Fannish Things & Thoughts

[vanillalime]

Just an update on where my head is at these days.

1. Oz

Yeah, my love for this show isn’t going away any time soon. I envision myself participating in Oz Magi 2032, even if I have to fulfill my own wish. Heh.

The current Oz drabble tree reminded me that the very first Oz fic I wrote was for a drabble tree, back in February 2013. So this month is my 5-year anniversary of writing Oz fic! In some ways, it’s hard to believe that I’ve been writing in the fandom for that long. But on the other hand, when I go back and look at all the things I’ve written, there’s actually quite a lot there. Which leads me to…

What I really want to do this year is stretch myself and try writing a long fic. (Although I said the same thing last year, too, and the farthest I got was opening a document and giving it a title, LOL.) I’m too chicken to sign up for a big bang, but I’ve been poking around the 1_million_words comm that cmk418 has mentioned, and it might help by giving me the push I need. For a while now, I’ve had three different ideas for a long Oz story, and I’ve pretty much settled on which one I want to write. I have no idea how long it actually might be, but I always seriously underestimate my stories’ lengths (generally, they turn out twice as long as I think they’ll be when I start). So if I’m thinking the story is going to be long (over 10k? 15k maybe?), chances are it’ll be long.

Unfortunately, though, I’m a slooooow writer, and I constantly edit and re-edit (which is absolutely necessary because I’m not good enough to get anything right the first time, or even the first dozen times). In addition, I find it difficult and counter-productive to work on more than one story at a time, and I won’t do WIPs, either. So if I do this, it would likely be the only thing I write this year, and I’m not thrilled about the idea of that, especially if it turns out to be a big fail and I never even finish it.

Wow, it kind of sounds like I’m trying to talk myself out of the whole thing, doesn’t it? :|

Also, oz_daily. *sigh* I don’t want the comm to die, but after nearly 3 years, my LJ scrapbook is at 90% capacity, and I’ve sort of lost my enthusiasm for doing it. The thing that really set me off was Apple’s latest iOS update, which now prohibits me from taking screencaps from HBO (or Amazon or Netflix or whatever), which pisses me off to no end. If I want to take a screencap now, I have to use my old original iPad which is still on an earlier iOS. But that thing is agonizingly slow and doesn’t create very good quality caps. In addition, the traffic here at LJ isn’t what it used to be either, obviously, and at this point I don’t know how many peeps were even seeing the pics I was posting. If I bring it back, I think it’ll just be on a weekly basis, or maybe just do occasional themes, because those were always fun.


2. Homicide: Life on the Street

I got the DVDs for Christmas, and I just finished Season 1. (Yes, I’m the slowest binge-watcher in the world. Actually, I'm not even "binging," I'm just "watching.")

The show’s really good! I particularly love Melissa Leo’s character and, in a surprise, Daniel Baldwin’s. And Ned Beatty, as always, is just a delight. (I’m still not good with the character names.) The highlight was probably the classic "Three Men and Adena" episode, for which Tom Fontana won his third writing Emmy.

I get a little thrill whenever an Ozzie makes an appearance on the show. Lee appeared in five S1 episodes (albeit briefly, in some cases). He seemed so sweet and wholesome and YOUNG (I guess he would’ve been about 27?). I can see why all those casting agents back then wanted to cast him in boy-next-door roles, because he certainly fit the bill:


(credit: leetergesen.com)

Lee was incredibly moving in his scenes after his character has been shot. Edie Falco was in a few eps as his wife, as well as Sean Whitesell (Donald Groves), who played a doctor. (I think there was even a scene with the three of them together.) Luis Guzman also guest-starred in one ep, and Zeljko Ivanek has a recurring role as a prosecutor.

In summary, S1 Ozzie count: 5

Interestingly, the bi-annual New York PaleyFest, which hosted the Oz reunion last fall, just announced last week that they they are holding a Homicide reunion in May. I guess Fontana enjoyed himself so much at the Oz reunion, he wanted to do something again. ;)

Now, onto Season 2! It’s a truncated season of only 4 episodes, so I should be able to get through them a little quicker. :D


3. Stranger Things

I watched Season 1 in the fall and finished Season 2 a few weeks ago. I really liked Season 1 and LOVED Season 2.

