the deep moans round with many voices

I intend to attempt wipbigbang again this year, but as usual, I am not sure which story to tackle. The finished work must be at least 7,500 words long, and the WIP must be at least 500 words long at the time of entry. (These words can be publicly posted or can exist only in one's own document files.)

So here are five stories that fit those requirements, and which I think I have a plausible chance of finishing by early July:


1. Five Things That Never Happened to Rex and Ana Lewis (And One That Still Might)
--This is a GI Joe: Rise of Cobra fic (yes, I know) that does exactly what it says on the tin. I currently have the first three sections written to the tune of 9,000 words, and a couple hundred each for parts four and five. Part six is only an outline and might end up unwritten depending on my mood after rewatching the movie to refresh my memory of the characters and plot (insofar as they exist). Probably 15,000-18,000 words when complete.

2. Ephemera
--This is an Angel Sanctuary fic following Belial's pre-canon journey from heaven to hell. It's kind of messed up (because Belial is kind of messed up) and has a lot of vaguely meta stuff about gender, gender roles, morality as related to sex and violence, and free will. Also hopefully some gory fight scenes in the as-yet-unwritten parts. :) I have one 6,000 word chapter written and posted on ff.net, a second chapter partially written, and a third tentatively outlined. (I will have to revise the posted chapter as part of this process.) Probably ~20,000 words when complete.

3. The Light in Your Eyes
--A Star Trek: AOS fic that follows Spock through the immediate aftermath of the Narada incident up to the Enterprise leaving on its new mission. Mostly about Vulcans and mourning and stuff, with significant secondary roles for Uhura and Kirk. Currently at 9,500 words, probably 18,000-20,000 words when complete.

4. Lemonade
--A BtVS/Gundam Wing/Naruto crossover in which Faith Lehane, Duo Maxwell, and Uchiha Sasuke accidentally get yanked into a hell dimension and must work together to get home. Along the way, they have some sex. :) This is post-Chosen for Faith, post-Endless Waltz for Duo, and in the third year of the timeskip for Sasuke; it ignores all BtVS comics, anything from Preventers Five, and pretty much all of post-timeskip Naruto. Nineteen chapters are currently posted, totaling roughly 44,000 words. I estimate another six to ten chapters before the plot wraps up. (I have a relatively firm outline, but I'm not always great at guessing how many words it will take to cover each point.) Should be roughly 60,000 words when complete, though only 16,000 or so would be new.

5. New Horizons
--Post-epilogue, DH-compliant Ginny/Harry/Draco. No, really. :) Basically, Ginny gets forcibly retired from the Holyhead Harpies around the time Lily leaves Hogwarts, so Harry takes her on a consolation holiday to Greece. They run into Draco, who's giving himself a consolation holiday after his divorce, and things spiral from there. Featuring several political arguments, a bit too much alcohol, and probably no explicit porn because I am more here for the midlife crisis and romcom aspects. I posted two sections on my journal in draft form ages ago, and part of the third chapter is written. About 3,500 words written, should come to maybe 8,000 when complete. (Or 10,000, depending on how much they bicker before I can talk them into possibly inadvisable sex.)


With those descriptions in mind, here is a poll. Please pick whichever one (or two) sounds like something you'd be interested in reading this summer:





If you can't get the poll to work for you, please vote by leaving a comment! You do not need an account to comment. :D

If, in an effort to make myself finally finish some of my languishing WIPs, I sign up for wipbigbang, which of the following options would be best to tackle? The rules say the finished work must be at least 7,500 words long, and you have to have at least 500 words extant at the time of entry. (These can be publicly posted or only in your own document files.)

So here are several stories that fit those requirements, and which I think I have a plausible chance of finishing by July 10 of this year:

1. Five Things That Never Happened to Rex and Anna Lewis (And One That Still Might)
--This is a GI Joe: Rise of Cobra fic (yes, I know) that does exactly what it says on the tin. I currently have the first three sections written to the tune of 9,000 words, and a couple hundred each for parts four and five. Part six is only an outline and might end up unwritten depending on my mood after rewatching the movie to refresh my memory of the characters and plot (insofar as they exist). Would probably be 15,000-18,000 words when complete.

