Underground Wanderer

I hope I left enough information in my original prompts for the Yuletide sign-up post, but essentially what I mentioned last year in my Yuletide Author Letter still applies and as long as there is a believable happy ending, I'm fine. I don't mind if the author wants to write a story that is different from the prompts I provided as long as they avoid the kinks I'm not really a fan of and there is no major angst or a horribly unhappy ending.

Thank you in advance for my story and I appreciate all of the hard work I know goes into this fic challenge every year. :)

Oh, it's been forever since I last updated, but my RL got really crazy there for a few months and I'm slowly getting back on track.

For example, like signing up for Yuletide again this year.

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Dear Yuletide Author:

I'm relatively flexible when it comes to plots, etc., and I don't necessarily mind some angst/issues between the characters, but I'm just really not in the mood at the moment for anything too depressing or any kind of major character deaths. Also? I'm not a big fan of non-con/dub-con, scat, watersports or hardcore BDSM.

I left some prompts with each of my requests, but basically anything with a happy ending for the characters I listed will be fine with me. I'm really looking forward to seeing what you come up with and thank you in advance for my story. :)

--The past couple of weeks have been crazy at work with my boss being sick/getting ready for gallbladder surgery. I've been feeling very overwhelmed with the responsibility I now have regarding all of the books we are representing. We have a fantastic intern who I trust to take on some of these books, but I still feel like I need to be on top of everything all of the time or things will start to slip through the cracks. It's times like these that I wish I worked at a bigger company. *sigh*

--Slowly working on my WIPs list. I'm actually going to be meeting with my intern from work tomorrow for a writers' meeting. It'll just be the two of us, but it can't hurt to exchange stories/critiques and bounce ideas off of each other. Anything to help me get back into a regular writing routine.

--Need to finish watching the 6th season/series of Lewis, (Snarky!Hathaway is gold!), and catch up with the first 2 new episodes of Teen Wolf, (and, yes, I feel no shame admitting that I'm hooked on that show now. I totally blame Netflix for my downfall. Kind of adore Stiles and Lydia and honestly could care less about Scott and Allison. Ridiculous show is beyond ridiculous, but crazy fun too).

--How the hell is it June already? *gah* This year is killing me with its speediness...

*dusts off my LJ*

I'm not sure why I haven't been updating my LJ this year so far. My life did get incredibly busy and crazy at the beginning of the year and I'm just now starting to slow down and figure some things out. I miss being on here; catching up with what my friends' list is doing/fandom-related stuff, etc, and I'm trying to be better organized about my blogs and social media accounts as well. I don't have one particular reason, except that every time I would think to update my LJ, something else would come up. On one hand, it's good that I have a semi-sort of life now, but on the other it does make me sad that I'm not using my LJ for its intended purpose.

*ah well*

I'm updating it now and my plan is to at least update twice a week, if not more.

There are so many things I need to explain/talk about, but I'm not sure where to start. So, I'll provide a list of sorts to explain where my head/life is at right now.

1. Got a retail job and an internship at a literary agency in January. The retail job was one of the worst I've ever had, (there is a LONG explanation forthcoming, if anyone is interested), and I was recently let go from the position a few weeks ago. Not particularly sad about it, but I do wish that I would get my last check some time before the end of the year. The internship ended up developing into an assistant position and now I'm in charge of most of the book projects at the agency. It's an extremely small office, (when I started it was me and an assistant/agent, and now it's me and an intern), my boss is 90 years old and she's not big on technology, (I helped organize the invitations for her party. I'm still amazed that the woman is actually 90), and it's a little overwhelming to be the main person working on these projects when I started out as an intern in January. Part of me is happy to be working at all/gaining experience, but the other half is freaking out on a daily basis. There is also the problem of the job only being part-time, and while it's nice to be paid, I still need to earn more to stay consistent with rent/bills/etc. Learning how to network better is another one of my goals for 2012. It's the only fricking way I'm going to get a full-time job at a publishing company.

