Dec. 10th, 2006

fajrdrako: (Default)


There's a Captain Jack story I plan to post tonight or tomorrow, and I've been having problems with it. Not creative problems, technical problems. Can someone who knows more about computer software than I do maybe offer some advice?

I wrote this story in WordPerfect, which is my favourite program to write with for numerous reasons. Saved it as an .rtf file and sent it to my wonderful beta-reader, [livejournal.com profile] rosiespark, who returned it with useful comments. I rewrote it, again in my original .rtf file. Poked at it a few times later. Let it sit for a while, not by intent, just because I was busy.

So I went back to it a week or so ago and discovered, to my horror, that when I opened the story there were no words in the file. Luckily I still had the betaed copy from [livejournal.com profile] rosiespark. So I used that as my main copy, deleted her comments, and was rewriting it. I was working on it again last night and decided to go to bed and finish it this morning.

This morning, once again, my copied file was empty.

So what happened? Too much switching between .rtf, Word, and WordPerfect?

I have one more proofreading and revision to do, and then I'll post it. Believe me, I have many copies of it now, in several formats, including one online. Hah! I'll nail that sucker yet.

But I'd like to know what I did wrong, so I can never do it again.

fajrdrako: (Default)
[livejournal.com profile] taelle gave me this one: The task with this particular time-killer, should you choose to accept it, is to write about ten things you like for any given letter.

[livejournal.com profile] taelle gave me a D. It's a little like picking that initial Scrabble tile from the bag; you never know what you'll get.

Okay, then. Ten things I like beginning with a D:

1. The Endless. No, the word "Endless" does not begin with a D, but their names do: Death, Dream, Delirium, Despair, Desire, Destiny and the missing brother, whose name I will not utter in case it's a spoiler for someone who hasn't yet read The Sandman by Neil Gaiman.

2. Dorothy Dunnett, my favourite writer.

3. Doctor Who.

4. Dancing.

5. Drama. Not just on stage - though I do love plays - but a sense of drama in real life, in literature, in anything. A convergence of concept, passion, and personality.

6. Doors, both as objects and concepts. They tend to look interesting, to be the focal point of the facade of any building. But more than that: they symbolize both connection and separation, connecting the inside to the outside and also keeping them apart, but making it possible to pass from the one state to the other. Doors are very mystical, yin/yang things, each one both an entrance and an exit.

7. Dogs. My favourite animal. The picture here is of the best dog I ever knew.

8. Dragons. Interesting mythical creatures. My Chinese astrological sign is the dragon, and I'm fond of some dragons of fiction: Smaug (the best character in The Hobbit), Mnementh (F'lar's Bronze), and the dragon whose name I forget in The One-Winged Dragon.

9. Decay. I like decay in the same way I like chaos. I like the notion of everything changing; I cities like Venice and New York where there has been great beauty and then decay overlaid on it, so there's a double message, lichen on the statues, the hard lines of stones worn down to smoothness or weathered to pox; a lingering sense of history so you can imagine the past - when it was glorious over another level of decay - or the distant future, when we will have decayed under the lustre of a new reality.

10. Duality. That seems to be a theme in my life. Insides and outsides, newness and oldness. Reality and imagination. Bisexuality is in a sense a double sexual orientation. Drama combines the duality of illusion, imagination masquerading as reality. Shiva's dance of life and death, creation and destruction.

My goodness, this exercise was actually rather difficult. But the challenge made it fun. Thanks, [livejournal.com profile] taelle!

Anybody else want a letter?

Budgies...

Dec. 10th, 2006 07:33 pm
fajrdrako: (Default)


I got a new budgie today. Logan was so very lonely....

So I went with [livejournal.com profile] maaseru and [livejournal.com profile] maaboroshi to the pet store at Billings Bridge and contemplated the budgies. It was 2:30 p.m. and they were all having their mid-afternoon nap. There were six budgies - they usually have more, perhaps people have been buying them for Christmas? There were three blue ones, one green and yellow, one white and blue (like Pryde) and one that was an interesting mottled and spotted white, yellow and blue.

I picked one of the blues and named him Remy. X-Men fans will know why.

I put him into the cage with Logan and there has been a long silence - lasting about six hours now. They are eying each other from opposite corners of the cage like two gunslingers in a bar in a western.

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