Writing Update
Aug. 28th, 2012 09:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
keiramarcosThe thing is that I have a bunch of WIPs. Because I write in serial format-- I can juggle a few without feeling all that guilty about keeping readers waiting (sorry) but I do try to live a guilt-free life. Guilt takes up so much energy and often makes you feel miserable both mentally and phsyically. The problem is that I truly am spoiled for choice so I tried to inspire myself by reading my own work. Most of you can get a good idea of what's on my plate based on excerpts from Evil Author Day. I'm very close to finishing That Old Black Magic (HP - Harry/Draco). I also have a project with LadyHolder (Dangerous and Beautiful Things which is a Sherlock/Sentinel fusion) and a Star Trek/Sentinel project of my own that is fascinating to play with.
There are a few others: Beckon the Dark (next novel in the Lantean Legacy series), Valor and Honor (next novella in Ring of Fire), and of course my Halo/Sga project that I will start actively pursueing after I wrap up the SGA arc of TTB. As for my major series stuff (spoilers ahead):
Tangled Destinies (current word count: 144,526)
I read Forsaken -- that was a turning point fic for me in that series because it's leading up to the final episode in the first arc of the series. Part ten in that series which will be called "Covet" is the final installment of the first arc and it will center around Sam Kirk (his dissertion of his brother, his reported death on Tarsus, Winona's duplicity, etc etc). I thought it was important to address both Spock's brother and Jim's brother at the end of Arc 1 because in many ways both Spock and Jim were indelibly marked by the conduct of their brothers and their emotional/physical dissertation of them.
In Forsaken, we find that Sybok was vicious to Spock when they were children and as a result Spock is extremely distrustful of his half-brother to the point where he deliberately destroyed the familial bonds they shared. This lead Sybock down a very different road (from his canon one in the original series movies) where he tried to embrace the most difficult and far reaching mental discipline on Vulcan. His success or failure isn't particularily relevent to Spock at this point beyond the fact that he'll do anything to keep Sybock away from the family he's created with his parents and Jim on Earth. After I finish up Covet -- I'll start the second arc. We will skip ahead a few years-- Jim and Spock will have finished undergrad and will be preparing for their wedding ceremony on Betazed. Why will I jump ahead? Because frankly-- I'm ready to write porn for this series and I sincerely wish I hadn't made them meet when they were just sixteen. So jumping ahead until their 19 (almost 20) has so much apppeal that it isn't funny. Arc 2 will take place mostly at Star Fleet academy where we will meet more canon characters (Uhura, Chekov, Sulu, etc etc). I'm really looking forward to that.
Ties That Bind (current word count: 330,817)
When I first started writing this story it was a single novel. A novel that turned into 100,000+ words before I ever posted a single word of it on my site. In fact, it wasn't until I'd reread what I wrote for about the tenth time that it crossed my mind that my readers might like it. Truth is that there were plenty in the beginning who DIDN'T appreciate it and I'm sure there are still plenty of people who visit my site who wouldn't touch the series with someone else's severed hand. BDSM is, in its own way, more divisive than slash (or incest) is in fandom. I wrote the series for myself because frankly I was deeply enamored with Xanthe's series (I still am) and like many other writers who've read her work I was inspired to play with the themes. We exchanged a few emails regarding permissions before I posted the first novella in the Ties That Bind series and she did warn me that the work might not be received well by the fandom at large. I thought I was prepared for it. I wasn't. I mean, I really wasn't. I've received more negative feedback and blowback about Ties That Bind than all my other work combined.
A lot of people don't GET it. In fact, there are people who read it and proclaim to enjoy who don't get it. I know this because of their comments and private emails. I've had more than one person so grossly misunderstand my work that I was truly horrified by their interpretation of the material. Though, the less said about that the better, I guess. I can't make anyone get what my words mean to me and I know that everyone gets something different out of it. The series is 3 novellas from being finished. The final three installments in the SGA arc will be called: Time After Time, Broken Road, and The North Star. I have them all plotted out and while I can't promise you won't be shocked, appalled, and furious at certain points throughout the last three stories I will guarentee you a Happy Ending. I don't believe in anything else.
I'd like to take this AU into different fictional worlds eventually -- Sherlock and Criminal Minds to be specific. I don't know if I will but it all strikes my fancy. Who would I pair in those worlds -- well Sherlock should be obvious (Sherlock/John). Criminal Minds, I'm actually a Morgan/Reid shipper but if I wrote TTB for that show-- it would be Hotchner/Reid. Not to be rude about it, but suggestions for other fandoms to explore for this would not be appreciated.
