Shoes; Behind the scenes

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 01:35:32 GMT

I am told that it is bad form to brag about cute new shoes without posting a picture. So here, have a picture. And also another picture. They are still breaking in, but pretty comfortable, especially after I'd worn them a little while. I am, if not precisely in love, at least very deeply in like.

22. Tell us about one scene between your characters that you've never written or told anyone about before! Serious or not.

Like most writers, I expect, I have scenes that come to me in snippets that I don't get around to writing down: sometimes just not right away, sometimes never. Maybe they won't make a complete story on their own; maybe they represent a direction for a character or story that I eventually decided not to take; sometimes I just plain forget. In that spirit, here is a moment that I've played with from time to time that's never really fit into any particular continuity; it might fit into the bleaker version of the post-Confessional universe that culminated in the story Painkiller, but usually these days I prefer to take a less depressing tack when I write a Paine/Nooj future. Still, I do like the idea that this captures something about the CS4 and what their relationship could be. Note that this is a fragment, not terribly polished, and I make no promises that it won't work its way into a story someday.

( Sometimes it's better not to know the truth. )

And... I never really figured out where to take the idea from there. I'm not even sure it has anywhere to go. But this exact conversation has come into my mind several different times over the years, and it feels good to finally get it down into type.

30 Days of Writing: Complete list of questions

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On writing: Day One

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 03:55:39 GMT

1. Tell us about your favorite writing project/universe that you've worked with and why.

My favorite writing universe is the first one that I created: fleshing out the Final Fantasy X universe for A Guardian's Legacy. In the process of giving Auron a backstory, I had to improvise details about Spira, its small towns, Yevon, the warrior monks, the other characters... And since half the story was written in Spira's future, I had to build the world in that direction, as well. I enjoyed the process a lot, and was quite happy with the world I came up with. Unless the idea I'm writing is incompatible with the AGL continuity, every FFX or X-2 story I write is, in my head, set within that iteration of Spira. (Aftermath is probably the most important example. I even re-used original characters.) I find it helpful, to have done all the world-building already, but also I think it's a pretty decent intepretation of the world we discover in the game. There are a few inconsistencies with Ultimania, but I can live with that.

An entry on my favorite projects would not be complete without a mention of the Death Shall Have No Dominion AU that I wrote with the late, great kunstarniki. Although I am proud of the story we created, my fondest memories are about the process: sharing ideas, the awesome clarity of being on the same wavelength with a collaborator, surprising and delighting one another as we fired snippets back and forth. Collaboration is an amazing creative high for me. The Confessional was a similar experience, and even more intense: I have never written a story that quickly before, and I don't expect to ever capture that kind of exciting creative madness again.

If we're talking more recently, I think my favorite is probably Political Considerations, the FFXII pinch-hit I wrote for the 2009 round of Final Fantasy Exchange. That story threw some pretty difficult political and character curveballs my way, and I was quite happy with the way I handled them. I was still getting the ground under my feet in that fandom at the time, too, so the fact that I got it all to come together under time pressure was something of a rush.

30 Days of Writing: Complete list of questions

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KJ

Shoes; Behind the scenes

On writing: Day One