Umm, hello? Anyone around?

I suppose I should give a long explanation why I've been gone such a long time...if anyone's really interested, that is. I've been gone far too long, I know. (Hangs head in utter shame.)

You know how I'd mentioned-- a few days back-- that someone's hacked into my livejournal. 

I'm afraid someone's been hacking into my livejournal....Because lately, some odd comments have been sprouting up in my name, which I myself didn't post. If you encounter something like this, please let me know at once.

Of course, I'm changing my password and everything, but still trying to make sure....

Please let me know if you find something that you think may not have come from me.

Thanx

DrF

I'm back, and I'm back with a vengeance.
My exams are FINALLY over (*heaves a huge sigh of relief*) and I'm a free bird again.  The exam results will be taking their time, and till then I've plenty of time to chat, type, read and surf the internet on 101 ways to be Creative.

When I came back to lj and discovered how much I've missed in this past month....  Livejournal seemed like a complete stranger.  So I thought I'd bring myself back into focus of my f-list with a nice long mail-cum-blog.

( Hark, incoherent_me! )

( For Sarah )

( To my dear Guesswork_ )

Oh, and before I forget.... I've just posted a Lily/James AU fic on fanfiction.net. Its called "HYPNOSIS" (Click HERE to read why I chose this title.). Its about an ancient feud between the Potter and the Evans family for taking control over the Potions market of Europe. The style of writing is different from my other fics. Its much more formal and double-edged. The chapters are short and very simple. I've tried to keep "HYPNOSIS" as canon-based as possible, and as OC-free as I can. Tell me if its rubbish, do. I don't want to waste my energies on something that just isn't good enough for a second read, that doesn't have good repeat-value.





And now, I'm going to change my layout. Its old and dull and lifeless and boring, and I'm quite ashamed of it.


Ahem.... And I've also got the 8th chapter of "MEMOIRS OF A PIXIE" to finish. It will be called "Basil's Bludger Goes Berserk". Here's to hoping that the pressure of examinations hasn't made me lose my humour, tacky though it may be.

Cheerio
DrF

Title: Sea Fever

Pairing: Lily/James

Author: Dr. Fawkes 

Disclaimer: Yeah. Yeah. I’m J.K. Rowling, and I’m writing these one-shots because I’ve nothing better to do. And if you believe that, you deserve a special place in Mrs. Norris’s rice bowl. 

Other Notes: This is a one-shot in a series called “CURTAIN”. (I wrote this ages ago, but I’m posting it late.) 

Summary:
Lily and James, all alone on an old forgotten side of the sea beach, and resting under a shady umbrella…. What happens next? Nothing much, just pure fluff.

 

Picture this:

Here’s a picture to give you a nice “feel” of the story.

These are the timelines of various characters in the Harry potter Books, and they are bound to come in useful to those who write/read anything related to the HP world.
I claim very little effort in deducing these timelines (other than hunting them out and  typing them in). The source of this information is the Harry Potter Lexicon, the most thorough and complete Potter-o-cyclopaedia that can ever exist. Mugglenet.com derives much of its facts from this very site.  Having said that, there is no reason to believe blindly in these timelines, they are bound to be flawed in some places.

Disorder in the Court...

These are from a book called Disorder in the American Courts, and are
things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now
published by court reporters who had the torment of staying calm while
these exchanges were actually taking place.

All you bookworms out there, how many of these masterpieces have you read?

Click here to get the list of the literary world's 100 best books since 1900.

Click here to get the list of the top 100 children's books.

Click here for the 100 best books for the Modern Person.

Click here for the 100 greatest books of ALL TIME.

Buck up, now. Read these as soon as you get a hold of them.

I know I was pretty cranky (a few days back) about not getting enough reviews, but now my Reviews Page has grown, so I'm back to normal again. However, writing fanfiction or not, I've found 4 great friends-- Vea, Anokam, Guesswork and Cherrichik. I'm quite elated with my "fantabulous" luck.

Well, here's another bit of my rant.

I was told by 2 people that they had spotted Grammar and spelling mistakes in my fic.

I was devastated. Grammar and spelling mistakes are quite unpardonable, and I've been brought up in a family of very strict English teachers.

I decided I would leave no stone unturned in detecting & rectifying my mistakes. It became a sort of obsession with me, because I'd like to strive for perfection-ism. Thank you very much.

Here's the cleansing procedure my fic( 6 chapters long)in MS Word underwent:

#1)The internal Auto Correction Program of MS Word, which I think is pretty comprehensive.
#2)My Beta-cum-friend Olivia, who has a very sharp eye
#3)Grammatica Track Errors Software
#4)Grammar Slammer software

Erm, here are the results:
a) No spelling mistakes. Nope. None at all.(Thank God!)
b) No tense or sentence-stucture mistakes.
c) About 10 errors in placing the punctuation marks in a total of MS Word 180 pages, such as a missing comma, no space blank between two (and only two!) words....

