WIP check in - Friday 27th January

[lullabymoon]

Haw are things progressing?

Poll #9257 Friday Check In

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 9

View Respondents

Today I

View Answers

wrote
3 (33.3%)

edited
1 (11.1%)

posted
0 (0.0%)

researched
1 (11.1%)

did something else
5 (55.6%)

Since today is Friday, it's snippet/beta day. Do you want to share anything with the rest of us? Need a hand with anything?

Quick promo: there is a round of fic_rush running this weekend. If you feel like spending an hour or two this weekend or all weekend writing with a group of others, why not come and join us?

Comments

[snowynight]

I wrote another 100 words. Snail speed, because I meet a block.

There's a mystery plot in my fic, but I can't figure out the villain's plan detail and our hero's stake in the plot, if anyone is interested in helping me with discussing this, I'll be eternally grateful. (It's Marvel, but it's so AU that fandom knowledge doesn't matter)

[jesseszen]

If you care to let me, I'll try to help.

[snowynight]

Thank you! I'm very grateful.

The premise of my fic is character A has been abducted by faerie, escaped, only to find that a fetch has stolen his life. The fetch is a nearly perfect copy of A that can pass modern scientific tests.

A understandably wants his life back, and the fetch will do anything to prevent it. (The fetch's very rich)

Then I'm struck. What can the fetch do to get rid of A without implicating A after A takes back his life? How can A get rid of the fetch? (I tend toward A killing the fetch)without causing trouble to himself?

Opinion? Idea? I hope you don't mind this rambling. I'm just a bit desperate. Thanks again for your offer.

[jesseszen]

Firstly, I have become quite aware of late that too many plots begin with or focus on murders. Murder must be awful and I really have lost all patience with it as a story element. So, I don't think a killing would be good - especially in a faerie story which should by definition be magical.

The idea of a fetch is quite interesting. Perhaps A, in order to find a way to pull the fetch out of his life, could take an exploratory journey into the world where fetchs come from and find how to do this. Another idea might be to have A go through several attempts at exposing the fetch which lead to frustration on his part - knowing that frustrating the hero is what storywriting's all about. In the end, perhaps he can stumble upon the one solution that rips fetchs back to their own dimension or whatever. Or there could be one pivotal possession, some magic crystal for example, that would 1. give A the power to banish the fetch or 2. give the fetch the power to keep his place in A's life forever - and the race to possess the crystal is the story.

So there are 3 ideas. I hope you can work with one of them.

Ki

[snowynight]

Thank you for your comment! Your idea all sounds awesome. I have never thought of this, but I can now see that I have decided too rusty.

Once again thank you for your idea!

[vae]

I really need to stop editing and just get on with FINISHING the damn draft. Still, have a snippet:

For a moment, Adam thinks Cassidy's running through one of his yoga routines. He's seen those often enough in the past, tried to run through them alongside him and given up at the realization that his hips really weren't made to twist that way. It looks like the start of one of the routines Cassidy's tried to teach him, the stretch up and then bending down, body pivoting from the hips.

Except the yoga routines never had Cassidy flowing into a completely new body by the time his hands reached the ground. Or, by the time they make contact, paws. Because Cassidy's a fucking wolf.

A huge, much bigger than Adam expected, lean and powerful, brown-pelted, wolf. With a tail. And paws. And claws. And holy shit, teeth.

It's a good thing that the tree's behind him, because otherwise instinct would have propelled him swiftly backwards. Even though he's just seen it with his own eyes, trying to get his brain to accept that the wolf in front of him is Cassidy is close to impossible. Though, bonus, it didn't look like changing actually hurt Cassidy. It hadn't looked like any kind of struggle, either.

"Holy shit," he says faintly.

[dhae_knight_1]

Yes. Yes, you do. Because that sounds damn fascinating, and I want to read more! :-D

[crowdog66]

This morning I had to write an Imbolc ritual for a public ceremony coming up next week, so although I got a significant word count out there (~1000), none of it was fanfic related. I might still turn out something more this morning, though.

So far everything I've written this week has been published, but I'll share a snipped from Chapter 41 of "When the Farsei Blooms", in which Garak, hopped up on truth serum, is driven to speak, and Bashir is listening as he shares (by his own admission) the safest tale he can tell under the circumstances. They're both sitting on the deck of a barge in the middle of a cold winter's night, Bashir having bundled Garak up warmly in his cloak and then taken the Cardassian in his arms both for comfort and for warmth (Cardassians, being reptilian, don't deal with such environmental conditions very well). We pick things up in the middle of Garak's tale about Tervek, a fellow Obsidian Order operative he worked with decades ago...

*******************************

"He betrayed you?" Bashir knew he should have felt more deeply perturbed at the revelation of two murders committed in cold blood, and horrified by the knowledge that this man he'd lain with had doubtless extinguished many other lives besides. But this murderer was also the man he loved, and forgiving him his sins was as inevitable now as drawing breath: worse still, he could feel his adoration take root more deeply and truly, its radiance shining all the more brilliantly against the blood-drenched darkness beneath.

"Betrayed me?" Garak laughed low in his throat, a sound both sensual and bitter. "Oh no, he did far worse than that. He was already sitting close beside me, having just finished closing the cuts in my face, and when he was finished that task he looked at me for a long moment — I'll never forget his expression, and I'm a man not easily frightened, as you well know. Then he reached out, and scented my shoulder, and —"

“He what?” Bashir interrupted, his interest piqued even more by the previously unknown term.

