I'm almost through with OneHell* - which feels both like it's gone on forever, and that it just began yesterday. Most of my classmates, being just out of college, can't wait to get out into the real world. I'm sorry that I'll only be able to put off the real world for another 2 years... though I am hoping that I'll enjoy my new career a lot more than the old one. Toward that end, I think I've decided I don't want to work in a firm - or at least a large one. It's a lot of money - unbelievable, in fact - but it's also soul-killing, and that's what I was hoping to leave behind. So, yeah. Basically, I quit my job, sold my house and will spend upwards of $100K to that I can make less money than when I started. I never was very good at investing. ;)

My husband was inspired to join me in the law school thing - he applied for this coming Fall, and is accepted to some excellent schools, but we're still waiting to hear from the one I'm at. If he doesn't get in here, we'll have to suffer the long-distance thing, which I'm not at all happy about. But given that he's allowed me to follow my dream - at great cost to both of us - I just don't feel that I have the right to curtail his. I'm still hoping against hope he can join me here next year. He totally belongs here, and his test scores are good, but he was sort of a slacker a dozen years ago in college, and my school unfortunately cares about that stuff.

I still surf around and read journals while I should be studying, but I can't be an active member of fandom any more due to time constraints. (I should, in fact, be preparing right now for my Moot Court Oral Argument, which is Wednesday...) Maybe over the summer - although I'll be working for the government, I think it won't be much more than 40 hours a week, unlike school.

* "One L" is jargon for first year of law school, so this is a pun. :) Also the title of Scott Turow's first book - nonfiction, but details changed to protect the "innocent" (and avoid defamation suits, no doubt!), describing his first year at Harvard Law School. A fun read, if you're at all interested in angsty law students. I have it on good authority that Scott was a little... uptight in his HLS days, and that all of it should be taken with a grain of salt.

PS: Here's an Easter Snape drabble over on Snape 100 - "Enlightenment"  Set in the middle of some post-HBP Snape backstory I've been idly kicking around, in which Tobias is a charismatic preacher - which I guess would make our boy the son of a preacher man. ;-)  Sort of toying with the notion of Snape's longtime habit of gravitating toward powerful men... and wondering if he had ever seen his father in those terms. (Stuffs plot bunny *FIRMLY* back in cage until after finals...)

So the whole law school thing was more or less all-consuming over the last few months. I was pleasantly surprised at the outcome. (But you don't care too much about that.)

Anyway - here I am, dying to discuss developments from HBP. The biggest one I actually saw coming - though I had NO idea it would be on such a grand scale.

( Yeah, you know what I mean. )

I really hadn't meant to pull another disappearing act.

Last June, I made the decision to follow a dream, and I had to give it all I've got. I took a break from the fandom, and LJ in general, because it kept pulling me off track.

I have decided to leave my current career behind and go to law school. I always wanted to go out and save the world, but life got in the way. Well, life took a few crazy turns over the last year, and taking an entirely new path is no longer an impossibility. After careful consideration, law is the direction I've chosen to take.

So far, so good. I studied my arse off for the LSAT (Law School Aptitude Test, and the make-or-break factor for law school applications, for those not familiar), and did much better than expected. Then I had to write all of my applications, which is a hugely time-consuming process in itself. I've now submitted all but one (Yale, because I'm still dithering with their mulitple essays - and because I only have a slight chance of actually getting in there anyway). Happy to say that, as of today, I've been accepted to two excellent schools and will definitely be attending law school, beginning Fall 2005. Husband needed to be convinced, but he is now fully on board with this, and has been wonderfully supportive. Family and friends were also initially dubious, but one by one they all eventually joined my cheering section. Even the money factor is falling into place - the property values in our neighborhood rose sharply over the last six months, and the equity in our house is now enough to pay for law school. Which ain't cheap.

While there will be all sorts of major upheaval in my life over the next few months (selling the house, choosing a school from among those that accept me, moving, etc.), I do plan on finishing up the stories I've started. I do hate loose ends, and they are sketched out in my notebooks already. (I actually didn't stop writing entirely, just posting. The writing kept me sane while I obsessed over my applications.)

I just wanted to leave a post to say hi, and to let y'all know what I've been up to. I have missed being around here, although I admit to occasional lurking (for instance, I just couldn't keep away from theatresm's Chaos). I've been reading back through some of your journals over the last few days, just to get caught up. I'll hopefully be back around more often once I'm done tilting at windmills completing my Yale application.

Backdated so I'm not cluttering everyone's flists with this stuff...

• Heal Thyself (a serialized SS/RL story, with a good dose of Harry angst thrown in) - has its first two chapters up. Based on this ficlet done by me last April for 30minutefics. Chapter 3 is drafted, but will have to wait until I've posted the long-overdue MTA update.



• I've also been busily re-writing Virgin Sacrifice, from the "I Don't Want to Die a Virgin Challenge" from scribbulus_ink. It was supposed to just be a challenge response, but it's gotten more attention than anything else I've written so far (not that that's saying much - it's pretty much what you'd call a statistically insignificant sample - but significant to me) so I got self-conscious that it wasn't the story I'd intended. So it's now three times as long, with a few more edits to go before I re-post. Up tomorrow or the next day at the latest.



• And yes, I really am working on More Than Air. I had a lovely review out of nowhere last week, and it inspired me to get moving on it again. I had a pre-beta discussion of chapter 3 with the_wily_baron last night. And as I suspected, I need to re-write some of it as I'm giving too much away. Not long now though until it's ready, probably by Monday, and hopefully no further delays with the rest of the story.

