Ugh. I can't even pretend this is really a news post. At the moment, I can't produce anything coherent. Finals are chewing on my brain. College has taught me that it's possible to be crazed and bored at the same time; comm theory delineates differences between data, information, and knowledge. My own private belief is that data smooshes info and knowledge right out of your head.

Okay, right out of my head.

A few more days of studying, and I'll probably forget how to operate complex machinery...

...Like doorknobs and faucets.

Anyway, I'm so absolutely spaced-out that I ended up scribbling nonsense verse in the margins of my study guide. It's loosely framed as an Eiri/Shuichi (Gravitation) thing, but it's a sorry excuse for actual poetry. Which means I must really be messed-up to be posting it.

Oh well. Here ya are.

---

Fated to follow, fated to dance,
A light and a shadow are mated by chance.
Dancing together, but always apart—
Never to stop...and yet never to start.

Touch that is yearning, touch that is frail—
A light and a shadow touch through a veil.
Horizons can bend, but they cannot break
An endless confusion, an exquisite ache.

They cannot meet, and they will not go—
A light and a shadow, caught in limbo.
Reasons unravel until they entwine;
A dance divided, a dance divine.

Follow the light, wherever it leads.
The light only wants, but the shadow needs.
Protests fall flat, for it cannot resist
A way of being, a means to exist.

Got the first section of "Hand To Hold On To" written, woohoo! Unfortunately, I started writing in oneshot mode, which means I don't have an outline. :D I've sort of been making it up as I go along.

The important thing to note about that is that I have NO idea how long it's going to end up. Once I get some sleep, I'll try to figure it out. If it turns out that it only wants a few more sections, I'll hold off until it's finished. But if it looks like going on longer, I'll go ahead and post what I've got so far.

In the meantime, I'm doing the "breaking through writer's block" boogie. I was getting ready to take a sledgehammer to the dratted thing. This should mean that I'll be able to get back on the other ongoing projects that want updates.

Come, join me in the boogying. (Fun word, yes?)

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Writing: 100 Ways, Mélodie, His, Hand to Hold On To (Noriko fic)
Drawing: Mika/Mika-rin (present/past portrait of Mika)
In Development: Echo (fic: Suguru POV), If I Were A Wallet... (fic: Yuki/Shu humor), Dante Didn't Know II (fic: alternate version of "Dante Didn't Know"), Hide Me (fic: angsty Yuki and dissociative identity fun), Shivers of Light (fic: Kitazawa/Eiri drama), Mika-rin (fic/art: illustrated story), Untitled (art: early Uesugi sibling portrait)

Well, just thought I'd make an entry here to show I haven't dropped off the face of the planet. :) Oh, and I'm talking to my friend...hopefully we can get a page up with the Gravitation Coloring Book images we have so far (2, but you gotta start somewhere). No idea what I'm talking about? It was posted on gravi_muse_meet.

In other news, a Noriko fic ambushed me out of the blue, so I'm writing that at the moment. (Ai yi yi. Will I ever get back on track with the existing fics? I really hope so.) With any luck, I'll have that ready for posting before too much longer.

Hmm, well, that about covers it. There're random things going on in life, but I kind of want to get back to writing fiction, so you get a reprieve from being bored by my rambling tonight. :D

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Writing: 100 Ways, Mélodie, His, Hand to Hold On To (Noriko fic)
Drawing: Mika/Mika-rin (present/past portrait of Mika)
In Development: Echo (fic: Suguru POV), If I Were A Wallet... (fic: Yuki/Shu humor), Dante Didn't Know II (fic: alternate version of "Dante Didn't Know"), Hide Me (fic: angsty Yuki and dissociative identity fun), Shivers of Light (fic: Kitazawa/Eiri drama), Mika-rin (fic/art: illustrated story), Untitled (art: early Uesugi sibling portrait)

So, funny story. (Funny "ha ha", and also funny "eep".)

