Over dinner tonight melliyna were chatting about parent/child relationships in various fandoms and how much we loved them and how there should be more fic for it. Which, of course, suggests a ficathon is in need - a prompt based one rather than an exchange, since that requires less work and because it's quite a diverse list of fandoms. Well, will be. We came up with a list between us of:

-Elrond and Aragorn (Lord of the Rings)
-Sarah and Luke (Sarah Jane Adventures)
-Seven and Ace (Doctor Who)
-Three and Jo (Doctor Who)
-Giles and Buffy (Buffy)
-Jonathan, Martha and Clark Kent (Smallville)
-Jed and Sam, CJ, Josh (The West Wing)
-Sirius and Harry (Harry Potter)
-Ten and Jenny (Doctor Who)
-Xander, Tara and Dawn (Buffy)
-Gibbs and Abby (NCIS)
-Jack and Mickey (The Bill)
-Sarah and Lavinia (Doctor Who)

Anyone think of any more?

Edit to add:
-Teal'c and Rya'c (Stargate)
-Bra'tac and Teal'c (Stargate)
-Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Star Wars)

And people have come up with nice long lists on the LJ version of this post

Including such excitements as car insurance letters, openid and ficathon writing. Read more...

I had plans to do all sorts of things today, but then I got up at 11am, went out for lunch at 12pm and didn't get back till 4.30pm. However, I managed to post my story for the Ian/Barbara ficathon: At the Beginning so now my page with the list of all the fic I've posted on with the calendar at the top has an entry for 2008. It was actually quite nice to be able to post it without having to fiddle with the date - so much easier.

I've also been reading all the other stories posted, although they've all merged in my mind so I'll have to go back and work out if I'm going to review any for selenay936's site.

I did also edit another chapter of my TARDIS Big Bang fic. It's now at 19,000 words and 22 chapters to go to finish v2. Might take a while.

I don't usually write this fast, I swear but my Remix fic is in beta already. I was quite amused to see the letter from the person I'm remixing for since I'd already looked through what they'd written, so the letter to say here's where it is and what it's like was entirely superfluous. And the 'what I like' bit obviously was since this is a write for yourself ficathon.

I also worked on my Big Bang fic, which actually went quite well once I got into it. I now have 17,600 words, some of them better than others and most of them dialogue.

For this year's Back to Middle-earth Month, I'm reading. I have 24 email alerts from Stories of Arda dating back to January last year. So I am going to work my way through those, hopefully read some older ones to review for Sel, and maybe have a look at some authors I haven't read.

Since it won't be much of a B2MEM without me writing about it in here, I'm also going to talk about what I've read:

Celebrían's Special Day by jay_of_lasgalen: Celebrían also has a special day, and Elladan and Elrohir plan a surprise for her - a greater surprise than they realise.

Dragons in the Trollshaws by bodkin_ra: A peril awakes that demands all Elladan and Elrohir's attention - and requires more than skill to defeat.

The Dwellings of the Dead by nilmandra007: The lands of the Dunedain of Cardolan are ravaged by war and plague. On a scouting expedition, Elrohir and Glorfindel discover that there is more to the decimated landscape than meets the eye.

Good things at the moment:

• I've finished my Ian/Barbara ficathon fic! By finished I mean it's betaed and even has a title and summary.
• I got my Remix assignment and have already decided what fic I'm going to remix and how I'm going to do it
• I took over as mod of oncoming_storms and changed the rules and posted some prompts and it has actually gone down well! Phew
• last.fm is playing me more songs I like and fewer I dislike these days, so it's actually learning nicely and I think I prefer it to Pandora now. So Pandora actually did me a favour by going US-only.
• It's the weekend
• The sun is shining
• I've actually done most of the things I need to do this weekend already. I'll leave a couple till tomorrow, though.
• I'm feeling slightly more like I might get all my ficathon commitments done along with everything else going on - specially in March
• I went to see Juno last night which was very good and cheered me up.
• Tonight I'm going to a school disco - but Rotaract run so more fun than the ones you can go to in clubs etc. Nothing I'm planning to wear bears any resemblance to my secondary school uniform.

This morning I woke up and was hot and couldn't find a cold bit of the bed. Given that I bought a double bed so that I could always find a cold bit, I just moved me and my pillows to the other side. Which was just as warm because it had a warm quilt covering it. Come summer I think I might be back to the single quilt so the bed's cooler.

