WIP Challenge Check-in, Day 8 -- Saturday

[linaewen]

It's Saturday and time for the last of this week's check ins! It's also our day for sharing things like snippets, requests for betas, and chatting about our fics in general. To get the ball rolling, here's a longish but appropriate quote for the day:

"... You generally start out with some overall idea that you can see fairly clearly,
as if you were standing on a dock and looking at a ship on the ocean.
At first you can see the entire ship, but then as you begin work
you're in the boiler room and you can't see the ship anymore...
What you really want in an editor is someone who's still on the dock, who can say,
Hi, I'm looking at your ship, and it's missing a bow, the front mast is crooked,
and it looks to me as if your propellers are going to have to be fixed."

-- Michael Crichton

Daily Check In

1. What was today like for you?

• Writing happened!
• Research happened!
• Editing happened!
• Taking a break happened!
• Life happened -- but there's always tomorrow and a new writing week!

2. Any word counts to report?

Weekly Snippet/Beta/Chat:

1. Are you blocked? Are your characters refusing to talk to you? Has your muse unexpectedly switched gears on you? Is offline life giving you a pain? Share with us about it and get some sympathy and encouragement!

2. Are you excited about your story? Are the words flowing and the plot racing along? Share with us what is going right for you!

3. If you like, why not share a snippet, a paragraph or a link to something you're working on this week?

4. Are you in need of someone with perspective who can see the whole ship instead of just the boiler room? Need help with editing or beta work on your writing? Let us know and we'll see what we can do to help you out!

5. Is there anything you think you'll do differently next week in your writing to have a greater impact on what you accomplish? Or anything you'll keep on doing because you had a wonderfully successful week?

Comments

[linaewen]

Life happened, but that's nothing new around here! I really need to take control of my schedule or something, I'm just not getting enough "me" time, which for means writing time. :-( I have a number of writing projects in the works, but only one of them is urgent at the moment, so I hope to at least work on that today -- even research or working on an outline would be progress at this point, whether I get any words written or not!

Next week will likely be even busier, if that's possible, but after that, things should settle down and I'll have a nice long holiday from my work. That doesn't mean I won't be busy, but I'll at least have control of what I do, rather than have to do what other people put on me. ;-) That should really help me in the writing department!

[crowdog66]

Daily Check-In: Taking a break is happening today, at least so far, because I'm setting myself up for December writing/art/tarot commissions and I'll likely be spending the day getting those ducks in a row. (Since I've already gotten one person interested in paying $50 for a sequel to a story I wrote in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fandom over a year ago, it looks like most of my writing juice for the foreseeable future will be devoted to that sort of work rather than to a lot of recreational fic writing.)

And I think (as usual) that I'll take Option 3, the snippet. So here's the opening to "Matters of Memory, Counteracted by the Present", a story from the "KnightFall" Future Knight Rider AU:

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

"I don't believe this," Michael Knight muttered, lounging in the command couch of KITT-as-starship and drinking a cup of Insta-Caff while flipping channels on the large viewscreen to pick up signals from the planet they were currently orbiting — and bored out of his cloned skull. "Here it is, the twenty-third century, and they still make soap operas."

"Believe me," KITT-as-humanoid remarked, coming to stand at his side and looking up at the screen (where two well-dressed women were screaming at each other about who loved their husband more) with a critical quirk of one fine black eyebrow, "that's nothing compared to what happens in real life. The KnightFall Consortium was rife with enough hatred, resentment, sexual passion and double-crossing to fuel ten networks for a hundred years."

"Do tell?" Michael glanced up with a glimmer of real interest.

"Oh yes," KITT groused. "Brantin Miles had a string of lovers as long as this starship, and he kept playing them off against each other for his own amusement. Why, at one point he had three — three! — of them chasing me, none of whom I would have touched with a ten-metre pole if they were the last humanoids in the cosmos."

"Well, that's not really surprising," Michael smirked, putting down the remote and sliding that hand slyly sideways. "You're a hot little number."

KITT scowled, clearly not amused. "I'm not joking, Michael."

Michael raised his eyebrows innocently. "And you think I am?"

"Kindly remove your hand from my ass."

He did so, but with a pretence of a reproving scowl. "Well, aren't you in a mood."

"I'm sorry," KITT almost growled, "but memories of KnightFall in almost any capacity since Brantin Miles took over its administration are far from pleasant for me."

That sobered Michael quickly. He set aside the coffee and sat up straighter, shifting his hand to curve it around KITT's narrow waist. "C'mere," he said, gently tugging, and after a grudging moment the simulator followed the pull of his hand and sat down cross-legged in his lap. "Now I'm the one who's sorry, pal. After what that bastard did to you —"

[suncat]

Writing has sort of snuck up on me. Began following a couple of LJ kinkmemes a few months ago, and the plot (and pic) bunnies are multiplying at an alarming rate. Got caught by surprise by a fill that I liked so much I'd started writing a sequel fill almost before I knew it. Now after getting permission from the filler to post said sequel, I feel bad that it's taking so long to properly finish the thing so it can be posted.

Here's the starting snippet, for the 2012 Marvel Avengers movie.

~~~~~

"Stark!"

"Shit!"

The small circuit board jumped above Tony's flailing fingers until he forcibly calmed himself, caught the board, and carefully placed it on the workbench. A touch to the hovering holographic display saved the schematic he'd been updating to match the physical board. He spun his chair about to glare at the haughty God of Mischief who'd appeared in the center of the workroom.

"Why do you have to do that? Teleport in with no warning? You could at least land on the terrace and knock."

"What, and have your phantom servant alert the entire building to my presence? I have no interest in all the tiresome threats your little team would no doubt deliver." Loki cast a lazy gaze about Tony's workroom. "I came to talk to you alone."

Tony sighed and pulled a tired hand down his face. "All right, all right. JARVIS, call a stand down." He knew that his AI majordomo would have, in fact, alerted the other Avengers in the building the moment Loki materialized.

"Done, sir," came JARVIS's disembodied voice. "Mr. Barton and Dr. Banner have been informed that Loki of Asgard is present, but not currently hostile."

"I don't want to see them. Keep them out of this room," demanded Loki.

"Fine! JARVIS, call them up only if Reindeer Games here does something stupid."

"Understood, sir."

Tony had never taken his eyes off Loki during the exchange, not sure he liked the apparent interest that the self-proclaimed god was showing in his equipment. "So how do you intend to annoy me today, Loki?"