#eyeofacat writing process

[conundrumoftime]

It is deeply frustrating to me that I find it easier to write than to read.

This definitely hasn’t been the case for most of my time in fandom. (I was around a lot when I was younger, and then took a break for about 10 years, and then dropped in and out for a year or two until Rings of Power seized my brain.) I was always much more of a reader than a writer and would read dozens of stories for any one thing I wrote myself. Now it feels like I can write loads and loads in any spare time I have, and I never have time to read.

Partly I think this is because I find it easier to write now. Partly it’s about having quite different life circumstances - now I have kids nowhere in my house is quiet and someone is interrupting me approximately every 8 seconds. For some reason I’m better at writing through that kind of attention-frazzling than I am about reading through it - it’s easier to pick up the threads of my own story again, where I already know what I’m thinking, than it is with someone else’s. But it’s not exactly ideal, and so I have limited time for interruption-free concentration: lunch breaks (mostly, work’s quiet at the moment), train commute (thank you noise-cancelling AirPods), and an hour set aside for doing something creative in peace in the evenings which I try to get a few times a week. And I prioritise writing in those, and then I am left with no time to read.

This would not be so bad if there wasn’t so much out there I want to read, both published books and fanfic.

And I think I expected my writing muse to burn out again after a few fics - I really did write my first TROP one thinking “this’ll get it out of my system” - and it keeps not doing, although I still write like I’m afraid I’ll lose the power to any day now.

Trying to change my mindset from ‘my to-be-read list is an unconquerable mountain of wistful longing’ to ‘I am just getting through my to-be-read list very slowly’.

[conundrumoftime]

2023 fic round-up

Total works: 26 plus two old fics I uploaded from 2004 and 2008, across 6 fandoms

Fics I started writing on the power of irresistible vibes hoping a cohesive plot would turn up and it did:

Banquets have burned for you - Haladriel, M, written for eastwynds for the Haladriel fic exchange. The second time I have leaned heavily on Aeschylus for fanfic (first was years ago for Battlestar Galactica which lends itself very well to Greek myth and tragedy, but it worked for Numenor too). I am slowly coming round to writing a sequel for this one next year some time.

Say it like the sunrise when it’s talking to the fog - Celeborn/Glorfindel, Silm-LOTR, written for @yletylyf for the Trick or Treat exchange. Saw the pairing on a pinch hit list and the vision struck me like some sort of revelation. This was so much fun to write!

Things I wrote this year that I would not have seen myself writing:

Longfic: Shadow-Bride, Haladriel, now at 30 chapters and nearly 170k words. I have always been a shorter fic person and haven’t done epics and I am so pleased this one’s still going fine. It’s helped to have the basic plot already planned while the space around that structure has let me develop it as it’s gone along. This fic is my beloved precious baby.

Mpreg: technically (because it’s a shapeshifting Sauron taking the form of Galadriel), in To hold all the promise of blue-velvet dark, TROP, Celeborn/Sauron. I am pleased with how much this one stayed ambiguous w/r/t whether Sauron was indeed doing this to get to Galadriel or whether he started off with that intent but just got more into it than he'd planned, one thing led to another, etc etc. I think probably the second one.

Favourite AO3 tag used this year:

'Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as a metaphor for the pain at the heart of your marriage' on Softest of Tongues, Silm-LOTR, Galadriel/Celeborn.

Things I couldn’t get enough of writing this year:

Noldor-Sindar drama. I just. It’s so compelling, and I think all? of the elf/elf pairings I’ve written use it as background somehow.

Celeborn/Sauron - like @liminal-zone I have gone fully off the deep end with this one. It’s been a speed run from “haha what if THIS crackship?” to “please be seated for the 57-slide Powerpoint presentation on how It All Makes Sense.” Started when I wrote a Twitter Haladriel promptfill where Sauron referred in passing to “your pretty Sindar prince” and, well, here we are.

Galadriel and Celeborn’s marriage: I have many thoughts about established relationships as fandom ships which are for another post, but, this one’s got a lot of intriguing hints in the canon plus Noldor-Sindar drama plus more ways to write about Galadriel so I am very into it now.

Trying to fit Celeborn into Rings of Power canon, which led to the whole series offics with half-Maia Celebrían being raised by a Celeborn who knows that and is a good dad to her while working through some things himself.

