asato_muraki: (Default)
2024-05-14 09:10 am

Is anybody still here?

If so, Hi!

I've fallen into the gay Chinese wizard Fandom hole, and been drawing and doing digital art more.

What about you?
asato_muraki: (Default)
2020-09-23 12:53 pm

I'm hosting Watch Parties for The Untamed

It's a sickness. I am obsessed. I'm also retreating from life in the hellscape of my world at large right now (pandemic, political...shenanigans, etc.) so it works out nicely.

I have worked up a few cheat sheets to explain the context of xianxia tropes and how they work in this particular Chinese drama, because it was made for an audience familiar with the genre, and there is a lot of stuff that they don't explain or that doesn't make sense in a western worldview.

So, I'm probably going to put up bits of that here, as I go, mainly to have it some place outside my hard drive.

***

Here is a video about a character I tend to identify with a lot, because he comes from an upbringing of strict orthodoxy, which he slowly begins to question and eventually confront. I've been there. (He's prettier, a better fighter, and has better hair, but the rebellion against fundamentalism we have in common.)

The subtitles are small, but visible on full screen even though they are white and often against light backgrounds.


asato_muraki: (Default)
2020-09-17 02:21 pm

I'm back! Who's still here? I have new Obsessions

I don't even know who is still here, but I can't let Facebook and the like continue to be too much of my life, just for moral reasons. So here I am.

I'm also kind of retreating from the awfulness that is the state of the world at large. I'm fairly happy with my own small corner of life, even if my environment and the national conscience of the country where I live are both going to complete shit.

I received a kidney transplant in December, as a part of the national kidney exchange. My dear husband donated a kidney to a stranger, and stranger donated one to me. I think there were 13 recipient/donor pairs in the exchange, and I can only hope that all of them are doing as phenomenally as I am. Seriously, very mind side effects, if any. They had to wait to taper some of my meds because I could not get one of the others for a little while due to the pandemic, but I'm three months back on schedule now. If there is any effect of the meds, it's probably that my face isn't as thin as it used to be. One of the meds can give you the munchies and make your face a little full. I haven't gained weight, so it's probably the medicine.

In any case, I'm super healthy and very lucky.

***

Recent obsessions include the video game /farming sim STARDEW VALLEY, and the Chinese drama The Untamed, based on the BL novel Mo Dao Zu Shi (translated as either Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation or Founder of Diabolism). It's freaking amazing and I love it. It's fifty episodes of the most fucking romantic shit that has ever been in my eyes. Here is trailer with english subtitles, though you may have to turn on captions to see them:




So, who's still here?
asato_muraki: (Default)
2020-05-28 01:49 pm

Haven't posted in a while

Hello. My last post was about failing kidneys. In December of last year, I received a kidney transplant, and it's going super well (like, textbook ideal), aside from the whole pandemic thing. My husband was not a match, but he donated a kidney as part of a kidney exchange. We are both well, and being really careful.

Who's still here, and how are you doing?
asato_muraki: (Default)
2013-12-30 01:25 pm

I'm fangirling

Even though members of my household have been going around muttering things like "Moffat must die", I am still personally hopeful about what is to come with Sherlock and Doctor Who. So there.

This made me LOL:

 photo Andersondance.gif

I do not know where it came from originally, but I thought [profile] narniadear and [personal profile] abrynne might be amused by it.

Also by this:

 photo TomPic.png


I continue to travel hopefully. :)
asato_muraki: (Default)
2013-12-05 04:13 pm

WisCon

I'm seriously considering going this year. People have been talking about it for ages, and something has come up every year. This year I just might make it.

Anybody going? Any suggestions about what to do?
asato_muraki: (Default)
2013-12-04 05:25 pm

Hm

So, I entered the Baker's Dozen Agent Auction over at Miss Snark's First Victim. There were 25 slots for adult fiction, and up to 200 submissions were accepted for those 25 slots. (Submissions were a logline and first 250 words.

