Fic in 2021!
Jan. 2nd, 2022 01:46 pmFic I posted in 2021:
( WRITING IN 2021! )
All in all, wow, it was a much better writing year than I realized. Also...a much, much longer year than I realized.
Fic I posted in 2021:
( WRITING IN 2021! )
All in all, wow, it was a much better writing year than I realized. Also...a much, much longer year than I realized.
Camp NaNoWriMo Achieved
Apr. 30th, 2021 08:04 pmHeeeeyo! I still can't tell if NaNoWriMo is going to give me some kind of banner/award/whatever for completing the April Camp NaNoWriMo challenge (I met MY goal, but I don't know if I met THE goal, since this is not November and my goal was not 50,000 words), so I'm going ahead and doing this myself:
I met my Camp NaNoWriMo goal! \o/
My goal was only 15,000 words, small peanuts compared to actual NaNoWriMo, but it turned out to be a really good amount – enough to keep me writing, but not so much that the need to hit a daily word goal became a weight I was dragging around. Small enough that I could keep churning out the necessary daily average even when I wasn't sure where the stories was going, and indeed pulled well ahead for a while...which then came in handy in the last few days, when I suddenly got every possible professional/academic/everything opportunity thrown my way all at once, and had to put writing on the back burner for a few days. By yesterday I'd caught back up, but deliberately wrote only up to the point of 14,999 words and stopped there, so I could have the satisfaction of hitting my goal today, the final day of the challenge. :-)
In the end, I wrote 15,350 words, all of them on the same story. (Usually when I do a month-long word count challenge I'm bouncing around between a bunch of projects, so this time I deliberately worked on just one.) Where did those 15,350 words get me, on this particular writing project? As of a couple days ago, I was feeling like the only thing I'd succeeded in establishing, 15,000 words in, was that I really don't have a handle on my main character at all. (The side characters, yes.) Usually I say my writing tends toward all character and no plot; this time it seemed to be all worldbuilding and no character. (And, inevitably, also no plot.) But these last couple of days I took another run at the main character's perspective, and got her back to a place I like better. And I do like the world I'm creating. No surprise there, I can write about stormy northern seas forever!
I may set this project aside now and go back to other things, but this is a story I've been thinking about off and on at least since I spent time in Orkney (three years ago??) and got interested in researching the folklore there, and started thinking about a novel that might draw on that folklore, and also the landscapes I love from Iceland, and also maybe some story elements of The Snow Queen... It's not going to turn into a novel anytime soon, but it's nice to know that now I've got some more sketches of worldbuilding and character ideas to come back to whenever I next want to pick it up again.
Also, did I mention that I'm apparently going to have a flash fiction piece published in the collection that's being put together from Flash Fiction February? Not to mention that today I submitted the finalized, revised, and otherwise completely-entirely-done-ized manuscript of my article that's going to be published in an academic journal in my field. And suddenly have some cool opportunities to present my research in other formats as well.
For once, everything's coming up roses. :-)
I met my Camp NaNoWriMo goal! \o/
My goal was only 15,000 words, small peanuts compared to actual NaNoWriMo, but it turned out to be a really good amount – enough to keep me writing, but not so much that the need to hit a daily word goal became a weight I was dragging around. Small enough that I could keep churning out the necessary daily average even when I wasn't sure where the stories was going, and indeed pulled well ahead for a while...which then came in handy in the last few days, when I suddenly got every possible professional/academic/everything opportunity thrown my way all at once, and had to put writing on the back burner for a few days. By yesterday I'd caught back up, but deliberately wrote only up to the point of 14,999 words and stopped there, so I could have the satisfaction of hitting my goal today, the final day of the challenge. :-)
In the end, I wrote 15,350 words, all of them on the same story. (Usually when I do a month-long word count challenge I'm bouncing around between a bunch of projects, so this time I deliberately worked on just one.) Where did those 15,350 words get me, on this particular writing project? As of a couple days ago, I was feeling like the only thing I'd succeeded in establishing, 15,000 words in, was that I really don't have a handle on my main character at all. (The side characters, yes.) Usually I say my writing tends toward all character and no plot; this time it seemed to be all worldbuilding and no character. (And, inevitably, also no plot.) But these last couple of days I took another run at the main character's perspective, and got her back to a place I like better. And I do like the world I'm creating. No surprise there, I can write about stormy northern seas forever!
I may set this project aside now and go back to other things, but this is a story I've been thinking about off and on at least since I spent time in Orkney (three years ago??) and got interested in researching the folklore there, and started thinking about a novel that might draw on that folklore, and also the landscapes I love from Iceland, and also maybe some story elements of The Snow Queen... It's not going to turn into a novel anytime soon, but it's nice to know that now I've got some more sketches of worldbuilding and character ideas to come back to whenever I next want to pick it up again.
Also, did I mention that I'm apparently going to have a flash fiction piece published in the collection that's being put together from Flash Fiction February? Not to mention that today I submitted the finalized, revised, and otherwise completely-entirely-done-ized manuscript of my article that's going to be published in an academic journal in my field. And suddenly have some cool opportunities to present my research in other formats as well.
For once, everything's coming up roses. :-)
Camp NaNo!
Mar. 31st, 2021 10:55 pmI signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo! Yes, at long last, I've officially signed up for a NaNoWriMo event. Let's see if I immediately regret this as soon as April arrives...which technically is in a few minutes... No, I don't think I'll regret it. :-)
For years, I've wanted to do proper actual NaNoWriMo (meaning, the full 50k deal, in November) but my life is never in a place where it seems possible. And as for Camp NaNoWriMo (which happens in April and July, and can be for smaller word goals) apparently each time I either forget, or I don't know what else. So this year, I put a note into my calendar to remind me to look into Camp NaNo before April. ...Unfortunately, where I put that note in my calendar was on March 30, which didn't exactly give me a lot of lead time to ponder my options and get to know the platform and everything. But I did it! I signed up!
