crack_van | Just Sleep, and Sleep by maestro1123 (PG)

Hi, I'm

jantalaimon, and I’ll be driving the Life on Mars van for the month of November. I’m mostly known in the fandom as a proponent of sheer, utter crack. And also twisted things. There may be some slash involved. Possibly. My OTP is Sam/Mobile, although I’m also a sucker for Sam/Procedure (who isn’t???). So without further unnecessary preamble, please to be preparing to be mowed down and sent back to 1973 at will! :D

FANDOM: Life on Mars
AUTHOR ON LJ:

maestro1123
AUTHOR’S FIC SITE: None.
PAIRING: None. Gen, actually.
WHY THIS MUST BE READ: No matter what genre/pairing/etc. I’m reading, the surest way to suck me into a story is by the author making whatever it is they’re attempting to convey as plausible as possible. Yes, this can be done with crack, as well. This story, however, is not cracky---it’s definitely more on the angst side of the equation. The thing I love about it is how well Maestro knows her characters. She hasn’t written a lot in this fandom, which is our unfortunate loss, because she’s very good. An important way to ratchet up tension is to space it out, to make sure it ebbs and flows with just the right amount of tension-breaking sprinkled over it, like salt. That way, by the time you get to the end, you haven’t even realised the quicksand has swallowed you up.

EXCERPT:

On the first day, it rains constantly. Sam likes the rain, because it forces people indoors, and it makes the rest of the world nice and blurred. If he squints, through the streaked glass, he can almost believe he’s back home, another rainy day in bloody Manchester.

He sits by the window, at the battered little table, feet up. There’s a ring-bound notepad in front of him, and a heading in pencil, ‘Things To Do’. The rain makes him think of Blackpool, which makes him think of Annie, and then Gene, and then he tries just to think about the rain and nothing else, and crosses out ‘Blackpool’ on his list.

He could go to a concert. He always liked the seventies anyway, always got an urge to defend himself when he heard someone say the music was crap back then. He likes Bowie, Sweet, T-Rex. He could pick up some merchandise, even, a T-shirt or a poster or just a badge.

But even as he thinks about it, he knows he won’t do it. Going to a gig means believing he’s really here, that this is all real, and that means-

He won’t do it.

Sam rests his forehead against the glass, the ice-cold almost like a burn. And what would be worse, he wonders, to see a performance entirely unlike what he expected, or one that was exactly like it?

Just Sleep, and Sleep

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yay! More recs! I'm immediately adding this to the delicious bookmarks over at LoM Crack Van Recs (http://delicious.com/lom_crack_van)!!!

And you are really having a bad day with the coding, aren't you?

Anyway this is fantastic rec. Another one of those little-known, rarely remembered gems! Thank you!

*punts MS Word*

Here's the problem. I was super-busy yesterday, but it was the 2nd and I wanted to put up my first rec, not let anyone think I was lying down on the job, right? I've had a bunch of recs loaded into my reccing gun and pre-written-up in a Word doc. Copying and pasting, I figured, would be insanely easy even when everything else around me is spinning like a hurricane. Besides, one of the first rules of being at all successful in a kitchen is overprepping. *waves hand sheepishly*

So I recced and ran, and apparently Word had issues with my typing in the <lj user="insertnamehere"> in the appropriate places.

I do check every entry I post directly after posting, and I did yesterday too, and saw that it was wrong and tried to fix it...and then my *%^#(&^%#(&$ computer crashed. D: And I had to leave, was already late at that point...so I left and resolved to fix it today.

Sorry. :( But thank you. :)

Aw damn! I SO totally sympathize. I have actually taken to C&P out of Word into NOTEPAD for pity's sake, cleaning it up there, THEN C&P into LJ. That is truly a wtf kind of thing.

(FYI I've had the SAME problems with C&P out of Google Docs! argh! Is nothing sacred?)

I'm just thrilled to see some recs going up, and hopefully getting more people aware of this incredible fandom. ♥ on you!

Notepad is a saviour for many reasons...it's also very useful for hard-coding HTML, CSS, and PHP. Not that I'd have any reason to be overly familiar with that as of late. *whistles and tries to look innocent* For all that people have created some allegedly "superior" software for particular purposes, sometimes all I really wish for is the old scary Royal Caravan typewriter I used to type on when I was first learning. The action on the keys was so stiff and hard (heh) that I learned to type without using my pinky fingers at first because they couldn't press the keys down. I also got my fingers stuck between the keys more than once, but you know what? Once a thing was typed, it was typed. No question. Ultimate WYSIWYG-ness. :P *waves old curmudgeon cane at computer*

That's only on occasion, though. Mostly I enjoy what computers can offer, but SOMETIMES ARGH. :P

I've never had this problem with GoogleDocs, though! Maybe I've just been lucky? D: I wonder if maybe OpenOffice should be given a go? :)

Also, the next rec is up. Don't hold me to it as I fear I won't deliver, but I'm trying to do at least 5 recs a week. I was originally going to go for one a day, but I already missed the first day, so obviously that's not going to happen. ;)

There's an error in your coding somewhere. Please fix!

Sorry about that. Please see my comment above; it won't happen again! I usually don't even fic in Word, and have never actually attempted copying and pasting from there to LJ before, so I wasn't aware of this little "feature." :P

*bows in abject humility*

Not a problem, thanks!

Oops, just noticed that this post is missing the fandom info also. Please swap out with the redundant title line. THanks!

Hi Janni! This is an excellent choice - a real fave of mine too, and one I would have recced if my arse had been properly in gear!

(incidentally, the coding problem seems to stem from the fact that there shouldn't be a - in between lj and user. Hope that helps! In the meantime, for any passers-by, the link to this fic is HERE (http://community.livejournal.com/lifein1973/402517.html))

bistokids! :D Please see my comment to Mikey above. And glad you're already a fan of this fic; I will rec it until the cows come home. And/or until everyone ever sees the beauty of Sam/Mobile...which means I'll be busy awhile! ;)

♥

Just Sleep, and Sleep by maestro1123 (PG)

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