(no subject)

[ryanleeds]

Finished draft two of the story I wrote for my challenge. I'm going to try and get up the motivation to work on draft three, which involves much more serious editing. And by get up the motivation, I more mean stop staring at the internet and get writing. I think a scene or two is missing to connect to the end. I am slightly worried that this is a story where "things happen" rather than an actual plot, but I won't be able to tell that until I get some real critique on it.

It is definitely optimistic, linear, and full of healthy relationships, though!

I also need a better title.

I've been working on a shorter story that was originally going to be a flash fiction piece, but I'm not sure it's going to work out as a flash fiction piece. Which is fine. I need more character development to make the plot work, and I simply cannot do that in another 500 words. It'll likely still be a shorter story -- around 2,500 - 3,000 words, I'm pretty sure. I just have to figure out how said character development happens.

But basically, it boils down to the question:

What would you do if someone offered you the chance to give up everything going on it your life so that you can go on a spaceship and sail the stars? You have to go back eventually, but you can take from it what you can. A chance to fully be yourself, not confined by societal rules and what other people expect of you.

No, seriously. What would you do?

Comments

[squeemu]

I am the worst at coming up with titles.

I've wondered that, ever since I started watching Doctor Who. And I honestly don't know if I could abandon my partner, even if I could see the most amazing sights in the universe.

I'm not sure if that makes me sad or not.

I'd be curious to see what I'd be like, though, without anybody to reflect off of.

Unrelated, have you seen that the zombie apocalypse has begun?

[ryanleeds]

In the end, you have to come back. The only problem is, there's a chance that everyone else has moved on. So if you trust your partner to wait and to accept you as you've changed, you wouldn't have to give them up.

I'd be curious to see who I would be as well.

And no, I had not seen that! I will start reinforcing the windows.

[squeemu]

The thing is, I am totally okay with coming back. I have faith in my partner, and if I'm mistaken, I'll live with that. The problem is, I can't abandon them. If I had their blessing I'd go, but I am unwilling to leave somebody who needs me. (I'm still thinking of my Doctor Who analogy, where the Doctor would come and be like, "You can be my companion, but you have to get in right now." But, uh, if in your analogy I get to work things out with my partner in advance, sort of like a long distance relationship without the communication involved, that's a totally different story.)

[ryanleeds]

Well, you have 10 minutes to figure it out.

[squeemu]

What would you do, do you know?

[ryanleeds]

I would take it.

I'm in a state of flux right now, and being given the chance to discover who I am without the walls of society falling in on me would be god-given. Perhaps that's why I'm writing about it in the first place. Building my own place among the stars, even if I have to go back, would be beautiful to me. No one that I have to put on a face for. No one to judge me when I'm weird or childish. No one to question why I'm unhappy. Because Emily doesn't judge and she doesn't ask. She just accepts you for who you are and encourages you to find yourself and grow. Georgia is the 17th person she's done this for and every time saying goodbye has been hard, but she's known it's something she has to do, for everyone else's sake. I'm not sure what she gets out of it, but it warms her heart as much as it breaks it.

[ryanleeds]

Oh, and I think I've come up with a title: The Way You Whisper

[squeemu]

Do you have a method for thinking of titles, or do they just come to you? I'm still trying to figure out a title for my 1920s story. And that werewolf one.

I like your title. It gets my attention.

[ryanleeds]

I listen to music and grab generic lines that sound like they fit the story. It's kind of like cheating, but I don't care.

Also, it's L's method that I stole from them. So it's really double cheating.

[thiefofvoices]

Sometimes I steal them wholesale from videogames or things my friends say instead! Stealing is what being a real writer is all about, right? ;P

[ryanleeds]

It seems that every time I see a comment from you, I'm listening to Deine Welt.

I am not sure what this means.

[magistrate]

Deine Welt summons L through the intercomputary medium.

Clearly.

[squeemu]

Remixes and covers and mash ups, aw yeah! *nod*

[magistrate]

Sometimes I come up with really fantastic titles out of the blue that have absolutely nothing to do with the story they I come up with them for! And sometimes I use them anyway.

And then sometimes I come up with titles which themselves are the seeds of stories!

And then sometimes I sit and stare at a story and it refuses to gain a good title, or even a passable title, no matter what tactics I try. And I end up giving them completely shitty titles like Water Rights. Which is on a story that I worked on for like eight months. It's about the owner of a hydroponics rig in space who ends up having to dismantle her business to provide water to space colonists after some yahoo blows up the space elevator that exports water from Earth. I'm absolutely certain that there had to be at least fifty better titles out there, but I could find none of them. Or like Epic, which was an FFVIII fanfic. Which was, as originally conceived... well, epic.

If the Gay YA refuses to give me a better title than "the Gay YA", I am going to punch it in its snarky little novel face.

[squeemu]

...yeah, Water Rights could maybe stand to have a different title. On the plus side, I have only ever named one of my stories? (I'm not counting fanfiction, so. If I did that, three stories! WHOOOO) Something about the shape of water in zero gravity? Or surface tension? I'm still fond of Epic, though.

If the Gay YA refuses to give me a better title than "the Gay YA", I am going to punch it in its snarky little novel face.

But it's so meta! XD

At the moment, all I've got is "Byrd and Wolfe" and "Werewolf High" which... yeah. Are definitely not the final titles. *headdesk* (Well, the one that I actually have named is Post Mortem, and I'm pretty sure I'm sticking with that one, but yeah. I also am not sure I could publish that. Although if I could it would be really, really awesome.)

[ryanleeds]

If only I could have used Cyberpunk Lesbians as an actual title.

[magistrate]

What sort of control would I have in the particulars of my journey?

[ryanleeds]

That really depends. If you have a good idea of somewhere you want to go, Emily would most likely take you there. But if you're more vague about it, she might not be able to get you there, if that makes sense.