I've got two stories (and one not-quite-a-story thing) that I by all accounts SHOULD be working on (having promised the two stories to specific people, and having missed those dates by embarrassing margins), but they keep getting longer than I anticipated! And more awful! And so I will avoid them and in the time before Lost starts, instead I offer this:

Gacked from callmesandy: Ask me a question about one of my stories. Whatever you ask, I will attempt to answer truthfully.

I saw this meme linked in someone's journal, and decided to take it, knowing that of COURSE I would be Liz Lemon, one of my favorite characters on TV now. And instead I am:



I mean, I love Jenna! I really do! I missed her on the most recent episode! But I always think of myself as a Liz - it's like thinking you're the real Stephen Colbert and discovering you're the character Stephen Colbert. It's VERY DISCONCERTING!

Also, there's another meme going around, and since one of the main mission statements of this LJ is to take part in memes, I will:

Quote a bit of my writing at me? Find that one story of mine that you really like, and find a sentence or a paragraph that presses your prose-buttons in the right way, and comment here with it? Don't care how long or short.

You can find my stories here.

I put my two most recent stories up on my website - here are the links:


New Beginnings Pie: Jenna gets a pen pal and invents four pies. (Waitress, Jenna/Jim Pomatter - Contains spoilers for the movie, including the ending!!)


Jury Duty: Tracy has jury duty, Jenna discovers a new source of fame, Jack is on the verge of losing his job, and Liz tries to hold it all together. (30 Rock, Gen)


In other news: I'm writing a story for a challenge due next month, and I'm experiencing a good deal of anxiety about it at this point, mostly because the writing hasn't really, well, started. And I am ALWAYS such a dorky challenge participant! Starting the story within a week of getting the prompt! Trucking right through, slowly but surely, until I get to the end!

Though then again, I've only been in two challenges prior to this one, and that's a pretty small sample set.

Anyway, at this point, I have notes! Ideas on paper! Little possible outlines of scenes and stuff! But I was having a hard time envisioning the whole thing, and so I held off on the actual writing, and just kept making little notes to myself in my dorky writer's notebook. And then the other day I said to myself, "Self, why don't you look at the prompt again, see if you're remembering it right, and maybe reading it over will jump-start your idea!"

And I did, and made the mistake of reading the other prompts, too. And now I have an idea for another prompt! Which is just as (if not more) complicated than the first idea I had! What to do, what to dooooooooooooooo. Which should I write? WHICH ONE? I know whichever I choose, I will hate myself for not choosing the other one, because I inevitably end up hating the story I'm writing once I get into it.

And if you guessed that this entry was one long way of me avoiding making a decision about which story to start writing, you are right! I am giving myself a deadline of tomorrow night to decide and start on at least one of them. Or come to more of a decision. Or something. Maybe I could have Word documents going side-by-side? Stupid indecisiveness!

Title: New Beginnings Pie
Fandom: Waitress
Spoilers: SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE MOVIE, INCLUDING THE ENDING!
Rating: PG
Summary: Jenna gets a pen pal and invents four pies.
Length: 4800 words.
Notes: Written for my RL buddy Elizabeth, who saw the movie and said, "I loved it! I loved it. I totally loved it, but . . . " This was written for her birthday this week.
Note Part II: I realized after the fact that the line I put in the cut text was a teensy bit spoily, so apologies for that - I usually just use the first line of the story and so I did that here without thinking about it.

( Jenna gets a pen pal and invents four pies. )

There's a feedback meme going on where you post with your username and people leave feedback on your writing - as I've been open to admitting in the past, I am embarrassingly in love with feedback. I feel like I should have evolved past it after being around fandom so long, but I remain as devoted to the "refresh mail" button on my email account after I post a story as I was the first time I sent a story down a mailing list. (Remember the days of yore?)

Other people on my flist should take part so I can leave comments for them! I'm going to wander through the pages for familiar names over the course of the night, but it's way easier if I already know you're there!

Here's my thread, if you're interested.

My fic is here on my journal or on my website.