As mentioned, my mother's an artist. She teaches art classes to other homeschoolers from her house, in a very pleasant but extremely conservative Midwestern town. Now, my mother and I are quite close, and once I put up the gallery here I sent her the link to it. She offers excellent feedback and, y'know, she's my mom, so she likes looking at just about anything I do.

Anyway, today she had a class at her house, and she decided to show her students my pictures. She went to the gallery and saw that I'd added a new picture, and she clicked on it. Unfortunately, the picture was "Touch"...and her students are homeschooling moms and children, some pretty young...and quite a few are fundie Christians. :D Oh, and she was on my father's work computer, which has a huge high-res monitor.

Oops.

Now, I don't think there's anything wrong with "Touch" in a moral sense. It's not explicit, to my way of thinking, although it does suggest things. I'm not ashamed of it in the least. (Although Yuki's hair bugs me a little. :D) I have no problems with homosexuality, and I absolutely believe that same-sex relationships can be as powerful, devoted, romantic, passionate, tender, nurturing, beautiful, etc. as heterosexual relationships. If I didn't feel that way, I wouldn't enjoy Gravitation as much as I do.

On the other hand, I don't think that images of that nature are necessarily appropriate for young children, any more than similar images of any kind of pairing would be. And, while I think homophobia is silly, I know some people feel that way.

Long story short, to avoid shocking, offending, or corrupting anyone who falls into either category, or who just aren't interested in looking at that kind of thing...I've started a second gallery, labeled "T+" [link]. Anything that's in the least bit spicy will go there...homosexual, heterosexual, doesn't matter. ;) The main gallery will be strictly vanilla.

I hope that satisfies everyone.

The progress list from last night still stands! :D

You have to love April when you're in college—taxes and finals all rushing towards you in a blur. If you're nearing the end, as I am (I expect to graduate in the winter), there's also a push to consolidate your job skills and look at places you might want to settle down. All in all, at the least, it can make you feel flustered and off-balance. :) That's certainly been happening to me lately. A couple of weeks ago, I had to turn in a term paper to a professor and corrected cookbook proofs to the printer. They were both in manila envelopes, and...yeah, you guessed it. The printer got 30 pages of comm theory; the professor got recipes.

Argh.

Still, life is far from horrible. I just want my attention span and focus (and, y'know, my brain) back, darn it. It's ironic, really. Last year, I had only a few things going on and was bored. This year, lots of things going on, and I have the attention span of a gnat with ADHD and a speed habit.

I've been sort of idling as far as the writing goes. Over the last week or two I've written some 20,000 words in disconnected rambling, but most is nothing near enough to "decent" even to publish as a drabble file. (I'm really good at disconnected rambling. Example? This post.) It's a lot of absurd things and random scenes, with a fair sprinkling of silly character dialogue and one-liners. ;) I love crack!fic and enjoy reading it, but I'm not sure I can see myself posting any of mine...not least of which because I have trouble coming up with the storylines for crack!fic. Pretty much all the ideas floating around in my notebook are my attempts to answer my own questions about the Gravi world, or a dimension of a character/relationship/situation I want to explore or see explored.

On that topic, some discussions at gravi_muse_meet and some random research have yielded a few new story ideas. They've also pushed a few existing story ideas to the forefront, and added some more depth to some very brief concepts (makes it more likely that I'll write them). Now, if I can just sit down and make myself write something for real, I think all will be golden.

...well, and I have to feel funny again. Or else "100 Ways" ain't goin' nowhere. I've tried a few concepts here and there, but they come off as either utterly insane or too mean-spirited. Unless a line feels consistently funny to me for at least a few days, it doesn't make it in. :) If I do get to 100, I might end up publishing a bonus chapter with the ways that didn't make it...but that's quite a ways off in the future.

Aaaaanyway. Progress report! It also occurred to me that I should clarify that "in development" means I've written at least a page or two, or have started drawing.

