forget your Unified Theory of Everything

-Does anyone know what happened to panlexicon.com? That might be my number one favorite web site, but now my browser is telling me it's unsafe :o(

-I have been trying to update a story at fanfiction.net for like, the past week and a half. I can't get into either HP story I've posted there, but I can edit all my other stories. I emailed support twice, and they haven't gotten back to me. I don't really know what to do about it.

In other news housemate and I have written most of the proposal for our agent to send out to publishing companies. My life, I don't understand what happened to it.

So, I have this North and South fic. This is, of course, Victorian England. In my story, there's a character with a serious case of Orientalism. While this element is not absolutely essential to the narrative, I feel that it connects to important things about industrialization, capitalism, and class that I would like to address. Industrialization, capitalism, and class are probably not essential elements either, as it is in essence a romance, but imo the best romances deal with the ideals and worlds of the participants.

( The problem with writing stories set in a time and place in which no one thought this was a problem . . . )

Here's where the request for help comes in. I had a beta for this fic, by name of kleindog from c-19. I don't know if she is on any of the journaling sites. If so--hi! I stopped writing the story, so stopped sending her chapters. She was doing a very nice job, but I realize what I want specifically for this fic is someone who feels in tune with this issue. There isn't always a way to please everyone, or be non-offensive to everyone. But I really feel like it would be nice to bounce some of this stuff off someone.

The ideal person would be familiar with N&S, period language, the historical context, how not to be offensive, Brit-picking, SPAG, being horribly ruthless to get rid of all my redundancies and awkward language, and would be willing. But I will settle for someone who is comfortable with addressing historical context and not being offensive, even if they don't know the canon, as long as they are willing.

If you don't match that description . . . do you know where I can go to ask for such a beta? N&S is a small fandom, which makes this particularly hard, but again, I'm not even concerned with someone knowing canon, although it might be difficult for someone to be interested in the story if they're not familiar with said canon.

I'm thinking again about applying to grad school, but there are several things I need to do first. One of them is figure out who the hell I can get to write recommendation letters. Most of my profs from undergrad won't remember me. The one prof I was very to died. I have another prof who could write a letter, and I my bosses at work could do one too. But I know it's good to have letters from school experience rather than work experience.

One thing I've thought about doing is taking a couple night courses. I could take a course in writing, which I'd like to work on anyway. At the same time I could try to cultivate a relationship with the professor, if that is possible at all, and maybe they will turn out to be someone who can write me a letter. But again, that's not the only reason I want to do the night course; I want to do something that will get me writing (more precisely, something that will get me finishing writing) anyway. If I did a night course in English it would be nice to get some essays written, too.

Anyway, my very stupid question is: . . . uh, what IS night school, anyway? I don't want to enroll at a school yet. But aren't there courses you can take at community colleges and universities in which you don't actually haven't to be a student? Aren't there some classes you can just sign up to take? And if so, how do you find them? Are they what is called "continuing education"? Can't you sign up for just one course without enrolling? And will you be with other people who ARE enrolled, or will you be with a bunch of other people just signed up to take that one course? And if the latter is true, will the course be crappy? Will it still be taught by a professor? Can you take a course in English or Creative Writing that isn't taught at a university or community college? Are those courses reliable? Does it depend on the course and the program, whether it's reliable or not? Why am I so clueless?

C. So the comm for learning a word a day is a go! It's called daily_words. It will start either tomorrow or the day after. If someone would like to make an icon with the words, "daily_words" on it, then I'd use that for posting on the comm so when you were scrolling through your flist, you'd always immediately recognize it (*looks innocently at late_heart*).

If you join the comm: remember, I'll always be looking for new words. Feel free to participate--or not--in any way you please. You shouldn't feel the need to comment on the posts unless particularly compelled, and if you have any ideas for the comm or things you'd like to see, please contact me!

O. Does anyone know the name of that LJ comm that sums up either meta or wank (can't remember which) in short snarky soundbites? All I could find was metaquotes, which I don't think it is because these aren't actual quotes. But each post is some quick meta rendition of a wank or discussion. Sort of like Book-A-Minute (which you should totally check out if you haven't seen!) So a post might go like this:

SVA: Wah wah.
JKR: PWN.
Anne Rice: I have nothing to do with this, but also, wah.

MM. There's a meme going around right now where you're asked to comment with the lj name of someone in you think others might enjoy reading. I wanted to do that meme, except make it for comms (and not just for Jossverse). I find most LJ comms difficult to use. There are either too many posts with too much info/content I don't have time to peruse, or they die quickly and are never updated. Those with unlimited posting access for members lead to lots of random posts I don't want to read, but limited posting by mods is often too regimented or fails because the mods go off and do something else.

Anywho, comment with an lj community (or several!) you enjoy, and why you enjoy it. It can be in any fandom, or it doesn't have to be a fandom at all, if it's where you get your news, hometown connections, random artistic enrichment, etc. It can have a lot of members and posts or be nearly dead, just so long as you enjoy it.

Does anyone know the word limit for posts on lj?

( I love . . . )

That is all I have for now.

...the whole five of you who would even click on a Harry/Draco fic, much less read one:

I seem to have found . . . 45,000 words worth of a crack, massive, lame, embarrassing H/D WIP on my hard drive that I don't see myself finishing, and yet every time I check it, filled with innocent bewilderment, the word count goes up another 5,000 or so.

I was wondering whether any of the <5 of you could:
a. explain to me how this got on my hard drive,
b. read it and help me,
c. shoot me now,
d. hold my hand and pet it while I dissolve into tears of despair and self-loathing, while not letting anyone involved in Jossverse know,
e. all of the above.

My Word docs keep getting . . . corrupted somehow. I'll save a file, and when I go to open it again, both the top and bottom have a lot of extra text that mostly seems to be about what directory the file was saved in. All the italics (and other kids of formatting) are lost. And worst of all, it's as if the text's been chopped up into chunks--sometimes cutting sentences or words in half--and then tossed like a salad, so that I have to try to figure out how everything fits together again. And some things are lost entirely. . . especially if I had the file saved, then went back in and changed a couple words, saved it again--even if I rename the file after the little tweaks. It's been going on for a while with a random file here and there, but lately it's been getting worse, doing it with every single file.

Has anyone ever experienced anything like this? Does it sounds like a Word problem, or is it my computer, is it a virus? Any advice?

It's fucked up three fics so far, and one I'm not sure I can put back together again.

Also, every once in a while my keyboard just stops working. Everything else will work, but the keyboard is completely crapped out. When I reset the computer, everything works fine.