aadler | Back for a moment

9:05PM Central Afghan Time

Been awhile, hasn’t it? I’m busier at my new firebase than I was at Kandahar, but that’s not the reason I’ve been LJ-absent for so long. I have a laptop. I used it for months in Iraq. The moment I landed in Afghanistan (I had been using it on the plane flying us in!), it unaccountably stopped working. I don’t mean wouldn’t work properly, I mean totally inert: no lights, no noises, no evidence that it wasn’t a big, intricate paperweight. Six weeks later, it just as inexplicably returned to life, and I used it steadily for the next four months.

On arrival at Tarin Kowt, I found it inoperative again. Annoying. There is Internet access here, but it’s limited. Where before I could work up an entry at leisure and then carry it on a memory stick to the nearest ’net terminal, I now have to use an official computer for such. Not forbidden per se, but a potentially delicate matter.

Meanwhile, I’ve stayed occupied. Seven villages in ten days, two school visits, and a night patrol. Meanwhile, I’ve done 8,000 words on my next story; odds are I won’t quite finish it before February, but I’ll try.

For now, this ganked from

agilebrit and

selenak:

Top 10 ways to know you’re reading a fanfic by Aadler:

10.		Lots of semicolons. The author has a weakness for compound sentences.
9.		The principal characters may not be explicitly named. Even if they are, a reader may have had to deduce their identity from internal cues before a formal identification is made.
8.		Significant incidence of substitutions for “said”. Hopefully not pathological, but definitely noticeable.
7.		If post-Season 3 Willow Rosenberg is referenced, it will be with distinct disapproval.
6.		Despite being a Buffy fic, it probably won’t feature Buffy anywhere. Sometimes she isn’t even mentioned.
5.		There will not, repeat not, repeat triple-underlined NOT, be any non-canonical slashing of main characters. Especially not m/m.
4.		Someone is pretending to be something (or someone) he (or she) actually isn’t.
3.		If Joyce Summers appears, she will be an object of worship (at least by the author).
2.		Even if there is no Buffy, the most powerful and/or most interesting character will be female.
		and the Number One way you know you’re reading a fanfic by Aadler:
1.		There will be some kind of surprise ending, or at least a major surprise during the story.