A fic is only as good as its Beta

Yes, another ranting post from me so deal with it...


TODAY, I am talking to you about the ROLE of a good beta. For this post I feel some musical accompaniment is appropriate, and what better to show the role of a good beta than Florence and The Machine's KISS WITH A FIST?????

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

A fic is only as good as its Beta

An Unconventional Happy Birthday to ROB

All I ask is that you bear with me here.

You know, I am a fan of the pretty. I appreciate his pics and his movies and his interviews. I giggle at the interviews, I drool over the pics and some of the pics I look at and say WTF. But, in general, I am excited to watch this young man develop as an actor and to see his body... of work. MOVIES! You pervs.

As a fan, all I want is for him to be pretty in pictures, witty in interviews and be in movies I want to see. And if he is in a movie I am not interested in, I will not see it (shocking I know).


I do not want to meet him, or get his autograph, or wait in line to spend 4 seconds in his presence. I am lazy. What can I say? There is, however, something about Rob fans that bothers me.

*HEAVY SIGH*
I guess when I am the voice of reason there is something amiss in the world.


Loud *thunk* in the background at SUE's house. HUBS just fainted. SUE ignores his dramatics and continues to talk!
NOW, of course, this was all sparkled by my minor Robsession.


However, THIS applies to ALL men celebrities, politicians, and the man down the block.


Here is my stance on this:


Whatever he does in his bedroom, or anyone else's bedroom, does not matter. So long as he is not screwing prepubescant girls (or boys), I do not give a fuck.


There are sooo many reasons:

1. He is not mine. I have no claim over him, nor do I have any control over his actions, nor do I WANT TO.
2. HE IS AN ACTOR... his behavior on screen, or off, holds NO RELEVANCE in the grand scheme of the world. HIS behavior is NOT going to change my life in one way or the other.
3. I happen to enjoy looking at pictures of him AND watching movies with him in them. Interestingly enough, HE is not the only actor out there that I look at. Colin Firth, I am thinking about you... no need to be scared, I am not nuts... well, not that nuts.

Hubs:*coughs* 

SUE:  Pardon me. I have to rock him back to sleep, with real rocks, while I put up more pictures of Colin in my bitching-happy-bday-post-to-Rob-that-Rob-will-never-read-but-that-OK post.


4. I find the whole mess fascinating to watch. I sit back and giggle at the     passion behind the comments from ALL sides.

NOW I have been on the internet for MANY years... I KNOW shocking.


There used to be this chain e-mail that was forwarded around and around. I am hoping to be able to find the message, but generally it went SOMETHING like this:


Who would choose to run your government?


A) A vegetarian, faithful to his wife. A religious man who does not smoke, does not do drugs and does not drink.


B) An alcoholic who is known for having a violent temper and has at least one proven mistress.


c) An opium addict, unmarried, who frequents brothels.






OK
A was Adolf Hitler


B was Roosevelt


C was Churchill


Sadly, I could not find any pretty pics of Hitler, Roosevelt or Churchill... (like I said this is in an UNCONVENTIONAL POST).
(If you do not know who ANY of those men are, then I suggest you get your butt off my blog and go open a history book!)


NOW of course this stuff is only PARTIALLY true, but that is not my point.


BASED solely on their personal lives Hitler looks like a saint by comparison.


MY POINT, and yes I have one, and I am NOT going to get into politics because after all I am an American and was taught the American revisionist version of history...


MY POINT, I get there eventually, IS THIS:


What Rob does, OR what ANY celebrity does, in their private lives DOES NOT affect us in our own lives, UNLESS we CHOOSE to allow it to.

Rob cannot change the national climate, cure hunger, save children from abuse, nor can he make gas prices lower OR get my laundry done!!


Well maybe he could. That would be something to watch...
Sorry. Got off track at the idea of a good looking man washing the clothes.

Hubs: "EXCUSE ME?? At least I don't look like I have palsy when I run...
SUE: Sorry, dear, you are right. You do the occasional load of laundry.


MY other point is that Poor Rob just can't fuckin win can he?


He is either a virgin pining away for love (and yes I have read that places, it makes me giggle).


OR


He is totally in love/lust with Kristen (fine either way, whatever makes THEM happy).