Individual bits I was really pleased with:

Description of Annatar, the only time I’ve written him: [Celeborn] thinks of tiny, whirring cogs, all turning in perfect precision; of fine metal filigrees making up each fibre of Annatar’s hair, of his skin as some kind of silk stapled into place at the seams. Rarer gifts than gold, Celeborn/Sauron, Silm.

Maedhros in my Third Kinslaying Elwing/Maedhros fic knowing how to do a double hip carry for baby twins: It would make every nightingale sing, Silmarillion.

Modern-day Sauron in Blood Sugar (Haladriel) having a print of Caravaggio’s ‘David with the head of Goliath’ on his wall - the painting in which Caravaggio, in exile and facing a death sentence for murder, painted the severed head with his own face as a gift to the cardinal who could grant him a pardon.

Sauron in Tar-Mairon of the Shire (TROP fluff) as the Lord of Gifts giving away presents on his birthday, Hobbit-style.

Strangest anon hate comment:

Among all the “ugh kys freak” comments which do get a bit repetitive after a while, the one that accused me of ‘pretending to be a multishipper’ stands out. Wut.

Fandom resolutions for 2024:

I’m staying away from goals around fic completion or targets because that doesn’t work for me. Instead, I’m making more of a conscious effort to write and enjoy the things I like the way I like them. This is a pretty basic fandom tenet and I shouldn’t need reminding, really, but sometimes in polarised, fighty corners of fandoms or places where there’s a lot of fanon it can feel like anything outside fandom norms will come across as starting discourse, and there’s nothing more stifling to writing and generally having fun in fandom than wondering “what’s it going to sound like I’m saying here?” all the time.

The other fics:

The Stars My Destination, Babylon 5. Bester thinks about the nature of death.

Life After Death, Alias - wrote this in 2008. found it in my old LJ archives and uploaded it this year.

When all the leaves are gold, Silmarillion, Galadriel/Celeborn. Everything is fine in Doriath. Everyone is happy in Doriath. No you can't leave.

All that Glitters, TROP sequel to that - where Celeborn has been for the past several centuries.

Civil Twilight, TROP, Haladriel and Galadriel/Celeborn, continuity fits with the previous two fics, I love this one and am so pleased with how well it worked.

Changeling, Silmarillion, Fourth-age Maglor. Wrote most of this in 2004 (it's old enough to vote!) and never finished or posted it because the Tolkien fandom used to be terrifying to me; finished and uploaded this year.

A green thought in a green shade, TROP Galadriel/Celeborn, another 'where has Celeborn been?' angle.

Made of sterner stuff, TROP, Disa, motherhood, ambition, dwarf culture.

So Wide a Sea, TROP Haladriel and Galadriel/Celeborn. Wrote this near the beginning of the year and then said afterwards that it was kind of fun to write Celeborn but I probably wouldn't be doing it again. [comedy trombone noise]

All the kinds of alive you can be, TROP, and it's Celeborn/Sauron but Sauron in the guise of Galadriel so - pairings are messy. I was playing around with doing a longer 'what if Sauron took the form of Celeborn' thing which I'd done a bit in Shadow-Bride and then thought "wait..."

I have loved flowers that fade, TROP, Haladriel, went in a bit heavy on the Athrabeth.

Suo Gân and Arda Sahta, TROP, baby half-Maia Celebrían being raised by Galadriel and Celeborn. I got so yelled at for writing these and at one point I had multiple anon hate comments on AO3 and people self-righteously condemning Those Haladriels on Twitter, which given it's G-rated fic about a baby which was all correctly tagged and not compulsory reading was I feel a bit of an overreaction.

As little might be thought, a followup to those with Celeborn talking to Elrond about fatherhood.

Weighed against our future, TROP. Haladriel 'missing scene on the road to Eregion' fic.

The turn of the tide, TROP, 4th-age Haladriel angst.

Though I sang in my chains like the sea, TROP, Haladriel, gapfiller for ep2 and their time on the raft.

And white winter, on its knees, TROP, little Haladriel 'what if she accepted the raft proposal' fic.

