Author Archives: Sam

Get to know me: meme

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Thanks @mrgoldsdearie I appreciate the tag!

Rules: Answer the questions in a new post and tag twenty people you would like to get to know better.

Nickname(s): I don’t have one
Star sign: Taurus
Height: 5’1 (I’m short)
Time: 10:38am

Last thing I googled: “How to trick my PC into turning off without updating” because Microsoft doesn’t seem to understand that no means no. I do not want the windows 10 update, do not make me have it!

Favorite music artist: This is so difficult! I listen to music all the time, I have a few favorite artists but to just pick one .. I don’t think I can. Plus it changes, I get something new and then I listen to it repeatedly for weeks/months. So what is the current list? James Blunt, One Republic, Maroon 5, My Chemical Romance, Nickelback, Plan Three, Shinedown, Sick Puppies and Thousand Foot Krutch.

Song stuck in your head right now: I read this question and it’s like a mixtape just went off in my head. First I had “Get the Party Started” by Pink, then “Happy Ending” by Mika, then “How do you love” by Shinedown.

Last movie I watched: Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Last television show I watched: NCIS
What are you wearing right now: Star Wars pajamas
When did you create this blog: 2 months ago, beginning of May 2016.

What do you post: Once Upon a Time and Stargate are my big fandoms. Within that I’m a writer so mostly my fic, reblogging other fics, writing quotes/tips, talking about writing. I do reblog gifsets, mostly of Nicholas Rush but sometimes other stuff if I feel like it.

Do you have any other blogs?: Not on tumblr
Do you get asks on a regular basis: Nope, barely ever but then I’m new and so it’s to be expected. I put up my first TMI Tuesday last week and I will do so every week that I can just because it’s fun. I don’t expect I’ll get any asks for weeks, if ever but I confess I like to join in. I see TMI Tuesday posts on my dash, so I just throw mine up there, maybe one day someone will have a question or a prompt, that would be really cool.

Why did you choose your url: Back in 2005 I created a personal site, for my coding projects, my art, my fics etc. and I called it – Still Searching. It seemed to make sense to use the same name for the blog here. The 47 is because that is my favorite number. I got that from Alias, I still remember Marshall saying early on in season one “I want to get it to 47 because that’s a prime number”.

I’m always a bit nervous tagging people, which is strange because I love being tagged. Anyway, I’m not actually going to tag anyone but feel free to answer the meme if you would like.

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I should have been writing but I made this instead. Photo manip of Rush and SGC Belle on Destiny. I’ll use it as a cover for my upcoming Rushbelle fic – Ripple Effect, when I’ve written enough to start posting.

July Update

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I didn’t blog in June.

Part of that was lack of impetus with Once Upon a Time having finished until the fall. However, I was going to blog about Captain America: Civil War – the best marvel movie yet!! It’s just my arm has been playing up again and I can’t really type right now. It’s super weird dictating a blog post, even weirder than dictating my novel and that’s saying something – I really loathe dictation.

So what have I been up to? Well the answer to that is mostly getting used to dictation. I love writing, it’s my life really and so stopping until my arm is better is a non-starter. I have no idea what’s wrong with my arm or why it hurts so much, it could never get better. However, given how frustrating I find dictation, it has been slow going and the goals I set myself have had to be quietly pushed back.

It’s Camp NaNo this month. I just checked and I didn’t blog about April. Back in April I tried a redraft of Book Two of my Crime/Sci-Fi series and it went very badly. That book two was cursed from the beginning. I started the first draft April 2015 and had to stop 2/3rds of the way through because of illness. I didn’t finish it until the October and then when I went to revise it in February I found it was un-salvageable and needed to be completely rewritten. I started the redraft this April and got halfway through but I just couldn’t do it. I’ve decided to scrap the whole series I wound up hating it so much.

However, last November I wrote book one of a new Military Science Fantasy series and I love that more than anything. Again because of illness I didn’t finish it last November, instead I finished it in March. Last month (June) I was supposed to write a prequel short story but because of my arm I didn’t manage to finish it.

Therefore for Camp NaNo this month my goal is to finish the first draft of the prequel. I will also start Book Two of the series and hope that this book two, will go a lot better than the last sequel I tried to write. Given how I feel about the series generally (I love it), I’m hopeful that it will be ok but it’s still quite scary. I harbor no ambitions that I will be able to finish book two this month but I hope that I will finish it by the end of August. It’s technically possible as I’ve averaging about 2k a day with dictation (it is so much slower than typing, I miss typing so much) but we’ll have to see.

This blog is probably going to go on a hiatus for the summer. I might drop back in and say how Camp NaNo (July) went but anything else will be dependent on my arm. This is so weird dictating like this. Once Upon a Time (Season 5) premieres on the 25th of September, hopefully I’ll be able to blog about that. I’m certain I’ll have a lot to say, I nearly always do.

