In which I meta and poll...

[memphis86]

So you don't have to read the tl;dr behind the cuts, but PLEASE do fill out the poll! I'm always interested to gab about how others hone their writing skills.


To recap, I issued a challenge about a week ago here.

The resulting drabbles:

1. Sugar Rum Cherry & The First (Noelle) [J2, NC-17 and PG-13 respectively]
2. Listening to Otis Redding... [Sam/Dean, John/Mary, PG-13]
3. How A Rose E'er Blooming [Jared/Jensen, PG-13]
4. Faded From The Winter [Sam/Dean, NC-17]
5. Christmas With You Is The Best [Sam/Dean, R for cussing and implied wincest]
6. The Nutcracker [Sam/Dean, PG-13]
7. Warmer Climate [Sam/Dean, NC-17]
8. Holiday [Jared/Jensen, PG-13]

Yeah, I screwed up and wrote nine drabbles actually. But we're pretending that didn't happen...

I think the first two fics ( Sugar Rum Cherry & The First (Noelle)) felt safe to me. I took candy canes, and wrote licky smut. I took "special dinner" and gave it a domestic J2-setting, daddyfic. I sort of had an image of these things when I first read the prompts, and I just wrote what was in my head.

The first big leap was taking the prompt of "holiday music in the Impala" for Listening to Otis Redding... and NOT doing the first thing that came to mind. The first thing I thought of was "Dean plays that Lynyrd Skynyrd song, or some other classic rock carol, and Sam is long-suffering and annoyed but they have sex anyway."

But it didn't turn out like that when I started writing. I kept thinking about a song that Dean could like, that would surprise everyone, and I settled on White Christmas by Otis Redding. It was just so sweet and felt like the right blend of old-school and classic and seasonal sounding. Then, well, I had the Okkervil River song, and that got stuck in my head. Next thing I know I just want Sam and Dean listening to music and holding each other and dancing. And John and Mary too. It just sort of happened, and I was worried because it DIDN'T feel safe.

But I'm glad I did it, even if the relationship parallels bothered some, and lord knows John/Mary is rather sacred to me (I am not a Daddycest fan, sorry kids). But it was a step I needed to take.

If I'm gonna go in order, How A Rose E'er Blooming stuck to my original plan like the first two. I didn't want to do a long, drawn-out Thanksgiving. Just something silly that ended with sex in front of the fireplace. But then I stumbled on that final line, and it felt so right to stop it there! I couldn't bring myself to tack on sex that didn't seem necessary, so I pocketed the thought, maybe apply it later.

If I have a favorite of these, it's Faded From The Winter. I originally thought I'd do straight-schmoop with wrestling in the snow and Sam nuzzling Dean's nose.

But, I just thought of snow, and that song my Mom would sing to me about a rabbit in the woods. Y'know the one that goes like: "Help me! Help me! Help! He said, 'fore the hunter shoots me dead. Let me come inside with you, keep me safe and waaaarm" I don't remember the lyrics so well, but that whole idea of the rabbit begging for refuge, became the hunter begging for someplace safe and warm. I just felt in the music, and in that image a sense of bleakness. Of unspoiled bright white snow, like an empty mind, or a TV buzzing with static. It's Snow White, and then it's Rose Red, the color interrupting the pure, pristine snow. It's Dean being quiet, cold, silent and longing. Sam being patient and warm and loving, believing in Dean's desire to come back, and knowing he'd walk through fire to get there.

Quiet intensity, is something I love in fics about the boys.

Christmas With You is just me having fun, plain and simple. I thought I might make it Wee!chesters, or Sammy-gets-age-regressed, in order to explain his sudden love of Christmas. Because I honestly think Dean's the one with childlike glee for the holiday, and Sam is the one who can get grumpy about it, commercialism and all.

The Nutcracker was a last-minute change. I had planned to do a fic where the boys drool over new guns and weapons (a play on the "toys" part). But then I was going home on the subway from like, an 11-hour adventure with the Superfriends (aka the NYC fen), and I was just like, DRAINED and tired and I thought about "March of the Toy Soldiers"; and then "The Nutcracker Prince" just kind of popped in my head. First Dean was the soldier, but Sam didn't work to me as Clara, Dean did. (Heh, so do I turn in my Deangirl badge now?) Mostly the change had to do with keeping John and Mary as parents, and YEDdy as the dollmaker & mouse king.

Warmer Climate I wrote during my Administrator meeting. I decided it was boring, I was pissy and tired and I wanted to take an hour in my head to write porn since no one could see what I was writing from where I was sitting. So, porn porn porn, wonderful porn.

Holiday was the only story I had no clue what I wanted to do with. I didn't know if I wanted to make it a stand-alone scene, like just one long, drawn-out experience with the boys. When I started it off, all I knew was I wanted Jared wearing Christmassy stuff, and Jensen calling him a crack addict. And then it was just like, hey! This doesn't have to be a long scene! It can be snippety! Thus, I focused on doing eight nights with the boys, and each night Jensen gives Jared a gift, whether it's material or an action or an unspoken metaphysical gift. In those eight nights, they fall in love. That's the miracle.

The miracle I discovered, was how dedicated I could make myself to finishing what I start, and not lagging off, or stopping posting because I felt bad about missing a day or some other B.S. excuse.


The real reason I think I stuck to this? Was because I need to stave off writer's block when I get consumed by work. I have a tendency to want to give up the pleasurable pastimes for a while, and then find it awkward to get back into it.

Point being: I get bad, bad Writer's Block. The only way to stop it? Is to write.

I've had horrible, terrible times when I felt like I'd never write again, that I lost whatever ability I had when I switched to academic writing in college. I mean, I wrote well, I was always strong with essays and written exams. I was well-spoken, I could come up with ideas and answers on the fly. I've always been good with improvisation. But I had to struggle with that too, academic writing didn't come easy, I had to practice and practice and re-train my brain to do critical analysis. I had to let go of all the essay rules I was taught in high-school.

For example, I was told never to use "I" in an essay. Ugh, what a horrible thing to teach someone. In order to write good, strong philosophy essays, you have to take a stand. You pick a side, and you argue for it or against it; or you do both and completely re-work a thesis into a new idea. You stand up and you say what you argue, what you know and what you see in your analysis of the text. I got comfortable, I got really good at it. I became a critical thinker.

But I lost my voice. I thought I could turn it on and off like a light switch. I was wrong. I had to keep writing crap until I found it again. It was like slowly waking up a sleeper, not able to jolt it awake, but to make me want to wake it up again. I had to remind myself how much I loved writing, how I'm really only truly happy in the creative moment, in the flash of brilliance and in the manipulation of my words. It's art, we all need to make art. Whether it's with words or color or sound or movement or any other materials you have at your fingertips. Life is not worth living without art.

Poll The Writer's Block Poll
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What I took away from this challenge to myself, was a feeling of accomplishment. I thought about next year (OMG, next year! Fandom! Flist! I want you all to still be there!), and how I'd like to open it up to others. We could all make posts, calling for prompts, and do eight nights of drabbles. Or pick a week, a holiday week we all have time off, and do a 7-day challenge. No fear, no limits, taking whatever liberties with the prompts you want, taking whatever risks.

The only way to beat Writer's Block, is to write.