How the ...
November 1st, already? Well then. This year's flown by-ish. Why, it's nearly time for the annual Burbank migration. People tell me that I'll be there on Saturday. So ... I'll be there on Saturday and I hope to see some of you there as well, otherwise I'll be sad and lonely at the tables outside (I avoid going into the con when possible) (also, I don't think I have tickets. So, you know).
The year's not been great for me writing-wise. I'm in a dry spell, and by dry, I'm thinking mojave. My mother says I need to stop saying I'm in a dry spell and start telling myself I'm in a magical and lush oasis. So, I'm thinking I might do holiday gift fics again, seeing as I'm in that magical and lush oasis and not a barren, hellish wasteland. I didn't manage to get everybody last time I did it (two years ago?), but I tried. That counts right? I did get out a fair few. If you're interested in a tmc-brand fic for the winter holiday/festival/event/random-December-day of your choice, think about what you'd like and I'll put up a post later with details and such.
I think part of leaving that barren, hellish wasteland will be letting go of some things that are flat dry lakebeds of failure. Fics that go nowhere and I stare at them and my soul shrivels and blows away like a tumbleweed of sorrow.
So, I'm letting go of this untitled Rose and Eighth Doctor fic (pre-Doomsday). I like parts of it enough that I don't want to throw it away, but it was going nowhere interesting for me and it has lived neglected and unloved on my hard drive, and every time I opened it up it made me feel sort of guilty. It is up for adoption if anybody wants to do something with it:
***
I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.
-- W. Somerset Maugham
**
She's seen the future. Five billion years and a dying sun. Five billion and twenty-five and a new world born. She's seen her own future, too, in a lined face and lost chances.
She's seen the past. A ghostly Christmas and a faith reborn. Candlelight in Versailles and a life flittering by in a handful of heartbeats. She's seen her own past, too, as her father's final breath brushed her cheek.
So much time, so many places. Time, for all its comings and goings and swirling about, beats an ever-steady tick-tock against her heart, and by that reckoning, she's been almost two years on this universal jaunt. There is so much, backwards, forwards, and sideways, that she'll never even begin to know. And yet, of all the things she knew she ought never expect to see, this might be the most unexpected.
At this moment, in this place, a simple point in space-time, she is witness to something she's not sure she was ever meant to be a part of.
Just across the slickly paved road, just visible from her spot by a shop front, stands the TARDIS. A sight which, on a normal day, was as welcoming as any home, and for a few seconds, as she fumbled her key out from under her shirt, she felt nothing but sweet and profound relief. Until the door opened, and a man stepped out, so unlike her Doctor. Cold shock gripped her, and she stepped back against the shop, pressing away from the unfamiliar, hiding behind the thin river of pedestrians. Now she watches, frozen and shaken.
He's tall and lean, with long curls, and a velvet frock coat. He smiles benevolently at the passers-by, then squints up at the fat, red sun, and its small, yellow partner chasing each other across the sky. He owns the moments swirling around him. Across the way, even at that little distance, Rose can tell it's him. She's done this once before, but she didn't really expect that she'd have to do it again so soon. Truthfully, she's tried very hard not to think about it.
Now, wild thoughts of paradoxes and time ripped asunder dash through her mind, and she stands rock-still, half afraid to move, or even breathe. He's not her Doctor, but is he the before or after of the one she knows? Will she change the past, or muck up the future if she approaches him? Or, maybe he is her Doctor, recently changed -- in the long days they've been apart, could something have happened, could he have got himself killed without her there for him?
With a frustrated sigh, Rose slumps back against the shop front and passes a hand over her weary eyes. Figures she'd come all this way and find the wrong him. When she looks up again, he's watching her, a quizzical smile on his lips.
"Hullo," he calls brightly over the low din of the throng between them.
She hesitates for a moment, but he doesn't look away, and so she squares her shoulders and starts across the road to meet him. She doesn't bother to wonder how he spotted her -- she isn't exactly dressed like the natives, in their light and swirling gowns, like pastel candy floss, floating by, seemingly unconcerned by the afternoon's chill. She tucks her hands in the too-large coat she nicked off a passing Time Agent and fiddles nervously with the few odds and ends in her pockets.
"Hullo," he says again as she gets closer. She manages a wan smile.
"Doctor."
He frowns and cocks his head. "Have we met? Or will we meet?"
"I don't know," she answers honestly and studies his face. He's told her he never forgets, but anything might have happened.
Traveling with the Doctor for all the days and minutes and seconds and half-seconds that make up the almost two years, she is occasionally lulled into the belief that she could define who and what the Time Lord is, and then, at sudden moments, she's startled into remembering that he is as much a mystery as the vast universe surrounding her.
"I see," he says softly, the frown turning into a small smile.
"I don't -- I don't know ..." Rose stops, not sure what to say, what to ask, how to ask.
