mistressofmuses (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mistressofmuses) wrote2022-03-24 08:57 pm
mistressofmuses) wrote2022-03-24 08:57 pm
Entry tags:
A nothing post that turned into writing angst
I swear, I need to just make a whole list of "what to post about when I don't have anything to post about" ideas, lol.
I'm very much a creature of habit, but breaking a habit (even once!) can completely derail it for a long while, and I struggle to reestablish it. So I'm afraid of skipping a day of posting... even when I don't have much to say.
Spent a little more time trying to work out a writing schedule for after this current WIP is done (almost there!) as well as the next one.
I did a really good job (at least so far) of the one I'd made before - it was fairly accurate to what I was able to get done. I didn't get wildly ahead, but didn't fall behind. But now I'm looking at a span of six-ish months and going "pacing??? ?? reasonable goals, what????"
I think I'm running up against a fairly perennial problem: the ideas I have/the number of things I'd like to write are in conflict with my actual writing pace.
Writing a chapter per week, or editing a chapter per week, *feels* reasonable. (Though that's also not a consistent measurement - 2500 word chapters and 8500 word chapters are very different, ha.) But even if that's a doable pace with no delays, a 10 chapter fic would take two and a half months to write, and another two and a half months to write a second draft. Five months total! That feels like forever!
All Strange Wonders is 21 chapters! Outbreak is 17!
This whole bit of angst was brought on by thinking "well, I can probably use that 21-week posting cushion while I post All Strange Wonders to get the new draft of Outbreak written, and then I can write one or two other fics over that 21-week period, to build up a new backlog of shareable work!" Then my poor bad-at-grasping-numbers brain was SHOCKED to discover that one chapter per week of a 17-chapter fic would be... the vast majority of a 21 week span, ha.
So the question I'm actually wrestling with at the moment is how best to use the cushion I've given myself. (While also knowing that it's very arbitrary - there's no reason I have to keep posting super regularly! I just want to if I can! And I'm also keeping in mind my promise to myself that I do not want to start posting anything before it's complete.)
Finishing up the rewrite of Outbreak seems obvious - I have a draft written, and it no longer feels like it would be in poor taste to share something about an illness.
It also seems like it would be a good chance to work on the huge "Worldhopping Fairytale Monstrosity" fic project that's been in various stages of progress for like... 15 years at this point. For that one specifically: The outline I last did placed it at 32 chapters. My attempt several years ago to write it got through 10 or so chapters, and a couple were over 10k each. With chapters that long, one chapter may take more than a week. But even if one per week was doable, that's a whopping 64 weeks of work to write two drafts! Assuming no delays, burnout, work on other things instead, breaks for vacations, etc. In practicality, it would definitely be more than that.
And that would be just one work! (Though admittedly, the longest I'm likely to ever have in terms of fic.) I have at least 5 or 6 other multi-chapter fics I'd be interested in writing, to say nothing of original works. Also to say nothing of ideas I have not yet had, haha.
I also know that there are a handful of amazingly prolific writers I catch myself comparing myself to. There are some people who can bang out 5000+ words every day or two, or who are comfortable writing a single draft and sharing as they go. That's not me. 1000 words is a good day for me, and the 1667 words per day for NaNoWriMo burns me out for months after about half the time. I also like the freedom to go back and change things if I want to, and I HATE the pressure of posting something that hasn't been completed yet.
So I'm kind of at the... managing expectations stage with myself. I know that this is a hobby - I have a full-time job, and it is not writing. This is for fun, and I never want to let it get to the point that it's more stressful than it's worth. If it stops being fun, I'm going to stop doing it at all. But still, the "okay, so it turns out you probably can't write ALL the things..." realization is a bit of a bummer.
I'm very much a creature of habit, but breaking a habit (even once!) can completely derail it for a long while, and I struggle to reestablish it. So I'm afraid of skipping a day of posting... even when I don't have much to say.
Spent a little more time trying to work out a writing schedule for after this current WIP is done (almost there!) as well as the next one.
I did a really good job (at least so far) of the one I'd made before - it was fairly accurate to what I was able to get done. I didn't get wildly ahead, but didn't fall behind. But now I'm looking at a span of six-ish months and going "pacing??? ?? reasonable goals, what????"
I think I'm running up against a fairly perennial problem: the ideas I have/the number of things I'd like to write are in conflict with my actual writing pace.
Writing a chapter per week, or editing a chapter per week, *feels* reasonable. (Though that's also not a consistent measurement - 2500 word chapters and 8500 word chapters are very different, ha.) But even if that's a doable pace with no delays, a 10 chapter fic would take two and a half months to write, and another two and a half months to write a second draft. Five months total! That feels like forever!
All Strange Wonders is 21 chapters! Outbreak is 17!
This whole bit of angst was brought on by thinking "well, I can probably use that 21-week posting cushion while I post All Strange Wonders to get the new draft of Outbreak written, and then I can write one or two other fics over that 21-week period, to build up a new backlog of shareable work!" Then my poor bad-at-grasping-numbers brain was SHOCKED to discover that one chapter per week of a 17-chapter fic would be... the vast majority of a 21 week span, ha.
So the question I'm actually wrestling with at the moment is how best to use the cushion I've given myself. (While also knowing that it's very arbitrary - there's no reason I have to keep posting super regularly! I just want to if I can! And I'm also keeping in mind my promise to myself that I do not want to start posting anything before it's complete.)
Finishing up the rewrite of Outbreak seems obvious - I have a draft written, and it no longer feels like it would be in poor taste to share something about an illness.
It also seems like it would be a good chance to work on the huge "Worldhopping Fairytale Monstrosity" fic project that's been in various stages of progress for like... 15 years at this point. For that one specifically: The outline I last did placed it at 32 chapters. My attempt several years ago to write it got through 10 or so chapters, and a couple were over 10k each. With chapters that long, one chapter may take more than a week. But even if one per week was doable, that's a whopping 64 weeks of work to write two drafts! Assuming no delays, burnout, work on other things instead, breaks for vacations, etc. In practicality, it would definitely be more than that.
And that would be just one work! (Though admittedly, the longest I'm likely to ever have in terms of fic.) I have at least 5 or 6 other multi-chapter fics I'd be interested in writing, to say nothing of original works. Also to say nothing of ideas I have not yet had, haha.
I also know that there are a handful of amazingly prolific writers I catch myself comparing myself to. There are some people who can bang out 5000+ words every day or two, or who are comfortable writing a single draft and sharing as they go. That's not me. 1000 words is a good day for me, and the 1667 words per day for NaNoWriMo burns me out for months after about half the time. I also like the freedom to go back and change things if I want to, and I HATE the pressure of posting something that hasn't been completed yet.
So I'm kind of at the... managing expectations stage with myself. I know that this is a hobby - I have a full-time job, and it is not writing. This is for fun, and I never want to let it get to the point that it's more stressful than it's worth. If it stops being fun, I'm going to stop doing it at all. But still, the "okay, so it turns out you probably can't write ALL the things..." realization is a bit of a bummer.