10-28-2013--I’m sure most folks have figured I’ve fallen off the planet; no, just a severe and unrelenting attack of a fair number of RL Issues, including the frustration of a laptop that was slowly dying. The laptop has finally been replaced (don’t dis those Wal-Mart refurbished computers!!), and six of the dozen-plus other ongoing issues have been dealt with—with only three cropping up to take their places.

I have regretfully decided to remove my stories from ff.net and stick with ArchiveOfOurOwn dot org (“AO3”) for posting my stories--and reading others’--under the sn “CrazyDragon”. All the stories I had on ff.net have already been uploaded there. That site doesn't capriciously delete works and/or author accounts without warning or even investigation, while leaving up other stories that have been reported for the same or worse TOS offenses; it has its own built-in downloader for MOBI, EPUB, PDF, and HTML formats; and its search engine seriously beats ff.net’s all hollow. You can get e-mail notifications of updates to stories you’re following; and you can get stats for stories you’ve posted--hits, follows (subscribers), etc. It’s growing by leaps and bounds--especially as ff.net keeps Doing Things that Tick People Off. :Sigh...:

-Crazy

a.k.a. CrazyDragon, on ArchiveOfOurOwn dot org

3-26-11--WHOO-HOO! :Happy Dance!: I've had a young-adult science fiction novel I've been trying to get published for ages now, but haven't had the overwhelming ambition to go all-out to catch an agent to get published. (Still gotta work to eat, don't'cha know!) Then I received an e-mail notification from Barnes & Noble about their newest e-book program, called "PubIt!" that lets you self-publish your own e-book. I looked through the conditions and rules, saw my profit would be a whopping 65% of every sale instead of the expected 15% or so in print publishing, and realized I really have nothing to lose. So, I now have a published 137,000-word e-book! YAY! I’ve posted the cover art here: DeviantArt.com along with a link to the book’s bn.com page: Silver, if anybody wants to see, and maybe hopefully be interested enough to buy...! =] An author search for Marla J. Davis works, too, the book's title is "Silver". There's a summary on the page, and they allow a free partial download that covers partway into chapter two, so you can see if you're interested in buying it. The price for the whole book is $2.99; if this thing were in print as a paperpack, it would be nearly 600 pages!

About Crazy: I write, I draw, I'm computer friendly--and I drive a big yellow school bus for a living. Wheee! =P My official nickname at work is 'Crazy'; that's even how they introduce me to the new drivers. :mockingly sad sigh:

I'm also a cat behaviorist; we help people with all sorts of feline behavioral problems. My partner and I have run a private shelter for abandoned/abused/elderly/special needs cats for a couple decades now, so we have LOTS of practical experience. :rolls eyes: The local Humane Society has finally agreed we're at capacity and stopped sending us new ones, though they still pass along donations of cat food and supplies as the receive them. We don't adopt too may out, as most of ours are either over 16 years old, have medical problems, or have psychological scarring from past abuse that requires special handling for the rest of their lives, and so can't go to just anybody off the street who might end up clawed to shreds. We've started a website--it's my homepage link above, www.TheCatsCouch.com--to share our expertise. It's free, though there's a Donate button if anybody's feeling charitable towards helping us support our current colony! There is a message board, Kitti-Snits, though I'm not certain I've got the sucker set up right yet...I'm trying to redesign the graphics and figure out how to change them without killing it.

I've got more anime DVDs than a Suncoast Video store, and I'm real fond of the little manga graphic novels--my Waldenbooks has 'em, ooooh, isn't it wunnerful! They're so much handier than regular comic books. --Which I also still collect, though the general 'quality' of the artwork lately on most of 'em...pfft! If the reader can't distinguish background from characters in a comic book, that is not 'artistic license'--it's artistic laziness! Picasso-style art is not suitable for comics; just like pure poetry isn't included in the fiction section. Comic books are a format for visually telling a story. You cut out huge portions of potential audience by refusing to use clear visual language! I do wish the comics would find a new plot-line, too...I've given up following most of the X-titles, and even Batman the last few years; I get tired of figuring out the whole story two pages in, and the multiple ressurections get a bit old after a while. The fanfiction is rather depressingly more entertaining than canon anymore. :sigh:

