Pet Peeves : Bobmin!

So - the writers at bobmin.fanficauthors.net are very good. Sunset over Britain is a truly inspired story, and while Sunrise was far too long, a bit dull and nowhere near as good, that doesn't mean Sunset was bad.

But in their author's notes (which, by the way, since there are two of them should have the apostrophe after the s in Authors and not before it - the notes are from both authors, not just one) they write a section called Pet Peeves where - basically - they bitch about other people. Quite possibly just to prove how good they are, and how bad other people are.

One example is switching perspectives - from first person to third and back again. They say that it's rare you'll find a published book that does that (which I disagree with, not to mention the films you get that do it. Blade Runner for example, and some of the Thursday Next series), and that it's annoying.

Other complaints are about mistakes in the story (such as Author's). But since everyone is, at best, human, even the most perfect beta-reader might miss things sometimes. It's inevitable, and - quite honestly -as long as it doesn't confuse the story, I don't see why it matters. If I write "It was there belief that they would win" you still get what I mean? And while I'm not suggesting spelling and grammar don't matter at all, you have to remember a) some fanfic writers aren't writing in English as a first language, but they are doing it so we can read their stories, and b) no one gets paid to do this, and it's done in their spare time.

They object to Super-Powered and Equipped Harry. Why? It's a plot device. And - on a side note - Sunset has a Super-Powered Harry with a spectaral Dog he can use to attack people, a staff he can use to throw giants in to orbit and the ability to apparate within Hogwarts. How is that different from what they are complaining about?

And finally - they bitch about using adult language or not. If you are writing for a mature audience, they say, you should be willing to say so, but if you're not, you shouldn't try to use rude words or metaphors to explain what you mean.

Well - first there is Sunset, which is full of sex and is rated Mature, and yet they say Lucius "fouled himself". But in their Pet Peeves, they say "If you write shite, don't you think everyone is going to know what you mean?" Well - if you write "fouled himself", don't you think everyone knows what you mean as well?

Secondly - most (all) of my stories (for example) are G+ or PG-13 depending on the site you are on. This is because I am just not one to write for adults only. And while I am not going to write detailed sex scenes, and I am not going to use the more overt curse words (I think hell, damn, bollocks and bloody are about as far as I am willing to go), I think it is LUDICROUS to ignore the fact I have married couples in my stories, and that - as a rule - married couples are going to have sex. And that when Hermione comes home to find Luna's head hanging from her front door knocker, to think she would only say "Oh dear me" is an insult to the intelligence of my readers.

So I use metaphors. I use descriptions. I say ".....she suddenly realised her daughter was scrabbling at the buttons to Luna's dress....." to indicate that Hermione is going to boff Luna good and proper. And I say "As Hermione stared in disbelief at the bloody scene in front of her, she let out a stream of curses that would make a sailor blush". Both of which leave it up to the reader to decide what is going on. So the little kiddies (although very little kiddies shouldn't be reading my stories, as they are 13+ generally) can think Minnie is saying "bugger bottom willy and bum" while older readers might have a few more colourful words in mind.

And - on a final note - the opening chapter of Sunrise says "The international Wizarding community has decided that you are far too ugly to be allowed to travel outside of Britain and Scotland". And I would argue that while everything they list might annoy them, not knowing BASIC WORLD GEOGRAPHY is inexcusable. Especially for people who are so full of themselves they are happy to criticise tiny little faults in everyone else's stories.

This has been bugging me for a while, because I don't think it is their place to be insulting other people's work when writing notes about their own story. And yes, I have just spent about ten minutes insulting their work, except I'm not. I'm insulting the fact they are insulting other people's work, and pointing out how hypocritical they are in their insults. Plus this is not a story, this is a journal. It would never, ever occurr to me to write any of this in the author's notes for a story I wrote.

The only time I have come close was when I was bitching about The Lord Of The Rings movies, but they were truly crap and I was writing a parody of them in the world of HP, so it seemed fair that I should explain why I was taking the piss out of the films so much. And even then, I limited it to maybe one or two paragraphs of notes, and not three or four every chapter.

Plus I think anyone who is willing to write a story and put it on the web deserves some respect. Even if the story is utterly crap, they still had the guts to do it. And if it is crap, then you leave them a review (if you can), with constructive comments. You don't use the end of a chapter of your story to dump on them in front of the rest of the world. Because that is, basically, a shitty thing to do to people.

Nineteen Years Later - Hiatus

So - it seems I just can not remember what the plot of NYL should be. I've got the 19 Years Plotted out (generally death on a large scale, plus a few babies and weddings), but as for what happens after the 19 Years are up - I really have no idea.

So for the moment I'm putting it on Hiatus. It's not completely abandoned, but until I can work out some idea of what should be going on, I really can't write any more of it.

So my deepest apologies to anyone who was waiting for it to be continued, but I have tried and tried for the past two or three weeks to continue with it, and it is just not happening. And since I have some standards (not a lot, but some) I can't write something I am not sure about - it would go badly wrong and end up not being worth reading.

So - again - my apologies.

Something I really have no explanation for.

Given how much I screw with canon (HP canon in particular), I really don't have any explanation for why certain HP/Buffy (or HP/Charmed) (or Buffy/Charmed) crossovers drive me up the wall, but they really do.

The ones where the author of the crossover doesn't seem to understand that Buffy and Harry are the same age. Or that the Halliwell sisters are about ten to fifteen years older than Harry and Buffy.

An example of this type of story was one I started reading earlier : Harry Potter and The Key of Dagon.

Harry has just finished his fifth year, and yet somehow Sunnydale is already a lagoon. Meaning that the story (from Buffy's perspective) must be set after May 2003 (when Sunnydale was destroyed).

Which (if you can't do the maths yourself) would make Harry just two months shy of being 23.

Or - just to show I am exploring all the options - it would mean that Buffy destroyed The Hellmouth in 1996 - when she was fifteen years old and had (at best) only just become a Slayer, and was over 18 months away from meeting Willow, Xander and Cordy. And (depending on your point of view) Dawn was four years away from being created (Although, since the modification of memories was flushed backwards through history, Dawn would've been 10).

And as for a story where Harry goes to school with The Halliwell sisters....... the less said about that, the better.

See - I have no problem with time-travel stories. So that if Buffy was dragged backwards in time to be in school with Harry, that would be fine. And if Harry went back in time to be in school with Piper, Prue and Phoebe - again, no problems.

And while I can screw with canon with the best of them, the idea of moving things around in time just seems wrong.

But the thing that bugs me the most is when the authors don't even acknowledge they've done it. Leading me to think they just don't KNOW they've done it - which just makes me despair somewhat.

