lirazel | and sometimes I write

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and sometimes I write

As stolen from

dollsome:

Ask me a question about one of my stories. It can be absolutely anything in any fic and I will tell you the honest-to-god answer. Don’t hold back. Ask about my plans for future parts of a current series if you want to, but keep in mind that I may not have anything firm/definite in the works. Anything. Whatever you ask, I will try my best to answer.

Any takers?

I will probably never get rid of this moodtheme because I'm always discovering new delights. Seriously? "Mellow" is Hyde rubbing a pretty pink pillow against his face? WHAT THE HELL? I love this moodtheme.

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Hi there :) I actually have a question about 'the fury of jewels and coal.' My favorite storyline in the fic was the one between Dean and Cordelia. Did you ever want to go back and do a continuation of sorts...where he finds out that she died? I adore Cordelia and she's easily one of my favorite female characters of all time, and I think you described her really well. So I think you would do a great job with Dean finding out she died and thinking back about her.

(oh and the links for 'carnival' and 'all the way down' don't work. Carnival links to the 'fury of jewels and coal' and the link for the second one doesn't exist. I would love to read them both if you still have them posted on your LJ somewhere. thanks :) :)

Oh! I love that fic! It delights me so that you remember it with fondness! Seriously: I never would have written if I hadn't been given the prompt, but it turned out to be something I'm really proud of.

I honestly haven't thought about continuing it. But I love Cordy, too, and I'm so glad you think I wrote her well.

I do think a story from Dean's perspective with a reaction to her death would be really compelling; it would also allow me to explore my Issues with how her death was virtually ignored in AtS S5. I do think he would genuinely mourn her, and I love anything that lets me explore Dean's more vulnerable side.

It's a lovely idea, and who knows? But I wouldn't hold my breath.

Thanks so much for asking the question!

Oh, no! I don't know why the links don't work! I'll fix them now, and you should be able to follow them very soon. In the meantime, Carnival is up on both ff.net and Archive of Our Own under the penname Lirazel.

[EDIT] I just fixed the links! I hope you enjoy them! And if you do find any more broken links, do let me know. I hate when that happens!

Edited 2010-02-24 03:02 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing the links so quickly! Your stories are lovely...they're like reading poetry in a form of a fic. Your Sam/Tyra story in particular was short but oh, so sweet.

I can't wait to read more of your work. I still have a whole bunch to go and I'm really looking forward to them :)

Please tell me about how you chose the poems for Ars Poetica and your process in creating it. I love that story!

Oh, yay! Great question!

Once upon a time, a girl (sometimes) called Lauren was sitting in her Senior Seminar class and grew a bit bored.

Okay, I'm not keeping that up. Anyway, I flipped to the back of our textbook--Helen Vendler's Poems Poets Poetry which is the most awesome poetry textbook in the history of the world: woman has awesome taste--where there's a random anthology of the some of the most diverse poetry in the Western canon.

And I found "Sonnet III" by Edna St. Vincent Millay (the "I would have loved you in a day or two" poem). And it was so Spuffy. Like...I was kind of uncomfortable with just how much that poem reminded me of them. From the first moment I read it, I couldn't separate it from them.

And I think right then I scribbled down the bit about Buffy not crying until she's in her class at school? Just the first few lines.

But I didn't have a story and I couldn't think of one. I just knew that I needed to share that poem with the other Spike/Buffy writers. So I set it aside, but I kept it in the back of my mind because I just knew I'd finish it someday.

I revisited it later, I think when we talked about "The Kill" in class (from the Vendler book) and it reminded me of Buffy and Spike in S6. And from there I decided to do the poetry thing, especially when I saw that the theme for seasonal_spuffy that round was poetry.

A few of the poems came first--"Sonnet III," "Up," "The Kill"--and from there I sat down and tried to find poems to fit each season. I was gonna do one poem per season, but I ended up doing like three or four for S6, but that made sense because of how central Spike is to Buffy's life in that season. I had scribbled down a list of seasons and written in the poems that fit already, and then I went hunting for the others.

