Eildon Rhymer

06:34 pm: Fic index
If anyone's come here looking for my fic, the best place to find it is on my website here. That's the only place that houses all my fanfic. The design is rudimentary, I'm afraid, but the stories are all there, and that's what matters. I did consider putting together an index here on LJ, but there doesn't seem to be much point, when one already exists on the website.

Website last updated June 5th 2009

Most recent updates
June 5th:
The Flowers of the Field (c. 5,000 words) - an outsider viewpoint Sheppard h/c story in which a young girl comes across a badly injured stranger caught in a trap
A Walk on the Dark Side (c. 2,400 words) - Even in an evil mirror universe, things don't always go according to plan. Humour.

May 28th:
On the Wings of an Eagle (c. 50,000 words) - illustrated historical AU written for the bonus round of the gen ficathon, for the prompt "Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines."
Where the White Lilies Grow (c. 46,000 words) - AU written for the gen ficathon, involving a Sheppard from one AU and a Rodney from another AU who meet up an a post-apocolyptic world where legends and superstitions are rife.
The World to Come (c. 6000 words) - Team fic written as a pinch hit for the gen ficathon. "The world ended when John was sleeping…"
Friends and Old Wine (c. 2700) - Ronon-centric character study covering his years in Atlantis, written for the alcohol flashfic challenge.

( Previous updates )

05:38 pm: Shields and gates
I have become far more worried about the workings of the Atlantis shield than I really ought to be. So, we have this thing that can splat you into instant death if you try to travel through the gate when it's raised. How, then, do people dialling Atlantis know when it's safe to come through? We do often see teams given verbal authorisation to come through, but sometimes we hear someone ask for the shield to be lowered, see a moment's pause before Weir nods a yes... and the team instantly knows that it is now safe to come through. This worries me. I fear that there are many, many parallel universes in which there have been hideous misunderstandings, of the kind that would result in a conversation along the lines of, "But you said 'yes', so we thought you'd lowered the shield," and, "No, when I said 'yes', I was saying that yes, I did want a coffee, thank you," were it not for the fact that one half of the conversation would be splatted dead.

But, then, the shield itself worries me. Any innocent who comes across the gate address of Atlantis and wants to come and benefit from its benificence and wisdom finds themselves splatted and dead without having any warning of this fact. It's like shooting all visitors dead on sight, without posting notices announcing this intention. I fear there are also parallel universes in which the Elizabeth who went back in time followed all the standard Atlantis closedown procedures that she'd been taught, pressed the "activate shield" button, and caused the entire Atlantis expedition to get splatted as soon as they stepped through the gate. (It would not, I fear, be a very rewarding AU to write.)

The gate itself worries me, though I'm well aware that the answers may be contained in the other Stargate shows, which I've not watched. How does the gate know when to close down? I was watching Sateda the other day, when Rodney goes through the gate and says that the others will be coming close behind him, only for the wormhole to close behind him. How did the gate know that the rest of his team had just been hit by tranquiliser darts? Has it got eyes? Is it in league with the villagers? We've previously been told that it will stay open for 38 minutes at a time, so why does it shut down in this case, and in other similar cases? Does it go off and sulk if no-one is actively passing through it? But we know that the Wraith dial out of planets to stop others dialing in, and I don't imagine that they have a huge line of 500 Wraith all ready to walk through the gate one after another to stop the wormhole from closing down in a sulk. Though, actually, I rather wish that they did, since it would be fun to write their story.

07:39 pm: Yet more typo fic
Yes, it's even more typo fic. (The first batch can be found here, and the second here.) As before, all typos are ones I've either seen for real, or (unfortunately) made myself, although of course I've tweaked the exact phrasing for dramatic effect.

( Typo fic )

06:47 pm: Season finales
I've been stalled on my SGA watching for over a week now. Much of this is due to having a house full of guests for the best part of four days, during which we did epic amounts of zombie-killing and Rock Band playing, but I know that I would have watched at least a couple of episodes this week if the next episodes in my rewatch schedule were ones I actually liked. I cheated and watched Inferno slightly out of order, which means that my next four episodes are Michael, Allies, No Man's Land and Misbegotten.

