Friday Rants and Raves - March 27

[sarillia]

Hello all! It's been a while since I've done this. So how is it going? Got anything to celebrate? Anything you want to vent about? What's going on?

As always, here's a picture from my collection. The Lava Pit by Rowena Morrill:

Comments

[sarillia]

I'm still plugging away on the second draft of my current project. I'm also preparing for Camp NaNo since it starts next week. I'm going to try to write something new while continuing my revision, but if it doesn't work then I'll give up on the shiny new project.

I also went back to Tumblr after a long hiatus and I'm happy to be back collecting pictures that capture my imagination for whatever reason.

[agilebrit]

My RP partner and I finished our Thing and sent it winging to Writers of the Future. And I finished my Codexian Idol story (code-named "werewolf in space" because why should urban fantasy have all the fun; let's get some space opera in on the lycanthrope train!), but it's two thousand words too long for CI. Of course.

Fortunately, there's a place I can stop it where it's still a sort-of ending, and I'm not too worried about winning the contest (I won't). And I really, really like this story.

The "write a short and then work on the novel" plan has sort of gone by the wayside, and I really should pick that up again. And maybe that would be easier if I wasn't juggling broken plates and trying to figure out how to glue them together in midair.

Overall, pleased with my output on the year, but less pleased with the fact that both extant novels are stalled like big stalled things.

[sarillia]

I always admire your productivity. Werewolves in space sounds really interesting too. I'm curious about the whole moon thing and how that works.

Part of me still thinks I should submit something to Writers of the Future at some point but the rest of me knows I like writing novels so much more than short stories and can't stop thinking that my short stories are crap.

[splinteredstar]

yeah, werewolves in space sounds awesome. Is it /any/ moon that triggers it? What if the planet they're on doesn't have a moon? Important things.

[dhampyresa]

I finished a novel outline a little while ago. Problem is, it's the first time I've ever outlined a novel and now I have no idea how I should go about handling that outline and straightening it out. I know it has problems (there are something like three first scenes, iirc), but I just don't know how to go about feeling like I've been making progress on the editing, if that makes sense? When I was outlining, I could see my outline wordcount rise and count that as progress. Now, idk what to use to measure progress and if I can't see the progress I feel like I'm going nowhere and everything grinds to alt and is terrible.

[sarillia]

I wouldn't worry about it too much if I were you. I outlined the novel I'm revising now pretty well and I still ended up with a completely new outline full of big changes for the second draft. I think it's easier to see what works and what doesn't and possible solutions when the actual story is in front of you. But I'm very much an exploratory sort of writer where the first draft is just a fun mess meant to get everything down on paper, so that may not work for you.

[inkdust]

I'm not as much of an exploratory writer, but I would still suggest starting to write based on what you have. I always outline to some extent first, but after I have a general plan I start writing pieces of it. 90% will change anyway by draft three or four. That gives me momentum to keep tweaking the outline at the same time.

[splinteredstar]

Honestly, the way the semester has been going, I haven't had time or energy to do any writing. But a major project is finishing up tomorrow, so I'm planning on doing writing for the rest of the weekend.

I've started outlining a longer story, and I think it's working? I'm not sure how the character development will work, but, there's only one way to find out.

[sarillia]

I hope this weekend goes well!

I'm dealing with a pretty hellish semester myself, so I empathize.

[slr2moons]

I haven't been able to do anything creative since Yuletide, until last Wednesday! I now have a standard bi-weekly writing meetup with two IRL fandom friends, and last Wed was our first one. I'm really excited about it, as it means I will be doing something creative! Even if I only write for an hour every other week, that's certainly more than I've been doing lately: namely nothing. :P

For my project, it's a gift for a friend. She thinks I'm working on the next chapter of one of my WIPs, when actually it's a fancomic her favorite femslash OTP. *wink* It took me about 45 minutes to come up with the words-only outline. Then I did thumbnails and panel layouts. Made it about 3/4ths of the way through! Of course it's all sketchy ATM, but that will change! ^^V

[sarillia]

That's great! I would love to have a group like that. And I'm always glad to hear about more femslash. :D

[slr2moons]

This will be my first publicly posted femslash! It will be good to finally have that pink box on my AO3 works page. So far it's been all green and blue. XD

I met all my IRL fandom friends through write-ins I organized, both for Yuletide and for my region's local slash LJ comm. Have you considered doing the same? It's definitely worth it, even if you only see the other people at write-ins. ^^V If you decide to give it a try, I wish you good luck!

[ljwrites]

I'm rewriting a novel draft I did last July for Camp NaNo. My latest breakthrough was realizing that my first scene doesn't work and putting in several earlier scenes to properly introduce the characters and the world. With the way work and studies have been going I have had depressingly little time and energy for writing, but I'm plugging on and getting new ideas all the time. My fondest hope is to spend a whole day at the library doing some much-needed research.

Cool picture, it reminds me of the Fire Elemental card from Magic: The Gathering. http://www.wizardscupboard.com/fire-elemental-p-8840.html?osCsid=fd1bbac62e0a7c77dc5e2faff2c7cdc1