2. I've fallen in love with a variety of different fandoms/TV shows/movies/etc. this year. I continue to love Fringe and Nikita, two of the best shows with female leads I've seen in a long time. The two fairytale-related TV shows, Once Upon a Time and Grimm are fun and engaging in different ways and I'm glad they are coming back next year as well. I'm essentially watching Glee again because of Darren Criss, (he is so ridiculous in the best possible way!) even though the show is still incredibly annoying on a lot of levels, and I think I may be one of the few people who will be watching next season mainly to see Blaine, Sam, Tina and Sugar, and not so much the characters in New York. Fell in love with the British show, Lewis and I wish more people knew about it/were involved in fandom-related stuff with this lovely crime drama. Lewis and Hathaway have the best partnership/friendship and James Hathaway is one of my top ten favorite TV characters at the moment. I'm so happy that the sixth season/series has started this week. :) And I've fallen in love with a couple more soap opera pairings, one from an American soap and another from a British soap. I'll probably babble more about my various TV loves at a later time, once I gather my thoughts.

The Avengers was an amazing, kick-ass film that was incredibly entertaining. So much love for Captain America!! And I can not wait to see the Amazing Spiderman in July. Yes, I do have a total schoolgirl crush on Andrew Garfield, (I saw "Death of a Salesman" twice because AG was in it, though it was also a great play), but the trailer for the new Spiderman movie looks fantastic and I have high hopes that the movie will be good. Looking forward to Snow White and the Huntsman as well, (can I just say how excited I am with all of these various fairy tale adaptations this year? So much fun!).

I'm also super excited to be getting new music by Kris Allen, Adam Lambert and the Scissor Sisters this month. I hope I'll be able to afford to see some of these artists in concert later on this year, (still a little miffed that I missed the Scissor Sisters earlier this month at the Bowery Ballroom, but I couldn't make it). *sad face*

3. Other lovely things that have happened this year include: working at the annual volleyball tournament in Atlanta and being able to see my family, including my Dad. It's been awhile since I've seen them all. Meeting up with sunsetmog when she came to NYC a few weeks back, as well as meeting harriet_vane for the first time was fantastic too. Figuring out where I'm going with my writing/various stories. Meeting a variety of new people who have been super helpful and supportive.

There's a lot more I could talk about, (a whole stressful story regarding my rent and finding myself needing public assistance), but, again, I need to gather my thoughts about those subjects before posting anything here. I hope everyone on my friends' list has been doing well, (going to catch up as best I can in the next week), and I'm sorry again for my long absence.

One last thing...I wanted to wish a very, Happy, Happy, Belated Birthday to skylark97! I owe you the biggest email/explanation in history, Rach, and I hope you can forgive my silent act up till now. I promise you that you are always in my thoughts and I hope that you and your lovely family are doing well. *hugs*

*I'm so happy with the final result of my yuletide story and I've loved that my recipient liked it so much. I'm proud that I was able to write something in a brand-new fandom and it definitely helped boost my confidence in my writing. Can't wait for the reveal, so I can link to the story in my LJ. I also really liked what I was able to write for kradam_holidays and I can't wait to link to it as well.

*Loved the new Sherlock Holmes and Mission Impossible films. I even thought the SH sequel was a little better than the first film, which is pretty rare to do with film series, and I thought the MI film was just a legitimately solid, enjoyable action movie. Looking forward to all of the awesome comic book films coming out in Summer of 2012, (Spiderman! Avengers! Etc...)

*I'm hoping to write up a list of what my favorites were for 2011 on New Year's Day. I got into A Lot of TV shows this past year and I want to babble about a few of them.

*Finally, Happy Birthday to sunsetmog!! You are an absolute delight and your stories always make me feel better. Thank you for being you and I hope you have a wonderful year ahead. :)

***

I hope everyone has a fabulous New Year's Eve and I'm praying that 2012 will be the turning point for me and a lot of other people I know. *crossing fingers*

1. The online editorial internship is going very well and my supervisor even asked me last week if I would like to pitch a story idea, so that definitely gave me a boost of confidence.

2. I LOVE the Job Search Boot Camp through Mediabistro.com. I've learned a lot already, have started to make some connections, and will be attending a networking event this upcoming Tuesday. *my job is around the corner, I know it*

3. New goal is to finish all the WIPs I have languishing in my Documents folder by the time my birthday rolls around, (December 5). I don't really care if they turn into novel-length stories, as long as they are definitively finished.

