Aspen in the Sunlight

04 October 2008 @ 06:48 pm

Progress Report Ch 6 and Awards

First, I'm happy to be able to announce that I now have a completed, polished draft of AFLNO Ch 6, "Fathers and Sons." It's been sent out (earlier today) to the wonderful women who beta for me. One of them has finished looking it over, but for the others it's still pending. So, a few days? A couple of days? We'll see, but we're close.

Second, great thanks to everyone who participated in the Quibbler Awards, and especially to Tal who sweetly nominated me for so many different things. I'm awed by the reception my stories have met in this lovely fandom.

The following awards are now on display at the Art Gallery (http://www.aylno.dreamingillusions.net/summary.html):

-

-

-

-

--------> The next two chapters of AFLNO really fit in with the "Angst" award, I'll tell you that much ...

and

So -- see you in a couple of / few days when the chapter posts. I am looking forward to having something new to discuss!

Aspen

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01 September 2008 @ 01:25 pm

Quibbler Awards -- Best Author fixed

Hey, just a note --

Tal, who nominated the Yearverse stories for various Quibbler awards, apparently had also nominated me for Best Author. I didn't show up on the list at first, but now it's been fixed.

If you'd like to visit (or revisit) the site to vote, here's a link: http://quibbler.this-paradise.com

Aspen

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27 August 2008 @ 09:25 pm

Quibbler Awards Voting is Open

Just a quick note to let you know that if you want to go vote for stories at the Quibbler Awards, you can now. I don't know for how long, though, so if you want to vote, don't put it off for too long.

AYLNO, ASLNO, and AFLNO have all been nominated in various categories (thanks, Tal....!)

Here's a link: http://quibbler.this-paradise.com/

Enjoy the awards site,

Aspen

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21 August 2008 @ 10:37 pm

AFLNO Chapter 5 Posted

Wow. Many thanks must go to my helpful betas who helped me avoid a pretty serious Year-canon error. And Mercredi and I are in touch a bit more these days, which is lovely. We're very excited about getting to the backstory we plotted out during our writing of Year.

But enough of preliminaries -- on to the fic!

I'm happy tell you that "Reflections," which is Chapter 5 of

AFLNO banner

is now available on skyehawke :: archives!!!!

Here's a link to my author's page:

http://archive.skyehawke.com/authors.php?no=781

I'd love to chit-chat when you're up to date... or before that, if you like.

Aspen

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18 August 2008 @ 09:51 pm

News about AFLNO progress

First off, to those of you who were trying to follow the art links in my previous post, the broken link has been fixed. It was the Samhain picture by Banjuli if you want to go back and entry and click on it. But it's a depiction of Harry getting "needled," so to speak, so proceed with caution.

Second, AFLNO news.

Well, there's good news and there's bad news.

The bad news, which is not that bad I suppose, is that I have gone and done it again -- *headdesk* -- I vastly mis-estimated how far I would get in the next chapter. Which means the announced titles are changing. Chapter 5 was supposed to be "The Hogwarts Express." Ha. My current estimate is that we'll get to THAT in Chapter 7.

See, what happened was that a long time ago, Mercredi and I worked out a certain backstory, and we weren't sure exactly when would be the right time to bring it into the foreground, and when I was writing 5, it just *clicked* into place. I wasn't expecting to use it when I started 5 -- it was still on the back burner, simmering -- but the pot suddenly boiled and I decided that the story was ready for it to be mixed in.

Anyway, once it gets mixed in, Ch 6 is needed to develop it and the beginning of term will just have to wait, LOL.

The GOOD news, however, is that I have fully finished the draft of 5. I'm guessing I can probably get it posted sometime in the next week, as I don't want to rush any of my very helpful betas.

So, not too long until "Chapter 5: Reflections" will be up, yay.

Aspen

Tags: news

Current Mood: *thud*

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16 August 2008 @ 08:48 pm

Art Gallery Updates

It's that time again -- my backlog of art and such people have sent to me finally became so large that my guilt at not dealing with it outweighed my being-busy factor, so I spent some time organizing my webpage and updating it.

