Tag Archives: Fanfiction

Monday Quick Fic: Wings

3 Replies

john and sherlockI was having a bit of a crisis last week, and the adorable agnesanutter was so kind and sweet and supportive.  I promised to write her something.  A Johnlock, which I had thought, in the midst of my meltdown, that I would never manage to write again.  I made this today.  Its a little along the lines of ‘Shark’, but longer and deeper. A little more angsty perhaps.

Dear Agnes, I hope you like it.

  ” They had been sharing the Baker Street flat for a month when Sherlock finally challenged him.  John was amazed it had taken him that long.

            ‘I never see you naked,’ he said, out of the blue.

            ‘Don’t pussy about, Sherlock.  Just say what you think, never mind about holding back and considering my feelings!’

            ‘Feelings have nothing to do with it.  Why do you keep yourself covered all the time?’”

Read the rest here.

Happy Creating,

EF

Friday Quick Fic: Dead Men Don’t Make Toast

3 Replies

This is an experiment.  I don’t think its a poem, but its not prose either.  Its Post Reichenbach – Sherlock’s dogged determination to break down John’s resistance.  This fic will not be published elsewhere.  Please comment, I want to know what to do with this to polish it more.  Thanks

Dead Men Don’t Make Toast

I.

‘You’re dead!’  John shouted and slammed the front door.

Sherlock picked the lock.

II.

Sherlock made tea.

‘You’re dead,’ John snapped.

The tea sat there, and grew cold.

Sherlock made another one.

That grew cold too.

III.

John curled up under the covers.

Foetal.

Sherlock pulled the duvet up around John’s shoulder.

‘Go away, you’re dead,’ John muttered.

IV.

Sherlock made toast.

John said, ‘Dead men don’t make toast.’

Sherlock had to agree.

V.

They were running out of milk.

What with all the cold tea, and everything.

Sherlock went out and bought more.

And some other bits they needed.

John said, ‘Dead men don’t go food shopping.’

VI.

Sherlock made tea.

‘You’re dead, go away,’ said John.

But he drank the tea.

VII.

Sherlock warmed the pizza in the oven.

It was pepperoni, John’s favourite.

‘Dead men don’t make pizza,’ John said, as he chewed resentfully.

VIII.

That night was cold.

John shivered under the duvet.

Sherlock kicked off his shoes and climbed in.

Wrapped John in his long arms and his tweed overcoat.

John said, ‘I hate you.  Go away, you’re dead.’

IX.

In the morning, Sherlock made toast.

John said, ’You make a lot of toast for a dead man.’

X.

John made tea.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Enjoy your weekend – I’m off on my writers retreat!  See you Monday xxx

EF

Friday Quick Fic

Leave a reply

51989793_SHark_224346cBecause I’m still feeling unable to do much, I came up with a new feature, the Friday Quick Fic.  The idea is to share a short fanfic with you which has not been through my usual polishing process.  Just something off the top of my head which I think you might like.

Today’s Quick Fic is a ‘BBC Sherlock’ fanfic, something I knocked off this morning, between naps, and is inspired by my husband, who has a ‘shark bite’ of his own.

Shark

John first noticed it when Spring came, and Sherlock started swanning around the house in his sheet.  A ragged scallop of raised keloid tissue that scooped around Sherlock’s right elbow.

‘Shark bite,’ Sherlock said, with surprising nonchalance.

John examined it.  The scarring was deep, and he could even see the indentations of those cruel razor teeth.

‘Holiday in South Africa when I was in my teens.  I was swimming, and the next thing I knew this shark had my arm in its mouth.  I punched it on the nose, and it let go.’  He shrugged, as if it were an everyday occurrence, and then regaled John with details of the beast’s species, hunting habits and vulnerabilities – namely the aforesaid sensitive nose.

John found out the truth a few months later, during one of Mycroft’s little episodes of abduction.  The subject of Sherlock’s sojourn in South Africa came up, and Mycroft laughed.

‘Oh, God, he’s been telling that stupid shark story again!  Sherlock’s never been to South Africa!’

