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Well, I certainly hope that was useful for...someone. It's been a work in progress for over a year, although god knows it's only been sporadically worked on here and there. I was considering (and still am considering?) going to Scintillation of Scions this year and possibly shopping this stupid thing around. I don't know if I will though. Vacation days feel precious at the moment and it's coming up fast.
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I've been writing this fusion fic of 13 Going on 30 for years. The earliest draft of this that I can find is from March 2, 2015. I work on it in pieces here and there, on my phone, in Google Docs, then Scrivener: March-May 2015 were big months, then September 2015, then January 2016, then July-August 2016. Now April-May 2017.

So. That is all to say that I was thinking of Westworld hosts, and I thought if this fic were a Westworld-esque robo-cyborg-host, I would be constructing it like this:
  • immense detail on the face, which is where the eyes generally start when you look at someone. If I spent the same amount of time tweaking the first 5k of this fic as I have on zero drafting the rest of the story, I'd probably have nearly twice as much written.
  • tiny solid pieces of internal organs, but nothing connected to one another; everything just jammed into the torso ungracefully. Thankfully, Scrivener lets me keep the pieces separated and summarized and movable.
  • half a leg. Or possibly two legs but separated from the torso. The fic is not moving anywhere, but it has the vague notion that it will at some future point in time.
(I never said this almost-blog would be interesting.)

Edited to add a quick snippet under the cut if anyone wants a few more minutes in 1989.

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This is the stupid fic I've been talking about for ages and how it opens. In theory.

I'm not sure where else to dump this many words -- nearly 2k out of about 23k written and this is literally less than half of what I've blocked off as the first chapter. I've tweaked this so many times, it's kind of sickening. Considering more still. My latest obsessive rewrite catastrophe-of-my-own-making is the crazy internal dialog Sherlock falls into between the time they exit the dorm and they hit the sidewalk. It's driving me nuts, so I'm just going to post this WIP here and think about it later. I need to zero draft out the rest of the story, not nth draft out the opening. Sigh.

-

April 1989


“John, did you know that a derivative of the monkshood plant is virtually undetectable as a toxin?” Sherlock asked, not looking up from his book. “I wonder if…hmm,” he murmured, thoughts trailing ahead. He was contemplating their window’s northern exposure.


Well, there was only one way to scientifically test that theory. Or any theory really. Sherlock added flower box to his mental shopping list and turned the page, fingers gliding over the long Latin names and detailed practical applications. Cosmetic, anaesthetic, accidental toxicity of course, and murders. His favourite.


Library books that John brought home were usually rudimentary at best, but this last one was a genuine medical reference. A pathology graduate student’s textbook in a sea of middle-grade rubbish. In other words, a library misorder if ever there was one. Sherlock was tempted to keep it and simply pay the fine.


“Sherlock.”


“Mm,” he answered.


Or pay John back for the fine, since it was checked out under his name. Technically.


Sherlock.”


“Mm.”


“Sherlock, I’ve been asking you for five bloody minutes if you want to get dinner. I know toxins are very important to you right now, but I’m bloody starving, yeah? Can you--” John scrubbed a hand over his face; Sherlock could hear it from the way his breathing muffled and unmuffled. Sherlock marked the page number. “I happened to spend my lunch period at the library—no idea why—loitering suspiciously around the publications again and ta very much but I’m a growing boy, let’s go.” John said it practically in a single breath.


Sherlock looked up, blinking. He glanced at the alarm clock, which glowed 7:15 in low cadmium red. He’d hardly looked up from the book since he got back from class, which was—oh. Hours ago, at this point. That explained his rather stiff neck at least. And the quality of light being darker now, grey and soft around John’s usual brightness.


Turning his attentions back to John, he surveyed the signs of recent exertion and even more recent steam on John’s skin. This morning’s clothes had carelessly been thrown back on after the very necessary shower that always followed afternoon rugby practice. Sherlock’s eyes lingered on John’s dirty blond locks, dark and curling at his temples where it clung to his skin. Still wet.


Sherlock snapped shut the book.
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Originally posted to the TPP squee mailing list. This is the long rambly thing I wrote that convinced me I should keep my inanity off of email lists and should just bury myself in livejournal again. It's basically longform nightblogging. I'm basically longform nightblogging.
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About six weeks ago, I signed up with the springlock exchange. Never participated in an exchange before, but man, I did most of it right. I signed up early and had something like 5 weeks of prep time. Which I used! Kind of. I mean, I did in fact storyboard the
hell out of a story. (Exhibit A from 4 weeks ago) I originally was gonna attempt to do it with art and not fic. I'm no reapersun, but I've never embarked on that sort of multipanel storytelling before, so it was hard.

But I scrapped it after rereading the prompt and realizing my exchange person probably wanted more fluff than that. And my thing was quite hurt/comfort. Original prompt, for the record: (optionally humorous) fluff? My heart hurts for Pining!Sherlock right now, so maybe something comfort-related?

And then I was lost. Prompt asks for fluff and humor, but I absolutely didn't know how to separate comfort from angst.Really didn't know how to art that at all, so I decided to try fic. And my god...I'm not sure if it was easier or not. These last few days were absolute hair-pulling, twitter-meltdown madness. (I apologize to everyone who was there for it.) I didn't have writer's block, so the words would come...it's just that I'd have to sit and rewrite them because they were too angsty. Fluff isn't my forte or default setting. By the time deadline rolled around, the 29th, the 30th, I had such issues with what I wrote. (Excerpt of what I wrote my last minute beta is screencapped here as exhibit B)

But I got it in under the deadline. Somehow. Barely. I even drew a companion piece while my beta was writing me back, and for something with zero reference and done in under three hours, I'm pretty proud of it (the art bit).
And then I published the fic on ao3 and waited for the stress to die down. Which it did...slowly. I was wound up over this fic. Maybe it was the deadline?

And comments started coming in. Some of them solicited -- through twitter, me melting down, asking what people thought of my terrible five thousand words of brain splat. Some nice ones from my beta actually. And then I posted to ao3, and I've had some of the nicest comments I've ever had on my fics -- and I realized...I don't get comments on fluff (because I don't write it). I get comments on porn (because I write it).

So it's super nice to get superlative comments on porn, and a couple recent ones I have just wanted to up and marry, but...fluff comments are different. I'm feeling weirdly touched and I don't even know how to handle it.

So...god, maybe it's inversely proportional to how low I was feeling in the leadup to forcing that fic out the door, but I feel weirdly good now. My person who I wrote it for has apparently enjoyed it at least, and I'm just...really glad. Blood from stone, this fic.
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