Title: Jury Duty
Fandom: 30 Rock, Gen
Spoilers: None beyond the general premise of the show.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Tracy has jury duty, Jenna discovers a new source of fame, Jack is on the verge of losing his job, and Liz tries to hold it all together.
Length: 7437 words.
Notes: Written for likeadeuce for the Yuletide 2007 challenge.

( Liz has four messages when she gets in on Friday. )

The reveal has happened! I wrote:

Jury Duty - (30 Rock, Gen, Ensemble) – Tracy has jury duty, Jenna discovers a new source of fame, Jack is on the verge of losing his job, and Liz tries to hold it all together.

Huge thanks to my two beta readers, E and Elizabeth, who read this story in bits and pieces and as completed drafts more times than I can count, and to my recipient, likeadeuce, who gave an awesome prompt and whose response to the story was so gracious and generous and all-around fabulous.

As for the story, actually writing it wasn't too torturous, but getting over the anxiety of having to write in a universe as hilarious and fun and specific in tone as 30 Rock was pretty tough. Not to mention the fact that as I got down to the wire, watching the show became as much an anxiety attack as it was a fun half hour, as fear that they would do something that would completely derail my story beyond my powers of fixing in the time left grew with each passing week.

Also, apologies for spamming you friends list – I'm going to post again in a minute or two to put the story up on my journal.

And now onto the 2007 fanfic meme!

( year in review )

My Christmas ended up being annoyingly hectic so that only now am I able to sit down and get down to the serious business of Yuletide, and first on my list is bragging about the story I received, which is SO TOTALLY AWESOME, and exactly what I was hoping to receive when I filled out my little Yuletide request form. In fact, it's better than what I had hoped for!

The Great Intriguante - (The Grand Sophy, Charles/Sophy) - The horses trotted on, their breaths steaming into the wind, and Sophy was going to marry him.

Just read that summary! The summary alone is so lovely, and the whole story is JUST LIKE THAT and I apologize for the caps lock, but I really love this story. It does such a great job capturing everything I loved about The Grand Sophy and gave me just a little bit more, so that I was left with a big silly grin on my face.

And now I'm off to go through the rest of the archive! I was able to pop in and comment on a couple of stories earlier in the day, but I have a lot of catching up to do now!

Note to my author: I am exhausted and have to get up at a semi-decent hour tomorrow, and so I have to be lame and go to bed before the archive opens! This stinks! I will comment as soon as I can tomorrow, although it might be tricky since we are hosting some extended family for Christmas during the day.

Thank you again for writing me a story! You are fabulous! I promise to read the story ASAP!

Also, if anyone would like to guess the story I wrote, you can comment here, though I suppose I won't be able to reply until after the reveal.

I totally uploaded my Yuletide story with an entire day to spare. At this point, of course, I hate it, but I'm trying to counter that by just being glad that the story is finished. Who cares if I'm doubting every choice I made while writing it? The story exists, that is what matters!

Speaking of Yuletide! Mysterious author, I am going to my grandmother's for Christmas Eve, but I fully expect to be home by midnight when the stories go live. If I don't comment right away, though, it's because I got held up later than I expected to. I promise to comment as soon as I can! Thank you again for writing a story for me!

Anyhoo, yet another self-indulgent meme:

If you had me under your command and could make me write anything, regardless of whether or not I know the fandom or if anybody even writes fic in that fandom and no matter how crack-addled it might be, what would you love to see me write?

I am assuming that all of you would love to see me write fewer entries consisting largely/solely of self-indulgent memes, so no need to put that in a comment.

Yay! The always awesome uhmidont has written another fabulous story in the universe of the Bourne movies -

my heart in your hands - how could i forget you? you're the only person i know.

I love just about everything about the Bourne movies, but there's a special place in my heart for Jason and Marie and uhmidont does an awesome job folding in what we've seen of Jason and Marie's relationship in the first two movies and the revelations of the third. SO GREAT.

Yuletide! I am almost done with my story, incredibly. I have two or three scenes left to write and find I can't get myself to do anything. I think it's because once I'm done I'll have to go back and revise/edit, and I know how many times I wrote "XXXXXX-put something good in here" instead of, you know, writing something good there.

