yes, another meme

[batyatoon]

Seen several places, ganked from bookelfe:

Give me the title of a story I've never written, and feedback telling me what you liked best about it, and I will tell you any or all of: the first sentence, the last sentence, the thing that made me want to write it, the biggest problem I had while writing it, why it almost never got posted, the scene that hit the cutting room floor but that I wish I'd been able to salvage, and possibly a short excerpt as well.

Have at, friends. :D

Comments

[skygiants]

My favorite of yours will still, always and forever, be "Through a Glass Burning," the A:tLA dark mirrorverse fic. So creepy! (Although I am still kind of disappointed you missed the golden opportunity to give Zuko a hilarious moustache. OH WELL, I WILL RECOVER.)

[batyatoon]

HOW DID I KNOW you would pick that one. *giggling* Zuko's moustache was kind of symbolic of the main problem I had writing it, which was that I kept trying to make things hilarious and then they did not work. Like the scene where Sokka stumbles in on Toph and Katara fighting and they both turn on him -- I had a much funnier take on that in mind originally, until I realized that Katara using bloodbending on Sokka was (a) inevitable, and (b) not something I wanted to make readers laugh at.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Ooooooh, the one you wrote about your icon, B is for Batya, who aimed with her hand.... I love a good murder mystery, especially with the devilish twist at the end.... shades of Roger Acroyd... :)

[batyatoon]

Hee! I didn't expect anybody to remember that one. I think if I were writing it now I'd have left out the primer-rhymes between scenes (C is for Clues, and so on), especially since there was only room for six lines. I did like the closing couplet, though: "E is for Evil, the devil's own end; / F is for Foe -- except when it's for Friend."

[orawnzva.livejournal.com]

If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, "unless" scans much better there.

[batyatoon]

A factually true statement. *serene*

[genarti]

Oh, man, so many! But I think my very favorite has to be that Gargoyles fic in which your original character (and don't think I didn't recognize that transplanted Kaya, my friend) and Eliza had to run all over NYC to save the day. The geeky cantaromancer may have been a minor character, too, but I remain excessively fond of her!

[batyatoon]

Would you believe that Katie as a concept character actually predated Kaya by a year or so? (What can I say, I have types.)

This story narrowly missed being trashed halfway through its writing process, when Nancy Brown posted a fic with a roughly similar plotline (except much darker, because, come on, it's Nancy), and I was like AUGH CONVERGENT EVOLUTION HAS DONE ME IN AGAIN. I wound up posting it anyway, though I contacted her first to explain and make sure she wouldn't get the wrong idea.

We tossed around the notion of having our OCs meet in another fic, but never actually did anything with it.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

I really loved your short story "R'fuah Shleima." The poignance of Jewish Tolkien-elves facing the need to go West was just lovely.

[batyatoon]

I wrote that one as a birthday present for Ben a few years back. The trouble with that was, of course, the need to find somebody other than Ben who could translate "Hamavdil" into Quenyan for me. I still cherish a hope of getting that one verse set to music sometime.

[orawnzva.livejournal.com]

*laughing out loud uncontrollably*

You know where I am right now, yes? Also, I don't know very much Quenya.

[batyatoon]

Yes. Yes, I do. *cheerful*

[batshua]

Also, I don't know very much Quenya.

Clearly, we need to remedy this! :>

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

He sang me the real song he wrote about Jewish Tolkien-elves. I really hadn't known it existed; I came up with the idea completely independently.

Would you write me a story as a birthday present someday?

[batyatoon]

Oh man, really? *laughing* You see why I had to reference it?

Maybe I will! :D

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Absolutely I see why. I was just mystified before he explained and sang it for me. :)

I just finished a birthday, so you've got all the way till next January 14th to write something for me!

[orawnzva.livejournal.com]

You're aware that I've already written that (http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/01/bnewman/songs/lyrics/Starlight-WovenBranches.txt) song (http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/01/bnewman/songs/music/Starlight-WovenBranches.mp3), right? Let me know if you want to hear it live while you conveniently have me under your roof.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

I did hear it in the car today from you, and it's beautlful! Not quite that song, a different aspect of Jewish Tolkien elves, but definitely Jewish Tolkien elves nonetheless.

[orawnzva.livejournal.com]

Thinking about "Not Tame", that Sandman/Narnia crossover, still gives me that shiver down the back of my neck.

[batyatoon]

*blushes* I'm still pretty proud of that one. Especially the two epigraphs:

"The dream is ended; this is the morning." - The Last Battle

"Well roared, lion." - A Midsummer Night's Dream