Out of the shadows and on to the bandwagon...

[dolabellae]

Stolen from absolutely everyone, it's the Ten Things JKR Never Wrote Meme. In my case, with very few exceptions it's also the Ten Things Dolabella Never Wrote, since I wander round happily adding bits and pieces to my world but so rarely get things down on paper/screen. There's no pub but a couple of clubs, and of course a Compulsory Wilkes Fact

Comments

[dolabellae]

Glad you liked them! Yes, I did quite a bit of work on 6 at one point (I have loads more details in my head) but as so often with the ideas I come up with I never finished it as it was just so darn depressing... Shame, as I don't think there's much Dawlishfic around!
(please do correct me if I'm wrong, anywone...)and Ministry politics at that time - Crouch Sr! Scrimgeour! Moody! - strikes me as fascinating...

Most of the important bits of 4 are contained in A Difficult Night (my one and only completed largish fic, link at bottom of page if you've not seen it fancy having a look) - though I had to make up Voldemort having to get the diary back from Nott and passing it on to Malfoy to get round the tone of some of the remarks in HBP. (Originally I'd thought the meeting JKR planned, but never put in the books, between Lucius & Nott Sr might have been when Nott handed the diary over to Lucius, since it was planned for before the school year of CoS.) It just about works, I hope!

[dolabellae]

I've only read a couple of yours so far - must fulfil resolution to do better soon! Which are you most proud of, and I'll start there? I'll try and leave a comment as well - saw your post about comment tips, and entirely sympathise. I always want to write something a bit more in depth than 'nice!' and usually get stressed enough about it that I don't say anything - which is silly when I know from personal experience how much comments are appreciated...

I haven't got much fic to discover. Apart from ADN, I think the only complete thing I've ever posted is dolorous_ett's Owls fic! Totally shameful.

[sigune]

Oh, I'm so envious of all those goodies! I hope you will write them all down someday in story-form... These are fics I definitely want to read! :D

[dolabellae]

That's very sweet of you! I will try my best to do more writing (ie more work), rather than just spinning out stories in airy fashion for myself. I am such a slow writer though - I started something last weekend, fully intending that it should be an exercise in getting something down on paper quickly, and still haven't finished it, even though it's only about 100 words. Sigh.

Oh dead, I am such a Slytherinophile, aren't I?! Not a single thing which lacks a serpentine connection.

[sigune]

There's really no need to feel guilty about all the serpentine connections (hee hee - I love how you put that) - just think that there are worse people out there. My own stuff invariably has a Snape connection. How's that for limitation? :/ Also, I love this meme but I think I just haven't added enough to JKR's world to be able to complete it... *weeps* Am I sad or am I sad?

I giggled (sorry!) at your intention to write something quickly. In my experience, intention unfortunately has nothing to do with it :D. Even when I think a story is entirely finished in my head, it may still take a long time until it comes out okay.

[dolabellae]

It isn't even a story, just a scene, and I had it in my head, and the intention was that I should show some discipline for once and blaze away at it - to not much success. Sigh.

I'm sure you could do the meme! Mine aren't exactly big additions - I always envy the people who can make great steps of real imagination and create something completely new which feels instantly at home in JKR's world, whereas all my little innovations tend to be on the level of family connections and character development. And since you're a fellow perfectionist who doesn't write half as much as she plans and would like to (but still doesn't considerably better than me!), I think you should give it a go!

[a_t_rain]

5) There are wizarding clubs, just as there were (and are) in Muggle London, offering comfortable facilities and congenial society to their members. Unsurprisingly, purebloods are very keen on them. The ones I know most about are Aspley's (very conservative, never without a good contigent of centenarians dozing/talking over the good old days, excellent food) and the Manticores (younger, considered rather ‘fast’, known for drinking and gaming).

There needs to be a wizarding murder mystery called The Unpleasantness at Aspley's. You know there does.

[dolabellae]

I know, I know! The follow up to Death on the Balcony, starring Narcissa Malfoy, perhaps? If she's still alive at the end of book 7, I might give it a go...

[nineveh_uk]

How could I have forgotten Death on a Balcony? Is Aspley's a men's only club - in the WW, I imagine it might not be, but if it were, the chance for Narcissa's presence to disturb is that much greater...

[dolabellae]

I had a debate with myself on this subject when I thought up Aspley's, given that the WW does show itself as more advanced at an earlier date in terms of women's rights - and decided that there could still be men's only clubs and Aspley's was definitely one. Which as you say, would Narcissa's presence cause that much more of a ripple, and also would make the process of finding out what was going on more challenging - for her and (enjoyably) for the writer. There'd have to be an intermediary. Hmmm....

::must not get into writing full length detective HP fiction. Must not!::

[nineveh_uk]

I re-iterate my praise for 2). Partly because Rosier is unwittingly behaving in such a Muggle way. I would like to meet some active Rosiers in canon - we get such tantalising hints (Druella!).

(6) definitely sounds intriguing. Post-Voldemort ministry politics, with jockeying for position, back-stabbings, distrust and bribery (WHO did the Mafoys bribe to get them off, I wonder?) have much potential. You could alwasy post tantalising snippets...

[dolabellae]

I am pleased with 2 :-). It fits historically as well, since I bet there were a fair few Muggleborns & their friends wandering round Hogwarts in the late 60s/early 70s strumming guitars and singing folk music as picked up from Joan Baez et and, providing ample material for the fermentation of an obsession. And the fact that intelligence and artistic appreciation can co-exist so readily with extreme prejudice is always disturbing

[nineveh_uk]

There's just something about the combination of familiar folkery/geekery/ conspiracy-theory obsession that works in the context. It smacks of Victorians trying to prove theories of eye socket width, or One True Mythology, of which all others are debased versions.

[dolabellae]

You're suggesting eye-socket width isn't an infallible guide to character and destiny? Shame on you!

Yes, I know just what you mean. And whenever I idly try to reconstruct Rosier's argument, and keep coming up with insurmountable problems, I just remember the explanations for dinosaur bones and think - it really doesn't matter. People can, and will, believe anything if it suits their purpose, and employ frightening ingenuity in the process.

[dolorous_ett]

(1) Poliakov! Brilliant! And so is Crabbe's wine cellar - no doubt the state of the Malfoy "vine" is even more parlous after the House of Flying Artichokes incident...

I also loved the genteel poker games (not to mention related loss of astrolabe), the folk song snob and poor Dawlish - truly, there is more than one way to turn a good maan bad...

Great stuff! Really, you should write more of it up...

[dolabellae]

I do wonder what, if anything, we'll hear of the Durmstrang-ers in book 7... I am comically fond of Poliakoff, given his oh-so-brief cameo in GoF... And yes, the artichoke incident disposed of the last of Abraxas Malfoy's wine investments in particularly wasteful style. Lucius dabbled a little, but he hadn't really got his father's palate and, as mentioned, there were so many demands on what he bought.

Wilke's mother, in my head, is a Parkinson, if that adds to your picture of the card sessions at all...

Smiths quote! Great! Poor Dawlish. Sometimes I worry about my sadism levels.

::as for the last comment - blushes::