hmpf

I've officially started writing fic for, ahem, "Splinter" (let me continue to have my stupid joke, lol). This is probably a boon to everyone: once I start writing fic in a fandom, I usually stop being quite so obnoxiously vociferous about that fandom, which will be a relief to everyone over on tumblr (and possibly also to some other people, heh). And the fandom itself might get a fic or two out of it, eventually. Though nobody knows when that will be, least of all me.

Got two story beginnings, one that's barely a beginning yet and one that's around 500 words, 200 of which are really rather good, the rest needing improvement (or excision, possibly).

I like those 200 words so much that I have to exert a lot of self-control to not just post them here, but who wants 200 words, only to then be left hanging for what with me may well be years?

So, yeah. Not gonna do that.

This story has been online a few weeks already, but things have been very busy since then, so I didn't get around to announcing it properly. Also, I went back and edited this thing several times since posting, and only as of the latest edit has it begun feeling "finished" to me.

So! This is still for the Fandom That Is Barely a Fandom, The Laundry Files.

CLICK HERE if you‘re interested in:
- monsters discussing ethics
- doing the right thing for the wrong reasons
- doing the wrong thing for the right reasons
- grossly inaccurate applications of the Trolley Problem
- awkward manipulation attempts
- dehumanised and instrumentalised people convincing others to be dehumanised and instrumentalised too
- decent people enabling authoritarianism
- anagnorisis. So much anagnorisis.

Some fandom background for the curious behind the cut. Spoilers, obviously.

( Read more... )

Title: Eldritch Things

Fandom: The Laundry Files

Characters: Bob's dad, Spooky the cat, Bob (in absentia), Mo, Bob's mom (mentioned)

Summary: The father of the guy we know as "Bob Howard", cat-sitting, reacting (allergically), worrying, wondering.

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16278590

Isn't that essentially the FS story you published earlier this year? ... Kind of? There wasn't a cat in that, though?

So how long did it take you to write that, MacSlow? - Not much longer than a year, actually. It's pretty sloppy. (And I think I may have lifted at least one bit of cat description more or less directly from the source, but I couldn't find the relevant bit in the books so I've left it in for now; will change it if I discover it really *is* too close for comfort to the original.)

Will there be more? - Yes, probably. I have a pretty serious longfic bunny in this fandom that has progressed to "fairly detailed outline for ten chapters" stage now.

Is there even a fandom there? - Not... really? I'm working on it? (*whispers* join meeeeeeee....) I should really comment on the very little fic that there is - but now that I've just posted some fic, it would look like fishing for reviews. :-/

Couple newish Farscape fics (nothing spectacular, though) on AO3 since I was here last.

https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hmpf_MacSlow/works

(I've been trying to make an effort to finish more of my old stuff, even the not so great stuff, because I really hate having that many unfinished things clogging up my writing folder.)

Also, I'm looking for a beta for a Life on Mars fic. I have no idea if anyone is still checking this blog... but if you are, and if you would be willing to beta something, hit me up! Samples of my LoM writing can be found at the above address, too - check out "The MAD Doctrine" as the most recent.

I know I've essentially bragged about how good I think it is before, and I know that's obnoxious. Yet... it's the only thing I've ever written that makes me *really* feel, "Wow, I can write!!" whenever I read it. At this point I don't even care that it made a reasonable splash upon its original posting but afterwards sort of sank like a stone. It just makes me feel good to reread it and realise that, yes, I can write.

(It's another question if I can also write plot...)

did I actually mention the novel here before? I think maybe I didn't.

So, yes. I'm writing a novel. Haha. (Haha, because I still have absolutely no idea how to do plot. This seems like it might end up being a bit of a stumbling block...)

It's sf/fantasy (it's probably the former but feels mostly like the latter), it means I have to do a shitload of research in at least half a dozen disciplines, and it's, unexpectedly, a love story at heart. I think.

It's all a bit vague yet.

It started back in March or so. 3,540 words in seven months is actually pretty good for me! Now I'm stuck, though, because now I really seriously need a plot.

I've been very nearly completely offline for... weeks (pretty much since I made my last post here, exactly), and only partly online again for... a week or so. My laptop died. Completely. Not even the "power on" diode is working anymore. My ancient desktop, after a three-day period of trying and failing again and again, turned out to be incompatible with Linux (which I tried to put on it so as to have at least *some* sort of working computer again with which to go online and look for computer advice as well as start shopping for a new laptop). I'm now on a borrowed eight-year-old laptop (which was also broken/heavily infected with something, and which has an extraordinarily crappy keyboard), on which I installed Linux and which is therefore, now, somewhat safe to use for going online again. I've also finally ordered a new laptop, which should be delivered sometime this week. Pheew.

The novel is now at 1,500 words, roughly, btw. Have been somewhat stuck/blocked for a while though, mainly because I have some trouble developing the setting in my mind - seems like I can't really write unless I can imagine the world my protagonists live in. I've started borrowing lots of geography books from the local library; maybe that will help.

