Day 20 Write Every Day

[dswdiane]

Intro/FAQ

My check in: 468 words today. Story planning with my other beta and helping her plan one of her stories.

I keep forgetting to say: PLEASE If I make a mistake and don't count you on a day, please let me know.

Day 20 china_shop, ofmonstrouswords, dswdiane, badly_knitted, sylvanwitch, cornerofmadness, ysilme, sanguinity, carenejeans

Day 19 china_shop, dswdiane, ysilme, cornerofmadness, goddess47, sanguinity, badly_knitted, sylvanwitch, carenejeans, ofmonstrouswords

Day 18 ysilme, china_shop, dswdiane, cornerofmadness, the_siobhan, badly_knitted, sylvanwitch, carenejeans, sanguinity

Day 17 dswdiane, goddess47, cornerofmadness, sanguinity, carenejeans, badly_knitted, ofmonstrouswords, sylvanwitch, ysilme, china_shop, the_siobhan

Day 16 china_shop, dswdiane, the_siobhan, badly_knitted, badly_knitted, ysilme, sanguinity, sylvanwitch, carenejeans, cornerofmadness, ofmonstrouswords

Icon is the Witcher riding through a peaceful forest.

Comments

[sanguinity]

Absolutely! It will come back to me, or something better will. When my brain has spare space to noodle, it'll happen.

DW post is posted!

(Happily for Hornblower, his exam was interrupted by a battle so he never officially failed the exam -- which he was 1000% on track to do! Then they gave him the promotion anyway for heroism and shit. As sometimes happens when you're the protagonist of an adventure series. So it worked out all right for him.)

Hurrah, time to play! Every bit as important as time to write. :-D

Those are lovely icons! In this case I shall decline, because BBC isn't my adaptation. (It was my gateway into Holmesiana, but my heart lies elsewhere.) But thank you for the offer!

[dswdiane]

Where does your heart lie within the Holmesiana? You're welcome.

Thanks for support for playtime.

(So glad the Hornblower got his promotion anyway. He probably deserved it. From what you've told me he probably didn't believe he did. Yegods, I feel as if I'm getting to know these people through you. Which is fine.)

Here, have a dragon flying over an ocean.

[sanguinity]

My love for Holmesiana is very diffuse: I love the big messy sprawl of it, earnest and silly, faithful and outrageous, adaptations that love the original canon and adaptations that criticize it. How people keep coming back to the original stories and then rushing off in some new direction again. The cross-talk and the throw-downs and the homages and the parodies. I do have favorite versions in all that (of course I do!) but it's the wild rich chaotic interconnected mess that I love.

Do you do vids? This vid a friend and I made shows best where my heart lies: Something Good (Will Come From That)

(Ah! Hornblower's promotion came through while he was a prisoner of war, and he was ALREADY far too unhappy about spending the rest of the war in prison, to bother with making himself unhappy about the promotion, too. The promotion was kind of nice, actually. It was validation, and it also meant he got material privileges, like better quarters and being able to give his parole to go on walks, look at the sea, or drink a nice cup of chocolate. It was a nice thing to think about, sometimes, while he was living in the grinding misery of imprisonment.)

That's a very handsome dragon over the ocean. Very Temeraire (while not being Temeraire himself, obvs.)

[dswdiane]

Loved the story btw. I totally love the vid. I cannot imagine the amount of work that went into it. I'm totally impressed. I understand what you're saying about loving the entire chaotic range of it all.
To answer your question. I love vids. I was tempted to send you my favorite Duncan/Methos vid just a few days ago.

The only vidders I know are Killabeez and Luminosity both of whom are old friends. I don't know if you would know either of them. If you've never seen Luminosity vid of 300--well, it was once voted on by New York Magazine as one of the best vids of the year. It can be found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_NrUD1iqME&list=RD2_NrUD1iqME&start_radio=1 It's not as sophisticated as some are now, but for the equipment she had at the time, it's amazing.

This is one of Lum's more recent vids https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNCSrCjL780 It's in Hannibal which I've never seen, but I still think the vid is amazing.

Good heavens. I'm looking through your fandoms list. Rip Through Time I love, Kushiel's Dart series I love. I tempted to put this one in all caps bc it's one of my favorite poems of all time: So I shall inflict some of it upon you:

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

I think I'll be having a feast at your AO3 site--I've just read to description but yes, Zoe Washbourne is hotter than hot-- A Feast after I finish this damn interminable but fascinating Sherlock story.

Okay. Now I've inflicted vids and poetry on you as well as a lot of my thought. My apologies.

(I'm happy for Hornblower getting something for himself while being prisoner of war.)

I'm glad you like the dragon. It's painting my sister did. Now I'm trying to decide what the next icon should be. You last one was a ship at sea probably in Hornblower's time. Hmm. How about a different dragon over a different ocean, also painted by my talented sister.

[sanguinity]

By all means, send me your favorite Duncan/Methos vid! In return, I offer you this Duncan/Methos vid by my friend rachelindeed: from Eden. I confess, I watch it mostly at the level of "pretty people with pretty faces", but I do know how damn good her vids are in the fandoms we share, so I am reasonably confident that you might enjoy it?

