Write Every Day: Day #4

[auroracloud]

And December's Write Every Day is on its fourth day!

Today's writing

Yesterday's late-night bout of unrelated fic-writing seems to have freed up my muse a bit, as today the Yuletide fic was coming along much easier than the previous days. Mind you, with nearly 700 new words and over 4K altogether, it's still not done, but at least it's closer. I do expect this will get shorter when I edit it. I'm new to the character and the world, so I'm meandering about quite a bit, trying to get my feel for them.

What about the rest of you?

Tally

Day #1: avon, auroracloud, cornerofmadness, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #2: avon, auroracloud, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme
Day #3: avon, auroracloud, cornerofmadness, doctor_jehane, esteliel, miss_morland, trobadora, ysilme

Let me know if I missed anyone! Remember, you can join in or drop out any time.

Comments

[doctor-jehane.livejournal.com]

Your wordcount sounds great! I think I had the same issue with my own Yulefic -- new to the 'verse, so I spent some time trying to get a handle on my characters and POV voice, and it only ended 9k later :( I managed to get down to 8k with some editing; think ideally it should be 7+k at the max, so I feel as if I'm doing wordcount in reverse.

[auroracloud.livejournal.com]

Sort of glad I'm not the only one with that problem. Wordcount in reverse sounds familiar - that's what I usually end up doing in editing, because I write too long first drafts. I don't think there's any particular ideal length for a story, and I can enjoy quite epic fics sometimes, but I don't think my story has enough content to be as long as it's getting, so I'll have to pare it down.

(Did you do writing on the 4th? Just checking whether I'm adding you on the tally.)

[doctor-jehane.livejournal.com]

I did! Except I took words away rather than added them :(

[auroracloud.livejournal.com]

Well, editing counts. :-)

[trobadora]

Glad to hear the Yuletide fic's going better!

My own Yuletide fic is a mess so far, and I'm not sure any of the research I did actually did any good. And I didn't manage much today, just a little bit more for the WIP. This weekend was a complete loss on the writing front.

[auroracloud.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear you didn't have a good weekend writing-wise. Sounds like you had a rough week, so it's no wonder there wasn't much energy left for creativity, though. Hopefully the Yuletide fic and the research start coming together later - sometimes it just takes a while, especially if you've been tired and stressed. Good luck, I hope next week will be better. *hugs*

[ysilme]

I'm glad to hear your fic is going so well! I'm fascinated in an awed way about you people who manage to write for an exchange in small or rare fandoms with often so little to go by, as for myself, I can only write something half-decent in a world I know really well inside my head. It takes me ages to get an idea of how a fandom I love works for others. ;o)
Just a few token phrases today for my WIP (about 200 words or so); we've been outside half of the day on a Medieval Christmas market at around freezing temperatures, and I'm totally knackered from all the cold air and oxygene. *g*

[auroracloud.livejournal.com]

Well, I did take care to only offer fandoms I knew I wanted to write in. And it still is kind of tough going, but I guess I like challenging myself. In my experience, fanfic challenges and exchanges can make me write things I otherwise wouldn't have written and open up new paths for me, so I like giving it a try. And I've no idea if my fic will work for the recipient, but I hope so. *g*

Ooh, Christmas markets and outdoors! I wish we had proper Christmas markets here. I need to take a trip to German-speaking (or other Central European) areas around Christmas some time again. Sounds like a properly tiring day, though. Good for managing at least a bit of writing. :-)

[ysilme]

I'm sorry, I hope I didn't come across as if I was criticising anything or finding it odd or so. I wouldn't assume somebody would offer fic for a fandom unknown to them or not being able to write in the fandom or so! I also fully agree, one of the wonderful effects of exchanges and callenges is stepping outside your comfort zone and writing things you otherwise wouldn't have; I always do so content-wise when I feel up to it, and have profited from it. But I can't write anything longer than a drabble or so without immersing myself fully in that permutation of characters and circumstances, and without getting to know about the background of that permutation down to the smallest detail; and know from experience that whatever I write will not leave me again afterwards, but stick. I suppose this is also why I'm rather mono-fandom, as a writer and reader. But I can understand perfectly how doing this stretches your wings yet in another direction, and bring you forward as a writer. :o)

I hope you can have some Christmas market experience soon! We have them literally in every village, although I don't care overmuch for the regular ones with loud disco or hit muzak, horrible crouds and people mainly aiming at getting drunk, but love those with atmosphere and hopefully also beautiful arts and craft stalls. We have a medieval living history "village" within driving distance and often go there, too, or on others with beautiful surroundings and a nice atmosphere. I live near Heidelberg in South-west Germany, and we're lucky to have a lot of those around.

