Problems With Writing a Long Fic
Mar. 15th, 2019 12:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7via https://ift.tt/2HAMrVc
seananmcguire:
araceil:
cooliogirl101:
“Wait, when did that happen again”
“Wait, which event happened first again”
*rereads something I wrote five chapters ago* I have no recollection of writing this
I know this one thing I’m referring back to happened somewhere between chapters 15 and 30 but I have no idea where, welp time to go back and dig through 100k worth of words
*rereads first few chapters* oh my god this is awful holy shit this is so bad did past-me really write this
*Tries not to contradict myself and contradicts myself anyway*
“What is even going on in this fic”
*has detailed notes**scene ideas*
three days later
*lost notes**can’t remember scene ideas**lost the will to live**gained three pounds from stress snacking**dehydrated from crying into keyboard*
*stares into the camera forever*
*viciously attacks entire rest of life to wrestle free enough time to write for a while* *spends entire time struggling tooth and nail to write a scene* *within scene manages to hit a plot point that’s been building forever* *days later wrestles enough free time to go back and reread* *discovers that plot point already taken care of in a much earlier scene* *now you have two scenes for the same plot point and they are incompatible* *it will be weeks before you have time and mental space to try to reconcile them* *this novel is never fucking getting finished*
Some well-intentioned commenter on an old fic where this same thing happened to you years ago and you gave up: “Plz update!!!”
Some well-intentioned inspirational essay: *examples of authors who wrote books while working full-time* “See anyone can do it!”
me: *dies unpublished*
(Your picture was not posted)
seananmcguire:
araceil:
cooliogirl101:
“Wait, when did that happen again”
“Wait, which event happened first again”
*rereads something I wrote five chapters ago* I have no recollection of writing this
I know this one thing I’m referring back to happened somewhere between chapters 15 and 30 but I have no idea where, welp time to go back and dig through 100k worth of words
*rereads first few chapters* oh my god this is awful holy shit this is so bad did past-me really write this
*Tries not to contradict myself and contradicts myself anyway*
“What is even going on in this fic”
*has detailed notes**scene ideas*
three days later
*lost notes**can’t remember scene ideas**lost the will to live**gained three pounds from stress snacking**dehydrated from crying into keyboard*
*stares into the camera forever*
*viciously attacks entire rest of life to wrestle free enough time to write for a while* *spends entire time struggling tooth and nail to write a scene* *within scene manages to hit a plot point that’s been building forever* *days later wrestles enough free time to go back and reread* *discovers that plot point already taken care of in a much earlier scene* *now you have two scenes for the same plot point and they are incompatible* *it will be weeks before you have time and mental space to try to reconcile them* *this novel is never fucking getting finished*
Some well-intentioned commenter on an old fic where this same thing happened to you years ago and you gave up: “Plz update!!!”
Some well-intentioned inspirational essay: *examples of authors who wrote books while working full-time* “See anyone can do it!”
me: *dies unpublished*
(Your picture was not posted)
