...::: Anyssia :::...

You know what's the worst thing with moving? It's all the stuff you 'lose' from one place to the other. Yesterday I had a lovely surprise, because I finally found my jewels \o/ I had 'lost' most of them during the move last September (meaning, I didn't put them all in the same box and got some in one place and the rest... well, at the time, I had no idea xD ).

Anyway. So, I found my jewels (and seriously, untangling necklaces is a b****, really) and decided that I really needed a place to keep them, because until now I just stuffed them in a little box which wasn't exactly my most brilliant idea ;) Plus, that way it was such a mess that I didn't put them on, since it was so annoying to separate everything every time...

Thankfully, we've got Google ;) I found a few different DIY Jewellery holders, but the one I preferred was this one: Wooden clothes hangers + Repurposed = Jewelry Organization!


So I tried my hand at it today. Which is kind of a small miracle, as DIY stuff and me just don't mix usually. It didn't take too much time, as I don't have that many jewels anyway, so I just needed the one hanger for what was left, after I had sorted the stuff to keep and what was damaged/discoloured. I'm kind of proud of how it came out (as in, wow, I actually built something useful/well done), even if it's not extraordinary ;)
( pics spam :) )

And the results: \o/

Well, that was fun— not. ^^;;;

This afternoon, I was supposed to be working on editing my fanfiction, Guide. Well, I did open Scrivener, if it counts ^^;;;

I did many things today, included geeking out over Pinboard with ainyre and lucime, hoarding BBC Sherlock recs thanks to ainyre too, loading the 'Keep calm and put the kettle on' userpic everywhere, from my AO3 account, to the late Fanfiction.net account, and mainly, CHANGE MY DREAMWIDTH LAYOUT ONCE AGAIN! xD

So, yeah, I really spent my day adapting the 221B Baker Street wallpaper layout made by fuesch for Livejournal to Dreamwidth.
I don't know much about CSS, except what I can reproduce from a model and I only have basic knowledge of HTML. That's why I didn't make the layout from scratch.
Instead, I used a Abstractia layout by chiming which has the huge advantage of enabling transparency for modules/entries background, which allows us to admire the truly beautiful Sherlock wallpaper all the time.

Most of it was easy enough to tweak. I just had to browse through the code from the layout I use on LJ to find the colours' codes and links to the various images used. What really threw me was the header (aka, this part reading: "...:::Anyssia:::..., Reading, Writing,...").
For some reason, I just couldn't change the header's font colour nor put a background under it. The text still isn't as clear as I'd like it (I wanted to use the beige colour like for the general text), but it's the best I can do.
Eventually (after trying and refreshing the damn page god-knows-how-many-time), I finally broke down and used some CSS to add a background so that the text was readable. It still isn't perfect, but that's the best I can do and it's past midnight, so screw the HTML and CSS ;D (and my grasp on the English language is slipping too with the hour).

Anyway, my point is, I did not make that layout, I just adapted from fuesch's layout. If you check my DW journal anyssia versus my LJ mirror/backup anyssia, you'll see that the original layout is much more lovely and as a more 'finished' feeling to it. But, this is the best I can do, and I'm still pretty happy with it :D

(also, this has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the post, but after listening to British radios for weeks, it's really, really weird to listen to French radios tonight O.o )


EDIT: 2012-07-22
I adapted the LJ layout using another DW style: Modular by branchandroot.
It looks much smoother and prettier. Also, it's easier to read/less harsh on the eyes. With all that, I've learnt a lot about CSS, so it wasn't such a waste of time ;)

RE-EDIT: same day
I also adapted a Dreamwidth profile layout to match the journal layout. I haaaaate tables ^^;;; Give me CSS any day.

Since 2009 (and maybe even before that, I don't remember), I've started saving a copy of each fic I read. I also bookmark them, 1st on Delicious and now on Pinboard.

The result is that I have 1,4 Go of html files (text only) saved on my computer and about 2'800 fanfics bookmarked. (which is, you know, completely mind-boggling. I went O.O when I saw the numbers).

