Thirty Days of Fanfic - Days 21 - 26

[elrhiarhodan]

Catching up with this meme, again.

21 – Sequels – Have you ever written a sequel to a fic you wrote, and if so, why, and if not, how do you feel about sequels?

I have written a few sequels, as opposed to many series. But I do have to say, to my shame, I have difficulty writing true sequels. I have all but given up on the sequel to my White Collar/Criminal Minds crossover. Mostly because I know my characterization of Spenser Reid were all fucked up, and to go back an write the sequel will involve fucking it up even more. That’s what happens when you really rely on fanfic, rather than canon to drive your characterizations. That being said, if someone were to perhaps buy a sequel to it the next time I participated in a charity auction, then I’d have to write it, right?

I have about four or five true sequels sitting in my WIPs folder - and I do plan on getting to them. Eventually. The one I most want to write is the sequel to Rubbing Elbows With the Moon (please teach me). It’s partially written - I just have to get reinspired.

22 – Have you ever participated in a fest or a Big Bang? If so, write about your favorite experience in relation to one. If not, are there any you've thought about doing? And if not, why not?

Big Bangs - no, those I haven’t done. Not because of the word counts - I just don’t seem to be inspired by challenges like that - based on wordcount, rather than a prompt. Maybe it’s because I can write 10k without thinking these days.

That being said - I run fests on my LJ all the time. Right now, Promptfest VI - Summertime Madness is still running on my LJ. Yes - the sixth edition of a comment fic fest. There was also Sentence Fest last March/April, which was suggested by the superawesome coffeethyme4me and supported must strongly by Coffeethyme and my enabler in chief, rabidchild67.

I’ve organized, with the help of rabidchild67 the very successful (due mostly to RC herself) wcpairings fic swap, too.

I do have to say I love my promptfests. I love the outpouring of creativity and generosity from my flist and the WC fandom. I love that people take chances during Prompfest and write things that they might otherwise not. I love how much creativity these challenges inspire in me. I am always sorry when they end.

23 – When you post, where do you post to? Just your journal? Just an archive? Your own personal site?

For LJ, I post the actual story to my journal. If I’m posting during the workday, it actually goes up on Dreamwidth and gets crossposted to my LJ because my company firewall locks me out of LJ, but oddly enough, not DW.

Then, I’ll post a link on the relevant comms - first usually to whitecollarfic, then caffrey_burke and 3_way_collar, and maybe a few others - the whitecollarhc and onherdancecard, if relevant.

If it’s a fic for the whitecollar100 community, of course I’ll post there too.

DW is the backup archive - I capture my entries there via Import Content about once a week.

I tend to repost my longer stories to AO3, and don’t post at all on ff.net. I have a blogger blog, Erlfic, but I’ve not reposted there in ages. I should - if just to make sure that there’s another back up.

24 – Betaing – How many betas do you like to use to make sure there aren't any major flaws in your fic? Do you have a Beta horror story or dream story?

Betaing is very important, and I know I should have everything I write beta’d, but I tend to let the short stories slide by - often with some regrets. I have a terrific trio of beta readers, rabidchild67, coffeethyme4me and jrosemary. They have pulled me through some really terrible times and have made some stinkers into publishable stories. I adore them - they are my flying buttresses.

I don’t really have a horror story about a beta reader - but I have had people spontaneously offer to correct published stories. That’s nice - but when I go and look at their own works and see all of the spelling and grammatical errors, I just politely decline.

25 – Music – Do you listen to music while you write? Do you make playlists to get into a certain "mood" to write your fic? Do you need noise in general? Or do you need it completely quiet?

Music is often very important when I write. I spend a lot of time in Starbucks and I don’t particularly care for most of the music piped in, so I’ll plug in earbuds and turn on the iPod. While I’ve got a lot of music to chose from, there is music that I find particularly helpful to write to. When I want to write angst - anything by Philip Glass works (maybe it’s the repeating patterns), but especially the soundtrack for "The Hours."

As cliched as it sounds, I have about six different versions of "Boleró" in a playlist that I keep on repeat when I’m writing porn or sexiteims.

I’ll listen to Holts’s “The Planets” or anything by Alan Hovahness for action and casefic.

When I’m contemplative, there are a few piano albums I love - Ehren Starks “Lines Build Walls” and Mícheál Ó'Súilleabháin’s “The Dolphin’s Way.”

And when I need plot inspiration - I invariably go to Mumford or Annie Lennox or Janis Ian or Oysterband.

26 – What is the oddest (or funnest) thing you've had to research for a fic?

Oh, that’s a hard one. I recently did some work on frost heave for Down in the Willow Garden, because I needed to know if a dead body could be churned by the earth. An early fic, Never Underestimate The Suit had me doing research on Titus Androcinus. By the time I got done with A Song Amongst The Song of Songs, I knew more about the Gutenberg Bible than I ever suspected.

Sometime research can kill a fic - I spend so much time trying to get the details right that I lose all sense of excitement for the plot.