2. Intervention
--A Star Trek: AOS fic centered entirely on original characters with a brief cameo from the Enterprise near the end. The crew of a Red Cross ship investigate a mysterious plague on a small and deliberately isolationst human colony, where they run into a bunch of cultural issues (the colonists are a religious splinter group with negative opinions about technology) but begin to make progress... and then an Orion slaver/pirate fleet arrives in the system. Oops. I have about 14,000 words written and am stalled in the middle of the space battle section. Would probably be 18,000-20,000 words when complete.

3. The Light in Your Eyes
--Also a Star Trek: AOS fic, this one following Spock through the immediate aftermath of the Narada incident up to the Enterprise leaving on its new mission. Mostly about Vulcans and mourning and stuff, with significant secondary roles for Uhura and Kirk. Currently at 9,500 words, would probably be 18,000-20,000 words when complete.

4. New Horizons
--Post-epilogue, DH-compliant Ginny/Harry/Draco. No, really. :) Basically, Ginny gets forcibly 'retired' from the Holyhead Harpies around the time Lily leaves Hogwarts, so Harry takes her on a consolation holiday to Greece. They run into Draco, who's giving himself a consolation holiday after his divorce, and things kind of spiral from there. Featuring a bunch of political arguments, a bit too much alcohol, and probably no explicit porn because I am more here for the midlife crisis and romcom aspects. I posted two sections on my journal in draft form ages ago, and part of the third chapter is written. About 3,500 words written, should come to maybe 8,000 when complete. (Or 10,000, depending on how much they argue before I can talk them into possibly inadvisable sex.)

5. The Courting Dance
--A Chronicles of Narnia fic dealing with Aravis and Cor's attempt to get married despite stiff political opposition. Each chapter features a different POV, and there is at least as much world-building as romance. Eight chapters currently written and posted, probably seven left to go. Currently 12,500 words, will be around 24,000 when complete.

6. A Change of Season
--Chronicles of Narnia fic, sequel to "Out of Season" and "To Every Thing There Is a Season." This one follows Ilgamuth Tarkaan and Shezan Tolkheera through the end and aftermath of HHB, as they attempt to navigate extreme personal and political upheavals. I only have about 650 words of this written and my outline is extremely vague, so the estimated final wordcount is mostly a wild guess, but... I'd say 30,000 minimum. I'm putting this on here mostly because it's a story that I intensely want to write at some point, but I've needed external deadline pressure to get through the other two main fics in this sequence so perhaps a similar kick will work on this one as well. It would require me to write at least twice as many words as any other option, though.

7. Lemonade
--A BtVS/Gundam Wing/Naruto crossover in which Faith Lehane, Duo Maxwell, and Uchiha Sasuke accidentally get yanked into a hell dimension and have to work together to get home. Along the way, they have some sex. :) This is post-Chosen for Faith, post-Endless Waltz for Duo, and in the third year of the timeskip for Sasuke; it ignores all BtVS comics, anything from Preventers Five, and pretty much all of post-timeskip Naruto. Nineteen chapters are currently posted, totalling roughly 44,000 words. I estimate another six to ten chapters before the plot wraps up. (I have a relatively firm outline, but I'm not always great at guessing how many words it will take to cover each point.) This should be roughly 60,000 words when complete, though only 16,000 or so would be new.

So. With that in mind, here is a poll:



If you can't get the poll to work for you, please leave a comment instead!

1. Go to page 77 (or 7, or just hit pagedown 7 times) of your current manuscript.
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy down the next 7 lines – sentences or paragraphs – and post them as they’re written.
4. Tag 7 other authors. (um... consider yourself tagged if you want to play?)


