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maychorianOkay, Christmas is what I celebrate, so here's a giant happy MERRY CHRISTMAS! to all of you on my f-list, and a very heartfelt HAPPY THURSDAY! to those who don't celebrate it, too.
I has some shiny links!
First, there is this video:
This song is "Carol of the Bells" or "Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)" by Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and this is what I listened to on loop (with a few other rockin' TSO songs) for the two or three hours it took me to write that fight scene in chapter 21. And this video, oh, it is perfect. Great clips and marvelous editing. Goosebumps. So many goosebumps. I don't know how many times I've watched it over the last few days. It's awesome.
Also there is this one, Good Night Demonslayer, which probably ought to be on the Entertaining Angels soundtrack: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06jsouuAW3s. Dragons to ride, indeed. (Full song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJYVAObTCVg.)
Final word count on Entertaining Angels: 41,378. First post: November 24, 2:10 PM. Last post: December 24, 12:20 PM. I wouldn't have won NaNo with it, but that's okay. Trying to make it to fifty thousand would have resulted in a bunch of padding and just dragged the story down. I think it's better to just let your story tell itself, rather than try to meet an artificial goal. Even as it is, I know there's some unnecessary wordage in the first few chapters (I feel it every time I reread them), and if this was for publication, and if I wasn't super lazy, I would go back and trim.
First things that happened in the course of this writing: First long SPN story that's not a crossover, first time writing a de-aging fic, first time writing Ruby, first time writing Missouri, first time writing Bobby, first time writing Uriel, first time writing powers!Sam, first time writing a character with speech problems, first time writing from a monster's perspective, first time receiving surprise gift art and vid and other things, first time I made a soundtrack for a fic, first time my palms were actually sweating as I wrote something (chapter 21, for real you guys, I was so nervous), first time I got myself in knots having a freakout about the story, was comforted by friends, and then immediately wrote a major plot point, first time I finished a 40k word fic in just a month.
Things that WEREN'T a first time: Sam and Dean annoyed and bantering with each other, Castiel (though first time writing him as a kid, obviously), Dean having dreams about Hell, a dragon fight (I use to write a lot of fantasy), someone taking a psychic walk through someone else's mind (Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan), a novel-length story with the classic plot arc of rising action, climax, and swift denouement (Candles Against the Sea was also like that, and so was my first original novel), major character(s) take care of a child (Candles Against the Sea again, though that was an OC), Sam and Dean being domestic and going grocery shopping (I dunno, I seem to have a thing about the boys going grocery shopping), cleaning up a child in a bathroom, surprise declaration of love from a child to an adult.
I'm really enjoying reading people's reactions to the endings, seeing who prefers one over the other. For the record, I think the first one is BETTER from a story standpoint--it wraps everything up and is very satisfying, and of course it fits with canon, since we know that when Show returns Misha Collins will not be replaced with a little boy who rides around with the Winchesters. But...but the second one gives me an AU where I can play, so I think I LIKE it better. (And yes, Dean and Castiel will so totally go swinging as soon as they get a chance.) I did feel like I had to write both of them, of course.
And yet I think maybe still my favorite bit in the whole thing was a conversation that was a complete surprise to me, just came out in the middle of writing. This one:
Sam startled when the Impala hit the rumble strip, rushing upward and blinking hard. “Wha’z that? Di’ we kill a lion?”
Dean almost choked on a guffaw. “No, man. We didn’t kill a lion.”
“It sounded like a lion. It was growling and…and shaking the car.”
“I promise you, not a lion. You ever heard of lions in Nebraska?”
Sam turned sideways in his seat to regard him seriously, his eyes wide and earnest and still partly asleep. “Anything could happen, Dean. It could have been a ghost lion.”
“Well, then, it would already be dead, wouldn’t it? Go back to sleep, dude. We’re still about half an hour from Bobby’s.”
Sam seemed to consider this carefully, then accepted Dean’s logic and rolled away to put his head back down on the window. “Okay. But drive safe, man. Don’t hit any lions.”
“No worries, Sammy. No killing the big kitty-cats.”
Sam’s answer was a snuffling wheeze, already fading off again.
(Gah to infinity, who knew sleepy Sammy could be so gosh darn cute?) It makes me think of the "Holy Crap, Lions! Tours" bus in that ridiculous flash loop: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/kenya.
(Where can you see lions? Only in Nebraska. Come to Nebraska, we've got lions.)
And wow, you guys, I am SO far behind on comments. I'll answer them all, I promise. I love andgloat over fondly cherish every single one.
