so_out_of_ideas (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
so_out_of_ideas) wrote2011-06-29 10:34 am
so_out_of_ideas) wrote2011-06-29 10:34 am
Entry tags:
Personal-ish update
Wow, two updates in the same year. *proud of self* *headdesk*
I don't have a lot of news to tell on the personal front. Things are still the same. I take it day by day and have kind of stopped trying to plan too far in advance.
In regard to my writing and fandom activities, there are hints of a light-like thing at the end of a very long, bumpy, dark tunnel. A little over a year ago, a series of events started to unfold involving some of the closest friends I had left, and it ultimately led to the dissolution of one original project that I had invested a great deal of myself and my time into. It also made Bloodkin--the project that is nearest and dearest to me of everything I have, even more so than the One Path AU verse--a tangled, nearly-unworkable disaster by the time things were all said and done. How and why that's possible is a long story. It doesn't really need to be told here.
To those of you who have been reading Bloodkin on and off for the past several years, thank you again. Don't worry. The characters are all right, and most of what you've read so far is still the same. I usually stop posting when I realize there is a major problem so that I don't end up confusing people by telling them that what they've read so far didn't happen. The parts I post are the parts that, generally speaking, are not going to change. I make sure of that before my readers see them. I have too much respect for you guys to do it another way. I appreciate all of you and your patience. (Liam is fine too, even though I haven't posted his story, so![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
polgarawolf can relax. He's actually more than fine, he's the lynch-pin that's kept the whole rest of the mess from falling completely to ruin.) There's more under the cut for anyone who wants to read it.
Basically, what I ended up having was a massive black hole in the middle of the series. It had been envisioned/designed so that events from one book built into and created a natural momentum for the events in the next, so that the characters' needs could be met and their story arcs carried out seamlessly (or close to seamlessly--witness how that worked in One Path.) There were people/things I counted on in the real world who made it possible and suddenly they weren't there. My characters had significant, life-defining relationships that only worked with the help of other writers, and most of those weren't there either. I'd chalk it up to "lessons learned" if I could, but really, what's the alternative to sharing my work with other writers? Locking myself in a closet and never speaking to anyone about the things that mean the most to me? Writing is what I am. I need people in my life who get that and understand what it means. I guess I just need to be more careful about who I rely on, but I can't seem to learn that lesson either, and I'm almost 35 years old. I'll have to keep on muddling the best I can.
Anyway. Things kind of imploded in February. They were cracking before that, but I kept hoping it would work out and was pushing forward with Liam's story because I knew that part was fine. By March, I realized that the main overarching event sequences that I'd been building the middle of the series around were not going to work and didn't fit anymore. That left me with a bunch of characters whose lives and personal arcs were dangling all over the place. This week, I think I have come up with a workable plot again. (Thanks,stargatefangurl as usual.) There's still a lot of work I need to do before I can write/post stuff again, but it's a start, and I'm relieved. I'm still sad/disappointed on a personal level, but I feel good about the story again, and that's the most important thing.
Gemini Tide is gone. I'm pretty devastated about that, but this month I've hit the limit. I don't have anything left to try. There aren't many people here familiar with that story. I never posted what I had because it was in pieces, but I know thataruna7 remembers it. ;) It started as a crossover fanfic and then just gained a life of its own and worked better as an original piece.
The twins' story a great deal to me, and I spent a year just working on the development of characters and universe before I even got to the writing. The twins still exist. The kids--David, Eric, and Katie-- are still there too. I'm going to keep the universe and try to write something else there, probably centering on David as an adult, because he's the only one left that I can write about. A lot of the secondary characters are being changed/merged/amalgamated with new things I tried that half-worked, but the only way I can get it to make sense anymore without being impossibly sad is as a backstory for David. (Yes, I know, everything I write is sad/depressing, but there's a limit. "Depressing" and "Hopeless" are different things to me.) I don't have much a plot yet, but those in the know will be amused (excited?) to hear that Gabriel Fayne's second-oldest daughter, TA, will be expanding her multi-universal activities to include a job as "assistant to the mad scientist". TA is a relatively new character who is born in the former "hole" period, so no, you haven't missed or forgotten her existence if you've read Bloodkin stuff before.
I'm thinking of also writing a story about Joel and Kara, minor characters from the twins' story who had a lot of potential and could carry their own story. I really just like GT-verse and it lets me do things that I've wanted to explore for a long time. A Joel/Kara story would most likely be a companion to David's story but not directly related. That doesn't have a plot either, though, and it's not a big priority at the moment.
