Below are the most recent 4 friends' journal entries.

Thursday, December 24th, 2009
inverarity	1:00p	A small present for you I have created nicely formatted PDFs of all my books, complete with Tables of Contents and illustrations. These versions are also more up-to-date in terms of editing. I keep a master copy of all of my stories, where I still fix typos and other errors I might come across. I try to fix the posted versions as well, but since they are posted in chapter format on several different archives, the latest corrections may not be reflected in every online version. Additionally, Michael Lutz has provided me with eBook versions of Hogwarts Houses Divided, optimized for reading on small screens. (If I get that Sony PRS-600 I've been thinking about, I may start tinkering more with eBook formats for all of my stories.) Download here. I'd like to request that rather than distributing copies of the files, you distribute the link instead. The reason for this is that I will continue to upload revisions, if I discover more errors (and if I receive more fan art to include as illustrations), so I'd prefer that people be directed to download the most current version. Happy Holidays! (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
inverarity	1:58p	Giant Monsters and Superheroes Still Need to Make Sense I love fantasy and science fiction, but I overthink things. I nitpick everything for plot holes and believability. I can read comic books and appreciate good stories that conform to the rules of the genre, but get annoyed when they break my suspension of disbelief even within that framework. In other words, I am a great big annoying nerd. I recently saw Watchmen (finally) on DVD, and while I think for the most part it was a surprisingly good adaptation of Alan Moore's graphic novel, it annoyed me that they “powered up” the non-powered characters, having them effortlessly beat up hordes of goons and get thrown through walls and stuff. In the comic book, most of them were not super-fast or super-tough; they were just a bunch of crazy people in tights. I was thinking about this as I watched Cloverfield on my laptop during an airplane trip the other day. (I hate seeing movies in theaters, so I'm usually catching up a couple years later with Netflix.) Cinematography-wise, Cloverfield was pretty good (if you can handle all the bouncing camera shots). Story-wise, there wasn't much to it: giant monster trashes New York; people run. Watching with my author's eye, though, what bugged me about it was the details that would make me throw it against a wall if I were reading it as a story. So, yes, I'm going to nitpick the “realism” of a monster movie. ( Cut for Cloverfield spoilers ) So, I give Cloverfield 3.5 out of 5 stars. For what it was (giant monster movie), it was pretty cool, but it was all visuals. Probably would have been worth seeing on a big screen. (Although watching an aerial view of a giant monster wrecking Manhattan and knocking helicopters out of the sky, while you're on an airplane going through turbulence, was also a unique viewing experience.) (12 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, December 20th, 2009
inverarity	2:00a	AQATDR: Betaing has begun I haven't finished writing the story, alas. However, I'm far enough along that I've decided the first part of the book is ready to be looked at by my betas. They didn't think chapter one sucked, so that's something. :) Current word count: 144K. I'm writing Chapter 22 now. I think that I have about another ten chapters to go. (Past experience suggests that means it will probably be more like fifteen.) Deathly Regiment will definitely be longer than Thorn Circle, but for now I am sticking with my prediction that it won't be quite as long as Lands Below. How quickly I progress from here depends on two things: 1. Whether my betas find any major problems in the first half of the book. 2. Whether I break my Mafia Wars addiction. (Seriously, that game is like crack for people too lazy to play WoW, but Zynga is really pissing me off lately.) (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
inverarity	6:24p	I'm not a number! Many thanks to ebilgatoloco, who sent me a Dreamwidth invite (thanks to hermoinejean7 for sending me one, too). You can find it here. Right now it's just an out-of-date clone of this LJ; I will let you know when and if I add more to it. But hey, notice something else? Well, hopefully you do, if LiveJournal didn't lie to me. If they did, then you aren't reading this at all. Yup, I went ahead and bought a rename token. I am inverarity68 no longer; now I'm just plain old inverarity. If I understood the FAQ correctly, f-lists and everything should have been automatically updated, and people going to the old link will be redirected here. Umm, hello? Anyone there? Can you seeeeeee meeeeeeeeeee? (8 Comments |Comment on this)