Now, it's entirely possible that these episodes will have many moments in them that I end up liking. In this run of rewatches, I've often been pleasantly surprised by episodes that I remember being disappointed in first time round, probably because my fallible memory had forgotten all the fun bits, and dismissed the entire episode as "bad." I do, though, have particular issues with the whole Michael storyline, which I won't go into here (mostly because until I've rewatched the episodes, I can't speak with any real knowledge, only distant, hazy memories.)

However, thinking about it, I realise that I do not, in general, like season finales or mid-season two parters. This doesn't just apply to SGA, but applies to most shows that I've watched. Since the main point of these episodes is to do something huge and wonderful, that will haul in viewers, I am clearly out of synch with most of the audience here. ( Thoughts on season finales )

08:05 am: Yet more season one thoughts
( Another batch of thoughts on SGA season one - last lot this time )

06:44 pm: SGA fic: Second Life - part 3 of 3
Second Life - part 3 of 3
by Eildon Rhymer (rhymer23)

Summary etc. in part one.

( Second Life - part 3 )

06:40 pm: SGA fic: Second Life - parts 1 and 2 of 3
Second Life - parts 1 and 2 of 3
by Eildon Rhymer (rhymer23)

Rating: PG-13 for angst
Words: 17,300 words, complete
Characters: Sheppard plus team plus season five cast
Genre: Angst, h/c, gen
Spoilers: References to episodes all the way through to late season five

Warnings: The story contains non-permanent major character deaths. (This is not really much of a spoiler, since the bulk of the story deals with the aftermath of "fixing" these deaths.) However, at the time, the emotions surrounding these deaths are very real to those left behind. There are also some permanent deaths, but only of background OCs.

Summary: When the unthinkable happens, Sheppard is given the chance to erase the past and start again. And that should be the end of it. Shouldn't it?

( Second Life - parts 1 and 2 )

05:30 pm: SGA fic: The Rising of the Green
The Rising of the Green
by Eildon Rhymer (rhymer23)

Rating: PG
Characters: Teyla, plus season one cast (Sheppard, McKay, Ford, Weir and Carson)
Genre: Gen, friendship, some angst
Words: 4300
Summary: On Athos, it is the first day of summer, when people look to the future and celebrate new life. On Atlantis, Teyla watches her new companions edge falteringly towards friendship, and considers where her future lies.

Note: This is not the new story I've talked about in a few places. Look at the info. above: no h/c to be found! I've been away from the fandom for nearly a year, and as part of my return, have been watching the show from the beginning, so season one issues have been buzzing around my head. Then, on Saturday, I got up at dawn to do the traditional May Morning thing, and this idea came into my head as I waited for the sun to rise. Apologies to those in the southern hemisphere, for whom summer is a distant dream.

( The Rising of the Green )

12:41 pm: More season one ramblings
Sorry for rambling, but…

( More thoughts on SGA season one: Sheppard's character, and some what ifs? )

08:06 am: Writing, watching: idle meandering
( Self-indulgent ramblings about my current story )

( Rewatching season one of SGA )

08:30 pm: Typo fic part 2
Just over a year ago, I wrote a batch of typo fic: tiny stories all based around real typos that I'd come across in fanfic. I always meant to write more, and a recent surge of comments on my initial post has reminded me of the whole endeavour.

Two of the typos featured in this collection were suggested by leesa_perrie, but since she did so over a year ago, she's probably forgotten all about it. Fortunately I have a good memory for entirely useless things like amusing typos, so I remembered. :-)

( Typo fic ahead. Warnings for general silliness )

07:59 pm: Update
Well, that was interesting. I just spent the last hour scrawling notes for a new SGA fanfic. Given that it's now ten months since I took "a few weeks' break" from the fandom, this is all rather unexpected.

I can't say for sure that I'll write it. After ten months away, I need to do some serious rewatching of episodes to rediscover the characters' voices. I'm going on holiday in just over two weeks, so it's probably safer not to start writing anything until after I get back, in case the break derails my new and shaky muse. However, I'm rather excited at the thought. It all felt very familiar when writing my notes - like playing with old friends.

