Personal Note: More Progress

[nebroadwe]

Draft 1 of my Ed/Winry "Fire and Ice" Challenge 'fic is complete. It's even got a title -- not a title I like very much, but at this point I'm not balking at anything the Muses see fit to throw my way. The story is longer than I thought it would be at first, but shorter than I thought it would be back at the beginning of the week (and likely to become shorter yet as I weed out irrelevant verbiage). I think the EdWin parts work: my offline beta, who's more of a romance reader than I am, didn't throw back her head and laugh when I ran the idea and some of the lines past her, anyway. The situation may be clichéd, but I believe I've at least managed to ensure that the language isn't. (Though, given humanity's preoccupation with the marriage of true minds, not to mention constructive horizontal business, very few words remain that better artists than I have not applied to these phenomena. Anxiety of influence, anyone?) The strangest thing about the process so far was having my characters gently but firmly push the end of the story in a direction completely different from the one I had planned. I'm used to not knowing the ending and having it materialize during writing or to having embryonic thoughts that gestate into workable endings during incubation, but character revolts are new to me. (Winry led it, so it was a friendly and eminently logical revolution, thank goodness. I shudder to think what would happen if Ed ever decided to run off with one my plots.)

Now I shall leave the text to ferment a while before bottling it for submission. And get on to the next thing(s) in need of attention ...

Comments

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

The whole of Marking Time that I've posted so far is what happens when Ed runs off with a plot. Really. If Winry had been in charge, I could've started it with chapter...thirty. Yeah.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

And we'd be so much further along now! [makes noises more usually associated with small animals desirous of a feeding] That boy must have a deep-rooted masochistic streak -- which, come to think of it, may explain the 'fic I've started writing for the Zombie Apocalypse (http://mikkeneko.livejournal.com/172084.html) challenge ...

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

His reasoning behind it?

"No one will understand if you just do a flashback or explain in a few pages what happens. You need to start the story from the beginning."

Then, after he convinces me of that, he starts introducing me to new characters who play parts....

Oooo, Zombie Apocalypse. I'm not sure whether to be appalled or delighted.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Scientists. Too frigging detail-oriented and logical, if you ask me. Where's the poetry? Where's the intuitive leap? Where's the surrealistic manipulation of language? Where's my next rhetorical question?

Oooo, Zombie Apocalypse. I'm not sure whether to be appalled or delighted.

Or tempted? :-) I'm not sure this is going to work -- I don't particularly enjoy the headspace I have to occupy to write horror, and now Gracia Hughes is tapping on my shoulder and offering a character sketch (and a glass of milk and some pie, too, probably. Hard to resist ... )

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Too frigging detail-oriented and logical, if you ask me.

It makes for a better story. - Ed

Don't forget stubborn.

Hmmm, tempted by Zombie Apocalypse. Hmmm. Only if I could do a crossover with BtVS or AtS...which, mind you, has been percolating in my brain since, er, December 2005....

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

"Too frigging detail-oriented and logical, if you ask me."

It makes for a better story. - Ed

[grumble] Well, you're right, you're right. I'm a big enough person to admit that.

Hmmm, tempted by Zombie Apocalypse. Hmmm. Only if I could do a crossover with BtVS or AtS...which, mind you, has been percolating in my brain since, er, December 2005....

I don't think it's excluded by the rules. (Heh, heh, heh.)

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

[grumble] Well, you're right, you're right. I'm a big enough person to admit that.

Ed: *all teeth and squinty eyes*

I don't think it's excluded by the rules. (Heh, heh, heh.)

Get thee behind me, Satan!

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Ed: *all teeth and squinty eyes*

Me: *ruffles Ed's hair and hopes he takes the gesture in the spirit with which it was intended*

"I don't think it's excluded by the rules. (Heh, heh, heh.)"

Get thee behind me, Satan!

This from the person with the "Enabler" icon? Besides, if I were the Hornéd Beast, you'd think I could get a zombie horde to wait for its cue before leaping out to ambush Ed and Al. The brothers were all set to discover another body, and now they've got to have a fight instead. I don't think anyone's ever going to find that poor corpse now. Sigh.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Me: *ruffles Ed's hair and hopes he takes the gesture in the spirit with which it was intended*

*Ed pats the hair back in place, except for the antenna, which is carefully poked until it returns to its usual position*

This from the person with the "Enabler" icon?

Heee. mjules made that icon for me after I convinced her she could write FMA fic...I use it as the occasion warrants. *weg*