I really need to get back into the habit of updating. So more on the drama that is my life:

1. Craig drilled his finger on Sunday. He was drilling something for the boat, had it in the vise and was all safe, but the bit broke, the drill skidded sideways, and went through his left index finger. It was gushing blood, but we cleaned and wrapped it, and when it looked like it had stopped and he said it didn't hurt anymore, we decided not to go to the ER. He went into the doctor's on Tuesday instead, and we discovered then that it had actually gone all the way through. Completely bypassed bone, nerves, and major veins, somehow. He was very lucky.

2. We went out to the development for a new owner's meeting, and got to see how far along the house is. The second floor is all framed up and Craig got to walk through it with the camera, so we've got some video of that. It's all up on the website if you want to take a look, including some additional photos Craig put up on some of the earlier dates.

3. I am not looking forward to this weekend. At all. The next three days will be insane. School open house tonight, three ball games over Friday and Saturday, then Saturday night, 8 girl scouts descend on my house to spend the night. Something insane I volunteered for. Hell, I even suggested it. I am certifiable.

4. Amidst everything in the next couple days is the fact that my tenth wedding anniversary is tomorrow. We're not doing anything. Maybe we'll order food after Alex's game tomorrow night. Oh, and we're going to go out and buy something for us to commemorate the event.

5. joss_las kind of aborted the last round last summer, scrapping it when it hit the final four, of which I was one. That means I have my last piece that has never seen the public. So I'm going to post that some time soon. Maybe tomorrow.

So, I have a new laptop. My other one was 2 years old and was dying a slow and painful death. I'd been getting weird download error messages that not a single piece of virus detector could stop, then Excel stopped working, and then Word did. We were about to do a complete wipe and reinstall when all of a sudden, the ctrl/alt/del function ceased working as well. Craig decided that was enough and I got a new one.

I was a little nervous. I had a ton of stuff on my old machine and I was vaguely worried about losing something I needed, just because I'm anal that way. We got the transfer of all my files taken care of, and then I had to handle my bookmarks and cookies. I realized then just how long it has been since I went through my bookmarks...

( Read more... )

I leave bright and early tomorrow for pepperlandgirl4's house. As excited as I am about going, I'm stressed about the prep. Craig teased me when he got home from work today, asking where I would like him to pile up all the mail while I'm gone. I told him he's not getting away with that this time, that I'm calling every night to sit and go over the mail with him. We were gone for a week at the lake, and I came back to a Trader Joe bag full of mail and 11 packages. I shudder to think about what would happen if the mail didn't get touched for 12 days.

Coming up...BtVS resumes tomorrow! It's not happening tonight because I have got to go to bed early in order to leave the house at 6am for the airport. Plus, I think Pepper is going to catch the X-Files movie. But once I'm at her house, no more excuses.

Also...a new Soul chapter Monday.

So I should probably get off the computer and finish the laundry so that I can pack. Joy. I fear what it's going to look like when I return because I don't think Craig even knows how to use our washing machine.

Two fic things today...

First of all, all our BtVS watching has inspired pepperlandgirl4 as much as me. The other night, she wrote a Buffy/Faith fic since we've decided that's canon now, lol.

And me...well...I've been a part of the_jossverse for quite a few months, hoping it would inspire me to write. I didn't even make it in the Wesley and Faith months, so I had given up hope. But rewatching BtVS and getting another Soul chapter seems to be doing the trick, and I ended up posting a short story for their most current round. It's a standalone, but it's an idea I've always wanted to play with so who knows if there's more coming in this 'verse...

TITLE: Fresh
AUTHOR: Eurydice
RATING: R, for language and sexual innuendo
SETTING: Not long after 2x18, "Dead End"
PAIRING: Lindsey/Faith
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, which is a shame because usually we're nicer to them than Joss was.
LENGTH: 2450 words
SUMMARY: You don't quit Wolfram & Hart without being smart about it...

( Fresh )

So the results for the latest round at joss_las today, and I've managed to make it to the final four. This last round, our prompt was "change." My first draft was 1500 words long, and since our limit is 1000, I had some cutting to do, lol. This is what I finally submitted:

TITLE: The World Went On
AUTHOR: Eurydice
RATING: PG13, for Spike's usual colorful language
SETTING: LA, post-NFA
LENGTH: 989 words
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, which is a shame because usually we're nicer to them than Joss was.

