Ten years ago today….

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 34 Comments

I was busy finishing up a project that would debut on the internets the next day. A little something I was doing at the cajoling of my buds on the Bronze posting board. January 1, 1999 was the debut of my website, All Things Philosophical on BtVS. Just BtVS, at the time, there was no AtS, yet. And I only had episode analyses up through the middle of season 2 of BtVS at the time. The discussion board wasn’t even a twinkle in my eye yet, and wouldn’t be for another year and a half.

OMG, people–tell me where the last decade has gone? It just flew by. And I know you can tell me–many of you were there right alongside me for most of it.

The Destroyer, pt. deux

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 2 Comments

starryniteshade has been doing fascinating reviews/analyses of my fic, The Destroyer, that concentrates on how the fic reveals aspects of those characters we all know and love from AtS. He comes at them from his own unique perspective, which includes Native American psychological perspectives and similar ideas.

His latest analysis is of my season 1 ep, “The Life of Reilly“. I have my own commentary on the episode in the comments. Worth reading if you’re into AtS, Connor, Angel, Faith, etc., even if you don’t read the fic.

I have indexed the rest of his reviews here: http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=masqthephlsphr&keyword=Starryniteshade%27s+TD+reviews&filter=all

So, Fringe

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 13 Comments

I haven’t been reading anyone’s posts on this series because I’m only now getting around to watching the eps that have been accumulating on Ye Ole DVR. But its predecessors–X-Files, BtVS, Angel, Alias–they all had, well I don’t want to say an “agenda”, but certainly an ideology of sorts, however complex and occasionally muddled it was. Distrustful/disdainful of big government, distrustful/disdainful of big business, distrustful of the rogue organization/individual, what have you.

So what about Fringe? Any theories about its ideological leanings yet?

Writing angst, part deux

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 4 Comments

So I finally got motivated to do something with my writing rut, and contacted my old writing coach in San Francisco. I figured she could help, because her specialty was classes to help people find their inner writer, their inner stories, the stories that really get them going, and that’s what I need. She’s not cheap, but this is pretty damned important.

I didn’t hear back from her for several days, and started to wonder if she was active in the writing coach business, but she wrote me back today! She’s a busy stay-at-home mom at the moment, but she and I have worked together via email correspondance even when we lived in the same city, so this is a good, and I am cautiously hopeful.

The muses have abandoned me

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 15 Comments

So Julie’s reading my old novel chapter by chapter, and I’ve had to read it myself to clean up the editing remarks embedded in the text before sending it off to her. And it’s making me kinda sad. I’m a pretty good writer, damn it, and after four years of fan fic, I think I’m even better.

I should be writing a novel again.

::sob::

I.Just.Have.No.Good.Ideas.

ETA: It’s not an inability to write (I’ve been writing a lot…of fan fic), or lack of desire to write (I’m tormented by my desire to write original fic), or even lacking for writing prompts. It’s an inability of the prompts to connect to something inside me, inspiring writing.

ETA ETA: And it’s not related to my dad’s death. It’s been going on for *four years now*.

*sigh*