What I am adamant about, though, is that even if I do start writing SGA fanfic again, it won't be anything like as prolifically as before. The reason I took a break was that my writing was taking over my life, leaving no time for reading, watching films, or relaxing without guilt. I would like to write again, but I don't want to stop reading novels, and I want to be able to go away for a weekend without resenting the loss of writing time.

I have done some writing over the last ten months, though, in between reading a few million books. Last summer, I wrote a one-shot story based on one of my favourite novels, and this spring I wrote a 50,000 word Magnificent Seven fanfic, which I'm currently in the process of posting. ( Details and links )

This weekend, I also wrote some more typo fic, with an SGA setting. I don't know who linked to my previous typo fic, but I've been getting quite a bit of feedback on it over the last few months, which reminded me that I'd always meant to write more. So I did, this weekend. Actually, silly though they are, I suspect that the experience of writing them is what put the SGA characters back into my head, and led to today's unexpected bit of plotting.

I'll probably post them later tonight...

08:57 am: Apology
I think I have probably been ignoring comments and emails for months. You see, the Gmail address that I use for this LJ (as well as for Facebook and ff.net) is just a forwarding address, that sends everything on to my "real" email account. I paid a very belated visit to my Gmail inbox today to do some deleting, and found it scattered with "mail delivery failed" messages, all relating to the forwarding of LJ comments. My Facebook comments and ff.net notifcations are still being forwarded properly, but my LJ comments are all being rejected and are thus never reaching me. So apologies if anyone has left comments in the last few months and not received a reply. I'll try to remember to check my Gmail inbox more frequently in future.

EDIT: But not yet, since I'll be away over the New Year, so won't be able to reply to anything for a few days, even if I do receive it.

11:34 am: Checking in, and meme
Oh dear. I've not updated this journal in over two months. I said last time that I was hoping to return to fanfic writing soon, but I'm having to admit now that this is unlikely to happen. I did consider signing up for the Sheppard HC Secret Santa fic exchange, to kickstart the writing process, but quickly decided that this was a bad idea; my muse always responds awfully to a sense of obligation.

I'm still deeply embroiled in reading. For the last five weeks, I've been immersed in Dorothy Dunnett's House of Niccolo series. It's an 8 book series - 8 rather thick books, too, and slow reads all of them, in which you can't let your attention slip for a second. I'm half way through book 5 at the moment, but when I finish, I'll probably reread the 6 books of her Lymond series, since there are lots of links between the two (though I've not uncovered most of these links yet.) Her characters are not ones I would ever dare write fanfic about, but they've taken root in my imagination, and will be there for a good few months yet.

Now, I've seen this meme everywhere, in which you list 20 things you've been fannish about, and ask people to guess your favourite characters. I won't do the guessing part, since I post so seldom on this journal that I haven't given anyone any clues to base guesswork on, but I found it a fun exercise in nostalgia to think about the question, and ramble on a bit about fandoms past.

( Favourite characters. Warning: far too wordy and ridiculously rambling )

05:29 pm: Checking in, and books
The last time I posted here, I said I was taking a break from fanfic writing in order to read. This is still the case. I've been really enjoying reading lately, and feel quite excited - almost liberated, as if I've been let out into a wonderful world full of possibilities. I've also had some very busy weekends lately, with many more to come - folk festivals, visitors, role-playing, concerts etc. - so in that respect, it's quite a good thing that I've not got a story on the go, since I'd end up resenting all these rather enjoyable things for taking me away from it.

I really need to work on multi-tasking my imagination. I can only write one story at a time, I can only write in one fandom at a time, and, as I'm realising only too sharply at the moment, when writing fanfic in one fandom, I can barely read (or watch) other fictional works that aren't in that fandom. I definitely want to write fanfic again, but not at this cost. I need to find some way to write alongside wide-ranging reading.

But, anyway, while talking about books, I'll link to the post I've just made on my other LJ, asking for book recs to suit a specific need, since the more people read it, the more lovely books I'll get to read. I will pay for it with a recommendation of my own, by way of a ridiculously overlong but spoiler-free review of the Inda series by Sherwood Smith.

