...when the anti-depressant your doctor prescribes to help deal with being laid-off, is made by the company that did said lay-off?

( Ghost of Christmas Past... )

Just withdrew from ncis_bigbang, very annoyed with myself.  I swore that if I signed up, I'd follow through.  Yeah, so much for that.  Wrote lots, very little of which had anything to do with the story I was trying to write.  I think part of the problem may have been that I was trying to squeeze a 20,000 word story from a 10,000 word idea, if that makes sense.

So for now, I'm going to walk away from that mess I made for a couple of weeks.  Drabbles sound good, and maybe some comment fics.

And catching up on all the reading I skipped, because everything I read, I was 'oh, I like that line, that would have fit in my story' so I stopped reading any NCIS at all. 

No spoilers for NCIS but YAY! times one thousand for Pauley's commercial for Warriors in Pink.  I've got to check their website, I don't remember seeing the black shirt Pauley was wearing.

Re:  NCIS, I've got to watch it again.  I was multi-tasking and I must have missed a scene or two or.... I need give up on logic and just go with it.

( random thoughts... )

My thoughts...

( spoilers )

ncisdrabble100: Master List

ncis_bigbang: Deadlines

ncis_slash: Bottom!Gibbs

*sigh*

It's been a month and half now since I wrote so much as one word of fanfic.  What happened?  Two 60-hour work weeks back at the beginning of May started it, followed by a week getting the yard work caught up, followed by another week of getting house-work caught up, followed by another week of...  plenty of excuses!

It turns out that you can read too much meta and writing advice.  I've slid into what we call 'analysis paralysis' at work.  I'm paranoid about making a mistake re: canon and characterization.  I've always had a personality that tended towards, If I can't do it perfectly, no point in doing it at all.  Attention to detail is one of the things that makes me good at my job, but there's also the whole can't see the forest for the trees thing...

Had a huge over-reaction to my Bob-cat's health this week.  He's hyperthyroid and gets two pills a day.  Wednesday, he had thrown-up twice by the time I got home from work, then threw  up his supper.  When he threw-up again Thursday morning, I called in to work and took him to the vet.  $200 later, all his blood-work was fine.  The vet had me take all food away from him Thursday and then adding back canned food, pills, dry food, one day at a time.  So far so good, must have just been a bug.  I can't think of anything that he might have gotten into around the house.

Second thing on my mind right now - work.  There's a company that is hiring right now that I really, really, really should send my resume to.  I made a list of pros/cons and the cons are pretty much that I'm too lazy to move and that I'm terrified of the unknown.  The location is perfect (halfway between my father and my niece), the company is growing (and trends indicate that it should continue to grow, especially since it's consistently ranked the best by it's clients), and PAID RELOCATION (500 miles x three BR house full of crap = a small fortune).

It's noon and I'm not even dressed yet.  I need to get moving, I have company coming next weekend and right now I can't even walk across the living room.  Apparently I clean one room by dumping all the crap into another room.  At least the kitchen looks good now!

Title: A Test of Courage
Author: olivia_writes
Character: Jethro Gibbs
Rating: Teen (subject matter)
Challenge: 134 (Test) at ncisdrabble100
Word Count: 200
Spoilers: extended flashback scene from 3x23 (Hiatus, Part 1)
Warnings: angst
Disclaimer: Characters borrowed, no profit

Summary: Often the test of courage is not to die but to live. (Vittorio Alfieri)


( A Test of Courage )

Real life whining is something I swore I would not do here.  I wanted this to be solely for fanfic and completely separate from RL, a refuge as silly as that sounds.

But I am so damn crabby right now that I'm even annoying myself. 