My goal for this April is 15,000 words – a very modest goal. (It's literally where I started the very first time I set a month word count goal – in January 2017 – and then I spent the next years working up to gradually higher word counts each time I did that sort of thing again. (Jan 2017: 15,500 words, April 2017: 20,000 words, Nov 2018: 20K/nearly met my stretch goal of 30K, Nov 2018: 10K/met my stretch goal of about 14K despite my life having imploded shortly beforehand. But life has continued to be sort of implode-y ever since, so I'm very okay with a modest goal this time around.)
As for what specific project I'll be working on... I've been gradually working my way back into the world of writing, after having had to grind everything to a halt in favor of finishing my dissertation last year. So, last summer first I did a very small-scale flash fiction month. Then I haltingly lurched my way somewhat back into fic, thanks entirely to the fests whose deadlines forced me to write (Torchwood Fest, HP Halloween, Yuletide, Holmestice, Purimgifts). Then, since the start of the year, I've been doing a bunch of online workshops (I've had a writing workshop every single Wednesday since the start of January, plus a bunch on various Thursdays as well...) and have used that as an opportunity to focus on original fiction and generate some new ideas for the first time in a long while.
I'm a little burned out on constant workshops, though, so I figured April and Camp NaNo are the perfect chance to make myself focus in on one longer project, rather than jumping around so much. I'm gonna unearth one of those "maybe it's a novel or something?" ideas that I've had lurking for several years now, dancing around it and talking about it and playing with bits of it in workshop exercises, but never quite feeling like I had the time to commit to it fully. So, as of tomorrow, I'll start writing stuff and see what happens.
Wish me luck!
For years, I've wanted to do proper actual NaNoWriMo (meaning, the full 50k deal, in November) but my life is never in a place where it seems possible. And as for Camp NaNoWriMo (which happens in April and July, and can be for smaller word goals) apparently each time I either forget, or I don't know what else. So this year, I put a note into my calendar to remind me to look into Camp NaNo before April. ...Unfortunately, where I put that note in my calendar was on March 30, which didn't exactly give me a lot of lead time to ponder my options and get to know the platform and everything. But I did it! I signed up!
My goal for this April is 15,000 words – a very modest goal. (It's literally where I started the very first time I set a month word count goal – in January 2017 – and then I spent the next years working up to gradually higher word counts each time I did that sort of thing again. (Jan 2017: 15,500 words, April 2017: 20,000 words, Nov 2018: 20K/nearly met my stretch goal of 30K, Nov 2018: 10K/met my stretch goal of about 14K despite my life having imploded shortly beforehand. But life has continued to be sort of implode-y ever since, so I'm very okay with a modest goal this time around.)
As for what specific project I'll be working on... I've been gradually working my way back into the world of writing, after having had to grind everything to a halt in favor of finishing my dissertation last year. So, last summer first I did a very small-scale flash fiction month. Then I haltingly lurched my way somewhat back into fic, thanks entirely to the fests whose deadlines forced me to write (Torchwood Fest, HP Halloween, Yuletide, Holmestice, Purimgifts). Then, since the start of the year, I've been doing a bunch of online workshops (I've had a writing workshop every single Wednesday since the start of January, plus a bunch on various Thursdays as well...) and have used that as an opportunity to focus on original fiction and generate some new ideas for the first time in a long while.
I'm a little burned out on constant workshops, though, so I figured April and Camp NaNo are the perfect chance to make myself focus in on one longer project, rather than jumping around so much. I'm gonna unearth one of those "maybe it's a novel or something?" ideas that I've had lurking for several years now, dancing around it and talking about it and playing with bits of it in workshop exercises, but never quite feeling like I had the time to commit to it fully. So, as of tomorrow, I'll start writing stuff and see what happens.
Wish me luck!
Fic in 2020!
Jan. 1st, 2021 08:11 pmFic (and other works) I posted in 2020:
( lo, the fics! )
Writing-related things I did in 2020:
( lo, all the things! )
.
( lo, the fics! )
Writing-related things I did in 2020:
( lo, all the things! )
.
Crossposting commences!
Dec. 23rd, 2020 10:11 pmEep, I'm a bit far behind on crossposting works here to DW (and, by the magic of mirror posts, LJ). Not only are there two now-de-anoned Holmestice works to post here (yay Holmestice!), but also there's the small set of Harry Potter genfic I wrote last year.
I'd posted the fics in the series one by one on AO3, and figured I would add them all to my masterlist here on DW only once the series was complete. I posted that series something like May to September of last year... and then sat on it for an entire year... as I struggled to write a fifth fic for the series that just wasn't coming together. At long last, with the help of![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
emily_in_the_glass as beta, last month I declared the series complete as it is, a set of four. (The fifth was no longer at all fitting within the scope of the series, and the other four stood together just fine as they were.) That fifth fic may instead become something else one day. ;-) And meanwhile, I really would like to post the now-completed series here before, y'know, the end of the year.
Which is all to say, apologies for the minor flood of fic shortly to be posting here!
I'd posted the fics in the series one by one on AO3, and figured I would add them all to my masterlist here on DW only once the series was complete. I posted that series something like May to September of last year... and then sat on it for an entire year... as I struggled to write a fifth fic for the series that just wasn't coming together. At long last, with the help of
emily_in_the_glass as beta, last month I declared the series complete as it is, a set of four. (The fifth was no longer at all fitting within the scope of the series, and the other four stood together just fine as they were.) That fifth fic may instead become something else one day. ;-) And meanwhile, I really would like to post the now-completed series here before, y'know, the end of the year.Which is all to say, apologies for the minor flood of fic shortly to be posting here!
Eeeeeeeeeeeeee! :D
Yuletide assignments have arrived! If you didn't sign up for Yuletide officially (I nearly didn't, being anxious as always about committing to things, wanting to be a thousand percent sure that I'll be able to follow through on a promise before I even make the promise, which is not exactly how life works...) you can nonetheless browse fandoms and requests in the Yuletide 2020 letter app, and get inspired to write fics as treats! The browsing of the letters and getting inspired by them might be the most fun of all. :-)
Hey, all! Bit random, but: Would anyone be available to beta a short HP fic? (1,200 words, Marauders, gen, maybe slight hint of Remus/Sirius.)