Quite a few of the poems, honestly, are from that Vendler text. "The Kill" and "Up" definitely are. As for the rest...well, it was just a matter of coming up with poems that would fit with those two characters. I had read the Dickinson ("Fate slew him") once upon a time and it was just made for a post-Shanshu Spike, so that one definitely had to go in. And I love Dorothy Parker and wanted to include her, and her "you might as well live" poem just fit S6 so perfectly. I'm really proud of having Dawn be the one to say that one.

The Donne poem I just wanted to include because it's the sexiest poem ever. ;) I think I settled on the Shakespeare from typing in "poems about mercy" into google, and then I couldn't resist the idea of Spike shouting Shakespeare from Giles's bathtub ("we band of buggered" anyone?).

The e.e. cummings was me going through every cummings poem trying to find one to fit. And it did. I know that I just went through every Browning sonnet I could find to find the poem Buffy writes to Spike in "Touched," and I still can't believe how perfectly it ended up fitting the story. I was looking for one that specifically didn't mention the word "love," because I didn't think Buffy was quite there yet. "Fletcher McGee" was actually

mere_ubu's suggestion, because as the deadline grew closer, I was still a few poems short, and I made a frantic request for suggestions in my journal. It ended up working really, really well.

So yeah. That's the Epic Story about how I found the poems.

I love this! I'm now imagining you in class unable to keep your mind off Buffy and Spike (which is as it should be) and plotting your fic.

♥

Aw! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

And you seriously wouldn't believe the amount of fic I wrote in classes. Not usually in that one, because it was a really awesome class...but yeah: I was often with the Spuffy-ing and the plotting.

I just had to pop in here comment...I used to write a lot of fanfic, but I never finished any of it. I have to say though...I think I did 90 percent when I was either in class or at work. For some reason, my muse would kick in when I had a million other things to do!

Hi! I want to start by saying that I love your fic. love love love love. love. I've read a lot of really excellent stories in the short(ish) time I've been a part of the fandom. I've read great smut, great snark, great fluff, but your stories really stand out for me. I think the way you write is deep, and sometimes it's really beautiful.

*tries not to be mushy and obnoxious*
hee

anyway. I have a point. promise. I think my favorite story of yours that I've read is Infinitas Infinitio Infinitus. I was just wondering what got you going on that idea, because I think it's great and it makes sense, like I could see that happening. And also, because I do this when I write, I was wondering if you had maybe thought up a rough in-between story from like, post-NFA-ish to when your story started, or what you imagined had got them to that place.

You are so, so sweet! Really, that comment made my entire day, you do not even know. Thank you so much.

That's a really great question. III was inspired by all those fics in which Buffy is claimed by Spike and thus becomes immortal. In all of those fics (some of which are otherwise really good), she has a moment of "Oh, no! I'm gonna live forever!" and then she discovers that she loves Spike so much that she decides living forever is OMG SO GREAT!!1! I don't buy that. At all. Buffy's never been the kind to be so caught up in her romantic feelings that everything else goes by the wayside (well, sometimes with Angel, but she was just a teenager; my Bufy's long ago outgrown that tendency). I cannot imagine any scenario in which Buffy would react well to the idea of watching those she cares about growing old and dying. Her relationships are what make her who she is. She'd not let go of them easily. So the story was really about her not reacting well.

But at the same time, I so desperately want Buffy to be happy. So I wanted to end the story with some hope. It took me a while to post the final chapter because I wanted the balance to be between the fact that Buffy's never going to be okay with this...and some real, genuine hope that she will be okay anyway. I'm still not entirely sure I accomplished that, but that's what I was going for.

I also like the idea of Slayers being sort of the inverse of vampires. In that way of thinking, it makes sense that Slayers have the potential (heh!) to live forever: vampires do, too. But just as (I imagine) most vampires live short lives, Slayers do, too, because of the violence. Buffy's the first one to not be the only Slayer; thus, it makes sense that she'd be the first one to see what living forever feels like.

And honestly, I actually have considered writing a prequel to it, mostly because I've always wanted to read a story in which Angel Shanshus and Spike doesn't...but Buffy chooses Spike anyway. I don't know that I've read any like that. If I did write a prequel...that's what it would be about. I wouldn't hold my breath, though.

Thanks again for the lovely compliments and the insightful questions!

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