I've had this slightly strange cold for a while and I can't quite be bothered going to see the doctor about it because she'll just say it's a lingering cold. Then I realised that I've had the same slightly strange cold this time of year for the third year running now. Which suggests I'm allergic to something. I would say flower pollen but it started before the flowers decided it was spring. It's a bit academic what it is, though, because the only thing to get rid of it is hayfever medicine. Since it costs £5 for a bottle that lasts 10 days and tastes horrible, I don't feel so bad I want to take it.

Wooho! My Ian/Barbara fic now has about 1000 words and is nearly finished. I did have three v1s of it, two half the size of the first one. But now I know what I'm writing about, which is much better. And I have a few pieces from the first version of v1 that I could potentially re-use sometime later.

A fanfiction meme from pretty much everyone else by this point:

The thing is, when people look for stories, they always make it sound like badfic. Now, often that's because it really is badfic, but sometimes it's good and they just suck at describing the story.
So, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to summarise badly any one (or more!) of my stories and I'll try to guess which it is. You could even pretend you don't remember the pairing or fandom to make it harder to guess.

Here's a handy link to all my fanfic to help you

Sunday night it had got to the point where I'd had my Ian/Barbara ficathon prompt for nearly a week and still hadn't come up with anything beyond a setting, which isn't terrifically helpful. So I put on a relevant episode and then wrote 250 words.

And then didn't quite round to having any time to write any more. Not that I had a clue where to go from there - and all of the prompts on the list this was one of my favourites too, so I can't blame the prompt. But on my way home I thought of something and now I have 1400 words! It's not terribly cohesive and doesn't really go anywhere, but at least that's something to start with.

Now I really need to think about my SJA ficathon too. And the TARDIS Big Bang one. I am determined to get the first two written by the end of next week before I have a busy couple of weeks, then I'll have time for Remix and getting the second draft of Big Bang written. Since, as usual, I've picked a ficathon to write something different, I might need to get it betaed for plot before I worry that much about the words.

I'm looking forward to being less busy. In July, maybe.

I thought I was being really good in actually making an appointment to go to the dentist. I think it was a year ago they sent me a reminder to go. It had been long enough that I'd forgotten how much I hate it. And how much my bank balance hates it (you can't get NHS dentists round here). For once I didn't get the usual lecture about how badly I clean my teeth. I'd have preferred it, though, because I have a wisdom tooth decaying, so it needs to come out.

I can at least get it done under general anaesthetic - it's interesting how quickly my dentists work out how much of a good idea that is with me. The most annoying thing about it is that that tooth was a complete bugger coming up and it took years for it to do it too. I can totally understand why teething babies scream - it's bloody painful!

I got my Ian/Barbara ficathon assignment today. I've got as far as working out the setting, I just need some sort of plot so I can write it this weekend.

I went to see St Trinian's this evening, which was really funny. It wasn't filmed at the place where I've been to a ball - I think the cinema got confused on their leaflet (they had the right town, wrong posh place). Needless to say, as there are only four actors in Britain (all of whom have been in The Bill and Doctor Who), I recognised quite a few of them. And the head cameraman is my friend's neighbour. And his wife is a script editor, apparently.

Yesterday I went to London to the Maritime Museum with gmul. We managed to get round the whole place, but it wasn't half knackering. Photos will be forthcoming when I can be bothered to plug the camera in. When I got back to the train station at 8pm half the car was iced up and when I pulled on the door handle to open the drivers door, nothing happened. Fortunately it did the second time.

I have some very nice mango & passionfruit ice cream that I found in the big Tescos recently. Sadly, though, I have proved tonight that it makes me ill. Despite there being nothing in it that I am intolerant to. Honestly - I've checked the ingredients list three times. Unless it's soya and I refuse to be interolant to soya. I just have to decide whether to finish it.

Tomorrow I'm going to see the St Trinians film - I discovered it was filmed nearby in a place where I've been to a ball! So that should be interesting to see, for that, if nothing else.

My ficathon signing up knows no bounds, as I now have the Ian/Barbara one due mid-March, the SJA one due at the end of March and Remix due early April. And TARDIS Big Bang draft due mid-March (that part is done, thank goodness), except the whole thing is due end of May, so I have to be good when I'm in and get lots written. And then relax in June.

