Fic:: At the Time of Writing [dS]

[raven]

5.08 am. Why... in fact, I'm not even going to go into the rant right now. Suffice it to say there are reasons for my being awake at this time, most of them involving Balliol/Tiptop/law school/life in general being really, really crappy, and my flamethrower is in the post.

ANYWAY. The ds_match results are in, and Team Angst won! Marginally. By less than 0.25 points. (We got 15.33 points to Team Romance's 15.19.) But still. And also who cares, because the whole thing was so, so unutterably awesome. I had a lovely time, and I never have this good a time when I'm new in a new fandom, it just doesn't happen. So. Yes. That is made of joy.

Also, now would be the time to confess. I began as a ds_team_angst back-up writer, and was, after a fortnight, promoted to actual challenge writer, which was a little brain-breaking but very very much fun. And as for the real confession, here's what she wrote:

Fic:: At The Time of Writing
by Raven
PG-13, Due South, slash. Fraser/Kowalski. Written for Team Angst, but mostly oblique in its woe.

( twenty-five pieces of documentary evidence, and something else that happened )

Yep, I committed epistolary fic. Well, it's not so much strictly epistolary as a mixture of letters, journal entries, answering-machine messages, fridge notes (none about communists, alas), database entries, lists, you get it. No continuous prose at all, which means it's only about 3200 words, but comes to eleven pages in a Word doc, and as I said more than once, it took the amount of work that eleven pages of continuous prose would have taken. Every word having to be exactly right was a bit of a problem. So was not being able to bounce it off the people I generally bounce my fic off, because of the whole anonymity problem, but actually, see above where this whole experience was great, because it was. nos4a2no9 and spuffyduds did the actual beta-work, and jamethiel_bane and isiscolo held my hand throughout, and they are all awesome people. Thank you, guys; I never did thank you before, and you were so great.

The anonymity thing made it all interesting, it must be said. absinthe_shadow guessed without even a pause for doubt who'd written it, and we resolved to only discuss it in coffee shops and not on the internet at all, which is the sort of resolution which makes me laugh and talk about fandom happily in public places. It makes me wonder, though, if knowing me in real life means you've a better shot at knowing what my writing voice is like. I'm not really sure about that - I mean, it would imply that I write how I talk, or at least my writing in everyday situations, such as notes and emails, is a clue to my narrative writing. Which is probably not the case. And I'm not sure I do have a consistent narrative voice - especially in a story like this, which has no prose to bear my fingerprints - but people have guessed stories of mine before now, so I'm really not sure.

(Also! Two people guessed that it might be isiscolo who wrote it! I found this very, very flattering away in my new-to-fandom corner.)

Of course, there were a number of clues in this story that indicated it was by me. Independent bookshop database entry, for example. (Guess where I've worked since I was seventeen?) And, well, there is the Case of the Unnamed Psychiatrist. Originally he was going to stay that way - unnamed - until I realised I couldn't cite him unless I did, indeed, give him a name. So I looked wildly about and eventually christened him J. Gaddis.

John Lewis Gaddis is, of course, a fairly eminent Cold War historian.

Speaking of whom, I have read pretty much all of We Now Know over the last six weeks or so, and it may just be me doing my reading at 5.29am, but I think he, too, is getting bored and somewhat flippant. My favourite section so far:

"Certainly it was the most memorable General Assembly session ever... The Soviet leader himself enlivened the proceedings by trying to shout down Macmillan; when this did not succeed he took off his shoe and banged it at the unflappable Prime Minister. 'A pity,' Gromyko later sighed, 'but it does happen.' Castro made his own unforgettable impression when he took the podium: 'We will do our best to be brief,' he assured the delegates, and proceeded to harangue them on the evils of American imperialism for four and a half hours... The assembled representatives of the first, second and third worlds reacted, for once, in harmony: they listened attentively for a while, but then began to fidget, and then, to slumber, and then, as discreetly as possible, to steal away."

Yes, I did just type all that out, I must be going mad, oh look it is 5.34am.

Back to work.

Comments

[troyswann.livejournal.com]

Aha! I read precisely 2 fics in the match b/c of how my life r stoopid and is deficient in time (bad life, no biscuit), and that was one! And I looooooooooooooooved it! And I sekritly recced it to people as in, "pssst, go here and read this cool story omg so sad and good!" and got back sekrit emails along the lines of "omg that was awesome" so there: love. Anonymous love. I didn't just love it 'cause of how I think you're the cat's pajamas, either. I am so very happy to think you will write dS. I'm verreh verreh happeh!

[marymac.livejournal.com]

One, you do have a writing voice, and I've no idea exactly what it comprises but its there. Theres an...air.
Two, historians get like that after a while. The archives put them loopy. And sarcastic.

[rosariotijeras.livejournal.com]

You do have a voice. It's like winter air, breathy and barely there, crystalline. Gorgeous and a little bit dangerous. You do things with words that I just can't comprehend, in all of your writing. Fic, journaling, whatever. I'm sure your essays papers academic pieces are actually well-written, not just mindless listings of facts with adjectives randomly plopped about.

(personal side note - Fraser went crazy on my 9th birthday. This is, by all accounts, when I started losing it too.)

How much, if at all, on a scale of 1-10, do you like Tegan and Sara?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oh yaaaaay! Your comment on it absolutely made my day. *loves you a whole huge ginormous lot* *kicks Sal's life till it starts behaving*

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Poor old historians. They need more fresh air.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*blushes, a whole LOT* That's one of the nicest things anyone has ever said about my writing. Thank you.

(It was the week of my eleventh birthday. Conclusions may be drawn.)

Not a number at all, because I have never heard any Tegan and Sara. Should I be listening to them?

[marymac.livejournal.com]

I dunno. My supervisor cycles everywhere and is still one of the most deliciously sarcastic people I've ever met. Especially if you hand him a pint and start a conversation about Irish politics at any point in the past three centuries. Or Irish historians, ever.