lizbee | Entries tagged with writing

Two Dreamwidth posts in a day? Is that ... allowed?

Anyway, @branwyn-says tagged me on Tumblr, so:

What fic did I disgorge from my brain maw this year?

Just three:

"Alone and Holding" - PIC, Laris/Zhaban, a missing scene that was quickly overtaken by canon.

"bare-faced at your masquerade" - PIC, Laris/Zhaban, how they got together (with a side of Romulan student life and Tal Shiar recruitment strategies)

"Running in the Dark" - DSC, Lorca/Cornwell, furthering my AU where L'Rell saved Kat but at the cost of a bit of body horror

I also revised Lucky Starfall, submitted it to two things (and got two rejections!), wrote 20K words of a YA f/f romance and plotted the rest, decided to put that in a drawer for now, and am in the early stages of planning another middle grade adventure. So my productivity cannot be measured in AO3 stats alone.

Takeaways from reflecting on your kick-ass writing, or kick-ass lack of writing, during a year more focused on survival than perhaps any other:

The more I concentrate on original writing, the less I write fic. This isn't surprising, just a bit ... sad. It's not for lack of ideas (I have at least two more entries I want to write in the bit o'body horror AU), just time and energy. I'm finding other hobbies.

(This may change in years that aren't 2020! Although eventually I hope to become a writer who has DEADLINES and PROFESSIONAL EXPECTATIONS TO MEET, and regular fic output seems incompatible with that.)

Most surprising fic you wrote this year:

A fixation with two middle-aged female supporting characters whose popularity seems to have come as a surprise to their respective showrunners? If you're surprised, you don't know me.

How you’ve grown as a writer this year:

Honestly, all my growth was on the original side. I learned to revise! I paid money for a course in structure! (Specifically the Save the Cat! Novel Writing Course by Jessica Brody. I have a good instinct for structure, but I still got my money's worth and more out of this -- it's not about writing to a formula, but more like having a recipe you can alter as you need.)

What’s coming in 2021:

I'm going to write the first draft of a middle grade novel about a GIRL THIEF in FANTASY RENAISSANCE ITALY who LEADS A HEIST. (Her name is Constanzia. Yes, she's a con artist named Con. I am not a subtle person.)

I'm also going to finish re-revising Lucky Starfall (stupid unclear action in the climax), write a synopsis, and then start querying agents (and also the publishers which take unsolicited manuscripts, because agents are pretty optional in Australia. Ugh, I need to write a query letter, too. Is it not enough that I have a book, with words, and punctuation, and something approximating a plot? Most of the words are even spelled properly! I checked!

And, if I can, I'll probably write more Lorca/Cornwell fic (it's not that I don't have ideas for other pairings, it's just that those characters are all off being alive and doing things), and probably some Laris/Zhaban if PIC airs in 2021 and gives me more fodder.

HAVING SAID ALL THIS, my powers of prognostication are limited (back in April I said that Australia might have Covid under control by June -- which was right around the time Melbourne entered our hard lockdown) so who knows? Maybe something will hit Netflix next week which changes my life, and I'll be all, "Star Trek? Oh yes, I was into that, but I've moved on."

