What's Next?
Jun. 24th, 2016 06:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starfishstarSo, as mentioned, I just finished up a massive fic-writing project.
Massive as in, I started it nearly six years ago and have been working on it off and on, at varying degrees of intensity, ever since.
And massive as in, even posting just the second half of the story took half a year, from mid-December to mid-June, with each chapter still needing its final review & revision (plus sometimes writing and editing whole new sections) before posting. So this story really kept me on my toes, having to race to keep up with my posting schedule even as I was also starting a new job, figuring out lots of real life stuff, making a life in a new/old city, dealing with health stuff, planning large-scale travels, etc.
...And now it's over. And I kind of don't remember how it works when I don't have an ongoing writing/revising project nipping at my heels and keeping me moving forward!
What now? Do I cast about for a new fic project to throw myself into? Do I take this as a chance to venture into the waters of original writing again? Do I instead take it as a chance to finally focus on music and songwriting again and let the fiction writing lie fallow for a bit? Or maybe do I let myself take a break, and not feel I have to have A Project going at all times?? (Ha ha ha, take a break, I don't even know how to do that.)
At any rate, I thought it would be fun to jot down some of the ideas in my head and see if anything pops out. Any thoughts or feedback from you, oh friendslist? Seriously, I would love to bounce ideas back and forth! Maybe you'll even help influence which fandom or characters grab hold of me next. ;-)
Ideas intriguing me under the cut...
• HARRY POTTER – Teddy's 7th year – ages ago I had a whole host of ideas about this, and a lot of the plot actually made it into my Andromeda story Saying Yes, so it would be fun to revisit all that from the Teddy-POV it was always supposed to be. But it would be a pretty long and involved fic, and I just don't know if I have it in me to do another HP longfic, after spending 6 years on Remus and Tonks!
• SHERLOCK – young Mycroft and Sherlock mythological/magical AU – another long-held idea, that would build on my one-shot explorations of their brotherly interactions, but expand it into an AU fusion with...well, I don't want to give it away, but it would involve half-human creatures of legend, and it could be really fun.
• SHERLOCK – Sherlock/Victor with a complicated past (and a child) – strangely perhaps (given that Victor doesn't even exist in canon) Sherlock/Victor is one of my very favorite pairings, and I've read some great stories where they have an angsty, complicated past, and in fact have a child together, but they're estranged, but then Because Reasons they're forced to interact again, and when they finally reunite it's perfect. I could really enjoy writing something like that (perhaps, for kicks, telling the whole thing from an unexpected outside POV – John? Lestrade?) but would I just be rehashing other people's stories that I've read and loved?
• TORCHWOOD – casefic (though still with lots of character and romance!) – I've always thought it would be fun to write a Torchwood longfic; I've only done one-shots, but the characters are so fun to work with, and would lend themselves well to a casefic/mystery, which is exactly what I want to practice, writing stories that have proper, solid plot to them, and aren't just all character exploration. I've got a whole little file of fun ideas about Torchwood characters, themes, snippets of dialogue, etc., and maybe that could all be woven around the plot of a longer fic. Maybe something with Faith, the seemingly immortal girl with the Tarot cards? OR a Wizard of Oz fusion?? (The Doctor is the wizard, of course.) ;-)
• MISS FISHER'S MURDER MYSTERIES – ??? – it would be fun to write something here, now that I've discovered it and love it, but what exactly? The show itself already covers episode-sized casefics well, and – as I've discovered – the fandom covers one-shot romances well! I'm not really sure what I could add.
• [which fandom?] – career fic – I recently saw mention of "take your fandom to work day," which is such a fun idea: whatever job you do/know the most about, you put the characters in an AU of that. So if you're a teacher, now the characters work in a school; if you run your own pastry business, then they do that. You use your own personal expertise to write a fic that not everyone would have the knowledge to write. But what I was for the longest was a translator – cool job, but not exactly exciting to watch: basically just me in front of my computer for hours on end. Then I thought, Berlin is the other thing I know a lot about and most people don't – and bizarrely, even after eight years in the city, I've never written fiction set in Berlin. I could have a character travel to Berlin! Maybe, again, Teddy? Seeking something about his parents' past?