Now, I'm not sure if the last result was the cause of such reviews.

Here, read one of them:

"....Just a tip but try to reread it. Found alot of grammer mistakes.....UPDATE SOON!"

Yeah, I read it a total of 5 times. B/c of a tip from a reviewer who doesn't know how to spell "grammar" (and not "grammer") correctly. And who doesn't even care for the syntax of her/his own review.

Maybe, I'll have to ask the Readers of my 7th chapter to spot my mistakes out from me! Because I'm still completely at sea.

Dr. FAWKES

The Fanfiction Glossary

If you have some more terms like these, please let me know?

 

The Fanfiction Glossary

If you have some more terms like these, please let me know?

 

I'm feeling pretty grumpy right now. And also pretty much disillusioned.

I've always been writing stuff (= stories, poems etc.), ever since I was 12 years old. And I would have thought I wasn't too bad a scribbler. I've won awards at poetry.com, and the Annual Story-writing Contests in my school. Every single issue of my school magazine (called ECHO) always included an editorial and story by me. My teachers and school friends definitely thought that I was a budding author.

And so, I was quite (not very much, but enough) pleased with my abilities in this field.

But everything went downhill, once I realized that I should post my fiction on http://www.fanfiction.com and http://www.fictionpress.com

You see, I was hopeful that people would read my stuff, and review it, and tell me what they thought about it. But all I got back were 5-6 reviews for about 30 pages that I wrote on Microsoft Word. And thats not much, because other writers there have about 10-15 for each chapter!

The statistics pages show that over 1000 people have read my stroy, but only 34 of them found it fit to review!

Is my story that awful? Do I write rubbish? The people who reviewd didn't think so, so I really don't know? I need to know what my mistakes are, so I can rectify them. But why don't people review what they read? Even if to flame it?

I think the main reason for this is my own doing.

My English teacher always said that a writer should always write for himself, not for others. The day you start writing to please others, will be the day you stop pleasing everyone. And that is the mistake I've committed.

Earlier I used to write for myself, for my own entertainment, as a hobby. Earlier, creative-writing was only an outlet for my imagination. But now, I write only for people on ff.com and fp.com and only for their non-existent reviews.,

That was my pitfall.

And to think that i devoted my precious hours over writing Harry Potter fanfiction that no one's going to remember, that has absolutely no use. After all, it isn't my plot, they aren't my characters. Who am I to rob JKR's theme, b/c I wasn't innovative enough to define my own one??

Is it worthwhile? Shouldn't I be studying, and making my career, than writing something for which no one is grateful?

From now on, I'm only going to write for myself, just to amuse myself. At least I'll be interested in reading it. And that's what counts, right Priya?

God, its been a whole month since I last updated my journal.
But I've been having my 12th National Boards Exams. and they just ended yesterday.

To all of those who don't understand the education-system in India ( Read-- Anoka, guesswork, Amy, Swapna), here comes a brief summary:

1. Nursery, when we're wee little toddlers
2. Followed by 3 years of Montessori/Kindergarten system.
3. Then, a grade- or standard- system of 12 years ( i.e. Grade 1, Grade 2.........Grade 10, Grade 11, Grade 12) 

We have our National Boards Exams after Grade 10 and Grade 12.
The marks you score in these exams are important for your admission into University for higher studies.
Students of Law, Medicine, MBA, engineering have to give separate exams for entrance exams into their respective institutes.

I royally messed up in Chemistry. But Biology and Physics were good. And as for Economics and English, they were excellent. All in all, I think I can hope for 90-91 %. Cross your fingers now. But I mustn't get too complacent. B/c I have to give my Medicine Entrance Exams on the 2nd of April, and I have about 80 chapters to revise! No kidding.

Chapter 1 of.........Memoirs of a Pixie

This is the first chapter of my fic - Memoirs of a Pixie. Enjoy!

( Chapter 1 - MEMOIRS OF A PIXIE )

The concept of HORCRUXES was sprung upon us out of the blue by JKR, but it is not very unfamiliar. (Read why below.)

Ever since childhood, I've been reading Russian folktales, which are a treasury of mythology and beautiful illustrations. And one day, upon re-reading HP2 Chamber of Secrets for the 37th time, I realized some major parallels between Lord Voldemort, and a certain Russian Anti-hero named Koshiechi the Deathless. Sound familiar?


( Read more... ) This is a picture of that very Kosheichi The Deathless.