01:48 pm: Time off
I think I am going to take a few weeks, or even a few months, off writing fanfic. I was on holiday last week, and while I was away, I did quite a bit of reading. Reading a new (to me) Sherwood Smith novel prompted me to reread her Inda series (to date; the final book is coming out in August), and even though it's a reread, I'm finding myself so gripped that I don't want to do anything else but read at the moment. Yesterday I didn't even switch my computer on until three hours after I'd come home from work, which is unheard of.

( Ramblings )

08:30 am: Fic update
I've been slightly distracted lately by playing Portal and Left 4 Dead, but here are the two short stories I've done in the last few days. I did hope to do one more slightly longer one before going on holiday on Saturday, but I'm not sure if that will work out now. The lure of the advanced levels in Portal might be too great.

Anyway... First we have some humour, and then some outsider viewpoint h/c.

Title: A Walk on the Dark Side
Word Count: 2400
Rating: PG
Summary: Even in an evil mirror universe, things don't quite go according to plan.
(Written for the bonus round of the gen ficathon, in the genre of "humour", for the prompt "Dark side of the moon")

Title: The Flowers of the Field
Words: 4995
Rating: PG-13 for some non-graphic ickiness involving the presence of a corpse.
Summary: On the first day of spring, a young girl finds a badly injured man, chained to a dead man and caught in a trap.
(Written for the first flashfic challenge on the Sheppard h/c community, for the prompt "traps/trapped.")

08:26 pm: SGA fic: On the Wings of an Eagle - part 5 of 5
On the Wings of an Eagle - part 5 of 5

The story starts here

( Part five )

08:24 pm: SGA fic: On the Wings of the Eagle - part 4 of 5
On the Wings of an Eagle - part 4 of 5

The story starts here

( Part four )

08:23 pm: SGA fic: On the Wings of an Eagle - part 3 of 5
On the Wings of an Eagle - part 3 of 5

The story starts here

( Part three )

08:20 pm: SGA fic: On the Wings of an Eagle - part 2 of 5
On the Wings of an Eagle - part 2 of 5

The story starts here

( Part two )

08:18 pm: SGA fic: On the Wings of an Eagle - part 1 of 5
Title: On the Wings of an Eagle - part 1 of 5
Author: Eildon Rhymer (rhymer23)
Words: c. 50,000, plus 6 pictures
Rating: PG
Genre: AU (also adventure, some angst, some humour, some h/c, and some illustrations)
Spoilers: None
Summary: It started with a man crashing into a herb garden. Soon a misfit band of four exiles are caught up in a wild ride of sword fights, sewing, rescue missions, shopping trips, high treason, lute-playing, changing the face of scientific knowledge forever, the imminent risk of hideous death, and comfits.

Note: Written for the bonus round of the sga_genficathon, in the genre of AU, and the prompt "Those magnificent men in their flying machines". Something about gen ficathon bonus rounds seems to bring out the illustrated historical AU in me. Last year I did The Pirate's Prisoner, and this year I've gone back nearly 200 years to the year 1555. For a prompt about flying machines. Er, yes, well. I suspect that normal people wouldn't see a prompt about flying machines and immediately think "We'll have Tudors! With planes!" but I blame Leonardo Da Vinci. He famously designed flying machines on paper, but didn't get them to work, but he was merely Leonardo; he wasn't Doctor Rodney McKay.

I've tried to explain the historical background as and when it becomes relevant, but a very quick outline can be seen here



( Part one )

05:12 pm: Stories
Taking a quick break from dealing with the zombie apocalypse…

Firstly, I did finish the story in the end. I wrote like a mad thing, and finished after midnight on Thursday night. It needs a tonne of work, and the pictures aren't finished, but I'm very pleased to have got to the end before the weekend, since I'll be too busy blowing my friends' heads off, taking over the world and eating junk food to think about story issues until Tuesday. When I got up last Monday, I thought I had two chapters to go, but the content I had actually took four chapters to write, so I'm particularly amazed that I managed to get it done, given that I was working throughout, had to go out on Wednesday evening, and was away for 13 hours on Thursday in London.

