Quasirandom: Blog

So I have three different long fics in flight: a smut-fest straight from the id-vortex, a whacked-out weird thing parked next door to the twilight zone, and a Triad story riding the teen dramaland express.

I think I need to commit to one of them. Even if all three are strutting around different regions of polyamory valley -- that's them, not me. I need to focus on just one and finish that draft.

It's just, after a handful of years thin on inspiration, it feels like an embarrassment of riches.

And that's the woof and his wings' time in the NIS Program. *dusts pixie-dust off hands*

The part in Dana's Afterward, when she mentions Lupe refusing to write any more -- that was the author talking. I had planned to continue the story through the weekend, including unleashing Dana's magic on Lupe's dysfunctional family, but right after the two finally got together, Lupe just completely shut up. He was done talking thank you very much, and even though he's a figment of my imagination, there was nothing I could do about it. It wasn't the first (or last) time I've had a character go "real" on me, but still the most startling.

Lupe's question about whether Fritz is human is still open. If he'd allowed me to continue the story, I thought we might find out he isn't -- at the time, I was wondering maybe half-troll, but rereading it now, kobold seems more likely. Trolls belong in the boiler-room, after all, not on the school paper. But since it isn't written, that's not canon, so I still don't know. Feel free to speculate.

I've nothing ready for posting at the moment, but am scribbling away on something new -- hope to finish it soon. Depending on how long it ends up, anyway.

I wrote Lupe and Dana Naked in School right after completing another NIS story -- the most angsty teen novel I've ever written. Yes, even more angst than the Triad NIS. No, still more than that -- a couple buckets more. That it had angst wasn't surprising, as it's pretty much baked into the premise of the NIS Program (along with a default Coercion tag), but by the time I was done I was tired of the stuff. So, so tired. So I turned around and wrote the fluffiest, most glitter-swirled NIS story I could, decorated with sequins and frosting and a cloud of romantic little hearts. There may have been a glue gun involved, too. But not confetti -- had to draw the line somewhere.

I was also tired of YA novels about angsty werewolves. So I stuck a woof in as well.

This is another traditional NIS story, with first-person narration and chapters-by-day. What can I say -- I like that format. It lets me play around with the premise without having to worry about the structure.

(FWIW, that first NIS story, I can't repost here because of age-based content restrictions -- it leans heavily into the question of how young is too young for sex and for the Program.)

I mentioned before that Intimacy was, for a long time, the story I was proudest of having written. Now? I'm proudest of the "Family Dinner" chapter of Third Time's the Charm. Teri is so fun to write. And to torture.

But anyway, that's all I have about Teri, Dana, and Mike for now -- I've a page of notes for a potential fourth story, but it's feeling like a novel-sized thing, which means it'll be a while before it's ready to post. So up next is, instead, another NIS story -- a fluffier, sillier one.

And that's Dana, Teri, and Mike's time in the NIS Program. I've one more story about the triad, set a couple weeks later -- and that's coming up next.

I mentioned before that I tried several times to write this, using various permutations of these characters. In the first attempt, the Mike character was the young Quaker. Another time, the Dana character was the oldest, dating a grad student, and trying out for the International Math Olympiad team. Sometimes the Teri character was in a band starting to break out on YouTube, and sometimes a star athlete much like Sam in this version.

In all versions, though, the story was built around the image of three naked students huddled together for comfort and warmth during a mid-week crisis -- an ice storm, a student riot, a zombie apocalypse. (Believe me, you do not want to face the zombie apocalypse during your Program week.) (If you want that plotbunny for your own use, go for it.)

Regardless, this is the version I finally finished. And I'm still pleased with it.