tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-08-20:547323 Medium Dawn Felagund of the Fountain she of the brown dusty attic-smelling wings Dawn Felagund 2017-04-23T15:32:55Z tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-08-20:547323:412543 On LJ and DW ... 2017-04-23T15:32:55Z 2017-04-23T15:32:55Z *silence* hungry public 34 I've avoided talking much about LJ's latest shenanigans. Part of this is just sheer exhaustion with the regular cycle on LJ-induced outrage that has been going on since SixApart bought LiveJournal twelve years ago. <em>Twelve years, y'all.</em><br /><br />I've also been posting to Dreamwidth with automatic crossposts to LiveJournal for seven years now. (Yeesh. All this looking back makes me feel old.) I would have gladly conducted most of my activity on DW--ymmv but the site is far more user-friendly and the administration actually gives a flying fig about its users and isn't evil--but most of my friends didn't move, or if they did, commented on my posts on LJ, which made me feel somewhat like the person who chooses to move out of their bass-ackwards hometown but everyone they know still lives there, and they love those people, so they spend a lot of time there nonetheless.<br /><br />Anyway, not much is changing for me.<br /><br /><ol><li>I will continue to post to DW as my primary journal site with automatic crossposts to LJ. I totally get why the new skeevy-as-fuck ToS has encouraged people to close their accounts (just as I got why people left when U.S.-owned SixApart pulled their multiple bouts of fundagelical-induced stupidity) but ...</li><br /><br /><li>I plan to ignore that anyway and continue to leave up the "gay propaganda" and the slash and all the cussing I've dabbled in over the years and to continue posting these things when I want to. I'm not even clear if the ToS applies to me, as a paid account holder (and apparently the paid accounts are still U.S.-owned?), since I don't read Russian and the person LJ chosen to answer English-language questions on their news post could barely speak English ... but whatevs. I really don't give a fuck if LJ wants to shut down my account, so I'm going to continue to post what I want without special warnings or filters or whatever.</li></ol><br /><br />All that said, I AM diverting much of my reading to DW rather than LJ. In reading regularly on both sites over Spring Break, I've found that most people who are still posting are crossposting, and I'd rather read and comment on DW. I do get post notifications from a few close friends on LJ, and I'll keep replying to those, but I'm not foreseeing picking up reading on LJ anytime in the near future. Because honestly? I'd love to see what remains of journaling activity move to DW, so be the change, right?<br /><br />I'm also trying to track down Tolkien fandom people that I'm not following yet. If you're over there under a name other than your LJ handle, can you let me know, please?<br /><br />There is one thing, brought up in a discussion by the B2MeM mods, that disturbs me: LJ accounts are now liable to be shut down after six months of inactivity? Does anyone know if that is in fact true? And does it retroactively apply, even if someone has not accepted the new ToS (as in they are not longer around to accept said ToS)? I don't see why it wouldn't ... or couldn't. If so, I foresee a massive loss of fan history, not just in Tolkien fandom but everywhere, from both personal LJs and communities.<br /><br />Here is what the non-legally-binding (so take with a grain of salt) English ToS says: "6.1.1. The Administration reserves the right to delete Account and Blog if User did not access the Account or the access was restricted for more than six months due to a breach hereof."<br /><br />But I haven't seen discussion of this aside from the conversation among the B2MeM mods. Has anyone heard anything about this? I found a post on the OTW that talks about some of the other implications of the ToS, but this is not mentioned.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=dawn_felagund&ditemid=412543" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-08-20:547323:412199 First Vermont Moose! 2017-04-21T22:19:48Z 2017-04-21T22:19:48Z *silence* psyched! public 6 When we were driving home from Maine on Wednesday, Bobby told me that he'd read a notice from Fish and Wildlife about how moose were moving through the Northeast Kingdom at higher-than-usual rates because of the season and to use extra vigilance when driving. That got me thinking about moose. Namely how I've never seen a moose in Vermont. I saw a moose in Colorado, but never in Vermont. And I had hoped that, during my first year living here, I'd see one. And I felt really disappointed that I had not.<br /><br />Well! The moose heard me, yo! I went into my school today for about four hours, then Bobby picked me up and we went to the feed store and stopped for Thai on the way home. I was in a semi-food coma as we drove home, when I noticed a woman pulled off to the side of the road, taking a picture of the Barton River with her phone. Now I've taken my share of pictures of the Barton, but it's not particularly picturesque right now: the drama of the near-flood-level waters is over and everything is still mostly brown and dead-looking, and it was a drab, rainy day to boot. But as I looked closer, I realized she was taking a picture of a moose that was browsing through the tall grass growing along the river!<br /><br /><img src="http://dawn-felagund.dreamwidth.org/file/24508.jpg" alt="First Vermont Moose" title="First Vermont Moose" width="600" /><br /><br />So I have indeed seen a Vermont moose within my first year of living here! Score!<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=dawn_felagund&ditemid=412199" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-08-20:547323:410926 Lord Willin and the Crick Don't Rise 2017-04-13T01:36:56Z 2017-04-13T01:36:56Z Bobby watching hockey impressed public 2 The crick done rose.<br /><br />When we had the February thaw, the Barton rose to the level of River Road. I wanted to take pictures then, but by the time I got the chance, the water level had dropped.<br /><br />It's been very warm this week, and most of the lingering snow and ice have melted, so that Barton has risen steadily every day all week. <a href="http://dawn-felagund.dreamwidth.org/410413.html">We went kayaking on it on Monday</a> and there was still ice on the water in places, but we would not be kayaking on it now unless we parked a car at either end because the current is strong enough now that we could never paddle back. The water's right below the road again, and this time, I got out to get some pictures.<br /><br /><span class="cuttag_container"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b>(&nbsp;<a href="http://dawn-felagund.dreamwidth.org/410926.html#cutid1">Crick Done Rose</a>&nbsp;)</b><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div></span><br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=dawn_felagund&ditemid=410926" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-08-20:547323:410413 Stick & Mud Season. (Also My Tolkien at UVM Talk.) 2017-04-11T00:37:57Z 2017-04-11T00:37:57Z CHOM wearied public 5 Before I say ANYTHING about my video or stick and mud season, I want to wish a happy birthday to my friend and fandom partner in crime <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='http://heartofoshun.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='http://heartofoshun.dreamwidth.org/'><b>heartofoshun</b></a></span>. I love you as an author and a scholar but most of all as a friend. I appreciate so much all you do for our little corner of the Interwebz and for me personally. Few people in my life have been so unconditionally supportive of me, and I can't express how much it means. I hope your day is as wonderful as you deserve!<br /><br />Next things next: My video has creaked through the YouTube upload process on my satellite Internet. It's just the audio of me reading my paper with the slides. So this one is not 45 minutes of watching me sit and read! It's also only 20 minutes. I haven't watched it, so if there is anything egregious in the images or audio, it's a mistake--please let me know! The images are pretty crappy on my computer, but YouTube videos are usually pretty crappy on my computer--to the point that I can't always do my Drupal tutorials if it's rainy or snowy or windy because I can't see the image well enough to get anything out of it!--so I hope they're not actually that bad for people with normal Internet. If they are ... it's doubtful I'm going to have time to do anything about it, since it is basically redoing the video. But it can be used as a last resort as a sleep aid, presuming my accent isn't terribly annoying.<br /><br /><lj-embed id="25" /><br /><br />And! It was amazingly effing beautiful weather today. It was like Vermont said, "Fuck! It's spring!" and decided to do something about it. It was 77F/25C driving home from work this afternoon and brilliantly sunny. Most of the snow is now gone. And the river is thawed so ...<br /><br />What else to do but go kayaking, right?? Bobby texted me when he got home--I was still working, of course!--and I pretty much packed up and left immediately, and he had the kayaks on the car already by the time I arrived home. We launched just a couple hundred yards/meters from our house because the river is so high that places that are normally an impossibly steep bank are only about a foot above the water now.<br /><br />The Barton River flows near our house. Well, normally, it lazes past our house. It's a very calm river. In February, we had a few very warm days and a thaw, and the river rose to where River Road was, in places, just a car-wide track with water on either side. It wasn't so dramatic this time, but the river did rise to about a foot below the road on Friday. It's much lower now, but it actually has a current to it.<br /><br />So going down the river was easy and fun. At one point, there was a tree fallen across the river except for a two-foot wide passage. I knew as soon as I went into it that I was going to regret it going back: With the current funneling into that tiny outlet, my kayak shot through like I was on the log flume at a theme park. It was hella fun! We rowed down to the bridge where Coventry Station Road crosses the river mostly because it was a logical turn-around point and I wanted to go under the bridge. This is our usual launch point on the Barton because it has a public access with a path down to the water. Looking at Google Maps, we paddled about 1.5 miles/2.5 km round-trip.<br /><br />The row back was definitely tough, not helped by the fact that the only arm workout I've gotten since packing up the kayaks last fall is occasionally hauling wood pellets up from the barn--and Bobby does that most of the time! I almost didn't make it back through the log flume. It took two tries. It didn't help that the first time, Bobby essentially piled his kayak onto mine from behind! I let him through and tried again, and made it.<br /><br />River Road runs parallel with a set of train tracks (a train came through while we were paddling, which was cool), and beyond the railroad bridge, the water was still solid ice. It was like looking through a portal into the North Pole.<br /><br />We saw quite a few critters: two beavers, a great blue heron, what appeared to be a red-tailed hawk, umpteen redwing blackbirds, lots of different waterfowl. We're officially in mud season. One day last week, I stepped out of the car and sank about an inch into the driveway. But all in all, it hasn't been too bad. People always warn us first about the long winters--and we survived our first of those--and then mud season, and we're surviving that too. (It helps that we have an amazing road guy who has raked the road about weekly since the snow melted off of it. Our road is pretty scary when the traction isn't good, so I think I'd feel differently about mud season if not for our road guy. &lt;3 to the Coventry road guy!)<br /><br />It's also stick season since our trees are far from blooming or leafing out up here ... but some have buds! And I'm starting to sneeze more, which tells me they're doing their thing. And there is some green among the grass: faint and brave but <em>there</em>.<br /><br />Right now? I'm tired. I want to stretch out somewhere and read. I wonder if my arms will be sore tomorrow.