( The World Went On )

Well, I went and did something I hope kicks me in the pants. I went and signed up at wip_out. The community is doing a "Finish-A-Chapter Ficathon", where authors basically give themselves a month to write a chapter, posting on the 4th Monday of the month (or something close if there's not four Mondays). It might take me forever to finish "A Soul to Seduce" this way, but damn it, I'm going to do it. I might even get inspired and do 2 chapters a month. All I know is that deadlines make me productive. So look for a new chapter of Soul on 6/23. And cross all your fingers and toes for me!

In the absence of actual content, I'm going to post my entry in the last round at joss_las. Everything this time around has to be either post-Chosen if set in the Buffyverse, or post-NFA if set in the Angelverse. The prompt this last time was Angel or Dawn, as either characters or literal meanings.

TITLE: Two Becomes Three
AUTHOR: Eurydice
RATING: PG13
SETTING: LA, post-NFA
LENGTH: 511 words
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, which is a shame because usually we're nicer to them than Joss was.

( Read more... )

Well, I got my smut done yesterday to get our submission in. Hopefully, they like the anthology pepperlandgirl4 and I put together. My solo story is about an ex-priest who sees demons and the artist who falls for him.

I'm in catch-up mode on house stuff for the time I was gone. We're supposed to take part in a neighborhood yard sale on Saturday...ha! Yeah, I'm not so sure that's going to be happening. But we'll see.

What else...? Oh, did I mention my in-laws and Craig's aunt (the widow of the uncle who just passed) are coming for 5 weeks starting the 29th? And I leave for Utah on the 30th to go see Pepper, lol. Only for a week, and it can't be helped with the timing since that's all about Pepper's graduation and seeing Glen Hansard & Markéta Irglová (the pair from "Once") perform. I'm *really* looking forward to it.

Fic keeps taunting me. I have the two little ficlets I've written for LAS so far this round that I'll post some time, and now that the worst of my edits are past for the moment, I can go back to working on getting everything ready in the new LLG website. At the rate I'm going, I won't be done until Christmas, lol.

Which means I should probably get off the computer now and get ready for my day. Hope everybody has a good one!

I slept in until 5:20 today. Woo hoo! Little by little, lol.

I got a little more done on the house yesterday. Downstairs doesn't look quite as unmanageable. And I'm all caught up on laundry, now I just have to tackle the ironing at some point. Boring, boring, but thus is the life. :)

I missed the joy day. I looked at some of the tidbits I'd started in the fandom that have never been completed this morning and got sad. I miss the feeling of elation that comes in nailing a scene with my beloved Buffy characters. Why oh why can't I get that back long enough to work on anything substantial? My excitement before Christmas ebbed with all the stress of the holiday and traveling, and now I'm not sure when I'm going to rewatch in order to get the voices back. I want to. I just have to figure out when and how...

Craig's home! Woo hoo! It was so nice rolling over and having him in bed with me. Nothing like that feeling in the entire world.

I finished reading what I had done on A Soul to Seduce. I'd forgotten how layered and complicated it was, lol. I think I'm seriously going to try and work on it this week, but no promises. I have galleys that are due by Wednesday, and two new releases this upcoming weekend. But I'm going to try. I just hope I can find the flavor of it again. I will warn people if it looks like I'm going to post, however. Because I think people might need to re-read some in order to get back into it and I want them to have to do that. All that damn plot, lol.

Pepper and I didn't quite finish A Hidden Beauty last night like we wanted. We're on the last chapter, and she asked for "we're alive can we have comfort sex" for the guys. How am I supposed to say no to that? But hopefully, we can finish tonight. That'll put us at 73k in 2 weeks for this book. Not too shabby.

Last night, I had a Buffyverse dream. A very detailed, very vivid dream. Where I was Faith, and I was working with Buffy and Xander to save this hotel, and...there were lots of details. And a huge cast. And I woke up jonesing for Buffy stuff in ways I haven't felt in a long, long time.

