Scattered

I  had a chapter of my story, Scattered, plagiarized over on fanfiction.net recently. Thanks to an eagle-eyed reader who informed me about it, and thanks for a lot of folks from Checkmated and from SU, I had the stolen story removed, so all is well that ends well. The thief, though, wasn't very repentant. I got a whole garbled story about "I just posted this for my little sister" and "So what", and a lot of attitude, and then she deleted her email address -- caught red-handed, so she couldn't deny it, but the deleted address, I think, is because I let her know I tipped people off at the two big R/Hr archives... and she may have just signed up a new address and started plagiarizing someone else. So, if you've got stories there, keep your eyes open.

Not that there's any sure-fire way to stop a plagiarist. But I was somewhat surprised how angry I felt, when it happened. You put a lot of work into something, and someone steals it, and then they get praise for it -- argh, it made me so mad. Too bad it'll keep happening, I'm sure, as long as fanfic's around.

Well, it's finished. The final chapter and epilogue of Scattered are done, and posted at FictionAlley here. They should be up at Simply Undeniable soon.

I wrote a pretty lengthy author's note, lol, so I won't repeat it all here except to say -- what a feeling to have finished! I feel like writing this story has been a huge part of my life for so long, I'm not quite sure how it'll feel to have it done.

Thanks to everyone who's written and reviewed and been so encouraging throughout. This is a terrific fandom.

And a special note to lisarene -- let me know when you've read it, because I want to tell you something about the end I know you'll appreciate.

I've learned that some very kind person has nominated Scattered for Best Alternate Universe in the rhr_awards, and I'd have to guess it was one of you awesome people on my flist. So -- thank you! I'm flattered more than I can say. :)

Good morning! Well, my weekend was spent editing the latest chapter of Scattered, which you can read either here, and Simply Undeniable, or here, at Fiction Alley.

Whew. It seems to get harder the closer I get to the end. And, after this, there is one more full chapter and an epilogue, which I plan to post at the same time -- which means it may be a few weeks until I have them ready. And not just because of length, but because -- this is it. I have to make sure I get everything said, and everything tied up that's supposed to be, and everything covered. And the way I want it to be, as well. Argh, the stress. :) Anyhow, stay tuned.

But before I sign off, happy early birthday (I think it's tomorrow) to tesgirl123! Hope it's a great one.

Good morning! I just posted Chapter 46 of Scattered:

Fiction Alley
Simply Undeniable

This is a whole chapter, but really, it wasn't supposed to be. I'd planned on writing the "battle" scene at the Ministry all in one chapter, but I started going and, only about half-way through, I realized that I was already at chapter-length, and, more importantly, I came to a natural break point. So,while this may seem like an evil cliffhanger, really, what's happening is that you're getting one chapter more than you were going to, originally. :)

These scenes, really, are the toughest to write, for me, at least. Action isn't my forte, but sometimes, it needs to be shown. But maybe that's not really it: I think it's getting to the end that's hard.

I've just finished the series of outtakes I wrote for Scattered, Brief Lives. You can read the final chapter, The Beginning of the End, here.

The outtakes were very satisfying to write. I think the main story stands on its own without them, but I have revealed little things in Brief Lives that I haven't mentioned elsewhere. Which is natural, because these are points of view we haven't been seeing. And you never really know how the world looks from someone else's point of view.

Hi there, everyone! Well, now that the holidays are over, it's back to work... the real, employment kind (yuck) and the fun kind, which is this. Chapter 45 of Scattered is now up, at:

Fiction Alley
Simply Undeniable

In case you were wondering... there are three chapters (long ones, I promise), and an epilogue, to go. There will also be one final Scattered: Brief Lives. I hope to be finished by the end of February, possibly just the beginning of March. So I'll complete this story just shy of the two year anniversary of when I started it. :)

It's been a lot of fun, and these last few and the hardest chapters of all to write. Some of that is because it's writing action, and some because, this is when everything has to tie together. I'm constantly checking back to make sure I'm not contradicting something I said earlier, or forgetting to clear up a loose end.

One last update before the holidays! Chapter 44 of Scattered was uploaded this morning.

This was a fun chapter to write, for a lot of reasons, but you'd probably be surprised which parts were most fun...

( Stop until you've read the chapter... )

I've been trying to get the next chapter of Scattered written all week, but I've also been struggling with a nasty bad cold. It's still my hope to have this one out before Christmas.

