Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without

Sadly, Judith Kerr died a couple of days ago. She wrote The Tiger Who Came for Tea and the Mog series - all books I read to my children when they were little. So while sad to hear of her passing, it did also bring back many fond memories of the happiness from reading those stories.

Here's me reading to my greyhound, Cody. He's less grey, more brindled orange, black and white. Walking him the other day a small boy pointed at him and in a confused voice asked his parents, "Tiger?"



Those books were also the inspiration for some of my Supernatural fanfic:

I have my own version of The Tiger Who Came for Tea where Sam reads it as a bedtime story to Lucifer, plus Mog was very much in mind when I wrote my Sam the Cat series.

I've finally caught up and finished watching Season 13! Managed to avoid most spoilers; ironically got a few via a writing prompt!



I've got mixed feelings about this season - LOL, when don't we - feel like I need to re-watch - maybe I missed an episode, but when did you-know-who leave you-know-where?

Also

• Dean becoming a caricature of himself


• "Sideline Sammy"


• Bringing back beloved characters only to squander them


• That last scene with the close up made me laugh.

Now I don't need to worry about spoilers I need to catch up with my reading!

I'd heard about Wattpad before - specifically about a zombie story that Margaret Atwood was collaborating on (although who hasn't done something walking deadish these days? - I mean I'm writing one myself, it's just on hiatus).

I thought I'd give it a quick look - I've set up an account at http://wattpad.com/TheYmp even though I've only recently got round to finally posting something at Fiction Press)

I can't help but wonder if this is where FanFiction got the idea of the "covers" from - except they seem to be so much better done at Wattpad - how come no one at FF seems to do them like actual book covers - I've just had a "d'oh" revelation!

But I did have a very swift perusal of their Supernatural fanfic section... oh my... absolutely nothing but Mary Sues as far as the eye could see...

(;,;)

I've been doing the E/O Challenge for a little while, this is on FanFiction.net where you're sent a prompt word by Enkidu07 or Onyx Moonbeam and you have to use it in an exactly 100 word-long story.

This week the word of the week was "Storm" and everyone seemed to write a damn fine drabble.


(this is an advert for 'Artemis', a UK Investment company - everytime I see it I think of Supernatural)

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or its characters - these were created by Eric Kripke - I'm just borrowing them. I'm not making any commercial gain. No harm or infringement intended.

E/O Challenge: Storm. 'The Storm' a 100 word drabble. A storm rages overhead triggering unpleasant memories. Spoilers for up to early season 7. Non-Wincest Hurt/Comfort.

( Read more... )

So I have a couple of ducks. No, I don't live on a farm. Yes, this is considered to be a little unusual.

These are actually the second pair I've owned, a male/female pair, the first two were killed by a fox.

They're Aylesbury Ducks, which means they're big and have amazingly huge, white-feathered wings - or they're white when they've not been flapping about in the mud. I tell you, ducks are dirty.



When they're chicks they have yellow feathers, then they moult (which they then seem do a couple of times a year) - and the first time this happened I commented it was like "an explosion in a pillow factory". What a great phrase - I squirreled it away for future use.

After finishing "The End of the World" I needed to write a couple of lighter fics, I did that with a couple of drabbles, but I needed to do something a bit more, and I was already part way through "Castiel's Day" (I seem to quite often come up with a new fic while working on a current one - plus I'm a big fan of writing something else if I find I get stuck with my current work).

The phrase came up in conversation and it clicked in my head and so "Scritch, Scritch, Scritch" was born! (I'm not sure I like the title though)

I had some really nice comments, unfortunately many anonymous, so I can't reply with thanks, but one comment did make me laugh...

"i just have to say it (because reading this means that i'm not studying for my biology finals): arthropods molt. Birds do not molt. Nor do angels...to the best of my knowledge. ;)"

Am I missing some difference in meaning because I used the US "molt" instead of my more normal "moult"? (I like to write SPN in US English - it's a "stylist affectation"!)

I have a dog too, and she definitely moults, seemingly constantly!

I think you really need to study for that biology test!

BTW I googled "arthropod" and screamed like a baby!

I feel like I'm past all the Sturm und Drang of recent months, but it does feels a bit silly writing this, it's such a long time since Halloween..
 
Ages ago got talking to Tribble Master on FanFiction.net who gave me the prompt of "Dean can't find his way home" - it turned into "No Way Home" - wow, talk about a tonic as at the time I was really struggling to write anything or come up with any ideas.
 
The whole idea of the story was kind of my backlash to Dean suddenly not drinking in that week's episode after so much being made of him having an alcohol problem. (And I felt a bit aggrieved because that story line had made me realise that I was in a phase of drinking far more than I should too)
 
One of the lines that jumped into my head was "Lucifer is now a constant presence; giggling, plotting, and whispering rude comments in his ear"
 
And just like that another "The Devil on Your Shoulder" was born - I actually wrote out most of it while still only half-way through "No Way Home".
 
