As of last Friday, I am no longer a student. No more coursework all-nighters, no more exams, no more classes. No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers...

So, now that both Monotone and myself are free from the shackles of our degrees and eager to face unemployment and starvation, we finally have time to work properly on Still Falling. Monotone still wakes up from time to time to find I've texted him in the night, if I've had a silly plot idea like Spike turning orange or Gunn growing a tail (no, not actually either of those things, you'll have to wait 'til episode 14 to see it, should be a bit of a twist, but I thought it was pretty cool, and just as fun as the two I suggested above). We've now written about 56,000 words, so don't think this is one of those things we've always talked about and will never actually do. This evening I wrote a whole sentence!

Back in September 2008, we said it'd be a couple of months. Now it really might be. If even that!

Hope you like the new cast shot, been looking forward to releasing that one.

Out For Bloody Summer



Oh yes, and a big thank you for nominating me in the last round of awards, didn't win anything, but I care far more about readers liking my story enough to nominate it in the first place, not judges and popular opinion, so thank you very much.

 

There was another problem with Angel of course, and she didn’t mean the undead-and-drinks-blood thing. There was a time she would have thought him stunning, when she might well have chased after him, but all that had changed one sunny afternoon a couple of years ago. Throughout high school, she’d been one of the popular crowd, she’d only dated the best looking guys, and they’d all fulfilled that exact ideal of how they were supposed to look. That was why she and Ed had been on the wrong foot for so long; as he flew completely in the face of that ideal. The long, dark hair, the pale skin, they just weren’t seen as a good thing in California.

 

But that had been when she had known, when he had finally agreed to cut his hair, just as she had always been telling him to do. She remembered how she’d had to tear the town apart to find him, and there he was, sitting in the queue at the barbers, and then she’d begged him to forget everything she said and, and not cut a single hair on his head. And then he’d smiled, and she’d had a feeling he’d been bluffing all along, and that was how they’d stayed. She still told him at least three times a week to cut his hair, and he still refused, and that was how they liked it.

 

She could probably read something Freudian into it, she did have a psychology degree after all, and it would no doubt say that she had initially formed an irrational dislike of Ed because she was secretly attracted to him, despite him going against her traditional aesthetic ideals, and so found him puzzling, or was angry at herself and transferring it onto him. Then again, maybe it was the way they had both taken such perverted joy in driving the other to distraction. In fact, they still did.

 

That, she felt, was how things were meant to be. The guys she used to go out with had tended to either try to play it cool, and end up as assholes, or take things way too seriously and just go on about how much she meant to them. Which was sweet and wonderful, and in theory a great thing. Only, it wasn't fun. Romance certainly had its time and place, she thought, remembering the meal Ed had cooked her the previous Valentine's Day, but they'd balanced that out by then spending 18 hours in bed, and then having a pillow fight.

 

But life with Ed was always fun, and never failed to make her smile. She thought back to when they first got together, when she spent the night 'round his, having just broken up with James that same evening. She'd slept beside Ed in bed, and they'd both kept their distance, with him trying to work out if he should kiss her or not, worrying that it would be taking advantage, and her trying to decide if it would be to soon if he did. And the next morning they'd woken up and he'd kissed her lips so softly, and the kiss was the innocent sort that said that he cared about her, and that everything would be ok. And then they'd looked into each others' eyes, and the next kiss hadn't been nearly so reserved. And then he'd realised that his eyes held tears of joy, and she didn't think he was alone in that. She'd had to leave shortly afterwards for class, but before she did so she'd asked him if he was happy, and he had asked her the same. They had both simply smiled in response.

No, we haven't forgotten!

Not made much progress though, either - it's dissertation season. So Monotone is saddled with a huge great sciency dissertation, and I'm recording an album and writing a musical.

Come bloody summer, Still Falling will be here.

( Remember that time way back in September or something when I said Still Falling would have its first installment ready in two months? )

So, something I've learned recently, the more you spend on something, the less chance it will actually work.

The point is that my new dual-OS desktop computer is dead. Ubuntu has not only completely refused to work, it's also rendered the computer frequently comatose and stopped Windows from loading as well. Apparently, that should be be other way around, but they are wrong. Ubuntu, Jesus in computer form, has slain Windows, and is looking unlikely to rise again.

So I am here on a very old desktop, without the up-to-date master files for Still Falling. So I'm doing what I can, currently finishing off Episode 2, and writing Illyria, though very rewarding, is also hard work and incredibly slow going. It also means I don't have the cast shot images, though I did manage to retrieve the next one from my laptop, which is in various stages of death (it's fine, then that little error box comes up saying Program Error - Microsoft Windows, then the world ends).

