bitch bitch moan moan

[dragonlady7]

It wound up whiny and useless, though I set out to write something actually worth reading. To summarize: I am confused by my own novel, depressed by my various inabilities, and am feeling a bit like that girl at the bar nobody wants to buy a drink for. Oh dear. It's probably just as well that they just phoned me up and asked me to come early to work.



I am in a blah mood and can't bring myself to settle down and write either Ch. 8 (which needs overhauled, yay) or to start again with Ch. 1 and do the overhauling I need up to the present chapter. I have written a better explanation of the politics bullshit, given how much Kat's comments indicate it was confusing (Ingimund is the chieftain. Thorkjell is Njall's father. Thorkjell is still horribly dead. It's just, now, Ingimund isn't) but I don't really know where to post it.
I can't settle down. I have until 2 and should get some work done.
*phone rings*
Oh, i have until 12. I guess that one co-worker is still out sick.
More hours? I don't complain. Well, not about that. Lord knows I complain about everything else, and will probably complain about being tired too. Good thing I got up early and showered just in case. I thought they might call me...

I dunno. Ch. 8 or start from the beginning? Now I only have 2 hours to work. Oh poor me. My life is such a trial. I think I'll have an attack of the vapors. Only I'm not actually capable of something that colorful.

This has been an utterly useless post. I am neither funny nor clever. And oh, the big aggressive betta fish is ill, has been ill, is worse, and Dave is sure it's my fault for not changing his water more often. Which is about all Dave has said to me today. Mmm, sweet lovely reproachfulness. I hadn't realized it was unreasonable of me to ask that Dave care for the fish since he's at home sitting next to them all day while I'm home seldom and when I am am usually lying in my bed in the other room, but he totally resents the fact that he often feeds them and has changed their water several times in the last few months. I hadn't realized they were my fish; I'd just thought I took care of them more because I cared more and it was easier, kind of the way I did most of the shit around the house that I did that I had sort of thought maybe now I was busy Dave could do. OK! Well, then, that means I'm an atrocious caretaker and it's well I have no more challenging pets because I don't deserve them, and I am a terrible housekeeper on top of it.
(edited again to add: Oh, he's actually not speaking to me because he resents my abandonment of the fish. This is new. Yes, my mood is improving tremendously. Shall I not speak to him because of the things I resent him for? Let's get into that, shall we? It'd be great.)

No, I am neither funny nor clever, and I am manfully resisting (but obviously not very well) the overwhelming urge to whine that only one person has read any of my Valentine's smut. Oh well! They were fun to write and I have that to console me. Part of the fun was anticipating that people would react, but I suppose it's rather sad of me to say something like that. It's very uncool to be a feedback whore when nobody wants to give you any comments, rather like the girl that goes out dressed up like a slut and then nobody makes a pass at her and she looks entirely pathetic all tarted up like that standing alone at the bar with a drink she bought herself trying not to mind that nobody's even looked at her even though you can almost see her nipples.

Jeez. I am going to stick a cut at the front of this post. But I am not going to delete it because if I don't say it I'll just say it later and worse. I cannot repress things much though i try. And it's my damn journal after all.


(edited to add:) Oh my. I rewrote Ch. 1's intro entirely and just went to read the rewrite (done at the Club a couple weeks ago while bored) and it sucks.

I already need to overhaul my overhaul.

How the hell does one edit? How can I just learn to fucking edit something? How have I made it this far in life without knowing how to edit something? I've edited other people's stuff!! Why can't I edit mine? The more I mess around with it the more it sucks!!

(has tantrum, bursts into tears)
(is deeply wearied by self.) Is there some way to take a vacation from being a particular person? I'd like to spend a week as someone else, please. Someone different. Maybe someone who is good at something. Jesus Christ I am sick of me.

Comments

[tehta.livejournal.com]

I hope you feel better by now!

