The Omnivorous Geek

Yeah so I have a ton of coding to do and whatever. And what I am doing? Writing one. last. scene. Which is probably going to turn out to be the size of a short story instead, at least several thousand words. yaaaaaaaaaaaaah. I may be posting late tomorrow instead of first thing. That's okay, right?

Also, there was a van fire in the parking lot of the cafe across from my workplace. It happened right around lunch time, so I took my reheated leftover enchiladas outside and watched it burn. Very exciting. I never realized how long it takes the fire trucks to get there, even when they're only five minutes away. It feels like forever. It made me think of John, sitting on his car with his baby sons in his arms, watching his house burn. I wonder how long he had to wait before the fire trucks arrived. Not that it would have made a difference for Mary, but I wonder how horrible that felt, alone with your tiny sons, watching your life burn down in front of you.

The stink of burning upholstery and plastic was overwhelming, all that black smoke, the paint blistering away from the sides of the vehicle, turning white and ugly as the bad half of Harvey Dent's face. And when the fire hit the gas tank there was just this pop and sizzle, no exciting explosion. We stood there outside the building with our cell phones and took pictures.

So yeah, that was interesting.

Also, I refuse to miss out on Monday night RPG, even though it would be smarter of me to stay here at home and work on BB. I miss my friends, dang it. It's been too long since I hung out with a squad of nerds. So yeah, I'm taking off now, but Jimmy and Sammy are still talking in my head. (Well, Sammy thinks it's Jimmy.)

( snippet at Sammy's schoolground )

It's going pretty well.

Coming Down on a Sunny Day

( So yeah...guess who seems to be the main character? )

These notes contain spoilers for the story. If you think you might have issues with the story, please read my warnings on the master post and PM me with any questions, or comment anywhere, whichever you're comfortable with.

I had an army of help on this project. I'm going to have to come back and fill in names later, when I'm not at work and sneaking time in order to finish this up, because there were just too many of them. I had wonderful alphas reading my google doc rough draft to keep me motivated and point out mistakes, people like just_ruth and hereare_mysins, who were perceptive and excited and helped me immensely. I had amazing betas who pointed out details and helped me polish the final draft, like bellatemple, who questioned just how consecrated a movie theater would be and therefore prompted me to write that scene with Jimmy-Castiel warding the school, and roque_clasique, who will be my kissing consultant from now on. Naturally, all remaining mistakes belong to me.

And, of course, many, many thanks to samibee, who was an absolute joy to collaborate with. Her art is completely gorgeous, and I adored getting to see all the different stages of her work as she sent me update after update during the very short turn-around time she had. She's incredibly talented and I feel like I hit some kind of a jackpot in getting her. Thanks, Sami. You're the bomb. ♥

As my flisters are well aware, because I've been nattering about it for months, Coming Down on a Sunny Day is an AU of an AU. I've been writing the Rain Falling Down 'Verse since last July. It's sprawling and over-ambitious and very much a work in progress. It also took an unexpected turn in the very first chapter, as Bobby Singer's utter awesomeness completely obliterated my plans. Don't get me wrong, I love it, but I hadn't planned for it. Coming Down on a Sunny Day is a return to the original concept, which I've been kicking around in my head since I started thinking about doing Big Bang last year.

And yes, there will probably be a sequel. I'm not done with the original Rain 'Verse, either.

The writing of this story has also take turns I didn't expect. It's stretched me as a writer and forced me to move outside my happy gen-only comfort zone, especially toward the end there. I didn't expect Jimmy to become the main character. I didn't expect Amelia to steal my heart. I didn't expect John to apologize (seriously, John, really? Since when?). I did expect Dean to be a smartass and Sammy to be adorable, but maybe not quite how much they were both of those things.

In other ways, I've stuck with a lot of familiar themes that my readers have seen me writing ever since I first propped up my shingle in the Supernatural fandom. Family. Childhood. Faith. Recovery from trauma. Demons, angels, exorcisms. You know, the usual. I hope I keep it fresh and interesting, but my opinion isn't the only one. I value any feedback or concrit you have, no matter how you choose to give it. Anonymous comments are welcome, too. I do have a somewhat silly, sarcastic Comment Policy, but the short version is: If you want to comment, comment. If you don't want to comment, don't. All feedback is loved and squished and called Bunny-Lumpkin-Foo.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy reading this story even half as much as I enjoyed the process of writing it, because I'm telling you, I enjoyed it a lot.

Fandom: Supernatural
Title: Coming Down on a Sunny Day
Characters: John Winchester and sons
Length: 14 songs, 51 minutes, 45 MB
Summary: Songs that Jimmy likes, mostly of the rainy/folky variety
Author's Note: I used my very, very basic graphic skills to make these covers using pieces of samibee's beautiful art, so all praise goes to her and all blame goes to me.



