Tag Archives: Sam talks Writing

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I just noticed tumblr ate the post I made this morning. The app crashed and I thought it had posted but it hadn’t. That will teach me to write a post in the app because now it’s gone.

It was a random writing post update thing, nothing probably very interesting. I said I had plans to write a good chunk of my RCIJ yesterday and then unexpectedly had to work so that kinda sucked. I still haven’t made anymore progress on it. I opened it up earlier, stared at it for five minutes and then shut it again. Does anyone else do that?

Oh yeah the funny thing. I woke up last night, middle of the night and I had words in my head! Now this happens quite a lot. I’m never further than arms reach from something to write with. So I wrote the words down and I still haven’t looked at them. In the middle of the night they seemed quite good, in the cold light of day probably not so much.

What words came unbidden to my mind in the middle of the night? It was that Rush/Carter fic. It was the transition between the fighting and the smut, so it contained neither fighting, nor smut, just how they got between the two. I also had thought of a beginning and get this – two endings. That’s always interesting.

Anyway, I am now currently writing the next chapter of The War Within because I might have got a bit behind on that and eaten through my buffer. Usually I would have next weeks chapter done by now but oh well, I have the weekend.

Rumple is about to have a very thought-provoking conversation with a citizen of the land of untold stories …

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joshdallascutie:

Au where Emma and Neal are partners in crime and a couple. Emma’s the scary cop and Neal is the sarcastic one who brings out Emma’s soft side.

“Partners in crime” and “scary cop” sound mutually exclusive.

Unless of course, actually thinking about it now, I think I have heard that phrase used for Castle and Beckett, who work together to solve crimes, so don’t mind me.

I love this though! I’m reblogging it for ease of reference later because I’m going to use this in my Nightwalkers fic. I was wondering how best to bring in Swanfire and now I have it. I love Neal 🙂

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I need these for reference too …

The War Within Chapter 3: though Rumple believes Belle can’t hear him under the sleeping curse he’s still baring his soul and telling her all the things he should have told her, including why he needs his curse. Please tell me Belle can actually hear him saying all this?

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I love you! Sorry but I’m quite excited, you are my first TMI Tuesday person. Thank you so much for asking! 🙂

Your question made me think actually. In my plan Belle couldn’t hear him but I just went back and watched Charming wake up Snow, and Emma wake up Henry. Snow says “the glass coffin gave me pause” and Henry said “I love you too” in answer to Emma’s preceding line of “I love you.” Now, we haven’t really seen people interact with someone under a sleeping curse – just the kiss. I don’t think canon really addresses it one way or another.

What we do know, is that Hook’s father was under a curse for a hundred years. The nurse who took care of him, fell in love with him somehow (I don’t quite get how, given that she wouldn’t have known him) and woke him with TLK. Now, I suppose the nurse could have learned about him, but if he had no connection to the outside world, then how could he possibly reciprocate? One thing we do know about TLK is that both parties need to feel the same way (why it doesn’t work with amnesia etc.)

So, in answer to your question. I am going to change my plan because I like this idea better. Yes Belle can hear him but not clearly. It’s going to be indistinct, like a dodgy radio connection. She’ll hear more than enough to get the idea. I wasn’t going to have the first Belle scene until chapter five, but I’m going to add a new scene to chapter four.

Thank you so much!

#I got asked a question#this should probably not make me this happy

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That Swanfire gifset earlier made me think about my upcoming WIP’s and whether I could bring in Swanfire as a side pairing. I have never really actively shipped anything but Rumbelle in Once Upon a Time. However, Neal and Emma just looked so right together in that set. It was kinda inspiring, I will have to think about it.

How to squeeze out more words

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I just typed this up for a friend of mine and then I thought I might as well share it. Maybe it might help someone.

Setting a huge goal like a novel in a month is completely overwhelming. It seems impossible.

So break it down to a number each day. Then break that number down so 1,667 a day? Write some and then it’s only 1300 left, now it’s 900, now it’s less than what I already wrote.

