waiting

I'm pressing the reset button. It's spring-loaded.

Remind me never, ever to write a serial again. Or even post a segment of something when I haven't finished the entire thing. The immediacy of reader response is not worth the pressure that follows to keep things going well, and it's definitely not worth the guilt when the pressure gets to me.

I've conquered the "I have no story ideas" writerly neurosis. The next one to conquer is this one.

The next challenge I set myself: Pick a work in progress. Any work in progress, that being defined as any story you all have seen part of. Finish it. No deadlines. No worries about prompt tables in progress or external requirements of any kind. Just finish something.
  • Current Music: Going Wrong (Dj Shah's Magic Island Mix) : Armin Van Buuren : Imagine Asia Special Edition Bonus CD
Tags:
  • 14 comments
  • —
    • :
    antennapedia
    I continue to be delighted by your icon. Wesley tells me I'm over-thinking. And when he says that...
    truwest
    Megaditto on your comments about serials. Never again. My work requires way too much repeated editing to serialize. Half the fun is realizing late in the game what the story is really about, and then going back to work in themes and setups in the earlier chapters. YMMV.
    antennapedia
    Complete and total agreement on that reason-- we've discussed this one before, I think? The interesting stuff happens with slow, deep thought and is sharpened with revision. And payoffs are more satisfying when their setups are distant.
    dimac99
    Diana Wynn Jones, a "real" writer (lol) says it's ok to make it all up as you go along, like she does. I honestly didn't know I was allowed to do that! I can't tell you what a relief it was to have someone give me permission!

    She's the writer of Howl's Moving Castle, amongst other things, and the book is totally different and so much better than the film.

    http://www.leemac.freeserve.co.uk/hints.htm
    shapinglight
    Remind me never, ever to write a serial again

    Heh! I've been telling myself this on and off for the past eighteen months.
    antennapedia
    You finished the stories before you started posting them, though, didn't you? Though you revise each book immediately goes up? I was thinking that process was much more workable than my current lack-of-process!
    shapinglight
    You finished the stories before you started posting them, though, didn't you? Though you revise each book immediately goes up?

    Yes, that's right. What I'm posting at the moment was written a year ago or so. However, it does still bother me a lot that I haven't finished the overall story. The end is in sight, but there's still a while before I get there.
    daiseechain
    Remind me never, ever to write a serial again. Or even post a segment of something when I haven't finished the entire thing. The immediacy of reader response is not worth the pressure....

    I know exactly how you feel. I have an epic, well, for me, 80,000 word fic I've yet to post a word of, because I haven't finished fiddling with it yet.

    And on the immediacy of response? I've been working through one of your Giles/Xander series, but hadn't yet posted a response for that exact reason :-D
    beatrice_otter
    I so totally agree about the serial thing. I wrote a medium-long SG-1 story and its sequel that way, back in the early days of my fanfic writing, and by the end of the sequel I was so &#@!ing sick and tired of that story I just slapped something on the end so it would be over. It's abrupt and not very good, but I really don't care. I still get the occasional comment asking if I'm going to finish it, and I say, no way on God's green earth am I going back to that sucker.
    antennapedia
    See, that's my fear. I don't want to do that to my readers, whom I love and cherish and wish to entertain with everything I have. (Now that's a neurosis I won't touch, because it's a core motivator.) But yeah, oh yeah, I get being so tired of the stories you want to shoot them. That's when I start a new one, to distract myself.

    Oops.
    beatrice_otter
    Instead of starting a new one, may I suggest switching to a different WIP? Because if you start a new one every time you get frustrated, you never finish anything. But usually if you switch to something else when you get frustrated, give yourself time to cool down and time for stuff to percolate through your hindbrain, you can usually come back to it a few weeks or months later and be much more productive and less stressed.

    As long as you don't get into the just shoot it mode--when a story hits that for me, there is no going back to it. But if you switch what you're working on before it gets that far, it helps.
    ljs
    I suspect I'm the only person on your flist who actually liked writing serials.

    Oh well. I blame Chas Dickens. ;-)
    antennapedia
    Or Dostoevsky! Or any of a number of great writers. Or anybody who writes for TV. I think this is a weakness I have to conquer. Somehow. Haven't yet figured out how.

    Edited at 2008-08-13 12:42 am (UTC)
  • 14 comments
  • —
    • :