Teddy Radiator

Okay. It is finished. At 39 chapters and 286,886 words, Lay Me Low is now officially completed and posted at TPP. I will never make a penny from this story, and some people will dismiss it because 'it's just fanfiction', but to me it is the most valuable story I have written or ever will write.

I'm happy and sad and about to burst with emotion, because I did it.

I wrote it, and in doing so, I became a writer.

I have it as a full-length PDF, Mobi or Epub file, if anyone wants it for their e-readers. Just message me with your email address and I'll send it. All I ask is that if you read it, you'll give me some feedback on it.

( Lots of rambing stuff )

( ASOIAF Spoilers for anyone who hasn't read it yet )

Tonight, TheHubs(R) and I are going to play a hidden objects game, courtesy of BigFish. I'm at a point where I need a little distraction. I've been roaming the wastelands of Tumblr quite a bit - I have 57 followers - heaven knows why.

It's been awfully quiet here on LJ lately - is everyone just busy with back to school? I miss hearing from a lot of you folks.

I offer big squishy hugs to thems that needs 'em, and I hope you all have wonderful Wednesdays and that life treats you with love.

Hello? Hello? Testing one, two three... is this thing on?

Ahem. I have just sent the penultimate chapter of Lay Me Low to stgulik for beta. I have no idea if it makes one lick of sense.

After that is a final chapter, followed by an epilogue which will be 90% author's notes. The final chapter is mostly mopping up and tying up a few loose ends, and may include a mostly gratuitous smutty bit. Or not. What do you think?

[Poll #1929691]

Y'all know I must be giddy to think up a poll for this.
{{{Hugs}}}

Chapter 20 of Lay Me Low is up on Ashwinder. God Bless Us, everyone. I thought I'd never get it uploaded. Reviews have been astonishingly positive - I thought of it as one of those filler chapters that led from point A to point B, but the general consesus is that it is good in its own right. I'll take my chocolate buttons any way I can get them.
sshg_exchange  fic is clipping along nicely. What started out as a bit of a fantasy prompt has morphed into something I hadn't planned on exploring, but I'm going with DMuse - he seems to know the way through the jungle. I had hit not exactly a snag, but a conflict as to how the plot should progress, and this morning he gave it to me - it is not an easy solution, but it is the right one, and it just means I have to buckle down and  stop allowing myself to be distracted by this, that and t'other.

The Hubs is still shining brightly in Sherlock Holmes. The local paper singled him out in a glowing review of the play and him in particular, and I can't wait to see it again. Good play, nice people in the cast. I am dreading a week from tomorrow, when the play will be over. He'll be in a funk for a few weeks - like sub drop, only with no chance for a reunion.

I'm astonished at how pathetic I am with all the hype about DH2 - I'm really getting a little depressed over it, which makes part of me want to vomit. I also had seriously, seriously (you have no idea) toyed with the idea of meeting up with folks at minne_con , so I could watch and cry on someone else's shoulder other than the bemused Hubs', but I just can't do it. I mean - I could, we do have a little disposable income at the moment, but I can't help but feel if I used up part of our unemployment cushion and then we had serious problems finding a job, I would never forgive myself, and I can't afford that kind of self-recrimination, both figuratively and financially.

It is wonderful to have stgulik here on LJ at last. I don't think you, Jules, realise just how important you are to my writing, and having you here, in a place where I hang around, drinking coffee and writing in my natural habitat, is immensely comforting, for some reason.

Or maybe I'm just cracking up. I've made two spicy chicken quiches, which are now in the oven, and the coffee's good (I know, Irish, I know), so there's little to be so maudlin about. I'm not feeling particularly insecure, not terribly worried about finding a job at the moment, and we have enough food in our pantry to feed us into the next millennium. But the house is a tip and I can't seem to get my kitchen to look tidy, no matter how many times I walk in there, look around and leave.

But I do have that little itch under my fingers that means I want to write, and that is like crack, like, well, knowing me you should be able to fill in the blanks. As long as that is there, I feel (justifiably or not) that things will be okay.

It looks like Chapter 20 of Lay Me Low won't be forthcoming from the laptop. Dom Brian has just too much on his plate right now to do all the necessary little fiddly bits necessary to take the HD apart, put it somewhere else and then try again. Boo. Hiss. I need chocolate and red wine and hugs and lots of tea. *pout*

I think that is the Muse's way of telling me that I should just cut my losses and try to re-write it, and this depresses me. I can't actually say I'm surprised. I had not been 100% happy with what I'd written, but there were bits I really liked, and those won't be forthcoming. I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and get on with it. It will be hard; it is a long fic, which lost a lot of steam when I tanked my laptop, and it will take a lot of effort and grunt work to get the old engine moving again.

