Discovered on a Hard Drive

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Ah, Spring - the snowdrops are out, the daffodils are thinking about it, and it's just a little bit warmer... Soon there will be skipping lambs, and fluffy bunny rabbits, and... well, nothing that was particularly inspiring us for the next challenge. We squinted into the earlier light of the mornings, we thought and thought our way through the later dusk of the evenings, but there was no Challenge muse... So we waited, we rested, we kept an ear to the ground and an eye out, and our wooden legs polished and ready, and...

...and there it was: The Meme. It slipped its way through our flists, it taunted us and tempted us, and now, finally - we have understood its message. A Challenge!
Discovered on a Hard Drive!
We thought this might be the perfect time to encourage some spring cleaning of your hard drives. Do you have a vid that's lying around half-finished? A drawing that you started, but the nose went wrong, and it never quite made its way back into daylight? A glorious Pros epic? A drabble with just three too many words that somehow was never fixed? An old calendar that was once meant for 2006, but time just seemed to pass you by?

Do you have plot bunnies fast asleep in your hard drive?

Discovered on a Hard Drive is your chance to exchange the dustiness of unfinished business for that glow of smug satisfaction - and for comments, and squees of joy from Dialj flisters! To join in all you need to do is complete the WIP meme in your own lj an example of which is here and post a link to it as a comment to this post to let us know that you have WIPs. Then go off and take a little time, and finish that Work in Progress! The meme can be adapted to use for vidders and artists - rather than posting a sentence, post perhaps a sentence of description for the artwork, or the title of the music being used for the vid. And when you're done post your creation to Dialj! Your finished, completed, sated creation!

Everyone who completes the challenge and posts a WIP will be awarded the Banner of Satisfaction, and we will be cheering you along the way too, because we're going to make this a longer challenge, a challenge with time for people to finish looooong stories, or detailled drawings - or multiple WIPs - in fact the more WIPs you finish and post, the better!

So - you can post any time after you've linked to your WIP meme post, and any time up until midnight in your own timezone on the 31st of May (and yes, there will be our usual flexibility to post up until midnight in Pago Pago time, but please don't post after that - keep to the spirit of the Challenge!) All of which means that this challenge will run for three months...

As usual, you're not committing to anything by commenting to say that you'd like to take part, or by posting the WIP meme to your own lj, but think how satisfying, how spring-clean-shiny you'll feel if you are able to point back to your WIP post, and say "I wrote those - they're done!"
o0o
One final instruction - as usual, please post a "trailer" containing the following information at the end of your creation rather than at the beginning. There has been discussion about this, and more thoughts and ideas are welcome in response to that post, but since we've not yet found a better solution that both provides warnings/spoilers for people that want them, and yet doesn't force them upon people who don't, trailers at the end of stories etc are still what is requested for now.
Title:
Author:
Disclaimer:
Notes:
Warnings (only if absolutely necessary):

Reminder: none of the Pros archives are currently archiving fic automatically. Archiving seems to be as follows:
ProsLib CD - Please send stories to proslib at gmail dot com
Automatic Hatstand - Please post your stories via your own Automatic Hatstand account
Circuit Archive - No information/update known
o0o

And finally - how fab is the new Challenge banner? Courtesy of empty_mirrors of course!

So... anyone for a good WIPing?

Comments

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

So, putting my potential fic where my mouth is - I shall try and finish some WIPs for the challenge! My WIP Meme post is here (http://byslantedlight.livejournal.com/164701.html) so that you can see what I'm doing... trying to do... doing. *g*

[mab-browne.livejournal.com]

Okay, I only have one Pros wip in my WIP meme (http://mab-browne.livejournal.com/179850.html) but with such a long time frame, I shall commit myself to finishing it for the challenge.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Excellent - yeay!

[msmoat.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I like this challenge! I have lots of WIPs...some novel length. Even with May 31, I'm not doing the novel length ones. *g* But...hmm... I shall have a look! It's going to take me a while just to do the meme thing, but I will. Fabulous idea! (And thank you for the length of it!)

