answers to that mememememe...

[ladyjanelly]

"Mammagram!"
"What??"
"Mammagram! Doesnt that sound like something that should be delivered?"
                        -Dharma and Greg

So I posted the meme-thing “Comment with a story I've written, and I will tell you something I knew, learned, or wondered about while writing it that didn't make it onto the page.” And then I never replied to most of y’all. 

Bad Janelly. Bad.

So better late than never:

Now with added deleted scenes and fragments and archived notes! :)

Model!verse for embroiderama and als_wonderland and lomer and cream_fudge

I totally screwed myself with this fic. It needed some outside action/conflict and just not the aching confusion of Jensen's attempts at a love life. I had originally intended his mom to be the bad guy of his past, but I had a hard time picturing Donna like that and then it got all weird on me where it was trying to be more AU than I was ready for. I needed a villain-of-now but haven’t been able to come up with a convincing one. 

I am trying so hard to move forward with this fic--I went through the other day and sketched out the elements and events I had wanted to use and I still need to figure out some present conflicts and challenges for the characters.

I learned that the only way I can stomach writing severely damaged characters is by focusing on their strengths instead of their weaknesses.

I’ve written the scene where Garrett tells Jared how he met Jensen like 4 times now but I keep deleting it. Which is odd, since I usually keep everything in a slush-file. 

It’s tricky to have the boys open up because Jensen's so painfully private and Garrett wouldn’t tell any part of Jensen's story to a stranger and poor Jared is drifting along with no information to move the fic forward and no conflict to work on.

In from the Cold for anifsemaj and ixchel55

 

I learned never to write a fic without knowing what city it takes place in, or at least establishing it as a fictional city. 

 

I learned to know who the villain is so I can foreshadow him/her a little better. My entire notes for all the conflicts in this fic read: “Some distress with the family blah blah blah as Jen and Jared are falling in love, fighting together against an outside force.”

 

Having a villain and a couple side-characters that only liked one of the boys at first really helped provide a framework for the relationship to bloom in. They weren’t two souls connecting in a vacuum. 

 

I learned not to be afraid of adding POVs late in the fic (Mac’s).

 

From my notes, written when I was about 2 chapters in--

 

 

So.  Jensen's not schizophrenic.  Three months ago he was a successful sculptor in (some city 2 hrs drive away). He heard through a friend's website that the friend had a gallery opening and he drove down to be there as a surprise.  Nobody knew he had left, nobody was expecting him.  He got out of his car and someone clubbed him and stole the vehicle.  The clubbing left him brain damaged and with amnesia.  More of a bad/real kind of amnesia than is usual in fics. 
 
He spent a month eating out of dumpsters (and when this nice lady fed the cats he got kibble) and relearning how to talk and walk.  He was afraid of people for the longest time, so he watched those that nobody wanted to be around and learned what kept others at bay (the word-salad).  He kinda connected with Jeff (hovering about 10' away is close for him) and he lets Jeff talk to him without trying to drive him away, except when he's anxious.

 

I had planned Jensen to sort of stalk Jared long-distance with gifts left on his car and stuff for weeks before they got close, but the boy got all brave on me.

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Today’s Tom Sawyer verse for back_in_black

 

They were gonna run into Zack and Zack was sort of fucked up. He’d been trying to lie low and not be noticed as a lone-child by staying put at this diner/trading post and the guy there was molesting him and he stayed as part of his “cover.” Sam and Ben show up and Ben recognizes him and Sam tries to buy him from the diner-guy and Zack decides that Sam’s like that guy and clearly abusing Ben and he needs to kill Sam to get Ben safe but when he tries Ben promises to splatter Zack’s brains over an acre of desert if he hurts Sam and Zack is so hurt by Ben’s betrayal that he runs off on his own. 

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Domestic short-hair for 1orelei

Heh. I have no idea where I was going with this one. That’s what happens when I get a new kitten. Piff was a baby then and all playful and I don’t know why he became Jared in my head for a short while. I really wish I had an ending for this one, but it just creeped me out a little, Jensen's attraction for someone so terribly innocent. I couldn’t get “Trist” from cat-man to consenting adult and I sort of used a lot of the same themes in the homeless-verse anyway. 

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Scar-verse for lomer and guard_the_cards

Hm. I learned that I’m terrified to write conflict between the two lovers in a fic. I would have these little spats planned out but when I’d write them the boys would find a way to not actually fight. I’ve been stuck not-writing the last two chapters because of this, with the coming out of Jensen's scar story and Jared’s reaction and the stress inherent and yeah. It stressed me out to think about it. I’ve actually worked on this one in the past month but didn’t get far.

