Writerly Ways
Jan. 22nd, 2012 02:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cornerofmadnessI wrote this in my head several times over the last few days but couldn't find any way to say that without being inflammatory so here I am scrambling for a topic.
Let's talk instead about how to lure a reluctant muse out of hiding. If there is one thing all the professionals seem to agree upon is that you can't wait for inspiration to strike. You need to write every day. There was once a community on LJ that was dedicated to that, 100 words a day. Things like![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
gsd_rtfn help as well. Of course you can always 'fool' sites like that by writing on the new shinest thing but that doesn't really help your problem in the long run.
Of course, sometimes it can. I DO find it helpful to set a story aside to work on something else. The danger there is where I am now, surrounded by file folders filled with abandoned projects. As I said at the end of the year, one of my goals for 2012 is to clean that up. I finished one (and I do believe that Splinters of Silver and Cold Iron had to be my 2006 nano since I have files from my writers group dating to 2007 with the edits) and I have opened the last 3 chapters of Numb to find where I left off to finish (and that means I wrote this in 2004/2005) See what I'm saying about things lying too long.
That is obviously the wrong way to handle writing issues. Looking at my upcoming projects, I'm running out of time to push things off. Some times the muse goes cold when you won't let it write the story it wants. Witness my big bang. I lost affectively 3 months of writing time with it falling over Nano and the december holidays (not to mention the unexpected havoc of January). It doesn't want to shorten the story. I keep telling it to save the rest for later but it knows the story is going to severely suffer at this point and doesn't want to finish. I will not, no CAN NOT let it fall to the wayside since there are others involved in the project. How unfair would that be to them?
That means the muse must be lured out of hiding. For me sometimes the sheer competition is enough to get me going. I don't like to lose. Not finishing for a deadline equals losing in my book. The other thing that does really get my muse going is talking it out with myself or with someone on IM. Honestly, I think I find that the best muse sparker going.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
evil_little_dog will tell you that I do this often. Doesn't mean I take all (or even half) of her suggestions but it gets the creative juices flowing (and her talking to me resulted in some of Ed's bad behavior in her fma_fic_contest entry this time out.
So what do YOU all do?
Here's one of the creative prompts from
By Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians
T.S. Eliot wrote: “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.” It’s just as true of novelists as it is of poets. Try stealing something from a writer you like: a style that works for you, or a character you love, or a situation or a moment that really floored you. See if you can work it into your own plot. Often you’ll find that by the time you’re done, you’ve made the style or the character or the situation your own, and what started out as theft has turned into inspiration.
Obviously we're not talking plaguarism here. For example, Ed and Roy's personalities and their dynamics are not unique to them by any means and by lifting them I was easily able to create characters with that same dynamic and have fun with them
yearly word count
2121 / 75000 words. 3% done!
Fma Big Bang - I'm well over 15K but honestly if i had time I'd only be MID story but that isn't going to cut it. God knows what will at this point.
Machiavelli Moon - unedited
Splinters - used old and apparently long forgotten edits for ch 3-5 from my writers group. I need to sit down with ch 2 and give it a good slice and dice
Numb - printed out the last bits for persual. edited ch 2
Geeklove & Scarred Soldier - are in bits so no word count but slow progress is being made.
Let's talk instead about how to lure a reluctant muse out of hiding. If there is one thing all the professionals seem to agree upon is that you can't wait for inspiration to strike. You need to write every day. There was once a community on LJ that was dedicated to that, 100 words a day. Things like
gsd_rtfn help as well. Of course you can always 'fool' sites like that by writing on the new shinest thing but that doesn't really help your problem in the long run.Of course, sometimes it can. I DO find it helpful to set a story aside to work on something else. The danger there is where I am now, surrounded by file folders filled with abandoned projects. As I said at the end of the year, one of my goals for 2012 is to clean that up. I finished one (and I do believe that Splinters of Silver and Cold Iron had to be my 2006 nano since I have files from my writers group dating to 2007 with the edits) and I have opened the last 3 chapters of Numb to find where I left off to finish (and that means I wrote this in 2004/2005) See what I'm saying about things lying too long.
