Tag Archives: Sam talks Writing

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Status Update!

I’ve broken the back of the AMR drawing. I am not going to admit how much time I’ve spent *cough* but I have learned tons so that’s what took the time really. After all speed comes with practice and I’m still fumbling around.

I know I should have been working on the RBB but this was like practice? I now know so many more things which should hopefully make the RBB art much much better *cross fingers*

My Timeless post-season 2 fic is still at 5k *rolls eyes at self* I’m just going to dodge spoilers for the next week or so. If the wrap-up is good I’ll probably lose all motivation. If it isn’t I’m not sure I want to know. Although having said that spite is helpful for typing speed, gives me a lot of steam to write.

Nope, no, dodging spoilers. I have no clue when/if I’ll get to watch as I haven’t heard about UK broadcast, maybe netflix will add it at some point? They have season 1 but not 2, so maybe? Idk how it works. So I won’t be able to avoid them for forever but maybe at least until I finish my fic.

Anyway now I’m pretty certain I’ll be able to finish this drawing for the end of the month I need to swap to writing. My time to do everything is just slipping through my fingers like water, it’s scary! Eeeek.

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Right let’s do the time warp again let’s do the plan and then make it happen. It worked for NaNo prep, even if NaNo then torpedoed.

I have until January 13th. In that time I want need to:
– finish post-season 2 Garcy fic that I promised Ripper
– finish the Celeb/Fan AU Garcy fic that I promised Ripper
– finish Chapter 11 of Painting Layers of Love (I know I can’t even say it’s been 84 years because it’s been so long *cringes*)
– finish that lingering novel draft
– make heavy inroads into my RBB art
– do the art I have planned for this months AMR

The celeb/fan AU is written I just need to look it over as I wasn’t very happy with it, so some potential redrafting and then post it.

This post-season 2 fic I wanted to have done before the wrap-up movie aired on the 20th (in 4 days!!) so I doubt that’s going to happen but I have no idea when/if I’ll be able to see it, and I can avoid spoilers for a while so I guess a slight delay is ok? *cringes*

The PLL chapter is planned but not started. That novel is only half-written so a long long way to go with that.

I have the basic line art for the AMR drawing but nothing else yet, and I have nothing but the idea for the RBB piece.

So that’s where I need to be and that’s where I’m at.

I’m throwing myself at the post-season 2 fic first and in a few days/hopefully when I’ve made some decent headway I’ll reassess work order priority. Obviously the AMR art needs to be done before the end of the month and cleaning up that fic should be relatively quick so I could just do that and take it off the list.

Ok, here’s hoping I can actually concentrate. Let’s do this thing! 🙂

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Ok I’m on the 4th scene of this epic fanfic I forgot I was supposed to be writing.

There are 14 scenes on the plan.

I have nearly 4.5k already (not all from today, about 1.5k is todays) and the fourth scene isn’t finished so it’ll probably be about an average of 1250 per scene? (trying to guesstimate length, I suck at this) so that’s what about another 13k perhaps?

Before the 20th. Which is in 6 days.

Oh yeah that’s over NaNo-pace

image

I’m toast.

#I suck I’m sorry#the deadline kinda snuck up on me#why did I forget I was supposed to be writing this?

Fan fiction asks: 1 and 11.

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1) What made you start writing fanfic?
Honestly? I think it’s just something I’ve always done. I didn’t write a proper fanfic beginning to end until I was 11 but I have notes of story ideas, or snippets (mostly dialogue) from a couple of years earlier. I don’t know when it started for certain because I only have digital files. If it was on paper I no longer have it. Certainly from when I was 9 and possibly younger.

Anyway, I think the impetus was fix-it. There was something not right and I wanted to change it. Bizarrely considering I can look back at stuff from when I was only 9 I had my shipping preferences sorted. Back then I don’t think I understood why I had a vehement dislike for certain ships, I just knew I didn’t like it. Now I’m an adult I can see that what I hated was lack of respect, or power imbalances. My childish fix was usually to split them up and to introduce an OC, who was a good listener, very supportive and probably didn’t have much personality of their own, instead did the “what do you want” dance a lot – I was only 9 *cringe*.

