News & Updates

[Alexannah]

Hi, everyone. On this thread I will be posting not only when I update a fic (which is useful for those of you who don't use alerts) but on those occasions when I change my mind about a plotline or something prevents me from writing or technical difficulties like chapters getting rejected. (It happens to the best of us. JKR got turned down by several publishers before Bloomsbury snapped up Philosopher's Stone. There's a useful nugget of info for you to remember in those times when editors and beta-readers and others turn down your hard work.)

I'll also keep details of where my writing goes. For example, I started out a strict "canon" shipper and now I'm a complete rebel when it comes to shipping. And I used to never write romance and now I have several romances planned. So, people change, and so does writing.

I do this sort of thing in my LiveJournal but I find inevitably I neglect it often. Plus, this is a much more intereactive way, because the whole point of this thread is that everyone else uses it, not just me. Bear in mind, though, that the General Rules still apply, and that includes off-topic posting, so try and keep the randomness to a minimum. (I know we all do it, but just make sure the point of the post is on-topic and it's clear what the point is.)

To keep from double-posting, I'll start off the discussion here.

I'm sure some of you have by now read the beginning of my new series State of Mind (if you haven't, go and do it, because I've worked almost as hard preparing this one than I did on EaGL, and that's saying something! It's a similar sort of angst as well, so if you liked EaGL, I guarantee you'll like this one. It is a higher rating, though: check the warnings). Even after beginning to post a story I still add and edit bits in the plot here and there for a while. (I'm still doing it with EaGL.)

Now, I'm not saying I'm taking out the AD/MM. Far from it. I'm just adding an extra Albus ship in addition to the OC ones. I won't reveal it for now, but I will say this: it's a slash ship, and one-sided. (Albus has an admirer, not the other way around.)

I wasn't going to have slash in the series at first. When I first got the idea I was still pretty conventional from the ship point of view (i.e: I only shipped Ron/Hermione and Harry/Ginny, and I didn't write slash, ever). When I started leaning away from that quite a while back I decided Albus was going to be bisexual. Not for any particular reason, I just wanted to play around with it, especially as I recently decided I was myself. But I've started a one-shot written from the point of view of Albus' mystery admirer, which for obvious reasons will not be posted for quite a long time, which details Albus' past in an organised way (unlike the rest of the series, which sort of jumps from one revelation to another).

This way I've got something to refer to when writing rather than trying to remember everything, because there's a lot to remember. I discovered when writing the one-shot that I had Albus' childhood and later adult life down pretty certainly, but when it came to his schooldays and early adult life it was blank. I've begun filling it in (Two words: Poor Albus!) and there's more slash in the storyline now than I intended.

Albus' admirer will not be revealed till near the end of the second in the series. Feel free to guess who it is (it's a canon character) but don't expect me to give it away until then!

Comments, anyone?

[Alexannah]

OK, I'm back. Yes, I know I'm double-posting, but I kept procrastinating posting again until someone else posted, but no-one has, and now I have a backlog of updates to talk about.

Challenges

I have now four challenges* and am figuring out the rules to more. Two of them I have two responses of my own I'm working on.

* (Body Switch Challenge, Trial & Error Challenge, Adoption Challenge, Immortality Challenge)

My response to the Immortality Challenge is called "Cross My Heart" and not completely AD/MM-centric. The plot from the challenge is actually one of five main ones in my version. CMH is a five-ship romance set after OotP, and I've only just added the fifth ship (finally)!

It was originally going to be Albus/Minerva, Harry/Luna, Aberforth/Poppy and Draco/Hermione, but that's changed. I wanted a fifth ship and Ron was the obvious candidate. As slash seems to be creeping into my fics more and more I made a resolution that it wouldn't appear in this one, which narrowed down my choices. Later I had an idea for a character (I have to be vague here, sorry – the spoiler thing) which I tried to fit into several fics and couldn't, and eventually decided to have her as the tenth character. But instead of pairing her with Ron I've paired her with Harry. So the ships now are: Albus/Minerva, Ron/Luna, Aberforth/Poppy, Draco/Hermione, and Harry/???

My plotlines for A/M and H/? are now complete, but I still need ideas for the other three, especially R/L. If anyone is struck by inspiration it would be appreciated. Feedback on my ideas is also welcome.

