avon, posts by tag: writing - LiveJournal

I wrote this as a part of the btfchallenge. It is also a yuletide nyr fic.  It is based on a short film that is 100% worth the 15 minutes it takes to watch it.  This is a hard sci fi story.  No magic. No technoloigy indistinguishable from magic.  Just a good, old fashioned Orion Drive.

The Crew (4883 words) by spiderfire
Fandom: C: 299792 Kilometers Per Second (Short Film)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Lt. Commander Malleck, Operator Tam, Operator Hale, Lt. Kai, Porter, The Captain
Additional Tags: Backstory, POV Multiple
Summary:

In the days before the Kestros IV left System Sol forever, final preparations are made.

It was a good yuletide!

I got a story about Syndey from the Pretender - my favorite grey hat from that world of one shining bright light, and a whole lot of dark.

Renewal of Values (2121 words) by Marie_L
Fandom: The Pretender (TV)
Relationships: Jarod & Sydney
Additional Tags: Pre-Canon, Canon Compliant, The Centre (the Pretender), Emotional Manipulation
Summary:

Sydney must decide how far to let the Centre go with Jarod. Again.

****

And I wrote two stories - a pinch hit in the Tripods universe - the first time I have ever actually nabbed a pinch hit as opposed to treating people who got sent out on the PH list.  The request was for more of Will's POV.

Backpack (2708 words) by spiderfire
Fandom: The Tripods - John Christopher
Characters: Will Parker (The Tripods), Beanpole (The Tripods), Henry (The Tripods), Original Characters
Additional Tags: Canon-Typical Violence, Missing Scene, Vagrants, Original Character Death(s), Canon Compliant
Summary:

Some encounters Will, Henry and Beanpole had on their way to the White Mountains.

*****

And my main story was a real treat for me.  I matched on Werewolf: the Apocolypse - which meant I got to write what largely was original fic set in the werewolf world. SO AWESOME.  The request was for kinfolk.

Duty to tribe (6627 words) by spiderfire
Fandom: Werewolf: The Apocalypse
Characters: Original Male Character(s), Original Characters, Original Male Character(s) of Color, Original Werewolf Character(s), original kinfolk characters, Original Child Character(s)
Additional Tags: Past Violence, off screen dubcon, Family, Duty, black furies, Kinfolk
Summary:

Eric Jensen is the proprietor of a trendy cafe, raising his three kids as a single dad, and trying to have relationship with his boyfriend, Aaron. He is also kinfolk to the Black Furies. I'll give you one guess as to what is the hardest part of his life.

2016 was a different sort of writing year for me.  I posted just 10 fanfics this year for a total of 36K of words, but I wrote nearly 200k - which is a lot for me. Most of it was in original works - the novel project I am working on and a variety of short stories that I have submitted various places (and had rejected - oh well).

Thanks to getyourwordsout, I have tracked both my words and my writing days this year and I have some cool graphs.  The first one shows my YTD wordcount in blue and my goal (150K) in red.  The month where the blue line takes off is thanks to NaNo! I wrote a total of 193,214 words!



My second graph shows the number of days I wrote in green. The purple like is the 1-1 line.  I wrote SOMETHING for a total of 262 days in 2016 or about 71% of the days I wrote.  Go me. :)



And finally, this year's wordle. Since I posted so little, this was made using all of my writing for this year. Skylar is the main character in the novel, Madison, Morgan/MRGN, Avery and Quin are other characters in that project. Maria and Moesha are vampire hunters and the main characters in another story I wrote.  Words I clearly overuse: back, one, around, looked, time, like, going, get, just, like...


Writing Goals for 2017:
1) Finish the first draft of the novel (about 10K to go!)
2) Do a second draft of the novel. (This will require revising and adding to my character sketches and worldbuilding docs, as well as a complete rewrite)
3) Participate in (at least) jukebox_fest,not_primetime and yuletide.
4) Do something in each of the MCU and Les Mis fandoms. (Exchanges? Finish WIP? Something new? TBD)
5) Write a NYR fic for a microfandom where the main character is this awesome hero/villian sociopath.
6) Submit some stories.  Maybe revise Maria and Moesha (the vampire hunters) and try again on that story, somewhere else.  Maybe some flash fiction.  

It's too early in November for this. I just typed the following

"we aren't aloud to ..."

And I found myself staring at those words for several minutes before I figured out what was wrong.

I am working on a novel.  I think most of you know that because I talked about World Building June over on tumblr before.  The novel is nominally a present for my kids, but I suspect they will graduate college before it is done. Anyway.

