cruel summer and other words by dreamshadow

[dreamshadow]

hello hello, welcome to my nest!

here's what i plan to be working on during camp nano:

i. cruel summer | m
the 100 beach au
murphy & emma angst/second chance romance


[banner by down-in-flames]

Emma Rhodes' Guide to a Successful Beach Vacation:

1. Never be seen without a drink in hand;
2. Don't leave the house without a camera;
3. Pretend like the last five months never happened;

And 4?
Throw it all away when her ex-boyfriend shows up across the street.

goals:
- finish chapter 13
- chapter 14
- post chapters 7 & 8

i'm finally nearing the end of this fic, and i'm equally sad and excited. i've probably got at least 3 or 4 chapters left after chapter 14, so it's a little bit longer than the first draft and my original outline; the rewrite has been so necessary, though, and it's allowed me to experiment with my writing and also to expand and deepen their relationship. for all of the angst in the coming chapters, there is a happy ending on the horizon. but... what kind of happy ending?

ii. sparks fly (whenever you're around) | m
murphy & emma fluff [fluff challenge entry]

moments of murphy and emma's relationship that take place in between nights like these and cruel summer. they're together for about a year and a half before they break up, which means there's a lot of potential for fluff in between those summers. the plan for this is that reading the other two stories helps you appreciate the fluff more, but is absolutely not necessary to understand the scenes or their relationship

goals:
- 10/30 prompts

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so that's it! i've narrowed my projects a bit since i've been bit with the memma bug again, so i'm excited to let these idiots guide me through the next month. fingers crossed that i actually get some writing done

[Archer Rose]

just an appreciation post for memma basically 

i'm so excited for the fluff fic but omg i love marshmallow john murphy. he's adorable and i can't wait to see more of it!!  did you have any of those moments in your mind before the challenge popped up?

you wrote nights like these as a 'getting together' memma fic, when you wrote that did you see a break up sequel coming? when did come up with the idea to ruin your beautiful ending () and shake things up again? did you have plans of how much you were going to dig them onto a hole before rescuing them??

can't wait to see more of those projects! good luck with nano!!  

[dreamshadow]

@crimson comet

abbi!! i love your memma love and i'm so excited for you to read the fluff

i do also adore marshmallow john murphy (also the fact that it's 100% canon that he's super soft with his love interest) so i'm excited to actually write him more. i've had a couple in my head since before the challenge, like emma meeting mrs. murphy as murphy's girlfriend and him trying to teach her how to cook (it fails). and i have book shopping one that i'm particularly excited to write, but that one came to mind after the challenge sprung up - it'll be cute, tho

i'm sorry i ruined their ending, but tbf, i didn't see a breakup sequel originally. they've always had a rough patch in canon (they don't just stay together, they are Difficult™) but i didn't anticipate i'd write another beach au, but they're too much fun to pass up. so i'm excited the fluff challenge is gonna take place in between the two stories; it can also be read separately though, if no one's read either of them

i had them in a very deep hole but i sort of rescued it before i started plotting it out - it was too deep for me personally, so i wanted some wiggle room, if that makes sense. but yeah... the next couple chapters are gonna be rough (sorry ) but hopefully the end makes up for it  

thank you, my friend!  

 

[ineffable_season]

Hiya Jill! Of course, I couldn't resist the opportunity to stop by and ask you some Memma/cruel summer questions, since I have loved this project from the start! 

• What was the "I must rewrite cruel summer," moment that made you move forward with rewriting it?
• What is your favorite platonic ship to write in cruel summer and why?
• Do you know which prompts you are planning on starting with within that 10? Care to share? Or if you don't wish to share all of that, what is a prompt you are particularly excited about writing for them for this challenge (aside from the book shopping one you mentioned above)?
• Ok so book shopping...we know that Emma has this battered up P&P copy, but what does John like to read? And in the same vein of that scenario, if one of them was given an unlimited amount of money to spend in a bookshop, who would spend more?

Anyway, these goals are absolutely stellar and I can't wait to see how things progress for you this month!

 Courtney

[dreamshadow]

hello courtney! i always love your questions

On 4/2/2022 at 7:41 AM, prideofgalactica said:

What was the "I must rewrite cruel summer," moment that made you move forward with rewriting it?

it was definitely the moment where i finished the first draft. i wasn't proud of it, but i rushed the end because i didn't know how to wrap it up and i just wanted to be done with memma and fanfic (which is really poor judgement on my part, lol). so i sent it to one of my IRL friends for her to read through and edit because i wanted to turn it into an original fiction romance; she shredded it (rightfully so), and made me realize i could do a lot better. and then i realized i wanted to do better by memma, and the end just wasn't sitting well with me, and even after going through and trying to revise it, i knew a total rewrite was necessary. and i'm so fucking pleased with how it's come out

On 4/2/2022 at 7:41 AM, prideofgalactica said:

