The Barefoot Ballroom

As told to beanside, mona1347 and nilchance:

( Jensen is a big ole slut. PATHOLOGICALLY. )

Well. Now, after doing the Winsister poll, Kink has been typically "helpful" (in his inimitable style) and said "Hey. I bet you we could make it ALL work."

( And here's how. (Need I say this is spoilery...if I write this story?) )

So while I was in Chicago, I begged La Muse for some prose and, in typical fashion, he delivered...in a manner of speaking, namely, with 1200 words of something that I had/have no intention of working on right now, rather than the million and one things I need to be working on RIGHT NOW. Oh, Kink. If I didn't love and need you so much, I would SO have you racked and quartered. *sighs*

Anyway. This is a piece of the Die Hard 4 epic that I'm DEFINITELY NOT working on right now, the one that picks up after "All I Want For Christmas". Reference mark here. This is Lucy and John's initial heart to heart.

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( Read more... )

More of the genderswitch/swap/fuck...whatever. In theory, this happens IMMEDIATELY after the first, disasterous attempt at fucking.

I'm very iffy about this. I don't know if it's too soon, I don't know if the Dean from the previous scene would be able to relax to this degree. I'm not sure about the tension and pacing. I'm worried that it's coming off as too non-con. I'm worried about the transiton from oral to fucking. I don't know if the scene break works, giving me the reset to have that transition more smoothly or whether it just breaks the tension too much and I should stay in Sam's POV the whole time. I don't know if it makes sense for Sam. Clearly, I just don't know.

I think...I think there's something here about Sam and how, despite his best intentions, some of his perception of Dean DOES shift because he looks at him and sees a woman. And how the reality of his viewpoint alters the emotional viewpoint, bringing out this even more tangible desire to protect. To be chivalrous. And, to some extent, because Sam is allowed to have internalized skanky issues like the rest of us, how much that chivalry lends itself to a certain amount of chauvinism. I see Sam as kind of...controlling here. And I don't think it crosses the line. I hope not, anyway, but at the same time, i think Sam does have this incompletely hidden need to assert some control over the situation and it translates itself to having a certain measure of control over Dean. I think there's a lot of alpha male possessiveness coming to the fore because it's not just women looking at Dean, which are less competition, it's guys. And they're not being particularly respectful or subtle about it and in that respect, Dean was always SAM'S. And he can see Dean feeling vulnerable and frustrated and uncomfortable, but he can't change the nature of mankind. All he can do is offer the typical protection of 'This woman is marked, this woman is taken", like dogs pissing on a hydrant.

I also, if I stick with Dean's POV in the second half, want to play up more how he doesn't like it and he does. It's pleasurable but at the same time, he feels a kind of guilt about it. These aren't his parts, he's not supposed to be feeling pleasure with them (and beneath that, a subconscious layer of IF I feel pleasure with these girl parts, I may never get my boy parts back) and yet, he very much IS feeling pleasure. And there's a dirtiness to it that I want to express more fully. It feels wrong and weird...but it's also the wrong and weird that's getting him off.

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( Read more... )

Okay. So this is the same scene as yesterday, but with the end filled out and moving into the next scene, wherein The Boys Go Shopping For Tampons. I don't know. I worry that it's too flip. But I can't help it. Boys and tampons are inherently funny. I'm also not sure about Sam using a certain word. This is the problem with not writing linearly; I don't know where the edges are going to smooth together. I think the funny parts are necessary to both highlight the angst and I think/hope their relieve the angst, give a little breathing space between the next hit. I really want to show how Dean tries to roll with (or cope with) each successive "problem", only to be hit by the next. That'll be key to selling his mental decline.

( These sound like a man's tampon. )

HOLY CRAP, I DID IT! I mean, of course, the story isn't finished, but I did it! I wrote 50,000 in thirty days. I didn't fail! I mean, don't get me wrong. I really don't think that my entire being would have been invalidated if I hadn't finished NaNo this year, but sometimes you just have something to PROVE. To yourself, to the world. I still have so much anger and so much unresolved emotional baggage about this year. Anger as much about what the doctors did to me as much as the cancer. And along with my "normal" body and "normal" life, I've been struggling really hard just to get my MIND back. Chemotherapy stole my memory a lot of days. It stole my creativity. It made producing a dozen words agony, let alone 50,000. And I just...I couldn't wallow, you know? I had to focus on getting through it, making do, looking forward, looking up. So I forced myself to write and I forced myself to not let this beat me down. And part of that, part of the stuff I needed to get through and to to get back to normal was Nano. I'd done it for the last two years and I'd WON for the last two years and losing this year... It just would've been a big disappointment. Because then it would be The Year I Had Cancer AND Failed Nano.

But I didn't fail. I didn't finish, but I didn't fail. And that's all right. That's mighty damn good. It's kind of making me rewrite my plans for December (omg, it's going to be crazy), but it's good. I'd even venture so far as to say it's great.

50,241 / 50,000 words. 100% done!