Here is a list of the updates made to the Art Gallery during August 2008. Some of these were displayed on LJ when I got them (such as the Quill to Parchment Award, I think), but most have never been seen publicly before:

You can click the links to view / listen to any of the links. The last one listed is actually my desktop background at the moment, and it captures the essence of Snape and Harry so perfectly that I simply have to display it here:

By the way, a number of people have expressed interest in recording audiobook chapters. Please don't hesitate -- I would dearly love to have the whole novel in mp3 format for people to download. The common question is about which chapters still need to be done. The list on the Art Gallery is up-to-date, which means that: Chapters 59, 60, 65, and 67-96 currently remain to be recorded.

Note: the story has 96 chapters on Schnoogle but 97 on Skyehawke since one very long chapter had to be split into two in order for the Skyehawke system to load it.

Enjoy the art and if you want to record a chapter, don't ask -- just go for it and email me the mp3 file. You can use Audacity (a free download, google for it) to record your voice -- you'll need a microphone, of course. Try to adjust your settings so that the final product isn't more than 10 megabytes for one chapter. If you need help doing that, er... google for that, too. I don't know much about that end of things. I just know that if the file size is very large, it's harder for me to upload and harder for others to download.

Looking forward to talking with you when I post Chapter 5 of AFLNO, "The Hogwarts Express."

Love,

Aspen

Current Mood: Amazed

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13 August 2008 @ 06:18 pm

Nominated for the Quibbler Awards

I'm not sure whom to thank, but some kind soul nominated A Year Like None Other for Best General Fic and Best Characterization.

So, thank you, kind soul, whoever you are.

The Quibbler Awards are brand new and I've been asked to tell people about them, so here's a link: quibbler.this-paradise.com

You can check out the nominees and see if you can find some excellent reading material -- always a plus for awards sites, I have found!

----Note--- I've been told that the summary of AYLNO on the site is "different" from the one on my author's page but I haven't actually been able to see the summary yet -- not sure where it can be found on the Quibbler site. If anyone could link me directly to the correct page I'd be forever grateful. Or grateful for at LEAST five minutes. Honest. Two at the minimum, I swear. LOL.

Thank you and enjoy the awards site,

Aspen

Tags: awards

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03 August 2008 @ 09:34 pm

AFLNO Chapter 4 Posted

I'm happy tell you that "Sirius," which is Chapter 4 of

AFLNO banner

is now available on skyehawke :: archives.

Here's a link to my author's page:

http://archive.skyehawke.com/authors.php?no=781

I'm feeling pretty wiped out at the moment so I won't say much more than that. Writing this one has been . . . intense, and I do look forward to all your comments, reactions, and possibly, questions, as this chapter really raises . . . um, quite a few, I would think.

Aspen

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31 July 2008 @ 09:09 pm

Progress Report and Teasers, AFLNO Ch. 4

I've been working madly on Chapter 4 and the full draft of it is DONE. Yay. Yay, yay, yay.

I've sent it off to the betas including my new Britpicking expert, Susanna, and once I get it back I'll tweak those bits that need attention, and post.

This particular chapter --- ah. Really close to my heart. Some things in it I've waited a long time to bring to light.

To celebrate Harry's birthday today, as well as my incandescent joy at finishing a chapter, I thought I'd throw out some snippets from Chapter 4 and let you have at them!

*goes hunting for text to extract. must be riveting yet completely ambiguous, hmmm*

( Warning: clicking may reveal AFLNO spoilers. Or maybe not. You know, the ambiguity thing.... )

That should do, I think.

I'd love to hear your thoughts -- but of course, that's always the case.

Aspen

Tags: news

Current Mood:

amused

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22 July 2008 @ 02:49 pm

AFLNO -- Chapter 3 Postd

I'm happy to be able to tell you that "The Man in the Mirror," which is Chapter 3 of

AFLNO banner

is now available on skyehawke :: archives.

Here's a link to my author's page to get you started:

http://archive.skyehawke.com/authors.php?no=781

When you're through reading, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Writing this chapter was . . . it's hard to even explain. I just know that it's been on my mind for a long, long time, and getting it out there into the "real life" of the fic was an amazing, amazing feeling. I hope reading it gives you the same kind of pleasure that writing it did for me.