John scowled, but put his head on one side, curious about the truth.

‘It was one summer when he was about twelve.  He was told not to go playing in one of the woods on the estate because of the forestry going on there.  Felling trees and so on – it was dangerous.  But being Sherlock, he went anyway.  Typically, he didn’t get crushed by a falling tree.  He fell off his bike, and got his arm tangled up in some barbed wire in a hedge instead.  Cut it to ribbons, terrible mess.

‘Father was absolutely furious, wouldn’t even look at him because he had disobeyed, insisted it was just a graze and Sherlock was making a ridiculous fuss over nothing.  Wouldn’t take him to have it stitched either, and Mummy couldn’t drive, so she just had to bandage it up as best she could.  Of course, it healed badly, and left that dreadful scar.

‘When he went back to school after the vac, the other boys saw it and wanted to know how he got it.  So he made up that silly story about the shark.  It got him quite a lot of attention to begin with, but of course, being Sherlock, he overplayed his hand, and got too full of himself, and that was the end of his brief acclaim.’

Afterwards, John thought for a long time.  He thought about the barbed wire.  He thought about the spotted marks around the fat ribbon of raised, whitened flesh that looked like the marks from sharks teeth.  He was a doctor, and he knew about scarring and healing, and what kind of depth of wound would leave a mess like that.  He thought about the boys at the school.  And then he thought about the kind of father who, out of pique, would neglect the proper attention that a wound like that would require.

John never mentioned Sherlock’s fantasy visit to South Africa again to anyone.  But he always referred to Sherlock’s scar as a shark bite.  Because in his opinion, that was exactly what it was.

Happy weekend to you all,

EF

Gratuitous Birthday Post

Leave a reply

Hi! Its my birthday today, and I promised myself I wouldn’t do any work.  Of course, I meant to prepare a lovely, informative and entertaining post that I could just upload in a trice, but it didn’t happen.  I am really struggling with the concept of preparing posts ahead of time.  It just doesn’t seem to work with my spontaneous side.  But never mind.  For today, I am not going to worry about it.  I’m just going to show you a little glimpse of my present haul – I’m a VERY lucky girl!

birthday prss 1Can you spot the theme?  I think you’d probably have to be a serious fangrrl like me to get the hedgehog socks connection!  (Oh, and the Benedict Cumberbatch card made by a friend says ‘Happy Birthday, Gorgeous Lady!’  in case you can’t see it in the photo.)

benny card

Anyway, I the spirit of celebrating what I have achieved in the last year, which is a lot, believe me, here is a link to my fanfiction.  If you haven’t read it before, happy reading.

Love, EF

Journal Friday: The Emotional Swingometer

Leave a reply

go away bagThe Creative Life is a carnival ride.  Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Right now I am on the rollercoaster.

Thank goodness for my diary.  If it were not for that little Moleskine notebook, I would be a complete basketcase.  Actually, I’m probably still a complete basketcase, but I feel better about it, because I write it all down.

The days when I am completely sure I have squeezed every last drop of juice out of Johnlock.

They days when I can’t stop writing Johnlock.

The days when I have so many ideas for stories that I don’t know what to do with them all.

The days when my imagination is a barren wasteland.

The days when one comment has convinced me that my work is utter crap and I owe it to the world to never write again.

The days when a stroppy comment has filled me with so much anger and resentment and martyrdom that I am going to passive-aggressively hold the entire fandom to ransom by never publishing another Johnlock story again because frankly those bitches are all so ungrateful.  (as if they’d even notice.)

The days when that novel I am writing is the greatest thing ever written.

The days when that novel is so bad I am ashamed to even walk into the same room as my laptop.

The days when reviews flood in, and I am Queen of the World and Goddess of All Writing and my ego is the size of Jupiter.

The days when the reviews flood in, and they just aren’t praising me enough, they’ll never say enough good things about me because I am so bloody wonderful, which of course means that secretly I know without doubt that I am an absolute fraud and completely useless.

The days when the reviews flood in, and I am cowering under my desk in shame that anybody could think that story I wrote is readable.