I did read the V-day porn! And liked it, especially the middle one (no, I am not all about the slash.) Oh, and Faramir's 'I am something, but jealous probably isn't it.) I just never commented because I got swamped with y_tu_teithad stuff. And RL work stuff. (I like to reread a story before commenting and it's easier to find the time with short ones.)

Concrit: I think 'cock' would work well in the second one. If they can say 'fuck' they can think 'cock', I think. Also... I know it's a lighthearted romp have to confess I was a bit disturbed by how easily they all, well, cheat on each other, and accept the cheating. Probably because I like my smut angstier.

And I have little comfort to offer on edits because I edit every story, like, fifteen times, and it is not uncommon for me to feel like the last edit was a step in the wrong direction. All the edits do eventually converge on something I am happy with, though. But I know other (most?) people manage with far fewer rewrites, so I don't know if that helps.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

>not all about the slash
Good heavens! Shock horror!

You know, sometimes it's hard not to be about the slash if you don't like OCs. (I must admit, I very rarely enjoy OCs as major characters.) There just aren't women in Tolkien. At least Lothiriel is in the appendices, and as a super awesome bonus is from a family well-documented in canon. If I were faced with a blank slate called "Eomer Probably Marries A Woman" I would be writing exclusively slash. I cannot OC worth beans.

>swamped
Now that I look back, you know, it was a pretty brief span to wait for comments. But at the time it seemed to me to have been Eternity. I have a terrible, terrible sense of time.

>lighthearted romp
I actually had composed a whole disclaimer about all that, and decided not to buzzkill and post it. This is all part of a much longer piece, and the smut had been creeping itself in without my leave. So there was quite a bit more angst, and a lot less smut, in my preliminary framework of the story. I wound up cutting the angst and writing the smut, to finish this. I mean... the thing wound up being ridiculously long as it was.
But yes, I am with you on the underuse of, well, thought processes throughout. I had a whole disclaimer about how bisexual doesn't mean total slut, but then I decided however many thousands of words I'd posted already was probably enough.

>cock
Yes, you're right with that one. The second is the only one I didn't actually compose anything new for before posting it, however, so it didn't get a language-overhaul. I noticed a few other little jarring things that are no longer part of my style-- a few over-repetitions of words and the like-- but I admit I gave this one short shrift all around because I had a sneaking suspicion the Bonus Round (http://www.livejournal.com/users/dragonlady7/538316.html) would be E/L so the het fans would get their due.

>edits

Ugh, I don't even know what direction to head in. More description? More action? Ugh. I liked it when I first freewrote the first draft of the first scene, when the inkling of the story occurred to me-- I just set it down and it was good. Now I'm on the eighth draft and the thing is unreadable. And that's just the first scene... My rewrites are just re-initial-compositions, for the most part. I open a new window and start typing afresh. Not efficient, not progressive, not actually editing. *falls over dead*

Thank you for commenting. I feel silly for complaining but I was in a pretty bad place yesterday. I do feel much better now.

[tehta.livejournal.com]

Actually, I am not entirely against OCs. We know so little about the Silm characters, many of them might as well be OCs with Tolkien-provided names.

Where's this first chapter you're having trouble with? Just on instinct, I'd say more tension and more action, and save detailed description and backstory for Chapter Two.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

>against OCs
Oh, me neither.
It's just that it's so difficult for many fanfic writers to come up with something believable, that if they're already stretching my credibility with their characterizations and then they're required to come up with names and genealogies on top of that, usually it's enough that I can't enjoy the story anymore.
I have enjoyed many stories with OCs-- there's one on HASA, Anglachel's writing, called Hands of the King, that I am deeply involved with. Her OCs are people who must've existed but Tolkien didn't name: Imrahil's mother, Denethor's sisters (he was the third child and only son: sisters must've existed), Denethor's lieutenants-- I love those characters and have no problem with the fact that they're OC. The only differences between them and some of the named characters is just the name. (Many of the characters are only known as names in genealogies.

Me, i can't make up names for crap. i don't know Sindarin, see? Names are a gigantic obstacle for me.