I've got some other original stories that I keep working on in the downtime when I'm not trying to fix those verses, but that's what I've been spending the majority of my time with since I stopped posting here regularly.
Star Wars
My Star Wars AUs keep getting written in little spurts here and there. I've made a lot of statements about what I want to do with them and hinted about future projects on![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
shipper_asylum. I probably shouldn't have started posting the story about Luke and little Ani, but I thought I was going to have more time to work on fanfic when I started it. It's not going anywhere. The good thing about One Path is that Aruna and I have spent so much time on the storylines that it's fairly easy to pick it up again. Both of us are dealing with other stuff right now, so I won't make statements about when and where, but whenever I have the time and energy to devote to fanfiction again, Ani and Luke will get the priority. (Unless I get eaten by a random muse...) Land and Sky continues too. I have 21 finished chapters of Places Brothers Go and I plan to post some more in the fall.
Stargate
All I can say is what I've said before. I don't abandon stories after I start posting them. RH, Taking The Long Way, Games, and Life After Death, are all on the back burner, but never lost or far from me. RH was my first big AU, and Stargate will always hold a special meaning in my life. I have had an incredibly hard time writing Stargate stuff since SG-1 ended and SGA was all screwed up (sorry to those of you who like the post-Weir SGA stuff. I don't.) It makes me sad. Fandom has to be enjoyable to me or I don't want to do it.
Breaking Up
Still a fandom of one, but the muse grabs me every so often. I may or may not post "Getting (It) Together", but I'll write it one way or another, even if I'm the only one who reads. LOL.
Most of my vids are based on my stories lately, but I have a handful of actual fanworks that I've finished this year. This week I've also done some icons that I'm happy with for the first time in about a year and a half. This is the official warning for the upcoming icon-spam..
In general fandom-related news, I'm going to be around more often over the next month or two and would like to start my Fandombouquet blog back up again, but that won't be until the work on Bloodkin and my other stories is more together. I'm not going to go through a year of f-list posts, so if there's something you'd like me to see that I haven't, send me a link.
Oh, last thing. I don't have a paid account on LJ anymore. I realized for the first time that the ads have been messing up the layout on my graphics comm. I'm sorry about that. (Apparently most of the watchers/members have paid accounts or something?) I'm working on getting it fixed without having to change that layout because it feels sort of iconic to me now, no pun intended.
I don't have a lot of news to tell on the personal front. Things are still the same. I take it day by day and have kind of stopped trying to plan too far in advance.
In regard to my writing and fandom activities, there are hints of a light-like thing at the end of a very long, bumpy, dark tunnel. A little over a year ago, a series of events started to unfold involving some of the closest friends I had left, and it ultimately led to the dissolution of one original project that I had invested a great deal of myself and my time into. It also made Bloodkin--the project that is nearest and dearest to me of everything I have, even more so than the One Path AU verse--a tangled, nearly-unworkable disaster by the time things were all said and done. How and why that's possible is a long story. It doesn't really need to be told here.
To those of you who have been reading Bloodkin on and off for the past several years, thank you again. Don't worry. The characters are all right, and most of what you've read so far is still the same. I usually stop posting when I realize there is a major problem so that I don't end up confusing people by telling them that what they've read so far didn't happen. The parts I post are the parts that, generally speaking, are not going to change. I make sure of that before my readers see them. I have too much respect for you guys to do it another way. I appreciate all of you and your patience. (Liam is fine too, even though I haven't posted his story, so
polgarawolf can relax. He's actually more than fine, he's the lynch-pin that's kept the whole rest of the mess from falling completely to ruin.) There's more under the cut for anyone who wants to read it.Basically, what I ended up having was a massive black hole in the middle of the series. It had been envisioned/designed so that events from one book built into and created a natural momentum for the events in the next, so that the characters' needs could be met and their story arcs carried out seamlessly (or close to seamlessly--witness how that worked in One Path.) There were people/things I counted on in the real world who made it possible and suddenly they weren't there. My characters had significant, life-defining relationships that only worked with the help of other writers, and most of those weren't there either. I'd chalk it up to "lessons learned" if I could, but really, what's the alternative to sharing my work with other writers? Locking myself in a closet and never speaking to anyone about the things that mean the most to me? Writing is what I am. I need people in my life who get that and understand what it means. I guess I just need to be more careful about who I rely on, but I can't seem to learn that lesson either, and I'm almost 35 years old. I'll have to keep on muddling the best I can.
