Veldeia's dreamwidth

Another heads up: I'm working on another story! And I'm entirely in love with it! I actually downloaded a writing app for my phone just so I can take notes while on the bus. It's about halfway done now, 3.5 chapters out of the 7 I'm aiming for. However, I'll be going off the grid for several weeks now, which means I won't start posting it in a while. Hopefully, you can expect new stuff from me in a month or so.

Just to give a teaser about what it's like: while 450 Feet Under was sort of an exercise for me to get back to writing, and also to prove to myself that I can write Tony Stark without the arc reactor and like it, the new fic I'm working on is me totally indulging in my obsession with the device. It's also your typical gen-that-could-be-pre-slash Steve/Tony, set not too long after the first Avengers film. And the whole premise is a bit silly, but whatever, because I'm having a lot of fun with it! :)

Now that the project of moving old fic over here and redoing the layout is done and over with, I'm off to work on more fic. Yay. Except that, well, not.

First of all, there's my tardis_bigbang fic. It's due in less than two weeks, and I've failed to find more than one beta for it - and having one person read it and say that it's OK wasn't enough to convince me that it doesn't suck. Especially since I asked four (4) people to beta it, and only one of them ever returned to me after saying that they can do it. I'm sure they have good reasons, but still... Grr. I hate looking for betas. It's always so incredibly difficult. btsxbeta, how I miss you! :( Too bad you don't do Doctor Who.

Secondly, I've got a Torchwood fic sitting around which I've outlined ages ago. I'd like to get to writing it one day, but at the moment, I've got far more inspiration for writing DW stuff, and since this would be an all-Torchwood fic with focus on Jack/Ianto and Owen, well... I don't know if it'll ever happen.

Thirdly, there's the sequel to Hollow World. I've been doing a rather ridiculous amount of background planning for it. I'd like it to be clearly different from HW, and a slightly more "intelligent" story - less predictable, with a more complicated plot. Unfortunately, the current outline has far too much talk and politics and not nearly enough action/adventure (let alone hurt/comfort) in it, which means that it seems boring to me. Blah. I'm afraid it's going to be Iron & Irony / Irony & Irony II all over again, where the first fic is cool, and the second is just trying too much. I started writing the story, anyway. Will probably have to finish several chapters before I can decide whether it's going to work and whether I'm going to actually start posting it.

/end fic-writing angsty whine.

Since everyone else is doing it and I was going to talk about this stuff anyway:

Post a single sentence from each WIP you have (or as many as you want to pick). No context, no explanations. No more than one sentence!

"We're obviously not talking about platonic love here, oh no, not with the example we two have been setting."

*

"Carambola, also known as star fruit, Averrhoa carambola in Latin - oh, that's very clever."

*

"You know she sees someone else, someone she would rather have, and you know you can never be that someone, no matter how hard you try."

*

Except that it wasn't just any dream, it was a dream from a million years ago.

*

She withdrew her head, and his hands remained where she'd put them, grasping at thin air now, like those of some wax figure.

*****

( Rambling about my current WIPs. Hope this doesn't count as context or explanations! )

I've written about 7000 words of a fic that's a sequel of sorts to the two Bioses, but gah, even if I do finish this some day, I'm still not sure posting it would be a good idea. Some reasons for this:

-There's probably more medical content in this story than in Iron & Irony, and we're talking about a fic that's NOT a House crossover. I mean, if all the stuff was actually accurate, you could probably use this as some sort of a cardiology education thing. Of course, half the medicine is inaccurate, because, well, it's based on Iron Man, after all - the whole arc reactor business is comic book medicine, which doesn't exactly fit seamlessly with real medicine. The rest of it is inaccurate because I'm no medic and most likely have messed things up. Yay.

-It's ridiculously angsty, and I think it's more depressing than the stuff in Cryobiosis or Iron & Irony. Also, I don't think I've ever brought my characters this close to the edge when it comes to emotional/mental health, and I've no idea if I'm doing it right, or if their behavior is even marginally believable.

-There isn't a whole lot of action in the story except for the very beginning, nor is there any romance, because this is a gen story. Combine that with lots of depressing angst and a plot that mostly centers on medicine, and I'm afraid this'll end up being a tedious read.

Of course, the reason I'm still writing is, I totally would read this story myself, and I'd probably like it, but then again, I'm weird and obsessed. I think this story makes that point really well. Agh.