That is obviously the wrong way to handle writing issues. Looking at my upcoming projects, I'm running out of time to push things off. Some times the muse goes cold when you won't let it write the story it wants. Witness my big bang. I lost affectively 3 months of writing time with it falling over Nano and the december holidays (not to mention the unexpected havoc of January). It doesn't want to shorten the story. I keep telling it to save the rest for later but it knows the story is going to severely suffer at this point and doesn't want to finish. I will not, no CAN NOT let it fall to the wayside since there are others involved in the project. How unfair would that be to them?
That means the muse must be lured out of hiding. For me sometimes the sheer competition is enough to get me going. I don't like to lose. Not finishing for a deadline equals losing in my book. The other thing that does really get my muse going is talking it out with myself or with someone on IM. Honestly, I think I find that the best muse sparker going.
evil_little_dog will tell you that I do this often. Doesn't mean I take all (or even half) of her suggestions but it gets the creative juices flowing (and her talking to me resulted in some of Ed's bad behavior in her fma_fic_contest entry this time out.So what do YOU all do?
Here's one of the creative prompts from
By Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians
T.S. Eliot wrote: “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.” It’s just as true of novelists as it is of poets. Try stealing something from a writer you like: a style that works for you, or a character you love, or a situation or a moment that really floored you. See if you can work it into your own plot. Often you’ll find that by the time you’re done, you’ve made the style or the character or the situation your own, and what started out as theft has turned into inspiration.
Obviously we're not talking plaguarism here. For example, Ed and Roy's personalities and their dynamics are not unique to them by any means and by lifting them I was easily able to create characters with that same dynamic and have fun with them
yearly word count
Fma Big Bang - I'm well over 15K but honestly if i had time I'd only be MID story but that isn't going to cut it. God knows what will at this point.
Machiavelli Moon - unedited
Splinters - used old and apparently long forgotten edits for ch 3-5 from my writers group. I need to sit down with ch 2 and give it a good slice and dice
Numb - printed out the last bits for persual. edited ch 2
Geeklove & Scarred Soldier - are in bits so no word count but slow progress is being made.
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no subject
Date: 2012-01-22 07:32 pm (UTC)Is there a way you can break it into discrete parts, do you think? Might that be a worthwhile thing to brainstorm -- like if there's a midpoint climax that could be the ending, or a subplot you could cut and come back to for something else?
no subject
Date: 2012-01-22 07:55 pm (UTC)I just hope I can maintain some kind of tension in what's left to the story. And right now it's distracting me from things i SHOULD be writing
good luck with yours
no subject
Date: 2012-01-22 08:06 pm (UTC)Short stories don't count. I start and finish them anytime. And they can help alleviate the pressure of shiny new ideas.
But I find that if I don't cave to the temptation of continually starting new long projects I can finish more than I normally would. I don't honestly think I could work on 2-3 novels at a time anyway. That way lies madness....
no subject
Date: 2012-01-22 09:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-22 08:09 pm (UTC)TS Eliot's quote there I quite like a lot. I actually more or less did that with a scene for my Big Bang (stole from a Roy/Riza fic that everyone and their mother recommends ALL THE DANG TIME, lol).
no subject
Date: 2012-01-22 09:34 pm (UTC)I really DO finding talking things out to be invaulable.
which royai is that? Wonders if i've read it since no one ever reccs Royai to me
no subject
Date: 2012-01-23 12:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-23 03:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-22 10:07 pm (UTC)I have a plan though, plan that includes the entire year and what I want to accomplish. My brain is weird like that, but it functions really well when I know when I'm going.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-22 10:47 pm (UTC)I can often get to 500 a day but not always but yes I try to write at least a little every day
no subject
Date: 2012-01-23 12:54 am (UTC)...of course, just about the only person I feel like I can do that with is my mom, so (fanfic-wise) if I'm stuck on something too tough for a non-fan to understand or it's too sexy and/or slashy I might be out of luck. ^^;
no subject
Date: 2012-01-23 03:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-23 12:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-23 03:15 am (UTC)