The Plans

[scribblemyname]

So I break radio silence without much to show for it yet, but care not because accountability being what it is, I work better with a little. That said, the plans:

1. Write trovia a birthday fic (which I'm still wracking my brains over because I want to write something she'll like and I've clearly not gifted her in a while because I'm still wracking my brains over it)
2. Wrap my head around this thing I'm trying to do with Lisea and Malina (it's a big thing) and turn out something awesome by end of October because...
3. I'm doing NanoWrimo. I've tried this four years now (not in a row) and I want to finally win.
4. Then after that, Yuletide. Still waffling on my last two noms. If they let us nominate 4 fandoms, it'd be a wee easier, but alas! It's three.

Love y'all. See you soon.

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Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[alphaflyer.livejournal.com]

Don't forget to plan for the be_compromised Secret Santa ... :-)

I've never done NaNoWriMo -- I know a lot of my friends look at it as an exercise in discipline and a challenge to complete something, but for me personally, the idea of producing words for the sake of speed and quantity rather turns me off. Plus, when writing turns to stress, it stops being fun and the creativity just evaporates for me. But as I said, that's just me...

Good luck with all your endeavours! I hope you succeed. :-)

[scribblemyname]

Thanks! I've learned I write best to prompts and gifts and exchanges and externally mandated deadlines. I wish the opposite were true.

I hadn't thought about the Secret Santa. (still haven't forgotten my WIPs left from promptathon) Hm...

And oh my goodness, someone actually reads this journal anymore. I need to start updating it again and with something interesting. :groans:

Thank you again for the good luck! I'll take it.

[alphaflyer.livejournal.com]

:-)

Well, I don't exactly run and seek out people's LJs, but your entry showed up in my friends' feed and I DO check that once a day or so! :-)

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

What are you nominating for Yuletide? What do you want to nominate that you don't have room for? I don't have anything particular I want to nominate, so I can fill in for you there if you want.

[scribblemyname]

I'm currently nominating

Doppelganger series - Marie Brennan

and can't decide between

Jahir and Vasiht'h books - M.C.A. Hogarth
Razor Sharp (short movie)
"The Lesson" (poem) - Billy Collins

for my other two. YOU, btw, are such a sweetie.

Must do something nice for you when you least expect it. :cheeky grin:

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

After you do your nominations, let me know what you've decided on and which one you want me to nominate. I only have one thing I really want to nominate, and I'm sure I won't be the only one. So I'll save that one for adding characters.

[scribblemyname]

The Lesson with History as a character please? I did the other ones.

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

I'll do that. It's a great poem. I'll add the Narrator as a character too, because it seems the thing to do.

[scribblemyname]

Duh! :smacks forehead: And thank you!

[thecatisacritic.livejournal.com]

Well, assuming that I can get myself writing again, I will be your writing buddy again for Nanowrimo in November.

I'd help throw prompts your way to aid with getting you an idea for your number one, but I doubt I'd help, and I haven't been inspired myself, so...

Is there anything with Malina I could help answer to aid with the thing you're doing with her and Lisea?

[scribblemyname]

Thanks! We'll be in the boat together. My family, btw, just found out how you gave your Scrivener code to me and all thought you were the sweetest and sent lovely thoughts your way, so you'll know.

Thanks. I just really needed to remember what she liked besides women being awesome, but I think it boils down to women being awesome (plus a raft of social issues I'm preparing myself to tackle; been rereading her journal today), so I've got some ideas. I think she'll like Vardin, so I get an excuse to giftfic my favorite world that my best prompter doesn't like, so it works.

Not yet. I'm still osmosing the entire book again in between real life and figuring out what fires I left burning while out of it that might need some dousing now, but even you were mentioning how far we got from their relationship and how much you liked when Lisea's strength showed through, and those were the things I was starting to pick up again when we ended up shelving the book temporarily, so those are the things I'd like to get back to. I want to really create the throughline shaping up in my head, so there's that.

I may come throwing spaghetti at your wall to see what sticks, but I'm not quite to that phase yet.

[thecatisacritic.livejournal.com]

Assuming we reach the dock, yes, in the boat together.

I think I've done other nicer things. It's not like I had a use for the code myself, already having the program. Care package was me trying to be nice. That took effort. The code, not so much.

Ah. Yeah, if she would like Vardin, I'm probably not any help in prompting for that. I wasn't very good at it before Rhiannon's choice ruined the story world for me.

Yeah, we did get rather far from what we started the story out to be. Lisea and Malina's friendship is kind of a footnote at this point, and they patched over their "fight" so easily it felt almost like it hadn't happened.

As far as Lisea's strength goes... I keep going back to how there's supposed to be something between her and Alik in the end, and I can't see it. Alik keeps Malina and Enadar from knowing the worst and the darkness, but he also has zero tolerance for weakness, and she does seem at times... weak. I was having a hard time finding any way of introducing even a hint of it in the AU, too.