Today during some downtime at work I tried to write out some scenes longhand, which worked for me last week, but instead I found myself doing that "Top Ten Eight Signs You're Reading a Story By Me" meme that went around last week. As is stated in the mission statement of this LJ, this LJ is all about self-involved memes. But I will use a cut tag to spare those who would rather not read.

( eight signs you're reading a story by yours truly )

I'm in a weird place with TV this season in that a lot of the shows I was crazy in love with last year I haven't been watching much at all this year. I haven't been able to get into the Office this year at all, and I recognize that this is likely a failing on my part. Am I really one of those lame people who's so invested in a love story that once I get the happy ending I don't want to see anything else? POSSIBLY. I have other, complicated arguments about how the season is too broad for my tastes, I don't like how they've moved away from the documentary cinematography, etc., but really I kind of think it might be that I miss the Jim/Pam angst.

It's weird because it's not like I dislike broad comedies (I watch Dumb and Dumber every time it's on) or more traditional sitcoms (I just added Wings to my Amazon wishlist); I think it's just that the thing I most loved about the Office was the Jim/Pam thing, maybe, or maybe it was also the slightly bleak undertone that came with it. I can't tell you how ridiculous it is for me to be typing that something might not be bleak enough for me. ME. Who has already seen Enchanted twice. On successive Friday nights!

I also haven't been watching Friday Night Lights, but that's mostly because I tend not to be home on Friday nights, either because I’m out seeing movies like Enchanted or freeloading on my parents' traditional Friday night dinners out. I'm hoping to catch up sometime later this month.

The shows I have been watching obsessively are: Chuck, Life, Ugly Betty and 30 Rock. Lately my primary obsession has been Ugly Betty, which is partly because one of my RL buds is super-into Ugly Betty too, so we keep having conversations about why Daniel and Betty are mfeo, how puzzled we are by people who can't see it, how exactly the show will go about it, etc. We are pathetically lame and obsessed.

I would go on about at greater length about the other shows I'm hooked on if it weren't for the fact that Life is going to start in seven minutes for a special Monday night airing! Must run!

I've been working on my Yuletide story, which of course means that I've been surfing LiveJournal and trying to find ways to avoid actually writing the story. I saw this meme in a few people's journals, and since this LJ is all about self-involved memes, I am posting it here:

What would you say are the trademarks of my writing? What themes or quirks or turns of phrase have you noticed?

The thing is, I haven't written that many stories, and I post them so infrequently and in random fandoms. Still, I am curious, if a bit fearful, because of course the answers I'm picturing are things like, "Well, usually I'm disappointed in the endings."

Which is something I think might be true. I've gotten that piece of feedback on more than one story. Also, when I go back to read over stuff I've written, the endings are most often the parts that I dislike or am disappointed in. There are some I like, and I can't figure out the common denominator - of the ones I liked, some came to me with the idea of the story, some came to me on my thirty-fifth pass through the story, some were randomly chosen, some were carefully planned.

Does anyone have any tips or tricks related to making a story ending work, or telling whether an ending works once you've written it? Do you have any pitfalls you've fallen into in the past that you've learned to avoid? Help me write a non-sucky ending to my Yuletide story, peeps!

(Not that I'm anywhere near the ending of my Yuletide story, of course.)

It's Yuletide time again! I've been debating internally over whether to do the challenge again this year (last year was my first time), and as a result had the following conversation:

Self: Well, I was thinking, I really enjoyed the Yuletide challenge last year, so -

Friend: Wait, what?

Self: I was just saying that I enjoyed doing the Yuletide challenge last year.

Friend: No, you didn't!

Self: I didn't?

Friend: No! You were totally stressed out! You spent most of our conversations last fall complaining about having signed up in the first place!

Self: I did?

