But, as per usual, I digress.

I ended up starting to write the Rizzoli & Isles college AU simply cuz it requires no planning. I have enough plot details in my head for that and, well, it’s not like I have to develop characters with fanfic. I just have to stop college!Jane from being too much like me. But it’s kinda hard when I’m writing Jane having a bitch of a time in biochem (gee, writing from your own experiences much, Nikki?) and having her stubbornness work destructively against her. Jane is a lot more focused and assertive than I am (and had more on the line), though, and is thus actually willing to get help and is far less destructive than I am. (Or maybe it was just the lure of Maura’s boobs. I would totally be willing to ask for help if the TA looked like Maura Isles.)

Still. She’s behaving way too much like me and it’s bugging me. Maybe I should rewatch R&I for the fourth time (more, for some episodes) to ensure that I have her character down. :P

In all seriousness, this is actually a pretty common concern for me, though mostly with original fiction where I care a lot less cuz none of the characters are entirely me, just have some aspects of my personality. And I actually expected that I’d write Maura too much like myself, not Jane. Though I have only written Maura through the (third person) eyes of Jane so far. And I have always said that if you combined Jane and Maura’s personalities (and sucked out of all their awesomeness), you’d get someone very similar to me.

Anyway, I have written 2287 words of the first draft of an R&I fic (and femslash – I am finally writing femslash instead of bitching about how not enough people write f/f) and it is going wonderfully. Yay me for succeeding at goals (thus so far).

In other news, my mouse batteries croaked and I’m posting this from the WordPress iPhone app. Likely something will end up wrong. Also, I forgot the HTML for the more tag and can’t be arsed to google it so suffer with the lack of a cut.

Not that I’m ever consistent with remembering to cut posts. Sorry for making you all scroll.

Anyway, what I meant to say before I went off on a tangent, is that, since I have no 30 page paper looming¹ over my head this summer, I should make my own damned writing goal for the next three months. Far simpler than nano too – I’m just going to write, at minimum, 1000 words per day of whatever I damn well please as long as it is fiction. Cuz I can totally write a 1000 word blog entry without effort. I mean, c’mon, all of my posts are just me rambling on about nothing anyway – it’s only a couple of steps above stream-of-consciousness.

Basically, I want to accomplish something, writing wise, with my newfound 8-5 life. Not even 8-5, really, cuz, as a chemist, I spent a lot – a lot – of time doing dick all timing slow moving liquid dripping through screens. Science (well, my science) is a lot of hurry up and wait so I spend a looot of time rushing about in a mad dash about the lab cuz I have to start an experiment by an hour after I arrive so that it’ll be done by five. And I do pretty much nothing between nine and five. Seriously, best career decision ever. Except for the part where you run experiments that last twelve hours and you end up working split shifts. At two in the morning. But other than that.

So much for having a blog entry about writing. Back to that.

In order to publicly humiliate motivate myself into actually following through with this goal, I am going to spam everyone with posts about how much I haven’t written and why I suck at life, possibly every day. However, unlike nanowrimo, I’m not going to post what I’ve written cuz I don’t have the excuse of lol I wrote it all in word wars to explain away my crappy first drafts.

And that is all.

Also, feel free to mock me when I fail at this.

And I start tomorrow. Either with my sci-fi romcom comic script, a novel(la?) length Rizzoli & Isles AU fic (boring AU – no vampires or space monsters or anything, just Jane attending BCU as an athletic scholarship student right after Maura broke up with the axe murderer and started her MD) or the modern,  genderbent Sherlock Holmes reimagining (or whatever the cool word for remake is these days) novel (series) @Sildra told me to write (well, sorta) a few months ago.

Basically, I’mma gunna be writing a lot of femslash. Or preslash, in the case of the girly Sherlock Holmes thing. It’s a series and I really, really love UST – especially slash goggle/deliberate shiptease type UST. Though I’m not sure if it counts as femslash for the comic script as one of the characters is an alien whose species has three (or more, haven’t exactly decided) genders. She, uh, looks pretty feminine? Well, more on the androgynous side of femininity, but still very clearly a woman. Except not.

Wait, how does word count work if I’m writing a script…? And I haven’t exactly, y’know, properly plotted out any of these ideas. I haven’t written much down for the first two and I don’t even have a crime for the last.

Dammit.

