Quick thing. And NaNo News
Gah, I should work. This is the sound that will echo through my head for the next few nights.
Oh did my Nano go strangely this year. 21,15~ words, about the same I got on my first attempt in 2006. Not so bad, ne? Not great, but considering the workload this semester, I count it a success. And I had fun.
The strange thing was more how many stories I had bopping around that file. A couple excerpts from reviews and other projects I was working on aside, I had a total of five different stories I was working on at the same time. Is that a failure or just too-frequent inspiration?
The initial project was my little baby from about last April. Naruto fandom AU, Itachi-centric, really fun, if difficult (I think part of the problem is that the part that I most want to work on takes place 6 years down the road. Sigh). In this story, Haku and Zabuza have a fairly significant role, and that led me to explore the nature of their relationship a little. And so I ended up dreaming up a smutty oneshot that still baffles me and makes me giggle. It's about half-way done now, but before I even put finger to keyboard on that idea, my brain was literally hijacked by a bunny that I put on the back burner, god, months ago, who suddenly demanded that I stop ignoring it. The premise was another Naruto AU, beginning during the Zabuza saga. It's essentially a branch-off inspired by my friend, commenting on how she would have been much more impressed with the canon had Kishimoto knocked off Naruto's teammate within the first 30 chapters. So it explores how the story would have gone had Sasuke been killed by Haku. All the present canon concepts are there, it just explores how the road would have diverted.
And then, two more bunnies came hopping along, courtesy of LJ. WTF self. WTF.
During a lull at one point (a lull in writing NaNoWriMo? Blasphemy!) I was browsing Ronsard's ficlets and stumbled upon Part of Your World. And suddenly I'm planning out the corresponding characters and their bios, having fun with Hidan as the frogman who terrorizes the interns and Deidara the score composer sniping at Sasori the screen editor, and researching bull sharks. Eventually I'll figure out exactly what I want to do with this and maybe get Ronsard's opinion on it ><;. Until then, it's for my own amusement only.
The other bunny came up in a conversation I had in badlubeday. A_mael commented on my icon of Kyou and Yuki, we started talking about how they could ever get together... and now I'm writing a Fruits Basket AU. It's fun, angsty, but I find myself hitting walls when I try to make it a longer story. I'll keep working on it, but I'm also tempted to just trim the later scenes and focus all the introspection and fucked-up aspects into one single sex-scene oneshot. Time will tell. In the meantime, I have to reread certain points of the canon.
Somewhere during all that, this excerpt came at me from out of nowhere:
"How can I live and believe in the good in this world," her voice cracked over a stifled sob, "when this exists?" Her arms suddenly gave way, falling to the sides like sodden rags, revealing the object she clutched. A head. The head of a child. And the body was near - was it attached? I couldn't tell, from what had been done to it. I understood the bile she was forcing to stay down.
"What do I do now?" I heard her murmur. "What...?" Her wings had wilted, I could see. Wilted, possibly died. Too soon to be sure. "Please..."
Should I have answered? Mere seconds of agony forced her head up, and her eyes blazed with a righteous, furious, half-crazed light I had never seen before. "Tell me!"
Would that I scoffed. I was the wrong person to ask, and she knew that better than I. Better than anyone. What did she think I would say?
...Unless, that was what she wanted.
"Well." Suddenly my role fit her vision. And that was all it took. She waited on my answer with bated breath. I waited to see if she'd flinch. Shudder. Show remorse, guilt, anguish, loss.
It was all there, and yet not in that blameless face.
"You are an optimistic creature," I said. I may have accused her, I may have been gloating. How high a fall it was. "But," I leaned in, "you are also a just creature. And what would you say justice demands of you now?"
Her dawning comprehension sent a shiver down my spine.
O_O?
How like me to take anything I can get, inspiration-wise ^_^ Well, it worked out. I'm happy with this. This year's attempt was good.
I'm proud.