Anyway. Things kind of imploded in February. They were cracking before that, but I kept hoping it would work out and was pushing forward with Liam's story because I knew that part was fine. By March, I realized that the main overarching event sequences that I'd been building the middle of the series around were not going to work and didn't fit anymore. That left me with a bunch of characters whose lives and personal arcs were dangling all over the place. This week, I think I have come up with a workable plot again. (Thanks,
stargatefangurl as usual.) There's still a lot of work I need to do before I can write/post stuff again, but it's a start, and I'm relieved. I'm still sad/disappointed on a personal level, but I feel good about the story again, and that's the most important thing.Gemini Tide is gone. I'm pretty devastated about that, but this month I've hit the limit. I don't have anything left to try. There aren't many people here familiar with that story. I never posted what I had because it was in pieces, but I know that
aruna7 remembers it. ;) It started as a crossover fanfic and then just gained a life of its own and worked better as an original piece.The twins' story a great deal to me, and I spent a year just working on the development of characters and universe before I even got to the writing. The twins still exist. The kids--David, Eric, and Katie-- are still there too. I'm going to keep the universe and try to write something else there, probably centering on David as an adult, because he's the only one left that I can write about. A lot of the secondary characters are being changed/merged/amalgamated with new things I tried that half-worked, but the only way I can get it to make sense anymore without being impossibly sad is as a backstory for David. (Yes, I know, everything I write is sad/depressing, but there's a limit. "Depressing" and "Hopeless" are different things to me.) I don't have much a plot yet, but those in the know will be amused (excited?) to hear that Gabriel Fayne's second-oldest daughter, TA, will be expanding her multi-universal activities to include a job as "assistant to the mad scientist". TA is a relatively new character who is born in the former "hole" period, so no, you haven't missed or forgotten her existence if you've read Bloodkin stuff before.
I'm thinking of also writing a story about Joel and Kara, minor characters from the twins' story who had a lot of potential and could carry their own story. I really just like GT-verse and it lets me do things that I've wanted to explore for a long time. A Joel/Kara story would most likely be a companion to David's story but not directly related. That doesn't have a plot either, though, and it's not a big priority at the moment.
I've got some other original stories that I keep working on in the downtime when I'm not trying to fix those verses, but that's what I've been spending the majority of my time with since I stopped posting here regularly.
Star Wars
My Star Wars AUs keep getting written in little spurts here and there. I've made a lot of statements about what I want to do with them and hinted about future projects on
shipper_asylum. I probably shouldn't have started posting the story about Luke and little Ani, but I thought I was going to have more time to work on fanfic when I started it. It's not going anywhere. The good thing about One Path is that Aruna and I have spent so much time on the storylines that it's fairly easy to pick it up again. Both of us are dealing with other stuff right now, so I won't make statements about when and where, but whenever I have the time and energy to devote to fanfiction again, Ani and Luke will get the priority. (Unless I get eaten by a random muse...) Land and Sky continues too. I have 21 finished chapters of Places Brothers Go and I plan to post some more in the fall. Stargate
All I can say is what I've said before. I don't abandon stories after I start posting them. RH, Taking The Long Way, Games, and Life After Death, are all on the back burner, but never lost or far from me. RH was my first big AU, and Stargate will always hold a special meaning in my life. I have had an incredibly hard time writing Stargate stuff since SG-1 ended and SGA was all screwed up (sorry to those of you who like the post-Weir SGA stuff. I don't.) It makes me sad. Fandom has to be enjoyable to me or I don't want to do it.
Breaking Up
Still a fandom of one, but the muse grabs me every so often. I may or may not post "Getting (It) Together", but I'll write it one way or another, even if I'm the only one who reads. LOL.
Most of my vids are based on my stories lately, but I have a handful of actual fanworks that I've finished this year. This week I've also done some icons that I'm happy with for the first time in about a year and a half. This is the official warning for the upcoming icon-spam..
In general fandom-related news, I'm going to be around more often over the next month or two and would like to start my Fandombouquet blog back up again, but that won't be until the work on Bloodkin and my other stories is more together. I'm not going to go through a year of f-list posts, so if there's something you'd like me to see that I haven't, send me a link.
Oh, last thing. I don't have a paid account on LJ anymore. I realized for the first time that the ads have been messing up the layout on my graphics comm. I'm sorry about that. (Apparently most of the watchers/members have paid accounts or something?) I'm working on getting it fixed without having to change that layout because it feels sort of iconic to me now, no pun intended.