(no subject)

Lomography. Totally awesome. May have to do it.

In other words, at work today from 11 AM to 8 PM, taking turns at the ref desk with one of the other ref librarians. Entertain me! (If you post a nonworksafe link, mark it so I can look at it when I'm sequestered in my office, rather than when I'm on the desk. :D)

Will attempt to start answering my pile o'email. Hah bloody hah.

(no subject)

I think I need to go to bed earlier, mostly because it's in those moments between waking and sleeping that I get stories; the times when I'm lying there dozing, still sort of dreaming , or at least mulling my dreams in my head, but my conscious brain is just awake enough to direct them, or apply logic, or to fill in some gaps, but not awake enough to poke holes in it. That's where I've had the three dreams associated with the fragments of a dream post. If I go to bed earlier, I ought to be able to do that *and* have less sleep debt. (ETA: The problem here is that I'm also a night person - and my artistic side does its best work between 9 PM and 2 AM. Hrmph.)

I tend to wake up about 5:30ish, since I think the mild sedative effect of the Strattera I take at bedtime wears off about then. I don't mind too much - except when I'm running a big sleep debt - since that's the time when I can usually induce that dreamy-dozy state and sometimes come up with something. (Didn't happen this morning since my brain was preoccupied with other images, but I'm sure it'll happen again soon.) And then I shape it more in my head when I wake up more and am driving to work - obviously I can't pay full attention to the thing in my head as I'm driving, so I think the internal editor is less concerned with the words and story and more concerned with not dying in a fiery crash. That fragment was written in my head on the way to work, and then I posted it before I logged into my work email.

I'm also at a quandary point in that 'fragments of a dream' thing - I sort of want to post notes that I know about it - having an audience somehow makes me more likely to work on something - but I don't know if it'll survive it yet. :/

More musing, ten minutes later

I find it somewhat odd that when I write, I seem to do it better with a male viewpoint character than a female. The stories in my head often have female protagonists, but if I pin it down in writing*, or try to make it into something more than just a personal daydream/fantasy, it twists around to view the woman from the outside. I think it's because when it's internal and personal, I'm putting myself into her place, but when it's trying to become an external story with a character distinct from me, I have to distance myself from her.

Note that in the fragments of a dream thing, it ended up from the man's POV, even though the dream and the overall story in me head is from her POV. I didn't even notice that until I typed it out and re-read it.** It's going to be interesting if this thing grows, because so far from what I understand, it needs to be her story and her POV, and I know more about her than him.*** Hm.


* Which I technically rarely do; I actually write in my head far more than on paper. For "writing", maybe you should be reading "composing".

** It's also in present tense, which I hate reading, but which helps me when writing to quell the internal editor somehow. I don't pretend to understand why. If I incorporated it into a larger piece, I'd push it into past tense, most likely.

*** I know enough to know jsut the edges of why you should be disturbed, rather than charmed, by the off-balance stuff in that snippet. XD But I do like the way that conversation took on two levels of meaning, without me intending it to.


(I'm reading Jane Yolen's book of essays on writing, Take Joy, at the ref desk right now, which is why I'm maundering on about the creative process.)

wtf?

"In 682 or 683 the throne ordered another son of a prince to commit suicide for bestiality, specifically for committing the sin of incest."

From China's GOlden Age: Everyday Life in the Tang Dynasty by Charles Benn, part of a list of crimes and cruel acts committed by aristocrats. No further explanation given. No footnotes, either; just a list of works for further reading. I wouldn't exactly consider this book an academic source of information.

(no subject)

We've been coming up with the entire plot to a Chinese drama in the comments of this post. I'm sure there's elements we've missed - you should stop by and let us know.