( In which Olivia whines... )

And all of that is so very meaningless.  I do have a job and a roof over my head and food to eat, I am reasonable healthy, I do have family that loves me, I do have good friends that love me too, and of course there's always my Bob-cat, although I think he only loves me at supper time ;)

And I've got Gibbs/DiNozzo stories to play with, which should be incentive enough to get over this grump  :)

Title: Bouncy
Author: olivia_writes
Characters: Tony DiNozzo, team
Rating: General
Challenge: 132 (Fool) at ncisdrabble100 
Word Count: 300
Spoilers/Warnings: none
Disclaimer: Characters borrowed, no profit.

Summary: Tony was not having a good day.

( It is the fool who thinks he cannot be fooled. )

Title: Walls
Author:  olivia_writes 
Character/Pairing: Gibbs/DiNozzo
Rating: Teen
Challenge: 131 (Control) at ncisdrabble100 
Word Count: 100
Spoilers/Warnings: non-explicit slash
Disclaimer: Characters borrowed, no profit.

Summary: Being in control isn't always a good thing.

( As all the walls come tumbling down... )

Ok, another drabble now ready to sit overnight.  Seriously, three hours for 100 words?

Started a nice little PWP over the weekend, only to realize 1000 words into the outline draft that there was a plot hiding behind it involving someone stalking Tony, the FBI, and a serial killer.  Dammit.  I really don't feel ready to tackle something long and complicated.  Plus, now I'm reading forensic psychiatry journals and some of that stuff is really freaking scary.

On the other hand, I was reading meta somewhere that talked about really getting to know your characters, asking them questions, taking them to work, shopping, whatever.  I've amused myself for days at the thought of the NCIS crew where I work (a Corporate America cube farm).  Abby burst into tears at all of the bland beige-ness and hugged me for having to work under those conditions.  Tony kept everyone entertained, including an impromptu drum session with the guy next to me (who actually is an excellent drummer).  McGee rebuilt all of my databases and hacked into the corporate servers just for fun.  I took Ziva with me to a meeting; I don't know what she was doing behind me, but everyone agreed with everything I suggested.  Gibbs took one look at cube-ville, and muttered something along the lines of 'oh, hell no.'  He staged a hostile takeover of the Security Command Center (probably for their Keurig), patrolled the perimeter fence, then held the managing director at gun point for not having his ID badge properly displayed.

And I realized that I have absolutely no fix on Ducky, so that's something to work on.

All in all, an exercise I would highly recommend, even if just for the laughs.

Title: Tomorrow
Author: olivia_writes
Character/Pairing: Gibbs (Gibbs/DiNozzo implied)
Rating: G
Challenge: 130 (Hope) at ncisdrabble100
Word Count: 100
Spoilers/Warnings: none
Disclaimer: Characters borrowed, without profit.

Summary: Gibbs learns to look forward again.


( Tomorrow is another day... )

*happy dance*

After, um, more than three months of false starts, desperately lurking any and all prompt communities, and a dozen going-nowhere snippets that don't even rate WIP status mocking me from my desktop, I think that I may have actually finished a drabble.

It's weird too, because I had a absolutely miserable day at work but now I don't care anymore!

So, since the drabble is late anyways and it's past midnight, I'm going to let it rest until tomorrow night, just to be sure.

Well, after lurking for far too long, I've finally decided to take the plunge.  I've become addicted to LJ, particularly fanfic (especially slash), so it seemed like the thing to do.

Which fandoms?  Hmm, started with The Sentinel (Jim/Blair), then CSI (Warrick/Nick), and most recently have added NCIS (Gibbs/DiNozzo).  I'm hopelessly OTP, although I do like stories outside of that pair on occassion.

Do I actually write?  That's probably a matter of opinion.  Olivia_tries_to_write may have been a more appropriate username.  One of my biggest reasons for creating this LJ was to be able to participate in some of the interesting challenges.  I can usually manage something short (I love drabbles - the challenge expressing something in exactly 100 words) with a prompt, but I've found myself abandoning fics without the incentive of posting.

And that guy there, my very first userpic?  That's my Bob-cat and that's actually less grumpy than he usually looks!

~Olivia