tea

Jan. 15th, 2019 08:42 am
mhalachai: (DW Coffee)
 I'm going through a tea phase - mostly black tea during the day, and peppermint with honey after 6pm. I'm lucky to live in a city with a number of great tea shops. My favourite tea right now is La La Lemon from David's Tea, and I have a rotating selection from the Granville Island Tea Company (currently drinking their Christmas 2018 blend). 

I'm also drinking far too much coffee but I have to be at work by 7:30 and I'm making trade-offs.

What's your favourite tea?
mhalachai: (Ginny HP)
For the Ask Me Anything December meme - Day #5

Today's question is: Why do you write?

Two reasons: I have all these stories in my head and want to share them with everyone, also to get them solidified into one actual story instead of the multi-verse of tangents and off-shoots and AU storylines. I find that once I write something down and publish it, all other tangents crumble to dust and I’m set on a particular “canon” for my stories*. Sometimes it’s a relief.

Also I crave validation from others and want everyone to like me

* Over the years I’ve heard readers criticize authors for forgetting details of their own stories and yes this is why we should all have a story bible but I bring this up because I find it fascinating how I can have an encyclopedic knowledge of the tiniest details of the shows I watch and books/fics I read, and have forgotten almost all details about a story I wrote two years ago. So I get it, both sides.

tl;dr - can't not write. have tried. didn't take.

mhalachai: (Iron Man Tony out of service)
For the Ask Me Anything December meme - Day #3

Today’s question comes from [personal profile] jjhunter : What do you carry with you?


Literal answer: Phone, headphones, chapstick, $40 in cash, a bookstore loyalty card, and my house keys

Philosophical answer: Loneliness. I have a hard time understanding social interaction and people really mean in any given social setting. I have a hard time making friends; I get the social signals all wrong and am either too clingy or too aloof, and it ends up with me sitting by myself too tired to try again.

And having said that in all its depressing glory, I try not to let that define me. I get up, go to work, perform all the obligatory social interactions (how was your weekend? Any holiday plans? Etc.) and live my life.

And and, I’m ok with alone. Lonely hurts sometimes, but alone is within my control. Alone is, I can go out and see people and then leave those people and be home  and knowing exactly what’s in my personal space and be in control of my own destiny.

Also I carry with me the lingering repercussions of childhood poverty and low socio-economic expectations, but I’m saving that particular topic for my autobiography.
mhalachai: (Default)
I'm on vacation for the month of December (it feels like it's been three years since I had a vacation because 2018 is the Bad Place) and so, spurred by the reminder that the building manager is coming by on Monday for the annual inspection, I've been working on a winter apartment cleanse. Chucking out stuff that's past it's best-by date, putting in the laundry, stacking up the books that seem to appear on any semi-flat surface. Once I have the laundry out of the dryer and folded away, I'll run the vacuum and be done with it all.  

I'm in a bit of a strange place, mentally, where my brain keeps looping on Anxiety's Greatest Hits, so I"m trying to distract myself by Emulating A Healthy Adult. There's lots of water and herbal tea involved, and making of lists. Hopefully something will help.

Also since I have a month that I'm not checking work email, I'll likely be blogging more frequently.
mhalachai: (Candle)
I got a new smoke detector in my place in July - the old one was like 20 years old and finally died. Since then everything was working fine until two weeks ago, when the detector went off once for no reason at 7am. I thought it might be dust so I vacuumed it. Then last night at 2am the damned thing beeped again for no reason.

I thought it might be humidity, even though it wasn't overly humid at 2am, so I did some research, and one thing that popped was that for the hard-wired smoke detectors (instead of the battery ones) is that they can be triggered when the power company switches to a new grid. And given that both alarms happened on the hour (directly on the hour) makes me wonder if that's it.

And I don't know what to do about it.

On the one hand, it only goes off once. Then again, getting woken from a deep sleep by the fire alarm is not pleasant.

We'll see what happens next.

mhalachai: (Entance To General Office)
 So the 4th wave of pillowfort invites are out and I got one, so of course I signed into DW. 

A bit about where I'm at these days with my fics:
  • Hands of Clay is up to chapter 32 and I'm slogging away at chapter 33
  • I've written a number of Yuri on Ice!!! fics since I last posted here
  • And I'm nearly done the "what I did on my summer vacation" Yuri on Ice!!! fantasy AU, And each man stands with his face in the light. I decided that as I wasn't going anywhere for my 3 weeks vacation this year, I wanted to see if I could pull off something from left field. And I am just writing the last chapter (er, procrastinating on the last chapter) now. 
Anyway, if you're in pillowfort, come find me at https://pillowfort.io/mhalachai. If not, I'll be here and on tumblr.

