Also, the last few xkcds have been great.

[antennapedia]

psychoadept has written some new Giles/Ethan! Check it out over here.

I have written 4 out of 23 prompts for next week's planned ficspam. If I write 3 a day from now until Wednesday, I still won't finish them all. Go me. ruuger wins the successful Giles/Spike prompt contest, and her prize is that I'll have a readable story for her ficathon.

Comments

[truwest]

Ooh ooh *waves hand frantically) Cedarwood Tea -- give it to me me me! I like cedar. Swap ya for it.

INTJ: yup, that's me. Somewhat mitigated on the "F" front by being raised in rural Texas (big on social graces) by a very "F" mother. Mr West is ENTP.

I wanna read the wight story. I like barrows.

Congrats on all the writing, even if you think some of it is dreck. Remember all those art/creativity advice books: great works come from having the most at-bats, not from some magical ability to bat rarely but always get a homer.

Dates: meh. They may be one of those foods you have to grow up with.

Ridiculously busy (prepping for a talk at a conference on Sat, plus work deliverables, plus traveling AGAIN, this time for family commitments). Perhaps we can get dinner in 1st half Dec. I saw you every day on the UK trip, and now haven't seen you since, due to your pneumonia and my travel sched.

[antennapedia]

It's yours! Next time we get together. I have a few other things from him that had interesting descriptions, in the tiny 2ml size, and I have to say, this guy is a fascinating scent designer. He's the first one since BPAL's Beth who's caught my interest.

The outline for the wight story is solid, I think. It's got plot and character interaction and some fun stuff at the end. I want so much to finish it. But other obligations interfere.

I didn't grow up with dates! Never had a single one until I moved to California. And yet I like 'em. Ditto figs.

[psychoadept]

Thanks for the link!

For what it's worth, I've enjoyed a lot of your writing this year. Even while I've been LJ-absent, I wander over to your journal first thing if I'm looking for a Giles fix.

[antennapedia]

When I got started on this "learn to write decent fiction and then learn to show it to others" project, Ray Bradbury was one of my inspirations. Not his writing, but his work habits. When he got started, he wrote a story a week. New week, new story. Start a first draft on Monday, finish it, revise it, mail it out on Friday. This approach has its weaknesses (Bradbury's novels are really collections of linked stories), but it's a sound way to learn to write short fiction. Frequent iterations, with a tight feedback loop.

That's what I set out to do, so the high output is kind of deliberate. Not every story can be great with this approach, because it's impossible. When I can set perfectionism aside and concentrate on trying out one new technique, or doing one specific thing with a story, I do okay. When I can't, I wind myself into tangles like this one.

It's comforting to hear that everybody else is struggling too, isn't it? It's sort of encouraging. Yes, all this is normal, and yes, we can all get over it.

[clavally]

Dates remind me of monkeys and poison. Yeah, nothing profound to see here...

[antennapedia]

Asps. Very dangerous. You go first.

[clavally]

Snakes? I hate snakes.

...I kinda sorta love you, lol

[nutterbudgie]

ESFP. And hey, I got a new sofa today! OMG it's a psychic test! Maybe not :/
My grandmother usta just dream, talking about a 'man on a camel' gave her a handfull of fresh-picked dates. She went around Central Asia in the 70's, when they were still friendly. So I was raised pro-date.

[antennapedia]

I bought a pound of them yesterday and am in heaven. Mmmmmmm.