I realized I kept writing myself into walls Offhand, that statement right there is what might have been where things went wrong in my Clexmas stories. I loved Stray when it was done, but writing was a bitch. I liked writing Reclamation, but wasn't satisfied immediately after it was done (I like it much better now, though there are still things I would change, and will, when I get back to writing the original version).
When I start writing, depending on the story, I often have no idea where I plan to go with it. I write to see it and, as I've evidenced, I'll cut entire scenes out to put the story back on track. To me... writing is... immediate? Sometimes I'll know what the end picture looks like (sometimes not), but I often blunder through without knowing what the terrain is like until I'm there.
This is how I end up whining about the characters misbehaving on me, because the part of my brain that works when I'm writing doesn't always communicate with the part that's planned things out.
I was rereading the story I wrote for ladydreamer's pinch hit (can't remember the name) just earlier today. It's only been four months, but so much of it was unfamiliar. Like the part of my brain that wrote it is separate and now gone. I enjoyed it in a way that I typically enjoy stories by others, because it didn't feel like mine.
And oddly... I think as I've progressed as a writer, that's true more often than not. The stories I like... they're instantaneous. I edit, I rewrite, reorganize... but the stories pour forth in a stream and afterwards, I get to enjoy them anew as a reader in a way I didn't used to.
(I think I've made reference to this elsewhere on my journal. My little meta: writing tag is going to be useful in learning about myself as a writer, I think.)
Food play! How much food can we get into analogies for writing? ^^
{nod} Walls are bad. I tend to think giant huge story epically. I'm actually rather impressed with myself at all the 'short' stories I've been doing for Smallville fandom. But the problem with the long stories and jumping around within for writing is that the characters *change* things. I can have an idea to write something one way, but then when I actually do write it... they end up doing something else! Which is fine if writing mostly linearly ("oh cool, let's see what they do now!"), but when writing random bits then creates problems when trying to match the pieces together. That's actually a big reason I haven't gone back to the NaNo story from the year before... I let the characters go wandering off... and now the storyline doesn't fit with where it was supposed to go. So I can either change the whole storyline, or yank that bit out and discard. Or use it in a different story. But it's a pain to do that with so much writing.
I wince every time you mention cutting out whole scenes because, oh man, that hurts. o.o Been there, done that, and still hate it when it happens again.
To me... writing is... immediate? Sometimes I'll know what the end picture looks like (sometimes not), but I often blunder through without knowing what the terrain is like until I'm there. {nod} That's kindof how I initially dream the stories out, but I don't usually put my fingers to the keyboard anymore until I've got the whole thing done. I spend a lot of time dreaming, so I'm always fic-writing in my head. The forty minute drives to work are my best ficcing times ever. The main problem then is finding the time to get to a keyboard and write once I'm done dreaming it... and keeping it fresh enough so it's not stale while writing. Kindof like reading a book really rapidly the first time though, then picking it back up again immediately for a reread. Oops, I stopped using food analogies. ;p
Oh yes! Rereading fics you haven't gone through dozens of times in your head already is a lot of fun! That's why the initial writing is fun too, but a reread for a rapid-fire fic... it's not yours, it's the characters'. ^__^
I like that you call it dreaming. If it's anything like what I do, it's accurate.
Once I've dreamt it from beginning to end, however, it's done. If I complete it in my mind, it's gone. The idea is there, the interest typically isn't. Which is why I tend to think with my fingers (I'm getting a lot of use out of that phrase). Because then it's written. The only ideas I let myself dream are things I know I would never write. I storytell to myself every day, but I can't do that with things I'm writing.
I don't know if it used to be different. I don't think so. I think I used to type more (I was more prolific in the early years) and finish things more because there was no one in the beginning to share with and I hadn't... hadn't really started dreaming then. I thought of story things when I was ready to write them.
Now I have to intentionally turn my dreams away from things I'm writing, because unless I can jot the words down (or record them, as I now have two devices close at hand for this), once I've seen it, once it's been... actualized in my mind? It never gets written. Because the words at that moment are perfect and the frustration of being unable to recreate them later... even if the interest was there, it dies.
LOL, well, I reread books all the time, so I kindof treat the dreaming like that. Read it through once for the fun, tweak it here and there in my mind, and just make sure I don't replay it very often. So that when I get around to writing, it's a fun recap of what I'd dreamed earlier.
If I do replay it pretty often... yeah, it gets stale, and then it's no fun to write. o.o But the dream once, then write, seems to be working out fairly well so far. I lose a few stories here and there, but the fandom never knows about those. ;p (Except when I don't finish writing the epics o.o -- why I'll never ever ever post "in progress" fics.)
I don't get enough straight time on the computer to really do a full 'write as I think'. Or rather, not enough writing time, always. I tend to grab ten minutes here, ten minutes there... sometimes a whole hour on my netbook, but that's rare.
Because the words at that moment are perfect and the frustration of being unable to recreate them later... {nods} I know that one. But sometimes it's also interesting to see what *new* words have come instead. Part of it is a feeling one gets in real dreams, when we have the satisfaction of accomplishment but don't really know why and then it turns out to all have been the endorphins in the brain just promoting the feeling of awesomeness when it was really anything but. (Seriously, just try writing out some of your dreams (real dreams) immediately upon waking sometime... and you'll find they're mostly not nearly as cool as it felt they were.) So I try not to let that feeling get in the way of actually *writing* it later. Mind-smithing is one thing... Word-smithing is another. Different talent. And even though I do dream by mentally writing it out including all the words, it's not the same as when physically writing it.
It's actually a bit freeing, to know where I'm going exactly with a story after having dreamed it, because when I'm writing I can concentrate more on the english and verbiage and sentence structures, editing as I go to make sure I'm writing well grammatically and in the 'feel' of a story, rather than concentrating on plot alone.