(Also, someone might suggest at this point that I could always have the story betaed before I post it, but, blah. I'd be too embarrassed to get any in-depth comments on this. No. It's simply not worth any beta reader's time. I'm pretty sure I'll post this unbetad or not at all.)

Because I'm bored and anxious waiting to get more chapters of I & I 2 back from my beta (sorry for the delay etc, I'll post more of the story as soon as I can, promise!), I stole this fic-writing meme I ran into in several journals of random people that I don't know at all. Questions apply to stories you've written yourself.

1) Your favourite story?
Varies depending on my mood, but overall, it's probably Odyssey of the Mind.

2) Your least favourite story?
Again, varies, but I think Wit & Whiskey is the one I've got most negative feelings about atm - probably the only story (in addition to the drabbles, see question 4)) that I sometimes regret having written.

3) Your longest story?
The Stargate story Dodecagon, at 52,417 words (according to my word processor).

4) Your shortest story?
I wrote a set of five drabbles this summer, which was the first time I've done anything shorter than 6000 words. I was having a bad day at the time, and the stories featured suicidal!Tony. Although I think the 100 word format was a cool thing to try and I didn't completely suck at it, I'm not proud of them. Sort of trying to forget that I ever wrote them (hence the lack of linkage).

5) Your strangest story?
This is a difficult one! I've written several weird crossovers, could pick any one of them. On the other hand, though the combinations of fandoms are weird, the plotlines usually aren't. I'll list Chewing Gum and Duct Tape for the cracked weirdness that's Iron Man/MacGyver, and my first ever fic DragonGate for the even weirder combination of TV-show and fantasy book series, Stargate/Dragonlance.

6) Your most unpleasant story?
Hm, I don't write a whole lot of "unpleasant" stuff, I think - even though I do lots of hurt/comfort, there's always plenty of comfort. I'm not good at writing creepy and nasty things. Maybe I'll just point at 4) here too, and say that those damn drabbles are the most unpleasant thing I've written. Yeah, I think that's correct.

7) The story that surprised you most with its reception?
Two Hearts. It was such a totally random thing for me to write, and I had no idea there were that many Tony/Bruce Banner-slashers out there.

8) Your funniest story?
Either the aforementioned Iron Man/MacGyver crossover, or then Scotch & Sarcasm for the Tony/House snark (and maybe some unintentional comic value from OOCness, depending on who you're asking).

9) Your most angst ridden story?
Ah, the angst! There are so many to pick from! I think good old Iron & Irony might be the one. Then again, Cryobiosis is really angsty too. And from Stargate fandom, Forever and Three Years. Just to name a few.

10) Your most smutty story?
Don't write a whole lot of smutty stuff, so this one's easy: Third Wheel, Reinvented.
(Just in case you're interested, I've made plans for the next parts following that story and its independent sequel Computer Empathy. If I should manage to write them one day, there'd be two more parts: part 3 with lots of thoughts and talk, and part 4, which would be even smuttier than part 1. But so far, these are just ideas, and seeing as I'm not writing as much these days as I did during the summer, well, they might never become anything more than that.)

I AM going to finish this story. I am. Eight and a half chapters done, out of ten. 28 000 words. Yeah.

This has been an entirely new kind of writing experience to me - trying to write a story this long from start to finish without posting any of it on the net. Another new thing was that I had the whole thing completely outlined before I started writing. I knew that it'd have ten chapters, and I knew roughly what would happen in each of them. Then, I started working from that, expanding the outline, spelling out the stuff that I'd planned would happen. Somehow, I feel oddly professional and "official" for doing a story in such a way, and I'm sort-of impressed at myself for managing it.

Oddly enough, even though I thought I had everything figured out before I started writing, a lot of the time I've felt like I'm working on a puzzle. As in, I've known from the start that thing X will happen in chapter Y, but once I get to that chapter, I have to figure out how, exactly, X happens, what are the details, and whether it actually works once I've got it fleshed it out into an entire chapter instead of a few odd sentences. Sometimes I just feel that a chapter doesn't work, but can't point out why, until suddenly I figure out some little thing that I can change, and ta-dah, that's it, it works. It feels very concretely like I've just figured out a puzzle, or solved some mathematical problem. Like one of those eureka-moments House always has.

I've still got no idea of how this all-new method of writing has affected the result. Does it feel more complete and integer than the previous posted-as-written WIPs - or does the story actually feel like it's just trudging along a previously set path that's entirely predictable and boring? Does it feel forced, or overly calculated? I've no idea myself. I guess I'll find out once I have someone else read it.