Current Mood: cheerful

America was wonderful! Although I would very much like to visit the Midwest sometime when it's not cold and there are leaves on the trees. It was very exciting to see what happens to a swimming pool when it snows, but what if swimming?
Detroit is a marvellous city, but -- to the surprise of literally no one -- not that easy to get around on foot. At one point we parked, did some shopping, then got in the car and drove to the other end of the parking lot to get to Target, because it was so far to walk (and also two guys were having a punch-up on the footpath).
Chicago is easy to get around, and I love it. I haven't travelled enough to say it's my favourite city in the world, but if I had the funds to conduct a proper study, I suspect it would still be in my top five. I would not like to live in the United States, but if I had to, I'd choose Chicago.
We went to a whole bunch of chain restaurants, fast food and otherwise, and my feelings are that (a) Chipotle needs to open up in Australia; Guzman y Gomez exceeds it for quality, but the menus are very different; (b) I'm terribly glad to see that Outback Steakhouse has stopped using fake Indigenous art to decorate its restaurants; (c) Cracker Barrel is like Outback Steakhouse but for America, but I noticed that all the images of Great Americans And American Achievements featured only white people, and that was ... uncomfortable.
All of Detroit's sports teams lose a lot, which, as a Bulldogs fan, is a Mood. I bought a Detroit Tigers shirt, but it's a wee fraction too small.
We saw Hamilton in its final days in Chicago; here are some scattered thoughts:
- there are WAY more dick jokes than I had realised just from the soundtrack
- there is no replacing Daveed Diggs, but the man who played Lafayette/Jefferson did his best
- I hate how much I enjoy Jefferson in this show, even though I know we're meant to feel that way
- the actor playing Hamilton was ... not short, but not tall. The woman playing Peggy/Maria was very tall, and (in the second act) almost literally swept him off his feet. It was so far from what I had imagined, it's what has stuck with me in the weeks since I saw it
- that, and I've been very badly earwormed by two lines from "Hurricane", and my brain can feel free to stop anytime now
- everyone knows that "Hurricane" sorely tested Lin-Manuel Miranda's singing ability, and it really does make a difference when the part is played by someone with a stronger voice, even if he's not so good a rapper
We also visited rj_anderson in Stratford, ON, which meant DRIVING across a NATIONAL BORDER, shut up, I'm Australian, this is very exciting to me!
Now I have a pile of Canadian YA and MG fiction to read, which is very exciting and I don't know where to start.
So, having seen Little Women the other night, I'm reading a biography of Louisa May Alcott instead, obviously.
(Little Women was marvellous, and a gift to this Laurie/Amy shipper; it didn't quite have my favourite aspect of their relationship -- grieving together after Beth dies -- but their dialogue and interactions are electric. It's a novel I've read a bunch of times, and have very strong opinions about, but don't actually love reading? But I adored this film.)
I watched the first half of season 1 of Succession on the plane home, and the first five episodes of Brooklyn 99's season 6 on various legs. B99 is always great, but Succession surprised me: I'm so obsessed with finding out how the season ends that we've decided to postpone season 4 of The Expanse until we finish Succession.
It's easier to get a good cup of tea in the United States than to get mediocre coffee with any kind of drinkable non-dairy milk. At least in the Midwest. There was a hipster cafe in the Detroit suburbs which offered almond milk with their drip coffee, and I was so happy I almost cried. Do you guys ... not have lactose intolerant people?
I've started revising the middle grade historical space opera! It's good so far -- mostly because I'm still in the early chapters, where the truly egregious continuity errors hadn't yet crept in. Though there's this whole subplot about one of the heroine's dads, and I just ... forgot to resolve it. I have no idea what his deal is. Writing is the worst.
I'm taking all my Rise of Skywalker angst and putting it into a fresh project: my YA fantasy arranged-marriage-leads-to-falling-in-friendship thingo. I told my writers Slack that my current comps are "the bit in ASoIaF where Sansa and Tyrion are married, Reylo, and the Snape/Lily fic I wrote when I was nineteen". For some reason this made them excited instead of horrified.
I'm going to try to outline this one from the start instead of just throwing words at the screen and hoping for the best. So far I have A Heroine (Joan, a nerd), An Unheroic Leading Man (Edmun, an awkward turtleduck with a disability, a body count and a chip on his shoulder), A Stern And Complicated Older Woman (Edmun's mother, a common soldier who married the late king; she has an eye patch and I would die for her), The Heroine's Best Friend (Merry, does not know how she wound up in this mess; struggles with problems she can't solve with common sense or a sword); and a very thin vestige of plot: someone has murdered Joan's brother; she has to marry Edmun for Plot Reasons; there is a very high probability that it was Edmun who did the killing. I'm just chucking a whole lot of id in and seeing what sticks.
I'm like, creating a whole secondary fantasy world from scratch is hard, but fictional murder? That's easy.
Famous last words. Writing is the worst.

Current Mood: accomplished

Is this a meme? I dunno, I just snurched the questions from

pearwaldorf.

List of fanworks

"Notification" (DSC, Kat, gen)
"Mother-In-Law's Tongue" (DSC, Cornwell/Lorca)
"edges clean" (DSC, Cornwell/Lorca)
"a fountain of blood in the shape of a woman" (DSC, Kat, Philippa, gen)
"Diplomatic Channels" (LoK, Korra, Lin, gen-ish)
"Detour" (LoK, Lin/Tenzin)
"Avalanche" (LoK, Lin/Tenzin)
"The Birthday Party" (LoK, Lin/Tenzin kid fic)
"Balancing Act" (LoK, Lin/Tenzin/Pema)

Total word count for the year

33,590

Overall thoughts

I posted three fics in 2016, all in January. This year I posted nine, including four Legend of Korra fics set in a timeline I've been thinking about for years, and another four in a whole new (old) fandom. I'm calling that a win.

Personal best/favourite

"a fountain of blood in the shape of a woman", because, hi, my average fic tops out at about 2000 words and it can still take me a few months to write it. Then Disco came along and I wrote 14,000 words of action-adventure gen featuring two middle-aged women in two weeks.

(Then I had to cancel my NaNo plans and not look at Google Docs for a few weeks while I recovered.)

I also have about 9,000 words of Kat fic which might get finished by the end of the year. Because it doesn't seem to have a plot beyond "Kat recovers from her injuries and mourns the end of her friendship with Lorca", it's difficult to say when/if/how it will ever end. (Why does it have 9,000 words and counting? I don't know! This has never happened to me before, I've decided to just go with it and see what happens.)

Most underappreciated (imo)

I honestly can't answer that. My LoK fic was decidedly niche and super self-indulgent, and people have been really nice about my Disco fic. (It turns out that comment culture is alive and well on AO3, provided you're writing Kat Cornwell fic.)

