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Exams, Stories
Jun. 17th, 2004 07:29 pmA good day!
Today exams started. I love this part of the year. The only downside is my parents have nervous breakdowns over my studying (or lack thereof) and are determined to bring me down with them. So last night I stayed up while my mother asked questions that weren't on what we were taught and grew more and more frantic as I didn't know what the answer was. I expect the studying kick to last until the end of today.
But the exams themselves are fun. Today there was only one, for science, and just multiple choice. I got out of school at nine, and the teacher handed out food.
At home I had to dump out the water from an outdoor tank. It's very narrow and several feet tall. I'd dropped a water lily bulb in but it was a dud, so the water was just collecting mosquito larvae. I scooped out a great many of the larvae, then poured out the remaining water. The dead bulb was colonized by bloodworms, which was very lucky. I scraped them out.
I gave my goldfish some, divided most of them between the two betas, and gave my new crayfish a few, as well as all the bloodworms (and some of the rotten plant they were stuck in). There are still a lot of larvae in with the betas, and I expect them to finish up by tomorrow. The crayfish was the most enthusiastic of all of them. She's between two and three inches long and very aggressive. We're going to fill a bowl with water, drop the lily bulb in, and let her eat the plant as well.
An interesting (if, I suspect, temporary) trend has begun in the pokemon section. Although for the past few months it's been almost exclusively chaptered stories, there was just a great jump in the number of new stories submitted. Some of these threaten to become chaptered stories, so it's not much of an improvement, but it's still nice to see.
I think chaptered stories are of the main failings of the section. They have this marked tendency to…what's a diplomatic way of putting this? Ah, yes, suck horribly. The author is often new and has no experience. Maybe they had a good idea, but instead of making it a one-shot, they try to drag it out. Of course, they don't have enough writing ability to make it last that long, and the story fizzes out somewhere between the first and third chapter, never even getting to whatever their idea was. They often waste their time with (stupid) banter between (unrealistic boring mary sue) characters of their creation, which has the benefit of at least making sure no reader is disappointed when they drop the story.
And, of course, there's the horror that is the one-paragraph chapter, the one-filler-scene chapter, the one-inane-conversation chapter…
One-shots do not get the respect they deserve.
And now, because it amuses me to show such hypocrisy, I'll add that I currently have three stories in consideration to write. They're all long, chaptered stories. (Of course, they're chaptered because it's a long, detailed story, not because I want to keep the story on the first page for all eternity, but still).
( Reality )
( Imagine )
( Ice )
So, two or three people actually reading this, what do you think?
Today exams started. I love this part of the year. The only downside is my parents have nervous breakdowns over my studying (or lack thereof) and are determined to bring me down with them. So last night I stayed up while my mother asked questions that weren't on what we were taught and grew more and more frantic as I didn't know what the answer was. I expect the studying kick to last until the end of today.
But the exams themselves are fun. Today there was only one, for science, and just multiple choice. I got out of school at nine, and the teacher handed out food.
At home I had to dump out the water from an outdoor tank. It's very narrow and several feet tall. I'd dropped a water lily bulb in but it was a dud, so the water was just collecting mosquito larvae. I scooped out a great many of the larvae, then poured out the remaining water. The dead bulb was colonized by bloodworms, which was very lucky. I scraped them out.
I gave my goldfish some, divided most of them between the two betas, and gave my new crayfish a few, as well as all the bloodworms (and some of the rotten plant they were stuck in). There are still a lot of larvae in with the betas, and I expect them to finish up by tomorrow. The crayfish was the most enthusiastic of all of them. She's between two and three inches long and very aggressive. We're going to fill a bowl with water, drop the lily bulb in, and let her eat the plant as well.
An interesting (if, I suspect, temporary) trend has begun in the pokemon section. Although for the past few months it's been almost exclusively chaptered stories, there was just a great jump in the number of new stories submitted. Some of these threaten to become chaptered stories, so it's not much of an improvement, but it's still nice to see.
I think chaptered stories are of the main failings of the section. They have this marked tendency to…what's a diplomatic way of putting this? Ah, yes, suck horribly. The author is often new and has no experience. Maybe they had a good idea, but instead of making it a one-shot, they try to drag it out. Of course, they don't have enough writing ability to make it last that long, and the story fizzes out somewhere between the first and third chapter, never even getting to whatever their idea was. They often waste their time with (stupid) banter between (unrealistic boring mary sue) characters of their creation, which has the benefit of at least making sure no reader is disappointed when they drop the story.
And, of course, there's the horror that is the one-paragraph chapter, the one-filler-scene chapter, the one-inane-conversation chapter…
One-shots do not get the respect they deserve.
And now, because it amuses me to show such hypocrisy, I'll add that I currently have three stories in consideration to write. They're all long, chaptered stories. (Of course, they're chaptered because it's a long, detailed story, not because I want to keep the story on the first page for all eternity, but still).
( Reality )
( Imagine )
( Ice )
So, two or three people actually reading this, what do you think?
