Look what I did - Mablung/Damrod and the Good Southron

I've finished my first fic: "Mablung/Damrod and the Good Southron." I'm not sure who it's supposed to appeal to, since it has a spot of, shall we say, erotica in, but isn't all about that, and anyway it's not about Elves. Sorry, girls :) But the good news is it's about Mablung (Pippa: Squee!) and Damrod and Faramir, and a couple of bit-part new characters including a woman with a personality and a speaking part, with a battle scene, banter, sex, exploration of Southron/Mordor alliance, romance (just), musings on how the Faramir/Boromir comparison represents the decline of Gondor, an oliphant, tie-in to ancient legends, a few snippets of Southron culture and language I've made up.

If anyone wants to beta-read (ie. amateur editor), or offer advice on linguisticly plausible Southron words, please, get in touch. Otherwise when a couple of friends have vetted some of it, I'll probably serialize it here.

I know first pieces always suck, but the fact that I have ever read a book, have included a plot, have exactly one sentance between full stops, have written 6,000 words, and have tried to make the characters act, well, in character, seems to put me ahead of 99% of writers, some published. I'm not sure if this is reassuring or depressing.

Look what I did - What next?

As seen below, I've finished my first minor fic. That was fun! What shall I write nex?!. I've a few ideas:

Shadows in the Cave Classic Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Back when men were... uh, I mean season 1 or 2 ish. Ancient evil cult practicing human sacrifice to raise power trapped souls in the rock in a cave blah blah blah walls come alive, necking couple get it in the neck rather more than they'd expected, Scoobies investigate, beatiful glittering cave with stalag-tights and -mites , a bit of horror as the walls start to bubble and huge rock fists strain to close of the exit, mystery of some object of power to save them...

Chess on the discworld Colon and Nobby dancing together at the Folk Dance and Song Club. Vimes struggling with hangovers. Vetinari, Lord Hong, History Monk Abbot, and Death locked in various games of chess for unspecified stakes, and all incapable of remembering how the little horse shaped ones move. Set a bit further back when Death and Vetinari were sinister, Vimes hadn't amounted to anything, Carrot hadn't or had just arrived, but all their new friendships were beginning to appear.

Spike/Buffy Little plot. Much sexual tension, bondage, passive-aggresive flirting, exploration of will they/won't they, why/why not. One for anyone who finds either of them hot (does that exclude anyone?). Set in the early days of their "relationship."

Something original. I'm not sure what. I've a couple of ideas. (1) Scientist stumbles across stargate-like technology, discovers mutli-species trading empire, his version is more efficient, earth nearly wiped out in war to get it, he escapes, feels guilt, wanders the other worlds becoming a legend, attempting to build revolution against earth's occupiers, and generally being a rogue/con man/hero. (2) Ditto stargate. Planet of lizards? Have evolved to feel caring about these plants they're almost symbiotic with the way we do about children. Unfortunately those are useful to us for... something. Big moral dilemma. Vegetarianism allegories.

I hope the poll system works. Click "vote" to vote for the option above. Be careful not to hit refrsh on that screen, but do do so on the lj or you won't see the result. For three votes you should see "0123", possibly with broken images after the 3. But the raw results are also available here: www.srcf.ucam.org/~jv233/polls/results.txt.

Please click the 'test vote' button below every so often as well, even if you don't want to vote, to let me see if IP logging, etc works. It'd also be helpful if you could post a comment at the same time. But you don't have to. If anyone has a better suggestion for polling...