More revisions

I've been silent lately, but I've been whittling away at my stories, both original and fanfictiony.

The editing on "Six" is starting to come together. Revisions on the first three chapters are now mostly completed, and they were the chapters that were giving me the most issues. I've still got quite a bit to do, but I belive the most intensive chunk of editing has passed.

(Also, I graduated high school. Cool. More on this may follow.)

"Six" revisions (and music)!

So, a little bit of news for "Six:"

Over the past few days, I've been going back and revising "Six," starting with the beginning. Basically, I'm tired of having to deal with a beginning that doesn't sufficiently set up for the rest of the story (at the time of posting the beginning I was thinking that the fic might reach a max of 15,000 words and three days).

It's been fun doing this, as I get to see the kinds of choices I made in the beginning again, and how they fit the original intention, but not my current one. I'm sure most of my revisions will be made on only the first few chapters, so I don't think the later parts of the story will be affected too much.

In other news, I've composed a small orchestral symphony for "Six to Bereavement." I'll be posting it with the next chapter. (Expect the next chapter to be relatively short, as I have a lot of authors-notey things to say when I release it.)

(These things are my ways of saying, "I meant to release the next chapter on Christmas, but I got distracted and decided to do other things instead.")

ETA: I posted part of a draft of the first chapter's revisions up on jaslazulstories.blogspot.com.

Six update

So, for those of you who haven't noticed yet, I posted the next chapter to Six. Hopefully the next one won't take too long, but I'm buying myself GPO for Christmas so I'll probably be stuck behind the synths for at least a week or two. We'll see.

And since this might be the last update until then, happy holidays to everyone!

Busybusybusy

Sorry for the delays, but the last few weeks have been pretty crazy for me, and I don't see it letting up any time soon. I'm often struggling to find time to write, and struggling to find time in that time to focus on "Six." I have some other fanfics in progress, but they're not developed enough that I feel an announcement is necessary.

The keen-eyed might note that I've killed my forums. It's something I've wanted to do for a while, and it took seeing that I've only received one hit in the past two months (from a beta-seeker) to spur me to doing it. If there's anything that you really feel you want to read, such as my tutorials, send me a message... but bear in mind that I did delete the forums for a reason.

(Don't take this as a sign that I'm abandoning the Star Fox community. Apocrypha has always had my full support, but it ultimately failed to serve its purpose. It was a far too ambitious community, with far too little marketing, to run smoothly in the Star Fox section.)

ETA: Note that there's a very good forum on FFN, "Writers Anonymous," that you can find on the common forums listing. Lots of brilliant writers go there, and it's definitely worth investigating.

"Six" chapter up

So, the latest chapter of "Six" is up. You should all go read it now.

I'm now making my blog the official "afterthoughts of posting a chapter" place, since placing notes in the story itself is slack.

So, afterthoughts. Basically I said "Screw it" and posted it after my last set of revisions, so there are probably some errors, but after working with editing the same chapter for weeks, I think it's time to for it to go on out.

Also it ventures dangerously close to M-rating, but eh, the story will go where it goes. The few times I've tried to resist the natural flow of a story, it's always ended up bad.

Anyway. I am tired, so I will now go to sleep before I start typing jibberish.

New chapter

So, there's a new chapter of "Six" up. Go check it out; it's not as "OMGWTFBBQSOMEONESETUSUPTHEBOMB" as the last chapter, but it's still okayish. (If every chapter was "OMGWTFSOMEONESETUSUPTHEBOMB," then it would be boring, anyway).

I've got most of the next chapter written and I'm starting on the one after that. Hopefully it won't take too long to get the next one up. I anticipate that a lot of people will really like it. Some won't, but the ones who won't probably shouldn't be reading my fics to start with.

Overall, I can say that so far I've had plenty of time to write here, maybe more than I did at my old school because I'm getting distracted by video games a lot less here.

But as I usually say, We Shall See. "Six" keeps getting longer and longer in my head, but maybe it won't be too long before we start to get near the end.

