The Dream Quest of Unknown Me

I've spent the past few hours web-surfing and thought I'd share my finds in case others out there need a laugh now that the workweek's begun after the long weekend.

I was over at Gregory K. Pincus' blog to check out what's new in the realm of Fibs and read his "About Me" description where he writes : "Long ago I was also an amateur crastinator, but I have long since moved to the pro ranks."        C'est moi *g*

The World's Coolest Animals where it is written that "No one has ever survived an attack by a koala... usually, after they pelt you senseless with Eucalyptis nuts, they drop from the branches of their tree with their awful fangs bared, screaming at the top of their lungs. They grab the face of their victim and basically tear him or her to bits. The only known method for avoiding a koala attack is to stay at home, inside, under the bed (with the lights off, of course) at ALL times. If you are attacked, scream "TIGER SNAKE" and fall to the ground. Sometimes, this tricks the koala into thinking it is about to be on TV. Koalas hate being on tv, so this might buy you enough time to get away."   Lol 

Gakked these 2 from wisteria_ : 

The Brangelina Baby - What It Means For You and Your Family

Sugarcube's Virtual Voodoo Doll: Stick some pins into a representation of some annoying person (pay if you want to send the card but you can play for free). There are other e-mail cards with games - try them out too.

In 1926, Hugo Gernsback gave name to science fiction (well actually he called it scientifiction but the fans protested and it soon became the name we now know). Almost right away fans started writing their own fics and many of them like Judith Merrill, Isaac Asimov and Frederick Pohl (who still is writing) became professionals. This trend--fan to pro--is still with us today.
In 1967 "Star Trek" became the first show to have it's fans publish fics inspired by it. One of the early ones was Jacqueling Lichtenberg who, with Kraith, was possibly the first to establish her own AU, complete with a story arc, wherein Kirk, for many reasons, is adopted into Spock's family. Another early writer was Jean Lorrah whose best known Trekfic was "Night of the Twin Moons" where Sarek and Amanda visited a planet ruled by women. Both writers later turned pro as I'm sure other Treklit writers also did.
In those days stories were printed in fanzines that relied on snailmail and waiting for a 'zine could be torture as the Post Awful Monster was known for it's sadistic tendencies and loved to delay, lose or chew up the 'zines. You youngsters are more fortunate. I've seen a new BtVS ep at night and the next day someone's written a story inspired by it. The one drawback is that no fanzine would publish an unfinished story and now there are countless unfinished, abandoned fics out there.
There are so many well-written fics out there where the author displays his/her awesome talents for description, plot and characterization that I wonder how many might eventually turn pro. Today I read a post by wen_spencer, one of my favorite SF writers, where she talks about writing and one of her points is "Writing is foremost STORYTELLING and if you don't tell a complete story, you're not writing. You're putting words on paper." Unfortunately there's a lot of that in fanfiction too.

I was re-reading "To the Hilt" by Dick Francis earlier and I came across this: "Some are born weird, some achieve it, others have weirdness thrust upon them." lol c'est moi. I miss that he's no longer writing--he's my favorite mystery writer.