#reread your first draft and unfuck it

[inkyquince]

Nothing is worse than if I come across an excellent summarised fic with sexy ass tags and then the first line is a clunky, grammatically off sentence that we're taught in high school on how to avoid

[shadowsong26fic]

Coming Attractions!

First Monday of the month (and year!!), which means it’s time for a Coming Attractions post!

(This has been crossposted to my new Dreamwidth fic archive here.)

So, overall analysis--I didn’t get as much done as I would’ve liked, either over the past month or the year as a whole, but I think I did produce some decent content, so there’s that!

Precipice:

Yep, I’m super behind where I wanted to be, lol…Arc Six took me almost the whole year, damn. Uh. I think what I’ve learned from this experience is next time I plan out an arc, however plot-necessary, that is going to be 99% fluff, I need to re-evaluate my life choices and not do that because this is really super not in my wheelhouse. Not on that kind of sustained level, at least. Saw is also not particularly easy for me to write, so hiding in the other half of the plotline wasn’t really an option either. It probably didn’t help that I changed where I was going with that half partway through (in my original version, he was actually behind the bombing/kidnapping attempt, but then I realized that that made absolutely no sense while he still has custody of Jyn…). Ah, well. At some point, I should probably sit down and reread the entire arc because maybe the finished product, with some distance from the uber-frustrating process, won’t feel as forced/not-good as it does to me now…

Anyway. Now that my whining is out of the way...there’s one more chapter in this arc! It should go up sometime in the next couple days. Featuring the Jedi reuniting and comparing notes; and Padme finally reading her parents and sister in on a few important details. And then we get to Arc Seven, which has had like five working titles over the past month, and I still haven’t settled on one, lol…This arc will pick up roughly three years after Arc Six, and involve more Infernalis, a key turning point with Luke and Lavinia, and Anakin and Leia probably going to Jedha to achieve a specific milestone. (Because I decided to stick closer to canon than Legends on this particular topic and I don’t want to straight-up invent a planet…should be fun!)

As I think I’ve mentioned before, after Arc Seven, (which I’m guessing will be roughly 15 chapters; as amusing as it would be to end these first seven arcs on Chapter 75, there’s way more to cover than I can fit in nine chapters), I’m going to split the fic into another document. Partly for length/convenience--this thing is going to be over 200k by the time I’m done with Arc Seven, I’m 99% sure--and partly because there’s something of a tone/focus shift for arcs 8-14. Also, there’s a longer timeskip than usual--six years between Arcs Seven and Eight. (Which, if you’re counting, you can probably guess what’s behind the shift… :D )

Also, as per usual, I’ll probably do a couple bonus fics this year--not sure when, exactly, or under what context, but I like bonus content.

Other Fanfic Projects:

I’m hoping to actually get back to Distaff and/or Auxiliaries and/or Phoenix!Verse this year. And put out some more Valdemar AU, probably--I do still need to write, at minimum, Hera, Obi-Wan, and Ezra getting Chosen--maybe some more Handler AU, too. Plus an AU outline or two--finishing Let’s Go Steal a Crossover; adding more to Ventress and Her Tiny Time-Travelling Conscience; a few other concepts kicking around in my head...

In terms of other long-form/fulltext projects, I am participating in SWBB again this year, but I’m now finding myself without a plot. I was going to do either our faces like a mirror or the Untitled ObiAniDala AU Epic, but over the past few days I’ve come to the conclusion that these are both massive undertakings and I am vanishingly unlikely to finish even a rough draft of either by the time said rough drafts are due. So, as much as I’d like an extra Incentive to finish OFLAM before the new Clone Wars episodes air and potentially Joss significant chunks of it, this is not going to be it.

