Why yes, it's Moan About Het Big Bang Time again.
Because that is my single biggest problem right now. (not, it's not, yes, I was being ironic)
Anyway. I am still writing my het_bigbang story and yes, it's still the Western!AU. The goods news are: I'm just a little over 1k words shy of reaching the minimum word count. The bad news are: I still don't seem to have an actual plot. It still feels like all I'm writing is introduction and info dumps. I mean, yes, I have a general plot idea, and usually, I would just go from there and literally make it up as I go along (I am, as I might have mentioned before, more of the "gardener" variety writer than the "architect", to borrow GRRM's classification) and usually, stuff just falls into place. With this fic? Not so much. Ugh.
It's not that it isn't fun writing it - because once I can make myself sit down and stop procrastinating, it actually is - it's just that it seems to toil on and on and on without truly getting anywhere and I'd rather write anything but that fic (last night, I had a sudden bunny for a one-shot taking place in the same universe, and I am not even done with the fic. I kind of want to weep). Maybe that's because I'm technically absolutely not familiar with the Western genre and its conventions and am going out on a limp here or maybe it's because unlike the Vietnam 'verse (which also needed lots of introduction and info dumps in the first couple fics), this is an actual multi-chapter instead of a collection of one-shots or maybe it's because I have forgotten how to write multi-chapters after like two years of mainly writing one-shots. Either way, it's kind of grating and I guess I need someone to bounce ideas back and forth with. Because that usually helped a great deal whenever I found myself in a writing slump. Anyone willing to take it up with me (fandom knowledge isn't even really required because, like I said, it's an AU far, far removed from the original fandom premises. Really more like original fic, come to think of it...)?
Also, on an unrelated note: no, LJ, I do not want to try out your new editor because sadly, it is shit (where's the cut option? Where's the switch to HTML option? WHY COULDN'T YOU BE BOTHERED TO CHANGE LABELS TO ENGLISH? Yes, it's a beta version. But as beta versions go, it's a shitty, shitty, shitty beta version) and looks like a Tumblr rip-off and I fucking more or less left Tumblr, in part because I was fed up with its shitty editor and shitty tagging system and shitty everything. Please tell me that there will be a workaround to keep the old editor, just like there's a workaround to keep the old flist instead of your ugly and shitty and useless friends feed. Please stop trying to become Tumblr 2.0. One Tumblr is bad enough.