I’ve always been a sucker for coming-of-age mystery stories (supernatural or not), especially if they’re set during an earlier time period—Stand By Me, IT (the 90s miniseries, anyway, I still haven't see last summer’s movie), Super 8, even Now and Then (a not-so-good, all-female Stand By Me rip-off).

Heck, when I think about it, To Kill a Mockingbird fits the category, too.

Anyway, I loved this show so much, I was actually feeling *fannish* about it, a feeling I haven't experienced since watching Oz. I’m not interested at all in shipping anyone from it, but I love so many of the general/platonic relationships within the show. I was seriously impressed by the acting abilities of all the kids, but my favorite character by far was Dustin. The actor has such great comedic timing. I also floved the whole redemption arc of the teenaged Steve character that began at the end of S1 and continued through S2. So then, imagine my excitement when the show developed a Dustin-Steve subplot in S2 that had this delightful "little brother-big brother" dynamic to it.

I was actually thinking of writing fic for the show, and I had an idea for a nice, short (HA!) Dustin-Steve missing scene story that would’ve been easy to write, something that I thought would be a good way to get my feet wet in a new fandom. Then I checked AO3, and I saw that there were already three versions of my missing scene fic written by three other people! Within the last month! Heh. That’s when I realized how big the fandom was and how many people were writing fic for the show. Some of which was very good, but much of it… not. There also seems to be a lot of fanfic with all kinds of weird out-of-character and/or underage pairings (a by-product of having such a large/young cast, I guess). Anyway, at that point, I got scared away and scurried back to the safe confines of Oz. Maybe I’ll try again later, but I’m not sure big fandoms are for me. LOL

Comments

[mazephoenix.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry bout the Oz Daily comm, but if your heart isn't in it, you may as well make it an irregular thing if it all.
Hope you write that longfic.
Glad you're liking Homicide..I was surprised at how much I liked Daniel Baldwin too. Ah Melissa Leo is the best. I will forever ship Bayliss and Pembleton-my tragic Homicide OTP. More Ozzies to come.
Munch is such a sour delight too. Love him.

Too bad about Stranger things. It can be intimdating with larger fandoms, I know. But with all the badfic it might need some good fic, i.e yours. I feel the same about Hannibal fandom at times, but then an idea strikes and off I go. And maybe someone wil really dig your missing scene fic.

[suespur.livejournal.com]

WHEEEEE! for longer fic!

I loved H:LOTS when I watched it oh, maybe ten years ago? I need to give that series a re-watch too.

[vanillalime]

We'll see! The idea of writing long fic is scary and intimidating, but I have a story I really want to tell!

Watching Homicide now is a bit like opening a time capsule. Remember beepers? Blouses with shoulder pads? Smoking in the workplace? It doesn't seem like the show should be this old. (Then again, I could say the same thing about me. LOL)

[vanillalime]

Like I said, I really don't want Oz Daily to die, but I thought I'd just take a short break from it after Christmas, and I found that I didn't really miss doing it. Maybe I just need to find a good theme or a treasure trove of photos somewhere to get motivated again.

And I want to thank you for all your comments at Oz Daily. You were always around with something fun or kind to say. There were times when I wondered if it was just you and me, and I really appreciated how much you give back. :-)

I really like both Bayliss and Pembleton, although I don't picture them as a pairing... yet? Unfortunately, I must say that Munch is my one disappointment so far. I liked him well enough on the SVU episodes I've watched him in, but he's such a downer in this show! And not in a fun, lovable way, more of an annoying way. I hope he either gets better, or I get more used to him.

I've come up with ideas for a couple of other stories for Stranger Things, so it's possible I might give it another shot. On the other hand, that sounds like a good excuse to avoid starting on this theoretical long fic for Oz, so... ;)

[mazephoenix.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I'm glad for all the fun photos. You did a great job there.

Hmm..Bayliss and Pembleton's shippyness will become more intense later is all I can say. Or is it just me? No, not juding by old fics.
Munch grows on you(or me?), and gets characther development as the show goes on. They all do, which is what is so great about Fontana's shows.

Doo the epic thing. I would love it too.

[cmk418]

I say, go for it with the long fic. Are you thinking of a one-shot or breaking it up into chapters with semi-frequent installments?

