Author: Jadesfire
Reader: Sunquistadora
Rating: G
Fandom: Rivers of London

Summary: An anonymous tip off, a suspicious household and a lost magical item. Peter can’t help but think that there’s something fishy about this situation.

Length: 42:38
Notes: Cover by Sunquistadora

This was my first year taking part in Pod Together, and I’ve been involved in some awesome projects. As someone who mostly consumes Rivers of London via audiobooks, being able to write something specifically to be read was awesome. I love how this came out, which is how I heard it in my head, and because lo, I am lazy, I set it in the part of London where I grew up, and had a strange trip down memory lane.

This is one of 7 projects I took part in for Pod Together, so more links to come through the week!

To my considerable surprise, I posted a fic to my AO3 account this morning. Okay, it's under 700 words, but it's a whole, complete fic, written in about 20 minutes from a prompt. Looks like these things really are like riding a bike.

In case you haven't seen it, let me recommend the community comment_fic to you. It feels like old-school LJ, with a daily theme post, the chance to leave prompts, and plenty of people leaving fills and feedback. I like that it's multi-fandom (but LOTS of SGA prompts, interestingly), and that it's low-key. I'm going to try and put something in there each day, even if it's just a few hundred words of fluff. The point is to build the habit up again, not to write Star Wars: War and Peace.

Link to fic:In the Silence
Fandom:Star Wars: The Force Awakens (includes mild spoilers for the film)
For the prompt: Star Wars, Han Solo & Poe Dameron, The man who taught him how to snark out of trouble.

Although apparently I'm in a melancholy mood at the moment, because I took the prompt in a somewhat sideways direction. Nice to know I haven't lost that habit either!

merlin_redux reveals are up here!.

My story was The Last Secret, header below, and a few thinky thoughts on the whole thing under the cut. This fic took a lot out of me, and being able to claim it and talk about the writing process is hopefully going to mean I can get on with my life writing my Paperlegends fic.

---

Title: The Last Secret
Rating: PG
Pairing(s): Gen. Background Arthur/Gwen, but focus is Merlin&Arthur friendship.
Word count: ~50,700
Warnings: Moderate violence

Summary: All confidence which is not absolute and entire, is dangerous. There are few occasions but where a man ought either to say all, or conceal all; for, how little so ever you have revealed of your secret to a friend, you have already said too much if you think it not safe to make him privy to all particulars. Francis Beaumont

Merlin has rescued Arthur from Camelot before it fell to Morgana, but when he is forced to reveal one secret, the others come tumbling out as well. Balancing his responsibilities as dragonlord, sorcerer and king’s manservant has never been easy, but doing it all at the same time is going to take a lot of work.

And there is always one more secret to be told.

Notes: Includes dialogue from ‘The Sword in the Stone’ and ‘The Diamond of the Day’, although the story itself is a fork in the road from ‘The Sword in the Stone.’ I hope that I’ve managed to include at least some of what my prompter wanted for their story. I also learned an important lesson while writing this: when in doubt, add more dragons.

With endless thanks to donutsweeper and thalia for putting up with my complaints, re-drafts and endless flailing. I could write another 50,000 words about how awesome they are, but suffice it to say without them, nothing. Remaining mistakes are all my own work.

Read it here on AO3

[When I have time, I will get around to splitting it for LJ, but I'm not there yet.]

---

There's quite a lot of text below the cut, but my overriding thought after the whole thing is this:

If I've accidentally written 50,000 words (yes, it was an accident, I swear) for a fest with a 1,000 word limit, what on earth kind of word count am I going to end up with for Paperlegends...

( Lesson learned #0: First, take your dragon... )

And finally...

Lesson learned #423456: When in doubt, write.
You'd think I would have learned this by now, but no.

The thing I find really, really effective for writer's panic? Writing *something*. I'm rarely so blocked that I can't put any words down at all. What does happen is that I reject everything I start within a few paragraphs, which is, in many ways, more depressing than just not writing at all. But it works, because 8,000 rejected words later (no, I'm not kidding), I hit on the story I want to tell, and it all comes rushing together and things just start to flow.

And then, it's worth it.

I'm not entirely sure about this, but I'm posting it anyway, because if I don't get up the courage to start with the prompts, I'm not going to find it anywhere. Also, I have a job interview tomorrow, and it's hard to concentrate on questions like "why do you want to be a librarian" when you've got this going around in your head.

This one is for apiphile who wanted Sherlock in the Wellcome Trust library. She also wanted Sherlock as a minor character, he sort of muscled his way to the front. Hopefully the sentiment is right, though.

And yes, the beginning was inspired by my recent macro, for which I make no apology, on the basis that librarians are people too. Oh, and for the whole thing, I had this song stuck in my head, which you should all go listen to, because it's from an awesome musical.

Maybe I can get back to my interview prep now...

---

Title: KM500
Words: 2,670
Rating/Warnings: G/only for library jargon.

Notes Title is the Moys classification for Criminal Law. Because I really am that geeky.

The library in this fic is sort of the Wellcome Library, which really does have books with these titles.

