Big Bangs & Little Comms

[scfrankles]

Today was the final check-in over at smallfandombang. My very first big bang fic stands at just over 16,000 words and is all ready to be posted next month. I'm pretty excited about that but I'm even more excited over the fact my story was claimed by an artist, so it will be getting accompanying fanart. I have to say that artists for this challenge have been extraordinarily generous - we authors far outnumber them and quite a few artists ended up claiming several fics.

I feel like I'm getting to grips with writing at length now. I wanted to keep pushing myself, so in February I signed up for the "whammy" at heroinebigbang. That's a 25,000 word minimum. My fic stands at the moment at approximately 7,000 words and has to be 50% finished on 4th May when the rough drafts are due (but I definitely want to be further along than that) and the final version has to be handed in by 30th May. Nobody I know well is doing the challenge, so I wanted to mention it here to make it "real" and make sure I don't chicken out. But I am confident I'm going to have a reasonably well-written, 25,000 word fic done by the end of May. Isn't it odd how quickly you adjust once you start trying things? Not that long ago, 25,000 words would have just seemed impossible to me - now I can view it as: "Well, I know I can write 1,000 words in a day. So 25,000 words is just doing that 25 times."

For both big bangs, I'm writing in the Dear Ladies fandom. A little bit of trivia that might interest some of the people reading this: Hilda and Evadne often refer in their stage and radio shows to old friends and colleagues, and two of these characters, Dodie Bantock and her husband Courtney, appeared in Dear Ladies. Only in two episodes, but they were main characters within those episodes. And Dodie Bantock is played by Rosalie Williams. Who was..? Anyone? Yes - the Granada Mrs. Hudson! When did I finally realise Dodie Bantock was Mrs. Hudson? Only two months ago. The characters are very different and look very different - but that's ridiculous ^^" I'm so taken aback that my fandoms have been overlapping in this way without me noticing.

Just to finish off - as I mentioned in my last post, I'm now the proud co-mod of holmes_minor and I'm thrilled with how things have been going so far. We've had quite a few people join and some splendid submissions. I'm really looking forward to seeing how the comm develops.

Comments

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Congrats on your writing and on the new comm! Getting art for your story is exciting!

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Thank you ^_^ I can't wait to see what the artist comes up with - she's really good.

And thank you for getting involved in Holmes Minor - it's wonderful to have you in both comms. You're such an exceptional (and downright quirky ^^) writer.

[laurose8.livejournal.com]

Good luck with each bigbang!

I'm sure it's a deserved compliment to Rosalie Williams.

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much ^_^

And yes - I definitely agree with you. I so admire actors who can just disappear into a role and truly become a different person each time.

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

I am so completely in awe at you for writing 25,000 words! And will happily cheer you on!

And delighted to be co-modding holmes_minor with you!

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Hold onto the awe - I haven't written the 25,000 words yet :P

But thank you for the support - my sister knows I'm writing the fic but it still all felt a bit unreal. I really think it's going to help that I can talk about my progress in my journal as well.

And we make a good team, don't we? ^_^

[debriswoman]

Very impressed with progress and goals, and wishing you well
Please do point out posted works to me:-)

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much ^_^

And will do ^_^

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Just letting you know that my Dear Ladies smallfandombang fic is up, if you want to have a look at it ^^" It's on AO3 here (http://archiveofourown.org/works/6513022).

[debriswoman]

Have had a look
A delightful tale:-)

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Thank you ^_^

[katleept.livejournal.com]

First off, I should've said this before, but best of luck on your comm! I'm thrilled to see a new, active comm on LJ and something more growing in the Holmes fandom. Unfortunately, I don't know the fandom well enough myself to be able to participate, but I truly wish you the best of luck with it!

Now, onto the big bangs, is it just me, or is daring to tackle those large word amounts actually a lot of fun? This is my first year doing it, too, and I'm in the Heroine one, as well. I missed the deadline on signing up for the small bb, but I hope to be involved in the next round.

It's only been in the last couple of years that I've started writing 1k and beyond stories. I've had, maybe, two I've written by myself that were in the 10k range, and it was all I could do to actually finish those. Last December, I surprised myself with 4 and 5k fics and quickly decided I wanted to do more in that line.

But I still doubted I could hit the big word counts. I'm not ready yet to attempt a 25k, but I have signed up for two big bangs, the heroine one and a femme slash. I'm actually keeping a cyber eye open for any others I might be able to do.

The heroine, as I mentioned, is my first. I saw the minimum count was 1.5k and knew I could do that. I sat down to write one Saturday afternoon when Drew was having to sleep for her graveyard shift, and within a couple of hours, I had 5k. I finished that edition at 7k, took another look at the levels of the Heroine bb, and decided I wanted to hit 10k. I figured 3k more wouldn't be hard to do. Got that done yesterday, thought I was finished. Then, today, I've got another idea of another little scene I want to add in.

It has been so much fun writing the story! :-) It's a Catwoman tale, and the hardest part seems to actually be waiting to share the story!

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Thanks about the comm ^^ I don't think we're ever going to be a big community but I have high hopes of it being a fun and active place.

I did notice you in the sign-ups for the Heroine Big Bang - yours was the only name I recognised actually. It was lovely of you to take the time to comment here on my post ^^

I must admit I have started to enjoy writing at length now. My speciality is microfiction (I used to specifically specialise in six word stories), and writing in that way takes a lot of discipline. I still find it difficult to plot long stories but once I know what I'm doing, it's nice to just be able to relax about the word count. Spread myself out a bit and enjoy playing around in the story ^^ And I have to thank fanfiction for teaching me how to write at length - in my original fiction, the longest things I've written have only been about 1,500 words.

I think, like you, I've realised that once you start writing a longer story, more ideas will come to you for expanding the story. Well done on your Heroine fic ^^ I'm up to 9,400 words on mine now - it's coming along ^^