The serial looking at the three year wait for Kagome to return to Inuyasha has been updated on fanfiction.net. This one is the piece I wrote for the IY_Fic community, and looks at what happens on the first new moon after the well closed.



There's another piece that will be going up for this serial, as soon as I have time to check it for continuity (being that it was written before "Night With No Moon", but takes place after the story). I also just posted the next chapter over on the IY_Themes community.

Since I started the series "Could Love Have Been Enough" (which, sometimes, I get confused and call 'Would Love have been enough'), the Kikyo/Inuyasha catch-all, "The Fang and the Bow" has mostly sat idle. But my last entry for the Wilted Rose community, thanks to the still-frozen state of the main series, opted to reflect on the final scene between the human Kikyo and Inuyasha. So, about the 'old' collection snares it for the fanfiction.net.

I've written drabbles off the confrontation between those two, so this drabble isn't particularly ... inventive. But it did work on a thought I've had for quite a while, which is -- how the heck did Kikyo even manage to draw the bow, let alone execute a perfect heart-shot? She was supposedly mortally wounded. Going by the anime, it implies that the injuries inflicted by Naraku were down the right side of her back, which would have affected the muscles used in drawing the bow. (Interestingly, the manga images tend to suggest that she was attacked/wounded from the front...) Adrenaline and shock presumably played their roles, but I tried to suggest that she basically achieved the state sought for in the 'kyudo'--the way of the bow. Her last shot was her perfect one...

Two weeks later than I originally planned, but the second update to this story in five weeks is better than what I achieved last year. In this chapter, the focus swings back to the kitsune trying to lure the transformed Inuyasha towards Bokuseno. Will they succeed?
I confess that I almost posted this chapter with a gaping discontinuity in it--which could be titled "Just what happened to Jaken?" I didn't realize that I had forgotten him until I was editing the chapter. Well, I'd gone too far and put to much energy into what I'd written, so I managed to answer that question--sort of--with a single additional line. (Poor Jaken! Can't even get respect from an author!) What really happened to our favorite green imp? Eh, you may have to wait until the next chapter for that...

I've posted the slightly longer version of the "Winter Tale" posted on the First Tweak community a couple of weeks ago, into my "Little Bits" catchall serial on fanfiction.net. This is one of my post-canon looks at Inuyasha and Kagome, in this case, suggesting what might happen if the topic of 'Kikyo' came up...


Also, the seconding has finished over on the Inuyasha Fanguild community, and Forthrightly has uploaded the nominated banners. Since "With One Eye" was nominated and seconded, that gives me the right to display this work of hers on my page...

Well, January is over (and, let's hope, sub-zero temperatures!), and it's already the second day of February. (I thought the year had just started...) Looking back, I met my goals I specified on Forthrightly's Project Finish community for the first two weeks, but missed the last two weeks (darn, that recalcitrant battle in Blood Unbound...) But I did accomplish updates to four of my serials, including a piece I just posted on fanfiction.net for the serial that is speculating about Kaede's life after the loss of her sister. This time, she's finally meeting the new miko, who may--or may not--end up being her teacher...

And since the IY_Themes community generates 'participation' banners, here's a picture to commemorate the piece...


Also, a shoutout of thanks to LandoftheKwt for nominating the serial for the Inuyasha Fanguild 4th Quarter 2009, as Best Canon. And to Kmoatan for the second!

Have you ever noticed that ideas tend to propagate? You have an idea for a story, inspired by a LiveJournal theme. You write the story around the idea. During the writing, another idea pops up, mostly just to fill the story out a bit more. Then, you realize, that idea has sparked another story. And, if you're not careful, it might spark an entire series!

Well, not yet, on the latter point. Though I won't say that I will never write an "early Kikyo" story, especially not with a LJ community devoted just to telling stories about her. But, for now, I have--quite belatedly--posted a longer version of the one-shot "Spider Silk" posted on the WiltedRose last December.

My drabbles that involve the Inu no Taisho seem to be fairly popular in the Issekiwa -- tonight's update is the 3rd of 4 pieces involving that character which have ended up winning their respective prompt.

I've uploaded the original version of The Challenge (which, like most drabbles, starts longer than the required length) up on the fanfiction.net.

