated fic and doesn't do a lot of shippy stuff, not even Doctor/Sarah (although I did have them briefly kiss once, wow, how extreme am I), I'm a little worried about fulfilling possible het and slash requests. I sorta kinda get the impression that it's pretty common for people to request het and/or slash, and I just don't know if I can write it. I'm not just talking about bowing out of writing anything adult-rated, which I'm assuming would be pretty acceptable to the community; I mean that I don't know if I can write a romantic pairing at all.

Anyone out there who's done Yuletide have experience with this? I know that optional details are optional, and I also know that this could be the challenge part of the Yuletide challenge for me, but I'm wondering what the odds are of pleasing someone with genfic. Any guesses?

I am flying across the country and back again this weekend, and I thought, "What better time to go download Big Finish audios than when I have two six-hour flights coming up over the next four days?" So, I went to the Big Finish site to make my very first audio purchase.

( the saga )

'Cause guess what? I actually won!

Hard to believe, but . . . wow.

For me, the best thing about CoT is learning that other people honestly think a story I wrote is good. Truthfully, that's not something you can always tell from reviews, because people normally only say positive things and it's hard sometimes to know the difference between people liking some of the things in your story but thinking it's a little weak overall, and people really thinking it's a good story.

So, now I know. : )

Thank you voters for letting me know, and special thanks to whoever it was out there who nominated "Match Point" in the first place -- such a wonderful surprise. Also, thanks to the various review communities that reviewed it and my other nominee, "Fallacy Somewhere," because the second best thing about CoT was getting that additional thoughtful feedback from all of you. Also, thanks again to thisbluespirit for nominating "Fallacy Somewhere." It's obviously not an award-winning fic ; ) but it's also obviously a fic that some people really, really like, and that's what it's all about in the end.

Finally, congratulations to the other winners and to everyone who got nominated! I'd especially like to congratulate my flister paranoidangel42 for making runner-up in one of the categories I lost -- well done! Losing out to an awesome Sarah fic is not a problem at all. : )