Screwing Things Up for the Better

Saving Time (coldwestallen fic), Chapter 3: Lost

2019-08-25T19:17:28Z

Characters: Leonard Snart/Iris West-Allen/Barry Allen; Mick Rory (minor char.)

Summary: Iris West-Allen is tired.

Snippet:

Iris watched Leonard walk slowly to the fireplace, leaning against it like he needed something, anything, to take all his weight.

She just waited.

Barry was the one who broke the silence, a minute later, settling next to her on the couch. “Have we been gone long?”

“About twenty minutes, for me,” she answered, watching Len. There was a desolate look in his eyes, fixed on the empty shell of the hearth. She wanted to sympathize, she really did... but he wasn’t even looking at her, and he clearly wanted to be anywhere but here, and she was just done. “Are you ready to share now, Leonard?”

On AO3 here

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Coldwestallen fic: Saving Time

2019-08-21T08:56:53Z

Chapters 1 & 2 now up!

(A sequel to my post-Oculus-Len coldwestallen fic ‘Stealing Time’. But you can jump in without having read that - I summarise it at the beginning.)

Fandom: The Flash (TV 2014)/DC’s Legends of Tomorrow

Characters: Leonard Snart/Barry Allen/Iris West-Allen

Tags: Post-Oculus Leonard Snart, polyamory, time travel powers, angst with a happy ending, fluff and angst, limited smut, implied/referenced past child abuse, very light Dom/sub, canon typical violence

(Chapter warnings for all tricky passages with places to skip, including for smut.)

Snippet: On the other side of the field, Barry and Iris were laying out a picnic on a Flash-red blanket. In perfect dream logic, Len could hear them clearly, even from far away. “Open this, would you, babe?” Iris asked, holding out a bright blue bottle of champagne.

Barry reached out to accept it, his face a picture of joy - and paused. “I can’t help feeling like something’s missing,” he mused.

Iris’s mouth, which Len could also make out at a distance, moved as if she was saying Where’s Len? But what he heard was, “No. All my heroes are here.”

A chill was enveloping Len, paralyzing him against the ground.

(you haven’t told them)

Barry was suddenly standing at a STAR Labs whiteboard that had appeared beside them, with Iris still lounging on the blanket. “This used to make sense,” Barry was saying, as he scribbled unintelligible symbols in red pen on the board. “Now I don’t know what it adds up to.”

“Oh!” Iris said, with her hand in the air. “I know what it is.” They both turned to look at Len, with eyes that could see into his wretched, rotten soul. “It’s him.”

He felt the bottom drop out of the ground beneath him. He was drowning in stars.

Barry shook his head sadly, pointing at the board. “You’re unbalancing my equations, Len.”

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Fic: There Was Happiness (And They Did Live)

2019-02-09T18:32:19Z

Day 1: I’ve Got Your Back.

Many thanks to thette for beta reading this!

Fandom: DC’s Legends of Tomorrow
Characters: Zari Tomaz, Mick Rory (other Legends briefly)
Words: 3048

Summary:
“Telling your story doesn’t change what happened. You know that.”
He looks back into the light of the time stream, his face still cast in shadow. “It’s not… stuck inside you anymore,” he says, slowly. “You bring it out into the light. Maybe it still haunts ya, but it can’t hurt so much.”
She grabs another donut, passing the box back. “Yeah,” she says softly. “And not just for you. For everyone who hears it, too.”

( Read more... )