I was all excited that I got in, because I thought, "Hey, my logline doesn't suck!"

How it works is, they put up the submissions that made the cut on November 29th. Everyone who got in had to critique a certain number of the submissions, but they were all open to internet criticism, too.

One of the perks for those who made the cut was a critique of your submission by a pro writer and an editor in your category (Adult, YA, or Mid-Grade). After they were open to critiques, I realized that the criticism didn't bother me. Like, I was honestly able to listen dispassionately. That was huge, but I didn't mention it because I didn't want to jinx it. Like, as soon as I said, "Wow, critique doesn't hurt me anymore!" I'd be dooming myself to a truly spectacular breakdown. ;)

Yesterday was the auction. How that works is that the minimum bid is 5 pages. Then bids must be 20 pages higher (at least) than the last bid, and you can't bid a full manuscript until there are at least five bids. I checked just before lunch, and was pleased to see the top bid was 50 pages. I refreshed once and saw that the high bid was now a full manuscript.

That felt nice. My Beloved took me to lunch, and when I came back, it turned out that there had been a bad bid (less than 20 pages more than a previous bid), so the moderator threw it out. This meant that the full bid was also invalid because there had not been 5 valid bids before it. Make sense? I was confused. I went to lunch thinking I'd be sending out a full MS and came back and it was down to 100 pages. But still pretty cool.

Then a third agent swooped in made the 5th bid and then bid for a full, to lock it up. This agent "won" the auction of my submission. It was odd, because I looked at her page and she doesn't list an interest in the scfi/speculative fiction genres. She does list urban fantasy, which you could call mine that, but it has no romantic tensions to speak of. (My protags both have romantic impairments.) But it's cool. Maybe she's branching out, or maybe she thinks my story might have a strong romantic subplot. Anyway, I get to send her a full MS, and she has a week long exclusive on it. I can still query the two others who bid on my story after the week is up.

My head feels asplode-y. I was not expecting that. It's not a deal, not an offer of representation or anything. But I guess it still feels validating. I had just said it was time to start querying. So.

I just compiled my 4th draft from Scrivener. It's 310 pages, and has some formatting issues. Guess I'll have to fix them fast. I'm just all O_o
asato_muraki: (Default)
2013-02-26 07:57 pm
Entry tags:

Novel Workshop spot open!

Not posting much these days. I finished my 3rd draft edits (though I still have a few details to retcon and do some minor fixes here or there).


What I'm looking to do is start a writing group that meets monthly via Google Plus hangout. Ideally, it would consist of 4 people with a finished novel draft they want feedback on. Every month, two people submit 50 pages of their draft. The next meeting, they get feedback and the other two submit 50 pages each.

So the reading load is 100 pages in a month, and you can get feedback on a novel-sized manuscript in less than a year, if all works out well.

The first meeting we'll probably talk about our projects so we can make sure everybody can stand each other's genres and stuff. I'm specifically trying to recruit people I know write well, so we won't have any really really remedial contributors.

PM me if you're interested. :)

If you'd like to beta-read the novel but don't want to submit anything to a group, let me know. I can maybe pay you in straight trade or gift cards or something? :)
asato_muraki: (Default)
2012-10-24 09:36 pm

I'm sorry

I was out of town and now I'm sick and I missed a bunch of people's birthdays and now I don't even know who all I missed. I'm sorry. I'll hit you all next year. :(
asato_muraki: (Default)
2012-10-22 09:41 pm
Entry tags:

Ten Interview Questions for The Next Big Thing

[livejournal.com profile] cafenowhere tagged me to answer ten questions about my current work-in-progress. (She tagged me just before I left town, so I apologize for the delay.) A lot of great folks have participated and I'm stoked to be part of it.

Ten Interview Questions for the Next Big Thing

What is the title of your book?

