Misanthropy

In the spirit of the Crackiversary, I opened the floor to any questions you guys wanted to ask. I’m really honored that some of you took the time to come up with questions. But it turns out that this was not one of my better ideas, since, of course, now I’m not really going to answer most of the questions. If the U.S. primaries haven’t made you utterly sick of the whole dodging the question thing, here are the questions and my often not so answering answers. Enjoy. ;)

( Crackiversary Q&A )

So as I threatened, noted, I was thinking about what to do for teh crack's second anniversary on January 25 (the day, two (!) years ago, that I posted Resurrection), and, as usual, I have come up with no brilliant, original ideas. So, instead we'll be unoriginal and call it tradition.

If anyone has any desire to pay homage to Lancelot play in the crackverse, January 25 is the day: fic, icons, drawings, uplighting highlighting tips for Galahad, what you think should/will happen next (this I'd love to hear ;) ), songs for Bors to sing--it's all good. Come on, you know you want to (and you don't want to make Lancelot sulk, do you?).

After some hesitation, I'm going to throw the comments to this post open for prompts or questions. Ever wanted to know how Arthur crashed the car or witness Lancelot's first encounter with an alarm clock? Ask away, although I won't answer questions where the answer is a potential spoiler or requires me to write an epic. With work the way it is, I can't promise I'll be answer everyone on the 25th, but I'll certainly give it try.

Eighteen days to the crackiversary!

Rumors of War continued from here.

( Rumors of War, Part 2 )

I think I've just finished a rough first draft of the next chapter of Resurrection. (!) Yes, finally. The lost scenes have been replaced (after much pathetic whining and gnashing of teeth) and they're no doubt better in some ways and worse in others than the originals. I think I still need to fill in some stuff, there might be one or two scenes to add that I haven't figured out yet, and, of course, it all sucks, so there's going to be a lot of rewriting, but it now has a beginning and an end and about 45 pages of middle. I'll be a while longer, but there's a hint of light at the end of the tunnel. Hee!

(And thanks to all of you who were so nice when I was having my frothing-at-the-mouth moments over my lost draft.)

So, in the hope that it might urge me on, a meme borrowed from starry_diadem if you care to play:

What would you say are the trademarks of my writing? What themes or quirks or turns of phrase have you noticed? What is it that makes a story by me - well, a story by me?

I myself would say a stubborn need to throw in every bad joke I can think of, but you decide.

And brr, it's finally cold. After ending up feeling like a popsicle yesterday, I wore a coat today for the first time this so-called fall.

I have about 36 pages of very cracked crack drafted. Of course, it sucks and everything needs to be rewritten, and I have to add in a bunch more things, and I’m sure I’m forgetting yet more things that I have to put in, and I’m not even near the place where I thought this chapter would end. (But maybe that last thing needs to be seriously reconsidered.) But, I am working on it. Hurrah?

So, will Lancelot wake up with amnesia? Will the identity of the green-eyed man be revealed--and will he be . . . Clive Owen? Will Galahad buy that Prada headband he’s been eyeing? Will Tor finally get to eat some donuts? Will Ms. Delaney get her revenge? Will Merlin finally drink one cup of tea too many? Will Gawain convert to a radical sect of Mormonism? Will Bruenor get to cook--naked? At this point, your guesses are still as good as mine. Pretty much. Place your bets.

Some of you might be wondering what the heck I’m doing about the next chapter or Resurrection (or maybe you’ve forgotten about it--but humor me). I am working on it, although, unfortunately, it’s been slow going. Work has been particularly nasty this year, and so I haven’t had much time or brain-power left over for playing, and teh crack does require quite a bit of concentration to write--as well as time to come up with crazy schemes in my head. (It’s not infrequently that I fantasize about having a job involving mindless, repetitive actions. Of course, then I’d probably really go insane.)

But I am working on it. I’ve got about 10 pages of a draft done so far, and although I’m fairly convinced they suck, I haven’t deleted them yet. After a hiatus of unknown scope, I worked on it for a few hours this weekend, and I’m hoping to be able to put some time into it and get it moving. So, brace yourselves for the potential of random, self-pitying posts about page counts and how much the characters hate me--if I’m lucky.

If anyone is inclined to give me a little push, I’d love to hear what you guy think should happen in the next chapter (crazy speculation is love). That is, if anyone even remember where I left off.

No one but darklyscarlett and sasha_b will likely be amused by this, and maybe not even them. A small moment from AU!Resurrection (the even more crackified version (which I usually keep safely confined in my own head)):

Gareth: *Hits speed dial for Tristan on his mobile.*

Tristan: *Pulls mobile from his pocket and flips it open and waits.*

Gareth: *Hears only silence.* Er, Tristan? *Pulls phone from ear, checks screen and frowns.*

Tristan: Yes. *His tone, although flat, somehow conveys that Gareth is asking an extremely stupid question.*

Gareth: *Looks at mobile screen again, double checking.* Why does the phone say “harp” rather than you name?

Tristan: *unperturbed* It’s my mobile's name.

Gareth: *Is bewildered, but then remembers something.* I thought Kay said you named your phone after your hawk? *He’d thought it was odd, because the idea of Tristan naming his mobile . . . and because, as far as he knew, Tristan’s hawk hadn’t had a name, except, well, maybe, Hawk.*

Tristan: *unperturbed* Yes.



Hee! Okay, so I amuse myself. I’m so extremely sleep deprived and stressed out by work right now that it’s either make really bad jokes, commit violent acts or pray for the apocalypse. I think the bad jokes are the lesser evil. Maybe.

And thanks to lessy37 for indulging us and making the icon shown here (as well as some others). : ) Perhaps it’s not necessary to say that the icon came out of the same KA screening that this little dialogue does. ; )

Okay, bye.

Sorry for taking so long. Here are a few more answers to the questions meme.

blade_and_roses asked, from Resurrection: "What, exactly, was the deal with Lancelot and the coffee?" I'm not sure if this is it exactly, but here's some of what Lancelot thinks on the subject.

( The first time Lancelot drank coffee, everyone was very sorry (except him). )

darklyscarlett asked: "Tell me a personal secret ResTor has kept from even ResGalahad."

( Tor keeps several secrets from Galahad  )

d_violetta asked: "Was there any order to how the Knights were resurrected?"

( I don't think this is giving anything away )

evil_jacquie asked: "How long before Tristan died did Dinadin die?"

( That's a little tricky )

Perhaps because I'm strange (shut up), or maybe because I’m easily amused, but as the Resurrection chapters started to get longer, I started playing around with the idea of having a concept—let’s call it a theme—for each of them. If nothing else, it was to help me come up with a title, although that didn't tend to work too well (I suck at titles).

The theme could be anything, and it varied from fic to fic. Usually it changed and developed as I worked on a fic, and sometimes I ended up dropping it as I wrote—it would fall apart by the time I’d finished, or was underdeveloped, or existed only in my own deluded head. In this last fic, I pretty much carried it through, so I thought it might be fun (at least for me) to talk a bit about it.

I don’t advise clicking below if you haven’t read In Twilight's Kingdom. One, it contains spoilers. Two, it won’t make any sense. If you have read and want to play along, guess the “theme” before you click. Come on, it’ll be fun. No, really :p

( Cut for spoilers for In Twilight's Kingdom )