Hec promised to write me a Gunn/Xander if I gave him Willow (whom I am apparently in possession of); but have I seen a word?

Well, it was proven that you didn't actually own Willow.

Wrod, Anne, that Gunn and Buffy could hit it off-- but I can't imagine them being fan-written except badly, so, there you go.

(I'm having a mean morning. Afternoon. Whatev.)

Yo, Connie? Snippet of AJ Hall's pre-LOP Draco and Neville here

Glom!

New Draco and Neville. The world is a happier, more joyous place. Neville as ice-cold killer. They must both be wrapped up and kept warm and comfy together.

Yep, I'm babbling.

I just spent the last two hours reading puppyslash.

Ple gets a toaster. Like, five toasters.

They must both be wrapped up and kept warm and comfy together

grins.

I just love Hall's take on Draco and Neville. It's adorable.

In other news, I now have in excess of 37,000 words of this HP story. It's...a weird feeling. Very weird. I reckon that this thing's going to be at least 45,000 words by the time I've finished it. Maybe bigger. Which is, like, novel length. And this isn't something I'm all serious about, in my main fandom, so it's pretty strange really. I don't know how you long-fic-writing types do it. Still, I figure if I can write 40,000 words that more or less make sense in the HP verse, maybe if I keep practicing I can write a Mills'n'Boon (Harlequin) novel, or something. (I'm not hanging out for the Next Great British Novel. Although that would be nice. I could handle pulling a Joanna Harris...)

...hey, everyone needs goals.

What's the ship again?

Mine? Ah, that would be telling. It's not really shippy, as such, but there are various different relationships unfurling and overlapping as a result of plot. Also a little shaggage. But I'd rather not give away who ends up with whom, as there are at least two possible ways for it to go, plotwise, with angst for some either way. I think I'd rather you read it without particular expectations at this stage.

....man, I'm really not going to sell this well, am I? "Read this story. It's NC-17 for fairly seemly depictions of the big gay sex, but I'm not telling you who shags whom. Also I'm not telling you if there's a happily ever after, or whether it will be for who you'd like it to be. But, you know, you might like the story. Or not. Stuff happens."

Heh. I dare you to use it as a summary. "Stuff happens."

It's a brilliant story. And, goodness, Fay, you should write your own novel, and sell it, and become terribly rich.

IIRC, 45K would still be in novella territory, 'novel' starts (as far as classification for Hugo/Nebula purposes) at 50K, though of course novellas may be sold as novels in slim volumes depending on the market/what the publisher thinks they can get away with. Most SF novels used to run 60K-75K, though currently the market seems to like 80-100K because it's thicker and readers ("consumers") like more heft for their $$$.

45K would be right on target for a Young Adult novel, the theory being that kids like shorter novels because they have less attention-span, which if you consider the popularity of Harry Potter seems pretty dubious.