Like [livejournal.com profile] cafenowhere, I've written two books of a trilogy. The first book is Form and Void; the second is Face of the Deep. These are just working titles, but they give the stories some shape in my head. I think of the series as The Genesis Consortium series.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

I had a dream about the characters. One about Mobius, a major character in the second book, and one about Lethe, my protagonist. Not at the same time, but the second dream was just before I decided to try National Novel Writing Month. So, The first draft of Face of the Deep was written for NaNoWriMo, and finished shortly thereafter. The feedback I got from it was that my protagonist was unlikable -- basically, she cursed and was willing to consider violent solutions to her problems. I thought the same readers would not have blinked at a male character doing those things, and it really annoyed me. The prequel became all about showing how she got to that place.

What genre does your book fall under?

Because the main character has a special ability and the tech is still near-future-but-close-to-now, I'd have to go with Urban Fantasy. Not sure it fits -- no vampires or werewolves -- and it has a sort of thriller vibe, but that seems closest.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I really have no idea. One major character is called Cyrus Kane, which makes it obvious to those of you who know me that Christian Kane was a bit of a template for him. He's probably a tad old for the part, though.

What is a one-sentence synopsis of the book?

Arrested for a series of brutal murders she did not commit, Lethe Maya fights for her freedom and is soon caught up in a power struggle between a government agency that exists to control people with shifting abilities like hers and a mysterious cabal known only as the Genesis Consortium.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I'm going to start querying agents after the holidays. We will see.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

About four months for Face of the Deep. Form and Void took at least two years, but I was not working on it constantly. (During that time I moved house twice, homeschooled my kids and generally had a crisis about whether I'm really cut out for writing. The answer came when I realized I couldn't stop.)

What other books would you compare this story to in your genre?

Both stories have some themes in common with The Hunger Games, but a very different plot, beyond the main character making a regrettable decision to protect a family member. People in power are scapegoating shifters, so it has a mildly dystopic feel. The mystery element is a product of my love for the works of Val McDermid, Barbara Vine (Ruth Rendell's more twisted pseudonym) and the mystery/crime genres in general. The killer for whose crimes Lethe is arrested is akin to a female Hannibal Lecter crossed with a T1000. None of those are technically in my genre, but there you go.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

It came out of my frustration with passive heroines in teen urban fantasy. I wanted to show that a girl doesn't need someone to rescue her, and even when bad things happen that she can't prevent, she doesn't lose her agency. I wanted a heroine with some fight, even if she starts off as a sheltered suburban girl whose worst problem before the story starts is a bad hair day. I wanted to make a character who is tougher than she knows.

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

It's got mutants, shady and powerful corporations in bed with government agencies, a possibly ancient conspiracy, a sweet young thing who tries to lose her virginity and fails spectacularly, and a synesthesiac female serial killer with, like, knives for hands.

Include the link of who tagged you and this explanation for the people you have tagged.

I linked to Lisa at the top. I feel weird tagging people, but I would love to hear what you guys are working on, so feel free to snag this. Please talk about any creative project you're working on, be it short story, poem, novel, novella, anthology, collection--anything. It's a good exercise.
asato_muraki: (Default)
2012-08-31 05:08 pm
Entry tags:

Happy Birthday, [livejournal.com profile] biggelois!!!!

I hope it was/is really great. :) I'm bringing back the Angry Cat greeting, just for you:

Angry Cat 2


My today be totally AMAZEBALLS!
asato_muraki: (Default)
2012-08-21 08:09 pm

Hiddleston, Hiddleston, Hiddleston Pie...

Tom Hiddleston impersonates a vilociraptor. A sexy, sexy vilociraptor:



That is all.
asato_muraki: (pic#138733)
2012-08-13 08:15 pm

Stefano is getting better, but I'm not so great

The hubby was home for three weeks. It was great. He did all kinds of stuff and really took the pressure off me. We had Robert's BFF who now lives in WA. come for two weeks or so, too. And now school is back in session.

I am hopeful that I'll be able to get my final revisions done on the novel a little more easily since the kiddos will be in school during the day.

