where his civilizations, including our own

gracerene asked question #10 about Heat Wave, a Sirius/James fic from 2005. (And yes, actually remembering the writing process might be tough on some of these, but I'll try!)

10: Why did you choose this pairing for this particular story?

It was for a fest and the pairing was specified in the prompt ("Sirius/James, Dom!Sirius, bondage, drawnout pleasure until James can't take it anymore. Playful, cocky, smirking Sirius"), so why did I choose this prompt?

I got interested in James/Sirius after OotP, which really shifted my mental image of the Maurauders. Since PoA there had been a fannish assumption, which I shared, that Sirius and Remus were the closest friends (possibly already in a relationship), and James was the leader. To me, OotP changed all that. It seemed clear to me that Sirius and James were the ones who were close, both from the way they interacted in the flashback and the fact that Sirius went to live with the Potters; his living with Remus or Peter was apparently never even considered. I also realized that Sirius was more of a leader type than I'd thought, and that to some extent James was taking cues from him, which makes the way the Prank played out make a lot of sense.

In light of all this, pairing them up began to seem a lot more interesting. I know I'd already started to write some J/S fic but hadn't gotten very far, and seeing this prompt was serendipitous since it gave some specific direction to stuff that was on my mind but still kind of nebulous. If the prompt had been Dom!James I doubt I would have taken it, because what I wanted to write about had to do with Sirius having the dominant role in their friendship and that dynamic progressing into a sexual relationship. Sirius feels like James will follow him anywhere and keeps pushing it further, and this prompt fit that concept perfectly.

And I mean, yes, I know it's a PWP and maybe I wasn't completely successful in getting all this background out onto the page. But it's what I had in mind when writing. There's still a small part of me that thinks I'm going to finish the other fic in this universe that I started on, because there's more I wanted to say about this pairing and what I thought would happen as they got older and realized there might be places they weren't comfortable going with it, not sexually but emotionally. (I remember an astute reader commenting with distress that they never kiss... There's a reason I wrote it that way.)

Anyway, that's one down. I'll have to get to the rest of these another day! And if you want to check out the rest of the questions or pose one of your own, the original meme post is here.

Crossposted from Dreamwidth. Feel free to comment wherever you're comfortable.

I wrote a thing for the daily_deviant 11th birthday comment fest:

Once (R, James Sirius/Lily Luna)
Prompt from tryslora: It'll be okay, just this once, right?


You too can fill prompts, or read fills, or whatever floats your boat!



Both members and watchers are welcome!
Click the banner to go to our birthday card!

Crossposted from Dreamwidth. Feel free to comment wherever you're comfortable.

What a great hp_halloween it was this year!

I got this sweet & lovely drabble from my sweet & lovely wife:

The Moon And I (PG, Luna/Hermione) by _hannelore

And I had the privilege of writing again for my friend dexstarr:

The Fall (G, Narcissa, Andromeda) [AO3]

I would encourage anyone who has some time to check out the entries if they haven't. Since they're all double drabbles it doesn't take long, and there are some real gems. Every year I'm amazed at the depth and beauty writers are able to pull off in 200 words.

Crossposted from Dreamwidth. Feel free to comment wherever you're comfortable.

The masterlist for severus_snape's annual fest is up! I wrote this ficlet:

By Now Should Be Antique (G, Filch & Snape) [AO3]
Argus doesn't know where Snape comes from anymore.

It's just a little thing, but I was pleased to be able to contribute. ♥

Crossposted from Dreamwidth. Feel free to comment wherever you're comfortable.

Today is the last day to sign up for hp_halloween! It's an exchange for 200-word ficlets, so the commitment is minimal, and such a fun variety of things always get written.

I really owe an update here, and replies to a bunch of people. I'm hoping to get caught up next week, health permitting.

Crossposted from Dreamwidth. Feel free to comment wherever you're comfortable.

As much to remind myself that I need to come up with some prompts for these as for anyone else's awareness:

- minerva_fest, in its fifth year, is taking prompts for this year's fest.

- And the (surprisingly) brand new comm dracomalfoy is starting a fest for Draco's birthday.

