It's over, it's over, it's over, my friends

[tocryabout]

Chapter 15, "Toute en Splendeur", is complete. Referendum! Annoyingly political relatives! Hockey!

Upon some consideration, I decided that since I'm doing a sequel I have nothing much to say in the epilogue. So we're done. 65,700 words. Endnotes are here.

As a DVD extra sort of thing, I also found a file on my computer which you may or may not find interesting: the McCree/O'Brien family tree, with unimportant siblings left off (I was trying to save space). Nana is Margaret Macdonald, a reference to my own great-aunt who died this year. Grey text = deceased.

Finally, new banner:

(That's Tony Dekker of Great Lake Swimmers, not Joel Plaskett.)

Hooray for me, anyhow. The first chapter of the sequel is quite close to complete, so you'll be seeing it quite soon. As soon as I think of a title. (I always regretted giving Aphanes its rather impenetrable Greek name; not really a grabber.)

*drinks wine*

Comments

[ex-the-epic80.livejournal.com]

I will never be able to read your novel in the same light again, Francois Andreane.

[to-cry-about.livejournal.com]

Those are my initials and that is my mother's name, so I thought it was better than using my real name or my LJ handle.

[ex-the-epic80.livejournal.com]

F is your initial?

[to-cry-about.livejournal.com]

Frances Alexandra. Thus my fondness for the Poor Man of Assisi.

[ex-the-epic80.livejournal.com]

So, you're not actually an Alex? For shame.

[to-cry-about.livejournal.com]

Only losers go by their first names.

[ex-the-epic80.livejournal.com]

*runs off crying*

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Looking forward to reading it tonight. Why have you not yet announced this in xmmff?

[to-cry-about.livejournal.com]

Just did it, thanks for reminding me. I know some people hate works in progress because you never know if the author's going to stick with it, so I should pimp it around a bit now that it's done.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Yes you should. It's a fine piece of work and a true oddity! From me, that's a compliment. Odd, that is, by the "standards" of fanfic. Pushing the envelope is one of the greatest of human impulses. In fact, I'll pimp it myself!

I've come to like Joel very much by the end after feeling as pissed at him as I suspect Xavier and Cyclops felt early on.

I look forward to the sequel. I assume there will be some kind of crisis that will make Joel's safehouse necessary.

Lovely work that will stay in my heart, Alex. Thank you so much.

[to-cry-about.livejournal.com]

(Feh, LJ's not emailing comments to this account!)

I would sincerely, truly (truly madly deeply) appreciate any supportive pimping. I'm not on a lot of groups, and just hate advertising anyway, even though I know I should do it.

It is an odd piece of work, definitely. Sometimes I feel like working more within the fandom would be a bigger challenge, but all the fic I've written over the years (not a lot) and the stuff I've enjoyed most has been on the periphery of canon, playing fast and loose with the characters and throwing in a lot of original material. So as much as I feel like a loser for not using the constraints of the form to my advantage -- rules and conventions can be a good thing -- I'm not likely to produce something that's perfectly canon-worthy. (If I write that New X-Men fic I've been thinking about, it will be as an experiment in writing more fannishly.)

God, I hated Joel during the middle section. He gets more bearable as his real personality and values emerge, but my notes were full of frustrated remarks in the margins.

There shall be crises and conspiracies and romance and all manner of things in the sequel. It's more plot-heavy and will probably be longer.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm on board.

Okay, I pimped it in my journal. (LJ is not alerting me; you probably commented).

It's fascinating that it took the shocking events of his father's death to bring Joel out of his shell. I've been rereading the opening and I had forgotten just how far gone the boy was!

I love that you are on the periphery of canon. I love Cyclops, Jean and company just being supporting characters. Nonetheless, you handled them very well. Will we learn more of the relationship troubles between Scott and Jean? I was very touched by the moment where Scott knows that he must hug Joel and takes the Professor by surprise. Also, the scene of Jean in Joel's room, for the first time in her life unable to feel someone psychically. Good character moment and SPOOKY.

[to-cry-about.livejournal.com]

The entry was being hard to find, for some reason.

I really meant to do more with Scott and Jean than I did. Once the plot got moving I felt like there wasn't time, and then later I wanted to bounce Joel off people his own age, rather than surround him with adults all the time. But I should have played more with them, because (thinking out loud here) they add something -- Scott is a sane person who doesn't really know how to deal with a kid like Joel, which is why his embrace in the hospital room is the right move: it's a gesture of normality. Jean is almost a motherly figure, but unlike Joel's actual mother, she has some experience of being institutionalised. There's interesting stuff there, and I don't know if I'll get a chance to add to it in the next story. I hope so, because I feel like I shortchanged those characters.

And I like Scott and Jean, dammit.

[brownbetty]

I set this aside to read later and only just got around to it now. Thanks for getting Joel to this place where I can like him. And thank you so much for giving me so much Ottawa scenery!

[to-cry-about.livejournal.com]

Heh, I'm glad you stuck with him. He means well, like most of us messed-up and annoying people. And the Ottawa stuff was pure indulgence, I love writing it -- cities are poorer when nobody writes about them, even if all that's mustered up is fanfic and the occasional bone from real writers (Charles De Lint is my Ottawa-as-setting hero).

[youngest-one.livejournal.com]

Excellent work, as usual. The family gathering reminded me of all the various holiday dinners I've attended over the years - the smell of food, the kids yelling and laughing at their own table, well meaning relatives saying things that make you want to smack them.

I wasn't sure about the ending at first, but after reading it again, I've decided that it was appropriate. Joel's story was about finding acceptance and understanding, and his refusal to give up and go to his room showed just how much he's grown in the course of this story. I was proud, impressed, and touched. I can't wait to see where you take him next.

You mentioned in the author's notes that this story was inspired by a dream. Did you go straight from the dream to writing the story, or was there a longer interval in between?

[waterstrider.livejournal.com]

It wasn't a dream, just an image that came into my head somehow. (Although now that you mention it, I'm less and less certain that it wasn't a dream at some point.) Anyway, no, as I said I was noodling around with a couple of other pieces, which I then put aside for a long time before I could persuade myself to write fanfic.

The ending is a little mundane because Joel has had the necessary epiphanies, and having another one won't make a difference unless he gives in and lets the puck hit him in the face now and then. He needs to accept the world as much as the world needs to accept him. The choices are imperfection or nothingness, and he (rather grudgingly) chooses health, family, and friends, with all their limitations.