Anyway. It bugs me, and I don't think I have found a single HP/Buffy crossover that doesn't jump all over these rules, which is pretty sad and pathetic, if you think about it.

General Catch Up Post

So - now that the fun and frolics of NaNo2008 are done with, I am sorting out the rest of the stories.

Firstly - Now and Then has been posted on both sites in its entirety. There were a few modifications from the original text (mostly spelling and grammar, but a few minor changes to the way things were phrased), and overall it was what I first wrote during NaNo.

Second - The Darkest Dawn is being posted on both sites. It is taking a little longer to post, because I am beta-ing it as I go along (since it's over two months since I wrote the first dozen chapters or so). Again - it's mostly staying the same, with a few changes of what people are saying.

So once TDD is finished (there's one more story chapter, then a number of "bonus" chapters) I am going to return to Nineteen Years Later and The Western Sky Series 2. In addition, I have restarted M.I.B and am doing full plotting stuff at the moment.

Annoyingly, I have an idea for a time-travel story involving Luna (a single story, rather than the single-chapter story that is "The Smartest Witch"). It came about from watching the Andromeda episode Ouroboros, and made me start thinking about either Luna doing the same thing (without telling anyone else). Plus most time-travel stories are about Harry going back - Harry being the last survivor, and I figure it's about time someone else got to have some fun. But that really is just in the rough planning stage, and doesn't have a suitable plot or title, and consequently is not on my urgent list.

Nineteen Years Later is being replotted (I lost the notepad that contained the complete pre-history, which means it has to be rewritten), and I should get back to that in the New Year (due to work and other commitents).

The Western Sky is an on-going thing, and I am up to Episode 2x05 ("Shadows From The Past" is the working title), even though on 2x01 has been posted (I am doing a three chapters ahead thing).

So - that's where things are.

NaNoWriMo 2008 - And lo, I is a winner!

That's right. At 10:31pm on the 29th of November, I finished "Now and Then", a story about a girl keeping a promise.

The story is 81,556 words long, and totals twenty chapters of fun and frolics (and, admittedly torture, genocide and murder, which is less fun and frolicsome. Unless you're a Dark Lord).

Hopefully it will be published soon, but since I have been writing (more or less) non-stop for 29 days, I haven't done much beta-reading on it. There are spelling and grammar mistakes (I have already spotted a "you're" instead of a "your", for example), and I really have to re-check the continuity of the characters (making sure that someone who died in Chapter 4 isn't alive and well and kicking some ass in Chapter 15) and time-lines.

But hopefully I can publish it within two weeks (there is work stuff going on that is quite important for once, so that might delay me a bit), but almost certainly by Christmas.

Anyway - three wins out of three. Which entirely and totally rocks!

NaNo : After Day 1 (4,261)

So - depending on your perspective, I either wrote around 4,261 words or approx 8,800 words.

Why? Well - the site I was using to write the story has a very annoying and unusual feature. If you are merrily typing away, then click in the "Load File" box by accident, it freezes the text you have. And if you save it, it ignores it.

So, at various points yesterday, I ended up typing the entire chapter in again.

First I had to type the last half in, and then - because I am a moron - I pasted that over the original and so lost the first half. But the site had retained it in its buffer, so I had to retype it out, add it on to the start of the part I had already and then save it again.

But all in all, I think that I did very well to get anything posted, let alone nearly 5,000 words.

It is going more or less like I want at the moment - but to be honest, since I have no plot arc and no plans at all, it will pretty much ALWAYS go like I want. The only major change is Minnie's departure from Prison.

(Oh - I have also finally accepted I have a set idea for the future of HP. Hermione will be called Minnie. She will be friends with Luna, and possibly some Slytherins. Bones is Minister, Tonks is the D-DMLE and Dumbledore is still around. Some of this varies sometimes, but generally I like writing Min, Luna and so on, so my stories all run like that).

Anyway - time to go shopping for food, and then back to the Saltmines. And I might even consider writing in Notepad and pasting it across, simply so I don't have to do any pokery-jiggery today.

(Note : If you haven't figured it out, I am going to write the entire story, then post it. This is not because I plan on going back and changing bits, or rewriting whole swathes of the story, but becaus I am not checking spelling or anything else while I write, and I do have some standards, if not very many!)

Random NaNo Action

Hermione Granger was sent to Azkaban for the attempted murder of her best friend.

And now, seven years later, she's been released, and intends to finish the job.

I have to admit, not a lot has been done.

Since coming back from my site-visit, I haven't done a great deal, either on Darkest Dawn or Western Sky. A little on MIB, but I think that - come the weekend, I am going to try to finish Darkest Dawn (I have the events of the final battle written, just not the chapter) and then get back to Western Sky, because I really should get that going again.

But now I am having ideas about NaNo - just picking a story on the 31st and writing it with almost no prep.

I also have ideas for a modern day LOTR (other than B5, obviously), and - strangely - a Dr Seuss version of LOTR. Just cause it would be funny :)

M.I.B.

I live around forty miles from where I work. As a consequence, I spend a fair amount of time driving (depending on traffic, it can be anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour, and sometimes up to two hours if there is serious, major traffic).

And while I drive, I generally listen to audio books, the radio or (since May) I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (which if you haven't listened to it, you really should. It's very entertaining).

But also while I drive my mind tends to wander. Not in a dangerous "I should pay more attention to the road so as not to kill people" kind of way, but it makes odd connections, gives me strange ideas and generally inspires my imagination.

One result of this was "Harry Potter and The Deathly Silence". In the week leading up to the release of "Deathly Hallows", I wrote a 12 chapter story about what the various HP characters would be up to on "National Deathly Hallows Day" - based on the principal that every single Author in Fandom would be reading DH, and not writing fanfiction, and consequently the characters would be free to do what they wanted.

Another result of this was "Lost In MIddle Earth" - Harry and Hermione get trapped in The Lord Of The Rings, and have to play out the entire story to escape. It was a parody, and a lot of fun to write. (And started with a phrase from Xena which gave me the whole idea).

And today - well today I had another idea.

In the world of Harry Potter, there are Aurors. They deal with crimes against the wizarding world.

But they don't deal with crimes against the muggle world, because - as far as I can tell - no one at The Ministry gives a flying crap about muggles. There is Aurthur's department, but that's about it.

So I started wondering - what if there were serious magical criminals in the muggle world. Not only Death Eaters, but other murderers, rapists, paedophiles, bank robbers, terrorists etc.

What if you could go out and commit a murder, and remove all trace of you being there? If you could force someone else to rape a woman, and enjoy it vicariously (and why does the word vicarious have the root word vicar?).

And how would the police ever investigate things like that, let alone stop the person? (A wizard who can kill with a word might not easily be stopped).