Aspen

Tags: news

Current Mood:

thrilled

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19 July 2008 @ 11:33 pm

Progress Report for AFLNO

I'd just like to let everybody know that in the past few days, I've found myself with the time to write and the muse to use the time for just that. Which is a rare combination sometimes!

For chapter 3, I've got about 7200 words of rough draft completed, but as usual, I've yet to reach the mental stopping point I've chosen. So, there's quite a bit more to do before I can say I have a complete draft. I do feel that the stopping point is within striking distance now. I'm really looking forward to finishing this chapter and getting it posted, because in the part already written, Harry and Snape have what I feel is a --very-- interesting conversation that builds on themes I've been working on since AYLNO, but most particularly ones I began to develop in the Summer fic.

It's nice to see the fruit hanging on the tree finally begin to ripen . . . it's that sort of feeling for me to get to this conversation . . . which is, "I do believe," but a precursor for what's to come. But we're getting there, and that makes me very, very happy.
Until later,

Aspen

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08 July 2008 @ 07:25 pm

Ick

Ever been in a blue funk? Can't concentrate on what I'm reading. Can't concentrate on what I'm writing.

Very frustrating place to be.

:(

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26 June 2008 @ 11:07 pm

Ok, major frustration here....

Two readers have mentioned that Chapter 2 of AFLNO is showing up in all italics for them.

Well, it doesn't show up that way for me. In IE and Firefox both, it looks fine. My source html file that I used for the upload also looks fine. And as a final test, when I download the story using Fanfiction Downloader, the file it makes looks fine, too.

So I can't imagine what the source of the problem is.

Has anybody run into this before?

Also, if you'd be so kind, please comment as to whether Ch. 2 is displaying normally on your end.

Thanks,

Aspen

ETA: It appears that people running the Safari browser are the ones seeing the chapter all in italics. I've made an edit to try to satisfy the Safari browser, but at this time I don't know if the edit has succeeded since I don't have that program installed.

Tags: tech

Current Mood:

pissed off

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26 June 2008 @ 07:44 pm

A Family Like None Other, Chapter 2 Posted

It is a great pleasure to announce to you that Chapter Two of
AFLNO banner
is now posted at skyehawke::archives.

The chapter title is, "A Full Slytherin." Like many of my chapter titles, it has more than one meaning. See how many you can spot!

You can reach the story by starting out at my author's page, here.

I look forward to hearing from you as the story winds on!

Enjoy, Aspen

Tags: announcements

Current Mood:

good

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25 June 2008 @ 02:19 pm

AFLNO progress report

I know it's been a little while, but I have good news. Today, I finished the complete draft of Chapter 2, "A Full Slytherin." Word count: almost 12,000 words.

That means the following remains to be done:

---my final read through and edit
---send to betas
---get back from betas
---final-final-final adjustments

Then I can post!

So, 3-4 days, maybe? Kind of depends on how busy everybody is.

Aspen

Tags: news

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21 May 2008 @ 08:32 pm

A Family Like None Other, Chapter 1 Posted

I am delighted to announce that Chapter One of
AFLNO banner

is now posted at skyehawke::archives.

Story summary: Third story in the "Like None Other" universe. During his final year at Hogwarts, relationships will splinter as Harry confronts secrets long-buried and faces the greatest challenge of them all.

Story warning: This story will contain exceptionally heavy levels of angst, misfortune, agony, and uncertainty.

You can reach the story by starting out at my author's page, here.

Enjoy,

Aspen

Tags: announcements

Current Mood:

ditzy

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18 May 2008 @ 06:52 pm

AFLNO Progress Report -- Chapter 1 to post soon

Hey, all ---

I've had a look at your comments and responses to my poll. I also went back and took a look at the writing I've done in this universe. My impression of how long a "normal" chapter is has been pretty much skewed by the fact that the last two chapters of Summer were about 24,000 words each. Earlier on, I had much shorter chapters, though they did tend to go over 10,000 words fairly often, particularly once Year had reached the half-way mark.

With all that input and information in mind, I went and took a critical look at Chapter One, worked in some elements I'd been meaning to add, and moved some of it into Chapter 2. The final draft of Chapter 1 ends up having around 11,000 words, which is a very creditable beginning for the new story, I think.

