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brigdhI went off to work in my coffeeshop this afternoon, fully intending to actually work and to finish the research I needed to write the paper due later this week. But once I got there I realized that I had somehow managed to forget to bring my computer's plug. Given the current state of my laptop's battery, this meant I had about ten minutes to attempt research before I ran out of power.
Since I was annoyed at having gone all the way there- and was nowhere close to finishing the coffee I'd bought- I scrounged around in my bag to see if there wasn't something useful I could do. I usually have multiple novels and notebooks and articles and so on with me, so this was actually fairly likely. I could have outlined my argument for the paper, for example. Or started writing my yuletide story. Instead I wrote out a scene from an original story I've had in the back of my head ever since I outlined it for a Nanowrimo... two years ago? Maybe three years? I don't remember. I've never written any of it, obviously, but clearly it was the most effective way of procrastinating on both my paper and yuletide. Also, possibly I take some sort of subconscious pleasure out of writing about people in a desert while it's really cold here.*
Looking at it again now- wow, it's really obvious why Swordspoint appeals to me. I can just read about a pair of amoral anti-heroes, one of whom is a runaway, unstable noble and the other is reserved and protective, instead of having to write it myself. Except my characters are lesbians instead of boys, and they've swtiched off on who is very, very good at being violent and who is self-destructive. And also there's magic and monsters and riots that turn into widespread revolution and attempts to overthrow the government. Still, there's enough coincidences to make me wonder that I never noticed before.
I'll probably never write my story: I don't think I have the patience to do a novel, particularly when I don't even really have a plot. But I keep stealing pieces of it for other things. Sanzo and Gojyo's looks and backstories in my reincarnation story, What Power, were just this story's rewritten to make it fit a cyberpunk world. And when I was taking that fiction writing class last year, I simply plopped the main character into our world, since I didn't want to be the only one writing fantasy, and wrote what was essentially an AU of her.
Does anyone else do this? Have extremely complex daydreams that you mine for details that will be useful in other pieces which you'll actually write? C'mon, don't leave me feeling like a weirdo. Tell me some of the stories you tell yourself.
*Note: not actually all that cold here. But I'm fucking well going to complain about it anyway, because Blah. Cold. Hate. And it was really cold yesterday, to the point where I had to pile three heavy blankets, a cover, and a quilt on my bed before I could manage to keep enough warmth in to fall asleep.
Since I was annoyed at having gone all the way there- and was nowhere close to finishing the coffee I'd bought- I scrounged around in my bag to see if there wasn't something useful I could do. I usually have multiple novels and notebooks and articles and so on with me, so this was actually fairly likely. I could have outlined my argument for the paper, for example. Or started writing my yuletide story. Instead I wrote out a scene from an original story I've had in the back of my head ever since I outlined it for a Nanowrimo... two years ago? Maybe three years? I don't remember. I've never written any of it, obviously, but clearly it was the most effective way of procrastinating on both my paper and yuletide. Also, possibly I take some sort of subconscious pleasure out of writing about people in a desert while it's really cold here.*
Looking at it again now- wow, it's really obvious why Swordspoint appeals to me. I can just read about a pair of amoral anti-heroes, one of whom is a runaway, unstable noble and the other is reserved and protective, instead of having to write it myself. Except my characters are lesbians instead of boys, and they've swtiched off on who is very, very good at being violent and who is self-destructive. And also there's magic and monsters and riots that turn into widespread revolution and attempts to overthrow the government. Still, there's enough coincidences to make me wonder that I never noticed before.
I'll probably never write my story: I don't think I have the patience to do a novel, particularly when I don't even really have a plot. But I keep stealing pieces of it for other things. Sanzo and Gojyo's looks and backstories in my reincarnation story, What Power, were just this story's rewritten to make it fit a cyberpunk world. And when I was taking that fiction writing class last year, I simply plopped the main character into our world, since I didn't want to be the only one writing fantasy, and wrote what was essentially an AU of her.
Does anyone else do this? Have extremely complex daydreams that you mine for details that will be useful in other pieces which you'll actually write? C'mon, don't leave me feeling like a weirdo. Tell me some of the stories you tell yourself.
*Note: not actually all that cold here. But I'm fucking well going to complain about it anyway, because Blah. Cold. Hate. And it was really cold yesterday, to the point where I had to pile three heavy blankets, a cover, and a quilt on my bed before I could manage to keep enough warmth in to fall asleep.
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no subject
Date: 2006-12-11 07:22 pm (UTC)Now I'm totally curious about how many novels out there are fanfics with the serial numbers rubbed off. Wouldn't it be funny if you happened to read one and recognized the original source?
no subject
Date: 2006-12-11 08:16 pm (UTC)I have this film noir YnM dectective story
which I am not writingwhich I think would be almost totally unrecognizable as fanfic since it doesn't take place in the same universe and the names won't be Japanese. If I say, hey, this is a Yami AU, people would be able to go through and say, okay, that's Tsuzuki, that's Hisoka, that's Muraki, etc., but I think by the time I tweaked the style to be film noir, you wouldn't be able to tell I yanked basic personality traits and relationship structures.no subject
Date: 2006-12-11 08:21 pm (UTC)I've just remembered, though- A Factory of Cunning (http://www.amazon.com/Factory-Cunning-Philippa-Stockley/dp/0156030675/sr=8-1/qid=1165868314/ref=sr_1_1/104-7193536-9343929?ie=UTF8&s=books), which came out either last year or the year before, is totally supposed to be a sequel to 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses'. It was clear enough that I recognized it, and I've never even read LLD. Which made me wonder why the author didn't simply admit it, as surely the copyright on LLD has expired by now, and she might have gotten more publicity that way.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 07:03 am (UTC)The good novels that tend to result from such things are usually too well-disguised to be so easily recognized. It's part and parcel of the author's skill. *G*