It is an ancient fanficcer, she stoppeth one in three
I told myself I wouldn't post until I'd finished my Seasonal Spuffy story. I haven't finished it. But I did just post the first draft of my climactic scene to my beta list, leaving only the concluding scene to write.
I don't think I'll be able to revise the whole thing by the 30th, but I should be able to get at least the first scene into postable shape by then. (I haven't been revising at all, just plowing madly through the first draft, which is not the way I usually write - usually I revise a lot as I go, and go back and revise existing scenes every time I write a new one.) Thereafter I should be able to post further installments in my journal fairly quickly, and have it all up within two weeks, or maybe even sooner. Hopefully it's not complete crap. It's about 12,000 words, might expand to as much as 15,000 in revisions (I've really been rushing it), and I wrote it all in the last week, which I took off for the express purpose of doing just that. (My job may not pay much, but they give us vacation days to burn. I have another eight days I need to use or lose before the end of August, and I'll probably use those to write my Plot Without Porn fic.)
Since this is a very intense, angsty story, I also told myself that if I finished it, I'd reward myself by signing up for schmoop_bingo, which I did. My card:
soulmates
kitchen disaster
engagement
unexpected date
birthday - surprise party
singing
autumn holiday/festival
first holiday together
cuddling with pets
wine
cuddling while sick
anniversary - one partner sick
WILD CARD
“I love you” - first
anniversary - first
swimming
wooing/courtship
shower together
massage - foot rub
kidfic
cuddling in public
romantic holiday
making out
massage - erotic
coffee shop
As I suspected, I've written stories or scenes within longer stories that would fit almost all the prompts already (though not all of them might count as schmoopy), and I don't want to repeat myself, so this will be a challenge. Whatever could I do with 'soulmates,' I wonder...
This assumes, of course, that I'm able to come up with anything at all. As you've probably noticed, barring a couple of drabbles, I haven't written anything this year. I've had my SS story completely plotted for months, but I didn't start writing until last weekend. Getting it down on paper in pixels has been like pulling teeth. I'm expecting the revisions to be easier, but not by much. I want to write, very much, but I just... haven't.
This happens to me every now and then. Sometimes it lasts for months. Sometimes it lasts for years. Sometimes it's a warning to me that I've exhausted the thematic potential of my current stable of characters and setting. I'm hoping that's not the case here (and even if it is, I still intend to finish my WIPs.) But I have to face the possibility that I may just have said everything I have to say. I've really, really wanted to write schmoopy comfort fic for quite awhile, but Editor Barb has shot down every single one of Writer Barb's nascent ideas as repetitive tripe.
(I'm actually feeling slightly less pessimistic about this now than I was, say, last month. Sitting down and beating my head against the keyboard till the words come out isn't fun, but it does, at least, reassure me that I'm still capable of producing readable sentences, however slowly, painfully, and below my standards for decent prose they are. Someone asked me once why bother to write fanfic if it wasn't fun, and the answer is that while the act of writing may not always be fun, having written is pure ego-crack, and worth any amount of struggle.)
But anyway, the self-imposed posting moratorium means I've passed on a lot of personal posts, too. So I never told the story of Bo vs. the Oat Buns, or mentioned that I've been looking more seriously into assisted living facilities for Mom again, or the Great Indoor Dove Hunt, or that I finally got the laundry list of small cosmetic car problems fixed. And now most of the things about which I've thought, "Gee, that would make a good post," over the last month or so have trickled quietly out through the sieve of my brain cells, never to be seen again. The world, I am sure, will survive the loss.
There needs to be a new word, I'm thinking, for feeling low-level blah/stressed/unhappy and uncreative over long periods of time. "Depressed" is too strong. I think job stress is a large part of what's going on with me. There are things about my job that I A) can't control, or B) can only control by initiating stressful confrontations. In the long run, it would be better to brave the confrontations than to endure the long term low-level panic, but it's easier said than done. It's not like I'm going to be able to wave a wand and make that go away, like, ever. I'm just going to have to come up with better ways to deal with it.
(I just fought off a wave of "This is all whiny navel-gazing and no one cares. Delete it all and go to bed." It IS whiny navel-gazing, but I gotta post something some time, or there's no point in having a journal.)