Today's Word Count: 4,049
Current Total Word Count: 50,241
Estimated Total Word Count: ~125,000
What's bad: Dead Man's Blood. Man. Seriously. If it was not for the fact that I NEED the Colt, I would've blown this episode off. The thing that I find really amusing and interesting about writing this is that I tend to watch episodes with a pretty high Willing Suspension of Disbelief. But when I'm trying to make sense of the episode for narrative purpose, some of this stuff is just KILLING ME. Skin. OMG, I love Skin, it's one of my favorite episodes, but trying to "fix" Skin almost broke me. Hopefully I did some good things with Dead Man's Blood. The other "bad" thing (for a given value of bad) is the family dynamics. In my mind, there was supposed to be a lot more...resentment, suspicion and misunderstanding and instead the Winchesters are banding together against all external threats and I don't know if I'm going to be able to sell the ending if they keep this crap up, dammit. STOP BEING SO HARMONIOUS!
What's good: Watching the Winchesters band together against all external threats. Also, I like the way Mary handled the vamps a HELL of a lot better than the way John did. There's a reason John was a sniper and that's trufax.
What pleases me: Sam tries to guide Dean into the back seat and Dean balks.

"No way am I sitting in the back seat, dude," Dean says indignantly, pushing back against Sam's insistent hands.

"Dean—"

"I'm the oldest, I get the front!"

"You're concussed."

"Even concussed, I'm still the oldest."

It's Sam's turn to sigh. "My legs are longer."

"Yes, but they're not older," Dean says with incontrovertible logic.

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Previous parts can be found here

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( I'm bigger than you," Sam points out. "And taller. )

Well, I don't think I'm going to make it, but that doesn't mean I'm going to quit. It's frustrating. I'm not panicky, I'm not depressed about it, but I am disappointed. I had--have--things at stake in my psyche for doing NaNo this year and it's disappointing if I don't make it. I know you'll tell me to be kind to myself, that there were and are mitigating factors...and this is all true. But that's exactly WHY I wanted to do it this year. So let's just see what the next couple days bring. I don't have to work Friday...maybe I can make a miracle.

40,138 / 50,000 words. 80% done!

Today's Word Count: 1,783
Current Total Word Count: 40,138
Estimated Total Word Count: ~100,000
What's bad: Well, my word count, obviously. I got derailed in a big way between the new job and Thanksgiving and I just don't know if I can recoup. If I can, it won't be tonight.
What's good: I really love this story and--for all its deplorable lack of smut, I do think it's a good story to tell.
What pleases me: Dean doesn't really know a lot about demons. From what his mom always said, actual demon possession is pretty rare and on the occasions that they heard of one, his mother had always steered clear, a restriction that's laughably clearer to him now. What he does know of demon lore is conflicting—what they are, what they can do, their powers. So Dean's not sure how much of what happened to him was an evil dream, cast into his head by the demon and how much was real.

He hurts, but not as much—he imagines—as he would if the demon had really peeled his skin back like a grape's to expose the muscles, tendons and blood vessels. His body isn't burned, melted, seared, the sweet-horrible reek of it something that exists only in his mind. He has both his eyes, his tongue, his testicles, the phantoms of pain that lingers in them only that—ghosts. His memories of them being smashed and torn away from his body have no physical anchor, nothing to say this really happened.

Dean picks up a corner of the blanket and scrubs his skin hard, the dull pain of abrasion better than the memory of agonies he can't do anything about.

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Previous parts can be found here

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( Yeah. That hurts. )

Woot! Another chapter down. One more actual "episode" and then I'm in 100% AU territory, instead of just skirting its shores.

37,051 / 50,000 words. 74% done!

Today's Word Count: 3,000
Current Total Word Count: 37,051
Estimated Total Word Count: ~100,000
What's bad: I'm at that point where I'm starting to question whether I'm going to be able to get this done in 100,000 words. I'm 37,000 in and I haven't done Dead Man's Blood or the denouement. I'm also at the Sloughs of Despair part where I'm convinced it's all dreck, I'm a hack and no one's going to read this anyway, after all this work. That's not a plea for reassurance. It's just the process. And my fear, don't get me wrong, but I'm always like this at this stage, too close to see if it's any good or not.
What's good: The Sam & Mary continues to be golden and I love the pivot of Mary's feelings about Max Miller. Of all the special kids, I think I felt the worst for him, poor thing. Word count's good too; I think that covers my deficit from before. Nineteen days in and I'm sitting kinda pretty.
What pleases me: "Look," Sam says in a soothing voice, "I don't know…I don't know what it was like with you. I know I can't even imagine what it was like for you growing up like you did…"

Mary recognizes the bitter satisfaction that goes across Max's face, the perverse pride of knowing no one else's misfortunes outweigh yours. The familiarity takes her by the throat, a taste like bile in the back of her mouth.