At one point, I was gonna have JDM recognize Jensen. But now I don’t remember why.

 

By Saturday afternoon, shooting is done except for a few pick-up shots. Jared calls Jensen and they meet the guys at a little hole in the wall bar. It feels great to be almost-finished, and Jared is grinning as he introduces Jensen to the few people he hasn’t met yet, the assistant wardrobe girl and Jeff.

 

“Do I know you from somewhere?” she asks, studying Jensen intently. “Did you go to high school at Westerberg?”

 

Jensen laughs it off, asks if she’s sure her name’s not Heather.

 

Jeff looks thoughtful in a way Jared’s not sure he’s comfortable with. Other people shouldn’t look at his boyfriend that way, all thoughtful and appraising. “You must have one of those faces,” Jeff says, “Because I’d swear I’d met you before, too.”

 

“I think I’d have remembered you both,” Jensen says. “So how’d shooting go today? Are you guys almost at the end of things?”

 

Eric J. goes off on how great the day was, how sharp everyone’s lines were, and Jared pretends he didn’t notice Jensen changing the subject. “Heather” pipes up with a question every five minutes, did you shop at this store, did you go to this dentist, on and on until Jared’s about ready to shake her. Jeff’s quiet, even for Jeff, and spends more time watching Jensen than Jared’s strictly comfortable with. 

 

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Look After Your Brother for sprotte

When I started writing the thing, the whole point was to get to a place where Connor could confront their father about all the crap they went through because he'd left the family to go do whatever it was he did. But then I got to the end and realized it was the end and anything more would be beating the theme into the ground.

 

 

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The plan didn’t go exactly right, but it could have been much worse, so we weren’t complainin'. Murph caught a bullet in the muscle between his neck and shoulder, but it went clean through. Hurts like hell, but not going to be much trouble to patch up. I got hit in the head with some flying debris. The swaying of the cargo van Da is driving is making me sick, but I'm supposin' I'll live too, so still no complaints. 

 

We pull off into a parking garage of some sort, and Da climbs into the back with us. Murph is leaning against my shoulder, and most of his shirt is dark and wet with blood. 

 

The head-wound must be makin' me stupid because Da has a bottle of whiskey open and ready to pour over Murph's neck before I know what he's on about. That wakes me up fast. 

 

"No! Fuck no." I grab his wrist before the alcohol can spill. I swear to God I'll break it if he doesn’t stop, though I'm not crazy enough to say it out loud. Murph is giving me that sullen look, waiting to see if I let this happen to him and already pissed at me for letting it start. 

 

I lock eyes with Da and make sure he's paying attention. "Nobody hurts Murph but me. Do y' understand?"

 

He gives me a look like he wants to put a bullet in my brain and pulls back, leaving me with the bottle. That was badly done, and I have a feeling I'm going to pay for it later, but at least he took it seriously.   Da goes back to sit in the driver's seat of the van. He's not watchin' us and I'm glad. The engine starts up again, the van begins to move.

 

 

Murph smirks as I pass him the bottle. "I don’t believe you let that fucken go so far," he says between drinks. 

 

"Dontcha start," I tell him. "I think I'm concussed. You coulda said somethin' too y'know."

 

I give Murphy a wadded up shirt to bite down on, and wind my fingers through his hair to hold him. 

 

"Look at me," I say to Murph, and he does and there's nothin' but trust in his eyes. I pour slow and he makes noises in his throat, muffled by the shirt.

 

We both have another drink when I'm done. I hold the rag to his shoulder, keeping pressure on the wound, wishing the damn thing would close. 

 

The cold outside seeps through the metal of the van and the thin carpet we're sitting on. My knees ache, reminding me that it wasn’t so long ago that I jumped off a fifth floor fire escape. Fucken Russians. 

 

Murph looks sleepy, but not in a dangerous way, so I pull him against me. 

 

"I don’t believe you fucken said that," his voice is soft in the dark, too quiet for Da to hear. Six months of being so careful, six months of hiding, and it's all for nothing.

 

"What's done is done," I say back, but I'm thinking of how I'll answer when Da asks, what I'll say to him. I wanted to hate him my whole life, for not being there when Murph and I needed him; for not being there when Ma died. But now? Jesus I just want to hear that I've done what's right by them both; that he's not ashamed of the things we've done. 

 

I feel myself beginning to drift off, as I try to see where things coulda been different; where I could have been a better man for them.

