This is an official reminder post! *waves mod wand dramatically*
Don't forget to sign up for the Battlestar Galactica remix challenge hosted at bsg_remix. You can sign up through April 20. (Uh, that would be tomorrow. Hurry up!)
Okay, now that the main reason for a post is done, have some thoughts about writing 'Settlement.' (I'm sure it will be riveting! for at least two of you! Heh.)
Honestly, I'm still in disbelief that a story that started as a joke (Rosie Sue/Leoben! a story that can never be told!) morphed into the longest thing I've written so far.
When I showed DB part of what I had written, she asked when it changed from Rosie Sue fic to something separate. That happened before I ever started writing. I wasn't actually going to write Rosie Sue fic, I was just amusing myself. Rosie Sue and Leoben take on the ten-foot sloth and escape! Leoben and Rosie Sue domesticate an abandoned baby dire wolf! Rosie Sue and Leoben make out a lot. Just silliness that didn't even involve making notes, much less writing.
Then I started thinking of how settling on Earth II would be a huge shift for the cylons*--different than New Caprica, when they were going to "love all the humans to death". The humans and cylons would have to depend on each other for their lives, and the human population hasn't forgotten all their loved ones who were killed in the attacks on the homeworlds.
*At least, I hope it will be a shift for them. I want the cylons to learn something about humanity from this.
That got me hooked. Earth II is an unwelcoming environment--I love that stuff! Survival, physical or spiritual, is a big theme in what I enjoy writing. I've written two stories on Caprica after the cylon nuclear attacks, another two set on our modern-day Earth (which was unwelcoming in a more emotional sense, not in a physical way). All the longer stories that I've done have this in common.
I started writing; here are the conversations I had with the muse about the baby. (Or a close approximation of them. Really!)
muse: The Two and Laine have a baby.
me: They do? Oooookay. Hm, yeah, that could work. Trying to survive, trying to raise a kid... emphasizing that it's not a True Love baby 'cause that's just an annoying plot point...
muse: Ahem!
me: What?
muse: I wasn't done yet.
me: Alright, what else?
muse: The baby dies.
me: What?!
muse: Doesn't live.
me: But that whole thing I was just saying about the true love stuff! It negates it all!
muse: No it doesn't. It emphasizes the brutality of Earth II and life without medicine.
me: Oh. So can the baby be stillborn?
muse: You are such a wimp.
me: I just don't think I can take it, writing about the poor baby being born and then dying...
muse: ::annoyed:: Fine.
Three thousand words later. We're approaching the birth scene.
muse: By the way, I've been meaning to tell you. The baby is born alive, then dies.
me: We had this conversation already! Nooooo!
muse: Has to be done.
me: You realize I'm already that weirdo in fandom who keeps writing about Leoben all the time, right? Now you're going to make me the baby-killing Leoben-loving freak!
muse: ::rolls eyes:: And you say I'm melodramatic?!
me: But why?!
muse: ::uses the logic card:: It's a better choice, dramatically speaking.
me: Oh. Well, frak.
In case this doesn't make it obvious, I'm fairly linear when I write. I have to have a good sense of how I'm going to end a story that I can then approach from the other side. The hand-holding at the end, a sort of reconciliation to what's truly irreconcilable, was always what I wanted. Something slightly hopeful after woeful angst.
My own favorite part of this was getting to make Leoben a real boy at last. Or at least something resembling one. Heh. I've had this icon ::points up:: for a long time; never thought I'd manage to come up with a way that satisfied me emotionally enough to say that it might be semi-accurate. It wasn't my original goal in writing Settlement, but I'm happy to take it as a bonus.
One confession: when I have a lot of characters to invent, I spend too much time googling baby names and their meanings. In that sense (being picky about names) Laine really is me. I want them to sound right (for BSG, slightly unusual without over-the-top weirdness is my goal) and not be too stereotypical and hopefully to have some meaning that goes with the character--though that's a lesser consideration than the first two things.
An amusing bit about writing this particular story: I was so distraught by having to write Jonah's death that I decided there had to be another baby. Not to go in the story, just a little sequel in my own mind to make up for the sad parts I was writing. After I finished I realized that the chances that Laine would want to have another child with anyone were pretty slim. And she's smart enough not to rely on the rhythm method. Or I am as author, at any rate. I'm one of five children. Let me tell you about how effective the rhythm method is. Hah!
I'm not ruling out the possibity of writing shmoopy Laine baby!fic, though. I'll just have to get the circumstances right! Uh, I probably won't post it to the comms, though. There's a limit to how much I'm willing to be self-indulgent in public, and any sequel would probably be very self-indulgent.
eta: I forgot to say! This was quick! For me, anyway--close to 8000 words in about three weeks is very fast. Comparing 'Nemesis' for example: it was 4500 words and took me four weeks to write. That was even during the summer, when I wasn't working. So yay for faster writing.
