Upcoming Covid shot + end of Camp NaNo + some messy introspection on writing:

[mistressofmuses]

Day one of my double class-close weekend down. Class closes are the last day of a series of classes, where we have to do all the state paperwork for the students, and they take their tests. I don't mind them, exactly—I'm the kind of person that sort of enjoys grading and boring data entry stuff—but they do require a lot of extra work, with potentially huge consequences for mistakes, which can be a struggle because there's no lessened expectation for everything else I'm expected to get done.

After tomorrow, I have Monday and Tuesday off, for my second Covid shot. I am so excited! I am so glad that I'll get to start ramping up to being protected, and have far less risk of becoming a vector. (Which has continually been my biggest fear - I don't want to get Covid either, but I absolutely would be horrified to be the reason someone else got sick.) Of course, even after my additional two weeks post-vax, I'll keep taking my precautions. I largely work with teens who are just too young to get vaxxed (yet, at least; hopefully some new research will find that the vaccines are safe for kids.) And even so, I know we aren't at the herd immunity point yet, and so I'll keep masking and distancing in public. But I'm excited to get to visit Taylor again, and to just in general start being able to do stuff again.

-

Yesterday was the last day of Camp Nano. And I did it! I met my second goal of 40k for the month, finishing with a total of 41,422 words for the month!


The light blue line was my target for my original 25k goal. The darker line is my actual wordcount total for each day. :)

I probably won't keep up with the 1500 word/day pace. While it wasn't undoable, obviously, it did mean that sometimes I felt more pressure just to hit my word goal than I felt to make the words good, haha. That isn't a bad thing on a first draft, when just making the words happen is the most important part, but this is my rewrite. My intent is that each chapter only gets another fairly quick editing pass after this before posting, so I'm a little worried that maybe some of these sections should have gotten more attention, even if that had meant slower progress.

Even so, I'm really glad that I got so much of this draft done this month!

-

I've been a little frustrated at my writing pace, even as I've been for the most part pleased with my relatively steady progress.

But as happy as I am that I have been working on it... I also want to be *done.*
My first idea for the fic came about in July of last year, though I paused it while I worked on a fic challenge in August.
I spent September and October outlining it.
I spent November - January on the 69k rough draft.
I forced myself to take February off, so I could go back to it with fresh eyes.
And then I spent March and April so far working on draft 2.

If I finish the rough draft in May (which is my tentative goal), then I can start posting in June, and if I post one chapter a week, with roughly 20 chapters, that means I'll be done posting it in October. That means it will have been just over a year from the start of actually working on it to getting it completely posted.

To be honest, I realize that isn't actually a terrible amount of time for something the length of a short novel. To get from nothing to completed work (including chapter-by-chapter sharing) in about a year is... really pretty good, considering this is a hobby and not even something I'm putting 40 hours a week into.

And yet I'm frustrated that it takes me a YEAR to get a fic written.

Some thoughts on why, and trying to talk myself into feeling better about it:

- Internalized feelings that I shouldn't put so much time into "just" fanfic. This is something I actively fight against for other people: I am continually in awe of the amazing fic that people turn out, and will viciously defend fic as valuable, significant, and worthwhile work. But I have a hard time applying those thoughts to myself.

- Comparing my output to others. I follow some *astoundingly* prolific writers. (Both published and fan.) For the fan writers I'm thinking of, some of that is the fact that they post as they go, so they are posting pretty constantly. But they're posting a lot of oneshots, and while they have many ongoing fics they share, there can be weeks or months in between updates on each one. They ARE prolific, but I'm sitting amazed that they're writing thousands of words per week... when sometimes I'm writing thousands of words per week, too! I'm just not posting all of mine.
I *could* combat that to some extent by posting as I complete chapters, but... I'd much rather have a complete work before I post. I strongly prefer to have at least two complete drafts of a work (which I know is nothing compared to the tens of drafts that a lot of published writers do), to give me a chance to fix structural issues, or add subplots, or change things once I see the big picture of my fic, without retconning myself. It also means I'm not likely to leave a WIP unfinished, which is a worry if I post as I go and then lose interest.

- Fear of being ignored. Other than lightning-strike popularity (whether intentionally or accidentally writing the right ship at the right time for the right fandom incorporating the right tropes that takes off with the fandom) the most common way to have your stuff noticed seems to just be... being prolific, so people see your stuff often and maybe like it well enough to find your other stuff.
I have ZERO desire to be a BNF or anything like that... but I'd also like my stuff to get at least a little notice, y'know? I'm at a disadvantage, because I'm writing for a moderately large fandom, but for an OT3. It is very popular as OT3s go, but still not as big a ship as the main pairings for the fandom.

I don't really have anything to conclude that with, but I AM going to try to keep a fair perspective. I may not be sharing prolifically, but I'm not slacking on what I'm working on!

Comments

[olivermoss]

That is a really good pace!