[auroracloud.livejournal.com]

Oh, no worries! I didn't feel like you were criticising it or anything. :-) It isn't like that for me, though I do like to know the fandom well before I start. But if a character, a setting is calling to me, making me feel there are things there I'd like to explore, then sometimes I'll do it. Do you mean that when you write fic, then the story is set as going that particular way in your mind? I mean that you wouldn't, for example, write several possible ways for two characters to get together? Because I don't mind trying out possible different ways for the same thing to happen. I guess I'm just about exploring the characters in many possible ways.

I think I've only visited the nice ones when in Central Europe; I guess that's where the tourist guides will point you. :-D We have them in a few Finnish cities as well, but they're not quite similar, though they're also nice.

[ysilme]

Do you mean that when you write fic, then the story is set as going that particular way in your mind? I mean that you wouldn't, for example, write several possible ways for two characters to get together?
Yes and no, although I just realised it depends on the fandom. My old main fandom was Harry Potter, where I mostly read and wrote about my OTP, Snape/McGonagall. While a lot of my personal interest was in world-building and creating the story behind the books in my mind, exploring how this unlikely couple got together in many variations, or worked out as a couple, was mostly central to any story and varied often.
Now, as I write in the Tolkienverse, my approach to writing but also my interests have changed a lot. I turned to slasher mostly (I'm not generally set for any specific genre, it's more character-driven and depending on fandom, but I'm pretty open to most ideas), and when I write for myself, I prefer to write in larger story-arcs, even if the connection is mostly in my head. One character may have more than one relationship (I write mainly elves, so nearly endless lifespan *g*), but my main interest is in exploring that special character, but not necessarily in a relationship.
I might have been influenced as there are a lot of Tolkien transformative authors who write in this way, and have a certain set of characters live through numerous adventures and happenings.
I'm not a prolific writer as far as published output goes, so so far, most of what I've published are exchange or fest contributions. All of these are meant to be stand-alones and were written with this intent; but already with the second one I found that I was re-using the background setting and had my main character of the first story reappear in the background; and another of the larger stories focused on that first main character again, although in a much different setting and pairing. This story arc is my Dragonverse, and I might also write yet another story with completely different characters that fits in it, because it's using the same background variation of facts and things, and pairings or situations I already wrote just as past history of another story or so.
IDK, perhaps this is specific to a world like Tolkien's, which is so rich and complex already and spans such a long, long time, while leaving such a delightful lot of space to write into.
The main Tolkien story I'm writing hasn't seen the light of the day yet; it's "The Valley" which I wrote for my first NaNo and worked at this past NaNo, and will yet need a lot of work before being publishable. (Nooo, I'm not the least bit perfectionist, not me! ;o) ) But I've already written one fest story set in this 'verse (The Valleyverse ;o) ) and have the odd gift ficlet or drabble which will later be added to the series, too, even if the connection to the 'verse is just in my head. You could say this 'verse represents my personal main headcanon of this part of Tolkien's world, and I want to explore so many details there. It's mainly about the founding of Rivendell, which canon only gives a few dates for, and about characters that are not exactly well-covered in canon, although very big in fandom with some famous fannish permutations (which I try to steer as clear as possibly of). Out of necessity, the amoung of original parts is rather large, too.
But I've also written exchange stories which don't fit in either verse, since the prompts just led elsewhere, and explored a familiar pairing in different ways.

[avon.livejournal.com]

Bravo for your progress!

Continued working on editing my yuletide fic. It keeps getting longer. Heh.

I think what this fic is making painfully obvious to me is that I just don't understand people very well, or at all, and therefore my attempts to write people are, shall we say, limited. Ah well. Carry on. I went and watched this bit about 4 chord songs and decided that originality in art was overrated.

[auroracloud.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I've no idea if the story's any good, but at least the first draft gets closer to being done, so it'll be possible to edit it better... I hope.

Ah, people, they're difficult beasts. *g* Good luck with the fic! And originality is sometimes overrated. I know people who have a hard time getting anything written because whenever they have an idea, they shoot it down with "it's been done before" - though there are so many different ways of doing something, and anyway, there are many more things that matter than just whether someone's already done something kind of similar.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

Glad your muse is freed. I only managed 113 words but given I worked 12 hours today, I'm not complaining

[auroracloud.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you had a rough weekend, so yay for managing that much, at least! I'm not sure I'd have even 113 words in me after 12 hours of work...

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Especially 12 hours of creating, test-taking exams and reading papers and grading labs. My mind was fried. I'm not even sure I want to look at those 100 words

[auroracloud.livejournal.com]

I know the feeling! Maybe just avoid looking at them for a couple of days and go on? :-)

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

That is my plan