Satelite 5

For a long while now, I've been planning to write up something about my planning process, because I am a definite planner and my process is long and convoluted and multicoloured and multimedia and, most importantly, works really well for me.

I've looked at processes like Snowflake and SaveTheCat and others, and even started designing my own method based on the PRINCE2 project management principals, but I keep rolling back to the same system that I've been using more or less consistently for years. Once upon a time, back in the mists of the noughties, I was a bit of a pantser. I'd have a concept and a goal in mind, but not an outline or any idea of how to get from start to finish. What I also had was a lot more time and, honestly, low standards for my writing. I can't look back on my stuff from that period with anything other than pride that I've come so far. There's a 200000 word fanfiction in my back catalogue that will, one day, with a lot of rewriting, be a decent 50k novel. It is not decent right now, because I only worked out where I was going with it a fair way into it, and stuffed it with far too much story. And, regardless of the quality, it took me 10 years to finish because I stopped loving it. That was time I could have spent working on things I did enjoy but no, I gave it to that pile of nonsense.

So in the aim of never doing that again, I have developed a system that works for me and produces works I do not hate. This is, however, my first attempt to codify it. Wish me luck.

( The Planning Process )

In the midst of all the chaos, which really is A Lot to deal with and needs its own post, the one bright point is that I'm working from home, and it's been amazing. My commute was an hour and a half each way before, and required me to be p before 7 every morning. It's no surprise really that I haven't written in years. Now, though, I'm seizing my chance and I've started writing again. I've signed up for nowriteway to try and bring people together. If you'd like to join us, that would be lovely <3

Stolen from verasteine who stole it from irisbleufic:

If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach. —Alfred Hitchcock

When I write a story, what do readers immediately look for?

Apologies for absence:
I've gone missing, I know, I'm sorry. I am currently working on another Big Bang. Yes, you heard that right. My Torchwood Big Bang is with my betas, my Ianto Big Bang is... getting there. It's sufficiently finished to be a first draft, but not sufficiently finished for public consumption, posting starts soon, and hopefully I'll clear enough space in my schedule to be able to write some more Timelord!Ianto and get started on another bingo. Hopefully.

Anyway, there is stuff on its way.

Beta request:
Would anyone be prepared to beta two big bangs for me? They're both in Google Docs, and I have the fantastic ablatedcrayon looking over it for me, but I could also do with a Torchwood beta to tell me just how bad my characterisation is. It won't be that bad, I'm sure...

My google account is Galadriel1010, I'm on Google+ as well and would use Google chat if anyone ever wanted to talk to me, so even if you don't want to beta you can add me over there if that's your communication of choice.

And if you would like to beta it but don't want to beta it on Google I can always give you a Word Document or an OpenOffice file or something. Semaphore, smoke signals... although those could take a while.

There's a meme going around where you sum up the WIPs saved on your computer, but I can't do that because I don't work like that. I finish a chapter or short story and I post it, so no fragments sitting around. Any fragments I do have are scraps of conversations or descriptions that don't actually fit into a wider story yet.

What I do have are a couple of ongoing stories that I'm in the middle of writing and posting.

( Just A Mistake )

( Transcendence 'verse )

( Timelord Ianto )

It is, of course, the month before [Poll #1629034]

And, if you have a lot to choose from, what's your favourite?

Of the ten I've not touched, I can't decide if my favourite is the one about Kathy Swanston borrowing Jack to punish him and Ianto watching, or the idea of Steven Carter and David Davies as 9-year-old boyfriends going 'but girls are yucky, why would I want to kiss a girl?', or the one about Jack investing in real estate.

( Tl;dr: ) Another cry for help, I'm looking for advice on what I'm doing wrong in my writing, or even what I'm doing right so that I can improve it, make more people happy, make fewer people cross and generally be less fail.

Heya guys. These are all untitled, vaguely sketched out ideas for original fictions, and I'd love to hear what you think of them. My main questions are:
1)Do you like the idea?
2)What would you most like from a story of this kind?
3)If you know my writing style, do you think I could write this?
4)If you know my writing style, what do you think are going to be the biggest challenges of it for me?
5)What do you think that the biggest challenges of this story are going to be in general?

If you give me feedback, I'll write you a pretty story? Prompts for claiming here (There's 48 of them).
Seriously though, if you'll help me out here, I'll love you forever. Who knows, you might get to see some of these in bookshops or (fingers crossed!) on TV one day.

( Stories below )