Most popular

"edges clean" by kudos to hit ratio, but multiple people have asked if they can borrow my idea for Lorca's mothers in "Mother-In-Law's Tongue", which delights me unspeakably since they're not even in it. And also no one has ever asked to use my headcanons before.

(From my notes at the end: I kind of conceived his mothers as Frank and Claire in House of Cards, only lesbians and not literally murderers. They're just the types of loving, distant parents who, if their son was replaced by his Mirror Universe counterpart, would only notice insofar as they think it's good that he finally has his priorities in order.)

Story with the sexiest moment

Does "Lorca watches as Kat rips out Chang's eyeball" count?

Story that shifted my own perceptions of a character

"edges clean" started out as a plain old missing scene/angst wallow, but the more I wrote, the more my whole idea of what happened between Lorca and Cornwell in "Lethe" changed. Leaving her with more agency, but less justifiable rage about being sent into a trap, so it's sort of a win/lose situation.

Most fun story to write

Probably "fountain of blood..."? It just came so easily, and the more I threw at it, the more fun I had.

Hardest

"Avalanche" -- I was setting up a new timeline, establishing a bunch of OCs, and upending it right away. And it was difficult to get the right balance of genuine self-interest versus "the greater good is genuinely also good for Lin", without making her look terrible.

Biggest surprise/s

How difficult Michael Burnham was to write in "fountain of blood...". She's a very complicated character, and I'm still getting a handle on her -- and I was perceiving her largely through Philippa's POV after she's been through a lot.

Biggest disappointment

I wanted to write fic in the President Beifong AU from the POV of all the main characters -- so Lin, Tenzin, all three of their kids, and Korra. But I never got the Tenzin or Jinora fics off the ground. I started them both three or four times each, but it never came together.

Most unintentionally telling story

I honestly don't think I can answer that.

Favourite lines/scenes

Big chunks of "fountain of blood..." including the aforementioned eyeball scene, and Kat's line to Lorca, which I'm not copying and pasting here on account of it being quite gross.

Ehhhh, I'm in a good mood, I just skimmed through all my fics from this year and liked every one, but there weren't that many punchy lines that are easy to excerpt.

Lines/scenes you'd change

Once again, the answer is "fountain of blood..." -- just small things to do with setting, mostly. I had only rewatched "Lethe", oh, three or four times when I wrote that, and didn't twig that Cornwell had arrived by shuttle, which landed outside the peace conference venue. And I thought the bridge of the Ship of the Dead seemed way too large, and figured that parts of it were actually separate chambers -- only for its massive size to be a plot point in "Into the Forest I Go".

Otherwise, just those small, annoying things where I read back over a fic and realise I've used the same word twice in a paragraph. (This only happens when I don't make

nonelvis beta for me. I can't even begin to tell you how much I owe her.)

Top five scenes you wish would be illustrated

Kat and Philippa fight off the boarding party on Discovery OH WAIT SOMEONE ALREADY ILLUSTRATED THAT AND IT'S AMAZING -- I can't believe I got that lucky
The Beifong family portrait in the President Beifong AU, mostly because I can't even tell you how many times I have tried and failed to do it myself
That's it, honestly.

2018 writing ambitions

Write my Disco Hiatus Exchange fic. Work on my damn novels, get the first boarding school book out to a sensitivity reader and then off to query. Finish the 9,000 words of plotless feelings. Pray that Disco doesn't kill off Admiral Kat in the second half of the first season; keep finding new ways to make her suffer.

Current Mood: mischievous

I was hesitating over whether to call this a meme, and then I looked, and it's right there in the name.

It's been a long day, I have a headache, I tried to schedule the big Windows 10 update for just as I left work, but accidentally made it happen right in the middle of the afternoon, so I spent an hour today writing fic by hand. Beifongs. They have a lot of emotions. ("Punching" is an emotion.)

COME PLAY @ THE [ FIC POSITIVITY FEEDBACK MEME ]
my thread here

Current Mood: tired

( Just checking in. )

Crossposts: http://lizbee.livejournal.com/1333642.html

Posted in full at: http://ift.tt/1XQH9Ut at April 25, 2016 at 11:34AM

Yoinked from

pearwaldorf

( I can barely remember how to do cut tags! )

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: Beyoncé | Forward
Crossposts: http://lizbee.livejournal.com/1325827.html

Probably not by coincidence, starting my new job coincided with a creative slump and a mild fibro flare-up. (Yes, the two are related!)

I am FINALLY emerging from both, thanks in part to my new habit of keeping a journal that tracks both pain and plot bunnies. I should be working on one of my novels, but what I've actually achieved is 1000 words of really schmoopy Lin/Tenzin where they are in love and trying quite hard not to repeat the mistakes of their youth, and also to not leave Tenzin's kids with any new neuroses, and also the world is kind of, "Really?" at Tenzin daring to fall in love again after his sainted wife passed away and all.