Anyway, it shouldn't be long now before I've finished the story, and then it's off to my beta, and then, one of these days, I'll start posting it. Whee.

I've made a difficult decision: I'm going to try and write Iron & Irony 2 in its entirety before I start posting anything. It's going to be about the same length as the first story, 30 000 words, give or take a few thousand. I've never done a story this long this way, I'm used to doing long stories as WIPs - writing one chapter, posting it, and then writing the next one, etc. That way, the feedback for previous chapters works as motivation for the next ones. I think the lack of instant feedback actually slows down my writing process. Then again, posting WIPs isn't actually reader-friendly, it's the exact opposite. The chapters won't be as thoroughly thought over, and more importantly, there's always the risk that the story's never finished, which completely sucks.

I've already noticed that now that I have the whole thing on the table all the time, I often end up tweaking details in the earlier chapters, because they don't work because of something that follows later. So, this is probably going to be a very polished and consistent story once it's all done. There's also a risk in this, though: sometimes I end up thinking too hard about the details, especially about things that aren't strictly realistic or logical. "Too hard", because they wouldn't have to be realistic. While the original I & I was like an episode of House with Tony as the patient, I & I 2 is going to be something reminiscent of the old Iron Man comics, with House as a quest star. It'd be mighty fine for it to have a slight pulp-feel to it. So, I'm afraid I'm thinking too much here, and will end up sort-of over-polishing this until it actually turns out dull.

Oh, and where's the story at right now? I've written four chapters out of ten. Almost halfway there... Although the first two chapters have gone through about four revisions already, and may face several more. Luckily, my schedule at school is ridiculously easy this year, so I've got plenty of time for writing. I really, really want to finish this story.

I'm stuck in an annoying situation that's all new to me: I've got no less than four Iron Man fics that I'm working on at the moment. Usually, I want do to things one at a time, to be able to concentrate on them properly, and to be absolutely sure that I'll finish what I've started. I can't believe I let this happen. It's just that I was attacked by several plotbunnies at short intervals, and couldn't decide which one(s) to follow. One of the stories (a sequel to Third Wheel, Reinvented) is already at beta-ing stage, two are shorter one-shot pieces (a crossover and a very basic gen thingy) that are about half-written, and the fourth is the sequel to Iron & Irony. We'll see if I'll finish any of these, or all of them, or what. Oh, and I've also got ideas for two more stories that I may or may not start writing some day. Agh. So many ideas, so little time.

Ugh. After I've just finished a story as long and time-taking as Iron & Irony, what happens? Naturally, I have another fic idea. This one, as ideas go, is completely cracked, but I think I've managed to turn it into a semi-serious story anyway. I can't write stuff that's just pure parody. I'm much too angsty and serious for that. So, I spent most of the night writing fic, again. And I wake up too early and open my laptop and here it is, waiting, and I just have to tweak it some more. Come on, tell me this isn't an addiction. It is. But at least it has less side-effects than smoking or drinking or something like that. I'll post the first chapter soon, I think.

Since I've got no RL friends to talk to about my fic (because I don't talk to them about my fic), I could babble about it a bit more here, just in case someone accidentally reads this. It's funny, the relationship I have with my fic. On one hand, I'm proud of every finished story and love them all, they're my babies, and if someone criticizes them too harshly, I become very defensive. On the other, I'm completely prepared to say that they're all just crap, pointless, badly written and stupid, and on some level, I'm just ashamed of the stuff. Mostly because it's always hurt/comfort, always about characters getting hurt, which I think is plain weird. And because half the time I look at it, I keep finding typos and staring at the grammar, at one preposition here or there and knowing that they can't be right, because even though my English isn't horrible, it's not native either, and there are mistakes, I can't help that. Though if I wasn't ESL, I guess I'd never get anything written and posted. I'm a complete perfectionist IRL. When writing fic, I can use my non-native English as an excuse to myself: "it doesn't have to be perfect, because it's not your first language. You can make mistakes, it's OK, it's impressive enough that you can write this stuff at all."

So, what I'm trying to say is, I've got a very mixed attitude towards the stuff I write. Sometimes it's annoying. Right now, though, I'm on such a writing spree that I don't think all that much. I just write and have fun, because that's why I write. I'm not trying to create pieces of art. I'm not even trying to create entertainment. I'm just having fun, and if someone likes it, that's just a wonderful side-effect. :)