It's actually my submission for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
hp_halloween, more or less... Because in the process of drafting ideas for an autumn-themed double-or-triple drabble for the fest, I accidentally wrote a set of four triple drabbles. :-) So I'd love to have someone give them a quick look over, just to catch any typos or unclear bits, and hopefully also give me an opinion about which one should be my actual submission.
Thank you! :D
It's actually my submission for
hp_halloween, more or less... Because in the process of drafting ideas for an autumn-themed double-or-triple drabble for the fest, I accidentally wrote a set of four triple drabbles. :-) So I'd love to have someone give them a quick look over, just to catch any typos or unclear bits, and hopefully also give me an opinion about which one should be my actual submission.Thank you! :D
Fic in 2019!
Jan. 18th, 2020 05:11 pmA little bit belated, but here's a round-up/reflection on everything I wrote in 2019:
( WRITING IN 2019! )
.
Let the crossposting commence!
Jan. 5th, 2020 02:22 pmI'm going to post the two Call Me By Your Name fics I wrote for Yuletide, and then at some point soon also the three Remus/Sirius fics I wrote for Small Gifts – so, apologies for the small flood of posting that's imminent.
I've done my write-up of my favorite books I read in the fourth quarter of the year, and my year-end reflection on all the books I read in 2019, and I still need to finish the year-end reflection on my writing in 2019, and then I'll finally be caught on all the year-end/year-beginning things!
I've done my write-up of my favorite books I read in the fourth quarter of the year, and my year-end reflection on all the books I read in 2019, and I still need to finish the year-end reflection on my writing in 2019, and then I'll finally be caught on all the year-end/year-beginning things!
NaNoWriMo-ish (the end of November)
Dec. 2nd, 2019 12:40 pmAs I mentioned at the start of the month, I do like to set myself writing goal/s for the month of November, even if I'm nowhere near conditions under which I could participate in actual NaNoWriMo. This year is particularly full of hard real-life stuff, so my goals for November were quite modest:
– write every day
– maybe reach 10,000 words if possible
Now, with November wrapped up and over, I'm happy to report: GOALS ACHIEVED.
I DID write every day, and I DID meet and exceed my modest word count goal!
In fact, I met the 10,000-word goal 2/3 through the month, on Nov. 20 (fittingly, this was while I was away on a writing retreat and thus having a particularly good word count day) so I kept on and decided my stretch goal would be a rather vague "finish somewhere between 10,000–15,000 words." I finished the month with a total of 14,075 words, so, yay!
Once again, I made the questionable choice to focus mostly on short fics, several of which I was also revising and getting ready to post during that time, so obviously that creates many fewer new words than working only on the rough first draft of one long project, like NaNoWriMo is meant to be. If I ever do actual NaNoWriMo, I do need to pick one actual long NaNoWriMo-style project.
But, whatever. I wrote what I wanted to write. :-) (And, in fact, also made a bunch of progress on a back-burner longer fic as well.) And once again, having that push to meet a word count did lead to entire fics I probably wouldn't have written otherwise. (Including writing a treat for Remus/Sirius Small Gifts for the first time – I was feeling suddenly nostalgic this winter, and swung back towards R/S fandom – as well as trying to at least get a start on some treats for Yuletide, maybe.)
Also, normally I only include fiction/creative writing in the month's word count. (Not any of the copious other writing I'm always also doing, like journaling, or blogging, or writing up my thoughts about books for my quarterly book posts, etc.) But this year it's exceedingly important that I work on my thesis and don't let myself get distracted from that by things that are more fun, so I counted that as part of the word count, too, as a way of encouraging myself to do it.
Oh, and the retreat with my writers' group was great. Two nights in a remote state park, where we each had our own little cabin and spent the days writing. I did a bunch of fun fic writing; but also, that was where I finally had the space and focus to pick up my thesis again, and delve into it enough to even remember what I'd been working on before I went on an unintended two-month hiatus to manage the latest family health crisis. It felt really good to remember, oh, right, this is what I was working on. This is what I was going to write next. Oh, hey, now I remember that I actually really like this project!
During and after the retreat, a few of us were also talking about the dynamics of who dares to bring work to the group to read and critique and who doesn't. (It's a very, very laidback group, not really a critique group at all, with no formal structure. So that means the only people whose work gets read are those who take the initiative to bring work, even though it's not required or assigned. And unfortunately the one who dares is mainly one specific man; and there's at least one woman who feels intimidated and never dares.)
So I proposed that at our next meeting we ALL bring a snippet of something we wrote during the retreat – because that way everyone wrote something, probably at more or less the same rough-draft level, so there's no dithering about whether your work is worth sharing: just, everyone is bringing something, so you bring something. We'll see if that helps or not!
(Also, whoops, that means now I have to bring something... Everyone else in this group is a nonfiction writer, from memoir to journalism to blogging, and then there's me turning up and trying to explain fanfiction to them. (And yes, also sometimes original fiction, but I just don't have the brain space for anything new/original right now.) So, having promised to share something I wrote during the retreat, I have to bring them either an incredibly dry snippet of my thesis, or else some excerpt of a fic they're totally not going to understand out of context.)
So, my November was good for writing! Exhausting, but good.
– write every day
– maybe reach 10,000 words if possible
Now, with November wrapped up and over, I'm happy to report: GOALS ACHIEVED.
I DID write every day, and I DID meet and exceed my modest word count goal!
In fact, I met the 10,000-word goal 2/3 through the month, on Nov. 20 (fittingly, this was while I was away on a writing retreat and thus having a particularly good word count day) so I kept on and decided my stretch goal would be a rather vague "finish somewhere between 10,000–15,000 words." I finished the month with a total of 14,075 words, so, yay!
Once again, I made the questionable choice to focus mostly on short fics, several of which I was also revising and getting ready to post during that time, so obviously that creates many fewer new words than working only on the rough first draft of one long project, like NaNoWriMo is meant to be. If I ever do actual NaNoWriMo, I do need to pick one actual long NaNoWriMo-style project.
