Brain Flotsam V2.007

I have this unfinished WIP that was really close to my heart - and still is, in its way, and I'm wondering now whether or not to finish it.  It's a one-shot featuring Harry and  Luna, in my Far Away as Moonshine ''verse, which I love to pieces despite the extreme rarepair-ness of it.  :P

I also have a bunch of prompts to fulfill for my now-defunct but still inspiring table on Luna.
Haven't been feeling the writing bug lately, but now that my ApolloCon stress is mostly done for the year, and I'm gearing up for Azkatraz, HP is back on the brain. (And I just can't do fic for Merlin yet. It took me years to work up to it in HP, maybe someday.)

To write, or not to write? Maybe I'll just keep drawing...

And oh crap, officially less than two weeks to the Con and I need to frame my art for the Gallery and Auction!
And print postcards... And test my DVD cable... And move all the pr0n off the  laptop that's traveling with me.  Yeep.

I have been obsessively rereading A.J. Hall's Lust Over Pendle universe for the last couple of months.  I have a very few other sources for the Draco/Neville pairing, but it's really my only reliable source for finished stories at the moment.
Anybody know another source to feed the random obsession?  Like Snape, Draco is a character I can pair with many people depending on the situation and characterization, and who is writing.

Also, today I created a wholly awful and traumatic scene from the Far Away as Moonshine universe in my head while driving, and I am reluctant to actually carry it through to print. Nobody dies, although it's a very close thing, but it puts Draco through such an emotional wringer that it hurts me to relive it. I'm sure the other authors on my list know of what I speak.
Maybe I'll try transcribing it later.

I have a new illo in the works - not a drawble, but an actual illustration. currently trying to decide if I should render it digitally or with colored pencils once the line-work is done. (I'm doing that digitally until I have an image I like. Too much erasing, otherwise.)
The muses (and the snupin chat) finally coalesced a Steampunk HP idea.  Not related to the steampunky snupin_santa story, but gushing about that in chat did help the ideas process.
In other news, advent drawbles are going well, although I am having so many ideas for side-stories or previously unseen moments in the Far Away as Moonshine universe that I may switch back to drabbles for a few.  Seriously, I sat in traffic this morning (there was a truck on fire at the last interchange before I get off for work. Everything was going so swimmingly until I hit that snarl, sigh) and got two new ideas for bits in that world. Include one featuring Alice Augusta Longbottom and her friends at Hogwarts.
I should make Moonshine-verse stuff my reward for finishing a new scene of the original novel that I should really be doing more work on.

Also, this weekend there must be some sewing. I have some millinery to finish and a quilt to design. Plus I have to go buy fruit pierogi from the Polish Deli on the other side of town. The office party this year is themed "Food Around the World" and we're supposed to bring a traditional ethnic dish. Well, when I was in Poland the only pierogi I was ever served in the dormitory were desserts.

I have an overdue project and need inspiration. Somebody please drop a prompt or two - it's an original, probably magic-in-New-York-City sort of world.
Anything random is fine, I just need to spark some ideas.
Egads.

I don't think I've actually written 25 individual fics, so I will just list lines until I run out!
( ten, ten first lines, ah ah ah )

ok, so:

a) yesterday I got stopped twice on my commute by police blockades for the presidential convoy. Quite a delay that made.  Whee.

b) the cable went out in our neighborhood at 10:30 this morning, and I am making this post from a restaurant in the Montrose where the Harry Potter Meetup had dinner.

c) I have written almost 800 words of my new story which I hope to finish this weekend for my general group. Also posted a new chappie of the fanfic.

mnemosyne_1 posted this and I thought, 'Hey! I could try drabbling! It will be fun!"
Well, fun for me. Maybe not so much for the folks who have to read them...

I will write a drabble for the first five (or so) commenters to request one. In return, they have to post this in their journal (if they want). You may request the character and/or the pair for the Harry Potter fandom and give me a prompt.

