long update!
May. 29th, 2012 04:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anghraineHey everyone! I've been busy, but I didn't mean to be quite so ... silent. For me. Anyway, what I've been up to:
-- Crawling back into Austen fandom. Well, not the fandom, exactly, but reading some fics and writing a few snatches in my free time. For awhile, I couldn't really even deal with anything Austen-related without being "arrrrgh I HATE EVERYTHING," but I seem to be veering back to normal levels of abrasiveness. I'd actually started to miss it, so that's nice. I'm thinking of revising A Matter of Chance (again). Though probably not just now.
-- I'm not remotely leaving SW fandom, however, which has been consistently less failtastic. My picspams are all over at my tumblr now, by the way, though I blog/reblog quite a few other things (ATLA and LOK! cats! feminist stuff! cats! book stuff! cats!). One of my favourite people in fandom followed me and I'm pretty much S;DKF;AKJDF;AKJDF;KDJFJ;K about that. Otherwise, there's some meta I've been meaning to write, about balance and the Dark Side (and the Light Side not existing but not in a 'it's just a tool' sense, which just annoys me), but I keep not getting around to it, because:
-- I got permission to write my final project in my digital literacy course on fanfic. Specifically(ish), on what exactly fanfic is (which I see as a function of space as much as of content), and why hatefic and deconstruction fic and fix-fic and revenge fic and just critical fic generally remain fanfic, even when they are manifestly not coming from a place of fannishness (a ton of Twilight fic, for instance), while things like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies are not fanfic as I see it.
Then I'm going to focus on critical fic in SW fandom - originally I wanted to write about the variety of ways in which people deal with the EU, but I only have ten pages for all of this. So I figured I'd narrow to an issue that fans keep coming back to, and settled on The Problem of Ghost!Anakin. I am not writing about slash or copyright law, though after the day we spent on fanfic, it turns out I know quite a bit more about both than anyone else in my class. Anyway, that's taken up a lot of my meta attention, lately.
-- I wrote a fragment of not!FI forhl 's birthday! Basically, when I was plotting First Impressions, I had to choose between just genderswapping Darcy and writing about her altered relationship with Elizabeth (either bromance - sismance? - or femmeslash), or genderswapping both and reimagining how P&P would be told that way. Obviously I chose the latter for FI, but I occasionally feel like I chickened out, and intermittently work on this fic. Ooh, a whole three pages this time.
-- I'm writing an original short story for class and way behind on it. It's not the originality that's the problem - I've been working on the universe for seventeen years (... not making this up) and I know it really, really, well, I just haven't been writing much. Also, the main story is way too involved to be a short story, so I'm writing a side-story. This is actually for my bell hooks class, of all things. And I can't say much more about it, unfortunately.
-- Also for my bell hooks class, I wrote a personal essay on how simplistic approaches to social justice are not really a good idea, as seen in A History of Women In My Family. Namely, my mother's ancestors were Mormon polygamists, and her ancestresses were second and third wives. How terribly oppressive. And when polygamy was outlawed, the women and their children lost all legal rights, became dirt poor, and spent the next three generations scraping by, and desperately passing on remembered class markers like singing and racism. Liberation!
-- I'm much closer to graduating than I thought: probably two terms, though I'll have to see what my advisor thinks. And that's doing both degrees, English and psychology. I'm rather glad to be doing both, honestly - I hate statistics and it'll be miserable to do it again, but I feel (1) less pathetic for taking so long and (2) really quite happy to have the psychology degree. I love psychology, I have ever since my first class when I was seventeen (which I took as a prereq to social psych, which I wanted to know more about for a story I was writing :P) and I actually do better in it overall than in English. That's more to do with how the classes are structured than the subjects, but still. Also, I'm rather sad that I don't have any more creative writing - that's my minor. And then I had to do these extra 'cluster' courses, which I took in gender/queer studies.
