transposable_element

APA style requires that citations of articles from journals that are continuously paginated (rather than paginated by issue) not include the issue number.

Seriously.

This is idiotic. Having the issue number in the citation doesn't harm anything and may in fact be useful. And checking each journal's pagination (which may have changed at some point since the cited article was published!) is a completely unnecessary piece of drudgery to inflict upon a researcher.

To judge by the comments here, I am not the only person to think so.

I happened to find it online. You can see the hilt of her dagger there in her paw.

Return it, already! It was due yesterday!

Okay, I admit that I don't always return my books on time. In fact, I forgot to return some books before I went on vacation earlier this summer. This is only what I deserve, I suppose. Sigh.

Finished reading a novel last night and am ridiculously annoyed to have wasted my time on it. I hate it when supposedly smart characters act like idiots. Not that smart people never make mistakes, but if they consistently make the same kind of bone-headed mistakes over and over, they stop qualifying as "smart"!

Also, while it's sort of fun to see the heroine confront her bosses and her social superiors about their prejudices, it's impossible to believe she could keep getting away with it. In the course of the book she does at least three things that ought to get her fired on the spot.

And for some reason when the protagonist's boss at the super secret spy agency she works for decides to reveal to her a dark secret about her family that the agency has been guarding very closely for two decades, he does so during a meeting of about 20 people! I guess he knew it would upset her and wanted all of her colleagues to see her raw reaction. Because that's how spy agencies are run....

But now I know that I'm not interested in reading the rest of the series, so that's good I guess.

I posted my NFE story, and now I have at least four ideas for Madness stories, plus I just posted a contribution to an on-going group story, plus I am itching to get back to a WIP that I let lie fallow while I was working on NFE.

What am I doing? I mean, I have other things to do with my life than write fanfic, but right now they don't seem all that compelling.

Two major developments for Filia on Friday.

1. She passed her peanut "oral challenge," which means that she is officially no longer allergic! We have suspected this for some time, but now we know for sure: she can eat peanuts without having a reaction. It's great to have this settled before school starts.

2. She rode her bike to the swimming pool on her own, went swimming, and came home on time (this last being the only part I was really worried about). We are trying to increase the distance she's able to go on her bike without adult supervision. Next: solo to the library!

In general we've been trying to increase the number of things she can do for and by herself. We're working on more responsibilities in the kitchen, for example. I feel kind of behind on this, because I'm sure that by the time I was her age I was filling, running, and emptying the dishwasher, and she is just learning to do these things. Part of the problem with kitchen tasks is that I still need to rearrange the shelves, because a lot of commonly-used items are up too high for her to get to, even with a step stool. Also, I'm a bit of a control freak about cooking. But I think she is getting more into the spirit of these things -- she spent a few days with my parents earlier in the summer, and my mom reported that she insisted on packing her duffle bag by herself when it was time to come home (and she did a good job and didn't leave anything behind).

One of my goals for this school year is for her to learn to pack her own lunch and do most of her own laundry.

I'm in Oahu. It's been rainy the entire time we've been here. Filia spent most of this morning vomiting and exhibiting other gastrointestinal symptoms that I decline to describe. I stubbed my toe. All of us have been stung by Portuguese men o' war. (Discussion of pluralization of the name of said cnidarian here.)

On the other hand, it's beautiful here, east of the Ko'olau mountain range (why does anybody stay in Waikiki?). I would be a churl to complain.

This little lady got into the house this morning and had a hard time
finding her way out. As you can see, she has somewhat unusual literary
tastes for a bird.

First, thank you! I'm looking forward to this so much, and I hope you're having fun writing.

As for what I like and don't like, mostly the answer is "it depends." There are very few things I would say a flat-out no to: graphic torture; extended graphic violence; incest; rape. But even these, if necessary for the story or the character, might be okay. What I really don't like to see is these things justified and made unproblematic. If you want to write something really dark about the worst impulses of human nature, then I prefer to see it leavened with loyalty, courage, and kindness.

Things I especially like:

• world-building
• backstory, both for characters and the world itself
• underdogs
• characters being in character (acknowledging that people's interpretations of the same character differ)
• a world that feels rich and real
• unexpected or incongruous friendships
• romance that goes against gender and/or sex stereotypes
• actually, anything that goes against gender and/or sex stereotypes
• snappy dialog
• non-sentimentalized parent-child relationships
• cultural complexity
• political complexity
• people (broadly defined) working through difficult problems
• mythology and folklore
• slice of life stories
• things I wouldn't think of myself (like what? I don't know!)

Most of all, I hope you write a story that you like and feel excited about.