When writing, the goal isn’t the 1,667, I’m not writing 1,667 words. I’m writing for 15 mins, it’s to write to the next 100, it’s to roll a dice and write that many tens of words.

Big goals become small ones, which become smaller ones, which become possible. Break it down into bite size chunks, fool your brain into thinking it’s a little when actually it’s chipping away at achieving a lot.

Set a bigger goal than intended to start with. A minimum goal, an aim and then a dream.

By trying for more, say 3k a day rather than 1,667. If I make 2k everyday, I will finish the month with 60k. It’s not 100k but it’s more than I would have if I had aimed just for the 1,667.

I did that in 2014 and 2015 NaNo. I aimed for 100k both times and the most I came out with was 60k but I got a lot more than I would have otherwise. I pushed myself everyday to shoot higher and often didn’t manage it. However, if I had set the goal lower then my brain would have mentally said done when I got close. It’s harder to do extra.

With that “failed” larger goal I had lower ones. To reach 50k, to type the end etc. And I made those so it wasn’t a massive disappointment that I hadn’t reached 100k. It is my dream to one day crack triple digits but I’ve been trying on and off for the past 6 years and never come close. That doesn’t stop me from dreaming or from trying because whether I get it or not, I still wrote a metric ton because I was pushing myself. I demanded more and for a short time I got it.

It’s easy to tell yourself to squeeze out an extra 100 words to make the next thousand on the total. Then once that’s done, to say finish the scene, then do another 15 mins to make it to the hour etc. The word count creeps higher and it’s just a few words at a time.

So break those goals down and shoot for the stars. The world needs your story!

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It’s hard to see sometimes what numbers truly are. I was looking at my current project, an original prequel and it read:

8,737 / 12,000 words (73 %)

and I was feeling really disheartened. The end felt like forever away, although it has been a bit like pulling teeth today. So I took my current total, from the goal and got 3,263 and that number seemed much friendlier. That number seemed a lot more possible.

It’s the same number just a different way. It’s so much better when over the halfway point to start counting down rather than up. I don’t have all those words to do, I have a steadily decreasing amount to do. It makes it easier to bribe myself to write more.

Just a writing random thought for the first day of Camp NaNo 🙂

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You know it just occurred to me – and yes I should be writing and I’m procrastinating, why did you ask? 🙂 – that I could answer a couple of questions off that fic meme, whether anyone asks me or not.

I just think a couple of couple of them are really good questions and I feel like it. So why not?

Feel free to ask my any others if you are curious 🙂

1) Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic.
Canon divergence. Where there was a pivotal moment and canon goes one way but I can say “what if?” and then take the story down a different road. This is basically all I have ever written. 

I find writing canon-compliant “missing moment” type deal, very difficult and I would never choose to do so if I had a choice. I think it’s the desire to “fix it” in me, because obviously if I can’t change anything, just write what happened, it’s quite frustrating. I might have written one canon-compliant thing about 10 years ago but I struggled to end it because I couldn’t give it a happy ending. I like my happy endings.

I have never written a complete AU before but I have a couple in the pipeline and I’m looking forward to that. It should be really fun. I’ll get to do what I love in other AU fics and bring in some show stuff but in a different way. I always enjoy that. I just hope I can pull it off.

11) Is writing your passion or just a fun hobby?
This is what I wrote on my Camp NaNo profile this year:
“I love writing, I just literally do. I write for a job (sort of) and I write for fun. I write all day, everyday if possible and then more on weekends. I love stories, I love characters. I wish I wrote faster than I do because I have so many ideas and there’s just never enough time.Can we invent something so I can plug my brain into the PC and make stories appear? That would be very cool.”
So in answer, it is most definitely my passion.

13) What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across?
NaNoWriMo – in a nutshell. Basically stop being a “one day” novelist, saying that “one day” I will write a story because then that will never happen. There will always be other priorities, it will always get pushed to “when I have more time” and so if you want to do it, do it now.

