jadesfire

It's been about 4 years since I wrote the longfic that kind of broke me. I mean, I've written other fic, and even other longfic since then, but I was so unhappy with it that I lost a lot of confidence, and when I rushed through the next couple as well, I very much decided that I didn't have the sticking power for longfic any more.

Then I wrote a 35K friendship!fic and may have found that I do after all. One thing that helps is posting slowly, one chapter at a time, so I have a week from posting the first chapter to polish the last. I don't think I could ever start posting without knowing that I've finished, but as my big weakness is 'last chapters' (they tend to get rushed due to my poor relationship with deadlines), having a week to play around with phrasing, but only a week, suits me well.

All which is to say: fic!

It's technically Critical Role, but it's a ground-up AU, so you can read it without knowing much about the characters, I think. Most of what you need to know is in there already. I know most of you folk aren't interested, but I like to have a complete record of my writing here, so I thought I'd post it anyway.

Chapter 1 of 8 is up, and I plan to post a chapter a day for the next week or so.

Title: A Plant of Slow Growth (Chapter 1/8)
Author: Jadesfire
Rating/Warnings: G/None
Fandom: Critical Role
Pairings: None, although hints of canon pairings
Notes: Inspired by awesome art by @applecakeart. Huge thanks to @blackestglass for the beta, encouragement and hyphenation.

Summary: When dragons attack Emon, Keyleth turns to an old friend for help. But while Percy is willing to give them a place to stay, Keyleth is sure that there’s more going on in Whitestone than he’s telling them.

or

The AU where Percy and Keyleth have been friends since childhood, which changes everything and nothing.

Crossposts: http://jadesfire.livejournal.com/606003.html

More fic! A teeny-tiny Burn Notice fill, because it made me sad that hardly anyone had posted today. The theme is myths and legends, and the prompt is nobody believes Michael Weston could have been one person

---------

In other news, I am trying to find a 70th birthday present for my uncle for next week. He doesn't want presents, he doesn't need 'stuff', and my initial plan of buying a bridge book from 1946 has been stymied by the cost of postage from the US.

I have, however, been utterly delighted by some of the random titles I found on Ebay. Including "Medical Electricity for Massage Students."

My new challenge: work that into a fic somehow. Has to be done!

Two more snippetty things written for

comment_fic. Because apparently I write better with a word limit.

Protector
Fandom: Supernatural
Summary: For the prompt: Dean Winchester never had a baby brother; Sam is essentially a projection of Dean's own conscience.

Survivor
Fandom: X-men First Class
Summary: For the prompt: someone who dies in canon, doesn't.
Author's note: Written because that bit makes no sense.

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!

I am stupidly nervous about doing this, because the only thing worse than taking prompts and not filling them is asking for prompts and not getting any at all.

But. *deep breath*

The Jadesfire Fic Shop is open for prompting. Fandoms available include:

~ Doctor Who (not seen last series, but any up to there),
~ Torchwood/Jack Harkness (not Children of Earth or Miracle Day, though)
~ SGA
~ Criminal Minds
~ Sapphire and Steel
~ Sherlock
~ Merlin

Crossovers with Discworld or other fandoms you know I know are welcome, and for those of you with long memories, I'll consider Sic Transit Tempus prompts, although I may have to do some catch-up reading first ;)

Any prompts you like - pictures, words, lyrics, scenes, anything at all. When I try to write at the moment, I can almost heard the wheels in my head creaking with all the rust, so any help you can give me to oil them would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

So, yesterday was An Bad Day. Today is shaping up a little better, which is ironic considering I got 2 hours less sleep and can't sit comfortably on my work chair. Both my lower back and my hip are hurting, and every time I adjust for one, it sets off the other. Note to self: hot bath tonight, but be careful not to poach yourself again.

