I knew this day would come, and honestly I’m glad I got a little over 2 months of posting in before I hit it.
As some of you know, I work full time plus some weird hours, so I don’t always have as much time to write as I’d like (plus writing is a major aspect of my job, so sometimes I come home too tired to words anymore).
I’ve been working on “Sawdust of Words” since about three weeks after Good Omens premiered (more like two days after it premiered cuz those first stories were just running around my head causing trouble), writing every opportunity I have. I’ve finally reached the point where I have NO completed stories ready to post.
What I do have are three completed first drafts and a couple of half-writtens, plus a whole scattering of ideas.
However, I simply do not have time to get anything finished and to my beta reader by Saturday. I have some commitments this week* so I probably won’t be able to get any work done until Saturday; and the next two weeks I have weekend commitments. Or is it three weeks? Yeah, it’s gonna be busy.
That does NOT mean I stop writing; more that I just don’t have any big blocks of time in which to edit, so I’ll be tossing things together wherever I can; this makes it hard to judge when I’ll be finished, so I can’t give any timeline for this at the moment. I’m going to do a little work tonight, and maybe I’ll somehow miraculously pull something together by Saturday. More likely, I’ll have at least one short story done by next week. BEST case scenario, I take two weeks and manage to get a lot to my beta, giving me enough material to last until Christmas. WORST case, idk, Thanksgiving???
I’m a little sad because I genuinely wanted to get something up this weekend for Asexual Awareness Week BUT I’m not going to trim my editing process and try to rush out a story. Particularly since the story in question was written while super sleep deprived and has some weird structural issues as a result.
Anyway, this got long and rambly, and I honestly don’t know how many of my hundred-and-something followers are here for Sawdust of Words updates, and how many just like it when I reblog metas with historical commentary. I will, however, continue to do the latter as much as I am able; also always feel free to message me or send me asks in an attempt to encourage me to keep working (I do like encouragement) or to ask questions about swords (I love swords).
I’ll post another update this weekend with my progress. Leave me a comment if you want me to @ you when I do.
*OK I’m playing a WWI soldier in a cool history graveyard tour and I haven’t learned my lines yet.
Is there anything more iconic in Good Omens than David Tennant driving a flaming Bentley down an English road while Bohemian Rhapsody plays?
Possibly, but it’s still an awesome moment.
Especially when our lanky demon steps out, swaggering like an action movie star here to save the day, giving the one-liner he clearly spent half the journey thinking up: “You wouldn’t get that sort of performance from a modern vehicle.”
I wrote “In Love with My Car” because Crowley loves his car, period. It’s his home, in a way his flat never really is. When filming it’s final destruction, David Tennant’s only acting direction was: you are the Doctor and you just saw the Tardis destroyed. (Side note: that is the perfect kind of direction to give DT, not because he used to be the Doctor, but because he’s a huuuuuge Doctor Who fanboy and has probably written that fanfiction.)
Now, I learned more than I really ever thought I’d need to know about vintage cars while researching this story, but for those who have not, in the book Crowley has a 1928 Bentley, and on the show a 1933. This is rather a big difference.
I mean the ‘28 is cute and all. It’s like an old timey cartoon of a car. If I saw one of these on fire driving down the road, I’d be like “no, that’s fair, I expected that.”
The ‘33 is, if nothing else, much more in line with modern ideas of what a cool car should look like. Graceful, curving, solid. This was a car that was made to have good performance - above average, but you know, not German automobile levels - but also made to make you look rich and awesome in a decade where most people were not.
But book or TV show, it does NOT change the fact that Crowley loves the Bentley. Perhaps even more so in the book - like scroll back up and look at that thing. It’s like a sports-tractor. Book Crowley is very concerned with always having the latest, coolest flashiest things, yet he has a car that looks like it frequently gets outpaced by snails. Even TV Crowley, with his fondness for mementos and antiques, is constantly changing and updating his look to match the height of cool in every era, and the vintage Bentley look probably peaked in like the 1960s in the James Bond era.
