argh

[beckyh2112]

I have been writing so very much these last few months, but hardly any of it is anything I can show people. Stupid long stories. Stupid anonymous exchanges. It's frustrating to be making so much but feeling like I have nothing to show for it because I can't post any of it

Comments

[beboots]

I very much understand. Since January, I've been working steadily on research for the final papers, many of which are supposed to be at least 15 pages long, and I'm only now beginning to write them. Even my thesis isn't exactly finished. So I've been working and working and it feels like I'm just treading water. Not drowning in work, per se, but barely keeping afloat, and not going anywhere. :P Hopefully in a few weeks I'll have something to show for it all?

*hugs*

[beckyh2112]

*clings*

I really want to show some of this stuff. I crave feedback, and writing like this is hard. It's one of the reasons I always have a problem with writing original fiction.

[beboots]

*clings back*

I totally understand. I've actually just sent off the most up-to-date version of my thesis to my sister for precisely that reason. All I want to hear is "that looks amazing to me, and I loved this quote!" and I'll feel way better. ;_;

[beckyh2112]

And now I have a thousand words of something science-fictional and no clear idea what I'm doing with it. Besides eventually changing "Combine ruins" to some other type of "generic ancient ruin-making race ruins", because the Combine Empire was from Everquest.

[beboots]

Sounds interesting, though! ;) I have a few original ideas floating around in my head, but I keep having to change things because it suddenly occurs to me that "wait, this character is too close to this character from that series, and now the plotline is too similar to THIS, and...!" :P

[beckyh2112]

I am a firm believer in rubbing serial numbers off. Also, given how wild some of my AUs get, taking a Hakoda/Ozai AU and making it into an original universe isn't all that hard.

This is just a completely raw story-dump, though. Just getting the opening sequence out of my head without trying to be very pretty about it. Which means a fair amount of the info-dumps are awkward, there's not much description, and the science is just barely fact-checked.

[beboots]

"I am a firm believer in rubbing serial numbers off." An excellent metaphor! ;)

I have this excellent idea for a world, characters, and atmosphere, but I need plot beyond the characters just running into each other. :P This summer I'm definitely going to spend way more time on it and others, but for the next month, it's all non-fiction writing for me... :P

I have trouble with info-dumps too. I just love exposition! ;) But I agree, it can be difficult to balance.

(Also: science? Fact-checking? Bah! ;) )

[beckyh2112]

Yeah, I find actually playing with things inspires me to do more things with worlds and characters. Sa'why I have my Spirit Bloods meme. Which I do slowly add stuff too. (Right now, what stymies me is the names and my complete inability to grok Athenian democracy.)

Very difficult. Sometimes you need to give the readers the information, but it's hard to find graceful ways to insert it.

(There are more than enough space stories out there with bad astronomy. I can at least try to make it better myself.)

[beboots]

Yeah, I say that, but the story I have in mind is set in a frozen wasteland, and I'm definitely going to use my personal experience trekking through the Canadian wilderness in the middle of winter to portray realistic reactions to the cold. (AKA: if it's windy and -35C, you can't really tug a glove off to do something delicate with your hands.) I've read stories - and watched movies - in which it's clear the creators had never experienced cold like that for themselves and... yeah, it was jarring. Research = good. ;)

[beckyh2112]

Yeah, definitely. Research is also fun, though I tend to leave the hard science to other people and just come up to them and go "help me? :D?"

*strokes Jayakarta, purrs softly* He will be interesting. So will hacking out what the heck is going on here.