The story which won the Finish-a-thon 2012 poll was Lords of Gondor. Thus, I am committed to writing 7,000 words for this story by the due date of June 8th at midnight! Real Life is holding me back from making the progress I wanted to make towards this goal, but I'm not giving up. I'm a third of the way there with this latest chapter, yay!

Here is Lords of Gondor Chapter 49, the first installment towards my Finish-a-thon 2012 goal:

( Lords of Gondor Chapter 49 )
Feel free to comment here or in my Dreamwidth journal: Linaewen's Lake of Small Birds.

I've decided not to continue with a paid account here at LJ.  I want to downgrade to a Plus Account, but I have to let it lapse into a Basic Account first and then upgrade.  I'm currently trying to trim my 66 userpics down to 6 before the automatic downgrade -- fortunately, I can add more after I upgrade, up to 15.  That should be enough to give me some flexibility.  It's hard to let go of all those nice userpics, though!  I had quite a few loyalty pics added because I've had a paid account for so many years, but I just can't justify paying for my journal when the Plus Account will do all the things I want for no annual fee.  The addition of ads to the account isn't that intrusive, so I think it's the way to go.

Even so, I feel a bit like I'm deleting my children!  :-D

I have signed up to participate in the Finish-a-thon again this year, and I need everyone to help me by voting in the poll that will choose which story I will "finish" by the due date in June.  I have listed 4 stories in my poll, and state whether I am committed to finishing or writing a certain number of words in the next few months.

Click on the following link to vote!

http://multific.dreamwidth.org/48681.html

If you do not have a Dreamwidth account, you can sign in using your LJ OpenID -- yourusername.livejournal.com.  You'll be asked to approve access to DW and then you can proceed by clicking on the link for the poll.  If you have any trouble, let me know!

Thanks for your help in deciding what I'll be writing in the coming weeks.  ;-)

Feel free to comment here or in my Dreamwidth journal: Linaewen's Lake of Small Birds.

Well, it's been five months or so since the last chapter, but I'm finally back with a new one.  I'm seriously trying to be more committed to this tale, so hopefully it won't be a long break before the next one!  :-D

Enjoy!

( Chapter 48 )
Thanks for reading!!  I'm testing this cross-posting thing to see how it deals with a story chapter post.  Hope nothing odd happens to it on its way over to LJ.  ;-)

Feel free to comment here or in my Dreamwidth journal: Linaewen's Lake of Small Birds .

I imported my LJ to my Dreamwidth account (wow, it took less than 5 minutes, awesome!) and now I'm setting up cross-posting.  So this is a test to see if it works, and what it looks like in my LJ.

Interestingly enough, the import kept all my icons (something like 66!), even though I only get 15 at DW.  Now I'll have to figure out which ones are active and which aren't.  I don't expect I'll go to a paid account at DW at this point, because I'm trying to save some money here, but I have to admit, 15 icons is really hard to get used to after having 66!  :-)

I've had a paid account at LJ for a number of years, but I've decided not continue that paid account.  I am considering switching my LJ to a plus account -- mainly because I can't bear to part with all the user icons I would lose if I went back to basic!  As it is, I'll still lose a lot (including my extra ones I got for having a paid account year by year), but a plus account gives me a few more to keep than a basic account does.  And really, I'm not posting as much as I used to so it's really for the best when it comes right down to it!

So, anyway, let's see how this works....

UPDATE:  Well, it worked nicely, but I see that the import has totally screwed up my icons at DW, by switching in some from LJ seemingly at random and making the rest inactive.  Guess the next thing I have to figure out is how to repair the damage, but it could be worse!  It might help me get in the mood for deleting LJ icons in advance of my (likely) move to a paid account!

Feel free to comment here or in my Dreamwidth journal: http://www.dreamwidth.org/12345.html.

