I decided to do this as a separate post from the story announcement so I wasn't cramming too much into one.

Voting for the Indie Twific Awards is now open. As I mentioned earlier, three of my Twilight stories have been nominated. These awards are intended for lesser known stories in the fandom. They say: "And because everyone was a newbie at some point, we want to acknowledge the great up and comers. Those wonderful diamonds in the rough, which with a bit of polishing, could be a heart shaped diamond hanging from a charm bracelet..."

Honestly, I don't think that quite fits me as it's been a long while since I was a newbie writer of anything, and even in fandom, I probably verge on dinosaur status. :p I certainly hope my stories aren't rough and still in need of great polishing. Nor is it true for several of the others nominated. Now, to be fair, the award people also add "under recognized Twilight Fan Fiction" to the list -- but in truth, I think that second category should be the primary category. A lot of the stories qualify because they're not novels, they're posted primarily on LJ (not the chief Twilight fic dissemination place), they're canon, they feature less popular characters or pairings, or they're gen.

Twilight fandom is strongly dominated by novels (which is a bit unusual for fanfic), but the result is that one-shots and novellas slip off the radar quickly. It's also dominated by Edward-Bella romances, including a huge number of the "all-human" subcategory. Now as we mostly all know, romance is a large chunk of fanfic in ANY fandom, but given that at least 3 of the original source novels are, essentially, Romance novels, that very tight romance focus shouldn't surprise. Yet that means gen stories do even less well in Twilight than in other fandoms -- readers come for romance in SOME form even if not E/B. (Although slash hasn't heretofore done well either, romance or not, but that seems to be changing. I have a few theories as to why slash was so slow to take off in Twilight, but won't go into them here.) Last, some characters -- especially the natives -- are not only not popular, they're out-and-out rabidly hated by large chunks of the fandom. As my few Twilight stories tend to be shorter than typical, gen, mostly canon-compliant and 2 of the 5 feature Leah (who's popularly demonized in much fanfic), it's no surprise if they aren't what the fandom particularly wants to read. :-D

That's okay. This is not a rant; it's a series of observations. After almost 10 years writing fanfic and a good 15 years reading in various fandoms (although not as many fandoms as some of YOU), I'm well-aware that each fandom develops popular pairings, characters and fads. And as someone who has, from the very outset, tended to BUCK fandom trends -- writing Cyclops/Phoenix when Logan/Rogue was all the rage, writing Cedric, and now writing canon gen Twific -- when you choose to take the road less traveled, you aren't going to win a large readership. In the past, I've sometimes managed to win one anyway, but that's not going to happen in Twilight until the sun sets in the east because it's just not the nature of the Twilight fandom beast. I still write what I want to write.

All that said, and while I really don't expect to make it past this round, I WANT TO MAKE IT CLEAR that I APPRECIATE those who may have nominated my stories. It's certainly an ego-boost and lovely compliment. In the end, I'm just glad my own dabbling in Cullen family dynamics and vampire-werewolf relations does amuse at least some of you besides me. :-)

This first round is the "weed out" round due to the massive number of noms. The voting closes the 12th, I believe, which is ... Sunday. So if you DO want to vote, make it snappy. :-)

FULL LIST OF NOMS in all categories.
CLICK TO VOTE. (All mine are in the 'complete' category.)

Cowboys & Indians: "Best Alternate Universe," "Best Characterization, non-E/B," "Best non-E/B storyline," and "Most Original Storyline."

"This is My Beloved Son": "Best Canon"

"Beauty, Shining in Company": "Best Canon," "Best Original Character," "Most Original Storyline."

Also, several stories that I follow are nominated there. I'm not going to give a complete list since the number of noms is HUGE. (Hence the weeding down ...) But if you're looking for reading material, go check out that list of noms linked above.