(Because I am a contrarian, I seem to end up with a lot of oppositional headcanons, one being that -- instead of regretting that Lin and Tenzin broke up and secretly hoping they get back together -- most people who know them greet the news of a reunion with feelings on a spectrum from Strong Concern to Setting Up Bomb Shelters And Organising An Intervention. Except Korra, obviously.)

Crossposts: http://lizbee.livejournal.com/1325619.html

Posted in full at: http://ift.tt/1WIZTFa at January 25, 2016 at 05:42PM

Ganked from

sorryforlaughing

1. Your 3 fanfics with the most comments:

“Makes A Battle Like A Song” (aka the epic Tophzula, with 39 comments)

“The Princess of the Dragon Flats” (aka the Private Detective AU, with 15 comments)

“Disengagement” (aka 2100 words around one weak joke, with 7 comments)

2. Your 3 fanfics with the most kudos:

“Disengagement” (okay, this is legit weird now, with 208)

“Solution” (aka 650 words of a kinkmeme fill that gets praise all out of proportion with its quality but it’s m/m so, like, of course it does, with 161)

“Escapee” (aka the AU where Mai and Ty Lee escape from the Boiling Rock, with 120)

3. Your oldest fanfic:

"The Proposal” (extremely weak Snape comedy fic from back in the days when such things were not unspeakably problematic; dated 25 March 2004)

4. Your latest fanfic:

“After Total War Can Come Total Living” (aka the Lin/Mako timeskip fic with bonus Cold War allusions, dated 16 January 2016)

5. Your proudest fanfic:

“The Princess of the Dragon Flats”. I recently got a lovely comment remarking on how hard I must have worked on it, and you know what? I did!

6. Your longest fanfic:

“Princess” again, beating the Epic Tophzula by about 4000 words.

7. Your 3 fanfics with the most bookmarks:

“Disengagement”

“Escapee”

“Evidence” (my very first White Lotus exchange fic! Oh God, I’m having so much trouble with it this year!)

8. Your top 3 crossover fics:

I only have one, although that’s technically four ficlets posted together, and only two are crossovers: “Fics That I Would Never Write”

9. Your favourite characters to write in fanfic:

THAT’S REALLY HARD. Lin Beifong, Mai and Azula tied, Romana. YES, I CHEATED.

10. I tag:

As usual, no one!

Crossposts: http://lizbee.livejournal.com/1324085.html

Rules: go to page 7 of your WIP, skip to the 7th line, share 7 sentences, and tag 7 more writers to continue the challenge.

From the Lin/Mako timeskip fic, where spirity shenanigans happen and the next thing Lin knows, it's 35 years later.

Regarding Suyin's run for the presidency of the United Republic, and the ugly bit of history that brings to light:

Mako shook his head.

"When that business came up, her opponents tried to put it all on you. Destroy your reputation, damage your sister's chances. Su told the truth, and Tenzin backed her up. And -- well, Toph made that choice a long time ago."

She nodded, slowly.

Mako added, "As for her legacy -- well, there's a new Beifong statue down at headquarters."

I tag ... NO ONE. If you are so moved, meme away.

Crossposts: http://lizbee.livejournal.com/1323027.html

7,000-odd words so far. If you ever find yourself thinking, "You know, for NaNo, I should write historical fiction whose main character is from a culture other than my own" ... well, it might actually work out for you.

The advantage of NaNo is that you don't have the luxury of sitting around being paralysed by all the things you don't know, and just writing helps narrow down the things you need to learn. And, for example, no matter how much you might want to print out a series of incredibly detailed maps of the Hoddle Grid c1910, then annotate them based on archives of The Argus until they're more or less current to 1924, those shenanigans will just have to wait until December.

Helpfully, my main character is no longer the nebulous blob of vague likability and stereotypical spunkiness she was when I first had this idea. I mean, she's still not what you'd call multi-dimensional, but this is Draft Zero, a chance to outline, get to know the characters and see where the plot takes them. (You could call it Outlining Via Pantsing.) She's getting there, and so am I.

*

Other updates:

- I've worked out that the terrible nerve pain I've been getting in my hands for the last few weeks is psychosomatic and stress related. I've turned into the Mrs Bennet of legal assistants.

I have a job interview on Friday, which I won't discuss in a public post except to say that, while it looks like an interesting role, the potential for dysfunction is quite high, so this is much about me interviewing the employer as vice versa.

- Aldi's $5 rosé is indeed excellent.

- Mary S. Lovell's book on the opium wars is informative and often entertaining, but also full of patently untrue statements, like "nobody in this day and age is still angry about British imperialism." Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ...

(I was going to say, has she even met Tumblr, but aside from the strong likelihood that the answer is no, I will never forget the post about Empress Dowager Cixi that said she was a terrible and problematic leader because she refused to let the British take control of China.)

- today I bought milk that was already sour, and cheese that was already going off, and earbuds that just plain didn't work. I am possibly cursed. Although I exchanged the earbuds with no dramas, so maybe it's just random bad luck that's mainly attributable to a probable overnight fridge failure.