But, whatever. I wrote what I wanted to write. :-) (And, in fact, also made a bunch of progress on a back-burner longer fic as well.) And once again, having that push to meet a word count did lead to entire fics I probably wouldn't have written otherwise. (Including writing a treat for Remus/Sirius Small Gifts for the first time – I was feeling suddenly nostalgic this winter, and swung back towards R/S fandom – as well as trying to at least get a start on some treats for Yuletide, maybe.)
Also, normally I only include fiction/creative writing in the month's word count. (Not any of the copious other writing I'm always also doing, like journaling, or blogging, or writing up my thoughts about books for my quarterly book posts, etc.) But this year it's exceedingly important that I work on my thesis and don't let myself get distracted from that by things that are more fun, so I counted that as part of the word count, too, as a way of encouraging myself to do it.
Oh, and the retreat with my writers' group was great. Two nights in a remote state park, where we each had our own little cabin and spent the days writing. I did a bunch of fun fic writing; but also, that was where I finally had the space and focus to pick up my thesis again, and delve into it enough to even remember what I'd been working on before I went on an unintended two-month hiatus to manage the latest family health crisis. It felt really good to remember, oh, right, this is what I was working on. This is what I was going to write next. Oh, hey, now I remember that I actually really like this project!
During and after the retreat, a few of us were also talking about the dynamics of who dares to bring work to the group to read and critique and who doesn't. (It's a very, very laidback group, not really a critique group at all, with no formal structure. So that means the only people whose work gets read are those who take the initiative to bring work, even though it's not required or assigned. And unfortunately the one who dares is mainly one specific man; and there's at least one woman who feels intimidated and never dares.)
So I proposed that at our next meeting we ALL bring a snippet of something we wrote during the retreat – because that way everyone wrote something, probably at more or less the same rough-draft level, so there's no dithering about whether your work is worth sharing: just, everyone is bringing something, so you bring something. We'll see if that helps or not!
(Also, whoops, that means now I have to bring something... Everyone else in this group is a nonfiction writer, from memoir to journalism to blogging, and then there's me turning up and trying to explain fanfiction to them. (And yes, also sometimes original fiction, but I just don't have the brain space for anything new/original right now.) So, having promised to share something I wrote during the retreat, I have to bring them either an incredibly dry snippet of my thesis, or else some excerpt of a fic they're totally not going to understand out of context.)
So, my November was good for writing! Exhausting, but good.
It's November, but life has been so chaotic that I'd forgotten the writerly implications of that fact until someone from my local writers' group emailed the rest of us on Nov. 1 to tell us she's planning to try NaNoWriMo for the first time this year. Oh, right, it's NaNo time!
Last year I didn't do NaNo, but did do something I considered "NaNoWriMo-ish", by setting specific and still-somewhat-challenging-even-if-not-actually-50k writing goals for the month. Which had the happy result that ultimately I wrote a bit over half a NaNo (28,190 words), did Write Every Day, and completed an in-retrospect-rather-staggering number of fics.
This year, life is even less conducive to a full NaNo than last year was, but I was thinking I could still make some small goals. So I'm planning to do Write Every Day (that's where you commit to writing something every single day – it can be literally a single sentence, but it has to be something, and over time it really does add up) and also I was thinking I could make my word count goal for the month a very manageable 10,000. (Though, being me, I will almost certainly aim to exceed that.)
Even better, I suggested this idea (smaller-but-still-a-challenge goals) to my writing group, for those who didn't feel up to doing NaNoWriMo proper, and one of them wrote back saying that she likes the idea and is committing to writing every day this month. Hurray, it's spreading! :D
Last year I didn't do NaNo, but did do something I considered "NaNoWriMo-ish", by setting specific and still-somewhat-challenging-even-if-not-actually-50k writing goals for the month. Which had the happy result that ultimately I wrote a bit over half a NaNo (28,190 words), did Write Every Day, and completed an in-retrospect-rather-staggering number of fics.
This year, life is even less conducive to a full NaNo than last year was, but I was thinking I could still make some small goals. So I'm planning to do Write Every Day (that's where you commit to writing something every single day – it can be literally a single sentence, but it has to be something, and over time it really does add up) and also I was thinking I could make my word count goal for the month a very manageable 10,000. (Though, being me, I will almost certainly aim to exceed that.)
Even better, I suggested this idea (smaller-but-still-a-challenge goals) to my writing group, for those who didn't feel up to doing NaNoWriMo proper, and one of them wrote back saying that she likes the idea and is committing to writing every day this month. Hurray, it's spreading! :D
Top fics / favorite fics
Oct. 13th, 2019 08:46 pm[ETA: Ironically, the note that opens this post (about how I'm posting this thing months later than everyone else) was written two weeks ago; since then I've been dealing with a family emergency, so I'm now posting this even later than I thought I was. ...Life. You just never know what you're going to get thrown at you. So, here, have a fluffy post about fic that I wrote two weeks ago in an entirely different frame of mind!]
Also, in the way of everything in my life lately, here's a meme that other people were doing months ago, but apparently I am doing...now.
The idea is: "List your top fanworks on AO3 for every year, sorted by kudos." I saw this viatrobadora, who included the idea of picking my own favorite, in addition to the official "top" one. And that kind of intrigued me: which stories have gotten the most response, but also, how does that compare to which I think are best?
This is super self-indulgent, of course, but then I suppose so is everything? ;-) So, off we go!
(FYI inevitably everything here is Harry Potter, unless noted otherwise.)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
( the top fics, the favorites, and the thoughts about the same! )
.
Also, in the way of everything in my life lately, here's a meme that other people were doing months ago, but apparently I am doing...now.
The idea is: "List your top fanworks on AO3 for every year, sorted by kudos." I saw this via
trobadora, who included the idea of picking my own favorite, in addition to the official "top" one. And that kind of intrigued me: which stories have gotten the most response, but also, how does that compare to which I think are best? This is super self-indulgent, of course, but then I suppose so is everything? ;-) So, off we go!
