Lately, I've been forgetting to log into Livejournal, which is really sort of sad. I just get caught up in other stuff and then suddenly it's ten p.m. and I have to get ready for bed... :/

Anyway, I don't really have news to speak of. I've been working and writing fanfic of late. But I thought I would do a meme since it looked amusing and I'm in the midst of some major procrastination. So here goes:

Post snippets of your Works in Progress on your journal. Gakked from sacae.

( Seth/Eirika multi-chapter – Distance )
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( Seth/Eirika drabbles - Falling )

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( Seth/Eirika multi-chaptered – Untitled )

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( Seth/Eirika – Utitled one-shot )

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( Seth/Eirika oneshot – Invincible )

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( Current project - Artemis/Holly – Untitled )


I finish most of what I start but now and then projects just don't take off. I was surprised how many snippets I had lying around in my FE folder actually.

Note to self:

In future, avoid writing stories centred around intelligence and counterintelligence operations as they tend to lead to brain implosion due to having to answer questions like: Does Opal know that Artemis knows that she knows that she's been monitoring his communications? O_o

I may have rearrange scene order so that the story actually... you know... makes sense.

Ah! I need four-day weekends like this more often. Amidst Easer activities I've been writing. Writing! And it's been going well! I'm so relieved. I'd been in such a rut. It's fanfic mind you. I had planned to work on my rewrite this weekend but instead I worked on an Artemis Fowl fanfic. *geek* But it's been so nice to be writing steadily. Last night I stayed up hours past bedtime to finish the chapter I was working on. I kept going till I ran out of plot. 2300 words. I can't remember the last time I wrote that much in one evening. Months. The story currently stands at just under 6000 words. I imagine it'll be just short of 10K when I finish.

I only wish I had the details of the later scenes worked out. I need to brainstorm. I so want to write more. I so love writing and I've so missed it...

Let's just quote A.M. Klein for good measure:

Then he will remember his travels over that body—
the torso verb, the beautiful face of the noun,
and all those shaped and warm auxiliaries!
A first love it was, the recognition of his own.
Dear limbs adverbial, complexion of adjective,
dimple and dip of conjugation!

sacae reminded me that I should post more and since I'm procrastinating like mad at present, I thought I might as well do so.

RL-wise... Ugh. I was exhausted all week and rather despondent. I feel paralyzed vis a vis my third draft and filled with doubt about my ability to write something publishable. And without my writing... I feel adrift.

So... I've been writing a little fanfic instead. Fire Emblem (and Seth/Eirika), of course, a short fic idea I came up with a year or so ago. It takes place during TSS and is told from the pov of a female halberdier who happens to be rather taken with the Silver Knight. I suppose it suits my mood. The story can't, per se, have a happy ending, at least not for the narrator (for obvious reasons), so the tone is melancholy at times.

I've also been posting Moments, the mostly-fluffly AU piece I spent most of last year writing, and Happiness, the Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness fic I wrote in the fall.

I really should go back to my fic-- I wrote some 2,500 words today-- but I'm not entirely sure how things play out in the last chapter. :P

I've done it! I've finally done it! I've written the sixtieth and final prompt from the 60damnprompts comm I signed up for a while ago. You pick a character and write sixty consecutive days of his/her life. I did Seth/Eirika real-world AU again, a sort of continuation of my other prompt-based story Seven. And I'm done!

I'd posted the first few since the comm asks you to start posting within a week of joining. But now that I've finished them all, I can print them out, edit them, and eventually start posting on ffnet. So far I think I'll be the only person to have actually completed the set. I mean who writes 60 prompts, right? :P

Frighteningly, this means I shall soon have to work on the third draft of my original fiction....

But for now I shall just be happy for having finished this project. 37,641 words! Woot!

Clearly, I don't.

Life:

It was E3 week in the gaming world so there were some busy days the past couple weeks on the site. Meanwhile, the only exciting thing I have to relate is that I moved to a new workstation a week and a half ago and I'm thrilled to announce that I no longer have horrible glaring lights in my eyes all day long. Coincidentally, I seem to be feeling noticeably less fatigued when I get home in the evening. Seems those infernal lights were the main reason I've been more tired than normal for the past eleven months.

Writing:

My rewrite is progressing. I finished chapter twenty last week and chapter twenty-one today. Those two chapters required major changes (I had to add new material and switch the scene order completely) but I think I'm done with the major changes now. I really really home to be done by the end of the month. Which is like 10 days from now but... it's only four chapters and the epilogue so I think I can do it.

Edit: Chapter twenty-two is done as well. I like that chapter. The action-y scenes I wrote all those ages ago are still pretty good, I find.

