jackieduv

brimfire @ 1:12pm: Crap!Crap!Crap!
This idea has been scratching at me since I arrived, and IT WON'T GO AWAY!

I'm partially blaming Trey for it. He keeps insisting I should write young adult books. Says my writing 'voice' is best suited for that (Really, what does he know?!) Other than my Stealing Ellum trilogy (only the first book is written), I've stayed away from YA. I love my adult books, the ones written and the ones that are still germenating in my mind.

I'm also blaming Meredith Duran. She hooked me on historical romance with THE DUKE OF SHADOWS last spring, and her other two books, BOUND BY YOUR TOUCH and WRITTEN ON YOUR SKIN are equally awesome. I've sworn not to attempt historical romance because I don't think my voice is right for it. Plus, I could never come close to crafting something as beautiful as she does.

So basically, I've vowed not to write any more young adult books and to write no historical romances. Guess what this stupid idea I have is? Yep. A YA historical romance.

Argh! (Ahem. No. There are no pirates in this...  Hmm. Maybe I can put a pirate in it. Why the heck not.)

The thing is, I could ignore this itch if I wasn't living where I am. We're in Windsor, and there's this little town on the other side of the Thames called Eton. And there's this college in Eton. It's referenced in the majority of the historical romances I've read. Seems every duke, earl, baron, and whatever other titles these books' heroes have attended Eton College. (By the way, 'college' is a deceiving term. Until just a couple weeks ago, I thought it was a college - like an American college with students 18 and up. Nope. Boys aged 13-18.) 

All these references to the character's pasts have made me so curious about Eton, and with it just around the corner, it's almost always on my mind. I have no idea who my hero will be, what he'll will do, how he'll interact with the other boys, and for the love of God I have no clue how the heroine will come into the story. It's a school for boys. How the heck am I going to hook hero and heroine up?

This will require research. How nerdy is it that I want to take a tour of the campus? But how can I pass it up? I mean, they have a MUSEUM OF ETON LIFE. Hello, research. I should do the research, shouldn't I? It would be a shame to pass up the opportunity.

But I want to write my adult science fiction romance. It's halfway written already. I could have it finished and polished in a few months. Who knows how long it'll take me to write an Eton story from scratch? Especially with the research. I've never had to research my books before, not like this.

This idea of mine can't be original, can it? I did do a quick search for books set at Eton. Only found a young James Bond series, but surely someone else - someone who's a better writer than me - has already tried it.

ETA: Darn it. The musuem is only open April - Oct.

ljspotlight, posting in lj_spotlight @ 9:49am: Spotlights: Homepage Spotlight 11/9/09
sixwordstories
Whether you're in the mood for a creative challenge or you're short on time or attention span, this semi-addictive community is perfect for those who find flash fiction way long. Once you get the hang of it, you won't be able to stop. The prince turned into a frog. The girl ran home to mother. Tough to write. Easy to read. It's a double threesome of fun.

ljspotlight, posting in lj_spotlight @ 9:46am: Spotlights: Homepage Spotlight 11/9/09
dailyfoodie
Delicious, ambitious, and occasionally nutritious dishes make for an eclectic, all-you-can-eat feast. Whether you're searching for recipes for your next dinner party or you're jonesing for a late-night brownie fix, your cravings are sure to be well sated. A warm and inclusive community that welcomes all orientations, from carnivores to vegans, from gourmands to junk-food junkies. Guaranteed bias-free, food-positive, and pan-epicurian.

brimfire @ 11:02am: Music Monday
It ocurred to me that two out of my three completed novels contain love triangles. I never set out to write this type of love story - another guy always shoves his way into my books, thus complicating my MC's life. I partially blame Apopcalyptica's Bittersweet for this. Music inspires me, and I love the contrast of the high and low voices and the anguish in them both.

So I decided to do a little research. I went a-googling for more love triangle songs. I found on a Yahoo! message board a reference to a song called What About Now by Kenny Rogers and some other folk. I dashed off to YouTube it, but, alas, the KR video had been blocked (the UK blocks so much more stuff than the US). There was, however, a song called What About Me by some guy named Ryan Knorr. On a whim, a clicked it.