***

Politics. Oh God.

My husband's middle brother visited from Florida last week. It was GREAT because I got to see my wee nieces who always greet me like a rock star. They are so cute and funny! They got me laughing so hard I almost wet myself. :)

But it was also bad because I always wonder what crap my in-laws are going to start spewing from Fox News. This time it was the Muslim Brotherhood Menace. It came up because they were talking about how Canada is doing better with jobs than we are, and wondering how hard it would be to go to Canada for a job. (My husband's youngest brother just got his degree, so, you know, it was relevant.) I said I knew it had been hard for my doctor friend to sort out her employment up there, but mostly because of special rules about certain positions which are funded by the government, and all countries are careful about giving certain types of government jobs to foreigners. But evidently our government is now overrun with Muslim Brotherhood infiltrators. Because Michelle Bachman said so. I don't think they knew that John McCain had basically told her off about some portion of her unsupported fear-mongering. I found somewhere else to be for a bit, with "Exhuming McCarthy" playing in my head. :P

***

I think the next few months may kill me. I was relatively indifferent to Romney (he's changed his policies often enough that it's hard to say what he'll do for sure if he wins), but I think Paul Ryan may have been grown in tank by a right wing extremest/mad scientist, his soulless flesh nourished to adulthood on a slurry of Ayn Rand novels and impoverished children's tears. Good GOD.

***

Someone on Tumblr made this and it found its way to Facebook, where I fell in love with it:

Photobucket

I may just have to leave FB and stare at this image until mid-November. :P

***

My sweet Stefano had some sort of recurrence of that infected tail bite from June. I took him to the vet and he had a fever. He's on antibiotics now and his fever is down. Poor woobie. It happened right after his neutering, so I though the swelling had to do with that. The bite had healed over and the hair had grown back, even. Now his tail is shaved and I have to push medicine down his throat, but at least he seems to feel better. He stays with me all the time, so I don't get lonesome and can pet him frequently.

***

While my Beloved was home, he bought me some new Nike Frees and upgraded my phone. It's all shiny now. We took the gang to see the Batman movie.I also got a haircut:
picture below cut )

It was about time for something drastic, and I'm happy with it. Also, probably lighter. It looks good with my glasses, too.

***

In general I'm grumptastic. I guess that's normal with the hubby having gone and all. A cool friend from work and I are having lunch Thursday, so that is something to look forward to. I've just got to push through this ennui. I bought groceries in the rain. It was fun.

***

Watched a bit of True Love, which I think would have been more appropriately called Variations on Romantic Misery. Not the best diversion for me at the mo. :P

***

I'm up for any Sherlock fanfiction recs you guys want to throw my way, if you think of some. It would be diverting. :)
asato_muraki: (Default)
2012-07-08 08:20 pm
Entry tags:

Happy Birthday, [livejournal.com profile] splix!!!!

Photobucket

I hope it was/is glorious! :)
asato_muraki: (Default)
2012-05-24 07:36 pm
Entry tags:

Goodbye, Angry Cat

Jack Schrodinger Fowler, Lord Fluffington the Third (2006-2012)

Photobucket


I found him by the smell. He seems to have been dead since around the time we discovered he was missing. I had been through the crawlspace last week, shining a flash light and calling to him, but he had to have been gone already. I found him in a hollow near a brick house support. He was under our living room, so i like to think he could hear us when he passed.

He was a terrible chewer of plants, and I'm certain he got out and ate something poisonous, then crawled under the house and died. It has been unseasonably temperate the past week or so, and rainy part of the time. The space under the house was quite cool, so it took a while for there to be a smell, but he had obviously been gone some time. We buried him in the back yard.

My BIL and girlfriend Wendy are over with adult beverages, and we're having a sort of wake for him. I had forgotten how much this hurts.
asato_muraki: (Default)
2012-04-17 07:54 pm
Entry tags:

The Woman in Black, and the boy in a morph suit

Friday night, I watched The Woman in Black with my boys and my youngest's friend Jake, who was over for a sleepover.