The days when I am satisfied because I have written something that I think is good.  Good in the way that tapping on solid mahogany with your knuckles is good.  Something that is out of my own real, original voice.  Something that I am satisfied with.

The days when the fandom bores me to tears, or irritates the hell out of me, and so does my writing.

The days when I know my writing is completely stagnant, and I need to progress onto the next stage but I don’t know where to start.

And the days when I just sit down and write.

Before, or after I have written some fiction, I take a little time to reflect.  Sometimes I write in my journal to get my juices flowing, the way Morning Pages are supposed to.  Sometimes I write afterwards, to reflect on where I am going, on my emotional equilibrium (or lack of it).

Usually, when I have published a story, I watch the comments coming in, and try to write through my responses, the paranoid ones and the egotistical ones, the happy, the grateful and the furious.

My journal helps me keep my writing experience in perspective.  There isn’t a lot of perspective about our own creativity, lets face it.  We are all reared to be perfectionists, to rule ourselves out in the basis of not being Picasso, or to believe ourselves to be Dickens without needing to do the hard work.  It is so hard to be objective.

My journal helps me remember that the only life I am saving when I write is my own.  In the great scheme of things, this is not battlefield surgery.  Or, if it is, it is on my emotions alone.  That is why objectivity is important.

I need to remember that my writing is not about what other people think.  It’s about me.  At its very core, it is about healing my own wounds. 

Even if I never publish another word, I will still keep writing, partly because it’s a compulsion, and partly because it mends my soul.

That is why keeping a journal is crucial for every creative person, whether you are amateur or professional.  It reminds you of the WHY.

How do you use your journal in your creative process?

Happy journaling,

EF

Inspiration Monday: Telling Details

1 Reply
sussex church

The Zen of Details

At the moment, I am fascinated by ‘telling details’.

At our writers’ group last week, my friend read out the first pages of her novel, a description of a little girl watching her mother as she used a sewing machine to make a new dress for her little girl.  It took me right back to my childhood, watching my own mother labour over the sewing machine.

It was the little details that transported me.  The jar of spare buttons which the little girl was allowed to play with.  The thunk of the presser foot being let down onto the fabric.  The smell of sewing machine oil and new cloth, unwashed, still fusty from the haberdashery.

I have re-ignited my enthusiasm for my writer’s notebook with these details.  Using the little components of life.  Scribbling them down when I notice them.

The way the local cockerel sounds like he has a sore throat when he crows.

My husband saying ‘Marriage is about sharing’ when he farts.

The dust that builds up in the corners of the treads on the stairs, and how gritty it is.

Puffs of pollen falling off the sunflowers I have rescued from the storm-lashed garden, falling like yellow flour on the tabletop under the vase, powdering a biro that had been abandoned there.

These are the little glimpses of our everyday life that we mostly ignore, but when someone draws our attention to them in prose or art, they enrich our perception, throng our minds with memories, ground us in the present in a way nothing else can.

At the moment I am working on a series of short fanfics that are grounded in these details.  I am trying to use a single detail to spark each story.  Each story then contributes to a wider portrait of a relationship.  This means collecting details. So here I am with my notebook, going back to the very beginning of my writing career, ‘back to basics’ if you like, collecting scraps for here and there and jotting them down.  I feel like a mosaicist building up a mural made of broken pots.

And it is delicious.

 Creative Exercise:  Lists

Unearth your notebook, if you haven’t been using it much recently.  If you are an artist, grab your sketchbook.  Now open your mind.  Start noticing things.  It takes practise to be sufficiently present in life to recognise the tiny details that contribute to the big picture of shared experience, but once you start, you will find them coming thick and fast.

  • Walk around the house and look at the piles of stuff that have built up.  Write down where they are.  Make a list of what is in them.
  • When you visit the bathroom at a friend’s house, look at their lotions and potions.  Make a list to jot down later.  What do the bottles and jars tell you about their life and health?  If you draw, make a sketch of them, or if it’s easier, draw the contents of your own medicine cabinet.
  • Standing in the queue for the checkout, look in other people’s baskets.  What are they buying?  Another list.  What does this say about them?  Can you make a still life that communicates what they are eating, who they are eating it with, and why?