• I don't know what it is but a few weeks ago, after much drilling and hammering my upstairs neighbours did something that makes a very loud transformer hum above my lounge. I don't hear it all the time, but then mostly it's covered up by the noise they make. It's quite annoying when I do hear it, but fortunately you can't hear it from anywhere else in the house.
• They also have one that I can hear best from one side of my bedroom - and that would be the side that I sleep on. I think that might be a fan heater either in their bedroom or bathroom, though. They tend to turn it on half an hour before my alarm goes off, which is really annoying - and it's so loud that not even ear plugs block it out.
• I don't know if it's the same thing but there's also an annoying transformer hum that's not steady and often goes on all night. That at least is blocked out by ear plugs, so every night this week I've worn them to sleep. Except last night when I only got woken up at 8am by one of them getting up to go to the toilet, but since I got back to sleep again, I didn't mind too much.
• Amazingly this morning they were quiet till 11.30 when they went through every TV channel at top volume, then put their music on loud. So I hoovered - and I have a Dyson which is the loudest hoover known to man. I'm still waiting for them to shut up and bugger off out so I can get some peace and quiet, though.
• I think March is going to be a tad busy, what with Eastercon and World Rotaract Week, I also signed up for another two ficathons. But I just couldn't not. I am constantly surprised that there's another two weeks left in February though. I think the weather makes me think it's spring. The flowers think it too, though, I've seen a few daffodils this week.

Happy Christmas to everyone that celebrates it, and happy bank holiday to anyone that doesn't.

I have a working 4oD and BBC iPlayer! There was a solution on the iPlayer forums, but annoyingly you can't search the forums. Basically, there was something wrong with the database. So I deleted it, reinstalled everything and now it's happy.

I obviously slept funny last night because my left shoulder & neck hurt, so apart from listening to Humph in Wonderland (they cut One Song to the Tune of the Other!) and watching an old Top Gear, I've mostly been reading Yuletide stories. I've read 16 so far but the best were the two written for me!

I had no idea you could get more than one story for Yuletide until I spent yesterday writing seven short ones. But I was lucky enough to get two longish ones, really good ones. I still need to go back and comment on the stories I've read, but since the comments are taking ages (I assume, since I've only had a fraction emailed to me of the ones posted) there's not really a great rush, as long as I get it done today. I am aiming to get them all read today, then I'll post a list of recs.

Dear Yuletide Author

This is the first time I've done Yuletide, so I'm just excited that I'll get a story to read on 25th December. I've tried to write my prompts using all the advice I can find, but basically, feel free to ignore anything I've written in there. What I wrote is what I'd most prefer, but at the end of the day I'd far rather get something well-written than something you're less happy with but fits in with what I've put.

Generally speaking, I love stories that make me laugh or make me cry. But I like pretty much anything in between too. What particularly fascinates me are the relationships between characters, whether romantic or not. So even if you're writing one of my prompts where I requested a pairing, I'll be just as happy if all you show between them is friendship. I like gen in all the fandoms I requested.

What I'd much rather not have in any of them is any sex above a PG-13 rating.

In all these fandoms, what I like are fics that read like they could be in the series, be they another episode/book/chapter or a missing scene (even if it's a missing scene that came through from a parallel universe).

I decided, this morning, to sign up for Yuletide. Everyone's starting to talk about it and I thought I'd try it once. It's for rare fandoms, for which the stories go up on 25th December, authors revealed on 1st January. I've been looking through the list of 1662 fandoms, trying to decide which to request and which to offer to write. Some of the ones on there surprise me.

I'm amazed at the number of books and (slightly obscure British TV series. And even more amazed that Blakes 7 is on there, because I wouldn't call that rare by any stretch of the imagination. Every time I think I wonder if X is on there, it generally is, unless it's very old. Although Dirk Gently is listed as The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul, so literally only covers that book, not any other of the series.

I was expecting The Bill to be full of new characters, but there are old ones on there too - Mike Dashwood, Ted Roach, Yorkie Smith are on the list. It's really interesting just looking through. Torchwood has been on there in the past, so I was wondering if SJA was, but it isn't. The Gallifrey audios are though. Even The Silmarillion is on there.

