where his civilizations, including our own

maidenjedi asked questions #5 & #15 about Oil, an X-Files genfic from the POV of the black oil alien, written in 2003.

5: What part was hardest to write?

I remember going through many revisions of the last few paragraphs. Knowing what note to end a story on is critical, and since this fic is so weird it wasn't easy. Some of the obvious choices for thoughts to end on wouldn't have worked. The main character as we've known it essentially ceases to exist by choosing to give up its individuality, but doesn't die. There's no concern for what happens to Krycek because in this POV humans are not very relatable. The alien doesn't end up caring much about those things. What stirs its emotions is something we don't consider a "being" but more of a process — Earth's water cycle — because the alien also exists as a process, so it feels kinship there. I considered that the heart of the story and wanted to leave the reader thinking so too, but I had a hard time putting it into words in the way I wanted, and was repeatedly told by beta readers to stop overexplaining and trust that readers would get it. As usual, they were right.

15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

A lot. I had so much less experience in writing at this point that I was still improving by leaps and bounds with every attempt. I remember bardsmaid patiently explaining how less can be more — how too many details are cluttering instead of clarifying. This took time to come to grips with ("what, you mean I have to take whole sentences out? but I just wrote those!") but became key to my writing style and process.

It was also a lesson in not being too wedded to early ideas or too proud to change them. The story actually has its roots in a piece of original fiction I wrote to Keladry's offhand prompt "The Life and Times of a Cherry Coke", which explored the concept of what it would feel like to exist as a liquid. I actually submitted the story to some literary magazines that published oddball stuff and was turned down. Fortunately I was able to overcome my dented ego enough to have the thought that maybe the story didn't work, but elements of it could still be salvaged and made into something better, and eventually that grew into "Oil".

The reason "Oil" works where the Cherry Coke story didn't is that intriguing concepts and pretty descriptions alone weren't enough; they needed a compelling character and situation, and something at stake. The oilien storyline in XF met that need perfectly and gave my earlier ideas direction, and to follow that direction I had to give up my attachment to something I'd already worked on to the point of submitting it profesionally, and be willing to basically start over. We all know you're supposed to kill your darlings, but I think this marked a turning point for me in putting that advice into practice.

More to come! 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.

Oh man, I haven't posted in a while, have I? Real life was doing a number on me, not in a bad way, just in a busy way. I am going to get to all those December meme prompts, too, but first... the Kinky Kristmas reveals post is up at daily_deviant, so I can say that I wrote this, to songquake's delicious prompts:

Pomona Sprout and the Five Points from Hufflepuff [AO3]
(NC-17, school-age-but-probably-legal Pomona/Minerva, kinks including tickling, teasing, and embarrassment)

Speaking of which, I found an embarrassment of riches in my fandom_stocking! There seems to be a glitch right now where I can't comment there without it being screened, but rest assured I love my gifts and deeply appreciate everyone who took the time to make something for me, including but not limited to:

- State-Transition Function by sineala (ST:TOS, Uhura gen with linguistics!)
- Your Move by moontyger (WoW, Anduin/Wrathion with UST!)
- For the Horde by hannelore (WoW, Thrall & Vol'jin gen with barely-subtextual D/s!)
- An Introduction by smallbrownfrog (HP, Luna/Minerva pre-femslash with Gilbert & Sullivan references!)
- Outstanding by chokolattejedi (HP, Hermione/Septima with power play!)
- Krycek and Scully art from ani_bester and another Krycek art from tarlanx! *rolls around in XF nostalgia*
- Uhura art from trobadora! Uhura! ♥♥♥

I really meant to do all kinds of things for this fest, but what actually happened was I signed up for it and then promptly forgot about it until the deadline had, in fact, passed. I suck, I know. Next year I'll do better. But due to the technical problems that delayed the fest going live, I managed a few icons for people, at least, and one ficlet, which is so tailored to hannelore's interests that it might be incomprehensible to anyone else, but here it is anyway:

The Terrible Secret of Warsong Gulch
(G, Venture Bros., 21 & 24 friendship)

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

I normally never look at celebrity gossip news or know who the people are, but I saw the name Doug Hutchison and it rang an odd bell. If you're like me and you don't pay attention to such things, he's an actor who's in the news this week for marrying a 16 year old (he's 51).

He's better known now for being in The Green Mile, but I first heard of him when he guest starred as a serial killer on a couple eps of X-Files, a couple decades(!) back. I was a preteen then and watched the show regularly with my friends, most of whom were my age, but one was an older girl of about 16, who we knew because she was in my friend's choir, I believe.

Now this girl had a huge crush on Doug Hutchison after his appearances on the show, and she wrote him a fan letter. He wrote back -- not a polite form letter, but a warm and personal note. According to her, they continued writing back and forth for several months, and he wanted to meet her. When I heard of this, I was skeptical and wasn't sure if she was perhaps just making it up for attention, and when I asked whether he realized she was just a kid, she said something like "he says age doesn't matter to him and I agree with that".

This was not a close friend, like I said, so I have no idea whether any of this was true, or if it was, whether they ever met. I haven't seen her or thought about this in ages. But, um... yeah. Just saying that was a thing that happened.

o_o

Happened to click onto flambeau's XF fic page, and for a glorious moment it was 1999 again. Between the hysterical intensity of being 16 and the searing joy of finding out fandom existed, that's where I read those stories. Even then I knew that I wasn't going to have the pleasure of this discovery again, and I had the sense to savor it. I'm so glad I can remember!

maidenjedi wrote me a Krycek/Marita ficlet and it is totally perfect and might possibly have made me squee. In a grown-up sort of way. *cough*


And omg, people, did you see nopejr's three awesomely hilarious HP ficlets? Took me right out of a horrible mood and made me laugh like a loon.

I think what appealed to me about this meme was talking about our "personal fanon" for a character, which to me is different from what you may have written about them in your fics. Sometimes I'll write different versions of a character too, not explicitly or even noticeably, but in my mind they have differing histories. But certain things are just what I irrationally believe about a character because I've decided it, so to me that IS what happened. They can be major plot points or just uninteresting details that somehow stick.

The easiest character to think of answers for was also the one whose fandom I left the longest ago.

( Alex Krycek )

( Peter Pettigrew )

( Argus Filch )


Oh, I don't have time to do any more now. I'll do the rest later. When I do them they have a tendency to want to become stories.