theatre of the absurd: St. Petersburg, part I - St. Peter's Line, PR Maria (iii)

Today started off auspiciously. I was up till extremely late last night reading a fanfic (don't judge me) on AO3. I'd first found that fanfic ages ago, whilst I was still reading for my master's degree. The author had only written a couple chapters at that point, and that fanfic was ostensibly just another of those 'incredibly well written WIPs' that you never hear from ever again. So imagine how pleasantly surprised I was when I found that she'd written some more chapters after I graduated. I promised her a review of her newest chapters but never got round to it, then completely forgot about it. I've been re-immersing myself in ST, however, and found her fanfic listed in a ST directory, and imagine how pleasantly surprised I was when I found that she'd expanded her fic into a very substantial series. I was delirious with joy and turned on my 'reading' mode and allowed myself to flee into the warm fuzzy escapism of her world of writing.

It's been a long time since I felt that way. Time was when I used to turn to writing as my last safe haven and anchor of sanity. I haven't written anything, original or otherwise, in simply ages. Granted, I was never much of a fanfic writer, I've always preferred my own characters and own-verse (is that even a word)? I left her some rather badly written, very sleep deprived comments enunciating my appreciation for how she'd followed up and completed her fanfics. As a fellow writer I know all too well the importance of good, meaty feedback from fic readers, and I was once again gratified when I woke up to her ample-sized replies to my comments. At this point this may sound a little creepy, but I even stumbled across her tumblr and found that she'd gushed about me and my comments and her fanfics. It made me pretty happy, knowing that I'd made her day like that. I think this is a very good case for how I am, deep down inside, a big ole softie at heart.

That was pretty non relevant but it is my life and it's my blog, and if anything reading some choice AO3 has shown me that I really need to pick up my writing again. Yesterday an acquaintance from uni asked me for some short fics that I used to write, and I sent her the Dido/Aeneas one, which I posted here ages ago. I showed it to 1b as well, back in the day, and he showed it to his best mate Dan, and he told me that between the two of them they thought that I was good enough to write for a living. Which of course brings me here.

According to my blog stats I have some pretty consistent readers from France. My question now is - who are you!? I am simply dying of curiosity to know who you are.

The biggest difference in this entry from the previous ones is that I actually got to eat some food here. I wandered around the sun deck and decided I was peckish, so went down to one of the restaurant below decks. The menu was in English, Russian and (simp) Mandarin. I didn't know whether to be flattered or irritated by the latter. Perhaps irritated, for reasons which will become obvious after extensive psychoanalysis. I jest, of course.

The chicken Kiev was horrible, there's no way I can arrange flowers around this. It tasted like something I'd gotten for 99p from Iceland. The meat was mysterious and stale and I could practically feel the synthetic melted margarine slide right down my esophagus to form a heavy layer of potential heart attack around my vital organs.

The dessert however was much better, standard Russian fare with cranberries and moussed cream. It was delicious. I paid by card because I didn't have any coins left on me at this point and I did not want loads of spare change from my 100 EUR note.