-- I really want to get into a creative writing MFA program, but am terrified of asking any profs for letters of recommendation. This is A Problem. My grades are also iffy, though my current university overlooks them if your sample is good enough (*wince*), and the other programs I want mostly just look at your last two years or your creative writing GPA, which in my case is waaaaay higher than my general GPA. I had a nervous breakdown a few years ago in a horrific clash of issues to do with sexuality, autism, depression/anxiety, and religion, and my grades crashed with me - creative writing classes were the only things I never failed, and even those dropped to B's and B-'s. Here at PSU, I haven't got anything under an A- in any writing class, though. Also, one of the programs is in Vancouver, which is fairly close to my home, where my friends still live (Blaine/Bellingham) AND not in the United States, which is rather a plus. Also it demands some awesome specialization.
-- I've been taking this 400-level English class that is more nightmarish than any of the other 400-level classes I've taken, most of which double as 500-level ones. It's always referred to by its full title: advanced topics in late medieval literature. It's also AWESOME. My professor is a very strict, very intimidating woman who is also earnest and helpful and mentioned in the acknowledgments of our Norton edition of Piers Plowman. I really like her, though it's a bit terrifying that she'll ask me to read my response to our exams, or insist on knowing ~all my thoughts~ when I so much as nod my head in agreement.
-- Also. A few months back, my reaction to the people who argue that every non-supernatural element of ASOIAF exists because of accuracy was pretty much "lolwut," because I was interested in the Wars of the Roses when I was a history major and ... lolwut. (To elaborate very slightly, grimdark!medieval Europe is not any more accurate than rainbowbunny!medieval Europe, and I miss the abundance of powerful, badass, competent women who actually existed in medieval Europe.) Although I rather like the books, my opinion of BUT ACCURACY has downgraded to "what are you even talking about?" Especially when it comes to personal agency, and the ever-present rape (seriously, Froissart and Co manage to talk about it and condemn it without remotely romanticizing or eroticizing it - some of them even manage to avoid manpain).
-- I mentioned to my stepfather that I was caught up with my homework and pleased with myself about it. His response: "But you need to work on your bigbang fic."
...this is actually a thing that happened in my life. I'm still processing it.
-- Crawling back into Austen fandom. Well, not the fandom, exactly, but reading some fics and writing a few snatches in my free time. For awhile, I couldn't really even deal with anything Austen-related without being "arrrrgh I HATE EVERYTHING," but I seem to be veering back to normal levels of abrasiveness. I'd actually started to miss it, so that's nice. I'm thinking of revising A Matter of Chance (again). Though probably not just now.
-- I'm not remotely leaving SW fandom, however, which has been consistently less failtastic. My picspams are all over at my tumblr now, by the way, though I blog/reblog quite a few other things (ATLA and LOK! cats! feminist stuff! cats! book stuff! cats!). One of my favourite people in fandom followed me and I'm pretty much S;DKF;AKJDF;AKJDF;KDJFJ;K about that. Otherwise, there's some meta I've been meaning to write, about balance and the Dark Side (and the Light Side not existing but not in a 'it's just a tool' sense, which just annoys me), but I keep not getting around to it, because:
-- I got permission to write my final project in my digital literacy course on fanfic. Specifically(ish), on what exactly fanfic is (which I see as a function of space as much as of content), and why hatefic and deconstruction fic and fix-fic and revenge fic and just critical fic generally remain fanfic, even when they are manifestly not coming from a place of fannishness (a ton of Twilight fic, for instance), while things like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies are not fanfic as I see it.
Then I'm going to focus on critical fic in SW fandom - originally I wanted to write about the variety of ways in which people deal with the EU, but I only have ten pages for all of this. So I figured I'd narrow to an issue that fans keep coming back to, and settled on The Problem of Ghost!Anakin. I am not writing about slash or copyright law, though after the day we spent on fanfic, it turns out I know quite a bit more about both than anyone else in my class. Anyway, that's taken up a lot of my meta attention, lately.
