sugarplumsenpai

Why is gap filling such a pain? I sometimes wonder about this. As much as I love writing and really diving into my own story until I'm enveloped by it, gap filling seems to be my nemesis. This isn't meant as a grumbly complaint but as a mere observation tied to the neutrally curious question: why? 

Maybe it's because my scenes I tend to write early in a story for a further point ahead always are such super important key passages. They usually are the peak or the moment when the characters realise something crucial that will change the story afterwards immensely, and with that the characters as well. It was like this with Sparrow and the scene Eren is haunted by Petra's sister and his fear of facing that moment in his life in which he closed himself off out of pain, guilt, and regret. It was like this in Nuthatch when Levi forced Hanji into the shower to clean her up and finally accepts for himself how much missing Eren truly affects him so he can move on from there on instead of letting it eat him up further. It was like this in Unloveable with their fight, and it also was like this in Good Times for a Change with Levi finally reaching out to hold Eren's hand. 

That being said, I have a passage waiting in my docs that has been waiting there since March 2018. For a story this long it's a short period of time, I am aware of this, but it gnaws at me. And it rattles on my (im)patience. That passage that I need to approach. The horizon ahead. The Other Side where everything is brighter and prettier and the grass is greener, no matter whether that's an illusion and a lie I tell myself, or not. That passage, at this point, is about 25,000 words long. It has temper, rage, betrayal, acceptance, fury, gloom, butterflies, and glowing sparkles, characters being active and mad and raw and turning on their friends and all this emotional stuff I love-love-love. 

Initially, that passage was marked as chapters 4-6. Now I finished chapter 26 and I can already smell the sweet promise in the air that it will be soon. Soon. So soon.

Soon doesn't mean yet though. There are still a few days I need to bridge until I can get to all the emotions hitting the fan, and beautiful as it is on some days when I had a good and fulfilling writing session and the scenes are beautiful and worth the enduring, it's an annoying bitch on others when I try sitting down to find that next scene. Writing up to a plot peak 26 chapters in means 220,000 words I love that now have to come together to make sense. It means a town full of citizens, soldiers, heroes, and antagonists to come together without leaving any loose end out. It is something I love once I'm in it since it means revisiting moments I enjoyed writing. Yet finding that next moment that will gather "that one loose thread too" makes my head hurt and a certain verve shrivel into paralyzing hesitance since "I should mention Norman again and best have a scene with him too…he hasn't been in this story for too long." 

Maybe this odd feeling of petrification comes from normally writing on instinct. Which I can't do any differently, but in this stage some basic planning is necessary so the story won't spin out of control. At the same time I like that solid goal I can work my way up to which I usually don't have that clearly. Maybe this is even why these scenes come to me like this. They are what the story is about in some sense or the other, but for them to make sense, all the other stuff before has to be written first. The more chapters this story gains, the more solid the scenes I wrote in March last year suddenly become. It now makes even more sense for that one character to actually flip his shit and whereas reading that scene 10 months ago gave me a tense prickling on my nape, now it feels like an emotional earthquake. I love when scenes grow as I write, plot-wise, meta-wise, and emotionally. I am amazed by how organic writing can be and what it teaches me as I go. And yet I have to bridge one or maybe only two more days and add an action scene that is important but feels so insignificant to me since I already know it will be a small pop in comparison to the big bang about to happen. It carries a "so what?!" when I know it's important to conclude that one arc so the other can erupt. 

Maybe I should trick myself by cutting the 25,000 anticipated words out and paste them into another document for now. But that makes the story feel incomplete, like an anchor suddenly missing or like someone erasing the horizon, leaving me aimless. Maybe I should try writing that new scene in a blank file to make it feel more important. It worked with chapters 22-26.

In the end, the only thing that will get this missing passage written is sitting on my arse and writing it, free from anticipating what's happening next since it's only distracting. Free from fright since it's choking. Free from self-imposed plot threads that need to be woven together since it usually happens naturally anyway. And for everything else, there's editing. As it always is. 

Chapter 11: Penalty

Fic: Magpie

Rating: Explicit

Additional tags: canonverse, post-war, tea, friendship, established relationship, romance

Summary: As Levi and Eren settle into their life together, they find new trials complications and complications are waiting just around the corner. 

Sequel to Sparrow (Revised) and Nuthatch.

Read Magpie from chapter 1 on AO3.

A lovely reader on tumblr asked me about my writing plans for 2019, so I thought a brief update might be in order here as well. 

I currently have one active work in progress, namely Magpie of my Sparrowverse series. I started this story in early 2018, and though I originally thought it would be a short tale, I soon had to concede it would be longer than anything I've written so far. By now I have 200k words spread across 25 chapters finished. About 30k more are roughened out and have been untouched since the earliest stages of the story, meaning they don't fit the ever-evolving plot anymore, so they'll have to be bridged, revised, edited, and (as per usual) polished until I'm satisfied to the full.

If my guys keep expanding Magpie as they have been the past year, I can see part 1 of this tale reaching a total count of about 250k-300k words and keeping me busy until way into spring 2019. After that there'll be part 2 to write, for which I have some vague ideas, but no real outline at all yet. 

Another piece I have been working on yet set aside for now is a story under the working title "Crow." It was supposed to be a 1/1 and meta-sort-of-prequel for the Sparrowverse, taking place even before Nuthatch. However, complications with the timeline and shifts in the portrayals alike make it hard for me to approach this story these days. The rough parts that don't conclude the story yet will probably require a thorough revision, if not a full rewrite, and Magpie requires my full attention at the moment. Nonetheless I am planning to finish Crow eventually since it deals with some things I would love to explore further.

Looking at these two works and the upcoming months/year, I don't quite know yet whether I will need a small writing break from Magpie in-between its two parts. I could see myself taking another approach with Crow instead or starting a new 1/1 for this pairing with a bit of a darker theme than my readers currently know me for. Maybe I'll even give myself that little push I've been eyeing for years and finally venture into Harry/Draco territory as a writer…It is a bit unlikely at this moment, since I cannot write for two pairings in two entirely different fandoms at once. But I know my emotional brain and all the tricks it plays on me sometimes, especially when it wants something as badly as this. So we shall see.

Magpie definitely is a story I will continue working on in 2019. Alone to finish part 1 though part 2 keeps calling me with sweet, promising little whispers and lots of wonderful ideas I'd love to write.