Fandomness:

I finished Suikoden V last weekend and totally geeked out over the ending. I got the good ending and it was surprisingly shippy and I spent the week obsessing over the Prince and Lyon (they pronounce her name Lee-on, interestingly). They're a bit like Seth/Eirika but with the genders reversed, so it's cool. I also bought some related doujinshi/manga (which is much easier to find than TSS material) and one of them arrived this week. It's very pretty and I'm thrilled to be able to actually read some smalls bits of it. Another ten years and I'll have the fluency of a Japanese pre-schooler! ;P

Oh and I am still working on that Seth/Eirika AU fic of mine, but I've set it aside for the past couple weeks just until I the second draft of my original fic done. I really really want to be done with this draft.

Today, round about 9:15 a.m., while I was at work, minding my own business, Lyon of Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones hijacked my brain. I had to immediately dig out one of my notebooks (always on hand for just such emergencies) and begin jotting down a scene. I continued to scribble at odd moments through the morning and then took my notebook with me to lunch and wrote some more.

I wrote 900 words today at work. And another 600 this evening. It's weird, though, because I didn't plan this story at all. It's not something I've had at the back of my mind or anything: It just hit me out of the blue! I had been thinking about Seth and Eirika dancing and about my dislike for Lyon and how I ought to try to be more understanding... but somehow the two collided this morning and turned into a fic, which, at this rate will be a 3000 or so word piece. Go figure. And I so rarely do oneshots. And I don't even like Lyon! In fact I've hated him since playing through Ephraim's route. Though... after writing this, I feel better about him.

I wish I could finish this tonight, but I'm not sure there's enough time. And I'm so sleeeeepy. Ack!

*goes off to try to write some more*

I think I've just found the FE story with the most reviews ever-- a staggering 920, in a fandom where hardly anyone ever makes it to 100. It's enough to make me wonder if they're for real or not.

It looks cracky and, at first glance, I can spot formatting errors, but it looks reasonably grammatical. It's been running since 2005, has 43 chapters, and was last updated in November.

Was there a memo in the FE community that I missed. I mean nine hundred and twenty! O_o

On an unrelated note I started playing TSS the weekend again on hard mode this time. I could be playing a dozen other games, but there' something comforting about playing a game you love and know like the back of your hand. And I mean... it has Seth and Eirika in it and that makes me happy. ;D

On a final note, I'm seriously thinking of starting another C2 for Seth/Eirika since I don't think the owner of the other ones updates anymore... My only concern is I balk at adding things that are ungrammatical or abandoned.

Well it's official. I'm doing another set of prompts while I work on my rewrite. Here's the table for 60damnprompts:

( 60 days in the life of modern-day AU Eirika... )

Here's the story on ffnet: Moments
(Dec 2008: I hope to soon be caught up so that I'm posting on LJ and ffnet simultaneously again)

So I worked on chapter three of my rewrite and then got desperately bored, which sounds sad, I know, but it was the part where I was actually try to trim down bits of the original writing that did it. The earlier part where I got to do some fresh writing was fun. Anyway, I put some time on it at least and got the first page and a half all done.

So... I had the sudden urge to start prowling prompts communities again. I don't know why exactly but it amuses me to no end. Now it's 12:20 a.m. and I have a cracky idea. I don't know if it'll actually fit the prompts, but I'm deeply amused by the idea. It will be Seth/Eirika of course (because Seth/Eirika is what I write these days, after all) but it'll also have possibly other pairings, lots and lots of of them-- maybe all of them! Mwa-ha-ha! Incidentally, the prompts comm I was looking at was 33_proposals.

As a sidenote there are 21 end-of-game Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones pairings (22 if yo count the Forde/Eirika one, but I don't as it seems platonic-- as opposed to the 21 other possible pairings that speak of marriage and/or offspring).

I'm am typically tired today as it's Monday. My eyes are tired but hopefully once I get my new prescription that'll help.

Anyway fanfiction meme stolen from sacae

( wherein I talk about Seth/Eirika fics and my random Fruits Basket fic )

I'd like to answer several emails and post an actual update, but it'll all have to wait until tomorrow when I'm a little more energetic I hope.

I just put down the final 1600 or so words to finish off my latest Seth/Eirika fic, which rings in at a just over 30 000 words. Woot! It still needs a bit of tweaking but not too much and then I can see about getting it beta'd.

jenniferlupin, you still have time before you head back to school? I can have it to you in a day or two if you've got the time...

I am just so happy to have it done. The last scene was tricky-- heck the whole thing was tricky, though some scenes did come with wonderful ease. But dang, Groundhog Day meets Fire Emblem: I don't know quite how that happened but hopefully the results were good. ;D

WOOT!

So it's nearly midnight and I'm posting because... I took Friday off. Yay. I decided earlier this week. I had some things I wanted to get done and between Japanese class, writes-in, and groceries, there's just not enough time on the weekend. And it's so long between long weekends at this time of year (at least for those of us who a) have Thanksgiving in October, and b) do not get Remembrance Day off) that it seemed like a good idea to take a long weekend.

So yes I've also taken the opportunity to pad my word count a smidgeon. I'm still only a couple of days ahead, but it's nice since it means I can slack off more on weekdays.