Part of what triggered this piece, besides the fact that I had earlier written a piece about Tessaiga, and why the Meidou attack was originally removed, is the two different ways in which Tensaiga is described. Early in the manga, Totosai, being indignant at Shessomaru's disdain for the sword, insists that it is his finest work, maybe finer even than Tessaiga. But towards the end, during the Meidou arc, where Shisinki sneers that Tensaiga is merely a piece of Tessaiga, no one seems to dispute his interpretation of what the sword is. Yet the sword clearly is not just something discarded from the older blade, as its capability to heal itself and to slay beings "not of this world" do not appear to ever have been part of Tessaiga's makeup. Given that Totosai told Inuyasha that the Dragon Scale attack could not be removed from Tessaiga ... well, that makes one wonder. (Of course, in actuality, it's probably the author changing things around over the course of an 11-year serial... ;) ) At any rate, I decided to write a little bit of speculation about the Tensaiga...

Sometimes, the prompts in a LiveJournal contest don't lead to additional chapters for current chapters. This was the case with the most recent contest for the Kikyo-centric community, where "Reincarnation" would have been difficult to fit into the series "Could Love Have Been Enough," even if I'm not still stuck on that series. After thinking about it, I ended up with a piece that had the reincarnation of Kikyo's soul (the one she had at her second death, not the original) running across Inuyasha during the Tokugawa Shogunate. The original piece, however, ended up at slightly over 2000 words, when the limit for the contest was 1000! I routinely have to trim my drabbles down about a third, but half?

So, like the movie directors that are putting out extended versions of their movies, I've uploaded my longer version of the piece to fanfiction.net, as a standalone story. (At least, standalone for now -- you can an idea, and it may not stay in one place...) And for my efforts, I did receive this very pretty award banner...

I've just uploaded the next chapter in my AU fic, "White to Black." It's fairly short, but it does end in mid-note (not quite a cliff-hanger), which should make it easier to start writing the next chapter. In chapter 3, the nameless youkai has a dilemma, while the people left behind in the village have to decide what to do next.

With that uploaded, and with the one-shot written for the Wilted Rose posted, that meets the goals for the week that I listed on the Project Finish commumity. Next week, I'll be planning to write the next chapter in "Blood Unbound," and the next chapter of "Waiting for Kagome."

Let's hope I can take care of that, and real-life goals as well!

Finally!

Eleven months after the last chapter, Blood Unbound has been updated! I must give a hat-tip to Forthrightly and her LiveJournal site Project Finish. On this site, people can post their goals for the week/and or month, and report their progress. Choosing to stay with weekly goals for now, I posted last Monday that I was going to try and have Blood Unbound updated, which I just have.
The chapter is not terribly long, and it's more of a setup chapter, with some character-building to the minor characters. The next chapter should be mostly action, answering the question of whether youkai-Inuyasha is going to be successfully lured to Bokuseno before he can manage to kill someone...

But not for this week. My new goals, for 1/11 through 1/18, is to write the next chapter of "White to Black", and to write a one-shot for the "Reincarnation" challenge on the Wilted Rose. And, if I have time (not listed on Project Finish), to sit down and plot that four-parter I left hangng from last summer....

Another year gone. 2009 I will not miss, in all honesty. Loss of a good job, loss of my mom, other issues ... oh, yeah, and the thrill (not!) of watching my retirement funds go down ... down... (never mind my financial adviser pointing out that my investments were doing better than the market average...)

Which isn't to say there weren't good things in the year. Nationally, we finally got rid of that horrible US President and Vice-President... On the personal level, I finally found sufficient motivation to get serious about losing weight and getting in shape, ending up about 25 pounds down for the year.

And, then, there's the writing.

Writing Inuyasha fanfic definitely had its ups and downs. I received a first place for a piece of fanfiction from the Inuyasha FanGuild for the 2008 4th quarter, and had at least one piece nominated each quarter (so far) this year. I also started started several serials, "Waiting for Kagome" and "With One Eye" among others. On the down side, the "Blood Unbound" came to a complete halt in February, while I also became thoroughly stuck on what was to be a four-parter for the pre-canon series "Could Love Have Been Enough", that was being written for the "Wilted Rose" community, (Kikyo-centric).

So what of 2010? Well, I've set my goals for the year: 1) get a (paying) job!, 2) keep losing weight!, 3) continue writing, with the specific goals vis-a-vis Inuyasha fanfic of releasing one chapter a month for "Blood Unbound", and the new serial, "White To Black". And, of course, keep writing stuff for Live Journal contests!

A bit over a year ago, I wrote an AU story that put the Inu no Taisho and Kikyo together, for a community "Alternate Pairing" challenge. Several people enthused about it, but at the time, I indicated that I wanted to finish "Blood Unbound" first, before starting a new serial.

