I filled out my Yuletide form, and when I saw that I'd messed up on one I'd volunteered to write--picked Richard Adams' The Plague Dogs instead of Watership Down--I thought, fudge, if I get stuck with that one, I should just suck it up, go read the book and write the damn thing. S.O.'s been telling me for years I should read it.

For exchange fests like these I get more excited thinking about what I'd like to write. What I request is a bit bewildered-feeling, half-hearted. Is that what everyone feels? When I click with a fandom, I usually think about the story that comes to me, which means it's a story I want to write, not a story I want someone else to write.

What I want from other authors are the stories I can't think of.

*smacks head*

Good news: Starfighter has been updated!

Bad news: I FORGOT ABOUT IT WHEN YULETIDE NOMS CAME AROUND. And it didn't make the list from anyone else either. Arrrgh.

http://www.stickam.com/evilseedlet

I finished the scarf while watching Cats for the bazillionth time. Here it is! Prepare to recoil in terror!

( Some pics. It's not really that bad. )

So, I started making a scarf yesterday. I killed maybe 2/3 of a ball of yarn on it, and I think I'm going going to keep going 'till the ball dies, it seems like it should be long enough. Here are some pics of my first few rows. they are very loose and way wider than the whole rest of the scarf, but I decided I would only go back and fix rows if the stitch count was way off. As it sometimes it. A lot of times I'd forget o count and 5 rows later realize I was 1 stitch off. Usually then I'd just leave it and keep going. The result is the most wonky, messed up looking scarf ever made, it's awesome. I thought about selling it and claiming I did it on purpose, and the description would be something like, "Buy this beautiful green and brown scarf, hand crocheted by me with acrylic yarn. It has a funky, wobbly feel and zigzags, changes shape and gets thicker and thinner as it goes, promising to be a one-of-a-kind scarf all of your friends will be jealous of. Can you believe this is the first thing I ever crocheted??"

I won't post any more pics 'til the whole thing is done. So you can see how awful it is, heh heh.
( See the pics here )

Right, so I just click "post" and then type what I've been doing in that big rectangle there in the middle of the screen? That's it? It's been so long I've forgotten.

Anyway, uh, I haven't been posting because nothing has been happening? Life has been sort of coasting along. I'm still trying hard to sell paintings and such but, meh. Not working out so well I guess. I don't have the money to relist my crap every day to get up higher in the searches. Which is one of the best ways to get sales on Etsy.

I really need to get my website going but I can NOT decide on a layout. I want it to be something I won't get sick of quickly and need to re-do in a few weeks because I can't stand to look at it. So that means it has to be relatively simple and versatile. I would also like it to be unique though, something no one else has, so no premade layouts or anything. I'd also like to do it myself so Josh and I can use it as a sample of web design for any future projects. All of these things together make my head asplode and I can't decide on what I want. It's so much harder when it's for yourself.

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I have also decided that I *Really* want to make making videos of my paintings my "thing," something people know about my business and might attract them to me. I want to record every painting and edit it into a neat/simple time lapse that people can watch and show their friends. I think this would be especially neat for when people get custom work from me, they can see the whole process from start to finish. The problem with this is, at the moment, there is one decent camera in the house, and that is attached to the netbook. Ideally I'd be able to record most of the paintings while broadcasting live as well so they can see the process in real time, and maybe one day I'll get not shy enough to actually talk to the chatters out loud (I'm working on it, I squeaked out a few sentences last time). I think this could also be a huge draw to my business if people can find the time to watch me paint AS I paint and make suggestions or whatever as I go. O did it for his Commisionathlon and people LOVED it. Especially the commissioners. Ok, back to the issue. The netbook cam is pretty good, but it's not very mobile. My past videos are alright, but I'd like to be able to get dynamic angles and zoom in and out for details, and that's very hard to do with the netbook. I tried it for my last recording (which has not been made into a video yet, and I'll explain why in a moment), and I had to employ the use of a flowerpot and had to sit at a weird angle to keep from blocking my own light because of the desk setup and.. ugh, It would be so much easier if I had a nice little standalone webcam. The netbook also sucks because I have to record the videos right onto it, and the raw video files are HUGE (many gigs) and there is NO good way to move that much info from the netbook to the desktop. The netbook has windows movie maker but the computer is just not powerful enough to run it efficiently. That's why I haven't produced my latest video, I am just DREADING chopping up the video into 2 gig pieces so they can fit onto our card and transferring them to the desktop, putting them back together, and then editing them. If I had a webcam I could just record onto the desktop and friggin' GO.

Lastly and probably most important, most of the day the netbook is being used by someone else and I can't record at all, which makes me not want to paint. I know that's a crappy excuse for not painting but I REALLY want to make this video thing work and I'd like to do it for EVERY painting I do. But if there's no netbook, there's no recording. Having the camera is ALSO a bonus because if I am doing more paintings just for the heck of it because I actually have a camera to record with, I will be listing on Etsy more often and have a bigger inventory, which bumps me up the search lists on Etsy.

tl;dr, I want to get a webcam so I can record my paintings and make cool videos as sort of a signature for my business.

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I am still interested in crocheting, but I have been making NO sales and haven't had the money to buy the supplies. I also haven't had the money to buy a webcam. I am super pissed at myself because I keep forgetting to buy the damned camera, so I am telling several people in long winded ways so that maybe I will remember the next time I make a sale, if that ever happens.

I didn't carve my Halloween pumpkin this year until the 31st!

This is the original screencap that I chose:

For those following my original smutfiction:



Chapters 14 and 15 of Lord Bereshti's Concubines are up.

( Teaser below the cut )

Hope you enjoy!