The reason for this is that, for OFLAM, I have to do a lot of buildup if I want the ending to pay off. Plus, I have a whole bunch of white space to fill in during the eight years between when Bo comes back to Sundari after the civil war ends and when she leaves to join Death Watch. …most of which would involve that buildup. I mean, I could probably finish the first chunk, which covers Bo-Katan’s experiences while she’s on the run/actually during the civil war, but that doesn’t feel like a complete story to me? (Also, 95% of it would basically be Bo-Katan and miscellaneous OCs, with a brief appearance by Pre Viszla and maybe Jango Fett will turn up? Anyway, I’m not sure that kind of setup is appropriate for challenge purposes.) So I’m reluctant to do that.

(The title for this project, for anyone who’s curious, comes from Vienna Teng’s “Antebellum.” The first verse doesn’t entirely fit, but all the rest…)

As for the Untitled ObiAniDala AU Epic, it, uh. Look, the timeline diverges 25+ years before AOTC. I actually have a lot more of the plot worked out for this one, but it involves a) a crapload of worldbuilding and b) a primary-focus courtship narrative, which is also not super in my wheelhouse. I can do it, I just don’t think I can do it in the couple of months I have, you know? Especially since about half of what I’ve written so far deals with the backstory around the breakpoint, mostly focusing on Bail. The other half does deal with the main plotline, but…yeah.

So, yeah. I’m working to come up with a new concept that is simple enough for me to finish in time but engaging enough to keep me Invested without wandering off into too many recursive AUs, lol. One possibility would be to turn my Bail Unfucks the Timeline AU outline into a fulltext fic, but it doesn’t really have an ending, even in my head…ah, well. I’ll pick something, hopefully soon, and get it done. I do pretty well when I’m working to an externally-imposed deadline, at least…?

Anyway. As a bonus, some teasers for OFLAM and the Untitled AU Epic!

Satine wasn’t in the main audience hall, or our father’s old study. She was, as it turned out, in the little cramped closet of a room she’d always liked, when she was doing homework or writing letters or whatever she decided she needed privacy for.

I took a breath, wondering exactly what I’d find--if she’d changed as much as I had, if she’d…

I shook it off, raised my hand, and tapped on the door four times quickly, then twice slow, just like I always had. To let her know it was me.

I didn’t wait for her to answer, because I couldn’t bear the suspense anymore. (Also, I had never really waited for her to answer, why start now?)

Satine had half risen behind her desk, even paler than usual, and--stars above, her face was a little leaner, her eyes a little darker, but that was my sister. Still my sister, my beautiful, charismatic, powerful older sister.

My Duchess.  -- our faces like a mirror

“Look, you need someone to break into places, I’m your guy. And Ahsoka fits into ventilation shafts,” [Anakin] went on, before Obi-Wan could actually object. “I may not have tried anything as complicated as an Imperial prison, but I can do this. And you’re gonna need all the help you can get.��

“Face it, Obi-Wan,” Ahsoka said. “You don’t get to do the noble lone-wolf Tragic Hero thing on this one. You’re stuck with us.” -- Untitled ObiAniDala AU Epic [based on this prompt from @obianidalasuggestion]

Original Fiction:

Definitely hoping to do more in 2019 than I did in 2018. Starting with writing stuff outside of the big Summer Challenge on rainbowfic…

Goals:

Last year, my goals/New Year’s Resolutions were:

1. Keep up with Precipice updates, complete Arc Seven by the end of September. …yeah, this one, uh. Didn’t happen. 2. Write at least 15k of original fiction Closer to 2k…Lux and Farglass Cycle archives. …nnnnope.

And here are my 2019 goals:

1. Finish Precipice and at least one full arc of Protectors/Precipice II. 2. Write at least 7.5k of origfic content. 3. Start posting OFLAM and/or Untitled ObiAniDala Epic AU. 4. Revive a semi-hiatused fic (Distaff or Auxiliaries or Phoenix!Verse) 5. Update Lux and Farglass Cycle archives, and transfer tumblr archive to DW. 6. At least for AU outline installments of some kind. 7. Complete BB submission, and keep an eye out for other challenges/exchanges/whatever.