HP genfic...slowly updating!
Sep. 27th, 2019 10:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starfishstarHello hello, thought I'd mention this again, since I last posted about it months ago:
I've been slowly revising and posting a set of Harry Potter one-shots; each is set at various times post-canon and takes a glimpse into the life of various characters after the war. I just updated it, at long last, with the latest one! So far there are chapters about Cho, Viktor and Dean; still to come are Neville, and then one that's about both Ginny and Luna.
I'd also like to take this chance to thankemily_in_the_glass again for being such a great beta for this whole series!
I've decided I'm not going to cross-post here until the whole thing's complete, so right now it's only on AO3, if you want to read it there: More Than This World Can Contain. This latest chapter is about Dean Thomas, figuring out how to reconnect with his (Muggle) sister after all the (dangerous, scary, wizarding) things he experienced during the war.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
In other writing news, it's mostly non-news: I haven't been able to do much writing in months, because I really really really have to give all my time and attention to my thesis. (Also, I'm finally in the stage of writing up my analysis, after a million years of transcribing interviews, coding data, etc. So the thesis work now actually requires the writing-and-editing part of my brain, the part that thinks about how best to put words together and then moves paragraphs around into a more pleasing shape, which leaves little brain left over for creative writing.)
BUT. My local writing group is planning a retreat in November, where they rent cabins at a state park a couple hours away, super-cheap in the off-season, and squirrel themselves away for a couple days to do nothing but write. I don't know if I'll really have the time, but I decided I'll make the time. I signed up to go! Two days of writing in the woods in November – I'm already looking forward to it. Plus we might also do a shorter, local retreat in December. Plus I've been working on songwriting, for the first time in a long, long time! So I suppose there's more writing going on than I think there is. :-)
I'm again not signing up for Holmestice, and it again feels wrong. But I just can't conscience signing up for a fest I Take Very Seriously and Want to Do Very Well, during what will (hopefully) be my final couple of months on my thesis. Yes, indeed I have wondered lately if I could just sign up for this fest like a normal person, instead of taking it so freaking seriously... The "problem" (a blessing and a curse!) is that I've ended up so very committed to the "More Holmes" aspect of the fest, offering very rare Holmesian 'verses which then requires a lot of thought and refamiliarizing with whichever canon I end up matched on and, I don't know. It shouldn't be a big deal, but I take it So Seriously, and won't sign up if I'm not sure if I can give a thousand percent of myself to it... In fact, I never sign up for anything unless I'm already 100% sure from the outset that I can do it well. It's one of those perfectionist things that sounds like a positive personal quality, and I suppose mostly it is, but it can also be incredibly life debilitating. What I wouldn't give to be able to go through life even a little bit carelessly!
Still considering whether I might sign up for Yuletide, though; somehow that feels a little less high stakes. (It isn't really, though; it's still something that's important to me to do well, and where I can't know from the outset which canon I'll end up being matched on, and it could also take a lot of canon review and extra thought.) So probably I should NOT sign up, and reserve myself the option to write treats if something catches my eye.
Yeah, okay, I think I just talked myself into that being a better idea.
There are so many other things I've had to skip this year. Fests that caught my eye but there was just no way I could commit to. Meetings of my local writing group that I've dropped entirely over the summer. Thoughts about short fiction, and flash fiction, that have been quietly burning a hole in the back of my mind ever since I:
1) read the introduction to N.K. Jemisin's new book of short stories, where she talks about how she didn't want to write short stories, but realized that was what she needed to make herself learn in order to become a better novelist, and I immediately thought, oh, ugh, she's right, I need to learn how to write short stories. And:
2) attended a writing festival back in the spring that had a great workshop on flash fiction, which similiarly got me thinking, yes, this is the format in which to learn to establish character and story fast, hook the reader early, use words efficiently and powerfully. This is what I want to learn about and practice.
...And then I literally put the notes from that workshop in a literal drawer, to be returned to whenever I finally have time to think again about original fiction and learning-more-about-the-craft type stuff, and absolutely have not had a chance to even look at those notes since.
Someday, maybe soon, someday in my post-master's-degree life.
.
I've been slowly revising and posting a set of Harry Potter one-shots; each is set at various times post-canon and takes a glimpse into the life of various characters after the war. I just updated it, at long last, with the latest one! So far there are chapters about Cho, Viktor and Dean; still to come are Neville, and then one that's about both Ginny and Luna.
I'd also like to take this chance to thank
emily_in_the_glass again for being such a great beta for this whole series!I've decided I'm not going to cross-post here until the whole thing's complete, so right now it's only on AO3, if you want to read it there: More Than This World Can Contain. This latest chapter is about Dean Thomas, figuring out how to reconnect with his (Muggle) sister after all the (dangerous, scary, wizarding) things he experienced during the war.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
In other writing news, it's mostly non-news: I haven't been able to do much writing in months, because I really really really have to give all my time and attention to my thesis. (Also, I'm finally in the stage of writing up my analysis, after a million years of transcribing interviews, coding data, etc. So the thesis work now actually requires the writing-and-editing part of my brain, the part that thinks about how best to put words together and then moves paragraphs around into a more pleasing shape, which leaves little brain left over for creative writing.)
