picspam + writing
So, I'm going to post about the 30265 words I wrote this month, but since I know most of you don't care, I was going to preface it with a couple pictures that I stole from Joe Mallozzi's blog. Then "a couple of pictures from Joe Mallozzi's blog" became "pictures of DHew in the orange fleece and then quackerscooper was like, "FLANIGAN" and now here are random SGA related pictures. There are spoilers within, but it's really only that casting spoiler that everyone knows by now. After the pictures, I will talk about writing.
Oh boys. You're precious. What with the touching and all. Especially when David is making that weird possessive face.
Jewel! You are adorable! I can't wait to see you on my teevee next season!
This is me officially rescinding my previous opinion on Samantha Carter. Seriously. I am all about Sam Carter now. Especially when she's looking like this. Rawr. I hope I look that good when I'm in my forties. (And look! Behind her! Pregnant Jane! Awww!)
Okay, here are the hilarious parts of this photo. 1. David Hewlett's face. 2. The idea of Rodney in a leather jacket. I'M SORRY, THAT IS ALTERNA!RODNEY WEAR. Real!Rodney in a leather jacket is Rodney playing dress-up with his boyfriend's clothes. And looking ridiculously hilarious while doing so.
Also, Amanda is adorable. Remember when I hated Carter? You know, for most of the time I knew who she was?
This is a blurry picture, but the important part is that apparently, the boys are two steps away from playing footsie. LOOK AT THEIR FEET. Also, awww, Paul!
Look at them, all dressed down! How can I not love the fact that the writers ret-conned the show so that they could be even gayer?
I can't even comment on this picture. I want to pounce on Rodney right there.
And here I want to hug him.
And this is solely for quackerscooper, who's crush on Flanigan is hilarious, considering she mocked me for watching this show in January.
She occasionally e-mails me this picture when she's having a bad day.
The last three pictures came from a picspam by aesc. The one labelled "GateWorld" came from GateWorld. The rest came from Joe Mallozzi's blog.
***
Okay, so, for those of you who are new or those of you who haven't been paying attention, at the beginning of the month I started the community itsproductivity to post daily prompts for the month of July. I was having trouble writing and wanted something to inspire me. I invited everyone I could think of, and ended up with a small group of participants.
Over the course of the month, I wrote 30265 words. That's nearly 1000 words a day. It's much more than I thought I'd be able to do.
The last time I did something like this was in December, when I did "advent," a sort of advent calendar of holiday-themed stories starring my original characters. The idea with itsproductivity was that I didn't have to follow a story line. I could write in different fandoms if I wanted, a different set of characters each day, even. That was... both a good and bad idea.
The freedom of writing whatever I wanted was nice, but at the same time, I often found myself at a loose end. More than once I watched the clock tick down to the final hours of the day and I still had no idea what to write. I would rush through things and produce dialogue heavy snippets that didn't quite hit the joke/mark/theme that I wanted, but post them anyway because it was nearly midnight. It was frustrating, because I knew I could do better, but with a deadline looming, I didn't have much of a choice.
Other days, I had six or seven different ideas, but only had time to tackle one of them. Sometimes, even tackling one was a challenge. Which is where we get into the personality section. This month, more than anything else, has convinced me that I need to be back on mood stabalizing drugs.
I was on a couple things in high school, as some of you may recall. I quit right before college, because my stupid shrink was... an idiot. And I didn't like seeing her. And she didn't seem to understand what my problem really was. I've been muddling along without them ever since, but I know things are off, and after the multiple major meltdowns that I had last year, I've been considering going back on them. This month has really made that clear to me. Writing is something I love. Writing is something that I would do all day every day given the chance. However, I was given the chance this month, and it was basically a chore. I could hardly motivate myself to write a few hundred words a day, and when I did, I couldn't sit still long enough to write more than a few sentences at a time. It was incredibly frustrating, and if I wasn't the mod of the community, I probably would have quit.
It's really disquieting to me to be unable and unwilling to write. I mean, it's happened prior to this, but I've always attributed it to being busy and lacking inspiration. Here, I had inspiration and time in abundance, and still couldn't bring myself to string a few words together.
