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maldoror_chantI've just spent a good chunk of an afternoon archiving a few old fics on AO3 (I'm taking advantage of this to do some spring cleaning of punctuation and the odd redundant phrase, hence the time it takes). Ahhh, AO3, with the neat chapter and series manager system and everything. The idea of manually recreating that in href tags on DW makes my bones tired. I just don't have that much spare time. I noticed other posters just point to stuff in AO3. Is that what most people do? Maybe I can keep DW as a journal for my musings and for posting new Outlands chapters and other new stuff, and archive my ol' stuff on AO3 only. I don't friend lock (if I do, I will reconsider posting here). Thoughts?
With that said, on to the musings.
I should get myself a good team of psychiatrist and a padded room, because I went and started working on Source of All Things again. What the hell's bells am I even thinking? Outlands still needs work. I have the arcs planned out and half written, but as my glass-half-empty dad would immediately point out, that means half of it is still left to write. And Source is a BEAST. A crazy...sexy...big beautiful...beast...(sigh) I don't even know if anyone here has a solitary clue of what I'm talking about, since this pre-dates my LJ days, and Gundam Wing itself is nigh on two decades old, but heh, who needs sleep. Or sanity.
If anyone does remember Source, or decides to go check it out...pleeeeease for the love of sanity and mom's apple pie, don't re-read it at present. It's...well, it was one of my earliest ambitious works, when I still seemed to believe that the standard ff.net output was the height of literary achievement, or at least what fanfic should aspire to. Fortunately I came to my senses. The bones of the fic are good - that's why I can't help but feel myself dragged back into its massive orbit - but the rest...oy vey...I've virtually finished up a first re-write and it was a sheer physical relief to hunt down every repetition of the word 'lithe' and 'slender' and cut them out with a machete. I wish I could extirpate every version of it from the internet...well, to look at the silver lining - something that, unlike my dad, I'm good at - it's concrete evidence of how much I've improved over the years.
Talking of Outlands, I realized, as I started putting stuff together and posting the previous chapters, that I am missing an arc. I don't mean to say I lost a draft or something, but there's a lot of crunchy plot-lines evoked that never come to a close in the current stuff - no, NOT Vibiana. I curse my imagination for coming up with such a plot-a-licious character and then NOT FINDING ANYTHING TO DO WITH HER. Growl. Then again, anything near Leyam tends to get eclipsed, and there's a lot of characters running around this fic already.
The arc that's missing is to wrap up larger plot lines, but it's not even a first draft in my head yet. The problem with this is that, thematically speaking, it should fall between the current penultimate and the final arc.
Outline (arc titles are placeholders):
Sons of the path - already written.
The Parties arc - 2/3 written and already fully plotted out. 5 or 6 chapters, depending on how I decide to cap it.
The Return arc - 1/3 written and fairly well plotted out. Should be 4 chapters or so, the end isn't written yet and might be longer or shorter.
>> Missing arc
Final arc. 1/2 written and well plotted out in my head. Probably 3 or 4 chapters.
Now the reason this missing arc is there - or rather, not there - is that most of my attention has been on the Ryou/Darius stuff, and how that affects the people around them. This really was supposed to be what Outlands was about, aka, created to be fast, furious and fun, and riffing off of some crappy historical PwP yaoi manga. It's not my fault that plot happened! And happened. And happened again. Barely have time for smooches anymore, near the end. Though of course, for me, Ryou and Darius hurling themselves off a cliff in a rupture of space time hand in hand is the ultimate romance. Which says so much about me and my fics now that I think about it.
The missing arc is all about the actual Plot Happened stuff wrapping up. And oddly enough, it's presence or absence doesn't even impact the Final Arc all that much. It'd make it much better, because things would be wrapped up in preparation for the last arc, but it's not absolutely required. Having stuff missing and forcing myself to write it is what made me dry up 12 years ago, so I'm hesitant. My thoughts at the moment are, screw that, just write the bits I like, and if I get inspired and write it later, either stick it in behind the final arc, or shoe-horn it in where it belongs and fix the few things in the FINal Arc that will need to be fixed. It won't make enough difference (I hope) that it would force people to re-read the Final arc again, if I do put it in. It'd be messy, but then again this is o-fic written in my spare time, it's not supposed to be that planned out.
Meh, we'll see. I'll just hope my spare time doesn't disappear again! I already have to juggle one kid, two dogs, a job and a house, if my husband gets so much as a goldfish, I am going to go frickin' mental.
Mal over and out.
With that said, on to the musings.
I should get myself a good team of psychiatrist and a padded room, because I went and started working on Source of All Things again. What the hell's bells am I even thinking? Outlands still needs work. I have the arcs planned out and half written, but as my glass-half-empty dad would immediately point out, that means half of it is still left to write. And Source is a BEAST. A crazy...sexy...big beautiful...beast...(sigh) I don't even know if anyone here has a solitary clue of what I'm talking about, since this pre-dates my LJ days, and Gundam Wing itself is nigh on two decades old, but heh, who needs sleep. Or sanity.
If anyone does remember Source, or decides to go check it out...pleeeeease for the love of sanity and mom's apple pie, don't re-read it at present. It's...well, it was one of my earliest ambitious works, when I still seemed to believe that the standard ff.net output was the height of literary achievement, or at least what fanfic should aspire to. Fortunately I came to my senses. The bones of the fic are good - that's why I can't help but feel myself dragged back into its massive orbit - but the rest...oy vey...I've virtually finished up a first re-write and it was a sheer physical relief to hunt down every repetition of the word 'lithe' and 'slender' and cut them out with a machete. I wish I could extirpate every version of it from the internet...well, to look at the silver lining - something that, unlike my dad, I'm good at - it's concrete evidence of how much I've improved over the years.
