(no subject)

[katallison]

For the third week in a row I did not manage to see Angel--damn, I wish it wasn't on Wednesday night--and hence I cannot really follow the reviews that all the cool kids are posting. I'm not anti- the show or anything, and I'll doubtless catch up on the episodes at some point, if for no other reason than to be able to fully enjoy others' vidding thereof.

I also am not joining in the "What's my brand?" meme, largely because I already have a pretty good idea of how my stories come across to others. The pithiest summary thereof, and one I cherish, came in some comments that cesperanza posted a while back about "End of the Road" -- "a great novel but really shitty escapism." So, that's my brand: "Kat Allison, bringing you really shitty escapism since 1997!" Heee.

Of course, if anyone wants to tell me otherwise -- "Kat, your stories make me think of ... a basketful of puppies on Christmas morning! A coneful of sticky cotton candy clutched by a sweet-faced child on a hot summer day! The giant squid at the aquarium!" -- well, that would be cool. Weird, but cool.

I am in the middle of a two-day training on how to use Access, so that I can take over some of the databases at work. As usual, I'm led to reflect on what a mistake it is (generally) to let software experts be in charge of training. Teaching beginners how to understand and use complex systems is an entirely distinct kind of skill from *creating* such systems, and it's one that (I say immodestly) I'm pretty good at; a couple of times yesterday I cut in and decoded the expert's explanations into terms that Hapless Lady two rows back could make sense of. Sometimes I think I should be looking into this kind of training as my next career path, for the day when I finally reach my limit with the 18-year-olds and the University administration.

Ah well, duty bellows, and off into the raw damp drizzly morning I go.

Comments

[flambeau.livejournal.com]

I think I've said this before, but you're kind of like the second law of slash thermodynamics. The universe moves on and falls apart, "in any irreversible process, entropy always increases," as my Collins points out, and there you are, chronicling it.

[katallison.livejournal.com]

Woo! Now I can revise the brand to "Really shitty escapism plus! Slash-o-riffic entropy!"

And in response to *your* query -- it's hard to sum up my response to your writing, because it's changed quite a bit over time (well, your writing, I meant, but perhaps my response also) -- but the bedrock for me is always elegant, in the traditional or Jane-Austen sense of the word, as well as the mathematical or scientific: form perfectly fitting function, every detail absolutely fitting with every other detail and with the guiding purpose, devoid of flab or windy excess or gaudy ornamentation, informed by taste and intelligence, apt, proportionate, exciting in the onlooker the sense of "This is perfect, it could be no other way." Elegant in the way a cat is elegant, or a perfectly-designed engine. And like a cat, perfect in its composure, its poise, its suppleness and agility.