Superhero Muses

How goes with everyone as the year draws to a close? Next week I'll find one of those end-of-the-year memes and discuss it here, perhaps! I've been writing short vignettes this week and enjoying it a lot. though I'm not sure which if any I will post--I've been trying to practice expanding my range of characters, but it always seems like the vignettes I like best and which resonate most are with the same rather small circle of characters. I guess that's natural, but it's a bit frustrating as well! How are things with you?

Whoops! A little late this week due to various last-second things cropping up, you know how it is. How is everyone's writing going this week? I've been bopping around between fluffy BDSM, psychological horror/angst, and epic sweeping battle sequences. So basically covering all my bases. *grin*

The house is clean, my hands don't hurt (a silver lining to having to clean and not having my typing time), and despite that I still wrote 800 words in 30 minutes last night, which is a blistering pace for me! I'm usually satisfied with 1000 words in an hour... Sadly, another story I was working on got painfully jossed by canon yesterday, so I'm left looking at a bunch of prose I'm very proud of and figuring out if I can somehow trim away the stuff that doesn't work anymore and adapt it... I think I can but it will now end kind of sadly instead of happily, and I'm not thrilled with that either. It's not really something I can just blithely ignore, either, so that's not an option. That's a good question for this week: What's the worst canon has ever interfered with your writing, and how did you deal with it? I hope you're all doing well!

--Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them?

Not very often, actually. I'll sometimes get reviews that manage to hit a nerve in some way, but they're usually not written with malice and I can just compartmentalize my annoyance. I've also gotten people arguing with my shipping choices in kind of obtuse ways sometimes, but there's not much you can do about that either. :P I've learned to mostly just say "Hey, thanks for reading!" and move on, it's such a tiny fraction. I hope no one has any horror stories to share, but this would be the place to do it!

I've been having a hard time getting sidetracked into other projects lately, which is frustrating and makes me sad at a certain level, but you gotta run with what inspires you. I think I'm almost done with another chapter--it's running a little short, but once it achieves what I set out to achieve I have to call it done! How about all of you?

--Which is your favorite site to post fic?

Well, this opens up an interesting technical question for this week! Right about now, for me this boils down to: do you guys still post fic to LJ or DW? Do you post to AO3 and then post the links to LJ/DW? At the moment I post to LJ, DW, and AO3 separately, then post to the usual comms on LJ, then post a link to the AO3 post on Tumblr. This is rather time-consuming, and I've debated posting only to AO3 and making links to everything else...except that I get some of the most thoughtful, insightful, inspiring comments on LJ/DW still, and I greatly fear that only posting to AO3 would snap that last thread. How do you guys handle your posting right now?

As for writing, I hope all is well there! I have gotten some good work done this week, thank goodness--although most of it not on anything I planned, but on a story that grabbed me unexpectedly. I can't really complain if I'm inspired!

--Would you ever kill off a canon character?

Oh, sure! It's not like it's permanent, after all, and there are certainly issues of dealing with grief and mortality that are compelling to write about. I do think it's a good idea to warn people so they can avoid it if they're not personally in the mood to run into those issues in a fic--and in my experience, warning people doesn't seem to lessen the impact of it at all when it happens.

I've gotten some good writing done this week! Bruce is finally mentoring his kids and that's a joy to write. :)

I knew the time difference when traveling was going to throw me, and sure enough, it did! I must have reminded myself 20 times to post last night but it just didn't take. *eyeroll*

--How do you feel about crack?

Dangerous stuff, man. Don't do drugs.

Oh, the fic category! I don't even know quite how to define this--it's got a very wide range of meanings. But in general I guess I would dub it "stories not meant to be taken seriously at all, that do silly or bizarre things in order to have fun." I was going to say it's an insult, but I pretty much only see it used as a self-deprecating insult--that is, you don't tend to call other peoples' stories crack, you call your own stories crack as a sort of apology. As such, I'm not a huge fan of using the term--embrace your fic and don't be bashful about it! Actually writing bizarre things? I'm all for having fun with fic, although I do think the odder your story becomes the more you need to understand and accept that your audience is narrowing down.

I've been with my parents all week and haven't been able to steal any writing time at all, so that's too bad! But I did get a little writing done on each and every project while I was on the plane, so there's a silver lining. And starting from today I'm staying with my husband's brother, who works long hours and thus I will have more time for writing, I think! How about you guys, was your week productive? Did you embrace your crack? (That doesn't sound good...)

--Do you take liberties with canon or are you very strict about your fic being canon compliant?

Well, I write slash. And since I still define "slash" as "non-canon-same-sex-relationships" (that is, Clark/Bruce is slash, Midnighter/Apollo or Kate Kane/Renee Montoya isn't), I'm immediately setting off on a path away from canon to some extent.

That said, I do usually like to stick fairly closely to canon having made that one change! Right now both of the long stories I'm working on are non-canon (one is an alternate universe, one is a divergent-history), but that is REALLY unusual for me. But after you've written as much in DC canon as I have (a check of AO3 stats reveals I've written over 1,600,000 words there, most of it Clark/Bruce, of course) you start to want to try something a little different. Recently I'm actually wanting to work in canon more, so that's good!

I got a bunch of writing done this week, most of it emergency "Oh crap I have to get this next chapter written to make my personal arbitrary deadline" writing, but that's still good, I still made them. This is my last weekend free for a while, so I'm hoping to get some good work done during it--wish me luck!
How about you, what are you working on and how close is it to canon right now?

--How do you feel about collaborations?

Very, very, very, very shy. I'm not good at them, to be honest, in a way that I think reflects poorly on me--the few times I've collaborated I've tended to drag stories off in my chosen direction, or worse, to forget which parts were mine and which the collaborator's and take credit for ideas that aren't my own. o_O I really admire people who are able to collaborate smoothly and well!

Not a lot of writing this week, it's been mostly spent suddenly realizing I've run into points in both long stories where I don't actually know well enough what's going to happen next and I've been scrambling to figure it out. I THINK I've got it hammered out and I'm hoping to find time this weekend to sit down and write it up and see! How about you?

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate! I hope the end of the year beings you nothing but light and love.

--If you were to revise one of your older fics from start to finish, which would it be and why?

Probably Music of the Spheres, which I still love but I think has some unfortunate melodramatic excesses and missed notes here and there. I've wanted to continue it for a while now, but I think my writing style has shifted a bit and I'm afraid that would be noticeable...

How has writing been going? I'm hoping to tackle the Yuletide archive soon...my main fic has gone unloved save by its recipient, but they left a wonderful enough note to make it all worthwhile. <3 With Yuletide out of the way, it's back to long series and maybe a hope of writing some one-shots here and there!