A story will never come out on the page exactly how you hoped. In your mind it’s amazing and incredible because it’s so full of limitless potential. The real world, the harsh reality of the page, it sucks but that’s the magic of writing. Everything is fixable. If you have the first draft, then you have a place to start. You can take something and make it incredible, you can’t take nothing and do anything with it because nothing is nothing.

Everyone starts somewhere. If you have a story to tell, then tell it – the world needs your novel.

14) What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across?
“Write what you know” because how does that even work? Last time I checked we weren’t living in magical worlds, or fighting aliens. I write what I want to read, I write what I love and then I share it because I hope other people will love it too. If I just wrote “what I knew” then I wouldn’t feel anywhere near that level of passion because my life is normal and unremarkable.

18) Do you use any tools, like worksheets or outlines?
I write up a full scene by scene outline for any long story. My oneshots I tend to just start writing and just write what comes into my head. However, for anything longer, it’s usually more complex, and I need to plan it out. If I don’t outline then I wind up writing myself into a corner. Plus outlines are helpful because when I open the document I always know what I’m doing next, I don’t ever stare at a blank page because I don’t know what I’m writing.

24) Have you ever deleted one of your published fics?
Yes. I quit fanfic about five years ago and I had one outstanding WIP and I felt really guilty about it. However, I was never going back, and to be honest nobody was reading it anyway, so I just deleted it and tried to pretend like I hadn’t done that.

As a reader I usually tick the ‘completed’ box and only read fics that are done. There is nothing worse than liking a fic and then it never being finished. As a writer, I felt like such a hypocrite for doing that. Thankfully, like I said it wasn’t like it was popular. If I had been then I would have made myself finish it.

30) Do you accept prompts?
Yes.

35) Would you ever kill off a canon character?
Never say never, but I find it quite unlikely. I don’t like reading character death fics, so I can’t imagine why I would ever write one. I suppose if it was just a minor character, or one everyone hated, then I might. I guess for my upcoming WIP ‘there has been a murder in Storybrooke’ I am going to have to kill somebody. It won’t be anyone I like though.

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Like I said feel free to ask me any others 🙂

July Status Update

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I rather like summary posts. I also like setting goals because I can’t hit a target if I can’t see it. I’ve not done one of these posts before, but I’ll probably do one on the 1st of every month.

Works posted in June (and end of May):
– Wizard Love (oneshot written for Rumbelle is Hope)
– He’s Behind You (oneshot set in the War Within verse)
– Never Let the Pirate Babysit Alone (prompt fic, set in the War Within verse)
– The War Within (Alternate season six, WIP)
         – Chapter One
         – Chapter Two

Coming up definitely in July:
– The next four chapters of The War Within (posted every Tuesday)
– The RCIJ fic (posted on the 23rd)

What I hope July will bring:
– At least the first chapter of my as yet untitled fic based on this idea – There has been a murder in Storybrooke. I’m really excited by this idea and I’ve moved it to the top of the list after my current WIP’s.

I’m taking part in Camp NaNo this July, as always (if it’s NaNo then I’m there) and so I hope a lot of words will get written. My left arm is still really painful if used, so I’m restricted to dictation which I loathe. Dictation also makes me a lot slower. Seriously, I really miss typing. However, the slug club can still do a lot of words, it just means more butt in chair time.

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worryinglyinnocent:

So instead of anything I should be writing, like F&F, Maison Rouge proper, or the GBBO AU, I am writing yet another little rumbelle Maison Rouge ficlet. 

It seems like that’s all my brain wants to write at the moment. 

Damn you brain!

In other news I’ve finished my RCIJ fic, but I’m absolutely buggered if I can think up a title for it… 

*sigh*

You have finished your RCIJ fic? *is jealous* You know if you want to message me privately with a fic summary I could try and help you brainstorm a title, titles are hard.

Also, I totally get the “writing but not what I’m supposed to” thing – I have that problem right now. I should be doing more RCIJ but I’ve done about 1.5k today and my brain wants to work on something else now.