This year's achievements

[wiseheart]

Again, gakked from the lovely lethe_lloyd. She has the most amazing things in her journal.

Allrighty, the writing achievements of 2008:

I've launched Alternate Resolutions, a Voyager fic, with two chapters already posted and the rest roughly outlined. For the first time in my writing career, this is going to be a rather explicit het story, with the full version posted to otherworlds_lib and the butchered version to FF.Net. If I'm very lucky, I might finish it in 11 parts. Chapters 00 and 01 count 9,830 words, so far.

Tales from Halabor is a series of independent little LOTR vignettes, taking place in my imaginary Gondorian fishing town. So far, 5 chapters posted to FF.Net, Stories of Arda, the Tolkien Fanfiction Archive, Gildor's Library and edhellondawards. Word count: 26,106 and growing.

Finally came around to update Equinox Log #1 - Impossible Odds on FF.Net and otherworlds_lib. Again, full version will go to the LJ comm, especially as it's the ohmygod Ebol Slash, for which I already got chewed out by rabid homophobes. If they only knew what's still coming. *g* Word count: 33,211 and growing.

Added several new chapters to The Toreador Chronicles, which is probably the weirdest crossover story I've ever written. I'm up to 35 parts right now, and as always, the unbutchered version is posted to hiddenrealms. World count: 178,838 amd growing.

Made good headway with The Web of Darkness, my Forgotten Realms/LOTR crossover. Posted to all the places where I usually post Tolkienfic, save SoA, which, for some reason, doesn't accept crossovers. I wish I knew why. Currently at part 23, word count: 138,970 and growing.

Elf-root is my first ever Hobbit story, written - and finished!!! - in record time. 7 chapters, word count: 25,105.

Launched my ungodly long Dwarf-epos, The Book of Mazarbul, but run into a block after 2 chapters and 14,621 words.
edhellondawards members can take a sneak peak for later chapters that are posted to the comm, locked. It's just so that chapter 3 still waits to be finished, while three or four later ones are already written. Stupid muses, working backwards!"

Posted the so-far existing 2 and a half chapters of The Path of Wolves, my Buffyverse werewolf story. It's part of the Pathways universe. Pathways is the AU that slowly eats all fandoms, it seems. Word count: 11,947 and growing.

Tried my hand on a Cadfael story: Vox Angelica. Came to 4 chapters, before I ran out of steam, but will continue eventually. Word count: 13,639 and growing.

Pittsburgh by Night is a side product to "The Toreador Chronicles" that is supposed to be finished in 4 parts. 2 of them are done so far. Word count: 6,303 and growing.
That's one story I'm largely writing for myself. As it doesn't feature the hot guys of QAF, it gets completely ignored, but I have much evil fun with Cynthia, the only likeable female character of the show.

Selar is a TNG fic, which was originally published in the short-lived fanzine of the Hungarian Star Trek Club. Consequently, it's written in Hungarian. A short one in 3 chapters. Word count: 9,853.

Out of Legends is one of my personal favourites, although I got a lot of grief from rude reviewers for it. It's a SGA/Andromeda crossover in 20 monstrous chapters, which isn't very nice to Sheppard or Dylan Hunt, which might be the reason why some people got so worked up about it. Others, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy it a great deal. Word count: 135,981.

I'll add my Secret Sancta Kavfic afterwards, as we're not supposed to reveal who's written what. But if you want to make an educated guess, you can get over to kavtolanon and browse a little.

Phew! Taking a look at this, I have to admit that I've been a busy girl in 2008. Go me!

Comments

[lethe-lloyd.livejournal.com]

Wow, you have! I'm incredibly impressed also that you write in so many fandoms and even crossovers!

And Cadfael. I love those books :DDD, I have read them so many times, me and Mum are constantly swapping them back and forth. ( have you got ' The Virgin in the Ice. ' - ' yes, have you got The Leper of St. Giles? '

I love the author's other books under her other penname, come to that, she writes beautifully, magnificently in the Heaven Tree trilogy. ( which only one person on my f-list ever heard of, which is just sad, since it set my benchmark for everything I read after age 14 )

[missyvortexdv.livejournal.com]

Impressive list. Anyway I can tempt you into to writing more SGA and Kavanagh though? ;D

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I intend to. Moments of Joy is still a WIP, I have plans to continue "Adventures", the episodic Kav story (the first parts are posted to otherworlds_lib), and I have a halfways thought-out idea about how Beckett got into the Stargate program.

BTW, have you figured out which Secret Sancta story was mine? There were some deadly give-aways for those familiar with my other stuff...

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I'm the proud owner of all Cadfael books. My personal favourites are "The Sanctuary Sparrow" and "The Pilgrim of Hate" - especially the latter. Every time I re-read the miraculous healing, I must cry.

Alas, I haven't read the other books of the author yet. It's very hard to get English books over here... at least any of those I'd actually like to have.

