Katiefoolery

It's writing week at fivedotnerds! Again! I have no idea how it manages to roll around so quickly. How can three weeks pass by without my noticing them? It doesn't seem right.

It is also:

1. The last day of term


2. Practically the first day of my holidays


3. A dress-up day at work, therefore I am dressed up


4. Only a week until I'm in Sydney with LOOOOOOOOONS!!

More on that later. For now, please accept this video with numerous, vaguely-entertaining background noises, as well as my thoughts on world-building:



When it comes to world-building, I suffer from a sense of mis-placed achievement. If I were to sit there and map out the world and write pieces about the history and the culture, then my brain would decide that this is it. Hooray! We have done the work and the work is good.

Pity it's not a story, but you can't have everything. Or so they say.

Damn them.

Tell me all about your world-building. Or when you think it goes over-board. Or doesn't go far enough. You can throw in your plans for world-domination, if you wish - provided it's your own world you plan to dominate and not this one.

Ever wondered what a beta does? Ever wondered how a beta lives their life? Is it all parts of speech and punctuation, or do we actually have fun?

To the last question, I say: Parts of speech and punctuation are fun. Punctuation especially.

This week, I thought I'd allow you all a glimpse into the world of a beta. And here it is: the very first episode of the Secret Beta Chronicles.

So my cold has gone from "Oh, how inconvenient to have a sniffly sort of thing right now" to "GAH am going to curl up in a corner and hope for imminent death". Hooray. However, it's not all bad, as I won't actually be returning to work until Monday, a fact that has led me to develop a cunning plan whereby I get over this thing by Friday, just in time to enjoy a sickness-free weekend.

Bonus points if I get over it by tonight, thus giving myself a three-day weekend. :D

Unsurprisingly, my sickliness made its way into my video this week thusly:



I actually managed to sound vaguely healthy while I was recording that.

Please feel free to share your tips for making yourself feel better when you're sick. There must be better ideas out there than just sitting on the couch eating junk food...

Fanfiction: what is it good for?

Well, lots of things, really. It is all things to all people. And to some people, it's nothing at all. It's so odd to think there are people out there who have no idea fanfiction even exists... or that it can be fodder for the most cracktastic events and debates. Oh, fanfic, you're like a microcosm of crazy.

More coherent thoughts on fanfic and its value can be found in this week's video, seen here:

What does everyone else think? Do you read or write fanfic? Do you think it has merit? Would you allow it if you were a published author?

I think I can safely say I'd allow it. I'd encourage it. Voraciously.

Voraciously isn't quite the right word, but that's still how I'd do it.

To state that I am insanely happy with this week's video would be a slight exaggeration. I am happy with the majority of it, but please, let me list the things that bug me about it.

1. I had to shoot it on one of the cruddiest days we've had so far this year. Actually, now that I think about it, the title of "Cruddiest Day" may actually go to any of those that fell during the heatwave and/or the horrendous bushfires... So let me revise that: I had to shoot it on the coldest, windiest, rainiest, darkest day of the year so far. So the quality's grainier than I'd like it to be (which is "not at all").

2. My camera was so obsessed with the sound of my central heating that it decided it should CONSTANTLY BE IN THE BACKGROUND.

3. So much footage had to be tossed so cruelly away, even when it begged to be included on bended knee and subsequently sent me chocolates and fruit hampers in the hopes of tempting me to give in.

But that aside, there are so many things that worked exactly as I wanted them to and I couldn't be happier. I mean, seriously, exactly as I wanted them to. It's not often that things come together like that and behave. There were points during the editing process where I was actually squeeing because it was working so well.

I had so much fun making it; I really hope you all have just as much fun watching it. Here, for your enjoyment, is Cupcake Wednesday:



And yes, I would like to know which style of cooking best equates to your writing style. I wouldn't recommend making a video to illustrate your answer, although I'd love to see one. The painful truth of the matter is that I had to winnow through thirty-six minutes of footage to bring you the four you see before you today.

Painful.

But ultimately rewarding.

So tell me: is your writing style a lovely pasta, or is it a delicious pie?

Indeed I am coming to you in glorious HD this week.  This is in complete defiance of the fact that my camera only records in SD.  However, YouTube insists it's HD, so I guess that's good enough for us.  Although it's entirely up to you whether you choose the HD option or just stick with ordinary plain quality.  I won't be offended either way, I swear.

Something occurred to me over the weekend: there's one particular location that appeals to me above all others.  I've read books purely because they were set in said location.  Can't resist them.  They very rarely live up to my expectations, though, mostly because they're raised so high.  Find out (slightly) more in this week's video:



But what about everyone else?  Is there a setting you can't resist?  A location you've always wanted to work into a story somehow?  I'd love to know all about them.

It's writing week!  Yes,you had no idea this was the case, did you?  It's all true, though.  It's writing week and we are discussing firsts.  All of your firsts, from your first first to your last first.  To date.

I must admit, I'm a huge fan of writing week.  It's not surprising, really.  After all, it means I get to ramble on about writing and I may have mentioned once or twice how much I like doing this.  The only problem with rambling on about writing is that I'm excessively capable at it.  This makes it very difficult to fit my thoughts into the space of four minutes, but I managed somehow.  And as a bonus (coming, as they do, at no extra cost), I even included sun-flare and video saved at the wrong resolution!  It's not my fault; it played in perfect widescreen on my computer.  How was I to know YouTube wouldn't approve?  The good news is that I have learnt how to appease said website and my next video will be absolutely perfect, resolution-wise.  As opposed to this week's squishedness and last week's tininess.

