(no subject)

Today's the last day of school. It's only a half day. Cordelia is already mourning the school year ending. She says she wishes she could go straight into next year. Of course, at the same time, she's wishing that her school weren't going to change, that everything would remain familiar and comfortable.

The school librarian set up an Edmodo group for the kids who'll be in the STEAM program in the fall. Edmodo is kind of like Facebook but specifically designed for schools to use. The teacher sets up a limited group and monitors all of the interactions. The kids can post what they want as long as it's polite and properly spelled and punctuated (sometimes there's a requirement that it has to be at least vaguely related to school but not always). The STEAM group will be a lot larger than such things usually are. Hopefully, it will be a way for kids in the program to get acquainted over the summer. I believe the new librarian will take over supervision some time during the summer.

This morning, the PTO sponsored a breakfast for teachers and staff. Families were asked to bring in food to contribute. We walked over and delivered some banana mini muffins and mini cinnamon rolls. From the look of it, most of the contributions were similar. Somebody signed up to bring a large egg and sausage casserole, but I saw no sign of it when we got there.

The PTO is also giving out free bagels to kids who want them. I suggested to Cordelia that she should help with that, but she didn't want to. She always dealt exclusively with the juice during bagel Fridays, and there isn't any juice today. If there had been, I suspect her answer would have been different.

I have two beta readers for my Not Prime Time story. I haven't heard back from the third person I asked. One of the beta readers estimated that it would take a week to turn the story around. The other didn't have an estimate, but there's no hurry. I've still got three weeks. I'm trying to figure out a title. The one that has occurred to me would work, but it would mean putting the depressing section of the story last, and I'd rather not do that.

I spent my Amazon gift card last night. I bought some CDs and a couple of books that have been on my wishlist forever. I hesitated over the books because I want to try to give as much business as possible to the new, independent book store that's opened up near us. I also hesitated over the books because I haven't been reading books I own in recent months. I read library books pretty exclusively. I also bought some rubber bands for Cordelia's Rainbow Loom. They were cheap, and she'll enjoy them.

Book Logging

I decided to log some of the fic I've been reading, only the longer stuff and only stuff I would recommend. If I tried a fic and didn't like it, I'm not going to mention it, not even if I want to rant about it (and there's one fic I do want to rant about). These are all on AO3. They're mostly things I downloaded for fifth grade camp. As I've got about seventy fics on my e-reader, I will probably continue to read fic for a while.

Recommendations are welcome. I mostly read gen, but I will read low rated slash (m/m or f/f) or het, particularly if the relationship isn't the exclusive point of the story. I'll try any fandom, even if I don't know the canon, as long as canon knowledge isn't required.

( Ardrey, Adam. Finding Arthur )

( Atherton, Nancy. Aunt Dimity & the Wishing Well )

( Brosh, Ally. Hyperbole and a Half )

( Greenwood, Kerry. Murder and Mendelssohn )

( Hines, David (hradzka). The Adventure of the Hopping Vampire )

( inlovewithnight. Red Flowers )

( liviapenn. Madelyn Mack and the Dead Man's Cipher )

( mikeneko. Cartes Postales )

( pendrecarc. Boston Marriage )

( Quick, Amanda. Otherwise Engaged )

( SallyExactly. Chance )

Started but not finished:

( Blackwell, Juliet. A Cast-off Coven )

( Hart, Ellen. Death on a Silver Platter )

( Hyzy, Julie. Hail to the Chef )

( Lawson, Valerie. Mary Poppins, She Wrote )

( Stossel, Scott. My Age of Anxiety )

(no subject)

Talking with a few people has led me to decide to post my lower rated fic on fanfiction.net. I currently post to AO3 and my website. For a little while, I was posting my stories to a dedicated DreamWidth journal, but I gave up on that once I started posting on AO3 since the point was to have a backup location for my stories just in case my website went down, and AO3 seemed to me to be easier to use for that and a more likely location for finding readers.

When I started posting, I was only writing Rheotaxis, and that doesn't fit the content guidelines for fanfiction.net (that was new then. I remember the fuss over it), so I settled for posting it exclusively to my own site. For a while, I considered posting to Mediaminer, but I couldn't figure out the interface and wasn't willing to experiment with it when I had a perfectly good website. (Does Mediaminer even still exist? I haven't gone there in many years.) Once I started writing other things, things that could go on fanfiction.net, I was in the habit of posting only to my website.

I never started posting fic to my LiveJournal because most of the people I know there don't read fic. I didn't see any reason to do more than announce a new fic and link to it. I suppose I could have cut tagged it (once that was introduced) but again, habit.

Anyway, back to posting on fanfiction.net-- I'm having trouble figuring out how to post, and I can't find any sort of FAQ. Is there a place that gives answers to basic questions? I don't feel like I should have to open a help request when I just have basic, functional questions. I have gathered that my preferred word processor, TextEdit, isn't supported. I'm mostly looking for information about things like how to do bold and italic text. I'm used to putting in the html as I write my stories (makes it easier to post to AO3 and gives me cues for when I post to my website since copying and pasting there loses that type of formatting).

I think I understand the rating system. I'm being harsh about what fits which rating. That is, some things I consider T on AO3 are coming in as M by the standards of fanfiction.net (mostly for language). K and K+ are difficult for me to distinguish. I think part of it is that I don't think any fic is appropriate for a five year old (largely because I have trouble imagining a five year old who'd be interested).

Anybody use fanfiction.net and have advice on how it works? Some hand holding would not go amiss. I'd ask the person who most recently suggested fanfiction.net to me, but the only e-mail I have for her is a work address, and I don't want to risk outing her.