That is an extremely atmospheric film, and a fairly scary one. Not scary, maybe, to people who require/expect monsters or Saw levels of gore, but for an old coot like me, pretty tense. My Beloved refused to go to the theater to see it, because the trailer scared him so much.

In any case, the boys and i had plans to watch it, and we had been under the impression that Jake had several other offers for the night and would not be coming. But, he came over anyway. Robert and I told both him and William not to talk during the movie, but you might as well tell water not to be wet. Jake's a talker.

"There should be monsters. Monsters are scarier than ghosts. Ghosts aren't scary..."

Robert and I, together: Shhhhhh!

And so on. Eventually, he excused himself to William's room. I figured he'd just get his laptop out and wait for William to join him. But no.

A few minutes later, this black thing jumps out from behind the couch onto William, making a strange, blood-curdling noise. It's Jake, who had excused himself to change into a black morphsuit. He then sat down and watched the rest of the film through te mesh of his morphsuit.

Jake is a bit of a character. He is a very good actor - he's very expressive and loud, and also makes some amazingly ...um, atmospheric noises. He and William get on very very well, partly because William is just socially impaired enough not to exclude Jake for his obvious eccentricities. Not that there is anything wrong with Jake. He's actually amazing enough that if he were a grown man, he'd probably already have his own TV show. Part of his amazingness is how little he cares about fitting in, when most twelve-year-olds think that is their full time job.

What amazed me was that, when packing for a sleepover, he brought a black morphsuit, just in case.

He got us all, good.

***

The movie was creepy enough that my creepy old house -- to which I am largely accustomed -- once again became old and creepy. I hung a dress over my mirror just to sleep. (It is positioned such that when trains go by a lot of the light that makes it in the window gets cast about by it, making my bedroom full of writhing black shadows.)

Also, Dan Radcliffe grew up kind of hot. I feel a tad dirty-old-woman-ish just saying that, but... yeah.
asato_muraki: (Default)
2012-04-17 07:34 pm

My week back was hectic

I drove back home on Easter Sunday, and stayed up past 1am to get my hours in. I was a zombie on Monday, but I managed. I didn't have to get groceries because I brought bread and lunch things with me.

Tuesday morning, I called the school to find out when my meeting with the guidance counselor was (to explain the "4 year plan" paperwork, because my dear son was not articulating it to me very well). They didn't have a record of the appointment (I had put it in my Outlook calendar just before my laptop died - I saved most stuff but not that), so they said they would put me down for one on Wednesday. Which meant I could not go into the office on Wednesday. Since there was a doctor's appointment for the Big Boy that I had been waiting for for three months on Friday, and Thursday was my day off, that meant I had to go to the office basically as soon as I got off the phone with the school.

It went well. I talked to my boss about the summer break, and she said that other people in QC also have kids who will be home from school in the summer, so it was no big deal to waive the come-in-once-every-two-weeks thing for the summer. So I can go to New Orleans.WHEE! I stopped for groceries on the way home. I arrived before the younger boy but just after the big boy.

Made the other appointment on Wednesday and still managed to get in most of my hours. I knew I would be working on my day off because I would need to make up the hours I was going to miss on Friday for the long-awaited specialist appointment, which I did. I also chaptered.

Then I realized that I had accepted an appointment that was almost 50 miles away, because it was the first available and it was kind of important. I cried, because i was certain I'd never make it in time, but we did. AND I managed to work more than enough afterward, so I let both boys invite friends over for part or all of the weekend.

I did, too. I made a huge dinner and asked some good friends that I have not seen much recently because I've been practicing becoming reclusive and weird. :D Made a cake and everything. Beverages were drunk, games were played.