What is your favorite platonic ship to write in cruel summer and why?

emma & jasper! i love their dynamic and how they always look out for each other unconditionally. when they're not in their deep dark days (which they both have and is one of the reasons they relate so well to each other; they can sense it before anyone else because they know the signs), they're a chaotic dup and always up for shenanigans, and they're friendship in the purest form. there is a small amount of angst (bc obviously) with them because they'd be perfect for each other... but they just don't see each other in that way, so that's why it's always a bit of a joke with them if they're dating or not. their friends can't see that they're just friends, but they really are; sometimes they just think life would be easier if they could date each other. i just love their friendship and i'm so glad i added it into the revised draft 

On 4/2/2022 at 7:41 AM, prideofgalactica said:

Do you know which prompts you are planning on starting with within that 10? Care to share? Or if you don't wish to share all of that, what is a prompt you are particularly excited about writing for them for this challenge (aside from the book shopping one you mentioned above)?

so i'm weird and can't write out of order, no matter what. so i rearranged the prompts to fit my timeline into different chunks of the semester (none of which are relevant to the stories, just more for my brain to know where they are in that time). i've already posted the first two - where emma meets murphy's mom and then the one where they find reasons not to leave. i'm definitely excited about the book shopping and the cooking lessons (it's actually the 100 canon that murphy cooks) because they're going to be really adorable. and i figured out how to work out the drunken confessions one, so that'll be fun too  honestly, i'm just excited for all of them - i love fluff, short pieces are apparently fun to write, and memma deserves to be happy (ignoring the fact that i'm the one who destroys them)  

On 4/2/2022 at 7:41 AM, prideofgalactica said:

Ok so book shopping...we know that Emma has this battered up P&P copy, but what does John like to read? And in the same vein of that scenario, if one of them was given an unlimited amount of money to spend in a bookshop, who would spend more?

so john... doesn't like to read. they're a quintessential "gamer boy/reader girl" couple and it really works for them. but there's a whole thing about this (basically murphy+books) in cruel summer, so i'm not gonna spoil anything  and emma would 10000% spend more; she loves to read, and it's been fun to pull that into this revised draft of cs, too; so it's not just the classics she reads, but she also loves fantasy and romance

thanks for the questions!! and the memma love  

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so a brief update: 

nano is going surprisingly well? i might've cheated and started chapter 13 of cruel summer earlier last week, but i did finish it, writing 500 words on the first. so i'm excited about that -- i'm hoping to post chapter 7 by the end of this week

i've taken a bit of a break from the angst and have been working on the fluff, which has been incredibly fun. murphy and emma are adorable and deserve happiness, and it's so much fun putting my headcanons onto the screen. i've finished 2 out of 10 prompts and don't see myself slowing down any time soon

total wordcount is 1,602 so far; i'm tracking my overall progress in my bullet journal, but more out of curiosity than anything else

[lostinthelightss]

jill!!! how's nano going??

[dreamshadow]

we're three weeks into nano, so here's an update for @lostinthelightss and anyone else who might be interested

i. sparks fly (whenever you're around) (m)

i've mostly been focusing on the fluff challenge. at first i wasn't sure how i'd feel about writing shorter pieces since my one-shots/chapters tend to be on the longer side (definitely over 1k), but they're actually... fun. they let me get into emma's head but stop me from getting too angsty, which is honestly more of the challenge than the writing itself. but i love writing these little relationship moments between murphy and emma, and even though i've written them in aus and spin-offs that'll never see the light of day on the archives, i'm glad that you all are finally seeing them as a committed pair and seeing how much they love each other. 

i got stuck somewhere in fluff prompt 3, and procrastinated for a bit after that, but i'm doing okay. i now have a color-coded spreadsheet after telling myself i wasn't going to make it complicated, but i have it broken down by the different seasons (since their 1.5 year relationship takes place while they're long distance at different colleges) and points of view -- murphy's point of view is back in these moments, and i'm pretty excited to write him.

progress: 4/30 prompts written, almost halfway to my goal of 10
word count: 3,359

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ii. cruel summer (m)

as far as cruel summer goes, i did manage to finish chapter 13, so that was pretty exciting. and i finally stopped procrastinating and posted chapter 7 tonight, so that hits two of my goals for that story. since i'm pretty into the fluff, i'm not sure if i'll make it back to the story before the end of april, but i'm still excited about it and i definitely want to finish it. and since chapter 8 is prewritten, that'll (probably) go live on the archives before the end of the month

progress: completed chapter 13 (1/2 chapters)
chapter 7 posted to the archives (1/2 chapters)
word count: 500 words

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overall update

while i'm not exactly where i wanted to be a little more than halfway in, i'm at least making decent progress. and i've been enjoying writing my idiots being happy and in love, which is a bit different than what i normally do, so that's cool. and hey, progress is progress!

total word count: 3,859

not too shabby, if i say so myself