Fic Rec:

The Meek Inherit by roquentine. Heartbreaking character piece for Jack and Ianto. Worksafe, unless they don't let you view language like below:

"Don't try to bullshit me, Ianto, because it'll never work. I do want you, I always have, and I'm not going to put a stop to anything if you walk over here again. But you should know that whatever you think fucking me is going to change, it absolutely will not change. Whatever it is you ultimately want, you won't get. Not unless you talk to me first."

Writing Epiphany

karenmiller has a big post on first drafts in her blog this morning. Go read it.

Me, I've just hit a shorter, but major epiphany. A lot of what Karen talks about is fear, and lordy, have I been feeling that! It's been hard as hell to slog through the for-pay story, mostly because the For Pay part has been intimidating the hell out of me. (The "Deadline Is:" part isn't much more friendly.)

But the big problem of course isn't money or timing. It's not even that all the past failures are sitting on my shoulder saying "Remember me? You can't, hang it up, give up" (although at this point they've gotten enough practice to be singing it in 4-part acapella harmony with choreographed dance moves and a big Broadway finish).

It's not that I forgot that I *know* how to write, and I shouldn't change any part of a successful process because there's a ticking clock and a check involved. Bits of it I already grasped: staring at a double-spaced draft onscreen intimidating? Shove it back into familiar format and professional it up later. Hack out any hairball and edit it 5 times before moving on, possibly deleting all but 1 line? If that's what it's going to take, then coat the keyboard in petromalt and start horking. (Bless you, Ray Bradbury, for the succinct advice to "throw up in your typewriter every morning and clean up every afternoon.") Yeah, it's great when the words pour like water, but there are ways of continuing when they don't.

What I forgot is that I'm a mouthy broad. I don't just like to talk, I NEED to. If the story's over 500 words, I need to bounce ideas off other people until the one that feels bone-right rattles out. And that's not going to change either. I'd been so wrapped up in feeling that because I'm the one whose name goes on the paycheck I've got to do it All By Myself that I was headed straight for certain failure until a talk last night with M put a spotlight on every flaw and hammered out the frame I can hang an actual story on.


And now I'm going to run away to lunch to avoid all the writers yelling "DUH!" at me...