Confessions of a Middle-Aged Fan Girl

SG-1 Fic
Slash, Gen, drabbles: under construction

NCIS
Slash, Gen

Essays
Bait and Switch: Sacrificed to the Gods of UST

How to Teach Men to Write Women

The Problem with NCIS is the Writing

Title: Interlude 1 - Stallion
Genre: slash, genderbend (trust me :-)
Category: AU, PWP, Kink
Spoilers: None
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 3,195
Pub Date: July 2011
Warnings: Ah, those kinky shifters. Sex in "incompatible" forms.
Summary: Some taboos are made to be broken, but Tony's new kink could cost him Gibbs.
Author's Notes: Thank you to my beta, taylorgibbs... she made sure my liquid muse didn't get me into trouble... um... more trouble. This is one of what may be a series of PWPs in this universe. Gonna have to see what pops into my head. :-)


( Stallion )

When USA announced their forthcoming movie starring Mark Harmon and based on the 10th of John Sandford's "Prey" novels, a couple of friends of mine insisted I'd read them.

Forcefully.

:-)

So, I gave the first one a shot.

That was what, two weeks - 10 days ago?

I just finished book 7.

I *love* these books. :-)

Lucas Davenport is a Minneapolis cop... who also designs games. In fact, he designs them so well, that he's made himself a bit of a personal fortune at it. He drives a Porche, games with nuns and is the go-to guy in the department whenever they catch a weird one. Lucas regularly puts two and two together and comes up with the square root of 17. He's the one the chief sends out to talk to the media... and sometime to play them. He's also killed more people on the job than any other cop. Lucas also loves women. Just as many as he can manage.

The series starts in the 80s (there are something like 20 books now) and it's interesting to read, now, about a time before cell phones and when computers were odd little things that had to be explained to the audience. :-) Watching technology blossom over the years covered in the first 7 books has been fun. :-) The 10th book was published in '99.

If you pick them up, try not to be put off by some of the more subtle (and not so subtle) sort of passive bigotry. That doesn't last and it's interesting to see it drop away as the books march on through time. Some people may be put off by the way Lucas sleeps around, but I found it only a problem in terms of the problems it caused him. He doesn't treat his lovers poorly, he just has a little trouble sticking to one woman at a time (and, IIRC, he never denied that it was a problem or that it was his own fault - just a weakness on his part). It strikes me as a realistic portrayal of a guy who's more than a little screwed up on his own, but not in a terrible way and he seems to grow past it a bit.

If you like your serial killers twisted and your cops bordering on it at times, pick these up. There's a reason Sandford's other self has won a Pulitzer for journalism. His style is fast paced and interesting and the man has definitely done his research.

In an effort to help me get off my net!ass and keep up with my circle/flist again, I thought of this meme. It's also kinda interesting, too, so that's even better. Please post your response in your own journals and encourage your folks to take it up. Let's see if we can't get some writerly/readerly talk going. :-)

Which of your own stories do you like best and why? It must be complete, and posted. (For non-writers, which story have you read that is your hands down favorite and why?) Any fandom, any genre, but let's do stick to fic. Please include a link to the story in question.

I'll start. :-)

This is tough for me because I have several favorites. Some are SG1 stories and some are NCIS. If I have to pick one, I guess it would be Power Play. It's a Tony/Gibbs role play fic that's pretty much all smut, all the time. :-) But, it was amazingly difficult for me to write. Very challenging and that's why I count it as one of my favorites. I tend to like my slash couples to be on an even footing with each other. No power imbalance, but this was all about the need to give up power, at least for a while. I did something similar in Need but that didn't delve quite as deeply as Power Play did. It's something I'm working with in a WIP (Duet in a Minor Key) that's been eating my life since November because it's proving to be VERY hard and includes some dub-con, which is very different for me. We'll see if what I learned writing Power Play will get me through Duet.

So I have 20 odd pages of a story written. It's almost complete, but as I was getting to the end and the final tying up of various emotional threads and so forth I realized it wasn't very good.