Otherwise, my life is exceedingly dull and I kind of like it that way. I'm up to date on my work, a supplier is taking me, my boss and a colleague out to lunch today, it's sunny and I have another free weekend. My three current projects are only a few hours away from completion each, which means they now look like I've actually *made* something, and I've got pretty things coming from eBay to make more.

( I have been doing some thinking about writing, though )

Hope everyone has a more comfortable day that mine is going to be! Everyone got exciting plans for the weekend?

I'm uploading all my stories to AO3, which is time-consuming but gives me an off-LJ back up that isn't fanfiction.net, which I like. The imported formatting doesn't always come out right the first time, but mostly works okay (or I've found a way to make it work), and I LOVE the collections feature. So far, apart from the

tardis_bigbang collections, I've made one for 'Five Things' fics, which I write quite a lot of, and one for drabbles, which is handy.

I also like that you can specifically say "my story doesn't require warnings" or "I chose not to put warnings on here: caveat lector". OTOH, I write a lot of Jack-fic, so I end up checking the "Major character death" box, catching myself and unchecking it. To misquote myself, I don't think it counts when the casualty gets up and walks away.

The last few days have proved just how reliant I am on Jack as a writer. My

help_haiti fic was going nowhere fast until I switched to his POV. It's still proving slippery to pin down, but I'm doing so much better now he's central to the story. Jack Harkness: the little black dress of writers as well as fandoms.

I'm possibly doing too much of this right now, but I'm seriously considering asking the AO3 team to add him as a fandom of his own, because there's so much back-story/alternate story/non-Torchwood and non-Doctor Who fic out there.

ION, I'm also trying to use my Dreamwidth account a little more, without having any plans whatsoever to leave LJ. I figure if I can juggle three email accounts, 2 LJs, a blog and two Twitter feeds, one more journal isn't going to make that much difference. Ah, Firefox plug-ins. Where would I be without you?

~ Livejournal has made the banner green this morning. It's slightly disconcerting *prods it*

~ Thank you very much to the Anony Mouse who sent me a sugar bunny. Nom :)

~ It was sunny as I walked in to work this morning, but it's clouded over now. We had proper thunder and lightning last night - I had an incredible view from my window of a single bolt, bright and really quite scary (I let it blow over before leaving work, since I have a paranoia about umbrellas being lightning conductors. It's a thing). As long as it rains while I'm in the office and is clear when I leave, I don't really mind too much.

~ I think most of you know this already, but just in case (because it came up in relation to yesterday's White Collar fic): I always welcome concrit and corrections to my stories. Always. If I disagree, I'll say so, but especially if it's a factual error, please, please tell me. They're normally fairly easy to fix without interrupting the flow of the story, and I hate the idea of putting people off because of a small error. Comments are ♥, especially when people take the time to help.

~ I'm pretty much decided that I am going to sign up for

whitecollar_bb, and probably for Remix as well. I won't be eligible for Yuletide this year, and I like multi-fandom fests, so it'll be fun to sign up for something big like Remix. Apparently I'm all brave this morning, and am trying to work out if I should lie down until the feeling goes away.

I have a work schedule and I'm not afraid to use it - if all goes to plan, I'll be able to finish my 'to do' list by 5 o'clock. *rolls up sleeves* Better get to it.

How's everyone's Friday looking? Plans for the weekend?

Current Mood: okay

There's been a WIP meme going round, and since I actually have some at the moment, I felt the need to share.

Also, I'm considering signing up to RemixRedux this year, just to see what happens. I wasn't going to do any challenges this year, and write just for me instead, but it turns out I suck at that, so I'm back to my deadlines/fear approach that has served me well in the past ;)

No context to these, just snippets of stuff that I may or may not finish. Some of these have been loitering in development hell for at least 18 months (so turned up in the last WIP meme), but maybe putting them down here will help me to either get moving on them or finally give them up as a lost cause.

