March 5th, 2010
So I’ve just finished writing this 15,000 word story, and you’ll probably never read it. I’m extremely protective of my writing, you see, and it bothers me to no end that somewhere on the Internet right now, there is still a copy of the very first fanfic I ever wrote. No, I’m not giving you a link.
I would much rather boast about the great accomplishment of completing a 15,000 word story than actually show you the story, at least right now, because this way you can say, “Hey, great job!” without any caveats. A few of my friends have seen bits of it, and one has given me incredibly useful criticism over the course of writing it–most of which happened in the last week. Yay for being unemployed. Aaron has expressed an interest in seeing it, and perhaps someday he will. After I revise the hell out of it, because even after working on it for at least two hours every day for the past five days, it is still very much a first draft, and that kind of weirds me out.
When I write, I edit at the same time. When I type those last words, I am done. That’s always how it went in college, and I BSed my way through plenty of English classes without changing my methods, so I figured it would serve me pretty well out in the real world. And I guess in a way it has, because I haven’t actually written anything since graduating. I’ve gotten one or two days into NaNoWriMo several times before remembering why I never finish NaNoWriMo, I’ve started an expansive back-story for my steampunk roleplaying character, I’ve scribbled a few ideas and lines of dialogue, and I have about a dozen stories in various stages of visualization locked up in my brain, but this is the first thing I’ve actually finished since college. And it feels amazing, and I’m going to bask in that feeling a while longer before I go showing it to the world.
I will, however, tell you my favorite bit of dialogue in the whole thing: “When you finish that, there are others on the bookshelf behind the painting of the tarantula lorry.” Yeah, I bet you really want to read it now. Well you can’t!
Category: Nerding It Up Big Time, Writing No Comments »
January 17th, 2010
So I’m unemployed right now. Usually when this happens it’s a horrible period in my life, but right now it’s AWESOME. I was at my last job for over a year before they fired me for no reason, so I’m drawing benefits to the tune of $73 a week, which means I can kick a little cash Aaron’s way to help with the bills, I can pay for my phone, and I can afford to gas up the car occasionally and go thrift store shopping once a week.
For a while I was in danger of spiraling into boredom and despair, but the last week has been pretty amazing and everything seems to be looking up. I’ve been organizing things around the house, cleaning, and really getting into cooking–I get excited about reduction sauces now. I’ve read from several different sources (including Keri Smith’s blog and issue #15 of the zine Doris) that the only way to really fight depression when you have no way to occupy yourself is to get outside and walk for hours at a time. It’s gotten warmer in the last few days so I could do that regularly, and it really works. I found a shortcut to the post office, and I’ve pretty much mastered the local attempt at public transit (short buses that stop running at 6 p.m. and don’t run at all on weekends). I have a million ideas for a million projects, and in general I feel more alive than I have in a really long time.
That’s all just to say that you probably won’t see me around here much, not that you have lately anyway. I should probably go see Avatar just so I can write another rant about a crap movie and get more attention, but I just feel too awesome right now to subject myself to that. Maybe I’ll post some of my adventures here in the not-too-distant future. Stay tuned, if you want.
Category: Life, Zines No Comments »
May 26th, 2009
This past weekend was three days long, which means I went an unusually long period without my daily routine, and that means my body FLIPPED OUT and now I’m sick. I came home early from work today; my throat is swollen and much of my body is sore. This is the second time this month that’s happened. It’s starting to piss me off.
In addition to getting sick, I spent Memorial Day weekend nerding out with the Terminator movies, a franchise I’d forgotten I loved so much. The new Terminator movie is awful, maybe a step or two above Star Trek on the suckometer, and yet I fully adored it. Aaron and I saw it on Saturday, and in preparation I watched the original on Friday (a good thing, too, or I might have missed a couple nice in-jokes in the new movie), and followed them up with T2 last night. Suddenly I was 14 again, back when I wanted to marry Michael Biehn and I thought the cocking-a-shotgun-by-rotating-it-in-one-hand trick was the awesomest thing ever.
Just so you don’t think this blog is all about the cheesy science fiction movies I watch on a disturbingly frequent basis, here are some photos I’ve taken recently on the Minolta 35mm SLR that’s been in my family for several decades. This camera just inexplicably started working again a couple months ago after nearly a year of not being able to see anything through the lens. I should probably get it checked out and fix the broken light meter and make any number of improvements, but for now it is rendered more charming by its few minor faults and it takes really gorgeous photos, so I’m in no rush.
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Category: Film, Life, Nerding It Up Big Time, Photography No Comments »
May 11th, 2009
I have never loved Star Trek. I watched The Next Generation regularly with my parents; as I recall it aired right before Earth 2, Sliders, and/or SeaQuest DSV, my preferred science fiction TV shows when I was 10. I enjoyed TNG well enough, though it had far less action than any of the other three shows and therefore tended to bore me. There were aspects I liked; I was pretty much in love with Geordi, thanks in large part to Reading Rainbow.
Point is, I was never emotionally invested in Star Trek as a whole, which ought to have made it easier to watch, and maybe even enjoy, the new movie. Not so much. Click through for spoilers and crumb-spewing.
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Category: Film, Nerding It Up Big Time 32 Comments »
May 7th, 2009
I have decided, in a fit of late-night restlessness, to bring back the Blogarama. I’ve gone quite some time–over a year, maybe?–without a personal blog, and while I haven’t exactly missed it, I do yearn for a centralized place to store my thoughts and creative ventures. So the Hannahrama is back in blog form. (Remember Alf? He’s back! In Pog form.) I hope you enjoy it.
Today the joy of getting a full-time slot at work was mitigated by the news that my mom has osteoporosis. Moreover, my grandmother has it, and my other grandmother probably did too, which means the likelihood of me eventually having it go up to about a hundred percent as I understand it. Occasionally when I try to lift heavy objects, I get this strange and horrible brittle pain deep in the bones of my arms; I already know I don’t get nearly enough calcium, and I bought supplements a while back to help change that, but I don’t take them regularly.
Suddenly I actually feel compelled to take care of myself, and it sucks. I’m 25–I shouldn’t be worried about what life will be like when I’m 60. But despite my free-spirited attitude in most aspects of my life, deep down, I do care. In fact, I care about what life will be like when my kids are 60. I usually only think about stuff like that late at night when my emotions have no middle ground, and I can’t think about it for too long or it does my head in.
In fact, my internal egg-timer just chimed and now I have to stop thinking about it. Must distract myself! Look, it’s Thom Yorke!
Tonight my friend Mel came over to work on a new song. It’s been a while since we’ve written together; our last band broke up a couple months ago when our bassist passive-aggressively sold his mixing board right after our first show, thus rendering it nigh impossible for us to practice. Mel and I were back to being an acoustic duo, which is probably for the best, but we both took some time off afterward. Anyway, tonight we demoed this song in about two hours, and I’m terribly proud of it. When You’re Out of My Mind
Category: Life, Music, Obligatory Thom Yorke 3 Comments »