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foolish_m0rtalHow excited am I that ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
mcshep_match is coming to a close, and I'm actually getting involved (okay, in the voting, not the writing or artwork. Augh, I would die and not be worthy!!) with it?
Pretty godamn excited!!
First artwork was totally gorgeous and reminded me of an old mural. Since I've been getting a lot into my Whittling Wood universe, I'm reading a lot about ancient stories and culture, so this was such a pleasant surprise! The sword I'm featuring in the story has that really pretty Bronze Age leaf shape. Mm, Apa type swords, 17th century BC. Strong, but not brittle. Well balanced, good for thrusting. VERY pretty. *drools*
Ah, Whittling Wood Castle. It was going to be one of those 'looking into the future' stories where it ends in a lull after all the grand adventuring, leaving you to wonder, "Well, if all this exciting stuff has been going on, how will he go back to the boring?"
But then I got a really ticklish idea for a sequel stuck in my head. I said nooo, because the ending of Whittling is supposed to make readers say "damn you, I wanted to know more!" and the story was just supposed to go kaput. That was supposed to be the pretty and futile charm of it. (oh yes, most of my life I've dealt with the pretty and futile)
But apparently, I want to know more too, because now it looks like I'm going to be doing a series of short stories in the Whittling universe about what happens after. All sorts of random things that bring up more questions and give more colour to events in the original story.
Make.
It.
Stop.
I draw the line at the dryad. I completely do. I WANT him in the later short stories, but I'm afraid those stories will take away from the huge original Whittling Wood story that I'm putting a bit of my soul (and quite a bit of research) into right now. It's like a drug, and the dryad is where I go cold turkey.
In the beginning, I used to have very careful deliberate ideas, and I knew I could turn every one of them into a presentable story. Nowadays, I'm having more thoughts, more dust and fluff buzzing around in my head, and I've had to throw some stuff out. In the summer, I even once had to completely STOP writing a story because I decided it wasn't going anywhere. I was almost done with it and said no more. "This is not my best work, I'm just trying to complete it because I always try to complete stories, and I don't think I want this representing a part of me on the internet."
Not that the story had anything bad, it's just that I'm very grave about the kind of stories I post, because I know they show a lot about me. This is why I rarely have silly fluff, a common and accepted skeleton in most every writer's closet. I am very deliberate about what I write, what I post. Really, the closest I've ever been to silly fluff is either The Icing on the Cake or The Angel (discontinued), though that had a great heaping dose of angst and sparked of n00b writer-ness, hence why it finally went on hiatus.
Most stories I try to salvage. That one I was just like NOPE. Nothing like the story I stopped writing over the summer. That one I gave up on reluctantly, even though it was very much alive. The Angel died and I readily went to its funeral, fanning out roses atop its grave.
I'm grateful for what The Angel did- got me involved in the writing communities on the internet, connected me to friends I still have, and really got me where I am right now, internet-wise. It really opened me up, getting me out of doing something besides checking my mail and going on youtube once in a while. If I hadn't posted, I wouldn't have this. I wouldn't have LiveJournal or FFNET (such as it is. I have a fondness for it, I confess). I wouldn't have TWOPEMSCI, Victoria's comics, NF-san, MOG, webcomics, LJ communities, the triumphant third mcshep_match, JP3-ers like me (gods, I was so excited that they existed and I wasn't the only one), the gorgeous lives of Posner and Scripps, finally talking to an author I have idolised for ages. Nothing.
I think once in a while, we all have to stop and look around where we are now in all the lives we carry around. We must wonder how it could have been, give thanks to how it turned out.
"Oh, he's a fool,but he was also unlucky. For a start, the lollipop lady's only on duty a couple of hours. Five minutes later,she'd have gone off. And what if the lights had been green? Or if there'd been no children coming?
The smallest of incidents, the junction of a dizzying range of...alternatives. Any one of which could have had a different outcome.
If I was... a bold teacher -if I was you, even -I could spend a lesson dissecting what the headmaster insists on calling "this unfortunate incident". And it would teach the boys more about history and the utter randomness of things than... well, than I've ever managed to do, so far."
