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amberfocusThe five day windstorm that has been playing havoc with my internet over the long weekend and well into last night seems to have finally abated. Perhaps it is time that Comcast learned how to bury their lines instead of leaving them whipping from poles in the wind. It is super annoying to have intermittent internet service, especially when you are still trying to catch your child up from a three week illness at his online homeschool. Fortunately we managed, even if it did drop the internet connection every ten minutes or so like clockwork there for a while. Now it is not dropping the connection but it is being almost as slow as dial-up.
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develish1 asked for # 1, "Of the fic you’ve written, of which are you most proud?"
This is a tough one to answer, because it is sort of like choosing between your kids what you are most proud of.
A Sky Without Zeppelins probably holds the biggest place of pride, especially for the character of James who was so well received and the romance between alt!Donna and James. But also because I had to create an alternate Rose who was very different, one who never left school, one who was driven to succeed, but who was also younger in a lot of ways than the original Rose even though she was physically older. Despite that, she still had to be recognizable as Rose Tyler. And a Ten2 who had had his memories completely erased and his DNA overwritten as human, so there was no bit of the Doctor left and yet he was still very Doctor-y. And I loved the alt!Jack there. I loved Illuminate as the corporation that was protecting aliens from the rest of the world. I also loved Caelum and the little coral creature who becomes Cariad. It was so much fun to write, it was epically long (probably should have been two fics in retrospect), and I enjoy it as much in reread as I ever did writing it. And for sheer number of words, over 200,000, it was quite the accomplishment.
Dev also asked # 5, "What inspires you to write."
Everything, really. I mean, I have dreams that are fully formed fics or just massive ideas for fics. Someone can make a throw away comment in the reviews and I'll find my imagination just captured by it. A Sky Without Zeppelins grew out of a comment Shen made on Sacrifice based on a line of dialogue Ten2 says, that if Rose chooses to stay with Ten instead of him he'd want to be completely mind-wiped by the chameleon arch and made completely human so he can't remember. Shen said she'd like to see the fic where that happened and suddenly so did I. I can find the kernel of a fic from just a line in someone else's story or from a single word that plays over and over again in my mind. I can see a child playing in the park or a couple walking on one of the docks and watch the interplay of their relationship and suddenly be gone on an idea that takes over. A photograph of an exotic locale, a sinking boat, or a woman staring moodily off into the distance.
One fic, "Someplace Nice," was completely inspired by the dress and jewelry Rose wears in it. Wolf Moon was inspired by the actual wolf moon and the fact that I'd gone through a bunch of wolf songs and moon songs recently.
Music seldom inspires me, though, probably because to me music is someone else's deeply felt story. I think there have been two stories (Wolf Moon not withstanding) in the huge number of stories I have written that were inspired by music, one We Are Relentless and the other A Place in Time. Not that music doesn't play a part in other stories. The whole premise behind The Prettiest Rose on Prometheus is that the Doctor overhears Rose singing Doctor songs. But for the most part music plays very little role in writing for me. In fact I tend to write in silence.
Sometimes inspiration seems to come out of the blue and it just wallops me upside the head.
And when none of that works, there is always the Idea of the Month Club (Mercedes Lackey).
develish1 asked for # 1, "Of the fic you’ve written, of which are you most proud?"This is a tough one to answer, because it is sort of like choosing between your kids what you are most proud of.
A Sky Without Zeppelins probably holds the biggest place of pride, especially for the character of James who was so well received and the romance between alt!Donna and James. But also because I had to create an alternate Rose who was very different, one who never left school, one who was driven to succeed, but who was also younger in a lot of ways than the original Rose even though she was physically older. Despite that, she still had to be recognizable as Rose Tyler. And a Ten2 who had had his memories completely erased and his DNA overwritten as human, so there was no bit of the Doctor left and yet he was still very Doctor-y. And I loved the alt!Jack there. I loved Illuminate as the corporation that was protecting aliens from the rest of the world. I also loved Caelum and the little coral creature who becomes Cariad. It was so much fun to write, it was epically long (probably should have been two fics in retrospect), and I enjoy it as much in reread as I ever did writing it. And for sheer number of words, over 200,000, it was quite the accomplishment.
Dev also asked # 5, "What inspires you to write."
Everything, really. I mean, I have dreams that are fully formed fics or just massive ideas for fics. Someone can make a throw away comment in the reviews and I'll find my imagination just captured by it. A Sky Without Zeppelins grew out of a comment Shen made on Sacrifice based on a line of dialogue Ten2 says, that if Rose chooses to stay with Ten instead of him he'd want to be completely mind-wiped by the chameleon arch and made completely human so he can't remember. Shen said she'd like to see the fic where that happened and suddenly so did I. I can find the kernel of a fic from just a line in someone else's story or from a single word that plays over and over again in my mind. I can see a child playing in the park or a couple walking on one of the docks and watch the interplay of their relationship and suddenly be gone on an idea that takes over. A photograph of an exotic locale, a sinking boat, or a woman staring moodily off into the distance.
One fic, "Someplace Nice," was completely inspired by the dress and jewelry Rose wears in it. Wolf Moon was inspired by the actual wolf moon and the fact that I'd gone through a bunch of wolf songs and moon songs recently.
Music seldom inspires me, though, probably because to me music is someone else's deeply felt story. I think there have been two stories (Wolf Moon not withstanding) in the huge number of stories I have written that were inspired by music, one We Are Relentless and the other A Place in Time. Not that music doesn't play a part in other stories. The whole premise behind The Prettiest Rose on Prometheus is that the Doctor overhears Rose singing Doctor songs. But for the most part music plays very little role in writing for me. In fact I tend to write in silence.
Sometimes inspiration seems to come out of the blue and it just wallops me upside the head.
And when none of that works, there is always the Idea of the Month Club (Mercedes Lackey).
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no subject
Date: 2014-02-25 06:30 pm (UTC)Your characters are true to themselves, yet true to what the original characters would have been in the reality you gave them. I read the novel straight through with stops to eat, tell husband not to bother me, etc. Just curious-- would you say where you would have cut it?
no subject
Date: 2014-02-26 10:42 pm (UTC)Either that or have altered things slightly to wrap the story up right before Rose starts working at Illuminate, since starting work there is the next big phase of the story.
no subject
Date: 2014-03-01 08:21 pm (UTC)It is a tough question isn't it, someone asked the same thing over in the gutter, and though I've written far, far less fics then you I had a heck of a time choosing one, and in the end chose two.
I have to confess, A Sky Without Zeppelins is one I haven't actually finished yet, because it is so long, but that's not a criticism, what I have read is brilliant and when I'm on my next break (which is only a few weeks away now) I WILL finish it.