[conundrumoftime]

Twenty questions for fic writers

From a few people!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

At the moment 59 under my name, plus a couple of anonymous ones for fic exchanges that haven’t hit the author reveal date yet.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

345,058

3. What fandoms do you write for?

At the moment: Rings of Power, Silmarillion and LOTR. My other big fandom is Babylon 5, although my much-loved WIP for that one is currently on hiatus.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

I don’t think these are my top 5 fics by a metric I care about given my love for small fandoms and obscure niche content alongside the Haladriel juggernaut stuff, but with that in mind:

- Shadow-Bride, my big Haladriel WIP, my baby, my love, my precious;

- A man is a god in ruins, my first multi-chapter Haladriel, which started life as a short ficlet to be the ‘+1’ of a 5 Things fic and took on something of a life of its own;

- Silver Queen, my first half-Maia Celebrian story - really I just wanted to give her enough half-Maia powers to blast ambushing orcs down a mountain;

- Five times Halbrand’s secret got revealed, my second (I think?) fic for Rings of Power. One of the scenarios turned into Shadow-Bride, and the +1 scenario in which Galadriel doesn’t learn his secret (well… arguably…) is ‘A man is a god in ruins’.

- Lady of the Seas, second part of a Haladriel two-parter; Haladriel smut with Sauron doing a lot of thinking about Ossë and Uinen.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to! I got behind at one point and had to declare temporary amnesty. I am so grateful for almost all (see answer to q8) the comments I get, and I love responding to either discuss things or just say ‘thank you’. I never manage to find time to do it as soon as I would like.

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

This would probably be one of my Babylon 5 ones - either ‘A spirit haunts the year’s last hours’, an AU drabble where the Minbari took Valen prisoner and now Delenn has her own pet god figure; or ‘MIssing’, about Delenn searching for Lennier after s5 and not finding him.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

‘Tar-Mairon of the Shire’, a Rings of Power AU where the Harfoots really did find Sauron. Does what it says on the tin. My summary for this one is ‘Hobbits make everything better, including Dark Lords’ and I stand by that.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Yes! A ridiculous amount! I have had multiple comments inviting me to harm myself in various graphic ways over making the wrong fictional characters kiss. I get the most hate for writing Celeborn in a way the haters have decided is mean to him (?? he’s fine!) and particularly on my G-rated baby ficlets. Who can even fathom this, honestly.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do, and mostly the ‘overly wordy’ kind.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I was going to say yes but apparently nothing I have on AO3 is a crossover and I can’t remember what I’ve written in my pre-AO3 days. So: yes I think so! once! But alas, can’t remember what.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not the whole fic in a copy/paste sense, but: yes. I won’t lie, it was pretty weird and unpleasant to discover, but once I’d got over the initial “?!” reaction I saw it a little differently - that kind of plagiarism was obviously coming from an author who was insecure in their own abilities, was deeply jealous of mine, and who ultimately was missing out on much of the actual fun of writing. What’s even the point of fanfic if you aren’t coming up with your own work? It’s not like we’re getting paid! How unsatisfying must it be to have readers like your work and know it’s actually someone else’s thing they’re liking anyway, right? So I ended up in a place of taking it as a compliment in the ‘imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness’ sense.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes - one of my Rings of Power fics got translated into Russian. I am very happy, and very impressed by the translator’s work.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Yes and it didn’t go well and I nearly fell out with my co-writer friend over it because we had different schedules and different takes on the story, so: never again.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

It’s probably one I haven’t even written for: Jack and Irina in Alias. It’s got everything I love about ships! They’re enemies working for rival organisations, they’re married, they try to kill each other, they can’t quite bear to do it, they have to sort out awkward co-parenting arrangements, they plot, they dance, there are stabbing attempts… honestly, SpyParents forever.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I plan to finish all my WIPs! I only have three at the moment: Shadow-Bride; Set Fire to the Stars (Babylon 5 pre-series Minbari worldbuilding with Branmer, who I love); and All The Kinds of Alive You Can Be (Rings of Power Sauron/Celeborn where Sauron shapechanges into Galadriel).

16. What are your writing strengths?

Especially these days (I’m a fandom old) I like that I’m happy to try writing new things based on thinking it would be interesting and I’d like to go with it, and not being intimidated by finding the fandom too scary or writing in a different direction to popular fanon or getting a baffled “that’s… nice… I guess?” reaction from my usual readers. I love writing Rings of Power Celeborn; I love writing fics about him raising half-Maia Celebrian; I get untold fury about this from a lot of the Twitter fandom youth, but I continue to have fun :)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I have tons about my actual writing (dialogue, endings, failure to come up with titles I’m happy with) but along the lines of the above answer: I wish I was better at doing long multi-part fics, because the ones I’ve done I have had loads of fun with but I usually stick to one-shots because I don’t feel like the energy of the story will keep going long enough.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

A few of my fics across fandoms have language as important, and specifically, different languages belonging to different people/who’s speaking and what they’re speaking in. My Silm-LOTR Galadriel/Celeborn fic ‘Softest of Tongues’ is a lot about Quenya and Sindarin, and how inadequate translation can be - one of the tags is ‘Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as a metaphor for the pain at the heart of your marriage’.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Poltergeist: the Legacy, back in the late 1990s. Fandom OLD. (I am glad none of those stories nor the forums they were written in have survived the ravages of internet time, I tell you.)