Closing her eyes, she tries to order her thoughts, and is both grateful for and a little wary of the Doctor's rather uncharacteristic patience. Though, maybe this him uses up all the patience of the rest of him.
***
go little fic, run free!
I really need some Pushing Daisies icons now.
Back later.
The year's not been great for me writing-wise. I'm in a dry spell, and by dry, I'm thinking mojave. My mother says I need to stop saying I'm in a dry spell and start telling myself I'm in a magical and lush oasis. So, I'm thinking I might do holiday gift fics again, seeing as I'm in that magical and lush oasis and not a barren, hellish wasteland. I didn't manage to get everybody last time I did it (two years ago?), but I tried. That counts right? I did get out a fair few. If you're interested in a tmc-brand fic for the winter holiday/festival/event/random-December-day of your choice, think about what you'd like and I'll put up a post later with details and such.
I think part of leaving that barren, hellish wasteland will be letting go of some things that are flat dry lakebeds of failure. Fics that go nowhere and I stare at them and my soul shrivels and blows away like a tumbleweed of sorrow.
So, I'm letting go of this untitled Rose and Eighth Doctor fic (pre-Doomsday). I like parts of it enough that I don't want to throw it away, but it was going nowhere interesting for me and it has lived neglected and unloved on my hard drive, and every time I opened it up it made me feel sort of guilty. It is up for adoption if anybody wants to do something with it:
***
I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.
-- W. Somerset Maugham
**
She's seen the future. Five billion years and a dying sun. Five billion and twenty-five and a new world born. She's seen her own future, too, in a lined face and lost chances.
She's seen the past. A ghostly Christmas and a faith reborn. Candlelight in Versailles and a life flittering by in a handful of heartbeats. She's seen her own past, too, as her father's final breath brushed her cheek.
So much time, so many places. Time, for all its comings and goings and swirling about, beats an ever-steady tick-tock against her heart, and by that reckoning, she's been almost two years on this universal jaunt. There is so much, backwards, forwards, and sideways, that she'll never even begin to know. And yet, of all the things she knew she ought never expect to see, this might be the most unexpected.
At this moment, in this place, a simple point in space-time, she is witness to something she's not sure she was ever meant to be a part of.
Just across the slickly paved road, just visible from her spot by a shop front, stands the TARDIS. A sight which, on a normal day, was as welcoming as any home, and for a few seconds, as she fumbled her key out from under her shirt, she felt nothing but sweet and profound relief. Until the door opened, and a man stepped out, so unlike her Doctor. Cold shock gripped her, and she stepped back against the shop, pressing away from the unfamiliar, hiding behind the thin river of pedestrians. Now she watches, frozen and shaken.
He's tall and lean, with long curls, and a velvet frock coat. He smiles benevolently at the passers-by, then squints up at the fat, red sun, and its small, yellow partner chasing each other across the sky. He owns the moments swirling around him. Across the way, even at that little distance, Rose can tell it's him. She's done this once before, but she didn't really expect that she'd have to do it again so soon. Truthfully, she's tried very hard not to think about it.
Now, wild thoughts of paradoxes and time ripped asunder dash through her mind, and she stands rock-still, half afraid to move, or even breathe. He's not her Doctor, but is he the before or after of the one she knows? Will she change the past, or muck up the future if she approaches him? Or, maybe he is her Doctor, recently changed -- in the long days they've been apart, could something have happened, could he have got himself killed without her there for him?
With a frustrated sigh, Rose slumps back against the shop front and passes a hand over her weary eyes. Figures she'd come all this way and find the wrong him. When she looks up again, he's watching her, a quizzical smile on his lips.
"Hullo," he calls brightly over the low din of the throng between them.
She hesitates for a moment, but he doesn't look away, and so she squares her shoulders and starts across the road to meet him. She doesn't bother to wonder how he spotted her -- she isn't exactly dressed like the natives, in their light and swirling gowns, like pastel candy floss, floating by, seemingly unconcerned by the afternoon's chill. She tucks her hands in the too-large coat she nicked off a passing Time Agent and fiddles nervously with the few odds and ends in her pockets.
"Hullo," he says again as she gets closer. She manages a wan smile.
"Doctor."
He frowns and cocks his head. "Have we met? Or will we meet?"
"I don't know," she answers honestly and studies his face. He's told her he never forgets, but anything might have happened.
Traveling with the Doctor for all the days and minutes and seconds and half-seconds that make up the almost two years, she is occasionally lulled into the belief that she could define who and what the Time Lord is, and then, at sudden moments, she's startled into remembering that he is as much a mystery as the vast universe surrounding her.
"I see," he says softly, the frown turning into a small smile.
"I don't -- I don't know ..." Rose stops, not sure what to say, what to ask, how to ask.
Closing her eyes, she tries to order her thoughts, and is both grateful for and a little wary of the Doctor's rather uncharacteristic patience. Though, maybe this him uses up all the patience of the rest of him.
***
go little fic, run free!
I really need some Pushing Daisies icons now.
Back later.