So maybe The Wizarding World needs someone to deal with crimes like this. Crimes performed by rogue wizards, against both muggles and wizards (on the assumptions that Aurors are like policemen, and not special service agents).

Which is where the MIB comes from. I realise someone already took the initials MIB, but this is a similar thing. The Muggle Investigation Bureau work in secret - with only a handful of contacts in the muggle police knowing about them, they use spells to make people forget about them, and they operate above the regular law, both in Magical and Muggle worlds.

It's a pretty small group - maybe around 40 agents - and (probably nor surprisingly) made up of a lot of the more famous HP characters (Harry, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Luna, Neville etc), under the direction of a senior agent (possibly Harry, but maybe one of the older students - Percy?)

I kinda wanna do a tv show, but I think I will leave this as a set of normal stories - each dealing with a specific case, but also potentially a longer arc running through them (White Rose/Dark Wheel style).

I am off on business next week, so I might use the 3 hour train trip (plus any free time I might have during my stay there) to plan this out, see what I can think up.

Now - I know what you're thinking. This is quite similar to The Western Sky - a group of investigators above the law, dealing with crimes against The Muggle World. Well - no. Because only one TWS case has dealt with muggles, and that was more as a tiny-arc than a major plot line. (So tiny that I kinda forgot about it).

Anyway. I am now going to cross post this to my fiction journal, to see what other people think.

I suck at writing fight scenes

The reason The Darkest Dawn is taking so damn long is the final two chapters - I am really, really bad at writing fight scenes, and since the story culminates with a huge battle, that poses a problem for me.

Anyway - that's the reason TWS has been delayed, and why TDD has also been delayed. Because I am trying to write about six or seven different fights, and not doing it all that well.

Which kinda bugs me, but what can you do?

Quite a lot of progress. Kind of.

So - I have reached one of the pivotal chapters of The Darkest Dawn - that explains how the whole thing came about. I am about half way through it, and I think I know how it the rest will go (well - I know how the rest will go, but how it will fall out on paper, so to speak).

So far, there has been a lot of Harry Potter back story and almost now Buffy, but that is because up until Hogwarts Year 6, Buffy doesn't even know she is a Slayer, so very little would happen anyway.

But - now that we are coming to Dawn's creation (the key chapter) and the events of Buffy Year 5 (Hogwarts Year 7 + 1, if you will excuse the phrase), and things will balance out, with more Buffy than Harry, until the back-story is finished.

Plus I am dropping more and more hints about the narrator, which is also fun!

All this has meant work on TWS has kind of stopped (and given that "Shadows Of The Past" is a major Buffy cross-over, it's probably a good thing), but hopefully, once TDD is done, I can get back to TWS again.

Damn inventive mind!

So - I started on 2x05, and managed to write nearly 3,000 words, and still didn't get anywhere near the end of the first act.

Which is kind of annoying, as I want all the acts to be around 2,200 to 2,500 words at most (otherwise they get very long, and since it is supposed to only be a 45 minute show, I can't be writing hours and hours of stuff).

So - I scrapped it, and plan to start again at some point. And this time, I will keep the imagination turned off!

When Tomorrow Comes.

Finally! Series 2 of The Western Sky has made it on to the web. I thought I would do it tonight, just in case the world does, in fact, end tomorrow (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7604293.stm).

It is posted to ForeverFandom and HPFandom (see links on the side of the blog for the two sites), and should be followed by Silent Night some time next week (or a little later).

So, all in all, life is good. Whether people actually like the story or not, I guess we shall see.

Every blood time with the password!

I swear this thing changes my password at random. It seems every time I come to write a new post, it doesn't reconigse the password I give it, and have to get it reset.

Anyway.

Finally - after much postponing - I have finished 2x04 ("A New Beginning"). I admit I changed the title, and the end of the episode a little, and that it is around 1000 words longer than I would like, but the only bits I can really cut out are kind of important (and break up a very long scene with Harry, Sally, Hermione and Viktor - if I cut out the bits in between the total scene would be around 1800 words non stop, which is kinda bad).

So - after I re-read 2x01, it should be posted at HPFandom and ForeverFandom by the end of tomorrow (or Wednesday maybe - depending on what happens in the meantime. And given that it is almost exactly one week after the post that said I had finished Acts 1 and 2 and would have Act 3 done soon, you can see that lots of things happen sometimes!)

One of the major things to get in the way is "The Darkest Dawn" - a Harry Potter/Buffy cross over based on a challenge on ForeverFandom. I spent a fair part of the past week plotting it out, and now that that is done, I might actually start writing it. (And although it is nearly NaNoWriMo time, I am a) not entering and b) not using this story if I was, as I kind of like the idea of it, and want to do it justice). So - look for updates and possibly even chapters coming soon (I don't know yet if it is a post-as-I-go-along thing or a write-it-all-then-post-it thing or a mix of the two).

Anyway - 2x04 is done, and "The Darkest Dawn" is prepared for writing. So, all in all, a good night's work.

Isn't it always the way?

The one night I plan to do nothing but write, and I have to bring work home with me.

So - 2x04 (and 2x01) is postponed for at least a night. And with "Lost In Austen" (not one of my stories for once) on tomorrow night (9pm ITV - it seems fun) along with the need to shop for food and the like, there is the chance things might be postponed until Thursday.

I guess we shall see.

I am two acts in to 2x04 and counting

The Western Sky, Series 2, is nearly ready for its debut.

I have one act left of 2x04 (The New Girl), and then I will be willing to post 2x01 (When Tomorrow Comes, Part 2) - which will bring a conclusion to the cliffhanger from the end of last series.

Hopefully, I can do it tomorrow night (I am taking a break from character processing for the moment - it is dull and driving me insane), so it will (hopefully) be posted by the weekend, on both HPFandom and ForeverFandom.

My stories have character. Quite a lot of then, it appears

I have spent the past three nights collating all the characters in the various fanfictions I have written. The main reason for this is that I think I am starting to reuse names, without realising it.

So I used the local fiction site I set up (using eFic on my computer upstairs), I have created lists of characters for each fandom (Harry Potter, Charmed, Buffy etc), and started assigning them to stories.

That way, if I need an Auror in TWS, I can look through all Auror characters, and pull one out (eg Miss Sally Jones).

But what I didn't realise is HOW MANY characters there are. And how many characters appear in some stories. Deathly Silence - one of the shortest and simplest stories - has 27 different characters in. So does Nineteen Years Later, which is only three chapters long. And Lost In Middle Earth has over 40!

I haven't even got to the Silent Trio series yet - I am somewhat scared!

All in all, it was quite an eye opener.

Finally!

