Saturday 20 September 2008

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.

Saturday 13 September 2008

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!

Tuesday 9 September 2008

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.

Wednesday 3 September 2008

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.

Tuesday 2 September 2008

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.