Experiments in Beta

So I belong to this great writers board, a group of slightly less than 100 of us in the Tolkien fanfic realm who read and critique each other's works before we release them to the wider reading world.  And I love my writers group - I truly don't know what I would do without them.  Their eagle eyes have helped me improve my writing in so many ways, they encourage me, they prod me, and they have allowed me to feel more confident in my writing skills.  Sometimes I can sit down with an idea and it will just flow - beautiful, succinct, and with prose-like clarity.  Other times it is slogging through a swamp to get the words onto paper.  I always revise numerous times before I release my work for critique, but there are rare times when I can't do that and it causes problems. 

The current story I'm working on which is due on Monday is one of those times.  I can't post it for critique because one of my best friends on the crit board is also a moderator of this particular monthly contest.  Usually my DH looks at my work and scratches his head - it makes no sense to him because he doesn't understand the framework that I used for the background history.  But this latest story has piqued his imagination and he volunteered to beta the piece for me.  I haven't looked through what he did yet, but he did spend a good amount of time on it and he wants to take my idea and rewrite it in his own words also.  I'll take a look through his suggestions/corrections this morning, apply many of them and ignore a few others, and I'll submit the story on time.  I won't do this very often, though.  All I got from him was "I wouldn't do it this way..." stuff.  When I beta I am very careful to allow the author's voice to come through.  I'm not so sure he is doing that, so I'll have to be careful that my voice still rings out through the story. 

And Vive Le Tour de France!  What a race it has been.  It will all end tomorrow on the streets of Paris, but I've been glued to the TV every day watching everything I could.  Congratulations to Tommy Voeckler, Frank and Andy Schleck, and Cadel Evans.  You've made this year's race outstanding! 

Five Meme Questions

Several F-list friends and I have been going around exchanging five questions to find out more about ourselves.  It seemed like fun.  Here are the questions that Minuial Nuwing assigned to me...

1)What do you do on an average, ordinary day?

My alarm is set for 3:30 am (I know...I'm an early bird).  Ideally I get up when it goes off.  More often I get up either before it goes off, or after it has been steadily increasing in sound for ten minutes.  I settle down at my computer and catch up with LJ posts and my Emails, check any on-line orders, and take a shower.  I try to leave the house around 6:00 am, no later than 7:00 am.  Why so early?  Well, so that I can either have breakfast or go to the coffee shop for coffee and oatmeal and a quiet hour of reading my NookBook.  By 8:00 am I'm at the shop, setting up the laptop to finish whatever I didn't get to earlier.  (Wednesdays are studio days and have a different schedule - LOL.)  I open the shop shortly before 10:00 am, work until 6:15 pm and then return home to...you guessed it...my computer.  Where I sit and beta, work on illustrations, or compose until 9:00 pm.  I join my DH at 9 for an hour of TV or part of a movie and I try to go to sleep at 10:00 pm.  Long day...




2)How did you find your way to LJ?

It was through my friends at Lizard Council, as well as Spiced Wine and Esteliel.  All of these people have been instrumental in pushing me from just editing to actually writing for my own AU and I'm having so much fun exploring my own Tolkienesque universe. 


3)What was the first Tolkien fanfiction you ever read, and where did you read it?

The very first astounded me.  I had been totally unaware that such a thing existed.  I was hunting for information on the Sigil of Gil-Galad for an enamel piece that I wanted to make, followed links, and found Nilmandra's "History of Middle Earth".  I started reading and was totally hooked.  Following more links led to more stories and the whirlpool closed over my head.  I haven't breathed the non-fan-fic air since, and I regret NONE of my actions :-)


4)Which of your own writings is your favorite and why?

I think I like "An Exchange of Gifts" ( http://efiction.esteliel.de/viewstory.php?sid=175 ) the best, so far.  As to why - it was the first of my stories where my glassworker, Helyanwë, poked up her head.  Since that time in March, she has taken over my life, and now she is the focus of my Summer of Writing Dangerously.  I need to get her story told so that I can move on from her to another character who actually has been in my mind for a longer time but who is less "pushy" about getting her opportunity to hit electronic print. 