And now I must work again, because if I don't I'm so fucked.
Oh did my Nano go strangely this year. 21,15~ words, about the same I got on my first attempt in 2006. Not so bad, ne? Not great, but considering the workload this semester, I count it a success. And I had fun.
The strange thing was more how many stories I had bopping around that file. A couple excerpts from reviews and other projects I was working on aside, I had a total of five different stories I was working on at the same time. Is that a failure or just too-frequent inspiration?
The initial project was my little baby from about last April. Naruto fandom AU, Itachi-centric, really fun, if difficult (I think part of the problem is that the part that I most want to work on takes place 6 years down the road. Sigh). In this story, Haku and Zabuza have a fairly significant role, and that led me to explore the nature of their relationship a little. And so I ended up dreaming up a smutty oneshot that still baffles me and makes me giggle. It's about half-way done now, but before I even put finger to keyboard on that idea, my brain was literally hijacked by a bunny that I put on the back burner, god, months ago, who suddenly demanded that I stop ignoring it. The premise was another Naruto AU, beginning during the Zabuza saga. It's essentially a branch-off inspired by my friend, commenting on how she would have been much more impressed with the canon had Kishimoto knocked off Naruto's teammate within the first 30 chapters. So it explores how the story would have gone had Sasuke been killed by Haku. All the present canon concepts are there, it just explores how the road would have diverted.
And then, two more bunnies came hopping along, courtesy of LJ. WTF self. WTF.
During a lull at one point (a lull in writing NaNoWriMo? Blasphemy!) I was browsing Ronsard's ficlets and stumbled upon Part of Your World. And suddenly I'm planning out the corresponding characters and their bios, having fun with Hidan as the frogman who terrorizes the interns and Deidara the score composer sniping at Sasori the screen editor, and researching bull sharks. Eventually I'll figure out exactly what I want to do with this and maybe get Ronsard's opinion on it ><;. Until then, it's for my own amusement only.
The other bunny came up in a conversation I had in badlubeday. A_mael commented on my icon of Kyou and Yuki, we started talking about how they could ever get together... and now I'm writing a Fruits Basket AU. It's fun, angsty, but I find myself hitting walls when I try to make it a longer story. I'll keep working on it, but I'm also tempted to just trim the later scenes and focus all the introspection and fucked-up aspects into one single sex-scene oneshot. Time will tell. In the meantime, I have to reread certain points of the canon.
Somewhere during all that, this excerpt came at me from out of nowhere:
"How can I live and believe in the good in this world," her voice cracked over a stifled sob, "when this exists?" Her arms suddenly gave way, falling to the sides like sodden rags, revealing the object she clutched. A head. The head of a child. And the body was near - was it attached? I couldn't tell, from what had been done to it. I understood the bile she was forcing to stay down.
"What do I do now?" I heard her murmur. "What...?" Her wings had wilted, I could see. Wilted, possibly died. Too soon to be sure. "Please..."
Should I have answered? Mere seconds of agony forced her head up, and her eyes blazed with a righteous, furious, half-crazed light I had never seen before. "Tell me!"
Would that I scoffed. I was the wrong person to ask, and she knew that better than I. Better than anyone. What did she think I would say?
...Unless, that was what she wanted.
"Well." Suddenly my role fit her vision. And that was all it took. She waited on my answer with bated breath. I waited to see if she'd flinch. Shudder. Show remorse, guilt, anguish, loss.
It was all there, and yet not in that blameless face.
"You are an optimistic creature," I said. I may have accused her, I may have been gloating. How high a fall it was. "But," I leaned in, "you are also a just creature. And what would you say justice demands of you now?"
Her dawning comprehension sent a shiver down my spine.
O_O?
How like me to take anything I can get, inspiration-wise ^_^ Well, it worked out. I'm happy with this. This year's attempt was good.
I'm proud.
And now I must work again, because if I don't I'm so fucked.