(FYI inevitably everything here is Harry Potter, unless noted otherwise.)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
( the top fics, the favorites, and the thoughts about the same! )
.
HP genfic...slowly updating!
Sep. 27th, 2019 10:03 pmHello 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.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
( some further burblings about writing )
.
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.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
( some further burblings about writing )
.
New HP genfic
May. 26th, 2019 03:44 pmFor anybody around these parts who's still a Harry Potter fan, I've just started posting a set of one-shots that I've been working on for, oh, I don't even remember how long! They're all genfic, loosely grouped around the theme of "headcanons for various secondary characters in the years beyond the war." And also, sort of, "how many types of relationships can I write about that are something other than romantic relationships?" (Friends, siblings, mentor-mentee, etc.)
The characters in question are: Cho, Viktor, Dean, Neville, and the final one is almost definitely going to be about Ginny and Luna...but I still need to write it. :-)
I'm going to be posting these very gradually, since all except the first one still need to be revised, and the amount of time I have for revising fic right now is roughly zero... So I think I'm probably not going to post them on Dreamwidth at all, until the whole set is done and can be posted together. But if you're interested, you can find them on AO3, where the first chapter/one-shot is up: More Than This World Can Contain.
The characters in question are: Cho, Viktor, Dean, Neville, and the final one is almost definitely going to be about Ginny and Luna...but I still need to write it. :-)
I'm going to be posting these very gradually, since all except the first one still need to be revised, and the amount of time I have for revising fic right now is roughly zero... So I think I'm probably not going to post them on Dreamwidth at all, until the whole set is done and can be posted together. But if you're interested, you can find them on AO3, where the first chapter/one-shot is up: More Than This World Can Contain.
Betas sought!
Feb. 9th, 2019 10:25 pmSo! I've never actually done this (looking for betas) directly via my own journal. But as I've ventured into some new fandoms, and also met some new people, it occurs to me that I no longer know exactly who I overlap with on which fandoms! So I might as well dare to ask. :-)
I'm looking for betas for the following things, listed here in order of how soon I'd love to find someone for them... Does any of the following speak to you? If so, you're the best. Betas are wonderful. <3
Call Me By Your Name, 3,300 words – Elio/Oliver, but a bit of an odd one, in that while it's all about Elio/Oliver, only Oliver is actually in it – back in New York, trying to reconcile his feelings for Elio with the life he had before. (Happy ending, I promise!) Also, because I waited so long to write this post, I now have a second CMBYN fic as well (the sequel), 4,800 words, a much more standard Elio/Oliver (back in Italy at Chanukah!) Technically movie canon, but both fics also draw from book canon, so knowledge of either canon should work totally fine.
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, 7,200 words – Phryne/Jack post-canon epistolary fic! Lots of working-their-way-towards-communicating-their-feelings, with a dash of quoting Rilke. (Mac also has a little cameo that I'm fond of, but it's small, so Mac fans probably shouldn't get too excited. One day I hope to give Mac the awesomeness she deserves.) This fic has actually been betaed once already, but I've expanded it massively based on that feedback (almost double what it was!) so I'd love someone to look at it with fresh eyes and see what they think. Basically just a "does everything seem in character" check.
Sherlock Holmes scrubbable fic?? – Sure, why not throw this in here... I saw the thing about how Carnation Books is soliciting submissions for a Sherlock Holmes anthology...and they'll look at not just fanfic, but even unscrubbed fanfic (i.e., it could even be something that started as a BBC fic, as long as it isn't too inextricably tied to BBC-only plot points). I have two Sherlock AUs I'm pretty fond of, and I go back and forth almost daily about whether I think they're scrubbable or not – on the one hand almost nothing ties them to BBC plot-wise, but on the other hand they're very specifically written to the BBC characterizations, and that's a very different thing from ACD canon. If someone would find it fun to read either or both and tell me if you think they're even worth submitting, I would find that a super enjoyable conversation to have – even if the ultimate answer is no! And I'd be more than happy to do the same thing in exchange, if you also have fic you're pondering for the same thing... This is the sort of thinking-about-writing conversation that I enjoy a lot. :-)
Harry Potter, various one-shots – This has the least urgency on this list, because I haven't even written all of them yet, but still! A set of gen one-shots about various minor characters, post-canon. They're unconnected, beyond the theme that each is about a different character's post-canon life, so they don't necessarily need to all be betaed by the same person. So far I've written: Cho building a life for herself after the war, Viktor reconnecting with Hermione (and Ron) years later, Dean (re)learning how to relate to his Muggle siblings post-war, and Neville being a mentor to Teddy. (Aw! Neville!) All together the whole set of one-shots will probably be somewhere in the range of 12k–13k.
(Also, look, I finally made myself a writing icon! It's the Most Basic, because my icon-making skills only extend as far as Most Basic...but it was long-overdue and thus I'm pleased.)
I'm looking for betas for the following things, listed here in order of how soon I'd love to find someone for them... Does any of the following speak to you? If so, you're the best. Betas are wonderful. <3
Call Me By Your Name, 3,300 words – Elio/Oliver, but a bit of an odd one, in that while it's all about Elio/Oliver, only Oliver is actually in it – back in New York, trying to reconcile his feelings for Elio with the life he had before. (Happy ending, I promise!) Also, because I waited so long to write this post, I now have a second CMBYN fic as well (the sequel), 4,800 words, a much more standard Elio/Oliver (back in Italy at Chanukah!) Technically movie canon, but both fics also draw from book canon, so knowledge of either canon should work totally fine.
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, 7,200 words – Phryne/Jack post-canon epistolary fic! Lots of working-their-way-towards-communicating-their-feelings, with a dash of quoting Rilke. (Mac also has a little cameo that I'm fond of, but it's small, so Mac fans probably shouldn't get too excited. One day I hope to give Mac the awesomeness she deserves.) This fic has actually been betaed once already, but I've expanded it massively based on that feedback (almost double what it was!) so I'd love someone to look at it with fresh eyes and see what they think. Basically just a "does everything seem in character" check.