Ok, is there a name (preferably a British term) for the junior partner in a firm who gets all the grunt work or the worst clients or the crap travel assignments? (this is a Wizarding Law Firm, or whatever the term would be - not sure if they are solicitors or what, I should look into that)

This is sort of mild corporate hazing, I guess, the testing stage for a new person (and in this case it's Pansy Parkinson coming to work for Hermione and Susan Bones so there's History there) - but is there a name for that person or that role?

I am drawing a blank.

Also, if anybody wants to wax eloquent on their idea of what a Wizarding Law Firm would look like, or what British firms are like (or the difference between a barrister and a solicitor, although my historical fiction reading seems to indicate that only one of those would be able to appear in formal court?), please feel oh so very free to do so.

Cheers!

So I was working on editing the good bits of my nanowrimo experiment, adding some new chapters to round out the plot, and thinking I could put it on decafest because the main line of story does take place Ten Years After.
But I can't bring myself to let Snape and Lupin stay dead.  :P
They're alive and raising Teddy together and being involved in all kinds of things with the future of the Wizarding World in my AU, and I like it!
The Malfoys also make a good showing.
I have my biases, I suppose.  ;)
So I may not post it to decafest, but at least the fest has made me open the file again. There's some good stuff in there, including a couple of sections that could totally be one-shots.
Maybe I will post them now!

I just sat around and made up a genre of music/subculture called Magepunk, and four sub-subcultures thereof.
Each of them with its own little traditions and distinctive fashion choices.
I make notes here so I can go back and refer to them later. Feel free to adopt or borrow any of these.  ;) It's all open source, yo.

( there is a nice padded room waiting for me... )

The men in the white truck are coming, but I am pleading creativity. dianamoon said I could!

The March Challenge at Writing Rocks is going on right now, and it's Post Secret!

http://www.writingrocks.org/

Write something using the cards at Post Secret each week, and see how other folks respond to the prompts on the boards.

Writing Rocks!
(which is not to be confused with Wrock or Wizard Rock, which also rocks but in a totally different way.)

Check it out!

Maybe I should just give up on writing Severus.
Another 800 words trashed (well, moved to the "Discard" file - I never really delete things in WIPs), and I'm wondering how to create a sense of him as an approachable romantic figure.  He doesn't have to be a sap, just someone who would/could be the object of someone's affections. (In this case, Luna's, but I have another one with him and Remus that is equally troubling to me.) And more importantly, who could be open to receiving said someone's affections, as well.  I guess that's where I really stumble. I can understand why any of the characters would find him fascinating, alluring, sexy, even lovable, but why would he a)believe them or b)react to their approach? He's not a complete recluse in this AU, but has he really mellowed that much?

Luna is weird anyway, but she's a little more fragile in this AU than usual. Maybe I began in the wrong place.
Or perhaps I need to write the next bit from Severus's POV. Hm.
Maybe I just don't have a good grasp of what his life would be like in a world where he survived Nagini's bite and was exonerated. I am just going to sit here and gape in awe at my favorite Snape authors now. You guys are amazing.

What does it say about me that in the course of writing these fics featuring Luna I have had to research such exciting and bizarre locations as Egypt, Patagonia, Ethiopia, Mongolia, and Madagascar?  Girl gets around. (Ok, Harry and Ron were the ones in Ethiopia. Still.)
Anyhow, hooray for Luna in a yurt.
Ahem.
Right, back to writing...

I just want to blather and blather about my fic and see if I'm crazy or if I'm all wrong in characterization, but then I think - better to just write it all out and see what it really looks like. I do love to blather, but it's not really worth much if the writing never follows through.

Plus I have some shorter ideas to fill out my table prompts, and some of those are just cracktastic. (Which is good.  Not every fic must include horrible war trauma. No, really. I swear.)

This is when I wish I had more fandom folks on my gchat or AIM. Oh, well. On with the writing!

Well, I'm not trashing these words, but I grow less and less confident in them.  I like them, but I wonder if I am making my classic error and assuming the reader can read the characters' minds.