- Mrs. Lintott, "The History Boys"
The Angel is my unfortunate incident. And I am grateful.
mcshep_match is coming to a close, and I'm actually getting involved (okay, in the voting, not the writing or artwork. Augh, I would die and not be worthy!!) with it?Pretty godamn excited!!
First artwork was totally gorgeous and reminded me of an old mural. Since I've been getting a lot into my Whittling Wood universe, I'm reading a lot about ancient stories and culture, so this was such a pleasant surprise! The sword I'm featuring in the story has that really pretty Bronze Age leaf shape. Mm, Apa type swords, 17th century BC. Strong, but not brittle. Well balanced, good for thrusting. VERY pretty. *drools*
Ah, Whittling Wood Castle. It was going to be one of those 'looking into the future' stories where it ends in a lull after all the grand adventuring, leaving you to wonder, "Well, if all this exciting stuff has been going on, how will he go back to the boring?"
But then I got a really ticklish idea for a sequel stuck in my head. I said nooo, because the ending of Whittling is supposed to make readers say "damn you, I wanted to know more!" and the story was just supposed to go kaput. That was supposed to be the pretty and futile charm of it. (oh yes, most of my life I've dealt with the pretty and futile)
But apparently, I want to know more too, because now it looks like I'm going to be doing a series of short stories in the Whittling universe about what happens after. All sorts of random things that bring up more questions and give more colour to events in the original story.
Make.
It.
Stop.
I draw the line at the dryad. I completely do. I WANT him in the later short stories, but I'm afraid those stories will take away from the huge original Whittling Wood story that I'm putting a bit of my soul (and quite a bit of research) into right now. It's like a drug, and the dryad is where I go cold turkey.
In the beginning, I used to have very careful deliberate ideas, and I knew I could turn every one of them into a presentable story. Nowadays, I'm having more thoughts, more dust and fluff buzzing around in my head, and I've had to throw some stuff out. In the summer, I even once had to completely STOP writing a story because I decided it wasn't going anywhere. I was almost done with it and said no more. "This is not my best work, I'm just trying to complete it because I always try to complete stories, and I don't think I want this representing a part of me on the internet."
Not that the story had anything bad, it's just that I'm very grave about the kind of stories I post, because I know they show a lot about me. This is why I rarely have silly fluff, a common and accepted skeleton in most every writer's closet. I am very deliberate about what I write, what I post. Really, the closest I've ever been to silly fluff is either The Icing on the Cake or The Angel (discontinued), though that had a great heaping dose of angst and sparked of n00b writer-ness, hence why it finally went on hiatus.
Most stories I try to salvage. That one I was just like NOPE. Nothing like the story I stopped writing over the summer. That one I gave up on reluctantly, even though it was very much alive. The Angel died and I readily went to its funeral, fanning out roses atop its grave.
I'm grateful for what The Angel did- got me involved in the writing communities on the internet, connected me to friends I still have, and really got me where I am right now, internet-wise. It really opened me up, getting me out of doing something besides checking my mail and going on youtube once in a while. If I hadn't posted, I wouldn't have this. I wouldn't have LiveJournal or FFNET (such as it is. I have a fondness for it, I confess). I wouldn't have TWOPEMSCI, Victoria's comics, NF-san, MOG, webcomics, LJ communities, the triumphant third mcshep_match, JP3-ers like me (gods, I was so excited that they existed and I wasn't the only one), the gorgeous lives of Posner and Scripps, finally talking to an author I have idolised for ages. Nothing.
I think once in a while, we all have to stop and look around where we are now in all the lives we carry around. We must wonder how it could have been, give thanks to how it turned out.
"Oh, he's a fool,but he was also unlucky. For a start, the lollipop lady's only on duty a couple of hours. Five minutes later,she'd have gone off. And what if the lights had been green? Or if there'd been no children coming?
The smallest of incidents, the junction of a dizzying range of...alternatives. Any one of which could have had a different outcome.
If I was... a bold teacher -if I was you, even -I could spend a lesson dissecting what the headmaster insists on calling "this unfortunate incident". And it would teach the boys more about history and the utter randomness of things than... well, than I've ever managed to do, so far."
- Mrs. Lintott, "The History Boys"
The Angel is my unfortunate incident. And I am grateful.
