Adventures In Story Files
May. 5th, 2006 11:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miko2So I've been reading some online stories and it got me in the mood to work more on one of my non-Tai-Pan, non-Fanfiction stories I had last worked on maybe a year ago.
Now the thing is, all of my Tai-Pan stories are contained in the Tai-Pan folder, and while I have a Tai-Pan folder on both the Frogstar and Platinum Vanity (and also on the laptop Mobile Vanity), all of my Tai-Pan folders are very uniform and contain mostly the same things. I can get a little bit confused about where my most recent story is, or the most recent version, but over the years I've been pretty good about backing things up so that each copy of the Tai-Pan folder contains the same things.
That's how it's meant to work, of course. I'm supposed to have everything stored in more than one place, because that's my only method of backing up my files.
I also have a Fanfiction folder, stored in three places (Frogstar, Platinum Vanity, and Mobile Vanity -- I've been very good about maintaining the newest computer Princessozma as just a gaming computer, and not storing files on it except to back up stuff onto the large secondary drive). My Fanfiction files are a little more chaotic. I need to go through and reorganize my files and make sure all of my stories are stored in all three locations. But in general, I know where most of my fanfiction stories are.
Then there are my other stories. My non-Tai-Pan, non-Fanfiction stories. I don't work on those as often but of course I have quite a few of them. They're often found in a file called "My Other Stuff" but it's very haphazard. If I need to clean up my Tai-Pan files and my Fanfiction files, then this goes triple for all of my other story files.
So. I had this story I'd started writing last year. It was a fantasy story. There was a kid, high school or college age, I don't remember exactly. He had a younger girl for a neighbor, and her father was a kind of mad scientist, and there was something about her father or his mother or both of them being kidnapped by gremlins or trolls, and the neighbor girl showed him how to travel to this Oz-like fantasy world where they were supposed to rescue their parents. Some of the details are vague, but I'd written quite a bit on it and wanted to go back and see what I could do with it.
I don't remember the name of the story, of course. So I go looking. I find a story file called Japanese Schoolgirl and pull it up. The actual story is titled Schoolgirl in Oz. Hmmm. Neighbor boy, check. Younger neighbor girl, check. Girl's mad scientist father, check. It looked like the same setup -- but it was a completely different story that I didn't remember having written, until I started reading it. It also involves travel to other worlds (another Oz-like fantasy world at one point, but that's not the only destination) but is otherwise very very different from the one I'm looking for. But obviously, I've tried to write something with the same opening scenario before.
So I look some more, and find a story file called Jubbelinoz. I pull this up. The actual title of the story is Jubellin and the King of Rings. This is a story I remember plotting, but apparently I wrote a lot more of it than I could remember having written. It's a self-contained Oz story -- all of the characters start off in Oz, not a world like Oz, but the actual Oz of the Baum books. I remember that I was going to try and finish it and submit it to one of the small-press Ozian book publishers, like Tales of the Cowardly Lion and Friends, or whatever they call themselves. I'd worked very hard on the plot and the writing is pretty good, so far as I've gotten it. Of course, I don't remember everything I'd planned to write and there's no plot guide, so it will take a bit of work to reconstruct where I was going and continue it... but what I have is very good so far. I should finish it. (I should, of course, also finish my Goddess In Oz story, which I've read some chapters of at writer's night and have published on the web).
So I go looking some more. I don't find what I want in my "My Other Stuff" folder on the Frogstar, and there is no "My Other Stuff" folder on Platinum Vanity, so I check my Fanfiction folder there. I find a story file called girlschool. (That I can't come up with more memorable story file titles is part of my problem here.) I pull this file up, but it turns out to be a fan fiction story after all, a Ranma 1/2 story. One, mind you, that I don't remember writing, and there are at least four completed chapters. But, wonder of wonders, the actual story title is also "Girls School" which might be a working title, I dunno. It involves some complicate setup in which Ranma's mother is Vice Principal of the St. Hebereke School For Girls, and forces Ranma to attend school there, partly because her agreement with his father was not just to make him a man among men, but to guarantee that he get a good education, which he's not been getting from travelling around Asia or even lately at Furinkhan High.
Well, this is just another open-ended story setup with no definite goal in mind, other than to change the original manga setting and then rewrite the events that follow. I think it's my own version of another Ranma 1/2 story I really liked that had a somewhat similar setup. These type of stories tend to go until the author gets bored or distracted and stops writing... which leads to other people (me in this case) deciding that someone needs to take up the same idea and do it right, and then you typically get a similiar story that also goes on until that author also gets bored or distracted and stops writing it.
Well, I've done a lot of writing on it and it's pretty good. I should work on it some more, or at least post to my web site what I've already written.
So basically, I never did find the story I wanted to work on... instead I found three other stories that I didn't remember, which I've written signifigant portions of, and which I'm now interested in working on some more.
Who knows what else is hidden in my computer files? Apparently I have no idea....
Beware the Anti-Santa!
Full Frontal Nerdity is scary this week, because much of it is apparently completely true...
