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@/re: dj and writing/amvs
2006-12-21 20:48:08
Oh, yeah, call me bad. Still no rules against chatting, so I don't mind. Besides, it's more like talking at and about, than chatting. Chatting implies girls with oneliners, or giggling cell phone fanatics. Chatterers rarely discuss things, hence the name - chatter, a pointless noise like what you get when you're really cold and your lower jaw won't stay still. ;p
I went through a faze where I couldn't write without my computer. I'd gone so long writing by hand, and then typing in the computer lab when I got a free minute, that it was great to finally be able to write as fast as I thought the sentences up. One of my professors gave me a really old computer that had little more than an ancient word processing txt program - I loved that thing. Clunky as hell, scary huge, but I could type on it and that was all I cared about. I'd been having security let me into the engineering computer lab 2am every day before he heard about it and decided I shouldn't be doing that so often. ;p Anyway, I was stuck writing at night after that because I couldn't get any ideas to put in my notebook in classes. It got worse when I went home for the summer - I spent all my free time in the top of the garage where I'd set my computer up so I could be away from my family and have quiet to write.
I was like that for a few years. Then I went on a weeklong trip and took a notebook with me. All those old habits came back and I realized that as fast as I can write with my computer, I get *ideas* faster with the notebook. More ideas, sharper ideas, and once it's down I can't just close the program without saving - can't/won't forget ideas that way. I've never been the sort to change what I've written, though. I get a lot of typos that I catch as I'm typing, or after I reread the story, but the sentences usually stay just the way they were originally written. I've gone back and rewritten some old stories of mine where i used a horrible or redundant style, but they stayed unchanged for a year or two after they were written because once it's down it stays. I don't type a sentence down until I'm sure I like it, same with the notebook. I never could deal with a beta reader, either - don't like changing my story for someone else because I have this possessive fear it will become theirs if I incorporate their ideas into it. I'm happier just letting someone proofread to catch the typos I missed, and someone to brainstorm with - so I can flesh the ideas out before I write them. Once it's down, the story is mine and it doesn't get changed unless I change my mind somewhere down the road.
It's funny about being assumed a newb. I'm definitely not a newb to fanfiction. It's what got me into anime, in...1999, when I was 19. Yeah, I'm old. Been writing fics for quite a few years now. So I'd love to be thought a bright newb. As it is, my readers expect more out of my fics, so even if I try switching fandoms a few will follow along. I have a couple reading my YYH fics just because I crossed Kurama and Hiei with a GW fic - they've never seen YYH, don't plan to ever watch YYH, but they're reading my YYH-only fics because I happened to use the characters once in a crossover. I ended up not writing anything for a two year stint just to get rid of the GW fans I'd picked up off some old yahoo groups. I want the impossible - I want to keep my name (love my name) but make a fresh start in fanfiction at the same time. I started doing Naruto fics recently, first time for me, whole different crowd of readers (I thought) and still I got responses comparing the fics to my old GW stuff. I don't like expectations. I had a lot more fun when I was actually a newb. My writing sucked, granted, but I wasn't afraid to write anything. Now I can barely do angst without worrying about attracting the wrong readers. And I can't do sappy stuff anymore because, supposedly, I'm above that sort of cliche writing. Erm, yeah, okay. But I like sap once in a while. Damnit. ;p
I've thought about making a different name and using it for my new fics, fresh start, but I'm addicted to the instant guaranteed readers I get with that author-alert option on FFnet. I don't want to go back to having to push my fics on people just to get noticed. Once they're caught they stick around and I take that for granted a lot. I couldn't handle being a newb again. I still wouldn't mind some of the perks that come with newb status.
Amvs...yeah. Eternal Newb. It's much easier than ffnet. Just don't announce your vids in the forum and no one will notice when you make something new. If it's always new people running across your stuff, there's no expectations. Less consistent feedback, but, meh, that means more freedom. I don't work well under external pressure. Unless it's for a grade or money, in which case working under the knife is definitely best. That's the only time procrastination pays off for me. ^^; -
bam
2006-12-21 03:49:21
Inspiration. I'm wide-eyed. It just hit me and I don't know whether to giggle or just gape at nothing while I process it. I'd likely never pull it off, or it wouldn't strike anyone else the way it does me, but I'm putting it down so I don't forget how hard it hit me just now.