Sorry to hear about Oz Daily. I enjoyed looking at the pictures, but can fully understand your reasons for pulling back a bit.

I'm still working on S1 of "The Wire" which I got for Christmas. I get distracted with so many other things that I just haven't sat down to watch it in a while. I'll need to get back soon before I forget who everyone is. Except Omar, of course.

[vanillalime]

In an ideal scenario, I think I'd have a complete rough draft, and then post the story by chapters, polishing as I go. Maybe it wouldn't be so overwhelming that way. Also, drsquidlove used a similar approach in posting her epic Toby/Stabler and Toby/Murphy stories, and I thought it was a lot of fun from the perspective of a reader. The story would really need to be basically complete before I'd post anything, though. So many times I go back and add something at the beginning of a story because of something I've thought to do at the end. (Which is why I've always considered WIPs to be a bad idea.)

As I mentioned above, I really don't want Oz Daily to die, but I thought I'd just take a short break from it after Christmas, and I found that I didn't really miss doing it. Maybe I just need to find a good theme or a treasure trove of photos somewhere to get motivated again. ;)

Oooh, "The Wire" is another one of the shows on my To-Watch list! It was created by David Simon, whose book was the basis for Homicide. I've also heard good things about his latest show "The Deuce" about the 1970s porn industry, which sounds intriguing, to say the least... ;D

[the-emu.livejournal.com]

Yes, the Wire is amazing. I keep meaning to re-watch it. The scope of it is just so impressive; it feels like Dickens in TV form.

[trillingstar]

So this month is my 5-year anniversary of writing Oz fic!

WOO HOOO! :) *fistbump*

Mr Star & I finished watching Justified recently and we both keep saying "we need another show" and then settle in for another re-run of Chopped Canada. (I ship unrequited pining!Brad/Eden, of course.)

I wish I had better words for oz-daily. There are people who can cleanly leave a fandom and move on, and in a way I admire that. It's probably less heartache and you can remember the 'good' times instead of the arid dry desert times. If something's feeling like a drag/pain/obligation -- and that ridonk update, ew! -- then there's the risk of burning out on/by doing something that you (used to) really like. Rambly rambly, but, I get it. I have a tough time letting things go, especially if it's anything that has potential for archiving or is a part of Oz's fanthropology.

There's a great, helpful, supportive writing comm on DW called ushobwri aka you should be writing. It was modeled after wrisomifu aka write something you miserable fuck, but they've def pulled away and made it their own. I would love to see a longfic from you (or three!). I'd also be down with setting up a permanent/weekly/varying time on Discord for cheerleading/questions/general whinging about writing. Blah, I miss my peeps and detest how spread out everything has become. Imzy had potential but closed their doors suddenly? and now there's Pillowfort but it's still in serious beta and looks to have a LOT of kinks to work out. Hehehe, kinks.

[vanillalime]

Sometimes it's just too tempting to use your favorite shows as comfort food, watching them over and over rather than taking the risk on something new. (I know all the punchlines on The Office before the actors say them.) It's funny... if I'd bought the Homicide DVDs on my own, it's very possible that they would've just sat on a shelf and collected dust. But since they were a gift, I felt more motivated to watch them. It's worked out well.

Thanks for the links to the writing comms! I'll check them out. I need to get going on this while I'm feeling inspired. If I can get a good start, I'll be more likely to stick with it.

[the-emu.livejournal.com]

Wait, what? You've only been around for five years? I thought you'd been in Oz forever! I got in for the 2012 magi, so we came in around the same time. Though your love is clearly much steadier than mine. I have a couple of Oz half-stories I really, really wish I could finish, but I'm not sure I've got anything left in me.

But you know what would really help... Someone else's awesome long Oz fic...

You can do it! I used to be a short writer! I was always so jealous of the people who could churn out epic relationship stories with plots, but I got there eventually, and now I have three over 120 000 words, and one of those is the stupidly absurd 250 000. (There is now a disturbing pattern where long stories burn me out of fandoms, but I'm sure that's just me.) I'm slow and I'm definitely a re-editor, but that's good. I embrace that. It makes me feel better about shitty drafts. It doesn't matter if I just wrote a chunk of dialogue that was cheesy and OOC, because I'm going to come back and fix it anyway, getting the bones of the conversation down is harder than fixing it.

