Superhero Muses (original) (raw)
November 8th, 2024
So... how are we feeling? I'm still numb and horrified, and trying to figure out how to manage my information diet (I cannot, cannot, cannot deal with a steady flow of terrible news and doom; I have to figure out a way to get information without being buried in despair). Please feel free to vent here, or just to ignore the election and talk about fic.
The last time I posted, I mentioned that the new Absolute Superman comic wasn't out yet and I was curious how they would handle Clark. Well, it's not really to my liking in a lot of ways--Krypton exploded much later in this universe, when Clark was eight or nine, and he never met the Kents. They've shifted Lara and Jor-El's characters so that they're former scientists who have become outcasts and farmers, so they kind of have melded the Els and the Kents into one couple. Kal on Earth itself is very kind and humane, looking out for the downtrodden, but also very definitely alien, with no real human connections/friends at all. I don't know if I can get something to work with a Clark/Bruce setup with them, but it does seem worth a try... Weirdly, now it's Superman who watched his parents die in front of him when he was a young boy. Absolute Batman's Martha Wayne survived the shooting! It's a very odd shift.
October 25th, 2024
Still looking for that hook into comic book fanfic writing. There's a new AU-style comic book line called Absolute (Absolute Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman etc) that's kind of promising? They've been pegged as "grimdark" but from reading the Batman and Wonder Woman ones I don't think I agree, the worlds are darker but I feel like the heroes themselves are basically as good-hearted as ever, even with their backgrounds changed. I haven't hit Superman yet, though! I'm very picky about how Clark is written and a lot of writers don't get it right (I have a feeling all of us feel the same). That's a good question for this week: what do you need canon Clark to have in order to see him as legitimately Superman? I think for me a lot of the difficulty is the delicate tightrope between human and alien. Some versions lean too heavily for my tastes into "just human with powers" and others spend too much time focusing on how different he is from humans.
I know next week I'm likely to be on the road, I believe coming home from a quick business trip to Canada, so I doubt I'll have time to post this thread. I hope all goes well with you and your writing in the next two weeks! (ugh, that means I might not post here again until after the election, which is just a gray wall of uncertainty for me.)
October 18th, 2024
In canon reactions, I'm very sad about the ending of this week's Wonder Woman, but there's a really beautiful page of Clark and Bruce comforting a grieving Diana that I loved a lot. The current writer really loves his Trinity, and has taken pains to establish a second-generation Trinity that I also like quite a lot. I'm looking for a hook back into writing comics fanfic, and that's at least making me feel like it's possible!
I hope something is inspiring you this week, whether it's canon or your life or even spite (I find spite an excellent motivator!)
October 11th, 2024
A fairly good week for writing for me! By which I mean I was able to finish writing up the section about the interview I got to have and it's ready to go even if I never get another chance to talk to my subjects (sadly). The not-good news is that I sent it off five days ago to total silence from my publisher. It would be just my luck to have all the wheels fall off in the publisher's life just as I finally finish the book!
I'm hoping to turn back to fic while I wait, just to have something enjoyable and non-stressful to write. Writing for canons/pairings with little to no audience is kind of relaxing!
I hope all your obstacles come free and your writing flows this week!
October 4th, 2024
I'm sure those of you who have actually written books (as I'm not among them yet) will understand this struggle--I really thought I was done, but suddenly I got the option to interview the people I've been writing this biography about! And I had a fairly good formal interview, but after it was done one of them sent me a DM saying they'd love to meet in a more informal setting (the formal interview was in Zoom with a representative of the wrestling promotion sitting there monitoring it to make sure we didn't talk any shit about their former evil sex-trafficking boss). I want to! But every time I meet with them it pushes the publishing date back and I am in anguish about that! Argh!
So this week I'll ask: what's blocking you in your current WiP? Either what you've overcome or what's keeping you from finishing (though of course I hope we all overcome them eventually!)
September 27th, 2024
I've been in the US, driving from Minnesota to Maine and helping move stuff for my sister and father! Not much time for writing or even thinking about fic, alas, and now classes have started... so I'm totally stalled out. I still haven't come up with a plot! So tell me about a character you're writing right now and let's see if that jars something loose. I actually think my favorite is the very plain non-magical girl who slowly gets drawn into supernatural events and discovers she's braver than she thought. Kind of a stock trope, I know, but she's fun to write! I'm writing her at a stage when she's not quite so timid and naive, but honestly I'd almost rather write her earlier on, it just doesn't work with the plot I want to write (and am hoping to one day find).
Hope all your writing is going well!
September 6th, 2024
We've talked about the setting of your latest work, how about a plot? What's the basic story of what you're writing and where do you think it's going?
I confess the plot of the fic I'm working on is remaining stubbornly vague! A sea-dwelling person (like Aquaman but less human, more sharky) gets turned into a human and has to deal with trying to pass as a human when she doesn't know how to do that... but what's the McGuffin that turned her human? And what is trying achieve while human? I suppose they could be connected, she's looking for whatever turned her human to get herself back to normal of course... I just have to figure out why someone would do that, lol. There's got to be a reason! I hope your plot is being less stubborn than mine!
August 23rd, 2024
I've been in Sweden! I did not get much work done on the next fic I'm trying to write, but I did get the scene set (I've never started a fic with "It was a dark and stormy night," but it fit the canon really well so I went with it!) The first scene is in the middle of a storm in a small house near the beach, so it's been nice to pull back memories of beach houses from my childhood. Hopefully next week I can kick the plot into action!
How about you, what's the setting of the scene you're in the middle of writing right now? And how is the writing going in general?
August 2nd, 2024
I hope writing is going well for you! Since we're discussing tropes the last few weeks, what's a trope you've never written, whether you hope to or would never want to? I don't think I've ever touched either A/B/O or mpreg, I did have one fic that slightly hinted at mpreg, but that's all I'm interested in doing, honestly.
I finished my canon review and am hoping to have some time to write here soon! I'll have some long plane flights coming up (I'm going to Sweden!) and maybe I can get it outlined and start writing some of it. I hope you7re making good progress and feeling good!
July 19th, 2024
I'm enjoying writing about fandom trends, so... What are three of your favorite tropes to write? What tends to show up a lot in your work?
I guess just mentally rummaging through my fic I think amnesia, pining, and pretend relationship tend to come up a lot! (I love a good pretend relationship!) I haven't finished my canon review for the fic I'm turning over in my head, but I think it'll have a bit of pining there. So far it refuses to have a plot that I can actually hang much on, sadly. That's okay, I'm trying to be very low-stakes! I hope your writing is going well!