Write every day! October 2019 - Day 2

[zwei_hexen]

Lovely to see so many joining us again, and welcoeme to all the new (at least to me ;o) ) faces!
I've also a question for you, as I've just experienced this again myself: do you find your ability to write or your writing creativity in any way influenced or compromised when reading a lot of fic, and particularly well-written, long, intense or so fic?
I find I do. I've observed that the intensity and output of my writing is inversely proportional to the amount of transformative fic I'm reading, and vice versa. I don't read much and mostly only slowly when I'm on a good writing streak, and more so when working towards a deadline; and when I find myself immersed in some intense or just really good fic my writing creativity and output is singificantly less. I know this happens to others as well, but I'm wondering if we're the exceptions or if this is more common.

Tally:
Welcome post

Day 1: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, china_shop, cornerofmadness, fadedwings, falkner, iferion, mergatrude, sanguinity, silveradept, schneefink, sylvanwitch, yasaman, ysilme (15/15)

Day 2: china_shop, schneefink

Let us know if we missed you or if you didn't check in for a while, so we can add you. Of course joining the fun is possible at any point.

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ysilme here: no tally yet for me again; this is going to be another late writing night.

sylvanwitch here: One of the many perks of moderating a student writing club at my school is the opportunity to write while at work. We typically do a writing exercise at each meeting, and sometimes I get something cool out of it. Today's is just the beginning of a story, 293 words, and it may not go anywhere, but I like what I have so far, so I think I'll file it for the next time I'm stuck on something else.

Comments

[auroracloud]

I mostly focused on planning; for one thing, I went through my writing goals and plans at the moment, exploring them in form of a diagram that's a bit like a mind-map but I shaped it like a multi-branched tree instead, because that felt freer. That was helpful in sorting out through all the ideas and plans I have active now, and how to go on. Basically my current vague plan at the moment is to get a first draft of my current novel-in-progress by the end of the year or so (I'm not holding on to hard-and-fast deadlines when I don't need to, but it's good to have a time scale in my head), while also preparing and brainstorming for possible future projects. I hope I'll have a clear idea of what to write next by the time I finish this first draft. And also, make time to finish stories for a submission call I'm really interested in. I also spent some time musing how to keep my current novel to a manageable size, which parts of focus on, and I even looked at the Scrivener project for it and pruned the plans a bit, removing planned scenes that don't fit my current plans. So while I didn't produce any new words for that as such, it was much-needed planning and musing at this stage.

I also worked a bit on an unfinished piece of fanfic.

For me, reading and writing varies, both with original stuff and fanfic. I generally believe in reading voraciously and widely, and being influenced and impressed upon by so many pieces and writers that no one influence comes through as the only strong one. I get so much out of reading other stories, picking up themes or details or characters and going "hmm, what could I do with something like this but another context...?" But while I'm actually writing a specific story, I don't usually read another fic on just the same topic, because I want to discover my own vision. However, if I feel stuck, it often helps me to read a story about that character/pairing/situation, because then I can pick up something as a point of departure, even if I end up writing directly against that. Or someone else's fic might remind me of an aspect I could explore in my own story, a piece of background that I could include, etc. It doesn't always help, but sometimes it does. I don't really have hard-and-fast rules about any of this, I just go with whatever seems good at the moment.

[sylvanwitch]

You made excellent progress in your planning, note-taking, organizing, and writing today! I'm impressed with your work ethic! I wish you smooth writing and many great words!

[auroracloud]

Hehe, well, it was the only part of my life where I got any work done, so I'm not sure my work ethic is all that great. Though I'd had four hours of sleep, and then creativity has a better chance than the sensical and rational sides of my brain don't. ;-)