Hello! If you have recently been added against your will to the friends list of this journal (Exhibit A), it is because you have on your flist bravecows (Exhibit B). I have hence assumed that you wouldn't mind my stalking your LJ once in a while.

If you do mind, please to leave a comment, and I will drop your journal like a hot potato. And all will be well.

If you don't mind, then I will put my stalking hat on and stalk. I may or may not comment on your posts, squee when you squee, and *hug* when you are sad. These things one cannot foretell.

If, in fact, you would like to be stalked, comment and ask to be added.

If you would like to stalk me, go over to Exhibit B (viz. bravecows), which is where I post. All are welcome, except for family members and/or anyone who only knows me from real life. This is because the collision of RL and fandom makes me feel funny inside.

Thank you. Have a nice day.

Okay, I'm lame, but this music makes me so happy. Every time, man. I don't even watch TNG anymore, but. Eeee. Heroes in space. <333

Current Mood: nostalgic
Current Music: Star Trek: The Next Generation theme

A while ago I told myself that thebookyoucrew did not annoy me so much as it puzzled me -- puzzled me deeply: a perplexity that went right down to the bone. I didn't get it. I didn't get it at all. I didn't-get it more than I don't-get Physics, and that is a lot of not-getting right there.

But you know, that is not true, or at least not entirely. thebookyoucrew does annoy me a lot. The members' attitudes give me the willies. The whole community gives me the willies. It's just everything that the way I approach reading is not.

( The perplexity )

Current Mood: bookish

Manips of Tom Welling as Superman. And okay, qinyen, I admit he's not much of an actor and there's probably somebody (lots of bodies) better for the role out there. I still want Welling to be Superman in the movie. *squeebles quietly*

lanning posts prayers. 'Cos even if you don't pray -- and I haven't in a while, not in a serious way -- poetry helps near as well as prayer when times are rough.

Speaking of which, I once read The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy in a bookshop. I regretted not buying it, but now it's online, so yay. Weird morbid doggerel for everybody!

I have a thing for Batman calling Superman by his real name, I admit. Eee, theyaresomysuperheroOTP.

And this -- just because the first is the prettiest picture I ever seen of KLIA. And there's a certain pleasure in seeing Malaysia somewhere else. It's like seeing your dad on TV. You want to jump up and down and point and squee.

*does so*

Current Mood: sleepy

( Read more... )

Current Mood: thinky and patriotic
Current Music: And, weirdly, listening to Scotland The Brave

Great writing is both true and beautiful.

You can fake good writing by getting one out of two, though. This is because if you write something that is true, there's a higher chance that somebody will read it and go, "OMG, that happened to me too! This guy is the best writer evah!1!" So nobody will care if your language isn't beautiful.

On the other hand, if you write something that is beautiful, truth is irrelevant. Look at P. G. Wodehouse: he doesn't write what is true, but what is beautiful, and his language is hearts and flowers and birds in the sky and stars in the water and a pratfall at exactly the right moment for maximum comedy. Anybody who grumbles about P. G. Wodehouse because he doesn't represent Edwardian society accurately is a humourless ole fart who probably wouldn't recognise poetry if it metaphored him in the ass.

Of course, if you can't get either one out of two, you can always just write lies that people don't mind pretending are true, or beautiful, or both, but there's no call to go sinking to those depths unless you are Anne Rice.

Part of being on Livejournal.com is inevitably gaining a number of LJ buddies. Unfortunately, as time wears on, it's easy to forget where all of them came from. Post this in your journal and have your friends respond with how they recall first 'meeting' you.

Current Music: Django Reinhardt & Stephen Grappelli -- Concerto in D minor

( nostalgic blather )

Current Music: Hanson - Penny an Star Trek Rhapsody, whee!

It hasn't happened to me. And there's never anything I can say. There's nothing enough that I can do. But.

No Pity. No Shame. No Silence.

No more.

Hmm.

Reason No. 8: Sometimes I can't be buggered.

Sometimes I just want to read a story and have done with it. Sometimes I want to sit there and suck the goodness in and then leave without having to go to all the bother of constructing a vaguely grammatical sentence. Sometimes I don't have the energy it'd take to type a simple "Yay!" Sometimes the squee feels better bottled up inside.

And you know what? This is okay. Fine, it isn't quite as pleasant to be read by hordes of silent eyes (as eyes so often are, lacking as they usually do either mouths or appendages with which to make noise) as it is to be greeted by a chorus of praise when you visit your inbox, but hey, that's your problem. You're the writer. I'm the reader. We get to choose how we play our roles.

Which is not to say that I'm against feedback -- I'm all for it, hooray feedback -- but well, writers aren't entitled to it any more than readers are entitled to demand exactly the sort of fic they want from the writers. Feedback's a bonus. Not getting it? Too freaking bad. Stop yelling at the poor buggers who do send you a note every now and then just 'cos the six hundred other readers can't be bothered, and go and -- and, oh, I don't know, look after your garden, feed your dog, write a poem, climb a tree. Stop whining about it. At least the readers are there, right? Okay, sure, they might be there 'cos they're reading and laughing at you, and you'll never be able to tell because they never ever say, but at least they're there.

So to any invisible readers who might (or might not) be out there: cool. I've been there. I am there. I would like it very much if you said hi once in a while, but it's okay if you don't. But hell, it's not like you need my permission. The great thing about being an invisible reader is that you get to do and think what you want, without having to do all those tiresome things like be tactful or find arguments to support your opinions or, you know, anything. All you have to do is read. And sometimes this is FUN.

Current Mood: thoughtful