The rest of Series 2 has been plotted out. My biggest problem has been that the arcs I wrote were two sentence summaries, and it turns out expanding them in to bigger plots was more of a task than I thought.

However - there are now thirteen plots ready to be written, and while I have introduced a few new plot arcs than I thought, but I think it has all turned out as I wanted.

So - hopefully I can start writing the chapters. My plan is still to write three episodes ahead, so I have two episodes to write (x02 and x03), then I can start posting the episodes.

So - we shall see what we shall see.

Western Sky Series 2 - Update

Well - Series 2 is going (kind of) well. I have completed the first episode (but given that I have been planning that for a long while, it was pretty easy), and I have a number of episodes plotted out. Of the fourteen in the series, I am missing 2x06 and 2x07 (Foundations), 2x09 and 2x11 (although 2x08 and 2x10 are both plotted), and then the finale episodes (the last three episodes are a single story. Which I guess is what comes of watching Doctor Who a lot).

Foundations are giving me problems (given that it was supposed to be the finale to Series 1, you can see how many problems!), so I moved on to plotting the rest. I think tonight is going to be spent finishing 2x09 and 2x11 (and if you have been paying attention, you might notice there are some episodes I am giving you titles to, and others that I am not. This because there are some titles that are possibly spoilers, and I don't want to be spoiling!), then try to figure out 2x06 and 2x07, then work on the finale.

I have decided that I am going to plot out all 14 episodes before I move on to 2x02, because I have a suspicion that what happens near the end of the series will affect how I write some of the stuff at the start. And I don't want to have to go back and retcon it, cause that kinda thing blows.


So - if you are waiting for Series 2, that's where we are up to.

The Western Sky, Series 2 - coming soon....

So - after six weeks of plotting, drafting and writing some parts of it already, I think The Western Sky Series 2 is more or less ready for debut.

It will be a fourteen episode series, picking up a week or so after Series 1 left off.

Although the arc for the series is planned out, and the plots for each episode is sketched, I have only actually fully plotted out the first episode (2x01 - When Tomorrow Comes, Part 2) because - well there are two reasons.

The first is that until I write an episode, I am not sure how it will go. So I could introduce something in to WTC II that would change the next episode ("Silent Night"). So generally I sketch out plots, then (if I feel it necessary) flesh them out before I write them. Other times, I just have the sketch, and I write it based on that.

The second is because I just can't be arsed at the moment :)

Anyway - My plan is to write three episodes ahead of my publishing, so I will write 2x01, 2x02 and 2x03, then publish 2x01 and write 2x04 and so on. The reason for this is retconning - if I need to change a previous episode, generally it happens within the next three episodes. (A major exception to this was "Twenty Five Years Later", which just caused chaos all over the place, but that has only happened once in the whole history of Silent Trio, and most of my other stories to be honest).

So - within the next month or so, TWS Series 2 should be up at HPFandom and ForeverFandom (although I need to post TWS 1 at ForFan, so it might be a bit longer there....)

That's it.

My Octopus is transferred

I have finished copying The Silent Trio series across to the new site (Forever Fandom) - all six parts copied in just over a month.

Which is nice.

The Western Sky is next to be copied, then I think I will start Series 2. (I also have LIH to do, but I think that will wait until later in July, and in to August).

TST seems to have been received well, by at least one person, if not anyone else :)

Something I don't understand.....

http://www.ficwad.com is the new site I have started posting to. So far "Lost In Middle Earth" is the main story, along with Gemini Software (http://www.ficwad.com/story/100403) and The Archive (http://www.ficwad.com/story/100467), but there is something that confuses me.

The character list has a character named Malcolm Baddock (http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Malcolm_Baddock), who, as far as I can tell, appears in one book. One, single book. In one chapter of one book. In fact, he gets sorted, and I think that is the last we hear of him.

But the character list doesn't have Cedric Diggory. Who, if you remember, does play rather an important part in the series. And who appears not only in one more book, but more than one chapter of more than one book.

So on the one hand we have a character who no one seems to know, but who you can include in the story as a "major character" (they limit you to six characters, so you have to pick the major ones), and on the other hand we have one of the single most important characters in the whole series, who doesn't apparently exist according to them.

It's a tad confusing :)

Another new site

I have started posting some of my original stories at http://www.ficwad.com/author/69837. This is mostly in an attempt to get away from FictionPress.com - a site that is run by the same ass-hats who administrate FanFic.net, but also an attempt to spread the original fiction to more people.

But I am also posting one or two HP stories there - the ones I think people will like. And Lost In Middle Earth seems to be going down well. Which is nice.

Ladies and Gentlemen - I can at last say it.

At last I can say Episode 1x14 (When Tomorrow Comes) - the finale of The Western Sky Series 1 - is now posted at HPFandom and ready to read.

It's been delayed by two weeks, but quite honestly I am impressed that the site-admins at HPFandom managed to get everything fixed in that time, as it seems whatever was wrong was pretty damn chaotic.

So - big cheers to the site-admins.

But, as important as that is, the most important part is that 1x14 is now posted, and Series 1 of The Western Sky is now complete. So hurray!

Oh my word there is chaos!

The site is almost completely down, for various reasons beyond my comprehension.

So don't expect any updates any time soon.

Another few days delay......

The annoying thing is I am really quite proud of the last episode of Series 1, and quite looking forward to what people will make of it. It came out pretty much as I wanted, and with just the right amount of cliff-hangerness (which I realise isn't a word, but eh - it's my blog).

As I said in a previous entry, I am transferring The Silent Trio across to a new site, and it should take me another month or so. (And, by the way things seem to be going, that might be the place that the finale premiers on :))

Meanwhile - I am making some good progress on Series 2 - I have some of the plots sorted out, and the general arc(s) are in place. I am missing two or three episodes, and the general order of the shows is still under discussion (so to speak), but all in all, it's going quite well. Which is nice.

I will let you know when the site is back up, and when 1x14 is posted.

Still Down (le sigh)

HPFandom is still locked down, due to something about viruses and so forth. So Western Sky is still on hiatus, until further notice.

Once the site is back, I will let you know, and you can enjoy the finale.

(In the meantime, I am going to start working out the chapter structure for LIH)

Gorram it.

So I spend most of the night finishing Episode 1x14, and proof-reading it, to ensure it is posted before my sweetie comes home, and what do I find? HPFandom is shut down due to virus scares, and is not accepting new posts for the near future!!!

Sometimes, I wonder why I bother :)

But 1x14 (When Tomorrow Comes) is now finished and complete, and it came out EXACTLY the way I wanted it, which is very rare for my stories. It is a tad longer than other episodes (nigh on 8000 words), but it's the finale, so what do you expect?