(But I am going to bed.)
(I think I need to dig some H. Allen Smith out of storage.)
I don't think I'll be able to revise the whole thing by the 30th, but I should be able to get at least the first scene into postable shape by then. (I haven't been revising at all, just plowing madly through the first draft, which is not the way I usually write - usually I revise a lot as I go, and go back and revise existing scenes every time I write a new one.) Thereafter I should be able to post further installments in my journal fairly quickly, and have it all up within two weeks, or maybe even sooner. Hopefully it's not complete crap. It's about 12,000 words, might expand to as much as 15,000 in revisions (I've really been rushing it), and I wrote it all in the last week, which I took off for the express purpose of doing just that. (My job may not pay much, but they give us vacation days to burn. I have another eight days I need to use or lose before the end of August, and I'll probably use those to write my Plot Without Porn fic.)
Since this is a very intense, angsty story, I also told myself that if I finished it, I'd reward myself by signing up for schmoop_bingo, which I did. My card:
soulmates
kitchen disaster
engagement
unexpected date
birthday - surprise party
singing
autumn holiday/festival
first holiday together
cuddling with pets
wine
cuddling while sick
anniversary - one partner sick
WILD CARD
“I love you” - first
anniversary - first
swimming
wooing/courtship
shower together
massage - foot rub
kidfic
cuddling in public
romantic holiday
making out
massage - erotic
coffee shop
As I suspected, I've written stories or scenes within longer stories that would fit almost all the prompts already (though not all of them might count as schmoopy), and I don't want to repeat myself, so this will be a challenge. Whatever could I do with 'soulmates,' I wonder...
This assumes, of course, that I'm able to come up with anything at all. As you've probably noticed, barring a couple of drabbles, I haven't written anything this year. I've had my SS story completely plotted for months, but I didn't start writing until last weekend. Getting it down on paper in pixels has been like pulling teeth. I'm expecting the revisions to be easier, but not by much. I want to write, very much, but I just... haven't.
This happens to me every now and then. Sometimes it lasts for months. Sometimes it lasts for years. Sometimes it's a warning to me that I've exhausted the thematic potential of my current stable of characters and setting. I'm hoping that's not the case here (and even if it is, I still intend to finish my WIPs.) But I have to face the possibility that I may just have said everything I have to say. I've really, really wanted to write schmoopy comfort fic for quite awhile, but Editor Barb has shot down every single one of Writer Barb's nascent ideas as repetitive tripe.
(I'm actually feeling slightly less pessimistic about this now than I was, say, last month. Sitting down and beating my head against the keyboard till the words come out isn't fun, but it does, at least, reassure me that I'm still capable of producing readable sentences, however slowly, painfully, and below my standards for decent prose they are. Someone asked me once why bother to write fanfic if it wasn't fun, and the answer is that while the act of writing may not always be fun, having written is pure ego-crack, and worth any amount of struggle.)
But anyway, the self-imposed posting moratorium means I've passed on a lot of personal posts, too. So I never told the story of Bo vs. the Oat Buns, or mentioned that I've been looking more seriously into assisted living facilities for Mom again, or the Great Indoor Dove Hunt, or that I finally got the laundry list of small cosmetic car problems fixed. And now most of the things about which I've thought, "Gee, that would make a good post," over the last month or so have trickled quietly out through the sieve of my brain cells, never to be seen again. The world, I am sure, will survive the loss.
There needs to be a new word, I'm thinking, for feeling low-level blah/stressed/unhappy and uncreative over long periods of time. "Depressed" is too strong. I think job stress is a large part of what's going on with me. There are things about my job that I A) can't control, or B) can only control by initiating stressful confrontations. In the long run, it would be better to brave the confrontations than to endure the long term low-level panic, but it's easier said than done. It's not like I'm going to be able to wave a wand and make that go away, like, ever. I'm just going to have to come up with better ways to deal with it.
(I just fought off a wave of "This is all whiny navel-gazing and no one cares. Delete it all and go to bed." It IS whiny navel-gazing, but I gotta post something some time, or there's no point in having a journal.)
(But I am going to bed.)
(I think I need to dig some H. Allen Smith out of storage.)