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=dawn_felagund&ditemid=410413" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-08-20:547323:409524 Fan History Question about Tumblr for All the Smarty-Pants on My Flist 2017-03-19T15:38:19Z 2017-03-19T15:38:19Z Kenny Loggins, "The Last Unicorn" curious public 1 So I'm doing some preliminary data-crunching to see if I have anything worthwhile to contribute to <a href="http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/announcement/view/34">this</a> on the subject of Tolkien fandom and Tumblr. I'm on Tumblr but am not a heavy user, so I have the numbers but not the years of deep personal investment in the site that a lot of fanpeople have.<br /><br />Essentially, I'm looking for the time when Tolkien fandom began to really shift to Tumblr. I joined Tumblr in May 2013, and there was already a huge Tolkien fandom presence there (being as this was in the midst of fandom activity for the <em>Hobbit</em> films).<br /><br />The <a href="https://fanlore.org/wiki/Tumblr">Tumblr article on Fanlore</a> is surprisingly unhelpful. It does begin collecting quotes from fans in 2012, which is the date around which I've seen consensus for the big fandom shift to Tumblr. There is also <a href="http://ofhouseadama.tumblr.com/post/86424015604">this well-known post</a> about Tumblr and fandom and <a href="http://slashcast.livejournal.com/34330.html">this Slashcast episode</a>, both of which would suggest 2012ish as the big year. But this is for fandom in general (although, given the fan activity surrounding the <em>Hobbit</em> trilogy, I'm feeling like this is a rare occasion when Fandom and Tolkien Fandom actually moved pretty lockstep with each other).<br /><br />Does this seem right to you all? That 2012 was the year where Tolkien fandom as well began to have a presence on Tumblr? Any suggestions on sources or documentation for that?<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=dawn_felagund&ditemid=409524" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-08-20:547323:408864 The Big Snow. Fannish Things. 2017-03-15T18:15:54Z 2017-03-15T18:15:54Z a train going through the valley :D public 2 Well, we got the big snow as promised. I don't know how much we got, but it was a lot. There was a lot of blowing and drifting last night, so it'd be hard to tell, even if I was willing to venture outside, which I have not so far. Schools were closed today after an early dismissal yesterday.<br /><br />This was our back deck this morning. It's still snowing lightly, but we're not supposed to get more than a few more inches today.<br /><br /><a href="http://s1294.photobucket.com/user/dawn_felagund/media/Winter%202016-2017/20170315_110857_zpspw3ibvw2.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/b615/dawn_felagund/Winter%202016-2017/20170315_110857_zpspw3ibvw2.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 20170315_110857_zpspw3ibvw2.jpg" width="400" /></a><br /><br />Bobby took these pictures of the Wilds last night; he took them out to play in the snow. They are both like little children and get giddy when we have fresh snow falling.<br /><br />Lancelot.<br /><br /><a href="http://s1294.photobucket.com/user/dawn_felagund/media/Wilds/lance_2017snowstorm_zpshox8nway.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/b615/dawn_felagund/Wilds/lance_2017snowstorm_zpshox8nway.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo lance_2017snowstorm_zpshox8nway.jpg" width="400" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />Guineweird.<br /><br /><a href="http://s1294.photobucket.com/user/dawn_felagund/media/Wilds/gwen-2017snowstorm_zpsp2s4grsp.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/b615/dawn_felagund/Wilds/gwen-2017snowstorm_zpsp2s4grsp.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo gwen-2017snowstorm_zpsp2s4grsp.jpg" width="400" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />On a completely unrelated note, I have enough fannish stuff to report that I'm actually going to use a bulleted list. Whoa.<br /><br /><ul><li>I wrote an essay for the B2MeM prompt "Analyze a Chapter or Passage." I chose to compare the death scenes of Fëanor and Fingolfin, looking particularly at the evidence those passages provide for historical bias. The result: <a href="http://b2mem.livejournal.com/424281.html">The Deaths of Kings: Historical Bias in the Death Scenes of Fëanor and Fingolfin</a>.</li><br /><br /><li>For the personal essay B2MeM prompt, I wrote a personal essay (duh) called <a href="http://b2mem.livejournal.com/439280.html">Mountains between the Light and the World: On Walls and Greed and the Privilege of Isolation</a>. Warning: It gets into my personal politics, particularly my musings on why I've always been so bothered by the hoarding of light in <em>The Silmarillion</em> and how contrary to my political and personal values that idea is.</li><br /><br /><li><a href="http://silwritersguild.livejournal.com/283538.html">There's a new SWG challenge up.</a> We're explicitly encouraging participants to combine our prompt with one of the other challenges going on. There's lots of challenges going on in the next month.</li><br /><br /><li>Last week, I almost died when I was Googling for a link to <a href="http://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol3/iss3/3/">Attainable Vistas</a> and, in the process, stumbled on <a href="http://stratofanatic.blogspot.com/2016/11/review-part-1-journal-of-tolkien.html">this review</a> of the issue of JTR and my essay in particular. The review called it "one of the best -- if not <em>the</em> best -- article on Tolkien written this year." What?! The writer is a Tolkien scholar, so he liked the first half--about historical bias--more than the second about fandom. Which I'd agree: the historical bias stuff is more generally interesting and relevant to an audience familiar with Tolkien. The fandom stuff is more for the connoisseurs, as it were. :D One of the things I found about traditional publication versus fannish publication is that the relative silence that meets a traditionally published work makes me wonder sometimes if what I wrote is even being read. (There wasn't absolute silence around "Attainable Vistas," but the chatter all came from fandom--go figure!) I was pleased to know that my work was not only read but clearly appreciated. It was a really pleasant surprise.</li><br /><br /><li>Speaking of "Attainable Vistas," I will be presenting the unpublished parts of that paper at the <a href="http://tolkienvt.org/">Vermont Tolkien Conference</a> in just a few weeks. I received official registration information a few days ago, so it's really happening. No fandom stuff this time--just historical bias!</li><br /><br /><li>I have most of the rest of my B2MeM path planned out or underway. Let me say again how nice it has been to participate in B2MeM this year. I almost never get to <em>participate</em> outside of volunteering. But I get to listen to people participating <em>complain</em> about participating, feeling like the kid whose family never goes on vacation listening to her friends gripe about having to spend a week in Paris. I've really enjoyed getting to focus on my research and writing; I usually need an excuse to do this, and B2MeM has been a great excuse. It's improved my mood toward B2MeM immensely as well. I will confess that this is the fandom project where I am always the closest to burning out--thank goodness for Indy taking the reins these past few years!</li><br /><br /><li>Not really related to fandom, but while Googling my article the other night, I found that my university has also published my thesis. <a href="http://digitalcommons.apus.edu/theses/130/">So you can read it if you want to.</a> Some people said they wanted to! It's been downloaded 21 times, which is pretty amazing in itself.</li></ul><br /><br />Well, report card grades are due today, and I still have a little left to do to make that happen, so off I go!<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=dawn_felagund&ditemid=408864" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-08-20:547323:408814 The Calm Before the Storm 2017-03-14T01:13:25Z 2017-03-14T01:13:25Z 90s at 9 on CHOM calm public 2 Like much of the East Coast, we are under a winter storm warning for tomorrow. Our supervisory union is already dismissing early tomorrow, to avoid the brunt of the blizzard-like conditions in the afternoon. We've already used four snow days this year, and people are starting to wig out over how late into the summer students will go to school. (It's a normal date to start summer vacation in Maryland, so it doesn't feel onerous to me.) I think the SU is trying to avoid using another snow day tomorrow when there is already a good chance that schools will be closed Wednesday.<br /><br />As night fell, I schlepped the compost bucket down to the bin behind the barn. I have to admit that this is chore that I actively neglect because it's quite a slog in the snow, and prying open the partly frozen compost bin isn't fun either. But I knew that with two feet of snow on the ground, I'd want to do it even less. The sky was a flat white and the air utterly still, like the Earth was holding its breath. It was actually eerie how quiet it was and the way the trees stood like they were painted on the sky.<br /><br />Bobby and I also hauled up seven bags of pellets from the barn. (Next year, we will clear out the shed alongside our house enough to hold all of our pellets; our yard is just steep enough to make carrying bags of pellets up from the barn a real pain in the ass, made worse when the snow is deep, which it is not right now.)<br /><br />On a completely different note, we started our first indoor seeds a week ago and came home today to the first frail tomato stem curling out of the soil. We also ordered chicks on Saturday: ten pullets, five broilers, and three turkeys. Spring is taking hold, no matter how tenuous, blizzard notwithstanding.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=dawn_felagund&ditemid=408814" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-08-20:547323:408537 It's Pretty Beast Outside Right Now 2017-03-12T06:36:23Z 2017-03-12T06:37:24Z the wind howling like a ghost! dirty public 4 It was bitterly cold outside today, barely passing 0F/-18C with wind chills between -10 and -30F (-23 to -34C) here in the valley. Bobby showed me a picture this morning of a whiteboard at Jay Peak, warning staff that wind chills on the mountain were -58F/-50C!<br /><br />Of course, he went up anyway and rode for about two hours and came home with some frostnip on his nose. There was a sign at the top of the lift, announcing that temperatures in the waterpark were 100F warmer than on the mountain.<br /><br />We were almost completely without snow thanks to the springlike weather at the start of February break but got a surprise few inches the other morning--enough to make things pretty again. However, the lack of snow also means a lack of insulation around the house, so we came home from a Vermont Family Theater performance of <em>Into the Woods</em> tonight to find we didn't have water because the pipe running from the well into the house had frozen. This happened once before, and Bobby crawled under the house (not as weird as it sounds if you remember we live in a mobile!) and warmed the pipe with a space heater, and we were fine again within minutes. This was New Years Eve, and our friends that night teased us that we'd earned another stripe as Vermont residents by having to thaw our pipes with a space heater. Tonight, it was much colder and windier and without that helpful layer of insulating snow, and our little heater just ain't cuttin it.<br /><br />Bobby just got off the phone with the plumber, who told him that we're the eighth call tonight from a mobile with frozen pipes, and he's gotten two calls from people whose oil tanks have frozen. He says we'll be fine till he gets a heater free to come thaw us out; we just won't have running water (we have filtered water in the fridge, so we have water to drink and for the Goldens); such is life sometimes when you live on a well.<br /><br />However, of course, as soon as I heard that, my hands felt dirty and wanted washing.