Sentinels of Atlantis (current word count: 206,927)
This series was rather unintentional. I started writing it on a whim because I was inspired by Ladyholder's series The Unlikely and Unwilling. I wrote The Gathering and I posted it. The response was really positive so I thought, okay, I can work with that. Then I wrote twenty episodes over a period of six months. I hesitate to talk about this even now because I was so devastated! My harddrive had a failure and I hadn't backed up in more than a year. I lost almost all of the episodes I'd written for SOA and THREE professional projects in the moment that harddrive failed. Recovery was impossible. I spent several hundred dollars trying to recover data because of my professional work. Deadend. I was done. It was horrific. What was worse? I couldn't rewrite what I'd written for SOA. I tried to make myself do it and I was so disillusioned and bored that I had to back up and start over. I replotted the entire first season from what I had posted on my site forward.
What did this do? Well, John gained a brother he wouldn't have had otherwise (Matt) and Andrew Sheppard appeared. Some readers don't like Andy -- I had one (lol) tell me she thought the kid was creepy. Well, he IS creepy. He's meant to be. In many ways, Andy is a mirror of John. An online Sentinel at a very young age who is powerful beyond measure -- he hears things he shouldn't, is deeply connected with the psionic plane in ways that many simply don't understand and has been under the unknowing guidance of an ascended Sentinel/Guide pair since he came online. Things will get creepier on the Andy front. Just wait until you meet his Guide!
Episode 20 (The Search) will be the final episode in Season One of the series. It will be long -- easily longer than the first episode (The Gathering) of the season. We'll tie up some loose ends both on Atlantis and on Earth as we prepare for some major changes (mostly on Earth) as they gear up to face the threat of the Wraith and the Ori.
The first five episodes of Season Two are titled: The Pride, The Sacrifice, The Return, The Lifeline, and The Seige -- I'll be honest I get extremely excited just thinking about these episodes! It's going to be so action packed and fun and scary and some of you may end up sending me slightly threatening emails. Don't worry I'll make you a perfect subject line on my contact form!
Aside: I have no idea when any of that will be posted. Just FYI.
---
There are a few others: Beckon the Dark (next novel in the Lantean Legacy series), Valor and Honor (next novella in Ring of Fire), and of course my Halo/Sga project that I will start actively pursueing after I wrap up the SGA arc of TTB. As for my major series stuff (spoilers ahead):
Tangled Destinies (current word count: 144,526)
I read Forsaken -- that was a turning point fic for me in that series because it's leading up to the final episode in the first arc of the series. Part ten in that series which will be called "Covet" is the final installment of the first arc and it will center around Sam Kirk (his dissertion of his brother, his reported death on Tarsus, Winona's duplicity, etc etc). I thought it was important to address both Spock's brother and Jim's brother at the end of Arc 1 because in many ways both Spock and Jim were indelibly marked by the conduct of their brothers and their emotional/physical dissertation of them.
In Forsaken, we find that Sybok was vicious to Spock when they were children and as a result Spock is extremely distrustful of his half-brother to the point where he deliberately destroyed the familial bonds they shared. This lead Sybock down a very different road (from his canon one in the original series movies) where he tried to embrace the most difficult and far reaching mental discipline on Vulcan. His success or failure isn't particularily relevent to Spock at this point beyond the fact that he'll do anything to keep Sybock away from the family he's created with his parents and Jim on Earth. After I finish up Covet -- I'll start the second arc. We will skip ahead a few years-- Jim and Spock will have finished undergrad and will be preparing for their wedding ceremony on Betazed. Why will I jump ahead? Because frankly-- I'm ready to write porn for this series and I sincerely wish I hadn't made them meet when they were just sixteen. So jumping ahead until their 19 (almost 20) has so much apppeal that it isn't funny. Arc 2 will take place mostly at Star Fleet academy where we will meet more canon characters (Uhura, Chekov, Sulu, etc etc). I'm really looking forward to that.
Ties That Bind (current word count: 330,817)
When I first started writing this story it was a single novel. A novel that turned into 100,000+ words before I ever posted a single word of it on my site. In fact, it wasn't until I'd reread what I wrote for about the tenth time that it crossed my mind that my readers might like it. Truth is that there were plenty in the beginning who DIDN'T appreciate it and I'm sure there are still plenty of people who visit my site who wouldn't touch the series with someone else's severed hand. BDSM is, in its own way, more divisive than slash (or incest) is in fandom. I wrote the series for myself because frankly I was deeply enamored with Xanthe's series (I still am) and like many other writers who've read her work I was inspired to play with the themes. We exchanged a few emails regarding permissions before I posted the first novella in the Ties That Bind series and she did warn me that the work might not be received well by the fandom at large. I thought I was prepared for it. I wasn't. I mean, I really wasn't. I've received more negative feedback and blowback about Ties That Bind than all my other work combined.