Love this guy's voice. And the song? Wow. It has so much emotion in it, my heart kind of aches.

Have any of you ever stumbled across good music by unknown or little-known artists on the web? If so, who? I'm always on the lookout for new stuff to listen to. :-) 

theljstaff, posting in news @ 1:15pm: LiveJournal Major Notes: Spam counter-attack, RSS feeds again, CSI Deadly Intent contest

The empire strikes back

In recent weeks, we've taken huge steps towards blocking spam accounts on LiveJournal. In fact, we've suspended as many as 30,000 accounts in a single day! We've implemented several pre-emptive measures to prevent the creation of spam accounts, and we've honed our detection of suspicious content. Spam bots are a crafty lot, so we'll continue to refine our tactics and keep up the good fight to keep you safe from spam attacks on LiveJournal.

RSS feeds again

If you're addicted to xkcd_rss, icanhaschzbrgr, or other syndicated feeds, we're pleased to report that we've resolved the update error that was mucking up your RSS feeds. While content was being pulled correctly, it wasn't being posted to the feeds themselves. Late last week, we finally nailed down what we hope was the root problem, so content should post properly. We thank you for your patience.

Wii have killer CSI Deadly Intent contests!

c_s_i

If you're a gamer who loves CSI, have Wii got news for you! c_s_i is sponsoring killer contests. Simply post a question to a member of the CSI crew. The winner will get a free copy of CSI: Deadly Intent for Nintendo Wii (with a retail value of $39.99) and get their question answered by a member of the CSI writing team! There's also a fantastic monthly contest. To enter, join c_s_i, play the online version of CSI: Deadly Intent, and respond to a two-part query for a chance to win a Wii! Entries will be judged on composition and originality. Sorry, but you must be a U.S. resident and over 18 years old to participate. Check out the rules here.

Enveloped in postcards

Last week, we asked you to send in postcards to help us decorate our drab concrete walls. Here's a photo of the results so far! Thank you so much and please keep them coming! You can mail them to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be giving ten random users paid account credits.

Photos of the week

If you haven't visited our new LiveJournal photo community, you're in for an amazing visual trip. LiveJournal users from around the world will take you on a scenic journey to everywhere. Post your own pictures or kick back and enjoy at lj_photophile. You can view some of this week's awesome photos after the jump. Please start tagging with geographic location, since we'd like to track all the places around the world represented in this community. Keep on commenting too!
( Read more... )

brimfire @ 5:28pm: Dear Waterstone's

I want to like your bookstores. Really, I do. They remind me a bit of Barnes & Noble, though they're never quite as large and I've yet to find one with a coffee shop inside. Like B&N, they're in most large-ish cities in the UK. I stumble into them whenever I have the opportunity, always on the lookout for new books and authors. But, dear Waterstone's, I find that I leave all too often without making a purchase. Do you want to know why? Do you? It's a simple reason, one which can easily be remedied.

You have no romance section.

None.

This is apalling. Do you know romance is the top selling genre? A quarter of all books sold are romances. Granted, these are US stats, but I wouldn't think the English are so different. So why not give them their own shelf? I'm from Texas, a notoriously conservative state. We have aisles dedicated to romance, so it can't be that you're afraid to offend costumers with half-clothed people on the covers. It can't be a shortage of shelving space. You do carry romances, so you can just take them from your general fiction aisle and group them together somewhere else. You will sell more books if you do.

This lack of a romance section was only an annoyance in the past. I could go to Murder One, to their room full of romance and find many somethings to read. But, alas, Murder One has closed *sob* and unless I order books on-line, it's a tremendous labour to locate romance within general fiction. Usually, I don't have the time or patience to try. And to accidentally stumble across a new-to-me, interesting writer of romantic fiction? Near to impossible.

But maybe I've only stumbled upon anti-romance Waterstone's? I feel like I've been in one that had a shelf - a shelf! - of romance, but I can't remember where that one store was. It's certainly not in any of the town's I frequent. I almost believe I dreamed the ocurrence. 