Crossposts: http://lizbee.livejournal.com/1320802.html

Posted in full at: http://ift.tt/1MnAcmb at October 31, 2015 at 01:51PM
liz-squids:

@actualmermaid tagged me!

In no particular order because I just finished tidying up my GoogleDrive so there are old fics at the top because they were the last to move.

I like to interpret “first line” as “first line or whatever seems to make the most sense and produce a good effect, eh, I’m not the meme police.”

*

The first time Pema met Lin Beifong, Beifong had a black eye and blood streaming down her face from a cut on her cheek.

*

“Tenzin.”

She hardly recognised him, lean and hollow-cheeked, greying hair pulled into a short ponytail. He was clad in faded greys and blues, and if not for his pallor and the tattoos he could not quite hide, she might have mistaken him for his brother.

*

“They’ve seen us,” Beifong hissed. “Run.”

Mako didn’t need to be told twice. He could hear them giving chase, but when he turned to see where they were, Kita swept up a dagger of oily water from the gutter and threw it at him. He stumbled, pain blooming in his shoulder and chest, but Beifong grabbed him, keeping him upright.

It had been drizzling all night, but now, at the worst possible time, it started to rain in earnest. Beifong pulled him into a narrow alley and said, “Did they see your face?”

*

The morning of the trial, they brought her uniform. Lin dressed slowly, appreciating the feel of real clothes on her skin instead of a rough prison jumpsuit.

It wasn’t quite the uniform she remembered. The cable spools on the back had been removed, along with the metal bands on the sleeves and legs. Even the buttons had been replaced with bakelite.

Phuong, her lawyer, if she were here, would frown and say it was an insult, a demonstration of distrust. Lin’s only reaction was disappointment. After eight months in this glass-and-wood-and-bakelite cell, it would have been nice to touch metal again.

“General Beifong? Are you ready?”

*

Huan liked to think that his creativity peaked between the hours of midnight and four in the morning. He worked outside, inasmuch as any of Zaofu could be said to be outside at night. At least it never rained, and his projects were always returned to their wooden plinths before the sprinkler system was activated at four-fifteen.

His mother complained about the wet, grassy footprints leading from the back door to his bedroom, but affectionately. She liked that he had a passion, and anyway, she wasn’t the one cleaning the floors.

*

If anyone had asked, Bumi would have said the days were long past when he had to worry about interrupting his baby brother in the middle of a romantic moment. Years past. Decades past.

No one had asked him, and no one had warned him, either, that there was a risk of (embarrassing, highly awkward) interruption, or that someone (presently lifting her head from Tenzin’s chest and giving Bumi a death glare) might go around rearranging the terrain on Air Temple Island in the middle of the night.

*

Zaofu, Pema decided, was a big, metallic, flower-shaped oasis.

It was the perfect refuge after the nightmare of everything that happened at the Northern Air Temple. A modern, well-equipped hospital for Korra and Tenzin, an efficient security force if the remnants of the Red Lotus tried again, and Su Beifong’s personal estate had more than enough room to hold the various refugees – airbenders, Mako and Bolin’s family, Korra’s family … Meelo.

*

Prince Wu didn’t stay on Air Temple Island for long after the revelation that the Avatar was missing. He declared the dinner boring and set out for a nightclub, promising Mako a cocktail that would taste like his head was on fire, but in a good way. Mako gave Lin a pleading look as he left. She ignored it.

*

“Look at that storm!” Meelo shouted.

*

Bumi waited until Tenzin and his kids had vanished into the crowd before he said, “So I’ve been seeing Lin, sort of. Informally.”

Kya said, “By ‘seeing’, do you mean ‘sleeping with’?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, Bumi,” she said, “that is such a bad idea.”

*

I tag … look, just do the meme if you want to. Say I forced you if you need an excuse.

Tags:and dreamwidth, (reblogging so it hits my DW)

Crossposts: http://lizbee.livejournal.com/1320193.html

So what have you been up to? / Major life changes? Same old same old?

Oh, you know, work, sleep, watch TV, write.

I'm trying to get fitter and a bit healthier, on account of all the heart disease and DIABEETUS in my mother's family. To that end, I've invested in a Fitbit One, a bike pump and a key to the locked bike cages at the station three kilometres away. It's going well! I seem to have more energy, and I cracked 16km/hr on my bike last night. (Admittedly by taking a different route, one with fewer stop lights and more trucks, but, you know.)

I can't remember if I blogged about it here, but in April I moved out of my last sharehouse and into a tiny flat in the inner west. It is DELIGHTFUL, except that it's always my turn to clean, and for reasons I guess I'll discuss below, I did no cleaning at all last week, and have regretted it ever since. I'm basically procrastinating right now, before I start washing ALL THE DISHES. (Literally. All the dishes I own.)

ETA: I have washed all the dishes.

What fandom are you in/do you spend most of your time in?

Legend of Korra! Specifically the Lincentric part, because cranky middle-aged superheroines are love, and I still adore the complexity of the Beifong family's dysfunctions and the impact they had on Republic City.

