The Art of Finishing Up

Fezzywhig asked me something on Tumblr today, and I thought it might make a good writing entry on the blog, so I’m putting it over here, too. As with every piece of writing advice I give, please keep in mind that this may not necessarily apply to every writer. We’re all different, and those differences should be celebrated.

Fezzywhig asked: Apologies if this was asked before. As a prolific writer, have you ever been tempted to go back to a finished work and tweak or change it? Also a sideways question. Has anyone addressed you by one of your nom de plumes’s in person? If so how do you overcome the fanboy awkwardness?

Hey! I think somebody has asked me this before, but not in a public setting. And I definitely don’t mind getting asked a question multiple times, as long as that question isn’t, “IS THERE GOING TO BE A SEQUEL?” (while not commenting on the fic itself) or “WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO UPDATE SO AND SO?” when I’ve already said that that story is on hiatus. Also, a lot of it has to do with the tone of the question being asked. :)

To answer your first question: I’m tempted, a lot, to go back and change my work. Every time I reread it, I see something I could tweak or even rewrite. Just watch me reread That Which is Greater sometime. It will enlighten you as to how hard somebody can grit their teeth. There are entire chapters of that I would cut or rewrite in a heartbeat.

Now here’s where some authors are about to disagree with me because, even though I’m tempted to go back and rewrite things (like the first chapter of Fates, for example), I don’t, and I won’t. My philosophy is that once something is published, it gets minor cosmetic changes and nothing else (like, fixing a grammatical error, or using Angry Birds in 2002 on accident). I don’t believe in going back and rewriting my old fics because to me, those stories have been told. They’re done. Hopefully, I told them the best way I could, but it’s time to move on and to use the things I learned writing those fics to write newer and hopefully better tales.

New Ebooks!

Hello, dear readers!

So I realize it’s been awhile since I released some ebooks, which is my fault. I’ve been making them, but I haven’t been going through the process of uploading them and making them available for public consumption (seriously, though, my Kindle is triiiicked out), and I thought I’d get on that. So I’ve got three new ebooks for you today, one in each of my fandoms. That’s right, you can get The Bank Job, The Woman in the Crosshairs, or The Abbey. Two have complicated scenes inside of banking buildings, the other one makes up for the lack with aliens, I think.

Also, if you subscribe to me on AO3 or fanfiction.net, you may have noticed that I have a new story out. The title is really strange, I know, because it comes from a Disney ride, and the concept is even stranger. The Avengers are pirates in the 18th century. But it’s not like they woke up one day thinking, hey, I want to be a pirate. They’ve all got backstories that explain how they got to where they are, and there’s a long and shared history between them. I don’t want to tell you the plot because that’ll give too much away, but let’s just say you’ll recognize quite a few elements.

Anyway, that’s up on fanfiction.net and AO3, and I’ll be posting a chapter a day. Yes, it’s already finished, so no need to worry about me abandoning this one mid-story.

Oh, speaking of my stories (and abandoning some), I’ve organized my list of stories, where to find them, where you can download the ebooks, by fandom and then by series (Greater and Fates are in order). You can check all of that out here. They’ve all got statuses now that tell you where I’m at with them (Comp.=complete, WIP=work in progress, Hiatus=will come back to it someday, Aban.=orphaned), too. I’ll add to the list as I write more.

Anyway, that’s the news. I’m off to go destroy mxpw so horribly, he begs for mercy in his sleep go do my usual things.

Frea

[TEASER] Chuck vs. the World

Lords, ladies, gentle folk, I am absolutely honored—nay, it is my pleasure, my DELIGHT, my absolute joy to bring you a small gift by way of JoelTotheD, whom you might know around the blog as Joel (it’s confusing, yes: he’s British, but I’ve not been able to detect an extra letter “u” in his name, and trust me, dearest readers, I have tried!). Joel is the writer of such fine work as Moving On and Kill Jill, but he’s quite possibly best known for writing the fic with the Most Amount of Awkward Hugging in the Chuck fandom (we did a sampling; malamoo came close, but a panel of impartial judges thought that the amount of detail given to the extremely awkward hug in chapter 13 meant a clear win for Joel), Chuck vs. the World. And today, we have a special treat: a delicious piece of chapter 18 of that very same story!