So, Waterstone's, until you decide to create a romance section in all of your stores, I shan't return to any of them. I will purchase my books on-line from Amazon. *gasp*

Sincerely,

Sandy


 

brimfire @ 6:50pm: Overdrive

In a word - awesome. In two words, conveniently awesome. My library back home in Texas offers this service and I'm super excited because I can use it over here in the UK. My only complaint is that the collection of audiobooks available isn't very extensive. I don't know if that's because publishers won't let Overdrive offer downloadable audiobooks on all their titles or if my library just isn't paying enough money to get everything that's available. I guess the limited selection is kind of good in a way. I've tried some authors/books which I never would have picked up otherwise. Books like Jay Asher's 13 Reasons Why (tragic, frustrating, but fabulous), Stephanie Meyer's Breaking Dawn (DO NOT listen to this book!*), and Suzanne Brockmann's Body Language (simple, predictable plot but one which I thoroughly enjoyed). 

On Wednesday, I'm taking my grandmother to Paris for an overnight stay. We'll be spending something like 3-4 hours on trains and, since I get motion sick so easily and can't read and travel, I'm ecstatic I was able to download two books to my MP3 player: The Lost Duke of Wyndham and Dark Curse: A Carpathian Novel. I haven't read anything by Julia Quinn or Christine Feehan, so I'm anxious to try them out.


* The description. Oh. My. God. The descriptions went on FOREVER! I think I might have liked this book better if I'd read it, but I couldn't stand listening. Everything I don't like was accentuated, and I couldn't skim through the pages and pages of "his face is so perfect, his skin is like marble" blah, blah, blah. I was okay with the plot, even though it seemed to clash with the tone of the other books.

The other major problem I had with the audiobook was I couldn't stand the way the narrator did voices. Every time another vamp spoke, the narrator would do it in voices that grated on my nerves. And the part of the book from Jacob's POV? Ugh, horribly annoying. Not Meyer's fault. Maybe not even the narrator's fault. I'm thinking I might prefer audiobooks that have only one or two POVs. I'll have to listen to more to see if this theory is correct.  Research, gotta love it. :-)

ljspotlight, posting in lj_spotlight @ 9:55am: Spotlights: Homepage Spotlight 11/2/09
aiyatheydidnt
The Chinese version of ONTD, AIYA is a dynamic international community that welcomes users who share a love of contemporary Chinese pop culture. Dedicated to celebrity gossip and entertainment news, you'll enjoy gorgeous photos and breaking stories featuring the glitterati of mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

ljspotlight, posting in lj_spotlight @ 9:53am: Spotlights: Homepage Spotlight 11/2/09
wendylady2
Designed to rescue fashion victims everywhere, this Brit-based community reads like a rag-ezine. Published once or twice weekly, you'll view bizarre highlights of the global fashion scene through captivating photos and delightfully snarky editorial. Sit tight for a virtual fashion tour from the runways of New York to Milan to Paris and back home again to London in homage to the adage: you can't buy good taste.

ljspotlight, posting in lj_spotlight @ 9:51am: Spotlights: Homepage Spotlight 11/2/09
soldiers_heart
A passionate community for veterans of all ages (mostly American), plus families, friends, and supporters. View poignant snapshots detailing life in combat and back on civilian soil in the form of original artwork, personal narratives, poetry, and photos. Be forewarned that members don't shy away from describing their disappointments, disabilities, and struggles.

soakbonus @ 10:26pm: Halloween

I just wanted to post pictures of my cute kids in costumes. Seriously, I almost couldn't handle how cute they were. I'm not sure the pictures of Ethan in his tiger costume do him justice. He didn't want to put it on, so we bribed him with candy and made him put it on. Surprisingly, once we were outside trick-or-treating he didn't take the hood off or anything. We did around 10 houses. He got scared by our neighbors across the street because they dress up with masks and stuff. Other than that, he had fun. He forgot to say "Trick or treat" most of the time, but said "Thank you" every time. He liked giving out candy too. We always have a lot of trick-or-treaters because we live pretty close to an apartment complex. There was one weird/funny group of trick-or-treaters. They were 3 teenage boys and they had a guitar and a laptop. They played music on the laptop and one of them played along on the guitar and they sang a song. They said they were Halloween caroling. I thought it was a pretty awesome reason to give teenagers some candy. :)




The cutest tiger ever. His LSU uncle Jeff should love him in this.




