#weaving words

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On June 1, 2024, I shared my writing online for the first time.

Guiding Lights is the first work of fanfiction I’ve written and the first piece of any writing ever that I’ve made public. So far it’s 65k words and I have a lot more story to tell. I know I’ve definitely jumped in at the deep end by starting with such an ambitious project! But I don’t regret it at all. It’s been an amazing journey into online fandom and I can tell I’ve been able to grow and improve as a writer.

So I thought, for the one year anniversary, I’d pull back the curtain a bit and talk about what this story means to me.

Oh heck yeah, I’ll do both! I love talking shop, NGL.

War Games is a collaborative AU with @a-manicured-lawn , @hytiaa , and two other writers. We’re currently working on one long “canon” fic and a number of smaller branching timeline/non-canon stories! The premise is:

What if Spirit was summoned to the War of Eras? (And what if that wasn’t a good thing?)

Who knows what the fic will actually look like when it’s more complete (we’re writing largely out of order), but I’ll share a snippet of something I’ve written for one of the earlier parts!

“What happened?” the boy demanded, taking the Captain’s arm over his thin shoulder. He could barely support the Captain’s weight, but with Impa on the other side, nearly matching him for height, they kept him upright.

“Total loss of morale,” the Captain said wearily. “Soldiers cut and ran, wouldn’t hold the line. It was a rout, kid.”

Spirit bit his lip, looking down at his shoes. “Morale,” he muttered, “I didn’t take that into account. I didn’t…”

“You can’t account for people’s hearts, boy,” Impa said sternly.

They had almost reached the debrief area, where the Captain would have to stand before the war council and explain what had gone wrong. Assuming he could stand.

“I will next time,” Spirit said stubbornly. “Everything can be accounted for. Everything.”

***

Panic (Not at the Disco) is the new temporary title of a BotW one-shot I’ve been slowly working my way through! It’s part glitch fic, part tone challenge, and so far all fight scene. (I need to hurry up and get it finished so I can move on to other stories.) It’s about 7k words so far, but here’s the first few paragraphs ~

Link trudged up the slope behind Woodland Stable, their eyes fixed on the hillside rising out of the trees all around them. Behind them, the soft rattle and clank of Beedle’s traveling kit provided a rhythmic counterpoint to the melodic whinnies of horses and the musical voices of the Hylian stable-folk. As Link made their way along the beaten-down dirt path, the sounds of civilization gave way to the lively hush of the forest — restless crickets, tittering birdsong, the soft cry of a fox in the distance.

At the top of the hill, barely visible above the trees, was another one of the Sheikah Towers. It stabbed the clouds above like a fiery blade, burning orange and gold at its core, a candle glowing in the wan late-afternoon light.

And between Link and the Tower, hidden from sight now but known by report and by the subtle scent of woodsmoke on the breeze — the old military training camp, according to the stable-folk, long abandoned by Hylians and their allies, now inhabited only by bokoblins and their ilk.

+ Have they always been your favorite to write?

Oooh, okay, picking a favorite is hard for me because my favorite character at any given time is “whoever makes the scene move forward.” Of the LU boys, Wild is the one I’m most familiar with, and I have the easiest time getting into his character. Legend, meanwhile, likes to take the microphone and run away with it, making whole scenes practically write themselves!

But I think my favorite LU character to write, right now, is actually Wind. The way I write him, he has a lot of sass and a more casual vocabulary than the other boys, which makes him great for calling out the more ridiculous moments in a story and putting things back on track. He cuts to the heart of a scene and he won’t hesitate to tell me when I’m making things more complicated than they need to be. And the Lightsverse version of Wind is pretty emotionally astute as well, which is pleasant to work with — like directing an actor who has good people skills.

What WIP are you focusing on right now?

Guiding Lights! It’s my first fanfic (though I’ve been writing for much, much longer). It’s a sequel to CluelessMoose’s amazing fic Follow The Lights, chronicling the first time the Chain returns to Wild’s era after the events of Follow The Lights. When one of their brothers goes missing, it’s a desperate hunt through the vast expanse of Hyrule to find him before it’s too late — but that’s only one of the challenges they’ll face, as mysterious enemies and their own memories alike follow close at their heels.

Hello friends! Today I come to you with a little discussion of ~scam comments!~ 

I’ve seen some people fall or almost fall for these types of scams recently, and I just got a lovely example, so I thought I’d take it as a teaching moment. Remember, it doesn’t matter how clever or educated or experienced you are, anyone can be tricked!

Can I get a 5 for the ask game?

5. What do you like most about your own writing?

Rhythm! I pay a lot of attention to rhythm in my writing, and I like to think I’m pretty good at using cadence to not only make my prose pleasant to read, but to convey meaning. Punctuation, meter, word choice, emphasis, and sentence construction all have an impact on how a snippet flows, and setting a good rhythm for a section is, to me, really important for getting the reader wrapped up in the story.

I think the line between poetry and prose is quite thin, actually, and that a lot of the elements that make effective poetry also make effective prose. I’m not any kind of slam poet, but I love listening to performances, and sometimes when I’m stuck on a section I try to think about how it would sound spoken out loud in that context.

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