In the Funhouse. That's the title. It's a first. I've never gotten a title before the completion of a video before, let alone before I even started the video.
I blame the X-files. Stupid Humbug episode. ;p
I've been listening to the song for a while now wishing I could settle on a video to use with it. This idea is bizarre, nothing like what I'd been brainstorming. I wonder if it can be done in Premiere. I don't think anything I did could make it look like the image I got just now, but I can think of a way to get as close as possible. Maybe that's where the name comes from, trying so hard to be serious it comes out absurd. Meh. The mood is all there any way I look at it. Ah. Really nice. I haven't had an idea this hard in a long time. ^^ -
@dj / re: writing
2006-12-20 19:57:30
Bring a notebook and a mechanical pencil home with you. First boring night without the computer, find a silent desk somewhere and be bored. I've done some of my best writing that way, might take an hour or two of absolute boredom, but once you start it should roll from there - you can type it all up when you get back to school.
Or maybe that's just me. I hate writing by hand because I write really small and my hand cramps up after an hour or less and I don't want to stop once I've finally started. But I get a lot more ideas staring at a blank, college ruled, notebook than I ever have staring at a blank computer page. I do all my 'awayfromhome' writing in the same notebook. A few pages on a story here, a few on a different story there, and I can flip through the book and reread old bits to get ideas for new stuff. I like when the notebook starts getting full - with half-pages all over the place. I'll draw a line after the old text and start writing on the first blank space I find, numbering it and skipping pages for the next space - it just feels neat to have every space completely full, and I don't know how much I've written so I usually end up writing a lot more than I would if I went from one clean page to the next. Then again, I like lists and collecting things and building up game characters until they have as much as they can hold of every item available. It's probably just me. Probably weird, too, how I get a rush from flipping through a five section notebook and seeing page after complete page of tiny cramped little man-text. Yeah, I have a guy's handwriting, an engineering guy's handwriting. Should see me write entirely in capital letters. Scary. There's not a bit of fluid loopy girly script in me. >.< -
ff7, etc
2006-12-16 21:45:19
I've been playing this game a lot lately. I like replaying games, and I have a portable dvd player I can hook up and set on top of my little television - that way I can play the game and have movies playing at the same time. It keeps things from getting boring when I'm building up the characters or waiting at the finish line of the chocobo race for all the non-gold birds to catch up. Multi-tasking and short attention span and all that.
Right now I'm doing laps in the sunken ship and trying to max out my stats. I went ahead and grabbed the materia from the crater, so I guess I'm building up that, too. I was *planning* to up my stats to about 200 each for Cloud, Vincent and Cid (my prefered team) and then go back to the crater and grow some materia with those elixer-eating pots. But I'm having a heck of a time with the flower-like monster that morphs into the guard sources. He keeps confusing Cid, who then attacks and kills him so I can't morph the bugger. I got an extra ribbon by morphing a tonberry when I was in the crater, but ohmygod it took forever. I couldn't use sense on the thing, but it must have had a crapload of HP. I would have hit game over if I hadn't been using Barret at the time - he hadn't killed many monsters so that "Everybody's Grudge" only took off 4000. Poor Cid and Cloud were KO'd every stinking time.
I think there's a ribbon in the glacier somewhere. I picked one up in the clock tower, but I think there might be a second somewhere in the ice maze. Sad enough, I'd almost rather try another tonberry than go into that snow maze again. I already had to make an extra trip to get the 'added cut' materia. I've replayed the game a few times, but every time I get to the glacier, the only thing I remember is to get Alexander before I pass out. Then I end up going back for the sudden-death bit, and then I forget there's that hidden/hard-to-see blue materia on one of the paths so I have to go back for it on disc 3.
I'm lazy. I've been trying all sorts of things to get those guard sources without having to leave and track down another ribbon. I used dazers on the monster - that worked for a few seconds until I attacked it with a morph and it countered with the confuse breath. On Cid. Who then attacked it and killed it. >.< I tried using a dazer on Cid, but the stupid flower monster attacked him, confused him, and then he killed it. I tried turning Cid into a frog. That didn't work. I guess I've already maxed his spirit stat too high for that. I tried killing him. That worked, but it's really annoying having to bring him back to life every time so I can fight the other monsters in the area.
And stupid Cloud keeps getting lucky 7s. It's so annoying. I can never get anyone set up to get that when I want it except Cait Sith (who I hate to use). Now I have cloud doing it constantly and killing monsters I'm trying to morph. So annoying.