I've been very good about making time to write lately - I just take a long time to do it, unfortunately. I need to get back into the groove.

Yes, yes. The long-promised MTA update and the first 3 chapters of that SS/RL fic are almost ready for beta. Meanwhile, here's what I wasted Memorial Day writing... my first (completed, anyway) SS/HG.

Title: Virgin Sacrifice
Author: la_enamorada
Pairing: SS/HG
Rating: R
Summary: Truth potions and insufferable know-it-alls are a dangerous combination. Especially if you've got a deep, dark secret.
Notes: Written for scribbulus_ink's I Don't Want to Die a Virgin Challenge.
Length: 4,284

( Read more... )

Too tired today for a proper wrap-up of HHA. But here's the bare-bones report.

Highlights of the evening were:

• Making small-talk with Jeff Goldblum as his fiance (what's her name?) got her nominee's rose pinned on


• Having Terrance McNally actually flip the bird as a political gesture to the President (with the Bush family, if not the man himself, in attendance)


• Having Nancy Robinette actually win for her portrayal of Mrs. Malaprop in The Rivals


• HHA'ers looking fine in our borrowed Yomphana necklaces. Yomphana - the Harry Winston of the HHA.

Lowlights included:

• Frustrations with certain event staff. You know who you are. Yes, I mean you.


• Losing our suite to one of the ViP's at the last minute. I was all psyched to try out that bidet, dammit.


• Running out of fruit at the chocolate fondue fountains before I got a second strawberry. But the fountains themseleves were cool.

And finally - A friendly note to Washington Area Theatre staff - Do look into the definition of "black tie" before you attend next year's gala. I'm not saying you need to conform to it - but it is a good idea to have a firm grasp of the concept before trying to get creative.

After a series of threats by my well-meaning husband to lock me in a room until I finally wrote something, I finally did. A genfic even. Short, but complete in itself.

And yes, I do feel better now that it's posted.

However, I think what he really meant was that he wants to see the lemony goodness that is MTA's next chapter. All in good time, love. Story currently being purged of excessive floridness and some pesky plot wonkiness. For those of you only in it for the lemons (and you know who you are), I'll be posting some previews shortly.

Cheers!

( LJ Housecleaning )

Doing some volunteer work today on the HHA database today. Steve took the day off to come in with me and is working on their network. I'm guessing all is not well there, since he's swearing a lot and being a general crabby-pants so I can't talk to him right now. But I really need to offload, and so the journal is getting an update.

( More job whining... not at all interesting )

Finally managed to land a copy of Wicked last night after striking out at three book stores. Oddly, Barnes and Noble had dozens of copies while the others were all out. I've been meaning to read it for years now, but bleodswean’s postings finally pushed it to the top of the list. I was up until the wee hours reading it, until I couldn't keep my eyes open longer. I didn't really know much about the book going in, except in the vaguest terms – it just sounded like an interesting concept. I'm loving the writing-style though, and I can see why bleodswean was so taken with it, since it reminds me of her own style.

Not much more writing of my own has occurred, I'm sad to say, except for some cover letters and thank-you notes to interviewers.

Maybe it's time to declare my approximately 10,000 word NaNo dead. Project decidedly not abandoned, but any possibility of finishing 40K in the next week or so seems remote.

That, and I REALLY want to work on MTA anyway. Chapter 3 has the lemon that needs to be worked on – my first "real" one. And I had to go and make it even more difficult on myself by writing a (femme)slash story. By the Gods, what pronoun troubles!

I therefore appreciated shadowycat’s recent discussion of matters citrus. Sex is an important element of MTA, but it isn't the only element. I'm trying to hit all the right notes, and it isn’t easy. Oddly, the girl-girl issue isn't what's difficult for me – I thought it might be since I have very little, erm, personal experience there (or even fic-reading/writing experience). But my Pansy and Ginny are falling in lust (and maybe a little love?) with little enough help from me. I have "the scene" all planned out even – it's just the right words I need.

Finally broke through the dry spell and wrote something tonight.

I've been feeling all horribly depressed and disconnected, and the small scraps of energy I have been able to scare up have gone into the boring old job search. Couldn't summon the muses to save my life.

Then I remembered the cure for all writing woes... substance abuse! Tried for about a minute to decide whether coffee or alcohol would be more effective, then decided not to decide. Mmmm... adult coffee....

And so I've been up all night typing.

Worked on the NaNo Founder Fic for the first time since RL went haywire on the 3rd of November. Didin't feel like picking up where I left off, so I wrote some later scenes. New excerpt is up at mrs_malaprop. Word count is an alarmingly low 7354. But I'm still unemployed, so I may still have time to catch up.

Hope to work on MTA again soon. It's the lemon that still needs writing in the next chapter, and I'm afraid I haven't felt very lemony lately.

( Job search whining... )

Thank you to everyone who gave me sympathy and sage advice regarding my job loss. Your kind words were much appreciated.

I've not spent much time online in the last few days, or at least in a non-job search related way. I've felt oddly guilty about doing anything for my own enjoyment this week, as though I'm not entitled to enjoy myself while unemployed. (I should be listening to more of that sage advice I was given, but it's very hard.)

I'm catching up on my f-list now, so if you get a reply from me for a post you put up days ago, that's why. :)

NaNo Word Count: Still at 5062, where I was Monday morning. No work done on More Than Air either, save fixing a couple of typos. The muses seem to have decamped for the moment, the fickle things. I hope to be able to start writing again soon. I miss it.

For now at least, I have lots of reading to catch up on...