Flash by a year and a bit. "Blood Unbound," sadly, has been languishing. I do hope to spend a major amount of time kicking it into re-start tomorrow, but, meanwhile, more ideas have flourished, others withered, and this AU decided it wanted some attention. I wrote out the next chapter and posted it to the Wilted Rose community for the 'Faith' challenge. With that done, however, I was not entirely happy with the first chapter, primarily because it had the spell-bound taiyoukai still able to transform to his true form. I decided I didn't want the dog version showing up too quickly, so I removed those references, and expanded the one-shot into a Prolog and Chapter One. The new serial "White To Black" is on fanfiction.net. I hope to work on a banner/icon set for it later this weekend.

Little Bits has been updated with a brief piece written about Sesshomaru, inspired not just by the prompt at the Inuyasha FanFic Contest community, but with the recent play of the anime coverage of the episode with Sess-Mon and Rin's 2nd death and resurrection.

Who was Kaede? What happened to her after Kikyo died? How did she go from the half-blinded, young girl listening to her sister's last words, to the unshakable, old miko who befriended Kagome and collared Inuyasha?

I've always like the character. (It's always nice to have a woman in a story who is not young and pretty.) I didn't write "To Never Know" intending to start a serial, but having now written a second piece (and a third begs to be written, just to answer the question about what happens to Kaede when the "other" miko arives), so, I decided to start a serial. It's both on Fanfiction.net and mediaminer.org. We'll see how people like it... (Some people did like the first story...)

Well, the "Little Bits" catchall series has been updated again, with the latest piece written for the Issekiwa community. Last year, in one of the first pieces I wrote for LiveJournal contests, I had young Inuyasha discovering his "Blood Claws" during an encounter with Sesshomaru. Now's he's discovered his other weapon...

Whups - did I go almost two weeks without posting any writing? Meant to do better than that! :(

But I did post another almost-at-the-last minute piece to the IY_Themes community. Haven't sputtering my three story serials, so I went this time with a short look at Kaede, several months after her sister died. It had to have been a pretty rough year for her...



And having gotten that one posted, I remembered to get the last entry for that community uploaded to fanfiction.net and mediaminer.org. I admit that I'm tempted to take the three separate pieces (Someday:Tonight, Vigil and Turnabout) and re-write them as a single story. (Might keep that one in reserve for when I need a "block breaker"... :) )

Ah, well. After not having won anything in the 2nd quarter voting over at the Inuyasha Fanguild, I can at least take pleasure in winning two in a row from the Issekiwa community, which tends to average close to the highest number of entries per contest among the various Inuyasha challenge communities. (At least, among those I monitor. And, the last contest for Issekiwa actually drew a relatively low number of entries.)

The first of the two winners was "Recompense", which was added to the "Waiting for Kagome" serial several weeks ago. With the holiday weekend, the voting on the #85: Pair contest was extended a day, so I've just uploaded "Partners" to the fanfiction.net and mediaminer.org versions of the serial "Little Bits." I've only written a couple of pieces that include Kirara, but I do like the character (with two kitty-cats of my own, how could I not?), so she'll probably continue to pop up from time to time.


Also, a belated thanks to landofthekwt for nominating "Dance", from the serial "Could Love Have Been Enough.", and to DYquen for the second.


And hopefully, I can get soon past my writers' block on said serial, at least before the next deadline on Wilted Rose!

I wrote two connected pieces for "Waiting for Kagome" on the 11th, placing the first one into a contest just starting, while the other one was almost over. As a consequence, "Delay" was voted on before "Recompense." Now that the voting for "Recompense" ended, I've updated both to Fanfiction.net and MediaMiner.org.

Both pieces did pretty well...

I didn't realize until a few days ago, that a piece I wrote for the "Waiting for Kagome" (Invitation) had not gotten posted to the serial, even though the contest had ended weeks ago. Worse, I had updated the next chapter in the sequence. Whoops!

At least that's one little point where MediaMiner gains over FanFiction.Net - it is fairly easy to insert a chapter left out, whereas in FF, (at least tonight), I didn't observe any way to insert, except to overwrite or delete the last chapter. At any rate, the 8 chapters are now all posted and in order. And once the winners for the current Issekiwa contest (theme 'White') are posted, I'll be able to update the next two chapters in this saga.

Second update to the catch-all collection on fanfiction.net. It's another sequel, this time to "Someday: Tonight". This story, "Vigil", is post-canon, taking place on the first new moon after Kagome returns to Inuyasha (at the end of the manga). Just like the first new moon in the manga, Kagome is once again guarding an injured Inuyasha. She gets a hint or two about his first new moon of the three years that the well was sealed...