 

 

 

The road goes on forever. Da stops the van and gets out at one point; pumping gas so we can go on. The blood on Murph's shirt is dried and crusty. I need to piss, but I'm not sure my knees will work just now. It's easier to hold it for another stop than to try to move. Besides, Da has already been seen here, and it's better for us to be seen one at a time than all together. Next time I'll get out and he'll stay in.

 

I check Murph's shoulder, and the bleeding has almost stopped. His eyelashes flutter open, and we manage a soft grin for each other. "Fuck it's cold, Conn..." 

 

I try to pull him a little closer to me, trying to get him off of the cold floor. "I'll have Da find a hotel room soon. This wee scratch on your shoulder needs a bit o' tending to." 

 

Da's blue eyes meet mine as he gets back in the van. I read displeasure there, and assume it's for how close we're sitting together. If only he knew. Fuck, what if he does?

 

 

 

 

We stop at a little dive of a motel on the other side of the state line. Da parks the van in the shadows. Murph and I help each other out. He's a wee bit woozy and I'm stiff from the ride. 

 

Inside the room, Da watches me when I cut Murph's shirt off of him. We've time now, and the supplies, so I take care of the wound proper. No surgeon would ever admit to tying those stitches, but for a man who never went to highschool I'm proud of them.

 

A couple more drinks and Murph's out for the night, leaving me and Da alone. God's truth, I'm pissed at him for abandoning me like this. I want to hold him while he sleeps, take the comfort of his warmth the way we did when we were little, but I don’t dare. 

 

When Da speaks, it's not the question I'm expecting. Not a question at all, actually. More of an order. "Tell me how your mother died."

 

I'm too raw and I'm too tired for this shit now. "She died." The first words through my brain spout from my lips. Fuck.

 

The man doesn’t even blink. His eyes are cold, and I wonder if he was always like this, or if prison has made him this way. He just sits. He just waits. 

 

I start again. "She just died. She had cancer. She...fuck, Da, I dont know. I'm not a fucken doctor." I don't tell him I had put a needle in her arm an hour before, or that Murph had measured the contents.

 

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Sunny Days for Rivestra

Oh, Jeff. I feel really guilty not writing on this one when he’s all interested and Dean’s still too messed up over missing Sam to be feeling much of anything for anybody. I think--I should have embraced the possible distress of meeting Jared and the media finding out that JDM was living with a Jensen-look-alike and just rolled with it. Also, since I seem incapable of writing a character with no purpose in life, I need to find them one before I start on a fic.

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Ben/Alec “Once you go down that road” for multiversum_4

 

Heh. Okay. So I started writing this fic because I wanted to do a DA/Firefly crossover. No seriously. I had this idea. It would be sort of silly for Manticore to put all that money into their soldiers when they'd only last 40-50 years of prime operation, right? So what if one of the modifications to the DNA had to do with aging (which explains the transgenics that get progeria when something goes wrong).

They were gonna run into the Serenity crew post-movie and resist being caught up in any sort of movement. "We don't bleed for anybody but each other." But they'd recognize River as 'family' of a sort and get caught up anyway.

I just never had the plot threads come together enough to start it.

 

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Comments

[lomer.livejournal.com]

Sunny Days... is that the story where Dean suddenly appears in real life and Jeff's all freaked out? Man I loved that idea!

And I love your Firefly crossover idea too! You have awesome ideas apparently. *g*

[ladyjanelly.livejournal.com]

If only I had middles and endings for so many of these beginnings. :)

[embroiderama]

Thank you for sharing all of this! It makes me want to go back and re-read everything.

[ladyjanelly.livejournal.com]

Heh. I did go back and read almost everything. It was sort of cool rediscovering some of my production-notes and deleted scenes.

[tigriswolf]

Protective!Ben is a nice flavor. *hee*

Also, that immortal!transgenic idea is fun.

[cream-fudge.livejournal.com]

Thank you! You've put so much thought into your answers. ♥

[anifsemaj.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Sounds like you learned a lot from "In From The Cold" - you did a really good job on it!

[couchemal.livejournal.com]

I had completely forgotten about this so it's like a little gift out of nowhere. Thank you!

[sprotte.livejournal.com]

Oh my God! Thank you so much!
Stupid me didn't notice your answer to the comment back in the days *headdesk*.
So I'm triple-happy (minimum) now about your answer and about the mini-fic and about both!

*Nobody hurts Murph but me.*
Love the possessiveness!

Thank you, Sp.