Progress Report

[beboots]

 My eyes are starting to get sore, and I swear that my nimble fingers must have typed tens of thousands of words in this past month, but I'm nearing the end game. 

I've just almost-not-quite-but-still-nearly finished my four-way book review for my 400-level History of American Women's course. Huzzah! Over 1,050 pages of reading went into that book review (I now know far too much about the roles women played during the Second World War, especially Rosie the Riveter types), not to mention all of the writing and stress and sticky notes. I've just completed going over it, making sure I've cited everything properly, and wrote my conclusion. Mostly. I think it still needs a few more sentences; I like my conclusions to all but reach out and slap the reader in the face with its magnificence. That sounds problematic, but, uh, I like my papers to have a bit of "oomph" at the end. If you end on a strong note, the reader (AKA my teacher who is giving me a grade on it) will put it down and go "yep, that's A material". If you end on a weak note, it's just as bad as having a typo in your introductory paragraph: not good, dude. :P 

So that one is due this Thursday, in two days, but I'm right on track.

It's the paper due a week from today that I'm quietly worrying about. I can expand upon the document analysis I wrote earlier in the semester for the same class, so I technically have like three pages of it written, and I have been doing a lot of reading and note-taking for it... I just have to actually sit down and write the darn thing. It will get done soon. Hopefully. Probably tomorrow, and definitely this weekend. 

As for the other endeavours of the month... NANOWRIMO. See for yourself: 



I hit 50k (well, 51,060 words) on November 21st, and I've written only about 3,000 words since then. Shame on me. I also degenerated after about a week into writing fanfiction to make up my wordcount. My original characters were flat, you see, and my plot needed a huge overhaul and... it was too  much to do this month, what with everything else going on. So I wrote huge chunks of two Temeraire fanfics, and a significant amount of a Harry Potter fic that I've been meaning to write for a while. The premises/summaries are as follows:

The Tides of War
In a naval battle with the French, Laurence is presumed killed but actually captured, and Temeraire, thinking his beloved captain is dead, joins the British Aerial Corps anyway get revenge upon the French. Misunderstandings, epic escapes, and hurt-comfort scenes abound.

Reincarnation
The Tswana, despite their barbaric and backward reputation amongst the supposedly enlightened, Christian Europeans, did have the right idea when it came to reincarnation by way of dragons. (AKA the "executed Laurence comes back as a dragon" story)

No Tentative Title (Redemption? Something like that?)
Draco may be an arrogant, selfish little git, but even he has principles. When Voldemort kills his parents, well, he’s going to do something about it. Timetravel fic.

More on these at a later date, hopefully over Christmas break! I will edit the crap out of these and get something posted soon...

Comments

[ontogenesis.livejournal.com]

Yep, gotta end with a BANG. Sounds interesting.

Well, writing 'fic is better than nothing! Esp. if it's fun.

[beboots.livejournal.com]

I really do enjoy writing fic. I used to write a lot more, and then I kind of fell out of it because of RL and silly stuff like that, but I regret it. Now I'm getting back into it. Super fun! Also, it gives me a chance to refine my writing skills by playing with existing characters and universes. :)

[dayadhvam-triad.livejournal.com]

Draco timetravel fic? :DDD

congrats on hitting 50k+ :) I haven't written anything since... October, I think? XD

Also, that is an awful lot of reading. :O

[beboots.livejournal.com]

HERE IS A SNEAK PREVIEW SINCE YOU ASKED SO NICELY/EXPRESSED INTEREST :D

One thing had remained constant over the years: Neville Longbottom was still a dunce when it came to flying on broomsticks. Unfortunately, one thing that had changed was Draco’s perceptions of Longbottom, who had, against all odds, turned out to be a surprisingly gallant and heroic Gryffindor. That hadn’t helped him much during the Battle of Hogwarts when Longbottom and dozens upon dozens of other students and faculty had been killed, but the point remained that he would eventually become a force to be reckoned with.

…Which meant that Draco should probably make sure he didn’t do something completely foolish in this first flying lesson like break his neck instead of his wrist this time.

So when Longbottom shot off the ground, out of control, Draco mirrored him (keeping his broomstick under control at all times, of course) and managed to catch the idiot by the wrist when he slammed into the castle wall and fell off of his broom. Unfortunately, Draco hadn’t taken into account the fact that these old school brooms weren’t exactly Nimbus 2001s, and couldn’t take the weight of two students, especially if one was on the, ah, chunkier side. Thrown off balance by the extra weight, Draco was tugged right off of the broom and fell with Longbottom the remaining fifteen feet to the ground.

Longbottom still broke his wrist; Draco had two cracked ribs.

For his troubles, Draco received thirty points to Slytherin for bravery and for promoting inter-house friendships.

Gryffindor qualities, in other words.

He was shunned by the other Slytherins for two whole weeks for the shame, and only managed to get back in favour by pointing out that Longbottom, at the very least, was a pure-blood, who were diminishing in number as it was.

[beboots.livejournal.com]

I should also mention that I'm really trying to avoid fandom!Draco. This Draco still subscribes to pureblood ideology and such, but is also suffering from PTSD. It's not that he disagrees with Voldemort's ideology, per se, he just thinks that the Dark Lord is a hypocrite and Draco doesn't want to have to kill any kind of children anyway. Just because he hates mudbloods doesn't mean that he wants them all dead, and certainly doesn't want to do the killing himself. The world under Voldemort's rule kind of sucks, so his goal in going back in time is to make sure that this world DOESN'T suck... which means making sure that the Boy-Who-Lived-To-Be-Insufferable is actually competent at his job.

Draco slowly learns over the course of the fic that hey, mudbloods and muggleborns and maybe even muggles themselves aren't all that bad. But it still takes a while. Like, he still refers to Hermione as "Granger" and "that mudblood" in his mind, and he has to resist the urge to wipe his hand off on a hankerchief after shaking her hand when they first met, but they slowly kind of sort of become friends, almost against Draco's will. And Hermione is good at convincing people. ;P

[dayadhvam-triad.livejournal.com]

... :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

hahah, yeah, I hope not fandom!Draco. XD I like this more practical approach Draco takes. And of course--at least Neville is a pureblood. Nice save, there. ;)