What news, then, of Still Falling? Progress is being made, which is nice. I forget if I mentioned last time, but I went to visit Monotone at uni a few weeks ago, and we came up with an idea for Episode 6. This slot had been earmarked for a more lighthearted, comedy-type episode, which was causing problems in that we were completely clueless. Darkness and self-loathing, it turns out, are much easier to write. However, as I said, we now have a good plan for it, we decided that Monotone will write that one, and I have very high hopes about it. After watching Saw again, I made some plot revisions to Episode 10 - it went from a very promising to story to one of the best we've got. I have to finish Episodes 2 and 8 first, then I'm allowed to start work writing that one.

All of this leaves us with just one episode gap, being Episode 9, and several episode outlines for the next season as well. This is the problem we've been having recently, we still come up with good ideas, but none really appropriate for that point in the season, so they get shelved for the next one. But it looks like we're really going to be pushing the boat out, into especially dark waters.

Anyway, I shall now return to finishing Episode 2, and hope that everyone had a merry Christmas, and wish you all a very happy new year.

Out For Bloody Summer

As many hardcore fans of Buffy and Angel will realise, particularly if you've ever tried writing for Angel and Spike, there is one central inconsistency at the core of the franchise - Angel immediately becomes a completely different person when he gets a soul, yet Spike stays pretty much the same.

Monotone and I were discussing this on MSN a while back, and rather than losing our thoughts by closing the window, I saved them, and strung them together in a rather rubbish essay format. As a result, it mostly makes sense, but there are some slightly confusing moments.

 

( This is our answer... )

Remember that cast shot from Still Falling that I posted last week, with all but Angel blurred out? Well, we've got seven more of those to come, each revealing a new character, and we'll be posting one each week or so. There isn't that much to report in terms of progress on the series - since the last update, Monotone has written the first few scenes of Episode 3, and I've nearly finished Episode 2. I also did a bit more of Episode 8, where I spent an entire evening working on one paragraph designing and describing a character's dress. Well worth it though, am very pleased with the finished result.

( Anyway, here's this week's picture... )

There it is, the first cast shot. I had a rather good time applying the various different blur effects, hopefully none of the cast members that aren't to be expected are obviously visible (we've only got two or three cast members that shouldn't be instantly guessable, hopefully you can't tell who they are from this picture).

As the time for posting the first episode gets nearer, we shall be posting 7 other versions of this image, each time with one less character obscured. So keep checking this space! Make sure you track this journal, add me to your friends list, wait outside my house in a black van marked only with the Death Star etc...

All comments on our cast shot above would be welcome, as would thoughts on the details released about the series so far, though we won't be confirming or denying who the rest of the cast are.

The main reason for this post is to let readers know that we're pretty much on schedule, which is sort of a first for me. The plan has changed slightly - instead of releasing a block of five episodes, one every week or two, we shall in fact be increasing this to six. Meaning, once the first six episodes are written, we'll release them steadily, during which time we will begin work on the next six. We will then finish those next six before beginning to post the second batch. This may take a while, so there will likely be a break in posting between batches. Obviously we'd love to release them steadily from episodes 1 to 22, but we expect the writing to take a while, and this seemed a better alternative to writing all 22 episodes and then beginning to release them. We'd love to write faster, of course, but are both in our final year at university, as well as working, so that causes delays. Also, Monotone has a girlfriend he'd rather not abandon, and I end up randomly watching whole seasons' worth of TV online if it sparks my interest (I've not done much writing myself in the last couple of weeks, been watching the complete first four seasons of House on the internet).

However, as I said, we are still proceeding as planned, in the first batch we now have episodes one and five completed, episode two is about 3/4 done, episodes three and four are mapped out and Monotone has written the first couple of pages for them (the reason for the increase in batch size is that episode three has been extended and split into two parts). The only big hurdle left to cover is the sixth episode, for which we have no ideas whatsoever, other than we'd like it to be lighthearted, it'd be lovely to feature some Gilbert & Sullivan, and I maintain it'd be great to involve one of the characters waking up with a tail.

And so, with that I say farewell until next time, though I leave you the second video I made of Buffyverse couples and theme songs I assigned them, this time involving couples from Buffy: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=M5-EJBAwdV0

Out For Bloody Summer (Monotone would send his love too, if he were awake at this hour).

1. ‘Duster.’

2. Any sex scene that involves the word ‘worshipfully.’ Unless, of course, it’s Illyria or Glory, who really are Gods, and thus are technically worthy of it.