Anyway, my personal issues aside, it was an interesting experiment from the point of view of a writer as well. I took most of the prompts from a book called The Pocket Muse, which was one of three books I dug out of my bedroom to draw on for this community. It was the only one I ended up using, which is good, because if the community continues, it means I have two more books to work with XD
The prompts were varied, although some similar themes ran through my own stories. Loyalty and comfort were two big things that popped up over and over again. It makes sense, because two of my major writing kinks are loyalty and relationship history. I tend to ship things based on these, among others, so it's logical that the stories would share these themes.
I also found that I write differently depending on what I'm doing. Funny stories are told using a much more casual narrative voice with little description and lots of dialogue. Serious stories use the opposite. I like run on sentences and commas and lists of things. I slip in and out of the characters' voices and the narrative voice as I see fit.
The fact that I was writing with a time limit also changed the way I write. Normally, I don't spend much time of post-writing revision, but I revise as I write. I'll write a few paragraphs, get up, get a glass of water, re-read, and re-write. It goes that way most of the time, and even bare-bones stories end up longer and stronger as I go. I said in the previous paragraph that funny stories were low on description. Given more time, that would probably have changed before I posted them, but since I was working on a deadline, it stayed as it was.
I learned that writing sex can be much easier than I've ever made it out to be before. Over the years, I've written a handful of explicit sex scenes, mostly because I write stories for plot and sometimes I think an explicit sex scene spoils that plot. It can be helpful, too, though, and when I'm not stressing over whether or not it's going to sound tacked on or out of place, it's actually fun. Much like actual sex, the key is that you need to be relaxed ;D
I learned that I absolutely love writing McKay and Sheppard being silly boys. I love the idea and the images behind Will and Sam in Iowa, even if the stories don't always come. I can't stop fixating on S4 of TWW. I need to fill in some holes in Danny and Alan's recent activities. I haven't written for Rajiv in way too long. I miss writing women.
I learned that I probably have the capability of doing NaNo for real. The last time I tried it, I hit about 25k. This month, I hit 30k+ without a coherent plot. If I had an outline, I think I could have nailed 50k easily.
So, that is my musing. There may be more tomorrow, because I'm getting tired and distracted and forgetting all the things I wanted to say. For those who are curious, itsproductivity is going to remain open, purpose TBD, but it's definitely going to stay writing-related, and I'd still encourage all of you to join, or to go and read what people have written so far. I am woefully behind on that myself, but I plan on getting caught up, if I can.
Oh boys. You're precious. What with the touching and all. Especially when David is making that weird possessive face.
Jewel! You are adorable! I can't wait to see you on my teevee next season!
This is me officially rescinding my previous opinion on Samantha Carter. Seriously. I am all about Sam Carter now. Especially when she's looking like this. Rawr. I hope I look that good when I'm in my forties. (And look! Behind her! Pregnant Jane! Awww!)
Okay, here are the hilarious parts of this photo. 1. David Hewlett's face. 2. The idea of Rodney in a leather jacket. I'M SORRY, THAT IS ALTERNA!RODNEY WEAR. Real!Rodney in a leather jacket is Rodney playing dress-up with his boyfriend's clothes. And looking ridiculously hilarious while doing so.
Also, Amanda is adorable. Remember when I hated Carter? You know, for most of the time I knew who she was?
This is a blurry picture, but the important part is that apparently, the boys are two steps away from playing footsie. LOOK AT THEIR FEET. Also, awww, Paul!
Look at them, all dressed down! How can I not love the fact that the writers ret-conned the show so that they could be even gayer?
I can't even comment on this picture. I want to pounce on Rodney right there.
And here I want to hug him.
And this is solely for quackerscooper, who's crush on Flanigan is hilarious, considering she mocked me for watching this show in January.
She occasionally e-mails me this picture when she's having a bad day.
The last three pictures came from a picspam by aesc. The one labelled "GateWorld" came from GateWorld. The rest came from Joe Mallozzi's blog.
***
Okay, so, for those of you who are new or those of you who haven't been paying attention, at the beginning of the month I started the community itsproductivity to post daily prompts for the month of July. I was having trouble writing and wanted something to inspire me. I invited everyone I could think of, and ended up with a small group of participants.
Over the course of the month, I wrote 30265 words. That's nearly 1000 words a day. It's much more than I thought I'd be able to do.