"I couldn't tell anybody, when my visions started. Not my girl, not my mom, not my…my brother." Mary hears the catch in Sam's voice and has to look away, the sourness of her mouth worsening. She looks past the two boys to Hannah Miller, still flattened to the wall. Mary catches the other woman's gaze, reading the mingled terror and guilt. Mary's anger is quick to follow, burning up through her whole body to warm her through. Jennifer McCoy had risked her life and died to keep her son safe and out of the hands of the Aunts and this woman couldn't even protect Max from his father and uncle. She puts her anger aside, out of place and useless to her in this situation and signals with her eyes, indicating that Hannah should edge sideways, toward the door behind her and to her right. Hannah's eyes flick in that direction without comprehension and then back to Mary's.

"…but I know what it's like to be different," Sam continues in that same even, earnest voice. "To be afraid of it. To hate it. To want more than anything to be like the kids you see on the street, the ones you go to school with; the ones that don't even know how good they got it."

"Yeah," Max mutters, half under his breath.

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Previous parts can be found here

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( I know what it's like to be different. )

Today was a good day! I got a job, I got a super late start on Nano, and I still made my word count for the day. Of course, there was the NERVOUS BREAKDOWN OF DOOM on the phone with my mother this morning (she's fine, it was all about me), but considering how the afternoon turned out, I'm choosing to call it a win. So say we all.

31,828 / 50,000 words. 64% done!

Today's Word Count: 2,025
Current Total Word Count: 31,828
Estimated Total Word Count: ~100,000
What's bad: Complete turnaround from yesterday. Today there is no bad. I think this scene will need some padding and maybe a little more exposition, but I like the way the dramatic tension worked out and, even though I went WAY OFF OUTLINE, I think that what did result works just as well, if not better. This is going to be a short chapter.
What's good: All of it. Mary is finally starting to open up, clues are coming out, and Sam is starting to put the pieces together. And I even got to put Ash in the story!
What pleases me: There are police cars, an ambulance and a whole circus of hangers-on lingering around the address that Mary had wheedled from the Michigan police. Mary drives past and pulls in around the corner before she gently shakes Sam out of his half-doze. He flails at her and she catches his wrist before he clocks her in the eye. "Sam," she says softly, her heart pinching at the confusion swimming across his face. The name Jim Miller and the man it represents mean nothing to her, but she regrets having to tell him anyway. "Sam…we're too late."

The dazed blurriness of Sam's face clarifies into sharp, sudden lines, but his eyes tell the real story even in the shitty yellow light of the streetlights, turning dark and wide and then narrow. John looked the exact same, she thinks distantly, the day they called to tell him his father had died.

Soft, Lillith's voice thinks contemptuously, louder than ever.

Oh, baby, I'm sorry, Mary thinks, fighting with the impulse to ruffle the puppy-dog mess of his hair. He's not a baby any more not matter how much she sees that same quiet and solemn infant in the young man in front of her.

What she says is, "What do you want to do?"

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Previous parts can be found here

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( It's...a family thing. )

Writing this, this year, has been such a different experience for me from previous NaNos. On the one hand, I see very clearly the things I want to do. More than just knowing how the plot goes, I have actual images. Gesture, expression, facial tics... I know the blocking of the scenes and--more or less--how they intersect. At the same time, actually hedging the words around my vision has been so excruciating. The window into the page has been flimsy and fragile, apt to dump me out at strange times, mute and frustrated. And, of course, there's the lingering fear that the vision itself is faulty and the end product will be a forgettable piece of go se that no one but me (and maybe baileytc will care about. *laughs*

28,319 / 50,000 words. 57% done!

Today's Word Count: 2,793
Current Total Word Count: 28,319
Estimated Total Word Count: ~100,000
What's bad: I feel better about this scene than I did when I started it (thank you, technosage), but the end of it definitely needs work. I rushed it and it needs some filling in. Other than that, I think it actually went pretty well for as far AU as it went. I was really afraid that I wouldn't be able to bring Mary around to the righteous indignation she needed to be able to act against one of her own, but I think it actually did, without me having to steamroll at all. It's funny, because Mary is totally a made up character at this point, but I see a little bit of canonical Dean in Mary, which is kind of a hoot and makes me think that I'm doing SOMETHING right with her characterization.
What's good: Mary. I love the way she went from reluctantly confronting Sue-Ann to the moral impetus to bring the situation to a close. I love that she has a moral impetus, whatever Sam might think.
What pleases me: "I ask again: would it have made a difference?" She holds out her hand, ushering Mary into the seat across from hers. The room doesn't look like it's used all that often, but there's no mustiness and only the faint lemony reek of polish. Mary guesses it's probably only used for Sunday's dinners. It isn't often that she lets herself indulge in might-have-beens, but here, with another McCoy for the first time in decades, she feels a vague sense of longing for her own house and all the Sunday dinners she'd dreamed of and never gotten to have.

"No," Mary admits grudgingly, taking the seat. The aging wood is covered with a crocheted cushion that doesn't really ameliorate the hardness of the chair. "Probably not." Sue-Ann makes a pleased, subvocal noise, sitting back in her chair. "You still should have told me."

Sue-Ann snorts. "You've been away too long. That's hardly the McCoy way."

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Previous parts can be found here

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( Let's not pretend to be morally outraged now, Lillith. )