[Fic] Changing Minds

[shimotsuki]

Whew! Writing the fic for October's "Autumn Moon Jumble" event at metamorfic_moon has been a wild ride. It took me a couple of weeks to figure out what I wanted to do with my prompts, and then of course as soon as I had the thing outlined, I suddenly had a lot less writing time -- culminating in this week, when I had a work-related houseguest for three days, which was truly fun but definitely didn't lead to lots of fic writing.

Last night was the deadline -- at 3am my time -- and the guest had an entirely legitimate need to be on the internet connection, using my laptop, from nine until midnight. (!!!) I still had half a scene to write, and was almost driven to writing longhand (which I almost never do -- I think much better with a keyboard). She went to bed at twelve, though, leaving me to power through the rest of the fic in two hours, and then edit/HTML-format/post at the speed of light.

I'm just glad it did get posted, in the end! Even if I am very sleepy today. ;) And now I can catch up on enjoying all the new fic and art posts at metamorfic_moon myself.

• Changing Minds (4980 words | PG | genfic with background Remus/Tonks | post-war AU)
  The members of the Order of the Phoenix finally receive the thanks they deserve, but Remus finds that Harry is a lot more optimistic about the prospects for change in the wizarding world than he is. (Set in the Warp and Weft AU ficverse.)

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Comments

[mrstater.livejournal.com]

I would have killed my houseguest for using my laptop that long! LOL But well done, you, for not doing so and finishing. I think you and gilpin25 need to post pics of your sleep-deprived selves at your computers.

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

LOL. The problem was, the houseguest needed to be on the internet to do what she had come to town for, but we couldn't figure out how to get her fancy new Mac laptop to dial through a plain old phone line -- so the only way she could get online at our house was to use my computer instead.

I suppose I could've borrowed her laptop to write my fic on? ;)

Also, sleep-deprived fic posting is probably just as bad as drunken texting -- I found about a million errors after I'd actually posted my fic to Meta (despite proofreading it offline and using the LJ preview function before going live), so I edited it about a million times between 2:30 and 3:00 I really, really hope you mods don't get a notification every time someone edits their post -- or if you do, I hang my head in shame for flooding your inboxes last night. :/

[mrstater.livejournal.com]

I always find a million errors in my fics even when I haven't posted them sleep-deprived. And no, we didn't get a million notifications, lol. So you're off the hook!

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

Glad to be off the hook! ;)

Also, forgot to say that the hardest part about finishing this fic so late at night was writing the "Remus is getting sleepy" bit at the end without nodding off myself, LOL.

[mrstater.livejournal.com]

LOL You probably could have done with a Strengthening Solution yourself, huh?

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

The thought had occurred to me! I actually wrote some of the jittery/pulse-racing symptoms, and the odd mental ricochets between razor-sharp focus and wool-gathering, based on experiences I've had with sleep deprivation + too much caffeine. :)