Status and CAD!

So, I'm all moved in and so far everything's all fine and dandy. I've had a lot more free time than I was expecting, but the arts classes (and performances) really haven't started up yet. Weird thing is, I've had time to write, but I haven't been doing it. Huh.

Anyway. According to FA, tomorrow is Comment Appreciation Day, which means it's the day where all the artists are supposed to show how much they appreciate their readers.

I'm one of the weird artists that always responds to people who comment on my stuff (unless the comment is something I can't really respond to; I'd give examples but I'd prefer not to). Recently, I've been getting a few new readers, for which I am very thankful. It's always good to get back from a busy day of school (and disorienting orientation) and find that people have written me. Honestly, it is because I have an audience that I still write fan fiction; the serious writer in me has moved on to original works, but it's still immensely fun and relaxing to write fan fiction, and I find that the community is willing to tolerate me enough for me to post my stuff here.

So, long story short: as vain as it sounds, commentses are why I'm here. I appreciate everyone who reviews or otherwise acknowledges my existence, though I don't always express it.

Difficulties

So, I've been stuck in the same place for the past few days with "Six." The trouble isn't that I don't know what to write; it's that I don't know how to sequence things for the best possible read.

I've written and deleted a few scenes, but that's fine. Right now I'm trying to figure out where things need to go, and though this isn't the funnest part of writing, it's definitely worth it.

Progress

So, I finally have a decent handle on the face, and I'm back to working on "Six." This next chapter's going to be a pretty fun one to post.

I've also been doing a bit of thinking about some of my other stories, and I still want to write a oneshot to get my mind out of Six-loops. We'll find out where all this goes, eventually.

Nifty Post (or lack thereof)

So, I never wrote said nifty posts (family visit'd). Instead, I have a status update. Sorta.

Just a heads-up on what I'm doing right now: over the next week or so, I intend to go through some of my older stuff and fix it up, maybe post some stuff that I haven't posted before. (None of the typical stuff, though.) I'm also writing a gift piece that I won't be putting up anywhere (unless the recipient chooses to do so).

With all that, and the ablation coming up Monday (almost tomorrow, at this time), I don't think I'll have much time in the next week with which to write more "Six." Go figure.

Oh, well. This will probably be the last post before I go in for the procedure. Results will probably be up... uh, whenever. lololol

Six'd

I post'd the next chapter of "Six" over on FFN, for anyone who's interested.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll have time to write some nifty posts.

Back with an update

Sorry I had to disappear off the face of the planet for a while, but eh, like some lulzy post from chaos Leader, (sh)it happens.

Most of said stuff is done with now, and I have loads of free time that I have no clue how to manage. So, hopefully that'll mean moarwriting.

I posted the next chapter of "Six"--it has a few typically not-my-style elements in it, and nothing really happens, but eh, it's a necessary evil. (Or so I think.)

As always, drop me a line to let me know what you think. Hoping these updates will be coming a bit more frequently, but eh, it's been a month or so since I've set fingers to keys in OOo, so we'll see how that works out.

Update and advice

A quick update on my progress with "Six:" I have two and a half chapters completed ahead of schedule as of right now--but they're tentative, at best. I'm going to be doing some weird stuff in the next few chapters, so I'll have to see where it takes me before I'll feel comfortable posting any of it.

Because I am lazy and still haven't finished the stuff I'd planned to post on here (characterization, diction, scene decisions, etc.), I'm going to cop out and pull up a David Marnet article KG linked one day on his LJ. (Which is a bonus because I don't know what I'm talking about half the time, anyway; professional advice trumps anything I could say.) See it here.

It's an article from a screenwriter's perspective on how to write drama. Though not everything in it directly applies to writing, most of it does, and the understanding of several of Marnet's points are essential for good writing.