ETA: Another observation on the fickleness of awards ... I dearly wish "Beauty" would win SOMEthing, but it's the one least likely to win anything, I suspect. Why the wish? IMO, it's one of the best stories on my site, writing wise. Certainly it's better writing than some that have raked in awards, like Climb the Wind. But the latter is novel-length, and strongly emotional, and hit a nerve in the fandom at the time -- became my "Claw" story (to use penknife's amusing term) -- and basically CONNECTED with readers. And that's key in fandom. We can't really predict it, or manipulate it. It happens, or it doesn't. And it's what causes stories to become popular (and win awards) ... or not. But it is indicative of how much emotion drives awards, not "quality of writing." If it were quality of writing my list of story awards would have different titles in it.

I'm not sure that's "wrong" or even "bad." It just is. We vote with our hearts, not our brains.

(Please note, I'm rating my stories against each other, not trying to paint myself as hugely better than other authors! Not that arrogant. *grin*)

ETA2: I have been ADMONISHED by email, ha. But a good point. The reason Climb won more awards than Grail is because by the point Grail was finished, most of the old X-fic awards were dead. This is actually a relevant point for comments on awards. Grail probably was more popular and had a better plot/was better written, so the fact is won no awards had less to do with popularity than with availability of awards in any given fandom at any given time. Very, very true.

WHEW! It's DONE. For sideadde, rennaise, smellyia, and wolvesnvamps, for the Support Stacie Auction. I just hope it fills at least some of what you ladies were hoping for.



Summary: In the wake of their road-trip to Texas, Leah and Jasper may have formed a nascent family -- but where does that leave Alice? And after everything that's happened to Leah, can she still hope for even an approximation of a normal life? c. 11,500 words

Characters: Leah Clearwater, Alice Cullen, Jasper Hale
Genre: largely gen, coming-of-age, canon pairings apply

Thanks to sideadde for the editing. The lovely cover image was done by serendipity_50.

Age-Activated Attention Deficit Disorder

http://www.joke-of-the-day.com/jokes/age-activated-attention-deficit-disorder

Very funny, both because my son is ADHD (so I've seen the real thing ... which isn't so different), and because I've HAD days like this ... and I bet you have too. :-D

Okay, I've had this little history meta sitting in my files FOREVER, and I haven't done a meta (history or otherwise) in a while. My caveat: ... I may be slow to reply to comments. But I decided it was time I posted something besides dragons or cryptic comments about MIPs (monsters-in-progress, you know). So ....

The Gnostic Gospel of Judas

... or why politics, business and sometimes religion get in the way of scholarship (especially when it comes to archaeology).

This isn't a history meta in my usual sense, as it's not self-contained. First, in order to understand much of what follows, it's necessary to be somewhat familiar with the Gospel of Judas controversy that's been erupting in Biblical Scholarship for the past several years. You can find a good summary of it all, written by The Chronicle of Higher Education, and while I think the opinion of the author as to which side is "right" IS visible, I also think a decent job was done at presenting all sides and not making anybody look like a total ass. (Some of them manage that all on their own without journalistic help.)^*

The main reasons I wanted to bring it to the attention of those of you interested in such things is that the whole mess illustrates a couple of principles behind good scholarship ... and the real-world problems that often attend new archaeological discoveries.

As I think most people are already aware, archaeology is one of those disciplines frequently held hostage by current events. We can just point to the song-and-dance connected to excavating the tomb of King Tut in the early part of the twentieth century; it involved the Egyptian government, the British government, The Times of London and its rivals, Carter, Lord Carnarvon himself, his daughter and various other players. Politics and business are the devils with whom archaeologists and historians must dance. Similar politics and national pride were the handmaidens of the excavations on the Royal Tombs at Vergina in modern Greece during the 80's, 90's and even into this century. "Who's buried in Philip's Tomb?" is not just a somewhat lame joke, and some scholars have become persona non-grata in modern Greece for giving the wrong answer.

None of this is new. Finding the Rosetta Stone in 1799 owes to Napoleon's wars in Egypt. Thomas Aquinas read Aristotle under the covers at night, thanks to the reactions of church politics. And oh yeah -- the Dead Sea Scrolls, anybody?

