it was not your fault but mine / it was your heart on the line

[raven]

Twenty-four hours, four cups of coffee, four hours of sleep, 7200 words and umpteen twitter status updates later, I finished my legislation take-home. Thank you, everyone who said nice things to me during the long, long night. And I am very glad I never have to do that again. I am still somewhat wrung out another day on - I do think, seriously, that a take-home is the worst of both worlds: with a three-hour exam you build up to it, you ride over it on a crest of adrenaline and suddenly it's over and you can sleep. With a paper you can take your time to know what you're doing. Instead you get the faintly panicky ill-feeling for a whole day, while your brain dribbles uninspiringly out of your ears and you find yourself writing twelve hundred words on "Is Congress hopelessly dysfunctional?" while the world tips around your head.

After it was over I stretched like a cat and prowled about my apartment for a bit, then rolled over and fell asleep fully dressed on the top of the covers, and then the Siren took me out for ice-cream and gossip and after that petra and thingswithwings appeared and were kind to me and my softening brain and took me for dinner. We had tapas al fresco with a surprisingly nice pinot grigio, and it was one of those perfect spring evenings laced with the perfect mixture of tired, happy and tipsy. We sat there through the sunset and talked about fandom and laughed a lot, and it was just delightful. At some point we got to talking about kitchen utensil AUs and Sad Fics What We Have Known and I remember telling T'wings she was the second person yesterday to talk to me about Draco/Neville, which was kind of delightful.

I dunno, I've been blessed in life by having a lot of fannish people to interact with in my daily life - because, y'know, sometimes you need that - but I don't always have the pleasure of talking about my writing woes to other people who write. At some point last night I was explaining tipsily that I am trying to write this story, right, and it was going to be short, right, and it was going to be a sweet little OT3 story, that was all, and suddenly I started thinking Things and now it's a story about ownership and feudalism and what. (T'wings says I am the second person she knew to have a problem with a silly little story turning into one about conceptions of ownership. I am delight.)

edited to add: has anyone, yet, invented an app or tool that will take a chunk of prose and change its tense from present to past or vice versa? I hate it when I realise that's what a story needs.

Speaking of delight, I think I need a nap. it's a beautiful sunny morning in Ithaca and in an hour I have to help the Siren carry all her minor kitchen appliances through Collegetown to the law school. I am sure this will happen entirely in a sensible fashion and there will be no laughing at or with.

Oh, and! For Remix, I wrote Distillation (the Anticlockwise Remix) (HP, Sirius/Remus, Peter), a remix of Connection Concotion by ineffabilitea, and while it is not the best thing I have ever written by a long shot, it is not the worst.

Naptime! Then appliances and paper-writing. I love the spring.

Comments

[thingswithwings]

:)

*hugs this post and also YOU*

[raven]

awww, you! <33

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! You are, indeed, delight. ;)

I do think, seriously, that a take-home is the worst of both worlds: with a three-hour exam you build up to it, you ride over it on a crest of adrenaline and suddenly it's over and you can sleep. With a paper you can take your time to know what you're doing.

Completely agreed. I also love how some profs try to frame them as kindness to students, like, "Oh, it's only a take-home! It's open notes! Feel PRIVILEGED."

Gosh, it's gorgeous today. I hope you're out in it.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*smooshes you* bah, my professor was one of those. ARGH. I am SO GLAD to be finished.

I had a lovely day, today! It was sunny! I am now in my room in the dark writing my paper. But it was a lovely day.

[curuchamion.livejournal.com]

'I am trying to write this story, right, and it was going to be short, right, and it was going to be a sweet little OT3 story, that was all, and suddenly I started thinking Things and now it's a story about ownership and feudalism and what.'

I KNOW THE FEELING. Okay, mine wasn't going to be short because it's a NaNo-in-May (I'm insane, okay?), but it was going to be this sweet pointless exercise in description where some kids are having summer fun in my town.

And I made them visiting relatives because that's What You Do, and I made the relatives two asexual men in a romantic relationship, just for kicks... and now I'm writing these guys' 35-year-long romance from start to present-day, and the kidlit framing!story has gotten hopelessly sidelined. O_O

Have fun with your carrying of minor kitchen appliances! :D

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*grins* Luckily mine only grew from 500 to 3000 words. I didn't quite have the growth-to-novel that you're having!

(I had great fun carrying kitchen applianaces! Nothing got dropped on my foot, which is all I ask.)

[troyswann.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on surviving your exam. (I'm taking notes, here, actually, because I'm trying to come up with some more innovative methods of evaluating students and the day-long take-home is one of the options on the list. In the past I've tended to use the one-week take-home with the questions posted in advance. Hmmm. See, even after the brain-dribbling experience you remain a useful source of information.)

And I have myself bemoaned the absence of a tense-switching ap. Whoever figures that one out will make a zillion. Problem is, English is so damn contrarious with tenses, it could be disastrous. I mean, what is a little computer brain to do with something like the following: "She will have had to have had her shots by then or she will not be getting on the plane."

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I think, actually, that an eight-hour take-home might be a lot better in some ways - you go in at nine, you finish at five, you have lunch for a break in the middle, you go home at the end of the day and it's over. Introducing the sleep into it brings the massive anxiety, I think.

"She will have had to have had her shots by then or she will not be getting on the plane."

Heee! Okay, so I will rein my wishes and merely demand an app that can successfully manage two thirds of the tense changes, and not leave you with all of it to do!

[fyrdrakken]

Congrats on having survived the take-home exam!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I love your icon!

[fyrdrakken]

Thanks - iconomicon posts some fantastic icons.

[rosariotijeras.livejournal.com]

1) a twenty-four hour take home exam? good lord. i thought take home exams of the three hour but turn it at your leisure so it's really hard to resist the temptation to cheat...variety were awful. you shall forever have my respect for getting through that!

2) charmingly loquacious iona on twitter? i seem to be much more capable of keeping up with folks on instant gratification-based social media - twitter.com/fourfs is where you can find me.

3) seriously, a twenty-four hour take home exam? people these days.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

1. thaaaank you. I am still out of it, another 24 hours on. It is cruel and unusual.

2. My LJ username and twitter account are not the same, but I suspect you'll guess it's me. Time will tell if my loquaciousness is charming. :)

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

The fact that you've finished makes me very happy for you - a 24-hour exam sounds seriously dreadful. (I remember my own extended essay experiences, which both ended with me doing the vast bulk of the work in the last 24-48 hours, and which were some of the most unpleasant days of my life. The pressure of a 24-hour exam does sound worse, though - I had had time to get my brain engaged with the topic, even if things went somewhat badly.)

I wish sometimes that I had more fannish people around me more often in daily life - I have a few, for whom I am grateful, but only a handful. *is envious* I'm glad you currently have writing-types around you as well.