11) What kind of relationships are you most interested in writing?
Well I kinda got into that above ^^ I like equality, I like mutual respect. When writing relationships I usually conflate trust and love. I like it when a character that prides themselves on being strong, and never showing weakness, relaxes with their partner. I like that because they don’t have to be strong all the time as they trust that their partner won’t hold it against them. They can bear each other up, take turns being strong, they can be a team. They can let their partner see behind the mask, see their true self and feel loved for who they really are, not who people assume they are, or who they feel they have to pretend to be.

It’s odd really because the kind of relationships I’m most interested in are probably the ones that thus far I’ve written the least. Doing the whole “get together” thing is just more common in fic and instant attraction is a lot quicker. In terms of ‘get together’ I do prefer friends to lovers but slow burn is a time sink for writing. Anyway, I digress what I’m trying to get to is – established relationship. I suppose it goes back to the couple being a team. I want to write relationships where they solve problems together.

Fanfic asks: Ask me?

Fanfiction asks – 2 and 9!

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2) Which of your own fanfics have you reread the most?
I don’t tend to reread my own work after its been posted, not unless I intend to do something more with it. So if a fic has a sequel then I’ll have re-read what came before at least once. Probably the one I’ve read the most is erm *thinks* probably a toss up between Painting Layers of Love and Between Two Fires.

9) What do your fic bookmarks say about you?
That I am a terrible person who never gets round to reading anything. Honestly I suck and I feel awful about it. Life threw me a massive curveball end of 2016 and I still haven’t recovered. These days with uni I am so brain dead when I get home I can’t even watch trash TV sometimes. I literally sit on the couch and stare at the wall, I can’t cope with anything more. I probably could read a lot more than I do (I mean I’m answering these right now, so I could be reading!) but I put a lot of pressure on myself. If I read then I want to leave a good comment, and to be honest it’s the “being too tired to leave a good comment” thing that really stops me, and now I’ve just got out of the habit.

Fanfic asks: ask me?

6, 7

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6) Name three stories you found easy to write
Hmm.

Short fics usually pour out of me in one sitting because there’s a particular thing I want to say. They are usually ‘character pieces’ aka not much plot, just the character reflecting on what’s happened. So I guess I’d say these fics like my two most recent: Monstrare Monere or Ghost of a Memory, were fairly easy to write.

However like I said that’s because of the nature of the kind of fic. In terms of something longer with more plot (aka a proper fic imo) two immediately come to mind: The Beauty and the Tragedy and Between Two Fires. The former just poured out of me in one day, and the latter hits so many of my buttons in terms of what I like the most it was just an absolute joy. For a third? I’m trying to think of a chaptered one, though those are usually difficult at some point as it becomes rather inevitable with the length. Hmm, Right Kind of Wrong perhaps? I did write that very quickly because the show made me angry, I think I rode that anger all the way hehe.

7) Name three stories you found difficult to write
Oh boy haha. When I first read these two questions my instinctive thought was “what stories did I not find difficult” hence the rather long answer above, as I had to think it through myself. So just three? Erm. How about True Love Ways, Dream Come True, Painting Layers of Love … and lots more hehe 🙂

Fanfic asks: ask me?

NaNo 2018: Week Two Pep Talk

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“Measure your worth by the dedication to your path, not by your successes or failures.” – Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic.

Heya everyone

It’s Day Twelve, so coming up on the end of week two and the mid-point of NaNo madness, and I figured now was as good a time as any for me to pontificate on the magic of NaNo.

What NaNo is is that magical time of year where we get to be proud of being writers, we get to immerse ourselves in a supportive community and be part of something bigger. I don’t know about you but I just love how it promotes the written word and helps people fall in love with storytelling.

What NaNo isn’t is a stick to beat yourself with. Pulling out my trusty copy of No Plot? No Problem! Chris Baty says that the 50,000 word target is arbitrary. He picked up the shortest book on his shelf, thumbed through it and guesstimated. The 50k has merit, it’s long enough to be a challenge, short enough not to be intimidating but it’s a guideline only.