So I believe a small, anticipatory yay is in order: YAY.

But to return to the firsts.  This week, we fivedotnerds are discussing our writing firsts.  When did you write your first story?  What was your first publication?  And so on.  I decided to talk about some slightly different firsts in my video, as you will see for yourselves. :D



And as a bonus, LJ-only feature, I'll list another couple of firsts here.

The first character to take over a story without permission was Chaque.  She was meant to be a nothing character with a couple of backstory-advancing lines.  Then she "dropped a reluctant curtsey" and suddenly she had a personality, attitude... and an overwhelming desire to steal the story.  Which she did.  Quite successfully.  She's single-minded, slightly psychotic and has a tendency to burn things... and I love her.

Although, it's a little worrying to have her in my head sometimes.  You never know what may inexplicably go up in smoke when you're not looking.

The first time I ever won a prize in a writing competition was when I was in year eleven.  It was third prize and it was worth thirty dollars and I can't even tell you how excited I was when I opened the envelope with the certificate and prize inside.

The first character to wake me up at unwelcome times of the night with story ideas that MUST BE WRITTEN DOWN NOW was Jane.  That girl had serious issues with letting me sleep at times.  Lucky for her it's impossible to dislike her... even when you're crawling out of bed at 2am to type up notes so she'll shut up and LET ME SLEEP, dammit.

What are your writing firsts?  What are the most significant things that have happened to you as a writer?  Tell me all about it.  :)

Oh yes, it's finally Friday.  Friday, after a blah-tastic week. 

Unfortunately, it's only Friday morning, so I still need to go through the entire day before I can throw myself down on the couch and just sleep for the entire weekend.  Or something.

Before I wander off to work in an endless parade of enthusiasm and excitement, please have my vlog for this week:



And yes, that question does apply to my flist too: What are the five things you'd do if you became a famous author?

Next week: some actual entries!

There may be some sort of destiny thing involved when it comes to this vlogging business.  But that's not for now; that's for later.  And possibly for later in video format.

For now, I'm going to complain about the way I have to sacrifice so much footage on the altar of the four minute rule.  We decided the videos should be no longer than four minutes waaaaaay back, a fact I subsequently forgot in my second video, which went for almost six mintues, and which resulted in my being punished.  Four minutes is an abundance of time, really it is.  And yet it's not enough.

It turns out I ramble on quite a lot for someone who believes she doesn't talk very much.  Apparently that not-talking thing goes right out of the window when I sit in front of a camera.  Which is strange, because I was very keen on the not-talking thing when I first sat in front of a camera.  Feeling like an idiot.  Staring at the camera in defiant silence.  And then talking too quietly for human ears to catch a single word of what I said.

No longer, it seems.  Right now, it feels as though I had to discard about twenty minutes of footage in order to come up with a four minute video.  And it's not easy to do.  I want to put it all in.  For a while there, I was tempted to risk another punishment and just make this latest video as long as I wanted it to be.  But no.

It's fun, though.  It's so much fun.  Yes, it took over half an hour to film.  Yes, at one point my stupid HP touchpad didn't quite register when I hit the "end record" button, resulting in two lost takes before I realised what was going on.  And yes, it did take almost two hours to edit.  But damn, it's worth it.  I love the process so much.

And I still want to get better.  To that end, I'm issuing a challenge to my lovely flist: find something you don't like in this latest video and tell me about it.  Deadly serious.  No compliments.  No positives.  Just the thing (or things!) you didn't like.  (There are at least two things I already want to change.)  You can even comment anonymously if you prefer.



As for the challenge in the video itself, that's open to my flist too.  Bonus points if you do it in video format! :D

Because I needed a new addiction. I needed something to distract me from writing. I needed another obsession.

Personally, I blame surferartchick. After all, she was the one who said, "Hey, Katie, come vlog with us! It'll be fun! You don't really need your soul, do you? No? That's handy."

I'm paraphrasing a little, but I'm pretty sure that's what she said.

Once upon a time, I thought YouTube was for AMVs and for watching subbed anime that you couldn't get anywhere else. Sometimes, on special occasions, it was for looking at old ads with friends and laughing at them. Laughing at the ads, that is, not my friends.

Although I do laugh at them... and they laugh at me in turn.

But no - YouTube is actually a place full of interesting, fun-type people who make videos and vlogs and are intoxicatingly entertaining at times. It's a bit like LJ, except you get to hear and see people instead of getting to know them through their written words. And I'm not saying I prefer one over the other, but the whole vlog thing is still a novelty to me. It's shiny and I love it.

And it's infecting me. Lately, when I'm contemplating ideas for future LJ posts, a little voice at the back of my mind will be gleefully pointing out what good vlogs these ideas would make. And I'm a sucker for it, because I love mixing media. So don't be surprised if some of my posts in the future are actually videos.

Hey, is it horribly obvious and unsubtle segue time? You know what, I believe it is. Here we go...

Speaking of videos, here's my fivedotnerds video for this week:



This one includes a bonus short (short short) film at the end, which involves me acting like unto an idiot, supported in my efforts by my cat, who was seriously trying to steal the entire show. You know you want to see me acting like an idiot. Everyone needs a good laugh every now and then. :D