I'm watching the special edition dvd of Aliens. I rented it from netflix because it has like 20minutes of extra footage and a cast+director commentary. Need to buy a copy of that dvd. I could record it, but it's just not the same as owning it.
My stupid sister told my brother what I was getting him for christmas. Now I have to get something for his girlfriend, too. I was hoping we wouldn't do the whole gift thing this year. It's annoying and I never get anything I need. Last year I asked for cdrs or dvdrs since my mom goes to walmart all the time and knows what those are. She got me expensive perfume. It's still in the box, along with the set she bought me a few christmases ago. I can't even use the hand lotions because they smell so strong they make my nose run. Allergies, people. If I can't use hairspray, what makes you think I can handle perfume? Meh.
Gotta look up a movie called Barnyard for the brother's girlfriend. He flatout told me what to get her, with her sitting right there. I was tempted to hand him a 20 and make him get it for her. Now I have to go to Walmart. Hate that place. And I have to buy wrapping paper. So annoying.
I thought about getting a bottle of Jack Daniels for my sister, but my mom and I had an intervention and warned her about the dangers of alcoholism recently, so I probably shouldn't. It's too bad. That's the only thing I know she'd like. I also thought about buying her a big box of diapers, but my brother says that's just mean so I guess I won't do that, either.
Man, I hate Christmas. I miss the old days when adults gave us money in an envelope, mom gave us candy in a stocking, and we cleaned the house and did nice little things for her for a few months in thanks. Now even the grandparents think gifts are better than cash. Like I'm gonna use those little ankle socks with the reindeer heads on the back of them. They hurt my feet every time I sit crosslegged or put shoes on. >.< And don't even get me started on the obligatory Walmart presents. I buy a boxset of tea for the grandpa's wife, a boxset of something meaty and cheesy for the grandpa, and - if I'm lucky - they don't buy me exactly the same boxset in return. Just once I'd like to sit down and have a lunch instead - where we all bring our own tea and cheasy sausages and don't have to buy them for each other like it means something. We're supposed to be adults. Adults shouldn't need to have their snacks wrapped in pretty paper just because it's that time of the year.
Meh. At least it doesn't look like we'll get snowed in this year. And we don't have to meet at the church and spend an hour watching stuipd little kids get their parents handing gifts the old guy in the santa suit so he can pass them back over like the kids won't remember the parents had those boxes before the santa did. Come on. Half those kids are over 12, the other half carry those presents into the church themselves. If they haven't figured it out yet, they need a doctor, not a guy in a santa suit. And it's a church, damn it all, not Walmart. If I want to see strange kids coming to get their picture taken with Santa I'll go to a department store, not to church.
Total humbug, I guess. At least it only comes once a year, and who knows, maybe we'll get some heavy snow afterward and I won't have to socialize for a few weeks. That would be a nice present. ;p -
macabre
2006-12-08 14:19:17
Note to self: Rent Hellsing.
I want to make a bloody christmas special celebrating the murder and sacrifice of our favorite anime characters. I used to have a pretty little track of instrumental christmas music, an orchestra collage not for resale (hah), that would be perfect. The lack of dark anime hurts me so.
I'd also like to make a sappily amusing het video using a song from the Sister Act soundtrack. I fear my brain may stop functioning before I can get the footage ripped should I attempt such a thing. Far too many pairings I detest. Can't mock them without using them and using them is painful. It would, however, be a prime chance to use my capture card and nab a certain mermaid 'concert' scene from Chrono Cross. Amusing.
I'm two days from officially scrapping my Hikaru no Go vid. I want to watch it, but I don't want to edit it. Remind myself to export the 20 some seconds of compiled footage. Doubt I'll come back to it, ever, but it's better than nothing. I expect to get a good 102gigs freed once I delete the clips. Amusing x2.
I finally tried using lagarith as apposed to huffyuv. Noticeable size difference. I had avoided it because the drawbacks people mentioned in the beginning included slower processing speed. Maybe the difference is in how Premiere scans the clips. The time to compress - without any scripts - is about the same as with huffyuv. I'll need to test some large clips out in Premiere before I decide, but it looks like lagarith would be a lot better on space for clips the next time I do a multi-anime vid.
JOURNAL: Arigatomina
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