I've finally started reading comics again! I sort of fell off that particular wagon a year or two ago, mainly because I switched to reading more novels again. I've started reading Saga now (which had been brought to my attention a couple of times before, but I wasn't in comic buying mode then, so it never stuck). It's good, but not as weird as I feel I'd been promised. I think reading Finder and Donna Barr's stuff and assorted Manga has forever ruined me for finding any comic coming out of the mainstream weird. The world also doesn't feel quite as fully realised to me yet as reviews had led me to expect. Again, I'm probably spoiled by Finder. Still, it's promising - and it's definitely a flavour that you don't get much in comics, so I'll support it for that, too. Mind you, I only have the first volume, so far.

Prince Robot is totally modelled on The One Electronic, though.

One thing that's kind of interesting is that what Saga tries to do - telling a love story about an established relationship, against a background of large-scale conflict - is *sort of* what I'm trying to do in my novel. Huh.

As for weirder comics: Finder: Third World, the story that was serialised in Dark Horse Presents, is finally getting a trade paperback release in August. This is making me very, very, very, very happy.

Also, it seems there will be a Hellblazer, pardon, Constantine (pronounced wrong, though, ugh) tv show? Not sure how I feel about that, but it's reminded me of the fact that my Hellblazer collection is sadly incomplete. Turns out that now they're finally collecting the whole shebang from the beginning and without gaps. Well, hooray. Only I've already bought about a third of the entire run in various other forms. I doubt the new collections will neatly fill the gaps in my stack of issues and trades, so I suppose I'll end up with lots of spares. Meh.

I also still haven't read the actual ending of the actual comic (stopped reading for money reasons, a while before it ended). Was it okay? Or is it better to just... not read it, ever?

Aaaand speaking of London magicians, I also recently read Rivers of London and enjoyed it quite a lot. What I didn't enjoy quite as much were some of the spoilers I read online about Lesley's future. Fingers crossed that those were misinterpretations or something. Now waiting for the second volume to be delivered... which should have arrived last week already, so I'm getting antsy.

Right, well, gotta get off this thing now as it's getting late and I have to get up early tomorrow...

for instance, the *only* comment the story got on AO3 is from a reader who doesn't know the fandom at all, and got there via a rec from *another* "external", i.e. non-LoM-fandom reader.

I mean, this is brilliant, of course! Getting feedback and recs from readers who aren't into the fandom you're writing about is among the biggest compliments there are, in my book, because it's that much harder to make someone care about your characters if they're not already invested in them. So, wow, that comment and that rec made me very, very happy.

But to have that be the *only* feedback you get in a given place is also... somewhat weird, isn't it? :D

(Yes, I do know it's because everyone else already commented on LJ.)

I just remembered that I posted The MAD Doctrine to ff.net at some point, and decided to check if there'd been any comments. (I know, I know, it's ff.net, and you take it seriously at your peril - and I *don't* take it very seriously, as demonstrated by the fact I forget about it for months at a time.) So... still zero comments. Basically everything else on the first page (yep, it's still on the first page - there isn't much new LoM fic anymore) of the ff.net LoM section has comments. (Well, there are three other fics that don't. All of those are much more recent, though.)

But, seriously: *usually* (judging by other fics I've posted there in the past, that is) I got *some* kind of feedback there eventually. So what is it about The MAD Doctrine that makes it so unattractive? It just puzzles me.

(It's also not been getting any new comments anywhere else, not after the first two weeks or so, but I guess that's normal in a small, aging fandom.)

Hmm. I guess the ff.net thing bothers me because I kind of thought this would be a fic that would certainly not find a huge audience (I generally don't write the kind of stuff that finds huge audiences ;-)) but I *was* fairly confident that it would find the occasional reader who'd *really* love it - and those are usually the people who leave some feedback. I didn't really expect more than one or two such readers (on ff.net). But a complete lack of feedback in four or five months basically means it didn't really find *any* reader like that there at all. And that surprises me (and saddens me a bit, too).

I have enough hubris to still believe it's among the very best things I've written. But it does make me wonder if, I dunno, perhaps most of the reading audience of ff.net's LoM section consists of people who remember me as an insufferable arrogant asshole from TRA? Or something. It brings out my paranoid side - I'm wondering, "Is it *me* they dislike?"

And yeah, I know it's vastly more likely that they dislike - or rather, just don't care about - the fic rather than myself. It's been five years, and fandom doesn't have that long a memory, so the people who are reading stuff on ff.net now probably don't know that I have A History.

I guess ultimately I kind of prefer to believe that it's me, and not the fic, though. I don't want to believe that I wrote something that doesn't move anyone. (And initial feedback did seem to indicate that it *did* work for people! But maybe the LJ audience is just very different.)

God, it's been what, six months? I need to stop angsting periodically about this.

It's the ridiculous amounts of time that elapse between my fics that mostly causes this particular brand of angst, I bet. Normal people would have published half a dozen fics since February, so feedback for a fic from February would be a very distant concern...

the bad fics I posted (the imperfectly revised early!fic, and the Matthew draft) are making me physically uncomfortable.

(I just had a look at my fic folder, trying to decide which unfinished fics to print out for five days off-line. That's what brought on this fit of embarrassment.)

I apologise for having inflicted unfinished stuff/badly revised stuff on you. The next time you'll see either of those fics they'll be a lot better, I promise.