Setcheti's Authorblog

New (Much Overdue) Fic Posted

Setcheti — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 00:16:35 +0000

Finally, I have posted Angel & Snow, the Hot Fuzz retelling of Snow White that I wrote for Kitrinlu. Oddly enough, I started writing this before the buzz was on about the two new Snow White movies – one of which comes out this weekend, and the other of which has Nick Frost in it playing a dwarf. I have my fingers crossed that Nick is not playing a dwarven redshirt, as I’ve heard there is one in that movie.

New Fic Posted

Setcheti — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 06:19:45 +0000

Flu is a one-off Hot Fuzz story – meaning it’s not part of a series and there won’t be any more of it. It’s also kind of dated, because I got the idea when the swine flu was making the rounds and just never managed to finish it until recently. Enjoy!

Quick Update

Setcheti — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 06:39:36 +0000

1. I have been severely blocked lately and haven’t been able to write or do anything else creatively constructive until today. Hopefully that’s over for a while, because it really hasn’t been fun.

2. Both of my sites will be participating in Stop SOPA on the 18th, which is Wednesday. I’m not taking the whole Campfire offline, just the front page, but the Authorblog will be blacked out for the day via a nifty little widget. Do stop by and see the video the widget will put up.

3. I am considering combining the Authorblog with the Five Cats Press blog, just because I can’t keep up two blogs – at the moment I’m not even satisfactorily keeping up one! I’m also running out of room here at the Campfire, and removing the Authorblog would solve that problem for a while longer. I’ll warn everyone in advance when and if I do it so that you’ll all be able to change your bookmarks and RSS.

4. Happy Martin Luther King Day to all of you who have tomorrow off for it. I will be at work having a typical Monday, but do enjoy yourselves in spite of that. The rest of my family will be enjoying themselves right along with you; I have no doubt that they’ll all sleep in until noon unless I decide to wake them up before I leave just out of spite.

Have A Happy Holiday!

Setcheti — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 05:38:28 +0000

Because even if you don’t celebrate this particular one…you hopefully still got the day off for it.

The Commercial They Should Have Made

Setcheti — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 06:09:31 +0000

UNICEF Sweden (link goes to article, not to UNICEF website) doesn’t appear to think very highly of Santa Claus – and I don’t think this commercial they made is going to put people in a giving frame of mind. If they wanted people to donate to this cause for Christmas, I think they should have done it something like this:

INT SANTA’S PRIVATE WORKSHOP – SNOWY DAY

SANTA is sorting through presents in prettily wrapped boxes. He smiles and nods as he removes the lid from each one to check the contents.

SANTA: Very nice fire truck – good paint job on that, it’s just perfect. Oh, a stuffed bear – looks nice and cuddly, some little one is going to love this. Now what have we here…

He pulls the lid off the next box…and stops. Then he tips the contents out on top of his workbench. Pill bottles and other objects which appear more medical than toy spill out in a heap. A look of great sadness crosses Santa’s face.

SANTA: A present for a child overseas. The Sudan, I think.

He looks into the camera.

SANTA: When I go to poor countries, I don’t take dolls and bears and fire trucks. I don’t take toys at all. (He holds up a pill bottle) Malaria tablets. (A small bottle and syringe) Polio vaccine. (A handful of little packets) Rehydration salts. Because the best gift I can give these children…is a chance that they’ll be alive to see me next year.

He starts putting everything back into the box, putting the beribboned lid back on.

SANTA: Send me some more of these, if you can. If I fill enough stockings with them now, then maybe someday I’ll be able to take toys to those children too.

FADE TO BLACK AS WHITE TYPEWRITER TEXT TYPES ACROSS SCREEN ONE LETTER AT A TIME

GIVE A CHILD THE GIFT OF ANOTHER CHRISTMAS
VISIT WWW.UNICEF.ORG TO FIND OUT HOW

Please excuse the creative formatting used to approximate script format. And no,this is not me promoting UNICEF. I just love Santa and hated their mean commercial, and fixing things with writing is what I do.

