you can tell it's my day off; i am overthinking everything
I am irritated by this fic I'm not writing.
It's--well, the thing is, it was one of those I started for ltlj just to see where it would go. Its basic premise was "John is injured" and then I went from there.
And it went--well, somewhere, but not anywhere with a coherent reason, if that makes sense. It feels like a cross between a scene from a longer fic and a fic that's set after something else--like a bad McShep breakup, maybe. Or something huge and strange that no one can talk about, like a spiritual experience or the end of Atlantis or a Wraith conquest or something. I know something happened there; reading it now, it's all over the characters. Something happened. Something huge. Something that maybe broke them and they're running on habit and desperation.
The thing is, when I wrote it, I don't remember that being there; I remember thinking how to get them back to Atlantis. But reading it, I don't feel Atlantis in them at all. And I don't know if this is after, if this is a different Atlantis, if the world changed when I didn't pay attention, but none of them are acting like explorers right now and I'm not sure what the hell that means.
It's actually creepy, to be honest. I've written things and didnt' realize what I was writing before, but usually someone tells me afterward. This is the first time I noticed my mind is apparently on a different track from my fingers and I don't know this story. I'm not sure I ever knew it.
I talk about the fics most often that I understand when I wrote them, but the ones I didn't are hard to discuss. Standing in the Common Spaces--the entire thing was a novella about grieving and coping and learning to live beyond it. I thought I was writing a Clark/Lex through Peter's eyes and I didn't write that at all.
I wrote how Peter had loved and lost and didn't know how to move on, and I didn't know Mary Jane was dead until Lex said it. I didn't even know Harry was dead for most of the story. I didn't realize Peter was not just a mirror, but a messenger as well. And I hate writing deathfic, so that stopped me for like, two days. I went back through the story and found all those messages Peter left (I thought Mary Jane was out modeling, for God's sake) and when he timed it, and I keep thinking I must have known, I must have, must have known it ended this way, that he came to Metropolis because it was so hard to pretend anymore in New York.
Eighteenish in SGA--deaging yay! And then I realized why and it surprised me. They were Ascended. Of course. But I didn't know what Rodney did until he climbed in that pod. Wider Than The Sky--not about John the president. It was John becoming the man who would, in another universe, lead a miltary base and fight the Wraith, someone who found the strength to be more than just a politician, and fight for something he believed in. Rodney became more than a manager for politicians, but a believer in something bigger than himself, in a *person*. And I can't even talk about the The Principle of Exclusion because then I get a headache, but that one still drives me nuts on a variety of levels, not least of which is that I disliked Rod, hated John, and still felt so bad for both of them trapped in what the world saw them as instead of trying to find out who they really were. apple-pi gave teh most awesome feedback when she said how horrifically uncomfortable it was to read--God, it *was*, and it was just as bad if not worse to write. It hits my embarrassment squick for both of them constantly and the only thing that really got me through it was that eleveninches told me to.
You totally think I am joking, but I'm so not. Which is part of the reason that I love And All the World Beneath as a story but it failed for me as a writer; I didn't learn anything particularly new while writing it. Well, I learned to write horror. It's--irritating.
So. To set my own worries about my mental state at rest; when this happens to you, when the story is something you didn't know you were writing, what do you do? And feel free to name the fic and how.
*****
Reminder: The elections for the lj advisor position are running this week and it's important that lj users vote for a candidate to represent us. For more information, read here bethbethbeth's summary of the election, the candidates, and the importance of fans participating. And don't forget to VOTE.
It's--well, the thing is, it was one of those I started for ltlj just to see where it would go. Its basic premise was "John is injured" and then I went from there.
And it went--well, somewhere, but not anywhere with a coherent reason, if that makes sense. It feels like a cross between a scene from a longer fic and a fic that's set after something else--like a bad McShep breakup, maybe. Or something huge and strange that no one can talk about, like a spiritual experience or the end of Atlantis or a Wraith conquest or something. I know something happened there; reading it now, it's all over the characters. Something happened. Something huge. Something that maybe broke them and they're running on habit and desperation.
The thing is, when I wrote it, I don't remember that being there; I remember thinking how to get them back to Atlantis. But reading it, I don't feel Atlantis in them at all. And I don't know if this is after, if this is a different Atlantis, if the world changed when I didn't pay attention, but none of them are acting like explorers right now and I'm not sure what the hell that means.
It's actually creepy, to be honest. I've written things and didnt' realize what I was writing before, but usually someone tells me afterward. This is the first time I noticed my mind is apparently on a different track from my fingers and I don't know this story. I'm not sure I ever knew it.
I talk about the fics most often that I understand when I wrote them, but the ones I didn't are hard to discuss. Standing in the Common Spaces--the entire thing was a novella about grieving and coping and learning to live beyond it. I thought I was writing a Clark/Lex through Peter's eyes and I didn't write that at all.
I wrote how Peter had loved and lost and didn't know how to move on, and I didn't know Mary Jane was dead until Lex said it. I didn't even know Harry was dead for most of the story. I didn't realize Peter was not just a mirror, but a messenger as well. And I hate writing deathfic, so that stopped me for like, two days. I went back through the story and found all those messages Peter left (I thought Mary Jane was out modeling, for God's sake) and when he timed it, and I keep thinking I must have known, I must have, must have known it ended this way, that he came to Metropolis because it was so hard to pretend anymore in New York.
Eighteenish in SGA--deaging yay! And then I realized why and it surprised me. They were Ascended. Of course. But I didn't know what Rodney did until he climbed in that pod. Wider Than The Sky--not about John the president. It was John becoming the man who would, in another universe, lead a miltary base and fight the Wraith, someone who found the strength to be more than just a politician, and fight for something he believed in. Rodney became more than a manager for politicians, but a believer in something bigger than himself, in a *person*. And I can't even talk about the The Principle of Exclusion because then I get a headache, but that one still drives me nuts on a variety of levels, not least of which is that I disliked Rod, hated John, and still felt so bad for both of them trapped in what the world saw them as instead of trying to find out who they really were. apple-pi gave teh most awesome feedback when she said how horrifically uncomfortable it was to read--God, it *was*, and it was just as bad if not worse to write. It hits my embarrassment squick for both of them constantly and the only thing that really got me through it was that eleveninches told me to.
You totally think I am joking, but I'm so not. Which is part of the reason that I love And All the World Beneath as a story but it failed for me as a writer; I didn't learn anything particularly new while writing it. Well, I learned to write horror. It's--irritating.
So. To set my own worries about my mental state at rest; when this happens to you, when the story is something you didn't know you were writing, what do you do? And feel free to name the fic and how.
*****
Reminder: The elections for the lj advisor position are running this week and it's important that lj users vote for a candidate to represent us. For more information, read here bethbethbeth's summary of the election, the candidates, and the importance of fans participating. And don't forget to VOTE.