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Anybody Want to Share an Opinion?
Nov. 28th, 2012 08:24 amSo here I am, rewriting this story, and suddenly everything kind of flies up in my face. I've been working on it off and on for a while, and it's been gaining length. The whole idea is that it'll be a long chapter fic, and I kind of like it. The thing is, it's a rewrite of a long story I had twenty-four chapters of before. Let me tell you a tale of a grad student, and her first week at grad school.
A long , long time ago (see August) I was the proud owner of a desktop. It was four years old, ran fine, and held every paper I've ever written and a novella's worth of fanfiction. The keyboard had the "d" and "s" keys rubbed smooth, gaming not typing certain names, and the desktop had a variety of wonderful wallpapers to choose from. We got along, talked to each other, and we loved one another dearly. Then we moved above the Mason-Dixon line, and the computer was temporarily set up on a cedar chest since its desk was still in the South and the room we designated as a computer room had a drying coat of veneer on the floor. But the computer was a trooper, and he didn't care about the change in elevation or climate. Or so it seemed. Then the desk came up on the second move, and it got set up, and the computer was one day away from being moved. I booted it up to work on said chapter fic, my first three grad classes under my belt, and it went to Windows and then blue-screened. I spent hours on the phone with the school's tech guys, prayed to the gods of computers, cursed, and then went with an exorcism. Nothing worked. Now the computer sits upstairs on its desk, a lump of useless blue-screening every time it starts up. Chapter fic? Lost in the battle.
Which is why I started re-writing it. I changed the OC a lot, tweaked Sam's back-story, decided to make the boys unrelated. Put Gabriel in the story and gave him a big part as wish-fulfillment for a friend. A lot of stuff changed. Then I started complaining to the hubby about how I was missing all these scenes I remembered being really great. Just fabulous. Since they were lost I would simply have to re-find the headspace. Then my hubby spends thirty minutes wrestling with the computer and manages to get all my stories and papers off the dead computer and onto a flashdrive. "Now you have the originals!" He declared with a smile. Which was great. Except now I have the original and I can't figure out how to work those good parts in without re-writing.
So if anyone wants to be really helpful, which is more enticing? Unrelated or separated without knowing each other? Gabriel front and center or not much at all? And is an OFC/Gabriel side story a good thing, or is my friend sadly alone in her interests? Because my head is about to explode trying to make a decision.
A long , long time ago (see August) I was the proud owner of a desktop. It was four years old, ran fine, and held every paper I've ever written and a novella's worth of fanfiction. The keyboard had the "d" and "s" keys rubbed smooth, gaming not typing certain names, and the desktop had a variety of wonderful wallpapers to choose from. We got along, talked to each other, and we loved one another dearly. Then we moved above the Mason-Dixon line, and the computer was temporarily set up on a cedar chest since its desk was still in the South and the room we designated as a computer room had a drying coat of veneer on the floor. But the computer was a trooper, and he didn't care about the change in elevation or climate. Or so it seemed. Then the desk came up on the second move, and it got set up, and the computer was one day away from being moved. I booted it up to work on said chapter fic, my first three grad classes under my belt, and it went to Windows and then blue-screened. I spent hours on the phone with the school's tech guys, prayed to the gods of computers, cursed, and then went with an exorcism. Nothing worked. Now the computer sits upstairs on its desk, a lump of useless blue-screening every time it starts up. Chapter fic? Lost in the battle.
Which is why I started re-writing it. I changed the OC a lot, tweaked Sam's back-story, decided to make the boys unrelated. Put Gabriel in the story and gave him a big part as wish-fulfillment for a friend. A lot of stuff changed. Then I started complaining to the hubby about how I was missing all these scenes I remembered being really great. Just fabulous. Since they were lost I would simply have to re-find the headspace. Then my hubby spends thirty minutes wrestling with the computer and manages to get all my stories and papers off the dead computer and onto a flashdrive. "Now you have the originals!" He declared with a smile. Which was great. Except now I have the original and I can't figure out how to work those good parts in without re-writing.
So if anyone wants to be really helpful, which is more enticing? Unrelated or separated without knowing each other? Gabriel front and center or not much at all? And is an OFC/Gabriel side story a good thing, or is my friend sadly alone in her interests? Because my head is about to explode trying to make a decision.
