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March 17, 2024, 03:48:44 PM
Happy St Patrick's Day. Enjoy the one day of the year when the whole world is Irish.

Lurker no more!

Started by Aerlys, August 19, 2013, 09:05:26 PM

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Aerlys

Salvete!

I've been hooked on KK since eighth grade, when a friend loaned me Deryni Rising.  As a Traditional Catholic attending a Trad. Cath. boarding school at the time, I especially appreciated (and still do) her portrayal of the richness of the liturgy I attended daily, and how she carried that into Deryni ritual. (I love the "Adsum Domine", and always wanted to put it to Gregorian Chant., but, alas, I lack the talent, though in college I nearly attempted to translate the whole thing into Latin.) 

My favorite series has always been the Camber trilogy, especially Camber the Heretic. I remember the first time I read those last few, fateful chapters. I had never read anything where the author so violently and poignantly dispatched with so many major characters.  My agonized  "NOOOO!!!" carried far over the Kansas plains as I closed the cover.  There were no more books to continue the story yet, so I had to content myself with writing my own. I was a closet fanfic writer since I was about 11, having created my own story lines for Star Blazers and other things. I say "closet" fanfic writer, since no one else I knew did anything like that, and I was convinced that, upon discovery, I'd be thrown in shackles for copyright infringement! So, most of my writing was kept to myself or a very small circle of friends.  However, I must admit that much of what I wrote that was Deryni-related I classified as part of my "I Beg to Differ File," i.e. my own alternate endings/sequels to stories with endings I just couldn't bear.

Fast forward through nearly 30 years of misadventure... Only scraps of what I have written remain (the rest fell victim to fire, flood, vermin, incompetent military movers, and a toddler with a sharpie...). Many other ideas, Deryni and otherwise, are trapped on defunct computers (even had a Tandy once!) or my sleep-deprived brain 

If I can ever rub two brain cells together and get a spark, I'd love to get back to writing fanfic, at least as good mental exercise so I can finish another project I've put off for years. No promises, since I'm now the mother of seven (yes, seven ;D), including a high-functioning autistic son, and two home schooled teens. The mental gears are rusty, and coherent thought constantly falls victim to frequent interruptions and bouts of momnesia.. Case in point: I've been composing this intro in Word for several days, and have just about given up hope that any of this will make any sense. I swear that my toddler has radar, so that every time I sit still he knows I'm a viable target!

Well, I've rambled on long enough, and should just post this and be done. With luck I can lock myself away in a secure location so I can show up for Sunday chats. Until then, I'll be lurking around, sipping Fianna wine, enjoying everyone's contributions, and maybe even putting in my own two cents.  I'm glad my wanderings have finally brought me to the gates of Rhemuth Castle.


                                                                   Cheers!
                                                        ≈≈≈≈≈Ærlys≈≈≈≈≈
"Loss and possession, death and life are one, There falls no shadow where there shines no sun."

Hilaire Belloc

Evie

Welcome, Aerlys!  Don't worry, your intro was perfectly coherent despite those multiple interruptions.   :D  I look forward to seeing you at Sunday chat, and hopefully on the fanfic boards as well.
"In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas."

--WARNING!!!--
I have a vocabulary in excess of 75,000 words, and I'm not afraid to use it!

Aerlys

Thanks. I'm my own worst critic. I was a copy editor for a time, and I still struggle with over-analyzing everything I write. Heck, it took me years before I could actually read a newspaper again without checking margins and spacing, or wanting to reach for a red pen and an AP style book.

Wouldn't want to get demoted from page to "garderobe scrubber" on my first post! Or would that be Middens Maintenance Engineer?

Never mind. Back to my wine and just one more peek at the fanfic section. (Sleep is overrated, right?)
"Loss and possession, death and life are one, There falls no shadow where there shines no sun."

Hilaire Belloc

Evie

Yeah, who needs sleep?   :D

And I have to check my red pen at the door when I read newspapers too, especially online ones.  Often it seems like all the writers do is tack new information to the top of an already existing story, which might not be so bad if they actually bothered to re-read the previous copy first and check for consistency rather than leaving contradictory information in or repeating themselves.

Though my all-time favorite newspaper blooper was a wedding announcement that included the lines, "The marriage will be consummated at the Oak Grove Baptist Church.  All family and friends are invited to attend."  Either the writer meant to use a different verb, or that's a much different sort of Baptist church than the ones I grew up in!   ;D

When it comes to writing fanfic, here's what I've learned.  Turn off your inner editor (at least as much as possible) during your first round of fleshing out your story.  Once you've got the basic story down (or at least that scene or chapter), then you can go back and tweak as necessary.  But you don't want to stop and fix so often that you're at risk of stopping the flow of words altogether.  After a while, you'll work out what pace works best for you.   I tend to edit as I go when it comes to small changes such as noticing a typo and fixing it on the fly, or at most revising a short phrase or two as I go if the original one sounds clunky and a better version occurs to me immediately, but I don't rewrite whole paragraphs or do any cutting and pasting until after I've finished an entire scene or more.  I write until I'm "written out," and then I go back and fine tune.
"In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas."