What's everyone been up to recently?
mhalachai: (Candle)
surreal work week aside, I had a pretty good day on writing today on the next part of my Blood in the Water Yuri on Ice! series. I have about 20 tabs open with information on all of the 2015-16 figure skating season events, and also most of the pages from the Yuri on Ice wiki, as this next installment opens just before Yuuri’s free skate at the 2016 World Championship in Boston. I had to stop myself from constructing his program’s technical elements to figure out what he would really have scored, and instead just handwaved things.

Also I think I now know why the Yuri on Ice writers focused on the Grand Prix series instead of the others, and not just because it comes first in the season - at the GP events and final, there are only six skaters performing in each event. At the others, including Worlds, there are upwards of 24 skaters performing in every event - trying to write the stage mechanics of 24 skaters, plus coaches, is a bloody nightmare.

Anyway, the struggle continues. Have a good week, everyone.
mhalachai: (SGA Elizabeth+Atlantis (obaona))

Tagged on tumblr by @rosefyrefyre

Favorite story I’ve written and why? I have a few for different reasons:

  • Agent Afloat Atlantis - writing Ziva David in this story was a very interesting experience, and I think story is one of my better efforts in terms of language and crossoverness.
  • Widow Maker - not only do I love Natasha Romanoff, but the arc and plot of the story work for me in terms of pacing and direction. I think this is a good example of how it can take a writer a long time to grow into their craft, and this was pretty much written ten years after I started writing fanfic so not a bad haul.
  • Inevitable - I don't think it has aged as well as others of my fics, but then I feel that way about a lot of my Anita Blake stuff. The amount of fandom support I got from everyone in my years writing Inevitable have meant more to me than I can ever describe, and it helped give me a lot of confidence - if I could pull off a Harry Potter/Anita Blake crossover like this, I can do anything.
  • And Hands of Clay because of all the reasons.

Tropes I gravitate toward? Found family and crossovers.

Present or past tense? Past. Present-tense is okay for me in writing short little blurbs, but I stick with past-tense for anything big. Just my preference.

How many unfinished stories do I have? Oh, dear. Most of them I've had some long ones get away from me and then my motivation vanishes. Part of the cost of doing business in fandom I think. My big undones are Physics of the Spin, Old Soldiers, Hel's Bones, Rhapsody in Blue, Child of the Wolf... I left Dawning Light at the end of Act 1 so i'm okay with that ending. I hope I can one day get  back to Old Soldiers because we're now so far off canon for that Bucky that it doesn't matter any more, and with Rhapsody in Blue I want to wrap up Peggy's story. Who knows about Hel's Bones.

Ideas in Google docs? I use Dropbox instead of Google Docs but anyway all the ideas are in my head... which is not great because then they very seldom get written down, then they are forgotten and on I go.

Best review/comment I’ve received? So many. I love when people tell me things they liked about the chapter/story, so I can go back and forth with them in comments :D

Worst review/comment? I had an epic few  back on Twisting the Hellmouth - there was a guy back on there who was super critical/negative about a lot of people's stuff (not naming names because I think I spotted him on Tumblr while back and I’m not looking to revive the squabbles), and i have to say I'm glad we're now in different fandoms. But yeah I've been pretty luck with comments/reviews over the years.

Last book I’ve read? Do I read books anymore? I think it was a library book that has obviously left no impression. The last book I bought was Cold Case Vancouver - that's a good one (non-fiction).  I read a lot of fanfic - currently obsessed with Owlet's Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail series.

Do I plan to publish something original? I hope so. I'm working on ideas, trying to figure out what would work for me in engaging in original fiction. I have some great plot ideas but the characters are harder to get a handle on. I think that's why I gravitate to fanfic; the characters are already there.

Biggest writing inspiration?  Life experiences.  The places I've been, the things I've done, and of course the people that I've known. How is that for a boring answer? But yeah I find that the more I do, the more ideas I have.

But also, too, different things work for different stories. With the Widow's Tale series, all of the stories except for Old Soldiers I wrote out longhand then typed them up. With Hands of Clay, I listen to jazz while I write. I've learned to go with what works while it works, and not stress myself out when things stop working or I need to change it up.

Fanfic stories – how many have I posted? Dear god, probably over 200 in various forms? I have 80 works up on AO3, but I have so many more on TTH and on my LJ. I haven't ported everything to AO3 yet as some fics are too short or unfinished, but also.... how do I say this.... some were written when I was very young as a writer. They have not aged as well as one might have hoped.

What am I currently working on?  Hands of Clay, all the time. Working on ideas for how to finish Rhapsody in Blue and Old Soldiers. Always looking for new ideas - and since Supergirl has kiboshed my ideas for that Supergirl/Die Hard fusion, that's been pinned to the wall in case I can salvage it at some point.

What’s my username? Mhalachai, everywhere. AO3, Livejournal, Dreamwidth, TTH, and Tumblr.