-- I wrote a fragment of not!FI for
hl 's birthday! Basically, when I was plotting First Impressions, I had to choose between just genderswapping Darcy and writing about her altered relationship with Elizabeth (either bromance - sismance? - or femmeslash), or genderswapping both and reimagining how P&P would be told that way. Obviously I chose the latter for FI, but I occasionally feel like I chickened out, and intermittently work on this fic. Ooh, a whole three pages this time. -- I'm writing an original short story for class and way behind on it. It's not the originality that's the problem - I've been working on the universe for seventeen years (... not making this up) and I know it really, really, well, I just haven't been writing much. Also, the main story is way too involved to be a short story, so I'm writing a side-story. This is actually for my bell hooks class, of all things. And I can't say much more about it, unfortunately.
-- Also for my bell hooks class, I wrote a personal essay on how simplistic approaches to social justice are not really a good idea, as seen in A History of Women In My Family. Namely, my mother's ancestors were Mormon polygamists, and her ancestresses were second and third wives. How terribly oppressive. And when polygamy was outlawed, the women and their children lost all legal rights, became dirt poor, and spent the next three generations scraping by, and desperately passing on remembered class markers like singing and racism. Liberation!
-- I'm much closer to graduating than I thought: probably two terms, though I'll have to see what my advisor thinks. And that's doing both degrees, English and psychology. I'm rather glad to be doing both, honestly - I hate statistics and it'll be miserable to do it again, but I feel (1) less pathetic for taking so long and (2) really quite happy to have the psychology degree. I love psychology, I have ever since my first class when I was seventeen (which I took as a prereq to social psych, which I wanted to know more about for a story I was writing :P) and I actually do better in it overall than in English. That's more to do with how the classes are structured than the subjects, but still. Also, I'm rather sad that I don't have any more creative writing - that's my minor. And then I had to do these extra 'cluster' courses, which I took in gender/queer studies.
-- I really want to get into a creative writing MFA program, but am terrified of asking any profs for letters of recommendation. This is A Problem. My grades are also iffy, though my current university overlooks them if your sample is good enough (*wince*), and the other programs I want mostly just look at your last two years or your creative writing GPA, which in my case is waaaaay higher than my general GPA. I had a nervous breakdown a few years ago in a horrific clash of issues to do with sexuality, autism, depression/anxiety, and religion, and my grades crashed with me - creative writing classes were the only things I never failed, and even those dropped to B's and B-'s. Here at PSU, I haven't got anything under an A- in any writing class, though. Also, one of the programs is in Vancouver, which is fairly close to my home, where my friends still live (Blaine/Bellingham) AND not in the United States, which is rather a plus. Also it demands some awesome specialization.
-- I've been taking this 400-level English class that is more nightmarish than any of the other 400-level classes I've taken, most of which double as 500-level ones. It's always referred to by its full title: advanced topics in late medieval literature. It's also AWESOME. My professor is a very strict, very intimidating woman who is also earnest and helpful and mentioned in the acknowledgments of our Norton edition of Piers Plowman. I really like her, though it's a bit terrifying that she'll ask me to read my response to our exams, or insist on knowing ~all my thoughts~ when I so much as nod my head in agreement.
-- Also. A few months back, my reaction to the people who argue that every non-supernatural element of ASOIAF exists because of accuracy was pretty much "lolwut," because I was interested in the Wars of the Roses when I was a history major and ... lolwut. (To elaborate very slightly, grimdark!medieval Europe is not any more accurate than rainbowbunny!medieval Europe, and I miss the abundance of powerful, badass, competent women who actually existed in medieval Europe.) Although I rather like the books, my opinion of BUT ACCURACY has downgraded to "what are you even talking about?" Especially when it comes to personal agency, and the ever-present rape (seriously, Froissart and Co manage to talk about it and condemn it without remotely romanticizing or eroticizing it - some of them even manage to avoid manpain).
-- I mentioned to my stepfather that I was caught up with my homework and pleased with myself about it. His response: "But you need to work on your bigbang fic."
...this is actually a thing that happened in my life. I'm still processing it.