Where do you hang out online?

Twitter, Tumblr, and I'm still blogging about social justice, pop culture and auscore with

yiduiqie at No Award.

What are you reading?

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA

I started The Dark Forest, the second book in Li Cixin's Three-Body Problem trilogy, but the library's ePub is super buggy -- turning pages takes 15 seconds, and it loses my place every time I put my Kobo to sleep.

I meant to try it on my iPad, but accidentally started reading The Disorderly Knights by Dorothy Dunnett instead. Only a million years after everyone I knew in Harry Potter fandom was obsessed with Dunnett's books, I'm finally reading them myself. They are quite hard work! Rewarding, but also a challenge, especially if you're an instinctive speed reader like me. I really have to force myself to slow down and find the plot hidden in the dense prose.

Oh yeah, and I'm also reading A City Lost And Found: Whelan the Wrecker's Melbourne, which is a combination of urban archaeology, local history and a working class-eye view of the twentieth century.

So, you know, just a few things.

What are you watching?

I've been watching The X-Files! I'm into season 9, and ... look, I knew the last few seasons had a bad rep, but there was a point back in season 4 when I really looked forward to Mulder leaving.

I have regrets.

But I am determined to finish the damn series, and I really like Doggett, and Reyes has a lot of promise, although she feels like a much more nebulous character than any of the others. And I liked the bit in the season 8 finale where Skinner shot Krycek in the head.

What are you making?

So the reason I cleaned nothing last weekend is because I needed to finish revising the novel I wrote and submit it for the Ampersand Prize.

It is a middle-grade contemporary boarding school novel, which I started back in 2012 and kept having to put down because I was busy with other projects. I finished it a few months ago, knowing that it needed heavy revisions, and when I found out that the Ampersand Prize existed, I realised that I absolutely had to enter it.

You see, my original pitch to myself with this novel was "Malory Towers with a social media policy", only as it turns out, the school is co-ed and social media isn't really a factor in the story at all. And the Ampersand Prize is run by Hardie Grant Egmont, which publishes the Enid Blyton school stories that inspired me. This could work against me, but I figured that made it worth a shot.

Anyway, it was finished last week, and while I don't expect to win, long-listed titles often get editorial notes, which I would value a lot. I'm trying not to think about it too much until it's all over, though.

Now I'm tossing up three ideas for my next project, trying to decide which to write next. All require research, and I plan to use NaNo as a time to do a very rough first draft/outline/getting to know the story and figure out what it wants to be type of thing.

Since I'm equally excited about all three projects, I'm thinking that I'll go with the one that has the most international and commercial potential -- I guess I'll talk about it in more detail in a locked entry -- but it's hard to choose.

What are you squeeing about today?

I'm honestly pretty excited that the bathroom is clean.

(Signs you may in fact be a grown up...)

If you could rope old fandom friends into a new fandom, it would be...

violetisblue has taken out a restraining order to make me stop recommending the Avatarverse to her.

I should really watch/read/dive into _______ and then come talk to you about it!

This was a recurring theme at Continuum, and I'm speaking to the choir a bit here, everyone should read The Steerswoman and sequels by Rosemary Kirstein.

What else is on your mind?

Why do I have so many surfaces that require dusting?

Crossposts: http://lizbee.livejournal.com/1317706.html

So here are the two drafts drafts, plus notes on where they were going to wind up, and let's just assume I'll also be talking about the spoilers that broke them and why.

( The 'Princess of the Dragon Flats' sequel, 3652 words. )

( The one where Toph (and Sokka) died during Yakone's escape, 1677 words. )

Crossposts: http://lizbee.livejournal.com/1307138.html

attackfish tagged me for this meme, and it is EXCELLENT, except I'm way too lazy to do the bit where I make up 10 new questions and tag more people.

1. Favorite place.

I am fond of libraries, book stores and my house, but choosing one specific favourite is HARD.

2. Favorite fanwork you made.

By a very long margin, "The Princess of the Dragon Flats". I mean, I know everyone goes for the one they did most recently, but I was really happy with the way it turned out. My previous longer fics have always dragged in the middle, and while the pace slows at a couple of points, I don't think this actually drags.

Additionally, I've been getting lovely feedback praising my attention to the tropes and nuances of noir and hardboiled detective fiction. This is especially great because my research consisted of: (1) reading a lot of Raymond Chandler in my early teen; and (2) reading a bunch of essays about features common to the less well-known hardboiled detectives. (Which is how I discovered that a considerable portion of such characters have disabilities as a result of WW1. This cemented my plan to make it a story about Lin without her bending, permanently as far as she can see, and also The Thing That Happens At The End.)

(I did just re-read some Chandler while plotting out the possible-sequel-if-I-ever-have-time, and realised that I did make one genre/setting booboo -- Chandler's detectives drive everywhere, and the car is really important to every aspect of the plot and setting. Whereas I have Lin driving very little, and the plot actually depends somewhat on Republic City's public transport systems. Oooops.)

