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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[lunabee34]

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