The last time I did something like this was in December, when I did "advent," a sort of advent calendar of holiday-themed stories starring my original characters. The idea with itsproductivity was that I didn't have to follow a story line. I could write in different fandoms if I wanted, a different set of characters each day, even. That was... both a good and bad idea.
The freedom of writing whatever I wanted was nice, but at the same time, I often found myself at a loose end. More than once I watched the clock tick down to the final hours of the day and I still had no idea what to write. I would rush through things and produce dialogue heavy snippets that didn't quite hit the joke/mark/theme that I wanted, but post them anyway because it was nearly midnight. It was frustrating, because I knew I could do better, but with a deadline looming, I didn't have much of a choice.
Other days, I had six or seven different ideas, but only had time to tackle one of them. Sometimes, even tackling one was a challenge. Which is where we get into the personality section. This month, more than anything else, has convinced me that I need to be back on mood stabalizing drugs.
I was on a couple things in high school, as some of you may recall. I quit right before college, because my stupid shrink was... an idiot. And I didn't like seeing her. And she didn't seem to understand what my problem really was. I've been muddling along without them ever since, but I know things are off, and after the multiple major meltdowns that I had last year, I've been considering going back on them. This month has really made that clear to me. Writing is something I love. Writing is something that I would do all day every day given the chance. However, I was given the chance this month, and it was basically a chore. I could hardly motivate myself to write a few hundred words a day, and when I did, I couldn't sit still long enough to write more than a few sentences at a time. It was incredibly frustrating, and if I wasn't the mod of the community, I probably would have quit.
It's really disquieting to me to be unable and unwilling to write. I mean, it's happened prior to this, but I've always attributed it to being busy and lacking inspiration. Here, I had inspiration and time in abundance, and still couldn't bring myself to string a few words together.
Anyway, my personal issues aside, it was an interesting experiment from the point of view of a writer as well. I took most of the prompts from a book called The Pocket Muse, which was one of three books I dug out of my bedroom to draw on for this community. It was the only one I ended up using, which is good, because if the community continues, it means I have two more books to work with XD
The prompts were varied, although some similar themes ran through my own stories. Loyalty and comfort were two big things that popped up over and over again. It makes sense, because two of my major writing kinks are loyalty and relationship history. I tend to ship things based on these, among others, so it's logical that the stories would share these themes.
I also found that I write differently depending on what I'm doing. Funny stories are told using a much more casual narrative voice with little description and lots of dialogue. Serious stories use the opposite. I like run on sentences and commas and lists of things. I slip in and out of the characters' voices and the narrative voice as I see fit.
The fact that I was writing with a time limit also changed the way I write. Normally, I don't spend much time of post-writing revision, but I revise as I write. I'll write a few paragraphs, get up, get a glass of water, re-read, and re-write. It goes that way most of the time, and even bare-bones stories end up longer and stronger as I go. I said in the previous paragraph that funny stories were low on description. Given more time, that would probably have changed before I posted them, but since I was working on a deadline, it stayed as it was.
I learned that writing sex can be much easier than I've ever made it out to be before. Over the years, I've written a handful of explicit sex scenes, mostly because I write stories for plot and sometimes I think an explicit sex scene spoils that plot. It can be helpful, too, though, and when I'm not stressing over whether or not it's going to sound tacked on or out of place, it's actually fun. Much like actual sex, the key is that you need to be relaxed ;D
I learned that I absolutely love writing McKay and Sheppard being silly boys. I love the idea and the images behind Will and Sam in Iowa, even if the stories don't always come. I can't stop fixating on S4 of TWW. I need to fill in some holes in Danny and Alan's recent activities. I haven't written for Rajiv in way too long. I miss writing women.
I learned that I probably have the capability of doing NaNo for real. The last time I tried it, I hit about 25k. This month, I hit 30k+ without a coherent plot. If I had an outline, I think I could have nailed 50k easily.
So, that is my musing. There may be more tomorrow, because I'm getting tired and distracted and forgetting all the things I wanted to say. For those who are curious, itsproductivity is going to remain open, purpose TBD, but it's definitely going to stay writing-related, and I'd still encourage all of you to join, or to go and read what people have written so far. I am woefully behind on that myself, but I plan on getting caught up, if I can.