wraith fic

[lobelia321]

I have been manically rewriting wraith fic. I'm on my fourth draft. This is the first fic I have ever revised to such an extent. I am now actually re-typing the entire thing, rather than cutting and pasting. I'm finding that this allows me to be more logical and more ruthless, to refine each sentence more and to keep the whole in slightly better focus. The first drafts were so cutted and pasted that it was doing my head in.

I'm now on word 8,713 of the re-type. End of Part One. Two more parts to go.

The fic also has a title now. In my mind, it was always the 'wraith island fic'. Now it's called 'Ichor'.

If anyone is keen to beta John Sheppard/wraith, do let me know. Not that I've decided yet that I'll even have betas. I think once upon a very long time viva_gloria and liviapenn expressed kind interest...? But memory could cheat me.

I started this fic in May 2006...! *gulp*

I am telling myself that meticulous and obsessive re-type is good practice for novel writing. I suspect, though, that it is also a means for escaping my horrible work and what seems like an overwhelming career change project right now. I now have Fear of the Orig.

Still, I also just want to get this thing finished and posted and out of my system.

Is there even anyone left out there who even reads SGA anymore??

Comments

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

I think all the SGA people went to be friends with David Hewlett at some internet place I'm quite vague about. I'm getting the impression he lured them in, sort of like the Pied Piper.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

So they all went RPS IRL??!!

He has this blog, does he not? HOW COULD THEY?

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

Is there even anyone left out there who even reads SGA anymore??

You need to absorb my f-list. Sometimes it seems all they read is SGA. I don't know if there are any Sheppard/wraith shippers, though. :-) How I adore your weird pairings!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oh, good tip, I'll check in with your flist! It's always interesting to visit Friends Flists. Haven't done that in a long time, actually. There are two special wraith comms but yes, 'tis a rare, rare obsession. :-)

[kireseth.livejournal.com]

I am telling myself that meticulous and obsessive re-type is good practice for novel writing.

A writer friend of mine told me about a writing tip she read about somewhere, which consisted of typing in pages from a published author whose style you admire. It allows you to get into the flow of the style. Not that the object is to mimic the writer, but somehow the sensory input/connection interacts with the mind in a way that can help your own writing. So it seems to make perfect sense the retyping your work allows you to interact with it in a different way than the ol' cut-n-paste approach, a different tool for a different stage of the project, and practice too.

I suspect, though, that it is also a means for escaping my horrible work and what seems like an overwhelming career change project right now.

I'm the kind of person who needs to think about something a lot before I tackle it (especially something so large as a job/career change) and I firmly believe that part of that happens while my conscious mind is occupied with other things (reading fanfic, yeah). So maybe it's not all escape.

Showing my ignorance here, but what fandom is SGA?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Sorry: SGA = Stargate Atlantis.

What you say about copying a page from a novel is very interesting to me. I'm a big believer in the copy method. I'm an academic at heart, as in Fine Art Academies of the 19th century where students learned to copy from engravings and plaster casts before being let loose on the live model. I may try that on some of my favourite authors, or on books whose genres I'm trying to connect into.

And it's true that retyping my fic has freed up a few clogged arteries. Cut'n'paste makes you believe in the sanctity of each word. I hate to delete. But re-typing gets you into the flow, and you're not actually deleting, you're deciding not to copy a certain bit.

Thank you for kind and helpful comments on career change and escapism not being all bad. :-)

[no-detective.livejournal.com]

I haven't read any SGA (or any fic, actually) in about a month because I got a new job and moved to a new apartment within a few days, and am now too preoccupied with non-fannish things. BUT - I worship your title. And the fact that you're writing about the Wraith.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

A month! God, I hadn't read any in about half a year until last night where I read two quickies. I'm so out of the loop. And thank you so much for liking my title!! I only thought of it a few days ago; this fic never had a real title and suddenly this leaped to my attention (while reading Charlotte Bronte's Villette) and it was so *right*. It summed up the fic's heart.

You figure in the acknowledgements section of my fic Header, you know, for suggesting that the life giving force of the wraith might be very rare. This is important for the story.