I've sent it off to my betas, who'd seen preliminary versions of it earlier on, and lo and behold, one of them has already responded back. Fast work, that.

I should be able to make final-final changes and have it posted sometime this week. Hopefully early this week.

Here's a tiny teaser --- as of today, the chapter finally has a title: "August 8, 1997"

Make what you will of it!

Additionally, Chapter 2 is tentatively titled: "A Full Slytherin"

Aspen

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10 May 2008 @ 05:33 pm

A poll about posting schedule for AFLNO

Hey, all.

It occurs to me that one reason Chapter 1 on AFLNO is taking me so long to write might be this: I was too ambitious about what I could accomplish in Chapter 1. I wanted to get to a very specific point in the plot, but there's a lot of things that need to come first. And so I write on and on and on -- up to something like 30,000 words so far.

Perhaps that's just too much for one chapter, period.

I do have a history of writing very (possibly too) long chapters, but it's a problem I usually have much more toward the END of fics than the beginning. And let's face it -- I think that anybody that's still sticking with the "Year Other" series at this point is well, well aware that I can be prolix in the extreme. That's just my style -- I love developing the backstory and deep emotional responses that make you feel just how the character is feeling. That's my thing. That's why I like to write.

That said, I am starting to think that I might be able to get AFLNO rolling along better in terms of posting if I'd just post chapters that are more of a normal size. With my history, that might mean the whole thing goes over 100 chapters. I don't know that it would -- I'm just saying. I used to worry quite a bit about going over 99 in AYLNO, because I had heard that ffnet's system couldn't handle that 100th chapter and on. After AYLNO left ffnet it was less of an issue -- the staff at skyehawke told me they didn't know of any reason why their system would kick out a chapter numbered in the three-digits range. So shorter chapters might mean a huge number of them, which is probably all right in terms of posting.

However, I wanted to take the pulse here and see what people thought. Hence, a poll:

Poll #1185910
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

When it comes to reading AFLNO, I guess I'd rather get ---

View Answers

a 5,000+ word chapter every week or two weeks
146 (53.5%)

a 20,000+ word chapter every couple of months
19 (7.0%)

I actually don't care which as long as it gets posted come hell or high water
108 (39.6%)

Thanks much --

I appreciate your input.

Aspen

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09 April 2008 @ 10:37 pm

New icon set by Lilyanjudyth -- celebrate AFLNO, coming soon to a computer near you!

Hey, everybody --!

Express your excitement about the launch of AFLNO (no release date yet, sorry) by picking up an icon or two that takes your fancy. These are free to use and distribute as you like, though to be polite you should put Lilyanjudyth in the comment line as creator. She sent me this wonderful set and I could not be more delighted. She must be psychic or something, because in a lot of ways, one of these icons really sums up one of the main plots I have planned for AFLNO.

Oh, and the "AFLNO Remus" icon which shows Lucius is, to my eye, so completely funny! Put that one on your LJ and see what people make of it. See how fast they have to point out to you, "That's not Remus!!!" LOL.

Here are all the icons, and thanks once again to Lilyanjudyth for her hard work and the inspiration these gave me

LOL, I swear this is my favorite. It's gorgeous, and it's SO "Like None Other" with Remus posing as Lucius:

And a really spooky one:

You can also find them at the Art Gallery -- Click on More Icons at the top.

One note -- I could use some help--- my favorite ones here are a tad over 40K, the icon size limit on LJ, alas. What can I do to trim them down a wee bit?

Enjoy!

Aspen

PS -- and note the cool "Rhiannon as Queen of the Night" icon that

margarites_86 made!

Tags: aylnoart

Current Mood:

enthralled

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24 March 2008 @ 12:28 pm

Teasers for AFLNO Chapter 1

I posted these on my Yahoo group so some of you might have seen them already, but I thought it would be fun to share them here, too.

Teasers for A Family Like None Other, Chapter 1, currently being written. OMG, I still need ro figure out a chapter title....

All narrative and dialogue are tentative and subject to change, LOL.

Those who would prefer to wait for the full text chapter (likely to be released sometime during April) are advised to exit this message at their earliest convenience.

( Read more... )

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