Open your eyes wide.  Your mind is constantly sifting sensory input, picking out things that may or may not be important.  Usually, you toss most of your perceptions aside.  Instead, write down as many as you can.  Use them later in your work.

Happy Creating,

EF

Smorgesbord

Leave a reply

sleep sketchI usually try to post on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but this week’s Wednesday post got missed because I was ill.  I’m still ill, but my brain is slightly clearer today and I am giving myself to thinking time.

Thinking about future posts for this blog.  Thinking about writing and notebooking.  Thinking about art.  Thinking about clearing space in my life for more creativity.  Its a luxury I have to lie in bed and consider which direction I am going in creatively, and I recognise that.  Few people get that option.  I may be feeling terrible, but I’m enormously grateful I can use this time to be present with my work.

I thought I’d share a few things I have been mulling over with you.

Here are the thoughts of Elmore Leonard on writing, an enormous inspiration.

Here is Stephen King, saying illuminating things about both ‘The Shining’ and about the attitude of critics, something I really needed to hear this week.

Talking about critics, Jack Vettriano has been savaged by the art establishment over the years, but now he’s having a retrospective at the Kelvingrove.  Oh, the irony!  (And lets just remind ourselves that this man is self-taught, which may be why critics hate him so much.)

If you are interested in art, check out this site.  I love its brightness and enthusiasm.

I want to do this course next.

And to end, a little light reading.  I’m pursuing a new project of short stories and vignettes which explore life inside an established relationship through fanfiction.  The series is called ‘Geography of a Shared Life’.  You can read my latest piece here at A03, and here at FF.net.

Happy creating,

EF

New Fanfic Story: An Anatomy of Intimacy

1 Reply

john and sherlockI am struggling to avoid my brain leaking out of my right eyeball just now because of a migraine, but I felt I needed to post today to say ‘Hi!’, and so I thought I would draw your attention to a new story I have put up!

It’s called ‘An Anatomy of Intimacy’, and is a companion piece to my earlier work, ‘Personal Geography’.

I’ve been playing about with a little toy project, just a bit of fun to keep my brain working.  This involves writing short pieces exploring the reality of John and Sherlock’s life together in an established relationship.  The idea is to create a few little windows into life behind closed doors at 221B.  These aren’t supposed to be regular things, or part of an ongoing story, just an occasional morsel of something intended to illustrate the profound connection between them.

I hope you like them.

Happy reading,

EF

The Wild Donkeys: A Strategy for Choosing a Creative Project

1 Reply

donkey

‘So, how’s the writing going?’

This from a man who is one of the Blessed Few.  A writer whose work was picked up by an agent straight from the much garlanded MA in Creative Writing at the Unversity of East Anglia.  Alumni include Ian McEwan, Rose Tremain, Hanif Kureshi, Tracey Chevalier and, well, you get the picture.  He is in glittering company.

He is also a really lovely man and a dear friend who takes a genuine interest in my work, so I rein in the envy monster and give him the polite and honest answer.

‘Fine.  Well, actually, I’m a bit stuck.’

‘Creative block?’

‘No, too many ideas.  I don’t know where to start.’

‘You should be writing a novel, you know.  I read some of your Sherlock stuff the other day.  It’s really good.’

‘Thank you.  I’ve written seven novels so far.  Writing a novel isn’t the hard part.  Its choosing which one to write that’s difficult.’

‘Well, just pick one and start.’

I love men.  Everything seems so easy to them.  And they are so good at handing out really practical advice.  (You’ll also notice that I don’t ask him how his novel is going.  That’s because I know.  I recognise that pained look.  I’ve seen it in the mirror too many times.)

OK, I know its good advice.  The right advice.

As Leonie Dawson puts it, I need to choose a wild donkey and ride the shit out of it till its done.

