PROFILE IMAGE: That's a picture of me parasailing with my little sister. Yes, we really were 800+ feet up in the air. Yes, we are insane daredevils. :)

EVERYONE GO HERE AND TAKE THIS EXCELLENT TEST THAT I FOUND!

...This will tell you if your character is a Mary Sue or not. Enjoy!

Also, check out this funny video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldDpr02g-TM. "The Life of a Mary Sue" - by dentellenoir of youtube.

Genesis Awards!

So far Sanctuary has been nominated for two awards, Best WiP Chaptered Fic and Best Action/Adventure Fic on the Genesis Awards website! Much thanks to Sylla and Strange and Intoxicating -rsa- for their nominations!

ANNOUNCEMENT! Sanctuary made the shortlist cut for Best WiP Chaptered Fic (2/1/08)!

About

Go http://xmutedx.livejournal.com/ to chat with me regularly. I will be blogging there, musings about my writings as writers block overtakes me...speculating about future plots, etc...so feel free to stop by and have a chat with me!

FANART

Fanart for Sanctuary can be found here:

http://sodesuka.deviantart.com/art/RenoLinnie-equals-LOVE-93278329 (SODESUKA91)

http://sodesuka.deviantart.com/art/Linnie-the-squirrel-93280899 (SODESUKA91)

Much love and thanks to sodesuka91 for her amazing artwork!

OTHER MEDIA

Go here to see the trailer for my story Sanctuary! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSwlmCIyTcg

Current Project(s)

The Well-Rounded Sue

The purpose of this project is simple: I'm writing OC's with impossible background stories into impossible situations in which they will certainly become Mary Sue's...or not. Rather I see this as a challenge to develope original characters that people actually like. I haven't touched many fandoms with this project yet, but I plan to come up with one for The Lord of the Rings fandom, as a companion of sorts to my other parody The Nature of the Mary Sue.

Stories under this project include: Sanctuary(Final Fantasy VII) The Trouble Quartet(The Lord of the Rings) Mindset(The Lord of the Rings)...

Current Stories

The Nature of the Mary Sue(The Lord of the Rings)

A parody dealing with what a Mary Sue is and how she is going to be stopped. Was on hiatus until recently, chapter five "Le Balrog!" is up!

Sanctuary(Final Fantasy VII)

Part of 'The Well-Rounded Sue' project. A young girl falls into the world of FFVII, immediately becomes pregnant, and schemes and plots to see things end the way she wants them to.

Loveless(Final Fantasy VII)

Sort of an 'extended drabble'. Marlene is now older and realizes she is falling for Vincent Valentine, who doesn't seem to notice her. There's a great chance of character death, unless I have a sudden change of heart.

Like This(Harry Potter)

A guide concerning the do's and don't's of the Harry Potter fandom. Each chapter deals with a certain cliche and how to recognize it.

A Compilation of FFVII(Final Fantasy VII)

Basically a series of drabbles pertaining to the Final Fantasy universe. Many different POV's. Requests taken.

The Trouble Quartet(Lord of the Rings)

Part of the 'Well-Rounded Sue' project. Four young women got dropped into Middle Earth and have to find a way to deal with Westron, strange elves, and mediocre-ish attractive Gondorians? How lovely.

Isn't It Beautiful?(Final Fantasy X)

A novelization of FFX. "I'm telling you this because you need to know, I'm telling you this because I need to say it, because if I don't say it, no one ever will."

Kamikaze(Final Fantasy VII)

Based upon ‘Gone with the Wind’. She cares for nothing. He cares for no one. War in Wutai? Let Sephiroth come. Why should they care, as long as they can tell the world to ‘go to hell’? YuffiexVincent. Slight AU.

Future Ideas

No Idea(Kingdom Hearts)

Part of the 'Well-Rounded Sue' project, about a young girl who lived in the Hollow Bastion until she and Cloud were seperated from everyone, including Kairi. Nine years later she goes off to find Kairi and meets a few people along the way. Riku/OC

Bzzzt!(Final Fantasy X)

A one-shot featuring Rikku/Auron. "And I've been scared of lightning ever since!". Not to be taken very seriously.

What Happiness Is(Cats)

Demeter reflects on her life...past and present.

Mindset(The Lord of the Rings)

Part of the 'Well-Rounded Sue' project. "It may have happened to others, even some hobbits that I've known." A story of such an occurence. How the Ring of Power may have passed into the hands of others before Gollum found it, and how this notion relates to the death of Legolas's mother.

Mudblood Miko(Inuyasha/Harry Potter)

Au Oop. Epic proportions. When Remus, Tonks, and Kingsley visit the Higurashi shrine, Kagome's life suddenly takes an unexpected turn. (Contains both usual and unusual pairings)

Projections

Sanctuary

A List of Chapters Thus Far (subject to drastic change). Completed Chapters in Bold.