Hmm. Well, I don't know how 'current' all of these are, but they are the fics that I still have at least vague intentions of finishing which are also long enough for this meme to apply. So.

-----

( The Light in Your Eyes - Star Trek: AOS )

-----

( Intervention - Star Trek: AOS )

-----

( Aspects of Immortality - Homestuck )

-----

( A Question of Familiarity - Enchanted Forest Chronicles )

-----

( To Every Thing There Is a Season - Chronicles of Narnia )

-----

( Secrets, ch. 15 - Harry Potter )

-----

( Friends and Neighbors - Naruto )

-----

( The Transient and the Eternal: Stop that - Angel Sanctuary )

-----

( The Transient and the Eternal: If it wasn't you... - Angel Sanctuary )

-----

( Ephemera, ch. 2 - Angel Sanctuary )

-----

( Five Things That Never Happened to Rex and Ana Lewis (And One That Still Might) - GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra )

-----

...I have way too many WIPs. :-(

1. It turns out the reason PM overstaffed the smoke shop on Friday had nothing to do with shoppers. (We don't get Black Friday rushes anyway; we are not that kind of store and we don't do sales.) She overstaffed us because the day after Thanksgiving is when all the holiday decorations go up. So poor MS spent all afternoon working on that, and poor BW spent three hours of the evening continuing the job, and then watching the counter while I counted the Gesty inventory which nobody had gotten around to doing earlier on account of having to put up the decorations. *sigh*

-----

2. Today I did laundry and bought groceries. Said groceries mostly consisted of tissue boxes, since Vicky went through a box and a half during my family's visit. Being sick is never any fun, but it's worse on holidays when you're meant to be happy and to participate in family activities instead of hiding and taking long naps.

-----

3. On the writing front, I have been scattered as usual -- a hundred words here, a hundred words there, nothing anywhere near finished. The only thing of any length I managed was about 800 words of "Five Things That Never Happened to Rex and Ana Lewis (And One That Still Might)," my GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra fic. Basically I changed my mind about Ana's MOS (she is now doing chemical warfare instead of helicopter maintenance), got her through basic training and most of advanced individual training, and had Ripcord break the news that Duke's been kidnapped. Because in section two? Ana and Duke are essentially switching their movie roles, so she is the proactive military heroine and he is the brainwashed love interest. *evil grin*

I think I can get section two wrapped up in another thousand words or so -- I can pretty much skim everything until the nanomite warhead mission and cut off after Ana gets to punch Duke. Then it's on to part three, wherein Rex wakes up in MARS's custody after the airstrike, but things then go notably askew to canon. *eviller grin*

I have also been figuring out section/chapter titles for this story. At the moment, each one is a random quote, because I fail at creativity. Part one, wherein Rex gets Duke to delay the airstrike, is called 'The Best of All Possible Worlds' (Voltaire, Candide). Part two, wherein Ana joins the army, is 'Be All That You Can Be' (US Army recruitment slogan). Part three is tentatively called 'At the Thought of His Immolation' (Poe, "The Cask of Amontillado"). Part four is 'The Line Dividing Good and Evil' (Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago). Part five is 'All for One, One for All' (Dumas, The Three Musketeers). And part six is tentatively called 'Toward Some Overwhelming Question' (Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock).

I was able to get Netflix to work, though the picture quality is somewhat fuzzy. And it turns out that Duke was nearly recruited to GI Joe in Thailand. Right before he broke up a bar.

So why would an American soldier be in Thailand, especially when we haven't had any bases there since the end of the Vietnam War, and those were Air Force rather than Army anyway?

Well, did you know that America and Thailand hold joint military exercises every year, to celebrate their military alliance (and also over 175 years of some sort of military relationship)? It's true. The two countries do this annually -- I can't find a clear record of the schedule, but it seems to run sometime between February and May, for about ten days to two weeks each year.

The program is called Cobra Gold.

*dies laughing*

I really have to wonder if the scriptwriters knew about that...