In Pakistan (and other countries that celebrate the Muslim month of fasting) the signal for the end of the month of Ramadan is the sighting of the sliver of the new moon in the night sky.  The Eid festival celebrates the completion of the days of fasting from sunrise to sundown, and that sliver of moon is eagerly anticipated by those who have endured the month-long fast.  Sometimes it seems to take forever for that Eid moon to appear!

There is an Urdu proverb that is derived from that feeling of waiting forever – “you have become the Eid moon.”  It is spoken to one who has been long awaited but is late in coming, particularly a close friend who has not visited for some time.

I've become the Eid Moon in that I haven't been posting here since forever!  Actually, since October of last year, but that still seems like forever.  Sorry for not visiting!

I've been keeping busy in my work as the director of ESL here at the Center in Chicago.  It's a fun job for me because I enjoy interacting with women who come in to learn English (and to get help with other things).  I sometimes get to use that "Eid Moon" proverb on them if they haven't visited for awhile, and it always makes them laugh.  It's great living in this part of Chicago, since it's so very similar to Pakistan -- except that we're also close to Wisconsin so we can drive up and visit family whenever we want!

My health has been pretty good these days, though I'm sorry I didn't take better advantage of the almost snow-less winter in Chicago to get in more walking.  At the moment, the weather can't decide if it's going to be winter or spring, so it goes from one to the other on alternated days.  ;-)

I have been woefully neglecting the writing of my LotR-related WIPs, but I'm working at getting back into that -- one chapter posted per year is just not acceptable.  In spite of that, I did do a fair bit of writing last year, which I neglected to share here in my journal, duh!  So my next post is going to be fic-related, with a list of everything I've written in the last year and links so you can read it if you haven't already.

I'll try not to be the Eid Moon after this!  :-D

Once upon a time, there was a story that I was writing, posting a new chapter every week.  Due to lots of different things, it got harder to keep to that schedule, but I did try to update fairly often.  Somewhere along the line it came down to posting one new chapter a year, if you can believe it!!  That's been the trend lately.  It hardly seems possible, since this story is always in the back of my mind, but the dates of posting don't lie.

I have, of course, been writing other things, so it's not like I've been totally dormant!  I have written quite a bit this past year, though I do believe I have not gotten around to posting it in my own journal.  Methinks I need to change my posting habits a bit, eh?

In any case, the latest chapter in the Lords of Gondor saga -- half written for more than a year -- is at last complete and ready for your viewing pleasure!  Chapter 48 is now knocking on the door -- and I vow a Gondorian vow that it will be written and posted before the end of the year!

If you need some review of what has happened previously -- or if you are reading for the first time -- just click on the "lords of gondor" tag at the bottom of the post and previous chapters will magically appear!


Thanks for reading!!

Back in April, I shared in my journal that I had decided to take part in a Finish-a-thon, to help push me towards finishing some of the stories I had begun writing or to complete a story based on one of the plot bunnies that had been plaguing me.  People voted on which of my tales or plot bunnies should be the one I concentrate on, and one of the plot bunnies was chosen.

For the past month and a half, I've been working on the following bunny:

Fandom:  Lord of the Rings
Rating:  all-ages
Type:  gen
Description:  Plot bunny -- Boromir somehow recognizes Aragorn as being Thorongil, who spent time in Minas Tirith when Boromir was a young child. How does this affect their relationship and goals?

The deadline for finishing my Finish-a-thon story is today!  I actually finished a week or two early, and posted the story in some of the archives I frequent -- but I waited to post the story here at LJ until today.

( Reforged )

 

It was really fun writing this one!  I actually think I might have to write a sequel to it sometime -- but not yet.  First I have to see about working on -- even finishing -- some of those other stories that have been waiting for me to pay attention to them.  ;-)

...your computer's health, that is!

I somehow managed to douse my computer with freshly made Ovaltine last night.  It happened in a weird way -- I was coming into the room with my Ovaltine, wasn't even very close the computer, when a bit splashed out of the cup onto my hand.  I have very sensitive reflexes, so I jumped and must have jerked the cup.  A good 3/4 of the liquid flew out and onto my computer desk -- and my laptop.  Ugh.

