rthstewart (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rthstewart) wrote2011-07-01 12:15 am
rthstewart) wrote2011-07-01 12:15 am
A bit of the personal and what's on the tasting menu
So, I really don't post the personal over here, but FYI, I'm not writing much right now as I'm on holiday in the wine country of California. So, I'm enjoying cheese, red wine, white wine, sparkling wine, chocolate, olives, olive oil, and the "spa" life. And yet more wine and cheese and chocolate.
So a HUGE thanks to everyone who has so far posted and reviewed and such in response to chapter 11, and I will respond and such as soon as time and sobriety permit.
I've got about 7,000 words already in the final chapter of this arc although some of it is old and needs to be considerably redone. Also, there is The Lion Broach. And Gifts. And Good Byes. And Explanations. And parts that are making me cry. And then, decisions -- do I press on, or go back to AW? I need to turn my attention to the Narnia Fic Exchange (Woot!) and two prompts for femgenficathon.
So, in the meantime,
There wasn’t anything for Morgan to do. Anything she could do. She was sure that she’d be able to organize Harold’s trunk better, make everything fit just so, but she’d have to fold it all, and Morgan had never been very good at the folding.
There were distractions in fabrics, like that silver thread that Crows could see. She saw it too, in the perfect rows of weave, and she could count the vertical threads and the horizontal threads and imagine how they would have been set up on a loom. Four by four by four by four, over and over.
But folding the fabric she’d have to leave that to someone else. “If you fold them, I could put things in your trunk,” she said, but Harold had smiled at her and said he had a way he needed to do it, with those things needed for a sea voyage on top and the rest on the bottom and she wouldn’t know those things.
But I do know those things. I remember. You were very neat when we sailed here, so many months ago. I always remember, Harold. Your kit was in the right hand corner, on top of a nightshirt you never wear. The soft shoes you sometimes wear on board for traction and protection from splinters during calm days go on the left, with the soles against the side so they don’t dirty the two shirts. You’ll wear your tall boots when you walk to the dock and sail away.
The trunk had a false bottom. Morgan could see that. It sounded differently, hollow-ish and the trunk wasn’t as deep as it should be – smaller on the inside than it was on the outside, so there were secret compartments.
Morgan felt like that’s how she was, broken into so many pieces and compartments. Because she was so broken, she had always been good at puzzles and patterns. She knew how to make each piece fit just so, in trunks and spreadsheets and bricks in buildings, she could see the threads no one but the Crows could see, count all the beans in a jar, and knew when things didn’t add up. She just never could make her own pieces fit.
So a HUGE thanks to everyone who has so far posted and reviewed and such in response to chapter 11, and I will respond and such as soon as time and sobriety permit.
I've got about 7,000 words already in the final chapter of this arc although some of it is old and needs to be considerably redone. Also, there is The Lion Broach. And Gifts. And Good Byes. And Explanations. And parts that are making me cry. And then, decisions -- do I press on, or go back to AW? I need to turn my attention to the Narnia Fic Exchange (Woot!) and two prompts for femgenficathon.
So, in the meantime,
There wasn’t anything for Morgan to do. Anything she could do. She was sure that she’d be able to organize Harold’s trunk better, make everything fit just so, but she’d have to fold it all, and Morgan had never been very good at the folding.
There were distractions in fabrics, like that silver thread that Crows could see. She saw it too, in the perfect rows of weave, and she could count the vertical threads and the horizontal threads and imagine how they would have been set up on a loom. Four by four by four by four, over and over.
But folding the fabric she’d have to leave that to someone else. “If you fold them, I could put things in your trunk,” she said, but Harold had smiled at her and said he had a way he needed to do it, with those things needed for a sea voyage on top and the rest on the bottom and she wouldn’t know those things.