What I’m saying is, if the point was to just look cool, both Crowleys would probably be driving some model of Jaguar at the very least.
But also in both - though you can obviously see it better on the show - the Bentley performs like a modern Jaguar (or, whatever). Like, Crowley shouldn’t be able to do 90 in Central London for the simple fact that a vintage Bentley can’t reach those speeds. The ‘33 could, as its max speed, under ideal circumstances which included “going downhill” and “perfectly smooth and straight road.” But Crowley drives it, screeching up the road, handling corners perfectly, at speeds that would make any driving instructor pass out.
But the Bentley is the Best Car. Crowley knows this, believes it, feels it in his soul. So when other cars start getting better, the Bentley does too, to match them. No fancy foreign Ferrari is going to outperform his awesome Bentley!
There’s been a lot written about how Crowley interacts with the spaces in his apartment. He keeps everything clean and open and minimalist, because space is such a luxury in Hell. He shouts at his plants because he’s reliving the abuse he suffers in Hell, and the rejection he received from Heaven.
The Bentley, though, represents the face he shows the world. Dark and powerful and cool and a little out of place but full of so much unmistakable style that really you have to question what every other car is doing wrong by not being a Bentley. This is exactly the kind of being Crowley wishes to be. The kind that turns every head when he comes in a room, the kind that always handles everything with effortless grace and style, the kind that everyone makes space for and just watches pass in utter awe.
Even when he talks to the car, primarily during the bits where it’s on fire, he’s encouraging it, telling it how good of a car it is, how it can do this utterly insane thing that it really, really can’t. It’s the complete opposite of how he treats his plants (degrading and berating them when for every tiny failure), because while the plants represent a part of himself he’s trying to distance himself from, the Bentley allows him to be who he wants to be.
And that is something that he would never, ever exchange for any other vehicle.
Anyway, you can read more about my thoughts on Crowley’s thoughts on his car in my fanfiction, “In Love with My Car” over on AO3!
(Note to readers: looking like a very good chance of no update this week. I will post this evening with current progress on my upcoming stories.)
So I tried really hard to get a fic done today; it’s another installment in my Sawdust of Words series, based on an idea I had like the first week I joined Tumblr, and it’s actually going well… but I’m only about 2/3 through, and the last third is the difficult part where the two walnuts need to have an actual conversation.
Unfortunately it’s now after 10pm so I’m also too tired to post something else. I was too ambitious and hoisted myself on my own petard (which by the way means I dropped a grenade at my own feet I’m serious look it up).
So! There will be fic updates in the near future, I promise. (How soon, I can’t say—I’m currently working 2 jobs up to 6 days per week so I’m frequently just too tired to words.) I’m also sharing below the first page of this fic, which takes place 48 hours after “Absence of Words” (Tuesday evening after the Apocalypse) and opens on one demon being completely heart-eyes-smitten over the local angel.
(If I get the chance I’ll reblog this with the typed up text of the page, but at the moment… )
Well, I have the 2/3 written up and now just need to figure out the Serious Conversation. Things got uhhhhh sort of increasingly traumatic with every draft, so that was fun.
Anyway, find below the extended version of this scene, as it will more likely appear in the final version on AO3. Warning: almost insufferable softness to follow.
Tuesday evening, after the Apocalypse
They had been talking for almost 48 hours straight.
Talking. Laughing. Listening to music. Drinking wine. Occasionally kissing.
Crowley had never felt so… “happy” didn’t even begin to describe it. He felt as though some terrible weight he’d carried for thousands of years was just… gone. A knot inside him undone, turned to smoke and dissipating on the wind.
He was free. Not from Heaven or Hell or some Great Plan.
The part of him that always held him back was gone. Crowley was free from himself.
