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Writing RamblingsReaderRavenclaw's Journal |
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| Nov. 21st, 2006 @ 01:36 pm Being AWOL | |||
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(Thanks for the nudges, Kelleypen and Amy) I can't believe it's been this long since I've posted. I'm still alive, believe it or not. :) I don't have Internet access at home, and at school I'm generally busy with work, so I haven't been doing much of anything online beside check my email and do research/school work. Graduate school plus my internship is full time +, and even though I enjoy writing and participating in various online activities for their own sake, now that I'm married it's been downgraded from an obsession to a kind of vague interest. I've always been a very private person, didn't speak to friends in RL very often, so the internet was a way to share my thoughts and communicate with other people, and now that I have someone that I spend so much time with, and talk to so much, that drive is gone. I don't really see this changing much in the near future.... I imagine that when the seventh HP book is published I'll hang around a bit more, and if at some point I have more regular access to the Internet, I'll probably drop in more often as well. I haven't been reading my friends page at all, or paying attention to any message boards, so if something really exciting/newsworthy has happened to someone, please let me know! |
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| Jan. 27th, 2006 @ 11:06 am I'm alive | |||
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| It's been ages since I posted - just wanted to say that I'm still around! I got married just a few weeks ago, so I've been a bit out of things, but I haven't abandoned this completely, just taken a leave of absence. :) (Thanks, authorbynight, for the nudge!) |
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| Jul. 20th, 2005 @ 10:52 pm A Litany of Bad Fathers in Harry Potter | |||
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| ( A Litany of Bad Fathers in Harry Potter (very minor spoiler) ) |
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| Jul. 19th, 2005 @ 05:56 pm HBP Theory | |||
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| Theory about book six, and questions about a certain plot point.... ( Read more... ) |
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| Jul. 17th, 2005 @ 01:31 am Half-Blood Prince | |||
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Mood:
Just finished reading the book. It took me just under three and a half hours (my usual speed, 200pages/hour). contemplative( Spoilery Thoughts Regarding Fandom, Snape, and my own Fanfic ) |
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| Jul. 15th, 2005 @ 01:56 pm Some HP (non-spoiler) links to pass the time.... | |||
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| No spoilers in the following post, don't worry! I came across a cute HP story generator: http://www.ew.com/ew/report/0,6115,1083 CNN also has a Harry Potter "guide", quiz, and a video segment about JK Rowling, which includes clips from her big book-reading of OotP, clips of her meeting the queen, of the cafe where she started out writing, and a few more random clips. There were at least two clips that I hadn't seen before. The current "quick vote" poll towards the bottom of the page is also about Harry Potter, with the question "Do the Harry Potter books promote an interest in witchcraft?" There's no Harry Potter section, though, so the only link I can give you is to the main page; the quiz, video, and poll don't seem to have direct URLs. http://www.cnn.com/ |
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| Jul. 11th, 2005 @ 04:02 pm Suffocating Love as a Theme in the Harry Potter Universe | |||
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Written for saeva, for the ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} hp_essays essay-a-thon.Suffocating Love as a Theme in the Harry Potter Universe Love is a force to be reckoned with, especially within the Harry Potter books. It was his mother’s love that saved Harry Potter as a baby and continued to protect him throughout his childhood; it was the force of love that kept Voldemort from possessing Harry in the Department of Mysteries; and it is love that is “the power the Dark Lord knows not” – the power that will presumably have some role to play in Voldemort’s eventual defeat. Love, perhaps more than any other force, is considered Good – and in fact, love usually is a powerful force for the good. But even love, like all else in this world of gray and shadows, can be misguided. Rowling portrays love as the ultimate in good – but she does not neglect to portray as well its shadow, love misused. ( The misuse of love, in fact, is a theme that is threaded throughout the series, and plays an essential role as the foil for love as a positive force. ) *** Comments are welcome. :) And a question for you all as well: What do you think Harry will have to do/choose/feel in order to conquer Voldemort in relation to this theme? In the fanfics you've read, what are some of the best emotion/love related ways that Harry defeats Voldemort? |
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| May. 29th, 2005 @ 07:31 pm The Phoenix and the Serpent, Chapter Nine | |||