This morning, I woke up thinking about Calibre. Here is the official description:

Calibre is a free and open source e-book library management application developed by users of e-books for users of e-books. It has a cornucopia of features divided into the following main categories:
Library Management
E-book conversion
Syncing to e-book reader devices
Downloading news from the web and converting it into e-book form
Comprehensive e-book viewer
Content server for online access to your book collection

Basically, it allows you to keep all your eBooks in one place and organize/tag them. I haven't really used it yet, because it doesn't work well with Dropbox and if I take the time to tag all my eBooks, I want to be able to open the damn software on both of my computers and get the same data everywhere. But I think there's a way around this. I still need to check it out correctly.
Never mind that, I tried again and this time there was no trouble using Calibre on both my laptops with the same libraries thanks to Dropbox. Either the owner updated the app to make it work or I did something wrong the first time I tried it (I'm thinking the second. I wonder if I hadn't forgotten to let Dropbox sync the libraries between both computers, before trying to use it... That would be totally me xD)

(by the way, if you don't use Calibre, do you know of another software that can be 'shared' on several computers?)

The point of this post is:

I've been toying with the idea of converting all my text files fics in eBook format, so that I can have a local backup of my bookmarks/tags/annotations, in case I don't have Internet and can't connect to Pinboard.
Plus, it would have the advantage of cleaning up my fics folder.

Also, the idea of having a 'real' fanfiction library is making me grin like the huge geek that I am. Seriously, I'm hopeless.


The thing is, I don't know much about eBooks and I don't have an eBook reader, so I can't compare.

AO3 has four downloads available: MOBI, EPUB, PDF (and HTML).

Obviously, I want to use one of these formats, because it will make things so much easier for me.

The question is: WHICH ONE OF THESE FORMATS IS THE BEST?
Help, please *chibbi eyes*

Last year, I said I wouldn't be doing Nanowrimo again.

So, of course, guess what I'm doing again this year? ^^;;

Alright, to be honest, I don't think I'll write those 50'000 words in November. I'm mostly going to use the occasion to make new friends and hear about old ones :) Also, I'll be at my parent's for two weeks, so I doubt that I'll write a lot during that time. Anyway, if I do write, I'll try to write about Guide.

I discovered, while re-arranging my notes/chapters/files in progress, that I have currently written 38'500 words for Guide, 17'400 of which have been published in chapter 1 to 6 ^^ Which means people that I have already written the equivalent of another 4 or 5 chapters. But I still need to read, re-read, re-re-read them and then get in the usual back-and-forth ballet with lucime, my beta-reader, to get it publishable ;p So, it won't be for a while yet.


On another note, I fell in love with Scrivener all over again. When I write fanfictions, I always get worried that I have all my facts/canon right, so I have lots of bookmarks and web pages saved all over the computer with timelines, datas about characters, synopsis of episodes, ... and notebooks also. Lots of notebooks. I had also some information on various softwares.
You can imagine how easy it was to gather those infos ^^;;

Scrivener helps me with all that. It has something like three main folders: the draft one, in which you write your story/scenes/chapters and that you can organize in folders howerver you want, the research part, in which you can organize PDFs, images, sounds, web pages, ... and the trash bin ;p
I've been re-organizing all my files/notes for Guide and I can't tell you how much it helps to have everything I need in one window, instead of all over the place.


Still, I use about 4 softwares when I write:

1st - PageFour
Scrivener is great for organizing lengths of texts and such, but for one liner plot bunnies, I prefer PageFour. It has folders too, aka one FFVII folder, one for BtVS, one for HP, ... and in those I write down every plot bunny that bugs me.

2nd - Q10
This one is for the writing process itself. It's a full-screen, portable application (meaning, I can use the program from my USB key on every computers). You can tweak the colors of the background, the width/height of the writing space (meaning, if I want to see about 2 inches of text on three lines, I can customize it the way I want) and a few other things. Basically, you get a blank page with or without word count and clock and that's it. Then, you write. (without distractions, which is great ;p )

3rd - Scrivener
In which I copy/paste the text I wrote in Q10 and organize it and edit it. I can see the whole text in one long page, or just the chapters, or the cockboard, with card which helps me see where I'm going in the story. It has a full-screen feature too, but I prefer Q10 because I can take it everywhere with me.

4th and final - Microsoft Word
Because my beta-reader has the software, so we can go back and forth with *.docx files and liberally use highlighters and red font. Also useful to prettify your final version.