3. Classical novel you wish you never read.

I can't think of any classical novels I regret reading, but I do wish I could wipe my memory and read Pride and Prejudice for the first time again. I was given an abridged and bowdlerised copy when I was about seven, and I've often wondered what it would be like to read the original and not know how it ended.

4. First fandom.

Officially Star Trek: The Next Generation, but I was engaging in fannish behaviour about kids shows and my mother's soap operas for as long as I can remember.

5. Do you collect anything? If so, what?

Postcards? Here in Australia -- this may be universal, IDK -- cafes have stands of free postcards, some of which carry stylish advertising and some of which are art prints. I have a whole box of them, along with the many, many postcards I buy whenever I'm in a museum or art gallery store. One of my vague plans for this weekend is to actually put them on my wall.

6. Favorite book/movie/tv show/whatever you never managed to be fannish for.

There are lots of things I love without feeling fannish, but I guess the big one is the Marvel Movieverse? I like it, I have lots of opinions about it, I very occasionally read fic, but I've never felt compelled to make anything myself, and I often Tumblr save it just because I get tired of the same faces.

7. Favorite season of the year

Spring and autumn!

8. Mountains, or ocean?

Ocean. It's probably an Australian thing, but I don't like living more than an hour's drive from a large body of water.

9. Has there ever been a book/movie/tv show/whatever that was so bad you couldn't stop watching?

The Last Airbender. Man, that was so bad, but it was like a scab I couldn't stop picking. I couldn't seem to stop myself from first ~acquiring it, and then torturing myself by skipping through scenes. (It didn't help that I have a longstanding crush on Dev Patel, and he and Sean Toub were actually doing decent work with terrible writing.)

Finally I persuaded

weaverandom to come over and watch it with me, but that kind of backfired, because she was driving, so we couldn't drink. We made it nearly all the way through, but then Yue said, "We need to show the Fire Nation that we believe in our beliefs," and the DVD player just went, "Yeah, nuh" and died.

(Speaking of Yue, Seychelle Gabriel also worked very hard at not being terrible, and it's really depressing how the few actors of colour were so much more talented than the white kids playing whitewashed characters.)

10. Ice cream, cake, or pie?

This is a big call, but while I was in Canada, I came to the conclusion that pie is the best dessert there is.

Of course, then I found out I'm gluten-intolerant, and I've yet to find a GF pie that isn't terrible, but I still stand by my assertion.

Current Mood: geeky
Crossposts: http://lizbee.livejournal.com/1303579.html

Occasionally, I enjoy an anecdote that involves outrageous behaviour by some or all parties involved. Especially if that anecdote doesn't involve me, or anyone I know.

Captain Awkward is often a good source of this, but my other go-tos are:

Ask A Manager -- it totally offers legitimate workplace advice! And useful guidance on managing interpersonal issues in a professional environment! And occasionally "only in America" hilarity, like when the blogger freaks out because unions exist, or the post about whether or not it's illegal to carry a concealed weapon at work. (Spoilers! In some American states it is TOTALLY LEGAL! There was a whole thread of foreigners going, "Whut?")

Etiquette Hell -- the anti-Captain Awkward! Because where CA and her commenters, toxic and self-righteous as they often are, aren't ... well, they wouldn't judge you for organising your own birthday dinner. Or tell you off for using the term "slut shaming". What I'm saying is, there are trainwrecks EVERYWHERE here. (The commentariat is often better than the actual blogger, in that they go, "What the hell, that advice was totally wrong! And also makes a lot of assumptions about you that may not be applicable!")

But my current favourite trainreck is this post from Ask A Manager: My boss has romantic phone conversations that bother me because I'm single. OP is very sad about being single, and feels like the boss is being deliberately coupled to spite them! When complaints fail, OP resorts to passive-aggressive silent treatment and complaining about the boss to their mutual friends!

My boss sat me down for a tough conversation at the beginning of the following workweek, addressing the unprofesionalism of my email, the need for me to better understand my role in the organization, and that the concerns I had laid out about her managerial style were unacceptable to express. Regarding the romantic phone calls, she was defensive, claiming that they weren’t “recreational” in nature (which was a total lie). She said I should put on headphones if I didn’t want to hear her personal conversations.

IMAGINE MY SHOCK WHEN IT TURNED OUT THE OP WAS MALE. Not that women don't engage in outrageous behaviour at work (I totally recommend AAM's archives), but that mixture of self-righteousness, entitlement and passive aggression? Totally dudely. And, again, this isn't Captain Awkward, so no one in the comments has actually gone, "Uh, dude, you are acting like Walter White, and not in the cool drug lord way."

(Though there is this comment:

In one of AAM’s replies, she is implying that the OP is male, which, if true, makes me look at the issue a little differently.

