More on Out Of Bounds....

[icarus]

My beta is out of town this weekend. *Icarus clings to perfica's leg, "Nooo, don't go!"*

No, no, that's just what I thought. In email I managed a gracious "Have a nice trip!"

To encourage further progress on the figure skating AU, Out Of Bounds, some statistics --

Total word count on Out Of Bounds at this point: 63,000 words.

Word count one month ago: 37,000 words.

Amount of this waiting in the wings, not yet posted for public consumption: 8,128 words.

I'm skipping all over in this next section. Some extra scenes have popped up. One major one. I spent the day studying the physical training figure skaters undergo.

I have a performance of John's to write. Two on-ice training scenes (these are the two that are giving me trouble, mostly a research issue and because of Rodney). One off-ice training. One non-figure skating scene.

I want to call this five scenes, but reality would call this a clutter of scenes. A chaos of scenes. There are other little scenes cutting across these, and then there's John and Rodney's relationship and...

Need to rewrite two falls. In skating there are falls and then there are falls. There are the falls that are the usual, "Gosh, that was a hard move, whoops, didn't make it." And then there are the serious, "Holy fuck, this is a disaster" falls. Somehow, I have to describe the difference.

Comments

[rike-tikki-tavi.livejournal.com]

And then there are the serious, "Holy fuck, this is a disaster" falls.

Meeeep! Nonono, don't you hurt John. Poor little woobie.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

*laughs*

What makes you think it's John?

Icarus

[enname.livejournal.com]

Pity it is much easier to know that feeling when falling, rather than describing it. You know it even before you really have started falling, the stomach just bottoms out and .. hello slow motion living.

You have managed a very impressive production of wordcount there and I am glad you have gotten around some of the larger humps you ran into.

Perhaps a 'flock' of scenes? Now, I should go and read the latest update you posted for the story. I want to test my own cold war knowledge. :P

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Hah. Well, this isn't the part where one needed much knowledge. But, I needed to hit the right note.

This is a fall that's being watched from the outside. It's not John, and it's not Rodney.

[cheshyre]

Are you reading Book 7?

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I just finished it.

Care to chat? I'm in Y!M at icarusancalion.

Wow.

[dunv-i.livejournal.com]

It's usually visible to close watchers why a fall happens. A good coach will usually reach in to try and save the faller. And they always freak out the worst when they aren't there to catch them or, even worse, miss.

And as for the difference, I'd say it's more of a, "Crap, that didn't work" type fall, and the "omg wtf happened" type fall.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is very helpful, thank you.

:)

[perfica.livejournal.com]

Have no fear! I have returned. ::pulls up on white horse::

How those fancy new scenes going?

[roaringmice.livejournal.com]

I don't know if this helps your research, but Evan Lysacheck does good "oops" falls. He falls, gets right back up, and goes on. Of course, his Olympic short program was more along the lines of "OMG wtf happened?" Poor kid.

And for a "oops?" type fall, you could check out Todd Eldredge at the 2002 Olympics, in the long. He actually landed his quad toe, and fell on the double after it. His face in the kiss and cry was priceless. He looked a cross between stunned and bemused.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

That will help actually, quite a bit. Thank you.

Icarus

[roaringmice.livejournal.com]

Todd's especially, because he'd only decided to do the quad at the last minute, during the warm up. I think actually landing it shocked him so much it threw him off his game for the next, much simpler, jump.

[rosewildeirish.livejournal.com]

Also, a lot of the difference, IMO, between the two falls is recovery time. A bad fall has the sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide and a bit of flail in trying to recover and get up, in addition to the crack of landing hard. Where the legs are, whether they can be untangled easily or if they're still crossed/tangled when the body comes down on them...hope that helps.

Todd also had a really weird fall in the warmup of one competition (Skate America, maybe?) where he fell - not on a jump, but just tripped as he was skating, and slid into the boards, hitting them hard enough to partially dislocate his shoulder. You can see the pop back into place on the ice - he kicks it in pain and Uncle Dickie (Button) misinterprets it as a fit of temper. Funny and horrifying all at the same time.

Todd did compete, skating last, I think.