I don't have roommates anymore but this scene is somewhat familiar. Well, apart from the swords....
Now the thing is, all of my Tai-Pan stories are contained in the Tai-Pan folder, and while I have a Tai-Pan folder on both the Frogstar and Platinum Vanity (and also on the laptop Mobile Vanity), all of my Tai-Pan folders are very uniform and contain mostly the same things. I can get a little bit confused about where my most recent story is, or the most recent version, but over the years I've been pretty good about backing things up so that each copy of the Tai-Pan folder contains the same things.
That's how it's meant to work, of course. I'm supposed to have everything stored in more than one place, because that's my only method of backing up my files.
I also have a Fanfiction folder, stored in three places (Frogstar, Platinum Vanity, and Mobile Vanity -- I've been very good about maintaining the newest computer Princessozma as just a gaming computer, and not storing files on it except to back up stuff onto the large secondary drive). My Fanfiction files are a little more chaotic. I need to go through and reorganize my files and make sure all of my stories are stored in all three locations. But in general, I know where most of my fanfiction stories are.
Then there are my other stories. My non-Tai-Pan, non-Fanfiction stories. I don't work on those as often but of course I have quite a few of them. They're often found in a file called "My Other Stuff" but it's very haphazard. If I need to clean up my Tai-Pan files and my Fanfiction files, then this goes triple for all of my other story files.
So. I had this story I'd started writing last year. It was a fantasy story. There was a kid, high school or college age, I don't remember exactly. He had a younger girl for a neighbor, and her father was a kind of mad scientist, and there was something about her father or his mother or both of them being kidnapped by gremlins or trolls, and the neighbor girl showed him how to travel to this Oz-like fantasy world where they were supposed to rescue their parents. Some of the details are vague, but I'd written quite a bit on it and wanted to go back and see what I could do with it.
I don't remember the name of the story, of course. So I go looking. I find a story file called Japanese Schoolgirl and pull it up. The actual story is titled Schoolgirl in Oz. Hmmm. Neighbor boy, check. Younger neighbor girl, check. Girl's mad scientist father, check. It looked like the same setup -- but it was a completely different story that I didn't remember having written, until I started reading it. It also involves travel to other worlds (another Oz-like fantasy world at one point, but that's not the only destination) but is otherwise very very different from the one I'm looking for. But obviously, I've tried to write something with the same opening scenario before.
So I look some more, and find a story file called Jubbelinoz. I pull this up. The actual title of the story is Jubellin and the King of Rings. This is a story I remember plotting, but apparently I wrote a lot more of it than I could remember having written. It's a self-contained Oz story -- all of the characters start off in Oz, not a world like Oz, but the actual Oz of the Baum books. I remember that I was going to try and finish it and submit it to one of the small-press Ozian book publishers, like Tales of the Cowardly Lion and Friends, or whatever they call themselves. I'd worked very hard on the plot and the writing is pretty good, so far as I've gotten it. Of course, I don't remember everything I'd planned to write and there's no plot guide, so it will take a bit of work to reconstruct where I was going and continue it... but what I have is very good so far. I should finish it. (I should, of course, also finish my Goddess In Oz story, which I've read some chapters of at writer's night and have published on the web).
So I go looking some more. I don't find what I want in my "My Other Stuff" folder on the Frogstar, and there is no "My Other Stuff" folder on Platinum Vanity, so I check my Fanfiction folder there. I find a story file called girlschool. (That I can't come up with more memorable story file titles is part of my problem here.) I pull this file up, but it turns out to be a fan fiction story after all, a Ranma 1/2 story. One, mind you, that I don't remember writing, and there are at least four completed chapters. But, wonder of wonders, the actual story title is also "Girls School" which might be a working title, I dunno. It involves some complicate setup in which Ranma's mother is Vice Principal of the St. Hebereke School For Girls, and forces Ranma to attend school there, partly because her agreement with his father was not just to make him a man among men, but to guarantee that he get a good education, which he's not been getting from travelling around Asia or even lately at Furinkhan High.
Well, this is just another open-ended story setup with no definite goal in mind, other than to change the original manga setting and then rewrite the events that follow. I think it's my own version of another Ranma 1/2 story I really liked that had a somewhat similar setup. These type of stories tend to go until the author gets bored or distracted and stops writing... which leads to other people (me in this case) deciding that someone needs to take up the same idea and do it right, and then you typically get a similiar story that also goes on until that author also gets bored or distracted and stops writing it.
Well, I've done a lot of writing on it and it's pretty good. I should work on it some more, or at least post to my web site what I've already written.
So basically, I never did find the story I wanted to work on... instead I found three other stories that I didn't remember, which I've written signifigant portions of, and which I'm now interested in working on some more.
Who knows what else is hidden in my computer files? Apparently I have no idea....
Beware the Anti-Santa!
Full Frontal Nerdity is scary this week, because much of it is apparently completely true...
I don't have roommates anymore but this scene is somewhat familiar. Well, apart from the swords....