(Cue wavy-lined flashback featuring me sitting amidst piles of Diet Pepsi cans, staring bleakly at the computer screen, until finally I open a compose mail window instead of MS Word and write an endless e-mail along the lines of of,

Friend,

How am I supposed to write about Lassiter when CLEARLY Shawn and Gus are the funniest things on the show? DAMN YOU, Self of six weeks ago, for clicking "Any Character" on the Psych pull-down menu when signing up for the challenge! DAMN YOU!

Also, how are you?

-Jess)

Friend: Remember?

Self: Yeah. Yeah, I do.

And yet. AND YET. I find myself still tempted to take part! I think most of this is because I'm still dying to read a story about Cowboy Lowell and Sun Fu from Broken Trail, whose relationship high point is featured about halfway through this trailer (said high point is, rather pathetically, her reaching up to touch his cheek). Okay, there may have been two other moments as or more exciting, but nothing fully satisfying! And I still so long for their story!

Into the Sunset Popslash, JC/Justin. Justin and JC and where do we go from here?

I haven't read popslash regularly in a long time, but I still remember the fandom with such affection both for the quality of stories I read and the friends I made. This story brought a lot of that back for me, both because it was a wonderfully written story, and because it reminded me of how much I loved JC and Justin and kaelie's writing. And I want to talk more about why I loved it, but every time I try I give away the ending! So I will have to leave it here, urging you to check it out.

I'm terrible about updating my website, but I just did it now because there are other things I should really be doing - I uploaded:

The Right Time (Ugly Betty, Daniel/Betty)
When Betty Suarez wins her first National Magazine Award, Daniel Meade presents it to her.

and

Piece by Piece (Gilmore Girls, Lorelai Gen)
Lorelai picks up fragments of a future and hands them to her daughter piece by piece.

I am not a web design mastermind, so apologies in advance if I messed up (which is very possible).

In the process of putting those files up there, I ended up (very) slightly reorganizing the page where I list the fic I've written, which led to me clicking around and reading some of them - always dangerous! I broke down and ended up going into one story file to make some edits (changing a word/sentence or two to clarify something I found confusing reading it over now), but there were slightly more extensive changes I wanted to make on one story in particular and I couldn't bring myself to do it. It felt like cheating somehow, even though the change wasn't anything too big - just deleting two or three paragraphs to make one scene a little tighter. But still I felt weird doing it.

Do other people edit stories after they've been posted?

uhmidont wrote an amazing Bourne Identity/Supremacy/Ultimatum fic -

Paris - and now we know our own hearts.

It's exactly the story I wanted to read when I left the theater after seeing The Bourne Ultimatum, only better than I could have envisioned it. It's totally awesome. I want to go on in detail about why I think it's so awesome, but fear spoiling those who have not seen the movie(s), so! Just know that it's awesome, and you should read it! Because it's great!

As I've stated before, I live for the old post-wips-meme, which I just noticed was making its way around fandom again. I stink at completing stories! Here are the few I've got stalled on my hard drive.

( obligatory post-dh harry potter fic, ginny, not too spoilery )


( ocean's 11, eventually rusty/linus, a snippet of which has appeared before )



( refrigerator, office fic, michael, early season 3 )

Here's something that's even more self-indulgent than the stuff above, but really, as I've said before, what are LJs for if not to be ridiculously self-indulgent? Other people may have nobler purposes for their LJs but I do not.

I think I've posted before about how the one Office fic I completed was originally supposed to be set mid-season 2 and so most of the Jim/Pam stuff had to be rewritten to fit with the events of Casino Night. Most of the Jim/Pam jokes and light moments got cut, and it was a really hard decision b/c I spent SO LONG on those stupid jokes and then they ended up being scrapped. I kept the structure of the scenes and some of the actions and a lot of the descriptions, but most of the dialogue had to be re-done. I feel kind of dumb posting this but whatever, if nothing else it will serve as a handy place to find these scenes; I had to dig through my computer to find them just now.

( random office snippets )

Title: Piece by Piece
Fandom: Gilmore Girls, Lorelai
Spoilers: None beyond the general premise of the show.
Rating: PG
Summary: Lorelai picks up fragments of a future and hands them to her daughter piece by piece.
Length: 493 words.

( Piece by Piece )