Sherlock Holmes scrubbable fic?? – Sure, why not throw this in here... I saw the thing about how Carnation Books is soliciting submissions for a Sherlock Holmes anthology...and they'll look at not just fanfic, but even unscrubbed fanfic (i.e., it could even be something that started as a BBC fic, as long as it isn't too inextricably tied to BBC-only plot points). I have two Sherlock AUs I'm pretty fond of, and I go back and forth almost daily about whether I think they're scrubbable or not – on the one hand almost nothing ties them to BBC plot-wise, but on the other hand they're very specifically written to the BBC characterizations, and that's a very different thing from ACD canon. If someone would find it fun to read either or both and tell me if you think they're even worth submitting, I would find that a super enjoyable conversation to have – even if the ultimate answer is no! And I'd be more than happy to do the same thing in exchange, if you also have fic you're pondering for the same thing... This is the sort of thinking-about-writing conversation that I enjoy a lot. :-)
Harry Potter, various one-shots – This has the least urgency on this list, because I haven't even written all of them yet, but still! A set of gen one-shots about various minor characters, post-canon. They're unconnected, beyond the theme that each is about a different character's post-canon life, so they don't necessarily need to all be betaed by the same person. So far I've written: Cho building a life for herself after the war, Viktor reconnecting with Hermione (and Ron) years later, Dean (re)learning how to relate to his Muggle siblings post-war, and Neville being a mentor to Teddy. (Aw! Neville!) All together the whole set of one-shots will probably be somewhere in the range of 12k–13k.
(Also, look, I finally made myself a writing icon! It's the Most Basic, because my icon-making skills only extend as far as Most Basic...but it was long-overdue and thus I'm pleased.)
Crossposting is about to commence...
Dec. 29th, 2018 05:43 pmJust a quick word of apology/warning, to those of you who have me in your friends feed... I'm going to start crossposting my fics here, which means a small flood coming soon. (Two Holmestice fics now, then a bunch of Yuletide fics after they de-anon).
I seem to be one of the few people who still do this – post the fic itself to Dreamwidth in addition to AO3, not just an announcement or link. But I have always been an intense and sometimes inconvenient completist, and I have always posted my fics here (well, originally Livejournal, now Dreamwidth + Livejournal) so that they can also all be collected in my masterlist here. So, I am still a completist, and am still going to do that. :-)
Final count, between Holmestice and Yuletide, is seven fics in five fandoms, plus meanwhile I've also finished another fic in another different and new fandom... During late November/early December, I had so many projects going at once that I had to make myself a chart to keep track!
And now, for the first time ever, my AO3 dashboard has that little "expand fandoms list" button, because I've finally written in more than 5 fandoms. :D
I seem to be one of the few people who still do this – post the fic itself to Dreamwidth in addition to AO3, not just an announcement or link. But I have always been an intense and sometimes inconvenient completist, and I have always posted my fics here (well, originally Livejournal, now Dreamwidth + Livejournal) so that they can also all be collected in my masterlist here. So, I am still a completist, and am still going to do that. :-)
Final count, between Holmestice and Yuletide, is seven fics in five fandoms, plus meanwhile I've also finished another fic in another different and new fandom... During late November/early December, I had so many projects going at once that I had to make myself a chart to keep track!
And now, for the first time ever, my AO3 dashboard has that little "expand fandoms list" button, because I've finally written in more than 5 fandoms. :D
Milestone: 100 fics on AO3
Dec. 17th, 2018 10:14 pmI realized only recently that I was fast approaching a pretty cool milestone: 100 fics completed and posted to AO3!
Publicly, it looks like I only have 95 works, but that's because there are quite a few things for fests, which I've already posted but aren't yet revealed. So my actual count as of this morning was 99...and just now I posted the rest of my Yuletide fics, so now it's 102. :-)
It feels appropriate that fic no. 100 (which I can't tell you about, because it's still anonymous for a fest, aaaah) is the first in a brand-new fandom for me.
I can't help thinking about how when I started on this whole wild fandom ride, I only wrote Harry Potter, and only utterly canon-compliant fics. But then I cautiously ventured into a couple of other fandoms, and then I discovered the joys of AUs and fusions, and now I seem to be writing new and obscure fandoms left and right!
It's satisfying. :-)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Meanwhile,holmestice (one of my favorite things) is running along full throttle, but my life has been such a mess this month that I hadn't even had a chance to start reading anything, before suddenly all the works were already posted. So now I'm in a mad dash to read as many as I can, both because I feel I owe that to my fellow participants...and because I want in on the epic guessing game we play at the end, about who created what!
(I did, of course, immediately read my own gift: a lovely, heartwarming fix-it fic for My Dearly Beloved Detective: re-write the future / start from scratch.)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
And I know I keep saying this, but wow, how did I not discover until now that Yuletide is the most fun? As an excited first-timer, I definitely went way overboard, writing not just my official gift, but a bunch of treats in different fandoms.
And there are THREE "Mystery Work" Yuletide gifts already waiting for me on AO3, and we haven't even reached the deadline yet, THREE YULETIDE FICS for me, how can I keep from all-caps excited screaming!
Publicly, it looks like I only have 95 works, but that's because there are quite a few things for fests, which I've already posted but aren't yet revealed. So my actual count as of this morning was 99...and just now I posted the rest of my Yuletide fics, so now it's 102. :-)
It feels appropriate that fic no. 100 (which I can't tell you about, because it's still anonymous for a fest, aaaah) is the first in a brand-new fandom for me.
I can't help thinking about how when I started on this whole wild fandom ride, I only wrote Harry Potter, and only utterly canon-compliant fics. But then I cautiously ventured into a couple of other fandoms, and then I discovered the joys of AUs and fusions, and now I seem to be writing new and obscure fandoms left and right!
