onna's scratches and scribbles

Well, the scanner is finally working again. Here is the thumbnail of "Again!?", one of the latest pics. Much of the detail is lost in this small image.

I will be sending a large version, showing the detail, to the usual suspects sometime this weekend.

One of my more recent oekaki. After I did this one I got some pointers from some of the board members on using the watercolour for smoother lines.

Scanner is still not set up. Downloaded the driver. Hopefully it will be working tonight.

Currently I have to go find the exe from the saved c drive to make the tablet run half-ass. rat is supposed to call wacom today about getting another installation disk.

Japanese class is driving me crazy and saps my spirit and energy so much I have no inclination to do much of anything creative.

I think I can finish that one-shot fic if I could just find some time to devote to it. I think people will find it a bit cute. It's nothing stunning, just a future slice-of-life. I am enjoying writing about what could be.

If the scanner and tablet get set up correctly I will scan at least one of the new pics and post it.

I need to resize the first Gravi pic I did, reslice it and send it to Joules. I need to install Photoshop 6 first...

Agh, have to redo the Japanese homework first, before I get to have fun.


私はバ-カです。(I am an idiot.)

私は = watashi wa = "I", plus the particle 'wa', designating the subject.

バ-カ = baaka = baka = "idiot, fool" - the dash lengthens the vowel prior to it - so imagine speaking it that way, baaaah kah.

です = desu (pronounced dehs, not dehsue)= verb for 'to be', so in this case it stands for 'is'.

Have no idea where "Morning Routine" is coming from but I am not questioning the muses, just taking it in stride. I don't even think about the content until I am actually sitting in front of the document, and my fingers just take over.

Had a discussion with rat about what kind of shaving device E would use. Initially I was leaning toward the typical face-scraping process and even wrote a few lines on it. Then I wondered if the boy may use an electric razor. rat picked gel and a high-quality razor, but my e-research did not produce any nice razors that used something better than disposable blades, which was not what rat had in mind. At one point I considered the brush and soap application because it seemed the kind of sensual thing E might find enjoyable. And I found lots of pampering products for men online that were tempting to add to the storyline. Finally I decided to find an electric razor and make it easy on myself. A great one was advertised in the Sharper Image catalog - $249.95!!! - exclusive to the SI catalog, and I said, yep, the boy could afford something like this and would order it online. Yes, it has an International adapter for the power supply! Check out the razor, and don't forget to click on the link for the details. It's a sexy beast.

501 words on "Morning Routine" today.

Have to go research high-quality razors for a certain grumpy novelist...

Wrote over 1000 words on a particular one-shot that just came out me in November.

Even with being sicker than a dog with my chronic gut, I got some creative stuff done during the MLK weekend.

Since my home computer has gone belly-up the muses have been happily throwing fodder my way. Drew up a E&S pic without any intent to do so. It just came out. I was debating on a bg at one point, but the addition of the hands seems to have made it a moot point, at least in rat's opinion. Because they are interacting with each other he thinks the bg is really not that necessary. I have called it "Again?!", mostly because of the facial expressions. And yes, I am referring to sex with that title, although the image is pretty innocent-looking in my opinion. I think everyone will like Eiri's smirk. I am a bit tickled about how it came out myself.

Also finished up another E&S image I had begun 5/17/03. It is an illustration for IWUS, for one of the therapy session scenes.

I am itching to get these scanned and cg'ed but, of course, the computer is still dead.

Fic update - note: if you read my regular blog or live journal you have already seen this.

Since I waslaid up in bed I pulled out some of the hardcopies of the various manuscripts I have been working on. One of the things I do is print up a story and read it off the craptop. I find I can see some mistakes and grammar issues more easily with the hardcopy. Digging through various stuff I found two separate working drafts of 'IWUS' (the fic that will not end) and decided to get the new material into the craptop.

1700+ words later....

It was interesting running into these again. I had memories of working up certain sections and the visuals I was trying to convey but they were not in the electronic manuscript proper and I did not know why. So now everything from the drafts are 'loaded'. Some of the bits are just notes. Others are outlines while others are somewhat developed sections.

I have also had to make some notes to the continuity police to make sure situation A happens before situation B or visuals of body movements and positions remain consistent. This can be hard when integrating new material in after writing in parts that were not in place prior to that particular draft. I really have to go through and check things. Example, a person cannot walk up and hug someone in this paragraph when in a prior section they are already standing in each other's personal space. I find this sometimes in some fanfics and it bothers me. The one that stands out the most is when person A completely removes person B's shirt, throws it on the floor and begins kissing person B's naked chest in one paragraph and three paragraphs later person A is reaching under that same shirt to play with person B's nipples. Oops!

