icarusancalion

I missed the SGA Santa signups.

At first I thought I'd need to jump in on pinch-hits (and those go in seconds). I'm so rarely on LJ that I never saw all the usual notifications that sga_santa was in full swing.

But alyse switched things around so I could participate. Thank you! (I suspect she gave me the story prompt she was going to do or some other excessively generous act.)

This year I'm only doing two grad classes and working two days a week, so I have time to write. (Also, Thanksgiving in Michigan's been canceled--there's a story behind that.) And I've been missing writing.

I'd burned out after Out Of Bounds and Dragonlord -- especially Dragonlord, which was written for a Big Bang. I've found I don't do well with Big Bangs. I can do them. But I implode under the pressure of that tight a deadline. (Granted, I was supposed to start in April and didn't start writing until July. I'd turned a six-month deadline into three months.)

I've kept up with SGA Santa though, writing for it almost every year.

It seems everyone's moved to Tumblr from LJ.

Stories are now posted on AO3 instead of private websites and journals. The importance of the individual author has faded now that people don't follow personal journals to find the good fic.

The old fandoms like Harry Potter and Stargate Atlantis are still alive and continue in a desultory way. But most of my old friends have drifted. I hear distant mentions of the Marvel comics universe, Sherlock Holmes, manga and anime I've never seen.

Tried Yuletide. Assigned a great prompt. But being out of fandom, out of the habit of writing, isn't the time to attempt a random obscure fandom. I've an outline of that story and two scenes, but no more.

In the meantime, I've channeled all my creative yen into crafting. The OAR (Overly Ambitious Rug) is complete and plush. The cats sit on it proudly. I have several hand-knit sweaters, most of which are fit for wearing, some of which don't look homemade, and none of which have come out exactly as planned. I have hats that have come out perfectly, and socks that are comfy and wonderful-wish-I-could-knit-them-faster.

Didn't realize yarn was addictive. I've reached the yarn-stash point of "Oh, I forgot I bought that" and "Gee, what was I planning to make with this yarn again?" and "That's it, no more yarn until I finish more projects!"

Yet I get a fandom email every day... kudos on this story ... a review on that ... to remind me how much I miss writing.

SGA Santa, 2014. I'll see you there.

Ooooh, I was late for SGA Santa this year. But I'm done, I'm done, *sings* I'mdoneI'mdoneI'mdone!

My beta really liked it.

I started my reading for grad school early. I've a Young Adult book club for one of my classes, and who could resist?

So far, while I'm enjoying it, I'm not impressed with Divergent. Like the world-building and I'm okay with the occasional plot hole, but this author lost track of the facts of her story. The heroine guesses crucial information early on, and then ... is surprised when she learns that same crucial information? The Hunger Games was much better.

Still, Divergent encourages me to write. If a story with such major flaws could be popular, hey....

Signed up for SGA Santa after all. Plenty of good writers and old friends this year, including...

gaffsie
wickedwords
busaikko
tarlanx
taste_is_sweet
omg_wtf_yeah
rabidfan
goddess47
shetiger
sam_gamgee
mific
ladysorka

Good turn-out, this should be fun! *rubs hands together*

Oh my God. A fic. A whole, completed fic.


Title: Holding Patterns
Fandom(s): Stargate Atlantis
Author: Icarus
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: John/Rodney, Ronon, Teyla, Daniel Jackson, Jack O'Neill, Teal'c
Summary: Rodney's promoted, John's reassigned to lightswitch duty, the Jaffa have founded the new intergalactic Geneva, and home is not what it's cracked up to be.

A/N: Written for Ksen, who requested John Sheppard studying for the bar exam. Thanks to you and rabidfan for being there and helping me with grad school apps. All beta credit goes to rabidfan. If there are mistakes I probably added them in after the fact. Wow. I wrote a whole fic.

( 'Did you know that I was drunk for my second dissertation defense?' )

I'm a window washer outside your fandom.

( Why I haven't been writing. )

( Well, I've written these. But let me tell you why they don't count. )

Other than Dragonlord, my fics have been "surface stories."

There are stories that you pull out of your gut, that are saying something even if you're not sure what, and then there are stories where you're just diddling on the surface. Moving the furniture around.

( If that were okay with me, that would be one thing. )

So I'm the window washer outside your fandoms, looking in, while I'm working, working, working.

( Part of it is the company I keep. And the fact that the sky is falling. )

I find that without writing and creative work ... I starve. I left this temple, which I always loved, fifteen years ago because I starved here.

So I took today off. Cancelled chauffeuring Ani Samla. Rescheduled practice to Saturday night. And I'm taking time to write.


* i.e. became a closed canon.

Just read Dragonlord (SGA/Pern fusion, John/Rodney, R-NC-17 rating).

Well. Actually, listening to the soundtrack for Dragonlord lured me into reading the fic. Enough time has passed for me to see it as a reader.

Mostly.

It takes years for a writer to have enough distance to see their own work.

At first I still had trouble getting into it, seeing so many things that I wanted to edit. I hate exposition and there's more of it than I usually do (though exposition is true to the McCaffrey spirit!). One scene I wanted to cut completely (enname said I should, I didn't listen, and now, eh, I should've).

( Warning: spoilers and an author both enjoying and critiquing her own fic. Also, betas are always right. )

The ending truly got me. I wanted so much more. More Pern, more dragons, more Rodney, more feral, more with J'ohn and his father -- all of it.

*nods* It's a good story. And my fingers twitch to make certain changes.

Hi.

On a challenge from sarka, I've written a silly SGA fic.

Anyone available to beta?

We're baaaaaaaack.

One nice thing about the power going out: I got a lot of fics reformatted and ready to go back up on my website.

:D

P.S. Please, someone tell me not to write The Mentalist slash featuring Cho. Just. Stop me, okay?

All right, McSmooch amnesty is here!

http://sga-smooch.livejournal.com/

*crickets*

Am I the only one left in the SGA fandom?

Ficlet. Actual, official, beta'd ficlet. Has it been a while?

Title: The Scientific Method
Fandom: SGA
Pairing: Rodney/Radek
Rating: PG-13
A/N: Thank you to Rabidfan, IvoryGates, and Sian for the beta help. By way of explanation. I missed the SGA Smooch deadline, and I'm too impatient to wait for a whole week to post. I've starved you guys long enough.
Summary: "Don't do the clock! I hate it when you do the clock!"

( The Scientific Method )