In my past, I’ve encountered men who believe that a relationship is something that they “have,” like a nice car or a TV; that a relationship is something that they “deserve,” perhaps more than other people deserve one; or that’s “unfair” that they don’t have a relationship. It is not fun to be in a relationship with someone who thinks this way–they may not think of their female partner as a possession, but you can’t work with them to grow the relationship as an organic thing that exists between the two of you because they think of the relationship as a possession that you’re threatening. (Maybe there are women who think like this too, but I guess I wouldn’t know…)

I got a bit of this vibe from the way the OP takes offense at his(?) boss having a relationship when he doesn’t. Why does that matter? It seems nonsensical, like being upset that someone else is religious when you’re not. It’s not that the boss “has” something that the OP does not. It’s just a part of life that you can choose to pursue or not as your own taste and personality lead you.

IN CONCLUSION, I am going to be spending today reading this and rolling around laughing. And also writing wrong bad terrible fic that I am legit ashamed of, and also some blog posts and some of the million other things I'm meant to be doing. My point is, rolling around laughing is going to be a thing.

Crossposts: http://lizbee.livejournal.com/1303496.html

I made a Tumblr post about Tsaritsa Sophia Alekseyevna of Russia, which has clocked up about a thousand notes, making it my most popular Tumblr post ever. I was pretty pleased with it, so I shared it on my grown-up blog, where it caught the eye of editors Tehani Wessely and Tansy Rayner Roberts. And so the Cranky Ladies of History project was born.

That second link goes to a crowdfunding page. If they reach their goal, they will also qualify for a $2000 grant from the Tasmanian government, so if you have a few bucks to spare, I strongly encourage you to chuck them this way!

Crossposts: http://lizbee.livejournal.com/1299817.html

I just got the nicest feedback for "The Princess of the Dragon Flats"! It comes via FF.net, where I've been posting it in parts, the site having baulked at the full 34,000 words. (10,1000 seems to be about the limit.)

I feel like this is one of those stories that easily slips under the radar; I'm glad I let curiosity get the best of me. In reading this I realise how much I've needed this kind of Lin-centric story. Your interpretation of her character is strong and engaging, and so too is your depiction of Republic City and its facets. The story is moving along at the just the right pace and I really am interested in the mystery that is Megumi. Despite the fact that we haven't met her yet, she feels very tangible as a character in this world.

Looking forward to future chapters and I hope this story garners more attention from readers. It's definitely worth it and I appreciate what it offers to stand out amongst all the rest.

I'v received several lovely pieces of feedback for the fic, but that there is exactly where I wanted the reader to be at this point in the story. I hope she enjoys the rest of it!

Crossposts: http://lizbee.livejournal.com/1298970.html

I really wanted to do

trope_bingo last year, but I was so busy with Continuum and another project that I knew I wouldn't have time to commit to writing fic.

This year, I'm doing memberships for Continuum, so it won't absorb too much of my time until closer to the convention, and the other project is slowly drawing to completion. So I got a card.

( My Trope Bingo card )

Current Mood: pleased
Crossposts: http://lizbee.livejournal.com/1298050.html

I'm sure I'll make a proper post later, when my thoughts are ordered, but weirdly, this made me want to dig up and finish the Lin-never-gets-her-bending-back private detective AU I started last year. Even though it will need a bit of a rewrite to be compliant with the current course of events.

(I'm very finicky about AUs. Anything that's different from canon has to be traceable to the single altered event, otherwise it just falls apart for me.)

(This is the for-want-of-a-nail type AU, not the barista/law firm/Melbourne hipster type of AU.)

Current Mood: happy
Crossposts: http://lizbee.livejournal.com/1292586.html

Seriously. It was 2008, and a bunch of us decided to take advantage of the Tenth Doctor's temporarily companionless state to write a virtual season where he was travelling with a not-dead Romana.

Needless to say, we didn't get the 13 fics we were aiming for, but I posted two, and

violetisblue posted two, which don't seem to be on the AO3 but they're bloody marvellous.

Then we kind of stalled.

Anyway, I wrote "The Nightmare Room", but my betas said it needed work, and I was like, "Work? PAH!" and went off to do something else. Or so I assume. Anyway, 8000 words in which the Doctor and Romana are trapped in the TARDIS and there's something else in there with them.

(

violetisblue described it as a story about advanced auto-repair.)

( And please be forgiving; this really is quite rough. )

Crossposts: http://lizbee.livejournal.com/1279693.html

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Sarcasm is an adjusted stress reaction.

Saving the world through the power of, um ... oh dear.

Entries tagged with writing

The end-of-year fic round-up

Life in dot points

End of year fanwork round-up

IT'S A PARTY

Too hot (hot damn!)

From Tumblr: Fic writing meme

Look, at least I'm writing?

From Tumblr: AO3 stats meme

Meme of 7

Drive-by NaNo update

From Tumblr: First lines of 10 of my fics

The catch-up meme!

Canon broke my WiPs

How AM I going to be an octopus about this?

For all your trainwreck needs

So I accidentally inspired an anthology

Review squee

Trope Bingo

Preliminary Legend of Korra post

Remember that time I wrote "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS"?