( Four fandoms, and I'll leave it to you to work out which is which )

...okay so there are more there than I realised, and in the back of my notebook, I also have a Sapphire and Steel story with a mcguffin that I'm too proud of to abandon, then there's a collaborative fic that I'd love to find time for again. Then there's the

tardis_bigbang,

atlantisbigbang and

whitecollar_bb, none of which are started yet. The latter is only a 10k limit, and with the plot bunny that came with one of these WsIP, that should be more than do-able.

*whimpers*

Anyone have a brain they could lend me?

Happy Ada Lovelace Day! Head over to the website here and check out some of the awesome women in technology and science. I haven't had much of a chance to do proper reading around yet, but I heard Maggie Aderin-Pocock on Desert Island Discs a few weeks ago and was instantly smitten. She's an astronomer, an instrument maker and a communicator (brilliant article by her here) as well as sounding like an all-round lovely person. If I get a chance later on, I'll add her to the map on the Finding Ada website :)

Otherwise, it's another dull, grey morning here, which is making me long for spring to actually get going. On the other hand, one of the consequences of that will be the clocks going forward this weekend, and I'm not that keen to lose an hour's sleep :S

I've been trying to work out if I haven't been posting because I've got nothing to say, or if it's because I've got too much to say and can't work out how to cram it all into one post. You know what it's like when your head is all full, and everything gets mangled when you try to write it down?

So what *have* I been doing?( Going to talks )

( Going for walks )

Also, we discovered ( the amazing power of furniture )

One slightly disconcerting note is that I'm more or less up to date at work. I mean, I have odds and ends that I'm mopping up, but if I can concentrate today, by 7pm when I leave here, I'll have done...well. Everything. I'm starting to get nervous about what I've forgotten.

Fortunately I have lots of other things to keep me going, and most awesomely of all, I've been writing. My inspiration dried up completely about this time last year, and although I've put out dribs and drabs since then, the urge to write went away almost completely. Ironically, since starting to crochet last November, I've found the urge returning (oh, get your minds out of the gutter :P) and have three or four WIPs that I don't actively hate right now. \o/ The relief is incredible, and at this rate, I should have my

help_haiti fic done soon.

Which reminds me, please could someone point me in the direction of good White Collar fic? I'll take OT3 but, as usual, would prefer Gen. I'm gradually reading my way through the AO3 collection, which is pretty good, but would love to find some proper 'caper' stories or episode-style fic. Yeah, yeah, I know, I've lit the landing lights for the flying pigs already...

What about the rest of you? Everyone okay out there?

Current Mood: relaxed

I have written today, although it's scaring me a little. Just over 300 words of original fic which is kind of giving me palpitations and makes me happy at the same time. It sucks, of course (see icon) but I can see something of the shape of it now, and how to stitch up what I've got so I can go on. We'll see what happens.

Other than that, it's been a very quiet day. We did hold a 2 minute silence, and we did ring the bell for it, but I'm not sure how many students twigged what was going on. Apparently it's hard to tell in a library :( But we knew, and that's what counts.

One excellent thing at the moment is that my eating is getting right back on track. Regular ~~listeners~~ readers will know that food is one of my big Bete Noirs, and this last week has been horribly hard for it. Cooking some really nice meals seems to have been the key to getting me back on track, as well as some panicked calls to J when I'm out on my own and Just Want Food. Whether I'm hungry or not, whether I'll enjoy it or not, I don't care. I get it into my head that I must eat or... Well, I don't know what will happen, but I won't like it. Anyway, I've been leaning heavily on J and eating the yummy food he's been cooking and I'm starting to feel like I might be able to handle this after all. Possibly. Some day. Remind me to type up the kheema curry recipe for y'all, because it's fab, cheap and great comfort food.