It was, in fact, crap.

What's sad is that it's a gift for a non-fandom friend. I *love* the prompt she gave me and it's intriguing, but damn. I barely touched it for the past 8 or ten weeks, which is *really* sad because I figured out the problem weeks ago.

I have the wrong POV character.

So, okay. That seems to be a simple enough fix, right? Just rewrite the same events from the other guy's POV.

Simple.

Right?

*headdesk*

This is where the problem comes in. I'm most comfortable writing in limited 3rd (imagine riding along inside the head of one character and only one character, knowing only what he knows, seeing only what he sees and so forth - that's 3rd person limited). It seems to be my natural POV. And while I'm not averse to trying something new and pushing my boundaries, one of the key components of this story is dub-con and *that* is already seriously pushing my boundaries. I skirted around a lot of the issues with dub-con in ITCOM, but alien drugs go a long way toward hand waving said issues (though, come to think of it, Daniel did still manage to angst for a chapter or six - that boy could guilt over a sunny day :-).

But I digress.

In short, I'd rather push one boundary at a time. But then we come back to the whole POV issue. I've got two guys who've been sitting around ignoring their feelings (hey, they're *GUYS* :-), one does something stupid and dangerous, which pisses the other one off to no end. So he heads over to "explain" to Stupid&Dangerous that this won't be tolerated any more and so on and so forth resulting in the dub-con first time. Pissed Off had been the POV I originally wrote it in. Sadly, while I *loved* riding around in his head while he kinda went off the deep end (is there anything more fun as a writer than exploring hidden dark sides?), it just didn't tell the whole story very well.

So a few weeks back when I had my epiphany about what was wrong, I immediately started rewriting it from Stupid&Dangerous's POV. (Fandom/characters really don't matter for this discussion.) Figured out how I'd have to start it differently, dived in and...got stuck. And before anyone suggests it, I don't do the dual POV thing where both sides are presented for the same set of events. Just no.

The problem is that the story as originally written served the anger and fear Pissed Off was feeling very well. The events don't necessarily suit what Stupid&Dangerous is feeling. Roughly the same events will take place, but this is where I hit my brick wall. I'm having a *HELLISH* time remembering that the story is not carved in stone. I have no trouble doing rewrites to punch up some stuff, down play others, keep things consistent and internally logical. But change *WHAT* happens? You'd think I'd decided to roast kittens for my lunch.

I know I can do this. I have no doubt, but damn, I can't believe how *hard* it is to get past this particular barrier. Pissed Off is still gonna kinda go off the deep end and Stupid&Dangerous is still going to fight it... some. (Hence a major reason for the change of POV - most of S&D's "journey" in the story goes on inside his head while PO initiates most of the overt action making his motivation and reactions more "visible" to the reader.)

So... anyone else run into something where the story seems set in stone before it's finished and it's like pulling teeth to bring yourself to change crap? Even when *YOU* are the one who created it in the first place?

Ah, well, off to finish the beta I've got going and then dive back into the story and beat it into submission (though, given the story in question, it might like that :-).

I mentioned this on Twitter and was promptly bombarded by requests for the recipe. So, here it is. There will be a "discussion" section after the recipe where I'll talk about what I plan to do differently next time.

Preheat oven to 350.

Prepare a baking dish (nonstick needs no prep, otherwise line with foil or spray with oil or both).

Ingredients:

Boneless, skinless split chicken breasts

Stuffing:
red bell pepper (~ 1/4 pepper per breast)
green onions
garlic (powdered works)
cream cheese (softened - roughly one tablespoon per breast)
sage
thyme

First make the stuffing. Dice the pepper, garlic and green onion. Mix with the cream cheese. Season to taste. Set aside.

The breasts I used were thin to start with but I still pounded them some. You might want to slice a regular breast in half to make two portions. Once you've got the meat pounded thin, place some of the stuffing on the center of the breast and fold or roll the breast. Seal the roll with toothpicks or skewers (I ended up wrapping them in foil, but would prefer baking them without it).

