Starlight - The Movie - posted

I have started posting Starlight - The Movie. And since it only has three chapters, it shouldn't take me that long (however the next chapter requires formatting, and it took me about an hour or so to do one tonight, so don't expect the next one before the weekend).

However it is only up at one site, because the other one does not permit stories like "Starlight", so I can't post it there.

(ForeverFandom.net has no problem with it, but HP Fandom doesn't permit "original fiction" on the site - which is what Starlight apparently is).

Meanwhile, A New Dawn (Allies) continues a pace, and my notes for Dark Lord Sidious also continue to be written. Which is nice.

Nicola Grafton and The BMP

My attempts to write a political allegory (if that's the word I am looking for) about a politician named Nicola and her rise to power as part of the British Muggle Party aren't going as well as I'd hoped.

The basic idea is that about two, three years after the magical secret comes out, Nicola Grafton (who revealed the secret originally) uses fear of magic and mages to gain a massive majority in Parliament. And then to bring in a number of oppressive rules against mages. She also opens up the policy of "Voluntary Resettlement" for mages - citing the fact they'd be happier amongst their own kind in other countries than in a hostile environment.

The trouble is I either make it far too obvious who I am talking about, or I realise I am not making it clear enough.

So, maybe Harry Potter and Politics don't mix. Which, given the similarities between the Death Eaters and The BNP is kind of surprising.

Distraction. It's never good.

So instead of continuing The New Dawn trilogy, or typing up "Holiday From Hell" and "Starlight", spent the last week writing a cross-over between Harry Potter and Jane and The Dragon, and am now plotting out a "do-over story" (Harry comes back to rewrite the past).

I really need to get more organized with this. Or just stop coming up with ideas.

(The Jane and the Dragon crossover was just something that popped in to my head, and took 12 days to write, so I don't feel so bad about that one, and the "do-over" story is a reaction to all of the bloody annoying "whiny Harry" stories that people seem to think should follow "OOTP". Get over it people - JK Rowling went the other way!).

I think I excelled myself.....

The Holiday From Hell came in at 192 pages (which was more than I thought), but then in a stunning display of script writing, Starlight (The Movie) came in at 100 pages exactly.

So - go me. Two scripts in 29 days, with a total of 292 pages of glory.

I realise I am very bad to blow my own trumpet, but I am very, very proud of myself for this.

They'll be posted as soon as I can work out an easy way of converting them to HTML - and HTML that can be posted on the twin sites (although apparently Starlight can't be posted at one, because it's not directly related to HP).

Lets Go To The Mall - To Die

So - I am about half way through at the end of Day Three. Which is pretty typical for me, and apparently for most people.

Writing an A4 page full of text is a lot harder than writing an A4 script page, because there is generally far less text.

Which would explain why I am about half way through.

The two major problems I have are that the "major scenes" (of which there are 23) should be four/five pages long, and some are far shorter, meaning I might run out of story, before I run out of pages.

The second is that celtx SUCKS for HTML formatting. So it's going to take me a while to get it presentable for the web, once I finish it (which I haven't yet).

Still - 45 pages in three days. Not bad.

Allies (A New Dawn II)

Well - I actually managed it. The first three chapters are posted on both sites, and I am quite happy with them.

But now the story is on hiatus until at least April 30th (end of ScriptFrenzy '09), because while I am fairly confident I can write the screenplay in April, I am not so confident I can do it and continue "A New Dawn" at the same time :)

So - by May 1st, I should have "Harry Potter and The Holiday From Hell" completed, and maybe ready for posting (though Celtx, for all the good it has, is not good for HTML export, so it might take a week or so to tidy up), and I should be able to continue "Allies" by the second week in May (the writing side - the posting side might take a few days more).

But, as a preview.......

Harry and Dawn stand behind Luna, as she looks down at two youngish woman who are sat on the floor. They both look sad.

LUNA LOVEGOOD

Marji, Gina - I know you two need to grieve, but it's important to remember that Lee died saving you, and that he would want you to make sure you survive this, and not just give up (pauses, then smirks) I guess what I'm saying is don't cry for Lee, Marj and Gina.

The two girls burst out laughing, while Harry and Dawn roll their eyes.

Harry Potter and The "A New Dawn" Hiatus.

So - ScriptFrenzy 2009 starts in 10 days time. I didn't enter last year, because the year before......

Well - I wrote a story about a young girl who grows up to be a doctor and a terrorist, then about four days after I finished it, a number of members of the medical profession were arrested on suspicions of being terrorists (after trying to blow up Glasgow Airport).

So - I decided to skip a year, just in case.....

But this year I am back with a vengeance, and with a story based on the game "Dead Rising" (for x-box, not wii), featuring the characters from "A New Dawn" the year after Luna, Dawn and Ginny graduate from Hogwarts. They take a holiday, and visit a small town called Willamette, Colorado, arriving around middday on September 19th.....

So - my plan is to post the prologue and three chapters of "Allies (A New Dawn II)" before April 1st, but then it will be on hiatus for a month while I write a movie. Once that's done, it will be posted on the two sites, and I will return to A New Dawn II.

Sorry for anyone who was waiting for the continuation of A New Dawn, but this is one of those things that I have to do (mostly because it's stuck in my head, and if I don't do it, it will remain stuck in my head).

A New Dawn - surprisingly done.

Yay! Part One of the "A New Dawn" Trilogy is finished. It needs proofing and posting, but it's complete.

And aside from ONE HUGE GINOURMUS MASSIVE plot change (that took me completely by surprise when I wrote it), it pretty much went the way I wanted. Which is always good.

The OHGMPC has necessitated replotting the next two stories, but only a little. But, looking back over the rest of the story, it does seem kind of obvious that it would end up the way it did.

Clearly I can't explain this now - not without spoiling the story - but no doubt I will come the end of the trilogy.

Anyway - it's done, and should be posted by the end of the week. (Assuming I don't get ludicrously busy at work or home, which seems improbable!)

A New Dawn - a trilogy in four parts

So - due to The Western Sky causing me major problems ("Shadows Of The Past" might have to be turned in to a two parter due to length) and Nineteen Years Later being on hiatus, I have started a new series.

The Monks of The Order of Dagon send The Key to Harry, rather than to Buffy, and - at the end of his fourth year - Harry gets a sister who is a year younger than he is. Of course, he doesn't realise that, because he remembers that Summer Dawn Potter has been a part of his life since she was born.

The story is in three parts, taking Harry in to his fifth year, and through his sixth, finishing in his seventh. The fourth part, however, is a prequel, which covers the major changes in Harry's life since Dawn came in to it (mostly that they now live with Sirius and his wife Emily, who have a daughter named Lily-Anne).

The Prequel is posted at both sites - I was going to leave it to the end, but there are a few key things that need some explanation. I wanted the fifth year to be a little confusing, but not so confusing that you can't understand it), and the first part is underway.

The four stories are called "A New Dawn : Summer's Story", "A New Dawn", "Allies" and "Enemies", and I am posting them one chapter behind - so I will have chance to modify things if necessary. (So at the moment Chapter 5 is written, but only Chapter 4 is posted). However all of the arcs are plotted out in their narrative form, which is the most I tend to do (I stopped chapterizing a while back, cause it never works out like I want!).

Anyway - A New Dawn.... coming to a website near you.... pretty much now.

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.