3. Spike being gay! There is one line, in nearly 300 episodes, that implies he might have once had a sexual experience with another man – one line, and it only implies it! He was with Drusilla for a century – I know Oscar Wilde was married, but that seems to be taking it a little too far for it to be a cover up. And since his favourite put-down is ‘nancy boy,’ I really don’t think it’s likely he’s remotely interested in men. Sorry Xander, Angel, Oz, Giles, any original characters out there specifically created for that purpose…

4. Spike being anything other than blond. It’s the distinctive look we all know him for, why would you want to change it?

5. Character bashing. It’s not big, or clever. Everyone has their different favourite characters, let’s just leave it at that. Or Riley’s gonna be taking a bullet to the bollock in my next fic.

6. Exclaiming a character’s name at every possible opportunity. This can be half forgiven on the grounds that the TV show did it continuously (count how many times in an episode Buffy exclaims “Angel!” or Spike says “Buffy!). So on those grounds, ok, it’s not out of character. But it is still really annoying.

7. Spike threatening to walk in the sunlight. Again, after being rendered obsolete and helpless by the Initiative, he once half-heartedly tried to kill himself. That is all. Then he got over it, and lived miserably ever after. I really don’t think he’s the suicidal type. But Angel is another matter.

8. Human AU – why?

9. Bad specialist character dialogue. Most people have Spike and his distinctive inflections down pretty well, but the others whose style of dialogue is key? I’ve seen it done very badly before! So that means Drusilla, with her crazy-speak that always makes slightly too much sense in fanfic, and Illyria, and Anya. And Oz, for that matter. If you really want to write it, watch the episodes with that character, listen to how they speak and what they say. For example, Oz keeps quiet most of the time, but not exclusively. And when he does talk, it’s cool, but not in a trying-to-be-cool way. A lot of writers tend to go to extremes, and have him almost silent or much too talkative. Tara’s stammer is another one – be careful!

10. Anything even remotely suggesting that Spike’s chip is a good thing.

11. Spike going out with a girl, but waiting ‘for the time to be right’ before sleeping with her – I just don’t see it. Along the same lines, Spike getting worried about taking someone’s virginity, I tire of him getting bothered about it. In fact, if we could avoid the whole virginity-losing sex scenes altogether, that’d be good. Sorry, I don’t see it as a romantic thing (here’s your reward for waiting, she’s crap in bed and bleeds a lot, my, aren’t you the lucky one? - I'm sorry, blame the writing wine that I've drunk too much of this evening). I know Dawn’s supposed to be innocent and all that, but either keep her innocent, or destroy it completely and have her go wild!

12. Shanshued human Angel. Again, why?

13. Resurrecting Fred, for the rather selfish reason that I’m very fond of Illyria. If you can find a way to do it without killing Illyria, then that’s sort of ok, but I think the reason they got rid of her in the first place was that the character had sort of outlived her usefulness at Wolfram & Hart, and had already done the relationship thing, so it seemed like a good idea for her next character development. Yes, I too really liked Fred, but I’m not one to go against the will of Joss…

14. Plainly unrealistic behaviour. If Buffy and Willow showed up after the battle at the end of Not Fade Away, and Spike miraculously happened to not be dust, he wouldn’t end up showing more interest in Willow. It just wouldn’t happen. Nor would he choose Harmony over Buffy. Or over Drusilla. Or over anyone, for that matter. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but you’re gonna have to work bloody hard to explain it. Personally, I think that’s part of the fun of writing stories of non-canonical pairings. But it’s plainly obvious in the TV show just how much Spike likes Buffy, to have him go for anyone else is going to take serious persuasion! Especially if it’s Harmony.

15.Happy endings. I know this is fanfiction, and the main motivation to write is to see the characters happy together, and I understand that. And most of the time, I will root for a happy ending with a romantic pairing, I like it when they get together. But every once in a while, it’s nice to have something slightly less expected – this is not Harry Potter or Doctor Who, this is Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and the cardinal rule when it was written was that happy characters are boring characters. If two characters get together, try killing one, or making one of them evil. Or if they’re witches, both!



Stupid 'paste from word' box buggered up the formatting of that last paragraph, not sure how to fix it since tab doesn't work in this window. Hmmm. Not much to report in terms of news on Still Falling: I'm steadily working on episodes 2 and 8, writing more of one whenever I get stuck on the other. Monotone meanwhile has recently finished episode 3, and is busily planning episode 4, which is gonna be a pretty complex one. Shouldn't be more than a month or two, as I said before.



Out For Bloody Summer