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| I've finally finished the next chapter of The Phoenix and the Serpent. Only problem is, I don't currently have a beta... and it's been so long since I posted that I kinda just want to get it up there. I'm not worried about grammar mistakes and such - the most there'll be is a typo or two. Should I be patient, and try to find a beta and get it beta-ed anyway, or should I just go ahead and post? The thing is, I did something a bit different with this chapter - much of it is a flashback - so I'm a bit more uncertain about it than usual. But I don't know if a beta would help, because at this point I'm certainly not ready to scrap the whole flashback, and I know I did a decent job of leading in and out of it. Maybe I'll just let it sit overnight and look at it tomorrow, go over it quickly to make sure there are no typos.... Edited to add: My haiku actually makes sense! |
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| May. 9th, 2005 @ 09:23 pm Dobby Heaven | |||
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| Dobby heaven. Link: http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/09/miss.m My first thought was that the company might have been inspired by Dobby. It's quite possible - the idea was conceived of in 2003, and CoS was published in 1998. Either way, though, what a cute idea for a company! :) |
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| Apr. 20th, 2005 @ 06:17 pm Musings about Genfic and Writer's Block | |||
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The hp_gen_ch gen challenge for the month of April is Transformation. I've had dozens of ideas for this challenge, so many possible characters that I'd love to write about. But I find myself facing a peculiar sort of writer's block. There are quite a number of characters that I just can't bring myself to write about - including Snape, Remus, McGonagall, and others - simply because there is so much about their backgrounds that we don't know, and therefore, there is a fairly large possiblity that either book six or seven will make my little ficlet inaccurate. I have no problems writing a deliberately AU story. My WIP, The Phoenix and the Serpent, is an AU, even though it doesn't actually contradict anything that has yet been written, because I know that once book seven has been written, it will be an AU. It is a legitimate alternate universe, but it is a direction that I know without a doubt that JKR will not be taking the series. But my one-shots are very different. I like to focus on a specific character (or two) and explore them through some sort of missing moment (or moments), one that either occurs during the timeline of the story or sometime in the past. And that sort of fic is the most likely to be made totally obsolete - worthless, almost - if one of the next books contradicts it. What's the point of a fic that explores a character if I've gotten them all wrong? My two one-shots so far have both played it very safe - it is very unlikely that either will be contradicted - but both have focused on characters (Neville and Luna) whose backgrounds we know quite a bit about. But although I'd love to write about Snape, and about Lupin, and McGonagall, and Dumbledore - I just feel that I won't be able to write them until after the series are over. Does anyone else feel anything remotely similar to this? |
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| Apr. 11th, 2005 @ 06:25 pm Trevor as a Symbolic Representation of Neville | |||
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Mood:
I have already written about the Mimbulus mimbletonia as a symbolic representation of Neville; this time it’s Trevor’s turn. Though this has only just occurred to me, I already feel very strongly that it is wonderfully appropriate that Neville’s pet is a toad. ( More than any other character in the book, Neville undergoes a remarkable transformation as he grows older, and a toad is one of the ultimate symbols of transformation. ) thoughtful |
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| Mar. 29th, 2005 @ 09:14 pm Immortality | |||
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I wrote this fic for the hp_gen_ch spring challenge. Rating: G Summary: Luna copes with the death of her mother Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Author's Notes: Special thanks to madelah for the beta. Please be aware that the opening and closing verses are by Wordsworth, and are being used entirely out of context, so if any of you are familiar with Wordsworth’s “Immortality Ode,” please keep that in mind. And of course, feedback would be greatly appreciated. ( Immortality ) |
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| Mar. 15th, 2005 @ 12:02 am Winged Boars | |||
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One of the aspects of the Harry Potter books that most drew me in was the myriad of details that Rowling includes - because it is those details that, at least for me, make the world of Harry Potter feel so real. My favorite of those details is one that most people haven't noticed, or at least, haven’t thought much about – despite its appearances in PoA, GoF, and OotP. Yet it embodies such a perfect blend of humor and symbolism that it is a real shame that its significance isn't more widely recognized. ( I am referring to the winged boars atop the stone columns that flank the entrance gates of Hogwarts. ) |
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| Mar. 8th, 2005 @ 03:33 pm His Father's Wand | |||
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I wrote this a while back, all in one sitting, partly inspired by my essay on Neville's Mimbulus mimbletonia and partly just because I really like Neville as a character. Yesterday I took another look at it and did some rewriting, and I've decided to repost and link to a couple of appropriate fanfic communities. Title: His Father's Wand Rating: PG Length: About 1200 words. Genre: General? Missing moment, character study. Summary: After OotP, Neville's Gran sees him in a new light. ( His Father's Wand ) |
