(no subject)
♥♥♥Happy New Year!♥♥♥
The fics for dSSS have been revealed, and I am now at liberty to divulge that I wrote Fledgling (K/V wingfic, 8500 words, without quotations) for
mergatrude,and that
akite wrote smoking, for me, which is such an awesome fic *hearts*, smoking as a metaphor for life is something I, uh, dig *g* (betaed by
mergatrude! hahahahaha, I love synchronicity)
First off,
nos4a2no9 is a motherfucking ROCKSTAR. Seriously. I got ridiculously needy about this fic *g*
Well, the first thing I saw when I was assigned
mergatrude was a fantastic amount of detail in the request- I mean, this was ridiculously endearing to me, and incredibly useful, because I knew *exactly* what she wanted! And hey, crazy wingfic lady *beams*. I knew I *had* to write wingfic, and I decided on Ray/Ray, out of the pairings, and decided I wanted it to be focussed on RayV, as that was another aspect of the request.
And then, there were the wings. What on earth does one do with a non cracky wingfic? I’m sure it was the one question that plagued Austen, and was the reason Northanger Abbey didn’t have a Tilney with wings. I mean, I wanted to do a serious wingfic, to make the wings more than the sum of their function- hot, plot progression etc. What occurred to me is the need for isolation for someone with wings. Where do you go? What do you do? In putting RayV in an already isolated situation, I removed the standard support system a character who gets wings has generally- the friend who knows about them, helps them, brings in food and stops them from going crazy. Also, the people who saw him did not react to the wings- the feds showed no sign that this was unusual- so it was…sort of like being undercover. And of course, Vegas gave me some fun angel/devil stuff to play about with.
I think this is the most literary fic I have written- I don’t know if that’s because of a conscious effort to avoid crackiness, but there is a lot of emphasis placed on reading and the interpolation of texts into the narrative. Two books influenced me a great deal in writing this- The Vintner’s Luck and The Waves- The Vintner’s lick is going to get a whole different post at some point, but it is a book about an angel, and is grubby, erotic, horrifying and incredibly humanly beautiful. The poem at the beginning, i will wade out is my favourite poem in the whole wide world, and I listened to the choral arrangement of it as I was writing this over and over (upload here ). I love it because it’s sort of savagely beautiful- and the abandon of flinging yourself upwards contrasts with the act of wading into the water- a deliberate thing. The lore of the birds was written by me *g*- all the collective nouns are real ones. Exultation of larks is a phrase very dear to my heart. The phrase ‘a storytelling of crows’ is one I’d like to play about with a lot; a murder of crows is the more commonly known noun, but both are used. The windhover is another relevant poem- it’s about a ‘heart in hiding’- the wonder of flight and the human doubts that impede it. It’s also Victoria’s (YMMV- I know people say different poems are used)
The poems and extracts were about flight and human aspiration- about striving and trying. Arilochus 60 was actually the central poem of the fic- the idea of standing firmly on his feet, full of heart- in what is necessary for RayV to live well after Vegas. I love this poem so much *beams*
So there’s the style. What about the plot? And it is here that I headdesk a bit, because I’m not very good at plot *g*. Plot and location are my weaknesses as a writer- I can’t visualise places, and plot? Well, why does RayV have wings? See, I knew the answer to this, but I’m damned if I could put it into the story with the grace I wanted to. I wanted to avoid clumsy exposition, and couldn’t without making the story three times the length (more on this later). So I, uh, didn’t include it. I don’t think it was relevant, because regardless of the purpose of the wings, the result was the same. And thinking about it now, it was a crummy reason. I angsted and angsted about including an expositional passage, but in the end I decided not to, hoping that the story could stand on its own without it. Really, it was all Eric’s fault, and he was only trying to help *beams*.
I decided to put RayV in Vegas, to make him a soul compromised, with all the shiny allusions to Milton and Dante I could slip in. The RayV/RayK relationship was one I wanted to be different from the normal fighting/angsty very very hot post CotW standard. Because that’s how I roll. I wanted Fraser to be there, but for RayK not to feel sidelined and replaced, and for RayV not to have had his cover blown by Fraser (I’d love to see a fic where RayV’s pissed off about that *g*). It makes their interactions less tense, and puts RayK in more of a position of…well, of power, sort of. I gave RayV the wings, and I also made him the one who needed fixing, and the one who could fix himself. Again, I have a hugs kink for RayK being taken care of and bitched at by RayV, but wanted to mess around with reversing the positions. Again, how I roll. I briefly toyed with the idea of RayV staying in that apartment at the beginning for a year or something, and emerging very well read but crazy as a coconut, but instead made it so that he had gained the tools to sustain himself intellectually, with books, and to have an escape route into that world. It’s a very childlike thing, that first immersion into books, the discovery of those little worlds. It isn’t just flight that the wings give him, it’s space to think, which is a far greater gift for him.