Who's next? tag yourself if you want and comment here so I can see!

mhalachai: (SGA John Happyhour (_wwsd_))

[originally posted on tumblr]

So, anyway looking back:

Pros to the year:

I did a lot of work on letting shit go, and trying to live the understanding that other people are living their lives and doing their best and that’s not a reflection (negative or positive) on me. Basically all those life lessons in Hands of Clay that the dads are taking time to impart on the kids, that’s my personal philosophy this year.

Did a lot of writing this year, but not as much as previous years - I figure that it was all quality writing so it’s still a win.  An overview of the last three years (numbers from AO3 + my crappy math)

  • 2013: 204,942
  • 2014: 267,071
  • 2015: 198,484 (plus hundreds of crappy tumblr posts)

Things that were crap in 2015 for me personally:

  • a ‘mid’-life crisis and the ever-present crippling fear of death
  • My PMDD kicked my ass over the first part of the year.
  • While work is good, there are Circumstances Outside My Control coming down in 2016 that I’ve been worrying about quite a lot.
  • I spend too much goddamned money.

Resolutions for 2016:

  • Write more consistently
  • Get more sleep.
  • Drink less caffeine and alcohol (we say that every year don’t we)
  • Do at least 5 ‘races’ this year (10K walks, probably, or maybe a 5K shamble run)
  • Make it through.

what about you? what are you hoping for in 2016?

Sunday

Nov. 22nd, 2015 05:39 pm
mhalachai: (Default)
today's been a bit of a surreal day. I had something come into my inbox on tumblr that's been needling me all day (i'm thinking of turning off anon, because honestly if you want to take issue with something I've said please at least do me the courtesy of saying it to my face) and I've been working on processing it. My parents called me last night at about 8pm saying 'hey do you want to go walk around Stanley Park tomorrow morning?' and I said no because a) didn't wanna and b) I had plans to write, and so I spent the whole day feeling guilty about that. And my writing today was crap so that makes me feel even worse. Why is describing human interaction so hard?

Tomorrow is back to work and I have a feeling that this week is going to be verging on a disaster, but I'll do what I can. I'm lucky in that I have a great boss and a good bunch of people and it makes it a bit easier when I know that everyone is working as hard as I am (something I haven't had in previous jobs so I'm doubly conscious of that).

So anyway. Here's to another week.
mhalachai: (Profiler Panther)
A summary of my last week:
  • The bathroom fan in my apartment stopped working
  • The handle/latch on one of the living room windows fell off
  • Flat tire (see below)
  • My credit card was compromised 
On the up side, I did my 10K walk yesterday with my mother and we shaved 10 minutes off our time from last time!

All in all, ugh.

the tire thing

Backstory - last Thursday we had a cold snap and my truck's tire pressure warning light came on so I took her to the gas station - the tires were at around 5psi too low so I filled them up and off I went. Fast forward to today, when the warning light came on again just as I was getting to work. Back right tire was down again which through copious amounts of googling suggested was a slow leak. Now my truck is at Canadian Tire waiting for someone do do something about that. Luckily, I'm working from home tomorrow so I'm not on a time crunch and can go in to pick it up whenever they're done.

But still.

November

Nov. 4th, 2015 09:25 am
mhalachai: (HP Decaf)
I keep meaning to come back to this place to post, but you know how it goes. I was poking around my old entries and I think it's interesting how I'm less likely to talk about myself online these days. Part of it is the 'do I really want this on tumblr" but also I'm apathetic :P

So I'm going to try to make at least one post a week on DW/LJ and we'll see how things go.

Also, if anyone has any questions or comments, drop them into comments :D
mhalachai: (John Five OClock)
With everything that's upcoming this month I'm making the decision to go on a tiny writing hiatus for three weeks. I have a lot of work to wrap up before the holidays, and a final project for a course I'm taking, so yeah that's where my time needs to go :( Then I'm going to have two weeks off over Christmas so I can get back to creative works.

That said I'm going to be doing the December meme and I plan to fill in those blanks myself which is easy, I can talk about things that interest me for 150 words per day.

Also I have a paid account now so I can import all my icons again yay.
mhalachai: (Default)
Hey all who are here from the friending meme :) I'm mostly here for fandom stuff - I'm a writer and I fanfic, as well as meta and have occasional thoughts about fictional things. My links to various places are on the sidebar of my blog page.

Um so yeah in RL I live in British Columbia, work in communications. I don't know what else I could put here... oh well you can always ask if you want to know anything.

My main fandom at the moment is MCU, and Natasha Romanoff is my favourite. Stargate is my secondary at the moment, at least in the writing side of things, but yeah lots of fandoms where I like to poke around and read the meta and reblog gifsets on Tumblr. 

And unrelated - I'm watching the pilot of Criminal Minds on netflix right now - that was a very good pilot (filmed in Vancouver btw).


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