New fics:

I have a small problem in the shape of two new fics that readers may get mixed up between. That will be sorted later on in the plots, but at the moment they're pretty similar. In both Harry's very young (in The Heart, Not the Shell he's four, and in The Unspeakable he's about six) and something happens to him that causes Albus to intervene.

For the sake of lessening the confusion, here are the differences:

THNtS: Harry is Turned by a vampire at a young age and taken in by Albus. It's a bit angsty at first but it lessens as he grows older and is more of a fun fic. The plot is how he and Albus grow close and how they keeps his "fangy little problem" hidden from the wizarding public.

TU: Harry turns up at a hospital miles from Surrey with numerous injuries and obviously traumatised, and doesn't speak at all any more. He simply doesn't talk. This one's a lot more angsty. Albus takes him in as well in this one, but the relationship between them is quite different. I can tell you that Harry still won't speak by the time he’s in Hogwarts, so the first year will be very different, and Ron will be a very loyal, protective friend. The story is basically a lot more serious than THNtS.

I have a new fic up set in Minerva's sixth year called Show Me Your Colours. It’s a Tom/Minerva/Albus triangle and so far positive feedback. I actually have two chapters already posted on this (OK, one's the prologue, but who's counting?) which is 50% more than most of my fics. *chuckles* The entire story is written in first-person, alternating between Minerva and Albus' points of view with the occasional interlude from Tom. I have a list of exactly what will happen in the first 20-ish chapters so it will hopefully be easier to write than the fics I'll be improvising chapter by chapter. (Hopefully.)

Updating:

I have written myself into a corner with SWaSL Ch2 and Kiddie Kare Ch3. They may not be posted for a while. After posting SoM's prologue, I found my original plan I'd lost and realised I missed a whole load of things out of it. I'll re-write and re-post ASAP.

Also, I'm sure most people reading are dying to know when EaGL will be updated, and I'll tell you honestly: I don't know. TQP was messing me about so I've been trying to find an alternative beta-reader, without much success. It's my best fic, so I don't want just anyone to beta, and the best sites won't accept my work because they're selective (read: picky and closed-minded). EaGL is my top priority so if anyone can find me a good beta-reader or site/group with a good system, please let me know because I'm desperate.

More on EaGL: Unless it slipped your attention, I've been posting Ch7 in segments. This wouldn't be a problem if I wasn't a perfectionist, but the thing is I am and when I have EaGL beta'd I want one chapter per page, which means either deleting the excess and losing reviews, replacing the chapter contents all at once and have half the readers on alerts read Ch10 before Ch7 and get confused (and spoiled), or have an even longer wait and post the remainder of Ch7, Ch8, Ch9 and Ch10 all on one page, wait till everyone's read it and then replace all the chapter contents properly (my preference).

You're probably really confused now. But all you really need to know is that there is a good reason for the long wait, I promise you. I also promise that things will be easier once I've got my beta-reader.

[Alexannah]

OK, I'm back again. Triple-posting! *smacks hand*

EaGL news: I have a beta-reader!!! In fact, I have two!!! So, reposting should not be too long now. I'd like to thank all my readers (OK, most of them) for being so patient with me.

I've been attempting to plot some plot on CMH (mentioned in above post), but I have come to the conclusion that Ron/Luna is just one of those ships I cannot write. Which means I need another Ron ship. Preferably a girl his own age, and not in Slytherin or Ravenclaw, because Harry and Hermione have got those Houses covered. Any suggestions would be great. See my poll on the subject (group members only – sign up if you haven't already).

Professional Pranksters has been giving me grief for over a year, and now suddenly I've got four chapters out in a mere two weeks … Anyone else gobsmacked? Good reviews so far, but few. Come on guys, this fic has it all – romance, drama, humour and angst! Could anyone ask for more?

The first in the series, The Hogwarts Four, is set in 1942-1943 when Harry travels back to Tom Riddle's time and meets not just him but a few of his former teachers – including Tom's girlfriend, Mina McGonagall. Now he's torn between splitting them up and risking changing the future, or stand back and watch something that goes against all his morals. I can't tell you a lot about the rest of the series, only that it keeps the angst/humour balance and revolves around the McGonagall family in the years after Mina's left school.

Harry will only really be a major character in the first two in the series – after that he'll be more of an extra. Albus and Mina will be main characters all the way through, especially Mina. The series, I can say now, will be large. I'm not entirely sure *how* large yet, but expect around … nine fics? Possibly more. I did warn you.