 ...okay, I’m done with the flowery language. Joel gave me a thing. I posted that thing under the Read More link. Enjoy. ;)

2012: A Year in Review

I promised greater transparency, so here it is: I’m working on That Which is Greater. I’m not very far, but I have ideas. I’ll keep you posted as to when chapters are finished/will go up. I don’t know if I’m going to finish Greater: Winter Break. I don’t know if I’m going to write anything else in the Greaterverse. I’m not open to suggestions for more stories, either (I wasn’t for Fates or W11, if you’ll remember, and I don’t intend to start). If you want to know about Curtain Call, ask mxpw. If you want another unfinished story finished, please be patient and let me cross one hurdle at a time. Thank you.

Now on to the meat of the post: I didn’t make resolutions for 2013. Resolutions, I feel, should be between you and your conscience, so I was disgusted to have mine from 2011 thrown in my face by a total stranger. I’d love to see some great things happen this year to people I love and people I know, I’d love to watch some awesome movies, read some wonderful stories, and make fantastic memories. But that’s as far as I’ll go with resolutions.

Now, a look at the year 2012 in writing and other stuff, as best my memory goes:

My Entire List of Yuletide Recommendations

Need something to read? Well, Yuletide was unleashed upon Archive of Our Own, which is where I hang out more than fanfiction.net these days, which means that a bunch of smaller and non-existent fandoms (Taylor Swift's You Belong With Me has a fandom now, guys) get the blessing of loads of fic. The authors will be revealed soon, but I've been going through and reading some of the best, and I've culled them here for you to read. I'll match them up by fandom and everything. You might surprise yourself.

A Change to the Blog

Hey all,

 Previously I had the entirety of Curtain Call and Romeo and Juliet But Without Teenagers or Death...Well, Okay Some Death posted under the fanfiction tab, but that was messy. Instead, you’ll find links to those in the fanfiction chart. I have added Previous and Next links to each chapter in the blog to enable easy navigation. Of course, it’s probably easiest to just download, you know, the ebooks from the page.

In addition, I have completed the Ultimate Fates Guide with color coded table cells, listed by date. That is located underneath the fanfiction tab.

And if you’re curious about how I’m doing with Nanowrimo, the answer is completely ambivalent and about 5k behind, so good times all around!

Happy Monday!

Frea

Stuff and Updates and Other Stuff!

So the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results (or possibly that’s just science/experimentation, but what do I know?) and here we are, about 8 days into November, and I’m stressed and headache-y, and thinking, “I get this way every November. Why do I do this to myself?” And then October rolls around again and I’m like, “Hey, I finished Fates and that was 400k long. A little thing like November is NO BIG DEAL.”

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Currently, I’m on track (as of yesterday). I’ve completed two chapters and am halfway through the third. It only just occurred to me last night I’ve signed up for an entire month of writing climaxes and endings, two things that require a lot of thought, second-guessing, and mental fortitude. Evidently, I like challenges to remind myself every once in a while that sleep is a luxury, not a right.

You’ve likely seen some of the fruits of my labor by now, too. Max and I posted the fourth chapter of The Bank Job. The first two chapters were co-written; the last two were written by me (yes, even the hand-job line) because I lost a bet. You can read it here on ff-net and here on AO3 and I’ll try to get the ebook posted for everybody’s downloading pleasure soon.

I’m finishing up The Abbey, so my Downton fans can rejoice in that much, at least. The seventh chapter is done. I’m letting it percolate while I finish the eighth because they’re so deeply intertwined, so people will be able to rejoice to see quick successive updates on that. My next project was supposed to be That Which is Greater, but I’m struggling so much with The Abbey that I’m going to give myself a break and work on something Avengers-related because that’s where my passion is at the moment. I signed up for a fandom winter exchange, which will be released upon the world in a little over a month, so you’ll get to see something very different from me in December.

