magibrain

So, searching around in my drafts folder, trying to find something to jump-start my brain out of a dry spell, I came across a file titled creepsteriffic.rtf that I don't remember creating. There is no summary in this file. I have left no notes to myself. I don't know where I was going with it. What it does contain is the header template form, and the following text:

( I'd probably go with 'wrong', personally. But then, I am duly chastised. )

...

...

...other things in my drafts folder – my SG-1 drafts folder, mind, not some random drafts folder I might store formatting data in: a file called temp.rtf which consists of 2391 words of Lorem Ipsum, closed with the line "And as it turned out, THEY WERE ALL BEES!!"

So, I'm not sure exactly why I decided that a story covering Neal Caffrey's entire adult life through the the resolution of Most Wanted was a good idea, but I did, and that, I feel, was a mistake. It's currently unfinished at 8,000 words, in four parts. None of these things were my intention.

In fairness, it totally fits one of the prompts, if you squint and tilt your head and take certain things very thematically. ...one of the prompts that isn't anywhere near the bingo I'm working on. But it fits into a series with two other prompts! ...one of which is on the bingo I'm working on.

Hush.

I feel like I could have had at least one of these fics finished by today, if I hadn't taken a weird left turn somewhere and found myself writing out 15,000 words of fiction where the US correctional system is a modern version of convict leasing, but on the plus side, I have 15,000 words of fiction where the US correctional system is a modern version of convict leasing!

Look, I never claimed to be good at this.


(I also feel a bit guilty about all those words, because I've totally been using fanfic as a way to hide from the stress of unemployment when I should probably be spending more of that time doing productive things. Hey, if anyone knows of a San Francisco Bay Area company that wants to hire a PHP/MySQL developer with a bunch of experience and an active interest in picking up new languages but no CS degree, point me their way, aight?)


( Stats )

Awesome! I think I've found a three-part strategy for approaching H/C Bingo. Those three parts are:

1. Start as many fics as possible all at once, just to make sure I'm always distracted from finishing any of them,


2. Make sure that the fics I am working on are carefully positioned to cover the maximum possible space on my card without actually forming a bingo, and


3. Layer more complexity and plot into each fic than is strictly necessary to fulfill the prompt, so that each one takes a long time to complete, and will surely need extensive edits once done in draft.

...I don't think I'm doing this right.

(To be fair, though, I feel like 2 isn't actually my fault, 3 has not been intentional in half the fics, and 1 is just how my brain works anyway. But re: 3, I started off writing the Poltergeist prompt, and then it decided to absorb two other prompts that aren't even on my card, and as it stands the thing is 6000 messy words and maybe, at a generous estimate, 60% done. It's going to be longer than Misfire. That's just wrong.)

( Stats )

Do you ever have one of those days where you're up way too late and you're looking through all your incomplete fics and you come across one where you have no idea when you started it, where you were going with it, or why you thought it was a good idea? But it has a helpful summary at the top, something like

(That one where Sam goes missing for a while and comes back with no memory of where she's been, but with a few new nervous tics, a preoccupied air, and a strange compulsion to build an alien clock.)

?

I mean, this happens to you guys all the time, right? Just part of the package of being a distractable sort of being and also a fic writer? Y'all should share your stories with me here. Or something.

Other things I've found in my poking around because I'm all alone in the house/on the internet and for some reason not tired at all:

Jack's mission report for P2M-477 was subtitled Everything I Know About Foreign Policy I Learned From Watching You Idiots Screw It Up, but it was subtitled in very small, white text that didn't print out.

( Several more. )

I feel like this is sorta the fanfiction equivalent of Texts From Last Night. Fanfictions From Previous Days? Yeah.

I wrote the hell out of myself over the last two weeks on an original project, and now my brain doesn't want to string words together any more. Fair 'nough. Time for more bits and bobs!

These are all from fics I either have plans for finishing or have dreams of being able to finish one day. Grand fun times!

.

1. The Mansions of the Dead (or) The Origin Story Of That Damn String Of Beads

Jack doesn't want to be back on P2X-338.  He doesn't want to be anywhere near the place, in preoccupation, policy, or physical reality, but the Pentagon is none too happy about the loss of one potentially very interesting piece of alien technology, and the Russians are none too happy about the loss of one potentially very interesting piece of alien technology and three quarters of the team they sent out to secretly get it, and sending SG-1 back in to see if they can at least pick up some energy readings that might convince the SGC to send an engineering team back out to excavate the Eye is the least the Air Force can do.

Really.  It's the least.  It's a token gesture and the Russians know it, the Pentagon knows it, Hammond knows it, Jack knows it, and even Carter, who's been staring at her scanner since they stepped through the wormhole, knows it.  Token.  Pointless political posturing.  There was only one thing on this planet of any interest or value, and they managed to blow it up the last time they were here.

...Jack just wishes someone'd made Daniel read the memo.

.

( Bit. Bob. The occasional bullet. )

Old meme. "Post a bunch of excerpts from whatever you're currently working on." Except I'm going to post a bunch of random bits of scene jotted down in my braintic scrap file that showed up in my head and refuse to coalesce into anything fic-able.

All scenelets are SG-1 and free for the spinning-off-of.

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1. The one where Jack has relaxed standards for winning, and is probably to blame for something.

"It's revenge," Jack says.

Daniel's eyebrows scrunch together. "For what?"

"For–" ...hm. He hadn't thought of that. Daniel hasn't actually been that difficult to deal with, lately. "That... thing. That you're going to do. Tomorrow."

By now, Daniel's cottoned on. He folds his arms across his chest, and his tone turns from somewhat confused and exasperated to the sort of too-patient, understanding voice people usually use with children. "And what am I going to do tomorrow, Jack?"

Jack gives him an annoyed wave of his hand. "I don't know. I'm sure we'll find out tomorrow, though, won't we?"

The next day Daniel manages to navigate rickety rope bridges, dilapidated pontoons, a session of swamp politics that has Carter quoting The Lion In Winter and a trade negotiation that has the SGC trading antibiotics for crops which could be hybridized with something to something something Jack has stopped paying attention at this point, and it looks like he's not going to give Jack a chance to seem prophetic until he accidentally knocks a giant alien pitcher plant over, covering Jack's boots in about three gallons of slime.

Carter and Teal'c can't figure out why it's Daniel who looks annoyed and Jack who looks smug, the entire way back to the 'gate.

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( Bit 2 through bob 7. )