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http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20120528 http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20120528#80466 The Open Playtest has begun! And perhaps you're curious as to why things are as they are. If so, you don't want to miss this column: Mike goes over some of the player-side elements in the current documents. |
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May. 28th, 2012 @ 10:47 am
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Ональный в бушлате и с акээм.
( Реально он...) )
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I've finished with the last of the heavy yard work until fall. Over the last 24 hours, we've removed a huge, mostly dead 20-year old azalea and three unruly and rather nasty Barberry bushes. Replace the azalea with a small golden Spirea and the Barberries with a dinky little dwarf variety of the same. Smaller is better. Somehow, fresher.
After the summer weather passes (and the threat of birch borers), four-six more trees are slated for the yard debris bin. That will happen regardless of how long we keep our house. They are all weak trees. The place will look better without them.
Of course, no decisions have been made yet. We may get to keep this place after all, should The Man find similar-paid work in Portland. If not, then Corvallis or Seattle it'll have to be. Can't be helped. Not if we want to survive.
I found myself flipping between feeling strong emotional attachment to this place, the home we built from the bare ground up and feeling excitement for a fresh start (with next to nothing in material things or finances – how adventurous!). I want to believe that people my age (55) shouldn't be in the position of losing everything for a "fresh start." Then again, this is what everyone calls the New economy and this is how big corporations work. One hundred years ago, people exactly my age were losing everything; we didn't live to what we today consider really old age. We're not dying (yet), we're just re-organizing. I guess I'm whining about nothing.Current Mood:  pensive |
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http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/05/meta-comments.html Much as any artefact exposed to the maw of a small child eventually becomes soggy and turns brown (after it stops working, if moving parts are involved), I am coming to the conclusion that any comment thread on this blog will, between 100 and 200 comments in, circle around to become a discussion of:
* Space colonization
* Automotive technology
* Things that go fast and explode (rockets, military aircraft)
* Alternative energy (from solar through wind/wave to nuclear)
* Libertarianism (and everything is worse with libertarians)
Am I doing something wrong with the moderation here? Answers on the back of a postcard, please.
NB: attempts to derail this comment thread into orbit around one of the above strange attractors will probably result in mockery, before I delete them. I'm serious. Bored, now: want a new commentariat. (If you want to discuss The Usual, you may continue as before in the comment thread under the previous blog entry, a serious essay about the future of genre fiction, which ended up circling the drain in well under 250 comments ...) |
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Interviews and Profiles Advice/Articles News 
Bread and Circuses by Felicity Dowker
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If you’ve been reading these posts for the last week, you know that my intention was to write two posts. The first, about help, I did write. The second, I still haven’t written. This is very much in keeping with the way I write anything. I have a general idea. I put the words on the screen. And then other words arise out of interaction, and, well.
We, as parents, all want our children to be happy. I take that as a given. We do not always make our children happy - but at base, we want our children to lead happy, long lives.
Given the way life works, life is not predictable. We are adults, our children are not. We know the things that caused us pain - and we want to help our own children avoid that pain, and avoid bearing those scars.
( But... )
And now, I am running out of the house because it’s our 23rd anniversary :)
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Robert McKee packs a metric ton of great advice into the first paragraph of "Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting." Here's the text:
Story is about principles, not rules.
A rule says, "You must do it this way." A principle says, "This works... and has through all remembered time." The difference is crucial. your work needn't be modeled after a "well-made" play; rather, it must be well made within the principles that shape our art. Anxious, inexperienced writers obey rules. Rebellious, unschooled writers break rules. Artists master the form.
Now, this sounds great at first, a true epiphany for me. However, after giving it some thought, it would have meant nothing when I first started writing. Anxious, inexperienced writers don't know the rules, so they have no idea if they they're following them. Somebody has to tell them what the rules are before then can decide to follow them or not. Regardless of what they choose, they need that first learning stage.
While I don't disagree with the last line, nor the crux of what McKee is trying to say in is opening paragraph, that the inexperienced follow or break rules and the experienced master form, it isn't fair. People don't learn in a vacuum. You can't become experienced and master form without first learning about the rules and principles. Only then, can you master the form.
Having learned a few rules over the years and maybe a principle or two, I'm ready to work on my form. This book comes highly recommended from various sources, so I'm excited.
Cheers,
NGD
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I finally got around to checking my flash drives, and was happily surprised to know that most (unfortunately, not all) of my stories were saved in their mostly written forms.
Anything written about a month before the crash was lost, including the end part of last years NaNo to my ultimate disappointment. I love my huge Vorik fic. Thankfully I saved half of that on a flash drive before going to Sydney, so have that first part of it still :)
In with all the unfinished fics, I also found a few of my finished fics that only got put up in certain places and not everywhere. Most on lj communities or to people as personal fics. I think I might post some of them. There's quite a bit of Lord of the Rings (Erestor and Glorfindel mainly, and they turn slashy.) And Good Omens. I found a just started fic in both Inuyasha and Good Omens that both have been on my mind to finish lately.
And then I found this short, utterly silly crossover. Hope you enjoy the cracky madness that is this fic.
Title: The Many faces Of...
Author: malicehaughton
Rating: G
Fandom: Good Omens/Harry Potter Crossover
Pairings: None.
Summary: Crowley never should have made that deal with Salazar Slytherin.
( Read more... )Current Mood:  amused |
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Hullo all!
Submissions Guidelines for Issue Three of Cabinet des Fees's Demeter's Spicebox are now up!
We have chosen the Aarne-Thompson type 2031C, The Mouse Who Was To Marry The Sun for Issue Three, do refer to the guidelines for the additional prompts!
Reading Period: 5 APRIL 2012 onwards (until we get the perfect two stories for the next issue).
Do bear in mind that you will need to read the stories from Issue One and Issue Two, as this is a storytelling project and the prompts reflect this. DS runs in Volumes of four issues each, and each Volume will start with a fresh set of prompts.
If you have any questions or doubts, feel free to email us at demeterspice (gmail) in April!
Best,
Nin Harris |
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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) spiffikins asked:
Looking back at our own efforts, we had lots of battles :) I've love to hear how you applied these rules to situations where your son didn't want to do something, like have his bath or get dressed/put his shoes on for school or participate in the day to day activities of helping out (setting the table, doing dishes, doing homework) - it seems we always had conflict, and the majority of it with my brother was getting him to do something that he didn't want to do, but that needed to be done.
I’ve been thinking about this today while at work shelving books - which hopefully will not result in too many mis-shelved novels.
( This answer was too long for the comment thread, which is why it’s a post. )
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A stand-alone SF novel.
Publication year: 1962
Format: Audio
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Narrator: Kevin Foley
Running Time: 8 hrs and 20 minutes
( Read more... )
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By Cheem, I mean the three trees there, and not the entire species, though I suppose it could be interpreted that way. This is not just Nine/Jabe as is so much more common. Because I loved this scene and how he took time to go over to the two males and share in their grief while everything was going to hell all around them.
Title: 100 Things (13/100) - Nine/Cheem
Author: malicehaughton
Rating: PG
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairings: Nine/Cheem.
Summary: The Trees of Cheem were a peaceful race, so it could only lead to heartache and destruction.
( Read more... )Current Mood: accomplished |
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