--WARNING!!!--
I have a vocabulary in excess of 75,000 words, and I'm not afraid to use it!

Jerusha

Or you panic at your first hastily written fanfic, hope Evie doesn't actually throw it in the shredder as she edits it, wonder how all those typos made it past your own review, then realize that maybe, just maybe, it wasn't so bad after all!  :D
From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggity beasties and things that go bump in the night...good Lord deliver us!

 -- Old English Litany

Evie

#5
I have never thrown a fanfic story in the shredder while editing it.  Do you have any idea what a huge mess all that plastic and red ink would make on those cross-cutting blades?  ;D
"In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas."

--WARNING!!!--
I have a vocabulary in excess of 75,000 words, and I'm not afraid to use it!

Laurna

Hello, Aerlys, glad to have a new writer on board.

I, too, often reworked the endings of movies or books that did not have the finale that I liked. Many times I have saved a character in my mind and then pretended the author's ending was just a bad nightmare. Though these rarely made it onto the written page. I'm sorry you have lost so many of your writings. Perhaps you will make time to write or rewrite something for this board. This is definitely a wonderful group of people to join.

If Evie did not shred the first chapter that I showed her, then I can not see her shedding anybody's work.  I won't even begin to tell you how patient she was even with red marks everywhere. She even told me not to panic when I saw it.  Of course I did panic. :-[

Now, I do recall her telling me that if I had written Rhys and Evaine meeting Dr Who and going into space that I should post my story somewhere else.  :o

Nice to see you here.
May your horses have wings and fly!

Aerlys

I find polo mallets are far more effective than shredders for dispatching that pesky plastic.  :D



"Loss and possession, death and life are one, There falls no shadow where there shines no sun."

Hilaire Belloc

Evie

Quote from: Laurna on August 20, 2013, 10:35:55 PM
Now, I do recall her telling me that if I had written Rhys and Evaine meeting Dr Who and going into space that I should post my story somewhere else.  :o


Oh, I might personally find that somewhat amusing.  However, I'm pretty sure it would break Bynw's "Fanfic Board Rule #2," or at least bend it into something resembling a pretzel.  Just a hunch. 

Alaric wearing a pink tutu, though, that one's right out!   ;)
"In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas."

--WARNING!!!--
I have a vocabulary in excess of 75,000 words, and I'm not afraid to use it!

Evie

Quote from: Aerlys on August 20, 2013, 10:43:11 PM
I find polo mallets are far more effective than shredders for dispatching that pesky plastic.  :D

I'll keep that in mind next time I'm bent on demolishing my editing pen.
"In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas."

--WARNING!!!--
I have a vocabulary in excess of 75,000 words, and I'm not afraid to use it!

AnnieUK

Sorry, totally missed that you'd introduced yourself on here. I'm impressed you get anything done at all with 7 kids and homeschooling. And having worked with some children with autism, I know how challenging they can get, too.

We seem to be gradually replenishing our fanfic writers, which is nice. It went very quiet on that board for a while.

I'm a much more organic writer than Evie. I'll bash a long way through (and nowadays I'm trying to get to the end) just writing--no edits apart from the odd word change as I go. By the time I get to the end, I'll have discovered what's actually going on, and then go back and rewrite/revise/edit as necessary. I'll rarely, if ever, post anything until I'm 9 or 10 chapters in and pretty confident that nothing from chapter 1 is going to change significantly. The impression I get from Evie is that once she's written a chapter it pretty much stays as is, bar the occasional tweak here and there. Mine can change completely on the second pass.

Having said that, I've not written any fic for ages, as I've been too busy with other stuff. In fact I haven't even been on the boards much, since I couldn't hold the details of more than one world in my head at once. I'm just getting back into the Deryniverse since I've reached a point where a lot of the knots I've been making in my own storyverse are unravelling (probably ready to make new ones!) so I can concentrate on other stuff again.

Evie

Yes, Annie is a more organic writer than I am.  She's actually got carbon molecules in her structure, and not a single silicon chip to be found.   :D

Actually, my writing sometimes sees a fair bit of revising, it's just that usually what appears in my final copy is going to be pretty similar to what I wrote down to begin with.  So if the story requires a scene in which Alaric and Duncan are holed up late at night in Duncan's study discussing the implications of a newly-discovered Airsid treatise on magic, then by the time that chapter is posted, Alaric and Duncan will probably still be holed up late at night in Duncan's study discussing those implications.  I rarely if ever change things to the point that now Alaric and Duncan are having a cozy little chat at noon about Torenthi ladies' undergarments while riding down the road five miles east of Rhemuth.  (Why Duncan would even know enough about what Torenthi ladies wear under their clothing to discuss this topic knowledgeably is anyone's guess!   ;D )