BUT. My local writing group is planning a retreat in November, where they rent cabins at a state park a couple hours away, super-cheap in the off-season, and squirrel themselves away for a couple days to do nothing but write. I don't know if I'll really have the time, but I decided I'll make the time. I signed up to go! Two days of writing in the woods in November – I'm already looking forward to it. Plus we might also do a shorter, local retreat in December. Plus I've been working on songwriting, for the first time in a long, long time! So I suppose there's more writing going on than I think there is. :-)
I'm again not signing up for Holmestice, and it again feels wrong. But I just can't conscience signing up for a fest I Take Very Seriously and Want to Do Very Well, during what will (hopefully) be my final couple of months on my thesis. Yes, indeed I have wondered lately if I could just sign up for this fest like a normal person, instead of taking it so freaking seriously... The "problem" (a blessing and a curse!) is that I've ended up so very committed to the "More Holmes" aspect of the fest, offering very rare Holmesian 'verses which then requires a lot of thought and refamiliarizing with whichever canon I end up matched on and, I don't know. It shouldn't be a big deal, but I take it So Seriously, and won't sign up if I'm not sure if I can give a thousand percent of myself to it... In fact, I never sign up for anything unless I'm already 100% sure from the outset that I can do it well. It's one of those perfectionist things that sounds like a positive personal quality, and I suppose mostly it is, but it can also be incredibly life debilitating. What I wouldn't give to be able to go through life even a little bit carelessly!
Still considering whether I might sign up for Yuletide, though; somehow that feels a little less high stakes. (It isn't really, though; it's still something that's important to me to do well, and where I can't know from the outset which canon I'll end up being matched on, and it could also take a lot of canon review and extra thought.) So probably I should NOT sign up, and reserve myself the option to write treats if something catches my eye.
Yeah, okay, I think I just talked myself into that being a better idea.
There are so many other things I've had to skip this year. Fests that caught my eye but there was just no way I could commit to. Meetings of my local writing group that I've dropped entirely over the summer. Thoughts about short fiction, and flash fiction, that have been quietly burning a hole in the back of my mind ever since I:
1) read the introduction to N.K. Jemisin's new book of short stories, where she talks about how she didn't want to write short stories, but realized that was what she needed to make herself learn in order to become a better novelist, and I immediately thought, oh, ugh, she's right, I need to learn how to write short stories. And:
2) attended a writing festival back in the spring that had a great workshop on flash fiction, which similiarly got me thinking, yes, this is the format in which to learn to establish character and story fast, hook the reader early, use words efficiently and powerfully. This is what I want to learn about and practice.
...And then I literally put the notes from that workshop in a literal drawer, to be returned to whenever I finally have time to think again about original fiction and learning-more-about-the-craft type stuff, and absolutely have not had a chance to even look at those notes since.
Someday, maybe soon, someday in my post-master's-degree life.
.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-30 09:22 pm (UTC)I completely appreciate that this must be so frustrating for you. The retreat in November sounds so great though - I hope you have a wonderful time and simply enjoy your writing.
And I will forever wave the flag for flash fiction/microfiction ^__^ ...read the introduction to N.K. Jemisin's new book of short stories, where she talks about how she didn't want to write short stories, but realized that was what she needed to make herself learn in order to become a better novelist... I always slightly resent the implication that shorter forms of prose are maybe just a stepping stone to the ‘real thing,’ novels. But I absolutely agree that short stories and flash fiction are a great way to learn how to ‘use words efficiently and powerfully’. I think flash fiction is rather like poetry. Not in terms of the language used, but in terms of structure. You constantly have to make decisions about what is most important and necessary for the piece.
I hope you sort something out re Holmestice and Yuletide that works for you. And all good wishes for your thesis!
no subject
Date: 2019-10-27 02:32 am (UTC)I described what she said about short stories in way too succinct form; the longer version (though I read this a while ago and am still probably misrepresenting) was something like:
She wanted to be a novelist; and thus grudgingly agreed that okay, yes, she should probably practice writing short stories first; and then in the process of that realized just how important and valuable short stories are in their own right, not only as a stepping stone. And was really, really glad she'd made herself learn how to write them. :-)
For myself, I'd have to say I echo the grudging part (do I really have to learn how to write short stories? oh, fine, okay...) but that's not because I think they're less important than novels, it's because I think they're WAY, WAY HARDER than novels. Seriously, my stumbling block about learning how to write (better) short stories is that I don't have any faith that I can even do it at all. I'm pretty sure an entire novel is so much easier to write than a single, exquisitely crafted short story!
And I really want to learn more about flash fiction, too. I love the comparison you made to poetry! I think that's really apt, about the economy of language, and thus the importance of crafting every single word and phrase with such care. In a novel you can waste words (not that you should, but you can) but in flash fiction you have to be better than that. I've had some good things come out of writing drabbles or other strict word limits in terms of fic – it really does make me write harder and thus better – but writing original flash fiction? That's a whole different beast, and seriously daunting.