¹Heh. Looms.

“I wonder,” John mused as The Five formed a lopsided star in the snow and lay back to observe the cloudless heavens.  They had determined that, after missing the lunar eclipse in April, they would get prime seats for the one on the fourth of October.

It was a decision that had been in no small part influenced by Doctor Edward Moreau, the man declaring himself Helen’s rival, who had spent much of the spring months regaling anyone who would listen, and even those who would not, about how absolutely marvellous the April eclipse was.  For her part, Helen was quick to deride the barbaric doctor; despite her own experiments, which often pressed the boundaries of ethical science, she abhorred her colleague’s techniques.  Vivisection on abnormals, Helen had heatedly argued on many occasions, was an unnecessarily cruel procedure.

Disdain for his research practices notwithstanding, Helen had been galled by the man’s boasting and so she had turned to John with the devil in her eyes and requested that they get the best possible view of the latest lunar eclipse.  John was happy to oblige and, after a bit of scouting, deposited the group in the middle of a field somewhere in the United Kingdom with a perfect view of a clear, starry sky.

At least Helen assumed that it was the UK – there were no signs of civilisation, and thus no light pollution, or noticeable landmarks in sight.  She suspected that James had deduced where they were, but she didn’t mind being left in the dark.  Her trust in John was absolute.

Vindictively, she hoped for a thick cloud cover over London.  Doctor Moreau would just have to content himself with a lovely view of the clock tower housing Big Ben.

“I wonder if I could make it to the moon,” John finished his sentence after a long, contemplative pause.

“John!” Helen’s voice had an edge of shock, but her wide blue eyes glinted with curiosity as they met his across the snow.

“I have teleported clear across the world with no ill effects,” John shrugged, the devil-may-care grin on his face giving rise to a flutter in Helen’s stomach.

“The distance to the moon is thirty times greater than that of the diameter of the Earth, John,” James pointed out mildly from the other side of Helen.

“Not to mention that the air gets awful thin when one leaves the planet’s surface.  I doubt that one can breathe in naught but aether.”  Nigel added, watching his own breath condense in the crisp air.

“Oh, I could remedy that,” Nikola drawled.  “I could build one of those suits used to explore the ocean floor.  But better, of course.  Much better.”

“Of course,” John drawled right back, his tone faintly mocking.  “And if I cannot make it in one jump, I could just take the journey in a series of smaller hops.”

The conversation lulled as the five friends contemplated the idea.  Helen, as per usual, was the first to give voice to their hesitant thoughts.

“We could be the first people to set foot on the moon.” She was almost breathless with wonder and her lips turned up in a determined smirk as she refocused her gaze on the faint sliver of a moon above her.  The four men exchanged long glances, complete with matching grins, before turning back to the moon as well.

To an outside observer, the five friends painted a picture of serenity as they watched the last crescent sliver wink out and the moon flare to life again; its new colouring reflected back onto the snow and painted it copper.  But The Five knew that that their shared thoughts were far from serene – rarely did they have an idea that they were content to let remain as an intellectual curiosity and they knew that, one day, their lunar observations will be not be bounded by the atmosphere.

“You’re missing a song,” Roxanne said, a small frown on her face as she pursued her boyfriend’s iPod.

“Hmm?”

“The Police – you’re missing one of their songs.”

“Oh, you mean Roxanne?  I had to delete it – I couldn’t bear having a song about a prostitute that shares your name on my iPod.”  Megamind shrugged and turned back to his schematics.

“Megamind?”  Roxanne carefully crawled her way across the organised chaos he had spread across the couch between them.

“Hmm?” Megamind murmured, distracted.  Roxanne brushed a light kiss on his cheek and he glanced up, green eyes wide.

“I love you.”

So, yeah, I have until July 1st to bingo this scorecard.  And any others that I may request.

Thomas Edison?

He’s going to be so much fucking fun. Tesla vs Edison!!!

And, for myself, this is the list of easy ones: Disney, ozone beatle, the main lab, gen, Edison, Ford, 1990′s, Bigfoot (abnormal), lizard creatures, WWI, The Cabal, Helen’s room, For King and Country, Will’s office, fluff and shape shifters.

And, awww, Twain and Steinbeck?  I’m so not a fan of Twain and, for Steinbeck, I’ve only read Of Mice and Men.  Gunna have to use the modern cast for those prompts.