Some of my favorite anime and manga include: Ranma 1/2, Inu Yasha (basically anything by Rumiko Takahashi!), Fruits Basket, Bleach, Full Metal Alchemist, Ruroni Kenshin, Spiral, Samurai Deeper Kyo, Saiyuki, Blue Seed, Blue Submarine No. 6, Ah! My Goddess, DNAngel, Full Metal Panic, Rah Xephon, Twelve Kingdoms, Strawberry Eggs, Tsukikage Ran, X:1999, Yu-Yu-Hakusho, Wolf's Rain, Bleach, Flame of Recca, Naruto, Crescent Moon, Petshop of Horrors, XxX Holic, Tsubasa, Samurai 7...:pausing to take deep breath:...Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok, Black Cat, good lord I like a lot of 'em, don't I! Heh.

Then there's ElfQuest, and certain (older) runs of certain titles of the X-Men; the current run of Robin and the Teen Titans (NOT the cartoon!) though they're also starting to annoy me; FarScape; several of the Star Trek runs; early Highlander seasons; some things from Star Wars; my old fav, The A-Team... Heh. That doesn't even begin to include all the sci-fi/fantasy books I love! C.J. Cherryh, Lois McMaster Bujold, Curt Benjamin, Wen Spencer, Jane Fancher; Asimov, Anthony, Chalker, early Lackey (and only early, I'm sad to say)...ect. etc. etc...

I'm just so glad there's sites like this one! I read too bleedin' fast. Heh!

I'm currently only writing fanfics based mainly on Harry Potter, Fruits Basket, Ranma 1/2, the X-Men (the comics--and NOT the last few years!), or the A-Team, and a couple Robin (#3, Tim Drake) fics, with a couple crossovers with other fandoms lurking here and there. I love the truly odd crossovers...I keep eyeing the A-Team and Ranma 1/2, and thinking of all the lovely property damage that could result from THAT crossover!! Not to mention Face's reaction to Ranma's curse. I refuse to start posting something that I know or suspect I'll never finish, which is why so few of them are listed here yet; many are just "starts", the rough beginnings of an idea that hasn't gone anywhere yet, or scenes that haven't got a proper story to fit into.

FF.net is my main fanfic site; anything I ever post elsewhere will also go up here.

To read others' fanfics, I download 'em, reformat the chapters into a single MSWord file, convert them to e-books and pop 'em onto my PDA, to be read on my bus between runs. I've been informed that I'm downright scarily fast on a computer, so that works quickly and well for me. Makes it hard to review much, but my online time is limited--I have to sleep sometime! I commute an hour to the district I drive for, and the way routes run, I'm gone from home about thirteen hours a day. Luckily a bunch of that is reading time between routes!

I started writing my own fanfics for two main reasons. The first was writing practice; I want to eventually make a decent living at writing, so I have to treat it like any other profession--which means writing or dealing with writing-type stuff at least a certain part of each working day. For now, I've set myself a minimum of 2,000 words written per day--that's over and above replacing any words I 'rip out'. With fanfics, I can focus that practice more on plot and character development and such, instead of having to create whole worlds and everything about them...and I can get feedback from strangers that doesn't jeopardize my selling rights for original stuff. Once it hits the internet, your first publishing rights are gone--you've given 'em away for free. :sweatdrop: You won't see my original stories until I manage to get them into print, one way or another.

The second reason was, a certain few characters crawled into my brain-pan and flat refused to let themselves be pried out! They brought in so much angst and such, that I decided to shovel it out in the form of a fanfic. After a few years of reading others' fanfics and tinkering with my own, I decided to share one. The lovely ego-boosting reviews encouraged me to keep posting more of them--especially the reviewers who took the time to tell me why they liked, or didn't like, some part of my story. To me, those reviewers were the ones that derived the most enjoyment from the story; it got them to think about it. It doesn't matter if I agree with their opinions; it's their opinion to have, after all. :Smiles and waves happily at anybody who's ever posted a politely critical review, to any author, on any site: Now, if only I could keep these things down under fifty-gazillion words...:sweat-drop, eye-balling the too-many unfinished fanfics on my hard drive:

-CrazyDragon