OR


He is having a gay love affair with Tom Sturridge(SUE goes off to fantasy land, just to watch cause she is a durty perv like that. *SIGH* Here listen to this lovely elevator music whilst I fantasize).


OR


He is a womanizing manhoor! (Again, if they are legal and consenting have at it, boy. You are not married.)


So,  my advice to ALL of fandom is this:


Control what you can. Rob ain't it!! All the bitching and energy wasted on this mess is useless.


And to Rob, my advice is this:


IF indeed you are a womanizing lying manhoor...


Baby? Double bag it. Remember, durty girls are like durty web sites. BOTH carry viruses! 

AND this is my Happy Birthday post to Rob
Different? Yes!
Unconventional? Pshaw, yes!
Would he ever see it or give a damn? NOPE!
Do I care? NOPE!


Have a lovely day!

An Unconventional Happy Birthday to ROB

Fandom Gives Back Eclipse edition

HI ALL

By now I am sure some of you have heard of Fandom Gives Back. For those who have not, let me explain as best I can:

about a week or so before New Moon came out a group of ladies, Ninapolitan tby789 and Lolashoes, got together and wanted to do something for this really cool charity called Alex's Lemonade Stand against childhood cancer.

They figured that, since MOST of the people in fandom are women and most are also moms and ALL of us are caring people who have a great deal to offer, they wanted to do a charitable auction with ALL proceeds going to Alex's Lemonade Stand.

So they started getting authors and other people together to offer up things to auction off. Some of the items are as simple as one shots or extensions of stories given directly to the winner only to be released to the general public later.

NOW I was scratching my head WONDERING what the heck little ol me can give to FGB to auction.

As most of you know I am a mom of 5 and childhood cancer scares the crap outta me! I WANTED TO HELP! I wanted to be a part of this.

Tby789 and Ninapolitan told me to just retweet everything about FGB and to write a post about it on my little blog. I did those things but I wanted to give MORE.

The girlies and I got together and we tried to come up with ideas of what WE could do as a blog to help out.

SOME ideas that came up included:

• offering up my voice to read stories for iFic... not a great offer

• Offering up Hannah's voice to read stories for iFic. I think this is a great idea. She has this lovely little posh English accent. But sadly H did not go for it LOL

• I even offered up T who gave me a dirty look ... and I shut up cause I volunteer her for far too much work already!

• Other ideas were as silly as sending brownie mix to a winning bidder.

THEN we had a strike of GENIUS. We would talk to authors and ask them if they would be willing to let US auction off the opportunity for a fan to interview them (with my help of course).

NOW came the logistics part HOW do I get authors to sign up.

TWITTER of course

AND the blog

AND Word of MOUTH (and we all know I HAVE A BIG MOUTH)

I started tweeting about this the other night. SO FAR I have over 60 authors.

HERE is what I am offering:

• YOU, the fans, will get to BID on the opportunity to interview one of the authors on our lists (you read right, more than ONE list) for a guest post on SYTYCW. 

• The Master list will be separated evenly and randomly based on how many authors agree to join us in this insanity

• The final lists will be shown to bidders once bidding opens DURING Fandom Gives Back Eclipse edition

• IF you do NOT see an author you want to talk to on the list LET ME KNOW. I will contact them and ASK if they would be willing to join in.

• It will be a live interview. The "interview" will take place via either Skype or Gchat. We can voice chat with the author OR type.

• You will get to choose the Qs you want to ask. You are welcome to use my 21 Qs or to change it up. I ask that you not ask personal Qs of the authors. Some do not want to reveal things about their families or work, so please respect them and remember my main rule about interviews: AUTHORS reserve the right to NOT answer or to be as cryptic as they like.

THIS IS FUN and is supposed to be a positive experience for all

If you want to be part of our FGB donation (meaning, if you are an author who wants to be interviewed as a part of our FGB donation) please fill out the form below. Deadline is Saturday June 26th!!

ALSO if you are an author who already talked to our half cocked SUE who started this lovely mess PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE fill out the form as well. This way we have all of the info needed. Tanja will not be tempted to maim SUE and SUE will not be forced to twitstalk you and send you dirty old man porn to convince you to fill out the form!

SO Fandom lets all get together to KICK Childhood Cancer's ASS!!!