This first chapter I'm having trouble with...
(bangs head on table, which isn't a problem as is in bed, thus it is a pillow) I have all the Vikings Novel Excerpts up in memories (http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=dragonlady7&keyword=Vikings+Novel&filter=all), and the first one is here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/dragonlady7/497955.html), and none of the edits I've attempted improve upon that in the slightest. One of the less-useful concrits I got on it was an e-mailed one from someone giving me a rewrite of the first two paragraphs (in which the heroine talks out loud to the plants) and telling me she just couldn't get through the rest of it. Oh yes, that was a good start. But she was right-- it's freaking boring and I am at a loss. Should I just pick another point in the story to start? I thought it was a good opener, but I'm trying to cut down on the interior monologue through the whole thing and I don't know and...

You know. It's just a mess. That's just how it is. I'd love it if you could glance over it and suggest a few things maybe, but I won't be offended if you can't get past the first two paragraphs either. It's bad (she wails in self-pity) and it's only getting worse (the self-pity deepens) and so on and so forth.

[tehta.livejournal.com]

I have to go to bed now, but I've quickly looked at the chapter, and, first of all, your writing really does flow nicely (I am jealous), and secondly, I would consider starting the chapter at "A beast's head hung among the trees" and try to think out exactly how much of the earlier exposition is both vital and not implicit in what you say later. I think the bits about her learning to be a healer and working for Enid (and who Enid is) are almost there. Just a couple of small changes will make it clear that she has been collecting herbs as part of her training. And perhaps the stuff about her father and her planned marriage and the politics could come later? (Maybe when the Danes are discussing her fate? Or even later than that, when she is bored in captivity? This whole "giving the political background" thing is hard. I think books often do it by having one character explain it to another.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

...
Yes, I think you're right. When I wrote it as a concept-test-kinda-thing for the novel, it made sense to have half be this peaceful setup scene and then this shocking transition to the Vikings being there, but really, if it's a novel, you already know the Vikings are coming because it probably says so on the book jacket, and the description at the beginning doesn't really build up suspense.
But i've just been so in love with having it like that, it never even crossed my mind to start in a different place until I was whining about how I didn't know what to do. (Perhaps that's why I whine so much... Solutions present themselves mid-whine and I feel like a bit of a twit. It's my subconscious's little way of telling me it hates me.)

But yes, that's definitely a thought. And an excellent thought. Thank you very much. :)

[tehta.livejournal.com]

I've read several writing books that said one should consider chopping off the first chapter of any novel draft and the first paragraph of any short story draft. (So now I try to write interesting starting paragraphs just to spite the writers of these books.)

Also... I have this theory that people get distracted whenever peaceful narrative, introspection, or exposition goes on for more than two paragraphs. I consciously try to cut stuff to avoid this problem. (That's why my stories are usually so full of dialogue and bad jokes. Action also works. But I do fail quite often, like at the start of both the Ecthelion/Glorfindel stories where there are several paragraphs of introspection.)

[kkatowll.livejournal.com]

Eh, editing always feels like it's going all wrong. I suggest a break, and then back to the editing! Even though all the fun is in the first draft.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Editing is a disaster. I don't know how to edit. Do you realize, I've never actually edited myself? Not truly. Usually my first draft is plenty to get by. I just edit for length, with school papers, for the most part.
Now I'm just... flailing. I keep entirely recomposing. I keep a tiny detail and rewrite the scene. Parts of what I rewrite, I liked the original better, but I've shifted so much I can't keep the original bits.
It's a huge mess.
And I'm not even convinced I'm making changes in the right direction. Sure enough, it turns out that Chapters 1-5 weren't changed in the right direction.

It is going very poorly, and I just had a break-- what was all that Valentine's smut? That was my break.
So I have to get back to it and I don't know where to start.

UGH.

[kkatowll.livejournal.com]

Ehm, I'm kinda good at editing...if you actually wanted, we could get together through IM or something and I could try to show you some of the stuff I know...it would be painless, i promise.