Speaking of things that are very different, have you guys heard of this new writer Alexandria Dunn? She hasn’t done much with her website yet, so I don’t want to link you to it, but she’s (begrudgingly) signed up for Facebook and she has a Twitter, and if you like my writing, you might like her. It’s weird that she and I have the same real name and we look exactly alike and our writing style is, like, completely identical, plus she also feels the same way about all of my favorite shows and…okay, have I dropped enough hints yet? Not much there yet, but it’s a start.

:)

Frea

 PS – if you want more consistent updates about what I’m doing, it’s much easier to check my livejournal.

Scary Halloween Statistics

I did something scary for Halloween: I tallied my word counts and put them in a chart, and I even added some stories that weren't on the chart you might have seen last night if you follow me on Twitter. This chart does not include Sarah vs. the Curse or my birthday story for quistie64, for some reason (or the millions of tiny Tumblr fics I've written, like Sarah taking Vi grocery shopping), but I did, you know, add RaJBWToDWOSD.

It hurts my head, guys. Enjoy at your leisure, I suppose. I'm going to sit in the corner and quietly comtemplate my life.

Nanowrimo Survival Guide, Part II

This edition of the guide has some handy links for you, and not too much else at the moment. So, without further ado, let’s dive right in.

Write or Die

Write or Die is a web application that encourages writing by punishing the tendency to avoid writing. Start typing in the box. As long as you keep typing, you’re fine, but once you stop typing, you have a grace period of a certain number of seconds and then there are consequences.

You know that lab experiment where you have to keep doing something or you get zapped? WOD is like the Word Processor version of that. There’s downloadable apps, it’s online if you want to use it there, too. You can customize how long you want to write and how “gentle” you want it to be when you stop writing. Kamikaze mode, just FYI, is insane, and if you do that one, you must be a glutton for punishment.

Written Kitten

Written Kitten was created by Skud, Emily and contributors. We like positive reinforcement, so we decided to make something a bit like writeordie but cuter and fuzzier. Images are randomly selected from Flickr's “most interesting” photos matching the tags “kitten” and “cute”. Enjoy!

WK is like WOD’s much nicer maiden aunt who gives you cookies and kittens instead of beating you mercilessly about the head. If you’re convinced your writing is lacking small, fuzzy creatures, it’s the perfect solution.

Scrivener

Scrivener is a powerful content-generation tool for writers that allows you to concentrate on composing and structuring long and difficult documents. While it gives you complete control of the formatting, its focus is on helping you get to the end of that awkward first draft.

Scrivener, to me, is like Evernote and MS Word had a baby and it grew up to be Captain Awesome. It’s a great program. It’s a word processor, but it lets you store a bunch of different things in the same place—word documents, research, outlines, images, notes, etc. It’s great if you’re not organized (like me!), and it’s powerful and easy to use. Plus, the company offers an extended trial period during Nanowrimo.

They Fight Crime!

He's a Nobel prize-winning moralistic ex-con with a mysterious suitcase handcuffed to his arm. She's a high-kicking nymphomaniac mermaid on the trail of a serial killer. They fight crime!

Need a plot? Look no farther!

Try a Character Sheet

You can use this one here or try Googling a few. Fill them out about your character, or if you really want to get creative, AS your character. Get to know the people you’ll be spending November with while you can.

Bromance and Romance and Jobly Things

I’m attempting to write a Clint/Natasha story that’s supposed to be a romance. I say attempting because as much as I adore reading romance between them, I seem to have a hard time writing them as anything but...heterosexual life mates. It’s like I have the opposite problem than the one I have with Chuck and Sarah, where every single one of their conversations threatens to turn adorable and fluffy. Clint and Natasha skew more toward the understated and double-talky narrative.

Or it’s possible that Downton Abbey spewing feelings everywhere is killing my groove.

But yes, apparently I have talked myself into writing a Clintasha Bromance. Halfway through, I watched the Iron Man 3 trailer and it dumped half my plot dead in the water, too. So that was a bucket of fun.

In other news, a project that I’ve been stressing out about has been given a “Holy crap! That’s awesome!” rating, so…yeah, I’m no judge of my own abilities anymore. I’ve been beating myself to hell and back, convinced I was screwing up all over the place and meanwhile my boss is like, “This is amazing.”



