Choc-Fic Character-of-Colour Love-a-thon

[tielan]

It's been up and running for several days now.

So far, there are eight Stargate Atlantis-related works that I've seen:

Six Fics:
Understanding by jalabert - Ford/Carson, G
Chickens Don't Dance by fuzzybluemonkey - Teyla/Rodney, PG
The Perils Of Lightbulb Jokes (In Another Galaxy) by apple_pi - Rodney/Ronon, PG
Seawall by wojelah - John/Teyla, PG
Unremarkable by kepp0xy - Teyla/Dean Winchester (SPN), R
Just Crash Here by tielan - John/Teyla, PG

Two Art:
Blindfolded by ileliberte - Teyla/Sam Carter (SG1)
Lost In Atlantis by ileliberte - Teyla/Dean Winchester (SPN)

...I seem to be incapable of typing "Winchester" - both times, I got as far as "Winches" and then put a space in, expecting to go on to the next word. Weird.

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Anyway, wojelah's fic totally inspired me to write, and I got about 2,500 words written yesterday and today on my fic for the 9th. Teyla gen, it's kinda turned into a crackerrific AU somewhere along the way. I haven't even started the two others that are due and I'm kinda tearing my hair out as far as the last one goes...

This is what I miss about Atlantis fandom: having other people writing stories that I can like at more than one level. There are a few John/Teyla writers out on Fanfiction.net but most of them are straightforward romances. I want something with twists, with meat, with complexity, with intricacy. I want to read something and have the writer's skill leap out at me and slap me in the face. I want to read something that's so engrossing that it's all I can do to drag myself out of it.

And I have a feeling that my own stories have lost that depth in the last year or so: maybe because I haven't been challenged by any such writing in the areas I'd like to be challenged.

I haven't really had anyone around to challenge me on the John/Teyla front, to be honest. There are people who write fics that impress me, but they're occasional writers rather than obsessive ones. And since John/Teyla and Teyla are a large portion of what I want to write...nothing gets written. Not the stories I really want to write anyway. Little bits and pieces, fluff and shortfics and drabbles, but the really long, super-plotty, intricate character thingies? Nope.

"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." It's a biblical proverb, and it applies in all kinds of ways to me, but particularly in writing. I mean, I've done okay without it, but the challenge - the sense of someone out there who also wants to write about Teyla and John/Teyla and can challenge me with more than your basic romance novel plot, who can help me work out the political structure of a world, think up ways to get the team into trouble and then get them out, who can jokingly say, "OMG! That'll give you bees!" And then wander into another tangent entirely...

I miss having someone like that. I really do. I had a 'writing buddy' in SG1, but she never made the jump to Atlantis and doesn't like Teyla anyway.

All right. Enough reminiscing and grumbling. Let's try to get back to writing, having wasted an hour surfing...

That's a lot of "--ing" words! Pterry moment.

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Final pimp: the 3daychallenge community is going to put up a challenge this weekend for those who are interested in participating. Any fandom, you just have to produce a piece of work to the challenge prompt in three days.

Somehow, I don't think I'll be participating. Too much else to do.

How did it get to be 9pm so fast?