Friday Rants and Raves - August 15

[sarillia]

Hey all! I haven't done this in a while. How are you doing? How's the writing going? Things to celebrate? Complaints? Let's hear it!

Today's picture is Awaiting the Rebirth by Peter Gric, a wonderfully weird example of fantastic realism:

Comments

[sarillia]

I set myself a new writing challenge at the beginning of this month. I am writing a short story every day for a year. Because I want to get better at short fiction and I like to give myself difficult challenges that I won't feel guilty for not reaching and will feel amazing if I actually complete.

So far I've been managing. I still have to write today's, but I've got 13 hours left in the day.

[splinteredstar]

Wow, that sounds like a hell of a challenge. Good luck!

[sarillia]

Thanks!

My stories have all been pretty short so far but I'm hoping I can start doing some longer ones once I get used to writing at my old speeds again. I've been kind of out of the whole writing thing and not in my usual headspace, which is another reason I'm giving myself a good kick.

[inevitableentresol]

Very short stories seem like a good idea. Also perhaps linked ones?

I'm trying to get my head around I could ever do something like this myself, and all I can think is kudos to you.

[sarillia]

I've had some ideas for linked stories for a while. I should look at those again.

[inevitableentresol]

Wow, good luck.

[inkdust]

Ambitious! If I were to try something similar it would probably have to be mediocre six-word stories :D I hope it continues to go well!

[sarillia]

I've thought about trying some six-word stories. Or two-sentence stories, and whatever other really really short format I've heard of. I want to try a little of everything.

[agilebrit]

Wow, that is super ambitious! Good luck. :)

[sarillia]

Thanks!

[inkdust]

Seven chapters to go in draft 3! I finally pushed past the most recent hump and it's been going more smoothly for past week or so. I had the unwritten goal of finishing by September 1 (something about Hogwarts, I think) but doubted I would make it. I still don't think that will happen, but I REALLY want to finish before my birthday at the end of September, and given my latest progress, that will definitely happen. So all in all it's going pretty well over here.

[sarillia]

I'm glad things are going so well. I hope things continue that way. Good luck finishing by your birthday!

[inkdust]

Thanks!

[splinteredstar]

My writing has been in fits and starts, lately, with real life demanding much of my emotional energy. Starting to get on track again - or at least stop allowing myself to fuck around on tumblr during all my free time.

I think I'm past one of the blocks on my main project though. I had to figure out a character who'd always been a mystery to me, but I eventually threw enough words at paper to sort her out. Mostly. She'll show up in a couple of scenes, and then I'll find out.

[sarillia]

Yay for getting past blocks!

I actually really enjoy that process of getting to know characters by throwing words onto the page, but it sure can mean a lot of editing later.

[splinteredstar]

Yeah, I haven't /drafted/ anything with her yet. It was mostly just brainstorming and scrawling ideas next to the bits I was sure of until I came across something that worked.

Figuring characters out through actually drafting is way more fun. I just didn't have anything to actually work with for her - no sense of her in my head, no feel for what she wanted out of life. And I needed that before I worked with her. Think I've got it now, though.

[agilebrit]

Woke up to two rejections in my inbox, only one of which I could flip to a new market, so that was fun. The next market I want to send the other to already has one of mine and doesn't take multiple subs, so it waits. On the plus side, the assistant editor there likes me and likes my stories, so I think it's just a matter of time before I crack them. I have 20 stories out right now, not counting the hoepfully-sort-of acceptances from STRAEON and Collidor--and only four stories sitting there and waiting, which includes the requested rewrite for Spark.

Working on the plot for the I Am the Abyss story right now (due Oct 1), along with giving everyone names. And revisions for the Unquiet Neighbors story to send back to Spark.

Aaaaaaaaah. I'd rather be busy than not, but... aaaaaaah.

[sarillia]

Sorry to hear about the rejections. I hope the other submissions go well. At some point I'd like to be a productive and good about submitting things as you are.

I was thinking about submitting something for I Am the Abyss but none of my ideas have really come together yet and I'm running out of time. I still might do it but I'm not sure.

[inevitableentresol]

I'm feeling pretty good about my writing goals.