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

I have a few and the thing they all have in common is ‘I am really pleased I was able to make this thing I like work’. So:

- Tar-Mairon of the Shire (Rings of Power), for combining hope and Hobbits and History of Middle-earth, in a way that is both fluff and also genuinely sincerely written Sauron redemption;

- Civil Twilight (Rings of Power), for getting Haladriel and Galadriel/Celeborn into the same fic and for a take on Celeborn I’m really happy with;

- Softest of Tongues (LOTR and Silm), for writing Galadriel/Celeborn in a way that got the exact right language-as-symbolism and the tone of sadness and love and hope and grief that I was trying to hit;

- Deceptions (Babylon 5), for being a short fic that still captures Lennier going from protective to horrified in realising how terrifying his boss is (and also for Delenn making Neroon bow to her)

- Things That Go Bump In The Night (Ghosts), because I was not sure if I could write comedy fic for a comedy, and it turns out I could!

Tagging: @bad-surprise @stitchingatthecircuitboard @liminal-zone @myrsinemezzo @ophidion @formerlyir @hazelmaines @wyrd-syster and anyone else who wants to do it!

[conundrumoftime]

Fic update

Title: Shadow-Bride, chapter 25

Fandom: Rings of Power

Rating: E

Length: 5600 words

Pairing: Haladriel

Sample: 

“But you do have a friendship with them? And yet you keep your lands, which is more than they’ve allowed us in the past. You know they claimed Umbar once? Ruled from here for three generations. It never lasted, though. They left us, or they stayed and married us and had children and became us, and when we regained our city it was just the same but with better fortifications. We’ve seen Númenor come and go more than you have.” He bit into the cracking pink crust of a meringue. “Well. Maybe not more than you have.”

“We have an agreement with them,” the smith said. “We can’t match Númenor in power.”

“And why can’t you, precisely? A Maia should be more powerful by far than all Númenor’s human lords and ladies. Didn’t one of you raise Númenor from the sea? Can’t you. I don’t know. Sink it again?”

Note: Ost-in-Edhil and Umbar in this one! I'm still juggling fic exchange stories, but I finally got my Haladriel fic exchange one finished so that's two more assignments and two more 'I can't resist the prompt' short treats to go. No more fic exchanges past October, JUST SAY NO TO YULETIDE, dear heavens.

(narrator: she will not say no to Yuletide)

Shadow-Bride - Chapter 25 - eye_of_a_cat - The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (TV 2022) [Archive of Our Own]

[conundrumoftime]

For the writer asks

🤩 Who is your favorite character to write? 👀

Ooooh good question! I cannot choose but here are some:

What first got me into writing TROP fic was writing Sauron-as-Halbrand - what's it like to write from the POV of a being more ancient than the world itself who played a part in singing it all into creation, who's just hanging round a bunch of humans like he's Mr Ordinary Middle-earth Dude. And I was originally going to write one story (then two, then... sigh) to get that out of my system, but... a lot of Sauron-POV fics later, I'm still here.

I like writing Celeborn, because you have a lot of scope with a character who isn't sketched out in a very detailed way by Tolkien or in show canon (yet, I think they will), but with what could be such a fascinating history if you go with Doriath Celeborn - and I like the version of him I've headcanoned into being for my own fics. That version of him can be more challenging - he's also not saying a lot of what he's thinking, but in a much less grandiose way than TROP Sauron is. There's a lot that he's horrified or angry or scarred about, but it isn't as easy to address in interior monologue. But that's a fun challenge.

I like writing TROP Galadriel (and Silm and LOTR Galadriel in the couple of stories I've done for her there) because she has so much history, so much pain of various sorts behind her, so much sorrow, and so much devotion to what she sees as/takes on as her duty - and yet is also capable of seeing beauty and joy in the world. I love writing her in such a way that older wiser Galadriel still holds within her young arrogant setting-out-across-the-Helcaraxe Galadriel, with a bravery that spans both.

[conundrumoftime]

Writing patterns

Thanks to @thecoziestbean and @nocaptainonthisship for the tag!

Rules: list the first line of your last 10 (posted) fics and see if there's a pattern!