That's fine. I'm not really... I haven't been able to write much of anything lately, and rereading has just convinced me that my previous stuff was crap, so I'm not really in a good state to evaluate anything. I even don't want to watch Divergent now that I got it from the library because I'm almost certain to hate it even if it was well done just because of this lovely mood I'm in.

[scribblemyname]

Well, they don't know everything you do, but wanted to pass along the love. It meant a lot to me.

Lisea's not weak, just shy and quiet and gets nervous around Alik, but yeah. I'm not going to have a hard time writing that even if he interprets it however he does and I don't mind if they have something or don't at the end. Vred and Malina though, I ship hard, hard, hard.

[thecatisacritic.livejournal.com]

I guess it just didn't feel like much, giving the code. I didn't have to do anything I wasn't already doing to get it, and I am glad I was able to give you it. I just... feel like it should have been something more, something I had to do something for, but writing was easy for me then and Nano's goal was something I was going to hit regardless because I used to be writing a book a month or so anyway.

I don't know. I guess I'm being way too... something about it. I just don't feel like I deserve any real recognition from your family for giving the code. :/

What I go back to with Alik is that anyone in a relationship would have to be willing/able to challenge him. They'd have to be similar to Malina in some respects, because he needs that mix of care/not willing to put up with his crap/willing to fight him on what matters. He's already convinced himself that he's not going to marry, he sees the worst in most people, and he doesn't like himself most of the time. Anyone interested in him would have to overcome all that to get him to see the possibility of a relationship, and so far, Lisea's been very non-confrontational. He might see it as weakness, and he'd probably not see any possibility there because quiet and understated isn't enough when he can't silence his own metaphorical demons. Malina helps do that, that's why she's calm to his storm. The way that Alik makes Lisea nervous would bother him, pushing the calm he seeks even further from him.

I love the dynamics between Vred and Malina. Them it is easy to see and love and ship. They have to end up together. I couldn't help working that into the AU as much as I could. The part where he makes her so happy just by eating the meal she made and it floors him... I enjoyed doing that part, but I enjoy most everything that involves those two. :)

[scribblemyname]

Until I actually get more than a couple of halfway Lisea's an afterthought scenes with them, I'm not worried about it. We'll see what shapes up or doesn't in the actual story coming together. She has done some confronting/decision making early on before we got sidetracked and I'm trying to get back to her in the first place and how she deals with her own issues with self and family and yeah, her being nervous around a guy because she's attracted to him isn't a quality that attracts him, but I'm enjoying the little moments where he is attracted where she surprises him and know that there are bigger surprises coming, so yeah. Not worried.

[thecatisacritic.livejournal.com]

I guess I just found myself without any real angle into it with the AU ideas I've had/written. Then I wonder why it isn't easier if they are supposed to be together. They just don't seem to fit most of the time. Vred and Malina fit. Enadar and Felise fit.

Alik and Lisea... feels forced.

[scribblemyname]

Okay. I can see that.

But the moments that did occur happened without either of us thinking about it, trying to build that arc, or planning it, so I'm firmly in the boat of if it happens, it happens; if it doesn't, it doesn't. I don't feel a need to ship everyone, resolve a relationship, or give a relationship that wanted to happen or even got off the ground a happy ending. I'll let the characters be themselves and play out and see where that goes. If we don't like it, we can always edit it later, but yeah. The possible Lisea/Alik ship never struck me one way or the other and it's not a priority in my writing. I'm focusing on Lisea + Malina.

[thecatisacritic.livejournal.com]

I don't think I'm that... indifferent to it. I like seeing the people I write about have a romance that works out, too. Maybe because that's as close as I'll ever get to having it myself, maybe not, but I like my stories to resolve the romances, too. Some I think might not work out, but if I'm going to spend the time reading/writing about someone's romance, I want it to end well. I'm not someone who enjoys seeing it come apart. I don't care if that's real. I have enough real. I want the happy.

That said, I don't want it when it feels fake and forced, and I don't like it when characters do things out of character for the sake of the romance, either.

That's probably why Alik and Lisea bothers me. It doesn't feel natural.

Yet I love Alik as a character and want him to get everything in the end. He keeps seeming more like someone who loses, though, and dies saving everyone else. *sigh*

[scribblemyname]

I don't tolerate my main characters dying in the end. So if it happens in first draft, then we'll strengthen/tweak for believability on edit. If it doesn't, we'll edit out any sign of it. Alik lives. We both end up happy.

[thecatisacritic.livejournal.com]

It's not that I want Alik to die. He just keeps fighting me about the whole thing. Especially in the AU. He kind of broke me there.

Yeah. I guess we better just see how this draft goes.