Secondly, some of my favourite literary heroes are masters of disguise, who cunningly save people's lives through their stealth and cunning. I, plainly, am not one of them, since my identity was so totally guessed in the gen ficathon. Admittedly, I wasn't really trying to disguise myself, and was heard to say that I'd eat my hat if at least some people didn't guess my story almost from the start, but, still…

So, anyway, here are links to my stories:

Where the White Lilies Grow
46,000 word AU (or, rather, two AUs for the price of one) written for the prompt "Clarke's Law: any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". Sheppard and McKay are very much the main characters here, though others appear in the final third.
Summary: People tell stories about the wonders of the Time Before. They tell stories, too, about magical creatures with long, fair hair, who emerge from the hill and can turn you to dust in an instant. But John Sheppard has never been one to believe in stories...

And my pinch hit:

The World to Come
c. 6000 word team fic, written for the prompt "I found the end of the world, of course; And it's not the end of the world, of course (Gordon Downie, "Vancouver Divorce")"
Summary: The world ended while John was sleeping...

06:48 pm: Pesky muse
Gah! I wish my muse didn't have such decided opinions about how it wants to work. It absolutely refuses point blank to multi-task, forcing me to be a strictly "one story at a time" person; it refuses to contemplate me writing even a single line out of linear order; and it detests me taking a break even of two or three days in the middle of writing a story. Just two or three days can be enough for it to get all sulky, and say, "You're the one who decided to ignore me. Don't want to play now." This means that I have to think hard before starting a story, to make sure that I'm likely to be able to finish it before any forthcoming weekends away.

This week, it's all gone horribly wrong. I've got a bunch of friends coming round on Friday for a long weekend of computer games, with the last of them not leaving until Tuesday. For four days, my brain will be full of nothing but games, cider, junk food and chat, and I'll have a wonderful time, but it will be enough to totally drive my muse into "Shan't!" mode if I go into the weekend with an unfinished story and try to pick up the threads next week.

The trouble is, the story I started two weeks ago, confident that I'd finish it in time if I worked hard, has grown somewhat, and now looks like being nine chapters, rather than the six I'd vaguely expected back in my original "haven't really bothered to plan it out yet, but we'll see" stage. I had to work on Saturday, got up at 5 to walk a stupid distance in a howling gale yesterday, failed to get much sleep last night due to painful legs, and thus am rather too tired tonight to get much done. (My muse also refuses to play when I'm tired.) I've got to go out for all of Wednesday evening, and go to London all day Thursday. I've got about 25 pages to go, and while I probably can finish it (first draft, at least, which is what matters for now) if I work like a mad thing and don't stop for anything else, I'm really not sure if I want to. I'm tired, there's stuff to do to prepare for the weekend, I want to carry on with the drawing part of my story, and there's lots of other stuff I'm keen to do, too.

Wah!

08:49 pm: Writing, reading...
I've managed all of one day of the gen ficathon so far, as far as reading is concerned. The trouble is, no sooner had it started posting, than I started writing my latest historical AUs. Historical AUs eat my brain like nothing else, because they attack on all flanks. When I'm in a mood for writing, I write them. When I'm not in a mood for writing, I draw the pictures. When I'm in a mood for reading, I read history books or historical novels set in the period. There's just no room for fanfic reading at the moment, and it's the worst possible time for it, since there are so many wonderful-looking stories out there. But I suppose they're not going away, and I can always catch them in a few weeks.

It's proving a lot more challenging than my pirate AUs. I thought it would be easier. The early eighteenth century is one of the few periods that I never studied at school or university, although I've read plenty of historical novels set in the mid to late eighteenth century, so the general mood was easy enough to write. In contrast, 1555 ought to be so much easier. I spent a month living in the year 1553 at a residential historical re-enactment. The doctorate I almost did (I changed my mind before finalising my plans) was going to be something about the cultural history of the period 1547 to 1558. I ought to know this period so well.

However, nothing's been invented yet! McKay wants to go into long diatribes about the state of scientific knowledge, but almost everything interesting hasn't been invented or discovered yet. (Thank goodness for Copernicus, at least.) Virtually ever bit of technology or weaponry I would love to use hasn't quite got invented yet. The world's so much smaller, too. It doesn't provide that rich seam of reference that I had in 1720, when my characters had travelled the world and gone to plays and salons, and read novels and newspapers, and had ready access to books. Gah!