Every writer has a place where they habitually get stuck.  A psychological Marianas Trench on the road to getting their work into the readers’ hands, one that they tumble into every time.  For some it is grinding the words out, which for them is like sweating blood.  For others, it is coming up with the idea in the first place.  Some worry when they get to the middle because that’s always where they get bogged down, and some will spend ten years writing the first page.  We all have our Achilles’ heel.

For me, its choosing which idea to stick with.

So I have decided to take September off.  Not from writing; quite the opposite, in fact.  No, I’m taking the month off from worrying which novel to concentrate on.  I’m in a physically stuck place right now, and I need to concentrate on my health, on getting my body moving again after a summer of boom and bust energy.  I’m looking to create a smooth, even flow in my life, in my health, and my art.  I have faith that if I can manage to attain a relative level of consistency in my body, the answer will come to me.  Yes, maybe that sounds mad, but its just how my creative process works.

And in the meantime, I’m refreshing my theory knowledge, reading, working on my notebooking, and bashing out some major fanfiction.  I’m easily distracted, and having short stories and novellas on the go is a great way to handle that.  But sooner or later, I want to create something major.  Something big.  Something that shows both me and you, dear Reader, what I can really do.

Happy creating,

EF

On Process: Too Many Ideas, Too Little Time

1 Reply

Usually creative people complain about creative block.  I don’t.  For the most part, I have the opposite problem.  Too many ideas.  Not enough time to execute them.  I have this constant fear that I shall die suddenly without sharing all the pictures in my head.  That would be a great incentive to work if it weren’t for the fact that my poor health is a huge brake on my capacity to work.

And then there is the fact that I have the mind of a butterfly.

The Buddhist masters often refer to the concept of ‘Monkey Mind’.  This is what your mind does when you try to meditate, and your thoughts bounce around like gibbons, and feel impossible to control.

Welcome to my world.

Actually, that is not entirely true.  I can be deeply committed to one idea for a short period of time.  The most I can normally manage is about three months.  Then I bounce off to find another sparkly thing.  Most of the time, I come back.  Occasionally, I manage to actually finish something.  Occasionally it gets shelved for good, or the idea gets incorporated into something new, because its too good to waste.

I’ve been socialising a lot this summer, and people have repeatedly asked me the same questions:

‘How’s the writing going?  What are you working on at the moment?’

Below is the honest answer (i.e. the one I don’t give nice people at parties because its too complicated to explain, especially if they’ve never met me before.)

The things I am currently working on:

  • A series of short stories about John and Sherlock in a stable relationship
  • Finishing a work about Sherlock’s pursuit of public sexual humiliation because of his guilt about his faked suicide.
  • A novella about a Viking Princess
  • My novel about Victorian sexuality, currently titled ‘The Butler Did It’ (Please could somebody suggest a better title, I’m getting desperate!)
  • My journaling ebook

Other ideas I have churning about in my head include:

  •  A possible novella about a young man getting over the death of his male lover in a road accident
  • A short story based on a line from a deliciously naughty Johnlock fanfic I read the other day, The Red Box by Cleo2012
  • The third Evenlode novel (vampire gangsters ahoy!)
  • A Loki fanfic set after the end of Thor 1

(And this is before I have even begun to tell you about the paintings I want to make…)

I was explaining this smorgasbord to a friend, and she said ‘How on earth do you handle all that?’

The answer is, ‘I have no idea.’

I suppose I have a good memory, but the older I get, the more I am going to need to employ my writing notebooks to record all this.  The truth is that ideas are far easier to come by for me than the wherewithal to execute them.  And there just isn’t enough time in my day to get all this done, and execute my duties as wife, friend, aunt, guidemother, part-time carer to elderly, sick in-laws etc etc. and still protect my health.

Triage is necessary.

I just have to grab one sparkly thing and run with it for as long as I can.  I have to choose the most important thing to me at the time.

Most creative people complain about creative block, but the other side of the coin is equally disabling, and I know for a fact I am not the only one who experiences this problem.  Choosing which is the best idea to work on.

If you have any ideas on how best to deal with idea overspill, please let me know in the Replies section.  I’d love to know what you do.

Happy Creating,

EF