And there, I'm done being silly. Time to wrap presents and take them over to my parents' house. Have a super wonderful day!
♥ you all,
Maychorian
I has some shiny links!
First, there is this video:
This song is "Carol of the Bells" or "Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)" by Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and this is what I listened to on loop (with a few other rockin' TSO songs) for the two or three hours it took me to write that fight scene in chapter 21. And this video, oh, it is perfect. Great clips and marvelous editing. Goosebumps. So many goosebumps. I don't know how many times I've watched it over the last few days. It's awesome.
Also there is this one, Good Night Demonslayer, which probably ought to be on the Entertaining Angels soundtrack: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06jsouuAW3s. Dragons to ride, indeed. (Full song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJYVAObTCVg.)
Final word count on Entertaining Angels: 41,378. First post: November 24, 2:10 PM. Last post: December 24, 12:20 PM. I wouldn't have won NaNo with it, but that's okay. Trying to make it to fifty thousand would have resulted in a bunch of padding and just dragged the story down. I think it's better to just let your story tell itself, rather than try to meet an artificial goal. Even as it is, I know there's some unnecessary wordage in the first few chapters (I feel it every time I reread them), and if this was for publication, and if I wasn't super lazy, I would go back and trim.
First things that happened in the course of this writing: First long SPN story that's not a crossover, first time writing a de-aging fic, first time writing Ruby, first time writing Missouri, first time writing Bobby, first time writing Uriel, first time writing powers!Sam, first time writing a character with speech problems, first time writing from a monster's perspective, first time receiving surprise gift art and vid and other things, first time I made a soundtrack for a fic, first time my palms were actually sweating as I wrote something (chapter 21, for real you guys, I was so nervous), first time I got myself in knots having a freakout about the story, was comforted by friends, and then immediately wrote a major plot point, first time I finished a 40k word fic in just a month.
Things that WEREN'T a first time: Sam and Dean annoyed and bantering with each other, Castiel (though first time writing him as a kid, obviously), Dean having dreams about Hell, a dragon fight (I use to write a lot of fantasy), someone taking a psychic walk through someone else's mind (Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan), a novel-length story with the classic plot arc of rising action, climax, and swift denouement (Candles Against the Sea was also like that, and so was my first original novel), major character(s) take care of a child (Candles Against the Sea again, though that was an OC), Sam and Dean being domestic and going grocery shopping (I dunno, I seem to have a thing about the boys going grocery shopping), cleaning up a child in a bathroom, surprise declaration of love from a child to an adult.
I'm really enjoying reading people's reactions to the endings, seeing who prefers one over the other. For the record, I think the first one is BETTER from a story standpoint--it wraps everything up and is very satisfying, and of course it fits with canon, since we know that when Show returns Misha Collins will not be replaced with a little boy who rides around with the Winchesters. But...but the second one gives me an AU where I can play, so I think I LIKE it better. (And yes, Dean and Castiel will so totally go swinging as soon as they get a chance.) I did feel like I had to write both of them, of course.
And yet I think maybe still my favorite bit in the whole thing was a conversation that was a complete surprise to me, just came out in the middle of writing. This one:
Sam startled when the Impala hit the rumble strip, rushing upward and blinking hard. “Wha’z that? Di’ we kill a lion?”
Dean almost choked on a guffaw. “No, man. We didn’t kill a lion.”
“It sounded like a lion. It was growling and…and shaking the car.”
“I promise you, not a lion. You ever heard of lions in Nebraska?”
Sam turned sideways in his seat to regard him seriously, his eyes wide and earnest and still partly asleep. “Anything could happen, Dean. It could have been a ghost lion.”
“Well, then, it would already be dead, wouldn’t it? Go back to sleep, dude. We’re still about half an hour from Bobby’s.”
Sam seemed to consider this carefully, then accepted Dean’s logic and rolled away to put his head back down on the window. “Okay. But drive safe, man. Don’t hit any lions.”
“No worries, Sammy. No killing the big kitty-cats.”
Sam’s answer was a snuffling wheeze, already fading off again.
(Gah to infinity, who knew sleepy Sammy could be so gosh darn cute?) It makes me think of the "Holy Crap, Lions! Tours" bus in that ridiculous flash loop: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/kenya.
(Where can you see lions? Only in Nebraska. Come to Nebraska, we've got lions.)
And wow, you guys, I am SO far behind on comments. I'll answer them all, I promise. I love and
And there, I'm done being silly. Time to wrap presents and take them over to my parents' house. Have a super wonderful day!
♥ you all,
Maychorian