Prologue(1): It’s Been A While
Prologue(2): It's Been Even Longer
Prologue(3): Any Day Now
Ancient History
The Ferocious Specimen
A Motley Crew
Instinctively
Subliminal Catfights
Of Marshes and Chocobos
On His Trail
The Great Ninja Yuffie
Junon Raid
Jenova-Birth
A History Together
A Hot, Soap Opera Mess
I Think?
Cat of Fortunes
A Capella
That Hated Four Letter Word
Fried Turk
Self Awareness
The Nightmare's Beginning
Juxtaposed
Mimicry
Goddamn Tea
Don the Dilettante
So She Dances
Zero Gravity
No Greater Love
Bait and Switch
Untimely Frost
Like the Sun
Hello, Mother
Refuge in the Slums
Stowaways
Lady of Action
Off the Edge of Despair
Homesickness
A Pick-Me-Up
Weapon!
Comatose
That Moving Star
He's the Only One...
Those Hated by the Planet
Wherever You Will
To the Settling of Everything!
Epilogue: A Lady of Means Again
Extended Epilogue: World Crisis (EEWC:)
Keep Your Head Down
Reno's Hit List
Debut
Tie a Yellow Ribbon
Extended Epilogue: Advent Children (EEAC:)
Deal?
Hush
One-Winged Angel
There's Something Familiar Here
Extended Epilogue: Dirge of Cerberus (EEDoC:)
Beauty in the Breaking
My Sanctuary

THE END!

(That bit was more for my benefit than yours...but you're welcome to it! Just putting things in perspective; I love lists!)

QUOTABLE QUOTES:

"They give, you take." - my Great Great Grandfather

"One nice thing about putting the thing away for a couple of months before looking at it is you start to appreciate your own wit. Of course, this can be carried too far. But it's kind of cool when you crack up a piece of writing, and then realize you wrote it. I recommend this feeling." - Steven Brust

"For your born writer, nothing is so healing as the realization that he has come upon the right word." - Catherine Drinker Bowen

"Writing is the best way to talk without being interrupted." - Jules Renard

"Easy reading is damned hard writing." - Anonymous

"I have the heart of a small boy. It is in a glass jar on my desk." - Stephen King

"Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not." - George Bernard Shaw

"It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does." - William Faulkner

"How vain it is to sit down to write if you have not stood up to live." - Henry David Thoreau

"To be a writer is to sit down at one's desk in the chill portion of every day, and to write; not waiting for the little jet of the blue flame of genius to start from the breastbone – just plain going at it, in pain and delight. To be a writer is to throw away a great deal, not to be satisfied, to type again, and then again, and once more, and over and over..." - John Hersey

"He took the hat from my mouth.
'Tell me you love me,' he said.
Gently, I did.
The end came anyway." - Alice Sebold (The Lovely Bones)

"'How to Commit the Perfect Murder' was an old game in heaven. I always chose the icicle: the weapon melts away." - Alice Sebold (The Lovely Bones)

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." - Douglas Adams

"Have something to say, and say it clearly as you can. That is the only secret." - Matthew Arnold

"The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn't require any." - Russell Baker

"Why do writers write? Because it isn't there." - Thomas Berger

"Beward of self-indulgence. The romance surrounding the writing profession carries several myths: that one must suffer in order to be creative; that one must be cantankerous and objectionable in order to be bright; that ego is paramount over skill; that one can rise to a level from which one can tell the reader to go to hell. These myths, if believed, can ruin you. If you believe you can make a living as a writer, you already have enough ego." - David Brin

"There is no mistaking the dismay on the face of a writer who has just heard that his brain child is a deformed idiot." - L. Sprague de Camp

"Half of being smart is knowing what you're dumb at." - David Gerrold

"Water, water, everywhere; nor any drop to drink." - Samuel Coleridge

"Some people are like slinkies. They serve no purpose, but they make you smile when you push them down the stairs." - Anonymous

"Men are like parking spots. The good ones are taken and the free ones are handicapped." - Anonymous

"When I die, I want to go peacefully like my Grandfather did, in his sleep - not screaming, like the passengers in his car." - Anonymous

"It's time you bit the bullet and started caring about something with all your heart and energy, but you can't care about it if you're always holding yourself back in case it doesn't work out!" - Genkai

"…Of course, I do have this queer sensation; I feel compelled to do nothing more than examine plants, act adorably stupid, cook, and occasionally prove myself useful to Mary Sue by setting her up with attractive, single men." - Sam, The Nature of the Mary Sue (fanfic by me).

"She-creature has already been sneaking around for us, my precious. While Baggins’ other nasty little friends sleep, she creeps forward to chase us! She knows, my love, she knows! But she-creature has not caught us yet; we are too quick for her. We hopes she goes away and leaves us alone, the tricksey she-creature. We smells death on her, yes." - Gollum, The Nature of the Mary Sue (fanfic by me)

"Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent - which attitude certainly has a great deal to support it. On the other hand, it is only because the world looks on his talent with such a frightening indifference that the artist is compelled to make his talent important." - James Baldwin

"Remember remember the fifth of November
The gunpowder treason and plot
I know of no reason
Why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot." V for Vendetta

"Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask is an idea, Mr. Creedy. And ideas are bulletproof." - V

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.” - Neil Gaiman

“I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.” - Neil Gaiman