I would like to finish one of my WIPs by the end of this weekend. Here are the three stories I am actively working on at the moment, and which are close enough to their ends for finishing tomorrow evening to be feasible:

1. Untitled Narnia bridge fic, aka a story featuring solely original characters, set a few years post-VDT and about a teen girl's quest to figure out a sustainable way to build bridges in a setting where the sentient personification of at least one river has canonically refered to bridges as chains. Also about taxes and sawmills, for some reason.

2. Untitled Doctor Who/Magnus Archives crossover in which Rose Tyler encounters mannequins animated by the Stranger rather than Autons animated by the Nestene Consciousness. Also featuring a young, still in university Jonathan Sims who picked a very wrong day to go shopping for new boots and accidentally get stuck in a department store after closing.

3. Untitled Narnia/Naruto crossover for the_rck, in which Tsunade and Shizune fall into Narnia early in Jadis's reign, but the real emotional plot line is about the three Narnian Talking Beast siblings they encounter and their efforts to cope with their changed world. (This story is also fundamentally based on a terrible joke, but I'm not revealing details because I want it to hit readers in layers when the story is actually finished and posted.)

Possibly unwisely, I picked up a pinch-hit for an exchange that shall remain unnamed for a while. The problem is that my recipient provided four prompts for the fandom we matched on, and I like all of them. A lot.

Unfortunately, I don't have time to write all of them. So I turn to the internet for help:

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!

Tangentially to my last post, because I know people react differently to things:




(The poll is Dreamwidth only, since that's where I have a paid account, but I think you may also be able to vote via OpenID.)

Stuff I have done today:

1) Got a haircut. I could easily have gone another week without -- probably three if I wanted to push it and deal with hair falling in my eyes all the time -- but I am going away on vacation starting September 1 and I wanted a trim before I left.

2) Spent nearly half an hour at work on my day off, because I dropped by just to check how things were going and discovered that BW had somehow managed to lose an entire carton of cigarettes. After eliminating all the other possibilities, AO, MS and I determined that, in fact, the carton in question had never been delivered, but BW had apparently neglected to check the delivery against the invoice and just assumed it was right. ARGH. I am going to give myself an extra half hour of phantom time on my punch card tomorrow to account for the time I spent tracking down his error when I wasn't even supposed to be there.

3) Made a prelimary packing list for my trip, because I do, on occasion, pretend to be an organized person. *wry*

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So, about that poll...

Thank you to everyone who voted! "The Guardian in Spite of Herself" won with 4 of 10 votes, while "The Courting Dance" came in second with 3 votes. However! I got completely bogged down on "Guardian" the last time I ran a poll -- the Amane family was being very uncooperative -- so I will see if I can knock off "The Courting Dance" ch. 7 tonight and then get cracking on "Guardian" tomorrow.

*rubs hands, sets to work*

This is still basically a giant infodump -- in other words, this is the "let me explain about Fisher, Lebrun, and Robert; some of Mal's backstory with Lebrun; what exactly Dom and Arthur are planning to do and why; and how and why Eames is involved in their mess" section, which is rather a lot to throw at you all at once, sorry! -- but now there is at least a bit more back-and-forth in the dialogue and some actual character stuff going on around the exposition. (2,200 words)

( Weregild, part 14 )

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And I think that wraps up chapter two, unless anyone has a burning need to see Eames talking with Sally and Robert? I think it would muck up the pacing and focus, but I could maybe be persuaded otherwise if someone makes a good case. (Or maybe not, but you can always try. *wry*) Anyway, chapter three will start with Ariadne fetching Arthur and Dom to meet with Jean-Claude. Yay Ariadne!

This chapter needs more editing than chapter one (though I do want to also go back and make sure chapter one hints more pointedly at the nature of Dom and Arthur's plan, now that I know more or less what it is), but I should have the final version up on AO3 by, say, Tuesday night. :-)

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And now, an experiment:



I don't think this will show up on LJ, since I don't have a paid account there, but I am testing out a kind of response poll I've seen a few other people do. Even if you don't have anything to say, please consider ticking a box or two to show you're reading!

Thank you to everyone who voted on what I should write today and tomorrow. The winner is ch. 14 of "The Guardian in Spite of Herself," with "Friends and Neighbors" as the runner-up.

I will get to work on that!

(There will be a gap while I go to a teacher appreciation dinner at church this evening, but aside from that... well, I can write at least a thousand words a day, given the right motivation, and I do have an outline, so fingers crossed.)

I need to decide on a character to be Sakura's mission partner in "An Ounce of Prevention" -- you know, the person who watches her while she's writing in the diary and makes sure she doesn't give away vital information, miss anything important, or start acting possessed.

The thing is, the guard's identity isn't that important in terms of PLOT, but it will definitely affect the TONE of the story, not to mention the side conversations. But I have a number of options that are equally entertaining for me, and no real preference for any of them.

So.

( Who should be Sakura's guard? )

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ETA: We have a winner, and the winner is Mitarashi Anko! Kakashi is the runner-up, followed by votes for notifying Ibiki (but not using him as a guard, since he has other things he should be doing), and what seems like an interest in having Iruka and members of Team 10 drop by for cameos.

So my main characters are now Sakura, Tom, Tsunade, Anko, and potentially Kakashi as a fill-in guard (because unless Anko moves into Sakura's house -- which I am not ruling out; she might do something nuts like that -- she can't watch Sakura 24/7). That means I have 3 female characters to 1 or 2 male characters. I like this ratio. :-D

I have a weekend. What should I write/edit?

1) Chapter two of Strange Likenesses, the HP fic in which Voldemort tries to possess little-kid!Harry and things go rather badly wrong.

2) Chapter nine of Secrets, my epic retelling of CoS from Ginny's point of view.

3) Chapter nine of The Way of the Apartment Manager, my pre-manga Naruto story, which is beginning to look like it's diverging into a slightly happier AU.

4) "Aphrodisia," a Neville story in which he realizes that he was indeed a victim of the attack that destroyed his parents, and as a result is completely asexual and incapable of ever experiencing sexual/romantic love and the roles that go along with that. (This is entirely Lasair's fault, since she says she can't picture Neville as a sexual being and I suddenly felt a need to justify/explore that.)

5) "Finding Marea," a piece of original fiction that intertwines the stories of six women in a search for truth and meaning and god and stuff like that, and which also happens to be a milieau exploration of part of a fantastical world.

6) The second half of Harvest, an unfinished Ekanu story.