I always knew chapter 13 of "Secrets" was going to be emotionally draining to write, but I didn't figure it would be quite this draining. It went nicely at first, sort of a cathartic rush, but now it's getting to the point where I'm flinching away from each new scene because every word reminds me too much of being depressed ( Read more... )

I think one of the reasons I started writing "Secrets" -- there were several and they were all rather tangled and I was definitely not aware of all of them at the time -- was a nagging dissatisfaction with the ending of CoS. Fundamentally, this dissatisfaction stems from a disjoint between my moral understanding of the universe and Rowling's moral ( Read more... )

( An interesting thing about writing a sort of parallel canon... )

I have a dim memory that someone once told me that in the British version of CoS, sometime between Harry and Ginny's exit from the Chamber and everyone's arrival at Dumbledore's office -- i.e., near the end of chapter 17 -- Ron attempts to hug Ginny and she rebuffs him. No such action occurs in the American version. (Trust me, I've checked ( Read more... )

I hate chapter 12 of "Secrets" right now. See, for pacing reasons the chapter cannot end until I get through a certain scene. The trouble is that that scene will take at least 1,000-1,500 words to do properly -- it's the climax of the action/mystery half of the story, and while it's not one of the two emotional climaxes, it's certainly important ( Read more... )

Today Mom and I ( Read more... )

I gacked this from ladylisse (and then tweaked it a fair bit). The idea is to post the first lines from ten of your recent or in-progress stories. I decided (since I won't have anything ready to post in the near future), that I might throw up some slightly longer excerpts. Fanfiction only.

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( The Transient and the Eternal )

I'm rereading "Secrets" so as to get back the feel and headspace of the story.

I'd forgotten how long it is: 110,000 words posted so far, nearly 10,000 in the still-unfinished chapter 12, and chapters 13-15 still to go. I just go on and on and on and ye gods, I spend such a lot of time doing tight-focus on Ginny's often rambling thought processes ( Read more... )

This is really not what I meant to be working on tonight, but when the words come, I try not to argue too hard over their choice of story. It's better to write something than stare at a blank screen in frustration!

Anyway, in chapter 2 of Secrets, my still unfinished retelling of CoS, Ginny meets two original characters -- Apple and Daphne ( Read more... )

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.
---Martin Luther King, Jr.Yes, yes, a thousand times YES ( Read more... )