Just been to see Casino Royale and I really enjoyed it. Even though there was no Moneypenny or Q. But I liked the technology in it and the chase sequence at the beginning had me biting my fingernails. I wish Craig Daniel had kept his clothes on more often, though, that was not a pretty sight. But then he's generally not a pretty site. I hope they go back to dark haired handsome men next time. The part I didn't like was when I left and my car was not only steamed up but trying to ice up as well. And the water I left in there nearly froze my tongue off.

I did discover though that Ewan McGregor is in that film about Beatrix Potter. With a dodgy moustache. So I might have to see it. Contrary to all expectations, I don't like Peter Rabbit. I don't know why, so I'm not that excited about seeing a film about her. Or Ewan McGregor in a moustache. But then I saw two Star Wars films with him with long hair, a beard and doing a dodgy accent, so I expect I'll cope. I'm just glad his wife is sensible and prefers him clean-shaven.

I really enjoyed last night's Torchwood. So I was really surprised to read all the posts this morning from people hating it. It was a bit different because it didn't involve most of the Torchwood people but it was an excellent whodunnit. There were some things that didn't quite make sense but it was really interesting. And I'm reliably informed by my dad that the answer is a parabola; I didn't hear the question.

I went to get my post redirected this lunchtime. Which involved queueing in the post office for 10 minutes to get a form, then I joined the back of it again while I filled it in, then handed it in. I almost decided to come back later but it's not going to get better till after Christmas. I took a stack of things into work to phone to tell people I'm moving but only managed my car insurance (which doesn't change price, unlike my house insurance which saves me 64p). I know what I'm doing every lunchtime this week.

And lastly, I posted my entry to the SG Rare Pairings Ficathon: Never Easy, which is Jack/Elizabeth. There looks like being loads of interesting pairings there, I just need to find the time to read them.

When I checked my post last night I thought the calendar looked quite red. So I scrolled down and discovered that I've made more posts in November 2006 so far than any month since I started this blog back in July 2002.

Last night I had a really nice meal out in the new Italian restaurant they've opened in town. I've been there three times now and had something different each time! I could even have the sorbet, which there was loads of. Only problem was that since it contained mushrooms it proved that I have developed an intolerance to them. So I spent the rest of the night watching videos to take my mind off it, and stayed up far later than I wanted to.

I realised that driving in the cold is not doing my hands any good, they're getting so dry. So I asked my mum for some driving gloves and she sent some. They don't quite fit - I've always had a problem finding gloves to fit, ever since I was little, no idea why. But I wore them to Tescos tonight and it was so nice to drive with warm hands, they're great!

The most exciting news is that I've finished my pico project. I wanted to write a radio script that I had started and had 673 words of, and it looked like I was never going to get anywhere on it. So I was determined to finish it for pico, and 5000 words seemed like a likely target. I have 5710 words, two of them being the fabulous 'The End'. I need to rewrite it now, though, not least because I realised one of the characters was redundant, so needs writing out. But at least now I have something to work from. And I have less writing to do, as my SG rare pairings ficathon piece is also done.

Work is looking to be really manic in December, so really not looking forward to that. My life might well end up consisting entirely of work and moving related things. My sister is also going to be moving in December, so she's offered to take me to IKEA on Sunday. So I might now be doing moving things on 16th and 17th December. I also found out one of the charity shops in town that sells furniture delivers. They're better for sofas than anything else. The flat comes with a sofa, but I might get an armchair later. I need to check out the other charity shop that sells furniture tomorrow.

I'm feeling pleased with myself because tonight I wrote a first draft of my SG Rare Pairings ficathon fic. It's far too short at the moment, mostly because it's mostly dialogue. And I think it needs something else in there, I can't quite think what - I've used all the prompts it's just never going to be particularly long.

I am not used to GMT yet at all. I thought that being ill on Sunday would have sorted that but I keep waking up about 7am and I'm as tired as if it was an hour later. The last hour of work is so much worse as well. Perhaps it's as well that this week is quite quiet, so I can go to bed early and just move my day about a bit.

I've just been to Tescos. Bearing in mind that I also went to Halfords and fiddled around with cushions in the car (and the rear view mirror, which just doesn't go far enough to the right for my liking) and went with a friend who lives ten minutes away in the opposite direction, it only took an hour and three-quarters. And nothing went wrong. And, to top it off, I parked perfectly by the side of the road for the first time, without having to go backwards and forwards a lot.

