Now I am going to actually do something nano-like, I swear.

[melannen]

I am so used to working right up against deadlines (whether self-imposed or not) that it feels really, really weird to finish something, and then not post it immediately. I keep finishing a part, and then going a reloading e-mail automatically for feedback even though I haven't posted anything, fail.

Why yes, I have reached that point in November when I am desperately accomplishing things in order to avoid working on my NaNo! That's basically the two things I love most about NaNo: the month before, when I can give myself permission to do lots of research and pre-writing without feeling like I should be just sitting and writing the damn thing, and the tail end of the month, when the sense of impending doom gives me that feeling of last-ditch freedom and my internal editor comes off on everything else.

(Not my yuletide letter, though. In my defense, I had it 75% written and then lost it all in a browser crash - oh, DW autosave, why are you so useless? - so I'm taking a few days to mourn.)

Also in the shadow of impending doom, I have signed up for TGS Big Bang. Yes, I should have known better, but I got permission to sign up to finish the Doctor Who Crossover of Doomy Doom, which I might actually do! Or at least manage to add 10,000 words to it in two months. (Although, having added up that I already have over 8,000 in one-and-a-half chapters of a projected at least eight, I may decide to just write the prequel - preliminary title "Jez vs. Atmos" - instead.

Here are some lists of other things I want to be writing instead of NaNo or important grownup stuff or my overdue Ace Manifesto:

People who should be paired with Jamie MacCrimmon in the period between "War Games" and Season 6b:
1. Duncan Macleod
2. Lord John Grey (Seriously, why has nobody written this one yet?)
3. Nestene!Rory
4. ??? (If you can find me two more I might even manage a Five Things ^_^)

Vorkosigan Universe Fanfic that Should Be Written:
1. The AU where Cordelia let them try the fast-penta in Shards of Honor, and the whole Barrayaran mess ended up in Mehta and Taylor's laps instead.
2. The story where Aral's first wife's death was faked by Xav's wife, who smuggled her off to Beta, where she became an LPST and ended up mentoring Kareen. (Also, the story where Xav's wife retired to Beta and wound up best friends with Cordelia's mother, much to everybody's horror. Possibly writeable as a Cryoburn follow-up.)
3. The story about how one of those other uterine replicators post-Shards of Honor contained the Emperor's half-brother, and how the Emperor found out, and what happened afterward.
4. The story about the time Miles and Mark and Ivan went to Cetaganda for a diplomatic meeting and "met" (by way of finding him trying to sneak into the Barrayaran embassy) the youngest Cetagandan Prince, who looks a lot like Miles - and his Ba servitor, who looks even more like Miles - and what happened after Mark told Cordelia.
5. The story about what happened the first Emperor's Birthday after Twitter came to Barrayar, and how they talked Miles out of firebombing the headquarters of @eyespycoc (without telling him that it was Mark's idea in the first place.)

Comments

[beatrice_otter]

Yes, yes those VK fics should be written, particularly 1, 3, and 4. Alas, I don't write VK much as I love it.

[melannen]

Alas, same here, more or less. Maybe somebody will wander by this entry and pick them up!

[bessemerprocess]

The things I would do to read Vorkosigan Au #4, well, let's just say i wants it A LOT.

[melannen]

The thing is I'm not entirely convinced it is an AU, so much as a rifle LMB left laying around that she's fully planning to fire off eventually. Especially as she set all her ducks in a row so neatly: Miles agreeing to let his genome be added to the Haut in the blithe conviction that it's purely ceremonial (and, given the sort of things that happen to Miles when he's blithe, and who exactly is running the Star Creche, the entirely *false* conviction). And then Miles being put in charge of revamping Barrayar's reproductive and inheritance law, and designing it to bring in as much Betan custom as possible, fill it with pit-traps to keep any High Vor from being able to exploit the tech, and solidify Dono's (gender creativity) and Rene's (Cetagandan connections) and Mark's (born without his parent's knowledge) positions -- it's set up to be a classic case of Miles hoist by his own petard.

And if Pel, Rian, and Fletchir started the test run immediately after Diplomatic Immunity - which is precisely the sort of thing they'd do - I am just waiting for the reaction when Vorbarr Sultana learns that a Cetagandan Ba is technically second in line for the Vorkosigan countship.

