Portrait of an undisciplined mind...

[liz_marcs]

I've got 18 pages of booster17's Acme Heartbreak Repair Kit done and actually polished. I've settled on a timeline (post-NFA). However, the damn story will not, not, not behave. It insists that it will not be a straight romp and that there's a tragic subplot weaving through it.

This is why I hate, hate, hate having to take 'The Girl in Question' as we saw it as part of a story's fanon. I've managed to gloss over that damndably hateful episode with its awful Buffy portrait in Ishmael Sings of the White Whale and No Myth (which is still WiP), but now I have to deal substansively with it and it makes me unhappy.

It doesn't help that my anti-bashing gene keeps directing my fingers in ways I can't even begin to control. Because, of course, I have to be frigging reasonable about all the characters. AAARRGGGHHHH!

And here's the thing. The thing that really kills me. I may have joked I'd throw a Buffy-Xander vibe in it for laughs, but damn if there isn't actually one. Not shippy (HEY! This is ME, remember? I SUCK at shippy.), but still distressingly there.

I blame nwhepcat's B-day fic Water Hold Me Down. The one I started in November. The one I was sure wouldn't take all that long to finish. The one that I thought sure would be something like 250 pages long and nowhere near as long as Living History.

Sheyah. Right.

It keeps hauling me back in with its dark little whispers and its sniggering little ironies.

I have no idea who's writing the damn thing, by the way. It sure isn't me. I swear to god the story is writing itself while I'm not looking at it. It's turned into the living thing on me and I have to keep killing all the little tendrils it keeps throwing out because it's not following the very narrow narrative.

And yes, it is so a narrow narrative. The plot line is really, really simple. It's the execution that's complicated.

I will never write an AU again. I swear. I can't believe how hard they are to write and still keep everyone in character.

*kicks myself in the ass*

I've always admitted that there was a period of a few months where I hated Living History more than anything in the world. There were entire weeks where I would've done anything to just stop and walk away from it. Hell, there was a period when I actually had to because of the insessant flame wars the stupid thing would start on a certain Wanktastic-Het-Only-Xander-Fanfiction list.

The scary thing about Water is that I haven't hit the hate wall for it yet. The only other story of any length that that I've written that I never hit the hate wall for was Whisper. Whisper had me under this strange compulsion while I wrote. The experience of writing Water is very much the same, although I don't think you could find two stories that are more different.

*snarls at Water*

For people who've asked about the timeline of the Whisperverse, here 'tis. I know I answered this in comments somewhere, but I thought I'd put it in a post just so everyone could see it without crawling through comments.

Whisper
November 2002 between 'Him' and 'Conversations with Dead People'

Living History
September 2003

Water Hold Me Down
Primarily December 2003, but the coda stretches out to early March 2004 for both realities

History of Humor in the 20th Century
April 2004

No Myth
End of June 2004


o_O

Oooookay, then. I'm a little stunned by it. I've been writing this cycle for more than three years. Three years.

O_o

No matter which way I look at it? That's a lot of words.

Comments

[invisionary.livejournal.com]

If you don't mind my asking, do you have the entire timeline for that universe mapped out already? The ultimate fates of all the major characters, etc.? I know there were glimpses of the future in "Living History," but I'm just curious as to how much of it you've actually decided on.

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

As far as large-ish planned stories go? There are only two after No Myth.

Untitled post-No Myth
Spring 2005

Characters: Xander, Faith, Willow, Buffy, Giles, Robin, Spike, Illyria, OCs

Essentially centers on "the scarring/I trust you" incident Catherine makes reference to in Living History. Xander is actually mentally out of it for most of the story, so I'll be writing at least half of it without my Xander-crutch. There's the set-up which will take at least the first quarter, followed by the Scoobs trying to figure out how to cure him before he dies, and then the coda.


Untitled
Post-Vi getting killed. I have to check the year.

I haven't actually decided on the plot for this one and am debating several at the moment. One possibility is Ethan teaming up with Alistair (from Water) to wreck a little revenge on the Scoobs and Faith has her Slayer powers stolen (temporarily! sheesh!) as a result. The other possibility involves Faith being captured and her mind messed with by a mage who wants his own personal hit Slayer (Faith's got the profile and the past). Either way, it'll be a Faith-in-distress instead of a Xander-in-distress story. This will probably be the only blatantly shippy story in the series.


All of this pretty much depends on some RL decisions I have to make regarding writing original fic or unforseen RL circumstances. I don't want to get into more detail on either one, because I can't promise they'll ever get written.

[invisionary.livejournal.com]

I wasn't really so much asking about stories, actually (although thank you for the summaries!) I was mainly curious about how much detail about the 'verse you'd filled in. I mean, for example, have you decided the circumstances of how all the major characters die? Future love interests (besides Xander/Faith, obviously)? Even if you don't have any plans to include that stuff in a story.

I mean, you've obviously put a *lot* of thought into this universe, so I'm just curious as to how far it goes.

[butterflykiki.livejournal.com]

It doesn't help that my anti-bashing gene keeps directing my fingers in ways I can't even begin to control. Because, of course, I have to be frigging reasonable about all the characters. AAARRGGGHHHH!

*pats* Yeah, I know. I hated GiQ as well. It's ludicrous. It should've been earlier in the season, it shouldn't have included Andrew, and it was all around stupid. That said, I've always had fun assuming the Immortal was one of the guys from Highlander, and he helped Buffy put a bomb in that bag just to mess with those two.

But it's still dreadful, I know. You *can* do this, though. You can tweak it to work. I admire the heck out of how you get long plotty stuff going, because it's my biggest weakness.

And yes, its' several small novels. Take that for what it's worth! You have the stamina! :> You just gotta find a flashlight through the underbrush of fanon....

[humbleminion.livejournal.com]

I've always thought booster17's The Slayer in Question made a handy GiQ-fanwank. But after all, I a) don't write fic and therefore have no need to keep my facts straight, and b) have an Easter-bunny- or George-W-Bush-like ability to ignore any bits of truth that bother me. Yep, it's good to be me...

[skipp-of-ark.livejournal.com]

I may have joked I'd throw a Buffy-Xander vibe in it for laughs, but damn if there isn't actually one. Not shippy (HEY! This is ME, remember? I SUCK at shippy.), but still distressingly there.

Still, even an unshippy Buffy-Xander vibe's got to be better than the whole "Buffy's feeding her cookie dough to the Immortal not quite a year later" thing, which struck me as more a way to "stick it" to SMG after she didn't make herself available to guest on AtS when ME came a'calling. Y'know, "If she didn't like what we did with Buffy while she was there, she's gonna hate what we do with Buffy in her absence!"

(I don't think the goofs at ME held themselves to the same rigorous standards of quality and fairness that you hold yourself to, but that's just my opinion.)

Perhaps what you need is a break, or the very least a change in who you write about. Howabout a story whose central character sn't Xander or Faith, but, say, is about Lorne or Gunn? Or, if you want to keep closer home in Cleveland, why not a Giles or Willow drabble-ish fic?

"Yeah, I know, I'm just full of good ideas"...:)

[dreamerjules.livejournal.com]

I've been in awe of you for a while now - I think the quality of your stories is just wonderful. I'm now in awe of the quantity and time frame as well.

It's a lot of wonderful words. Thanks for sharing.

[jgracio.livejournal.com]

Thanks for all the words.

[misagoddess.livejournal.com]

Poor thing. I wish I had your problem. I feel like I have to drag what few stories I have in me out by their heels.

I hope you don't mind my saying how incredibly *gifted* I think you are.