He says: “they’ll tell stories about us one day. (Shadow-Bride, TROP, Haladriel)

The moment she takes the Ring from the halfling, he knows. (Rise in Perfect Light, TROP but late Third Age, Haladriel)

After Eregion, after he returns to the south, after he faces Adar and drives a spear through the ungrateful thing’s throat, he hears that Galadriel is searching for her husband. (All The Kinds Of Alive You Can Be, TROP, Sauron/Galadriel/Celeborn)

In Galadriel’s dream her hands are numb from cold. (And white winter, on its knees, TROP, Haladriel)

The man shouldn’t have tried to jump him. (We aren't righteous, The Expanse (TV), Amos & Naomi)

Glorfindel is a little too bright, a little too perfect. (Say it like the sunrise when it's talking to the fog, Silm-LOTR, Celeborn/Glorfindel)

The pen is new, shiny, a little too expensive, probably a gift of some kind. (The Stars My Destination, Babylon 5, Bester)

“Explain again,” he says. (A green thought in a green shade, TROP, Galadriel/Celeborn)

The first time she hears that name there is a fire behind her and smoke in her eyes. (It would make every nightingale sing, Silmarillion, Elwing/Maedhros)

The elf is going to get them both killed. (Banquets have burned for you, TROP, Haladriel)

Still doing a lot of present tense; still like to begin within limited 3rd person POV in which somebody is noticing something.

I'm late to tags and don't know who's already done this, so please consider this an open invite to anyone who wants to pick this up!

[conundrumoftime]

Fics I’m working on at the moment:

- Rings of Power: Shadow-Bride chapter 20. Taking a bit of time to do some outlining with this, since my sketch of the plot here is like 1.5 sentences to span the next 4-5 chapters, and it’s already gone off course.

- LOTR/Silm/TROP-adjacent: Galadriel/Celeborn 3rd sage story, provisional title flicking back and forth between ‘Beauty of the Rain’ and ‘The Long Defeat’ depending on how cheery I’m feeling.

- Babylon 5: my WIP ‘Set Fire to the Stars’, which has been on hiatus since last year but which I was thinking about today so I’m counting it here.

I feel like I have to have something actively in process all the time, otherwise I am unmoored and drifting. I regularly get to the end of à fic or a chapter and think “ah, good, I’ll break from writing for a bit” and then three hours later go “HALP” and write two paragraphs of the next something to have as a Google Docs security blanket.

[conundrumoftime]

Working on chapter 19 of my Haladriel fic Shadow-Bride and the individual pieces are fine (I write chapters non-linearly) but I can’t quite get them into line in the overall chapter. Just going to keep writing and wait for it to work itself out.

[conundrumoftime]

Not sure if I’ll ever actually finish this, but here’s something I did today for part 3 of ‘All the kinds of alive you can be’ (the Sauron-shapechanges-into-Galadriel Celeborn/Sauron fic).

——

The blade is not of Doriath in the most literal sense for Doriath is long ago burned and drowned. What remains lives only in quiet memories and rarely-sung laments, in an oaken chest carefully lined with silk and full of trinkets that Celeborn only ever opens when Galadriel is away: a brooch with a winged moon, a toy bird carved from a deer’s antler, scraps of tapestry charred at their edges. But Mairon has studied well and in this blade he has captured a deeper truth.

It is not purely decorative. It is well-weighted, well-made, its edges sharp, its grip perfect for the shaking hand he takes and wraps around it (for doesn’t he know Celeborn’s hands so well by now). All the same it is not a weapon of war. It is the development of potential and beauty, what a weapon could be if not constrained by need. In its blade a dozen thin sheets of steel and bronze have been blended to give the appearance of rippling woodgrain. Its hilt is finely decorated with enamelled flowers, the dusky bluebells of spring that once carpeted the woods of Neldoreth. Its blade is more of a diamond than practicality would permit; its guard spirals into curls shaped like falling leaves.

Doriath was armed and guarded always, but at its heart, in its glory, away from its borders – the Doriath Celeborn knew, the Doriath Celeborn mourned – its princes were brought up in a land where things like this were made.

“It’s for you,” Mairon says, “I made it for you.”

Celeborn’s fingers curl tight around the blade’s grip. He is silent but when Mairon places a palm on his chest his heart hammers like a captured bird’s.

“I know how you miss Doriath,” Mairon says, “I know how you grieve, I know what was lost. I know you do not have words to name the ache when Galadriel sings of the sea and the lands beyond it. How great her grief and how sharp her pain, yet her home is still there beyond the sea. What of yours?”