( graphics, lyrics, download )

It's Big Bang season! So many fandoms are having them, and so many of my flisties are going for it, which is very awesome. I decide to dust this off as a belated Valentine's Day gift for you guys. ♥

In 2006, I graduated from college with a degree in Professional Writing. In the same year, I made this "mix CD" for some of the writer friends I had met in that college, who I loved dearly (and still do). It's amazing to think that even that recently, downloading large files over the internet was mostly impractical, at least as far as I knew. Did broadband even exist then? But yeah. I burned these to CDs, and made my own artwork, and printed out "liner sheets" with the lyrics.



Track List:
My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors by Moxy Fruvous
The Engine Driver by The Decemberists
I'll Be a Writer by Soltero
Paperback Writer by The Beatles
Seize the Day by Carolyn Arends
Open Book by CAKE
Novel-Writing (Live from Wessex) by Monty Python
Song for Myla Goldberg by The Decemberists
Shadow Stabbing by CAKE
Breathe (2 AM) by Anna Nalick
There She Goes, My Beautiful World by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
See the Flames Begin to Crawl by Five Iron Frenzy
That's How the Story Ends by Five Iron Frenzy
Escape (The Pina Colada Song) by Rupert Holmes

Included in the liner sheets was this little story. I've added a few parenthetical phrases and a PS to make it more applicable for my current readership.

A Musical, Writerly Journey

This album is a gift to some of my very favorite writers ever. However, note that the songs on this album are very eclectic. Therefore, you may not like one or two or ten. That's okay. While you're deciding whether you like them, enjoy the story they tell about the writer's journey.

First of all, I figure that pretty much every writer starts out by liking books. Having a spouse who shares that inclination would just compound the problem, of course. "My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors," you may have noted to yourself. But that was okay, because you did too.

So there you were just living your life, as a cafe worker or librarian or student or perhaps even an Engine Driver, when you had an epiphany. "I'll Be a Writer," you declared one day. "It can't be that hard."

But deciding to be a writer was not enough. Then you had to decide what kind of writer you would be, a poet or a columnist or a critic or one of those people who write illogical letters to the editor (or comments on the internet). "I want to be a Paperback Writer," you declared further.

That was it, then. It was time to Seize the Day. Your life would be an Open Book, prepared for the perusal of strangers. You were ready to share all of your insights and wisdom, humor and love. It would be eloquent, moving, and entertaining, an instant best-seller.

And you began to write. It might have been more exciting with a commentator on some sports-like show, perhaps called Novel-Writing (Live from Wessex) or something like that. But no matter. You pressed on. Already you were thinking about an interesting, attention-grabbing title for you book. Song for Myla Goldberg, maybe. Or perhaps something a bit more ambiguous and poetic, like Shadow Stabbing. You had lists of ideas, but hadn't hit on the perfect title yet. It would come, you were sure. Well, pretty sure.

And now you were down in the real nitty-gritty of your novel. It was beginning to come a bit harder. You realized that you were sharing some rather personal things, and didn't know if you could write anymore. Either that or you realized that you were writing utter crud, and weren't sure what do about it. You kept trying, though, until one day you found yourself awake at 2 AM in the morning, clutching a pencil in one fist (or pounding on your keyboard with that fist), the other pressed to your burning temple as you blinked your gritty bloodshot eyes and struggled to Breathe.

It was that most dreaded of maladies: writer's block. It hit you hard. You could not get around it. "There She Goes, My Beautiful World!" you cried in despair. (Writer's block stinks a lot. It also inspires melodramatic cries of anguish.)

For days upon days, you fought your writer's block. You wrote pages of drivel, crumpled them, then smoothed them out to see if you had been wrong, then decided that they were definitely drivel and crumpled them again. At last you had piles of them, enough for a bonfire. So you set one, just to See the Flames Begin to Crawl. It was very satisfying, in a morbid way. So you decided that That's How the Story Ends. Rather easy decision, it was, in the end.

And now you just really, really needed to Escape. So you wrote your last creative effort, a personal ad sent to the newspaper, and you found someone who liked pina coladas as much as you did. Good for you! That's really the best final destination for your journey that you could have reached.

After all, this writing stuff, with its sweat and blood and many, many tears, is for chumps of the first degree.

The End

PS: Or you could always come to the dark side and write fanfic. IT'S SO MUCH FUN YOU HAVE NO IDEA.

Download from mediafire 100 MB, 54 minutes

Single tracks uploaded on request.