Hopefully it will be posted by tomorrow (the 9th) night, but it really now does depend on how soon HPFandom sort out their problems and return to service.

The Silent Trio Rises Again

I have started copying my "magnificent octopus" across to a new site. It was originally on two sites - http://www.hpfandom.net/eff/viewuser.php?uid=4145 and the festering evil that is ff.net. However in the week following the M22 Virus (as I am going to call it from now on), the first four Silent Trio stories were mutilated, and the first four chapters of the fifth.

On a side note - the reason it was only those that were violated was because Chapter 5 of "Harry and The Curse Of Exum" was the first one written directly on to the computer (Glinda), rather than hand written then typed up. Because of this, I changed the separator I used (xoxox, rather than a set of dashes. This was down to Open Office translating the series of dashes as a horizontal line, which pissed me off no end. I guess if I hadn't been pissed off, the M22 wouldn't have affected me, but that's the way the cookie gets eaten).

So - anyway - after the M22 Virus was let loose, and just short of four and a half stories were mutilated, I ended up deleting them, and it meant they only appeared on http://www.hpfandom.net.

But now that Series 1 of The Western Sky is almost complete (I am about to start writing Act 3 of the series finale), I thought I would start copying Silent Trio to another site, to spread the joy, so to speak.

At the moment, Part 1 (Harry and The New Girl) and the prologue to Part 2 (Harry and The Hufflepuff) are there, and I plan to copy two chapters per day until the six stories are complete, then do The Western Sky one episode at a time.

I also have a fair bit of work to do on Lost In Hyrule, but I am going to start that once TWS is complete, and possibly 19YL is continued, if not finished.

The Western Sky - 1x12 and 1x13

So, after nearly six weeks, I have managed to write the next two chapters of Western Sky.

The main reason for the delay was that 1x12 (originally "Invasion", now "Twenty Five Years Later") was a complete disaster, and took about a month on its own to sort out. The original plot has been scrapped, and a whole new one put in its place.

Even after it was written, I thought I should post the second chapter, because the first had taken so long.

Anyway - they are posted now, and hopefully the last episode of the series "When Tomorrow Comes" should be done within two weeks, depending on how real life goes :)

So ends the week of hell.

It's now 3:39am, although really it's only 2:39am (British Summer Time, don't you know?)

And the week of hell is over. The M22 debacle is now behind me, and at least two people have followed me over to the new site. Which is nice of them.

I wonder if I could set up a mailing list? Maybe I'll think about it, but for now (well - for tomorrow) I am going to start on 1x11 (the second part of the Back To School Two Parter, and the one featuring something I have been thinking about for a while) and continue with Lost II (although that is proving harder than it did when I was hand writing it. Should I go back to hand writing it? Maybe)

I want to continue with 19YL, but it is proving a nightmare to write. The in between parts especially.

Anyways. WOH-M22 is done. Which is nice.

It's done. And I do feel kind of bad.

I have now purged ten stories from the ff.net site, and marked 19YL and TWS as complete, even though it is patently obvious they're not.

And I feel bad about this. Not because of the purging and departing the site thing, but because of the reasons for it.

A few years back (2000/2001) I deleted all my stories and set up my own site because of a rule change - FF.Net banned song lyrics, which was just utterly ridiculous (and not just in my opinion - there were hundreds of complaints, and the site www.fanficauthors.net was one of the new ones that appeared because of the ban).

And if they had banned something this time (like writing Harry/Hermione fics) then I would have felt equally good.

But there is nothing forcing me to move, other than the fact I don't trust the site admins any more. I don't have any problems with the site itself, just those who run it.

Anyway. It's done. I am now going to make HPFandom the Primary HP site (which given that I am only really writing HP atm makes it the primary site) and ForeverFandom the primary other story site.

As to what happens with fictionpress I don't know, but since I haven't updated there since Augst 2007, I am not sure I care all that much.

10 hours, 30 minutes.

Given that a large number of people before have complained, and heard nothing from the support staff, I hold out little hope they will reply before the deadline expires.

And once mid-day comes by - that will be it.

I am kind of holding out hope that they will do something, but it's not a lot of hope.

Random FanFic.Net theory

Ok - so someone in the forums posted a question - "What is wrong with custom scene breaks anyway?"

Which is a really good question, if you stop and think about it. What is wrong with people using dashes, xoxox, -oOo- and so forth?

Well - I had an idea about it, and it is somewhat conspiracy theory ish, but eh - this is my blog so what are you going to do about it (grin)?

They just introduced a voluntary beta-reader system. For those of you who don't know what a beta-reader is, it is someone who proof-reads a story - not only for spelling and grammar and punctuation errors, but to suggest changes and revisions etc.

I don't use them. Mostly because it's my story, and I don't see the need for someone else to edit it for me. Although, the one time I did try it, the story came out better than it was (and I changed the way I write a little after that as well). My Amy did the beta-reading, and she doesn't have anywhere near enough free time to do it any more, and I would not impose upon her anyway (cause I am a sweet, thoughtful boyfriend!)

There are some sites our there that INSIST on stories being beta-read before they are posted, because they have some pretensions to being "classy" and "above the rest of the net", when clearly, as I said, they are just pretentious, jumped-up arrogant twats. (I realise I didn't say that but you get the idea).

At the moment, FF.Net doesn't have a mandatory program. However they have just introduced this system, and it is in beta-testing (which is pretty much the same as beta-reading, but for software), so I suspect they don't want to force everyone to use it, in case something goes wrong (Which, given what they did last Saturday, seems unbelievable, but might be true)

But what if that is their agenda? The WikiPedia entry for FF.Net says that "Quality Control is one of the many issues associated with the archive. Stories can be posted regardless of editing or proofreading, and the quality of the work is dependent entirely upon the individual writer"

I have never considered this an issue. Yes - there are some stories that have really bad spelling, and really bad grammar and really bad punctuation (though I am not one to talk, according to some of my reviews), but this is a fan based archive where people are not paid to write stories. I would be shocked, stunned and not a little amazed if every story was written perfectly with no errors. Even I (and I know this will be hard to believe) have been known to have the odd error in my story.

But what if the site admins are getting annoyed with the criticisms? What if, with this funky new beta-system, they are going to eventually force everyone to have their stories read before they can be posted? It would cut down on the grammar/spelling/punctuation issues and so on, and would also cut down on the number of "invalid stories" (the rules about what you can and cannot submit would make The Third Reich think that the sit admins were too right wing).

"But what does this have to do with the scene breaks?" I hear you ask.

Well - they all come down to one thing - conformity. Making every story look more or less the same, so that the site will be a tidier place. And then people might stop comparing it to other sites. in a negative way.