It's satisfying. :-)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Meanwhile,
holmestice (one of my favorite things) is running along full throttle, but my life has been such a mess this month that I hadn't even had a chance to start reading anything, before suddenly all the works were already posted. So now I'm in a mad dash to read as many as I can, both because I feel I owe that to my fellow participants...and because I want in on the epic guessing game we play at the end, about who created what!(I did, of course, immediately read my own gift: a lovely, heartwarming fix-it fic for My Dearly Beloved Detective: re-write the future / start from scratch.)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
And I know I keep saying this, but wow, how did I not discover until now that Yuletide is the most fun? As an excited first-timer, I definitely went way overboard, writing not just my official gift, but a bunch of treats in different fandoms.
And there are THREE "Mystery Work" Yuletide gifts already waiting for me on AO3, and we haven't even reached the deadline yet, THREE YULETIDE FICS for me, how can I keep from all-caps excited screaming!
NaNoWriMo-ish: end-of-month check-in
Dec. 1st, 2018 03:37 pmHURRAH, congratulations to everyone who set a writing goal for the month of November and survived it! I've still never done an actual NaNo, but this is probably the biggest set of goals I've ever set myself for a month. I wrapped up last night on the dot of midnight, satisfied but exhausted. How, truly, do people do actual NaNo?
To recap, my goals for the month were:
–write 20,000 words (stretch goal of 30,000 words)
–complete at least three fics
–do at least a tiny bit of original fiction writing
–write every day
And I can now report that I did ALL OF THE ABOVE:
– Wrote 28,190 words! \o/ I didn't find my groove until late in the month, so it's a bit frustrating to think about how easily I'd have hit that stretch goal of 30,000 if I'd just had *one* more good day early in the month, in place of one of the bad ones. The entire last week was a strong run of 1000+ word days, so if I'd done a couple more of those early on... But, whatever, I'm still happy with it. The first time I ever set myself a month word goal it was only about 15,000, the next time was 20,000, so it's very much an upward trajectory. One of these days I'm going to achieve a true NaNo, I swear it!
– Completed not three but seven fics, in five different fandoms, four of them fandoms I'd never written in before! Also got lots done on two longer Harry Potter fics that had been languishing for a while, plus nearly completed a fic in another new fandom. Having a word count to meet, and thus being forced to keep casting around for anywhere I can keep putting words down, has been useful. :-)
– Did some writing for two different original fiction maybe-novel ideas that I've had around forever. Still don't know if anything will come of them, but at least I made myself think about them again, which was the point!
– Wrote every day of November.
Thoughts:
To answer my own question above, I think part of how people manage to do NaNo is that they pick ONE PROJECT for the month. They have to write a novel in 30 days, so every single day they just work on the novel. (I mean, not that that's easy by any stretch, but at least it's a clear and focused task.) I was trying to meet my word count goal via lots and lots of small fics, which was frenetic, always jumping back and forth between projects. And there just aren't as many words to be had in a one-shot, even in lots of one-shots, as in a novel! So I was always having to find a next thing I could work on, and a next thing. And the whole idea of NaNo is that you get a bad, messy first draft down, to be shaped into a proper work later. But because these were fics for fests with looming deadlines, I also spent a lot of time editing – which doesn't add much to the word count! So whenever I finally do NaNo, I can see why it really needs to be a novel-length project, not this scrambling around to find enough short projects to add up to a whole.
And please allow me to sing for a moment in praise of BETAS! Glorious betas! Writing in so many new fandoms meant many more than usual scrambles to find betas for each of them. I am always floored by the people who will step up and offer that, from friends to distant acquaintances to literal total strangers willing to take me on as a complete unknown. It's killing me that I can't name and thank all the betas who've been so kind to me this month (because that would compromise anonymity in the relevant fests), but, THANK YOU. You're the best.
To recap, my goals for the month were:
–write 20,000 words (stretch goal of 30,000 words)
–complete at least three fics
–do at least a tiny bit of original fiction writing
–write every day
And I can now report that I did ALL OF THE ABOVE:
– Wrote 28,190 words! \o/ I didn't find my groove until late in the month, so it's a bit frustrating to think about how easily I'd have hit that stretch goal of 30,000 if I'd just had *one* more good day early in the month, in place of one of the bad ones. The entire last week was a strong run of 1000+ word days, so if I'd done a couple more of those early on... But, whatever, I'm still happy with it. The first time I ever set myself a month word goal it was only about 15,000, the next time was 20,000, so it's very much an upward trajectory. One of these days I'm going to achieve a true NaNo, I swear it!
– Completed not three but seven fics, in five different fandoms, four of them fandoms I'd never written in before! Also got lots done on two longer Harry Potter fics that had been languishing for a while, plus nearly completed a fic in another new fandom. Having a word count to meet, and thus being forced to keep casting around for anywhere I can keep putting words down, has been useful. :-)
– Did some writing for two different original fiction maybe-novel ideas that I've had around forever. Still don't know if anything will come of them, but at least I made myself think about them again, which was the point!
– Wrote every day of November.
Thoughts:
To answer my own question above, I think part of how people manage to do NaNo is that they pick ONE PROJECT for the month. They have to write a novel in 30 days, so every single day they just work on the novel. (I mean, not that that's easy by any stretch, but at least it's a clear and focused task.) I was trying to meet my word count goal via lots and lots of small fics, which was frenetic, always jumping back and forth between projects. And there just aren't as many words to be had in a one-shot, even in lots of one-shots, as in a novel! So I was always having to find a next thing I could work on, and a next thing. And the whole idea of NaNo is that you get a bad, messy first draft down, to be shaped into a proper work later. But because these were fics for fests with looming deadlines, I also spent a lot of time editing – which doesn't add much to the word count! So whenever I finally do NaNo, I can see why it really needs to be a novel-length project, not this scrambling around to find enough short projects to add up to a whole.
And please allow me to sing for a moment in praise of BETAS! Glorious betas! Writing in so many new fandoms meant many more than usual scrambles to find betas for each of them. I am always floored by the people who will step up and offer that, from friends to distant acquaintances to literal total strangers willing to take me on as a complete unknown. It's killing me that I can't name and thank all the betas who've been so kind to me this month (because that would compromise anonymity in the relevant fests), but, THANK YOU. You're the best.
NaNoWriMo-ish: half-month check-in
Nov. 15th, 2018 10:53 pmWe're halfway through November!