A little musical inspiration for this chapter, one which depicts Ron & Hermione's night before the mission begins, in the morning: Sting's new recording of "Fields of Gold" from his album, "Songs From the Labryinth", featuring Sting on the lute. It's only available on the special edition of the album (try iTunes), but it's beautiful.

Good morning! I posted a new chapter of Scattered, Chapter 43. I hope you enjoy it!

This one was llooonnngger than I meant it to be. :) It just ended up taking a lot more time for Harry to say everything he needed to say, and the scene at the end, with the Trio, was something I'd planned for a long time.

This may be a silly thing to think of, but I was checking the word count of my fic last night, for purely technical reasons, and I realized that it's actually almost as long (and certainly will be when it's finished) as Goblet of Fire. Which is... weird, to me. Unimportant in the grand scheme of things, but I'm just a little, I don't know, surprised, that I more or less wrote a book -- granted, a fanfic one, not one with my own characters -- without even realizing it, LOL!

I updated with a new Brief Lives update -- here. This one is from Percy, a character I've grown very fond of in this story. The only problem is that the real canon Percy hasn't made such a transformation yet, if he ever will; I sometimes wonder. Will he come back to his family, as he has here, or will he continue to stubbornly separate himself? At the end of HBP, he's setting foot in his parents' house, so that's something, but he's only doing it because the Minister asks him to. So it's not a real reconciliation yet. And as for Penelope Clearwater, she hasn't been mentioned for a long time, in the books -- we have no indication that she and Percy are still a couple. We haven't been told they're not, either, for what it's worth.

Here, at least, Percy's situation has been resolved a lot more satisfactorily. And fwiw, his conflict in this piece will stand in juxtaposition to another Weasley's reaction to the battle plans, in the next chapter of Scattered.

So, the new chapter of Scattered is now up -- you can read it here

I'm very curious to know what everyone thinks of it. There was some tricky business in this one that's plot-driven; in other words, certain things have to happen, in order for the plot to go in the direction it needs to. That doesn't mean that I think it's all bollocks, or anything like that, lol. I just hope it turned out to be believable and effective.

First off, I want to wish a very happy birthday to lisarene. :)

Also, there is a new chapter of Scattered up. It's a bit of a short one, which I'll explain in a bit, but you can read it here.

A couple of thoughts about this chapter, but don't read these until after you've read it, of course...
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The wonderful lisarene suggested I post this here, in a new entry. Throughout writing this story, I've kept a detailed list of the "cast characters", adding new folks as they've arrived and updating the status of everything as the story progressed. Below is the current roster, as of Chapter 40. It also includes past information (safehouse assignments) and the layout of the castle.

On Liath Cuan

In the Castle:
1st floor: Great Hall, kitchens. Dobby, Winky. Meeting room.
2nd floor: Common room, Infirmary, Library, Classrooms
3rd floor: Molly & Arthur, Ron & Hermione, Bill, Charlie, Percy, Penny & Janie, Ginny, Harry, Fred
4th floor: Amos & Sheila Diggory, Dedalus Diggle, Elphias Doge, Ernie Macmillan, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Colin Creevey, Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnegan
5th floor: Minerva McGonagall, Poppy Pomfrey, Arabella Figg, Padma Patil, Parvati Patil, Luna Lovegood, Robert Lovegood, Hannah Abbott, Susan Bones
6th floor: Rolanda Hooch, Hestia Jones, Remus Lupin & Nymphadora Tonks

On the island:
Hagrid, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Emma Shacklebolt, Christopher Shacklebolt
McFustys: Hamish and Claire McFusty. Their son Andrew and Beth McFusty, his wife. Auntie Susannah McFusty, Hamish’s Aunt. Uncle Fergus, Hamish’s uncle and Susannah’s brother. Jamie McFusty, nephew of Hamish. Joanna McFusty, niece of Hamish. (Their parents, Douglas and Ainsley, died in the First War.) Hamish’s cousin, Charles McFusty, and his wife, Mairi, their sons, Cameron and Ian. Their daughter Sarah, married to Angus MacFarlane, small son Roger and his twin, Ellen. Two Hebridean Black dragons. Gnarsh (male) and Teena (female).

At Safehouses:

George had/should have had: Parvati, Lavender
Fred had: Padma, Dean
Remus had: Seamus, Hannah Abbott
Tonks had: Luna, Susan Bones
McGonagall had: Ginny, Colin Creevey, Justin Finch-Fletchley
Bill had: Ron, Hermione, Neville
Moody, Hagrid, Dobby and Harry were together

Death Eaters Known:

Lucius Malfoy is Minister of Magic. Bellatrix Lestrange, Rodolphus Lestrange, Antonin Dolohov, Rookwood, Macnair, Draco Malfoy, Theodore Nott.