As I said, this is a bit conspiracy theory ish, but I don't think it is off-the-wall (well - not entirely off the wall. I think it is still hanging by a thread).

I have to admit, the March 22nd debacle notwithstanding, I like the site. Why? Because it is not beta-read, because you can submit stories how you wish, because there are no rules about what you can and can't write for.

Do you know how much sites that say "You can only write Harry/Ginny stories" bug the living crap out of me? And sites where people will bitch and moan at you if you don't stay in Canon all the time? (What the hell is the point of writing fanfic if you can't screw with canon once in a while? Get some fucking perspective already!)

Anyway - that's my theory about the scene breaks.

It's not just me :)

Having read a few comments in a forum, it turns out it is not just me that is pissed off.

There are, it appears, discussions about boycotting ff.net completely, with everyone who this has affected moving to another site.

This has been a turbulent 24 hours, hasn't it?

The choice

I have already made my choice. It is now up to the site admins to see whether I implement it or not.

I have written a "final chapter" for The Western Sky, explaining why the story is being suspended on Fanfic.Net, and, come Saturday/Sunday - if there is no response from the site admins, I will post it, and that will be that. I will download the stories I don't have copies of, and then remove them from the site completely. Mostly because I am not having people read them without scene breaks, because it is just wrong.

I will lose the comments, but I can't see a way round it. I am not fixing 49 chapters, especially if I wil have to do all this again in a months time when they cotton on to the "xoxox" thing.

Noon on Saturday is the deadline I will assign in my head. That will give them over 48 hours to respond to the e-mail I sent.

Okay - I think I have made my choice already

We do not support dash or other character based section/scene markers

Does this mean that all the stories where I have used "xoxox" to break up scenes are going to be modified as well?

Because that accounts for all the chapters I didn't mention in the previous post (Exum, Coming Storm, Lost In Middle Earth, Deadly Silence, Nineteen Years Later, Western Sky etc). And I am damn sure I am not re-editing every chapter I have written.

One day. If I don't have a response by Saturday morning, then I am stopping writing, and (quite possibly) removing all the affected stories. (Which would include the whole of Silent Trio, but I will leave Western Sky because I want to write a last chapter to explain why I'm doing it).


This is bad, bad day.

FanFiction.Net - Stupid or Incompetent?

March 22nd, 2008 -- Summary of upgrades/notes since the last update:

1. We do not support dash or other character based section/scene markers. If you wish to create a separation in your chapter, please use the officially supported horizontal line feature in our document editor or in your favorite word program. Using unsupported section markers will only make your entries less compatible to future upgrades. You can create the horizontal lines in Microsoft Word or OpenOffice by typing 3 or 4 consecutive dash/hyphen keys and then hitting enter. The site will correctly recognize these scene breakers when you upload them.

You wouldn't think that this innocent little news post would be such a disaster, would you?

But, it turns out, that nearly ALL of my stories no longer have scene breaks in them. Because they applied the above change retroactively, and modified every chapter that used "-" as scene breaks by removing said scene breaks.

And, it turns out, it's not just mine. After reading a few of the other stories, their scene breaks have gone as well.

And, just to compound this error, it is not just a case of the breaks not being displayed. They are gone in the original chapters as well. So that if I wanted to put them back, I would have to remember where the scene breaks come, and edit them accordingly.

And, if that wasn't bad enough, there was NO WARNING about it. If they had said that, in three weeks time, they were going to stop people using "-" then maybe I could have salvaged something. But no - they just went ahead and did it, willynilly.


So the question you have to ask is this :- did they know this would happen? Did they deliberately, and with malice a forethought, screw up millions of chapters of thousands of stories with this change? Are they that stupid that they didn't realise how many people might get pissed off by this?

Or was it an accident? Are they just incompetent? Did they not realise this would happen, and have some way of fixing it (from backup for example)?


I have sent off an e-mail of complaint about it, and what I do next will be dependent on the response I get from that. It is not beyond reason that I might just stop using the site altogether, and stick to HPFandom, ForeverFandom and my own site (which I really should get back to updating).

I really can't believe how bad this is.

Peace Of Mind, The New Girl (8 Chapters), The Hufflepuff (13 chapters), His Dark Father, The Defence Club (15 Chapters), The Return Of Sirius Black (15 chapters), The Curse Of Exum (4 Chapters) and The Smartest Witch (7 Chapters).

That means 49 chapters I have to update. And that is just for my stories. Having looked around a few others (including someone who's written a 63 chapter story that isn't finished), I can imagine that I might not be the only pissed off person.

As for why it is only 4 Chapters of Exum, and none of Coming Storm, I will explain later.

Happily Ever After (1x09)

Easter Weekend is kind of nice, since it leads to four days holiday (for me at least. My pookie alas doesn't get the time off), and has given me time to not only complete (and post) 1x09 of TWS, but also type up all that I wrote for Lost In Hyrule while I was away last weekend. And it turns out it was way, way more than I thought - 30 1/2 pages of A4 (prologue plus three chapters).

They are all typed up, but I am not going to start posting them until TWS is complete, as LIH is going to act as an inter-series special - a made for TV movie type thing. But, before you start wondering if I am spoiling the end of Series 1 by telling you that Harry and friends end up in Hyrule, the answer is no. The special will be entirely AU from the series, just because it will be fun.

As to what happens at the end of Series 1 - well, that would be telling, wouldn't it?

Finally! 1x07 and 1x08

Nearly 24 hours after they were finished, the two new episodes are finally posted.

And I realise I say this a lot, but I think I am going to try to get back to a regular posting schedule now. Maybe write two or three nights per week (starting next week, since I am away for the coming weekend), and update on a given day. It might get complicated, especially if I am going to finish Lost In Hyrule by the time Series 1 ends.

I guess we shall see what happens....

Ok - maybe I am not *that* good

I was all ready to post the story at lunch time, but I managed to leave the memory stick plugged in to the computer at home.

So it will have to wait for tonight.

(Growl)

God, I am good

Episodes 1x07 and 1x08 are done, and the third act of 1x08 came out exactly as I wanted it. I know it is somewhat arrogant to blow my own trumpet, but it really is quite good :) Even the ending, which frustrated me for a good while, turned out pretty well.

And 1x08 contains another teaser trailer for Lost In Hyrule (Which I think now is just a working title). And given that I am going away this weekend, I might actually be able to get it started.

All in all, a good day.

An idea I think I can use

A picture of Harry, dressed in a green tunic, riding Buckbeak across an open field.

A picture of Ginny and Sally, both dressed in armour, sword-fighting in a city.

A picture of several Gryffindor students, also dressed in green, fleeing through a forest, pursued by a giant shadow.

A picture of Ron and Harry hugging.

