Mad Dogs and Englishmen

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So I finished Nano at 68,000 words. Not finished Temporal just yet, but I’m finally at the last fucking furlong.

If you wondered why I dropped out of DL fandom all those years back? This fic. This fucking fic. Yes, the lack of reviews was annoying and the earlier installments were pretty poorly written compared to what I was doing after I’d finished my Creative Writing degree. But-

This fic.

Holy fuck this fic.

You think I was horrible to Raistlin and Dalamar before? You ain’t seen nothing yet. Everyone is absolutely awful in this story, which the exception of Tasslehoff, who I liked a hell of a lot more on this read-through. Joke’s on him, because the characters I like? Go through hell. Seriously, although he’s not the main character, Tasslehoff’s part of the story is about one half morality pet, one half kick the dog on multiple character’s parts, and entirely Break the Cutie.

Seriously, I have a little epilogue lined up that is just fucking heartbeaking. 

Characters that came off much, much worse in this re-read are mostly Caramon and Tanis. 

Caramon because Raistlin had a sudden wake-up moment of ‘hang on, why did Caramon love hanging out with people who liked beating the snot out of me? Why was he so eager to make friends with kids who’d just stomped on me? There’s a connection there I’m not very comfortable with.’

(I know W&H did it to make Caramon seem more likable, but mostly it made him look like he liked keeping people around Raistlin who’d give him an excuse to be a savior)

(Also what the hell was with this series for showing the Kingpriest as being sort of pathetic and scared? Dude was burning people alive and massacring entire species. It’s like trying to humanise Hitler. I don’t care how he feels about it, I’m not feeling sorry for the fucker)

(Finally, the Gods are dicks in this one. I mean, I think they’re dicks in canon too, but it’s really fucking obvious in this one. Fuck those guys. I’m going full Discworld on their arses. Last Hero Discworld)

Tanis because… handing Kitiara to Lord Soth ftw. Like, there’s a middle ground between continuing to be hung up on your old girlfriend and handing her over to eternal undead shittiness. Tanis just got himself a forever ticket in my ‘not good at all wtf’s wrong with you’ book.

Maybe my Dalamar is way more sensitive to this after the whole Fistandantilus debacle, but holy shit the Majeres (and ust Matars) have a problem with attracting undead.

(Palin, if you meet any nice vampires, run for the fucking hills)

Anyway, finally. Fucking finally. After over sixty thousand words of everything getting progressively worse, Dalamar got his Big Damn Hero moment and we’re finally lurching towards a happy ending. 

For Raistlin and Dalamar anyway. 

Caramon won’t be getting one. 

Tanis is getting an extended buttmonkey ending. 

Crysania has had such a shitty time I don’t feel like putting her though worse. 

Tasslehoff might eventually feel better. 

Maybe. 

After a few years. 

I am so sorry.

To break a winning trend, I think I will abstain for Nano this year. Yes, I still have AIoM to finish, but to be honest I don't think there enough left to write to justify a full Nano. I've dragged the story to roughly November 1944, which only leaves me two months to write until Auschwitz gets liberated, prompting the whole endgame sequence and the last chapter, which I've had written in my head for the last two years. Then bomchakalaka, its all over bar the editing. Which fucking hell there will be a lot of.

One nice thing, after all the editing I've done so far, I discovered that bar a rather rubbishy sub-plot that served no purpose and was eliminated to much rejoicing, the story was a lot better than I remembered. The whole OMG I'm writing a holocaust soap-opera I hate myself was probably just the writing blues. I cut out a few superfluous things about the characters (a shame, I was getting quite into them) to keep the story focused, and eliminated any use of Mengele's actual name. There was one part in which the characters dwelled dangerously long on him, but it's to be expected and since they didn't do it again, it was ok.

So yeah, no Nano, I need to focus on this, then hopefully I can free myself for something else, like that really warped story about me if I was a witch and evil, or that one about zombie and tanks. Or just a Sherlock Holmes fanfic because I really need a new fanfic project.