Talking of Outlands, I realized, as I started putting stuff together and posting the previous chapters, that I am missing an arc. I don't mean to say I lost a draft or something, but there's a lot of crunchy plot-lines evoked that never come to a close in the current stuff - no, NOT Vibiana. I curse my imagination for coming up with such a plot-a-licious character and then NOT FINDING ANYTHING TO DO WITH HER. Growl. Then again, anything near Leyam tends to get eclipsed, and there's a lot of characters running around this fic already.
The arc that's missing is to wrap up larger plot lines, but it's not even a first draft in my head yet. The problem with this is that, thematically speaking, it should fall between the current penultimate and the final arc.
Outline (arc titles are placeholders):
Sons of the path - already written.
The Parties arc - 2/3 written and already fully plotted out. 5 or 6 chapters, depending on how I decide to cap it.
The Return arc - 1/3 written and fairly well plotted out. Should be 4 chapters or so, the end isn't written yet and might be longer or shorter.
>> Missing arc
Final arc. 1/2 written and well plotted out in my head. Probably 3 or 4 chapters.
Now the reason this missing arc is there - or rather, not there - is that most of my attention has been on the Ryou/Darius stuff, and how that affects the people around them. This really was supposed to be what Outlands was about, aka, created to be fast, furious and fun, and riffing off of some crappy historical PwP yaoi manga. It's not my fault that plot happened! And happened. And happened again. Barely have time for smooches anymore, near the end. Though of course, for me, Ryou and Darius hurling themselves off a cliff in a rupture of space time hand in hand is the ultimate romance. Which says so much about me and my fics now that I think about it.
The missing arc is all about the actual Plot Happened stuff wrapping up. And oddly enough, it's presence or absence doesn't even impact the Final Arc all that much. It'd make it much better, because things would be wrapped up in preparation for the last arc, but it's not absolutely required. Having stuff missing and forcing myself to write it is what made me dry up 12 years ago, so I'm hesitant. My thoughts at the moment are, screw that, just write the bits I like, and if I get inspired and write it later, either stick it in behind the final arc, or shoe-horn it in where it belongs and fix the few things in the FINal Arc that will need to be fixed. It won't make enough difference (I hope) that it would force people to re-read the Final arc again, if I do put it in. It'd be messy, but then again this is o-fic written in my spare time, it's not supposed to be that planned out.
Meh, we'll see. I'll just hope my spare time doesn't disappear again! I already have to juggle one kid, two dogs, a job and a house, if my husband gets so much as a goldfish, I am going to go frickin' mental.
Mal over and out.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-27 03:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-08-27 04:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-08-27 04:57 am (UTC)P.S. Outlands is AMAZING and I love the character work you've been doing with Leyam and Ryou and Darius. The moments with just Leyam and Ryou are amazing, I love the politics of it.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-27 11:33 pm (UTC)I have noticed that some of the best stuff in my fics come from elements that I don't plan for :P
As for the Duo/Wufei, that was what was blocking me initially. I just couldn't hook them up in a believable interesting way. But I have a lot more experience now, and I just managed a couple of days ago to plot out and half write the get-together-chapter. It was THE stumbling block, if I couldn't pump that one out, there was no point picking it up again. It's still rough, but I think it'll give your keyboard keys a workout :D Now for everything else...
no subject
Date: 2017-08-28 04:21 am (UTC)I AM SO LOOKING FORWARD TO THAAAAAAAAAAAT OMG OMG OMG dsakjsdkadfsj yes omg okay okay okay I CAN BREATHE HONEST asdjfdk THAT FIGHT SCENE IN THE LATER BITS THOUGH WHEN THEY GET SO CAUGHT UP IN EACH OTHER um. Imma stop now. Yes. Looking forward to seeing the results of your honed skill!
no subject
Date: 2017-08-27 05:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-08-27 08:47 am (UTC)I was a terrible lurker in my Gundam Wing days, but I loved Freeport and The Arrangement - The Source of All Things I was actually saving, as it was still in progress and I didn't want to run out of new stuff, so I've only read a little of it and would be very much thrilled if you revisited it. I also think I was behind on Outlands, and even if not it's a good chance to find out...
no subject
Date: 2017-08-27 11:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-08-27 01:44 pm (UTC)I stopped double posting on DW/LJ a few years ago and neer had any comment about it.
Also, AO3 has this handy "share" button that I wish I had discovered earlier, as it churns out the html for posting the link to the fic on other websites... so easy!
no subject
Date: 2017-08-27 10:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-08-28 09:56 pm (UTC)Alright, now that tease about Outlands has me even happier. And I don't know why I haven't read Source of All things already, when I re-read the rest from time to time. when I miss GW. Now I kind of can't wait for it!
:)
linking to ao3 works just fine for me too.
Hugs,
no subject
Date: 2017-09-28 02:34 am (UTC)So yeah, there was a LOT of plot in between, but at the end of the day THAT was the best part, because D&R relationship depends highly on their enviroment, the politic plot, Per Gathas, the crazy Egyptians...
At the end I want to know what is gona happen with the "bad" guys. Is Ryou gonna learn with the PerG? Is he goona become some kind of BadAssMotherFucker that just with one though can stop canon balls or whatever?
So, I saw Gundam but I have no idea what that other fic is but if is gonna interumpt Outlands? Please nonononononono
no subject
Date: 2017-09-28 02:51 am (UTC)