<br /><br />We're under a winter storm watch for the middle of next week. If we're going to have the bitter cold, I'd rather have the snow as well. Bobby's hoping for it, of course. But we've learned since living here that the weather prediction is far less reliable than in Maryland, so we'll have to wait and see. The snowfall the other night was not predicted; everyone was surprised to wake up and find the world blanketed in white again. Since they're saying we could get a lot out of this thing next week, we'll probably get almost nothing.<br /><br />I can hear the wind outside right now, howling like a ghost.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=dawn_felagund&ditemid=408537" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-08-20:547323:408238 The Anti-Inspiration and Teacher-Bullies and Trauma 2017-03-11T20:27:56Z 2017-03-11T20:27:56Z LotR soundtrack, "Evenstar" pensive public 2 I started to write up this as a comment by someone on a friend's LJ, but it was getting very personal very fast--and therefore a little weird to be putting someone I didn't know well in the position of having to reply to it--and I thought it'd be better here. I somehow ended up talking about kids being bullied by teachers, and this opened a floodgate for me, some thoughts I've been wanting to put down for a few weeks now and finally have a moment to do so.<br /><br />I know the person I appear to be. I remarked something about feeling inadequate a couple years ago and was told by a good online friend--someone who knows me better than most of the people here, in RL as well as in fandom--that it was hard to believe. That I don't appear to be that person. And most of the time I'm not. I've worked very deliberately to lock up my demons in ironclad prisons. I know I project a lot of confidence and competence. Most of the time, I feel a lot of confidence and competence. Sometimes I even fool myself. I think, "It's over! I'm normal now!" The reminder, when it comes, that some things don't just go away is sharp and sudden and painful.<br /><br />One of the questions teachers often get asked is if we had a teacher who inspired us to pursue the profession. I do, but it's more of an anti-inspiration. It's a person that I imagined, through my presence in the profession, being unable to find a job because that job went to me. I know it doesn't work that way! But I like to think that if more smart, kind people became teachers, then we might run out the bullies and leave no room for them.<br /><br />Because, for five years, I was bullied by a teacher. <span class="cuttag_container"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b>(&nbsp;<a href="http://dawn-felagund.dreamwidth.org/408238.html#cutid1">Read more...</a>&nbsp;)</b><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div></span><br /><br />(I'm taking a risk and leaving this entry unlocked.)<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=dawn_felagund&ditemid=408238" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-08-20:547323:407973 Fan-dum-da-dum-dum 2017-03-06T16:03:27Z 2017-03-06T16:03:27Z the pellet stove sounds like a dragon breathing content public 0 I think this is the first year I am able to participate fully in <a href="http://b2mem.livejournal.com/">Back to Middle-earth Month</a> since B2MeM has existed. Normally the events require quite a bit of work from the mods during the event; this one was structured quite by chance--though no less brilliantly--so that the work was heavily front-loaded, which means that I'm able to actually participate. (Usually I manage one story, maybe two. This year, I'm doing the nonfiction path with fingers tightly crossed that, when I reach the Wild square, I will roll the option to choose something from one of the more creative paths and can write a story as well.)<br /><br />My first piece was "On Writing Aman, or the Balance between the Mythic and the Real." It's on <a href="http://b2mem.livejournal.com/413046.html">B2MeM</a>, <a href="http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewstory.php?sid=3106">SWG</a>, and the <a href="http://dawnfelagund.tumblr.com/post/157952040333/on-writing-aman-or-the-balance-between-the-mythic">Tumblr place</a>.<br /><br />My current project, for the prompt "Analyze a Chapter or Passage," is a comparison of the death scenes of Fëanor and Fingolfin. I had done a short analysis of these two scenes for the unpublished (though being presented at the Vermont Tolkien Conference next month) paper on historical bias, and I decided to expand this out into its own essay. I'm hoping it will be finished and posted before the end of break.<br /><br />Also, "Assignation," aka "the skanky fanfic," is now up on <a href="http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewstory.php?sid=3082&amp;index=1">SWG</a> <em>and</em> <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/10140791">AO3</a>, in case you missed that literary gem. It's Aredhel/Celegorm/Curufin, though I like to hope it's more than just PWP. It's been up on the SWG, but if you want to read the skanky fanfic on AO3, now you can.<br /><br />Last fannish thing. <a href="http://hedonistbyheart.deviantart.com/">Hedonist by Heart</a> has done another beautiful piece of fan art for <em>Another Man's Cage</em> called "Before the Hush." If you like it, please go show her some love over on <a href="http://hedonistbyheart.deviantart.com/">DeviantArt</a> or <a href="http://hedonistbyheart.tumblr.com/">Tumblr</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://s1294.photobucket.com/user/dawn_felagund/media/Tolkien/before-the-hush_hedonist-by-heart_zpsqesz9yvg.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/b615/dawn_felagund/Tolkien/before-the-hush_hedonist-by-heart_zpsqesz9yvg.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo before-the-hush_hedonist-by-heart_zpsqesz9yvg.jpg" width="400" /></a><br /><br /><span class="cuttag_container"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b>(&nbsp;<a href="http://dawn-felagund.dreamwidth.org/407973.html#cutid1">The AMC passage that inspired it ...</a>&nbsp;)</b><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div></span><br /><br />Hedonist by Heart has done artwork for AMC before but I think this one is my favorite. I feel like the genuine love and affection I hoped to show between the characters comes out in her art. And I simply <em>love</em> how she has drawn Nerdanel and the intensity of her Fëanor. (And Celegorm! Who doesn't want to snuggle that little muskrat and forget all about that whole kidnapping-Lúthien-betraying-Felagund thing??) Anyway, I love the piece and wanted to share it (and her work).<br /><br />It occurs to me that this is the first and possibly only journal entry I will write over my fabulously long Winter Break. (I still feel like I'm getting away with something. We don't go back to school till Wednesday.) It's been a busy one: first preparing for B2MeM, then I edited a doctoral dissertation (for pay!), and of course there's always papers to grade and units to plan, and I went in to work for a day to give my classroom a much-needed reorganization and straightening up, and the SWG lately has more chores to do than a farm. It sounds work-filled and awful, but I've loved every moment of it. (And there were doses of fun: We went to St. J's--which feels forever ago--we went to the Ski and Snowboard Museum in Stowe, I had a snowboard lesson, we saw <em>La La Land,</em> we've had a lot of really good meals out.) I've come to terms with the fact that, if I were a dog, I'd be a Border Collie: You know, the kind of breed that gets described as being "happiest when working." I've been working, and happy, but subsequently not around much.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=dawn_felagund&ditemid=407973" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-08-20:547323:405343 The Women's March Was an Unreal Experience 2017-01-22T23:01:24Z 2017-01-22T23:57:14Z Bobby watching the football game indescribable public 3 This was not my first rodeo. I went to my first rally in DC when I was twelve years old. While I've never been intensely active politically, I've marched and rallied across the years for the causes most near and dear to my heart.<br /><br />When I bought my bus ticket for the Women's March on Washington, I expected it to be more of the same. It would be fun, uplifting, and energizing to spend the day elbow to elbow with people who find meaningful the same things I do. It would certainly be the most adventurous march I've attended but only because, this time, I would be coming from eleven hours away, from Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, rather than less than an hour outside of DC.<br /><br />It wasn't more of the same. This was an experience like no other I've ever had before. <span class="cuttag_container"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b>(&nbsp;<a href="http://dawn-felagund.dreamwidth.org/405343.html#cutid1">Read more...</a>&nbsp;)</b><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div></span><br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=dawn_felagund&ditemid=405343" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-08-20:547323:404820 Fandom Snowflake, Day 5: 10 Tolkienfic Stories I Have Read and Loved in the Past Month 2017-01-16T22:24:55Z 2017-01-16T22:24:55Z CHOM pleased public 2 <a href="http://snowflake-challenge.dreamwidth.org/">Fandom Snowflake</a> Day 5 asked participants to "post recs for at least three fanworks that you did not create." I went *ahem* a little above and beyond. I did ten. I've been reading a lot of Tolkienfic lately--it is one of my goals for the year to make time for reading, as it is often one of the fandom pleasures that falls first to the obligations of running a website--and I wanted to share some of my favorites from among what I've read. I feel like I need to make up for a few years of rarely reading and commenting while I was in grad school. Most of these stories are <em>Silmarillion</em>-based, but there are a few that are from <em>The Lord of the Rings</em>.<br /><br />Please check them out and, if you like them, consider leaving the author a note letting them know.<br /><br /><a href="http://lotrgfic.com/viewstory.php?sid=3708">The Choice</a> by Keiliss. Thank goodness the prompt that inspired this story gives away the ending or I don't think I would have been able to take it. I still teared up at multiple points in this tenderly written and beautifully <em>human</em> story about Elladan and his daughter making their choice about whether or not to sail for Aman. Few of Tolkien's unanswered question have inspired the speculation, angst, and fanfic as the question of whether the sons of Elrond sailed, and Kei's story deserves a place at the top of the heap. Her characterization, too, of characters who only appear in passing speak of why she is one of the giants of Tolkienfic. This story is simply wonderful.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewstory.php?sid=3033">Elendili</a> by hadastheunseelie. I picked up this story for the Fandom Snowflake challenge that asked participants to reach out to someone new. I'll admit that I hesitated. It mentions a teenage girl and glitter in the summary, and while I totally support teenagers writing fanfic--a lot of my students do and I think it's awesome!--I also reserve the right <em>not</em> to read said fanfic when it's not one of my students! And the story was long. But, in the Snowflake spirit, I gave it a go and OMG. OMG, y'all. It is probably the strangest story I will rec here--which anyone who knows me will know I mean as a compliment--but Hadas is one of those writers with a gift for wielding words like a knife between my bones where they actually hurt. The imagery is stunning: sometimes gritty and very anchored in Modern-earth (where this story is set) and sometimes ethereal and otherworldly, making that familiar world of colleges and coffee shops Elvish somehow.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewstory.php?sid=3031">Eyes Bright with Honor</a> by heget. Heget is working on telling the tales of the ten companions who died in the dungeon with Finrod in defense of Beren. The Beren and Luthien story has never particularly entranced me (Finrod's on the other hand ... *ahem*), but I walked away from this story <em>getting it</em>: getting some of the magic that people (including Tolkien) see in that story and in the character of Beren in particular. The story meanders through time, mostly looking back to the life of the OC Consael whose story Heget tells in this piece, and it is a story where the pieces all coalesce and make beautiful sense in the end. This is one of the most horrifying episodes in <em>The Silmarillion</em> to me, yet I could walk away from this story with a rare sense of feeling uplifted and hopeful instead of imagining those eyes kindling in the dark ... Heget plans to write about all ten companions, and I will be checking out the other pieces in the series on the strength of this one.