Merp

[laceblade]

Current Word Count Total for 2012: 23,520 (31% of 75,000 words)


I'm feeling pretty crappy about writing, lately.
A big part is that I haven't written much in the last couple weeks, between moving and being out of town.

It's also that I feel stuck in terms of plot and what I'm trying to do with these characters and things are stalled out.

The other night I tried to reread the first part of the fic, which I had initially felt really good about, and now it seems like it reads terribly. There are a lot of issues, and none of it is as good as I remember it being.

The amount of editing that needs to be done on what I've already written seems insurmountable, but not half as bad as how much still needs to be decided, let alone written.
Common things such as "find a beta" also seem impossible, although I have successfully found two cheerleader people who have read "part one" of my fic and given advice.



These feelings of inadequacy are pretty common for me, and it's why I haven't written much at all the last few years, I think.
Maybe I won't post this fic after all. I'd feel like a faker, for how much I've tweeted about the writing process.

Comments

[wintercreek]

If you can tolerate erratic availability and veeeery slow response times, I can beta! Things are starting to settle down here, although I've probably jinxed myself by saying that.

[laceblade]

omg I <3 your icon.

I can absolutely tolerate slow response times, in part because it's taking me so long to write and also because I seem to be writing in 6k-10k "arcs," which I think will end up being hella long chapters, unless I decide to make each one a "fic" and make the whole thing a series (that can be something on which you can opine, hohoho!). But I think it'll be convenient to have you reading an arc while I'm working on a different one.
In retrospect this entire post looks like I was trolling for a beta, which wasn't actually what I was doing! BUT I NEED ONE and I think you're awesome and yes, please, :)

When writing arc one, I kept switching between present and past tense. One of my cheerleaders has helped me decide that present tense seems to be working the best, so I'm going to make it all the same tense before sending it to you (it would drive me nuts to read something that flipped back and forth!).
There are at least two other scenes I'll probably edit some more, too. When part one = good to go, would a Google doc work well for you?

[wintercreek]

A GDoc works for me! Sorry terse comment is terse; replying via iTouch, can't stand to type too much. :)

[littlebutfierce]

Poky netbook + poky pocket wifi connection means I could tl;dr about this forever but probably won't right now (lucky for you!) -- but I totally want to talk more about this w/you sometime & be your general writing cheerleader (I don't know the fandom so I think useless for the fic specifically) if you want!

I wrote a post waaaay back in the early days of writethisfanfic about writing 'seasons' -- something Julia Cameron wrote about, & I hate a lot of her shit, but that made sense to me. About how sometimes we are in such a good phase & everything is coming & we are on fire, & then we turn into, say, the fallow parts of the year & we are afraid we will never be able to write again, & we'll never have another idea or be able to write anything we like, but we have to keep faith that the wheel of the year keeps turning, that we need the fallow times to recharge, etc. Maybe once I'm on a better setup I can find the link.

Also you have had a lot of stuff going on, so it makes sense that your brain would've needed to pull energy from writing into something else! Also I think it is super hard to start writing again, once stopped -- this is the problem I am currently working thru. ^^;;;

Buuuuut tl;dr much sympathy, & I think you can do this but appreciate how horrible & unlikely it seems right now. ♥

[laceblade]

omg you can tl;dr for me any time you want, :D

your are the best of cheerleaders, imo. (Glee the source is agreeably probably not for you but maybe some day, fic?! SO MUCH FEMSLASH, *_*)
The Cameron quote is intriguing to me, although I identified super strongly with the advice given here at the LJ version of this post, about your reading taste exceeding your writing skill, and that's so where I've been the last few years.

re: starting after stopping, I should probably give myself more credit. This year is the longest/most sustained amount of creative writing I've ever done, I think, and these are difficult habits to build.

Thank you for believing in me, ;____; MAYBE I CAN DO IT.

[littlebutfierce]

Oh yeah, I've seen that Ira Glass quote before & I can identify w/it a lot too! Though I think I've been lucky in that I've still been able to see good bits in stuff I've written? Like, okay, I may not have the most elaborate writing style or whatever, but there are things I like about most or all of my fics, I think. Even if they're so v. v. v. imperfect, there's something in there that I connect w/& like & am proud of, & I have been lucky enough to find readers who seem to agree.

That post I mentioned is here, btw. I have been in a drought period for fic for what seems like ever, buuuut oh well, I guess I have had a lot of crap going on too. ^^;;; Tho for a while I was able to write drawerfic, at least, but now even that seems to have dried up. ;___;

You should totally give yourself credit, though, for all the writing that you have done this year!! :D :D :D I totally think you can do it -- it's a shame that writing fic can't always feel exciting or like it flows well, but I guess all the blood, sweat & tears makes it even better when it's done? ^^;;;