we are fool's gold
I didn't want to keep forgetting to post this:
Top 5 Songs - November 2011
6. A Violent Yet Flammable World - Au Revoir Simone
This is less me choosing this song than the iPod playing it A LOT and me enjoying the ride.
5. Meet Me by the River's Edge - Gaslight Anthem
I will never stop loving how blatant their Springsteen references are, and this song is FULL of them. No surrender, my Bobby Jean!
4. Please - Tom McRae
This is just gorgeous.
3. Magpie to the Morning - Neko Case
Since August or so, every morning when I leave the house for work, this is the song I have cued up on my iPod.
2. World Spins Madly On - the Weepies
This song makes me say, "Oh, Steve..."
1. Adventures in Solitude - the New Pornographers
And this one makes me say, "Oh, Steve..." and then, "Oh, Bucky..."
It's funny how you can know and like a song for years and never really associate it with anything fannish (even though other people do - I dl'd this from
snacky, who has it on a Narnia fanmix, and I adore
riseupwithfists' Jaime/Tim story "Adventures in Solitude," but I never really connected the song with the story), and then BAM, you have the right character or pairing and a song comes on and you're just like YES. THIS. FOR THEM. *hands* I had that reaction to this and Steve/Bucky.
***
jjtaylor mentioned something about writing processes yesterday, and I have been thinking a lot about this again lately, as I suddenly seem really plugged into my writing brain in a way I hadn't been in a long time, and I think it's been good, but man, I listen to other people talk about writing and I feel like I am a complete hack. I don't have plans. I don't have outlines. I don't have note cards or fancy software or elaborate head canon or timelines.
I get an idea and sometimes it comes with words or images or sometimes I talk about it with other people and they say, "It would be great if {this}" and I'm like, "If {this}, then {that}!" and they're like, "YES!" and then I write.
That's it, really. That's the process. I write. I faff off on the internet until it's time for bed and then I read through whatever I've written on whatever story I'm working on most - if nothing is clicking yet, I open up three or four wsip and see what pings and where the words are and start writing. People ask me how I'm so prolific and that is how. I write. And when I can't write, I edit. Which is why the beginnings of my stories are always much more polished than the endings.
I might make notes about beats the story needs to hit, if it's longer, or scribble down lines of dialogue I want to use, but I can't plan things out too much or it just kills the story dead. (And when I say notes, it's things like, "rescuing puppies, y/y? And then kissing!" so it's not like they're particularly detailed even when I do it.)
It's like how some people write really intense and meaningful stories about important things and some people write cute stories about failboats who stumble into each other and end up liking it. I think we all know which category I am in. *snerk* I've come to terms with that over the years, mostly. In a recent comment, someone categorized something I'd written as "affection and porn, but not love" (though I think affection is certainly a form of love) and I was like, "Yes! I like affectionate porn!" I mean, don't get me wrong, I am still a pretty hardcore OTP shipper in some cases, but I also like stories about people who like each other a lot but who may or may not be a long-term thing, but they're going to enjoy themselves right now.
My real key for writing a lot is that I am generally enjoying the story I'm trying to tell. It might drive me up a wall with frustration when I can't find the right words or the right scenario to move things forward, but overall, if I'm not enjoying the idea of the story, if I'm not thinking about it all the time, and the cool things that I want to put into it, which will be fun to write as soon as I get through this damn whatever scene, and how great it will be to read it over and over when it's done (even if, right after it's finished, I can't look at it anymore for a while), then odds are that story will probably never get finished.
There's always a shit-ton of writing advice to be had for free (and for money), but the only sure thing I've ever learned is that you have to find a way to write that works for you and use it until it stops working. I've tried a lot of other people's ways and it's rarely been as successful for me as what I already do.
Obviously, mileage varies.
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/401930.html.
people have commented there.
Top 5 Songs - November 2011
6. A Violent Yet Flammable World - Au Revoir Simone
This is less me choosing this song than the iPod playing it A LOT and me enjoying the ride.
5. Meet Me by the River's Edge - Gaslight Anthem
I will never stop loving how blatant their Springsteen references are, and this song is FULL of them. No surrender, my Bobby Jean!
4. Please - Tom McRae
This is just gorgeous.
3. Magpie to the Morning - Neko Case
Since August or so, every morning when I leave the house for work, this is the song I have cued up on my iPod.
2. World Spins Madly On - the Weepies
This song makes me say, "Oh, Steve..."
1. Adventures in Solitude - the New Pornographers
And this one makes me say, "Oh, Steve..." and then, "Oh, Bucky..."
It's funny how you can know and like a song for years and never really associate it with anything fannish (even though other people do - I dl'd this from
snacky, who has it on a Narnia fanmix, and I adore
riseupwithfists' Jaime/Tim story "Adventures in Solitude," but I never really connected the song with the story), and then BAM, you have the right character or pairing and a song comes on and you're just like YES. THIS. FOR THEM. *hands* I had that reaction to this and Steve/Bucky.
***
jjtaylor mentioned something about writing processes yesterday, and I have been thinking a lot about this again lately, as I suddenly seem really plugged into my writing brain in a way I hadn't been in a long time, and I think it's been good, but man, I listen to other people talk about writing and I feel like I am a complete hack. I don't have plans. I don't have outlines. I don't have note cards or fancy software or elaborate head canon or timelines.
I get an idea and sometimes it comes with words or images or sometimes I talk about it with other people and they say, "It would be great if {this}" and I'm like, "If {this}, then {that}!" and they're like, "YES!" and then I write.
That's it, really. That's the process. I write. I faff off on the internet until it's time for bed and then I read through whatever I've written on whatever story I'm working on most - if nothing is clicking yet, I open up three or four wsip and see what pings and where the words are and start writing. People ask me how I'm so prolific and that is how. I write. And when I can't write, I edit. Which is why the beginnings of my stories are always much more polished than the endings.
I might make notes about beats the story needs to hit, if it's longer, or scribble down lines of dialogue I want to use, but I can't plan things out too much or it just kills the story dead. (And when I say notes, it's things like, "rescuing puppies, y/y? And then kissing!" so it's not like they're particularly detailed even when I do it.)
It's like how some people write really intense and meaningful stories about important things and some people write cute stories about failboats who stumble into each other and end up liking it. I think we all know which category I am in. *snerk* I've come to terms with that over the years, mostly. In a recent comment, someone categorized something I'd written as "affection and porn, but not love" (though I think affection is certainly a form of love) and I was like, "Yes! I like affectionate porn!" I mean, don't get me wrong, I am still a pretty hardcore OTP shipper in some cases, but I also like stories about people who like each other a lot but who may or may not be a long-term thing, but they're going to enjoy themselves right now.
My real key for writing a lot is that I am generally enjoying the story I'm trying to tell. It might drive me up a wall with frustration when I can't find the right words or the right scenario to move things forward, but overall, if I'm not enjoying the idea of the story, if I'm not thinking about it all the time, and the cool things that I want to put into it, which will be fun to write as soon as I get through this damn whatever scene, and how great it will be to read it over and over when it's done (even if, right after it's finished, I can't look at it anymore for a while), then odds are that story will probably never get finished.
There's always a shit-ton of writing advice to be had for free (and for money), but the only sure thing I've ever learned is that you have to find a way to write that works for you and use it until it stops working. I've tried a lot of other people's ways and it's rarely been as successful for me as what I already do.
Obviously, mileage varies.
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/401930.html.
people have commented there.