Here’s a sneak preview of the Clintasha story I’m writing:

The Nanowrimo Survival Guide, Part I

I can’t actually give definitive rules for Nanowrimo because, let’s face it, I’ve always been of the opinion that no two writers are exactly alike. It’s like telling all artists to paint with only one brand of paint, or on one type of canvas, or even one category of subject. You just don’t do that.

That said, I’ve done Nanowrimo a few times, and I’ve only “lost” once (I moved cross-country in mid-November, so I kind of think I had an excuse, but you may proceed to mock me now), so I could probably give some advice. Which I will proceed to do after this fascinating introductory segment coming up right now.

So for the uninitiated, Nanowrimo stands from National Novel Writing Month. It takes place in November of every year, and has for the past several years. It was founded by an insane man named Chris Baty, who gathered a few of his close friends near and said, “Hey, why don’t we write a novel? In a month? Doesn’t that sound like a great way to cut through the excuses that get in the way of writing novels?”

And so it began. And the next year, more came to study at the feet of Chris Baty, and the next year, they brought their friends, and it grew into such an event that we regularly crash the Nanowrimo homepage. Hundreds of thousands of writers flock to this website every year with one goal: 50,000 words in 30 days.

Three Sentences

So yesterday on Tumblr, I challenged people to fill my ask box with three-sentence fic prompts that I would write in reply. Here’s an archive of what happened.

(I also wrote some Avengers fic, and some Chuck fic for a writing group I joined.)

But without further ado...writing prompts!

Monday Updates #2

It’s Monday!

...that should probably never be said with excitement, huh? Well, even so, it is Monday, which means if you’re reading this, you’ve survived the weekend, or you’ve got really good wi-fi in whatever part of heaven or hell you ended up in. I guess if you’ve got eternity, that might be a good time to read my blog.

Bank Job 4 Sneak Peek

Title: Bank Job 4 - Assault and Battery
Rating: PG-13 for Violence, Language
Fandom: Chuck
Pairings: Carina & Sarah, Charah
Summary: Carina and Sarah are still robbing that bank. It’s probably going a little too well.
Complete: The chapter is at about 50% as of time of posting
Length: 506 words

ebook Friday: Sarah vs. the Switch

Today’s ebook of choice comes from somebody near and dear to the blog: that’s right, we’ve got another Wepdiggy ebook! I’ve converted his wonderful Sarah vs. the Switch over for your reading pleasure. You can grab it from this link here on the downloads page!

As always, if you liked it, please, please, please drop by and leave him a review to let him know. Fanfiction authors write for themselves and they write for reviews, you know.

Thanks, and enjoy!
Frea

Frea Interprets Vonnegut - Rule #8

Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Hey, look, I’m back and finishing this series! FINALLY! Part: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

We’re taught the value of the all-encompassing twist and the shocking blindside (in TV, that’s literal. Think of how many shows have relied on literal blindsides—there are two in the first season of Chuck alone. Hi, Nemesis and Intersect!). We’re taught that we must be cleverer than our audiences, that we must stun and dazzle and amaze at all costs. Keeping the suspense up to the last possible second is the most important thing about writing ever, according to today’s standards.

Vonnegut, here, is saying differently.

Talkin' About My Book and Nanowrimo

So for those of you who don’t follow on Tumblr/Twitter/all of the other insane places I hang out, Harper Collins is doing this thing where they’re accepting unagented manuscripts for two weeks for science fiction, urban fantasy, fantasy, and other genre type stories. You can read more about it here, but the gist of it is that they’re looking to expand their online catalogue by printing some exclusive ebook titles.

I have a few completed books under my belt that aren’t fanfiction, but only one that I felt would meet the criteria.  My idea was to not sleep for the past three weeks (when my friend brought this to my attention) and revamp my book with my 2012 writing style, a better villain, and a more ambiguous central relationship. Unfortunately, real life has a way of laughing hysterically at me and, having gotten only three chapters redone, I decided to hand in my 2008 version instead. I think I’m being pragmatic rather than pessimistic when I say there’s really not a chance in hell they’ll want to publish this book, but it was nice to finally sit down and write a query letter and a synopsis for it (though I’m sure I drove my friends nuts last night).