But I'm getting there - definitely over half way through the writing, and about a third of the way through the pictures. And speaking of which... Off to draw.

09:06 am: Historical AUs
I'm writing historical AUs again. All is well with the world. :-D Six lines in, and I've already done four urgent Googles to find out certain things that come up in passing (e.g. ink-pot design, the history of blotting paper, and the history of herb gardens.) Writing my pirate AU was the happiest experience I've ever had in writing, so I hope this new one gives me as much joy.

(I reserve the right to post again tomorrow saying, "Oh no! It doesn't work at all!", so don't take it as read that the story will see the light of day. The basic premise is one of those mad, crazy ideas that cause most of your brain to say, "oh no, I can't!" but a wild, loud, pushy part to say, "Oh, go on! It's fun" and then, when it thinks it might be thwarted, to say, "I refuse to let you write anything else until you at least try.")

06:49 pm: SGA fic: A Sure Anchor - part 4 of 4
Title: A Sure Anchor - part four of four
Author: Eildon Rhymer (rhymer23)
Summary: While visiting a place from Ronon's past, Sheppard and Ronon are attacked by snipers, but there's something there that's more dangerous and deadly than any human enemy.

The story starts here

( A Sure Anchor - chapter four )

05:30 pm: SGA fic: A Sure Anchor - part 3 of 4
Title: A Sure Anchor - part three of four
Author: Eildon Rhymer (rhymer23)
Summary: While visiting a place from Ronon's past, Sheppard and Ronon are attacked by snipers, but there's something there that's more dangerous and deadly than any human enemy.

The story starts here

( A Sure Anchor - chapter three )

08:04 am: St George and the Sheppard
Well, it's St George's Day, so the hearts of all true English people are drawn to… er… doing silly things with SGA action figures.

( St George and the Sheppard: a story for St George's Day )

05:59 pm: SGA fic: A Sure Anchor - part 2 of 4
Title: A Sure Anchor - part two of four
Author: Eildon Rhymer (rhymer23)
Summary: While visiting a place from Ronon's past, Sheppard and Ronon are attacked by snipers, but there's something there that's more dangerous and deadly than any human enemy.

The story starts here

( A Sure Anchor - chapter two )

07:36 pm: SGA fic: A Sure Anchor - part 1 of 4
Title: A Sure Anchor - part one of four
Author: Eildon Rhymer (rhymer23)
Words: c. 16,000 in total
Rating: PG (violence, injury and angst, but nothing that graphic or extreme.)
Characters: Sheppard and Ronon
Spoilers: References to quite a lot of episodes. Fifth season episodes referred to are Search and Rescue, Broken Ties and The Shrine.
Summary: While visiting a place from Ronon's past, Sheppard and Ronon are attacked by snipers, but there's something there that's more dangerous and deadly than any human enemy.

Note: This is complete - c. 16,000 words - but I'm posting it in parts while I edit. Be warned: thar be cliffhangers ahead. I intend to post daily, though.

Thanks to kristen999 for giving me a couple of prompts which were the jumping-off point for this story, even though I doubt I did justice to them.

( A Sure Anchor - chapter one )

05:33 pm: Writing. Or, rather, no writing
I've not written anything for a week. I know that this doesn't sound like much, but this is unheard of for me. In the last two years, I don't think I've ever gone this long without writing something, except when I've been away. It's not as if I don't have ideas, I just don't seem to feel like sitting down to write them. Partly it's because my new computer (plagued with problems since I got it) is finally working okay, which means that I've been playing Baldur's Gate 2 again (I modded it so much on my old computer that it broke), and I've been rather obsessed, despite the fact that I've played it at least half a dozen times before. (Certain things in the games are giving me story ideas, though - mind flayers, for one.)

Partly, though, I think it's because of my gen ficathon story. Looking back on past occasions when I've struggled to write, I think that they've usually come just after I've written a ficathon story - i.e. a story that won't be posted for a while after I write it. I think it's because the story doesn't feel properly finished until it's been released into the wild, and my muse persists on thinking of it as the active story, even if it's completely finished.

Oh well... I've played BG2 all day today, and am working tomorrow, and I want to do some touristy things or country walking (weather permitting) on Sunday and Monday, but do hope I can at least start a story. The start is always the hardest part.