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Oh the meme is fun enough to do for itself too! No rush about posting it though, enjoy... *g* We do like to have longer-running Challenges now and then too - and this one ends way after March!

[sc-fossil.livejournal.com]

Nice banner. I like it.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

It's gorgeous, isn't it - empty_mirrors is so good! I'm so glad she's my co-mod! *vbg*

[sineala.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, you've posted this right after I posted saying I'd finished the draft of my WIP. Hmph. And it was a long one and everything! I don't think it still counts. (And besides, it's, uh, too long to post in one LJ post, anyway.)

Sigh.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Eeeh - that was bad timing! You'll just have to write us something else instead... since you're gonna post us gorgeous novel-length Pros, I reckon we can give you latitude to post one of the WIPs you were thinking about when you were writing novel-length Pros... cos if you hadn't been writing, you would have had more WIPs, right? *g*

If you don't have webspace to post your novel, I might be able to host it over at palelyloitering, and then you could post a link to the_safehouse. I've done that before for Dialj when stories are too long to post in an lj, and I think it's worked out pretty well. Here's what it would look like (http://www.palelyloitering.com/Dialj/Tail%20of%20Tails%20MagentaBlue.htm)...

[sineala.livejournal.com]

Heh. You just want more long Pros fic from me, don't you? :P

(I have no webspace, but I was going to just put it on the Hatstand and Archive Of Our Own and then link, when I'm ready to release it...)

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Hee - always. And definitely more! (I've started that first project, btw... *g*)

You know the other thing that occurred to me, was that you could upload it as a pdf via palelyloitering too, so that it'd be all downloadable like a zine... (did you see the Christmas Dialj Bounds?) And yeah, this occurred to me cos of the other conversation... *g* But it'd be pretty as a zine-style pdf as well, and people wouldn't have to read each chapter separately, or reformat their bottoms off, and you could do both, and so much nicer to print off... *g* You could even add a cover... *vbg*

[sineala.livejournal.com]

Heh. The AOOO offers "read all chapters on one page" as an option for readers; it's really a great archive. (And once it comes out of beta, I suspect a lot of people will enjoy the "turn all warnings off" option on their accounts.)

I could make a .pdf too, I suppose. I could even use LaTeX and make a really, really well-formatted .pdf (because anything anyone writes in LaTeX is beautiful and gorgeous, even if it's absolute nonsense), but then I don't know enough about LaTeX to add a graphic, if I had one. (Plus, in LaTeX, it's actually a simple matter to produce PDFs for, say, A4 *and* 8.5 x 11" at the same time, and then everyone has something they could print.)

But first, this thing needs, you know, editing. :P

I have seen the DiaLJ pdfs -- or, at least, the first one -- but, there's, uh, some font-inclusion problems, so that everything that's not story text is unreadably kerned together in a weird font on my computer, because presumably I don't have that font. This is one of the perils of .pdfs.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Oh, I've never heard of that pdf issue before - certainly no one's ever said anything so that I could do something about it... font inclusion issues, eh...interesting... Sounds like you've got your non-WIP well in hand though, so I shall just sit back and wait to see it linked up somewhere... *g*

[sineala.livejournal.com]

I checked, and the other two work fine for me. I am not in any way an expert, but I think it's a problem you get when the pdf expects your computer to have a font that it doesn't. *shrug*

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Hey, thanks for checking! And your theory sounds quite likely... *g*

[hambelandjemima.livejournal.com]

Fan-bloody-tastic! The banner is awesome and I love the challenge ♥ How can I not take part with three months to work in? :D

Here (http://hambelandjemima.livejournal.com/22569.html) be my WIPs meme. There are only three on there, although I have other ideas jotted down. Two of those I've listed are going to be long ones though... oo-err, missus!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Excellent - yeay! *g* And the banner is fab, isn't it!

