ofcatsandwomen

I just realized yesterday that I haven't updated my LJ in forever. I guess that between my Daredevil blog, writing fic (latest one here: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5034023/1/) and having a special project at work, there's not much time for anything else. I noticed that I mentioned my Twitter account in my last post below. I should mention that I've "doubled up" since. I use ChristineH77 for work (and don't use it much at all frankly) and to tweet in Swedish. My main Twitter account is connected to my Daredevil blog, and my user name there is TOMurdockPapers. Just so you know.

Speaking of fic, I'm still waiting for my latest story to be listed on FanFiction.net. The link is live, but it has yet to be included in the listings and it's been almost 24 hours since I posted it. If nothing happens soon I'm going to have to ask about that. I worry about it being censored since it has "explicit sexuality" in it. However, it's not really a het fic, but very gen and quite innocent. I rated it M and put a nice little warning in the summary. If this gets booted off FF, it won't do much for my already poor view on the hysterical American fear of sexuality (while violence in movies doesn't seem to bother anyone).

Anyway, enough about that. I'll try to post more regularly. Because of my current workload, I'm also officially on hiatus from posting to Theatrical Muse (using the mmmurdock account), but I'll try to get to that too. There's got to be some fun mixed up with the blood sweat and tears. Although I like the blood sweat and tears too. :)

Good news: Just took the cat to the vet. Her diabetes is much better (yippie!), but she has a bladder infection (yuck).

Bad news: My apartment looks like a freaking war zone. After buying a bunch of new closets, I still have to finish organizing everything. I need to throw out a bunch of stuff (like, A LOT), sort through the rest, and it's a little overwhelming to be honest. I'm looking forward to have it all over with though. I'm also considering taking out a second mortgage to fix my kitchen. We'll see about that.

Challenge of the week: I have a formal ball on Saturday and I'm about one pound from fitting into my gown. I can totally do it. I WANT TO BELIEVE!

What I'm looking forward to: I'm just eleven days away from going to Seattle for the first time in two and a half years (I've generally gone once a year to visit the family I stayed with as an exchange student back in 95/96). I am so unbelievably exicted! This is also the first vacation I've gone on since I started my new job, and I feel like I need a breather.

Okay, back to dealing with the apartment...

I haven't posted to this blog in a while, so to those who follow it (can't be that many, but still), here's what I've been up to.

1) Most of my LJ activity has been restriced to posting to Theatrical Muse via my Matt Murdock "pup." You can find that journal here: mmmurdock 

2) I keep posting quite regularly on my Daredevil blog The Other Murdock Papers. I'm quite proud of it and I'm considering letting that blog get its own home here at LJ too, for networking purposes and to post highlights. It won't mean keeping two blogs, just trying to take advantage of some of the benefits of the LJ platform.

3) I still write quite a bit of fanfic which I post to fanfiction.net (my username here is the same as it is there).

4) I'm in the process of getting my old bona fide personal website back online too. When I do, I'll link to it.

5) Feel free to follow me on Twitter. My user name is ChristineH77.

6) I obviously never completed NaNoWriMo. I know, my bad. Better luck next year, I guess. In my defense, November was a busy month for me and I have actually kept working on that novel I was going to write. I'm only up to a few thousand words, but I'll keep it up until I reach the finish line.

7) This has nothing to do with me, but I want everyone who's into DD to read the latest fic from my buddy girlwithoutfear . Her stuff on fanfiction.net can be found under that username as well. Here's to you "Diva," and good luck with the braille course!

That's it for now!

Since I have a DD-fic addiction, and just noticed that the character was up for grabs at Theatrical Muse, I jumped at the chance to channel some Daredevil. My new Matt Murdock pup has a journal here and will remain active through NaNoWriMo, though I probably won't be able to update Lost and Found at FanFiction.net until December.

Speaking of NaNoWriMo, it's only a few hours away now. However, I won't get to work at midnight. I'll wait until the morning when I will also be giving my cat her first insulin shot (she was just diagnosed with diabetes). That will be something to look forward to! Yes, I'm being sarcastic. I swear it won't spill over into my writing. I hope.

Okay, this is all girlwithoutfear 's fault. I just went and signed up for NaNoWriMo. My goal is to write an in-continuity Daredevil novel by the end of November. And no, this isn't just some random fanfic project since my goal is to not post it on FanFiction.net but to actually submit it to Marvel. Am I crazy? Maybe. Time will tell.

In the meantime I'm going to have a lot of things to finish up so I can have the time to devote to this. I'll be submitting the 20th chapter of Lost and Found on FanFiction.net and try to have another chapter by the end of the week to upload the following Tuesday. However, during the month of November there will be no further updates. I'm also going to have to stockpile posts for The Other Murdock Papers so I have something to post in November. I'm sure I can muster an occasional update on top of everything else I have to write, but I'm trying to go easy on myself here. Phew!