I am struggling with the outline.  I am not trying for anything innovative - basic hero's journey/three act structure is my goal.  I am trying to use the snowflake method of outlining and I would love some feedback.

Here is the one sentence summary: A young scout searches for a home for her people.

The next step is to write a paragraph summary.  Five sentences.  First sentence is the setting, then three disasters and the conclusion.  In terms of the three act structure, the first disaster is the end of the first act, the second is the midpoint of the second act, the third is the end of the second act and the conclusion is the third act.  I have two ideas.

Idea #1:The G.Is.S. Spero is a vast generation ship that has been traveling between the stars for thousands of years.  (1)Systems can only be repaired so many times, and the hull breech was both tragic and inevitable.  (2) Desperate to repair the ship, scouts are sent on dangerous missions which result in injuries and deaths.  (3) Defying orders, Skylar takes risks and gets injured, looking for a home.  (C) With help from her friends, she gets back out there and finds a planet.

However, it occured to me after I wrote this, that my main character, Skylar the scout, does not really have much agency until Disaster #3 and maybe that is too late.  So then I thought, what if I move the hull breech tragedy into the backstory?

Idea #2: The G.Is.S. Spero is a slowly failing, vast generation ship that has been traveling between the stars for thousands of years. (1) Desperate to repair the ship, scouts are sent on a dangerous, risky mission which result in injuries and deaths.  (2) Skylar, realizing the ship needs to be scrapped not repaired, pushes the range of her scout ship resulting in her having insufficient resources to get back. (3) Trying to repair the ship, Skylar crashes on a planet.  (C) Once she gets back in space, her scanner picks up the planet of their dreams.

This moves Skylar's agency forward to disaster #2 and it more closely aligns with the hero's journey model.  However, it reduces the role of the supporting cast substantially because for the majority of Act 2 and 3, Skylar will be off on her own with only "radio" contact back home.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

So, I am trying to decide - do I submit this story somewhere else - or do I post it?  I might try one more submission and then just post it. We'll see.

I realized I never posted my April writing summary.  April was kind of a disaster word-count wise, but I did make some reasonable story progress.  I finished a draft of my les mis bb and I wrote a (very short) story for the Be The First challenge.  I did not manage anything for MCU, but I still havent seen The Thing so maybe I will. We'll see.

I am currently tearing my hair out as I work on my jukebox fic.  The song makes no sense.

Worldbuilding June is coming up over on tumblr, so I am going to try and dig into Spero again and flesh out the world.  The kids will be at Girl Scout Camp the week of July 17, so I am going to try and have another installment of the story ready for then.

So, back when I was in college, my girlfriend's boyfriend, introduced me to Daniel Keys Moran's Continuing Time books.  I love these books.  Adore them.  They are possibly my all time favorite books.  I scour used book stores and whenever I find them (increasingly rarely these days) I snatch them up so I can give copies to people.

DKM has released bits and pieces of unpublished books so he sort of fanfics himself.  I have nominated the books for yuletide for a couple years, and I will continue to nominate it.  However, there is no fic.  So, when the btfchallenge appeared - thought - why not?

So, here is my poor offering to be the first, and currently only story in the Continuing Time fandom.  Please, someone write some stuff so my story is less lonely? :)


Sympathy Call (907 words) by spiderfire
Fandom: Continuing Time - Daniel Keys Moran, Emerald Eyes - Daniel Keys Moran
Characters: Carl Casternavas, Albert DeNostri, Jacqueline DeNostri
Additional Tags: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Missing Scene

Summary: Carl Casternavas calls Albert DeNostri to tell him that Jacqueline DeNostri has died.

Well, March was a bit of a disaster writing wise.  Lots of days where I wrote nothing.  For a couple of reasons I think
- the cold lingered for-ever
- I had a big push to get the vampire story turned in and the let down after
- March is my least favorite month of the year. :(

Here is the graph - I finished the month down a couple thousand words - which is recoverable. Hopefully April will get better. It usually does.


Here were my writing goals for March:
1) Draft my Les Mis BB.

HA!  I say. HA!  I have half of it roughed out.  It resulted in the most ridiculous map to keep track of all of the characters.



2) Draft a story for the btfchallenge. I am planning on doing something for the Continuing Time series.  Cause I love it dearly.  And I have been asking for it in Yuletide and no one has bit. :p

Well, that didn't work out.

Goals for April

1) Finish the Les Mis BB
2) Start thinking about what I get for jjukebox_fest and npt_admin
3) Go back to spero
4) Maybe write one more hydra fic before CA:CW - maybe something short. I think this longfic that I have been working on is killing my muse. 

Entry #1 in my collection! ;)