[biani.livejournal.com]

Oh, I have a feeling that I am gonna love this challenge!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Heee! Hope so! *vbg*

[solosundance.livejournal.com]

well I haven't done the meme but if I had I'd have stuck this in:

Rather disturbingly Bodie babbled something about the park and polos and cocoa when Doyle called him from an obbo and later from the squadroom.

Hahaha! May 31 is such a long way away, why it's practically next year ... so I'll try and play. Fabulous idea for a challenge and the banner is gorgeous.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Hee - you can always do the WIP meme now, there's no time limit! Not that I'm thinking that way we might get more than one WIP from you or anything... *g*

But ooooh... WIP you did post... yeay Jojo fic! *vbg*

[m31andy.livejournal.com]

My WIP list (http://m31andy.livejournal.com/430034.html#cutid2)

Not sure what I'll get finished (the middle one is novel length and only plotted apart from a couple of sentences), but I'll have a go!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Excellent!

[callistosh65.livejournal.com]

I'm in the mood to write something Pros again, but as I posted re:the WIP meme recently, I just don't have any of the damn things... Eep! My brain copes with one fic at a time most days. I do have a couple of discarded sentences lutking somewhere.. that'll do, yeah??

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Hey, I totally thought of you as I was posting the challenge, cos I saw your meme too! Special dispensation for you - discarded sentences will do! *g* Yeay Callisto fic!

[constant-muse.livejournal.com]

This is such a brilliant idea.

Spring cleaning the WIP folder sounds a whole lot more fun than any other sort of spring cleaning.

The meme (if I've got this right): http://jaycat92.livejournal.com/10992.html

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Oh yeay! It is rather a good idea, isn't it - time to play on our own, and yet all the encouragement of me and empty_mirrors close on yer heels... *g*

And you did that perfectly - cheers! *g*

[melanieathene.livejournal.com]

What an absolutely brilliant idea!

Here (http://melanieathene.livejournal.com/259141.html#cutid1) is my WIP list. #6 is now in beta, so it doesn't qualify for this challenge, but hopefully I'll feel inspired enough to polish up a few of the remaining five. :)

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Excellent - hop bunnies, hop! *vbg*

[greengerbil.livejournal.com]

Well, if this doesn't get me writing nothing will. I hope.

Here's the link to my WIP meme entry - fingers crossed! (http://greengerbil.livejournal.com/15605.html)

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Excellent! There must be writing and spring-cleaning of hard drives and general Pros-iness! *vbg*

[siskiou.livejournal.com]

As a reader, I want to say "Thanks" for this fantastic challenge, and all the writers participating.
Even just seeing the sentences/paragraphs is so much fun and very enticing.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Oh I'm so glad you're enjoying it already - and readers are just as important at Dialj, encouraging everyone and just letting us know they're out there - so thank you too! *g*

[londonronnie.livejournal.com]

Oh well, in for a penny...

My WIPs are here (http://londonronnie.livejournal.com/124146.html#cutid1/)

But I aint promisin' nuffink, guvnor...

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Heh - too late, we've taken yer statement now... *g* (I need a handcuffs icon! I'll settle for gazing at your icon instead... *sighs happily*)

[angel-ci5.livejournal.com]

*notes date Challenge opened and winces*

Sorry, I'm horribly late here (story of my life at the mo!), is it too late to register intent (and hope) to participate...?
Chances of something getting finished are pretty slim tbh, but May is ages away, right, who knows what could happen between now and then! *g*

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

You're not horribly late! No one's horribly late until midnight Pago Pago time on the 31st of May! So so pleased to think that we might see more AngelCI5fic... *g* And honestly - people are welcome to join in any time! *g*

[diegina.livejournal.com]

Oh, finally a challenge I can be part of:-D

Here's my list of WIPs: just two things. (http://diegina.livejournal.com/20524.html)

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Oh, but two very intriguing things! Shall look forward to seeing either of these things!

[przed.livejournal.com]

I didn't do the WIP meme, but I've found a wee bit of Pros on my hard drive after all, and I think I'll be putting it up later today, after I tweak it just a bit more.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Hey, that counts - brilliant! Tweak away! *vbg*