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewstory.php?sid=1638">Galadriel: There and Back Again</a> by Himring. If someone were to task me with writing the life of Galadriel, I would sweat over it for a year and turn out a sprawling, half-million word epic. And I still don't think I could top this story. Himring is perhaps one of the most underappreciated masters of Silmfic, and this story shows why. Her Galadriel manages to be stubborn, strong, and vulnerable with a no-nonsense wisdom that probably explains her survival alone (almost) of her family. And in well under 2000 words! Every wrenching, poignant word counts in this piece that stitches together the Galadriel who competed with (and feared) Fëanor and she who gave Frodo the light of Eärendil that saved him.<br /><br /><a href="http://lotrgfic.com/viewstory.php?sid=3711">Home for Midwinter</a> by Tallulah Red. I will echo Tal's several reviews on the LotRGenFic community--this was written for their annual Yule Exchange--who praised the world-building in this story. The story was written for Indy, who wanted to see Maglor adopt a family from among the Avari. Although a short piece, it sparkles with believable characters and culture, taking a different take on the Avari than most writers do. And in a fandom that has a Maglor-walks-by-the-shore-and-laments trope, it was refreshing to read a story that allows him happiness in the future while also not shying from his history.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewstory.php?sid=3035">Journeys</a> by Independence1776. This story was written for me, for the MPTT/LotRGen Yule Exchange. I remember writing a story once for a friend that she described fitting like a pair of gloves that could only be selected by someone who knew her well. This is such a story. It is Maedhros and Maglor and a conversation in a cave, yet the dialogue simmers with much more than can be seen on the surface, and Indy achieves an easy camaraderie between the brothers that is delightful to read. It is simply wonderful, like Indy dove into my mind and extracted a story I would have loved to have written for my own verse. I'm officially adopting this one into the Felakverse.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewstory.php?sid=3042">The Purple Dress</a> by Avon. This story gave me chills. Set in Númenor, a young woman flouts convention in her choice of dress color ... but this story is so much more than that. It is one of those pieces that unspools in slow revelations so that, as a reader, you're never entirely on steady ground. And once you realize what is going on, you're not there yet; the ending simmers with delicious double entendre. There's A LOT going on in this short piece, and every word and image count.<br /><br /><a href="http://marta-bee.tumblr.com/post/155238181343/silm-fic-though-the-road-darkens">Though the Road Darkens</a> by Marta. Marta's story tells the tale of Gorlim the Unhappy through the eyes of his companion Gildor. The voice in this story is simply magnificent; you feel like you are sitting at the fireside, hearing Gildor tell his tale. A complicated story, it brings in folklore, myth (Middle- and Modern-earth), and questions the historical tradition, offering different look at Gorlim's story. Oh, and it's beautifully written, the kind of words you want to lean back and savor like wine. If you're thinking--like I probably would have if Marta hadn't asked me to read this story--that you'd never be interested in a story about Gorlim, take a chance and prove yourself wrong. (I'm happy to admit that I was! :)<br /><br /><a href="http://www.lotrgfic.com/viewstory.php?sid=3699">Winter Came Earlier</a> by Oshun. She calls this "just a bit of fluff" in the summary, but saying this is "just" fluff is like saying the Grand Canyon is "just" a sidewalk crack. This is a layered and thought-provoking story in which Elladan faces, through Arwen and Aragorn, his own worries about mortality and what it means to be Peredhil. But don't let my summary scare you into thinking that this is a deep, heavy story that one can only read in a bright-lit room. This is Oshun, after all, and her work is as ever sweetened with romance and humor that balance perfectly with the deeper themes of this short, lovely work.<br /><br /><a href="http://lotrgfic.com/viewstory.php?sid=3713&amp;warning=3">Winter Sons of Gondor</a> by Elwen. It was my turn this month on MPTT to archive the challenge stories. This necessitates skimming each piece so that I can add the meta-data to it about character, genre, et cetera. Most of the time I do just that--skim--and I started to do so with this story but got hooked in despite my intentions to make quick work of posting it. Young Boromir and Faramir are coping with the pressures of their father's growing madness when they decide to escape for a morning to enjoy a rare snowfall. But their journey takes an unexpected turn. This story is a page-turner, and I could not have left off reading it and gone back to skimming if I'd wanted to.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=dawn_felagund&ditemid=404820" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-08-20:547323:404070 Fandom Snowflakes, Two of 'Em! (Days 8 and 10) 2017-01-12T00:47:39Z 2017-01-12T00:47:39Z Dwarf "Misty Mountains" song tired public 3 I'm doing these suckers all out of order and late and stuff, but it's totally cool because it's <a href="http://snowflake-challenge.dreamwidth.org/">Fandom Snowflake</a>! (Seriously, I have had such universally positive experiences in the years I've participated in this. It's such a low-stress, joy-inducing challenge. I'm so glad they managed to continue it this year. Thank you, volunteers, for stepping up!)<br /><br />Day 8 asked us to:<br /><br /><blockquote>In your own space, make a list of at least 3 things that you like about yourself. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.</blockquote><br /><br />I think they do a version of this challenge every year, and I'm glad they do. Not because I like singing my own praises--it's as difficult and awkward for me as it is for anyone--but because I think it is so important to become comfortable with honesty about one's strengths and skills. <em>Especially</em> in fandom, which is mostly women, who are explicitly and implicitly taught not to "brag" about what we do well and to deflect praise by downplaying our success or scrambling to explain who else should share our credit.<br /><br />(I do these things too. But I find that being aware of them and the differences in how men and women talk about their accomplishments often helps me to stop them between my brain and my mouth.)<br /><br /><ol><li>I'm a hard worker. I give my all to everything that I do (and care about): teaching, research and writing, my fandom projects. It's a family trait. You know how people will say about dogs like Border Collies that they're happiest when working? Wallses are that way too. But it's allowed me to accomplish things I'm really proud of, and so I'm happy to be that way.</li><br /><br /><li>I'm pretty resourceful, and I'm not afraid to learn new things. Well, I sometimes am (I'm terrified of PHP!), but I suck it up and learn it anyway. (I still haven't learned PHP yet, but I've been looking more often in the direction of those books on my shelf, and I <em>will</em> learn it someday!)</li><br /><br /><li>I'm really proud of how I've grown during my years in fandom. I started as a quivering mass of nerves that got sick on posting days of my novel <em>Another Man's Cage</em> because I was convinced that every chapter would be the one where someone would expose me as a fraud. (What does that even mean? It sounds so silly in retrospect, but I remember very clearly worrying in that particular language.) I remember the first time I was criticized publicly as a moderator and losing sleep over it. I've gained a lot of confidence, and fandom has been a huge part of that. It doesn't mean that I don't worry sometimes if a story is up to my usual standards or that it doesn't hurt to see my work or the SWG criticized in ways that are unfair (or sometimes in ways that are fair but I'd rather people not notice!), but I'm much more able now to work on moving forward rather than dwelling on the fact that a reviewer didn't like my story or someone doesn't like this year's B2MeM event or thinks my site is annoying to use or whatever.</li></ol><br /><br />Day 9 asked for tropes, clichés, kinks, motifs, or themes:<br /><br /><blockquote>In your own space, share your love for a trope, cliché, kink, motif, or theme. (More than one is okay, too.) Tell us about it, tell us why you love it, give us some examples and recs. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.</blockquote><br /><br />What drives my writing a lot of the time is an adoration for complex characters, especially trying to understand characters who make bad or destructive choices. <a href="http://themidhavens.net/heretic_loremaster/2015/03/we-are-feanor/">I wrote a blog post about this about two years ago</a>, about why the Fëanorians appealed to me in the context of my work at the time with troubled young men. My goal is not to excuse these characters but to understand the complexity of the human mind that allows a person to commit horrible acts and still sleep at night.<br /><br />I'm a sucker for stories that draw Tolkien's women out of the shadows and empower them with roles where they are allowed to influence the story. I very much believe that the dearth of women is a flaw of the legendarium that's in need of repair in a way that only creators of fanworks can accomplish.<br /><br />Both of these point to probably my favorite notion in Silmfic: that of <em>The Silmarillion</em> as a historical text and subject to all the complexities and biases posed by historical texts. This idea results in stories that don't take the texts at their word--as "canon," that inviolable concept that sometimes constrains our creativity--but look critically at how in-universe writers would have depicted the history of the early ages of Arda and considered what they would have left out, gotten wrong, or straight-up lied about. And then writes those stories. This is what I try to do in my work and love to read in the work of others.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=dawn_felagund&ditemid=404070" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-08-20:547323:403935 Fandom Snowflake, Day 9: A Shout-Out to My SWG Comods 2017-01-11T02:49:46Z 2017-01-11T02:52:05Z Obama's farewell address :( :( :( grateful public 0 I am still working on my rec list (Day 5) and my fanwork (thanks to Himring's thorny prompts from the <a href="http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/birthday10/story-generator.php">Silmfic prompt generator</a>!), but so as not to fall <em>too</em> far behind, I'm going to work a bit out of order for the <a href="http://snowflake-challenge.dreamwidth.org/">Fandom Snowflake</a>. I had intentions of doing three days in one post, but Day 9 got away from me a bit. It's no wonder. As I started to write, I realized how much I rely on my comoderators and how little recognition they get for what they do, most of which occurs behind the scenes. So I wanted to give this small gesture of recognition to the people without whom the SWG would not exist.<br /><br />Day 9 asked us to leave feedback.<br /><br /><blockquote>Send feedback to two fannish people — they can be anyone you want: a writer who’s made you happy, a moderator of your favorite exchange (not us!), a fanartist you avidly follow… There are so many possibilities. Just let someone know you appreciate their work.</blockquote><br /><br />I've left two comments on stories between yesterday and today; I'm trying to read more (and therefore comment more, since I try to say something about everything I read). But I also want to shout out to the admins and moderators who keep the Tolkien fanfic community so lively and vibrant.