(BTW if you have any more questions, feel free to contact us via the "contact" page or email us at sytycw@live.de or tweet us)

Fandom Gives Back Eclipse edition

WE ARE BACK!!!

WE ARE BACK!!! And we have officially moved to here. IF you are reading this HERE that means you know about our move!!

Congrats for finding us

Sorry if this all confused you and caused you to have to change your favs but THANKS!!

WE will endevor to make this change as entertaining as possible

HERE is a GLIMPSE at some upcoming posts:

• We have fic recs and interviews with assorted authors who I have no idea yet. WHY? cause I have been busy trying to get my own real life house in order. I am sure T or Hannah can fill you all in on who we have. REMEMBER if you know of a fic you think one of us should read LET US KNOW! We are always on the look out for the next big thing!

• WE WILL HAVE THE FUNNY

among the funny stuff I have been working on

• "The international quest for the perfect pair of shoes"... WHY? Well because WE ALL WANT THEM

• CAMPAIGN to get SUE and Teddi cast as the fat ladies in Water for Elephants. Are we serious? Well only partially. I am sure they will find someone lovely but it is fun to dream! (and no, we do not wanna be cast so we can be near ROB. We wanna be cast cause being a fat lady is something we have been in training for all our lives and we are fat, sexy and sassy WELL)

• We also have my comments about fangirling to the extreme. I call it "A Man's Personal Life". This is a testament to TEAM IDGAF... basically, I love to look but really do not give a damn about anything else

• WE WILL HAVE contest winners from the Men at Work contest!! Who are they? I don't know yet we will find out together!!

• AND FINALLY, and most funnily, I have to include the "Write a SNL skit for ROB" I know Lorne wants him but honestly I think some SNL skits are kinda tired!! WE fans of Rob know what we wanna see. We know the ins and outs of all the silly stuff and we have no shame in picking on him. SO write me some funny. If I love it I will put it on the blog and THEN send the ones we vote for to SNL. What will come of it? Probably nothing but it is fun to do anyways!!

So, let us know what you think of the new site and what YOU think we could improve.

WE ARE BACK!!!

How to get your story posted at Twilighted

OK in the whole mess with FFnet I have come to some conclusions

1) there are TONS of sites out there to post your fics

2) I have heard all of the complaints from authors about posting at Twilighted

SO lets get the dirt

Twilighted is the largest Twific community

It is the first place I found when out looking for something to fix my frustration from SMs fade to black (I did not find it on my own, I was told to go there by a friend from another board)

How to get your story posted at Twilighted

What I Did While On My "Break" From Blog Stuff

My staff is seriously rolling their eyes right now. SUE? A break? BULLSHIT! They are all saying.

Sue sleeps, eats and breathes this blog and FF.

SO while I do that, I am ALSO the most UNORGANIZED blogger on the PLANET!

For real. I am.

I had interviews all set up for last week, and it did not occur to me that there is life after Christmas day!!

I know.

What I Did While On My "Break" From Blog Stuff

What I learned from Authors...by SUE

I have had this blog since the last week of July

SHOCKING I know

It was set up as a form of therapy for me by my concerned friend Shannies. She was worried that I had a bit of an addiction and she figured that since I was already telling everyone who would listen (and many who did not) about fics that I should blog about it and let the people come to me...

What started out as a little blog talking about fics and silly stupid polls (which I love and miss dearly) expanded into something slightly bigger I would say instead of just 13 fans I have about 20 and most of them write for the blog LOL

What I learned from Authors...by SUE

Paparazzi Bitching Post

It is no secret that I adore Rob.

It is also no secret that I am bitch when it comes to people hounding him, which is why I have never sent him a fan letter or hunted him down to follow him. Mainly cause I don't wanna.

Fantasy is always better than reality. Deal with it.

Paparazzi Bitching Post

Sue's Rant: Fanfic Review Etiquette

OK In my head I am hearing the song R-E-S-P-E-C-T by Aretha Franklin It is a great song when I am in a bitchy mood

I have some things to say and since well this applies to my blog I can say them if you do not wanna listen that is OK you do not have to.

This post in response to some things I have seen happening around ficdom and I have stewed over how to put this so that people will listen and not view me as a raving Loon (i know too late)

Sue's Rant: Fanfic Review Etiquette