WIP meme from tumblr
For a change, crossposted from tumblr, the latest edition of the WIP meme
Writing fic is like gestating and giving birth, for me: I do mostly okay until the final stages, at which point I push and push while going nowhere for a distressingly long time. Unfortunately, it's not easy to find helpful fic-midwives with a scalpel or the business end of a vacuum cleaner to give the story a boost through the final stages. Here are all the ones I'm struggling with.
Novels
- the Alys/Simon novel. The second half of this, the part with three or four kinds of political intrigue, and Alys and Simon having a falling-out over Alys's overprotectiveness, and Cordelia unhelpfully interfering, and Miles being oblivious, is still in the embryonic stage, but I have been trying to get it going. Maybe this time I'll get there. It's a parallel novel to Memory, the Alys/Simon version, and it turns out that there's a lot of politics going on in making a Komarran empress a possibility, which Miles has no idea about. Also a lot of issues with Lady Alys Vorpatril, THE arbiter of what is right and proper, having a lover on the side.
- Lovers in Arms, as ever. Damn battle scenes, how do they go again? I have been working on this, a couple of paragraphs at a time, and perhaps I'll find a way over the hump. I need some ideas for Cordelia talking a Cetagandan ship-captain into surrender now.
Medium-length ones
- I have to be a bit vague about this one, but I saw a prompt for an active fic fest which is remarkably close to something that I've had a few paragraphs of and an idea for a lot more. So hopefully I'll write it properly for this fest.
- the one with Lord Peter Wimsey and Bunter meeting Nightingale in 1945 on the wrong side of the lines
Short ones
- Drou/Princess Kareen
- Aral catches little Ivan and Miles having a play duel
- Cordelia goes back to Beta to visit Dubauer. Mostly issuefic because dammit, Dubauer is going to be okay and I should know, he's just like my eldest son.
- Ezar and Piotr in the Dendarii hills, ridiculously fun because I get to write stuff like this:
"It's an honour to serve with you," Ezar attempted.
Vorkosigan spat on the floor of the cave. "Honour," he said. "What do you know about it? It's not honour we fight for, man. We fight to win, and only to win. Everything else, you can take off now along with that fancy uniform. Either you want to win, or you don't. If you don't you can go join Count Vortifrani and his shiny corps of martyrs, die an honourable death on the field of battle like your grandfathers did. But we are going to drive every last Ceta off this soil, my lord Vorbarra."
Forty ragged hillmen in a cave, a part of Ezar thought coldly, what are the odds. But his eyes betrayed him, fixed to Vorkosigan's face.
Ones that are finished that I can't bring myself to post because it's just too horrible
- Illyan’s death. I wrote this years ago, it’s finished, and I haven’t ever posted it because ow ow ow. Every so often I go back and reread it and yes, it’s good, but it’s also absolutely horrible.
Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/151589.html. There are
comments there.
Writing fic is like gestating and giving birth, for me: I do mostly okay until the final stages, at which point I push and push while going nowhere for a distressingly long time. Unfortunately, it's not easy to find helpful fic-midwives with a scalpel or the business end of a vacuum cleaner to give the story a boost through the final stages. Here are all the ones I'm struggling with.
Novels
- the Alys/Simon novel. The second half of this, the part with three or four kinds of political intrigue, and Alys and Simon having a falling-out over Alys's overprotectiveness, and Cordelia unhelpfully interfering, and Miles being oblivious, is still in the embryonic stage, but I have been trying to get it going. Maybe this time I'll get there. It's a parallel novel to Memory, the Alys/Simon version, and it turns out that there's a lot of politics going on in making a Komarran empress a possibility, which Miles has no idea about. Also a lot of issues with Lady Alys Vorpatril, THE arbiter of what is right and proper, having a lover on the side.
- Lovers in Arms, as ever. Damn battle scenes, how do they go again? I have been working on this, a couple of paragraphs at a time, and perhaps I'll find a way over the hump. I need some ideas for Cordelia talking a Cetagandan ship-captain into surrender now.
Medium-length ones
- I have to be a bit vague about this one, but I saw a prompt for an active fic fest which is remarkably close to something that I've had a few paragraphs of and an idea for a lot more. So hopefully I'll write it properly for this fest.
- the one with Lord Peter Wimsey and Bunter meeting Nightingale in 1945 on the wrong side of the lines
Short ones
- Drou/Princess Kareen
- Aral catches little Ivan and Miles having a play duel
- Cordelia goes back to Beta to visit Dubauer. Mostly issuefic because dammit, Dubauer is going to be okay and I should know, he's just like my eldest son.
- Ezar and Piotr in the Dendarii hills, ridiculously fun because I get to write stuff like this:
"It's an honour to serve with you," Ezar attempted.
Vorkosigan spat on the floor of the cave. "Honour," he said. "What do you know about it? It's not honour we fight for, man. We fight to win, and only to win. Everything else, you can take off now along with that fancy uniform. Either you want to win, or you don't. If you don't you can go join Count Vortifrani and his shiny corps of martyrs, die an honourable death on the field of battle like your grandfathers did. But we are going to drive every last Ceta off this soil, my lord Vorbarra."
Forty ragged hillmen in a cave, a part of Ezar thought coldly, what are the odds. But his eyes betrayed him, fixed to Vorkosigan's face.
Ones that are finished that I can't bring myself to post because it's just too horrible
- Illyan’s death. I wrote this years ago, it’s finished, and I haven’t ever posted it because ow ow ow. Every so often I go back and reread it and yes, it’s good, but it’s also absolutely horrible.
Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/151589.html. There are
comments there.