The Breach of Promise Affair - Completed

[ssclassof56.livejournal.com]

Ring out, wild bells!

Almost two years after it began, my WIP is finally finished. *happy dance* I posted the last chapter to AO3 yesterday.

If you prefer to read a WIP when it is complete, then Read On. :)

Starting today, I will post a daily link to each chapter, if anyone would prefer to read it in over time in shorter pieces.

It features my OC Faustina, but it’s also Illya-centric. (He does lose his shirt at one point.) And April is mentioned a few times and makes an appearance in the final chapter. So it ties in to our All about April theme.


Chapter 1

Early Summer 1966

Illya put on his tinted glasses, both to dampen the room’s opulence and to veil his stupefied reaction. From floor to ceiling, motifs from China, Japan, and India mingled with abandon. Gilded dragons ran riot about the space, shouldering the tables, undulating over the chairs, and pursuing each other across the papered walls. The décor was obtrusive, decadent, and audacious; yet, like the office’s occupant, it was surprisingly successful.

Harry Beldon tossed his coat onto a fretwork rack and took up a voluminous crimson choga edged in gold embroidery. As he slipped on the robe, he looked over his office like a maharajah surveying his state. “Well, Illya, what do you think of my changes?”

“They suit you.”

The images takes you to AO3.

Comments

[mrua7.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! It's a good feeling to finish a WIP, especially one that's been going for a long time! (Unfortunately I have a fair few of those lurking in my computer....yikes!)

I'd like to read it from the beginning to get a better handle on the story as I've forgotten most of what I've read already. (dang short term memory issues!)

[ssclassof56.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Now I’m on writing withdrawal. :)

It took so long to write that I had to keep rereading the chapters. I kept forgetting the details of what I’d written before. :)

I figure I’d link to a chapter a day, though the whole thing is up. With my schedule I only have time for short reads, and sometimes I start reading someone’s long story, then forget about finishing it.

[mrua7.livejournal.com]

I went through that. When my longest story, which was over 100,000 words, I went into writing withdrawal as well.

I also forgot details of chapters and had to go back and re read. One I recovered I found writing long pieces very off putting and it took me a long time to be able to manage one.

Really long stories can be emotionally, mentally and sometimes physically draining.

I often put a lot of research into my long pieces and sometimes I accumulate so much research that it puts me into a stall as I have to sift through the research and pare it down in the story. That happened to me when I wrote "The Vatican Affair." I was raised Catholic but there was so much detail that I didn't know about in the electing of a new pope. It was an educational experience that took me over two years to finish.

[ssclassof56.livejournal.com]

100,000 words. Wow. That’s a novel.

I know what you mean about research. So much of what I learn goes into building the world in my head but doesn’t get written on the page. But until I can clearly see that world, like the Underground, and confidently have my characters move through it, I can’t write the scene.

Writing this story was exhausting but also soothing and cathartic, as the last 14 months have been the most difficult I have had.

[mrua7.livejournal.com]

When I was writing that story it was all done by hand in spiral notebooks, including the research...which was all over the map. This was before I discovered Google Docs. (I was very new to using a laptop)

Catharsis is a good thing, and glad your writing helped you through the rough times.

I was writing a fairly long story when my dad was put in hospice, and my brother was acting like a jerk. He said a lot of hurtful things to me. Heck he was there with dad in Fla. and I was in NJ...a little hard for me to do things.

My brother suffered a heart attack on the way to hospice and was medevaced to the hospital (he was a heavy smoker) and dad died that night, it was as if he knew my brother wasn't there and was waiting for that so he could pass. ( my brother had been with him every day)

Writing that story helped me get through all that emotion and turmoil. At one point I was awake for 36 hours and didn't stop writing. Focusing helped keep me from losing it.