5)How would you describe yourself to a new online acquaintance?
I'm an artist, a faithful friend, a fairly decent beta-reader, and I have a crazy sense of humor that likes to crop up at odd moments.  I am not some young idiot; rather, I have had the opportunity, over these long years, to temper my idiocy with the patina of age.  Good or bad, the patina is firmly in place.  I love meeting my F-list friends, and I'm not ashamed to throw on a cloak to walk to a downtown pub with said friends.  I love the Renaissance Festival, and think that indoor plumbing, refrigerators, and washing machines totally rock.  I love my car, and have the best and worst of husbands in the person of my own DH.  Take it or leave it, I am unique. 
So there you go, Min.  Enjoy!

Why I Don't Leave Town...

Catastrophe always seem to happen when I'm out of town.  Those "happenings" are part of the reason why my poor DH really hates it when I leave town.  This year's conferences were no exception. 



Ripples in a pond move outwards from a single

point, intersecting and moving the waters far

away.  Sometimes I feel as if I was the stone

starting the ripples.  Read why...

1 - Before leaving for Bead & Button Show, my car decided it needed $2000+ of work *head...desk...thunk*. 

2 - Before leaving for MCWC I needed a refill on a prescription.  That turned out to be impossible to achieve.  The doctor's office finally called me with an approval AFTER I was already at my conference.  Obviously THAT didn't actually happen until I returned a week later.  *head...desk...thunk* again...

3 - And on that note...this prescription used to be part of the $4 generic program at Wal-Mart, Target and other stores.  How much does it cost now?  $75/tube!  WTF???  My three tubes which should have set me back $12 set me back $225!  Ouch!  (It's a miracle med for me though and already, after only having it for two days, my hands are almost 100% healed with only two applications.  Goddess bless whoever invented this stuff.) 

4 - When I had called my DH on Saturday while I was attending the final day of the conference, he sounded pretty crabby (not that it's unusual, but...).  I later found out that we had 5-1/2 inches of rain in an hour early that morning, and that shrew burrow holes had caused a leak into my craft room and yet another flood.  Oy!  The water was restricted to his side of the room, so not as bad as we've sometimes had in the past (we've had waterfalls into that room in the past, flooding up four inches or more of water - very nasty), but it was still a pain, requiring wet/dry vac, fan set-up, and the dehumidifier running.  And then, of course, he had to get to work since he was covering my shift for me. 

5 - The heat!  -'Nuff said...

And now, Chickie is off on her vacation.  And my luck seems to have followed her to Montana because...

6 - Chickie phoned me yesterday and, while her Mom was visiting her Grandmother in her nursing home, the nursing home cat - apparently known to have "issues" with visitors - bit her mother.  Her mom has subsequently developed a raging infection to the bite and is hospitalized, where she will be for at least another day, perhaps two.  Since Chickie and her Dad were actually camping in Glacier National Park, unreachable by cell phone, etc., and a cousin had to drive up to the campground to get them.  They left everything set up in the hopes of returning in a day or so.  I'm not sure I would be quite so trusting...but that's just me. 

So...now you see why I am strongly discouraged from leaving town....guess I'll be here for a while - LOL. 

Conference Wrap-up

So, the final three days of the conference were spent at lectures and demonstrations.  The lovely and amazingly talented Carol Douglas demonstrated her miniature sculptures in copper clay, taking over at the last minute from Gordon Uyehara - still ill with pneumonia.  She was a trooper to step in like that, and her sculptures were absolutely amazing.  I attended lectures on cold connection techniques, making bezels for stones, applying gold to silver and other metals, photography techniques, and a lovely method for enameling that I can't wait to put into practice.  I was up at 6am and often didn't get to bed until midnight.  The candle was firmly burning at both ends, and it was well worth it. 



Christi is one-of-a-kind with a love for her art

that shines through.  Great fun!

