#so i was scrolling through my gdocs drafts

[hueseok]

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[recurring-polynya]

Writing/Art Update 12.3.2024

I gave up.

So, what happened was, shortly after last week's update, I had to re-direct my attentions to Getting Ready for Thanksgiving, and so I was like "yeah, this is fine, this is a good opportunity to Think About My Fanfic, and when the holiday is over, I'll have some stuff to write." Except that the more I thought about my fanfic, the more I realized that I do not love it and I have spent a lot of time and energy trying to make myself love it and I simply don't and I don't want to work on a thing I don't love. I want to love it! I love the parts that I wrote 3 years ago!

I don't remember why, but I decided I wanted to read my weird Inuzuri Teens story. In particular, I wanted to read the insane ending, which I have told myself repeatedly I need to change if I ever want to post the story. I read it and I said "this is good actually. making sense is for chumps" and decided I wanted to work on that story instead, and so that is what I have been doing.

I don't think this is actually a permanent feeling. I'm not really giving up on a little in love. I think I am just feeling very mean right now and I'm mad a lot and I don't really want to write something nice and funny. The Inuzuri story is about the dissolution of a friendship and the death of a young person and that's why I've never finished it, but I think I feel mean enough to do that right now, so that's what I'm doing with those feelings. I am constantly inventing new and innovative forms of personal self-therapy, and I feel like my old therapist who never knew what to do with me really would have loved this one.

I don't know whether or not to bother with my stupid wordcount goal anymore. Right now, it seems very made-up and stupid. Normally, I'm pretty big on giving up things once they no longer serve, but I also feel like I'm going to be mad at myself for not meeting it. ::scrolls up to look at the gif at the top of the post. scrolls back down again::

I wrote a scene this week that I have been thinking about for ages and ages and I think I like the way it came out, except for the fact that a) I will have to edit a part later on that I have always really liked and I'm kinda pissed about that, and b) it is 3100 entire words which is more than twice as long as the next longest scene in this fanfic and I'm not too happy about that. Most of the story is in these little bite-sized chunks, and they often sort of flow into each other, so maybe it's okay. I'm a little worried that the seams between the stuff I've already written and the new stuff are going to be very visible. idk

I also went through and converted the whole thing into present tense--it was in a big sloppy mishmash of past and present. Previously, I couldn't bring myself to decide which one I wanted, but go places is present tense and I want it to match go places. I also made an outline, which is how I figured out the thing above.

Oh! Also, I have been really unhappy with GoogleDocs for some time, so I decided to give ellipsus a try (I tell you, I was really going thru it this week). It's...fine? It is occasionally a teensy bit laggy, which I mostly notice when I'm doing a search (I use the search feature a lot because I have a bad tendency to get enamored of a word and then use it too much). This is a little better in Chrome than Firefox, which has changed my entire work flow, because I have Tumblr open in Firefox, and now it's "far away". This may actually be for the best. I am not sure. Ellipsus also has this "draft" system, which is pretty much like every software version control system I've ever used, so I get it, but I'm not sure it suits the way I work. Nothing about Ellipsus precludes using my old multi-document system, and maybe I'll find it useful in the future. I'm not going to complain about a feature just because I personally don't have a use for it. I had numerous beefs with GDocs, but the #1 thing was the infiltration of ai, and Ellipsus is building its brand on being anti-ai, so I'm willing to put up with a few growing pains for now and see how things go.

I'm also trying to get back into drawing a little every day (most days anyway). Mostly, I just intend to use my art club prompts (I drew a pie yesterday). I do want to draw something for Ukitake week. I'm not going to be secretive: I'm trying to come up with a cool Rukia-Ukitake idea because I feel like they got cheated so bad in terms of captain-lieutenant power posing. I've been going back and forth between Action Posing (which is hard and not my strength) or, like, modern clothes. I'll try to get that figured out this week.

[yerbamansa]

Got tagged by @epersonae! Thanks! So I will tag other writer mutuals if you wanna have a go and/or didn't already get tagged (i keep losing track of tumblr scroll tbh): @thetragicallynerdy @alfalfairy @whose-modern-au-is-this @dragonmuse @sassygwaine @keriocabinet

Do you write in order? Generally, yes. Every once in awhile I'll have a scene or a little piece of something that gets written as it comes to mind, but it's often outline->write. The outlining/brainstorming process (as much as it is a process) is where the order happens.

This is notably not the case with Ask Me Anything, though, which is a collab and timey-wimey to boot, so lots of stuff needed to get figured out of order. We still haven't finished writing the chapter we're in the middle of posting, but the next one is finished and the rest are kinda 50/50 or 60/40.

How fully formed does your writing come out the first try? Gonna say a good 85-95%?? Depends on the story and whether I'm getting other eyes on it before posting. Most of Revenge Ranch got written and posted with a cursory read-through for glaring errors. Kitchen Mistakes & How To Avoid Them, though, tends to have its word count/phrasing fluctuate like 10-15% every chapter thanks to a delightfully nitpicky beta reader.

How many drafts do you go through? I don't really draft, per se? I spit it out, I review it, I get feedback (sometimes), I make changes, annnnd I'm done. Well, I guess that's technically drafting phases, but it tends to be less thorough than what I'm picturing.

Tell me about your process. I get an idea. It takes hold of my entire goddamn brain. I am compelled to start writing it down in some loose structure, usually bulleted lists, just to get it out of my brain. Sometimes the idea keeps growing, almost self-propelled (All That I Need Is You And The Sea). Sometimes it incubates a bit before it comes together, and needs to keep being formed and re-formed as it goes (Kitchen Mistakes), but the idea is still kind of in charge, if that makes sense.

Other times, I really need to work at it, like, I know I want to do something with X character, but I need to do some background research, think about what my goals are for the thing, make notes on the POV character, etc. I put a lot of time into breaking down Revenge Ranch Roach for his POV story last fall, and that was kind of like pulling teeth, though I'm happy with the result. I think this version of the process might end up with more of "me" in it. Maybe because I have to work at connecting to it.

While I'm actually writing, I typically try to keep some VERY simple/high-level notes handy--like the key plot points/character notes to hit--but abandon the rest. Exception: if the background research includes some specific entity (object, video, song, etc.) I need to describe/reference in the story itself. Even if I don't feel like I'm in a 'flow' state or whatever, often I'll just sit there and try to start pecking out some dialog or description of wherever I'm at, and it starts to move along, or doesn't.

Sometimes I have to flit through a lot of background noise to find the right vibe for my brain at a given moment. The nicest, though, is finding one of those "8hr ambient aesthetic vibes" videos on YouTube that is kinda close to the setting I'm writing. There's a road trip Revenge Ranch story that I wrote while watching someone's dashcam video of a drive through New Mexico. I watched a TON of thunderstorm videos for a couple other entries. A chapter of Kitchen Mistakes that took place in Stede's study was helped along by one of those "evening fireplace and rain sounds" ambient videos. Fuckin' love those videos. It hits a sweet spot of noise (without lyrics or too much rhythm) and background imagery like watching TV, but without all the distraction.

In terms of technical settings: I like writing in LibreOffice when I can, but if I'm collaborating at all, it has to be GDocs. And I am a heavy user of headings/outlines in that case. I have a half-assed AO3 post template in LibreOffice with places for notes etc. to copy and paste in order. I've been known to make a spreadsheet when shit gets very complicated. My brain loves little boxes. I don't write on my phone except maybe some notes to self in Signal for ideas that come up when I'm not at my laptop. Love a physical keyboard and multiple windows, mmm, room to spread out and see lots of shit at once.