A lot of people don't GET it. In fact, there are people who read it and proclaim to enjoy who don't get it. I know this because of their comments and private emails. I've had more than one person so grossly misunderstand my work that I was truly horrified by their interpretation of the material. Though, the less said about that the better, I guess. I can't make anyone get what my words mean to me and I know that everyone gets something different out of it. The series is 3 novellas from being finished. The final three installments in the SGA arc will be called: Time After Time, Broken Road, and The North Star. I have them all plotted out and while I can't promise you won't be shocked, appalled, and furious at certain points throughout the last three stories I will guarentee you a Happy Ending. I don't believe in anything else.
I'd like to take this AU into different fictional worlds eventually -- Sherlock and Criminal Minds to be specific. I don't know if I will but it all strikes my fancy. Who would I pair in those worlds -- well Sherlock should be obvious (Sherlock/John). Criminal Minds, I'm actually a Morgan/Reid shipper but if I wrote TTB for that show-- it would be Hotchner/Reid. Not to be rude about it, but suggestions for other fandoms to explore for this would not be appreciated.
Sentinels of Atlantis (current word count: 206,927)
This series was rather unintentional. I started writing it on a whim because I was inspired by Ladyholder's series The Unlikely and Unwilling. I wrote The Gathering and I posted it. The response was really positive so I thought, okay, I can work with that. Then I wrote twenty episodes over a period of six months. I hesitate to talk about this even now because I was so devastated! My harddrive had a failure and I hadn't backed up in more than a year. I lost almost all of the episodes I'd written for SOA and THREE professional projects in the moment that harddrive failed. Recovery was impossible. I spent several hundred dollars trying to recover data because of my professional work. Deadend. I was done. It was horrific. What was worse? I couldn't rewrite what I'd written for SOA. I tried to make myself do it and I was so disillusioned and bored that I had to back up and start over. I replotted the entire first season from what I had posted on my site forward.
What did this do? Well, John gained a brother he wouldn't have had otherwise (Matt) and Andrew Sheppard appeared. Some readers don't like Andy -- I had one (lol) tell me she thought the kid was creepy. Well, he IS creepy. He's meant to be. In many ways, Andy is a mirror of John. An online Sentinel at a very young age who is powerful beyond measure -- he hears things he shouldn't, is deeply connected with the psionic plane in ways that many simply don't understand and has been under the unknowing guidance of an ascended Sentinel/Guide pair since he came online. Things will get creepier on the Andy front. Just wait until you meet his Guide!
Episode 20 (The Search) will be the final episode in Season One of the series. It will be long -- easily longer than the first episode (The Gathering) of the season. We'll tie up some loose ends both on Atlantis and on Earth as we prepare for some major changes (mostly on Earth) as they gear up to face the threat of the Wraith and the Ori.
The first five episodes of Season Two are titled: The Pride, The Sacrifice, The Return, The Lifeline, and The Seige -- I'll be honest I get extremely excited just thinking about these episodes! It's going to be so action packed and fun and scary and some of you may end up sending me slightly threatening emails. Don't worry I'll make you a perfect subject line on my contact form!
Aside: I have no idea when any of that will be posted. Just FYI.
---
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Re: TTB
Date: 2012-08-29 06:24 pm (UTC)The nearest thing I can figure is that Davies thought that if he could move it to the US they would make more money, but Jack/Ianto was just not going to sell on a US network. So he killed everyone but Jack and Gwen so he could make the move and then found out that John Barrowman would not let him turn Jack into a straight guy. Not to mention that a huge majority of fans HATED what he did and will never forgive him.
Torchwood could have gone on for several more seasons, making everyone happy. They fucked it up. I still get grief pains in my chest when I think of it, because I really loved that show. Davies will never get another penny from me. Ever.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-29 06:26 pm (UTC)Please know how eagerly we wait, but don't do more than you are having fun doing.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-29 07:00 pm (UTC)In SoA I find Andy very interesting. He is intelligent and already has John's strong sense of duty. Actually I love the way you have written John's family in all of the series.
For TTB, I admit I didn't think much of BDSM before this fandom. Mostly because what I had read was, I think so poorly written as to be nothing more than hard core porn with no emotional connection. When I found Xanthe I really began to like it and TTB I feel in love with. I think some people just can't let themselves see past the controlled violence and also probably see submission as humiliating and degrading. Sad really.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-29 07:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-29 07:19 pm (UTC)Thanks for the Update
Date: 2012-08-29 07:26 pm (UTC)-- delighted to find out what happened to Sam in the next part. As much as Jim's buried his past, Sam was an integral part, and Jim needs the resolution (if nothing else) in order to move forward. IMHO, Sam was so twisted up inside when he left that he *wasn't* thinking clearly.
