outline process for "Cast a Long Shadow (We All Meet in the End)"

I find writing processes interesting, both in open-ended situations -- i.e., making up a story with no constraints (other than canon, if you're writing fanfic) -- and in more constrained situations -- i.e., writing to a prompt or a challenge. And I said a while ago that I might post the record of my battle with Cast a Long Shadow (We All Meet in the End), so.

Warning: these attempted outlines contain spoilers for osmalic's stories Sea Call Burn and Points Where All Shadows Meet. So if you want to read them unspoiled or want a better understanding of what I was attempting to remix, go read them now. (Actually, go read them anyway; they're very good!)

Anyway. Here is a month's worth of me fighting my remix.

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( Friday, 6/19/09 - Basically, what I really, truly, desperately want to do is remix 'Sea Call Burn,' which is a story about... )

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( Saturday, 6/20/09 - I went back and reread bits of DH to see how Petunia reacts to Harry on their departure... )

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( Tuesday, 6/23/09 - That outline is not working. It is dead on the page. I need to pull the story apart some more... )

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( Wednesday, 6/24/09 - I am trying to reread osmalic's story to pick out her character interpretations... )

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( Thursday, 7/2/09 - I have what I hope will finally be a functional outline -- unfortunately it came with a title that will not get out of my head... )

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( Thursday, 7/23/09 - I am not sure what my remix ended up saying about Snape... )

[Fic] "Barycenter" -- original, Ekanu

I said the nature of Firsthome's moon would probably never arise in a story. Clearly I should not make categorical statements of that sort. The back of my mind takes them as dares.

This is set a couple hours after the end of Learning to Listen, while Ekanu and Denifar are still up on the University clock tower. But now dusk is approaching and the moon has risen.

The title -- barycenter -- is a word meaning the center of a system's mass, or the point about which two bodies in space orbit each other. Firsthome and its moon are a double planet system; I am arbitrarily declaring their barycenter to be about two thirds of the distance between them, closer to Firsthome than to the moon. (Firsthome is more massive; it has a greater concentration of metals.) Metaphorically, it refers to the point/s of stability around which two very different people can form a friendship.

( Barycenter )

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In other news, as I walked to work yesterday I surprised a squirrel perched on a giant sunflower. It had been nosing into the flower's heart, looking for seeds -- its face was dusted with orange-gold pollen -- and it froze as I approached, unable to climb higher and unwilling to descend to earth. It stared fixedly backward at me from its left eye.

I got within a foot of it, close enough I could have reached out to touch its back and tail, before it snapped and lunged through the air toward a nearby telephone pole. It landed in a frantic scrabble of claws and dashed upward, not stopping until it was safely twice my height in the air.

Then it paused and stared at me again, as if willing me to leave or drop dead so it could return to the flowers.

Squirrels are such an odd mix of fear and aggression. *grin*