Life Viewed Through an Amber Focus

It's been a rough long weekend. High pain, low brain power, little sleep, freaking cold sort of weekend. And if this gets a little incoherent or improperly spelled or grammared it's because I'm on oxycodone and a muscle relaxant so I can walk today. I can't walk straight, mind you, but I can walk. No driving today, though.

I am working on getting all the picture prompts uploaded for the ficathon. Can I just say the new photobucket interface and album "organization" can burn with the power of a thousand suns, I hate it so. I liked the old one, I could navigate it easily and bulk uploading was a breeze. The new one? Not so much. What is with all these websites fixing things that are not broken? At least I can still use the old system, but who knows for how long.

Thanks for all the prompts. I've got enough now, but will add any latecomers that arrive before I put up the main ficathon post at sistersofguh. I'll throw it open sometime this week for stories to be posted in the month of February.

I may have found my dream house, but who knows if it will even be available when (or if) our house is finished and put on the market and then, you know, actually sells. *sighs* I am so ready to be done with the old house.

I've decided to give the ficathon a go, so I need a banner if anyone has time to make one.

So it'll need to say The Sisters of Guh Doctor/Rose Valentine's Day Romance-a-thon on it. I'd also like Nine and at least one version of Ten on it with Rose and Eleven if there is room.

I've tried to PM a couple people directly buy LJ's recent morning of "improvements" is not letting me send PMs. I'm not sure who I know anymore that is good at graphics. Six?

Anyway, I'll need the banner for the ficathon but also one of those ones that are small enough to meet the fic comms' guidlines which I think is 400X400 for advertising it.

If you would like to submit some prompts, either photos, quotes, songs quotes, or scenario prompts will be accepted. Just leave them in a comment on this post.

I took about a week off from writing because basically I wasn't doing anything other than banging my head against the wall.  I found a prompt that really grabbed me from the then_theres_us ficathon, which is harder than it sounds.  There's a few hundred prompts there and only one jumped me viciously, though I did have one that went kinda sorta maybe that I'll look at again when I finish this one.  I woke up at five this morning and couldn't get back to sleep.  That's not quite as bad as it sounds as I fell asleep before midnight for a change.  It's the first day of school today so I didn't even try very long to get back to sleep.  Instead I opened up a word document, looked at my prompt again and started to write.  I think it's going to be too long to be comment fic.  It almost is already and I'm just getting into it.

I'll write on it some more after I get my second kiddo off to school.  I'll take him in about ten minutes.  Then I'll write until it's time for my dentist appointment at 11:00.  Hopefully I can finish it today and maybe work on LoF, although that's probably too much to ask.  I feel in a much better place with writing, though.  Maybe I'll never get back the ability to churn out 2000 words a day, but a couple short fics or chapters a week would be nice.

I started swimming again on Monday.  I did 15 laps.  13 is 1/4 of a mile.  It's nowhere near the 45 I was up to before I got hurt again, but it's a start and I can't push myself too hard.  It's not even been two months since the surgery yet.  I am going to try to swim every other day, but we'll have to see.  My body felt better afterwards.  Swimming really helps to loosen up the back.

I started a new diet this morning, too.  So far so good and no food cravings.  We'll see where I am at the end of the day.

Title:  All I Want for Christmas (2/2)
Author:  amberfocus
Characters/Pairings:  Nine/Rose, Santa Claus
Genre:  Romance, Fluff
Rating:  Teen
Betas:  amyo67, jeprdyfrndly
Summary:  The Doctor takes Rose to the planet North Pole to meet the real Santa Claus.  A sequel to a fic I wrote two Christmases ago called I Believe in Santa Claus: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/177974.html
A/N:  *Hangs head in shame*  Yes, I am very well aware of the fact that Christmas was over a month ago.  Muses are stupid and being so sick this month didn't help, but the thing is finally done.  Anyone still have the Christmas spirit?  Written for the sistersofguh Doctor/Rose Winter Wonderland Romance-a-thon, which runs through the end of February.  I've used several of the picture prompts which will be dispersed throughout the story at appropriate points.