(Actually, I have written something, and I suppose I ought to post the link here, since this is my writing journal, after all. It's not fanfic, though. You see, I did a post on mnemonics over on my other LJ, which led someone to tell me that modern scientists had banished indigo from the spectrum. Poor indigo! I thought. I wonder how he's coping with this shame.. Not well, it seems. Princess Bride quotes, a downgraded planet and some runaway Imperial measurements somehow got caught up in it, too.)

08:23 am: Oh dear...
My favourite part of my website's statistics page is the bit that lists search terms that people have used to access my site. It's not complete, since it only lists the first 30 per month, so after the first week, it only lists search terms that have appeared twice or more. At the start of the month, though, all the one-offs show up, much to my amusement. For example, when someone does a search on "risks of marrying a man who's scared of commitment", A, why on earth does my fanfic site come up, and, B, when it does come up, why on earth does the person doing the search click on it?

Today, though, when I checked my stats, I see that someone reached by site by searching for "someone who talks nonsense." Oh dear...

Oh, and while I'm here: I really shouldn't be considering writing another eighteenth century historical AU, should I? No, no, don't tell me. I know I really shouldn't be. (Not another Pirate's Prisoner sequel in this case, but a whole new, different story, set in the 1790s, but doubtless also including pictures and pseudo historical scholarship.)

Also, is there anything in Stargate canon that would allow me to have stuff happening (in this universe, not by having someone travel first to an AU), then to press a reset button to erase it, but to have the person who'd pressed the button remember everything about the erased stuff? I want to explore the emotional repercussions of remembering bad stuff that no-one else knows about, and also about being the one who rejected one future, and thus (arguably) bears responsibility for any fresh bad stuff that happens in the new time line. However, I need a plausible bit of technobabble to set the whole thing up.

04:48 pm: Various writing things
- I wrote a Ronon-centric one-shot yesterday for the alcohol/drunkenness challenge on sga_flashfic. It's not about drunkenness at all, though, but is more about Ronon settling in to Atlantis, and rebuilding his life after his losses. Here it is: Friends and Old Wine

- My time in the LFWS contest at sgahcchallenges has come to an end. I knew beyond a shadow of doubt that this would happen this week, because I was seriously unhappy with my story. I just have this huge mental block when it comes to writing and reading first person. As a reader, a first person narrative is a barrier between me and the story. "Why is this person doing a running commentary on their life?" I wonder. "Who are they telling the story to? Why are they describing their surroundings in flawless prose when a dragon's chasing them?" The only way I can cope with it is if we have a framing structure which explains why this person's telling the story: letters, a diary, memoirs, or storytelling.

Therefore the only way I could bring myself to respond to this challenge was in storytelling mode, and I knew the entire time I was writing it that it wasn't working. So, really, I totally deserve to go, since I ought to have forced myself to get over my first person mental block and write a sensible story from the viewpoint of a minor character. I signed up for the contest to be challenged to try new things, and in this case I refused.

But I used no skips at all over 13 weeks, and was placed (IIRC) 9 times and won (IIRC) 4 rounds, so I'm far from displeased. I deserved to go this week for not getting over my "do not want!" reaction to the challenge.

- I wrote rather madly last weekend (10,000 words on Sunday alone) and have finished my inappropriately-long gen ficathon submission. Just a bit of editing left now. It always feels weird to finish a story so many weeks before it will get posted, since normally I post chapter one only a day or two after finishing the final chapter.

- I have no story next story lined up for after I've finished editing. I've had a "next long story" for months now, but I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever write it. The thing is, the idea for the story is all about the emotional themes, and doesn't actually specify anything about the plot or even the initial set-up, so my poor muse just doesn't know where to start with planning. Perhaps I need to wait until I come up with a totally separate story idea – a plot-based one this time – and marry it to the emotional plot, or I might appeal to people for plot ideas. ("Bad stuff happens" is my only requirement.) Alternatively, I just need to make it a much shorter story, focusing far more exclusively on the emotional/character stuff.