I'm sorry about oz_daily. It has made me very happy. (Muppets is still my favourite theme.) But if it's a chore, let it go. There are too many chores in life already. Use that time for writing something long and pornographic. You can go back to it whenever you want.

I highly, highly recommend the 'finish the draft, post in chapters on a schedule' method. That's the only way I got my longest stories out. I also need to be able to go back and fill out the early parts. I've done one classic-style WIP ever, and only could do it because it was a re-write of 'Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret,' so I was following Blume's plot. Even then, once, thank you, never again. (Also, I accidentally changed the gender of a character halfway through and never noticed.) But this method, the plot's all there so you can't lose your way, but you've got a little time pressure to drive you to finish the sketchy bits, and to prevent you from wallowing in perfectionism. AND you have reader feedback to help you massage things if readers are not reading how you want them to.

And also just to succour your soul. I'm not the least bit ashamed to say that for all my hours and hours of writing, I want to be fed with specific comments, people who'll give me emotional reactions along the way or flag scraps of dialogue they liked. You guys and the sense of community you gave and the soul succouring were what made the detailed effort worth it in a way that kudos button clicks or even singular, 'I read your story and generally liked the whole thing,' comments never could. (Though I also appreciate the latter.)

So yes! Do it!

[vanillalime]

Thank you for your words of encouragement and advice!

My participation in the fandom probably seems longer because I have a level of enthusiasm that helps make up for my length of service. ;)

I have a couple of Oz half-stories I really, really wish I could finish, but I'm not sure I've got anything left in me.

FINISH THEM! Maybe you don't hear it, but a small cheer goes up in the fandom whenever you post an Oz fic. (Also, SOMEone needs to write that Harrison/Murphy story!)

It's hard to imagine you as a short writer, since I always associate you with really long stories (probably because Someone Like You made such a lasting impression). Obviously, "long" is a relative term--I would be ecstatic if I could turn out something of quality that is, say, six chapters (vs. 60+).

Just curious, for your longer stories, do you write out your biggest/key scenes first, then go back and fill in the rest? Or do you write (more or less) sequentially, i.e., starting at the beginning and going through to the end? I've always done the latter, because I think it helps with the general flow of the story, and creatively I think of plot developments that I might not otherwise (usually I don't even work off an outline). But I'm wondering now if a longer story would be better suited to getting the big stuff done first, to help set up the structure of the whole thing.

[the-emu.livejournal.com]

All my encouragement and advice is 100% selfish.

Both my potential stories beckon to me, but any time I sit down and poke at them, nothing happens. And the one I reeeeaaally like, 'cos it's just the coolest idea everrrrrr, would be as much work as Someone Like You.

Ah, yes, back in the day I was known for my economy of words, would you believe? For hanging back and letting the atmosphere and the silences do all the work... Stories that felt long but were only 4000 words...

I *mostly* write in order. I need some strong but not exact ideas of where the story is going. If I had a detailed outline, I'd never get through, and I can't just jump past a big chunk and get to the good stuff, because then I'll never come back. Both of those for the same reasons: partly because the story needs to be unfolding for me to be enjoying it, partly because what the characters do needs to be based on what happened to them yesterday - and for depth, it needs to be based on the details of what happened yesterday, which don't exist if you haven't written them. But sometimes there are scenes I'm seriously not in the mood for, or need more research, or I just can't figure out how to get the guys into a situation, and then I'll leave some notes of what has to happen and and come back to it.

I think if I were to write the important scenes first, I'd never be interested in the smaller scenes. But also, I don't think it's good to think of them as lesser. Inevitably there will be particularly major turning points that you're excited about, but every scene needs to be a turning point, really. They're not just cooking dinner: Toby is exploring Elliot's home for the first time just as he's starting to think of Elliot as not being Chris, and Elliot is pushing himself past his gay panic to flirt, and their relationship is changing shape to something more domestic, and Chris is rising as a set of assumptions in Elliot's mind to raise the tension for the readers who know that will be a disaster, and we dig in on Toby's drug-past that Elliot learned about last week... And all of those things need to come out of the previous scenes, and feed into the next few scenes. And yes, you can build in a lot of that in later drafts, but it's much easier if you're writing in order, y'know? Or at least have some pretty solid notes for the bits you're missing. If you think of it as filler between the big scenes, it will read that way.

