[Post-]Weekend update

[aadler]

 
I stayed busy enough for awhile there that I didn’t have time to keep up with LJ. I’m still out-processing through Fort Benning, but we’ll probably leave tomorrow. We had the entire weekend to ourselves, and I attempted to use that time to best advantage. To explain:

When my daughter, sroni, began attempting to produce Buffyfic of her own, I did my best to encourage her. Then, when she got seriously involved in it, our writing relationship developed multiple interlinkages over time. I gave her a lot of feedback during her production of “God Save the Queen”, which I later rewrote in entirety as preparation for my collaboration in its sequel. We tossed ideas back and forth; one, which she described to me, I helped her to develop, and then found that it had taken hold of me; I asked — and she granted — permission for me to make use of it, and the result was “Phase Shift”.

Other things like that. Over a year ago, maybe even two years ago, I discussed a brief idea with her, I even had the title already picked out. Some weeks back, she asked if she could attempt her own version of it, subject to my approval. When she sent me the result, I could see that we had thoroughly different ideas, not just of how to approach the idea, but of what the ideas WAS, so I told her I would use what she’d contributed in working out my own concept of what the story should be.

I had wanted to do at least four stories during my Guantanamo deployment. I managed three — “Walking After Midnight”, “An’ Foolish Notion”, “X-Factorial” — and got 10,000+ words into “Queen’s Gambit”, the collaborative sequel to “God Save the Queen”. I knew there was still too much left to be done on QG for me to finish in time, so …

This past weekend I sat down, took sroni’s version, organized my thoughts, and wrote “Precious Cargo”. Today, in spare time here and there, I revised and edited and added a few hundred words, but the story was essentially finished before I went to bed last night. Since I’m still under orders, this fourth story was done during the deployment, even if not while actually in Guantanamo. So I met my goal.

Besides which, I did 5,000 words in two days. As always, I’m gripped by the steady euphoria of having finished another story.

I’ll post it tomorrow, or the day after. Right now, I’m just feeling good.