Weekend update (from Birnam Wood, perhaps)

[lolmac]

It’s certainly not from Chevy Chase. It’s actually from Idaho, where I’m visiting my sister, whilst the ever-magnificent pepper_field covers RDA Daily for the weekend, freeing me from Internet Schedule Angst.

For those who remember that I had entered the Unicorm Pegasus Kitten fanfic contest: the winners were announced, and I’m not one of them. Sigh. I have been working my way through the disappointment and ego-bruise. I promise I’ll stop sulking soon.

I’ve also been continuing to make progress on chapter 15 of Reverb, and it is nearly done. In the meanwhile, I realised I hadn’t posted the teaser and link to chapter 14 back when that went live!

Now, some of you are not reading Reverb at all; some of you intend to read it, but not till it’s finished; so it doesn’t make any difference to you whether I post here or not. Some of you have been following it with ego-gratifying enthusiasm, and you’ve already read the most recent chapter. So why the heck should I bother to do a post for it here?

One thought does occur to me: that was the chapter with the Biggest Reveal Yet. On fanfic.net, I had to throw in my usual killjoy reminder pretty please not to leave spoilers in reviews, with an encouragement to contact me directly with any spoilerific comments.

You can probably guess where this is going. Those of you who are reading Reverb: would you like me to do a Chapter 14 post here, so we can chat about it in the comments in a clearly declared Spoilery Zone? I don’t want to do a post and then not get any traffic; I doubt that my ego has the resilience just now to endure a round of silence and chirping crickets.

'Beth
August 2010

ETA:  The Chapter 14 post for Reverb is here.

Comments

[foreverhermit.livejournal.com]

As you're aware, I'm one of those who've been rabidly following the story as it's posted. I did finally realize 14 was up and just figured I missed the LJ update.

Screw those people over at the Unicorn Pegasus Kitten whatever. Obviously they wouldn't recognize excellent writing if it walked up and bit them on the ass! ;-)

[lolmac]

*hugs you* Icon LOVE.

On the supposed main topic -- if I do a chapter 14 post so the rabid enthusiastic readers can do spoilery comments and discussion, would this interest you?

[foreverhermit.livejournal.com]

That animated heart is something I found while doing a(n unrelated) Google search about 7 years ago. No idea who made it but I fell in love with it. It reminds me of color-change dichroic glass, so that's what I call it - DICHROIC HEART. Feel free to snag, if you want!

On the supposed main topic -- if I do a chapter 14 post so the rabid enthusiastic readers can do spoilery comments and discussion, would this interest you?

You even have to ask? ;-)

[lolmac]

You even have to ask?

Yes, I do. I could blame it on a fragile ego, I suppose, or on the Library forum at MacGyverOnline, where I generally get a fair number of hits but few comments.

But I'll take that as a 'yes'.

[foreverhermit.livejournal.com]

That, my dear, is a big, huge, ginormous YES.

:-)

[lolmac]

Done.

*squishes you* Thank you. I probably should have asked my Flist for support right away . . .

[foreverhermit.livejournal.com]

You're welcome.

And that's what we're here for. *hugs you back*

[curuchamion.livejournal.com]

O_O How could you not win?!? :-(

*hugs*

[lolmac]

*hugs back* Thabnk you.

The disappointment is hard to take, even though it goes with the territory. Of the two winning stories, I've had the chance to see one, and it was very good; no shame or bitterness there, just disappointment.

On the supposed main topic -- any interest in a chapter 14 post for Reverb with a spoilery discussion thread?

[curuchamion.livejournal.com]

How many more cliffies before the story is wrapped up, how many words already to catch up on, and how sure are you that the story won't suddenly grow a new subplot with additional chapters? (I mean, I know yours usually don't, but I sometimes beta for Cairis Rin - whose stories grow like Niggle's Tree! So I like to ask.)

[lolmac]

Chapter 15 is the last chapter; there will be an epilogue tidying up loose subplot threads, but the plot is already wound up. (As I said, chapter 15 is almost finished; I'm cleaning up details, filling in transitions, checking continuity.)

My longer stories tend to grow new segments internally -- a chapter will twin into two chapters, because I find out that there was more in the structure that needed, or deserved, further exploration. I used to try to prevent this, because I dreaded self-indulgent sprawl; I allow it a lot more now, but every expansion has to earn its survival.

Put another way, my Niggle's Tree will grow a bulkier trunk or main branch, but it's very unlikely to sprout a whole new branch and sprawl merrily off into a new section of canvas, especially not towards the end, when I'm tying the threads back together into the composition.

ETA: Word count: check the word meter on my main LJ page -- the story is projected at 80k, and I'm at 77k including Chapter 15. It's a full-sized novel.

[sid]

They probably just thought you shouldn't win two years in a row, in spite of making all the other stories look like shit. *hugs*

[lolmac]

*hugs back* Thanks. At least one of the winners was very good, so it's disappointment without bitterness on that score. I haven't seen the other winner as yet. There were over 350 entries, but most of the ones I saw (we were encouraged to post them and share links) were, well, the usual range of typical fanfic quality.

[lothithil.livejournal.com]

Most of my spoilery ramblings are in PM with you, but I wouldn't consider a posting here as an eyesore... quite the contrary!

Lead it with a LOLMac, and I think everybody will stay happy *wink*