When the initial beta is finally ready to begin I will only send the betareaders sections of this fic, not the whole shebang. I AM writing this in sections, my first 'chaptered' fic, so they will not be overwhelmed with the now 25,000+ word monster. I really do not have any particular section completely ready to be betaed yet. What I have found to be true more time than I can count - when I think a section is actually set I find, as I work on another section, I need to add a hint or a reference of the working section to the section I thought completed to keep the flow of the story moving in the right direction.

I am also finding the advantage to writing this one in sections is I can move entire sections up or down, depending on where they would work best. They are really not chapters as much as sections of thoughts and events.

And another little zinger to the mix. The first half of the story cannot in any way reveal the person speaking. So not only can I not move certain sections into the first half of the fic I have to be very careful how I phrase things in the first half- reactions, dialogue, observations, private thoughts - to keep the reader wondering.

I have noticed in the latest editions to the manuscript I have some places where I feel some OOC remarks and actions are glaringly apparent. I have to go back in and get those ironed out now. I now know more about the charas than I did when I wrote those words (probably back in August 2003) so I need to get them back on track.

Still working on the website. Decided to change the table settings so the old interface will be cleaner. It is taking some time to update each page, then I will upload everything again.

Also have made a few new banners for specific sections.

Huh, I have been updating the official website every day this week, and then some. Really working on getting other fandom art sections out there, especially since I have oekaki to represent many of these sections already posted on the official oekaki page.

Had to add Saiyuki to the mix since I had not listed that in the past. Haven't posted those oekaki yet so I will not post the page at this time.

Ack, gotta remember to add a DNAngel page too, since I have a 'kaki (not posted yet) of Dark-san. I need to do one of Daisuke and a few other charas to beef that section up when I get to it.

Have the GW page pretty much ready to post but I will probably wait until this weekend and give myself a rest from the posting frenzy.


I found an oekaki site that may allow me to get one for free via them hosting it but I cannot find any way to register for the service. The Japanese translation software does not show any register buttons, just a login one. It is called oekakies.com and it would really be nice to have this as part of the witzend site.

Well, the writing muse has deemed the Gravi fic with the working title 'piggy' is the one I need to concentrate on right now. I shifted some words around today, added some more and found I had done 300 words during my half-hour lunch. Where the hell did THAT come from?

Oh well, I won't fight the muse, especially since the second semester Japanese class will begin on Monday, with new instructors (team-taught), and life will be upside down again for another 16 weeks.

The Gravi fic with the loving working title 'the fic that will not end' (it's really called "I Woke Up Slowly") will just have to wait for a while. Recently I have been considering breaking it in half so I would have two separate and shorter fics. Basically the original idea, which was supposed to be a short one-shot, would stand on its own. It would mean I would have to write an ending to that section. Maybe I can do it. Then the second section would become the followup fic.

But for now, I will stick with 'piggy'. No, it's not about food.

nicked from Xero Sky's LJ...

Looking back, did you write more fan fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?

Less, because I had hoped to get some serious writing done this holiday and I did jack shit on it except for about an hour one day. And I really didn't do much, just read through some things and moved around some words.

Put a few scribbles in the notebooks but nothing really solid.

I have four Gravi fics completed, about eight in half-way stages and about 10 snippets of ideas.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January 2003?

NEVER thought I would even be writing fanfic, let alone writing in the Gravi universe. Thought my one little dbz fic "The Urge" back in 2002 would be my one and only contribution to the fanfic community. Was I ever wrong...

What's your favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest.

I really worked hard on "Kokigami". It is the longest finished piece I 'published' and I think I pulled off a story that is both funny and sexy. Humour is difficult to write and worked my butt off, trying to make the humour sections funny. Yeah, I am proud of it.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

Just starting to write fanfic was a risk for me. My ego is manic-depressive, leaning toward toward the feeling of never being good enough.

Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?

I would like to complete 'the fic that will not end' and a few others.

Here is my New Year's oekaki.


Now I need to go to bed because I have to work Friday, whoo hoo.

Well, decided to enter the Xmas card in a holiday fanart contest out at The Vault, just for grins.