"Take This Oath"--Author's Commentary
Friday, 23 November 2012 09:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ailis_fictiveSo I've decided that I get to do an author's commentary post on anything I write, because otherwise I'll end up posting author's notes that are longer than the fics, and that's just tacky. Read or ignore at your whim; I do this as much for my own longer-term reference as to inform my Gentle Reader.
"Take This Oath" was the first fic I wrote when my writer-brain came back (there will be a post about that soon, that I'll link to as soon as I write), and it happened almost by accident. I was reading my way through the Vorkosigan fanfic on AO3,and hit "In This Stranger World" bylannamichaels and fell head over heels in love with the summary line: "Take this oath and press it between your palms." Then I read the fic.
Now, it's a gorgeous piece, and I love it, and I'm probably going to podfic it as soon as I get a microphone because I keep going back to read it out loud to myself. It's great. It just wasn't anything like the shape in my head that the summary line had started to form. If you've ever taken a sip of the amber liquid in the glass expecting hard cider, and gotten single malt scotch instead? Like that. Still good, possibly even better, but there's a moment where your eyes bug and you have to reboot your brain.
That seems to be a productive state of mind for me, because that half-formed shape in my head wouldn't go away. I finally sat down and wrote this just to give it some form. I have a well-established THING about fealty oaths, and loyalty, so it's probably not at all surprising that this is the first thing I've written and the first thing I posted.
(Timing notes: first draft, 10/11/12. Revised 10/26/12. Revised to post 11/23/12. Commentary written 11/23/12)
"Take This Oath" was the first fic I wrote when my writer-brain came back (there will be a post about that soon, that I'll link to as soon as I write), and it happened almost by accident. I was reading my way through the Vorkosigan fanfic on AO3,and hit "In This Stranger World" by
lannamichaels and fell head over heels in love with the summary line: "Take this oath and press it between your palms." Then I read the fic.Now, it's a gorgeous piece, and I love it, and I'm probably going to podfic it as soon as I get a microphone because I keep going back to read it out loud to myself. It's great. It just wasn't anything like the shape in my head that the summary line had started to form. If you've ever taken a sip of the amber liquid in the glass expecting hard cider, and gotten single malt scotch instead? Like that. Still good, possibly even better, but there's a moment where your eyes bug and you have to reboot your brain.
That seems to be a productive state of mind for me, because that half-formed shape in my head wouldn't go away. I finally sat down and wrote this just to give it some form. I have a well-established THING about fealty oaths, and loyalty, so it's probably not at all surprising that this is the first thing I've written and the first thing I posted.
(Timing notes: first draft, 10/11/12. Revised 10/26/12. Revised to post 11/23/12. Commentary written 11/23/12)
no subject
Date: 2012-11-25 04:54 am (UTC)Which was all to the good, from my point of view. I've never disliked the more Dendarii-focused books (oddly, the one I warmed to the slowest was _Shards of Honor_, though I did hit it at an age when I was suffering from a violent allergy to romance), but...ACC and Barrayar are my two favorites, with ACC usually out by a nose. In TWA, my favorite bit is the treason trial. In TVG, I focus on Gregor. I've never entirely forgiven the omnibus reprints for stealing the Miles-Simon conversations framing _Borders of Infinity_. Etc. I don't think I'd be *writing* in a Dendarii-focused fandom.