Archaeology and history (and Classics) have always been uncomfortable bed-fellows with politics, business, and religion. The scandal over what National Geographic did is just the latest in a long string. And we should remember, the National Geographic Society is what actually made the birth of classics and archaeology possible in the mid-1800s in the first place.

FUNDING may be even more of an issue than current political squabbles and wars. Doing this stuff isn't cheap, and one reason I'm glad I took the historian's path, not the archaeologist's, is that it saves me from constant begging via grants.

( Now, all that said, I want to highlight a couple of things that went seriously wrong here, because it pertains to doing Good History (tm). )

Just so folks know, the Leah/Alice story is with the editor. I'll read over it a final time once it's back, then post. And this is the last week of classes too. I have kidlet this weekend, and essays to grade, but once all that is done, I've got about a free month for FUN. Yes, fun = writing, for me. :-)

Happy 4th!

At least to the other Americans on my list. :-)


And the Leah-Alice story, "The Star Quilt" is now complete in draft. It's about 11,000 words (give or take, by the time the editing is finished). The last two scenes still have to be cleaned up by me, then cleaned up more by siDEADde, but at least it's complete. :-) It's about a week later than I anticipated, but it won't be much longer now. Sometime late next week maybe?

Also, apparently, some of my Twilight stories are up for two different sets of awards. The first is the "Razzle-Dazzle" award, which I'm not too sure about. It seems to be run by a teen, people can vote as often as they like (apparently?), and there didn't seem to be much of a qualification process for it, but it's here, if you're curious. "This is My Beloved Son" and Cowboys & Indians are both in it and the voting is open now.

The second set of awards is the Indie Twifiction Awards, which looks rather better organized and thought-through. I have three stories in that one, "Beloved Son," Cowboys & Indians and "Beauty, Shining in Company." The first round of voting (which is the 'weed-out' round) opens the 15th, I think. I don't really anticipate winning anything in either of these contests but I mention especially the latter because contests are often good ways to get readings lists of stories one can try without random hit-and-miss in archives.

Also, the Eddie and Bellie Awards are open again, too, although I've got nothing in that one (unsurprisingly, I think the stories are more recent). But I know a couple of people with very good stories who are nominated there. Best of luck to Angel, JFly, Katie/that_writr, GinnyW, and PasticheP (I think that's everybody on my Flist in the running, although different pennames in different places confuse me so if I missed you, my apologies!) Again ... reading list, guys. :-) I know quite a few of those stories are really good since I follow them.

Now, to get the short piece edited so I can go back to writing Cedric. ;>

Okay, here are some of the recipes people wanted

white porridge or peasant's porridge

-- 1 c. couscous OR 3/4 cup semolina flour
-- enough water to cover it (add at need)
-- 1 beaten egg
-- 1 small container ricotta (12-14 oz.)
-- 2-3 tbsp. honey
-- 1/2 tsp minced anise root

First, kids LOVE this stuff, and it's both filling and healthy. Second, this is an easy recipe to play with and adjust to your own tastes.

I prefer using couscous just because I can get it in bulk cheaper, but semolina flour is actually what the Greeks used (couscous IS semolina but rolled into tiny balls). You don't COOK it, you just let it sit in water for about 15 minutes until soft. Add additional water at need, once extra is absorbed. Pour out any extra. Dump it in a 2 qrt. saucepan with the ricotta and egg. Mix well, then add the honey and anise. Let simmer. Stir frequently -- DON'T let it burn on the bottom.

It can be eaten hot or put the fridge to eat cold in the summer.