On the other hand, today I got a phone call from my precious beta, who just wanted to give me some encouragement of course and she did. I will get Chapter 20 going for her. I owe it to her talents not to mope about and just get on with it.

Riding on those coattails is the darkarts_ldws challenge, and this week's challenge has stumped me. I have three irons on the fire, not to mention a little private fic I'm writing for the goddess mimimanderly (which I'm having a ball with), and the excellent sshg_exchange  prompt I received today which is PHENOMENAL and I'm pumped for, but I feel a little silly that I'm whinging on and on about something I love doing so much. I just want them all to be good.

I am now typing my post on a shiny new laptop, thanks to a lady who came in yesterday and bought a bunch of stop stuff - we weren't expecting that, and it enabled me to buy a halfway decent replacement for my poor, milk-logged HP.

I am hoping that the hd can be retrieved, otherwise chapter 20 of Lay Me Low will have to be restarted from scratch. And I was working on a tasty little smut fic that, sadly, will be lost as well. Aside from that, most stuff was on another hd and now on Dropbox, which madeleone turned me onto. I am also fortunate that "I Want That One" is here; I would have lost it as well.

All in all, I am thankful, and I appreciate all your words of encouragement, commiseration, and recipe suggestions for my poor laptop/milk/rice combo. mimimanderly said it sounded like the ultimate in fusion cooking. I do have the best friends in the world here.

From my review basket on Lay Me Low today. This is review #477:

Derelict Author: I can't even believe the reception this story has gotten. Most of the characters seem so OOC as to be ridiculous (Snape using "lass" every other word, really?), the story arches are trite (Hermione asking Snape to marry her? Hermione getting almost raped but feeling super horny within a chapter!), the overuse of deux ex machina type spells/curses (the blood spell? Snape's "Dark Caress" curse?), and the "lyrics" at the beginning of each chapter? I read through this entire story to try and give it a chance based on all of the reviews I read, but it's just too OOC for me to even get behind it.

My Response: Sorry you don't like it. I'll admit it's not my best work, but then again, I haven't read yours, so I don't know what type of fiction you write. The wonderful thing about fanfiction is that not everyone has to enjoy every story. I think the fact that I've had a lot of good reviews on it is that is does have a lot of things that people like to read. There are a lot of stories out there I don't like. I stop reading them. I suggest you do the same with this one - it is obviously distressing you to the point of rudeness.

Well, one out of 477 ain't bad. So the author of Debauched, Dissipated, and Dissolute hates this story. I think I'll give it a read. I had hoped to be able to read her body of work to see what she feels is a proper story, but I'm afraid this is it, Ashwinder wise, so.... a prolific writer, then.

Yeah, I'm a little pissed off. If I don't like a story, I stop reading it. I don't trash it, I don't belittle it, I don't demoralise and discourage the author -  I just stop reading it.

Actually, it couldn't come at a worse time. I'm getting a little exhausted with the story, and my poor beta is nagging me to finish chapter 20. I think this means that DM and I really need to put in some quality time on it.

Bit of shameless pimpage: Just to let you know, Chapter 18 of Lay Me Low is now up on Ashwinder. You can view it HERE.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

I thought I would NEVER get this chapter written, but Lay Me Low Chapter 17 is finally posted at Ashwinder. Bless their little cotton socks for posting it the day after I uploaded it, seeing as it took me almost a month to do so. It is amazing what a good beta will do to get your head around a 'constipation' chapter like this one.

I woke up this morning (insert blues riff here), feeling like death on a soda cracker. Everything hurts; like the flu, or if the flu was PMS, or PMS with a Menopause chaser. The whole schmere; headache, stomachache, cramps, muscle spasms. I crawled like a slow worm around the shop today, and collapsed in bed for two hours. Sheesh.

A friend of mine gave us Netflix as a gift - what a revelation! Why didn't anyone tell me such a thing could be had through our Wii? I knew that thing would come in handy one day. I tell you, if Netflix did  pr0n, I'd never leave the house.

I have just eaten the rest of my liver out yearning to attend the upcoming con, if only to see Droxy. I'm not going to be able to make this year's, but I am determined to hit the next one. I want to join in - I feel like the kid who has to stay inside and practice piano while the other kids are out playing - wait a minute - I WAS that kid. Well,  no more! Teddy is a writer now, Teddy is vibrant and sexy and fun-loving and will be an asset to any con. Teddy feels left out. Teddy needs to finish her wine and crawl into bed until the delirium wears off...