I need to learn to stop sacrificing sleep ...

[jedibuttercup]

It just tends to be the first thing to go when Main Job + Part Time Work + Family + { WRITING PROJECT } stack up beyond what the regular hours in the day will hold. I really should have started earlier on my extreme_bigbang ... *yawn*

37052 / 100000 words. 37% done!

It has to be to 60% by April 11. I think I can? *cracking knuckles* So far, for this story, I have:

1. Rewatched fifty hours plus of Falling Skies canon;
2. Quoted Pride and Prejudice, General Patton, Watership Down, and Albert Einstein;
3. Took a swipe at conjugating Latin, then backed away slowly (ugh, the tenses);
4. Reread the Mayan creation myths again;
5. Google-Mapped a bunch of backroad routes all over South Carolina;
6. Researched school colors for a particular town along those routes;
7. Asked my mom what her farmer-grandparents in the South would've had in their pantry;
8. Saved the life of one person so far that Spielberg killed off (many more to come!);
9. Gleefully used the term "BFG" in a weapon-related context; and
10. Included more sex and cursing than in all my stories last year together (which, granted, isn't saying much).

*wipes brow* When it's finished, if I get it finished, it'll be the longest single fic I've ever written in one go (though LM is longer as a series, and BAH will probably surpass it, when complete). Heck, the only story I've previously published all at once that was longer than what I've written for this just so far was its prequel; the next one down was that 30,000 word Eureka time loop big bang, I think. I'm sort of torn whether to be proud of that, since once again I'm burying myself in a rarepair story in a rare fandom that's not likely to attract much attention, and has already garnered me several RL comments of "but why put that much effort into it? why not a real novel?"

.... *sigh* Because! *shaking head with a smile*

Comments

[edenfalling]

Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I can tell you that I'm looking forward to this story. So that's at least one reader. :)

*cheers you onward*

[jedibuttercup]

:) Glad to hear it. It's definitely a challenge, but I knew I'd have a lot of things to say-- and feels to get out-- which seems to be key for me in completing something this long.

[sulien.livejournal.com]

Because (in no particular order): you hate what they did in canon and it will annoy the living snot out of you until you fix it, damn it; you really love the characters; you really want to see what will happen when characters from 'y' 'verse meet characters from 'z' 'verse in 'x' circumstances and wonder how can you make it happen. And those are just the tiniest tip of the iceberg. I seem to recall asking that very question when we met up in Portland and kind of knew the answer before I asked it, just because of the incredible stories you'd come up with, and you've come up with even more amazing stuff since then. Keep on keepin' on!

[jedibuttercup]

Hee, yes, very true. Thank you for the reminder!

... Especially when there were the bones of something so awesome there! And then the writers went and did 'a' and 'b' and 'c' because they were convenient, completely contradicting their own mythology in the process, and then hastily papered over it with a bullshit explanation that only made it worse because that made it clear they were aware it was a contradiction, but still wanted to go with the easy answer anyway because it made for a better romantic triangle in the key teenager/twentysomething demographic. EXCUSE YOU WHAT. *sigh*

... Feelings, I have them. :)

[sulien.livejournal.com]

Sing it, sister!!! Yeah, I'm bookmarking this entire post just for your reply here. :) And I'm really looking forward to reading this novel you've got going. I just need to re-read "Waiting For the Dawn" first, since it's been a while.

[jedibuttercup]

I don't think you ever even left a comment on WFtD; I was curious what you thought of it. :)

[sulien.livejournal.com]

Going and looking at "Waiting For the Dawn", I think I actually may not have read it after all. I recall that I started watching Falling Skies in order to read it, but got bogged down before the end of the first season, which is probably why I never managed. Is it essential to watch beyond the first season, or can a person get by with just that?

[jedibuttercup]

It's plot-heavy, but ultimately a story about Tom and Pope getting to know each other better and thereby making their world a better place to be. So I think as long as you know those characters, and maybe read the wiki overview articles for seasons 2 and 3 to get a feel for the start point for the fic?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falling_Skies_(season_2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falling_Skies_(season_3)

The story is a canon divergence, so it begins in the middle of season 3 (literally in the middle of episode 3.5 "Search and Recovery"), and veers gradually further away from canon from there. I made sure to mention background facts about each of the characters, and detailed all scenes the main characters participate in (except for a bit in episode 3.6 that I sort of summarized hastily because it wasn't vital to anything else and stressed me out), so I think as long as you don't mind that you won't recognize exactly which shifts I'm making, the story should still be perfectly enjoyable.

