Self-Esteem

I googled 'self-esteem'. I found a lot of entries that told me I could improve my self-esteem by sending sums of money to persons unknown. Hmmm...

Also, that self-esteem might be about being content with my lot and happy to be a plodding mediocrity. That I'm not accepting! Also, that some of the signs of high self-esteem in people are pretty unpleasant traits.

As an initial exercise, here are some things I think I'm good at, and I'll resist ending each with a 'but...' however tempting it may seem.

• I'm highly intelligent
  
• I'm very good at expressing myself in writing
  
• I'm rather good-looking when i make the effort
  
• I'm very good at critical analysis
  
• I can speak well in public and present an argument
  
• I have successfully directed a play for public performance
  
• I'm surprisingly fit for my age
  
• I'm good at playing bridge
  
• I'm quite a talented photographer
  
• I make a mean cup of tea
  
• I'm a good and versatile cook
  
• My cat thinks I'm wonderful
  

Feel free to agree, disagree, or comment generally. (Hint: Lots of warm fuzzies are a big help!)

Your name meme

I haven't done a meme for ages, let alone started one. Here's one that's also a five-finger exercise for writers: exactly 100 words about your name.

My full name is Rosalind Claire Mitchell. I like it; it's one of the things I like a lot about myself. Rosalind: three steps tripping lightly downstairs. A heroine from mediaeval romance, the sassiest of Shakespeare's women. Also, a scientist who gave her life that others might celebrate a Nobel Prize.Tall, dark, witty, a bit of a bluestocking. Claire, don't forget the i: French and redolent of moonlight on the sea. Mitchell: it's a name, it's neutral, it will do. People want to shorten my name. Nature abhors a dactyl. I am not Roz, but Rosie is user-friendly enough.

I hereby tag everybody reading this page to do the same for their own name.

User name meme

Memes are like London Buses, aren't they? I went all introverted for a long time so missed being tagged by cereswunderkind for this one...

Rule: Post the explanation of where your username came from. Then tag TEN users whose explanations you'd like to hear. If you are tagged post the explanation to your page.

I became Enitharmon when I wanted to sneak into the Philip Pullman fansite Bridge to the Stars in 2003. I'd just been bowled over by His Dark Materials, not least with the references to the myth system of William Blake, and it seemed the natural thing to adopt the name of Blake's Eve figure cum sky-Goddess.

Under the name of Enitharmon I turned my writerly instincts to a couple of fanfictions. First a short parody, Inspector Morse's Dark Materials, in which Morse and Lewis find themselves face-to-face with a peculiarly Oxford mystery. Second was These Foolish Things, in which I attempted to fill one of the more unsatisfactory voids in HDM, the story of the young hero's mother Elaine Parry. Thirdly, I wanted to explore the changes that would envelope the L-World after the events of The Amber Spyglass, and also to meet Lyra twenty years on, so I wrote The Cassington Scholar. That was it; an attempt at a novel-length crossover crime story, Shadows At Morning, featuring my own protagonists Verity Blanchard and Martin Horrigan came to nothing more than a tongue-in-cheek prologue and an opening chapter. The novelty of working with other people's characters had worn off.

Anyway, it was the splendid Sraffies of the Bridge to the Stars who persuaded me to try a Livejournal. So I did, but blow me, Enitharmon had already been taken! The swine! So, I had to think again.

Some years ago, I used to be a Mystery Worshipper: that is, I snuck up on unsuspecting churches, slipped a Mystery Worshipper card into the collection plate, and wrote reviews of the service for the website Ship of Fools - "The Magazine of Christian Unrest" and a lot better, and funnier, than it sounds. Thinking of Ben Jonson's epithet for Shakespeare, and living in Reading at the time, I wrote my reviews under the monicker Sweet Swan of Kennet. In need of a name quickly, I adapted it. And it has stuck.

Now, I hereby tag the following to do the same:

acanthium
akg_darktea
dododumpling
dyfferent
elestr
margeryk
rillaith
romen_dreamer
satsekhmet
semioticghosts