<br /><br />We are one of the few fandoms that has created its own websites, archives, and institutions over the years. Some of these groups, sites, and events have been around for a decade or more. None of this happens without a lot of dedication and effort, often from a tiny fraction of the people who participate in fandom.<br /><br />I work a lot behind the scenes and know how much goes into it. And because I'm the owner of the Silmarillion Writers' Guild and usually its public face, I get a lot of recognition for my work. But my comoderators do not because most of what they do is never seen outside of our circle of moderators.<br /><br />Uli (ford_of_bruinen) has been on hiatus for a few years now. But without her the SWG would not exist. She was one of the first people to join, and she pushed me to promote and grow the group rather than sitting in huddled terror, wondering what I'd done and half-hoping no one noticed. In the SWG's early years, she was a friend and a mentor, when I was young and very new to fandom, and she kept me from doing a lot of stupid things and helped us as a group achieve a lot of great things.<br /><br />Jenni (just_jenni) was our second moderator. She stepped down as a moderator to care for her son many years ago. She did a lot for the SWG in the years she was with us, and she was one of my best fandom friends, always able to make me laugh when I needed it the most and always there when I needed her.<br /><br />Rhapsody. Oh, Rhapsody. Where do I begin?? She is probably the person who does the most for Tolkien fandom with the least recognition. I don't think most people know half of what she does. Rhapsody has had a hand in so many things: not just the SWG but Many Paths to Tread, working to keep Naice a Nilme alive, helping to run Quills and Ink for years, a major player on Open Scrolls Archive, a volunteer for the MEFAs for years, and a moderator for many years on Back to Middle-earth Month. She has been my right hand on the SWG. She fixed the site the time I accidentally deleted all of the challenges. She takes on the boring, monotonous jobs (like mucking the spam from our moderator email!) without being asked. She responded to emails with diplomacy and kindness when my patience was frayed to a thread. She is one of the kindest people I know, always urging me and our comods to give the benefit of the doubt. She is one of the people I turn to when I need to rant or cry, and she always has a wise word and a virtual hug for me. She's probably going to throw tomatoes at me for writing all of this! But I want people to know how much of our fandom is built on the efforts of this one extraordinary woman. If anyone wants to say thanks to her? <a href="http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewuser.php?uid=4">Here are her stories</a>; she manages to be a gifted writer in addition to a cornerstone of our fandom. Go review one or ten of them.<br /><br />Tarion Anarore has also been on hiatus for a while. She helped us tag our LJ community back in the early years of the SWG, and we asked her to be a mod, and she stuck with us for years. Tarion was instrumental in shaping the group in its early years. There are few people whose opinions and judgment I trusted more, and she is one of those people who seems able to do everything: graphic design, HTML coding, proofreading reams of documents and policies.<br /><br />Angelica has also been with us a long time and has done so many diverse things for us that it's hard to list them all. I admire Angelica for her willingness to always step forward and learn. So many times, I've said that something needs to be done, and Angelica will say, "Teach me to do it, and I will." She's also really good at catching my typos and mistakes (one English teacher to another!) and always pushing me to do better in what I write for the group.<br /><br />Russandol has been a lifesaver so many times. She's the only one of us that codes well, so when we need something done, guess who we turn to? And she steps to the challenge every time, without complaint. She puts the newsletter together every month, which is a task that takes a lot longer than anyone probably realizes it does and that frees me up to do other things. I also trust her judgment so much.<br /><br />Elleth is our newest mod. Even when she was our Tumblr mod, she still gave us great ideas and feedback about all aspects of running the SWG. She was a full mod a long time before she had the title. Elleth is one of the most talented people I know--a gifted writer and artist and a thoughtful scholar--and I am so grateful always that she has chosen to share those talents with us.<br /><br />Oshun is not a moderator on the SWG. I have asked her multiple times, and she always says no. But I want to recognize her nonetheless. She has, to date, written <a href="http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewstory.php?sid=763&amp;index=1">eighty biographies about <em>Silmarillion</em> characters</a> for the SWG. I think sometimes about how the newsletter always seems to arrive at the worst possible time, and how it is hard to carve out the hours needed to put together, and I wonder how Oshun comes up with such thoughtful and thorough biographies month in and month out. I know it is not any more convenient for her, yet she works through just about everything to meet a deadline. Her biographies are one of the favorite part of the SWG site and not without reason. They're an amazing resource, and when I get to copyedit them monthly, I often come away with the itch to write about that character, which is the epitome of skill and inspiration, in my mind. I also learn so much from them.<br /><br />For a long time, I believed that collaboration didn't--couldn't--work for me. I thought I was too willful and opinionated to work with others. I thought that collaboration tended to end up with me doing most of the work while having to share the credit--that was what "groupwork" in school taught me collaboration was. My SWG comods restored my belief in the synergy of a good team. Because of every person I just shouted out, we have accomplished something on the SWG or done something better than we would have otherwise. They are the people who hustle to fix bugs or delete spam in the small hours of the morning. They are the ones who respond when I say, "OMG I don't know what to do." They are there whenever it is not convenient, but needed. They have to listen to me chatter at them, often every day, for years at a time! They put aside their lives and things they'd rather do to serve this group we've built together.<br /><br />I am so grateful to all of you.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=dawn_felagund&ditemid=403935" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-08-20:547323:403103 Snowflake Challenge, Day 6: A Fannish Wish List 2017-01-09T00:05:57Z 2017-01-09T00:08:43Z Bobby playing a video game hopeful public 0 Today's <a href="http://snowflake-challenge.dreamwidth.org">Fandom Snowflake</a> challenge is to make a fandom wish list. I have skipped Day 5, not because I'm not doing it but because I'm reading a lot of stuff that has been posted recently in an attempt to create a rec list that includes both friends and writers new to me.<br /><br />Here is today's challenge:<br /><br /><blockquote>In your own space, create a list of at least three fannish things you'd love to receive, something you've wanted but were afraid to ask for - a fannish wish-list of sorts. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your wish-list if you feel comfortable doing so. Maybe someone will grant a wish. Check out other people's posts. Maybe you will grant a wish. If any wishes are granted, we'd love it if you link them to this post.</blockquote><br /><br />Wish lists are hard for me because I'm very well treated in fandom in terms of feedback on my work, in the form of comments, recs, and people wanting to do stuff with my stories like draw or translate them. So to ask for more of those things when I already feel like I'm treated so well seems greedy and wrong.<br /><br />So once again I have to think outside the box a little.<br /><br />I'd like people who write Silmfic to post it on the SWG and to comment on stories there. <a href="http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/browse.php?type=titles&amp;sort=update&amp;complete=all">Here</a> are the twenty-five most recent stories posted on the SWG. Go comment on one of them! I haven't read them all, but some are superb! There are a dozen different authors represented there and stories about all aspects of the canon.<br /><br />If you don't write Silmfic? Post to another Tolkien-specific archive and comment there every now and then. <a href="http://independence1776.tumblr.com/listofTolkienfanficarchives">Here's a list.</a> I don't know why I have such a sense of urgency about this now, but I do. Perhaps it was the demise of the MEFAs and HASA, one right after the other: those inviolable giants from my early fandom days.<br /><br />Be brave once this year (it doesn't have to be right now) and say hi to someone new or tell someone whose work you've admired from afar how much you appreciate what they do.<br /><br />And finally--a little more fun, perhaps--roll a prompt with at least four elements on the <a href="http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/birthday10/story-generator.php">Random Silmfic Prompt Generator</a> and either write that prompt or post it here and I will write it (or both).<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=dawn_felagund&ditemid=403103" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-08-20:547323:402816 Fandom Snowflake Challenge, Day 3: Goals, Yo! 2017-01-05T23:16:13Z 2017-01-05T23:16:13Z my Spotify "Discover Weekly" playlist hopeful public 0 In true <a href="http://snowflake-challenge.dreamwidth.org/">Fandom Snowflake</a> tradition, I have fallen behind. Fandom is, appropriately enough, the reason I have fallen behind. The beginning of the month is filled with posting challenges and compiling newsletters. My free time at home for the past two nights has been entirely consumed by fandom chores. I'm still not 100% finished and have a beta to do, but I'm taking a break to get at least a little caught up.<br /><br />Day 3's challenge:<br /><br /><blockquote>In your own space, set some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.</blockquote><br /><br />Man oh man *rubs hands together* I love setting goals! I'm going to set three in different areas of fannish participation.<br /><br /><ol><li><strong>Start writing the prequel to <em>Another Man's Cage</em>.</strong> I've actually started writing it twice now. Once, I got four chapters in and the files corrupted. (This was pre-Dropbox, which tells you how long I've been promising this prequel.) The second time, the magic just wasn't there. Three's a charm, right? I've been promising this story for years, so it will be my next long work, just as soon as I can wrap up <em>Tamlin</em>.</li><br /><br /><li><strong>Solve the eFiction problem.</strong> This feels so super ambitious that I'm kinda scared just writing it. But I am hoping that it will also focus me and allow me to make this work a priority.<br /><br />The "eFiction problem" is that we do not currently have a good option for fanfic archives. eFiction was a gift that was probably too good to last. It's beginning to show its age. Yeah yeah yeah, eFiction 5 is in the works, but I'm not encouraged by how long it's taking and also reluctant to go to the work of changing to something that would also become obsolete if the developer also abandoned it. Once bitten, twice shy.<br /><br />What I'm trying to do is to figure out how to make a fiction archive using a CMS. I've been studying Drupal and have looked into Wordpress as well. (I have to admit that I am in love with Drupal like whoa. I think I've been a casual Wordpress user for so long that I don't really recognize its full potential, so I need to give it a fair chance too before committing to Drupal.) Whatever I figure out--because I <em>will</em> figure this out, y'all--I will share what I learn so that as other archives want to transition from eFiction, they hopefully can do so. We need to keep our small archives alive.</li><br /><br /><li><strong>Finish and send out that historical bias paper.