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Writing: 100 Ways, Mélodie, His.
Drawing: Mika/Mika-rin (present/past portrait of Mika)
In Development: Echo (fic: Suguru POV), If I Were A Wallet... (fic: Yuki/Shu humor), Dante Didn't Know II (fic: alternate version of "Dante Didn't Know"), Hide Me (fic: angsty Yuki and dissociative identity fun), Shivers of Light (fic: Kitazawa/Eiri drama), Mika-rin (fic/art: illustrated story), Untitled (art: early Uesugi sibling portrait)

Touch - [link] - 4/23/06
notes: May not be worksafe. It's not tremendously explicit, but...y'know. Ahem. Yuki and Shuichi.

As promised, here's the mildly-to-moderately steamy Yuki/Shuichi picture. :) I originally had planned this...differently. For instance, it wasn't going to be monochrome, much less monochrome red-orange, and it was going to be more detailed. When I started really working on it, though, it sort of dictated its own palette and speed. I painted it quick and dirty (okay, maybe that's an unfortunate choice of words given the subject), then discovered I was disinclined to add too many more details. And—on a whim—I decided to go back over it with a damp "brush" (digital, but still) at an angle to give it more motion. Boy oh boy, did that pick it up.

:) All in all, I like it.

REVISED: Or Else... - [link] - 4/21/06
notes: Portrait of Mika and young Eiri. Eiri's ticklish! Possible companion piece to "Mélodie".

I was unsatisfied with the way Eiri's hair turned out in this picture, so I messed around with it for a couple hours today and made some significant changes. :) It's still not perfect, but it's better than it was before.

All right, so now that the setup's done, here's the first real post.

Let me say right now that I'm terrible at journals. I have at least a dozen that I've started at various points in my life. I can't seem to keep up with them. Making one a progress log/place to babble should, however, keep things on track. I really hope it does, anyway.

So...what's going on? I haven't written in at least a week, which is kind of irritating me, but on the plus side, I did get some serious quality time with my graphics tablet. :) Input from my mom has helped quite a bit with some of the artwork. It's nice that she can offer advice (she's such a good artist), but that this is my medium rather than hers. I've had serious trouble with art in the past because it always felt like I had to live up to her work...which I just can't do in pastels and pencils.

I've really gotta get back to writing, though. Seems like it's been one thing after another. Taxes, school papers, cookbook, commissions, lupus flares...where does it end? The problem seems to be that I'm a very slow writer. It takes me about an hour to get into a character's head before I put anything down on paper, and then the writing itself crawls along. Since I'm not much of one for drafts, the in-line editing takes quite a while. All told, I need a few hours of uninterrupted time to get anything down at all. With as many hobbies and odd jobs as I have, that's hard to find. Guess I'll just have to get faster. :D Not writing is driving me nuts.

In other news, I got a huge shipment of yarn the other day. This is the stuff I need to build up inventory for Otakon. Unfortunately, they got the order completely wrong. Productivity foiled again. I also can't even really spin until I lacquer my new bobbins. The old ones still have light wool on them from a personal project. I suppose I could go ahead and ply it now, and free them up, but I don't really want to do that until I have the darker wool spun in equal amounts. I also so need to get the stuff off my drop spindles. It's just sitting there, useless. Oh joy.

On a happier note, we have finalized the cookbook proofs at long last, and they're scheduled for distribution starting at the next production down at the theater. What the heck am I talking about? I wrote a little cookbook as a fundraiser for the community theater group I belong to...it's a collection of the recipes I've created for the shows that call for edible prop food. You'd think it'd be pretty simple to put together, but somehow it ended up a much bigger undertaking than any of us had anticipated. (To give you some idea, we started this as a real project last fall.) It was fun, but I'm glad to have it out of my hair.

Boy, am I rambling. Okay, shutting up now.

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Writing: Mélodie, 100 Ways, His
Drawing: Mika/Mika-rin (Mika portrait), Touch (Yuki & Shuichi having...fun)
In development: Echo (fic: Suguru POV), Hide Me (fic: Yuki drama/angst), Dante Didn't Know II (fic: alternate version of "Dante Didn't Know"), Mika-rin (fic/art: illustrated story!), Untitled (art: Mika, Eiri, and Tatsuha as children; group portrait)

Here's the existing fanart. :) Links go to my Gravitation fanart gallery here on LJ.