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| Feb. 28th, 2005 @ 10:18 pm In which I demonstrate that I must have at least SOME qualities of OCD | |||
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Mood:
There's a proper usage of English meme that's going around, so of course I took it. I did okay - got 100% in beginner, intermediate, a 94% or some such in advanced, and not all that well in Expert. (Somewhere in the 70s I believe.) dorkyOf course, being the kind of person that I am, I didn't think: Oh, I wonder what I got wrong? No, it was: There must be something wrong with that test! Now, I'll be the first to admit that...er... let's just say it's doesn't say good things about my personality that that was my first reaction. But seriously, it wasn't as though I had just missed one or two answers, it was clear that I had missed quite a few. So, being the (verging on) OCD person that I am, I proceeded to figure out what all the "correct" answers were, according to the test - and surprise surprise - not all of them were totally accurate, or at least they were open to debate. Link to the test: http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testi ( Click here for the full list of answers, with commentary. ) That was officially one of the biggest waste of times I have ever had the misfortune to get sucked into. (Figuring it out was both easier and harder than it might seem. I figured out almost immediately that each of the four pages were marked towards one of the four categories of beginner, intermediate, advanced, and expert, so I could test multiple questions at the same time. On the other hand, looking up the answers didn't always help - I could never tell when the quiz was going to be really a really old-fashioned mode or more in a "whatever's used, correct or not" mode. Anyway. I've been doing a LOT of work on my original writing, which is why my fanfic's been so delayed... but I am working on that too, quite a lot actually. The chapter is becoming very large.... And I can't really split it, or I would just post the first part as the next chapter and wait with the rest. |
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| Feb. 24th, 2005 @ 10:12 pm Suggested Feedback Innovation for Fanfiction Archives | |||
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Mood:
Fanfiction writers are not compensated for their efforts - at least, not with any sort of monetary compensation. Reviews, then, and perhaps recognition, are the rewards instead. But as is widely acknowledged, many people read through a story and yet do not leave a review, often even if they did enjoy the story. thoughtfulOne method that has been used to attempt to compensate for this problem is the rating system, where readers are encouraged to give a story a rating with a single click of the mouse. The advantage of this is that it takes little time, and is an anonymous process. There are several significant disadvantages to this system, however. People who dislike a story, and especially those who don't bother to read more than a couple of paragraphs, often don't bother to give it any rating at all, so the ratings are often inaccurately high. In addition, many readers dislike using the rating system, or don't want to bother trying to decide what rating to give the story, et cetera, and so the number of votes do not give an accurate count of the the story's readers either. And that last point is important, because if a writer must accept that many readers do not leave reviews, most would at least like to know how many people are actually reading through their story, from beginning to end. Unfortunately, however, fanfiction writers have no real method of keeping track of this. Hit counters are very unreliable, because especially on the smaller, more specific, or exclusive sites, many readers click onto nearly every story to read at least the first few paragraphs. Often, however, the reader does not stay to actually read the story, and so the number of hits says more about the quality of the summary and/or the popularity of the characters mentioned than it does about the number of actual readers - although clearly, a story which has received 10,000 hits has been read by many, many more people than a story which received the default 200 or so. My proposal, therefore, is that Those-in-Charge of the various fanfiction archives should insert a very noticeable yet simple button/link at the bottom of every story, underneath the review button, saying something along the lines of "If you don't plan to leave a review, please let the author know that you read this story by simply clicking on this button" - though more elegantly and succinctly worded, of course. I think pretty much everyone would be willing to click on such a button. If this button was linked to a very simple counter, the numbers generated by this button would be MUCH more accurate (IMO) than any hit counter or tally of votes. (Especially if the number of reviews for that story could be added to the tally.) Personally, I'm terrible about leaving reviews for writers, and I've never left a rating for a story, but I'd be more than happy to click a single button to let the writer know that I'd read the story, no matter how late it was at night or how little time I had or how little I had to say about the story. And if the system was