4. Need to work on my holiday exchange fic tomorrow, plus organize my fic LJ.

5. Also need to finish reading Neil Gaiman's American Gods, so I can discuss it with ckdutchess. We've formed a mini-book group and AG was our first book. She's also working on NaNoWriMo this month, so we are being a little flexible about when we talk about the book.

I finally got a chance to watch X-Men: First Class for the first time and I wasn't surprised to find that I really loved it. :)

But, please tell me I'm not the only one who was slashing the hell out of Hank/Alex more so than Charles/Erik? I definitely understand why people write stories about Charles/Erik, but there was just something about Hank and Alex's interactions that got to me. Maybe it's because I already have my movie fandom where two of the main characters were friends and then fought and broke away from each other, (Hi there Social Network and Mark/Eduardo!!), but I didn't go crazy over the Charles/Erik interactions. I felt bad for both of them at different points and I wanted them to stay friends, but that was about it for me. *shrugs* I did think though that Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy were amazing in the movie and they had great chemistry together.

I haven't really looked around for fic or delved into the First Class fandom, but I am wrong to think that there are probably more Charles/Erik stories/sites out there than Hank/Alex? Just curious, (especially since I wouldn't be adverse to reading some Hank/Alex fic).

1. How a volunteer writer's group can transform from a "let's encourage everyone who loves to write to come hang out and critique each other's work and continue to pursue the art of writing" to "let's only include those people we like in our little exclusive group where we get to arbitrarily decide who's work qualifies for inclusion in this intensive writing workshop". I literally feel as if I'm back in high school and I was deemed not good enough to hang with the popular kids. I'm still flabbergasted as to how this place I felt so comfortable in, just a few months ago, now makes me feel so damn awkward and ignored. I don't get it. The only good thing is the person who ran this group before emailed me and told me she still loves my story that I wrote this summer and encouraged me to continue it.

2. How I could not find anybody to take over the available room in my apartment a week ago and now I have 30 people vying for it. *am a little overwhelmed*

3. How I continue to not reach the important people in my industry who will actually help me secure a new job. It's frustrating and heartbreaking and exhausting to worry about this on a daily basis.

4. Why I haven't had an appetite for the past three days and wondering when it'll come back.

5. Why, on certain days, no matter what I do, I just don't feel good enough, (having my stories/writing skills rejected twice in one week certainly doesn't help). need to develop a thicker skin

My summer has been a bit crazy with the continuing, (hopefully will end soon), job search, my writing, trying to find a new roommate, and figuring out how I'm going to pay my bills.

A few quick pop culture things:

-Loved the new Harry Potter film and Captain America. I can not wait for the Avengers film next summer, as well as the new Spiderman movie, (my crush on Andrew Garfield has reached stupidly high proportions and I'll probably be asking for his films on DVD for my birthday. My friend has a crush on Jesse Eisenberg and she joked that watching Social Network YT vids would probably make the both of us cry. Basically TSN is our crack). ;)

-Watching and loving the second seasons of Pretty Little Liars and Haven this summer. I continue to adore Spencer, Toby and Hanna on PLL and Audrey and Nathan on Haven. I can't wait to find out how Audrey, Nathan and Duke are really connected to the overall arc/history of the Troubles.

-Panic! at the Disco are my favorite band of the moment/year/all time. Their concert in May was fucking amazing and I've been loving all the crazy stuff that's come out of the other concerts on their summer tour. I wish they didn't also have to deal with some bad RL stuff, but it's amazing to see how their senses of humor and their friendship has gotten them through the bad days. Brendon's cover of (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding is fantastic and Brendon and Spencer's friendship will always make me smile. :)

-I also re-watched the first three seasons of Merlin to get caught up before the fourth season starts and my opinion regarding a few things has changed slightly.

( a couple of rambling opinions about the characters and plot of Merlin. Mild spoilers for the 4th season )

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Off to do a bit of writing and to catch up with my emails. If there are any good publishing/editing/writing/assistant type jobs in NYC that you've heard of recently, please pass along the links. I need all the help I can get. ;)

I'm super, super excited and proud to live in a state that has now made gay marriage legal. I can only imagine how insane NYC is going to be this weekend with the end of Pride month. *doing happy dance*

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110625/ap_on_re_us/us_gay_marriage_ny