Updates and Odds and Ends

Here's the deal. I've temporarily down-ranked the Entropy index. I'm doing this partly because I don't want any crossover traffic to be getting confused about what's what with Entropy. I'm going through and revising things in order to post them elsewhere, and I don't want people to think that what they've read of it here is the be-all-end-all. It's not. The story is constantly evolving, changing, growing. Some changes are minor, but there are going to be some big revisions, too. I'm working hard to better mesh the older and newer material. It's hard to keep such a sprawling body of work consistent. So anyway, that's why the Entropy index is currently moved down a bit. It can still be found in the tags under "Entropy chapter index."

That aside, I have been working on new chapters for it in addition to polishing the old ones. At this very moment, I have three chapter thirteens. Or wait. No. I have four chapter thirteens and a general sketchy outline of what chapter thirteen is supposed to cover. Working from that outline has produced three chapter thirteens in addition to the fourth, original thirteen. Obviously, once they're all nice and ready for posting, they will no longer be 13a, 13b, and 13c. They'll be thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen...and depending on how the original thirteen looks after all that new stuff, there'll be a sixteen, too. (And all of that will trigger the domino effect, considering I already have a chapter 14, 15, and 16.) I swear, every time I turn around Entropy gets bigger. Maybe I should have called it Inertia. (I'm joking. ^_^)

Besides Entropy, I've recently done up a one-shot, also Naruto and also Kakashi/Sasuke-centric. I'm still on the fence about posting it here, because it definitely requires some sort of adult content warning. Is it possible to be graphic and tasteful at the same time? I definitely shot for intimate and delicate (versus raunchy and porntastic) but I didn't really skimp on the details...In fact, I sort of wallowed in the details.

I have a few other bits and pieces from various fandoms floating around, but nothing is too serious at this point. I've been consumed by the big projects recently.

As for non-fandom things...I haven't done too much. I drafted a poem recently but haven't touched it since. Really, I have two poems on the back burner. I also have been picking at a fiction piece, but I've been derelict in pushing forward with it. That particular one is tricky: I've written some for it before and it was quite serious. Doing bits for it now, I find myself dipping into the humorous and almost farcical. It's tough to balance the different moods and styles, and I'm not convinced I'm doing it successfully. I suspect it's going to be one of those stories where the different styles interrupt the main story every so often. (I consider the serious parts to be the real meat of this story.)

I've had a real yen for discussions of writing craft lately. I've been re-reading pieces of writing manuals and style guides. I've been reading about reading too, and have just encountered a rather interesting-looking book on the subject, entitled "The Crafty Reader." Part of the premise of it seems to be about reading as a multi-faceted discipline. the thing that grabbed me about it was that A. the dust jacket promised a good discussion on the craft and tools of critical reading, and B. it kind of promised to debunk and demean the New Critical theory. (I despise New Critical.)

Still, my search for shop-talk isn't turning up a lot of results. I want discussion, not a "Thou shalt write this way and this way only" sort of thing, of which so many books on writing are. I suppose I'd do better looking for essays on writing, really, but it's kind of the same problem there, with the added distinction that a lot of the "good" essays are either by or about authors I don't read, and the works they may discuss are, for lack of a better term, dated. If I wanted to delve more into the socio-historical aspects of writing craft, I would...but I don't. I think part of the problem is that I can't clearly define what I want; I am only able to look through and say that this or that is what I don't want.

Ugh. This was a singularly unproductive post, wasn't it?

~Later