Oh yes! You read that right, O, Best-Beloveds. It's hc_bingo Time! Last year I kicked that puppy to the curb (and then comforted it) with 16 fills. I don't know how I'll do this year, but I've already filled a square two squares and will have fills for at least two more by the end of the summer. \o/

I love this challenge so much.

Here's my card! And seriously, this is one of the least-stressful challenges ever. You can take part every year even if you never fill a square, and you have an entire year to write/make anything. It's awesome. :D And I love H/C like kittens, so it just makes me really, really happy.

Here's my card:

shipwrecked	caught in a robbery	Hugs	arena	Accidental Mating for Life
Magical Trouble	washing / bathing someone	Stockholm syndrome	forced to rely on enemy / rival	Unwanted Transformation
Forced to Face Fear	Dub-Con	WILD CARD	Healers	culture shock
Protecting / Losing Precious object Person	Motion Sickness	De-Age	Toothache	Atonement
prostitution	skeletons in the closet	Captivity	Blood Loss	arrest

Look at all that wonderful torment. :D

Pretty much all of us know what February 14 is, but did you know that February 15th is International Fanworks Day?

Well, you do now! And if you don't, or hate clicking links (it could happen), IFD is a creation of the Organization for Transformative Works, who are the lovely people who gave us the Archive of Our Own, among many other things. But currently relevant to my interests is their IFD Drabble Challenge.

The rules are simple: On February 15, post a drabble/drawble/short vid/another media format about your favorite character(s) getting fannish over something. Because of course they would. Does Draco Malfoy secretly ship Snarry? Does Clint Barton admire Oliver Queen? (I'm sure they'd totally be bros.)

I've got a drabble all set to go, and so does my buddy brumeier. I hope you guys will play too. And if you do, please comment here with a link so I can read it.

Come on, FListies! Write about your beloved characters as the fangirls and boys we all know they secretly are. I'll love you eleventy (which is far greater than three).

I got my new hc_bingo card (do-dah; do-dah). It looks promising. And painful.

( Here! It's under here! )

I have an idea that would fill the 'pneumonia' prompt, as well as two other prompts from different challenges, but my heart is with my original novels-in-progress at the moment. I would also love to be able to work all 25 prompts into one story, but the 'magical trouble' doesn't quite fit. ('Difficult pregnancy' might be a problem as well, come to think of it.)

I'm sure that once again I won't have anything finished before the point-less (but not pointless, heh) amnesty period, but this will be fun anyway. And if I'm really lucky, maybe I'll be inspired to write something that gets published. YOU NEVER KNOW.

(My previous two cards are here for 2011 and here for 2012.)

Hello, and happy Wednesday (or 'hump day' as some of you like to call it).

Last week I posted my own Next Big Thing blog, and now I'm passing it along to my next blog hoppers.

wpadmirer is talking about her mystery novel Florida is Burning here. I've been lucky enough to be able to read some of it. I'm really enjoying the characters and how tangible Florida is in the story. And yes, the burning of the title is quite real.

laylalawlor has a comic novel called Freebird, which is here. It's about Alaska now and in the 1970s, which sounds as ambitious as it is unique and fascinating.

dungeonwriter is going to talk about a spec script she's working on. I'll have the link to that as soon as possible. It's here. :)

Enjoy the links. And thank you very much for reading!

Hey, everybody! And Happy Thanksgiving to my FListies about to celebrate it.

Next week I'm going to take part in a Blog Hop, which is basically a nifty way for people to follow links from blog to blog (or journal to journal) and find out about new writers. I was asked to take part by the lovely and talented sgamadison, who starts this part of the hop here on her handsomely-decorated (pun somewhat intended) and nicely readable website. She's responding to a series of questions, such as where the idea for her novel came from, what it's about and which actors she might chose to play the novel characters in a movie rendition. I'll be answering the same question near the end of the month.

sgamadison is also known as Sarah Madison, and, in my opinion, is an impressively prolific published author considering what I know of her day job. She has several publications with Dreamspinner Press, and you can see her author's page here.

(And mine is here.)

Now, in order to continue the blog-hop properly, I'm looking for five people who are working on a writing project (or who have just completed a writing project the way I have), who would like to answer some questions on their own LJ or other blog (or both! Why not?) and then pass it on (you don't need to have exactly five people, by the way. Even one other person would be great). Interested? Please leave a comment. :)

I'll have some big news to go with my jump of the hop, so I hope you'll come back to read it. :D

One of the many things I love about fandom. Go check it out, and don't be afraid to ask for something. I'm very lucky that there's not much I need--for the moment--but I know I'll be asking for something soon enough, here or elsewhere.