Celeborn’s eyes flicker between Mairon’s eyes and his lips and the blade their joined hands hold. “Galadriel loved Doriath too.”

“But not like you,” Mairon says, “not like you,” and to this Celeborn says nothing.

He does not startle away at Mairon’s lips on his, the most gentle of kisses at the corner of his mouth. He liked this from Galadriel and from what he believed to be Galadriel and he does not seem to dislike it now. Although he is wary and afraid still he does not refuse Mairon’s hands soothing him, leaving the blade in Celeborn’s grasp to massage the hollow of a palm until the tension of muscle and tendon begins to ease. Then wrist, then forearm; and still Celeborn does not pull away nor refuse him nor fight.

Mairon had assumed he would fight at least once. It would not be as glorious as he imagined it with Galadriel, whose whirling fury even now drew closer – she’d be here in a few days at most, a thought both terrible and wonderful in equal parts. But this elf was a warrior too, albeit by circumstance rather than heart, and Mairon would allow him the gift of victory once if he wished for that. Whatever it felt like would be something Mairon yearns to feel.

“You can’t give me Doriath,” Celeborn says, “you can’t give me anything,” but soft skin shivers now beneath Mairon’s lips. It is as if he is working with silver itself and easing it gradually until it is something softened and pliable and ready to shape.

But Mairon is careless and desperate, a pathetic thing who needs too much. His master’s voice echoes within him, for elves, for elves, look at you yearning for elves of all things, and he pulls Celeborn close and hard to dispel it and finds instead a sudden resistance and his knife pressed to his pinned forearm.

Too fast.

“If I had wished to harm you I could have done it thirty times over, sweet silver prince,” he says.

“Then what did you wish of me?” A sharp harshness to him now that Mairon dislikes. He wants the softness and laughter he’s enjoyed before in Galadriel’s guise and he wants it for him, for him, why should she have all of this? Why should she who cannot understand all of Celeborn’s grief have such love and such loyalty, why should she whose people murdered his have all of him she wished to, and Mairon who would remake Doriath for him again be denied even one kiss from his lips?

—-

Link to the first two published chapters: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46393219/chapters/116806576

[conundrumoftime]

Why I love fic exchanges

I can't post links to any of the fic I've written recently because it's unrevealed in fic exchanges (watch this space!), so instead I want to talk about why I love fic exchanges so much.

Because they're such a lovely part of fandom culture: there is something wonderful about the idea of writing for someone else, often as not a total stranger, and trying to craft a story around their prompts and likes and preferences because you want them to read it and be happy. And, of course, the reciprocity of this - the way exchange mods try hard to make sure everyone gets a fic, the way people will come in as pinch-hitters. Not all exchanges have the anonymity element of Yuletide and its spinoffs but I love it when they do, and everyone has a week or so of reading and loving and commenting without even knowing who wrote what.

Because of the idea of 'extra gifts' in Yuletide and Yuletide-derived exchanges. You write the story you're assigned, and then look down the list of other prompts and think "well that sounds cool" and write an extra one for someone else too. I've been in exchanges before where there was a pre-deadline scramble to make sure everyone got at least one extra gift this way.

Because there's something beautifully old-school fandom about how DNWs ('Do Not Want's) work. No need to justify or excuse or explain, or even distinguish between 'not for this particular story' and 'not ever ew no' - just a nope, thanks :)

Because it's a great creative exercise to write according to someone else's set constraints. The exchange stories I've written recently included one that was much fluffier than I'd usually go, one character I'd always avoided writing for and two pairings that had never occurred to me. Prompts and preferences create a scaffolding for a building you might never have designed yourself, and I find it a brilliant way to stretch my writing abilities by offering characters and fandoms that are a little outside my usual comfort zone.

And while not all exchanges do the Yuletide-derived tradition of being anonymous for a while (and I don't think it would even work in smaller exchanges), I love the ones that do. Everyone commenting on each other's stories in the anonymous post-reveal period not because of the author but because of the story itself is a lovely thing.

