Life is TOO MUCH!! But I did write a story

[breathedout]

Friends, this summer has been nuts. Totally, unsustainably, in-every-way overwhelmingly nuts, on the work front and the home-renovation front and the dog-getting-bronchitis-and-then-having-to-get-seventeen-teeth-removed front, and the mental/physical health front, it's just. A Lot. The fall promises to continue being A Lot, so I might continue to be basically silent on social media; these days I can occasionally get myself together for long enough to manage a tweet, but that's about it.

HOWEVER! femslashafterdark author reveals happened, so I wanted to note both what I received and what I wrote. My gift:

An Evening at the Woodshed by thinlizzy2 (2k, Explicit), a hot little quasi-established-relationship Lou/Nine Ball Ocean's 8 story in which Nine Ball is bratty because insecure/jealous about Lou's relationship with Debbie, and Lou... sorta-kinda reassures her. In a way that involves anal fingering. As so much quality reassurance does. \o/

And what I wrote, for fiachairecht:

Title: Dictionaries of the printed heart
Fandom: Killing Eve
Relationships: Anna/Villanelle, Anna/Eve/Villanelle, Eve/Villanelle, hints of Anna/Eve
Rating: Explicit
Word Count: 15k
Tags: Consent Issues, Graphic references to (canonical) past sex between a teenager and an adult, (Although everyone is now of age, The power differential involved in the underage sex does play a role in this story), Past teacher/student, Triangular relationship, Asymmetrical relationship, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-typical voyeurism, References to canon-typical mutilation, Language Kink, Lies and the liars that tell them, Knife Play, written on the body, Stationery supplies as BDSM kit, Mean Sex, Crying During Sex, (seriously Anna cries a lot in this), Slapping, pain play, Fucked-up metamours, Bondage, Double-crosses, Revenge, Performative Self-Presentation, Villanelle's lovers are just as bananas as Villanelle

Summary:

"You see?" Villanelle told her. "You can't do it."

"You're right," Anna said. "I can't do it. But—I can do this."

(Canon-divergent AU in which Anna, rather than killing herself, tries her hand as hostage, blackmailer, and diplomatic liaison.)

I was suuuuper psyched when I saw my recipient was kimaracretak, because I knew she'd be into, as she put in her comment, "'character who died in canon lives and NOTHING IS BETTER' fic," which is—exactly what this story is. (In case you didn't gather from the tags, it's very dark! Maybe even darker than the canon. Please read the warnings.) This concept was something that had been percolating at the back of my brain for some time vis-à-vis Killing Eve: a situation that allowed Anna and Eve to interact in a more extended way, and also provided room to explore the life-curdling effects on Anna of the years Villanelle's spent in prison and after. As well as... a bunch of other themes that I won't go too much into depth on for fear of spoiling the fic.

I will note, from a writer's diary point of view: there were some elements of this story that turned out to be extremely interesting technical challenges. Anna spends a significant part of the story wearing a wire, for example, so Eve can hear all her interactions with Villanelle—and Villanelle knows this, but Eve doesn't know Villanelle knows. Writing dialogue and exchanges between Anna and Villanelle under these conditions, when they're also both lying to each other to further their own agendas, was a LOT of fun and also a writing muscle I hadn't exactly flexed before. I feel like I learned some things in the process about writing in this particular generic niche (call it "Spies with Disordered Worldviews"), which is one I totally love reading. So that feels good.

Anyway I really appreciated this exchange as a space specifically devoted to Explicit-rated and/or dark-themed F/F, because so much of the time female subjectivity isn't allowed to be as troubled or troubling as male subjectivity, and romantic relationships between or among women often have their sharp edges sanded away. I love a spiky, difficult, and/or troubling female character, so thanks to the FAD organizers for putting this together. <3

Comments

[pennypaperbrain]

Well done for fitting in some writing! I guess though the original work is on hiatus? It doesn't make sense to wedge it in if it wouldn't get the attention it needs.

[breathedout]

THANKS. It's been a struggle.

I had a whole strategy in re: the Passchendaele project, which was that, since I have a ton of reading & research I need to do on it before I can progress much further, I would devote my writing time to other projects and my reading time to research, and then when I got to a point where more research holes were filled in, I would return to drafting Passchendaele scenes. The big problem with this plan has been that my reading time has been totally nonexistent this summer, especially for things like histories of labor organizing and the Canadian volunteer nursing program in WWI (for context, it felt quite luxuriant today to be able to actually sit down and read ONE AND A HALF whole short stories). So at some point I am going to need to regroup and figure out a different strategy. I really hate not to be actually drafting anything, even though I know that research is legitimately part of the writing process, and a part I wholeheartedly enjoy. But maybe I'll have to go that direction, I don't know. Alternately, my hope is that once the renovations are done on our house and we're moved into it (and once the dog is a few months older), my life will genuinely become less overwhelming and I'll have time for both things. And like. Occasionally seeing a friend, or something, crazy talk I know. :-P

[pennypaperbrain]

I accuse that dog of eating your writing time, but you know best whether he is worth it!

