La Vie De TKP: the rodeo chapter

[lettered]

It's time for me to speak up...about meat and milkshakes and mwriting! Look at my malliteration! Go me!

So yesterday I was looking forward to a day of vampire porn, this mustard apple porkchop recipe I wanted to try, and (*flips through planner*) oh look, more vampire porn, when my BFF calls and starts talking about the rodeo. I think it's understandable that it took a moment to orient myself. Not Anne Hathaway in a sassy little hat. Not Angel riding Xander the bronc and worst of all, not Lorna. No, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. So anyway, out of the blue my friend suggests we go. By out of the blue I mean we'd planned it for weeks, and by suggested I mean "let's meet at 3.30". (By friend I really do mean "friend". Yis.)

So, we go to the rodeo. Actually we go to Starbucks, but same difference really. Come to think of it, the rodeo is actually just like the Renaissance Festival (which is actually nothing like Starbucks. I don't deconstruct your segues!): people dress up, act old timey, and best of all: cater meat on a stick. Sausage on a stick, BBQ on a stick, shrimp on a stick, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo, pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup--oops, Bubba, wrong list. *rifles* Ah--brisket on a stick, scallops on a stick, and my new favorite: pizza on a stick. Yes folks, pizza. On a stick. I fucking love this earth.

In fact, yesterday for dinner? I had fried Oreos, a milkshake, and tater tots. I got the milkshake and the taters (PO-TAT-TOES! Boil 'em mash 'em stick 'em in a stew. How many lists of ways to cook different foods ARE there in cinema?) at the House of Pies but still. Fried Oreos. Actually, as for that, give 'em to us rrraw and wrrrriggling. You can't taste the Oreos for the fried. It's like a cookie inside a funnel cake without the cookie. hannasus claims the fried cookie dough is good, but alas, I couldn't find it. The other delicacy we didn't enjoy was eating brisket in front of the cows. It's a time honored tradition amongst me and my friends, but we just didn't have time. Those poor baby cows. Why do they have to taste so good?

The cowboys were very interesting. One of them wore a pink shirt with sparkly purple fringe on his chaps. Kroger and I.W. Marks won the wagon race. A lady in a sparkly purple (it was a theme) unitard (I wish unitards had been a theme) rode on a horse standing up with fireworks and the Texas flag. When they did that cattle roping thing with the kids, this one gal kept the calf pinned by keeping its head between her legs, but when they interviewed her her eyes were desperate and filmed over with tears, so we only laughed very hard on the inside and made noises of crooning sympathy on the outside, except when we were laughing on the outside too. Poor girl.

Maroon 5 was playing, and I think that one song is alright, but I didn't know they did that other song, you know, the song that really sucks? I had no idea that was them. But my eyes were transfixed by the shininess of the lead singer's buckle, which I think established a rapport between itself and my shining eyes. For some moments there, there was no one in that stadium but me and that buckle. Then, what should intrude upon my consciousness but the gleaming, glowing grill, the one the vendor had on his teeth and that was winking, winking, illuminating my tears of wonder into not only a glistening stop-light red, but gumball blue and orange as well.

This, this grill, that buckle, my shimmering eyes--this is what rodeo is. It's not about winning or losing or meat on a stick. It's not about stagecoach font or pig-racing or cows sniffing your genitals. It's not about the longness of Jack Gyllenhal's eyelashes or even the blondness of Robert Redford's hair. It's all about the shiny. Tacky commercialism, cowboys, and hey, enjoying yourself. Holy trinity, baby. *single perfect tear*

So anyway, the Maroon 5 guy, after making the transcriber spell onomonopea (sp?), says, "let's wrap up with a song by one of my favorite artists." And I say, "you're not going to play Neil Young so who gives a hardened yet strangely crumbly cow chip?" And then he played, "Rockin' In The Free World." Victor Hugo once said that it is no coincidence that the root of "irony" is "iron", and he musta knew something because boy was that irony burnished last night. Between that and the buckle and that grill I mentioned I was kinda blinded.

Then, House of Pies. It was a good day, I'm telling you.

