Write Every Day: Day #4

[auroracloud]

And December's Write Every Day is on its fourth day!

Today's writing

Yesterday's late-night bout of unrelated fic-writing seems to have freed up my muse a bit, as today the Yuletide fic was coming along much easier than the previous days. Mind you, with nearly 700 new words and over 4K altogether, it's still not done, but at least it's closer. I do expect this will get shorter when I edit it. I'm new to the character and the world, so I'm meandering about quite a bit, trying to get my feel for them.

What about the rest of you?

Tally

Day #1: avon, auroracloud, cornerofmadness, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #2: avon, auroracloud, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #3: avon, auroracloud, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme

Let me know if I missed anyone! Remember, you can join in or drop out any time.

Comments

[auroracloud.livejournal.com]

Oh, no worries! I didn't feel like you were criticising it or anything. :-) It isn't like that for me, though I do like to know the fandom well before I start. But if a character, a setting is calling to me, making me feel there are things there I'd like to explore, then sometimes I'll do it. Do you mean that when you write fic, then the story is set as going that particular way in your mind? I mean that you wouldn't, for example, write several possible ways for two characters to get together? Because I don't mind trying out possible different ways for the same thing to happen. I guess I'm just about exploring the characters in many possible ways.

I think I've only visited the nice ones when in Central Europe; I guess that's where the tourist guides will point you. :-D We have them in a few Finnish cities as well, but they're not quite similar, though they're also nice.

[ysilme]

Do you mean that when you write fic, then the story is set as going that particular way in your mind? I mean that you wouldn't, for example, write several possible ways for two characters to get together?
Yes and no, although I just realised it depends on the fandom. My old main fandom was Harry Potter, where I mostly read and wrote about my OTP, Snape/McGonagall. While a lot of my personal interest was in world-building and creating the story behind the books in my mind, exploring how this unlikely couple got together in many variations, or worked out as a couple, was mostly central to any story and varied often.
Now, as I write in the Tolkienverse, my approach to writing but also my interests have changed a lot. I turned to slasher mostly (I'm not generally set for any specific genre, it's more character-driven and depending on fandom, but I'm pretty open to most ideas), and when I write for myself, I prefer to write in larger story-arcs, even if the connection is mostly in my head. One character may have more than one relationship (I write mainly elves, so nearly endless lifespan *g*), but my main interest is in exploring that special character, but not necessarily in a relationship.
I might have been influenced as there are a lot of Tolkien transformative authors who write in this way, and have a certain set of characters live through numerous adventures and happenings.
I'm not a prolific writer as far as published output goes, so so far, most of what I've published are exchange or fest contributions. All of these are meant to be stand-alones and were written with this intent; but already with the second one I found that I was re-using the background setting and had my main character of the first story reappear in the background; and another of the larger stories focused on that first main character again, although in a much different setting and pairing. This story arc is my Dragonverse, and I might also write yet another story with completely different characters that fits in it, because it's using the same background variation of facts and things, and pairings or situations I already wrote just as past history of another story or so.
IDK, perhaps this is specific to a world like Tolkien's, which is so rich and complex already and spans such a long, long time, while leaving such a delightful lot of space to write into.
The main Tolkien story I'm writing hasn't seen the light of the day yet; it's "The Valley" which I wrote for my first NaNo and worked at this past NaNo, and will yet need a lot of work before being publishable. (Nooo, I'm not the least bit perfectionist, not me! ;o) ) But I've already written one fest story set in this 'verse (The Valleyverse ;o) ) and have the odd gift ficlet or drabble which will later be added to the series, too, even if the connection to the 'verse is just in my head. You could say this 'verse represents my personal main headcanon of this part of Tolkien's world, and I want to explore so many details there. It's mainly about the founding of Rivendell, which canon only gives a few dates for, and about characters that are not exactly well-covered in canon, although very big in fandom with some famous fannish permutations (which I try to steer as clear as possibly of). Out of necessity, the amoung of original parts is rather large, too.
But I've also written exchange stories which don't fit in either verse, since the prompts just led elsewhere, and explored a familiar pairing in different ways.