Brief Update
I got somewhere on the story of the first statue…henceforth refered to by its title, “Solid as Stone.” Couple paragraphs into it, and while it’s not as far as I would have liked, but it’s a start. We’ll see where I get with it tomorrow…well, today I guess.
ENERGY!!
So I’m really energetic today for some reason. And because I’ve been thinking about it for a while, I’m going to spend a good part of it on a rant that I’ve been itching to rant about for days. Of course, I realize it can be kinda annoying to read a big long rant, so feel free to skip down if you feel so inclined.
The world of Narnian fanfiction has its ups and downs, just like everything else. The downs are really starting to irk me lately, though. There’s just a lot of the downs that I’ve seen lately, and I’m starting to get annoyed with it.
Way too many Sues these days. I’m getting tired of the PeterOC romances, the overused Ed-meets-girl-and-falls-in-love plot, the unrealistically beautiful, perfect talented girls stealing the hearts of the Pevensie boys. In fact, I’m getting tired of pairings in general. Narnia is not ABOUT romance, people! Jill and Eustace I can stand. That’s pretty much the only thing that makes an inkling of sense to me. But Lucy and Caspian? He had Ramandu’s daughter. Digory and Polly? Never got married, and thus never worked out in the first place. Peter and Susan? EWW. Just EWW. SIBLINGS, people!
I just want to see some ORIGINALITY in fics these days. I’m sick of seeing these characters I love so much being turned into cliched love stories that have little to nothing to do with what the Chronicles really are. All that’s being used are the place and the names. The characters are getting twisted so much they’re barely recognizable as the one I know and love. I’m sick of seeing people ignoring everything about Narnia except what they want to use for their own purposes. Yes, this is fan fiction. Yes, fiction means getting to write about what you want. But there’s that little word ‘fan’ that requires some looking at. I can’t really see an actual fan disregarding all the time, thought, and hard work that Lewis put into these wonderful books, just so they can do what they want with it. I can’t see a fan disrespecting the author by going against his morals and his writings by pairing siblings with each other. I can’t see any author ignoring basic grammar. I can’t stand people who take constuctive criticism as flaming. I can’t take people putting Peter and Susan together because ‘they don’t look like sibilings in the movie’ or ’the actors look so good together.’ That’s not a good enough reason to throw Lewis’s hard work out the window. Honestly, if you’re going to play about in somebody else’s world, respect them for it. And if you’re going to write, respect the language.
Simple logic, that.
*sigh* What do they teach in schools these days…
WHEW! Boy that felt good. On a much lighter note, I’ve been doing a bit of writing lately, and I’m hoping to get a lot done this week. The little bits of inspiration that direct what I write made me hold off on Miraz for a bit and get started on the story of the first statue the Witch made. It features a Unicorn, his Dryad friend, and a whole lotta ice, stone and freezing. I want to see some more original, unique stuff, and if I’m not part of the solution, I’m part of the problem. So, in interest of broadening horizons, I decided to get a start on this one while it’s fresh in my head. Hopefully I’ll get something good out soon, my beta is getting impatient for me to send him something. 
Busy busy busy
Auuuuuugh, so busy today! Not gonna have much time to write, but I had a couple thoughts and need to get them out before they disappear.Few days ago in a discussion about HHB, someone pointed out how King Lune helps Edmund be a better King, based on a few of his comments to him. Which got me thinking: the Pevensies didn’t become royal material overnight, did they? I had a sudden vision of some sort of correspondence between Ed and Lune early in their reigning years on how to be a good King. Doubt I’ll write it myself, but an interesting idea.
Secondly, there’s a poem out there by C. S. Lewis about how the Unicorn was left off of the ark. Poor unicorn… anyway, a friend of mine suggested that I might consider a fanfic in which this poor unicorn was brought to Narnia to make its home there, even suggesting that Aslan might have created Narnia to give it a proper place to live. Not sure about the last bit, but it’s definitely intrigued me and I really want to give it a shot. We’ll see what happens.
I made a discovery…
…And I can’t say it’s one I particularly like. I did some searching on fanfiction.net yesterday and discovered that I appear to be the only one who’s written a piece about Jewel. Or one of the Narnian unicorns at all, for that matter. I found this slightly hilarious after coming across a group of piece on ‘one of the most noble and overlooked species of Narnia, the centaurs.’ Poor unicorns…there’s so much left unexplained about them. Maybe I should fix that one of these days. They deserve some spotlight too, after all!
So tired…
Bleah. 11:30 and I’m still awake…yes, this is considered late in my book. I’m a morning person and can’t function long after 10:30 or so.But, I had a plot bunny, again. So I thought I’d get it out of my system before I forgot it.