Variations -- you can make it half (whole) yogurt/half ricotta, or you can sub some cottage cheese for half the ricotta (for cost or calories). Or -- if you really want to be Greek -- soft white goat cheese like Chevre. Yogurt makes it tarter, and Chevre make it taste stronger. If you use Chevre, DON'T use anise. It tastes weird. Ha.

soldier's waybread

-- toasted sesame seeds
-- honey
-- flour
-- egg
-- ground nuts or minced dried fruit

You just make as much of this as you have sesame seeds. The first step is to pour warmed honey over the seasame seeds, enough to coat them well, then add flour until it disappears into the mix, then add the egg and finely ground nuts or minced dried fruit IF you want. But the basics are honey, sesame and flour. Even the egg is optional (but it helps make it stick better). Mold into bars or patties. Fry in a little butter (don't over butter the skillet!), enough to brown it. Then bake for 15-20 minutes at about 300.

sesame pancakes

-- 3/4 c. flour (or more if you want more pancakes)
-- 2-3 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
-- 2-3 tbsp. honey
-- water
-- pinch of salt

mix the dry ingredients and sift, add honey and then warm water until about the consistency of pancake batter. Heat OLIVE oil in skillet. Fry pancakes till browned. Serve warm with a little honey dribbled on top.

I just spent 6 HOURS cooking for my students. No really -- 6 hours. That doesn't count shopping at 2 different stores in order to find the correct ingredients. It's a Greek class, so I'm serving them some of the more traditional (non-meat/non-fish) ancient Greek "daymeal" dishes. Hence the hunt for stuff not easy to find, like figs and ground semolina. But we've got (white) porridge (kukion), sesame fritters (taganetai), an ancient black-green olive medley that has different spices -- including fennel -- than most modern olive concoctions, the ever-present goat cheese (feta), hummus, barley bread, grapes and figs, plus a sesame-honey "waybread" like that made by soldiers on campaign because there's nothing in it to spoil (and which turned out too buttery, annoyingly because I accidentally added too much butter to the skillet). I did not make the honeyed onions or the cheese dip because, wow, I've got a LOT of food for 19 students. LOL! In fact, the baked soft-cheese/honey sweet called globi (gobs of globi!) is getting held for the 4th picnic for the same reason. Nothing like a little food from the inventors of democracy for Independence Day. Ha.

At least they won't soon forget what people ate ... I'm hoping they also forgive me for not having their quizzes graded.

Now, I think I'll go crash.

Oh, the good news is that I think I have about 2 scenes left to write for the Leah-Alice story, but one of those is longish. We're pushing 10,000 words. :p

NBC is showing "Merlin"! I somehow missed this news (but then I've not been on LJ consistently in days). It's coming on in 10 mintutes (8 Eastern/7 Central). I'll finally get to see it on a screen bigger than my computer.

Thought I'd post this in case others are curious and are on and spot this in time ...

And I've got virtually everything up on the shelves. Only 2 more boxes of books. :-) (That's like a shelf and a half.) But it'll all be done before kidlet gets back tomorrow, thank goodness. His ideas of organization and mine don't ... quite match. Ha.

Well, the books are boxed up and the furniture is back upstairs after the "muscle" (e.g., young male grad students) came over to move it. Now I have ALL THOSE BOOKS to sort through and get back on the shelves. The one advantage of moving it is that I DO have a chance now to resort it. But I'll probably be MIA for another day or two. Needs to be done before kidlet is home. :-D

But boy am I glad to get it back upstairs. Hated having it in the basement. A house without books isn't a house, you know. *grin*

Farrah Fawcett AND Michael Jackson. Wow.

I'll admit, I admire Farrah more, but both of them had a major impact on me, growing up.

I spent 20-30 minutes every morning when in junior high, trying to get my hair to do what Farrah's did. (I kid you not -- 20-30 minutes.) I watched "Charlie's Angels," and for all the sex symbol aspect of the show -- which the guys probably remember better -- it was actually seeing them as crime fighters that mattered. They kicked ass, along with Cagney and Lacey. I considered being a cop for a while (a very brief while, ha) because of those shows.

