HT Murray

I'm actually editing our bigbang fic. Yay! :S Anyway, as I go about it, I like to break it down into nice, beta-sized chunks that I think will approximately be the actual post-sized installment. As I'm looking at this fic, trying to find a place that's both at least a little hooky to get the reader to click on the "Next" link and also at a decent spot to make a good-sized post, I'm reminded of a post I read just after Dreamwidth started out in which a reader was lamenting the fact that people posting on Dreamwidth and cross-posting to Livejournal still had to break down their stories into little bits in order to fit in a Livejournal post, even though you can apparently fit 50000 words in a Dreamwidth post.

So, now I'm thinking. I haven't really asked my cowriter about this, so this might all be moot and come with a giant Hell to the NO stamped across it. But here's what I'm thinking. So far, our bigbang draft is 27000 words, with all my clumsy editing notes in it. And I'm thinking with all the rewriting it could easily cross 30000 and if I'm really inspired with the backstory could actually hit 40 or 50 by the August 12 postdate. I could theoretically post the whole thing on Dreamwidth in one post and link back to it here.

Problem is, most of the readers are primarily on LJ. So, I'd want to have comments only on LJ. I could do that by a)putting the comment link in manually and linking it back to a comment page on LJ or b)posting the last bit of story on Livejournal and having people comment there. All of this depends on what readers prefer. I kinda like stories that are broken up into parts, because it gives me a good place to take a pee break and not have to find where I left off. But I guess some people actually hate that. So, here's where you can tell me what you think.

Also, I'm in the middle of compiling a soundtrack, which is constantly evolving as I rework scenes and see the tone change. Ever since I first discovered mp3 player widgets I've wanted to experiment with putting songs into the story that way, so the reader could play the song I'm actually hearing in my head as the scene unfolds. Only problem is, those widgets take up a lot of character space, so drastically decrease your available space for words. So, I don't think I'd do it on LJ. But maybe on dreamwidth? I haven't actually checked to see if those things even work on Dreamwidth so that might be a lost cause anyway. But the major drawback I see is that not everyone reads at the same speed, so they'd have to be able to shut the stupid thing off if they are reading along and come to the next widget before the last one is finished playing or the widgets would have to be spaced out quite a bit to assure there's no overlap. Some people just like to download and listen to the songs whenever they want to, but that doesn't always end up being the way I envisioned it when I wrote it, and well, it's illegal, ya know? I feel a twinge of guilt, yes I do.

So, um, there's a question about that, too.

Hopefully the polly thing works, if not just a quick opinion dump about word length and fic music would help me out a lot. I'm about to unplug from the internet and go somewhere less distracting to write. Sorry for the spammage. :P



[Poll #1409834]

We gather not to bury Caesar, but to...

Angst over our bigbang story and how it ties in to the show.

chocca2 and I have been tossing ideas back and forth for awhile now. Basically, the story is written, but the backstory is not. And given the way that Season Four ended, it's very important to us that we keep Sam a sympathetic character, despite what we plan for him to do in the story. So, the backstory, to me, is important. And I do plan to infuse it into the story once I figure out what it is.

So, we need help from all of you, since you'll be the ones reading it. Okay, so most of you probably won't given that it's a Gen story, but you can still help us with the characterization, or at least keep us from doing something you'll absolutely hate.

I tried to create a poll, but it would not post for me. I sent the code to my dear cowriter, and she posted it for me. Yay!

So, um, Everybody loves a poll! You know you wanna clicky. Only a slight spoiler for the story. Spoilery if you haven't seen all of season 4 yet. Also, some fun speculation questions about SPN that you might like even if you don't read the story .

C'mon, you know you wanna! Please? *puppy eyes*

It's open to everyone, since the reveals and artists are already in place. Feel free to peek.

I'm not going to do a big reveal "Voila this is my bigbang summary" post. I just feel weird about it still. So protective of this story, and to be honest totally afraid for it. I haven't even read any of the other summaries. I do not want to know. LOL.

But I will have you know I AM a thousand words into the J2 AU fic I mentioned the other day. Somehow, it's become, Jensen's a hairdresser going to business school so he can get his Dad's backing on his own salon, and Jared's the "housekeeper" Jensen hires through an internet site called UndertheRug.org. Jensen's an abstinent homosexual (read virgin) and really thinks Jared's a housekeeper, and Jared is nervous as hell because he's usually expect to perform sexual favors on these gigs, and he's never had a male client before. BWahahahahaha! I'm such a dork. This is angsty crack. And I even like Danneel in it.

P.S. Can anyone tell me what's the correct way to spell Danneel's name?