Next week is shaping up to be...stressful...so I'm going to need my new-found eating Zen. On the plus side, since we probably won't be able to go out anywhere, I should get lots of writing and recording done. Always a silver lining. Also, my mother is coming to Oxford and bringing me a crochet hook and some yarn. ALL my friends knit, or so it seems, so it'll be nice not to feel like the odd one out. Which reminds me, another excellent thing was my lovely lunch with said knitters, a regular occurance that has rapidly become the highlight of my week. Ooh, and I got my first book through Book Mooch so that was also awesome. And I even did some work ;)

So yes, all in all (and appart from gross over-use of the word 'so'), it's not such a bad week after all.

What about everyone else? Is it all downhill to the weekend now?

I'm still trying to catch up on comment replies, but that might take me a while. My brain is still on a 'go slow' today, brought on by constant dreams last night which have left me worn out this morning, and the awful, horrible weather which is making me want to crawl under a blanket and not come out again. Under the circumstances, being busy should be good, but I'm not coping so well. I've got lots of easy, interesting things to do, but I still look at my list and want to cry. That's just daft, because seriously, everything on that list is totally achievable, and quickly, and then I get to cross things off, which will be AWESOME.

So, I'm writing in an attempt to pull myself out of my own head (no ear bleeding so far, you'll be pleased to hear) and remind myself that I do exist.

~ Last night's lecture was on EU law, which was...er...honestly? Not as dull as it could have been, but when even the lecturer is apologising for the content, you know you're in trouble. Still, she was a good speaker, knew her stuff and I learned some things about what the Lisbon treaty actually *means*, although don't ask me what until I've had a chance to read my notes again.

~ I like being allowed to sleep in on a Tuesday morning. Only an hour or so, but it makes a huge difference after all the travelling on a Monday.

~ Despite extreme cravings, I got through yesterday without having to resort to junk food, even though the soup we made at the weekend didn't turn out very well. So, oh wise and knowledgeable flist, do you have a favourite soup recipe that you could give me? It's not something I've ever really got the hang of, so while I can make pasta sauces from scratch using my imagination, I don't really know where to start when it comes to soup. I prefer thin soups to thick ones (broths rather than thick 'leek and potato' type things), but I eat most things!

~ Because I know this is relevant to some friends' interests: Get a free Evolution wall poster (UK-only, sorry, although if you really, really want one, I might be persuaded to post one overseas).

~ I'm still ploughing my way through the Eighth Doctor Audios, ( cut for vague spoilers, especially for The Natural History of Fear )

~ In terms of writing, I wrote an SGA ficlet off a drabble prompt (for which I'm sure I'll be forgiven) and prodded a few others that refused to cooperate. I'll get the drabbles cleaned up for posting later in the day, along with the ficlets. Both are SGA, actually, which seems to be a fandom curiously resistent to drabbling. I've only ever managed one which is not like me. A couple of the prompts have me utterly and unusually stumped, so I'm going to give myself until the end of the week to get them done, then declare defeat. I have an idea for an original fic that I offered someone at the Fandom Free For All, and I'm hoping once that's out of my head, other stuff will start to flow. Don't hold your breath, though...

~ Speaking of feeling blocked, I really want to write something with Hugh, but my brain keeps freezing. Sic Transit Tempus readers who know what I'm talking about, would anyone care to throw me a prompt/scenario/wild idea? I'm all at a loss.

~ Tonight is slightly nuts, since I have my slimming world group THEN people to dinner, but at least I have something resembling a social life at the moment. Of course, it's not helped by my sore throat and slight sniffle that I'm desperately hoping won't turn into a cold. I don't have time to be ill right now!

So that's me, folks. How's everyone else doing? Better now Monday's over?

Current Mood: overwhelmed

To be fair, J is actually rehearsing a presentation for a job interview tomorrow, but it doesn't change the fact that the screen's the one getting talked to, not me.