• HARRY POTTER – bi R/T – this has been knocking around in my head for a while, a headcanon I really like: Remus and Tonks are both bi, and that's part of what draws them together, because each really gets that about the other. Nothing changes about canon plot or even about their relationship as we see it in the books, but it's revisited through a lens that allows their personal histories and identities to be more complex than JKR really allowed for. Inspired, I think, by a friend of mine who keeps saying that Tonks in book 5 is SO CLEARLY a lesbian, and it was stupid of JKR to marry her off to a man, and of course by the legions of fans who read Remus as gay until, ditto, JKR married him off. So I guess this is kind of a way of letting both those things be true...without it even having to be an AU, because it still fits within the canon of the later books. My personal headcanon for this scenario: Tonks mostly dates women and was not expecting to fall for a dude, which is another part of why the Remus thing throws her for such a loop; Remus and Sirius maybe have had an off and on friends-with-benefits thing over the years, but always with a clear understanding that it's not going to become more than that. So there's also an element of Sirius seeing this developing R/T thing and being a little wistful, but ultimately wishing the best for them. (Or does that fall into the horrific historical trend in literature of "gay characters can exist but they're not allowed to be happy"?) Anyway, though, I kind of love this headcanon, but it's not really a story – a story needs a wee bit more plot than just a single concept change from canon. Maybe this is a meta rather than a story?
• ORIGINAL FICTION – not-quite-human lovers and creatures of folklore – OR, you know, I could finally work on some original writing again, instead of tying myself down to another years-long fic project! This could mean just doing some writing exercises to get the ideas going again, or even trying to tackle a longer project.
Topics that are fascinating my brain right now: stories where the real world blends with mythology – à la the terrifying water horses of Maggie Stiefvater's "The Scorpio Races," or other creatures of legend like werewolves and selkies – and Rebecca Solnit's reflections, in "The Faraway Nearby," about the recurring cultural thread of stories about humans with lovers who are animal part of the time, and how maybe those stories represent some kind of grappling with our own dual nature as both animals and thinking human beings...
Solnit draws a direct line from the Greek story of Cupid and Psyche (woman has a god lover whose true form she's not allowed to see) to the French Beauty and the Beast (woman has an enchanted beast lover) to the Norwegian tale East of the Sun, West of the Moon (woman marries an enchanted bear), and she reflects that Cupid and Psyche can perhaps be read not as two separate characters, but as two parts of one person, passion and consciousness trying to find a way to coexist within one being. I think this trope/tradition could be so much fun to play around with, if I can find a new angle on it.
Or, you know, just a fun YA story with werewolves or selkies or enchanted bears in it. :-)
ETA: Oh, and! I forgot: TORCHWOOD/MISS FISHER CROSSOVER – Jack Harkness gives his all to hitting on Jack Robinson – it would only be a crack-y one-shot, but wouldn't that be fun? The most buttoned-up Jack and the most free-lovin' Jack in the same place! Also, I think Phryne and Jack H. just might get on like a house on fire. (And it's so convenient that the time-traveling nature of the Doctor Who 'verse means it's not even hard to orchestrate Torchwood + anything crossovers.)
.
Massive as in, I started it nearly six years ago and have been working on it off and on, at varying degrees of intensity, ever since.
And massive as in, even posting just the second half of the story took half a year, from mid-December to mid-June, with each chapter still needing its final review & revision (plus sometimes writing and editing whole new sections) before posting. So this story really kept me on my toes, having to race to keep up with my posting schedule even as I was also starting a new job, figuring out lots of real life stuff, making a life in a new/old city, dealing with health stuff, planning large-scale travels, etc.
...And now it's over. And I kind of don't remember how it works when I don't have an ongoing writing/revising project nipping at my heels and keeping me moving forward!
What now? Do I cast about for a new fic project to throw myself into? Do I take this as a chance to venture into the waters of original writing again? Do I instead take it as a chance to finally focus on music and songwriting again and let the fiction writing lie fallow for a bit? Or maybe do I let myself take a break, and not feel I have to have A Project going at all times?? (Ha ha ha, take a break, I don't even know how to do that.)
At any rate, I thought it would be fun to jot down some of the ideas in my head and see if anything pops out. Any thoughts or feedback from you, oh friendslist? Seriously, I would love to bounce ideas back and forth! Maybe you'll even help influence which fandom or characters grab hold of me next. ;-)
Ideas intriguing me under the cut...
• HARRY POTTER – Teddy's 7th year – ages ago I had a whole host of ideas about this, and a lot of the plot actually made it into my Andromeda story Saying Yes, so it would be fun to revisit all that from the Teddy-POV it was always supposed to be. But it would be a pretty long and involved fic, and I just don't know if I have it in me to do another HP longfic, after spending 6 years on Remus and Tonks!
• SHERLOCK – young Mycroft and Sherlock mythological/magical AU – another long-held idea, that would build on my one-shot explorations of their brotherly interactions, but expand it into an AU fusion with...well, I don't want to give it away, but it would involve half-human creatures of legend, and it could be really fun.
• SHERLOCK – Sherlock/Victor with a complicated past (and a child) – strangely perhaps (given that Victor doesn't even exist in canon) Sherlock/Victor is one of my very favorite pairings, and I've read some great stories where they have an angsty, complicated past, and in fact have a child together, but they're estranged, but then Because Reasons they're forced to interact again, and when they finally reunite it's perfect. I could really enjoy writing something like that (perhaps, for kicks, telling the whole thing from an unexpected outside POV – John? Lestrade?) but would I just be rehashing other people's stories that I've read and loved?
