mugenmine | Entries tagged with writing is hard

Oh the horrors of trying to beat a first draft into shape. I'm in the middle of a first-draft do over which is basically, rewriting the story out from under itself. This is an original novella that I started in 2016 and stopped halfway through, found again when the writing bug hit me this year, finihsed it in a fury and am now dealing with the consequences of ending a story after 5 years. The consequences being, it's crap.

So I should be actually writing the damn draft right now? I have almost 300 words to meet before I will feel good about logging off. I usually don't stick to word quotas while editing, but there's so much rewriting and zero drafting being done that I think it's okay to push to 500. This thing is a hot mess right now, and when I'm finally done with this draft the consecutive will be just as hard as I have about 60% new words and those will have to get beaten down too.

I'm trying to go back to doing some process blogging for myself as a kind of "never forget" thing. Hopefully I will look back as I've done so many times before and be like, oh so that's how I did it...

So yeah, new outline of the chapter, and rewriting through it until it resembles the new story and not the old one. That's the process. Also keeping my edits in red so that I can see all of the changes that went into it and what remians.

Good enough, back to the grind.

Side note, I'm walking again! It's been 2 weeks and I'm up and moving and what that means is I've been able to get back to my walk-think-story routine and so once again, the creative waters are flowing. Oh man do I rely on walking to generate ideas. I'm going to have to find another way in case I break something again!

Current Mood: tired

And in this heart -Chaper 1/ Draft 2

Union Draft 1 - 370

So I spent 30 hours in Dallas last week, unfortunately only 2 of which involved sleeping. But during that sleepless horror, I came up with a detailed plot for a novel length 1930s Skinny!Steve AU fic which I’ve outlined the first few chapters of (on my phone in bed while I wasn’t sleeping), and started writing it tonight. So now I’m editing my current fic, way too slowly but also surely, and now kicking off a long fic. I’ve even got a back cover synopsis written, because… I had a shit-ton of time to kill on the plane.

Usually it takes me years to follow up on a plot idea, but this time I’m just going for it. I’m excited by it, I’m motivated to write it, so why wait and let the energy around it die? I’ve got no idea how the middle is going to work out, but fuck it I’m going in! While the going is good or hot or however that saying goes. I figure once I finish editing my first of the series story, maybe I’ll set this long fic aside to write the second of the series story. Eitherwho, my hope for 2016 is that I write a lot of fic to make up for this dismal year. I’m already off to a solid start. (and with that I’ve probably just jinxed myself… :-/) *fight the power*

Current Mood: hopeful

Gloomy Monday

Draft 1
1-4 (@20K)

Okay so chapter 1 is going to need a massive rewrite before I can start the line edits. The attempt at line editing has shown me this. (Surprise! You’re not ready!) I really shouldn't be too shocked, this story took about 5K of useless words to get the start going, to find something that kind of stuck, so yeah, the end results were that were just that, I have something that gave me a direction to go in but it's still a basic mess. Words on a page, but not the right ones. So I need to rewrite the start into something better. The upside is that maybe I can line edit chapter 2, that at least is more coherent. I think I know how to start it. I think. The downside is that I fear this story is going take me 4500 years. Maybe, maybe.

Current Mood: melancholy

I'm With You

Chapter 2
words: 7500

I've hit that point where all words are currently horrible. No seriously, they are. I know when it's super bad. This big fight scene that I had been looking forward to write is kicking me in the ass instead. I should take notes on my own ass kicking by words and translate that somehow back on the page. There is no inspired writing happening here. The setting is bad, characters bad, dialogue bad, motivation bad, action bad and well all just bad.

At this point I'm just writing from point A to point B just to get over this ten foot tall hurdle of crap. Chapter two scares the shit out of me it's so bad. Chapter one, arguably less craptacular, definitely not good. But yeah even though it's been sucking I'm still pushing through with my hazmat suit zipped up tight. I think I have maybe 1-1.5K before I fall back into something possibly less crap. So yeah. if I wasn't afraid of doing forty-five rounds of rewriting and editing, I might jump out a window right now.

I think the bones are okay and that's what's making me hang on right now. Hard to tell. I could just be crazy. Though I mean seriously, I doubt I've read a worst fight scene than what I have now. I hate everything about my writing right now, and am quite certain that everyone will as well. In other news, this is just part of the process.

Fuck you chapter two! (and one as well right now, ugh just awful...)

Also it seems like I'm back to blogging about writing, which means that I'm writing. Feel free to ignore, this is just me coping/processing how hard writing is for me.

Current Mood: frustrated

Hmmm, I can’t believe my longest fic is only about 18K, that’s like a baby novella... I think this current one will about that long? Maybe? I’m about 3K into chapter 1 and barely scratching the surface, which is both good and bad. I'm just letting the words come, even though it feels too bloated and I see things I could already cut, but first drafts are not for idea stopping, I think they're for putting down the bones even if you end up with a six-armed, two-headed skeleton. Let them come and cull them later when they aren’t looking.

I think this thing will be 4 chapters, I'm still playing around with where things should break up, and where to end things to keep the motion going forward, and not let one chapter get too bloated. I've complained to my friend this this doesn't seem like a story story, but she has told me that it is. I suppose it's a relationship arc, an emotional arc, but not all flashy, shiny, and action packed. But I don't know. This is the first time in a long time that I feel a story actually anchoring and I can see myself making it to the end. I know where to go, and I'm oddly super excited to get there. So many current flaws are standing up and flapping thier arms at me, but I'm going to keep my back to them. I know how to cull and sand. It's something.

Andiogenes has been a lifesaver. the word wars there have been keeping me on track and hitting my daily quota. It’s like a fic writing hot house. Thank you writerly peoples.

Soldier Six
Chapter 1: @ 200

Why is starting things so hard? They're always hard, beginnings. I haven't written anything substantial in almost a year and man, my writing muscles are atrophied. Writing in a new fandom has been hard, new charaters, new voice, new world, new things. It's good, but stacatto, my moving forward with it. I'm so used to John Headspace. Ah, well I guess the only thing to do is chip slowly, well no, well perhaps chip slowly away at the block and hope for the trickle to grow into a steady stream. Ugh and ugh. Back to it.

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Where I place the fics

Entries tagged with writing is hard

Rewrite word slog

Editing old /Drafting new

Abyssinia, Bucky.

I’ll signal when I have something.

The wrong place for the Right people...

Writing... still hard...

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August 2021

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