Luminosity's 300 vid is an absolute classic. <3 <3 <3

(Far better than the movie! I read Herodotus last year and expected to have derisive feelings about the Battle of Thermopylae, mostly because of overexposure to 300-style REAL MEN ARE MANLY handling of the material... And then I unexpectedly caught feelings, Herodotus was so moving! Feelings that I lost again after watching the movie, heh.) (I kind of want to watch the sequel, though, because it's about the Battle of Salamis, which being a sea-battle is right up my alley.) (And not just "a sea battle" but one with a famous woman captain! I hear that she's prominently featured in the film, but also that the film is TERRIBAD. Also my maritime archaeology friend tells me all the ships are wrong. *shakes my head sadly* It's a conundrum.)

Forgive me, but I will pass on the Hannibal vid. Cannibalism is a squick of mine, and I generally avoid all Hannibal stuff.

My Rip in Time story is the only one on AO3, last I checked. Every time a new book is published in the series, I get a little flurry of comments bewailing that the protagonists haven't gotten together yet. A new book was published just this week, but the commenters haven't yet spoiled me for whether Duncan and Mallory get together in this one. (If you know already: shhhhh!)

Kushiel's Dart is a joint work with a friend. She wrote the story and I did the podfic. I read the first book decades ago, but it has sadly faded from my memory.

Shall we go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky... :-DDDDD

I memorized the whole thing once, back when I ran machinery for a living. I can no longer recite it in full, but big chunks are still there. It's a lovely poem.

Zoe Washbourne is indeed hotter than hot. :-D

I hope you find much joy in my archive. I will say that I have been writing for a long time, and my writing has improved by leaps over the interval. Read the early stuff generously, please.

Yes, this icon is the Lydia, Hornblower's ship in the original Hornblower novel. (Which takes place about halfway through the series, if read by internal chronology.) This particular image is taken from the 1951 Gregory Peck film. It's a flat calm and she is being towed by a rowboat. There's a lovely canon line about how she's a lady under sail and a bitch when being towed, and it always makes me think fondly about her. You and me, HMS Lydia, you and me. ;-)

And now I'm the one who has been nattering on... I had best write, so I have something to report tonight.

[dswdiane]

Do NOT reply to this before tomorrow or when you're finished writing--but the Rachel part of those vidders is possibly a person who is becoming a good friend of mine. It slipped my mind that she was a part of media cannibals and used to vid a lot. She lives in Seattle. She and I usually spend about an hour together on Zoom a couple to times a month and occasionally reach out by email if we have something extra to say. I met her at Escapade and we connected over the fact that we read a lot the same books. Is that the person who's your friend? I adore Rache and am delighted she and I are becoming friends. But maybe your Rachel is not my Rache.

I loved, loved, love the vid made for you with Sherlock/Watson. It was one of the slashy things I ever seen. And I've seen Eden bunches of times.

The Beekeeper was gorgeous and moving and full of love and beauty. Thank you. Now I have to go work out complicated plot time lines. Maddening.

I give you Sherwood and John who are certainly friends.

[dswdiane]

Oh. You still did not tell me your favorites in the Holmesian verse. Please do. Please. I'm gonna hypothesize Elementary because of the number of stories set there.

And a peaceful waterfall and river in a quiet forest, painted by my sister.

[sanguinity]

Elementary, yes. :-D

Bert Coules's radio series starring Clive Merrison. They did all 60 canon stories PLUS a bunch of original stories. imo, Bert Coules has a stronger understanding of what makes a good Sherlock Holmes mystery than Conan Doyle did.

Geoffrey Whitehead and Donald Pickering's generically-named adaptation from the 1980s. (If you're interested, A Sucker for You, another vid by rachelindeed, made as a gift for meeeeee)

My Dearly Beloved Detective, a tragi-comic Russian film in which both Holmes and Watson are women.

Both the 1980s and 2013 Russian Holmes series. The Soviet one (Vasily Livanov as Holmes) is usually more highly acclaimed, but I find it a little too glacially paced for my taste. I prefer the 2013 series with Igor Petrenko, which is less reverent and more willing to get down in the mud and wrestle with canon.

Sherlock Hound, a Japanese anime by Hayao Miyazaki. (La la la, here's a vid I made: Shut Up and Drive)

Enola Holmes novels by Nancy Springer. (The movie is all right, but the novels, especially the first six, is where it's at.)

Basil of Baker Street novels by Eve Titus. (Again, the movie The Great Mouse Detective is perfectly watchable, but not where it's at.)

Sherlock Ferret books by Hugh Ashton.

The Seven Per-Cent Solution by Nicholas Meyer. (In which Watson brings Holmes to Freud for treatment for drug addiction. Again, I prefer the novel to the movie.)

Mr. Holmes (In a shocking turn of events, I haven't read the novel! But the film is brilliant and heartbreaking. Set after WWII, Watson is dead, and Holmes is struggling with dementia. Beautiful vid by rachelindeed again: Beekeeper)

...and of course Jeremy Brett's series for Granada studios, but that never needs me to recommend it. I prefer Edward Hardwicke's Watson to David Burke's. (The series had two Watsons.)

That will probably do for starters, I think. ;-)

Now I really must write....!