Yuki Eiri - [link] - 4/14/06
notes: Portrait of Yuki Eiri. My first piece of fanart.

That Look - [link] - 4/15/06
notes: Portrait of Shindou Shuichi.

Echo - [link] - 4/16/06
notes: Suguru/Tohma hand study. Companion piece to "Echo" (a story in development).

"These Are Bunny Ears!" - [link] - 4/18/06
notes: Silly doodle of Tohma's bunny ears.

Or Else... - [link] - 4/19/06
notes: Portrait of Mika and young Eiri. Eiri's ticklish! Possible companion piece to "Mélodie".

Here are the stories currently posted, listed in chronological order by original post date! Most are at both Gurabite and FF.net, so click the appropriate link depending upon your preferences.

In Nomine Patris - [FF.net] - suspended
fandom: TV > M*A*S*H
genre: Drama
summary: An exploration of the toll war takes on the gentle Fr. Francis Mulcahy.
notes: Originally posted 8/31/04.

His - [Gurabite, FF.net] - in progress
fandom: Anime > Gravitation
genre: Drama / General
summary: Yuki's take on his early encounters with Shuichi.
notes: Originally posted 3/21/06.

100 Ways - [Gurabite, FF.net] - in progress
fandom: Anime > Gravitation
genre: Humor / Fluff
summary: Yuki counts the ways he shows that he loves Shuichi.
notes: Originally posted 3/23/06. By far the most popular fic I've written yet...if it's a fic. Hmm. :D Classification troubles, anyone?

The Answer In His Eyes - [Gurabite, FF.net] - complete
fandom: Anime > Gravitation
genre: Fluff / Romance
summary: A brief scene between Yuki and Shuichi, tackling Yuki's inability to say the three little words Shuichi wants to hear. Oneshot.
notes: Originally posted 3/22/06.

Mélodie - [Gurabite, FF.net] - in progress
fandom: Anime > Gravitation
genre: Drama
summary: Prequel to the main series, told from Mika and Tohma's perspective. Includes: childhood memories of Mika and Tohma, the formation of Nittle Grasper, and more.
notes: Originally posted 3/25/06. My big current project, set to be the longest! It's a way of answering a lot of questions I had about the histories that are barely alluded to in the main series.

Dante Didn't Know - [Gurabite, FF.net] - complete
fandom: Anime > Gravitation
genre: Drama / Angst
summary: What Hell really is, according to Yuki Kitazawa. Oneshot, introspective.
notes: Originally posted 3/29/06. I'm working on an alternative version of this. :) Same story, different take on it.

I Would Rather - [Gurabite, FF.net] - complete
fandom: Anime > Gravitation
genre: Humor / Fluff / Romance
summary: Bad Luck is leaving on a long tour, and Shuichi tries to convince Yuki to come along. Oneshot.
notes: Originally posted 4/2/06.

Now that I've started writing fanfiction and drawing fanart on a relatively regular basis, I thought it might be time to create someplace for it to land. It didn't seem like it really merited a website, but a journal? Sure, why not? At the moment, I'm concentrating on the anime/manga series "Gravitation", by Maki Murakami. There'll probably be other stuff, though.

I've sort of got this planned as a combination archive, status log for my various projects, and place to rant, ramble, and otherwise run off at the mouth...both on topic and in my personal life. :) For browsing ease, I'll divide it into categories indicated by the icons to the left. Here's the tentative run-down:

Art: New and updated fanart pieces.
Essay: Musings and little essays on writing, artwork, fandom, or whatever else seems like a good idea at the time.
News: Updates on the status of ongoing projects. Probably updates on me, too, just because it seems like it'll overlap. :D
Story: New and updated stories.
???: Complete randomness. Blurbs, doodles that never make it past the conceptual stage, challenges, and anything else that doesn't fit anywhere else.

To the right, there are links to the few fan communities and websites to which I belong. :) The links to fanfiction.net and gurabiteshiyon.net will take you to my profile pages on those sites. I can't think of anything else, so let's get started and hope this works.