• TORCHWOOD – casefic (though still with lots of character and romance!) – I've always thought it would be fun to write a Torchwood longfic; I've only done one-shots, but the characters are so fun to work with, and would lend themselves well to a casefic/mystery, which is exactly what I want to practice, writing stories that have proper, solid plot to them, and aren't just all character exploration. I've got a whole little file of fun ideas about Torchwood characters, themes, snippets of dialogue, etc., and maybe that could all be woven around the plot of a longer fic. Maybe something with Faith, the seemingly immortal girl with the Tarot cards? OR a Wizard of Oz fusion?? (The Doctor is the wizard, of course.) ;-)
• MISS FISHER'S MURDER MYSTERIES – ??? – it would be fun to write something here, now that I've discovered it and love it, but what exactly? The show itself already covers episode-sized casefics well, and – as I've discovered – the fandom covers one-shot romances well! I'm not really sure what I could add.
• [which fandom?] – career fic – I recently saw mention of "take your fandom to work day," which is such a fun idea: whatever job you do/know the most about, you put the characters in an AU of that. So if you're a teacher, now the characters work in a school; if you run your own pastry business, then they do that. You use your own personal expertise to write a fic that not everyone would have the knowledge to write. But what I was for the longest was a translator – cool job, but not exactly exciting to watch: basically just me in front of my computer for hours on end. Then I thought, Berlin is the other thing I know a lot about and most people don't – and bizarrely, even after eight years in the city, I've never written fiction set in Berlin. I could have a character travel to Berlin! Maybe, again, Teddy? Seeking something about his parents' past?
• HARRY POTTER – bi R/T – this has been knocking around in my head for a while, a headcanon I really like: Remus and Tonks are both bi, and that's part of what draws them together, because each really gets that about the other. Nothing changes about canon plot or even about their relationship as we see it in the books, but it's revisited through a lens that allows their personal histories and identities to be more complex than JKR really allowed for. Inspired, I think, by a friend of mine who keeps saying that Tonks in book 5 is SO CLEARLY a lesbian, and it was stupid of JKR to marry her off to a man, and of course by the legions of fans who read Remus as gay until, ditto, JKR married him off. So I guess this is kind of a way of letting both those things be true...without it even having to be an AU, because it still fits within the canon of the later books. My personal headcanon for this scenario: Tonks mostly dates women and was not expecting to fall for a dude, which is another part of why the Remus thing throws her for such a loop; Remus and Sirius maybe have had an off and on friends-with-benefits thing over the years, but always with a clear understanding that it's not going to become more than that. So there's also an element of Sirius seeing this developing R/T thing and being a little wistful, but ultimately wishing the best for them. (Or does that fall into the horrific historical trend in literature of "gay characters can exist but they're not allowed to be happy"?) Anyway, though, I kind of love this headcanon, but it's not really a story – a story needs a wee bit more plot than just a single concept change from canon. Maybe this is a meta rather than a story?
• ORIGINAL FICTION – not-quite-human lovers and creatures of folklore – OR, you know, I could finally work on some original writing again, instead of tying myself down to another years-long fic project! This could mean just doing some writing exercises to get the ideas going again, or even trying to tackle a longer project.
Topics that are fascinating my brain right now: stories where the real world blends with mythology – à la the terrifying water horses of Maggie Stiefvater's "The Scorpio Races," or other creatures of legend like werewolves and selkies – and Rebecca Solnit's reflections, in "The Faraway Nearby," about the recurring cultural thread of stories about humans with lovers who are animal part of the time, and how maybe those stories represent some kind of grappling with our own dual nature as both animals and thinking human beings...
Solnit draws a direct line from the Greek story of Cupid and Psyche (woman has a god lover whose true form she's not allowed to see) to the French Beauty and the Beast (woman has an enchanted beast lover) to the Norwegian tale East of the Sun, West of the Moon (woman marries an enchanted bear), and she reflects that Cupid and Psyche can perhaps be read not as two separate characters, but as two parts of one person, passion and consciousness trying to find a way to coexist within one being. I think this trope/tradition could be so much fun to play around with, if I can find a new angle on it.
Or, you know, just a fun YA story with werewolves or selkies or enchanted bears in it. :-)
ETA: Oh, and! I forgot: TORCHWOOD/MISS FISHER CROSSOVER – Jack Harkness gives his all to hitting on Jack Robinson – it would only be a crack-y one-shot, but wouldn't that be fun? The most buttoned-up Jack and the most free-lovin' Jack in the same place! Also, I think Phryne and Jack H. just might get on like a house on fire. (And it's so convenient that the time-traveling nature of the Doctor Who 'verse means it's not even hard to orchestrate Torchwood + anything crossovers.)
.
