sparkle someone else's eyes
I just wrote the opening sentence of my new! hopefully workable! spn_summergen idea, and was struck once again by how weird writing is. How you start out with nothing but a cool idea in your head, and (if you're lucky) you end up with a story you can share with other people.
Sometimes I am really surprised that I am capable of doing that, that I'm pretty good at it, and that other people like the stories I am telling. I don't mean this in a "pet me" kind of way, I mean it in a "huh, that's really cool" kind of way. Because it is really cool, and sometimes I lose sight of that when the writing gets hard, or a story doesn't get the kind of response I was hoping for, and a dozen other things that can play on my insecurities and weak spots.
But today, I typed a sentence, and I thought, "Huh, that's really cool" and I am hoping it will turn into a story I can give to someone else to fulfill their request, and that's really cool too.
Speaking of cool things, in case you missed it, I posted the Dean/Kara story yesterday:
The Stormy Present
Supernatural/Battlestar Galactica; Dean/Kara; adult; vague spoilers through all aired eps of both series; 7,620 words
Kara's a pilot, and Dean hates flying.
I really like how it turned out, even if it is about three times longer than I originally expected. I feel like the BSG midseason finale handed the opportunity to me on a silver platter, and I just ran with it. I wasn't sure I was capturing Kara at first, but my lovely betas helped with that - I fleshed out the first scene more on majrgenrl8's suggestion, because I definitely got more confident writing her as I went along. I'd say the story was mostly written linearly, though there was some switching around of sections, and I did keep going back and adding stuff in that I thought of later on.
That's generally how I write - every time I open a story up, I reread it, and add things into what's already there (or move things around, or very rarely, cut things out [I know it's been said that most writers overwrite by approximately 30% or something and then have to cut that much out to make their stories viable (possibly that's just novelists?), but I am the kind of writer whose betas are mostly saying, "You have to add this in and flesh that out." So cutting doesn't happen a lot for me.) before I start writing new stuff. And sometimes i get ideas - with this story, the scene with the card game, the part where Kara drives - those were add-ins, because I was slowly finding my way into writing her. I mean, she's still kind of a cipher? Because there's so much Dean doesn't know about her, that I - and people who watch BSG - do. And I wanted to get some of that in there, once I was comfortable with the story and how it was going.
It's easy for me to blather on about writing - I don't have to do it on deadline (mostly) or for a living - and if I want to take a few days off, nobody is going to stop me (though it's rarely a case of wanting to take the day off so much as just getting so much in my own way that I end up not writing anything), so while I totally get behind the advice that one should write every day, in practice, I don't always. Since I still get things done, I don't worry too much about that, or about any other writing advice anybody might hand out. I mean, I still, after every story I finish, have the fear that it'll be the last story I ever finish, and that often drives me to start writing the next thing, whatever it is (though I generally have more than one thing on the go at a time and have since almost the very start of my fanfic writing adventure). That and the feeling of "Hey, shouldn't I be working on something?" When I post a story, especially one I've worked on for a while, I always feel like something is missing when I don't have it to work on anymore.
And that's pretty much why I do end up writing most days - even the ones where nothing is any good or I feel like I'm never going to finish anything again - because as weird as writing is sometimes, it feels weirder to me not to write.
Huh.
That was so not where I thought this post was going when I opened the update window.
Anyway, I really like how the story turned out. I especially like some of the small things I was able to slip in - I'm not sure it works as well if you don't know both canons, but I think that if you do, it's a rewarding read. And also hot, because hi? Dean/Kara = hottastic. *g*
***
Sometimes I am really surprised that I am capable of doing that, that I'm pretty good at it, and that other people like the stories I am telling. I don't mean this in a "pet me" kind of way, I mean it in a "huh, that's really cool" kind of way. Because it is really cool, and sometimes I lose sight of that when the writing gets hard, or a story doesn't get the kind of response I was hoping for, and a dozen other things that can play on my insecurities and weak spots.
But today, I typed a sentence, and I thought, "Huh, that's really cool" and I am hoping it will turn into a story I can give to someone else to fulfill their request, and that's really cool too.
Speaking of cool things, in case you missed it, I posted the Dean/Kara story yesterday:
The Stormy Present
Supernatural/Battlestar Galactica; Dean/Kara; adult; vague spoilers through all aired eps of both series; 7,620 words
Kara's a pilot, and Dean hates flying.
I really like how it turned out, even if it is about three times longer than I originally expected. I feel like the BSG midseason finale handed the opportunity to me on a silver platter, and I just ran with it. I wasn't sure I was capturing Kara at first, but my lovely betas helped with that - I fleshed out the first scene more on majrgenrl8's suggestion, because I definitely got more confident writing her as I went along. I'd say the story was mostly written linearly, though there was some switching around of sections, and I did keep going back and adding stuff in that I thought of later on.
That's generally how I write - every time I open a story up, I reread it, and add things into what's already there (or move things around, or very rarely, cut things out [I know it's been said that most writers overwrite by approximately 30% or something and then have to cut that much out to make their stories viable (possibly that's just novelists?), but I am the kind of writer whose betas are mostly saying, "You have to add this in and flesh that out." So cutting doesn't happen a lot for me.) before I start writing new stuff. And sometimes i get ideas - with this story, the scene with the card game, the part where Kara drives - those were add-ins, because I was slowly finding my way into writing her. I mean, she's still kind of a cipher? Because there's so much Dean doesn't know about her, that I - and people who watch BSG - do. And I wanted to get some of that in there, once I was comfortable with the story and how it was going.
It's easy for me to blather on about writing - I don't have to do it on deadline (mostly) or for a living - and if I want to take a few days off, nobody is going to stop me (though it's rarely a case of wanting to take the day off so much as just getting so much in my own way that I end up not writing anything), so while I totally get behind the advice that one should write every day, in practice, I don't always. Since I still get things done, I don't worry too much about that, or about any other writing advice anybody might hand out. I mean, I still, after every story I finish, have the fear that it'll be the last story I ever finish, and that often drives me to start writing the next thing, whatever it is (though I generally have more than one thing on the go at a time and have since almost the very start of my fanfic writing adventure). That and the feeling of "Hey, shouldn't I be working on something?" When I post a story, especially one I've worked on for a while, I always feel like something is missing when I don't have it to work on anymore.
And that's pretty much why I do end up writing most days - even the ones where nothing is any good or I feel like I'm never going to finish anything again - because as weird as writing is sometimes, it feels weirder to me not to write.
Huh.
That was so not where I thought this post was going when I opened the update window.
Anyway, I really like how the story turned out. I especially like some of the small things I was able to slip in - I'm not sure it works as well if you don't know both canons, but I think that if you do, it's a rewarding read. And also hot, because hi? Dean/Kara = hottastic. *g*
***