Prompts For The Month Of July

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a-monthly-rumbelling:

Here are this month’s prompts. Have fun, kiddies!

Non-smut: Assembling Ikea Furniture

Smut: Talk Dirty To Me

rowofstars

HOLY SHIT THAT SMUT PROMPT IS MY JAM. WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME WHEN I HAVE TO WRITE RCIJ???

still-searching47

It’s the type of smut prompt that:
a) makes me wish I could write smut
b) makes me wish I had joined tumblr a week earlier and not missed the sign up date. Seriously I can not wait to sign up.

Hopefully a few people will take it up despite RCIJ and then we’ll have some amazing fics to read because that is an awesome prompt.

a-monthly-rumbelling

Can’t wait for you to join!

woodelf68

I know nothing about Ikea and dirty talk is not my thing. Which I’m kind of glad about, because now I can get back to work on my selkie!Rush fic. Let’s see what I can do with that by the end of the month!

a-monthly-rumbelling

I know nothing about Ikea either. If anyone just wants to have Rumbelle putting any furniture together that’s fine too. This is just what came up in the random generator.

I was distracted by the smut prompt yesterday but – ikea furniture. That now reminds me of that discussion thread on 19 of the most ridiculous fights couples have had in ikea. So if somebody wanted to flesh out the prompt, I know a couple of people were talking about rumbelling certain fights.

Isn’t ikea just flatpack furniture? I’ve never been to ikea. Didn’t they have a scene on the show like that with David and Emma trying to put it together for the unborn baby Neal, and saying they should call Geppetto/Marco?

How to squeeze out more words

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I just typed this up for a friend of mine and then I thought I might as well share it. Maybe it might help someone.

Setting a huge goal like a novel in a month is completely overwhelming. It seems impossible.

So break it down to a number each day. Then break that number down so 1,667 a day? Write some and then it’s only 1300 left, now it’s 900, now it’s less than what I already wrote.

When writing, the goal isn’t the 1,667, I’m not writing 1,667 words. I’m writing for 15 mins, it’s to write to the next 100, it’s to roll a dice and write that many tens of words.

Big goals become small ones, which become smaller ones, which become possible. Break it down into bite size chunks, fool your brain into thinking it’s a little when actually it’s chipping away at achieving a lot.

Set a bigger goal than intended to start with. A minimum goal, an aim and then a dream.

By trying for more, say 3k a day rather than 1,667. If I make 2k everyday, I will finish the month with 60k. It’s not 100k but it’s more than I would have if I had aimed just for the 1,667.

I did that in 2014 and 2015 NaNo. I aimed for 100k both times and the most I came out with was 60k but I got a lot more than I would have otherwise. I pushed myself everyday to shoot higher and often didn’t manage it. However, if I had set the goal lower then my brain would have mentally said done when I got close. It’s harder to do extra.

With that “failed” larger goal I had lower ones. To reach 50k, to type the end etc. And I made those so it wasn’t a massive disappointment that I hadn’t reached 100k. It is my dream to one day crack triple digits but I’ve been trying on and off for the past 6 years and never come close. That doesn’t stop me from dreaming or from trying because whether I get it or not, I still wrote a metric ton because I was pushing myself. I demanded more and for a short time I got it.

It’s easy to tell yourself to squeeze out an extra 100 words to make the next thousand on the total. Then once that’s done, to say finish the scene, then do another 15 mins to make it to the hour etc. The word count creeps higher and it’s just a few words at a time.

So break those goals down and shoot for the stars. The world needs your story!

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It’s hard to see sometimes what numbers truly are. I was looking at my current project, an original prequel and it read:

8,737 / 12,000 words (73 %)

and I was feeling really disheartened. The end felt like forever away, although it has been a bit like pulling teeth today. So I took my current total, from the goal and got 3,263 and that number seemed much friendlier. That number seemed a lot more possible.

It’s the same number just a different way. It’s so much better when over the halfway point to start counting down rather than up. I don’t have all those words to do, I have a steadily decreasing amount to do. It makes it easier to bribe myself to write more.

Just a writing random thought for the first day of Camp NaNo 🙂

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evilsnowswan:

justadearie:

The Dancer

Oh God, it’s perfect! 💕 (Still waiting for Em to show off her ballet moves in a movie. GIVE IT TO ME)  I want to write a Dancer!AU NOW. ASDFGHJKL.

Heh this immediately made me think of @b-does-the-write-thing prompt fic they posted the other day as part of their prompt-a-thon – link – that had Belle as a dancer and Gold as a former dancer. It was sweet.

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You know it just occurred to me – and yes I should be writing and I’m procrastinating, why did you ask? 🙂 – that I could answer a couple of questions off that fic meme, whether anyone asks me or not.