[lethe-lloyd.livejournal.com]

Oh that is an amazing book and an incredible ending to it!

Her other, earlier books from the 70's are long out of print, only available on Amazon and such like, but my word! Such magnificent, passionate writing and characters. I think that was her zenith.

I was glad to share Cadfael with my Nan,( who introduced me to the Heaven Tree ) a few years before she died, and she read them voraciously and loved them.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

What's Heaven Tree about?

[lethe-lloyd.livejournal.com]

It's historical, set in the early 1200's in the Marches of Wales. It is centered around the young son of a lord who loved masonry, carving and working in stone, and that does not please his father, as it is not a nobleman's profession, and his dearest friend is a peasant. After an altercation and beating, the son, Harry runs away to study in France with his friend Adam. He meets a very powerful Marcher Lord called Ralf Isambard who is returning from the Holy Land and wishes to build a magnificent church in his demesne. Gosh, an incredible proud, virile character. When Isambard sees Harry's work he employs him to built the church at his seat back in the Marches, called Parfois. Returning to England with them is a courtesan called Benedetta. She met Isambard and Harry at exactly the same time and fell in love with Harry - and told him, she was an open, intelligent and unashamed woman. He had to be honest and said he could not return her love, but Isambard himself fell head over heels for Benedetta and took her as his mistress.

Basically, due to the troubled border between Wales and England, a young Welsh boy, the son of a powerful Welsh lord, somehow becomes captured by Isambard's troops and Llewellyn, the prince of Wales, demands him back. The order comes from King John to hang him and the one thing Isambard will not do is disobey his king. he argues with Harry, who is just as proud, and harry rides off with the boy knowing the death sentence will rebound onto him. But since he has not yet finished the church he goes back - and completes it wearing chains. Isambard tells him he will die on the day it is completed, by having his heart cut out of his body. Their relationship is intense, and to Isambard, Harry had betrayed him. So this he does, and on the last night, he tells his gaolers to go to harry and ask for one thing for his ease before his dies in the morning. He tells them to go to the great hall and say that he wishes ' Madonna Benedetta to be his bedfellow '

Although she knew this was a shaft aimed at Isambard, who had asked her to be his wife and loved her, she was overjoyed, and got up and walked down the hall, and Isambard screamed at her to remain. She said that it touched on his honor, and she was nothing beside that, which choked him and he could say nothing else. Then she smiled and he realized who the nameless man was whom she loved, the reason why she would not wed him.

She loved Harry with all her heart and had said nothing more to him, simply been a friend to him and his wife. He did love her, but in a spiritual way.She she held him all night, and in the morning, walked out to the execution field with him. It was May and the sun flushed the church to gold, and she told him to look up, and drew away, and her servant fired an arrow from it and killed him before the torturer could begin his work.

Isambard stripped her and tied both she and the dead harry together and put them into the Severn, which was running high. Her servant dragged them out some way down and she recovered and they made for Shrewsbury, which Llewellyn had just taken. Because of what harry had done for the boy, he took them to Wales, she and Harry's wife who had just born a son.

That was the first in the trilogy.
I cried my eyes out. It was the first book that had me in tears. The characters were incredible, the dynamics between them vivid and electric and the prose was gorgeous. The copy I had fell apart long ago sadly, but it is on my wishlist to get again, simply because I have so rarely seen such use of language.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Sounds beautiful... and very sad. I know, realistically it had to end badly, but in the heart of my hearts I agree with Biblo: all books should have a happy end. ;)

I've learned a great deal from Ellis Peters; she's taught me not to be afraid of the English language. Plus I learned a great deal about medieval life, things you can't easily find when googling around.

[lethe-lloyd.livejournal.com]

The ultimate end of the last book was very sad, also, but it was a conclusion of sorts - an ending. Harry's son ends up being raised in his late teens by Isambard, he had gone to try and kill him. Complex and beautiful and yes, very sad.

When Nan realized I was spending every evening at her writing desk, trying to write a story set in the War of the Roses, she told me to read the Heaven Tree because of the way the author used words. It also rather spoiled me for other books, since I came to expect that level of passion and excellence. Ellis Peter's was definitely a wordsmith of excellence and a creator of memorable characters.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Yes, a writer of such excellence can spoil you for other authors, especially considering the fact that most them - let's face it, even the professional ones - are fairly mediocre.

I've just got a book from the_wild_iris as a Christmas present: "Hangman Blind" by Cassandra Clark. At first sight, it seems very imteresting. Do you know it?

[lethe-lloyd.livejournal.com]

Yes, a writer of such excellence can spoil you for other authors, especially considering the fact that most them - let's face it, even the professional ones - are fairly mediocre.

You never spoke a truer word - the last twenty years seem to have produced less and less memorable books, or even well written ones. They seem to be aimed at the mass market, and people who are lazy readers :(

However there is a guy who writes published slash detective stories and is on LJ, who told some-one on my f-list that the fashion for short, choppy sentences is now turning about, and people are beginning to look for and want richer prose. I hope so! Words are beautiful!