My challenge this year for myself was to write something novel-length-ish, anything at all, fanfic or original, and not to care how good it was.

I've finished the first draft of something up to the last chapter now, and I'm kind of high on the achievement. It only took me about a month to do it, which I never thought I could manage.

Before this, I only wrote short stories, and had a very slow writing rate. I have all kinds of future long length stories, both original and fanfic, that I've long been planning and now seem a lot more possible.

I did write myself into a bind, though. I lost the credibility of the character motivation right at the end, which was when I ground down to a halt and eventually decided to stop and go back. I'm pretty sure I can fix it. I'm going back to edit the start again first, and then work my way through it to find my way out of it.

I found that forcing myself to just keep writing on and on for that shortish period not only massively raised my wordcount but helped the general quality of the other short stories I've finished this summer (I hope).

I wouldn't sign up to a formal NaNoWriMo, it doesn't appeal at all, but it occurred to me that I did do something similar on my own, ie a speed first draft in less than a month. It was great, but not if I'd tried to force it. It just happened naturally.

[sarillia]

It's great that you seem to have found what works for you! I'm a big proponent of experimenting until you manage to do that.

I also want to say I love your icon. Ema is so cute. :)

[inevitableentresol]

Thank you! Ema is so much fun, taking all her little notes.

I've experimented for years, and found out so much stuff that doesn't work for me but apparently works great for other people. So frustrating! It made me wonder what was wrong with me.

Things that don't work for me:
- forcing myself to write every day
- any kind of organised writing spree (including NaNoWriMo, write-a-thons, writers' forums, and writers' groups)
- plotting my stories in too much detail, especially the endings
- any kind of "how to write" literature or software


What does work for me:
- rigidly enforcing several rest days from my writing each week
- deciding on the emotional note I want to hit at the end of my stories, but not planning the details
- not writing unless I've had enough sleep
- stopping my writing every day when I still want to do more

It's taken me many years to get this far. I still have a lot to learn.

This comm is pretty good in that everyone respects that each writer works differently. Some places are very prescriptive and it's depressing when you don't fit the box.

Hope your challenge is going well. :)

[splinteredstar]

Yeah, that's the thing - everyone's brain works differently, and there's no /right/ way to do this. Anyone who says "you're producing art the wrong way" is being a jerk.

Glad you've found your methods!

[inevitableentresol]

Thanks.

Especially the "write every day" method. That works for so many people. It
seems to be very effective.

Not for me, though. It's a guaranteed way to make me stop writing at all, and if I do manage to write, to make it terrible (usually I go back over what I've already written, and ruin it, and forget to save the original because I find the whole thing so stressful).

It does give me extra admiration for those who do work that way, though, and succeed with their daily writing.

I hope you find your methods too! Lots of trial and error is the only way for each person.

[sarillia]

If it helps, I know of plenty of other people who say that writing every day doesn't work for them either. And a bunch of others who say that the other things on your list don't work for them too.

It's my firm belief that any time someone asks "Am I the only one...?" the answer is pretty much always no and sometimes I find that pretty comforting.

[inevitableentresol]

I've met no one else so far apart from myself who has had a bad time with trying to write every day. Perhaps it's because those who do write every day, and find it works for them, are much more likely to talk about it?

So thanks, that's nice to hear.

I think of my way as being like a brain athlete. Athletes deliberately build rest days into their training programs, so why shouldn't writers? The brain is after all one of the body's biggest muscles (after the posterior, which writers also use, for sitting on). :P

The one thing about write_away is that I've been able to see that there as many writing methods as there are people.

[sarillia]

I do think you get more people preaching the ways that work for them to other people rather than talking about what doesn't work unless it went so spectacularly badly that they got a good story out of it. Writing advice especially tends to be very "you have to try this!" and "never do that!". It's a little hard to make an annoying prescriptive writing rule out of the opposite of writing every day so that's probably why the people who don't like it aren't so loud about it. Maybe?

Your rest days sound reasonable to me. That's actually something I'm still trying to figure out with exercise so it's a good analogy.

[lunabee34]

I turned in my ficathon story on time, and I feel pretty decent about it. My recipient seemed to like, so yay.

[sarillia]

Awesome! That's a great feeling!