Stories!
So due to the holidays I've been away from the computer and writing anything legitimate. It's probably a good thing, I find that when I deprive myself of writing time for just a little while, my brain can stew over and flesh out ideas better.
And boy did it.
I'm seriously contemplating putting up another story to RaTs, one that I've been playing with/putting on the shelf/agonizing over for three years now. Holding Out For a Hero is a fractured fairy tale times a million. It's about a witch, Morgan, who has to find a hero to help complete a quest because witches can't go on quests. Jack Quentin is a normal human firefighter and everyday hero that thinks his next door neighbor, Morgan, is batshit crazy, until she pseudo-kidnaps him and brings him to the land of magic, Tairyfale. She wears his resolve down and they go on a quest to rescue a pet from a tree. It's a serious twist on Jack and the Beanstalk, plus I threw in a Cheshire Cat (my FAVORITE fictional animal), plenty of fairy tale references, and evil paper pushers.
I was so gung-ho about it when I first came up with the idea because I know that if I do it it would become a story worth reading, but I could never get my act together. There was always something off about, I wasn't doing something right and the idea wasn't complete. I didn't have a reason for WHY this all was happening and for three years I've been pulling everything out, working on it like crazy, trying to write it, failing completely, and put it back on the shelf in disgust. But I was in the shower a couple days ago and it came to mind. And while I was conditioning my hair, it all came to me just like that. I know had a reason for why Morgan was so damn determined to make Jack into a hero: she has to complete the requirements of aiding a certain number of heroes with their deeds before she can attain godmother status and finally be free to do as she pleases with her life instead of living by the many dictates and requirements of a witch. As soon as I thought of that, everything else fell into place. I created The Administration that ruled over the 152 kingdoms in Tairyfale and created the requirements, Jack's character became more than just a two-dimensional good guy, and I FINALLY figured out what the hell they were questing for in the first place.
I've not been this excited about this story since I first thought it up after watching Stardust for the first time. I have it!!!! And I really think RaTs would be the best option for me to write it with. I already have a good many scenes that I can tailor to fit into this more refined idea and I don't want to get bogged down by the transitional crap that I'm not so good at. It would be mostly done in chronological order, but I could have free reign to add in random scenes and references as I liked, which is my favorite part about writing, to be honest. I've been thinking about it so seriously that I've actually gone and chosen two flavors for it to: Gingerbread (fairytale bunnies) and Candy Apple (body bunnies). I'm a little wary of using all five of my allotted flavors at one time because it's a pretty big task but I've come up with three reasons to convince myself why it would be okay.
1) I'm already 2/3 finished with Chocolate/Amaretto/Vinegar. There are only nine prompts in each one that I haven't touched at all, I've got three in the works, and all the rest are finished and most of those are posted.
2) Candy Apple is only 15 prompts, so if need be, I could totally knock that one out with the Blazes or with HofaH (bwahaha awesome acronym) randomness
3) I'm not worried about juggling both the Blaze Family and HofaH or leaving one of them by the wayside. I have held onto HofaH longer than I have ever held onto any idea or written story I've ever thought of, and now that I actually know what I'm doing, you'd have to pry that idea out of my cold decomposing brain before I gave it up. And the Blaze Family holds a lot of inspiration for me that shows no sign of stopping any time soon. I have two plotlines going with Tucker and the de Lucas, plus this story is so well suited for random one-shots.
So, with that in mind, I'm about 85% certain that I'm going to go for it. I'm not going to do it this moment because I'm scientist enough to know that a 15% uncertainty is not acceptable in this situation. But I'll think on it more; write more of HofaH and post more Blaze prompts, and mull the idea over. We'll see how it goes.
Holy crap! I was gone for three-ish days, and I'm so behind on my reading on RaTs now! I felt really bad too, there were a ton of comments that I hadn't gotten back to because I haven't been on. I'm free tomorrow, I'll focus on my writing and on catching up with everything, RaTs included.
And boy did it.
I'm seriously contemplating putting up another story to RaTs, one that I've been playing with/putting on the shelf/agonizing over for three years now. Holding Out For a Hero is a fractured fairy tale times a million. It's about a witch, Morgan, who has to find a hero to help complete a quest because witches can't go on quests. Jack Quentin is a normal human firefighter and everyday hero that thinks his next door neighbor, Morgan, is batshit crazy, until she pseudo-kidnaps him and brings him to the land of magic, Tairyfale. She wears his resolve down and they go on a quest to rescue a pet from a tree. It's a serious twist on Jack and the Beanstalk, plus I threw in a Cheshire Cat (my FAVORITE fictional animal), plenty of fairy tale references, and evil paper pushers.
I was so gung-ho about it when I first came up with the idea because I know that if I do it it would become a story worth reading, but I could never get my act together. There was always something off about, I wasn't doing something right and the idea wasn't complete. I didn't have a reason for WHY this all was happening and for three years I've been pulling everything out, working on it like crazy, trying to write it, failing completely, and put it back on the shelf in disgust. But I was in the shower a couple days ago and it came to mind. And while I was conditioning my hair, it all came to me just like that. I know had a reason for why Morgan was so damn determined to make Jack into a hero: she has to complete the requirements of aiding a certain number of heroes with their deeds before she can attain godmother status and finally be free to do as she pleases with her life instead of living by the many dictates and requirements of a witch. As soon as I thought of that, everything else fell into place. I created The Administration that ruled over the 152 kingdoms in Tairyfale and created the requirements, Jack's character became more than just a two-dimensional good guy, and I FINALLY figured out what the hell they were questing for in the first place.
I've not been this excited about this story since I first thought it up after watching Stardust for the first time. I have it!!!! And I really think RaTs would be the best option for me to write it with. I already have a good many scenes that I can tailor to fit into this more refined idea and I don't want to get bogged down by the transitional crap that I'm not so good at. It would be mostly done in chronological order, but I could have free reign to add in random scenes and references as I liked, which is my favorite part about writing, to be honest. I've been thinking about it so seriously that I've actually gone and chosen two flavors for it to: Gingerbread (fairytale bunnies) and Candy Apple (body bunnies). I'm a little wary of using all five of my allotted flavors at one time because it's a pretty big task but I've come up with three reasons to convince myself why it would be okay.
1) I'm already 2/3 finished with Chocolate/Amaretto/Vinegar. There are only nine prompts in each one that I haven't touched at all, I've got three in the works, and all the rest are finished and most of those are posted.
2) Candy Apple is only 15 prompts, so if need be, I could totally knock that one out with the Blazes or with HofaH (bwahaha awesome acronym) randomness
3) I'm not worried about juggling both the Blaze Family and HofaH or leaving one of them by the wayside. I have held onto HofaH longer than I have ever held onto any idea or written story I've ever thought of, and now that I actually know what I'm doing, you'd have to pry that idea out of my cold decomposing brain before I gave it up. And the Blaze Family holds a lot of inspiration for me that shows no sign of stopping any time soon. I have two plotlines going with Tucker and the de Lucas, plus this story is so well suited for random one-shots.
So, with that in mind, I'm about 85% certain that I'm going to go for it. I'm not going to do it this moment because I'm scientist enough to know that a 15% uncertainty is not acceptable in this situation. But I'll think on it more; write more of HofaH and post more Blaze prompts, and mull the idea over. We'll see how it goes.
Holy crap! I was gone for three-ish days, and I'm so behind on my reading on RaTs now! I felt really bad too, there were a ton of comments that I hadn't gotten back to because I haven't been on. I'm free tomorrow, I'll focus on my writing and on catching up with everything, RaTs included.