But I do know those things. I remember. You were very neat when we sailed here, so many months ago. I always remember, Harold. Your kit was in the right hand corner, on top of a nightshirt you never wear. The soft shoes you sometimes wear on board for traction and protection from splinters during calm days go on the left, with the soles against the side so they don’t dirty the two shirts. You’ll wear your tall boots when you walk to the dock and sail away.
The trunk had a false bottom. Morgan could see that. It sounded differently, hollow-ish and the trunk wasn’t as deep as it should be – smaller on the inside than it was on the outside, so there were secret compartments.
Morgan felt like that’s how she was, broken into so many pieces and compartments. Because she was so broken, she had always been good at puzzles and patterns. She knew how to make each piece fit just so, in trunks and spreadsheets and bricks in buildings, she could see the threads no one but the Crows could see, count all the beans in a jar, and knew when things didn’t add up. She just never could make her own pieces fit.
Re: Looking forward to more of any and all of your stories!
(Anonymous) 2011-07-08 11:10 pm (UTC)(link)I did like Edmund's response back to his mother, it just didn't hit me so hard as the Journal entry (which I was very much not expecting). I'm quite glad that Evil Banker Morgan popped in, as she's come to occupy such a vital role.
To answer some of your questions:
I don't quite recall how I got into fanfiction. I know it was during a period when I was habitually depressed in my early-mid-20's. My main portal was the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Unconventional relationShipper's List web archive, which for quite some time during the run of the show and for a while after I checked regularly. But how I found that site I don't remember. I also know that I ran across fic while looking for info on X-Men after liking the movies but before I started buying the comics. And then at some point I got on LiveJournal (but even my not-under-my-own-name account is fairly easily connected to me, so I almost never comment on fic with it- perhaps I should add another account).
More recently I tend to check Twisting the Hellmouth semi-regularly for new fic. I love crossovers as a really well-done integration of worlds is always fun. While sick for several weeks back around November/December, I got bored enough to start poking around other fandoms that I had generally avoided in search of more fic. I read an enjoyable Buffy/Narnia crossover so I started looking around for that, and braving the enormous volume of fanfiction.net (which I usually only do if I've run out of more focused archives to check). I find Narnia fandom tricky because incest fic really does not do it for me, and it is so astonishingly prevalent. Although I do tend to like Problem of Susan fics, whether I like how the author solves the "problem" or not. But I set the ff.net filters for "completed" and "over some huge number of words" and TQSIT came up, looked fascinating, and required me to go read TSG part 1 first.
And I just loved it. More than anything else I'm a sucker for detailed, consistent character development, and whether you do it on purpose or not you're great at that. You worry about spending so much time on original characters, but they're great characters and they fit into your world equally as well as the canon characters. Maybe that fits with my love of crossovers- TSG is something of a crossover between canon Narnia and a historical fiction view of both our world and the Narnian golden age.
And as noted before, you're addressing themes that are relatively rarely handled in fanfiction, but are very much of interest to me. Every once in a while I run across a work of fiction (fan or otherwise) that really matches where I am and provides fodder for my own internal musings, and right now AW/H&M is one of those works.
Ever since then, especially once I realized that you actually do update and this is all not in immediate danger of dropping off, I've checked back regularly. I have commented at least once, and I think twice, before, but I can't recall exactly where. They were shorter comments, I think (but I did sign them as "H").
Enough rambling for now- I've hit the word length limit for comments anyway :-P At some point I'll have to comment more with the parts that wouldn't fit :-)
thanks,
-H
Re: Looking forward to more of any and all of your stories!
(Anonymous) 2011-07-09 03:23 am (UTC)(link)-H
Re: Looking forward to more of any and all of your stories!
As for "H" -- heh. I recall reviews signed by H, but I think I assumed you were Hellene or Helen, who pops up occasionally, here and on ff and sometimes signs and sometimes does not.
And thanks so much for the nice thoughts about characterization. I do worry about OCs and all the point of view characters because on that path does often lie Sues and Stus. And, I've had many conversations with myself in the car over THAT one.
Thanks so much!