*


So, I was talking to l_aurens and we got to talking about collaborative fics. I always thought it would be interesting to try one (sekrit message to a2zmom: OMG we have to!) but one thing I'm afraid of is that I'll be too picky and want to take over the whole thing. Anyone else have this fear?

Those of you who have written collabortive fics, how do you do it? One person writes one chapter?--How do you keep track of where the plot is going? (Or are you like, evil to each other, and leave a chapter with a cliff-hanger the next person has to resolve?) One person writes one character?--Then who writes the in-between stuff, and doesn't it feel back-and-forth? Who edits? Do you do it over im? How does that work, anyway?

And how have these experiences worked out for y'all? Did you quit? Did you keep going, dissatisfied, knowing you'd never do it again? Would you do it again? Was it an edifying experience?

And does anyone approach reading cowritten fics differently? Who reads them guessing who wrote what? (*raises hand*)

Comments

[ravenwings-7.livejournal.com]

Fried...Oreos? Oookay...

And is it bad that I don't find the idea of pizza on a stick at all odd?

Alright, where'd my train of thought run off to? Oh, there it is. Right. Coauthoring. moss6886 (mom) and I are currently working on a BtVS/SG-1 crossover called Heaven and Earth. I'm basically the head writer on it, but the story came from her brain (which is why I tend to refer to her as my pet plot bunny). How we're doing it is she comes up with the general plot, basic scene arrangement, who goes where and when they go there, and she's laid out a lot of the scenes, kind of a "here's what they say, but how do they say it?" situation. I come up with how to get what we want out on the page, fill in the blanks between scenes, etc. Then I send it back to her for feedback & editing every half-page or so. I'm also research girl, because a) we are mythology geeks who hate it when such things get screwed up, and would rather not see ourselves as hypocrites and b) I have way more time on my hands than she does. Although this may seem kind of unbalanced, it's working out really well, as it plays to our individual strengths and weaknesses. My mom being (at least in this case) really strong in the "ideas" department, as well as being way more structured than I, all translates into this (rather long) story actually having a plot; however, she really isn't that much of a writer, it's just not something she does out af habit, so her stuff is just way to precise, or maybe analytical is the word, to work as narrative or dialog(although her Jack-voice isn't too bad and her Giles definitely doesn't suck). Whereas with me, I tend to be so wound up in wordplay and minutely detailed character moments that I have trouble coming up with any plot that would hold up longer than maybe a dozen or so pages, and my dialog often ends up very stilted, even though I consider my individual character voices to quite good, so by giving me a very structured and/or analytical set of notes with a good plot layout, I have room to play and we end up with a decent story.
Theoretically, it would be possible for me to do this with some other co-author over the internet, but I'm not certain it would work, just because so much of the story has ended up hashed out in long conversations involving flailing arm movement that we somehow manage to interpret as the complex information they are meant to convey. It's been great fun, though, and I'd do it again. If we ever finish this one, that is...

[tkp.livejournal.com]

Well, you do find fried Oreos odd, so all is not lost.

It's so cool you're doing a fic with your mom!

Your collaboration is so different than everyone else's! I'm really loving the idea of it, even though I'm not certain I myself could pull it off. Then again, I've read some stories with brilliant ideas and plots, and a few good scenes, and the whole way through I'm just thinking: now, if I could've written this, the fic would've been perfect. I know I could never just fully give up my ideas to someone else, but it would definitely be interesting to write someone else's idea and plot if it was something I was interested in.

It doesn't sound unbalanced to me, just a really different way of doing things. And the reasons you have for splitting it that way seem great, too. I suck at plot, but my words and my plots/ideas/etc kind of go hand in hand, which is another reason I don't think I could do it your way, but as I said your way is really interesting, and I'd love to see how it works out (though I've never really seen SG-1).

And I think what you say about the difference between discussing the fic in person and over the internet is significant as well. Sometimes I think it's so easy to communicate over the internet...but the discussion of ideas requires a real back and forth you just can't get without being in the room with someone. Even the phone loses a lot. Besides, I hate phones.

Good luck with your fic!