February 2012 Monthly Recap

Wow, where has the month gone? Despite the fact that we got an extra day in February this year, it still slipped by much faster than I’d expected. And I still got much less done than I’d hoped.

Part of this is because I got sick for a few days around mid-month. It wasn’t anything horrible, but there was about a week where all I had the energy to do was work and sleep. I’m enjoying the new job, but not that much; unfortunately, though, since it’s the part of my life that pays the bills, it’s the part that gets first dibs on my energy.

The other thing that hit my productivity was encountering the first bout of really bad writer’s block I’ve had in a while. I got seriously stuck on Chapter 3 of “Local Attractions,” and by the time I got unstuck I’d rewritten it, from scratch, three times. There were points where I was seriously tempted to give up.

But I did get through, and the subsequent chapters are flowing much easier. This means I’m hoping I’ll be able to make some more significant progress, on a number of things, in March. I can always hope, right?

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New Chapter: Limits (Star Trek: Voyager, 6/7)

Title: Limits (Chapter Six)
Audience: General
Words: 4,622
Archiving: It’s already on FanFiction.net, but nowhere else until it’s done, please.

While searching for critical supplies, Captain Janeway suffers a disabling accident. Now, as the crew works toward solving a supply mystery, she must learn to live within her new limits. General with a J/C slant; revised & expanded.

Read…

The story’s just about over; the final part will be more of an epilogue than a full chapter. Hang with me folks, we’ll get there!

January 2012 Monthly Recap

January was another month of ups and downs for me, although it was much better than December. But it still had an impact on my fan fiction writing, particularly during the first part of the month.

About three hours after I finished writing the December recap, I got a phone call with a job offer. Yes, December 31 was a Saturday, but the recruiter guessed it was a call I wouldn’t mind taking outside of business hours. (She was right.)

Since they hadn’t finished the criminal background check, I was then left with a handful of days with nothing to do and decided to go out of town and visit family. After that, there was a flurry of activity related to reworking my schedule around the new job. But I finally successfully reinstated the writing regimen last week.

So, while I didn’t get much accomplished during January, I have every reason to expect I will get things accomplished during February. Things are looking up!

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December 2011 Monthly Recap

As my tweets have been implying, this has not been the best month for me in real life. I lost my job, had to cope with plumbing problems in my condominium, had car trouble, and because of all this had to cancel a trip I’d been looking forward to for quite a while. It has taken a lot of energy to simply avoid giving in to despair, though there was a bit of good news very late in the month.

But as I observed on a fandom board, financial difficulties are survivable (even if it takes years) and, during times like these, a means of escape can go beyond valuable into flat-out essential. Although real life has intruded and kept me from producing as much as I would have liked in December — this puts it mildly — I’m not sure I would have survived at all if I hadn’t had fandom and fan fiction in my life.

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New Fic: Nothing Overlooked (Star Trek: Enterprise)

Title: Nothing Overloooked
Audience: General
Pairing: Mayweather/Sato (friendship)
Words: 1,298
Archiving: Please contact me first, but I’ll probably say yes.

Travis is grumpy. Hoshi has a secret. Plans are afoot. What do all these interpersonal dynamics have to do with a mission to explore abandoned Xindi ruins?

Read…

This story began as a couple of responses to the Drabble Game at The Delphic Expanse. Special thanks go to EntAllat for beta reading and Aquarius for a last-minute catch.

30 Day Fanfic Meme: Day 30

Do you have a favorite fic you’ve written? What makes it your favorite?

This is an easy question for me to answer; my favorite fic is also the first one I ever posted online — Limits. It has a lot more of me in it than my own work, and I was extremely proud when I finished it because I’d never accomplished something that ambitious before. As of right now it’s still the longest piece I’ve ever written.

My second-favorite fic is probably In Plain Sight. I worked for a long time on that one, polishing it up and trying to tell the story with a specific tone and purpose. It came out better than I’d hoped, and it’s also interesting to note that this story is actually fanon-based instead of canon-based. I don’t write very many of those.

Finally, I’m also particularly happy with Fate is a Choice. This was one that I actually wrote very quickly, but the real reason I’m proud is because I’ve never seen the episode that it’s based on. I read a transcript online and did some research by reading other stories set in the same time frame. But I was still taking a chance, and when I got feedback indicating that the story was in character and “worked,” I was thrilled.

I don’t put all of my fic online, so if it’s on this site, it means I think it’s at least halfway decent. As such, anything you can read here is something I like. It may not be my favorite, but it’s something I hope others will enjoy. After all, that’s the reason people write fan fiction in the first place.

30 Day Fanfic Meme: Day 29

What is your current project or projects?

I like to have several projects going at once as a defense against writer’s block. This means that, when I get stuck on one thing, I can move to another while I let it rest. The technique has worked for me for several years.

Just as a way of keeping track of everything, though, when I decide that I am definitely going to do a project I put it on the current & upcoming list, which I maintain online both for reference and for the curious. As of this writing, a rough sequence of the next few items finished is likely to be:

  1. Nothing Overlooked
  2. The Level of Her Dreams, Part One (from Seventeen Months)
  3. Limits
  4. Extrasensory Perception
  5. Disintegration
  6. The Level of Her Dreams, Part Two (from Seventeen Months)
  7. Yesterday’s Eyes

There are, of course, no guarantees, and things change all the time. For example, my recent story Greatness Shared, Grief Halved hadn’t even been thought about on December 1; and I’m still responding to word prompts and challenges on a semi-regular basis. But if you’re looking for a general idea, the list is a good place to start.

30 Day Fanfic Meme: Day 28

Have you ever collaborated with anyone else, whether writing together, or having an artist work on a piece about your fic?

No. The closest I ever came was many years ago, when I floated the idea of publishing “Limits” as a fanzine to a few friends. One of them offered to do a few illustrations. I never went through with the zine, so she never had any particular reason to do the art.

I’m a rather solitary soul by nature, so it doesn’t particularly surprise me that I’ve never even been particularly interested in collaboration. I’m more comfortable working by myself when working on an outline or a draft.

This doesn’t mean I work in a vacuum, though. I don’t mind bouncing ideas around and, as I’ve mentioned, I don’t have trouble with having someone do a beta read.

I’ll also admit that it might be interesting to see an artist’s conception of one of my stories. I just doubt I’ll be collaborating anytime soon.