I get feeling bad comparing yourself to others. I don't even want to announce the fic I've written lately because I feel so pathetic doing so. I'm trying to get into a good pace with writing ... and trying to not think about how things would be different if I'd managed to get into a good pace earlier.

Completing a creative work is awesome. Are you going to release it as chapters? Doing things chaptered out tends to get more eyes on it.

[mistressofmuses]

Thank you! When I look at it laid out, I realize it is a decent pace. But damn it feels like it's taken forever, haha.

I get that feeling, too. I'm sorry you're reluctant to announce the fic you've written. :( Is it because it's unfinished, or something else that makes you not want to mention it? (Though I'm not trying to pry!) I think anything you've been working on is worth talking about.
I *definitely* have the same regrets around what things could be different if I'd found a good pace or kept up consistent effort sooner. I have literally hundreds of unused story ideas, and will never have time to write them all. But there's a ton of missed opportunity, because if only I'd *tried*.
Consistent effort is my goal for this year!

I will be very excited to finish this one. I do plan to release it chapter by chapter. Probably one per week, so hopefully that does catch a few interested eyes!

[olivermoss]

I spend so much time on writing and my only finished things are really short. I'd feel better about everything if one of my longer projects were done. Most people i interact with have so much done, I feel like a kid waiving around around a fingerpainting.

[mistressofmuses]

Honestly, I feel the same a lot of the time. So many of the writers I follow/share groups and communities with/etc. have SUCH a body of work behind them. This current fic will only be the second long-form fic I've written in more than a decade. (And only the fourth ongoing fic I've *ever* completed.)
Meanwhile, I have so many things that have been in various stages of progress for *years* in most cases...

Honestly, I think completing anything, regardless of length, is worthwhile and worthy of celebrating. (And personally, I love hearing about small successes and projects as well as big ones.)

[olivermoss]

I still want to actually write and public original fic so completing a 700 word fic to justify a bad joke I want to make just ... on one hand comedy is hard and my jokes have been lifted and put in a lot of other fic. I used to post my joke dialogues to discords and writers would be all It's Free Real Estate! That's why I don't post dialogue snippets anymore.

Even if I never make my goal I am not wasting my time. Completing these projects are the best thing possible for my brain. The fic I am writing is worth it in and of itself. It's nice to not only consume content, but to also make some. But still with the circles I run in I just can't

[mistressofmuses]

Ugh, like, I *get* how fandom takes prompts or dialogue or imagined scenarios etc and uses them. But... I still also hate it. I understand that fandom is transformative, so you can't really put limits on what anyone is allowed to use, and people get inspired by other fanworks and such. There's certainly plenty of cross-polinating of tropes and fanon and such, and I've always rolled my eyes at anyone who wants to get huffy about someone else writing a similar plot or trope or AU or whatever.
BUT. I firmly believe that people also should respect fellow fans, and lifting dialogue snippets that someone shared and putting it in your own work? Is shitty. I'm sorry that happened to you, because that would definitely make me reluctant to share bits of my work, too.
(I had a writer friend way back in high school that I stopped sharing work with, because bits of what I'd shared with her started turning up in her works, which she published before I'd completed anything of mine. She claimed it was accidental, but it happened multiple times, and at the time I was afraid I'd be accused of lifting the ideas from her, so I just let the WIPs die.)

It's absolutely true that none of it is a waste of time! I tend to feel like any time spent on creative stuff (original or fan, writing or art or craft or whatever) is time well spent. Just the act of creating (sometimes especially without the pressure of an imagined audience) is one of the best things imo.

But I *am* sorry that it doesn't feel like stuff you can share at this point, if you would otherwise want to.
I'll happily listen to stuff about anything you write if you ever want, though it's probably a crapshoot on whether I'll be familiar with any source material.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, I enjoyed sharing dialogue snippets, mostly in Ironstrange fandom, but I've had to stop. Also, I should value my dialogue snippets more I guess? Not everyone can do comedy and a lot of writers find dialogue hard. I like writing dialogue, I am just pants at coming up with endings to things that I consider satisfying.

I am just too full of and then they took my dialogue / jokes / pictures / article type stories. That is part of why I need to get more fic done. The more I have get done the less all the shitty stuff seems like a mountain and the more it seems like a bump in the road. If I ever get a orig fic manuscript done, then the context of all the shitty things I've dealt with changes drastically. I didn't realize how much my snippets were being taken until a writer told me that my snippets were the most popular parts of her stories and linked me to her comments.

I'm currently posting under the sock Thedeepgreen if you want to read a thousand words I wrote to justify making the most low hanging fruit jokes about Hardison being a gamer.

[mistressofmuses]

I think you should value them, for sure. Comedy is really difficult! Coming up with satisfying endings is probably one of my biggest struggles, too.

Ugh, that's really shitty. I'm sorry you've had so much of your shit stolen. I think that's a fair point, that once you have your own stuff completed, those events will be a much smaller piece of the whole experience.
Oh jeez, I can't tell if that's better or worse. That someone admitted to taking your stuff, and that being the most well-liked part of her work... oof.

I will absolutely check that out!