- I've realised a few weeks ago that I haven't written a one-shot for ages, not counting humorous ones (and not counting the Ronon story I wrote yesterday, of course.) I used to write lots, responding to almost every flashfic challenge, or sometimes being inspired by recent episodes. There are no recent episodes left to inspire me, of course, and flashfic challenges have been thin on the ground lately. I might have to start appealing for prompts for one-shots, since I miss them.

05:05 pm: Typo fic
I love typos and malapropisms. In the long-ago days of fandoms past, I used to keep a list by the computer in which I jotted down any amusing typo that I found. I've long since lost the list, but I can still remember some of them, and I've been meaning for years to try to write a story that included as many of them as possible. I've still not done that… but over the last few weeks I've been having fun writing small fragments based on some of my favourites.
___

"Oh, God, Sheppard! Sheppard!" Rodney shouted. "Are you all right? No, of course you aren't. God, Sheppard!"

The memory was awful. Sheppard had resisted for as long as he could, but not even Ronon could have remained standing against an onslaught as horrendous as that. There had been lace and frilly things. There had been stretchy pink velvet, heaving and taut. The odour had been terrible – all musk and sweetness and sharp floral notes. Sheppard had gone down in the end, overcome by the enormous mounds of flesh and the deep clefts between them.

Rodney tapped his radio. "Teyla, Ronon! You need to hurry! It's Sheppard, he's…" He pressed his lips together, temporarily unable even to utter it. "He's been… God, it's terrible. He's… he's been mauled by savage breasts."

( Click here to read many more like this… if you dare )

07:05 pm: WIPs and completed works
Everyone else seems to be doing the WIP meme, which always makes me feel weird and unusual, because I don't have any WIPs. I write one story at a time, I finish everything that I start, and I can't focus on starting a new story until I've completely finished posting my previous one. In a few days, I hope to have precisely one WIP, but at the moment, since I've been focusing on editing and posting the story I finished at the weekend, I have none. I think my muse must be very staid and boring.

(Well, to be honest, I don't literally only write one thing at a time, since I do sometimes break off in the middle of a long story to write a one-shot that can be written in a single sitting, but that only counts as a WIP for a few hours. And it's not true that I always finish what I start, since I can think of 3 stories that I've not finished in the last 12 years, two of them because I was very much at the end of my interest in the relevant fandom at the time I started them, and one because canon overtook me in an unexpected but story-killing way, though fortunately very near the start.)

Anyway... I've just updated my website to add four stories, all of which have been posted elsewhere before (2 on SGAflashfic, and 2 here.)

As Far as it Takes (17,000 words) - initially written for pure self-indulgence of the Shep whump kind - though also includes actual character development, too, and, like, real issues. ;-)
Pros and Cons (2400 words) - in which John and Ronon are transported somewhere very scary indeed... (Humour/crack)
Rodney in Wonderland (4600 words) - in which Rodney falls down a rabbit-hole. (Humour/pastiche)
New Year's Resolutions (1300 words plus 4 images) - two different New Year ficlets, one a fourth-wall breaking parody, and the other in images. (No, I'm not being unseasonal; I just forgot to add it on the last few updates.)

Other not-quite-so-recent updates can be seen here.

05:48 pm: SGA fic: As Far as it Takes - 5/5
As Far as it Takes – part 5 of 5

The story starts here, or you can read the whole thing in a single file here

( Part five )

06:19 pm: SGA fic: As Far as it Takes - 4/5
As Far as it Takes – part 4 of 5

The story starts here

( Part four )

06:26 pm: SGA fic: As Far as it Takes - 3/5
As Far as it Takes – part 3 of 5

The story starts here

( Part three )

07:01 pm: Characters' names
I've been struggling recently with thoughts about characters names in Stargate Atlantis. The names I use for characters depends on who the viewpoint character is, on the grounds that every word in that scene - narrative included - is filtered through that viewpoint character's thoughts and perceptions.* I always use whatever name I think that viewpoint character would use for a character. If the viewpoint character of a scene in a shiny new recruit, we would hear about "Colonel Sheppard" doing this and that, and never "John." If the viewpoint character is Sheppard, we wouldn't hear about "the dark-haired man" or "the pilot" doing such and such, since he'd never think of himself in this way.

However, I'm currently undecided on a few names. ( More details )