I also finished the first draft of my SJ ficathon fic. It's 5000 words. Hopefully it won't take me as long to do each subsequent draft. I really want to get started on my SG ficathon piece but I really ought to get on with the SJ one first, as there's nothing wrong with finishing before the deadline.

My arms and legs don't work very well now, though. I don't think I can drive dad's car for longer than half an hour without having to rest, it's such hard work. When I come to buy a car one day, I'm going to have a red Yaris (cos my parents and my sister have Yaris's, so it's just necessary, the red I shouldn't have to explain) and it's going to have power steering and air conditioning.

I am still tired, although possibly slightly less so for missing one day of my antibiotics. The doctor (and I just typed that with a capital d!) basically told me I could stop taking them but it might come back. So then I'd end up doing this all again, so I'm back on them again. Although with me two weeks of pills lasts longer because I am incapable of remembering to take them everyday. According to the memory section the BBC had up a while ago when they had a programme on it it said that if you get into a routine then you remember. Except that doesn't happen when I take stuff for my hayfever for three months.

I got my SG rare pairings assignment, featuring two prompts I can't write. But it all got sorted out the same day and now I am in the apparently rare position of being able to write either. If I just went and found out who one of the people is I'm looking forward to writing it because it should be a nice vignette. Unlike my SJ gen ficathon thing which is up to 4000 words and still not finished. And that's just the first draft which I'm feeling is definitely not detailed enough.

I have started typing up my Northern Ireland diary and since I have a couple of quiet weekends coming up I'm planning to spend some time on website-related stuff during that time.

A bit of silliness courtesy of The Guardian's online blog: but type "search" into Google.com and see what you get.... then type the same word into MSN Live Search, ditto (msn live search being at msn.com). I was quite amused.

I had a meeting tonight that I thought about driving to, for practice but decided I actually needed to be coherent for, so walked. It was at dusk so not very dark but still dark enough for the street lights to be on and it actually looked really pretty. And we'd had a tiny bit of rain so the humidity didn't feel quite so bad.

Now, though, I'm feeling like I just don't have enough time left. I'm going to the theatre Friday night and given that I have a catch a train Saturday morning to get me to Bristol to go to Northern Ireland for a week (my parents hadn't quite clocked that it was for a week) that leaves me the rest of this evening and tomorrow evening. In which I need to do my washing, pack, do some Rotaract stuff and watch episodes of Firefly, so I can send it back to amazon before I go. I could do with not being at work really.

I signed up for my second proper ficathon - the Sarah Jane Smith gen ficathon although its due before the SGRareathon.

Can I be in Northern Ireland now please?

I was good last night and posted my whofest fic: Tango, where the Doctor, Rose and Jack visit Victorian England and regret. Well, except for Jack.

I also signed up for the SG Rare Pairings Ficathon but as the assignments don't go out until 1st October, I don't have to worry about that for a while.

I also realised that the Dream sequel might be solved with Torchwood, which is a good excuse for not finishing it (not that I've started, I'm being good and finishing other things first).

I also moved Firefly up to the top of my amazon rental list. Because it's been around for a while and so many people have seen it, I already knew the names of the characters, it was just a case of putting them to the faces. I'd seen 20 minutes of the first episode (Serenity) before so I was a bit skeptical. But, nonetheless I was determined to watch the whole DVD before I made up my mind.

7 minutes into Serenity I was bored. 20 minutes in I'd lost the will to live (although that wasn't helped by being really confused about where I was with my cross stitch). 35 minutes in, the plot kicked in and it actually started to look interesting. My conclusion by the end was that it was ok but I was still confused. Why do they have a companion on board again?

So then I watched the next one, where they rob a train, and this is the point where I forget episode titles after I've clicked on them. First episodes are generally crap for seeing whether you'd like a series because they bear no relation to what the other episodes are going to be like. This episode, I liked, it was interesting. I was less confused - or when I was I didn't care, there was actually some subtle stuff going on there were actual clues to and Mal didn't sound like Angel half the time. Although Jane seems to be Avon half the time.

In conclusion, I might watch the rest of the series. And the film. It was entertaining enough but I don't yet see what everyone is raving about. And Joss Whedon cannot name his characters for anything. I thought Buffy, Willow, Xander, Rupert were bad enough, but Jane? Jane was half the reason I was determined not to watch this because I can't get over there being a bloke called Jane. Do you think someone could give Joss Whedon a baby naming book and point him to the places where it tells you whether they're male or female names please?