Died:

Filius Flitwick, Sinistra, Pomona Sprout, Neville Longbottom, Dennis Creevey, Draco Malfoy, Alastor Moody, Rodolphus Lestrange

Missing:

George, Lavender

I planned to get the next chapter written yesterday, and I did -- you can read it here. Also, there was another Scattered: Brief Lives outtake posted recently, here.

This was a tough chapter for me, for some reason. The wedding was so much fun, and now I'm trying to write Ron & Hermione as a married co uple, slightly different than what they were before... There Harry and his plans, but of course, they don't know about them yet. Harry's time "alone", hunting horcruxes, really did change him. He's closed himself off to a lot of things, Ginny being one of them. Hermione keeps trying to chip away at that hard shell he's developed, and he lets her, a little, but really, just enough for her to know there's no changing his course, at this point.

And there's a happy event that I've been waiting to share, plus an arrival at the end. I do apologize for the cliffhanger, and promise that much more will be explained in the next chapter. We're building up to Harry's confrontation of Voldemort, which will play out in a focused way... not in a great battle, which will make a huge difference in the end.

I'm planning to write another "Scattered: Brief Lives" outtake this weekend, and I have a character in mind. I wonder sometimes, though -- is there a specific character that the readers who are so kindly following my story wish I'd write? I have to say that I don't think I'll be writing an outtake from Ginny or Harry's point of view: Harry's had his say, and just recently, and for other reasons, I need Ginny to remain a little mysterious. :)

I've also made a big change to the plot in the next few chapters, and it neatly solves the one thing I wasn't satisfied with. I know, I'm being vague, but I'm very relieved to have worked it out.

Hi -- the new chapter, with Ron and Hermione's wedding, is here. Thanks for reading!

I'm just about to post the wedding chapter to FictionAlley, and then to the other sites. I wanted to share with you the inspiration for Hermione's dress, something I've had saved on my hard drive for ages and have been waiting to use for this chapter. The dress is Italian, but the scrollwork on the front and the bodice looks just a little bit Celtic to me -- the model does bear a resemblance to EW and Hermione in general, but mostly, it was the dress itself that really stuck in my head.



Off to submit... I'll post a link to the new chapter here as soon as it's up.

I've started -- just started -- work on writing the wedding, and I got to the point where I was describing Ginny's bridesmaid dress. I realized what I had in my head is the one Katherine Heigl wore in last season's finale of "Grey's Anatomy". If you didn't see it, here's what it looked like:

I recently posted Chapter 38 of Scattered, and though I try not to let such things bother me, there was a complaint about wishing I would update quicker. I am grateful that anyone even reads my story at all, and shouldn't complain about any response I get, let alone someone asking for more.

The hard thing is, though, when you've been writing a story for a year and four months, now, and you've spent tons of time researching all kinds of facts and details, and you've been working through a complicated and intricate outline the whole time, trying hard to maintain continuity, and you're about eight chapters from the end, and you're posting about two chapters a month, it's tough to hear that you don't update often enough. But on the other hand, as I said, it's truly an honor, to me, that anyone even cares how often I update at all, I truly mean that, so I'm not angry. It's more that I feel as if they're saying, "you're letting us down" and I'm saying, "but I'm trying so hard not to!"

Anyhow. The wedding is next, and I'm a little nervous about writing it, because we have NO clue what wizarding weddings are really like, and we won't know until Book 7, with Bill & Fleur, and then it'll be too late. So I'm on my own. I think I'm going to keep it fairly close to a Muggle ceremony, to be honest, because of that uncertainty. And it's going to be outside. But the rest remains to be seen. The one thing I will say is that this chapter will be from Harry's POV, which is a big deviation. I don't know if it's been noticeable, but for the first 38 chapters, the POV alternated between Hermione, Ron, Bill and (when he was with us) Neville. Never anyone else; it can't be Neville anymore, and there might be one more Bill chapter later, so the rest will be Hermione and Ron. But for this one, I'm breaking the mold and going with Harry. Mostly, because I didn't want to see the wedding from one of their eyes and not the other. This way will be more "even" -- and may give some more time to what's happening (or not happening) to Harry and Ginny.