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Writing Update

2019-02-01T14:00:59Z

- I posted the penultimate chapter of Mending Wall (my coldwave neighbourfic AU). ✅
- I've finished the FINAL chapter of MW and am now just waiting for my lovely beta/co-writer to comment, and then that will go up too. ▶️
- And then Mending Wall will be finished! This fic got me through some dark times in the last six months or so. I'm going to miss it. <3 The zamaya sequel is going to be fun to write, though.
- I never finished most of the Fandom Snowflake Challenge, but I still want to do a few more of them.
- I need to get working on the DCTV Gen Valentine's weekend - it's SOON. I've got one story turning into something nice, but for the other two I only have ideas...
- After that, I need to finish the prequel to the coldwestallen story (it's part-written) ↪️and get back to the coldatomwave series that I've barely started. And work on the Caitlin Snow/Lisa Snart/Amunet Black thing I've had in mind for a while... I recently realised I generally want a break from writing Leonard Snart, so that might help! (All my ships have Len in. It's something of a problem!)
- Out in the real world, I'm moving house, and need to start thinking about writing journal articles based on my recently-finished PhD thesis... Today there's snow on the ground, so I'm housebound (I can't wheel myself around on ice or snow), so I'm writing. It's nice to have a day when I can't do anything so I don't have to. As long as the snow is gone soon, so I can get back to clearing out my flat in preparation for moving!

Happy Imbolc to those who celebrate :) I need to clean my house and put up my Brighid's cross...

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Fandom Snowflake Challenge, Day 11

2019-01-13T16:48:30Z

In your own space, talk about your creative process(es) — anything from the initial inspiration to how you feel after something’s done. Do you struggle with motivation or is it a smooth process? Do you have any tricks up your sleeve to pull out when a fanwork isn’t cooperating? What is your level of planning to pantsing/winging it?

Great day to do this one! (I got about six ideas this morning and my brain won’t focus on the one I actually want to write…) I have two writing modes. One is “I have an idea and I must get it out before it kills me” mode, in which I can’t do anything until I’ve finished the damn story and it flows really fast. Being new-ish to a fandom tends to put me in this mode. The other is “pulling teeth” mode, which is how I’m currently writing most things - fighting them, and struggling through until they somehow (mostly) work.

I don’t have a consistent planning process. For some fics, I just put stuff onto the page till things stick. For others, especially longer ones, I do more planning and drafting. Mending Wall has involved lots of moving scenes around, for which Scrivener has been fantastic. If you write longer fics and you haven’t tried Scrivener, I recommend it. You can do miraculous things like shifting scenes around, putting them side-by-side on screen, duplicating scenes so that you can attempt a rewrite without losing the earlier form… It’s really great.

I do some planning in my Notebook of Doom too, since analogue writing sometimes gets the ideas flowing a bit better, for me - especially at the early stages. I’ve been listening to the podcast How Story Works over the past few months, and I’ve really got into the idea of setting goals for characters for every scene, and this works best as a quick snapshot on paper, for me.

I know that writing advice generally says just to get stuff down, and then to do all the work in rewriting phases, but that doesn’t usually lead to anything good, for me. I edit as I go (although I do also go back to rewrite and edit). Which makes me a slow writer, but it just leads to better writing, for me. Most of what I do involves playing with words until they work. I’m a poet masquerading as a prose writer. Which is also why I write little short things better than longer fics…

I’ve read a lot of advice that says to leave a story for some weeks between writing and editing. I wish I had that much patience! But there’s something to be said for giving things some space, so you can move from ‘writer mode’ to ‘reader mode’ and better see what might not work for readers. At this point I make lots and LOTS of comments. Scrivener is good for highlights and comments, but Google Docs is too. (I try to make comments from the beginning, too, since I don’t want to forget the random thoughts I’ve been having while drafting - they come in really useful for rewriting.) I’ve been trying out this tool called Pro Writing Aid on someone’s recommendation, and I don’t think I’ll end up paying for it, but it’s very handy for finding things I do all the time - like repeating words and phrases. (Oh god, my repeating phrases…) This is the stage where I try to fix all of that. And also try to ADD EMOTION. So that I can preempt 's thette 's comments to this effect.

Then we get to the beta reading stage, for which I usually transfer the fic into GDocs, if it’s not already there. I don’t usually need grammar etc help, but beta readers are so wonderful for highlighting sticky things in phrasing or the story that aren’t working (or are). Then some more redrafting based on beta’s comments, and it’s done! And if only it was this smooth and easy every time…
Notebook of Doom is doom-y. There are a lot of lists and categories. About EVERYTHING - from writing, to which days I need to do laundry. Even if I regularly forget to use it...

