beccastareyes

So, have a few fanfiction things, since I am too busy or tired to be coherent.

( These include banners )

I finished editing my casestory fic, and it went to yuuo, who is beta-reading. Anyone else who wants to help beta-read a novella-length (23,100 words) Slayers fic is welcome to volunteer.

The start of the fic may well pre-date my graduate school career; I know it pre-dates my master's degree and had to be edited for continuity since it was written before Slayers Revolution was even a rumor*.

I could probably look in my writing journal -- the LJ one, since it was before I had even heard of Insanejournal, let alone Dreamwidth. Neither may have existed back then. But, I'm tired. I'm going to bed.

* Well, besides the standard 'they'll make another season Any Year Now' that's been happening since Try.

Perhaps I should add these to The List.

( Vorkosigan Saga, Cryoburn spoilers behind this cut! )

Also, Firefly bunny which I totally blame on ag_over_18's Crafty Chat, about Inara teaching Simon (mostly Simon, since Kaylee seems to know her way around) and Kaylee the ways of love (totally a euphemism)... which would be a lot better if I could write porn.

I mentioned this once with regards to my post about how Jim Butcher is a cool author who allows for derivative works under a Creative Commons license. ankewehner and I started talking about fanfiction, since she's one of the (few?) people on my friendslist who is a fan and a writer, but not a fanwriter (fanficcer?). (I hope she doesn't mind me using her as an example -- is it okay, Anke?)

That and the whole mess with Diana Gabaldon meant I was thinking about fandom and fanfiction*.

( This gets long... )

So, the last two blog posts have been on the Dresden Files RPG*. Plus, today marks the release of the next Dresden Files novel. I'll be heading to Borders after work** to get it.

Also, in seeing the RPG and new book, I also discovered Jim Butcher's fanfiction policy. Basically, like Mercedes Lackey, he's allowed fanfiction to be posted under a Creative Commons license. So, any non-commercial derivative work based on Alera or the Dresdenverse can be posted to the 'net, as long as it is under a CC license***. (He also notes that he's still not reading fanfic, so don't ask.)

It came up because the RPG writers noted that they really can't put out the Dresden Files RPG under an Open Gaming License, except for the rules that were already under that. But that they intend to use things like the spellcasting rules as a basis for other work that is not part of a licensed property, which will let them publish under the OGL. And that since Jim Butcher allows derivative works, anything from the Dresden Files RPG is free game for non-commercial discussion -- game stories, characters, Dresden-fied settings, house rules, etc. So, for example, I can't lift the spellcasting rules and publish a FATE Dungeon Crawl, but I could probably use them to run a non-Dresden FATE game using the magic rules (and talk about it via the internet). (Would that be like a crossover?)

Anyway, good on Jim Butcher! As a shameless writer/artist/gamer who plays with derivative works, I appreciate authors who see them as signs of a healthy fanbase, rather than threats. I mean, no matter how many times people write Harry/Thomas, Harry/Marcone, Harry/Carlos†, it doesn't change that the original Harry Dresden lives in Jim's head and the rest of us are working from copies.

--
* Still reading, and I already know I'm going to need to make cheat sheets for spellcasting. Probably for character gen and combat, too -- mostly because I've never run FATE before, and it's not a variant of a familiar system like True20 was. One advantage of the old-school 'DM's screen' is that you can stick all the useful cheat sheets and tables to it, so you don't have to play the 'what page was that on?' game.

** That is, if the Ithaca Borders decides it's going to stop being a prat about never having SF books on the release date, no matter how well they might sell. It could just be the computer hasn't updated yet. I really need to see if there's something other than 'Borders, Barnes and Noble, the university bookstore, and various used bookstores' in town.

*** Meaning I need to modify my Dresden Files and Codex Alera fic to show this. My fic journal has a convenient spot for a disclaimer, that I can alter, but I should also get my archived work.

† It's usually either slash or porn, or slash porn that gets authors' undergarments in knots and full of sand. Somehow 'Harry Dresden versus Edward Cullen, hidden heir to the Glitter Court†† of Vampires' doesn't offend. (At least not Jim Butcher, though Stephenie Meyer may object.)

†† Not original. Someone already wrote fanfiction with Thomas using the Meyer-pires as an excuse to meet pretty women with things for vampires. And Harry laughing his ass off at Thomas's use of body glitter.

Things learned:
1. One edit is never enough.
2. Reading things aloud really does catch errors, even if it takes a half hour to read one 3,000 word chapter (that's 100 words a minute).

But, it's done. I finished my first multichapter fanfic in years -- I have a few, but the closest to done any of them are is 'rough draft'. Yes, I take this as Serious Writing, for all that it's fun stuff on the Internets.

Anyway, I present a Fullmetal Alchemist Space Opera AU focusing on Winry and Sheska. Because clearly I don't care if anyone actually reads stuff I poured blood, sweat and tears into.

The NaNo auto word-counter (the one that validates that you indeed wrote 50,000 words and links you to the winner page where you get a button and a printable certificate) is more generous about words than my writing program. Not by much -- a difference of maybe 200 words in a 30,000 word passage -- but enough that it boosted my mood. Browsing on the forum shows that Word and OpenOffice users are having the opposite problem -- special characters like em-dashes and curly quotes apparently mess up their ability to count words, so they give more words than the NaNo site.

I also made my 30K, which means I'm only a day down. I could either do a hard day's writing tonight again, or just make sure I'm setting my daily goal to 2,000 instead of 1,700.

Plus, I'm getting a free lunch out -- the speaker today is taking us to the Mediterranean restaurant instead of letting the department buy us all pizza.

I am learning that I'm less happy with my original fiction than my fanfiction when NaNoveling. As is, I think I'm going to be just writing the first half of a novel -- I'll get to a solution, but really it's not all of the story, and I'll have to keep going, and weave some of my threads back in. I might try the 90-day novel community on Insanejournal (except it's dead) instead for original fiction in the future, and stick to using NaNo as an excuse to write longer fanfiction work, where 50,000 words gets me a lot more. (The 90-day novel is 750 words a day for 90 days. Even then, this might run short -- the writing every day thing does work for me, and keeps me from spending most of my evenings goofing off on the interwebs).

But, after this I have a fanfiction to write for Yuletide, and probably other obligations that I've forgotten about.

I'm nearly done with my NaNo.

This means I have an action scene. I hate writing action scenes.

I forgot this benefit of NaNo. I get very creative on my other projects when I can't work on them. Like, I scrawled a bit of Crest of the Stars fic this morning. And I just thought of how I wanted to end a fic I need to pick up again, In the Shadows of the Flames -- which requires watching Vision of Escaflowne again, and rewriting the first two chapters. As in, I have the text of the last paragraph in my head, and have to write it down.

Well, to do that and get back to work.