twitterfic contest poll

I got second place in the ninth Book View Cafe twitterfic contest! Hurrah. (You can see all the winning entries on their website. Congrats to several of my friends who also got honorable mentions!)

The theme was Monsters and Machines, in conjunction with the release of their steampunk anthology, The Shadow Conspiracy, including stories from Irene Radford, Brenda Clough, and Judith Tarr. I haven't read it yet, but I'm looking forward to it, and will review here.

I entered four twitterfics; one of them got an honorable mention and the other got second place. I thought I'd create a poll to see which of them you'd most like to see expanded into a full story. (I'm putting the info about which ones got honorable mention/second place below the poll, so if you want to vote first before you see that info, you can.)

A: Some black sheep could be hidden in the attic, but not Caroline. She leapt; her brass wings arced her upward across the moon.

B: "We offer spring-loaded claws in a variety of materials and -- " "Silver," Irina interrupted. "My brothers are werewolves."

C: The Beast's daughter had her father's fangs, her mother's eyes. Hidden in her workshop, she did not cry, lest her works rust.

D: "Do not call me monstrous," she said, "just because my heart is crystal and not flesh. My sharp edges are no fault of my own."

Poll #1917

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 3

View Respondents

Which would you most like to see written as a full-length story?

View Answers

A
1 (33.3%)

B
1 (33.3%)

C
0 (0.0%)

D
1 (33.3%)

And thank you for indulging me. :)

The honorable mention was A, and the second-place runner-up was D.

twitterfic contest poll

I got second place in the ninth Book View Cafe twitterfic contest! Hurrah. (You can see all the winning entries on their website. Congrats to several of my friends who also got honorable mentions!)

The theme was Monsters and Machines, in conjunction with the release of their steampunk anthology, The Shadow Conspiracy, including stories from Irene Radford, Brenda Clough, and Judith Tarr. I haven't read it yet, but I'm looking forward to it, and will review here.

I entered four twitterfics; one of them got an honorable mention and the other got second place. I thought I'd create a poll to see which of them you'd most like to see expanded into a full story. (I'm putting the info about which ones got honorable mention/second place below the poll, so if you want to vote first before you see that info, you can.)

A: Some black sheep could be hidden in the attic, but not Caroline. She leapt; her brass wings arced her upward across the moon.

B: "We offer spring-loaded claws in a variety of materials and -- " "Silver," Irina interrupted. "My brothers are werewolves."

C: The Beast's daughter had her father's fangs, her mother's eyes. Hidden in her workshop, she did not cry, lest her works rust.

D: "Do not call me monstrous," she said, "just because my heart is crystal and not flesh. My sharp edges are no fault of my own."

[Poll #1500684]

And thank you for indulging me. :)

The honorable mention was A, and the second-place runner-up was D.

Posted at Livejournal and Dreamwidth. Comment here or there. comments currently at DW.

Friday Poetry Blogging

I haven't done this in forever, and I suspect that I already posted this poem anyway, but, hell, I want to post it again. It's one of my favorite love poems ever. Maybe my favorite love poem ever.

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

-- e. e. cummings

hair thinky

How bad an idea would it be for me to layer my hair like Boomer from BSG?

I can't do short bangs, because I won't get them trimmed enough to keep them out of my face. I just won't. But longer bangs, layered, to add interest...?

The Sheikh Surgeon's Proposal, response the first

I confess: when rachelmanija first lent me the book, I was a little afraid that it wouldn't be bad enough to be enjoyable. But then I opened it, and on the first page—the first page, mind you!—I got this gem of internal monologue from Our Heroine:

Not even the breathtaking sights of man-engineered beauty of parades of lush palms, immaculate lawns and explosions of flowers and the nature-endowed magic of azure skies and golden sand-seas meeting at the horizon could ameliorate her irritation at having to succumb to this abuse of power.

And I thought, first, 'well, that clears up that!' and then 'Rachelllll what have you given me!'

After that, the driver of her car got run off the road by a sheik's entourage, she hauled the unconscious and hemorrhaging driver out of the driver's seat so she could drive 100+ miles an hour to catch up to the entourage so they could... help her get him to a hospital? Or maybe just so she could yell at them, I dunno. And then the entourage turns out to contain Our Hero (of course), who turns out to have basically an entire ER in the back of his limo (of course) so they can be all doctor-y together (with very specific terminology, although I have no idea if it's accurate at all).

Oh! And! They have incredible mutual passion for one another! Like this:

Eyes, the color of gold and the translucency of pure honey.

The captured hers, forbade her to see or sense anything else, even the person they belonged to. It was only when they finally released her in a sweep of thick black lashes to pour confusion over her that she was freed to take in everything about this man in one unmanageable gulp.

In her haste, she got glimpses of hair the deep glow of a raven's wing and the relaxed waves of a tranquil sea, skin of polished bronze, slashes and pains and hollows that were all assembled in a composition of -- of... wow.

If she'd ever had any concept of beauty, it had been before she'd seen this -- this... man?

Was he a man? Or a being right out of fable?

And this:

What was happening to her? She'd never reacted to a man, to anything, like that. The runaway reaction, suffocating in intensity, transporting in headiness.

And, from his POV, this:

He'd never known such attraction, so much so that at first he wondered if his exhausted mindhad been playing tricks on him. But not anymore. Not after the incredible experience of tending her injured driver with her, and everything that has come before and after it. Every word lashing him, every glance penetrating him, every breath singeing him. It was real. More than real.

The narrative has to remind me approximately every third paragraph that she thinks he's hot, and he thinks she's hot, because otherwise I MIGHT FORGET.

And despite all this, I'm still reading. Why? Well, given that they have unstoppable, undeniable, mutual OMGPASSION, of the kind that goes past hyperbole and on into the stratosphere, I am desperately curious what will drive them apart! Right now all there is is vague pride on her side and... uh, nothing on his side. Honestly, I am reading to find out why they don't just fall into bed in Chapter 3 and stay there through the end! Because there's got to be something to flesh this out to 187 pages, and I'm assuming it's not 153 pages of sex.

EDIT: I should probably also note for the record that I really like romance in books, both as subplots and in actual romance novels. Just... ones with a little bit more subtlety. ;)