I made a Ghoulie with Christi Friesen and ran into Maureen Carlson and Lisa Pavelka when I "crossed the boundary" and roamed through the Polymer Clay Retreat being offered in conjunction with the Metal Clay World Conference.  I am not a polymer clay artist - at all!  But Christi has been a friend for years.  I sat down to watch her work while my roomie was talking with Lisa Pavelka, and before I knew it she had pushed some clay into my hands and talked me through making a Ghoulie.  She even baked her for me and I picked my little critter up the next day.  I have to get some photos done within the next week and I'll add her to the list - she's actually quite funny and, since some of her clay is luminescent, she glows in the dark. 

This little critter is typical of Christi's work lately - fun,

little critters with a way of magically enthralling you.

Our breakfasts and lunches for the three days of the actual conference were included in our registration fee.  The food was very good, and one of the plusses were the raffle drawings.  Each of us received a raffle ticket when we checked in.  I was hoping to get the kiln that was being given away on the last day, but it went to a very good home.  I did win an assortment of glass clay, though.  What a highly appropriate gift for someone who works in glass!  I still need to read it through and find out how to use it, but then I'll get to play at no extra charge.  Yippee!  And speaking of play - I'd better get my chapter heads together for my Big Bang author or he won't love me any more !

Conference, Days 2 and 3

So after Robert Dancik's wonderful class on Monday, I continued my learning experience with a two-day class by Michael David Sturlin.  The class, entitled "Establishing Your Artistic Identity" pushed twenty of us into re-examining our designs, refining and minimizing them.  Did I establish my artistic identity by the end of the class?  No way.  But I did have an opportunity to explore some design elements in my own works.  This class will take me a while to internalize.  But I don't think it was correctly titled - I think it should have rather been titled "Refining Your Design Sense" or something similar to that.  It was a marvelous class, irregardless of the title, however. 

Michael David Sturlin

One good thing was working with 36 gauge foil in the class.  I really enjoyed the material and ended up purchasing some on Wednesday evening when my roomate Shruti and I took a quick trip north to the local Dick Blick Art Supply store.  I ended up with lots of wonderful art supplies - it's hard to beat a trip to an art supply store - and Shruti had no idea they had physical locations, she has only ordered from them on-line.  We left with much stuff and less cash - LOL.  Shruti was in 7th Heaven. 

Gordon Uyehara, artist extrordinary

The "Welcome" reception was held that evening with a wine bar and wandering hors d'ourve waiters.  I didn't get a lot to eat, but I did have an opportunity to meet up with several friends who had just arrived that day for the conference portion (the three prior days having actually been pre-conference classes).  One person who was missing was Gordon Uyehara who collapsed before teaching his class on Monday.  Apparently he had walking pneumonia and was quite ill.  He was in the hospital for most of Monday and confined to his hotel room for most of the remainder of the week.  If nothing else, he got enforced rest, but I'm sure that by the time he left to return to Hawaii yesterday, he was more than ready to leave. 

Home Again

So, I'm home again.  Can I leave and return to a place that has air conditioning...please????  I drove back in 96 degree and 81% humidity, and the prediction for the remainder of this week is daytime temps of 90 and above and nights in the mid-70's, with high humidity for the week as well.  Ick!!! 

The conference was outstanding.  I loved every minute of it.  I'll be paying this off for the rest of the year, and I will still consider it money well spent.  My first day was spent with Robert Dancik working with faux bone.  (He wants a pic of my finished piece, so look for that later in the week.)  Although I own the bone, purchased from him more than three years ago, I had never done anything with it.  Now I have a much better idea of what I can do with it and how to work with it.  It's a variety of polyvinylchloride, but not what your plumbing pipes are made from.  And it is great fun to play with and very fast to work with.  I have three sheets somewhere in my craft room (le sigh) and if I find them, I can play...

Robert is an outstanding teacher - everyone is met with positive comments and encouragement at all times.  Throughout the week, watching him greet many people, there was not a single person he met that did not receive a compliment - sincerely given.  Either the color of their clothes, the jewelry that they were wearing, their hairstyle, whatever - everyone received positive strokes.  Robert leaves positive feelings in his wake and is an excellent teacher with a long/strong background in public school teaching to fall back on.  A wonderful experience.  My roomie, Shruti, finally arrived about 10pm that night, long after our surprise birthday party for Katie Baum which was wonderful food, wonderful friends, and mega-dollars (well worth it, though).  More tomorrow...