Place in the baking dish (they're liable to stick together if they're touching) and bake for 25 to 30 minutes. (Test the thickest part of the breast to be sure.)

Serve with whatever sounds good.

Discussion:

My kid and I both loved this but decided that while the stuffing was flavorful, it was a touch bland. As this is another step on my journey to not douse everything I cook in cayenne pepper or chili powder, next time out, I'm going to increase the amount of sage and thyme and I might add a little lemon juice. Possible a bit of ginger, too. Yes, the absence of salt is intentional. Hypertension is a hard task master.

My alter-ego is considering a novel in a genre "we" don't even read (for anyone who's new here - my alter ego gets paid to write fiction - when she's lucky). I know. WTF? But it's a really good idea and I think I can pull this off. But I need to see about gathering data. While the concept hit me like a blow to the gut, I need to get a wider view before I do more than the dabbling I started last night.

One of the central themes is identity. The "person" we show the world (and sometimes that's many people as I'm sure you've all experienced to some degree or other) as well as the "person" we show our most intimate confidants and family and finally the person we are inside and who we may never show to anyone at all.
( more details )

So, my question to you all: Are you aware of your masks? Do you resent them? Do you embrace them? Do you feel freed or stifled by them? Ambivalent? Talk to me about your masks; about the masks you encounter in others. If you feel too exposed, feel free to PM me, though I'm hoping to get a solid discussion of the topic going.

My dad passed away on Thursday.

He was 83 and hadn't been in the best of health, even though he was plotting his escape from the rehab place he'd been moved into after his last trip to the hospital. He kept his mind, his strength of will and his sense of humor to the last and his end came quickly and quietly with my mom at his side, where she'd been for 59 years.

He never wanted any of the falderol that goes along with funerals, and I'm happy to say Mom's abiding by his wishes. Had he had his way, his body would have been dumped in a ditch or in the woods some place to go back to nature, but the state frowns on that sort of thing. He'll be cremated and the closest thing to a memorial service will be a family gathering next weekend where we'll eat too much, talk to much, hopefully laugh too much and cry more than he'd want. Except for the last thing, it's what Daddy would have wanted and he's just gonna have to suck it up and let us all cry some. ;-)

( adding insult to injury )

On the eve of the 4th of July, it occurred to me as a resident of the Gulf Coast, that we're asking the wrong question regarding the massive oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Whether BP or the US government pays for the clean up isn't the issue. How they plan to stop the massive amounts of crude oil spewing up out of the sea bed with nothing to stop it is immaterial. No, the question we should be asking ourselves is, "How soon will there be a SyFy Channel movie about it and who will be the ultimate bad guy?"

I think we all know that "How soon" is limited only by how quickly they can round up the required 3rd rate talent to back the one decent actor needing to pay his mortgage that they might be able to scare up (time was when we could count on a few decent actors, but hey, times are tough). Who will be the bad guy? Aliens? Prehistoric Monster? Ancient Evil? Mole People? Or maybe they'll go the mutation route and we'll have giant oil spewing mudbugs ravaging New Orleans during Mardi Gras (cuz, y'know, New Orleans hasn't suffered enough of late). They could call it "Mudbug Mayhem!" and run it right after a rerun of "Mega Python vs Gatoroid" and follow it up with "MegaSnake".

I'm in a serious NCIS mood right now, an especially porny, one-shot mood. So, I'm sitting here looking through my WIPS, some of which are nothing more than opening paragraphs, kinda setting a tone but things that went no where.

I also noticed that I have a serious thing about baseball imagery.

Not that I'm complaining, mind you. (You *have* seen MLB uniforms, right? Exactly.)

So, tell me what you think. (I blame webgirl.) Most of these I have no clue where they're going from here which is why they're still WIPs. I have some other one-shot WIPs, but they're mostly porny crack (or cracky porn) and that's not the mood I'm in right now.

( Crack of the Bat )

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