I started to attend Church not quite two months ago, so had the recent benefit of a Halloween sermon that referenced the Devil, specifically about not listening to him, and that the little voice inside our head telling us that we're "no good" is just as much Satan as the guy with the pitchfork.
 
I thought it would be fun to start it like one of these "Sam falls in love with Lucifer and they all live happily ever after" stories, I even gave him a cutsie nickname Luce. And then it gets dark, very, very dark.
 
And of course the "black-in-black eyes" are an homage to the blue-in-blue eyes of the Fremen in Frank Herbert's Dune.
 
Being a fledgling Baptist and all, it then seemed natural to do things in threes, so then I felt compelled to write a third in the series "Castiel's Day", in three parts itself no less. Since I'd started writing about the Devil with info gathered at Halloween, it seemed ideal to concentrate on All Saint's Day instead, or Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos )  – when I realised that one of the names for this celebration was Day of the Little Angels (Día de los Angelitos) I was obviously hooked!
 
I used an awesome quote from Martin Luther King, who was also a Baptist pastor:
 
The universe is under the control of a loving purpose, and that in the struggle for righteousness man has cosmic companionship (angels). Behind the harsh appearance of the world there is a benign power
 
So much, but not all ("sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" – Freud), of what I write about Supernatural is me testing out my thoughts about other things, and so apologies if the religious content is a somewhat high at the moment.
 
How can I write about Castiel without addressing redemption? How can I write about redemption without addressing God? How can I write about Chuck without including Death? Where else other than a Supernatural fanfic can you write a story that discusses life, death, God, Satan, redemption, the meaning of life, the nature of belief, seeking redemption, and man-crushes?
 
I lost the link and can't find the article, but I read a conjecture that since we're created in God's image, basically God has all our emotions, but wider/deeper/more intensely.  With that in mind I finished the second chapter with the following lines that bring me close to tears each time I read them:
 

      "I'm supposed to be vengeful and wrathful," the author sniffed, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

      The thin man passed him a neatly pressed, monogrammed handkerchief, "Of course you are."

 
Castiel mentions in passing in chapter one how grateful he is to be beneath God's notice, and of course the terrible truth revealed in chapter two is that God actually has a soft spot for him.
 
Chapter three is Castiel fulfilling his function as a messenger of God – literally taking what Chuck has related to him and using it to help the Winchesters.
 
Much of the criticism of Sam's character development is to do with him being or becoming "evil", but I think this is the character's strength – no matter how much is thrown at him he just gets on with it and adapts – and so this is exactly what he does.
 
But I do feel sad for Sammy, I'm married to my OTP, I ship Dean/Cas as a OTP, who's Sam got?

Done a fair amount of FanFic posting last month or so, but not very much LJ -  too raw at the time.

The FanFic's been great for working things out, and getting stuff off my mind, I think because I can hide behind the characters.

I really feel like I written some okay stuff recently, and the E/O Challenge has been like a God-send in keeping me writing. It's so simple, who would have guessed that the trick to beating writer's block seems to be to actually write something down :)

Finding out last month that Nic had killed herself was shocking, an unexpected punch to the gut, even though it's been a couple of year's now since I last saw her, so it's almost like I don't feel I have a right to be upset. The worst thing is how angry I feel with her. My main memories of her are her appalling inability to make a decent cup of tea, and a photo of us all sitting on the sofa with the dog and laughing, and it makes me weep, and I want to scream at her. I can't help but remember Dad coming back from the service of a work colleague who'd killed himself and how shaken he'd seemed when he described how damning the chaplain had been about what faced suicides in the afterlife.

I wrote Prayer for Better Times at the time I found out, then recently End of the World to try to describe how angry I felt, obviously it's primarily about Dean/Cas so it's not autobiographical, but I can't help wishing there was something I could have done. There are people in my life now that I worry about and I feel that I should, and need to, reach out to and even now I still find it so hard to do. I almost didn't publish, I'm not sure how people are going to react to it - I don't really care if people don't like it, so long as they don't hate on it.

(;,;)

One of side effects of adopting the "Chuck Shurley" approach to writing led to a late night (early morning?) copy and paste accident with Evernote which almost led to a loss of several days work - luckily some offline caching meant I did eventually get most of it back, but it's taken hours to try to sort it out.

Recently some of my best work's been "flow of consciousness" on the commute followed by a late evening spell check, rewrite and general polish. Trouble is that from today everyone is now back at work and the trains were completely overflowing again. Claustrophobia kicked in big time and I eventually had to get off shaking like a freakin' leaf - which was totally embarrassing, not to mention it made me late for work and meant I wasn't able to do any writing. Eventual;y a train arrived that wasn't packed to the rafters and by the time I got to work I felt like I'd already done a full day.

I'm working predominately on the last chapter of Happy Birthday, some of it from Bobby's PoV, but I'm generally happy with it, but it's taking such a long time to hammer out the details.

One of the serendipitous aspects of writing this story has been the discovery of a New Zealand band called "Shapeshifter" - I particularly like Dutchies.