</strong> <a href="http://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol3/iss3/3/">Attainable Vistas</a> was initially almost twice as long because it contained quite a bit of original research demonstrating historical bias in <em>The Silmarillion</em>. The editors advised that I cut most of that and submit it as a separate paper to JTR or elsewhere. I'd already felt it was two papers and so was glad to accept this advice; I had worried that the paper might be rejected for lack of evidence and so thought to cover my bases many times over. Probably a rookie mistake.<br /><br />Anyway, because of this, I have an academic paper basically written. I need to finish that and send it somewhere. I have no idea where. My current plan is my usual plan of aiming as high as I can and being prepared to cheerfully aim lower if my hopes are thwarted.</li></ol><br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=dawn_felagund&ditemid=402816" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-08-20:547323:402244 Snowflake Challenge, Day 2: A Life-Changing Book 2017-01-03T02:57:39Z 2017-01-03T02:59:08Z '90s at 9! w00tw00t! thoughtful public 8 Here is today's prompt for the <a href="http://snowflake-challenge.dreamwidth.org">Snowflake Challenge</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>In your own space, share a book/song/movie/tv show/fanwork/etc that changed your life. Something that impacted on your consciousness in a way that left its mark on your soul. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.</blockquote><br /><br />I would, of course, choose <em>The Silmarillion.</em> It is not my favorite book, but it is absolutely the book that has had the most outsized influence on my life.<br /><br /><a href="http://s1294.photobucket.com/user/dawn_felagund/media/Online%20Effluvia/silmarillion_zpspycpzqog.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/b615/dawn_felagund/Online%20Effluvia/silmarillion_zpspycpzqog.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo silmarillion_zpspycpzqog.jpg" align="right" width="200" /></a><br /><br />I came to <em>The Silmarillion</em> as a newly minted Tolkien fan, having gotten hooked by the LotR movies, an interest that was only galvanized by reading <em>Lord of the Rings</em> and <em>The Hobbit</em>. My first copy of the Silm was the one to the right, with the weird cover that has Fëanor with graceful hands, flowing leopard-print scarves, and what appears to be an owl eating his head. The back of this particular edition, which is of course sitting right on my desk in front of me because I need to look something up in it at least weekly, reads:<br /><br /><blockquote><em>The Silmarillion</em> is Tolkien's first book and his last. Long preceding in its origins The Lord of the Rings [sic], it is the story of the First Age of Tolkien's world, the ancient drama to which characters in The Lord of the Rings [sic] look back, and in which some of them, such as Elrond and Galadriel, took part.</blockquote><br /><br />Now to a new fan such as myself, ravenous for more of LotR, this sounded promising! Elrond and Galadriel! I knew them!! I had no idea, of course, that the book wasn't about Elrond and Galadriel, who more or less have walk-on roles in <em>The Silmarillion,</em> but about a cast of dozens, everyone's name of which seems to begin with <em>Fin-</em>. I was also very new to the fantasy genre and really had no idea how to read a book like <em>The Silmarillion.</em> I went into it with my brain relaxed, expecting a frivolous sword-and-sorcery worthy of a beach read, instead of honing on every detail and storing away every name. I failed miserably in my first reading of it. I was about halfway through when Fëanor was mentioned, I looked him up in the Index of Names (the very fact that there is an Index of Names in the book should have been my first clue, no?), and realized he was someone important whom I should have remembered.<br /><br />It was only because I was stubborn and embarrassed by my failure that I decided to give it another go, this time knowing better what I was getting into and more prepared to read the book as it needed to be read. And I fell in love with my second reading.<br /><br />It sounds trite to say that Tolkien's world is rich but it is, and I am far from the first to become ensnared in Middle-earth via LotR. LotR, however, did not offer me the complexity of character that I had learned to appreciate in modern literature. I found that much more in <em>The Silmarillion,</em> where few characters are cut-and-dried good or evil but pretty much everyone is floundering around, trying to make the best of a shitty situation. That really appealed to me. The fact that the characters are barely sketched in made it possible to interpret them in myriad ways, drawing on my knowledge of human psychology. (I was a psych undergrad at the time.) When I discovered fan fiction, <em>The Silmarillion</em> practically begged for it: all of these complex characters only skeletally drawn. I found ample raw material for my own creativity.<br /><br />And I found that <em>The Silmarillion</em> was only the surface of a very deep pool. LotR is a gateway drug that, if you're not careful, you'll find yourself before long flopped on a couch in a dim room arguing with a stranger on the Internet about how to interpret <em>Laws and Customs among the Eldar</em>. In addition to my creative side, <em>The Silmarillion</em> appealed to my intellectual side because there was not only a whole literary history underlying the creation of that particular book--meticulously documented in <em>The History of Middle-earth</em> series that I began to acquire despite my poverty at the time--but an entire pseudohistoriography. The result was a mashup of creativity and scholarship where the borders blurred. I was in love.<br /><br /><em>The Silmarillion</em> and what it inspired of my creative and intellectual work has had reverberations through most of my life. When I picked it up, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, but I was terrified to imagine that my love of writing and creativity should be a major part of my adult life. Becoming involved in the Tolkien fandom through my love of <em>The Silmarillion</em> empowered me to embrace my love of language as a core of who I am. I went back to graduate school. I became a teacher. I eventually earned my MA in the Humanities and have had my scholarly work published. All because of <em>The Silmarillion.</em><br /><br />Through the Tolkien fandom, I have gained confidence in my skill as an artist, my voice, and the importance of my work. I have met amazing, lifelong friends whom I cannot imagine my life without. I have done things (like present at conferences) and learned things (like web design) that I never would have imagined as the young undergrad picking up <em>The Silmarillion</em> for the first time.<br /><br />It's hard to imagine such a tiny action as picking up a book to read as having such far-ranging consequences. I still remember standing in the Barnes & Noble on The Avenue at White Marsh and holding my now-battered <em>Silmarillion</em> in my hands, deciding to spend my meager money to have more of this world, clueless that I had just decided to change my life. It's humbling and scary to realize that one's life is very rarely shaped by huge forces or in moments that one recognizes as turning points but in the tiniest of decisions that, looking back, set off a cascade of forces so that nothing was ever the same again. It is both frightening and hopeful to step daily into a world where that is possible.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=dawn_felagund&ditemid=402244" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-08-20:547323:402012 Fandom Snowflake Challenge: Day 1 2017-01-02T02:50:05Z 2017-01-02T02:50:05Z *silence* contemplative public 6 I am going to try to do the <a href="http://snowflake-challenge.dreamwidth.org/">Fandom Snowflake challenge</a> this year. Like all of it. I usually do a day here or there, but I've liked journaling daily as part of the photo-of-the-day (although if my performance on that is any indication, then I'll miss a few days of Snowflake as well).<br /><br />Day One's challenge is:<br /><br /><blockquote>In your own space, post a rec for at least three fanworks that you have created. It can be your favorite fanworks that you've created, or fanworks you feel no one ever saw, or fanworks you say would define you as a creator. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.</blockquote><br /><br />So *rubs hands together* ... let's dive in!<br /><br />I've self-recced stories for Fandom Snowflake and other challenges before, and my stories are the first place my brain tends to go when asked for self-recs. But I'm going to mix things up a little bit and also, in the spirit of the Snowflake Challenge, break the rules a little by only reccing two things. But they are two big things! So maybe that counts for something.<br /><br />I am reccing the two sites that I built and that I currently help moderate: the <a href="http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/">Silmarillion Writers' Guild</a> (which I also founded and own) and <a href="http://lotrgfic.com/">Many Paths to Tread</a>.<br /><br />Really, as far as fanworks that define me as a creator, here you have it. Yes yes, I've spent many hundreds of hours writing stories, and I'm not going to play coy and pretend that some of those stories haven't been important to the <em>Silmarillion</em> fandom, but deciding to turn my energies to learning web design now more than ten years ago was life-changing and--I like to hope--something that shaped the Tolkien fandom in positive directions.<br /><br />For anyone who doesn't know the story, I decided to found the SWG after a night of insomnia in which I decided that the Internet needed a <em>Silmarillion</em>-only group and I should be the one to build it. I chickened out immediately upon setting up the SWG on Yahoo! Groups (remember that?!) and LiveJournal, but thankfully I was found by Uli/ford_of_bruinen, who would become my first comod, and pushed me to follow through on my dream. When SWG members wanted an archive, I set about learning to do what I'd need to do to build one. I taught myself HTML and CSS from books and started working with eFiction. This led the LotRGen moderators to approach me about building a site for them. I was impressed with the fact that, as a genfic group in an anti-slash point in fandom history, they were open to allowing any stories at an R-rating on below on the site, regardless of the orientation of the couple(s) in the story. So I agreed to help them build their site, and that brought me to MPTT.<br /><br />I say all this because I've been in the Tolkien fandom for a long time now, and I'm seeing things start to change in ways that I don't like, namely that Tolkien fandom is becoming increasingly comfortable with centralization, and many fans are losing their self-sufficiency in the process. Back in the day, there were dozens of homegrown groups <em>owned by people in the Tolkien fandom,</em> and it wasn't particularly extraordinary to do what I did and learn specialized skills in order to run fandom projects. Plenty of people who couldn't do much more than switch on the computer when they started in fandom learned to write HTML, design graphics, and manage online communities.<br /><br />There are disadvantages to local control, whether in government or fandom and I won't pretend this was always utopian, but one thing was certain: We did not depend on the blessing or existence of anyone but ourselves and our own minds and hands to have our communities. I will be blunt: I dislike how centralized Tolkien fandom has become. I dislike the snide way people look down their noses at websites like mine because we're not as advanced as AO3. I dislike how everything is on AO3 or Tumblr now. And let me be perfectly clear: I am on AO3 and Tumblr both myself. I have no problem with either site. I like both sites. I was an extremely early adopter and supporter of AO3 and continue to think that they are very much a needed part of the fan community. Notice I said "part." <strong>Because AO3 and Tumblr are not the Tolkien fandom, y'all. WE are the Tolkien fandom.