Ch. 1:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/412480.html

( Read more... )

So the ficathon over at sistersofguh is now officially open:  http://community.livejournal.com/sistersofguh/43312.html

Let there be fic.

So I'm organizing another ficathon for Sisterhood of Guh since the last one was such a success.  It will be the Winter Wonderland Doctor/Rose Romance-a-thon and have winter or winter holiday themes/new year themes.  I've got photos and quotes, but now I'd like people to leave prompts.  Song prompts, or one word prompts, or situational prompts (i.e. The Doctor and Rose get trapped in a snow cave--smut ensues.)  I'll be posting the ficathon on December 1 and it will be open through the end of February.  All versions of Doctor/Rose.  Smut isn't necessary but romance is.

Please leave prompts in the comments here.  Thanks.

Also if anyone has the time to do up a banner again that would be awesome.

We got to the pool later today because Tobias had his orientation at the elementary school.  I still managed to get in 30 laps in 40 minutes though.  I think as long as I get in the 1/4 mile each time, I'll be happy.

I finished chapter two of the smut-a-thon fic and got it back from Amy, but Victoria won't do it until morning, so I will post that tomorrow.  It's definitely going to be at least three chapters.

My muses seem to be back with a vengeance.  Including the smutty one that went on strike a while back.  They still...like to talk too much, though. *laughs*

36 laps in 55 minutes.  And it wasn't even hard today.  What is up with that? *laughs*

Amy, Victoria, expect the first chapter of my smut-a-thon fic in your inboxes first thing in the morning.  Amy, sorry I didn't go on chat yesterday.  My head was killing me for most of the day.  Hopefully tomorrow some time.

Freshman orientation went good for Rose.  Parent orientation went good for me.  Today is too busy for it's own good.

I am off to drive to Sea Tac for the first time to pick up my husband.  *gulps*  It's a straight shot down I-5 but it's also Seattle traffic.  Least my MIL is coming with me to keep me company and offer navigational support.

Yay, me.  Both my children are now officially enrolled in public school.  And the best part is that Rose got both her Japanese and Drama classes, which were her primary reasons for wanting to go back to school.  I was afraid with all the run around that she'd get locked out of the classes she wanted to take.  Orientation is on Wednesday for her and on Friday for Tobias.  I'm just really happy she got Japanese.  She wants to live in Japan some day, possibly teach English there like honorh or do something in the computer graphics industry for Ninetendo (which you know, she could do here in WA, but that's not the point).  She's wanted to live there for a long time, so this is like step one on that path.

The smut-a-thon got it's first two entires today, so I'm happy it's officially off and rolling, as well.

Took the weekend off swimming because I've been sick to my stomach.  Hopefully going back to the pool tonight won't be a mistake, but my body feels very tight and swimming makes everything loosen up again.

After that I've got a fic to beta and then some writing of my own to do.  I'm hoping to finish up a couple of smut fics.  I did a massive catch up on comments yesterday and today.  So if you got an answer to something you left in early August, yeah, that's why.  I've been kind of crap at answering them lately.  I will try to do better.  Now that the stress of getting the kids into school is lifted I'll be more active on LJ again.

I have been having a devil of a time writing oneshots and shorter fics lately.  It seems like the only time I'm in the mood for writing, it's to work on LoF or Stars.  So you can imagine my relief when I finally got a brian wave after listening to a song I heard for the first time today.  And it worked perfectly with the picture prompt I wanted to use for the Bump in the Night ficathon.  I've been trying to write this fic for weeks!  Finished it three days before the extended deadline, so yay me.  And it's not Nine fic for the first time in...ages.

Still seem to be blocked on writing anything smutty.  The smut muses have fled the building and seem to have no intention of coming back. *sighs*  Maybe once all this school crap is taken care of and I can relax again it'll be better.

Oh, well, at least I wrote something, and it's off to beta and hopefully it's as spooky as I wanted it to be.  I don't know, I'm not used to writing scary, slightly horror-edged stuff, so I'm not the best judge of it.  I'm just glad to have it done at this point.