(no subject)

[the_rck]

Day 1

In your own space, post a rec for at least three fanworks that you have created. It can be your favorite fanworks that you've created, or fanworks you feel no one ever saw, or fanworks you say would define you as a creator. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

This is hard. I'm attached to most of my stories, all for different reasons. I'm picking three that stand out in my memory. They're not necessarily my best (or my worst) or my most popular. They're all things that I had fun writing, though, and things that made me think. I've linked to these only on AO3. If you're interested in links to my website or to fanfiction.net, let me know, and I'll provide them.

Title: Faded Colors
Fandom: Chronicles of Narnia
Rating: T
Warnings: Mentions of Jadis having sex with a slave when she's fourteen.
Blurb: Moments from Jadis' life, both before and after the death of Charn.

I wrote this one without having a challenge to write to. I'm not sure where it came from. I found Jadis fascinating and complex once I started to explore where she came from, and I felt more than a little sorry for her. She'd be appalled that anybody would think she needed pity, of course. I tried, too, to think of how the Jadis from The Magician's Nephew could become the White Witch of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Title: Rustication
Fandom: Ranma 1/2
Rating: G
Blurb: Ukyou and Mousse are trapped together with no prospect of a way home.

I wrote this for an exchange that never really went anywhere (I think there were only three or four stories posted out of the expected fifteen to twenty). Getting the characterization right was a real challenge because Mousse, in particular, doesn't really have a personality in the manga (I didn't have access to the anime while I was writing, so I can't speak to that); he has a schtick. For both characters, I had to dig down and think about reasons why they might act the way they do in canon and about how being isolated from the places and people they're used to might change their interactions. I like to think I made the romance plausible.

Title: Changeling
Fandom: Chronicles of Narnia/The Secret Garden
Rating: G
Blurb: Dickon was once a prince in Narnia. Now, he tries not to think about it too much.

This is the first work I ever posted at AO3. It wasn't the first thing I ever wrote, not by a long shot, but it was the first thing I posted there. I wrote "Changeling" for a friend who commented that she thought that Narnia and Dickon went together. Finding out how those two pieces fit together was a joy.

Day 2

In your own space, create a list of at least three fannish things you'd love to receive, something you've wanted but were afraid to ask for - a fannish wish-list of sorts. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your wish-list if you feel comfortable doing so. Maybe someone will grant a wish. Check out other people's posts. Maybe you will grant a wish. If any wishes are granted, we'd love it if you link them to this post.

The Pretender. I think Jarod has a dark side. It doesn't come out strongly in canon because he's the hero, but there are hints of it, here and there. I'm curious as to what would happen if he really let himself go. Any rating. Gen, het, m/m, whatever.

Rurouni Kenshin/Secret Adventures of Jules Verne - I would love to see Hiko meet Rebecca. I think they'd be interesting together. Any rating.

Podfic. Nobody's ever expressed interest in making podfic of any of my stories, and I think it would be really neat if somebody did.

Remix. I enjoy seeing what people come up with when they remix my stories. I'd be especially curious to see what someone could come up with in one of the smaller fandoms. Weiss Kreuz and The Chronicles of Narnia both qualify for regular Remix, and I've had those remixed before. I wouldn't object to another remix in one of those fandoms, but I'd absolutely love something in another fandom.

Time travel fic. I love, love, love time travel fic. I've read a lot of not very good stories to the bitter end simply because they centered on time travel. I particularly like fix it stories where the person traveling in time is trying to change history somehow, but other kinds of time travel fics are wonderful, too. I've started a Weiss Kreuz time travel fic, but I only managed a few paragraphs. I have no idea if I'll ever get back to it. Any fandom. Any rating.

Recs for long, plotty, gen fics. I tend to prefer fandoms with some science fiction and/or fantasy elements, but I'm willing to try just about anything, even fandoms I know nothing about.

Day 3

In your own space, talk about your creative process - from what inspires you to what motivates you to how you manage to break through blocks. Does your process change depending on the type of creating you're doing? Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I do most of my fic writing for exchanges. (And all of my fanworks are fics.) When I do an exchange, I have a specific assignment to write to-- a fandom and, sometimes, characters that my recipient wants. I may or may not have more to go on than that. Some people give specific prompts, either story ideas or inspirational quotations. Some people list their likes and dislikes. When I write, I want to maximize my use of things my recipient likes and completely exclude the things they dislike. That gives me some parameters within which to start thinking.

When I'm writing for an exchange, I usually start by reviewing the canon (I skip this step if I'm writing Weiss Kreuz or The Chronicles of Narnia. For those, canon review tends to come later in the process). Then I spend anywhere from a day to a week just thinking about possibilities. Out of all that thought, I tend to get a sense of the movement of the story or of what's emotionally important to it and, usually, a starting sentence or situation.

That's when I start actually writing. I often have false starts and have to go back to the beginning again. For this year's Yuletide, I didn't have a good starting point or a feel for what should happen, so I free associated for about a thousand words about what my point of view character might be thinking and feeling at the point in time when I expected to set the story. I discarded most of that, but a few sentences made it through to the final draft. It did give me enough to know that Howard had to be talking to someone, and I very quickly narrowed down who to Torquil as no one else would do.

While I'm mulling things over and at certain points during the writing, it's helpful for me to talk to someone. It helps me clarify my thinking and focus on what matters. Sometimes, it helps me clear up relatively trivial details that have bogged me down. Yuletide is difficult that way because, most of the time, none of the people I usually talk to know the fandom I'm working in.

If I'm not writing for an exchange, I often have trouble getting myself to start writing. I seem to work best with externally imposed deadlines. That's one reason I'd like to find a challenge that would help me write more Rheotaxis-- Just saying I'm going to do it doesn't seem to work.

Still, when not writing for an exchange, my process is similar except for the part about having clear starting parameters. I tend to have a vague idea of a moment that I want to see happen or of a plot question that could go somewhere very interesting. Sometimes, it's a character I want to know more about or a pairing that seems implausible enough to be a real challenge.

Very often, my rough draft and my final draft are very much alike. I'm not so good at finding the points where the story needs to be elaborated or trimmed on my own, and I haven't had much luck finding a beta reader (given how much I bounce from fandom to fandom) who is able to give me the sort of help I need. I can almost always find someone to help with SPaG, but that's not where I need the most help. I get frustrated with a lot of my stories because I know that they could be a lot better if I were more skilled at seeing the rough spots or at seeing the points where a little extra push makes what's happening have more impact.