5,650.

The 90s are done.

Probably still need a lot of work. Can't judge properly at the moment. Will have to look at it with fresh eyes in a few days.

ETA: Oh, and this is version 16.0 now. The title is back to Back to the Future (the Long Way Round), after cycling through The MAD Doctrine, Maggie Doesn't Live Here Anymore, and, most recently, Dormouse. I will shortly reach page 12, and as of today there's probably only one more transition and one, final scene to write.

And this is about 900 words longer than my longest fic to date, now.

What am I going to adopt as my main project after Back to the Future?

That is a difficult question, acutally.

It's difficult to count my WiPs, too, at the moment, because there are quite a few whose status sort of oscillates between "just a plot bunny I may tackle some day" and "actual project". But I'd say I have nine major projects, apart from Back.... Four of these have been very firmly on the back burner since around 2003 or 2004, though I am too fond of them, and in some cases there is too much material already, for me to consider them abandoned. Another has been on the back burner since 2006.

So that leaves four arguably "active" projects. Two of them, started in 2007 (or 2006?) and 2009 (or 2008?), respectively, are short by concept, and should be easy - they're essentially introspective mood pieces (one about John Crichton, the other about Maya, and her relationship with Sam). Yet I've been rather stuck on both of these projects pretty much since day one, so they're massively frustrating, and I don't really see a way forward, except to continue the same, excruciatingly slow and frustrating way I've been going so far. Promoting them to "main project" seems useless - it wouldn't speed them up at all, I think.

Then there's the Sandman crossover, whose very solid and promising beginning was conceived in an amazingly productive couple of weeks in 2008, and has been completely stalled since then. In many ways I think this would be the best to promote, because I think there's a chance that - once I've reread the comic, and done a bit of thinking and planning - this may progress relatively smoothly. And the point of having a main project in the first place is still to reduce my list of WiPs. So this might be the most likely to do that.

But then, there's also the fact that my 2.08 survival epic has been on my mind a lot recently, and I've begun research for that again, and am in e-mail conversations about it with a few people, too. I'm wary of promoting that to main project, though, because not only will it have to be at least novella-length - which is scary in its own right - but it also seems nearly impossible to accomplish in a variety of ways. Making that my main writing project seems like an exercise in self-destruction, or in futility.

I'd also like to promote at least one of the back burner WiPs back to "active" status, once Back... is out of the queue. Possibly the only one that involves Methos, because that is literally my only HL project at the moment; and also, I think it has the potential to be really, really great.

Or I could promote two of the back burner projects, and actually make one of them my main project.

Oh, choices. Why so difficult?

What is on the back burner?

1.) Found in Translation: about Methos, and Adam Pierson. A story about identities. Consisting, so far, of about five pages of notes (ideas, and a few nice sentences/paragraphs), and a page and a half of more or less coherent text which needs a thorough rewrite because, although there's some seriously awesome sentences in there, it's mostly in a style that's just too different from how I would write something like that nowadays. Started in 2004.

2.) An untitled Harry Potter AU, which needs to be at least a novella. Currently consisting of about five pages of coherent text, mainly just setting the scene. I rarely look at it, but when I do, I invariably think "Hey, this is actually quite nice. I should work on it again sometime!" Still needs a plot (beyond "nearly everybody is dead, and magic doesn't work anymore"). Oh, and I should probably finally get around to reading the last three HP books before I continue writing this. Started in 2003 or possibly in early 2004.

3.) Zombie!Sam fic avant la lettre. One day, the sun goes out. When it switches on again, Sam notices that he has stopped breathing. So far consists of about two pages, badly in need of a rewrite. Stalled because I didn't know where I wanted to go with it, except that it should get more and more psychedelic. Also, because I felt I needed a lot more research before I could hope to construct a psychedelic world from the mental furniture of a male British police officer born in 1969. Actually started before the zombie!Sam fad, in spring 2006. My very first attempt at LoM fic.

4.) A Farscape fic that at the moment only consists of a catchy title, a vague idea, and a page of mood-setting that I'm still rather fond of. Intended to deal, eventually, with the Moya crew's uneasy adoption of an identity that at least partially incorporates the role of terrorists. Conceived in 2004.

5.) An untitled Farscape fic made up of two WiPs which, as I suddenly noticed sometime last year, felt as if they belonged to a larger fic. The WiPs in question were Personal Space - a story about Jack Crichton just before Terra Firma, and Sisters, about a conversation between Liv and Susan, post-Terra Firma. I've forgotten already how exactly I meant to patch the two together in that flash of inspiration, unfortunately. I may have to publish them as separate fics after all. (Obviously they form a sort of trilogy with Normal, of course.) Component WiPs both started in 2003 or 2004.