I think that's where plenty of writers go wrong with sex scenes. They write them in because we all want the characters to have sex. But if the sex doesn't have all those threads running through it, tying it to what happened in the last few scenes and the next few, it feels like filler. And filler sex isn't nearly as sexy as Elliot's first intentional groping and his first time looking foward to some proper gay action and what it is about Elliot that made this domestic scene and Toby's behaviour here make him comfortable.

I would like to teach everyone to write exactly the sort of pornography that I want to read.

Anyway.

And sometimes there's a scrap of future dialogue that comes to me which is just what I want, or where I want the story to go, and I'll never turn that down, but it's never a whole scene. I'm very dialogue-driven, these days. Plenty of my drafts are just pages of dialogue with 'ADD BLOCKING' notes all over them.

[vanillalime]

All my encouragement and advice is 100% selfish.

Well, half my motivation behind Oz Daily was hoping other people would write fic based upon the pics I was posting, so yeah, I get it. :D

And the one I reeeeaaally like, 'cos it's just the coolest idea everrrrrr, would be as much work as Someone Like You.

Okay, now you're just torturing me. O_O

What you say about writing in order makes a lot of sense and helps confirm that that route is probably the better way to go. I guess it's worked for me so far, so I should stick with what I'm comfortable doing.

I'm very dialogue-driven, these days. Plenty of my drafts are just pages of dialogue with 'ADD BLOCKING' notes all over them.

I think one of the reasons why I underestimate my stories' lengths is that most of my fic tends to be heavy on dialogue and not particularly atmospheric. The scenario in my head might play out in a thousand words, but when I actually type it up as people talking to one another in a realistic manner, a lot more words are necessary. And writing out just the dialogue first sounds like a good idea, one that I should probably try! For every story I write, I have to go back and do word searches for variations of "slowly/quickly, turned/looked/smiled" because I overuse them, which I might not do if I'm adding them all in at once later.

I would like to teach everyone to write exactly the sort of pornography that I want to read.

I would happily take that class! Sign me up!

[the-emu.livejournal.com]

I get around the excess of adverbs and repetitive small movements by making sure the characters are always doing something. Why do you think Toby did so much cooking? A kitchen is seven hundred different ways to paint a mood or avoid answering or slam a cupboard door that don't require the stock words.

Hm, I wonder if turning it into a class would get me more porn...

[leeleelee.livejournal.com]

I completely forgot Homicide had such a short S2. Wow. It's a great show. Wait until you see the Subway. WOW! That's my favorite. Robin Williams' episode was also damn powerful.

Agree with everything you said about Stranger Things. Such a compelling show.

Re: Oz, definitely go for the longer fic if the muses are telling you to. I'd be happy to proofread if you want.

[vanillalime]

I'm halfway way through Season 3 now. It's become more addicting the further I get into it! I looked up why S2 was so short, and apparently NBC decided to use it just as a mid-season temporary replacement for LA Law. Then they demanded changes (more female characters) for S3, which is why Crosetti was killed off.

The Robin Williams episode was in S2, and it was indeed amazing. It's easy to forget what a fantastic dramatic actor he was. I miss him. :(

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

the traffic here at LJ isn’t what it used to be either, obviously, and at this point I don’t know how many peeps were even seeing the pics I was posting. If I bring it back, I think it’ll just be on a weekly basis, or maybe just do occasional themes, because those were always fun

I do enjoy Oz Daily and appreciate the work you put into it, but I can definitely understand it feeling a bit overwhelming, especially when there isn’t always much feedback. I think switching to a weekly basis would be a good compromise :) Tbh I don’t really visit LJ every day any more, so it has become more of a weekly thing to check my flist, which you can probably tell by this late comment!

[vanillalime]

Aw, thank you! To hear you enjoyed it means a lot. I just recently stumbled into some old pics that I'd like to post, so I think I'll keep it going, just on a reduced scale. :)

The lack of traffic in general here at LJ lately is disheartening--there were periods last year when the only posts on my feed were my Oz Daily pics. It's sort of a vicious circle: no one's posting because no one's here, but no one's here because no one's posting. :(