What is wrong with me? I have this one project I have to finish by tomorrow (and it would only take me about five hours to do it too) and I've been putting it off since Friday. I have been working on it today and I could probably have it done in three at this point, but I still find myself doing what exactly? Well, here's a list:

1) Writing this meaningless post
2) Checking the stats on my Fanfiction.net account
3) Checking MWOF every ten minutes for updates
4) Spending thirty minutes in the MWOF chat
5) Cuddling with my cat
6) Playing with my new camera phone (hey, it's actually like a real camera!)
7) Checking LJ for updates
8) Calliing my brother to tell him how stressed out I am about this project I'm working on (although that phone call generated an hour of actual work...)
9) Going in the kitchen every thirty minutes to make coffee, only because I need an excuse to get away from the computer
10) Catching up with some old friends via email. Although, this is pretty good since I've been too out of it to really keep track of half of these people for the last six months. Now, with my new job on the horizon (yea!) I feel like I'm actually alive again. I guess that's what it takes to make you realize you haven't been yourself for the last three years, which you spent without any real sense of direction in anything you did. I'm thirty years old, I live with my cat and I haven't had a relationship in four years. Yeah, I need a change. Desperately. Thank God I at least have a fairly busy social life.
11) Updating some features on my blog. Yeah, I love working on that thing. It's my baby, my labor of love. I added a bookmarking button and a subscribe by email form to my Daredevil cartoon. It was a lot of fun but it doesn't pay the bills.
12) I went to the mall and bought a danish I shouldn't be eating. I'm not actually overweight or anything but this is still feeling like emotional over-eating and you know that can't be good.
13) I cooked lunch. That wasn't very healthy either.
14) Cuddling with my cat some more.
15) Not working.
16) Still not working.

I'm freaking out over this so badly I just want to cry right now. I shouldn't even be doing this gig. Some statistician should be doing this, I'm just an engineer who's really more into the humanities anyway. But I do this every month, and get paid insanely good money for it. That should make me feel better, but it doesn't. It just makes the pressure that much worse and makes me feel like a fake. Except the people I work for are very happy since they have no idea what it is I do anyway. And no, I'm not actually doing a bad job, but it stresses me out that I have no one to double-check any of this with. I don't want to do this, but I know I have to. That sucks. I need a hug. Maybe I'll go talk to the cat some more...

Sentence just read on FanFiction.net (though I won't say where, 'cause that would just be mean):

"The former cereal killer turned Super villain laughed insanely."

I know it's silly, but that just made my day. :) Watch out Cheerios!

In other news, getting actual work done today... Good for me. And I'm doing laundry. By the end of the weekend, I might actually have my act together.

I just wrote a new fic yesterday, for anyone who's interested. The first chapter of five is up on fanfiction.net. The following information has been cross-posted to marvel_fic:

Fandom: Daredevil
Summary: The first of five chapters exploring the five senses from Matt Murdock's perspective. All are first-person narratives. The first chapter is called The Beach and focuses on the sense of sound, featuring a flashback to Matt and Foggy's younger days.
Rating: K+
Word count: 1 800
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Marvel owns everything.

Story here: LINK

Well, I don't do much around here except check my Friends page every day (well, except for when I post a new fic), but hopefully that will change. Not only will I try to write more fics - because it's so darn fun - but I'll try to post just regular entries more often as well. If anyone missed it when I posted it to the marvel_fic community, here's my latest fanfic dealing with the Matt/Peter relationship after One More Day. It's called Discontinuity and is a very strange tale so I'm surprised by the positive feedback so far.

Not only am I having huge problems concentrating on work (and I mean totally anxiety provoking stuff here...), but my latest DD fanfic has me stumped as well. I have a lot of material (15 000 words so far, and I'm only on the first chapter...), but writing the characters has never been this challenging before. Writing a grown-up version of Matt and Foggy, where Foggy knows Matt's secret, is easy. But what I'm trying to do this time is write their first week together in college in relative detail. Yeah, that first chapter I mentioned is Day 1. No kidding. I know I'm far from the first person to write a "Matt and Foggy in college" fic, but with all the stuff going into this one, and especially with them getting to know each other, I'm having a heck of a time. I'm mostly writing this post to help with my own creative progress, but DD lovers everywhere are more than welcome to chime in. I would appreciate your perspectives. Here are some of my problems:

The supersized Christmas special dramedy sequel to Revenge by Deodorant and Grown Men in Costume, where we find out everything about Miss Piggy, Danny Rand's favorite hobby, Foggy's special project, and the identity of Matt's secret Santa.

Fandom: Daredevil
Characters: Matt Murdock, Foggy Nelson, Dakota North, Becky Blake, Milla Donovan.
Rating: T
Word count: 9 900
Disclaimer: I own nothing, Marvel owns (almost everything), and I'm making no money off of this whatsoever.

Story  HERE.

I have now posted a sequel to Revenge by Deodorant to be found at FanFiction.net. Here's the link.

Background:

This piece was inspired by an exchange I had with someone on the Man Without Fear message board (and will be cross-posted to the fanfic section of that site). We were talking about the idea that Matt’s sense of smell would probably greatly influence his perceptions of people, and I suggested that anyone who receives a deodorant from Matt Murdock for Christmas would be well-advised to use it. So I basically took that idea a little further and went insane. This fanfic is 2,585 words and features Matt and Peter Parker. As for the character of Peter, I’m completely ignoring the fall-out of Civil War and his subsequent unmasking. Otherwise, it would be hard to think of a storyline where Matt would want to be seen with him in public. As for DD continuity, this takes place after Matt gets his life back, and before it takes a dramatic turn for the worse.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Marvel owns everything. Well, except the Muppets and the Smurfs (don’t ask). I have no idea who owns them, but it sure isn’t me.