(Gakked from the marvelous alyse.)

This meme is awesome:

Go look at your blog journal. Find the last Fandom-related thing you posted. The characters in that post are now your team-mates in the Zombie Apocalypse. How fucked are you?

Well, it depends. If we're talking the actual fandom I'm part of, then it would be the Stargate: Atlantis fanfic I wrote for ariadnes_string's Fever Commentfic Meme. (There are more SGA prompts on the last two comment pages, btw--we need fills, my sister SGA fans!)

If I can count that one, then I'll have Team Sheppard behind me and we're going to kick undead ass, no problem. BRING IT ON, AGENTS OF THE APOCALYPSE!

However, if by 'fandom' it means, 'any media that either already is a fandom or could be one', then the last post I made would be the one I made about the stereotypes in the new Alphas show on SyFy, and while I suppose it'd be cool to have a bad ass sniper dude with great balance and super-fast reflexes at my disposal, he's apparently also insane which might be problematic. The super-strong FBI agent would most likely be a great help when it came to kicking down doors or heaving SUVs at the shambling throngs of undead, but zombies are really something you should deal with using distance weapons. And the technomancer guy with an Autism Spectrum Disorder would be pretty much useless after the power goes out. Unfortunately the two female team members would be even worse, since the one who can make people do her bidding requires her target to have a functioning brain, and the one who can have one super sense at a time would be standing still a lot, which is just an invitation to be lunch.

But they'd still be better than nothing. Hopefully.

On the other hand, my most recent post also mentioned the Hawaii 5-0 reboot. Hell, Steve and Kono could probably take on the entire zombie hoard by themselves.














Psst! I've filled my first prompt square for my hc_bingo card! \o/ Check it out!

For them's what might be interested, there is a multi-fandom commentfic meme going on at ariadnes_string's LJ (don't know her, but the woman has good ideas).

This particular meme is all about fevers, which as we all know tend to be awesome in fiction and kind of horrible in real life. (My mom got Dengue fever right after a Habitat for Humanity trip to Haiti many, many years ago, and at one point her poor brain was so fried that she honestly thought she'd been a victim of a voodoo curse. Definitely not fun to witness at the time.)

I've gone through all the comment prompts and read almost all of the finished fic(lets), and I've been grinning like the wicked, H/C junkie fangirl that I am. Except for one little thing that I just don't get.

So far, every writer who's actually said what temperature the suffering, delirious woobie has reached has written it as being no higher than 102 Fahrenheit (about 38.9 Celsius). Now, I've had a fever that high and let me say in no uncertain terms that it sucks balls, but that's nowhere near high enough to cause delirium.

Generally, people don't start hallucinating or thinking they've been cursed until their fever hits 104 F (40 miserable degrees Celsius). Temperatures of 105 (40.5) and up are where you drag your raging teammate outside into the blizzard so you can bury him in snow before the brain and organ damage starts.

Now, it is true that the faster a person's temperature rises, the more likely they are to have febrile seizures. But a normally climbing fever that gets to 102/38.9 will probably make you want to die, but it won't make you see the Grim Reaper and his flying monkeys coming through the window to help you get right on that. There's a good rule-of-thumb chart right here.

Obviously not everyone will react to a higher-than-normal body temperature in the same way, but it still struck me as odd that a temperature 102/38.9 would be considered dangerous. Have any of you guys had different experiences? Am I wrong? Enlighten me, FList! :D (Passes out the Tylenol and Paracetamol.)

(Gakked from dungeonwriter)

You are The High Priestess

Science, Wisdom, Knowledge, Education.

The High Priestess is the card of knowledge, instinctual, supernatural, secret knowledge. She holds scrolls of arcane information that she might, or might not reveal to you. The moon crown on her head as well as the crescent by her foot indicates her willingness to illuminate what you otherwise might not see, reveal the secrets you need to know. The High Priestess is also associated with the moon however and can also indicate change or fluxuation, particularily when it comes to your moods.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

I think I'm a bit too erratic to really fit this--though the mercurial mood thing certainly works for me--but hey, I like it! I used to be able to read Tarot cards, too. Wish I could still do that.

So, here's how it goes:

wpadmirer Picked out the following six icons so I would tell everyone why I have them. If you want to play, just tell me in the comments and I'll pick out six of your icons so you can post about why you have them, too. :) Spread the icon love! (And if you want to know about any other of my icons, I'd be happy to tell you.)

( Icon love under here )