This is probably the best picture of Brandon and Josie we have. She's an adorable bumblebee. Someone called her a butterfly, but seriously it's black and yellow stripes.

The next pictures are for kid size comparisons.




This is Ethan at his first Halloween. He's around 5 1/2 months old. He can sit up by himself.




This is Josie in the same outfit. She is 3 1/2 months old and hasn't rolled over yet. They look the same size. Also, I didn't realize how much they looked alike until we were doing the face recognition thing that Picasa just started. We had it go through all of our pictures and find people. When the pictures are just thumbnails of their faces I have a hard time knowing whether it's Ethan or Josie.

dwell, posting in lj_maintenance @ 5:17pm: Network Maintenance - Saturday, October 31, 2009 at 04:00-05:00 GMT/UTC
EDIT: If you're reading this, our maintenance is OVER! The problem was not found on our equipment, which means we'll have to work with our ISP to fix this small problem -- which also means another maintenance window in the future -- but at least we have eliminated our side.

Thank you everyone, and a special shout out to rekoil for giving me a great suggestion AND also the opportunity to feel like I've just called in to a local radio station.

Have a great day, night or afternoon wherever you may be.

---

Hi everyone, sorry for the late notice but I'm going to have to do some testing on 1 of our 4 internet circuits TONIGHT; Friday night or Saturday morning depending on which time zone you're in.

Most of us shouldn't notice any impact, though there may be some slowness or lag when I switch traffic on to our other ISP circuits and then another hit when I stop the tests. If a page won't load or times out, try hitting refresh 1 or 2 times and it should load then. If it doesn't work at all... trust me, I'll be typing really really really fast to try to undo whatever I just did. Hopefully you'll have some Halloween candy (if you're in the USA and celebrate that kind of thing) nearby to take away the bitterness of a small site outage. :(

Here's the handy-dandy Website That I Always Use to get a feel for when the maintenance will start in your area. Our site traffic historically dips on Friday afternoons until Saturday morning which is why we tend to pick this time for maintenance work.

( tech details )

status.livejournal.org will, of course be updated before and after the maintenance window. Or else marta will get mad at me. :D

bt

dallastwin @ 10:55am: Muddy Buddy "Team Unwashables" Race Report
Race: Muddy Buddy in Dallas
Location: Cedar Hill State Park
Team name: Unwashables
Course length: 6.3 miles
Number of legs: 5

My sister Alicia and our long-time friend Jamie flew into town specifically to run the Muddy Buddy with Ronnie and me.  The race consisted of teams of two switching between running and biking a 6.3-mile course.  There's one bike between the two team members.  I also invited our cousin Jami and her fiance Sean to run the race.  We didn't coordinate very well with Jami and I assumed we would meet up with them at some point before the race.  Little did I know there would be 1600+ people there.  

Since I had previously perused the pictures on the interweb for other Muddy Buddy races in other cities, I had a pretty good idea that there would be people in costume.  This is really more of a fun run than a race, but for the competitively elite, there's still cash prizes at the end.  Ronnie let me convince him to wear matching Spartan hats duck taped to our bike helmets.  Alicia and Jamie dressed up in angel wings and halos.  I taped a red balloon to our bike between the handle bars to make it more easily recognizable, keeping my fingers crossed that it wouldn't pop at some point.  Alicia and Jamie covered their bike seat with bright yellow cloth to make theirs more discernable.  

Leg#1:
1.1 miles: Shelli biked, Ronnie jogged
( Leg #1 )

Leg #2:
1.1 miles: Ronnie biked, Shelli jogged
( Leg #2 )
  
Leg #3:
1.4 miles: Shelli biked, Ronnie jogged
( Leg #3 )

Leg #4:
1.3 miles: Ronnie biked, Shelli jogged
( Leg #4 )

Leg #5:
1.4 miles: Shelli biked, Ronnie jogged
( Leg #5 )

The last obstacle: The MUD PIT!!
( The grand finale! )

Results:
The Unwashables: 1:06:12 - 74 out of 88 teams in our age division.
Muddy Aces (Alicia & Jamie): 1:12:12 - 51 out 57 teams
Robot Nightmare (Jami & Sean) 1:25:05 - 60 out of 61 teams

All in all, a fun time.  I'd do it again.  Anybody want to race with us next year?

theljstaff, posting in news @ 10:53am: LiveJournal Major Notes: Search super-tweak, postcards, and amazing user content!