I didn't read the newspaper for those three weeks, though. Oops.
Okay, now that the main reason for a post is done, have some thoughts about writing 'Settlement.' (I'm sure it will be riveting! for at least two of you! Heh.)
Honestly, I'm still in disbelief that a story that started as a joke (Rosie Sue/Leoben! a story that can never be told!) morphed into the longest thing I've written so far.
When I showed DB part of what I had written, she asked when it changed from Rosie Sue fic to something separate. That happened before I ever started writing. I wasn't actually going to write Rosie Sue fic, I was just amusing myself. Rosie Sue and Leoben take on the ten-foot sloth and escape! Leoben and Rosie Sue domesticate an abandoned baby dire wolf! Rosie Sue and Leoben make out a lot. Just silliness that didn't even involve making notes, much less writing.
Then I started thinking of how settling on Earth II would be a huge shift for the cylons*--different than New Caprica, when they were going to "love all the humans to death". The humans and cylons would have to depend on each other for their lives, and the human population hasn't forgotten all their loved ones who were killed in the attacks on the homeworlds.
*At least, I hope it will be a shift for them. I want the cylons to learn something about humanity from this.
That got me hooked. Earth II is an unwelcoming environment--I love that stuff! Survival, physical or spiritual, is a big theme in what I enjoy writing. I've written two stories on Caprica after the cylon nuclear attacks, another two set on our modern-day Earth (which was unwelcoming in a more emotional sense, not in a physical way). All the longer stories that I've done have this in common.
I started writing; here are the conversations I had with the muse about the baby. (Or a close approximation of them. Really!)
muse: The Two and Laine have a baby.
me: They do? Oooookay. Hm, yeah, that could work. Trying to survive, trying to raise a kid... emphasizing that it's not a True Love baby 'cause that's just an annoying plot point...
muse: Ahem!
me: What?
muse: I wasn't done yet.
me: Alright, what else?
muse: The baby dies.
me: What?!
muse: Doesn't live.
me: But that whole thing I was just saying about the true love stuff! It negates it all!
muse: No it doesn't. It emphasizes the brutality of Earth II and life without medicine.
me: Oh. So can the baby be stillborn?
muse: You are such a wimp.
me: I just don't think I can take it, writing about the poor baby being born and then dying...
muse: ::annoyed:: Fine.
Three thousand words later. We're approaching the birth scene.
muse: By the way, I've been meaning to tell you. The baby is born alive, then dies.
me: We had this conversation already! Nooooo!
muse: Has to be done.
me: You realize I'm already that weirdo in fandom who keeps writing about Leoben all the time, right? Now you're going to make me the baby-killing Leoben-loving freak!
muse: ::rolls eyes:: And you say I'm melodramatic?!
me: But why?!
muse: ::uses the logic card:: It's a better choice, dramatically speaking.
me: Oh. Well, frak.
In case this doesn't make it obvious, I'm fairly linear when I write. I have to have a good sense of how I'm going to end a story that I can then approach from the other side. The hand-holding at the end, a sort of reconciliation to what's truly irreconcilable, was always what I wanted. Something slightly hopeful after woeful angst.
My own favorite part of this was getting to make Leoben a real boy at last. Or at least something resembling one. Heh. I've had this icon ::points up:: for a long time; never thought I'd manage to come up with a way that satisfied me emotionally enough to say that it might be semi-accurate. It wasn't my original goal in writing Settlement, but I'm happy to take it as a bonus.
One confession: when I have a lot of characters to invent, I spend too much time googling baby names and their meanings. In that sense (being picky about names) Laine really is me. I want them to sound right (for BSG, slightly unusual without over-the-top weirdness is my goal) and not be too stereotypical and hopefully to have some meaning that goes with the character--though that's a lesser consideration than the first two things.
An amusing bit about writing this particular story: I was so distraught by having to write Jonah's death that I decided there had to be another baby. Not to go in the story, just a little sequel in my own mind to make up for the sad parts I was writing. After I finished I realized that the chances that Laine would want to have another child with anyone were pretty slim. And she's smart enough not to rely on the rhythm method. Or I am as author, at any rate. I'm one of five children. Let me tell you about how effective the rhythm method is. Hah!
I'm not ruling out the possibity of writing shmoopy Laine baby!fic, though. I'll just have to get the circumstances right! Uh, I probably won't post it to the comms, though. There's a limit to how much I'm willing to be self-indulgent in public, and any sequel would probably be very self-indulgent.
eta: I forgot to say! This was quick! For me, anyway--close to 8000 words in about three weeks is very fast. Comparing 'Nemesis' for example: it was 4500 words and took me four weeks to write. That was even during the summer, when I wasn't working. So yay for faster writing.
I didn't read the newspaper for those three weeks, though. Oops.