Along with said posting on LJ came these notes, which I feel obligated to reproduce because they also touch on some issues I hear about fairly often in this fandom:

My favorite excerpts (but you really need to read the whole thing):

QUESTION:WHAT IS DRAMA? DRAMA, AGAIN, IS THE QUEST OF THE HERO TO OVERCOME THOSE THINGS WHICH PREVENT HIM FROM ACHIEVING A SPECIFIC, ACUTE GOAL.

SO: WE, THE WRITERS, MUST ASK OURSELVES OF EVERY SCENE THESE THREE QUESTIONS.

1) WHO WANTS WHAT?
2) WHAT HAPPENS IF HER DON’T GET IT?
3) WHY NOW?


and

HERE ARE THE DANGER SIGNALS. ANY TIME TWO CHARACTERS ARE TALKING ABOUT A THIRD, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.

ANY TIME ANY CHARACTER IS SAYING TO ANOTHER “AS YOU KNOW”, THAT IS, TELLING ANOTHER CHARACTER WHAT YOU, THE WRITER, NEED THE AUDIENCE TO KNOW, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.

DO NOT WRITE A CROCK OF SHIT.

YMMV, as always, but you could do a lot worse than keep the above in mind when trying to write something dramatic. For novels, the standards are a bit looser--you don't *want* every scene to be FULL OF DRAMA. You need to pace it out, build tension, and so on. I also think you can stretch the "two characters talking about a third" when the third is a dramatic figure--think about Al Capone in "The Untouchables." One of the most memorable scenes is Sean Connery telling Kevin Costner in the church "that's how you get Al Capone."

But if you're worried that your story is too flat, not gripping enough in the places where it should be, well, go back and re-read those rules. It's also possible to have a lot of STUFF happening in an action scene and still have it be boring because while it is active, there is no drama. Again, check the points above. What does the character want? What's stopping him/her from getting it?

Happy writing! Hopefully the update to six might maybe possibly perhaps be finished sometime within the next year. Or two weeks.

Contest

So, Fraye and Swiper are sponsoring a oneshot contest over in the Star Fox section. You can find it here:

http://forum.fanfiction.net/topic/71506/23244998/1

Swiper's judging, and since I don't have any entries, I'll probably be on the panel as well (and maybe SerpentPanda too). Hopefully we'll be able to get some good writing out of this.

(And no, this isn't the post I was referring to in my previous post.

Six to Bereavement

The new fic's up. Go check it out--there are a few things that I've changed, for better or for worse. (I think for worse for the first chapter, but for better for the story as a whole.)

Feeling good

Feeling good about this fic. I might post the first chapter tonight or tomorrow, even though I'm not quite done with the whole thing yet. (Still got like, one scene left to go.)

I've been doing a good bit of modification to the first chapter, so the first chapter over on FFN will turn out to be slightly different than the one here.

Newish Fox/Wolf in Progress

Well, since I've been at a standstill with some other fics, I've continued that old thing I started a while back. I'd estimate that I'm over halfway done at this point, so you can expect it on FFN soonish.

I've posted a sample of it over on the other blog, if anyone's interested. There may be another short sample of another upcoming fic coming soon.

Update

Sorry it's been a while. I've been mostly busy with a few things on the side, and haven't had much time to devote to fan fiction as of late.

I'm trying to make progress on "Conflict," but it's going at a dreadfully slow rate. I'm working on a few other things, but I don't want to reveal anything about them quite yet. Be on the lookout, but don't expect anything to be coming too soon.

Whoops, delay

So, apparently first week back == time to cram for tests, so I haven't had time to finish up those edits that I've been meaning to do. Hopefully I'll have 'em done before the end of the week, but that depends on how things go tomorrow.

Editor?

I now have a volunteer editor (JyrFalcon345) who may be working with me on a few things.

In other news, I've made fairly good progress in the last few weeks on the fics I'm currently working on. My progress has been mostly scattered though, and what finished products I have are either in draft stage or in need of a lot more completion before posting. I have one fic that I plan on completely finishing before I post the first chapter, if that means anything.

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