Some lovely stories written for me in previous exchanges (not including any current ones that are still anonymous because I want to give the author credit if they're here):

What Happens in Numenor - you_wear_fine_things_well - The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (TV 2022) [Archive of Our Own] - Rings of Power, by @youwearfinethingswellwriter for the Haladriel fic exchange 2023

Superposition - kanadka - Babylon 5 (TV 1993) [Archive of Our Own] - Branmer in Babylon 5, by Kanadka for Trick or Treat 2022

Both Hands - gloss - Star Wars Sequel Trilogy [Archive of Our Own] - Leia/Holdo, by gloss for the Multifandom Drabble Exchange 2018

resolve me of all ambiguities - kangeiko - Alias [Archive of Our Own] - For the prompt 'What is Milo Rambaldi to Jack Bristow?', for Nine Billion Names all the way back in 2008.

[conundrumoftime]

I have two exchange fics to finish, one almost done (it’s an extra gift that I fell in love with the prompt for) and one due in four days that I only properly started tonight. Ha. I have overcommitted myself massively on writing and I’m also starting a new role at work in 10 days time, and I really want to get these fics done before then so I can just read for a little while because my to-be-read list is so vast and so tempting and I’m so far behind.

So obviously with all that said here’s more Shadow-Bride which I don’t have time to write AND YET! Here I am still writing it, apparently. (From the next chapter, still draft, might yet change).

“You would rather I ignored all you did,” she says. “Still.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then what would you prefer, to ignore everything you did until I returned? Or after? Everything before Nára was born?”

“Obviously not.” Even the thought of their daughter, of that daughter, casts a strange light on everything he might want to say. He feels so exhausted again. Perhaps they don’t need this, none of this; perhaps he can just lie down with Galadriel now, curled up against her light, and let the future care for itself.

But she will not have it, not with that smirk in the corner of her mouth he loves so much.

[conundrumoftime]

WIP ping-pong!

From the current chapter of Shadow-Bride, a letter:

My lady Galadriel, my queen, my wife, the brightest jewel of Pelargir.

Elf, you have removed your ring. Was that your choice or was it taken from you? […]

I know you dislike orcs and you dislike that my current plans require them. I rather dislike orcs myself. As I promised, you may kill them yourself when I am done. I sometimes cannot abide this thought and sometimes like it very much indeed, but at any rate I’ll have no more use for them and I did offer.

But I did say I would give you something you would want to know, didn’t I? Here, then: Your horse is back in Pelargir. I found her near Linhir while I was searching for you. Don’t fear, she is well cared for; no others are permitted to ride her and I would not dream of her being harnessed to a plough, so for the most part she does little except grow well-fed on sweet hay and allow some of the children to braid flowers into her mane. She has bitten me twice, though. I am sure you will be pleased to hear it.

Tagging anyone who wants to participate because I took so long to getting round to this one :/

[conundrumoftime]

If I may:

🛒 What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.

🧐 Do you spend much time researching for your stories?

🎯 Have any of your readers accurately guessed major plot points? Care to share which? (nb not asking for spoilers!)

🦅 Do you outline fics or fly by the seat of your pants?

cheers!

🛒 What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.

Things that turn up in a lot of my stories across fandoms/pairings/ships and gen, whether I mean them to or not!

The passage of time and how people relate to history, their own and other people’s. 

Duty and what it means: whether that’s a duty to specific others, or your people more generally, or to yourself, or duty in the form of some kind of promise or oath 

Long-term impacts of war

The importance of story and narrative and whether it’s a good idea to present your own experience/what you want it to be as a story

(since I had kids myself) More than I thought I’d ever include about parenting! 

🧐 Do you spend much time researching for your stories?

I think I do when it feels like worldbuilding, and I don’t when it feels like checking for accuracy. And those can overlap - I have spent a lot of time measuring out Middle-earth distances to work out how long it would take people to get from A to B via various methods of transport, but what interests me about it is whether there’s a road and if so who built the road, what sort of state of repair is it in at this point, why; or like in the most recent chapter of Shadow-Bride where there’s a voyage by ship but it takes longer because they have to cling to the coast, because Pelargir at this point isn’t really seafaring. 

A lot of my Babylon 5 WIP is set on a war cruiser spaceship, and for that one I did a lot of mental plotting out to think what kind of size crew it would have (it’s a really big ship! but it’s also not wartime and they have very advanced tech so would it need that many people?) and I looked a lot into things like what crew rotations and staffing and specialisations and training would be on a contemporary aircraft carrier or a submarine, etc., to build off for that. But it’s mostly to give depth and colour to a world I want to tell stories within, which for that fic is a lot about how the people who fought in the war are dealing/not dealing with peace; so I’m not set on accuracy as much as consistency.