a bit more advanced, and kept track of ISP numbers, so that each person could only vote once (and perhaps to prevent less mature writers from inflating their results) I really think that after a couple of months of transition time, those numbers would be very accurate. And if a writer also had access to a hit counter, the comparison between those two numbers as well as the actual numbers themselves could provide some really nice feedback. Anyway, I have no idea if anyone has ever proposed this idea before, and it's quite late, so there may be something glaringly wrong with this idea that I just haven't seen yet, so I'd love to know what some others think about it before possibly pitching this to the various fanfiction archives themselves.... (I don't know much about technical stuff, but I can't imagine it would be complicated to insert such a counter - those who know these things, how complicated would that actually be?) If any of you are interested in this sort of thing, or know someone who is... feedback would be greatly appreciated. :) |
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| Feb. 6th, 2005 @ 08:01 pm Rating Question - Help! | |||
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Mood:
I almost never post twice on the same day - I rarely post twice in the same week! - but I've been all industrious today, working on my fanfic (I haven't updated in months and months) and I've suddenly realized that I have a problem. My fic is rated PG - but now I'm worrying that the level of violence I've included in this latest chapter should really push the fic up to a PG-13 rating. I'd appreciate if anyone could lend me their opinion, or point me in the direction of an lj community or forum thread where I can ask this question. anxiousSo, what's the scene involved? ( WARNING: If any of you read my fic, you might want to skip this description so as to avoid spoilers. ) |
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| Feb. 6th, 2005 @ 03:46 pm Writing Resources | |||
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Mood:
The weather outside is stunning today. Hard to believe there's still another month of winter left.... excitedIn writing-related news, I'm compiling a list of writing links (articles, resources, etc.) as an addendum to the original writing forum (Quills to Computers) that I started a while back, so if any of you have any good links to share, that would be much appreciated. Of course, I'll post the link to the webpage here once I've finished with it. :) And on that topic, I recently came across a fantastic resource. I've always had trouble describing the architecture of buildings, because I just haven't had the vocabulary, and so not only could I not find the words I needed, I often couldn't even put together a good mental image of the kind of house/building I wanted to describe. But now that's all changed. I present: The Illustrated Architecture Dictionary - with pictures of real houses/buildings to illustrate each term, and this Architecture Guide with very clear sketches of the various terms and house styles. |
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| Feb. 2nd, 2005 @ 07:10 pm The Irony of Parseltongue | |||
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Mood:
Despite the fact that they have no outer ears, and contrary to the old myth that snakes are completely deaf, snakes can actually hear. For those of you who will recognize these terms, a snake's hearing range is about 50 - 1,000 hz. (1,000 hz is about mid-range for humans.) That is, a snake generally hears only the lower-to-mid frequencies, and does not hear high-frequency (high-pitched) sounds. nerdyHowever, the 's' sound in particular is a very high-frequency sound; it's among the highest-frequency sounds that there are. (The others in the same "group" are the 'th' sound, the 'sh' sound, and the 'f' sound.) An 's' sound is going to be at least 4,000+ hz, maybe higher. Which means, basically, that there is NO WAY that a snake can hear an 's' sound. So the fact that in the HP world, the language of snakes is Parseltongue, which has a much higher-than-normal percentage of 's' sounds, and is characterized by the fact that it is a hissing - and therefore high-pitched - language, is extremely ironic. Of course, it's all magic, and Parseltongue is meant to be a hissing language, as snakes are associated with hissing - I'm not actually faulting JKR for using Parseltongue - but I do find this very ironic. /audiology and herpetology lesson And yes, it's Medusa whose been prompting me to find out more about snakes. :) My original search was an attempt to discover if snakes can detect basic human emotions - such as fear, anxiety - through their very good sense of smell, as can dogs and many other animals. Does anyone know the answer to that? |
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| Jan. 14th, 2005 @ 12:18 am Descent to the Underworld: Overview of Harry’s Transformations | |||
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Mood:
Central to the mythological ‘Hero’s Journey’ is a descent to the ‘underworld’ – a symbolic death from which the hero emerges transformed. Many have noted that the Harry Potter books have so far included these journeys; in each book, Harry descends into an underworld of some sort. ( These are not symbolic journeys to the underworld merely because they are underground, however; each is the catalyst for significant transformation in Harry-as-Hero. ) thoughtfulComments, thoughts, and further speculation very welcome and much appreciated. |
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happy