Gacked from likeadeuce and in_the_blue:
I have 110 works archived at AO3FF.net. Pick a number from 1 (the most recent) to 110 (the first thing I posted there), and I'll tell you three things I currently like about it.
:goggles at number: And there's a few I haven't got posted over there either. Avengers, Awake stuff. Maybe a Divergent piece. Wow. Just... wow.
So pygmymuse wrote the first piece of fanfic ever of my work, an AU piece I liked a lot but wanted to tweak into being more them and more indicative of the underlying dynamics involved in being kahtchen. She liked this and let me plunk it in here. Actually, this is one world where it could even end up as canon (see “Tenderness”—more info coming with WIP “Eglantine”), but that’s another story.
Very angsty stuff. Sorry, y’all.
So, pygmymuse didn’t understand the concept of hunting in Vardin—more one of treasure hunting or hunting down than animal hunting. I went looking for an outsider to explain it to and Josh was so remarkably convenient.
In order to save their world, the mages of long ago plunged it into eternal night.
Now rare veins of quartz provide light, heat, and food to a dying world. And Rafael Grenfeld has just learned that the biggest quartz pillar of them all, the legendary Tower of Light, exists. Unfortunately, his informer died before revealing its location and he’s stuck in the hostile totalitarian state of Blackstone.
Desperate to find the Tower of Light for his people, Rafe forms an uneasy alliance with the mysterious and maddening Isabella. They’re not the only ones interested in the quartz. The Shadow, chief of the Blackstone secret police, is also hunting for it. As darkness-loving demons devour souls and dangerous magical artifacts resurface, Rafe must tap into the lost powers of the mages in order to find and secure the quartz—before his world is destroyed by famine and war.
Fire and Water by Allowyn Nyrti
For years, Enya Royston has hidden from herself and her abilities, fearing the destruction that always comes with using them. The others embraced their talents, but she turned away from them. Now, though, everything has changed, and their paths have twisted up together again, forcing them to reevaluate the choices they made and how they will go forward from here. The past stands ready to destroy them, and if it doesn’t get them, their enemies will.
So I'm behind on my reading. No surprise there. I've got a proofreading job, a few musical birthday/mother's day gifts to complete, and a job—besides the 365 Challenge and a remix exchange fanfic to write. En brief, the scribbler's busy.
What are you reading?
I did know what froze me up on writing my chaptered fanfics after a while, and it's weird to admit this, but here it is: they were too long.
When I realized it was going to take more than 100 chapters to wrap up some of those stories, my brain and muse froze up and it suddenly became very, very hard to keep writing. It was easier when I didn't realize that and could just scribble into the abyss, not knowing, not caring how many words it would take me to reach the end. I cannot tell you how liberating it is to not know.
And you know what? I think that's what happened to the Story from Inferno as well. I realized how much work and words were involved and almost got over it before my brain went too much, too much, too much—I'm scared.
Some writers write scared. It drives them, keeps them writing. I don't. Never have. Never have been able. Scared freezes up my brainpower and even if I know exactly what should come next, I don't write it. If I don't know what comes next, that suddenly becomes an ultra-handy excuse to let it go and hack away at something else while nibbling every now and then on the overwhelming, too long story. And I wonder why I've only ever finished one satisfactory novel. :shakes head ruefully at self:
There is no commitment to the abyss. It is like life, only visible one step at a time, and with infinite possibilities for continuing or coming to a satisfactory end. We live by moving forward. There is commitment once a story rears itself out of the abyss and shows its overall shape. Suddenly, I feel obliged to make the story fit that shape, reach that end satisfactorily. There's pressure.
I've been thinking about how to take that pressure back off. Cross your fingers for me or share your tips if you have any. It's time to throw a few stories back into the abyss.
So there's a couple of memes that I decided to edit into this: I'm going to post the first lines of all my WIP that have a complete draft but not a revision I like yet. Now to just get some edited!
"You have seven days. Live them."
Jaguar kneels over the small sleeping form of her young brother.
The Collector, Mavren, looked up from the counter when the tiny brass bell tinkled over his opening door.
Here in the land of the five cities, long before the king and the princes, the queen and the princesses, there was an emperor and empress and a little empressina.
Alya carefully creased speckless cream linen over the perfect white parchment of her letter—the way her mother taught her.
Rachelle waited until the restless aches dancing through her upper body were outright pain before she finally forced herself to quit making endless cups of coffee and fished a mottled green star out of the embossed pink tin she kept on the granite kitchen countertop.
Kirana pressed her hand tightly to the young boy's chest, her own chest feeling squeezed as life wrung out from between her fingers and into his body.
Word came at dawn of the newly outfitted military station in Westerfields, that vast uninhabited territory between Glaston and Edyll, both kingdoms cities.
Markus and Shellayne hated each other, but as the only arcana-keeper interns available, they were stuck closing the Library of All Knowledge.
Got any first lines to share?
I thought it might be fun to make them run across each other small, but I didn’t want them to recognize each other later, so new bit of canon: the girl was homeschooled. :grins:
She has never been beautiful. Ashen has never experienced being beautiful—until tonight.
A meme I did once a long time ago from the incomparable xenokattz:
Give me
a) a fandom/original world
b) a character/pairing
Then add any (or all) of the following
1) an image
2) a quote (but not in the same fandom)
3) Your battle cry
4) a recipe
First 10 prompts will get a strict drabble commentfic; that is, a 100 words very brief fic. No promises after 10 although I'll do my bestest.