After a hard few weeks watching a cartoon my brother's recently become obsessed with, I have a new series idea. Yes, another one. Although I think I can get the first of them done quickly, because it's more of an introductory piece than a proper story. (But if you don't read it, you won't understand the rest.) I don't think this has been done before, but if it has and I'm not aware of it, I think I can positively say that I've given this one a nice twist.

Each of the Founders represents one of the four Elements: Godric is Fire, Helga is Earth, Rowena is Air* and Salazar is Water. A legend now never repeated says that if one of each of their descendants are in close contact, plus a fifth who is a descendant of each of them, they will receive their ancestor's powers in times of threat. Of course, Voldemort returning is a pretty big threat, wouldn't you say? So in the summer after he returns, five characters suddenly find themselves doing unusual things … like setting fire to Mrs Norris … flooding the bathroom worse than Moaning Myrtle … growing trees in their living room … You get the idea.

* I originally thought she fitted Water better, but JKR says otherwise, so that's why two of the characters seem to be allotted ancestors that don't quite match their personalities, because I already had my heart set on certain characters having certain powers and I thought that was more important.

I'm writing a drabble that should be like a bit of a teaser to the series, introducing the ships a little. They are ADMM (naturally), Harry/Ron and young!Severus/Hermione. (No, not time travel. Just be patient and you will get answers.) I shall post the link here when it's done.

I've had to edit the first chapter of Kiddie Kare because I found after developing a certain character's background that a paragraph in it implied otherwise. The edited chapter can be found here. I also upped the rating to T (PG-13) because of talk of abuse.

Please talk to me, people. I could be posting all this stuff on my LiveJournal – the whole point of putting it here was so we could INTERACT. This means you posting comments!

[Alexannah]

Do you want the good news or the bad news?

I’ll get the bad news over with first. I have exams coming up, and the files and folders on my computer seem to have got screwed up. Don’t worry, all my material is still there, I’m just having a hard time sorting out what is where. As such, my drafts for the EaGL chapters that my beta is patiently waiting for are proving hard to edit. So the beta’ing will take a while longer.

But on the plus side, I intend to edit the already-posted chapters on FFnet just to get in the plot points I missed out. After that I am free to continue with the new chapters! I need to get Chapter Seven organised, but after that it’s full steam ahead. My muse is working overtime (as you can see by the sudden increase of WIPs in my profile), so I really do hope this is just a (large) temporary hiccup in the story and after this problem is sorted the road will be a lot clearer. (For the readers, not necessarily the characters …)

More info on EaGL: Okay, so sue me: I can’t write Harry/Luna either. I think I just can’t write Luna ships at all. So I need a new Harry ship – not Ginny, not Hermione, not Luna … Sorry for keeping changing this but while putting more detail into the rest of the series I realised it wouldn’t work with Luna. I decided my best bet is to bring in a minor character we don’t know much about, so I’ve gone for Daphne Greengrass.

I’ve begun a Yahoo group for the purpose of getting rid of flamers and encouraging people to report them more. See link in signature.

I also have NEW FICS! Yes, more of them!

You’re a Woman, Harry!: Girl!Harry fic, in case you couldn’t tell by the title. A potions accident turns Harry into Harri. And the boys at Hogwarts seem to be very interested in the new girl. Bit of Draco/Harri, eventually Ron/Harri.

Fathers, Brothers and Monsters: First in the Mih Evas series. Not a Snape-is-Harry’s-father fic but some elements of ones I’ve read are incorporated. Main characters are Harry, Albus, an OC called Raunien, and Severus. Series will later be Harry/Ron.

Tigger McGonagall: Harry shus himself in the zoo at a young age and refuses to come out. Angsty Harry-Minerva fic.

See No Evil, Speak No Evil: Answer to my Trial & Error Challenge (see previous posts).

Phoenix Tears: At last, the first fic idea I ever had … With a few alterations. This is what EaGL mutated from. Starts off as HBP MY way, goes into Year Seven. Reasonably safe for Albus lovers! Warning: includes some similar traits to EaGL.

Who Do You Think You Are?: Crossover with Lovejoy but you really don’t need knowledge of the show to understand and enjoy the fic. Harry finds out he was adopted and enlists Albus’ help to track down his father.

All are available on FFnet; I’m too tired to post the links. The one to my profile is here.

Please talk to me, people. I could be posting all this stuff on my LiveJournal – the whole point of putting it here was so we could INTERACT. This means you posting comments!