James, long used to their squabbling, simply blocked it out.  In two decades he had not heard a new argument from either party and, after unsuccessfully attempting to join in the first time he caught them bickering, he just sighed and carried on.  Clearly it was just one of their things and the detective was not one to begrudge Barney for staking that claim on Helen; he and her had an intimidating amount of shared history and quirks as it was.  From day one, it had been difficult, if not impossible, for outsiders to squirm their way into The Five’s circle and James was impressed at how deeply Barney had integrated himself into their lives.  Especially since it started with something as mundane, and loathed, as coffee.

So the time James and Barney caught Helen in the kitchen with a coffee mug at her lips came as a great surprise to all parties.

“This isn’t what it looks like!” Helen exclaimed, heavily shadowed blue eyes wide over the steaming mug of coffee.  James just tiredly leaned back against the doorframe with an amused smile stretching his face as Barney stepped into Helen’s personal space.  This, James mused, was going to make for a great show.

“Really?” Barney said gleefully as he nudged his boss with his shoulder.  “To me, it looks like you’re drinking coffee.”

“I’ve had one sip!  One!” Helen could feel a blush forming and ruthlessly tamped down on her embarrassment.

“And how many cups?” Barney crowed.  “Are you the reason why my pot is depleting faster than usual?”

“Hardly!” Helen scoffed.  “This is my first cup of coffee.  Ever.  Which I only poured because I’ve completely ran out of tea and I am in desperate need of caffeine.”

Barney looked at her suspiciously and then nodded in acceptance of Helen’s claim.  “So, what do you think?”  His shit-eating grin got wider.  Helen just looked at him flatly.

“It tastes like swill,” she said succinctly.  “Burnt swill, in fact.”  Barney looked horrified until he turned to the twin coffee makers and his expression relaxed as he took in two pots, one full and one empty.

“Of course it tastes burnt,” Barney said. “You took last cup of coffee out of an hours old pot.  Here, let me fix you a new cup – it’ll be marvellous and you will love it!”

James winced as Helen’s jaw clenched and her eyes hardened minutely.  Never a good sign.  He was amused to notice that Barney hadn’t picked up on that particular tell.  Either that or was blissfully unaware of Helen’s state of mind in his over-caffeinated exhaustion.

Barney chatted enthusiastically as he poured a new cup of coffee from his second coffee machine, oblivious to Helen deliberately pouring the burned coffee down the sink with narrowed eyes.  He didn’t look up until Helen slapped the ceramic mug down in front of him.

“That,” she said, “will not be necessary.  I am going back to work.”  She swept an imperious gaze over the two men.  “And we shall never speak of this again.”

With that, Helen stalked out of the room, her back ramrod straight and her head high.  Barney looked at James and slumped sheepishly with his eyes pleading mercy.  James laughed.

“I see some things never change,” James said between chuckles.  “Helen would always get a bit moody in Oxford when things didn’t go quite her way, especially when she began forsaking sleep for science.”

Barney laughed.  “I bet she never went as far as to drink coffee back then.”

“Well, no.” James admitted as he swung an arm around Barney’s neck and led him out of the kitchen.  “But there was that time where I convinced her to try cocaine.  Now that, my friend, is quite the tale.  I’ll tell it to you sometime, perhaps after we catch Helen’s latest prize.  For now, we’ve got work to do.”

Until today.  For some reason, I just realised that the 2187 hits for What Kate Wrote meant that people have clicked into the fic 2187 times (unless FF.Net is reporting the stats wrong again, in which case there are more views).  I highly doubt, however, that 2187 people have read the fic, though.  FF.Net isn’t kind enough to give statistics on how long people stay on a page so I can’t really calculate the total number of readers.  I can’t even give a wild estimate, because, while I would read the stuff I wrote, I’m pretty biased. That, and I would never post anything of  a subpar quality, hence the reason why I’m still sitting on a Sanctuary fic that needs a proper ending.

Nevertheless, I think it’s pretty safe to assume that, over the past seven (nearing eight) years (holy fuck eight years?! That’s a third of my life!) of posting fic to FF.Net, I’ve had at least five thousand people reading my fic.

Five.  Thousand.

That’s enough to make a city in Saskatchewan.

That’s half of the number of enrolled students at the University of Regina.