In response to user comments from last week, we want to let you know that we'll remain LJ cut-free for the next month in order to get more eyeballs on our evolving newsletter. As for product coverage, that continues to be our top priority. For more granular detail, however, we recommend you join lj_releases.

Super-tweak for Yandex search

Some of our beta testers expressed privacy concerns using the Yandex search engine. Here's why: Last week, when you ran a search, you could see the usernames (and only the usernames) of everyone who commented on an entry, even if that entry was switched to Private or Friends Only after it was originally indexed. You could NOT see the actual comments from Friends Only or Private posts. In response to your input, we've implemented a fix to keep all user activity currently marked Friends Only or Private completely hidden. If you'd prefer your public content not to be indexed by Yandex, click here and use the settings labeled Search Inclusion (this covers your entire journal) and/or Comment Search Inclusion (which covers comments only). To test drive Yandex search now, click here.

Postcards from the edge

Several years ago, we asked LiveJournal users to send postcards to help us decorate our dull, white-washed offices. Since a good idea warrants repetition, we're at it again (same issue, new address). We hope you'll surround us with LiveJournal love by sending your postcards to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. We'll post snapshots right here. Be sure to include your username, since we'll randomly pick 10 lucky recipients to win free paid account time.

Conquer Writer's Block

Here are some excerpts from this week's most popular question of the day:

If a friend or relative makes a racist or homophobic remark, do you tend to confront them or let it slide? Are you more likely to confront them if it offends you directly or someone else who seems reluctant to speak up?

1. I find it easier to stand up for other people, and i wouldn't let it slide if they made a rude or hurtful comment.
2. Usually if a friend makes a racist or homophobic remark, I tend to let it slide. I think that while i would not say such things myself, I have no right to censor those around me.
3. This happens all of the time. I confront some relatives, but I refuse to if they are drunk or watch Fox News.
4. I'd let it slide if it was just a private remark... As much as I despise bigotry and intolerance, I know that you can't change people-they have to change themselves ...
5. Confront! confront! confront! Politely, but without equivocation.
6. SPEAK UP. Always, always, always speak up. Letting something slide lets ignorance win. No matter if it offends me directly, or someone else, I will confront the speaker and let them know that's not ok.
7. I don't get offended personally. As an immigrant, woman, gay and person of color if I took every single potentially offensive remark seriously I wouldn't get anything done.
8. I punch them in the balls. With my mind.
9. I do speak up, but often very timidly because I feel that I'm white and therefore I don't really have any authority to lecture someone on what's racist and what isn't...
10. Generally speaking, I do not let this shit fly, because it reduces me as a person, to this non-person and it replicates the destructive discourse that makes sure that sexual minorities, racial minorities, women, people with disabilities, trans people and every intersection thereof into something other than human... And sometimes... I'm just too tired to deal with it, so I roll my eyes, make a sarcastic remark and hope the conversation moves on quickly.

For more daily questions and user comments, join writersblock. FYI, we don't want to invade your privacy, so we haven't credited individual users for their responses. We'd appreciate your feedback on this!

Spotlight community of the week

We can't resist making one last midnight trip to the ol' pumpkin patch. If you adore crazy costumes, fiendish festivities, and bottomless candy consumption as much as we do, this community has just what it takes to light up your jack-o-lantern.


halloween_fan

Photos of the week

We received so many incredible photos, we had to close our eyes and point. We uploaded a selection of awesome images at our new lj_photophile community. Please join and start posting (try to keep the width at around 625 for the sake of consistency)! We'd love for you to tell us more about your photos! You can help us select spotlight photos by commenting on your favorites. Once again, we thank you for making our online world more beautiful!

shutter	pancetta	ilya_gorokhov

Curtains

Thanks, again, for tuning in. We look forward to seeing you next week.