***

Somehow, I feel relatively like a competent human again.
asato_muraki: (Default)
2012-04-06 10:59 pm

Atheism, Being in New Orleans, Finding my Passion,

I'm not even sure how this happened, but I've spent a few days spending time on YouTube listening to interviews and discussion programs with Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Bill Maher and Penn Jillette. Basically a rotating mish mash of delightfully smarmy atheism, and sometimes some very interesting and impressive discussions with people of faith.

I was especially impressed with an Australian show called Q and A.



I think the most impressive thing about it was the lack of yelling and the fact that they seemed, for the most part, to be genuinely having civil discourse. On Television. I had forgotten that was possible. I mean, I knew it was possible as a sort of hazy theory. Of course it could happen. But it was a bit like seeing an albino alligator in the wild when I actually saw it happening.

It filled me with longing, and an almost bone-deep weariness.

***

Spent the day today visiting with pals from the homeschool group. The weather was fabulous. The rain had left some temporary swampy areas in the green of the park, and many water birds had moved over from the lagoon to reap the surprised insects from the waterlogged areas. It was just lovely.

I spoke a bit with the lady whom I always liked, but who went a tad crazy on me on Facebook before I left, and found it very easy to be nice and positive and loving toward her. She's been trying to conceive for six years, and just found out she's pregnant, so it was easy to share her joy. Also, I had read and copy-edited her daughter's submission to the NOCCA Creative Writing program, and I was very anxious to encourage her. (The daughter had approached me independently of her mom.) She writes well. Incredibly well for a twelve year old, and she has the disposition to write and read quite a lot. I get that fluttery feeling from her work that I got in the past from writers I worked with who have become really successful. All the elements are there, and I'm really quite antsy to support and nurture them in her, in any way I can. But I'll let her come to me, if she wants.

If I have a superpower, it might be that I can see the greatness in others. That is, at least, the superpower I hope I have. :D

***

Visiting with another one of the moms was also great fun. She was always very encouraging to me, and always remarks on how nice I am to everyone, and how diplomatic she's seen me be under stress. That's encouraging, because that is who I want to be, surely.

I ended up speaking with her very passionately about some things, without even realizing it until she pointed it out. I'm usually a thinker, a muller-over-of-things, but for the first time in a great while I spoke out loud of things that are very important to me.

Which kind of gave me an idea about something I might just have to do.
asato_muraki: (Default)
2012-04-03 08:31 pm

Big Boy's Graveyard Book Project and some Profanity

So, Big Boy had a different idea for his "book trailer" but they said it should have a cliffhanger and make people want to read the book, so he went for the ultra-creepy Man-Jack-coming-to-kill-Bod-as-a-toddler intro. I think it's effective.

My friend Anne provided the vocals. The song is from the book, and serves as an outline for the plot. She sang it for me twice, once to All the Pretty Little Horses and once to Fear a Bhata. My son liked the first half of one and the second half of the other, so I cut them together for him, but he did all the editing. (I consulted occasionally, when he needed help figuring out how to do something, or find a particular clip.)

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v602/AsatoMuraki/?action=view¤t=RobertsGraveyardBookTrailer.mp4

That is my son as The Man Jack. He's 6"1' and fourteen years old. THIS is what happens when you make babies with a Viking. :P

***

Now for the profanity. What. The. Ever-F**King. F**K.

My list of People Who Must Be Kicked In The Gonads on Sight just KEEPS growing. So, there's this Georgia Representative who compares a law that would force women with anencephalic babies to carry them to term, to his experiences with livestock. See, fetuses with anencephaly have no brains. They have a brain stem, generally, which means their heart beats and they can grow to term. Once they are born, though, they invariably die because they can't breathe on their own (or do anything else) without a brain. This law makes abortion for any reason after 20 weeks a crime, but often this condition (among others) is not diagnosable until at least 18 weeks. So women would be forced, by lawmakers, to carry babies to term that would have no chance of living, in the process risking their ability to have healthy babies later and, yes, even their lives.

What the hell?

Watch the video at that link, and if you don't want to kick that man in the gonads so hard that his prostate deploys out his ass like an airbag, you can just unfriend me now.