So I'm reading A Soul to Seduce. It's amazing how much of this I have forgotten. Who knows what's going to happen now...

I'm sad. I had some free time this evening, in between other stuff, and I thought, "You know what I haven't done in a while? Written fanfic." So I went back to my last drabble request list where I was going to write ficlets based on prompts, and I stared at them for a good half hour, and...

Nada.

So I tried looking at Soul to Seduce. Because I really should finish that. And I got the exact same reaction. This sense of, "Do I really want to bother? Do I care?" And it makes me sad because...I'm just not feeling the urge. I looked at the drabble requests more out of a sense of guilt than anything else, and I'm afraid that I just might not be obsessed enough anymore to be driven to write about these characters.

Which is not to say I don't love them. I do. Just maybe not enough to try and come up with something new to say. Because that's what fanfic has always been about to me. Putting my favorite characters into new situations, facing new demons, and coming out triumphant - and in love, most of the time. I could probably come up with a new long, plotty story with little effort, but I absolutely cannot commit to writing something like that. Not now. Which leaves ficlets, which in all honesty, are not and have never been my forte.

The only thing that sounds remotely like fun to me is something like we did with Wickedverse, but ohmigod, was that time-obsessive. I'd consider tagging with somebody - or Pepper, god, I'd do it with Pepper in a heartbeat - if I thought people might read it. But tagfic isn't everybody's cup of tea, and if Pepper and I tried doing something like that, it takes away from our other writing.

And I don't know. I'm talking in circles and not really saying anything. Except...I'm sad that I don't feel the compulsion anymore.

First of all, thank you to everyone who took the time to read The Road to Return. I was very nervous about posting something with 2nd person/present tense POV in it, but you've managed to allay all those fears. I owe comments on part 2, but I'll get around to doing those tonight. I have a ton of stuff to get done today yet, lol.

On the fic front, pepperlandgirl4 is getting inundated with school stuff. As soon as she gets a reasonable break, we're going to crank to finish up the last 7 chapters of Rose. I don't want to go back to Soul until I have Rose done, however. So in the meantime, I'm going to go back and finish up those drabble requests I took in August in order to satisfy the fic muse.

Pepper and I got the cover for our next Amber Quill release. It's book 3 in The Master Chronicles called Mosaic Moon, comes out in October, and moves our two men into a menage. This is the cover for the e-book:

( E-book cover )

And this is the full binding of the print version:

( Print cover )

So part 2 is done. And I'm going to call it the end with this, so I hope you enjoy it. :)

Title: The Road to Return
Author: Eurydice
Setting: A few weeks after Chosen
Pairing: Spike/Buffy
Rating: R, at most
Warnings: Some graphic description
Disclaimer: Not mine, as much as I would like them to be.
Author Notes: I'm starting clean from the end of Buffy so forget everything about Spike going to Angel or the S8 comics...

( The Road to Return, part 2 )

So...a couple weeks ago, cindergal posted, looking for people to write back-up fics for the Welcome Back to the Hellmouth ficathon. And on a whim, I e-mailed and asked to see what she needed. And then in a moment of insanity, took one. I am certifiable.

Because this fic has terrified me ever since I agreed to do it. For one thing, it decided to go into a stylistic direction I completely didn't anticipate and will send most people running for the hills. But...well, that's how it asked to get written. Honest.

Since it's a bit experimental in nature (for me, at least), it's not going to be long. Part 1 is just over 3k, and I honestly think it's going to end in 2 parts. I think. We'll see. Part 2 isn't done yet and I won't be able to say for sure until it is.

But in the meantime, here's part 1...

Title: The Road to Return
Author: Eurydice
Setting: A few weeks after Chosen
Pairing: Spike/Buffy
Rating: R, at most
Warnings: Some graphic description
Disclaimer: Not mine, as much as I would like them to be.
Author Notes: I'm starting clean from the end of Buffy so forget everything about Spike going to Angel or the S8 comics...