If I'm not writing something as well as doing research I feel like I'm skiving off, but then my life has about eight days per week's worth less content than yours does at the moment.

I think if I were you I might sit down and make myself just freewrite about the topic for half an hour a week, so as to feel that the spout wasn't becoming completely blocked. I have no clue if that approach would have any value for you though.

[breathedout]

It's honestly like 5% the dog and at least 65% the home renovation stuff. We are basically gutting our entire house (excluding bathrooms but including many interior walls) and rebuilding from the outer walls in. Which involves roughly 14 million decisions on details about which we first need to educate ourselves before we have any notions what we'd prefer. All of which would be intense enough, but then right when we feel like we've finally got a chunk of it squared away there keep being unexpected extra hurdles we have to figure out. For example the latest thing is that apparently our drywall all has asbestos, so the whole project has to be put on hold while we arrange to have that taken care of, figure out how we're paying for it, etc. IMO a puppy is like, okay, maybe I'm sleeping a little less; reno work is like HELLO MY LIFE IS NOW HOUSE STUFF AND HOUSE STUFF ALONE.

That said I actually managed to sit down yesterday and revise my writing/research calendar for September and October in such a way that, if I can stick to it, I will have both writing time and reading time built into my weeks. I tried out the new concept this morning & it worked pretty well, so: fingers crossed. Freewriting about the topic is a good idea, though. And even drafting—it's not as if I'd have to read all, whatever, nine books in my research pile before I could draft anything; it's kind of a staggered progression. I only have two-ish books I feel like I have to read (or really, finish) before I can move on to my Chapter 2. (Though I also have an intermediate short story for which I need to finish a book I'm reading language death—that one I'm hoping to get to in late September since 2019 is International Year of Indigenous Languages and this story heavily involves language shift and language loss. But that's a minor blip compared to the Passchendaele project.)

[pennypaperbrain]

Hopefully your house will then be perfect and never need anything doing to it again! That's the dream, when rebuilding it from the ground up. Meanwhile yesterday we spent £378 on emergency plumbing...

With stuff that's really dependent on research because otherwise it's Actually Wrong, I found freewriting was important just to help me realise what I didn't know and had to therefore research. But I also end up doing the same research three times: once to start with, then again when I'm trying to actually write that bit, then afterwards again to find what I got wrong and what I missed. That's ridiculously time-consuming; hopefully you do it better.

[donut_donut]

Seventeen teeth! Poor little doggy.

Good luck with the house renovations -- has work actually begun yet, or are you still in the planning/financing stages?

[breathedout]

Thank you! Yes, work has begun, though also almost immediately stopped—the initial demo has been done, but now we have surprise asbestos remediation that needs to be dealt with. It will all get worked out, but man, in the meantime it sure does seem like a neverending ordeal. We just have to cling tenaciously to our vision of a kitchen where we can both occupy space at the same time—definitely not the case in our current apartment.

[violsva]

Oh man, the worst surprise! I hope there are no more terrible surprises.

[breathedout]

Ugh, thank you. ME TOO; fingers crossed.

[chestnut_pod]

Not much to add, but nice to see you pop up! Great job keeping your heads above water, and I hope things quiet down soon :)

[breathedout]

Thank you, friend! I hope they do, too <3

[fiachairecht]

Ahhh I am still so dizzy with glee that I was so lucky as to get you as my writer, and it is absolutely incredible you managed to write that among those Life Things, I hope it calms down a bit soon <3

(I do want to leave a second comment now I've had more time to think about the fic, my weekend was just very full of family things!)

[breathedout]

Aw yayyyy, I'm so glad you enjoyed it!! Your prompts/likes/wants were all so great; I was rubbing my hands together in glee before I even got finished reading through them. And further comments/discussion would be most welcome, if/when you get to it!

(Also, thanks for the well wishes about the insanity of our schedule; I too hope for calmer waters ahead...)

[verymorstan]

friendo, that is TOO MANY THING and you are a monument for awesome by merit of your continued existence. i hope things calm down soon, or that if they don't, they at least leave you time for some breathers in between bouts of omgwtfbbq. (also, having been through the multisurgery/multirecovery path toward having a smol toothless wonder, major specific empathy and well-wishing to you and to the puppeh. it's so much. D:)

[sylvaine]

Seventeen teeth?! Oh good lord. It definitely sounds like you've been ridiculously, utterly busy!