But it was really the "grown up" Farrah who made the lasting impact, I think. I remember all the hype -- and controversy -- around "The Burning Bed." In her interviews, I thought she showed real EMPATHY, not just sympathy, for the struggles of abused women. Sure, she wanted to be taken seriously as an actress, but like Angelina Jolie (another sex-symbol actress with a flamboyant personal life but prominent role in social issues), I actually admire her as a person for the way she USED her publicity for the greater good. I think that, in retrospect, her most significant "role" on film will be as HERSELF, and her struggle with cancer. If you've not seen that documentary, take it from a former hospice worker -- it's great. It's courageous and honest and oddly hopeful, even in the face of a terminal diagnosis.

And Michael Jackson. I graduated from high school in the year that "Thriller" was released, but it's actually his earlier album ("Off the Wall" ... nute reminds me) that I remember better. In high school, I wasn't really accepted in the "white" crowd (despite the fact that those of you who've seen me know how "white" my skin is). But culturally, I didn't quite ... fit. With a couple exceptions, my closest friends were Hispanic. They were more than willing to accept the lone Indian in their midst. Among the things that really distinguished these two groups in a central Florida town was ... dance. The white kids sorta ... hopped and bobbed and stepped back and forth. The Hispanic kids danced.

I was a good dancer, once upon a time. I inherited my mother's talent. She was tone deaf, but she could dance, as in prize-winning, two-time pow-wow princess dance. As in rule-the-floor Jitterbug dance. My dad has two left feet, but not her. So you can see where Michael Jackson fit into that. The Hispanic kids played his albums non-stop. And we DANCED. Oh, hell, how we danced. He was electric. As weird as his personal life (and it was sorta weird even then), he gave one HELL of a show. And he was one hell of a dancer. His videos w/ mass dances were inspiring. We studied his moves, both independently and even in jazz class. I could do the moon walk. (I still can, if you give me a minute to remember the weight shifts.)

So hats off to Farrah, and to Michael too. Farrah gave a great gift to generations to come with her painful honesty ... not just the hair and hot poster. Michael gave us dance.

(But no, he wasn't bigger than Elvis. Or the Beatles. IMO. Also, yeah, Ed McMahon too, but he didn't really have a great impact on me growing up, unlike these two.)

Okay, for those keeping tabs on the Leah-Alice story, it's over half finished and some of it is with siDEADde, who's graciously agreed to beta for me, since she's the Alice expert and was the one who wrote the lovely review of Cowboys & Indians for The Lazy Yet Discerning Ficster. (And Naomi is busy this week too.)

The hardest conversation is complete, if not edited, so now I just have to get the ending finished. I've got about 7800 words to date, although the end product will be longer, of course. Considering how much these four ladies paid to support Stacy for this auction, the deserve their wordcount. :-D I think the final product will be about the length of a book chapter and a half.

I also have clean carpets (yay!), so that the library can be refitted as the library (not the playroom), and muscle is lined up to move furniture for me. *grin* So I feel somewhat accomplished this week!

First, I received an email "test" in my mailbox supposedly sent by "Minisinoo" to me, myself and I. Now, it may be in conjunction with a query I asked Yahoo about problems I was having signing onto my Yahoo mail once I chanced computers, as the test appeared directly beside their reply. That's now been resolved. But in case it wasn't, I've gone in and changed my password in an effort to avoid any phishing or similar from my account, but if you get an email from "me" that looks fishy in the next couple of days -- don't open it. If it IS from me, for the next three days, I'll either put [from Min] in the subject header -- as a precaution -- or it'll be the header of the message you sent me, so you should recognize it as safe. I don't recall doing anything suspicious that might have caused me to BE phished, but better safe than sorry.

And let me know if you DO receive anything funny from "me."

Second ... these little guys reminded me of Cedric's Esiban:

I am posting from my Brand New Dell Studio 15. MUCH faster than the old HP, which is now 3 years old and starting to show it's age. Not wanting to get caught frantically transferring files after my laptop half-crashed like last time, I just decided to bite the bullet and buy a new one. Not full of Bloatware. It also has a backlit keyboard (wonderful) and brighter display (good if you ever use it outside). Also an Intell 5100 wireless card and 4G RAM so it'll run Vista a little better. It has other stuff too, but those were the "special" orders.