A lot of your description is very luscious and Ellis Peters standard I think.

I've found better fanfic writing than published, the talent is enormous within a fairly small group of fanfic writers.

I seem to know the name Cassandra Clark, but have not read the books. Let me know if it is good, I can look in the library.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

The same thing is true for translations. Hungarian translations used to be excellent, a few decades ago, as our best poets and writers used to do translation work between two published ones of their own... with incredible results.

For example, LOTR has been translated as the joint work of a poet and Árpád Göncz, an excellent writer who also used to be our President for a cycle. They did such a good job, that I fell in love with the language first and the story second. When I read the German translation, I was literally shocked. Then I learned English and got my hands on the original, which is, of course, amazing - Tolkien was a linguist, after all - but I still can declare with good conscience that the Hungarian translation has the same level, while the German one is a heap of crap.

I'll write a review of the Cassandra Clark book when I'm done reading it. I'm looking forward to it: it's a medieval mystery with a nun as the female lead - what else do I need to be happy? If it's also well-written, it will be a great experience.

[artemis10002000]

I'm impressed, that's a huge workload! You can be proud of yourself.

[lethe-lloyd.livejournal.com]

I've about three German F-list friends and one is translating her stories into German and said it is a very hard process. I am really stupid about languages, as I thought surely for every English word there is a word in another language for it, and thought it was just that easy - apparently not.

Those medieval mysteries really took off after Ellis Peters, I have read a couple of others but none I enjoyed so much, although Paul Docherty did a couple of very atmospheric and chilling ones involving curses and ghosts and strigoi which I really enjoyed.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, translation is a lot harder than writing directly in a foreign language. I've got several complete novel-length Original Trek stories in Hungarian and German, which I'm slowly translating into English, but I'll tell you: I'd rather write ten new stories than translate one old one.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Well, that's a rather normal workload for an average year for me. If I didn't have to work for a living, well, *then* I'd really be able to write a lot.

[lethe-lloyd.livejournal.com]

What interested me hugely was two of them saying that thye * think * of their stories in English. Being a dull monolingual I thought, whoa! I would have thought every-one * thinks * in their native tongue. But apparently not, they think in English as well as write in it - which is so complex and intriguing I cannot quite understand it, as I have never considered * thoughts * as a language.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Actually, thinking in English is a lot easier than trying to translate in your head. It's the same with every other foreign language. If I'm in a German-speaking country, I usually need a day or two to switch completely to German in my head, and about a week to strart dreaming in German, too.

Of course, I started learning German at the age of 3 and English at the age of 36, which is quite the difference.

[missyvortexdv.livejournal.com]

I must admit I'd yet to read all of them. I'd seen the stuff made for me, but then got very caught up in reading Yuletide fics.

[lethe-lloyd.livejournal.com]

That's just -- I don't understand.XD My uncle has read Chomsky talking about languages, I must see if he does.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I understand myself. It's just how it works. *g*
Perhaps the fact that I grew up in a family where two languages were spoken parallelly (my Grandpa was German) has something to do with it.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Well, they won't go anywhere, and if you skip the latest entry where planetkiller revealed the ugly truth, you can still guess. ;)

[missyvortexdv.livejournal.com]

Too late :)

[lethe-lloyd.livejournal.com]

My grandad grew up speaking only Welsh until he was about 12, I wish I knew whether he thought in Welsh or English.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

My Grandpa lived so long among Hungarians that he was thinking in Hungarian most of the time. I don't know about dreaming, but he was always counting in German. He would sit there, look over the bills and stuff and murmur the results in German under his breath.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Well, that can't be helped, then.

[jen-rock.livejournal.com]

I knew which one was yours. It was very good and I really liked the way you told it from McKay's POV. Sorry I didn't comment on it on kavtolanon. I meant to but I procrastinated about it and the answers were revealed before I commented.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I knew you'd recognize it. You know my stuff too well. Although writing a story in present time and entirely without dialogue is a first for me.

BTW, has my e-mail with the Boobs of Doom that keep replacing poor Singe arrived?

[jen-rock.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I got the e-mail but I think the picture is actually of someone's knees from a weird angle. I'm going to contact support about it so hopefully it will go away soon.

[lhun-dweller.livejournal.com]

GO YOU INDEED!

Alas, my right hand is in a splint to rest my thumb, and thus I am not on the computer much. However, when I can type reviews again, I still plan to read Halabor, plus your ST and Andromeda fics, before leaping back into the other Tolkfics. Do not despair: I WILL read and review. I just have to get this thing healed up first. [hands over box of Lindtir milk chocolates as temporary comfort]

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Make no light-hearted promises - I may call you on them. ;o)

I hope your hand will heal, and not because of the reviews. Lindtir milk chocolate is always a good thing, thanks, *hugs*