Merry Christmas to Everyone.

I have created nicely formatted PDFs of all my books, complete with Tables of Contents and illustrations.

These versions are also more up-to-date in terms of editing. I keep a master copy of all of my stories, where I still fix typos and other errors I might come across. I try to fix the posted versions as well, but since they are posted in chapter format on several different archives, the latest corrections may not be reflected in every online version.

Additionally, Michael Lutz has provided me with eBook versions of Hogwarts Houses Divided, optimized for reading on small screens.

(If I get that Sony PRS-600 I've been thinking about, I may start tinkering more with eBook formats for all of my stories.)

Download here. I'd like to request that rather than distributing copies of the files, you distribute the link instead. The reason for this is that I will continue to upload revisions, if I discover more errors (and if I receive more fan art to include as illustrations), so I'd prefer that people be directed to download the most current version.

Happy Holidays!

I love fantasy and science fiction, but I overthink things. I nitpick everything for plot holes and believability. I can read comic books and appreciate good stories that conform to the rules of the genre, but get annoyed when they break my suspension of disbelief even within that framework.

In other words, I am a great big annoying nerd.

I recently saw Watchmen (finally) on DVD, and while I think for the most part it was a surprisingly good adaptation of Alan Moore's graphic novel, it annoyed me that they “powered up” the non-powered characters, having them effortlessly beat up hordes of goons and get thrown through walls and stuff. In the comic book, most of them were not super-fast or super-tough; they were just a bunch of crazy people in tights.

I was thinking about this as I watched Cloverfield on my laptop during an airplane trip the other day. (I hate seeing movies in theaters, so I'm usually catching up a couple years later with Netflix.)

Cinematography-wise, Cloverfield was pretty good (if you can handle all the bouncing camera shots). Story-wise, there wasn't much to it: giant monster trashes New York; people run.

Watching with my author's eye, though, what bugged me about it was the details that would make me throw it against a wall if I were reading it as a story. So, yes, I'm going to nitpick the “realism” of a monster movie.

( Cut for Cloverfield spoilers )

So, I give Cloverfield 3.5 out of 5 stars. For what it was (giant monster movie), it was pretty cool, but it was all visuals. Probably would have been worth seeing on a big screen. (Although watching an aerial view of a giant monster wrecking Manhattan and knocking helicopters out of the sky, while you're on an airplane going through turbulence, was also a unique viewing experience.)

Sometimes I’m lazy. Okay, a lot of times I’m lazy. Alright, that’s not entirely true. I’m lazy more often than not. So, sometimes… I mean…. more often than not, if I don’t know how to say it in Japanese, I just say it in English and hope that Yuuya understands.

“What does it mean? When you write honey?” Yuuya asks the next morning, after I sent him a message saying –and I’m ashamed to say that I ever wrote this- “sleep well, honey.” I always thought I would have more class than that.

“Er,” I fumble. I don’t know what it means, only that it felt right saying it. That’s the trouble with fledging relationships; you don’t want to take it too far. If you do, well, it’s ruined. I haven’t quite figured out why that is it yet, just that it is.

“You mean honey (hachimitsu) honey? Like I taste sweet?” Yuuya presses, while I mull over my options, or at least try to. Instead, I just repeat the phrase stupid, stupid Alison over and over.

“It means…” I stop. I don’t actually know what the hell it means. What does it mean when one calls someone honey? And why does one do it at all? Sure, when I condescend to people, I usually try to add a supercilious “honey” or “sweetie” in –or if I’m feeling particularly haughty, a “sweetie baby honey sugar pie”-, but that’s because I’m a bitch, and it doesn’t usually occur to me to use in the correct way. The tender, loving way, if you will, is just not something I’ve ever done willingly, or fluently. What does it mean, exactly, when other people use it?

I’ve never been other people. I don’t even know where to start to think about it. And then the thought come to me: Am I really that serious that I would call him honey? What a horrifying thought! Me, Alison, the great runner-awayer is serious?

“It means…” I’m rolling my eyes this way and that, trying to figure it out., “well, it’s just what people in a relationship say to each other…”

Oh god, what have I done?

“Oh.”

“Nicknames means you’re close to someone.” I stumble more. “Isn’t it the same with Japanese?”

“No. Saying their name means you’re important to them.” Japanese people, even with people they are fairly good friends with, usually only call one another by their last name, a nickname of that last name, or a nickname that is vaguely reminiscent of their first. Just their first name? Well, that’s for people who are special. I’ve been saying his name since the day I met him. What the hell does that mean? Have I always been in over my head?

“Oh… well, then, sleep well Yuuya.” I say shyly.

“You too, honey,” he smiles, and his face disappears off my computer screen.

It’s eleven in the morning where I am. I go back to sleep anyway.

Kid = found.

If you're in the Chicago area, a friend of a friend has a missing family member. If you have any information, please contact the Chicago police on (312)747-8274. If you're not in the area, but have friends who are, signal-boosting would be welcome.

Yet again, it's amazing how productive I am in Colorado. I've spent my whole life thinking that I belonged somewhere else, only to find that I was really just being a sniveling brat about the whole thing. When you're a teenager, everything in life seems so inescapable, like there is a string attached to you an everything else. Then suddenly, you turn around and find that all those strings are gone, and there is no longer a net to catch you when you fall.

I have a million things to do, among them being reading Lefebvre, writing a geopolitics dissertation on Final Fantasy, finish my novel Weird, illustrate my novels in progress, and work on my podcast. On top of that, I think I'd like to add one more project. I found a notebook of all my old drawings, and I think I might like to redraw them and see how much I've improved. So... here's hoping I don't completely exhaust myself.

And, here is some more of my drawing diary:

I haven't finished writing the story, alas. However, I'm far enough along that I've decided the first part of the book is ready to be looked at by my betas.

They didn't think chapter one sucked, so that's something. :)

Current word count: 144K. I'm writing Chapter 22 now. I think that I have about another ten chapters to go. (Past experience suggests that means it will probably be more like fifteen.)

Deathly Regiment will definitely be longer than Thorn Circle, but for now I am sticking with my prediction that it won't be quite as long as Lands Below.

How quickly I progress from here depends on two things:

1. Whether my betas find any major problems in the first half of the book.
2. Whether I break my Mafia Wars addiction. (Seriously, that game is like crack for people too lazy to play WoW, but Zynga is really pissing me off lately.)

Many thanks to ebilgatoloco, who sent me a Dreamwidth invite (thanks to hermoinejean7 for sending me one, too).

You can find it here. Right now it's just an out-of-date clone of this LJ; I will let you know when and if I add more to it.

But hey, notice something else? Well, hopefully you do, if LiveJournal didn't lie to me. If they did, then you aren't reading this at all.

Yup, I went ahead and bought a rename token. I am inverarity68 no longer; now I'm just plain old inverarity.

If I understood the FAQ correctly, f-lists and everything should have been automatically updated, and people going to the old link will be redirected here.

Umm, hello? Anyone there? Can you seeeeeee meeeeeeeeeee?

I'm going home! Weird... I don't feel like I've been gone long enough for me to go home!

I have exciting things planned. My friend Aki is coming to visit, and ALL of my friends from University are coming back!

I hope to have some funny stories to tell ;)

I've never read any of Dan Brown's books, not so much because I've heard he's a sucky author, but because they just don't interest me. I've never seen the movies, either.

Language Log has done some really excellent academic snarking on Dan Brown's literariness, but I just found a couple of excerpts from his first book, Digital Fortress.

Well, now he's writing about things that I actually know something about.

( Dan Brown, you fail! )

Drawn in Hiroshima.