There's usually about a dozen dreamed stories to every one that gets written down. ~..^
I realized I kept writing myself into walls Offhand, that statement right there is what might have been where things went wrong in my Clexmas stories. I loved Stray when it was done, but writing was a bitch. I liked writing Reclamation, but wasn't satisfied immediately after it was done (I like it much better now, though there are still things I would change, and will, when I get back to writing the original version).
When I start writing, depending on the story, I often have no idea where I plan to go with it. I write to see it and, as I've evidenced, I'll cut entire scenes out to put the story back on track. To me... writing is... immediate? Sometimes I'll know what the end picture looks like (sometimes not), but I often blunder through without knowing what the terrain is like until I'm there.
This is how I end up whining about the characters misbehaving on me, because the part of my brain that works when I'm writing doesn't always communicate with the part that's planned things out.
I was rereading the story I wrote for ladydreamer's pinch hit (can't remember the name) just earlier today. It's only been four months, but so much of it was unfamiliar. Like the part of my brain that wrote it is separate and now gone. I enjoyed it in a way that I typically enjoy stories by others, because it didn't feel like mine.
And oddly... I think as I've progressed as a writer, that's true more often than not. The stories I like... they're instantaneous. I edit, I rewrite, reorganize... but the stories pour forth in a stream and afterwards, I get to enjoy them anew as a reader in a way I didn't used to.
(I think I've made reference to this elsewhere on my journal. My little meta: writing tag is going to be useful in learning about myself as a writer, I think.)
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{nod} Walls are bad. I tend to think giant huge story epically. I'm actually rather impressed with myself at all the 'short' stories I've been doing for Smallville fandom. But the problem with the long stories and jumping around within for writing is that the characters *change* things. I can have an idea to write something one way, but then when I actually do write it... they end up doing something else! Which is fine if writing mostly linearly ("oh cool, let's see what they do now!"), but when writing random bits then creates problems when trying to match the pieces together. That's actually a big reason I haven't gone back to the NaNo story from the year before... I let the characters go wandering off... and now the storyline doesn't fit with where it was supposed to go. So I can either change the whole storyline, or yank that bit out and discard. Or use it in a different story. But it's a pain to do that with so much writing.
I wince every time you mention cutting out whole scenes because, oh man, that hurts. o.o Been there, done that, and still hate it when it happens again.
To me... writing is... immediate? Sometimes I'll know what the end picture looks like (sometimes not), but I often blunder through without knowing what the terrain is like until I'm there. {nod} That's kindof how I initially dream the stories out, but I don't usually put my fingers to the keyboard anymore until I've got the whole thing done. I spend a lot of time dreaming, so I'm always fic-writing in my head. The forty minute drives to work are my best ficcing times ever. The main problem then is finding the time to get to a keyboard and write once I'm done dreaming it... and keeping it fresh enough so it's not stale while writing. Kindof like reading a book really rapidly the first time though, then picking it back up again immediately for a reread. Oops, I stopped using food analogies. ;p
Oh yes! Rereading fics you haven't gone through dozens of times in your head already is a lot of fun! That's why the initial writing is fun too, but a reread for a rapid-fire fic... it's not yours, it's the characters'. ^__^
Writing meta! ^^
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Once I've dreamt it from beginning to end, however, it's done. If I complete it in my mind, it's gone. The idea is there, the interest typically isn't. Which is why I tend to think with my fingers (I'm getting a lot of use out of that phrase). Because then it's written. The only ideas I let myself dream are things I know I would never write. I storytell to myself every day, but I can't do that with things I'm writing.
I don't know if it used to be different. I don't think so. I think I used to type more (I was more prolific in the early years) and finish things more because there was no one in the beginning to share with and I hadn't... hadn't really started dreaming then. I thought of story things when I was ready to write them.
Now I have to intentionally turn my dreams away from things I'm writing, because unless I can jot the words down (or record them, as I now have two devices close at hand for this), once I've seen it, once it's been... actualized in my mind? It never gets written. Because the words at that moment are perfect and the frustration of being unable to recreate them later... even if the interest was there, it dies.
Writing meta is FUN. *is having a good time*
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If I do replay it pretty often... yeah, it gets stale, and then it's no fun to write. o.o But the dream once, then write, seems to be working out fairly well so far. I lose a few stories here and there, but the fandom never knows about those. ;p (Except when I don't finish writing the epics o.o -- why I'll never ever ever post "in progress" fics.)
I don't get enough straight time on the computer to really do a full 'write as I think'. Or rather, not enough writing time, always. I tend to grab ten minutes here, ten minutes there... sometimes a whole hour on my netbook, but that's rare.
Because the words at that moment are perfect and the frustration of being unable to recreate them later... {nods} I know that one. But sometimes it's also interesting to see what *new* words have come instead. Part of it is a feeling one gets in real dreams, when we have the satisfaction of accomplishment but don't really know why and then it turns out to all have been the endorphins in the brain just promoting the feeling of awesomeness when it was really anything but. (Seriously, just try writing out some of your dreams (real dreams) immediately upon waking sometime... and you'll find they're mostly not nearly as cool as it felt they were.) So I try not to let that feeling get in the way of actually *writing* it later. Mind-smithing is one thing... Word-smithing is another. Different talent. And even though I do dream by mentally writing it out including all the words, it's not the same as when physically writing it.
It's actually a bit freeing, to know where I'm going exactly with a story after having dreamed it, because when I'm writing I can concentrate more on the english and verbiage and sentence structures, editing as I go to make sure I'm writing well grammatically and in the 'feel' of a story, rather than concentrating on plot alone.
There's usually about a dozen dreamed stories to every one that gets written down. ~..^
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