Flushed with soup-making success this evening (easiest thing I've made in WEEKS and utterly nom-worthy), I decided to flick through the flist before washing up, and was reminded of

reel_torchwood. I totally, totally, honest to goodness don't have time to write a Torchwood version of a film. But. One of the things I have sometimes felt Torchwood is lacking is 'whole world' AUs. There are lots of fix-it/fork in the road stories, but not so many putting them in totally different situations. Admittedly I went straight from Torchwood to SGA, which breeds AUs like horny bunnies, but still. I decided I would be looking forward to the fics from here, and that I would have a look at the list of prompts, just to see who was writing what (yes, Chrys, I know about yours ;)).

It was all going so well.

Seriously, I am NOT going to write a Cabaret, with Jack as Sally and Gwen as Brian. Ianto is not the MC, definitely not, Owen is not Max and Tosh is not Natalia.

I'm not writing this *whimpers*

VAGUE SPOILERS IN COMMENTS TOO! enter with care.

( Spoilers for Children of Earth: Day Four (and there's a spoiler space between that and the point outside the cut, just in case) )

In other news, the name "jadesfire" is now up for grabs since the journal has been deleted and purged. That's the name I wanted 3 years ago when I turned up on LJ, and I only added the numbers because I had to. I'm considering buying this journal a birthday present in the form of a name-change token, but it looks a little...sparse...without the numbers. Definitely one to ponder.

Current Mood: thoughtful

My head is still a mess at the moment, so I have vague hopes of actual content somewhere in the not too distant future. In the meantime, I've been doing a little housekeeping.

I was going to say I wrote nothing in June, then I opened a whole bunch of tabs, so apparently I write even when I don't think I'm writing.

( The List )

That's 6 ficlets, just under 2,500 words in total. Not too shabby.

Then, of course, there's my

tardis_bigbang entry, which was written over a few months so I'm not sure it counts towards my June total.

Nothing Else But Change
27,000 words, Jack, Gen.

( Thinky thoughts and why I love this story and wish I'd written it differently. Including thoughts about Jack, philosophy, getting back to basics and the lasting influence of Buffy the Vampire Slayer )

Wow, that went on longer than I meant it to! Thoughts, feedback and concrit is welcomed and encouraged for 'Nothing Else But Change'. I knew what I was going for, but was aware I didn't quite hit it. Anything that will help me get there next time would be much appreciated.

This...isn't really the Housekeeping post I meant it to be, but I got a bit carried away and it's now time for coffee. Maybe now I've got it out of my system I'll be able to post about what I *really* wanted to post about later on.

Hope everyone's having a good day *waves*

Current Mood: working

We have lift off! The front page is here, from where you can link to everything else. We also have 45 stories and gajillions of pieces of art (which may contain spoilers, just so you know), which is all kinds of awesome.

My work? Well, just a brief link for now and more details and squee tomorrow. But I've now been at work for nearly 12 hours and am kind of ready to go home. Admiration for artists will also be expressed tomorrow because DAMN these guys are good.

Nothing Else But Change
Torchwood (pre-series) | PG | gen | 27,000 words

Everything changed, everything moved on. Everything except Jack.

Betas:

rustydog and

donutsweeper
Notes: My gratitude to my betas cannot be textually rendered. They have held my hand, passed the tissues, corrected grammar and typos, forced me to write better and made sure that I had everything I needed to write this. It's not possible to thank them too much, for services above and beyond the call of duty or friendship. Remaining deficiencies are all my own work.

Art is by

in_the_bottle and

jhava and is just...well. Click through to the story and you'll see why it's so awesome.

Right. Home now. Catch y'all tomorrow.

Under the cut is my

cliche_bingo card. Yes, I signed up. What? Below it is my current writing schedule.

Seriously. Eye-rolling only, please. No yelling...

( This way to the cliches! )

Does anyone know if/how it's possible to turn my Bingo card into something with clickable links? I can obviously write an html table for it, but if someone has a quicker way, that'd be awesome *bats eyelashes* I'd offer to write you something in return, but my schedule's kind of full...

