Please don't let me be getting a migraine now...

So, I have been steadily doing the betaing that I should have done back when I first got the fics I was supposed to beta, only somehow, I have no idea how, I lost two of them. madilayn, orgilion, could you send me your stuff again, to my gmail address (rynnewrites at gmail dot com)? I promise that this time I will be much more prompt, too--now that I'm back at school, I have more of a rhythm than during the summer.

I think I'm definitely getting sick. Bother. I am sneezing and sniffling and generally being far more tired than I should be (took another two hour nap today), even given that I've only been getting six hours of sleep a night, which really isn't that bad. But I hate being sick--too inconvenient, especially this year, when all of my classes are AP or college and so missing things is bad.

Now I really know what musesfool meant when she ranted about ficathons and so on--I hate having a deadline. I know I probably should get used to it if I want to be a professional writer, and I'm usually able to make my deadlines, but they're very unhelpful when I've got another fic idea that I really want to write but know I shouldn't until my fic with the deadline is done because the deadline is approaching. That being said, I've started my FQF fic, and I should be able to finish on time, but I think, once this FQF is over, I'm not going to sign up for anything with a deadline for a good long time.

Question: how the bloody hell does one write Draco Malfoy? I don't like the little ferret at all and rarely read anything involving him, but he's a rather required element in this one fic I'm writing, and he might have to be the POV character, or at least one of the mains, but I don't know what to do with him. Bugger Draco Malfoy.

Do I come across as shy? I just realized how very little I talk to people, with messengers. I mean, I talk to allisonblair fairly often, I talked to xellas last night, and I'm talking to thistlerose right now, but other than the queerditch_pub chats, I don't talk to people on messenger much. And I'd like to, especially with my favorite authors whose screennames I know, like copperbadge and so on, as I'd really like to get to know them better. (Lucky me, though, that my absolute favorite fanfic author, thistlerose, grew to be one of my best friends! We just have so much in common...) Only I'm just very hesitant in starting conversations, unless it's to ask a question, and I wouldn't know what to talk about and I hate it when a conversation just stops for awhile, as I feel sorta guilty for not upholding my end of the conversation and so on. But like, I want to talk to Sam, if only to apologize for being so anal about grammar, and I want to talk to all these other people because I think they're cool, but I just don't like being the one to start conversations. I suspect I'm not the only one who feels this way, but oi, I don't know that I'll be changing that behavior anytime soon. Every single person on my flist that I want to talk to is a person and not a god or anything, but you're all generally people that I admire and look up to and whose respect I want, rather than for you to look at me as an annoyance for bothering you, and so on.

Now I've got a bit of a headache, and if it turns into a migraine I'm going to be pissed, as I don't need a migraine the first week of school. Though of course, getting up at six am every day, and the fact that I'm going on a hike for swordfighting this weekend, and I don't need a migraine. Order of business now should probably to finish Catch-22 (yes, I'm horrible for not having finished it yet), take a migraine pill, and then go and try to get as much sleep as I can.