I've still got to transfer my music files (God, don't even want to THINK how many gigs that is), but otherwise, I'm all set. Kidlet inherits the old laptop, once I get it reconfigured for him.

I caught up on mail! I feel so accomplished! LOL!

Have a new icon, in support of the Iranian protests. :-)

I'm going to bed early tonight, I think.

Okay, first, I just updated my writing LJ (minisinoo_fic) with "the explanation" of what all has been going on that's given me a production of exactly 1 short story in the 8 months since completing posting Past Present last October. Many of you already know most of it, but I put up the explanation in order to provide a link from my website as I've been getting a lot of email asking if Dulce or Aorist Subjunctive are dead in the water. Most of these queries come from folks who find the stories elsewhere on archives (like Fanfiction.net), or on my website and get confused. Those of you reading my LJ already know what's up (mostly), but in case you're new or you don't:

The explanation for "Where in the World is Minisinoo?"

Also, I'm FINALLY getting through my backlog of May feedback mail. I should have done this last week but, honestly? Just LOOKING at the number of letters was depressing and I went and hid! This week, I girded my loins and waded in! May royally KICKED MY ASS. And I seemed to get more email and ff-net comments than usual -- probably as students finished school and went looking for fiction to relax to. So just at the time I was absurdly busy and out of town a lot, I was getting more email! I'm not entirely done, but at least I'm up to email sent from June 1st forward. *grin* I think I'm going to finish tomorrow (I hope). I should write but ... I'm tired, guys. I'm going to catch up on some reading and hit the sack. I need to actually get serendipity_50's new chapter edited! At least OTHER PEOPLE are being productive. :-D

Man, I forgot how intense teaching summer session is. :p First week down; four to go. Ha.

So ... 8 pages on the Alice&Leah story, but it's looking like it should be Leah&Alice. But at least it's rolling along. I think it'll be about the length of one of my longer book chapters. It's a series of entries at moments in Leah's life (mostly post-BD) across several years, and told (this time) in Leah and Alice's POV. Jasper is in there, of course, but he's a secondary character. For more, see my post in minisinoo_fic.

Well, whatever cold/flu I had in early May has returned. Joy. Obviously I didn't kick it as well as I'd thought. I'm going to go to sleep early (for me) tonight and this weekend spend it quiet.

More memes, this time from npkedit, 15 books that are significant to you. I'm actually going to follow Naomi's choice to do books from "childhood" (and v. early teenhood). By 15, it gets a little ridiculous. LOL! It's easier to concentrate pre-high school.

1. The Little's Angel (Christmas picturebook, but it impacted me for the selfless gift of the boy)
2. Charlotte's Web
3. Black Beauty
4. Born Free
5. The Black Stallion (and multiple sequels)
6. The Incredible Journey (if you're seeing a patter of "animal books" you'd be right)
7. Escape to Witch Mountain (significant mostly as my first taste of SF/F)
8. The Hobbit
9. Where the Lilies Bloom
10. A Wrinkle in Time (and sequels)
11. 30 Seconds Over Tokyo*
12. The Lord of the Rings
13. Summer of My German Soldier
14. A Separate Peace (Both this and the above had eventual sequels that didn't live up imo)
15. Foundation Trilogy

*There's a funny story behind this book. When in 6th grade, we had to pick books from a specific shelf, and for whatever reason, I was at the end of the pickers that week, and was "stuck" with a "boy's book" that I REALLY didn't want to read. I protested. A lot. I'd wanted one of the "animal" books. My teacher made me read it anyway. I LOVED it. I haven't actually read it in years, nor do I own a copy, but I remember being completely shocked that a girl could like a war book, but it detailed WWII in which my dad had fought, and I really liked the history of it. So the fact I wound up both doing history AND teaching military history can -- in some part -- be blamed on reading this book at 11. :-)