A Wonderful Christmas Present!

Setcheti — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 04:02:49 +0000

“Early this morning, the last of our troops left Iraq.”

Wonderful news, and a wonderful Christmas (or Hanukkah, or Solstice) present for a lot of families.

New Extended Family Story

Setcheti — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 05:43:38 +0000

Wondering what happened after Nick and Danny adopted Harry? Extended Family 2: Finding Out, has just been posted.

CF4L, PayPal: I Wish I Could Quit You

Setcheti — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 04:26:53 +0000

Did anyone else donate money, gifts, what have you, for Christmas this year? I do it whenever I can, because I think the holiday season (lots of holidays this time of year, all with similar themes) should be as magical as we can make it, especially for kids. Well, if you’re like me in that respect, you may want to take a look at this:

http://www.regretsy.com/2011/12/05/cats-1-kids-0
(try not to choke on the irony of AdChoices generating a PayPal ad in the post’s sidebar, if it’s still there now since they rotate in and out)

I am not amused. In fact, I’m pretty pissed off about what’s going on. Unfortunately, I am stuck with PayPal at the moment because Smashwords uses it and that’s where my book is, so I cannot go over to PayPal and tell them where to stick it.

I did, however, go over to their Facebook page and impotently froth at the mouth in a spot where multiple other people had already done it better.

UPDATE: Wow, after I made my post, the ‘Net kind of exploded in that direction. Will Wheaton tweeted about the incident (yay Will!), multiple non-PayPal-friendly hashtags began to be used, Facebook got a little heated in some areas, a Change.org petition showed up, and the story went sort of viral online (check out the post from Green Geek Girl if you want to know exactly why PayPal was in the wrong - she sure did her homework!). And then PayPal posted a half-assed apology on their own blog saying they were working with Regretsy, although that was apparently news to Regretsy. But still, they’re going to release the donations! So that’s a happy Christmas to a bunch of kids who really need one.

Some days I just love the Internet, don’t you?

And the Winner Is (Not!)

Setcheti — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 06:05:27 +0000

Well, I guess two novels in one year is too much – I totally did not win at NaNoWriMo this time! 47,317 words were all I was able to achieve, and even that was really stretching it, although it’s a really good story and it will be worked up into a book eventually anyway. Not in December, though, I’m taking a break. And I need a new computer, mine is croaking (which was at least part of the reason I didn’t get finished with NaNo this year).

In better news, someone spontaneously asked me about the sequel to Barracuda Flats today, so yay! I’ll need to be finishing that. Along with quite a bit of fic that also needs to be done.

I Missed It!

Setcheti — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 04:59:35 +0000

I cannot believe that I missed American Censorship Day! It was yesterday, apparently – I didn’t know a thing about it until today, but I guess 4chan and Tumbler were just exploding. And word is that if IP Protect/SOPA actually passes Congress, our President is set to veto it. I certainly hope it doesn’t get that far, I really do.

Because if it does, they’ll just keep trying to push something like it through, and the idea that one could eventually make it into law does sort of worry me. We all know, all the writers and readers of fanfic, that we’re treading the line between fair use and infringement with every story we post. At the moment we’re not really considered to be breaking the law (bending and twisting it a bit, definitely) unless we try to profit from the fic we write, but a bill like the one they’re trying to push through could change that overnight.

Wouldn’t stop me from writing fic, of course. I’ve been writing fic since I was a kid, since long before I’d ever heard the word “fanfiction” or knew anyone else who wrote it. I wouldn’t stop writing fic just because I couldn’t post it online. I wouldn’t even stop sharing it with people, and I’m pretty sure a lot of other fic writers wouldn’t either. To paraphrase my favorite mathematician, Ian Malcolm, “Fic finds a way.”

Of course it might be a good idea if some of us, you know, in our spare time, started toying with ideas regarding how and where that way might be found. Just in case.