60,000 words done and done. I kept lagging behind, November is not the best month for me to do this in (birthday etc) and the plot keep fuckign derailing, and eventually feel over entirely when Johannes decided that he could make things a lot easier for him (and totally fuck over the plot) but not telling Mirek a small but vital piece of information. So I said 'fuck you I'm moving this to Birkenau' and they were like 'WTF?' and Mengele was like 'OMG yes! Finally!' So the sick fuck got his look in and Mirek got to work in the medical baracks and instead of finshing the story I'm still lagging miles behind. Fuck.
Still, I can just about see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's a light made of burning cities and crematoria and death trains coming stright towards me, but it's still a light, no?
Fuck me.

*goes back to ferreting out Terminator slash fics*

Having the usual Wrimo panic of 'god I'm writing a load of crap!' moment now. Afraid I haven't made Mirek's family strong enough to act as counterpoints to Karl, but it's bloody hard because Mirek does not make human connections very well and in this fucking setting it could be constituded the wrong way. God I hate my story right now.

"You know the punishment for. Thieves in the camp. Johannes?”

Schwartz calling him by his first name. Johannes can’t help but swallow this time. His fixes his gaze just behind Schwartz’ cap, staring at the wall. “Loss of privileges sir.”

“For inmates. Dieter. Not guards.”

His stomach clenches. “Death sir.”

“Just as well you. Are not an inmate. Yes Johannes?”

“Yes sir.”

“See that it remains that way. Your leave is cancelled. Dismissed.”

Dear Schwartz. You are evil even for an SS. Case dismissed. You are probably the most fucking evil person I have ever written, simply because you are so human.

Brrr.

Getting there :) Thanks to massive history fail (not my fault. How many ex- Death camp SS write their memoirs anyway?) this is basically meshing a lot of 1st draft and second draft. Fortunately I've nearly finished the rewriting and will be writing straight. Rewriting is very hard to do to a wordcount because if I cut words away I have to make them up to get a positive difference to the wordcount. Fortunately there are enough changes for me not to have to waffle too much, but I still have to cover a lot to make up full 2,000 count.
But rejoice! I have a new full scene to write tomorrow, a Schwartz and Johannes forshadowing conversation where the Morowitz Kommandant would like to know why he saw a certain inmate coming out of Johannes' quarters when he supposed to be on leave. Heinrich's practically foaming at the jaws at this moment, and Deiter's pretty much trying to walk a really nasty tightrope. Chop chop.
I love these characters. I only hope I can do them justice. I mean, they're my first real, fully fleshed characters who could go toe-to toe for realism against any of my fanfic characters and still come out heads up.
I'm actually confident about this :) :) :)

You know, after this long (3rd time) it's not such a panic. I've done it twice already, and even though I'm doing is at 60,000 and the first 10,000 is going to be editing (keep editing until I've written 2,000 fresh words every day), thus making it the hardest I've ever done, it's still cool.

October is now officially DON'T PANIC month. Waaahhh!
Especially so since this year I have decided that the standard 50,000 word limit is just too easy (done it twice after all) and I'm going for 60,000.
It's a nice round figure, it means a straight 2,000 per day.
But now I'm running around trying to iron out the last kinks in All Instruments of Measurement. Does anyone know, beloved friendlist, where the SS in Auschwitz actually lived, as in, slept? Were they in communal living quarters or had they hijacked local Polish houses? I have no idea and it's becoming a real problem becuase I don't know for certain where Johannes is living.
PANIC

Have broken strict vegan diet with parma ham sandwiches and box of chocolates. Am feeling dizzy just by smell of chocolate. Mirek loves dark chocolate and is doing a great deal to reddem them for me. Johannes prefers milk. Celebratory choclate choices: Mirek- Dark Chocolate mousse. Johannes- Milk chocolate caramel. Have finally hit May 1944 and Hungarian transports. All Instruments of Measurements code for 'and now the shit really hits the fan'.

Or at least the 50,000 words. Mirek finally kicked some sort of sense into Johannes, and Schwartz got his day's therapy in yelling at him. Johannes is feeling very put upon (only going to get worse, dear) and rather as though he's on the edge of a cliff that's slooowly crumbling away beneath him, and if he so much as moves it'll fall all the faster. Poor Johannes, you should have thought about that before you got the blood-group tattoo, my dear...