I just think a couple of couple of them are really good questions and I feel like it. So why not?

Feel free to ask my any others if you are curious 🙂

1) Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic.
Canon divergence. Where there was a pivotal moment and canon goes one way but I can say “what if?” and then take the story down a different road. This is basically all I have ever written. 

I find writing canon-compliant “missing moment” type deal, very difficult and I would never choose to do so if I had a choice. I think it’s the desire to “fix it” in me, because obviously if I can’t change anything, just write what happened, it’s quite frustrating. I might have written one canon-compliant thing about 10 years ago but I struggled to end it because I couldn’t give it a happy ending. I like my happy endings.

I have never written a complete AU before but I have a couple in the pipeline and I’m looking forward to that. It should be really fun. I’ll get to do what I love in other AU fics and bring in some show stuff but in a different way. I always enjoy that. I just hope I can pull it off.

11) Is writing your passion or just a fun hobby?
This is what I wrote on my Camp NaNo profile this year:
“I love writing, I just literally do. I write for a job (sort of) and I write for fun. I write all day, everyday if possible and then more on weekends. I love stories, I love characters. I wish I wrote faster than I do because I have so many ideas and there’s just never enough time.Can we invent something so I can plug my brain into the PC and make stories appear? That would be very cool.”
So in answer, it is most definitely my passion.

13) What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across?
NaNoWriMo – in a nutshell. Basically stop being a “one day” novelist, saying that “one day” I will write a story because then that will never happen. There will always be other priorities, it will always get pushed to “when I have more time” and so if you want to do it, do it now.

A story will never come out on the page exactly how you hoped. In your mind it’s amazing and incredible because it’s so full of limitless potential. The real world, the harsh reality of the page, it sucks but that’s the magic of writing. Everything is fixable. If you have the first draft, then you have a place to start. You can take something and make it incredible, you can’t take nothing and do anything with it because nothing is nothing.

Everyone starts somewhere. If you have a story to tell, then tell it – the world needs your novel.

14) What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across?
“Write what you know” because how does that even work? Last time I checked we weren’t living in magical worlds, or fighting aliens. I write what I want to read, I write what I love and then I share it because I hope other people will love it too. If I just wrote “what I knew” then I wouldn’t feel anywhere near that level of passion because my life is normal and unremarkable.

18) Do you use any tools, like worksheets or outlines?
I write up a full scene by scene outline for any long story. My oneshots I tend to just start writing and just write what comes into my head. However, for anything longer, it’s usually more complex, and I need to plan it out. If I don’t outline then I wind up writing myself into a corner. Plus outlines are helpful because when I open the document I always know what I’m doing next, I don’t ever stare at a blank page because I don’t know what I’m writing.

24) Have you ever deleted one of your published fics?
Yes. I quit fanfic about five years ago and I had one outstanding WIP and I felt really guilty about it. However, I was never going back, and to be honest nobody was reading it anyway, so I just deleted it and tried to pretend like I hadn’t done that.

As a reader I usually tick the ‘completed’ box and only read fics that are done. There is nothing worse than liking a fic and then it never being finished. As a writer, I felt like such a hypocrite for doing that. Thankfully, like I said it wasn’t like it was popular. If I had been then I would have made myself finish it.

30) Do you accept prompts?
Yes.

35) Would you ever kill off a canon character?
Never say never, but I find it quite unlikely. I don’t like reading character death fics, so I can’t imagine why I would ever write one. I suppose if it was just a minor character, or one everyone hated, then I might. I guess for my upcoming WIP ‘there has been a murder in Storybrooke’ I am going to have to kill somebody. It won’t be anyone I like though.

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Like I said feel free to ask me any others 🙂

July Status Update

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I rather like summary posts. I also like setting goals because I can’t hit a target if I can’t see it. I’ve not done one of these posts before, but I’ll probably do one on the 1st of every month.

Works posted in June (and end of May):
– Wizard Love (oneshot written for Rumbelle is Hope)
– He’s Behind You (oneshot set in the War Within verse)
– Never Let the Pirate Babysit Alone (prompt fic, set in the War Within verse)
– The War Within (Alternate season six, WIP)
         – Chapter One
         – Chapter Two

Coming up definitely in July:
– The next four chapters of The War Within (posted every Tuesday)
– The RCIJ fic (posted on the 23rd)

What I hope July will bring:
– At least the first chapter of my as yet untitled fic based on this idea – There has been a murder in Storybrooke. I’m really excited by this idea and I’ve moved it to the top of the list after my current WIP’s.

I’m taking part in Camp NaNo this July, as always (if it’s NaNo then I’m there) and so I hope a lot of words will get written. My left arm is still really painful if used, so I’m restricted to dictation which I loathe. Dictation also makes me a lot slower. Seriously, I really miss typing. However, the slug club can still do a lot of words, it just means more butt in chair time.