Aaaaargh.

Time for some senseless violence.

Stab. Stab. Stabbity. Stab.

Ok, I feel better. Back to the story window...

Title: Far Away as Moonshine, Part I: Malfoy Manor
Author: zephre
Rating: PG-13 (R for whole fic)
Prompt: 100quills table 50.2: Red
Word Count: 1,596
Summary: For Draco Malfoy, the war was one endless nightmare. Until Luna Lovegood gave him a reason to hope. Can he find his courage, make his luck, and become more than a pawn to those in power?
Warnings: (for whole fic, highlight to view) *mature themes, imprisonment, mention of rape, abuse, battlefield violence, various canon and other character deaths, sexual situations*
Notes: The title is from the song, "Street of Dreams" by Oysterband.

Chapter Index:
Part I:   1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 ||
Part II:  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 ||
Part III: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 ||
Epilogue



Chapter 9: In which Narcissa reveals just how Black she can be.
( chapter )

Title: Far Away as Moonshine, Part I: Malfoy Manor
Author: zephre
Rating: PG (R for whole fic)
Prompt: 100quills table 50.2: Farewells
Word Count: 1,296
Summary: For Draco Malfoy, the war was one endless nightmare. Until Luna Lovegood gave him a reason to hope. Can he find his courage, make his luck, and become more than a pawn to those in power?
Warnings: (for whole fic, highlight to view) *mature themes, imprisonment, mention of rape, abuse, battlefield violence, various canon and other character deaths, sexual situations*
Notes: The story has three parts, each broken into chapters. The title is from the song, "Street of Dreams" by Oysterband.

Chapter Index:
Part I:   1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 ||
Part II:  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 ||
Part III: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 ||
Epilogue


Chapter 7: In which a touch of lunacy surfaces at last.

( more )

Title: Far Away as Moonshine, Part I: Malfoy Manor
Author: zephre
Rating: PG-13 (R for whole fic)
Prompt: 100quills table 50.2: His
Word Count: 1,382
Summary: For Draco Malfoy, the war was one endless nightmare. Until Luna Lovegood gave him a reason to hope. Can he find his courage, make his luck, and become more than a pawn to those in power?
Warnings: (for whole fic, highlight to view) *mature themes, imprisonment, mention of rape, abuse, battlefield violence, various canon and other character deaths, sexual situations*
Notes: The story has three parts, each broken into chapters. The title is from the song, "Street of Dreams" by Oysterband.
Chapter Index:
Part I:   1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 ||
Part II:  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 ||
Part III: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 ||
Epilogue


Chapter 6: In which Malfoys make many assumptions
( more )

Title: Far Away as Moonshine, Part I: Malfoy Manor
Author: zephre
Rating: PG-13 (R for whole fic)
Prompt: 100quills table 50.2: Awake
Word Count: 1,009
Summary: For Draco Malfoy, the war was one endless nightmare. Until Luna Lovegood gave him a reason to hope. Can he find his courage, make his luck, and become more than a pawn to those in power?
Warnings: (for whole fic, highlight to view) *mature themes, imprisonment, mention of rape, abuse, battlefield violence, various canon and other character deaths, sexual situations*
Notes: The story has three parts, each broken into chapters. The title is from the song, "Street of Dreams" by Oysterband.

Chapter Index:
Part I:   1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 ||
Part II:  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 ||
Part III: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 ||
Epilogue


Chapter 5: In which there are answers and evasions.
( more )

I'm pausing in the middle of a scene to shift venues, but ooooooh oooooh oooooh.
Bellatrix and Narcissa are dueling, and boy does Narcissa fight dirty!  Hoo, boy!  Not that she would stand a chance if Bellatrix had her wand and were fully on her game, I suppose, but as it is, there's some serious sororal hostility being aired!
Blood under the fingernails, that's all I'm sayin'!

Hee.
I love my random AUs.