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I was glancing through my files this weekend, and saw some of the pictures I'd saved to serve as mental reference points for LMM characters - both canon and my own creations. It made me smile kind of wistfully; I don't have any ambition to go back and write more LMM fanfic, especially not now when I barely have enough time for any of my original writing, much less stories set in someone else's world, but honestly, I miss the fun and camaraderie of when all (or many) of us were all writing LMM stories around the same time, commenting on each other's works and sharing ideas, things that drove us nuts from the original books, and everything else.
I know that moving forward from one interest/activity to a different one is natural and healthy, and that it makes sense that our involvement in LMM fanfic would wane, especially with kids and life taking over, but I still miss it! I miss reading all your stories, and even miss writing my own.
Who knows, maybe five years down the road, kids in school and life calming down, we'll find ourselves returning to our PEI stories, revisiting old characters and stories. Maybe not, maybe the gate to the road is closed for good, but ... I guess only time will tell.
I know that moving forward from one interest/activity to a different one is natural and healthy, and that it makes sense that our involvement in LMM fanfic would wane, especially with kids and life taking over, but I still miss it! I miss reading all your stories, and even miss writing my own.
Who knows, maybe five years down the road, kids in school and life calming down, we'll find ourselves returning to our PEI stories, revisiting old characters and stories. Maybe not, maybe the gate to the road is closed for good, but ... I guess only time will tell.
I feel the exact same way. I've been about to reread everyone's fanfics again, just because I miss those characters a little bit and loved the camaraderie.
I have been reading through Gwen's first story again and you know I would flip if Adrienne updated TTTT... but I know we are all so busy now.
I keep wanting to rewrite my Blythe By Name story. I wasn't pleased with how mean the kids came across in the first version, and I am toying with making Bruce the one who gets married instead of Shirley just because I think he and Sally would be closer. I have planned out all of my storylines for a sequel and I actually spend a lot of time every night before I drift off to sleep planning out scenes, dialogue, and descriptions! But that is as close as I have come in a long time. I feel like Sally's story should be told, I just don't know if I will ever have time to write it.
I haven't done much writing lately, ff or not, and I miss it.
Louise: Maybe we could share some of our original writing in the meantime? I would actually have to sit down and write something, but maybe I should...
If I had a child who napped, I would update TTTT. I don't though. It's a tradeoff for her sleeping at night. My stuff has been on my mind some lately.
I love thinking about if Sally, Gwen, and Hope ever met, how they would get along and what sort of influences they would be on each other.
I looked over my outline for the third Gwen story and I still like the idea the someday writing it, but A) it would take a lot of research (she was going to join the Wrens), and B) I have so many projects on my plate at the moment that adding another one is insanity.
If I ever did any rewriting of Gwen's first story, I think the only major changes I would make would be to have Shirley and Persis married to different people - I might write Persis out entirely, have her married to someone offstage, and just give Shirley's wife that same fiery personality; and to make Oliver a little less likable at first, so it's not quite such a shock when he turns out to be obnoxious after he thinks he falls in love with Gwen. The one consistent comment I got from reviewers was that they couldn't get used to the change in him, so I'd like to make it more natural.
BUT, who knows if I'll ever have a chance to rewrite that!
I still think we should write a story in the round! that way we'll get to appreciate each others writing again, even if we don't have a lot of time to write. What if we each created a grandchild of Anne's and wrote letters between them?
Oh, I just now saw this comment. I think that would be so fun! Or if we didn't want to make it fanfic, we could still use that time era and just create original cousins writing to each other. I'm definitely up for that - letters are so much easier than full-blown stories!
Let's do it! Adrienne, you down?
I think I could be up for it. I'm sorry to repsond so slowly. I've been using my little spare time on a new project.
Should we each pick a canon character to act as parent, and let the rest unfold from there, each of us establishing our own nuclear family and letting the rest of the aunts/uncles/cousins/friends unfold with the letters? That would give us the choice to choose a child from:
Jem & Faith
Nan & Jerry
Rilla & Kenneth
Di & ?
Shirley & ?
Carl & ?
Persis & ?
(And if anyone wanted to do a match-up between any of those last four, or put Una with Shirley, have at it.)
I've never done Rilla and Ken or Nan and Jerry as parents of my primary character before, so I'd love to pick one or the other. I'm leaning toward Rilla and Ken, but if anybody else wants them, I will chose another.
What ages/years are we leaning toward? Would you like to start with a younger age/toward the beginning of the 1930s, so that we have room to grow and get to know our characters before getting into heavier times?
Another thought...maybe we could make a central plot or focus for the story to revolve around to keep it coherent. Like a mystery, or a question or an event?
And should we try to work out some background details for the characters/families we don't pick?
Could they maybe be trying to figure out something about Uncle Walter - I am guessing the family wouldn't talk about him much, and maybe one of them could have found some of his poems, or Rilla's kid could find some of his letters to her during the war, and they could be trying to get to know this mysterious uncle of theirs?
Or they could be wanting to learn more about Anne's people. Or it could be something completely different, like one of them finds an old abandoned house and the others try to help that one learn about who built it and why it was abandoned. Or one of them could meet an older, lonely woman and they could all plot how to help her be happy again. Or - although this is stretching it for the Blythe family - there could be an estrangement in the family that they are trying to heal.
Those are just a few ideas right off the top of my head - I won't be offended if you guys don't like any of them!
I like the idea of starting them younger, too. Canada was hit pretty hard by the Depression, too, so we could even use that as our central theme - trying to make do in such hard times, and still trying to help others, too.
I was halfway leaning toward a child of Jem and Faith's - but I haven't started forming a character yet or anything, so if anyone else really had their heart set on them, I can very easily switch to someone else.
Great ideas, Louise! I like the ones about Uncle Walter and the lonely woman, especially. Maybe some matchmaking? The girls could have inherited the gene from Anne. :) We could even bring another family member into it, like Aunt Persis/Uncle Carl/Una/Shirley/Bruce/Jims.
If this all seems too complicated, we could maybe do something vaguer, like each girl was given a blank book by Grandfather Blythe the last time they were together, and are struggling with thoughts of how/what to fill it with? Or a bet, or a prediction? Or even just writing back and forth and seeing where we go, if this all seems too complicated.
I did some daydreaming last night and I think I would really like to write the daughter of Rilla and Ken. I would make her live in Toronto, which could give them all a reason to write back and forth that wouldn't be there if they all lived on the Island together.
What do you all think?
Maybe trying to matchmake Aunt Una and uncovering the truth about her feelings for Uncle Walter? I like this idea but I also feel weird about it, since I was pretty sure LMM wanted to keep it Una's secret (until I read The Blythes are Quoted, in which EVERYBODY seems to already know about it).
I thought about doing something with Una, but I wasn't sure - variations on that theme have been done a lot, I didn't want to overuse something. I like the idea of blank books, a challenge from Grandfather Blythe, to find something to write in the books every day for an entire summer, and then we can intersperse journal entries with letters to each other.
I like the challenge, too, and the ability to intersperse journal entries. Adrienne, thoughts?
I think also that part of the fun of this is to allow things to crop up/be introduced that the other writers aren't expecting and see how our characters react! So perhaps it is for the best that we don't do something too restrictive.
Would you want to post our story on FF.net or to post them here or in another format?
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