--- Arc 2: prepping for the Betazoid wedding! Yes!!! Granted, this has been a punchline from the beginning, so I'd have been very disappointed if it got hand-waved away. I'm still chucking over the Vulcans' horror at public nudity, Archer's enthusiasm, and Jim's fiendish plan to test his cousin's claim that she finds beauty in everything. Y'know, the requirement of public nudity is a good way to reduce the amount of brass in attendance. They can't say they weren't invited, and certainly they'd honor the local customs, right? :)
--- Arc 2: SFA and intro more canon characters -- looking forward to this as well. Can I just give a shout-out for ... nevermind, you'll add the canon characters (and OCs) you feel are appropriate, and I'll enjoy them all.
General note: yeah, having K & S meet at 16-ish has reduced the amount of porn, but I've enjoyed seeming their relationship develop in lieu of/around the porn
Re: Thanks for the Update
Date: 2012-08-29 07:28 pm (UTC)Re: TTB
Date: 2012-08-29 07:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-29 07:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-29 07:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-29 08:37 pm (UTC)*squee*
As for TTB - I honestly don't care if I get it or not, I _love_ it. I stumbled across it on the net (idle surfing while I was away on a one-week course in neurological diseases, of all things :-D) and it just hit me like a freight train. I read the first two parts completely floored, it was intriguing and hot as hell and my first time reading BDSM and I had NO idea that I liked that. It literally changed my view of the world.
And I find it a lovely, slightly angsty and romantic lovestory and TTB!John is better than canon John. I think you broke my brain a little. That's ok. That's more than ok.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-29 10:56 pm (UTC)and while I am a big fan of the writing style in general TTB has a special part in my heart,and I will have to start in on a new fandom too if there is a TTB universe Sherlock Arch - Same for criminal minds
And yeah totally small minded people - I go by don't like it, don't read it everything else is stupid. I would not want to waste my time reading a fic of the length of TTB just to critize it and tell the author what is wrong with it
As someone who reads fast and has read TTB several times that is telling
no subject
Date: 2012-08-29 11:06 pm (UTC)I am very curious about your new fandoms in the TTB universe, and I won't beg for new fandoms, but do you have anyone else new playing in it, and more important do you know if there will be a second installment in Cinnaminions H5O TTB story?
I am also looking forward so much to your SoA update and have to say I love Andy!
no subject
Date: 2012-08-29 11:22 pm (UTC)I am not saying that Xanthe is a bad writer and I actually like her other stories but like any thing if there is something that squicks you there is not much you can do about it and bdsm is one of those things. I happen to get really squicked when someone is saying no and the other person doesn't stop and they have no safeword to halt what is going on. It scares me and freaks me out. Its ok to not like something just as much as it is ok to like something.
alright I will get off my soapbox now.
I just wonder if I am the only person who loves TTB but thought Xanthe's bdsm world was not my cup of tea no matter how engaging the story telling.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-30 01:39 am (UTC)Sorry about the hard drive crash.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-30 02:02 am (UTC)Hope you have fun in Colorado. Sounds like it will be interesting.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-30 03:42 am (UTC)For Evil Author day you posted a snippet called I Shall Believe, Jim was an online Alpha, and they couldn't find his Guide, he was slowly dying, and then his Dad got Blair out of a South American embassy. It is embarrassing how often I go back, and read this one, laughs at herself, it ends before the bonding, and it is still one of my favorites. (p.s. was rereading excerpts today was the other Sentinel excerpt that ends mid sentence, the exploding building on top of our heroes.)
Tangled Destinies has captured my heart. It is wonderful. No other words describe it.
I am deeply looking forward to the Sentinel/Star Trek crossover, grins mischievously, there are so many things you can do with that, and knowing you, you will accomplish at least 3/4 of them. Thank you for sharing your writing with us. Bows reverently, I really appreciate it. -SB
no subject
Date: 2012-08-30 03:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-30 04:59 am (UTC)Thank God, laughs happily. Eventually is a lot better than never. I am comforted. -SB
no subject
Date: 2012-08-30 05:16 am (UTC)Wonderful to read about TOBM. I was telling a friend the other day about this wonderful HP story and then I couldn't remember the end or even any of the middle only to facepalm when I realized it was your excerpt. LOL.
I will wait patiently for your next posting. I truely enjoy reading your stories. Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-30 08:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-30 03:16 pm (UTC)I'm such a Keira addict. I'll apparently read anything she writes.
Good thing they won't put porn on cereal boxes. That would be embarrassing.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-30 04:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-30 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-30 06:41 pm (UTC)I don't know if I "get" TTB in the way that you mean but I love it dearly. The power exchange and depth of characterization in that series is brilliant. And hot. Very, very hot!