</strong> These sites will not represent and defend our interests when they are different from Fandom as a whole. If you need proof, just look at the <a href="http://ao3org.tumblr.com/post/139464043573/recent-changes-to-canonical-character-tags-for">AO3 piped tag debacle</a>, in which AO3 told Tolkien fandom to go fuck itself rather than listen to feedback about a usable system for tagging characters and pairings. And our fandom is weird. Tolkien-based fanfic is more than fifty years old; we have a history and a complex canon that is unlike any other fan community. Our needs are and will continue to differ from Fandom as a whole, and we deserve sites run by people from our own communities that listen to our needs and interests.<br /><br />For my part, I plan to continue to fight to keep my sites alive and relevant. They are my proudest achievement in this fandom, and I continue to believe strongly that they are needed and important. I hope Tolkien fans reading here will make more of an effort in 2017 to support a Tolkien fandom site or project. Post your stories to a Tolkien archive; comment on something that <em>isn't</em> on AO3 or Tumblr; volunteer to help with an event or challenge. It doesn't have to be the SWG or MPTT, but do <em>something</em> to keep our Tolkien fandom institutions alive.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=dawn_felagund&ditemid=402012" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-08-20:547323:401835 Sliding into 2017 Standing Sideways. And My Yule Exchange Story. 2017-01-02T01:19:14Z 2017-01-02T01:19:43Z Bobby listening to George Michael, RIP pleased public 0 I have been promising Bobby that I would learn to snowboard for a couple of years now. Of course, until last year, I was working on my MA as well as teaching full-time (and commuting two hours a day and trying to have a social life and taking care of multiple fandom projects ...) So it just wasn't in the cards.<br /><br />But this year, I had no further <strike>excuses</strike> reasons not to learn. I have enough time, and since Bobby works at Jay Peak and I am his lawfully wedded wife, then I even get my season pass for free, so it's not like I'm even taking a financial risk in investing in a pass for a sport that I might hate or that might kill me or both.<br /><br />Well, I had my first lesson today and 1) I did not die. 2) I did not hurt myself. 3) I actually had fun!<br /><br />Bobby taught me himself, going through some basics on flat ground, then climbing about 20 feet up a tiny slight incline with me and running beside me holding my hands while I slid down. On my last run, I slid down entirely by myself, with no hand-holding needed (although he still jogged alongside me). I did not even fall (which I was a little worried about because I did not want to go back to work tomorrow injured in any way).<br /><br />I have all of my equipment except for my own board, which I rented for this first outing, because Bobby gets super pro discounts on stuff now. Here I am with my first stick:<br /><br /><a href="http://s1294.photobucket.com/user/dawn_felagund/media/Winter%202016-2017/20170101_150134_zps7xpkolm0.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/b615/dawn_felagund/Winter%202016-2017/20170101_150134_zps7xpkolm0.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 20170101_150134_zps7xpkolm0.jpg" width="400" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />We are at Burke Mountain, by the way, which is Jay Peak's sister mountain in the southern NEK. My next lesson will be at Jay Peak, in Bobby's familiar realm.<br /><br />I've also written a story for this year's MPTT Yule Fic Exchange. I know that was a 180 there. The story is called "The Ship of Light" and was written for Talullah Red, who asked for, "Elwing and Eärendil's first Yule in Sirion. I'd like something light and dark, please. Given the circumstances they would be traumatized, but the people around them would be making efforts for them and the other children. If you're one of the Nimloth-survives type, it's fine by me."<br /><br />Here is the Official Story Summary<sup>TM</sup>:<br /><br /><blockquote>Elwing is a troubled child, acting out to avoid facing the trauma of her past. During the survivors' first Yule at Sirion, mariners from Balar bring gifts to the refugees, and inspired by their benevolence, Elwing and Eärendil remake an old tradition into a new symbol of hope.</blockquote><br /><br />The story can be read on the <a href="http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewstory.php?sid=3032">SWG</a>, <a href="http://lotrgfic.com/viewstory.php?sid=3696">MPTT</a>, <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/9153286">AO3</a>, or <a href="http://lotr-community.livejournal.com/382734.html">LiveJournal</a>.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=dawn_felagund&ditemid=401835" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-08-20:547323:399091 Snowtography 2016-12-12T22:30:33Z 2016-12-12T22:30:33Z classical playlist on Spotify relaxed public 0 Last night we got quite a dumping of snow. There was about a foot (30 cm) piled up on the patio chairs this morning, although it's impossible to tell what of that was new and what was old--but most of it was new. The snow was also <em>powder,</em> that elusive substance so beloved by skiers and snowboarders.<br /><br />The result of this was that schools were closed! Bobby and I both anticipated a delay, but an all-out closure?? The outcome of this: I got to sleep in, Bobby got a powder day, and I went snowshoeing for the first time this year.<br /><br />I did not post my photo-a-day yesterday because I had an immensely productive day, which tend to look boring from the outside. I did not leave the house or take off my pajamas all day, most of which was spent in front of the computer. I got a bunch of fannish stuff done and worked through about half of a Drupal 8 course that I found on YouTube. (My Drupal textbook finally foiled me. It is for Drupal 7, so I was wasting so much time trying to find modules that were integrated into the core Drupal 8 software or that haven't been completed for Drupal 8 yet. I also didn't like that the book dived right into projects, thus presenting topics rather willy-nilly, to use the technical term for it. I like to see the big picture of how things are organized first; all that happens when I dive into things at random is that I can never find it again or figure out what exactly I did back when. I have a very taxonomic brain that likes a place for everything and everything in its place and to see how things relate and connect.) None of that stuff exactly provides inspiration for any photos that I think anyone wants to see. (Me in my pajamas staring zombie-like at a Drupal tutorial on YouTube?)<br /><br />Anyway, I hope to make up for yesterday's lack of photo by posting lots from my snowshoeing jaunt today. It felt good to get my legs under me again. The Nordic Center wasn't really open but they told Bobby over the phone that they didn't care if I went out as long as I didn't mind if the trails weren't groomed. As it was, one of the staff showed me a brand-new not-even-on-the-map-yet trail that he isn't even finished blazing yet, so I did that one. It took about an hour--not a long walk at all given some of my past outings--but with a foot of fresh powder and ungroomed terrain, it was quite a workout!<br /><br /><span class="cuttag_container"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b>(&nbsp;<a href="http://dawn-felagund.dreamwidth.org/399091.html#cutid1">Snowshoeing at Jay Peak</a>&nbsp;)</b><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div></span><br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=dawn_felagund&ditemid=399091" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-08-20:547323:398641 2 Photos/2 Days + 1 Unsolved Mystery 2016-12-10T22:22:31Z 2016-12-10T22:22:31Z blaring classical music in headphones that doesn't drown out the TV Xmas music calm public 0 I took a photo for yesterday but didn't post it, so today I have <em>two</em> (okay, actually <em>three</em>) photos, plus a very annoying unsolved mystery.<br /><br />Last night, we went out for dinner at the Thai restaurant in Newport. They also have sushi--and a phenomenal sushi chef--and I have been fiending for sushi something fierce. Twice, I have gone to places with great sushi, and they haven't had it at that particular moment for whatever reason. Thankfully, as the saying goes, three is a charm, and I succeeded in getting my sushi! At last!<br /><br />Dusit Thai is a beautiful restaurant in addition to having incredible food. It's my favorite restaurant in Vermont, hands down, and there is some pretty steep competition for that title.<br /><br /><a href="http://s1294.photobucket.com/user/dawn_felagund/media/Photo%20a%20Day/20161209_181337_zpsbcpgyzpx.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/b615/dawn_felagund/Photo%20a%20Day/20161209_181337_zpsbcpgyzpx.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 20161209_181337_zpsbcpgyzpx.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />Their portions are huge, so Bobby and I shared a spicy eggplant stirfry that we'd never tried before and will definitely have again. I've never tried anything off of their stirfry menu because I tend to hear "stirfry" and think "boring," but this was far from boring. Then we shared three sushi rolls.<br /><br />Bobby had rented a movie for us for the night, and this is where the annoying unsolved mystery comes in. When he picked me up from school, he told me that he rented a DVD, and I saw it on the floor behind my feet, sitting on a pile of bungee cords. Somewhere between that time and our return from the Thai restaurant, the DVD disappeared.<br /><br />In between, we went to the Thai restaurant and, after that, shopping at the natural market, so I got out of the car just once after he picked me up from school. All the same, given where it was placed--behind my feet--and how high off the ground our car is, it is unlikely that it fell out of the car. We tore apart the house and car--looking in and under things, including many places where it could not possibly be--and even drove back to Newport and checked where we parked the car, in case it had fallen out. NOTHING. We came up with multiple theories that were shot down one by one. It's so frustrating! Our house is small, and it's pretty impossible to lose things here. I am hoping that when we return to the video store to cop to losing the movie that the owner will tell us that someone found it in Newport and turned it in. But I highly doubt that it could have fallen out of the car.<br /><br />My best theory at this point? That there was some kind of anomaly in the universe and it simply disappeared!<br /><br />Today, Bobby went to Jay Peak to snowboard. Since the Yaris isn't appropriate for driving in the snow--we intend to replace it as soon as we can sell our house in Maryland--then we are sharing the Subaru, so I went with him, had breakfast with him, then drove back to Newport to run errands. One of which was getting my library card at the Newport Library! An actual library that is open every day except Sunday and has a lot of books for all audiences! Maybe because I look like someone who would avail herself of this or maybe because she tells everyone, the young woman who helped me informed me without my asking that I would be able to use interlibrary loan after three months in good standing.<br /><br />I of course visited the fantasy section and was delighted to find a pretty nice selection. I was amused by the arrangement of genres, however.<br /><br /><a href="http://s1294.photobucket.com/user/dawn_felagund/media/Photo%20a%20Day/20161210_115225_zpsopdbfowb.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/b615/dawn_felagund/Photo%20a%20Day/20161210_115225_zpsopdbfowb.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 20161210_115225_zpsopdbfowb.jpg" width="300" /></a><br /><br /><br />It seems like this would be controversial in a lot of places in the U.S. to have these two side by side! I imagine little church ladies glowering at ... well, people like me!<br /><br />Then I went back to Jay Peak to meet Bobby for lunch and wait for him to go home. Jay Peak has received four feet of snow so far this year. It has received more snow than Breckenridge in Colorado and Jackson Hole in Wyoming. According to Bobby, "The goods are in the woods," and it was a very good day. The mountain will be all open very soon; the only reason it is not already (with four feet of snow!) is that the famed tramway needed a special part for a repair, which has arrived and was being done this weekend. Parts of the mountain are only accessible via the tramway, so they have been unable to get all open because of that.