"Wind" at AO3

[verdeckt]

In a week's time, I will be deleting as the wind behaves from my AO3 account for possible reworking. EA is on indefinite hiatus for now; if I find myself further unable to write the next chapter then I will take it down (with a week's prior notice) as well. Thank you for your understanding."Wind" will remain online, but I may tinker at it in secret

Comments

[verdeckt]

Oh my dear, there is an approach I had not considered.

"wind" is so deeply problematic (structurally, symbolically, with regard to characterisation) that I would have to rewrite at least 90%. I have plans to change all but some of the opening and the title -- and then would it still be the same story? Could I then post it under the same name? I wish I had never posted it in the first place; even at the time I knew it was a problematic first draft.

EA has very different problems, many of which I have elected to ignore (because it would take months to fix them), others which have to do with its structure and make me consider the entire project futile. I haven't completely given up on it, because it provides a nice platform for experimenting with different perspectives, but my inspiration has all but fled. (Except when it comes to Lily and Severus. For these two I will always have material, if not necessarily a narrative.)

And -- my God. I feel humbled and shocked and uplifted by your incredibly generous offer to soundboard or beta. I might indeed take you up on it, dearest, but only if you have the time.

[perverse_idyll]

This approach is less painful to hypercritical writers (for I'm quite sure I recognize a kindred spirit in you) and more accommodating to readers who would wail for the loss of a beloved fic. It's also a form of subterfuge, because it leaves the reading public ignorant of how dissatisfied you are with your own work. You can revise in peace without feeling like an ass (something I experienced once because a chapter of my WiP was so ghastly that I locked it down, with every intention of revising it -- only as it turns out, I didn't have time, and when a reader PM'd me to ask why the entry was inaccessible, I couldn't exactly say, "Because it's shite!" so I had to unlock it in a flurry of embarrassment. I still haven't fixed the effing chapter, but no one would know if I hadn't tried to put up a Keep Out sign.)

Oh, no, please don't begrudge "Wind" its existence. Remember how much pleasure it gave Snarry fandom. You hit a nerve and fed an excitement that many readers had lost. You caught and rekindled the essential intensity that first drew people to the pairing, myself included, and added a shock of language and lyricism, all the emotional details that fan the charge between Snape and Harry to a burning level.

I understand the reflex of revulsion that sometimes occurs in the wake of finishing a story -- not only finishing it, but moving beyond it. Moving far enough to look back with a critical eye. It's hard not to hold a labor of love to impossible standards, and besides, there's that insidious temptation to keep polishing an existing work rather than let it be and focus on the next idea, the next bout of wrestling with angels and despairing of ever getting it right.

If I may venture to suggest it, there's nothing wrong with leaving a story as a testament to one's vision at the moment of writing. It may not represent how you feel later, but -- setting aside for now Wind's value as a story that people hold dear -- it marks a position, one possible interpretation preserved in words and caught in time. For example, I couldn't write the Rose & Fire fic today. But it reminds me of a very distinct period in my fandom life, the period of my greatest infatuation with Snarry. I can still catch the faint whiff of that fierceness when I look at the fic, even though there are whole sections I skip right over.

So by all means revise, but don't dismantle. You might end up sacrificing something crucial to the heart of the story. Something you would miss.

Perhaps EA will renew itself if you have someone to scrutinize it with you. Scrutinize in the sense of seizing it and exclaiming over it and breathing life back into it. My first article of business would be Harry, I think. That is, Harry's narrative arc; I can see Severus' fairly clearly, even if the specific outcome remains a mystery. Harry's motivations are a bit more elusive and abstract, which suggests you're holding him at arm's length.

We can talk about that later, if you like.

Ah, I'm not sure I'd call it generosity. You may not know that I spent my first three years in fandom as a beta, which happened because I do love editing. I love entering into the bloodstream of a story, and since I'm addicted to words I might as well put my opinions at someone else's service. Which means, I suppose, that I'm one of those dubious people who's Far Too Serious about Fanfic on the Internet. Oh well. At least it gives me an outlet for my inner thwarted editor.

Time will be the sticking point, of course. Time and energy levels. But if you're willing to entertain a somewhat intermittent dialogue, I can promise you it would give me great pleasure to discuss the fics with you.

Apologies for the chattiness. For once, I'm semi-alert on a work night, ergo rambling. For good or ill, this won't always be the case.

[verdeckt]

Please never apologise for chattiness. I hope for one that this means that you had an energising, productive day! for I worry about you. But there's also this: I could sit at your feet and listen to you speak for the rest of my days.

My appearances online will become increasingly intermittent as the new semester rolls into gear in September. But I would love to have this dialogue, if you're up for dealing with a partner as slow-thinking and hypercritical as myself. I think talking about things like this could possibly restore to me some of the excitement I used to feel about literature before my graduate program installed a sense of dread in its place. Writing EA was once the place for expressing that joy and excitement I felt about words and structures, for experimenting as seemed impossible in an analysis, and I desperately miss that feeling, even as I bitterly regret many thoughtless, stupid decisions made in the exuberance of the moment. I went into the project thinking that ff.net was the sort of place where one could try out producing novels in the manner of Dickens, as serial publications, and became very swept up in the idea of allowing readers to determine certain elements of the plot. In hindsight, I know better.

Harry is -- difficult. You've spotted one of the elements of the story I toss and turn over most. I know many things about him now that I did not know about him then, and still I do not know enough. He is far too protean, changeable, unpredictable in the current version of EA, and I fear I am not far enough along in understanding him to write a significantly better version now. This may have to do with my rule that the narrative shall never go inside his head; perhaps I should write from his perspective just for myself, to see how that goes.

I appreciate what you said about keeping a story up as a testament -- a reminder, perhaps even a spur. "Wind" is a very painful sort of spur, like an untenable political position one took up in one's youth, but then again life is full of such memories, and they are of great importance in shaping what one is at the present moment.

But now I am most definitely rambling, and most pointlessly too. Shall we form an alliance of dubious people who are Far Too Serious about Fanfic on the Internet? In the meantime, I am going to write you an e-mail about something else...