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Fandom Snowflake Challenge - in a very weird order

2019-01-13T10:19:56Z

I’ll be doing these in a weird order (I’m already late, after all), and cross-posting some to tumblr. Here’s my first: an attempt at Day 3:

In your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

From Angel: The Series - Angel’s fantastic speech on how “if nothing we do matters, all that matters is what we do”

I was never as big an Angel: The Series fan as I was a BtVS fan, but something about the overarching arc of Angel caught my imagination, and this scene summed it up. I was going through a lot in my late teens/early 20s, and while Buffy was an amazing piece of work in many ways, the whole ‘chosen one/cosmic plan’ arc of Buffy didn’t work for me philosophically, especially in the light of the experiences I was having. Instead, I loved Angel’s ethos that: “If there's no great glorious end to all this, if nothing we do matters... then all that matters is what we do. 'Cause that's all there is. What we do. Now.” The show bravely followed the consequences of that philosophy right up to the incredible ending, which (not to spoil a 20-year-old show) showed just how far people might be willing to go for such an altruistic, free-will-asserting ethos... Angel was far from a perfect show--but this it got right. <3

(Full transcript below cut)

( Read more... )

Crossposted to tumblr here.

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Writing Thoughts of the Day

2019-01-13T09:55:39Z

So I think the best way to deal with the brain gremlins that tell you you’re no good because no one comments on your fic... is just to write more. Probably. Hopefully... (I so admire those people who just ‘write for themselves’ without these gremlins. Unless those people are, in fact, entirely mythical. That’s possible too.)

So my coldwestallen hasn’t done great (based on comments - it’s done ok with hits etc), but I enjoyed writing it so much, so I’m still going to attempt the prequel. But I also have a couple of other things I need/want to write first (or soon). Including the final chapter of Mending Wall (note to self: never take breaks in WIPs - I have to reread the whole thing now - but at least that will be like reading a whole new story since I’ve forgotten a lot of it :D ) and the post-Oculus coldwave/coldatomwave that was meant to be for the last day of coldwave week but then there was Christmas and life got way too busy. And an ADHD Barry that I’m trying to make olivarry because it’s for a friend who loves them. And I’m doing some beta reading for a friend today too.

Hmm, maybe it’s ‘write in a cafe’ time!

Repeats mantra “I write for myself” in my head ad infinitum...

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Fic: How To Date A Supervillain (coldwestallen)

2019-01-11T13:27:40Z

My first full-length coldwestallen fic, and it looks like it's going to be a series (since this was actually the sequel of what I was trying to write...)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17370320

Series: Did You Miss Me (While You Were Looking For Yourself Out There). Technically part two - prequel to follow soon.
Words: 4920
Rating: M
Barry Allen/Iris West-Allen/Leonard Snart

Summary:

Leonard Snart reappeared in Central City a few months ago, seeking Barry’s help with strange new powers that he didn’t know how to control. In the process, he fell for Iris—and Barry.

Now they’re trying to get to know each other. But dating Leonard Snart was never going to be simple…

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So, I should post something...

2018-12-23T16:27:28Z

Here's the fic I've been writing for Coldwave Winter Week 2018. All rated Teen & Up.

Bleak Midwinter - for Day 2: Mobsters. Whump. Mick Rory/Leonard Snart; 1508 words.

A Cold Winter's Night - for Day 4: Gods/Myths/Legends. A coldwave fairy tale/winter solstice myth. Mick Rory/Leonard Snart, Cisco Ramon/Lisa Snart, and bonus Rogues; 7284 words.

I Won't Even Wish For Snow - for Day 6: Domestic. Mostly-fluffy; snowball fight! Mick Rory/Leonard Snart; 1617 words.

And I did a tiny triple drabble for Day 3: Supernatural. And Since We've No Place To Go. So very silly. Mick Rory/Leonard Snart; 300 words.

(Tomorrow's prompt will be about a week late, as it got complicated!)

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