A picture of Ginny throwing her head back in laughter, as Harry and Sally look on in fear.

A picture of Luna, Cho, Ron, Pansy, Susan and Remus stood in a circle, surrounding Harry.

A picture of Sally, Harry and Ginny superimposed on an image of three golden triangles. At the top of the screen, we see the words “COMING SOON”

The Western Sky

So - I finally got some more written. I have been spending the week trying to re-create a virtual rubik's cube (I did it a while back, and lost the code. Then I did it again, and lost the code. To give you some idea, this is version 4.0). I have almost got it completed, but I have completely forgotten how to solve the top side when you have two pieces that need swapping. I can do three, but not two for some reason.

So, because I can't do that, and I figured out how to write the rest of Episode 7, I went back to The Western Sky, and nearly finished Act 1 (and the only reason I stopped is because - well because it is 1am and I am going to bed) and I know how I can finish it. And Acts 2 and 3 should be easy. However, I am going to also write Episode 8 before I post 7, so that I can post both together, since it is nigh on a month since Ep 6 was posted (but no one left reviews, so I have no idea if anyone read it or not).

I am away for work again, and I might cave and buy a tiny DVD player, and possibly Series 3 of Voyager, so that I can write more TWS while I am in the hotel (Since I can only take one laptop, I can't write while DVDs are playing, unless only want to listen to them). If I do do that, then I think I can get through Ep 9 and 10 (9 is fairly simple, and 10 should be kinda fun. But not as much fun as 8 and 11). And once I am done with 10, there are only four episodes left in Series 1. Whoop!

Lost In Hyrule?

TWS and 19YL are not really going anywhere. Well - that's not true. They are going places, just not very quickly.

And last night, as I was falling asleep, I had an idea about a new story, the next part to Lost In Middle Earth.

Set in Ocarina of Time, it would have Harry and Hermione (again), or possibly Harry and Luna, staring as Link and Navi, with various other HP characters as members of the Hyrule cast, including Zelda, Darunia, Saria, Impa and company, as well as the Big Temple Bads and (well duh) Ganon.

My biggest problem is not the casting (although I have no idea about that), but how to tell the story. Do I go through each Dungeon, or just do the highlights of each? (Finding the fairy slingshot, fighting the boss etc).

I will give this more thought, and maybe write one or two chapters, just to see how it goes. Plus I have to work out the cast before I start. Though I am pretty sure that Ron would be Darunia if Harry is Link, and even if it turns out there is a female link (Minnie or Luna), Ron could still be the Goron leader.

So - what do you think? Can I do it? Should I even try?

Postponed Posting

I had every intention of either writing the next two chapters of 19YL or the end of the current episode of Western Sky tonight. I was going to do it whilst I reinstalled XP on my computer (I have a laptop as well, remember?). However due to Nero being utterly crap and completely useless, I could not get a copy that would create a bootdisk for me, so I did not get to install XP. And because I spent a fair portion of the night swearing at a piece of luh-suh that masquerades as software, I didn't get any writing done. Which is good, cause the mood I was in, I suspect I would have had Luna and Harry tortured to death by pygmies and snorkacks. And I am pretty sure that wouldn't have gone down well with the readers!

Hopefully tomorrow night I can try again, and this time actually get somewhere.

A temporary pause

I have been away for the weekend, and am going away tomorrow. As a result, there will be very little story writing done. I think I might have a go at the Historic part of Nineteen Years Later, but The Western Sky (1x07) will probably not be completed until Saturday, if not Sunday. It has only just started, and although I have an idea of what I am going to do with it, there are bits that are still blurry.

But 19YL should be a bit easier, as I have a plan of what the nineteen years contained, so writing it should be easier (and now that I have said that......)

In Dreams

The latest episode of The Western Sky is now ready for posting, but will not be posted until tomorrow, as it has one more round of validation to go through.

But of all the episodes so far, I would say this is the one that has not only caused me most problems, but has also changed the most from the original plot. To the point where the original plot has been thrown out of the window, then set on fire and burned to ashes, then the ashes set on fire and burned to whatever is beyond ashes, and then fed to some dogs. (Assuming dogs eat ash-ashes? I don't know!)

It also means that Episode 10 will have to change a little as well, because it was supposed to be a sequel to this episode (more or less), but as that is not all that possible any more, I will have to come up with another c-plot to fit in to the story line. Or, you know, just extend one of the a/b plots that are already there.

"In Dreams" is episode 6 of 14, so by the end of the next one (The Easy Way Out), we will be half way through the series. Isn't that nice? (I guess this would be a good time to warn you that because of work commitments, and the fact I have a holiday coming up soon, I am not sure when TEWO will be written, let alone posted. Possibly next week, but maybe not until two weeks from today (although I have two nights in a hotel with nothing to do coming up soon, so you never know....). The episode after that (the title of which is secret for the moment) is the one I am looking forward to writing, as I have almost all of it mapped out in my head.

But, for now, I will leave you with a preview of "In Dreams"......

“Me? Love you?” Tara laughed cruelly “You were nothing more than a tool to me. I used you to get to The Western Sky, and I used all of you to get access to the spells I needed. Now I can use the skills that I learned from you, and use it to make Willow forget the past, and take me back” She giggled at the look on her partner's face “Do you have any idea what you look like?” With a last glance at the crying woman, Tara turned, and walked away. Luna watched her go, then closed her eyes, not wanting to see her leave.

Compliance in HP

When someone says a story is "Book 6 Compliant", what does that make you think? And if someone says it is "Set after book six", does that invoke a different image in your head?

The good thing is, there is no set standard. Which is also a bad thing, but mostly it's good.

Compliance, to me at least, indicates that the key events in a book took place, but not necessarily exactly as they happened. And also that the key events of all the books previous to it took place, but again, they might have happened differently.

So - for example - a story that is Compliant to Book 5 would indicate that Voldemort is back, there is a prophecy about how to defeat him, and that The Order exists.

A story Compliant to Book 3 would indicate that the traitor was revealed (though not necessarily that it is Peter), and Book 2 would indicate that the Basilisk was freed, that someone was tricked in to doing it and that the diary was used to do it.

However, a story set after Book 3 would require it to be Peter, that Black was vindicated (though not publicly), and a story set after Book 2 would mean it would have to be Ginny.

This has apparently caused confusion, because I said a story was Book 5 compliant, and yet had some changes (albeit minor) in history that people felt were bad, evil and wrong in light of my "B5C" statement.

Book 1 : The Stone, A Possessed Teacher, Harry doing the hero bit.
Book 2 : Basilisk, Diary, Possession, Harry killing snake, Harry talking to snakes.
Book 3 : Traitor unmasked.
Book 4 : Tournament, Voldemort Returns.
Book 5 : Order, Prophecy.
Book 6 : Horcruxes.
Book 7 : Voldemort Dead, Deathly Hallows exist.