In reflection… that’s actually a rather large number of people.

Huh.

For more statistics, 1.52% of the hits on my fic result in reviews.  As the frequency of reviews drops far more rapidly than the hits, I’m disqualifying the oldest of the new fic (the Eleventh Hour fic that brought me out of retirement) from the rest of the analysis since it is at least twice as old as the rest of the fics.  If I included it, it’d have the lowest review/hit percentage at 0.61%.  With out it, my most viewed fic, the sorta smutty (what? Most of the smut I’ve read has pages and pages of sex and, really, it’s actually kinda boring) What Kate Wrote has my worst percentage at 0.71%.  Apparently people don’t like to own up to the fact that they’re reading smut.  My best is my least reviewed (Pancakes) at 2.48%, but that’s really fucking biased since all three reviewers are my friends.  So, yeah, how about we ignore that and move to the next best percentage, my Sanctuary fic Helen’s Heart at 2.01% (and 4 reviews).

I’m really not sure what these numbers mean and, honestly, they can’t mean anything – I only have six data points and, well, you can’t infer anything from six samples.  The solution is clear – I must keep writing fic to collect data and then do something with it.  God knows what, but I’m sure I’ll come up with some use.

Is writing fic for numbers a stupid reason?  Probably.  But, hey, this isn’t a narcissistic reason – I couldn’t give a crap if anyone reads or reviews my fic; it’s all about the writing and the back pats are just the icing – so I suppose that puts me above the rest of the number hungry crowd.  I just like numbers because numbers are pretty.

Pretty, pretty numbers.

Yeah, no.  Fuck you anon.  Or non-anon.  Basically, fuck you to anyone who says that.

Why?

Because wanting to read a certain type of fic does not mean in the slightest that you want to write it.  The other day I was bitching about the lack of sick but not pregnant fics on the internet but it’s not like I actually wanted to write it.  I have no inspiration to (though Beckett with food poisoning and the guys thinking that her biker boyfriend knocked her up would be kind of funny).  But I was rather happy when @wabbit89 wrote a fic in which T’Pol was rather under the weather.  Cuz, yeah, I wanted to read, not write.

And there is a huge difference between the two.  Especially the motivation behind why one writes rather than reads.

When I write, it’s because I have (or at least very strongly want) to.  The story won’t leave my head so, dammit, I just force it out onto paper/MS Word/my iPod.  I need an entire idea and the sense that the story is going to go somewhere, not just a trope to fill/subvert.  Not to mention the sense of satisfaction I get from writing a fic is a completely different emotion from the enjoyment I get from just reading one.  I enjoy both activities, but only one of them requires me to use my brain.

When I read, it’s because… well, I always read.  My default state of being is reading.  Hell, even while watching tv (NCIS, currently), I’m reading.  That’s part of the reason why I absolutely detest streaming video – too much of it is flash based and you can’t really fullscreen a flash video on one monitor and read on your second – it just bumps out.

In short, writing is time consuming.  Reading is not.  I can read a 1500 word fic in two minutes for chrissake.  You know how long it’d take me to write that?  Two, maybe three, hours – that’s seventy-five times as long.  Sure, it might take me an hour during NaNoWriMo, but I don’t do any research, editing or, hell, even thinking during a word war!  There is a complete and utter difference in time commitment between reading and writing.

So yeah, the next time you go to say that, just do us all a favour and stfu.  If you’re trollin’, you’re not being particularly ground breaking – get some new material.

(Oh look, I wrote an entry without Sanctuary as one of the tags!  Damn, broke my three post streak.)

Now, well over a decade later, they were still a source of fascination and had even inspired the respect and awe they had so coveted in the past.  They basked in it, pleased beyond measure that they were the centre of attention, even if it was only supposition on how they had managed to not age a day since they last set foot in Oxford.

To the other attendees, the surprise of the night was that Montague John Druitt was alive.  They had all read that he had been found drowned in the Thames and some had even attended his funeral.  To his friends, the fact that he had survived Helen’s bullet didn’t come with that much of a shock – while there was a copious amount of blood on the scene, James had determined that none of the blood splatter possessed the right trajectory to have come from John.  Helen, being a physician, had privately double checked James’ conclusions by analysing the blood for the manufactured genetic abnormality that The Five shared.  It had come up clean – there were no traces of John’s blood mixed in with Molly’s.

