Update for To Everything A Season
A little piece of good advice: Never post a fanfic until you're finished.
Okay, so here's where we are. I'm so screwed. Did I mention to y'all that this story completely detonated on me as I was getting ready to post it? Maybe I mentioned it, but I'm not sure I actually COMMUNICATED it, so here's what I consider a detonation.
When I posted the first part of this fic, the total word count for the whole piece was around 18,500 words.
By the time I was ready to post the second and third parts, the total word count for the whole piece was around 34,000 words. Okay, swelled a litte. I do that sometimes, so I wasn't ALL that worried, although a little bent out of shape that it had almost doubled in size on me, requiring several more postings than I originally intended.
And then the last scene, a very long dialog sequence that pulled everything together, stuck its tongue out at me and ran away. I am not being metaphorical here (much). It ran away. I spent the next while procrastinating my ass off writing other short fics because I was playing hide and seek with the little bastard, trying to figure out where my ending went.
And what it looked like now.
So I think I've finally found it. And my, did that baby grow while she was hiding in the fucking pantry. Holy crap.
So yes, while my stick on part 4 did jar free as I told y'all not that long ago, what I didn't realize was that now it's part 4, part 5 and part 6 ... and possibly part 7.
As of last run, where I was at least IN SIGHT of the actual ending (although not actually THERE mind you, but I can smell it from here, and I'm pretty sure it is really the end this time), I am up to a total word count, for the whole piece, of 50,000 words.
I kid you fucking not.
So here's the deal. First, let me assure you I have not been sitting on my ass ignoring y'all; but rather have been writing my little ass off, trying to figure out why John and Dean and Sam were so totally not cooperating in the end I wanted to write. Evidently, they didn't like that end, so now there is a totally different end. Or maybe I should say, last half. Although all that actually vanished from the original piece was the last scene. But what was the 7/8 mark in the piece is now the 1/2 mark in the piece, so lots more coming folks, not just one more post.
The bad news on the flip side of that coin is, I've learned my little lesson about good advice, and am now taking that damned advice to heart. I'm just about at the same point as I originally was when I posted the first part: within smelling distance of the end. But I ain't posting this sucker until I've put a cap to it because you know? It might end up at 75,000 words the rate this damn thing is expanding.
So here's the update as it stands tonight: I think I've figured it out, so I think I'm polishing it now, so I think the remaining parts will be up soon, one after another, once I've put a lock to the story. Unfortunately, that means part 4 won't go up while I'm polishing pt 5, etc. They're all going up together this time, so I can lock myself into a final product rather than finding the sucker expanding again, pushing at the walls of a known universe that just keeps fucking mutating on me until it becomes airborne and destroys all life on the planet as we know it.
On the really good news side: For those of you who have been fretting about the whole lynching thing I've been talking about since way back when this sucker was only 18.5K long, the end that was going to get me lynched? Yeah, not there any more. I don't know how y'all will feel about the new end, but I guaran-God-damn-tee it is not going to piss you off as much as the original one would have.
But because I did talk all that lynching smack early on (because no one had ever given me that good piece of little advice that will, from this day forward, rule my frakkin world), I promise that I will, after this piece is posted in its entirity, post an extra post with just the original ending in it. Which won't be the ending now, but that still could have been the ending, as nothing I've written in the 31.5K words between the original end and the new end actually contradicts the ending about which I talked so much lynching smack.
So in the interest of proving to you why I was worried y'all might hate me forever for writing this story the way I originally envisioned it, I'll go ahead and post that. And then you can either add it to the story I post as the final or not, as you see fit. But the way it was originally configured, I wasn't going to offer that choice. I wasn't going to offer the option of viewing that ending as NOT part of the story, which now, it very much is. Cause the official version won't contain that ending. I'm just going to put it out there as a "deleted scene" DVD extra kind of thing. Or a really mean blooper reel, if you'd prefer to think of it that way.
Anyway, that's the scoop for any of y'all who are sitting at home thinking I may have abandoned ship without telling anyone where I was going. I haven't, I've just been locked in the galley with the story that will not die. But I think we've reached an equilibrium of sorts now. God I hope so, at least, cause I don't he another 50K words in me for this story.
Although I can tell you that, as a procrastination tool to help me find this ending, I did start my "first friend" prompt story ... something that started out to be around 6K originally but is now settling in nicely at around 18.5K. Which I'm sure it won't escape you is the same length at which Seasons started to expand.
That one will be the next one to hit a post (after Seasons). But I promise you, with my new piece of good advice tucked under one arm, I may post it in parts, but I won't be posting it until all the parts are written and locked in stone.
I guarantee it.
Maybe.
:D