dragonlady7: self-portrait but it's mostly the DSLR in my hands in the mirror (Default)
[personal profile] dragonlady7
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sugarspiceandcursewords replied to your post “NO, B! Do not take your stupid A/U and make a really crackpot original…”

Write what works for you. Write what works for you. Write what works for you. Write what works for you. (You know at least a few of us will read it.)

*wearily* Y’know… what “works” and what “my goblin brain seizes upon cackling and runs off with” are … two things that are… not always different but sometimes are.

I don’t get writer’s block, really, but what I get is overwhelming feelings that nothing I’m writing matters or is interesting. Projects stall out because I just can’t figure out a logistical issue, or sometimes because I feel like the whole thing is structurally mired in something and it’s Too Much to figure out where. 

The current thing is compelling, yeah, and I’m following along hungrily to find out how the characters handle it, but. 

To do it justice as an original piece I’d have to devote a bunch of time and attention to research, and then spend the entire writing experience mentally in the relevant period.

I generally prefer to get super-absorbed in worldbuilding rather than research, and if I have to spend a novel-length period of time immersed in a setting, I’d rather it was a fantastical one than… the US in the early 80s, y’know? 

But. I’m really compelled by the characters and it’s such an interesting plot! 

But a part of it is that I have no idea how it ends. And that’s. I mean. I never know how shit ends and that’s why I never finish shit. Sigh. 

My ideal writing situation is either #1 a fanfic thing that I can post 10k-word increments of every month or so and get a nice steady little trickle of comments on and such, building on several years of same (with occasional longer bursts of posts, it’s super nice when I can do a 10k chapter a week for example! that’s not sustainable though), ORRRR #2 a really sparkling original idea I can’t wait to dive into and really work on that’ll get me passionate enough to actually sustain me through writing the whole fucking thing with little to no feedback, and that I’ll afterward believe in enough to go through the bother of figuring out how to publish. 

I’ve been holding out for #2 for a while and it’s not likely. But. 

My worst-case scenario is that I do #1 only it’s in non-manageable chunks that are logistically difficult to master, and that few people want to read, and my little trickle of validation dries up to droplets and I spend the majority of my writing time working alone in the dark. And I’m seeing that as a probable outcome, here, and I’m not best pleased. 

It’s not the end of the world. I can live on droplets and I appreciate the fuck out of them. 

I just. 

It’s not entirely mystical, like, the Muse dictating, but it is somewhat beyond my control. And I’m lonely and it’s dark and I’m cold. 

I recently read a really great thread on self-publishing by a very successful author I admire and had to kind of stare at the wall for a while afterward because yeah no I’m never going to do that, that’s never going to work, thanks. 
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