The sequel is going to remix a lot of parts of seasons 4 and 5, but because it starts after WftD, it will no longer closely parallel the canon events. I refused to go there, full stop. :)

Thank you!

[sulien.livejournal.com]

*huge sigh of relief* Oh, thank you! Yeah, I was only so-so about the series and it just didn't have enough of Colin Cunningham in it to make me want to subject myself to it. I have read the synopses of the later seasons and the end of the series, so I kind of figured (and very sincerely hoped) that you might not follow canon in this upcoming story (I was actually going to email you to see if that was the case). Whew!

Okay, bookmarking "Waiting for the Dawn" in my desktop reading folder and on my phone. I'll probably start on it as soon as you start posting the sequel and treat it like a novel to read over time. Hopefully. Yeah, I have always tended to gorge on reading, even now that it does bad things to me physically to do so these days. :-p I think it may be time for a new pair of glasses, too.

[graycardinal]

I got my first look at this post on my smartphone, and I am going to blame the small screen size for my initial misread of the subject line. (A nickel says you can see this one coming: my first reading saw the last two words as "...sacrificing sheep".)

Meanwhile: 23,000 words in two weeks (or thereabouts)? A mere 2K or so a day. I don't think I've managed that many words at that pace myself, but I *have* pulled off upwards of 5K in a day on occasion (I think about 9K in one day is my personal record), and I know people on both sides of the pro/fan fence who definitely write that fast.

[jedibuttercup]

LOL, yeah, now I don't think I can unsee that misinterpretation. Poor sheep!

Fun fact: my parents' house is on an acre and a half in the middle of a town of about 15,000 (it was 10,000 when we moved there) and they actually did run sheep on the back third of it for most of my teenage years. Some of them were awesome; almost like pets. Some of them were as featherbrained and aggravating as the turkeys they also tried to raise (twice).

I'm... at about 46,000 now, with a week yet to go? Yeah, I can do it if I keep it up at 2K a day. Inevitably some days are going to be worse, but then there's a weekend in there. I've done in the 5K range on the odd awesome day before, but a typical sustainable pace for me is more in the 1200 word range (goal charts; I've run them before). So this is tiring. But I'll do it!

[graycardinal]

Heh. And I had totally forgotten this, but my own mother reminded me last week that one of our across-the-street neighbors when I was growing up had sheep on the back half of their lot -- probably a bit bigger than yours, but not by too much) -- in our particular slice of the Portlandian outskirts.

Infill being what it is, that former neighbor's parcel is now about half of what will be a dozen or so houses plus cul-de-sac when the current construction is finished. My parents' house, meanwhile, sits on one of the last larger lots on the whole street, wherein she still gets deer in the backyard every once in awhile. (The other large lot is the uphill neighbor's; I've never met the current residents, but one of the prior family's daughters was about my age, and kept a pony in a fenced corral in their back yard. I remember this pony chiefly because it bit me in the chest once -- fortunately, not very hard and with no serious consequences, and I probably was invading its space too closely at the time.)

[beatrice_otter]

Good luck!

[jedibuttercup]

Thanks! :)

[avamclean.livejournal.com]

You can do it!

I have complete faith in you and will cheerlead you whenever (or if ever) you need it.

*smish*

[jedibuttercup]

Thank you!

Provided I pass the next-Monday hurdle, the next one is much more reasonable -- another couple of months to polish off the last 40k. I can make that at 600-ish words a day, much less exhausting than the current pace. But I'm sure I'll wail and pull my hair again at some point trying to actually tie the thing up. :)

[avamclean.livejournal.com]

Wow! 600 words a day sounds terribly impressive to me and right now you're writing even more than that? GO YOU!

[jedibuttercup]

Trying, anyway. Getting there! :) *pushing metaphorical sleeves up*