Unfinished projects, a mournful list.
I invent a meme for myself! Here in this post I talk about stories you have read at least part of that I desperately want to finish but do not have the time to finish right now while I am working on more important projects such as writing run-on sentences.
The one where Giles and Jenny get married and have a newborn baby when Ethan hits town in "Halloween". The bit in progress is a sticky thing set alongside "The Dark Age" and it's all about how they turn out not to know each other very well despite the being married and having a kid thing. Only, you know, in more words and more indirectly than that. Angst-o-matic with more angst on the way.
Blackmail. No explanation needed for why I want to finish this. Extreme crack season 4 retelling, oh yeah. Plus a lot of sex. Dom!Buffy plus sub!Giles. Why has nobody else written this? It's the sort of thing I write just because nobody else has.
Working Title Iceland, aka the continuation of "Dormant". Plotty, visually gorgeous-- well, in my head it's visual and gorgeous. It'll be a lot of fun writing work to make that come across. I'm just scared of the sort of errors one can commit writing things set in places one has never visited.
"Back By Teatime", in which schoolboys Ethan and Rupert meet a strange little man in a police call box. Set in a boy's school with time-travel back to Blitz-era Britain; overall goal is rescuing Jamie from… I dunno, Daleks? Or something I make up. Time-travel stories are huge research burdens; there are a zillion details to get wrong and trip up your readers with. (Though I'm not sure why I worry about them, given that giant Hollywood productions like X-Men: First Class don't bother to get even the obvious period details right. Watched that last night; could not stop laughing. Also, slashiest movie to slash itself I've seen in a long time. But I digress.)
Thusia. Cruciamentum in that AU is intentionally fatal. But Giles has promised his god he won't let it happen. He thinks it's impossible, that the most he'll manage is dying first. Of course it doesn't happen the way he expects it to happen; it's way harder on him than that. Gods in conflict! The smart humans get out of their way. Giles and Buffy don't have that choice. Two more stories to write in this little 'verse. One is a short thing set just before Giles leaves for Sunnydale and develops the character of Robson further so I can use him more in the Cruciamentum story. Exactly five people will want to read this, but it's one of those stories that drifts around in my head when I'm trying to fall asleep.
Tradition & Protocol.The next bit has been half-written for years now. It was somewhat blocked by Blackmail. I didn't want to retread the same kink territory, so T&P had to go all serious business, which was a bit of a writing burden. More than I could handle at the time I realized what it entailed, four years ago. Could possibly handle it now. What is it about season 4 rewrites? I guess the overall arc is unsatisfying even though the characters have solid setups that you could take in many directions. The desire to do something more interesting than what the show's writers did is overwhelming.
Breaking Glass. Probably the story I want to write more than all the others put together. Or series of stories, rather, scattered throughout Giles's life. The centerpiece would be a season 3 retelling, the Giles/Buffy soulbonding religious magical Watcher epic of complicated glory. Evil Council, tweedy Wesley on their side, the Scoobies in Europe, Arthurian echoes. I have 50K words of this sitting around. Exactly ten people in the world will enjoy this, but they'll enjoy the heck out of it.
Writing lists like this one get me no forrarder on any of my projects. Off to get some work done.
Storm Warning (Med vs. Neil Bamford Remix) by Matt Skyer from Storm Warning - Single (Rating: 0)
The one where Giles and Jenny get married and have a newborn baby when Ethan hits town in "Halloween". The bit in progress is a sticky thing set alongside "The Dark Age" and it's all about how they turn out not to know each other very well despite the being married and having a kid thing. Only, you know, in more words and more indirectly than that. Angst-o-matic with more angst on the way.
Blackmail. No explanation needed for why I want to finish this. Extreme crack season 4 retelling, oh yeah. Plus a lot of sex. Dom!Buffy plus sub!Giles. Why has nobody else written this? It's the sort of thing I write just because nobody else has.
Working Title Iceland, aka the continuation of "Dormant". Plotty, visually gorgeous-- well, in my head it's visual and gorgeous. It'll be a lot of fun writing work to make that come across. I'm just scared of the sort of errors one can commit writing things set in places one has never visited.
"Back By Teatime", in which schoolboys Ethan and Rupert meet a strange little man in a police call box. Set in a boy's school with time-travel back to Blitz-era Britain; overall goal is rescuing Jamie from… I dunno, Daleks? Or something I make up. Time-travel stories are huge research burdens; there are a zillion details to get wrong and trip up your readers with. (Though I'm not sure why I worry about them, given that giant Hollywood productions like X-Men: First Class don't bother to get even the obvious period details right. Watched that last night; could not stop laughing. Also, slashiest movie to slash itself I've seen in a long time. But I digress.)
Thusia. Cruciamentum in that AU is intentionally fatal. But Giles has promised his god he won't let it happen. He thinks it's impossible, that the most he'll manage is dying first. Of course it doesn't happen the way he expects it to happen; it's way harder on him than that. Gods in conflict! The smart humans get out of their way. Giles and Buffy don't have that choice. Two more stories to write in this little 'verse. One is a short thing set just before Giles leaves for Sunnydale and develops the character of Robson further so I can use him more in the Cruciamentum story. Exactly five people will want to read this, but it's one of those stories that drifts around in my head when I'm trying to fall asleep.
Tradition & Protocol.The next bit has been half-written for years now. It was somewhat blocked by Blackmail. I didn't want to retread the same kink territory, so T&P had to go all serious business, which was a bit of a writing burden. More than I could handle at the time I realized what it entailed, four years ago. Could possibly handle it now. What is it about season 4 rewrites? I guess the overall arc is unsatisfying even though the characters have solid setups that you could take in many directions. The desire to do something more interesting than what the show's writers did is overwhelming.
Breaking Glass. Probably the story I want to write more than all the others put together. Or series of stories, rather, scattered throughout Giles's life. The centerpiece would be a season 3 retelling, the Giles/Buffy soulbonding religious magical Watcher epic of complicated glory. Evil Council, tweedy Wesley on their side, the Scoobies in Europe, Arthurian echoes. I have 50K words of this sitting around. Exactly ten people in the world will enjoy this, but they'll enjoy the heck out of it.
Writing lists like this one get me no forrarder on any of my projects. Off to get some work done.
Storm Warning (Med vs. Neil Bamford Remix) by Matt Skyer from Storm Warning - Single (Rating: 0)