If they decide not to publish it, here’s the deal: I’m going to publish it myself. I’ve got some experience making ebooks, thanks to you lovely people, and the best beta reader on the planet. I don’t want to jinx myself with a definite release date, but I am hard at work on the revisions for it.

Here’s some details:

• It’s a full-length novel, clocking in at about 80,000 words.
• It’s in first person. Pretty much everything I’ve written that everybody has seen from me has been in third person, so here’s the hilarious part: I’m most comfortable writing in first person. 
• It’s sci-fi/fantasy.
• The main character is a smart-ass.
• There’s romance, there’s action, there are people falling off of buildings, and other people that can fly.
• The name is really long.
• It’s the first in a trilogy.
• Max already ships two characters that aren’t a canon ship and has promised to write the first fanfic.
• You’ll see where I got Gwen’s name in Fates.

Hopefully in the coming weeks, I’ll be able to point you to this great new author you’ll have never heard of who’s somehow releasing snippets of a book that fit exactly everything I just listed, which’ll be weird because her name isn’t Frea O’Scanlin but it’ll be crazy how much she sounds like me, you know? ;)

In other news, it’s October, which means the panic for November begins now. Is anybody doing Nanowrimo? Is anybody interested in doing Nanowrimo, but is terrified about what it is, what it entails, and needs a pep talk? If you’re in St. Louis, I’ll be bopping along to all of the events because the ML is a friend of mine, and I’ve done Nanowrimo so many times, I can offer tips, advice, and support.

Anyway, that’s the news for today!

Frea

Fringe Benefits Incorporated, Episode 5.01

We're baaaaaaaaaaaaack. That's right, I've joined up with mxpw, Lou, and Jan (and guest stars), and we're recording our thoughts on Fringe once more. Here, have a listen.

What'd you think? Agree? Disagree? Please stop posting podcasts, Frea?

:)

Frea

Rec: Once and Future

Recommendation: Once and Future
Author: malteaser
Rating: Teen and up
Fandom: Captain America/Doctor Who/The Avengers
Summary: Who doesn’t love a happy ending?
Pairing: Rory/Amy, Steve/Peggy

Why You Should Read It: So I’m not a Doctor Who fan. I just speak the language well enough to get along with other nerds. My friend Ayefah calls this fandom osmosis, and it fits. I like to know what happens without having to actually watch the episodes (I stopped watching after Amy’s baby turned into plastic goo or whatever), which means I know what happened in Saturday’s episode. This fic was recommended on an LJ I follow, and I knew enough DW stuff to follow along, which is marvelous because the fic is wonderful. Peggy Carter and Time Lords. You cannot go wrong with Peggy Carter and Time Lords. Plus, Natasha makes an appearance and we all know about my weakness for the Black Widow, and Peggy Carter.

Monday Stuff

First off, same address, new blog. If you missed it, I’ve made some changes around here and here’s why.

Secondly, and more importantly, College Years is back. That’s right, Wepdiggy is going through his archive and finishing out everything he’s left incomplete, which is a treat for me especially because I’ve always adored CY. He’s already recently completed his awesome fic where Sarah and Anna pull a Freaky Friday, so if you didn’t catch that, be sure to go read Sarah vs. the Switch right now. It’ll make your day.

And speaking of Chuck fanfiction, we’ve lured my pal Michael over to the dark side. WITH CARINA. Carina vs. the Bartowskis can be read here.

Seth MacFarlane is going to host the Oscars. Make of that what you will. Nervert and I are holding out for the Muppets.

Dexter premiered for its seventh season, now with extra awesomeness in the form that is Yvonne Strahovski. What’d everybody think of the premiere? I’m genuinely curious, and I’m also told that the lack of a wind machine on her entrances puzzled people.

If you like Avengers fic/Darcy Lewis, she blinded me with political science will have you laughing for about six hours. Warning: it’s a long read, so do not undertake lightly. That said, the author really writes an excellent Tony and an even better Darcy.

And this has been your Monday update. Fingers crossed that I'll remember to do exactly the same thing next Monday.

- Frea