(The question is, do you wants it enough to writes it yourself? Well, do you? :D )

[seekingferret]

My suspicion has always been that the reason Miles was so blithe about giving his genetic material in Diplomatic Immunity is he figured they already had his material in their library. How else would a pack of Cetagandans confirm by A Civil Campaign that Lord Vorkosigan was the same as Admiral Naismith? And given that the Cetagandans had long believed that Naismith was a Betan clone of Miles, perhaps plans to create a Cetagandan Miles go back far earlier than you predicted.

[melannen]

Oh, I'm sure they had his material long before! And had been playing with it! But they couldn't actually incorporate it into the Haut genome until they made it official, or they'd be breaking their own system in a way that wolud risk destabilizing it - tho' I do wonder how much they were looking for an excuse to make it official, and whether Miles would have found himself called before the Emperor on some pretext whether DI happened or not - Pel and Rian seemed *really* interested in introducing some new unpredictable elements to the Haut experiment. ^_^ Which is why I suspect they'd have started cooking a little Miles almost immediately after DI.

[seekingferret]

Hmm... Yeah, I guess. Also, I haven't read Cryoburn, so I don't know if it shakes any of this up, but how is the (totally not hypothetical) Cetagandan Miles second in the succession? Aral Alexander, Mark, then Cetagandan Miles, then Ivan, right? Unless Nikki's somewhere in the line. I'm unclear about that.

[melannen]

It would depend on whether the new succession laws counted the Cetagandan as Miles' sibling or his child - but given that it was Miles, not Aral and Cordelia, who gave them permission to use his genetics, then based on the Betan rules at least, I suspect it would be child.

So, if the Ba was conceived right after Diplomatic Immunity, it would be less than a year younger than Aral, and by my hypothetical-designed-to-trap-Miles-as-much-as-possible new rules + Cordelia leaning on him + Gregor saying "Let's see what happens", that would make the Ba count as Miles' second acknowledged son.

(I suspect Nikki is well out of the succession - he probably could be in if both he and Miles wanted him to, since a Count can name whoever he wants as long as the Council will approve apparently, and if all of Miles' and Mark's direct lines were wiped out he might take it, but I suspect Nikki knows better than to want a Countship.)

ETA: Also, I just realized I've not been clear - I wasn't thinking that the Haut children would be more direct clones of Miles, I don't think the Star Creche would be all that interested in that, it's so unartistic - but that they would be close to half Miles, with enough Rian and Fletchir to be in the Imperial line, plus some extra mods. Figuring out Haut genetic lines is, as we know, complicated.

[avendya]

If I ever have the energy, I totally want to write 3 & 4.

Also, can we have the next VK book now? Cryoburn wasn't exactly a favorite, and THAT ENDING.

[melannen]

Aww, I liked Cryoburn fine! It was a perfectly serviceably science fiction novel that address a technological/social/economic issue that I hadn't seen addressed that way before.

(...okay, there was no particular reason it had to be a *Vorkosigan* novel, but there was nothing wrong with it. I actually like that she's throwing in the occasional one-shot where the stakes aren't all that personal; it gives her characters a chance to destress, balances the series a bit, and keeps it from just all turning into angsty fanfic of her own work. That said, those ending drabbles should have been banned under the Geneva Convention.)

Have you read the spoilers for the next one, which will hopefully be out soonest? Talking about fanfic of her own work, OMG.

[avendya]

Very true, although I think two stand-alones in a row is a bit much. I want more Gregor & Ekaterin and Cordelia and Laisa. Especially Laisa - we see so little of her and she is clearly awesome. (Is there actual Laisa-centric fic? I have yet to find any.)

Spoilers for the next book? Tell me more! Also, do we have any idea on release date for the next book?

[melannen]

LMB read the first two chapters of the next one at Cryburn signings, and they ended up transribed on vorkosigan: Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. Supposedly it's over half written, it's set between ACC and Cryoburn, and it's working title is "Ivan, His Boke." :D Hopefully it won't be too long, LMB sounds excited about finishing it!

Laisa-fic: there's been a little bit? There's The Proposal, which is Laisa/Gregor first time from Laisa's POV, and avanti_90 recently wrote a pair of fics about Laisa coming to terms with Aral's legacy: Element of Doubt. (Why yes, I do read every bit of fic that comes through the DW and LJ communities.)