this kind of blank adventure happens all the time

A very very very happiest of birthdays to gloss, an amazing writer, an amazing friend and a clear, courageous voice. Me and ole Sunglasses Scarab hope that you had/are having the best of all possible days, as you thoroughly deserve it.

I wish that I had something today for you present-wise, but I guess you'll have to wait until Saturday? For something you've... already read. Whups.


Semi-related thought: I haven't had an icon party post since I moved over to DW, have I? Methinks this should be changed in the near future, especially now that I'm slowly but surely filling up my HUNDRED ICON SLOTS sorry I'm still all excited over that. Big Bang goes first, though. Sigh. Almost over.

The Big Bang draft is due at 11:59 TONIGHT. I can make the deadline, but it might be a bumpy ride, seeing as my favorite scene hasn't really been written yet. Whoops.

I CAN DO IT, THOUGH. Part of which is turning off the internet until tonight, so this is my post out into the great wild internet yonder.

PRESENT BEFORE I GO: David Bazan - Fewer Broken Pieces this song is so recent canon Tim that it is scary:

one good friend remarks with a rightfully angry
"jesus, dude, none of us know what to do with you."
i in my pride responded "i've got news for you
none of you have to."

WISH ME LUCK HOLY CRAPOLA.

three_weeks_for_dw is unfortunately coinciding with revision times/FINALS TIMES UGH, so it'll be more like two_weeks_for_me, but I really want to do this one because I know I've been promising meta recently:

What kind of topics/entries would you like to see me posting about? Any particular questions you've always wanted to ask me but have resisted because the answer would be a huge essay? Ever want to wind me up and watch me go on a particular topic? Anything you've heard me say "I should write that entry about _________ I've been meaning to write" and have been patiently waiting for?

Feel free to comment now, and I'll get back to these sometime within the three weeks. This way your suggestions can be all percolating in the back of my head whilst I study/revise/tear my hair out holy shit. Also, open to everyone. Lurkers welcome!


(TEAM BETA: I have made this sooooo fucking complicated for myself, but YOUR EXPERTISE WILL BE NEEDED... SOMETIME IN THE NEXT WEEK. I have a final the day that some sort of final draft is due, OF COURSE, but then posting doesn't start until May 10th so the "final" version I turn in doesn't have to be the final version that I post. Long story short, I'm in the middle of fits of inspiration and ecstasy and filling in blanks, and the story that you will receive to read will be about 98% complete. Current word count is ~31,000. It will be more by the end of the week when I send it out. This thing is getting fucking finished and it will be glorious I swear to Scarab.

I'm more than a bit stressed out about this because there's the story that it could easily be, and then there's the story that I WANT it to be, and I'm so afraid that time constraints and fear of taking risks (okay, time constraints) will make me settle for the easier route and this is the longest fic I've ever written with the intention of actually posting it in a complete manner and oh god I want to do Jaime justice because there is NO Jaime longfic out there and that's more than a little bit intimidating. I know I'm overthinking this but it's been in my head for SO LONG and I'm so worried that it's hackneyed and silly but oh man I want to do some of the more implicit things in it justice.

Ugh I hate how full of myself I sound. I just WANT TO DO JAIME JUSTICE.)

IT'S REVISING TIME.

I was going to restart my writing juices by writing drabbles/short ficlets for my own benefit set in the universe of the story so I could get back into the feel of it all, and I was going to prompt myself by going all shuffley on my I-Tunes, but then the third song I got back was this and got all wibbly. Yeah yeah yeah it's the anthem of choice for all sad bastard teenagers, but not too long ago I was that sad bastard teenager and I hadn't heard the song in ages.

And the worst part is that it totally inspired me to construct backstory that won't actually go into the story but is succeeding wrt getting back into the writing groove and thinking about this particular universe. Curse you, sad bastard music!

Amidst all of the end of semester stress, RL stress and editing my damn Jaime story, I suddenly want to sign up for Ladies Big Bang to write a story where, instead of falling victim to the Arrow family's abundant manpain, Lian and Mia are knocked into 616 New York right before before that certain plotpoint in Cry for Justice and, heh. Marvel at this brave new world, with such Avengers in it.

This would eventually become really hot Mia/Kate Bishop pornshipping in between the fish out of water shenanigans and fix-it ficcisms.

I originally was going to say that I hoped everyone involved in this rot in Hell forever, even though I don't really believe in the concept, but that means that we'd have to wait too long for the satisfaction of revenge. Like, seriously. I want their fucking souls in my fist so I can look every pathetic one of them in the eye and squeeze.

Exhibit A: the sales totals for the Cry For Justice miniseries. The sales figures for the issue in which a young girl was senselessly killed for the sake of cheap drama have yet to come in, but from everywhere I've read people are expecting a bump because of the notoriety.

Exhibit B: these statements from the writer of Phonogram on why we won't be seeing the planned third series:

-There's a difference between making only a little money and starving. We're very much in the latter. Jamie's lucky to get a couple of hundred dollars from an issue... Will we make some money off the trade? Maybe. And that's a big maybe. But that means Jamie not earning any money for the six months it would take to draw it, which is the main reason why we took over a year to do 7 issues. As in, every time Jamie ran out of money, he had to stop and do something else.

-I feel frustrated. Enormously lucky, sure, but frustrated. We've done this wonderful thing we're crazy-proud about. But if the whole economic system was just a couple of degrees to the left, everything would have been different. I mean, just to give you an idea about narrow the margins are between what we are and what we could be, if we were selling 6K instead of 4K, we could have done those 44 issues. The difference between breaking even and actually being able to do it in comics is insane. It's like being kept under ice, clawing.

Hypothesis: for all of the bitching at various capitalists in charge of various comic book companies, at the end of the day we get the comics we deserve.

Possible Argument.

Possible Counterargument.

Official rough draft stats:

Pages: 54

Words: 23,137

Integral Scenes Still Entirely Unwritten: 3/3.5

Integral Scenes in Need of Further Elaboration: 6

Standing Plot Holes: 2

Estimated Wordcount by Deadline: 27,000-30,000

Worries of Characterization Fail: Legion

The Difficulty of Creating a Convincing Dramatic Macro: Harder than expected!

"Oh, Shit, what did I get myself into" Quotient: through the roof

( Gay for Justice finished today. I made the mistake of reading it. Which is the equivalent of putting my hand on the stove, I know, but I wanted to read it firsthand. )
Though I did get my hands on Girl Comics #1 today and I heartily recommend it, as it is a breath of fresh air. Fun fresh air that unfortunately didn't do a lick of good for me.

tl;dr version: Temporary hiatus. Be excellent to each other.