“Ah." He raised his head enough to look at the Human with eyes that gleamed in the moonlight. "Something your Federation database doesn’t include, obviously.” He freed one hand from the confines of his cloak and held it up close to Bashir’s face so that he could see the palm, then laid it gently to the Human's cheek. “Cardassian males possess glands in the pads of the fingers and heels of the hands that are capable of releasing pheromones during sexual contact. We ‘scent’ our mates to discourage other males from using them — although as I’m sure you can imagine, some men find it more of a provocation than a deterrent.” He let his hand drop down to rest open against Bashir's chest, returning his head to its former position. “As I was saying, Tervek shamelessly scented me, and intoned in that magnificent voice of his: Nersa h’sar leross, l’ss’ar terak?”

Bashir frowned again, and heard Garak smile. “It’s a reference to an ancient Hebitian dialogue on the nature of attachment and destruction. Loosely translated, it means Shall we resist the storm that rises within our hearts? The overtones are unmistakably sexual.”

After a moment Bashir nodded, signalling acceptance of something that had, after all, happened decades ago. “So you...”

“I did what anyone with a trace of sense would have done: I fell into bed with him without a moment’s hesitation.” Another sigh, this one full of wistful satisfaction. “And oh, it was worth it! As I’ve said, the man was an artist — his body was like a sculpture, his skin was like silk, his mouth was like wine, and he was even more dominant than I! He left me amazed and shaken and utterly his, at least until we got back home and our superiors sent us our separate ways.”

Jealousy would probably be an appropriate reaction, Bashir reflected, but all he felt was a rather clinical curiosity. “Was it because you’d had sex together?”

“Oh, no — they never knew about that.” Garak's tone suggested wondering exasperation. “I should think that two Obsidian Order agents are capable of keeping a secret!”

Bashir pondered the story he'd just been told, trying to imagine a much younger Garak, blindsided by passion and unable to disobey the orders that parted him from its source. He could have asked any number of questions about tragedy, or loss, or loneliness, or the kinds of commands Tervek had seen fit to give. Instead he said: “So whatever happened to him?”

[proseac]

Today at work I found myself at loose ends for several hours, so I decided to use the time productively, and work on outlining my Casestory Big Bang fic. I've had a couple of false starts with it, and I decided instead of trying to build on what I'd already done, I'd just start fresh, and do it by hand in my little Moleskine notebook. Amazing difference!

I don't know whether it was the change of environment, change of medium, different time of day (i.e. more awake!) or what, but the ideas just flowed, and I'm very excited to report that I've got about 75%-80% of the case worked out, and the beginnings of an interwoven subplot in mind as well. Great progress, for me. I'm hoping to finish it off this evening so I can actually start WRITING tomorrow. What a concept...

I'll also be writing my NCIS Weekly Drabble tomorrow, for posting on Sunday. It's been nice to have a few days away from those - this is my first post since the NCIS Daily Drabble project morphed into a weekly instalment. I'm ready to jump back in now with the new, modified schedule.

[jesseszen]

What's the attraction with those moleskin notebooks? You'd have to write really small, ne?

[proseac]

Not really - they come in different sizes. Admittedly, mine is one of the smaller ones - 3.5" x 5.5" - but then, I don't normally use it for full-on plotting. I carry it in my purse so that if an idea strikes me, or a bit of dialogue pops into my head, I can capture it and not lose it again.

For me, the attraction of Moleskine above other notebooks I've seen is the quality with which they're made. The pages are bound, not glued. They come in either soft or hard cover, and you can get the covers in different colours, very handly if you keep multiple notebooks for different purposes. They have an elastic attached at the top and bottom of the back cover so you can mark your page. There's a little pocket at the back for keeping scraps of paper, stamps or anything else you might wish to store there. You can get them lined, completely blank, or with graph lines. The paper itself is a lovely thick quality, not easily torn. Writing in them is a wonderful experience.

I know it probably sounds silly, but once you've tried a Moleskine, you'll most likely never go back to any other type of notebook. Check it out here.

[dhae_knight_1]

I've tried Moleskine, but I still prefer small, thin, cheap notebooks. They just fold more easily for me, and since I wear them hard, their lifespan fits pretty closely with when they're full and needs to be exchanged, anyway. Just, y'know, a different point of view. :-)

[snowynight]

Wow, they are pretty.

[jordannamorgan]

Thank you! :)

[ishie]

Running into a fairly common problem, that I don't actually want to work on my owed fics and would rather play with shiny new ideas instead. Still, words!

[bay_alexison]

Able to look through some of the my back up beta for my Big Bang had send me and did some minor changes. There's one more chapter I should look at, but that will be tomorrow.

[pinstripefedora]

Uuuuugh, we were having technical problems at work today so I had to work from morning straight through to midnight, and now, even though I really want to write, I think I'm just gonna die instead. Maybe after I've slept for a day and a half I'll be able to actually get some writing done.

[dhae_knight_1]

Urgh. I feel your pain. When I moved last, I was going full-speed from seven in the morning until midnight. Then my mom offered me some cake, before we were going to go to bed, but I was too tired to eat. Lemme repeat that: I was too tired to eat cake! I don't think I've ever been that tired before or since, and I don't ever want to be that tired again... :-D