With thanks to

zippitgood, these instructions here work like a charm. I did replace "kinkmap" with "clichemap", but otherwise, do exactly as they say!

Added to that, I've put the coding you'd need for an html table here in my journal. Your choice!

Since she said it was okay to post this to comms, I'm assuming my journal is also okay. [let me know if it's not, hon, and I'll take it down]

If you're having a quiet Sunday and fancy some sweet little ficlets, head over to

miss_zedem's, where you'll find a multi-fandom kissing fest in progress. My own comment-fic is here, and is just a tame little NCIS thing (Abby/McGee), but the fest open for more kissing throughout the day (and beyond, I assume)

Click here for the main post and some major kissage :)

It's my turn to post links to

writers_lair this week. With great difficulty, I managed to post a fairly short (for me) list, which can be found here.

There are more lurking in my Delicious account, but they'll have to wait until I have a smaller pile of papers on my desk...

I'm having a listy kind of day:

#1. I have now spent 2 days ordering books in languages I don't speak and some I don't even understand. Serbian is the hardest to spell, Romanian resembles Italian more than I had realised and a surprising number overall are in English. We've now ordered from 46 countries. Just over 60 to go...

#2. Because it's Friday and I abandoned common sense some time around Wednesday lunchtime, I've signed up for

spn_summergen. Sign ups close tomorrow!

#3. You lot are no help at all when it comes to deciding what to write. Apparently I should start the NCIS one first, but only just. You're wonderfully enthusiastic, thanks, folks. It actually helps an embarrassing amount. This is a terribly against-the-grain thing to say in fic-writing circles (they're probably going to take away my pencil sharpener), but I do actually write for other people. Not for the comments (although I won't deny my utter delight in them), but because I hope the words I put down will entertain someone else as much as they did me. I don't write to order, but I do write to give pleasure to others as well as myself. The stuff I write just for myself? That stays under private lock. Anything public was written because I love to entertain, I love reading and I love the thought that what I wrote might just be the right story at the right time for somebody else. For me, it's like sending a postcard or letter or email to someone, except it's to a wider audience. This no doubt makes me an unbearable egotist, but that's just how I feel.

Anyway, my current deadlines are lining up nicely. Far enough apart that I'm not under too much pressure, close enough that I've got the drive to get them done:

22nd May -

team_sga (yes, this is the pirate fic)
14th June -

tardis_bigbang final draft
19th July -

bau_bigbang first draft
1st August -

spn_summergen (from a prompt that I'll get on 1st June)
16th August -

bau_bigbang final draft

Looking at that, I won't be doing the SGA Big Bang this year unless there's a prompt that compells me to write. Given my current ambivalence to SGA, that's highly unlikely, plus I want to write my Bibula Harena sequel at last.

#4. We now have a confirmed artist for every story at

tardis_bigbang. This makes me happier than I can say. *twirls*

#5. It's nearly the weekend! We have almost no plans, although I do hope to get most of the housework done tonight so that I can write most of tomorrow. This sounds like a good plan :D

How's everyone doing? Plans for the weekend? Something that I must/read see following the SPN and Criminal Minds episodes this week? Anyone for tea? *swirls pot*

[I'm still cross-posting to dreamwidth and have 4 invite codes if anyone wants/knows anyone who wants one. Friends of friends welcome :)]

Fic: A Plant of Slow Growth

(no subject)

Comment fic

New fic!

(no subject)

FRIDAY!

Yes, it's been a boring few days. How can you tell?

Things for Friday

Because I promised you spam, and you know you'd be disappointed otherwise

In which I am even more random than usual

Checking in

Lists are so much easier to structure than paragraphs.

If I'm chatty it's because my husband is talking to the computer instead of me

Because I know nothing until I've said it out loud

Housekeeping

So much fic, so little time...

No one is allowed to shout at me. ducks

That Sunday afternoon feeling

Swift links

"You know Indian's Bend." "I don't know, I've never bent one."

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