>VERBOSE

I'd really like to try to write a present for our dear Professor's birthday (not connected to whe "write short bits" part of severusbigbang), but I just have no clue where to start. I don't particularly wish to write something birthday-themed, just a gift, you know? I thought of trying to finish one of the couple things I have on the go (at a very low simmer), but ugh. Anyone want to try prompting me?

Does anyone feel like being a kind of hand-holding beta for a Lily/Sev/Reg (various combinations) fic? I got what didn't seem like but is apparently turning out to be a fairly ambitious idea a while back. I am about 3800 words into it and from the looks of things it is likely to turn out in the 10-15k range (!).

This terrifies me because I have not written anything that long before, and in fact fear that if I really do go on that long, that it's just that I'm failing to be concise. At this point I am asking for general advice more than help with phrasing and all the usual stuff (SPAG is rarely necessary for me, except to rein in my overuse of some words and tendency to use ten words where three would have done). I need to know if I am trying to do too many things at once, help with how to work in "now, while all this has been happening, this other thing has been happening offstage" kinds of things, and probably help avoiding plot holes.

It centers around interpersonal drama and angst, although there will be smexing in it (I'm not sure if it will go up to NC-17, but surely R) and also some (magical) drug use (and mentions of past use in the Muggle way). We are not talking a rapid-fire need, here; after this piece it will likely be some time before I get up to a chunk this size again.

I know this is totally the right time of year for this when no one has anything else on their plates. *nods sagely*

Me: So, Severus-storyteller, tell me: if you were in this situation [warning: NWS art], how would you react? *poised to take dictation from the muse*

Severus: *pauses thoughtfully* Well, I would say "I'd have a mental breakdown," except for the small fact that if I did find myself in that situation, it could only be because I'd already had one.

Me: THAT DOESN'T HELP ME WRITE A STORY KTHX. ... ya jerk.

...Me: *tries to work that line in anyway*


(I suppose I could try to write a story where Severus had gone insane well before events resulted in the tableau seen there, but that seems way too long and involved, and a rather too weird interpretation of the picture.)

Argh. Y/N: It is silly to let comments on others' fics get me down when they praise a Severus that is the opposite of what I've written, and say "I'm so glad he's not [exactly what I wrote]", because what I wrote was that way because it was to someone else's order? Especially when the same person praised what I wrote as well (contradictory, that, but hey)?

I just get an "oh, man, I must have sucked then because I didn't do that, bah I'm so cliche, I'm writing the sort of Severus that annoys people" kind of feeling...

*thumps Snack drabble series*

Actually I think it has turned into a regular fic aside from the "one prompt per hundred words" factor (I'm using the fanfic100 table), since most of the "drabbles" fail to stand alone and long series is long, but that's not the problem.

The problem is the boys just don't want to play. I've only just managed to get one of them to so much as wank over the other and it's 4800 words already.

Is there a lust potion in the house?

I'm not dead yet! I'm getting better! I was gone for four days to Texas and then I spent like all of yesterday betaing about 20,000 words of fic for less_for_you. Mine eyes, they fall out.

More similar stuff today, including hoping to $DEITY that I can magically produce a second pinch hit for another recipient besides the one I wrote a week and a half ago (which I also have to get to revising and will hopefully get back from second beta today). I found some fragments in my WIP folder, previously relegated to the "man, I am SO never going to finish that, am I?" pile, which seem to fit the request okay and may be able to be put together and the joins papered over. But among everything else, I just dunno.

And I still haven't got around to actually reading my flist, so when I do, I'll have like six or seven days' worth. Ugh. (If you posted something since last Thursday evening that you think I'll really like, you could point me to it?)

I guess it's good, though, that even though less_for_you has become a massive headache over the past few weeks, I still feel positive about it and would do it again in a heartbeat.

P.S. I had about two seconds of dream last night where I dreamed I was Lily. O.o

I am waiting on a particular reply first, but in case she is not available -- can anyone possibly beta a Severus/Lily? This is for less_for_you (may be used as a pinch gift), so no one who's participating, please, and that's why I'm not saying more about how long it is or what its rating is like. If you might be interested, email me at my LJ/IJ address or drop me a PM.

Speaking of which, torino10154, the_bitter_word, and snapesgirl_62: Thanks for your offers; we may have it under control now. *crosses fingers* Although if y'all wanna write your stuff anyway and put more Severus/Lily out in the world, I'm not going to complain. ;)

ETA: I has betas, thanks!

Then she got an idea! An awful idea! THE esmestrella GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL IDEA!

In the spirit of fairness, I want to state outright that this is an idea almost certainly doomed to failure and nothing may ever come of any effort you, the hypothetical gentle reader, may put out. But if I can't give it the old college try, I ought to at least give it the old third-grade try.

Can anyone point me to general resources on Lancashire? Stuff that would help me, a complete ignoramus on the subject, write something that was set there?

It doesn't need to be very great -- I have, if not outright parody, then at least something very silly in mind. But it should be sensibly silly; the silliness should fit together. And I, having been born in California and never set foot anywhere in England, much less Lancashire specifically, am pathologically unable to achieve that without help.

The Snack ficlet I asked for betas for the other day totally failed to be a lightweight, smutty little morsel. It came out at ~6800 words, which is by a long shot the longest fic I have ever completed. It's almost triple the next contender* and over 3.5 times the next one that I have actually posted anywhere.

It was also written incredibly fast, for me, since I only started it on the 11th, I think. I am regularly in awe of how people can get down more than a thousand words at all, never mind over a short space of time. 10k+ really makes my jaw drop. If I get any ideas in the first place, I run out of them long before I fill up that kind of column inches.

Anyway, it's with said betas now, but I am still chewing my nails. Not over what they might say, but over the idea that I might have been entirely wasting my time. ( more angst inside! )

I think I need to not be trying to write right now.

Searching for something slightly more witty than "he would rather die than _____", my brain has just served up the following phrase with a smile, as though what on earth could possibly be wrong with it?

he would sooner eat wool until he shat sweaters

What the hell, brain?

What the Kentucky Fried hell?