I see a lot of fics that deal with Ed’s mental struggle. His old self duking it out with his new self, so to speak. Then, while browsing my bookshelf, I came across the ol’ classic Jekyll and Hyde. And I thought, what if Ed’s mental battle wasn’t mental at all, but physical? What if somehow some physical manifestation of his old self duked it out with his ‘new self’? Still toying with it, though I can’t say it’s one of my better thoughts. Meh, maybe it’ll have more appeal when it simmers a bit. No progress on Miraz today, due to busy-ness, sadly. *sniffle*
Progress! Yay!
Finally making some progress on RoKM! Wrote about a full (handwritten) page today, and I’m actually pleased with the way it’s turning out. Third time is definitely the charm for this one. Hopefully I’ll finish the first section tomorrow, and then I can get started on the next. Planning to have three sections to this one, and also planning to put a LOT of time into it next week if I can, so I’m hoping I can get chapter two done and out pretty soon.In other news, I had a thought today. Besides Jewel in LB and the unicorns briefly mentioned in LWW, we don’t see them anywhere else. Well, they HAD to be there somewhere in the other books! What were they doing, where were they, why don’t they turn up? It’d be interesting to see a history of the Narnian unicorns…or any of the other lesser-seen species, for that matter. Something to think about for the future.
Plot bunnies! Plot bunnies everywhere!
Yeesh, I just can’t keep plot bunnies from bouncing around my head these days! Three pieces in a week, and the other night I thought about the statues in the Witch’s castle. Each one has their own story of how they got there, and there’s a lot of ‘em. I was especially interested in the story of the first statue the Witch ever made. I thought about it a lot, and a story about a unicorn, a dryad, and a Witch is slowly starting to take shape in my brain. Of course, I have Miraz to work on, my LB fic to start…auuuugh, there’s too much going through my head these days! I mean, there’s stories of fauns, centaurs, unicorns, foxes, dogs, dwarfs, dryads, the lion, Rumblebuffin, even a DRAGON to tell. Once I get my other two off to a good start (read: a few chapters each, with good plans for a few more) I might start in with the stories of the statues. (Hey, a great title!)While I’m on the subject, I got a fair amount of work done on the first section of Chapter Two of RoKM (Rise of King Miraz is getting to long to type) yesterday. Finally it’s taking shape the way I wanted it too, AND it takes the time issue into account. Have a great name (at least in my opinion) for Caspian IX’s wife, the section’s going great…yep, third time is definitely the charm.
Two New Pieces and a Minor Update
My goodness, I’m already getting behind in my updates. But yes, I have two new pieces for perusal. The first, Your Servant is Calling, came about one day as I was reading my favorite Biblical passage, Psalm 86, for the umpteenth time. As I read, I noticed that the Psalm talked about a lot of things Tirian was probably thinking during Narnia’s last days. The opportunity was too perfect to pass up: my favorite passage and one of my favorite Narnians? How could I ignore the thought? So I entwined the two stories together, and altogether I’m pretty happy with the result.A few days later, however, I wondered how I could possibly do a piece on Tirian without Jewel somewhere. I wanted to do it in a similar style, but couldn’t quite figure out which Biblical passage to base it on. Then I came across a passage from 2 Timothy which fit Jewel pretty well, I thought. So I took yet another one of my favorite characters and wrote another Biblical-based piece. It was shorter, but I liked the effect just the same. And that’s how I Have Fought the Good Fight came about.
Bit of a minor update as well…thanks to a few comments I recently received on Rise of King Miraz, I realized I completely forgot that there’s definitely going to be some passage of time between the first chapter and the planned events of the second. SO, I had to scrap the start I had (again) and start over. Sopespian wasn’t sounding very Sopespian-ish either, so I suppose that’s a good thing about starting the chapter over too. 
Title: Your Servant is Calling
Rating: G
Summary: Various thoughts of Tirian’s as he fights the Last Battle.
Title: I Have Fought the Good Fight
Rating: G
Summary: Jewel the Unicorn’s thoughts during his final moments.
(click to read Your Servant is Calling)
(click to read I Have Fought the Good Fight)
Well That was Unexpected…
Something nagging me in the back of my head (which I chalk up to the Lion) insisted I wasn’t finished with Passing it On. So, I added another chapter. Turned out pretty good, I think. This was the style I’d envisioned the first part, except with Ed and Peter instead of Eustace and Ed. I like it much better this way, though.
Update: Miraz, Chapter Two
Whew! Finally made some headway on my Miraz fic today. Got a good portion of the first part of chapter two. According to plan, I’m going to have three sections in it, so it might be a little bit, but I’ll hopefully have it ready to send to my beta before too long. I’ve also decided to shift my plan for my LB fic a little bit, scrapping the planned prologue and jumping right into the story. Haven’t started that yet, though. Probably will before long. Schedule’s kinda busy these days, though, so I don’t know, but we’ll see. Stay tuned!