For those unaware my story it called "Crack(ed)" and the "plot" (such as is is) revolves around fanfic. 28K+ and this is what I've got so far:

Short version: Bret reads fanfic, organizes spice rack, meets Alison, whereupon they're attacked by zombies, then pirates who are then pwned by ninjas at which point Bret and Alison escape in car and story spirals into songfic.

( Long version: )

So yeah. It's letting me make fun of all sorts of fanfic conventions and I'm rather enjoying that.

9,026 / 50,000 (18.1%)

(Yay Word Meter!)

No that's not a typo. I did manage to go from 1750 words to 9026 today. I am very happy. Very very happy. And stiff. And slightly incoherent. But accomplished certainly. Yay for catching up and far far exceeding the minimum requisite word count. I think I've got enough now to make many of my fellow nanoers insanely jealous, yes? ;D

So I wrote 1500 words of really good fanfic, then 4408 words of crackfic, and then 1500 words of framing narrative. On the upside, I have two main characters and a hint of a plot since the one mains character is distressed at the other one's sudden 9and presumably plot-related) disappearance. I don't know if I've ever written this much all at once before...

Highlights include a run-on sentence 131 words long and the repeated use of the word "kumquat."

Good thing I've got that extra hour tonight to catch up on sleep.

Night, guys.

*staggers to bed*

Heaven help me.

1746 / 50,000 (0.2%)

It's 1700 words of crackfic. I have no plot. I don't expect I will have one. This is just an excuse to write crackfic very quickly so I can get back to my real fic, excerpts of which will be included amidst the crackfic because this year's Nano is about fanfic. Do we sense a theme?

Feel free to point and laugh.

I posted chapter two and now the same guy gave me this rewview:

"Still right more or else I'll send your own seamstress against you." (There's a seamstress in the story who's rather... forceful)

Okay seriously, I know he's trying to be funny, but... really, a "I really like this, please write more soon," would be, you know, nice.

He reminds me of the guy who reviewed my first Seth/Eirika fic by asking after every chapter that I add a "special moment" (and nothing else about liking the fic either). And he didn't even say please. ;P

I should say something about my life. Ummm... Mostly same ol' same ol'. Things have been nice and quiet since I left the site in September and that's just how I like it. Japanese started up again. Sadly I don't much care for our new teacher. It's her first year. Her English is poor and her lessons are just regurgitations of the text book and my notes aren't as good this year, which is sad.

Anyway, I've been writing regularly-- and I mean on weeknights too-- for the past several weeks. I'm feeling bereaved, though, since I finished all seven prompts for 7snogs this week. Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for confirmation of my claim. Heh.

Nano is coming up and I feel really torn this year. First I thought I wouldn’t do it; then I managed to get saffiremoon21 into it so she’s now doing it and the regulars are so enthusiastic, but I just don’t know what I want. I had a neat idea for a new Seth/Eirika fic yesterday and I was really pumped about it. But if I do it for Nano I might well screw it up, or worse end up hating it. And he idea of not writing anything for 12 days sounds hideous all of a sudden. Writing, particularly when it’s going well, is like a high for me. But the more you stop the easier it is to settle into a kind of lethargy, to lose the drive and enthusiasm that makes it so wonderful. In the past Nano was useful because after doing it I was so used to writing on a nightly basis that I was able to carry the habit over into the rest of the year– or part of the year anyway. This year it seems more like it might interrupt the flow I’ve got going.

And then there’s my original story, which I need rewrite. I feel as if Nano might be just another way of avoiding that...

I just don’t know yet...

There is something very wrong with me. It's after midnight and what have I been doing for the past 40 minutes? I've been looking a theme-based fic communities-- you know like 30_kisses? There's this wonderful site called 150_comms that's compiled a lot of them (300+). I've been poking around the ones that catch my eye. Some are really out there. So far my favourite is 25_streetsigns where the prompts are all based on street signage like "Stop," "Yield," "Soft Shoulder" "Men Working," and, of course "Duck Crossing." These are all real street signs too and there are links to pictures of them. 30_dates looks cute as well though I can't imagine writing about thirty dates-- that seems like a lot of date for one couple. 7snogs seems rather more attainable; I'd been looking at that one a few weeks ago. I'm so tempted to do a set of Seth/Eirika ficlets based on one of these comms.

It's been a long time since I've been so obsessed with a couple. I just finished yet another Seth/Eirika fic. Once I get it proofed and posted it'll be my fifth and I still ideas for more. I'm also trying to work on my original fiction, but rewriting scares me; it's important if I ever want to do anything with my writing, but it's paralyzing sometimes when I realize how much needs to be done, how many things I need to change and figure out...

Fanfic can be a welcome distraction; it's easy by and large.

Well, for now I'm going to go stalk more of these amusing theme communities. Because it's only 12:40 a.m. What else would I be doing? ;P

EDIT: More. 24_prompts, 100scents, 10_cliche_fics, 100songs, drabble123, 7secrets, 100_houses, 20_cities, mixpotions

You know when a fic uses the word "sexily" that you’re in trouble.