Or for Tolkien: I tried really hard to get Quenya and Sindarin right for my Galadriel/Celeborn fic ‘Softest of Tongues’ because it’s about language and translation and telling stories through that. But when it comes to things like which First Age elf was born when, I’ll just handwave a lot of it as “eh it’s probably somewhere different in HoME anyway” if I check and it’s not convenient.

🎯 Have any of your readers accurately guessed major plot points? Care to share which? (nb not asking for spoilers!)

yes :)

🦅 Do you outline fics or fly by the seat of your pants?

Most of the time I have an ending in mind before I start - I find it really hard to begin a story without - but for a one-shot it’s sometimes very roughly sketched. For longer WIPs I do have the general outlines planned in advance and then let the story go where it wants in the middle. 

Shadow-Bride is the most outlining I’ve ever done because of the structure it has with the present-tense bit as a framing device, so with that one I know exactly where it’s going and how it will end and what the epigraph is for the final chapter etc etc. It has expanded a LOT within that outline over time though (I think my initial chapter count was 9? and then 12? hahahaaaaaa). This does mean that when I get stuck in a scene I sometimes jump ahead a bit and write something from a chapter yet to come - I have lots of Elrond scenes in draft at the moment because I like writing him so much!

[conundrumoftime]

Hello, I saw this post and liked it and remembered that someone wrote a fic exploring this very topic and I went off to find the link and add it to the post and then it was your fic lol! and anyway I just appreciate the thought you've put into the whereabouts of our elven forest prince, thanks!

Awww thank you!

I am trying to brace myself for the show not doing what I want on this one, because even if they write him really well - and they might! they are good at fleshing out characters! and they know their Silmarillion and there's so much background they can work with!... she says, desperately - he's probably not going to be the one I've headcanoned and have now got depressingly attached to. But they could do SO WELL with him and I live in hope!

[conundrumoftime]

Good things about getting a fic exchange story done before the deadline:

No worry about missing the deadline, unlike every fic exchange I ever did before this year!

Plenty of time to proofread (did we just refer to a canonically one-handed character having hands, plural? oops)

Lots of time to do extra gift fics for others

Lots of time to catch up on that AO3 To Be Read list

Downsides:

Can't show it to people or talk about it for WEEKS. gnargh.

So I'm not going to talk about the fic itself but since I'm here anyway, and procrastinating on some job application stuff I really should be doing: the fic I just wrote has once again got subject matter that overlaps with my own job, and while I didn't set out to do this I think part of me is always trying to process it. It's the same with my TROP WIP 'Shadow-Bride' and it's the same with my Babylon 5 WIP (on hiatus! not abandoned!) 'Set Fire to the Stars', although it's different work things in both of those. I end up writing about things I have dealt with at work by putting them into a fantasy sci-fi situation and working through them from there, and not even realising I'm doing it until partway through.

I'm being vague about what these things are, sorry! But they're also abstracted to a greater or lesser degree, and like I said there's different work things included.

I just find it interesting, really, that while I don't use fanfic to work through personal life grief or traumas or things that need working through (or if I do it's in a way I'm not aware of), I seem to do it with work stuff all the time.

[conundrumoftime]

I wanted to do a WIPWednesday post but alas! most of my current WIPs are for fic exchanges so I can’t post snippets from them, and the one that isn’t I haven’t got anything snippetable from the next chapter yet because I’m buried in fic exchange ideas like Jim Kirk and the tribbles. Anyway, here’s what I’ve got!

1. Shadow-Bride, my long Haladriel story: now working on chapter 25 (of ???), which I’m not letting myself touch again until another exchange story is done. But I’m so looking forward to writing this one! At the end of the previous chapter Sauron was heading to Umbar and it’s somewhere I’m just itching to describe.

2. Fic exchange story 1 - is now ridiculously long but I’m so happy with it and have had such a great time writing it. It’s got chapter titles which I’ve only done once before and love here for vibe reasons (quotes from the same source as the story title). I’m hoping to have it finished by tomorrow and that gives me a week or so to go through it and tidy and edit.

3. Fic exchange story 2 - ended up with a prompt that made me yelp (in a good way), but have so far only written the prologue and decided I now want that to be its own separate story as well. Thanks brain, that’s helpful!

4. Fic exchange story 3 - additional gift for one of the exchanges based on a prompt tag I could not resist.

5. Fic exchange story 4 - another additional tag for yet another exchange which I also couldn’t resist.

6. Fic exchange story 5 - my actual assignment for the previous fic exchange, which I don’t have yet but will need to actually write over the next 6 weeks.