To recap, I set myself several goals for this month (admittedly none of them is "write a novel", but it's still nice to use the momentum of NaNo-month to do a bunch of writing). The goals read thusly:
–write 20,000 words (stretch goal is 30,000 words)
–complete at least three fics
–do at least a tiny bit of original fiction writing
–write every day
I'm happy to say that:
– so far I've written 10,400 words (over the half-month mark of 10,000, if just barely)
– I've completed four different fics in four different small/tiny/rare fandoms (thank you Yuletide!) and am now embarking on a fifth; plus, I've moved forward on a couple of multi-chapter Harry Potter fics that had been languishing on my desktop for a while. (I had a brief blip in early summer where I had a bit of free time and thought "I have free time! I can dare to start new fics!" ...and then I stopped having free time.)
– haven't done any original fiction yet, but I'm thinking I'll at least write a single scene for one of my multiple but-will-I-ever-write-it novel ideas I have knocking around, just to show myself I'm still thinking about it
– I have written every day, and in fact have been participating in the official Write Every Day
Thoughts:
1. Setting a specific word goal for a month, and committing to writing every day for a month, are both great goals. Previous times when I set a month word goal, it's been hugely helpful for getting significant work done, especially on longer fics. And the previous time when I did Write Every Day, I wrote at least one entire fic that wouldn't even exist otherwise (you have to write at least something each day, even if it's just a single sentence, which keeps things moving forward and in the end it does add up).
But I think it may not have been the best idea to set both goals for the same month. Having a word goal to meet (at any pace throughout the month) and having to write every day (but it doesn't have to be much) are both great, but in combination they feel much more stressful!
2. YULETIDE! Please let me bend your ear for a moment about how great Yuletide is!
I'd been afraid to sign up in previous years because the instructions look a bit complicated. And they are a bit complicated to figure out the first time. But what I didn't know is that the infrastructure of Yuletide is amazing. The mods are unbelievably responsive, kind and helpful – in a fest that runs to the thousands of fanworks, they still take time to answer every single question from (confused, newbie) participants. Then there's a whole system in place for helping people find betas (especially helpful given that these are all rare fandoms). And there's the amazing letters & prompts app, where you can search every person's requests, and write treats beyond your assigned recipient, if something catches your eye. Things have definitely been catching my eye. Yay rare fandoms!
3. Holmestice! I love Holmestice. And that's all I can say right now, since I don't want to give anything away about what I wrote. :-)
4. I love the weird, wonderful, random stuff you learn when looking up writing-related things. Did you know there's a remote, inaccessible island literally named Inaccessible Island?
5. It's snowing like the end of the world out there right now, and it's the most absolutely beautiful. I love it. I've already had to shovel at least four times just this evening, and I'm so happy every time I do it, simply because it means: snow. (Yes, I know I'm a bit of an outlier.) I'm also dog-sitting right now, so I have one dog sleeping on top of me, literally and loudly snoring, and the other next to me, twitching and dreaming, while I do my canon review for a Yuletide fic. Could be worse. :-)
To recap, I set myself several goals for this month (admittedly none of them is "write a novel", but it's still nice to use the momentum of NaNo-month to do a bunch of writing). The goals read thusly:
–write 20,000 words (stretch goal is 30,000 words)
–complete at least three fics
–do at least a tiny bit of original fiction writing
–write every day
I'm happy to say that:
– so far I've written 10,400 words (over the half-month mark of 10,000, if just barely)
– I've completed four different fics in four different small/tiny/rare fandoms (thank you Yuletide!) and am now embarking on a fifth; plus, I've moved forward on a couple of multi-chapter Harry Potter fics that had been languishing on my desktop for a while. (I had a brief blip in early summer where I had a bit of free time and thought "I have free time! I can dare to start new fics!" ...and then I stopped having free time.)
– haven't done any original fiction yet, but I'm thinking I'll at least write a single scene for one of my multiple but-will-I-ever-write-it novel ideas I have knocking around, just to show myself I'm still thinking about it
– I have written every day, and in fact have been participating in the official Write Every Day
Thoughts:
1. Setting a specific word goal for a month, and committing to writing every day for a month, are both great goals. Previous times when I set a month word goal, it's been hugely helpful for getting significant work done, especially on longer fics. And the previous time when I did Write Every Day, I wrote at least one entire fic that wouldn't even exist otherwise (you have to write at least something each day, even if it's just a single sentence, which keeps things moving forward and in the end it does add up).
But I think it may not have been the best idea to set both goals for the same month. Having a word goal to meet (at any pace throughout the month) and having to write every day (but it doesn't have to be much) are both great, but in combination they feel much more stressful!
2. YULETIDE! Please let me bend your ear for a moment about how great Yuletide is!
I'd been afraid to sign up in previous years because the instructions look a bit complicated. And they are a bit complicated to figure out the first time. But what I didn't know is that the infrastructure of Yuletide is amazing. The mods are unbelievably responsive, kind and helpful – in a fest that runs to the thousands of fanworks, they still take time to answer every single question from (confused, newbie) participants. Then there's a whole system in place for helping people find betas (especially helpful given that these are all rare fandoms). And there's the amazing letters & prompts app, where you can search every person's requests, and write treats beyond your assigned recipient, if something catches your eye. Things have definitely been catching my eye. Yay rare fandoms!
3. Holmestice! I love Holmestice. And that's all I can say right now, since I don't want to give anything away about what I wrote. :-)
4. I love the weird, wonderful, random stuff you learn when looking up writing-related things. Did you know there's a remote, inaccessible island literally named Inaccessible Island?
5. It's snowing like the end of the world out there right now, and it's the most absolutely beautiful. I love it. I've already had to shovel at least four times just this evening, and I'm so happy every time I do it, simply because it means: snow. (Yes, I know I'm a bit of an outlier.) I'm also dog-sitting right now, so I have one dog sleeping on top of me, literally and loudly snoring, and the other next to me, twitching and dreaming, while I do my canon review for a Yuletide fic. Could be worse. :-)
