what a surprise, it's more fic blather

First off, guys, I am so sorry, I am like the dullest journal-writer in the history of people writing boring things about themselves. I see I've got some new friend-ofs on LJ, and for the record, no, it never gets more interesting than this. I apologize. My life, it is not ever worth writing about. One week into rehearsals on a new show, and it is actually driving me to drink. Like all of a glass of wine or whatever, but still, this makes three nights running I've turned to alcohol in order to quiet the Endless Loop Of Stress in my brain enough to fall asleep. This is VERY unusual for me. And mostly only due to the fact that my roommate opened a bottle of cheap wine on Thursday and told me I had to help her finish it before it went bad. But still. This show, man, I am not enjoying it much so far.

ANYWAY. (This is why I don't post about my life.)

So yeah, I spent the summer writing an insanely long XMFC/Inception fusion fic called "Boden's Mate". Which I finished a few weeks ago on the kinkmeme, and is still in beta, and will be posted properly...eventually, when it has been all beta'ed and stuff. That's not the point of this entry. The point of this is that I got to the end and realized that while THAT story was finished, I still had several other stories I was interested in telling in the same AU 'verse. So I started writing a sequel, which also throws a generous dash of Ocean's Eleven into the multifandom fusion mix, because I really love cons and heists and teams and implausible plot twists okay whatever DON'T JUDGE ME. And I intend to start posting it one chapter at a time, once "Boden's Mate" is edited and posted on AO3. Which could happen this week, or next month, I really don't know, RL has been deeply unfair to my beta of late so these things will happen at their own pace and it's not important.

But now that I've completed the first chapter (10k words, just one chapter, why did I ever fool myself into thinking this fic would be any shorter than the last), I would very much like to find a beta for the sequel. And, look, I know people post WIPs ALL THE TIME, and they somehow find wonderful, marvelous people to beta for them the whole way through, and I have no idea how that happens. I am a complete awkward turtle when it comes to interacting with people fannishly, and I always feel like an awful imposition whenever I ask someone to beta for me. Which is probably dumb, because I kind of LOVE playing beta for other people when they ask me, but I always judge myself on a horrible double standard in everything ever, it's a thing. All of which is my terrible long-winded way of saying: would anyone be willing to work with me as a beta throughout the process of writing/posting this sequel? And I don't mean just finding typos, but, y'know, pointing out the bits that don't make any fucking sense and making me clarify plot elements and smacking me upside the head when I invariably abandon character development in favor of nifty plot twists (which I am ALL TOO GUILTY OF, ALWAYS). And, yeah. Ugh, no one is going to be interested in this at all, how am I even posting this?

Because I don't know how else to ask.

So, yes, socially inept author in search of beta for ongoing WIP of XMFC/Inception/Ocean's 11 fic sequel thing. If you haven't been arsed to dig through endless comment threads on the kinkmeme to read the first fic (can't blame you there), I'm more than happy to pass along the most recent draft just so you know what the fuck I'm talking about. But yeah. It's...long. And plotty. And ensemble-based, with a generous helping of Charles/Erik and a developing side of Hank/Alex and quite possibly Raven/Angel because that's just how I roll. And it needs a beta.

I will bake you cookies.