I love character-centric fests because the possibilities are so open. Write a favorite pairing? Write a brand new pairing that's never been seen before? (Minerva/Draco???? :O ) Write some gen? Yes, yes, all of the above!

Crossposted from Dreamwidth. Feel free to comment wherever you're comfortable.

Since the new X-Files miniseries was announced, I've been thinking about what it's like being in fandoms with open vs. closed canons.

I've always struggled with writing in open fandoms, particularly TV fandoms, because I felt like there was never enough time, even during the summer hiatus, to finish exploring the existing canon before there'd suddenly be more and more and more. It wasn't only a matter of getting jossed, but also of feeling overwhelmed by how many things were happening to the characters, and spending so much time mentally processing the stories I was being told (and discussing them with other people in fandom) that it was hard to focus on writing my own. This is a large part of the reason that I didn't start posting XF fic until a few months after the show had ended; for the first time, I could write it without feeling rushed or fearing that the rug would be pulled out from under any story I came up with before I finished it.

( Cut for length )

What do you guys think? Do you tend to be hungry for new canon or do you like a long hiatus to focus on fanworks more? Do you stick with fandoms after the canon is closed or do you tend to move on to something where there's new material to look forward to?

Crossposted from Dreamwidth. Feel free to comment wherever you're comfortable.

The Salt & Pepper fest master list is up! I wrote:

But Not Narrow (PG-13, Hermione/Ron, Hugo/OMC) [AO3]
Naturally, Hermione is completely supportive when Hugo comes out of the closet. It's a bit more of a surprise when Hugo returns the favour.

I loved writing this. The prompt, from sdkshelly, was about a middle-aged Hermione figuring out that she is not straight, a concept that I was instantly drawn to. There were so many ways to go with it that I was actually a little overwhelmed at first and had a hard time settling on just one idea. But when I found the right one, the story just seemed to write itself, which is extremely atypical for my writing process, and was a pleasant change. :P

Meanwhile, I am sick as a dog, and have been for over a week. I keep thinking I'm getting better, and then it's like... nope, not even close. I can't really complain too much, because since I quit working in retail I get sick very rarely (money and people are filthy, it turns out) but I'm certainly looking forward to feeling better soon. :\

Crossposted from Dreamwidth. Feel free to comment wherever you're comfortable.

I'm not sure I've ever recced a fanpoem before, but stuttermoan's Neville-centric sonnet Mum and Dad (G-rated) is quite a good one. It picks up the theme of Neville's forgetfulness and links it to his parents' loss of identity in a very sensitive and multi-layered way.

Wait, I think I have recced a fanpoem before... Yes, I had to go find it: fat again (Teen, Sirius/Remus), a free-verse poem in the style of cummings, written many years ago by bowdlerized, whose presence in the fandom is sorely missed.

I wouldn't mind writing some poetry myself, but I wouldn't know where to start. I only know how to do prose. When I read a good poem it's like a magic trick — I don't know how they're doing it!

Crossposted from Dreamwidth. Feel free to comment wherever you're comfortable.

Now that I've claimed my severus_fest fic, if you go to my AO3 page you may notice something interesting, which is that I have posted exactly one hundred Harry Potter fics.

o_O

For some people this might not seem like a lot, especially considering that I've been in the fandom since 2003 (yikes), and it includes some drabbles and filks, and even my longer stories are short by most people's standards, BUT STILL. I write very slowly and leave a lot of things unfinished, so for me this is an accomplishment.

Here's some stats. Humor me.

Total word count: 124,115 (which makes the average fic wordcount 1241, of course)

( Characters written (not including OCs): 62 )

( Top 10 most frequently written characters )

( M/M pairings written: 30 )

( Het pairings written: 17 )

( Femslash pairings written: 12 )

( Pairings written more than once: 5 )

Here's to a hundred more? Well... maybe. I've been in this fandom for a long time, but one of the reasons for that is that the dizzying variety of characters makes it hard to get bored. Even with all those fics under my belt, it's not at all difficult to think of interesting things I haven't written yet.

Reaching my bicentennial might take another twelve years, though.

Crossposted from Dreamwidth. Feel free to comment wherever you're comfortable.