OK, an extreme example perhaps, but basically the story I end up with tends to be recognizable as the story I first wrote down, with the exception of some word or phrase changes here and there, an occasional added scene, or scenes rearranged slightly in order to make the story flow better.  I may differ from Annie in that once I've actually written a scene, I almost never end up deleting it altogether, because the way my brain works, if I'm gotten to the point of setting a scene down in writing rather than simply letting it exist in my mind, then that scene actually happened, and erasing it from the page and trying to start over in a different direction doesn't make it somehow not happen anymore.  Not sure why my mind works that way, but it does, and my characters tend to go all sulky and silent if I try to force them off the path they've already set.  So when I do have the rare deleted bits, they usually just end up mutating slightly and getting stuck back into the story somewhere else where they fit better.  And then I can justify it all by saying that the voices in my head do know what they're talking about, I simply misheard them the first time!   ;)

My two kids are now high-school and college age, and both fairly independent, and I still can't manage to get anything done! 

Quoth the Annie:
QuoteHaving said that, I've not written any fic for ages, as I've been too busy with other stuff.

So, um, that means that the trilogy you're currently working on is non-fiction?!   ;D
"In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas."

--WARNING!!!--
I have a vocabulary in excess of 75,000 words, and I'm not afraid to use it!

AnnieUK

Bah. Picky picky. I meant fic as in fanfic and well you know it. Or maybe that's just a contraction that the BH fic writers have come to use. ;)

Evie

Well, darn!  There go my plans for visiting your world once that volcano calms down a bit....   :D
"In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas."

--WARNING!!!--
I have a vocabulary in excess of 75,000 words, and I'm not afraid to use it!

Aerlys

<<Chuckle>> This grown-up banter is good for me! I like it here.

Lately, most of my wiritng happens in my head, usually when I'm in my office (a.k.a. our 15-passenger van) or in some other situation where writing it down is impossible. My characters  interrupt rather rudely when I'm in the middle of something else (like the rest of my children) but fall strangely silent when I can actually manage to get it written! 

If I used a tape-recorder, my kids would think I was nuts. That Dragon voice-recognition software would be handy, except I can just envision scenes like this:

     He sighed heavily. "So Ruaric is at court." He tapped his pursed lips thoughtfully with tented fingers. "This is troubling news, indeed. If he's a huntsman, you can bet his real quarry is Deryni." 
     The words hung heavily in the air...


Mom, can I call Donny and see if we can play Minecraft? Oops, you're writing Ill come back later...

Thanks. Take care of the Laundry first!


...The three stared uneasily into the fireplace. Stefana leaned back against the wall and folded her arms, Staring into the flames, her eyes took on a distant, pensive look, slipping into a light trance. She retreated behind her shields into a world of cold logic...

WAAAAAAHHH!!!! MOOOOMMMM!!!

What happened?

He keeps telling me what to do!

I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!!! She keeps on saying that's a mug, but it's not! It's a cup!

Sigh. They're the same thing, honey. She can call it something else if she wants.

Grrr!

Did you feed the guinea pigs yet?

No.

Stomp stomp stomp.

Sigh...Where was I?



....hands unconsciously clenching and unclenching her forearms. The two men wondered what went on behind those amber eyes of hers, though they dared not probe.
     They remained thus for several solemn minutes. Then the girl exhaled slowly, rested her head back against the cool stones, and closed her eyes. "He is a threat, then?" Her voice was low, almost a whisper.
     Joram regarded her evenly. "I'd say so, yes."
     "Serious?"
     "Most likely."


Mom, did you say the littles could give the guinea pigs a peanut butter sandwich?

No, I told your brother to feed them, but....

See? I told you! Aack, now it's in their fur! Woah, no! Don't let the dog lick it off...


     She opened her eyes, and looked directly into the priest's. "Then he must be eliminated."
     Such cold logic was chilling from the lips of a maid so young, and it left a knot in Joram's stomach. Still, he met her gaze unwaveringly. "You espouse murder, child."
     "Nay, Father, self defense."
     "You will provoke him?"
     "Being Deryni is provocation already."


RIIIIINNNG! RIIIIIING!!!
Hello? Hey, Mom, Dad needs you to bring him his wallet and the tile cutter...Oh yeah, and the septic tank guy is here. He wont get out of the truck. I think he's afraid of the dog.


Yep, there's my life!

Thankfully, though, my muse has started speaking to me again, and I think I may have found a way to modify my Apocrypha to fit with Canon. It'll just take a little extra research and a good look at a map of the Eleven Kingdoms...

I must be nuts...school starts next week, and we have about 20 people coming over for Labor Day weekend!


"Loss and possession, death and life are one, There falls no shadow where there shines no sun."

Hilaire Belloc