He lounged across the sofa tucked in the east corner, watching his angel move about the shop. It was growing dark, but the last few beams of light caught his platinum curls, dying them ever so slightly golden. Picked out a flush of pink in his cheeks that had been all but absent for the last decade.
He was so goddamn beautiful.
A couple had come in to browse. Crowley had suggested just putting up the CLOSED sign, but Aziraphale insisted that “wouldn’t be very sporting.” So now he followed the couple around, helpful, polite, but firmly preventing them from so much as touching a single book.
When his eyes fell on Crowley, watching from the corner, Aziraphale’s face broke into a warm smile, like sun after a rainstorm, like fire on a cold day. Like coming home.
So fucking beautiful.
My perfect Angel, Crowley thought, watching as Aziraphale turned again to herd the customers as far as possible from anything of interest. Behind his glasses, the demon’s eyes never blinked, never moved from the object of his affection.
One of the customers pointed at something, and Aziraphale turned towards it, shoulders giving that little wiggle of excitement they did whenever he saw one of his favorite things. Crowley couldn’t get enough of it. The smile, the wiggle, the gleam in his eye. What he wouldn’t give to see Aziraphale so happy every day.
And he could. That was the whole damn point of being free, wasn’t it? No one to tell him off, no reports to write, no havoc to plan, no high-ranking demons to send him on secret missions… nothing stopping him from giving every moment of his attention to the being that mattered most to him, from giving that angel everything he wanted.
He longed to say that out loud. Not only that, a thousand things, millennia of emotions and confessions locked inside, the words straining against his chest, yearning to escape.
But that was forbidden to the demon. Couldn’t say it. Couldn’t write it. Couldn’t express his feelings in any way, not if he meant it.
And Aziraphale… accepted that. Understood. And loved him all the same. It was enough to make his heart ache as it rattled in his chest.
Finally, Aziraphale escorted the couple outside, having been thoroughly rude to them while still providing exceptional customer service. Crowley heard the door click shut, the sound of footsteps across the shop floor, and then Aziraphale rounded the corner into the little office, blessing Crowley with another smile.
Beautiful.
“So. Finally got rid of the nosy bastards?” Crowley asked, swinging his feet back to the floor to clear the space beside him. “Never seen a more unsavory pair of characters.”
“Oh, nonsense, my dear. They were perfectly charming, apart from their interest in my Jane Austen sets.” He hesitated for only a heartbeat before sitting on the sofa, hands folded in his lap, eyes downcast. Crowley tugged his glasses down so he could better watch the flush spreading across the angel’s cheeks.
“See? I knew it. Might have been planning to rob the place, or worse, buy something.”
“They hardly seemed the type, really, though you can’t be too careful. Though I confess to getting a bit impatient towards the end, as I wished to get back to… more important tasks.” As he said the last part, his eyes flicked briefly towards Crowley, bashful and demure, and his shoulders gave a little wiggle.
“Oh.Oh.Well,” fighting back an even bigger grin. “Hope you didn’t have to do anything too nasty to dissuade them.”
So I tried really hard to get a fic done today; it’s another installment in my Sawdust of Words series, based on an idea I had like the first week I joined Tumblr, and it’s actually going well… but I’m only about 2/3 through, and the last third is the difficult part where the two walnuts need to have an actual conversation.
Unfortunately it’s now after 10pm so I’m also too tired to post something else. I was too ambitious and hoisted myself on my own petard (which by the way means I dropped a grenade at my own feet I’m serious look it up).
So! There will be fic updates in the near future, I promise. (How soon, I can’t say—I’m currently working 2 jobs up to 6 days per week so I’m frequently just too tired to words.) I’m also sharing below the first page of this fic, which takes place 48 hours after “Absence of Words” (Tuesday evening after the Apocalypse) and opens on one demon being completely heart-eyes-smitten over the local angel.
(If I get the chance I’ll reblog this with the typed up text of the page, but at the moment… )
