To be announced

The trouble with writing an epistolary story is that it's all done in letters.

yes. I said that. I said that today. it's because of that plotbunny I was talking about - and now that I've gotten my first official plotbunny in like AGES I declare them evil, evil. I couldn't wait for the actual text of the book, so I've gotten started by using a sparknotes guide. it's not like I'm going to absolutely rewrite the story, I just want its bones and its opportunity to write the way I knit - a new challenge or technique to learn.

so I'm writing an epistolary fic. I'll post it on elaine_swan when the time comes.

but the thing about writing an epistolary story is that it is a form of omniscient, by definition. because in order to read a story contained entirely in letters, somebody had to have gathered and arranged those letters into a pile for us to read - whether the method of those letters being collected is explained or not.

I've opted for not. it doesn't matter how the letters came together. what matters is what's in them.

to tell a story in letters, that means that every character in the story has to have at least one person that they can trust and confide in about things that happened, and believe that the other person is going to give a fuck about what is written. there's also the problem of narrative gaps, which is also an advantage - you are not expected to describe the tapestries and every course for breakfast. there's also the problem of familiarity - if you are writing a letter to someone about someone else - and that someone is known to the adressed, describing them is going to look stilted. it's easier to just get to the point.

I've discovered already that it's possible to drop a letter - I already wrote a bit where the addressed had to turn around and write someone else about a letter they just recieved. I dropped that letter, and just wrote the reply, and on re-reading it, I think it works.

I also am a binge writer - I dashed off 2511 words so far today. letters. not totally in order, so I'm not ready to post anything just yet, and I have to decide - a post per letter? even though they are sometimes quite short?
or, should I arrange them like the book in Exchanges?

Wool production was a cottage industry up to the 18th century. Then a dude made weaving more efficient with the invention of the flying shuttle. Other weavers who didn't invent this came to the inventor's house and wrecked his shit. The inventor of the flying shuttle died a poor man in Paris, after being screwed over by rich people who stole his design and refused to pay him for it.

Now that weaving was efficient, spinning had to follow suit, or else there wouldn't be enough wool thread to weave. So the spinning jenny was invented and it increased the production of thread. Other spinners who didn't invent this came to the inventor's house and wrecked his shit.

The inventor of the spinning jenny got screwed, too.

Demand increased for cloth, and so a dude came up with a spinning machine so big it had to be housed in a separate building powered by a water mill. But he had the economic protection to maintain the water loom as his property. The workers couldn't profit off it because the machine was too big to fit in their homes. They had to come to his factory to work. Other spinners who didn't invent this came to the developer's factory and wrecked his shit.

But the developer had already made enough money to patent his machine and open another factory somewhere else, and then another factory, and then when the time came he had enough money to open a huge steam powered mill (but that's later in the story.) So he didn't get screwed. So far the moral of this story is that it does not pay to be original.

But still there was more demand, and so a dude invented a loom that would weave even faster. He invented the power loom, and even set up a factory like the dude who developed the water frame, but he was an inventor of all kinds of stuff, so that meant that he would have to go broke too. But the government awarded him a nice sum of money in recognition of his invention, since he was a gentleman, so it cancelled out the dying ignobly and poor that usually happens to people who have the misfortune to invent things that change the course of history.

Yet another dude who did not learn from history invented the spinning mule, which combined the best features of the spinning jenny and the water frame spinner. But he was poor, so he got screwed out of his invention by a rich textile manufacturer who gave him fuck all for the secret to his invention, and set the spinning mule up for himself, since the inventor couldn't afford to. But other spinners who didn't invent this came to the manufacturer's factory and wrecked his shit, thus keeping up with tradition.

Cotton became popular and for a time cotton weaving was a cottage industry in resistance to the economic hegemony of linen and wool manufacturers' attempt to keep the fibre out of their land. But trends can't be bucked, and cotton demand went even higher. So the steam engine, a parallel invention that wasn't quite safe to use when it was first invented, was improved enough to operate cotton looms. so all the home based weavers were screwed into coming to factories to work for a factory owner instead of for themselves.

And they didn't have unions back then, comrade. raise your glass and shed a tear.

(I wrote this as part of my background notes for developing worldbuilding. all names have been omitted because I'm a lazy git.)

How do you write something with somebody else? how do you collaborate on a written work?

I don't know if it's because I don't play well with others or what, but I simply can't figure out how two people could write one thing...

Happy Birthday, quietspaces!

NaNoSlashMo:

44,540 / 25,000 (178.2%)

Words added to: Time Comes Stealing On. Yes, I *know*. I'm a shameless fic starter. but this one is nearly almost finished. It's funny how these things morph away from me - I was trying to write the ultra-smut, and I ended up with some truly hilarious moments and some mushy stuff instead. I'll try to redeem my Queen of Smut! reputation by the finish.

I've also decided that Harry/Draco is my OTP. (hangs head)

ETA: Finished! and I updated the wordmeter to reflect that. once again, if HPSlash is your thing and you want to read it, just let me know and I'll send.

page by page rewrite-o-meter:

7 / 30 (23.3%)

In the traditions of all rewrites, this puppy is swelling. I'm a page ahead in my revision version than I am in the original.

( Oh and I said I was going to talk about stew. )

37,960 / 25,000 (151.8%)

New Words added to: A Thousand, and a Hundred More

I really should be doing a rewrite of a short story, but I'm still goofing off.

Besides, rewrites don't contribute to my NaNoSlashMo word count. s'there!

anyway, I have to rewrite a story from 1st person to 3rd person. It's been recommended to me that I open two word windows side by side and white papre rewrite the story.

I already tried going into the story and changing the POV, but on man that is SO not working. the problem is that 1st gives you nearly seamless internalizations, and --believe it or not, I didn't realize this - just changing the pronouns mean that you end up with this WEIRD omniscient, yet distant effect.

( check it out: )

Eh? Eh? Well looky -

NaNoSlashMo

30,900 / 25,000 (123.6%)

Thing is it's all over the place for slashes in progress and stuff like that. heh.

Words added to: Lights Out, Look For the Sky, as yet unnamed fic

25,440 / 25,000 (101.8%)

that's it, that's the whole fic. I need a better title than "I wanna take you to a goth bar" but I have finished the draft of the story with the longest sex scene EVAR.

any HP shippers want to read it out of curiosity or urge to beta, I can send.

I don't have a metric right now, but I have a spare moment and I'm stealing it to do a quick post.

I've always scorned NaNoWriMo. I've loudly proclaimed that I wasn't going to do it, oh for the last four years now.

This November had seen me at a period where I hadn't written anything for months. months, I swear. I'd tried to pick up on the novel i'd been sulking at for years - and I got some words in that I hated and so I quit and went back to not-writing.

so me and the sekrit cabal ended up observing NaNoDruWriNi on the last friday of october (because they were going to WFC), and I pounded out a few words on a "useless" fanfiction project.

It was fun. and so I drunkenly declared NaNoSlashMo, decided to go for a lesser word count goal, and got hit with a plot bunny that's gotten me nearly completed my 25,000 words by the middle of November.

And it is fun. and I'm learning so much from combining the highly scorned literary practices of writing fanfiction and writing porn.

( Mostly, it's an exercise in character. )

21,260 / 25,000 (85.0%)

Lots more today. out of the angst, and straight back into the smut! whoooo!

more NaNoSlashMo:

12,850 / 25,000 (51.4%)