This was written for confusedkayt for the Welcome Back to the Hellmouth ficathon, who asked for Spuffy, hurt/comfort with Spike as the hurt one, a sympathetic Xander, a bruised mouth, playing cards, and no character bashing. I might not have hit the cards or bruised mouth as hard as she wanted, but hey, I got the Xander part. ;)

( The Road to Return, part 1 )

I have been absent on LJ recently, which is my bad. I'm still reading my flist, and commenting when it strikes me and I have time, but otherwise, I've been mired in real life stuff, which I wish was more exciting than it is, if only for my absence to have more merit, lol.

So what's going on...( Cut for length )

I've started doing the ficlet requests I took last Friday. And the first up is katekat1010.

She asked for Giles/Faith, based on this wallpaper she made that I always drool over whenever I get the chance.


TITLE: Blue, Red, and Grey
AUTHOR: Eurydice
RATING: PG13 (for one bad word and a kiss)
SETTING: Post-Chosen by several years
PAIRING: Giles/Faith
LENGTH: 475 words

( Blue, Red, and Grey )

So I'm about to do something insane.

See, there was this Pay It Forward meme that was going around my flist a bit back that really intrigued me. The gist of it was, you offer 3 people something homemade - like fic - on the condition they do the same in their LJ, and they had a year to pay it. I liked that. I've always been a big fan of that type of thing.

But I'm also a big fan of just doing stuff for people. Random gifts. And in light of everything that's been going on in my life recently and how wonderfully supportive my flist has been, I'm going to make an offer.

Buffy or Angel ficlets. Post a comment to this entry with the BtVS/AtS character or pairing of your choice, a genre, and maybe a prompt, and I'll write something in the month of August for the first 10 people who sign up with something I think I can work with. I'm open to a lot of things, but please keep it within the 'verse. That means no human AU. Because I've written a total of one story that's all-human and that was 4 years ago, lol.

ETA: Got my 10!!! Though I don't know what order I'm going to write these in...

1. fenchurche - Spike & Dawn S7 friendship/adventure
2. alwaysjbj - Buffy/Spike or Buffy/William, romance, forgiveness
3. katekat1010 - Giles/Faith based on her gorgeous wallpaper that I've always loved - Blue, Red, and Grey
4. Pam S. - Wes/Faith, shower scene, S4 AtS
5. xevildeadgirlx - Buffy/Spike, S7, or Spike/Dru about the soul
6. manoah - Spike/Tara after S5, make Spike happy
7. marvelgirl_art - Wes/Faith, based on this artwork of hers
8. skybound2 - Spike/Buffy, S4 after she returns from LA
9. maryperk73703 - feral Spuffy
10. oanimation - Spike/Dru, fluffy after Lover's Walk

Author: Eurydice & Pepperlandgirl
Fic Title: The Rose Remembers
Summary: Death isn't done with Sandford, but a Slayer and a vampire on the run have something to say about that. Spike/Buffy, Nicholas/Danny
Rating: NC17
Warnings: Violence and sexual content.
Banner number: 47 by athenamuze
Setting: About 2 1/2 years post-NFA
Disclaimer: Not ours, as much as we would like them to be.
Author Notes: This is a crossover with the movie, Hot Fuzz, but honestly, you shouldn't have to be familiar with the movie to be able to understand the fic. However, by reading the fic, you *will* get spoiled for the entire movie. Just so that you know.
Previously on Buffy: Nicholas had a training session for the Sandford police, and after a fight with Buffy, Spike ran into Drusilla...

The story begins here.

( Chapter 10 )

Author: Eurydice & Pepperlandgirl
Fic Title: The Rose Remembers
Summary: Death isn't done with Sandford, but a Slayer and a vampire on the run have something to say about that. Spike/Buffy, Nicholas/Danny
Rating: NC17
Warnings: Violence and sexual content.
Banner number: 47 by athenamuze
Setting: About 2 1/2 years post-NFA
Disclaimer: Not ours, as much as we would like them to be.
Author Notes: This is a crossover with the movie, Hot Fuzz, but honestly, you shouldn't have to be familiar with the movie to be able to understand the fic. However, by reading the fic, you *will* get spoiled for the entire movie. Just so that you know.
Previously on Buffy: They found the Reverend in the catacombs, hurt and disoriented, but alive...

The story begins here.

( Chapter 8 )