Those are what I consider to be compliances. Now - there might be more (for example there is no reason the prophecy can't be The Prophecy), but this is what I define as a minimum.

Another new site to read (grin)

So - in my ever expanding effort to conquer the known world, I have submitted a story to another site. The terms and conditions seem okay - basically you can post anything as long as it is suitably covered by various warnings - so I am not going to have to remove stories in the future because I decide that I want to write about House-Elfs being enslaved.

(Note - that actually happened on a site I was writing on. They decided that mentioning slavery in any context was now against the TOS, and the way they justified it to themselves was that house-elfs are not enslaved, they are merely servants).

The address is www.foreverfandom.net/viewuser.php?uid=32408 for my stories, although there is only one (Peace Of Mind) at the moment (I plan to add a few more in the near future)

Death, Life and Cupcakes

Episode 4 (Death, Life and Cupcakes) of The Western Sky is now posted at ffdn, however if you are new to this series, I would advise reading Episodes 1 to 3 first, otherwise you will be utterly confused. (Also, it might be helpful to read the six Silent Trio stories, as TWS is a continuation of that story. So you have lots of homework to do!)

Of course, even after you have read 1 to 3 and 4, you might still be confused, but there isn't much I can do about that :)

Episode 5 will hopefully be done in around a week or so, pending other commitments and complications.

The Western Sky

This is mostly a test for my "spoiler" entries. Where-in I randomly discuss things I am planning, or plots that I abandoned, or just generally things I think should be let out and about in the real world just because they should.

The default colour of the blog is blue, and so if you see a massive block of this colour, that means there is something behind it that you should maybe think twice about reading. Above it will be an explanation of what it will spoil.

So - to demonstrate this (and to test it), the next block contains a plot idea I had for TWS, but ended up abandoning it because I could not figure out how to make it work. However, some of the plot devices still remain in the first series, hence the spoiler code.

My original plan was to have Harry and Sally arrested for TWS activities, along with Luna and Pansy (as the other four are all American and not under their jurisdiction), and them to go on the run at the end of the season. There would be various moves through the series (Dumbledore's suspicions about TWS, some of the Aurors getting involved etc), and the first episode of the second series would be about them clearing their names and dealing with those who did them wrong (if you will excuse the phrase)

I eventually scrapped it in favour of another season long arc, because, quite honestly - having Harry and Sally set up against Dumbledore for the season is just going over old ground, and I wanted to do something new.

And that concludes my test. If it worked. If it didn't, then ooops.

Glinda

For most of the time I have been writing fanfiction, I have been doing it by hand. I have a set of pens (ones that I really like), and a set of notebooks, and I write the story out, chapter by chapter, with crossings out and so forth, until it's done.

Then I typed it up, and posted it wherever I was posting it. The typing up would also act as beta-reading for the story - I would correct spelling mistakes, fix sentences that made no sense whatsoever, and sometimes rewrite parts of the story if they are utter bollocks (which - by the way - happens more often than you would think).

The only exceptions to this were "quickie" stories - Lost In Middle Earth, Deathly Silence and Peace Of Mind (for example). Ones that I just started writing for no apparent reason, and decided to continue cause they were fun.

The main reason I did this - the writing by hand thing - was because I liked writing in front of the TV, and in bed, and on the train (I do a lot of train travel for work). It was relaxing, and - especially on the train - it passed the time quickly.

But last August, I acquired Glinda, a shiny new laptop. Which changed the way I write stories quite a lot, since I can now write them directly in to the computer in front of the tv, in bed and on the train. The last chapter I hand wrote was "Shades Of Gray" from "The Curse of Exum"

So the first change is that stories are now coming out faster than they used to, since I no longer have to write them then type them up. And I am now re-reading the same chapter three or four times - as I type it, before I post it, once I have posted it and after I post it - as a substitute for beta-reading.

But the largest change is that I am now posting incomplete stories, or rather I am posting stories a chapter at a time (generally - sometimes I write the first two chapters of a story at once, and more often than not, the last two at once), rather than posting a complete story after it is finished.

This has brought its own problems to my story writing. Before, I could write chapters 1 to 5, then, if I wanted to modify something in C1 to fix with chapter 6, I could.

But now, of course, I can't. Once I post a chapter, it is "canon", and I have to stick to it. Which makes it harder to improvise, but easier to stick to the plot I worked out previously. So - swings and other swings.

On the whole, I would say Glinda has made writing stories easier, and more fun. Because while handwriting them is very entertaining, typing them up directly means I don't have to set aside time to do it later.

So - that's Glinda. My writing partner in crime :)

A somewhat typical first post

So, my name is Angelholme, and I write fanfiction (and sometimes original fiction, but that is less common).

At the moment, I am heavily buried in the world of Harry Potter, because it is just such a fun place to write stories about. However I also have a somewhat vague plan to continue a story I stared a while back - the eighth series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, set in a town called Covenston. I abandoned it a while back because I was having characterisation troubles, but recently, and after writing a lot for HP, I think I might be able to pull it off.

I write mainly at three sites - fanfiction.net (under the name Angelholme), hpfandom.net (under the name SammyWrae) and my own site (http://angelholme.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/), although this needs updating pretty badly.

I tend to write three types of stories.

The first is "arc" stories, or sagas. They generally have one or two major plot arcs, and a number of minor ones. Examples of these are "The Silent Trio" series and "The Western Sky".

The second is single arc stories. They have either one or two parts (generally one), and are based around a single idea. Examples of these are "Project Darkling", "Nineteen Years Later" and "Return To Grace".

The third is parodies/comedies. These I mostly write when the mood strikes me, or when I have an idea that just won't go away. Examples of these are "Lost in Middle Earth", "The Smartest Witch" and "Harry Potter and The Deathly Silence".

There are also one-shots, but these generally come from the first or second type of stories, and I just run out of ideas as to how to write them the way I want them.


Mostly I am going to use this for news about story updates - what chapters are up, what stories are close to completion, and ideas for new stories.

Currently, Nineteen Years Later is up to chapter 4 (and is no where near finished), and I am writing Episode 1x04 of The Western Sky (the first series has fourteen episodes, so it is about a third of the way through).

And honestly, that is about all I have to say for now. I could tell you all about me, but since I am not one for publishing personal information on the web, that seems unlikely. I could tell you all about my fanfic history, and I might do that in the future. I could tell you all about my sweetheart, but again - personal information and so forth.

I will update this as often as is necessary, or as often as I feel like. So, until then, have a nice day.

"Nothing crushes us"