It was real mess, to be sure.  Before doing anything else, I turned off the computer, ran for a paper towel, set it on keyboard and turned the machine over so as much as possible would drain out.  Then I proceeded to clean up the ocean (seemingly) of Ovaltine all over everything.

So the gist of it is that the computer is doing okay, in spite of its Ovaltine bath.  Looks like most of it got on the desk and the floor, and not so much on the computer.  Enough got on the keyboard, though, that it got things plenty sticky.  All the keys on the far right of the keyboard are ornery now -- particularly Backspace and Delete.  But they get a lot of use when I type (hah!) so the more I use them, the more loosened up they should become.   The arrow keys are quite sticky, too, but everything still works.

And that it quite a relief!

I see I've only been posting about once a month lately here.  Oh, dear.  ;-)  Let's see if I can try to summarize everything I've been up to lately to catch up!

I've been keeping very busy at our Friendship Center, particularly now that most of our volunteers have left for the summer.  Our ESL and tutoring programs rely heavily on volunteer help, but right now it's pretty much me and a couple of others left to teach all the women English who decided winter was over and it was okay to come out again and get back to learning English.  ;-)  Prior to this I was getting away with just being the director involved in directing others, but now I am doing that plus teaching myself.  Which is okay, too.  Just busier!  That along with all the other things I do at the Center because they have learned that I am good at computers, good at writing newsletters, good at editing, etc.

One of my new students is a young widow from Pakistan who has only been in the country 4 months.  Her husband sent her over here, then died before he could join her.  :-(  Her 3 year old son is so naughty that we can't have him in the Center while she is studying, so I have been going to her house (it's just down the street) three days a week to teach her English.  It's quite nice!  Her boy is a bit better behaved at home, thankfully.  I'm hopeful that we can eventually help him learn to behave himself so her live won't be so challenging.  She also has a baby, born just after she go here to the US!

My family is doing well for the most part.  My dad will be 86 on Sunday, and he's still living on his own (with multiple visits per day from my brother).  He did say something not long about about "maybe we should think about assisted living" so we're looking into that.  His health is very good, so that's a blessing.  My in-laws are in assisted living and they like it, but they are still struggling with health and other issues that keep them stressed out, so that's something we have to keep up with whenever we go up to Wisconsin.  Our DS is doing well, still working at McDonalds and trying to write his stories.  They are begging him to become a crew trainer at Mickey D's, but he's dragging his heels, unsure of whether he can handle the extra hours and the added responsibility.  We think he can, but he's the one who has to make the decision in the end.

I'm very busy this month in my writing pursuits, as well.  Though it may seem to some who have followed my stories faithfully that I am not updating my tales, I am actually doing quite a bit of writing, and every single Work In Progress is being thought of and worked on every day.  I realized recently that, even though I haven't been updating my WIPs as I should, I have still been busy writing, and I found a bunch of stories on my computer to prove it.  I recently posted them at various archives, so I feel like I've accomplished something, even though it actually wasn't recently.  ;-)

I am currently trying to finish up my Finish-a-thon story about Boromir and Thorongil, which is due this month by the 24th.  I also have a 20,000 + word goal I am striving for in a story for the LotRGFic Big Bang Challenge, coming due in mid July.  I'm having fun with that one, though I haven't made much progress lately.  Mostly because of Real Life stuff and this other story that needs to be done sooner.  ;-)  My goal this weekend is to actually try to finish the one so I can work on the other.

I also have a pie-in-the-sky goal of finishing a WIP that hasn't been touched for some years, in the hopes that I can enter it as a completed work in the 2011 Middle Earth Fanfiction Awards, but hat may be too much for me this month.  I might be better to just concentrate on writing a new chapter for each of my ongoing WIPs (of which there are currently 3)  and prove that I haven't actually stopped writing them.

Anyway, it's pretty busy around here, but it's all lovely and fun and I'm enjoying myself, doing what I'm good at and also what I enjoy doing!