<br /><br /><a href="http://s1294.photobucket.com/user/dawn_felagund/media/Photo%20a%20Day/20161210_145058_zpsbchdyjgb.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/b615/dawn_felagund/Photo%20a%20Day/20161210_145058_zpsbchdyjgb.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 20161210_145058_zpsbchdyjgb.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />All of this snow is <em>much</em> needed. Jay Peak (and Burke Mountain in the southern NEK) became embroiled last year in a financial scandal due to the crooked dealings of their owner, who is now under federal investigation. It's a long and convoluted story, but the gist was that major expansions at Jay Peak that were done using local labor and businesses went unpaid-for. And this is not, as anyone who reads here knows, a wealthy area. The Northeast Kingdom is very low-income. These were contractors and workers who did work on the resort and were never paid for it. The threat that the resort would close (or be temporarily shut down) added an element of distress because so many people depend on the resort for their employment. And again, this is not an area that can weather a lot of economic distress.<br /><br />To add insult to injury, last year, the snowfall in Vermont was exceedingly low--the NEK didn't even have a white Christmas--and the resort suffered even further from that. So the snowfall this year--among the best the resort has ever had--could not come at a better, more-needed time.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=dawn_felagund&ditemid=398641" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-08-20:547323:397599 What Do You Have in Your Hand? I Got Me a Pair of Wilds! 2016-12-07T03:02:50Z 2016-12-07T03:02:50Z Christmas music on the t00b. Jollitude! tired public 0 The Goldens have always been also named The Wilds. Alex and Lance were The Wilds, and now Lance and Gwen are also The Wilds.<br /><br />People often speculate, "I wonder what my dog does when I'm not home?" I'm fairly certain I know what The Wilds do when we're not home. Spending both weekend days home with them revealed that all they do? Is sleep.<br /><br />This was The Wilds over the weekend, both knocked out cold on the floor of my study while I worked.<br /><br /><a href="http://s1294.photobucket.com/user/dawn_felagund/media/Wilds/20161203_144945_zps9joym3zn.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/b615/dawn_felagund/Wilds/20161203_144945_zps9joym3zn.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 20161203_144945_zps9joym3zn.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br />Guinevere has taken to not wanting to get out of bed in the morning and installing herself on the guest room bed. Bobby's staff holiday party for Jay Peak was tonight, and when we got home, we had to call her about five times before she finally deigned to come see us. And this was after a full day of doing what you see in the picture above.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=dawn_felagund&ditemid=397599" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-08-20:547323:395271 Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner! (And Other NaNews) 2016-11-20T19:56:33Z 2016-11-20T19:57:18Z Queen, "Fat-Bottomed Girls" triumphant public 0 <img src="http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/b615/dawn_felagund/Online%20Effluvia/NaNoWriMo_2016_WebBadge_Winner_zpshl4amted.png" border="0" alt="2016 NaNoWriMo Winner" align="left" width="150" style="padding-right:10px;" />I officially reached the 50K mark on <em>Tamlin</em> last night, just in time to claim an official NaNoWriMo win today. The novel itself is not finished, but it actually <em>is</em> getting close. I am in the part of the story that I think of as the Let's All Go to the Underworld! part. It has maybe 10K left in it? (Which probably means more like 15-20K because it's me and I am a champ at underestimating things.)<br /><br />What is really amazing to me is that I still want to write this story. I think about it all the time. I wish I was writing it now! (I need to decide if I want to go there when I still have Thanksgiving preparation chores to do. Sometimes writing spoils me for anything productive!) When I finish this, it will be the first NaNovel that I actually do finish, sadly enough. The Midhavens novel I was writing needs a complete rewrite (much like <em>Tamlin</em> did) because I've changed my mind so much, and I was writing another fantasy novel that I need to decide if I want to finish or not.<br /><br />But next up is the prequel to AMC, which was going to be my NaNo project until <em>Tamlin</em> spiraled beyond being a Haunted October story and into firm novel-length territory and demanded two months to write.<br /><br />I'm going to keep entering my word count till the end of the month so that I can have the data and will ramble at some point in the near future about what I learned from this experience. Because that's what NaNo is to me: a reason to prioritize working on a big project for one full month and the opportunity to learn what works for me and doesn't as a writer. Interestingly, based on word count data, my habits as a writer have changed since the last time I did NaNo, which I suspect is the result of disciplining myself through a humanities MA and Master's thesis. But more on that later.<br /><br />This is cool too: A couple of weeks ago, I posted offhand to Twitter about doing NaNo and mentioned the writer's club I was starting at my school. A few days later, I was contacted by a journalist from the education website The 74, wanting to interview me for an article she was writing about teachers using NaNoWriMo with students. I checked in with my principal to make sure it was okay to talk to her, and he was thrilled and gave me the green light. Well, <a href="https://www.the74million.org/article/what-a-novel-idea-kids-take-up-challenge-to-pen-50000-words-during-natl-novel-writing-month">the article is online</a>! I'm about halfway through, rambling about tea and the culture of persistence and the importance of giving opportunities to write to kids in disadvantaged communities.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=dawn_felagund&ditemid=395271" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-08-20:547323:394997 NaNoData 2016-11-13T02:32:09Z 2016-11-13T02:32:09Z classical playlist on Spotify accomplished public 0 I am power-walking my way through NaNoWriMo. Not quite running! I'm not done yet, and I know there are people who are. But I'm bookin' like an octogenarian mall walker who heard they're giving away free cups of decaf in the food court! (Seriously, I used to work in a mall--those people would run you over!)<br /><br />Today has been my best day so far with just under 7500 words written. I like the new NaNoWriMo site; it graphs your progress for you, so I do not have to make an Excel graph as in years past.<br /><br /><a href="http://s1294.photobucket.com/user/dawn_felagund/media/Web%20Stuffs/nanowrimo11122016_zpspiaxlgjk.png.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/b615/dawn_felagund/Web%20Stuffs/nanowrimo11122016_zpspiaxlgjk.png" border="0" alt=" photo nanowrimo11122016_zpspiaxlgjk.png" /></a><br /><br />You can tell this was a long weekend: I had two strong days in a row. (My goal for each day this weekend is 5000 words.) You can also see Election Day: The one day I made no progress at all. I was too nervous to write.<br /><br />The NaNo site estimates me finishing by Friday. I don't need to finish that soon, but I did want to have the bulk of the project finished before my family arrives for Thanksgiving since I can't count on any writing time from that Tuesday through Saturday.<br /><br />What is interesting is that, in past years, I would have a strong day with a high word count followed by two or three days with more modest progress. This year, my progress much more closely follows my work week. Capping 2000 words is REALLY hard on a school night. In addition to my writing time competing with the work I sometimes bring home, I'm generally exhausted by the time I get to finally sit at my desk. I fell asleep while writing my novel this past Wednesday (because I hadn't slept much or well on Election Day and then had a long workday and resisted taking a nap). So you can see I barely made any progress that day.<br /><br />It seems now that I <em>can</em> have two days in a row with a high word count: yesterday and today! Will I be able to to 5000 again tomorrow? It will be interesting to see. Based on past study of my NaNo progress, I would have doubted my ability to do over 5000 <em>today</em>. And indeed, I did put off getting started by working on some SWG stuff that has needed doing for a while. But once I began, I was off to the races.<br /><br />In any case, "Tamlin" definitely has 15,000 more words in it, though probably not much beyond that, which will put it at 75,000 words total, much longer than I expected it to be (but that's always the way with me). I should probably call it <em>Tamlin</em> now; it will definitely be a novel, though on the shorter side of that classification.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=dawn_felagund&ditemid=394997" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-08-20:547323:394164 And It Begins ... 2016-10-30T19:07:42Z 2016-10-30T19:07:42Z the moldy oldies hungry public 1 I am presently sitting in a rather rigid chair, listening to moldy oldies and bubblegum pop being broadcast over a loudspeaker. My feet are cold. I can smell chili and it's making me hungry, but not <em>that</em> hungry since I just finished off a bottled tea that cost me five dollars.<br /><br />In other words: The Season has begun! I am in a ski resort!<br /><br />Killington Resort in central Vermont generally aims to be the first resort open each year in the continental U.S. For the past few years, they made it; this year, A-Basin in Colorado beat them to it by a few days. It looks like a pretty ukky day from my vantage point by a picture window in the lodge: gray, overcast, the tops of the mountains swathed in fog. But Killington has five expert-level trails open today so--hot dog!--here I am, getting work done on my computer while Bobby crams as many runs in on those five trails as humanly possible! At least it appears to have stopped raining.<br /><br />It took a lot longer to get here than I expected: more than two hours. Meh. But we are stopping on the way home at what's supposed to be a good restaurant here in Killington. And, as I have found to be true of most ski resorts and the round of ice rinks I attended before them, I find it's really easy to concentrate and get work done. At home, I have more distractions and things I'd rather be doing. I am hoping that by the time I'm home, all of my work is done. (I'm actually mostly planned for the week at this point, which is pretty excellent, especially since tomorrow is Halloween and we will observe Samhain on Tuesday, so I won't want to be stuck with hours of at-home work on those nights.)<br /><br />Jay Peak has been getting nonstop snow all week (as we've been getting nonstop rain down in the valley, which we need since we were in the early stages of drought), so hopefully they will be open soon too and we won't have to drive two hours for Bobby to have the opportunity to stand sideways.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=dawn_felagund&ditemid=394164" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments
http://dawn-felagund.dreamwidth.org/data/atom
dawn-felagund.dreamwidth.org
crawl=CC-MAIN-2017-17
122187
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:RLU4G5R4PYKCNGOXX6U6R2ESNZKM4HGZ
<urn:uuid:ea074492-30be-4140-ae8c-120fef36010d>
2017-04-29T07:21:57Z
52.204.152.41
sha1:ADRKBMPEFQVMTWFJL5ASF7QSO6XN4HNP
<urn:uuid:f7dc893c-3678-4622-98a6-c6b87c294713>
http://dawn-felagund.dreamwidth.org/data/atom
response
<urn:uuid:91a8d7c2-61fe-4900-abc5-0c4dd7dd1eb1>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2017-17
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for April 2017
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf