"And:Reboot" - "Stand by (me)" [Part 1 of 3][NarutoxGaara][yaoi]
Story: (Part 1) ----->
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4273154/4/And_Reboot
Discussion: Huh. Yeah, this is long overdue. You don't gotta tell me twice. Trust me, I know. It's just life can become so crazy. But anywho, as I have more freedom here to expand upon the reasons for my extended leave, let me say first that it was largely in part due to school. I had AR finished and up around the beginning of my junior year, and it was precisely my junior year when craziness ensued. One semester I even took 21 credit hours, so my life was classes. It was crazy. But it was also fun, and I've never felt so intellectually stimulated. I remember that around the time AR went up, I was having doubts about my writing. If felt weird. What I wrote was not what I wanted to write., and I did not like that. Sure, I like stories to do what they will, but stories (like RM) seemed to float out of my control. Ok, whatever, yeah, school is what deterred me. That and familial strife. Without explicating, let me just say that everything that could go wrong with my family did.
Which brings me to the present. Praise the gods, I'm a new woman! Truly, I feel great. My classes have been such that I've garnered from them stuff which I can actually use, and I plan on using that stuff while I have it. Gosh, I've taken so many classes--poetry, fiction, lit theory. It's been insane, but in a good way.
As for "Stand by [me]," I had really hoped to complete it before January, but January is in a few hours so you can see how swimmingly that went. It's long though. Part 1 is roughly 8000 words, whereas Part 1 of AR was only 4000. Yes, this is only the beginning, but if we speculate into the future, that means SBM has the potential of being twice as long as AR. Which is not bad. It merely means that it will take some time to complete. And I have 5 grad apps due by Jan.15, not to mention classes beginning on Jan.4, so if I do accomplish any writing in between then, it will be very little. And after that, I'll be all but pushing SBM out so that it's complete before the semester really starts to kill me. My goal: complete SBM before February. It can be done. Part 1 only took...well, it took a year and a half coughcough, but when I continued it over break, I completed 10 pages in 3 days. Yeyah!
And to comment explicitly on Part 1, I'm not sure what to say. There were two ways to go about it, and I went with my gut instinct. One way was to gloss over the awkward getting-to-know-you between Naruto and Gaara, but I felt as if I would be taking the easy way out. Besides, AR is like that, and in some ways, I'm a little sad that we don't get to see the progression of such a close friendship, but it's so complicated and complex that it would take way too long. Obviously I went with the harder choice: The confusion, the anger, the why-can't-you-be-the-old-Naruto. It was fun, it was irritating, it was sad. It made me want to cry, but it also made me smile warmly. I think that's pretty much what I'll feel about the whole thing once it's finished. It's an interesting beginning as it stands. Dare I say I like it, and I'm really excited to get started on what comes next. It's going to be a bumpy ride, but what fun is it if it isn't?