Arrant Nonsense

This is not my first foray into this fandom, but it is my first not-commentfic. And since I'm all about breaking characters lately, this practically wrote itself once I had the hook for it.

Title: He Who Hesitates
Author: babies stole my dingo (agilebrit)
Fandom: The Mentalist
Rating: PG-13 (default) for blood and some language
Length: Short story (about 1700 words)
Disclaimer: Bruno Heller is the genius behind these characters; I am but a lowly follower. I make no money from any of this, so please don't sue me.
Feedback: Concrit adored! If you see something that can be improved upon, please let me know, even if it's only a typo.
Written for: pensive1, who wanted me to make Jane cry.
Notes: There's a boatload of angst here, and no happy ending for anyone. Least of all Jane. Genfic.

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( Red John tumbles down the slope of the canyon and lies in a still heap for a few moments. I follow, slipping, sliding, nearly losing my footing and flying headlong, but catching myself in time. )

I've got a little over a thousand words of badwrong Iron Man fic.

I plead alcohol.

And I have no earthly idea how I'm going to end this thing. It's first person, Tony's POV, present tense, so it's ... tough.

It's also not very good. Again, I plead alcohol. Also, there's that whole "I suck at emotions" thing going too. Because I've snapped him right in half (seems to be a trend with me, go figure), and I'd like to put him together again, at least a little, but I'm not sure how he comes back from something like this even with Pepper to anchor him. Yeah, that punch to the gut that quigonejinn is so good at? I'm...not. I tend to aim more at an "aww" reaction than a "HOLY SHIT" one. I like the comfort with my hurt.

The problem is that Pepper's not really in a place where she can offer Tony the comfort, and Tony's not really in a place where he'll take it from her anyway. So I'm stuck in this awkward spot where it needs to happen and just can't because of who they are at this particular point in time.

So. The story sucks, y'all, and will probably never see the light of day. *sigh*

Apparently came to a screeching halt yesterday.

After dropping down to 124.0 at yesterday's weigh-in, I popped back up to 124.2 this morning. I realize, intellectually, that 2/10 of a pound isn't a big deal in the Great Scheme of Things. However, my emotions tell me different. Bah. I hate having my state of mind determined by what the scale tells me in the morning...

On the upside, I'm back into my size 5 shorts. And I don't have to cram myself into them. And the Hubby thinks I'm hawt, although he keeps saying "Don't hurt yourself." *hearts*

In other news, I, um, posted Iron Man fic yesterday. And, not to be a big ol' attention whore or anything, but...did anyone read it? Don't you love me anymore? *makes puppy eyes @ flist* Don't make me go begging for feedback from strangers...

The plane crash in the not!Iron Man continues to bug, even after I've played with g-forces a bit. Seriously, planes take a long time to crash unless they're very close to the ground, which they, um, wouldn't be--and not!Tony would have plenty of time to get his seat belt on. I asked the Hubby if I could roll the plane and have the pilots recover it, and he said that was feasible. So, I'm going to play with that a bit.

And I'm also working on the same actual!Iron Man story again, only from Tony's POV this time. Because I have a sick, sad obsession.

Well. The actual!Iron Man fic is as done as I'm going to get it. It's... short. Mercifully. About 1200 words.

What is it with me breaking my favorite characters? Gaaaaah. He'll get over it, but damn. And there's some nice interaction here. And one of my famous open-ended endings.

I don't usually use a beta for fanfic, but this being my first Iron Man story, maybe I should. Thus the pondering.

Eh. Any takers? I'll format it in html.

Ninja-edit: FIC REC! Tony + Pepper IM conversation. Hilarious.

Yeah, you know what he's given me today?

A thousand-word actual!Iron Man story.

I have, once again, committed fanfic.

And apparently, Tony Stark has broken my grammar bone. The last story? Full of run-on sentences. This one? Full of fragments.

I. Cannot. Win.

Abso-friggin'-lutely NOT.

I don't need to write Pepperony H/C. I don't I don't I don't. Even if I do have a good couple of thousand words of set-up in my head.

Also, the smushed pair-name "Pepperony" needs to die a swift, ugly death.

I really didn't want the fanfic Muse to rear its head ever again.

GAAAAAAAH.

I have a deep and abiding inability to just let things go.

As I may have mentioned in a previous post, I got into a small argument with the writer GoH, Michael Stackpole, during a CONduit panel this weekend. The argument was whether you can learn anything by writing fanfic. I, of course, am firmly in the camp that you do. I maintain that I would not be nearly the writer I am today (which is, apparently, not all that, considering the number of rejections I've gotten just this week), without the practice I obtained writing fanworks.

Mr. Stackpole said that it was like putting on "training wheels," and you'd be better off just jumping on the bike and going for a ride. This...may be true. I wouldn't know; I didn't come up that way. I didn't begin writing until Spike started whispering in my ear. Whether or not I'd be ahead of the game had I started writing original fiction is moot, because I wasn't actually inspired to write original fiction.

So. Leaving aside the fact that we write what we're inspired to write...

I find this attitude rather comical coming from someone who gets paid (generously) to write what is basically Star Wars fanfic.

And I would have liked to ask him (why can't I think of these questions in the heat of the moment???) if he didn't learn anything about writing, while writing in the Star Wars 'verse. Did the only time he learned techniques like characterization, dialogue, plot, pacing, etc, only happen when he wrote his own characters?

Because, that strikes me as being a patently ridiculous argument, especially considering the source.

At least now I have an debating point to toss at tie-in writers *cough*LeeGoldberg*cough* when they holler and shout about how fanfic doesn't teach you anything about writing.

I just looked at a couple of my fics on FFN. I've been using :-: as a scene break, figuring that those are perfectly acceptable forms of punctuation that wouldn't be stripped by their stupid 'bot.

Apparently I was wrong.

And I'm damned if I'm going to go back over more than sixty stories and fix it. In fact, this tempts me mightily to remove my stories from the site entirely. I'd hate losing my reviews, though, and I still get random people favoriting and commenting.

I just don't understand why they do this. the HR tag is ugly as sin and I do use it--to set the story off from the Author Notes. Using it inside the story would be jarring.

GAH.