Nos wanted F/K/V for this *smooshes her*. If I had kept writing, it probably would have been, and while I know mergatude, uh, digs this, I wanted to obey her request to the letter- I mean, it’s her story *g*. In my head, the fic reads like the beginning of an F/K/V epic wingfic, perhaps with Fraser charging to the rescue, with some useful advice on wings, seeing that something has changed between them, going all noble and tragic (secretly weeping Mountie tears of frustrated libido) and being double teamed by the Rays, then living in the cabin and having lots of sex. Wow, I’m great at this plot thing, aren’t I? The end of this fic is also the beginning of something longer, and the looking forward to that, and the fact that RayV has only just got how to fly reflects this. Maybe one day I’ll write the sequel to this. Maybe they can all have wings, and be a team of amazing flying detectives. Maybe they can find a colony of people with wings. Maybe Fraser grows a tail and RayK gets pregnant, and Dief grows tentacles. The key, of course, is writing these things seriously *g*
The fics for dSSS have been revealed, and I am now at liberty to divulge that I wrote Fledgling (K/V wingfic, 8500 words, without quotations) for
mergatrude,and that
akite wrote smoking, for me, which is such an awesome fic *hearts*, smoking as a metaphor for life is something I, uh, dig *g* (betaed by
mergatrude! hahahahaha, I love synchronicity)
First off,
nos4a2no9 is a motherfucking ROCKSTAR. Seriously. I got ridiculously needy about this fic *g*
Well, the first thing I saw when I was assigned
mergatrude was a fantastic amount of detail in the request- I mean, this was ridiculously endearing to me, and incredibly useful, because I knew *exactly* what she wanted! And hey, crazy wingfic lady *beams*. I knew I *had* to write wingfic, and I decided on Ray/Ray, out of the pairings, and decided I wanted it to be focussed on RayV, as that was another aspect of the request.
And then, there were the wings. What on earth does one do with a non cracky wingfic? I’m sure it was the one question that plagued Austen, and was the reason Northanger Abbey didn’t have a Tilney with wings. I mean, I wanted to do a serious wingfic, to make the wings more than the sum of their function- hot, plot progression etc. What occurred to me is the need for isolation for someone with wings. Where do you go? What do you do? In putting RayV in an already isolated situation, I removed the standard support system a character who gets wings has generally- the friend who knows about them, helps them, brings in food and stops them from going crazy. Also, the people who saw him did not react to the wings- the feds showed no sign that this was unusual- so it was…sort of like being undercover. And of course, Vegas gave me some fun angel/devil stuff to play about with.
I think this is the most literary fic I have written- I don’t know if that’s because of a conscious effort to avoid crackiness, but there is a lot of emphasis placed on reading and the interpolation of texts into the narrative. Two books influenced me a great deal in writing this- The Vintner’s Luck and The Waves- The Vintner’s lick is going to get a whole different post at some point, but it is a book about an angel, and is grubby, erotic, horrifying and incredibly humanly beautiful. The poem at the beginning, i will wade out is my favourite poem in the whole wide world, and I listened to the choral arrangement of it as I was writing this over and over (upload here ). I love it because it’s sort of savagely beautiful- and the abandon of flinging yourself upwards contrasts with the act of wading into the water- a deliberate thing. The lore of the birds was written by me *g*- all the collective nouns are real ones. Exultation of larks is a phrase very dear to my heart. The phrase ‘a storytelling of crows’ is one I’d like to play about with a lot; a murder of crows is the more commonly known noun, but both are used. The windhover is another relevant poem- it’s about a ‘heart in hiding’- the wonder of flight and the human doubts that impede it. It’s also Victoria’s (YMMV- I know people say different poems are used)
The poems and extracts were about flight and human aspiration- about striving and trying. Arilochus 60 was actually the central poem of the fic- the idea of standing firmly on his feet, full of heart- in what is necessary for RayV to live well after Vegas. I love this poem so much *beams*
So there’s the style. What about the plot? And it is here that I headdesk a bit, because I’m not very good at plot *g*. Plot and location are my weaknesses as a writer- I can’t visualise places, and plot? Well, why does RayV have wings? See, I knew the answer to this, but I’m damned if I could put it into the story with the grace I wanted to. I wanted to avoid clumsy exposition, and couldn’t without making the story three times the length (more on this later). So I, uh, didn’t include it. I don’t think it was relevant, because regardless of the purpose of the wings, the result was the same. And thinking about it now, it was a crummy reason. I angsted and angsted about including an expositional passage, but in the end I decided not to, hoping that the story could stand on its own without it. Really, it was all Eric’s fault, and he was only trying to help *beams*.
I decided to put RayV in Vegas, to make him a soul compromised, with all the shiny allusions to Milton and Dante I could slip in. The RayV/RayK relationship was one I wanted to be different from the normal fighting/angsty very very hot post CotW standard. Because that’s how I roll. I wanted Fraser to be there, but for RayK not to feel sidelined and replaced, and for RayV not to have had his cover blown by Fraser (I’d love to see a fic where RayV’s pissed off about that *g*). It makes their interactions less tense, and puts RayK in more of a position of…well, of power, sort of. I gave RayV the wings, and I also made him the one who needed fixing, and the one who could fix himself. Again, I have a hugs kink for RayK being taken care of and bitched at by RayV, but wanted to mess around with reversing the positions. Again, how I roll. I briefly toyed with the idea of RayV staying in that apartment at the beginning for a year or something, and emerging very well read but crazy as a coconut, but instead made it so that he had gained the tools to sustain himself intellectually, with books, and to have an escape route into that world. It’s a very childlike thing, that first immersion into books, the discovery of those little worlds. It isn’t just flight that the wings give him, it’s space to think, which is a far greater gift for him.
Nos wanted F/K/V for this *smooshes her*. If I had kept writing, it probably would have been, and while I know mergatude, uh, digs this, I wanted to obey her request to the letter- I mean, it’s her story *g*. In my head, the fic reads like the beginning of an F/K/V epic wingfic, perhaps with Fraser charging to the rescue, with some useful advice on wings, seeing that something has changed between them, going all noble and tragic (secretly weeping Mountie tears of frustrated libido) and being double teamed by the Rays, then living in the cabin and having lots of sex. Wow, I’m great at this plot thing, aren’t I? The end of this fic is also the beginning of something longer, and the looking forward to that, and the fact that RayV has only just got how to fly reflects this. Maybe one day I’ll write the sequel to this. Maybe they can all have wings, and be a team of amazing flying detectives. Maybe they can find a colony of people with wings. Maybe Fraser grows a tail and RayK gets pregnant, and Dief grows tentacles. The key, of course, is writing these things seriously *g*