NaNo is a self-challenge, it is a fantastic tool, one which can walk with you no matter what stage of the journey you are on. At this point of the month we all have different word counts, and it’s possible that you aren’t where you want to be. There’s still over half the challenge to go and that’s kinda my point – the journey isn’t over yet!

“There’s always another chance, there’s always another trick, there’s always something more to learn.” – Flynn Carsen, The Librarians

If you are on pace – fantastic! If you are steaming on ahead – brilliant! If you are a little behind – don’t worry! NaNo is a self-challenge and what matters most is that you don’t give up. If you reach 50k early then go for the stars and write more. If you aren’t going to reach the 50k then keep writing anyway. No matter what you are going to end the month with more words than you started with. You will have faced the dragon of resistance and you will have won.

#had to work a Librarians quote in there somewhere it makes me happy#wrote this for my region and figured might as well share with my friends

The NaNo Report: Day Ten

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Spent the bulk of the day on uni work, doing all the prep for my Reading Texts module on Monday. I was determined to do some writing though because *drum roll* yup it’s that 4thewords thing. There’s a streak element – 444 words a day – and I want to do it!

Having blown a few cobwebs away with fanfic yesterday I decided to dust off my original novel that has been lingering for two years. I finished off a scene that had been laying unfinished since the beginning of the year but didn’t do anything else. It was painful and it took me an hour to get started because with every fiber of my being I wanted to run away.

It’s a WIP, it’s a third in a series, I’m very invested in it and consequently I’m utterly choked by fear. Pulling teeth is an understatement. I kept repeating like a litany to myself that it’s a first draft, that I just have to finish it so I have a complete draft to work with for revision – that this isn’t the end, it’s just the beginning. It’s still damn hard though. There’s so much baggage with this book; so much hope, so much failure, so much need.

Rather than make my catchup total lower, I’ve increased it by failing to reach the daily target but /shrug some days are like that. I wrote something, I broke the ice, and I’m plodding along. There’s a quote pinned to my wall which I think is appropriate here:

“Measure your worth by the dedication to your path, not by your successes or failures.” – Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic

I really want my 50k because I’ve been doing this NaNo thing a decade and somewhere along the way my sense of identity got wrapped up in it. It’s important to me but at the end of the day it’s the stories which matter most. I might not get them written as fast as I’d like, and I may never be satisfied with the end result, but I will still get them done.

This isn’t a joyride. It’s the rest of my life. I’m in this writing business for the long haul, wherever the journey takes me.

Words written: 736
Total count: 5,841

The NaNo Report: Day Nine

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So this morning I said I decided it was a writing day. How did it go?

Well it went pretty damn well. There were two occasions when I had to stop (first time I was freezing, second time mum talked to me) and both times I struggled to get back into it again. However I did and my total wound up being fairly miraculous given the current state of play.

Words written: 3,417
Total count: 5,105

*falls over* I know right?!?! I mean back in the day I would probably have been less than thrilled with this after a supposed full day of writing but that just proves it’s all a matter of perspective. Yes I can technically write 1-2k an hour. Have I done that in years? Nope. So this is like the new best – actually I like that, I’m going to use this as a top benchmark rather than the old numbers because the old numbers are sooooo unreachable these days.

What did I write? Well I finished the first draft of the Celeb/Fan AU for Ripper. It’s seriously awful (I’m not at all happy with it) so that won’t be getting posted anytime soon but hey “I can fix a bad page, I can’t fix a blank page” so I’ve passed stage one on it at least!

After that I moved onto the post-season two Timeless fic, which will incorporate the two other Garcy prompts Ripper sent me. This is going to be… long /headdesk and as I want to finish it before they actually air the wrap-up movie next month I need to get my skates on.

I’m now just slightly shy of 10k off pace. I do have to actual uni work/chores tomorrow. Ideally I’ll write the new daily pace of 2250 but so long as I write at least 1667 I won’t fall any further behind. *cross fingers*