If anything, Helen was mostly surprised by the long scar on John’s right cheek.  The scar and the way her heart soared and shoulders lifted, unburdened from a previously unnoticed weight, were her greatest surprises when John had walked into that room.

Helen had cursed her heart fervently.  How dare it, that traitorous muscle, keen so strongly for a murderer?  And not just any murderer, but the elusive Jack the Ripper, the man who once topped Scotland Yard’s most wanted list?  How could she love a monster?  And, dear God, did she ever love him.  Though tainted now, the fire that had consumed them both during their days in Oxford and their passion-filled engagement still burned and she knew that both John and James saw it in her eyes.

When John stepped into the corner claimed by his small circle of friends, James yielded his position nearest to Helen, as he always had, to John without a comment and barely a sideways glance.  For his part, John had taken James’ place without a missing a beat and had preened in his position of honour.  Nikola, damn that Serb, simply smirked behind his glass of wine and Helen couldn’t help but suspect that the absent Nigel was lurking about, naked and invisible, and laughing at his friends.  He had always preferred to observe the group before making his presence felt, and his invisibility only made him more prone to lurk in the shadows.

It was no matter that her heart still beat for John; Helen had finally consoled herself late that evening, cold and alone in her overly large bed. It just meant that the organ was not a fickle one and the passage of time was not yet great enough for it to move on.  It was the next day that she began her hunt – she had tasked herself to find the bastard and then… well… Helen tried not to think about that part.

She never did have to find out what to do with her ex-fiancé – whenever she wasn’t sabotaging her own hunt, James was.  He had barely pulled her out of a deep depression when John had come strolling into that reunion and he had neither the desire to give Helen up to the other man nor to watch her suffer in silence again.

Years had passed, nearly a decade, before the next time they truly saw each other, again in a lavishly decorated room, much smaller this time, with the other three members of their circle.  The Five had been given a task by His Majesty, King Edward the VII, himself. Hunt down their erstwhile classmate Adam Worth and deal with him however they deemed necessary.

Despite the gravity of the situation, Helen had found herself expending considerable energy on just paying attention to the Prime Minister’s words. At every glance and sly touch from John, her chest constricted distractingly and she found herself at her sanity’s end.

James, the traitor, had made himself scarce whenever John was around. He had flashed that infuriating smirk at her when she had demanded an explanation for his abandonment – was he not her paramour now, not John?  His answer, so entirely James, that he was fine with John’s position as first in her heart since he was the one she turned to now, did little to assuage her annoyance and guilt.

His later, drowsy statement, after Adam had died (from her bullet, regardless of that fall, oh God, she had truly killed a man in cold blood this time. She was a killer – a murderer – now.  No different from John) and John had disappeared, was that it was fine to still love John, despite his misdeeds, because she was Helen.  Loyal, unwavering Helen and, with her expected lifespan, it had been but a blink of an eye since they were engaged.  James’ kind words were enough to sooth her worries for the night and Helen had rolled over and laid her head on his chest with a sigh.  James, surprised at Helen’s uncharacteristic desire to be held, traced absent patterns along her sweat dampened spine.

For eighty years after that, Helen didn’t speak with John.  She knew that he and James would share an occasional drink every few decades and that, on the times their paths crossed, he and Tesla would exchange blows.  And she saw him, on occasion – just glimpses in the night that sent her blood rushing through her body.  But never once did John ever stay long enough in Helen’s vicinity to exchange words.  His presence was always noted, though – Helen grew to be quite observant.

She wrote off the increased tempo of her pulse at those times as simple shock –nothing more.

When she saw him for the first time with Ashley – her daughter, his daughter, their child – my God, they shared a child and she had never told him, Helen was struck by how much she still loved him. Eighty years without speaking and a part of her still yearned for him.  Eighty years and now that bastard was holding her daughter – their daughter – hostage and the part of her that wasn’t clamouring in fear for her daughter was aching to step forward into his arms.

It was so wrong.  And Helen desperately – so very desperately and so very futilely – didn’t want to be in love with him any longer.

But Helen suspected that, even with another hundred and fifty-seven years and thousands of atrocities committed by the both of them, she would still love him. She, with all of her education, knowledge and supposed wisdom garnered for a long (oh so very long) life, would continue to be in love with the man known Jack the Ripper.