( KM500 )

Work is like a madhouse on speed right now, so instead, this post is brought to you by slight embarrassment.

I flaked out of Remix this year due to brain-fail, but luckily for me, my Remix partner didn't. And when I say lucky, I mean lucky. At the reveal, I honestly and truly refreshed the screen 4 times, because I couldn't quite believe I'd been matched with topaz_eyes. You have to understand that there's no way ON EARTH I would have posted any fanfic anywhere if it hadn't been for Topaz, who held my hand in the very beginning and has been a friend ever since. Seeing her name come up the top of my Remix was a real 'woah' moment.

Anyhoo, before I embarrass her any further, she remixed my Doctor Who story The Man in the Mirror, giving Martha more than just a voice in the story. She talks more about it in her journal, so I'll let her explain, but it's a seriously awesome Remix. Martha has always felt to me like the character the writers forgot, and yet she has so much potential. Topaz really, really, really brings that out here.

You Can Run But You Can't Hide (Your Reflections Only Follow Remix) [LJ-link. It's also on AO3]
Rating: PG
Summary: They'd both been out of sorts since 1913.

Go read it and tell her how awesome it is. I'm toying with the idea of writing a commentary on the original if anyone wants it, or if I find the time. It was one of my 'must write' stories, where I watch something and just have to respond. I'm intrigued to revisit it with some more thought now.

This is how the Universe Ends by googlebrat and perryvic.
Torchwood/Discworld.

This story achieves the rare trick of catching Pratchett's tone - that mixture of funny and lyrical that is utterly Discworld to me - while being absolutely Jack. And the ending doesn't let you down, which is also a rare trick for this kind of thing. Can't recommend it highly enough.

The Fires In Their Eyes by norgbelulah
White Collar/Supernatural (pre-series, sort of Neal/Kate/Dean, maybe)

What I loved about this one was the languid tone of the story, and Kate. They're all just kids, really, and that slight bewilderment, slight detachment and unrealness of kids in an adult world really comes across. It's the first really sympathetic portrayal of Kate that I've read, and it's definitely one I want to base my own version of her on. As regular readers know, I'm primarily a visual person, and with this fic I could *see* everything so clearly, it was like watching it on the screen. Fabulous descriptive writing and wonderfully in-character.

Sometimes, an idea just won't let go. Waaaaaay back in March, donutsweeper wrote a really sweet Supernatural Weechesters story called Another One For the Book. At the time, I had a short discussion in comments about what would go under each letter. Most of the time, I don't think any more about these conversations, but for some reason, this one stuck.

So I decided to make The Book (capital letters compulsory). As you do. And because insanity loves company, I roped rustydog in to give me a hand. The result is some kind of hybrid between fanfic, meta, fanart and a labour of love. Certainly it took me long enough to put the basics together, and it took forever for the parcel to make its way across the ocean so that Rusty could finish it off and send it on to its final destination with Donut.

Below the cut is the story I wrote to go in the front of The Book, along with an album of pictures to show the making process. Rusty performed sterling beta duties as well as providing the original art work for the book.

Special thanks must go to nightdog_barks who sent me a huge bundle of newspapers which provided both a useful source of cuttings for The Book and a slightly alarming (for a Brit) insight into Southern US culture. I'm not used to seeing so many adverts for churches and I'm not used to seeing any for guns! Anyway, the papers were essential to the making of the book, and enable the whole project to get off the ground.

---

Title: The Book
Author: jadesfire2808
Artist: rustydog
Words: 1,044
Rating: G
Genre: Gen
Spoilers: 4x17 It's a Terrible life

Summary: It was one of the few pacts that neither of them had broken, ever. Mostly.

( The Book )

After a week, this cold finally seems to be actually getting better, instead of pretending to get better, then knocking me over when I try to do anything. Which is good, because I've got lots to do today before I go on holiday \o/ I can't wait!

The last few days have been wonderfully uneventful, what with pretty much going home and going straight to bed, so all I've really had on my mind has been what I'm packing for Menorca. The physical stuff is easy, but trying to choose fic to take is much harder. I'm definitely putting in the tardis_bigbang complete PDF, and most of the stuff from my "fic-unread" tags at Delicious. But as for anything else? Looks like I'll be paying a visit to the crack_van

But it also got me thinking, what would be my 'Desert Island Fics"? Eight fics and one podfic (the programme does 8 music + 1 book, so that seems fair) that I would take to my desert island.

Man, that's a hard one. ( Right, let's see... )

What about you guys? What fics would you take to a Desert Island? What fics and podfic should I take to Menorca? I seem to have missed so much lately!

I keep forgetting to post over here, but the journal isn't dead, just dormant. Crossposting is not my strong point, apparently.

Anyway, the following contain Torchwood: Children of Earth spoilers.

My semi-coherent reaction post at torchwood_meta.

And fic under the cut. 700ish words, Jack and John Hart. Gen. More or less. Honking great spoilers for 'Children of Earth'. Posted to the_hub.

( Because plot holes bug me )