zwei_hexen | Write every day! - June 2021

china_shop

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: alibi sentence only so far. I planned to sit down and write for a bit after posting this, but just got an unannounced last-minute task for the church homepage for tomorrow which will eat up my remaining time tonight. So much for that. *sigh*

sylvanwitch here: Today's was interesting work. I pulled out a story from 2008 that had been accepted by a semi-pro mag and had already been edited and was under contract when the mag went on hiatus and just...never really came back? I didn't think it would take much to beat it into shape. Whoo-boy, was I wrong. First, the pop culture references were all 13 years out of date. Then, there were these homophobic jokes that were 100% bog-standard for teenage boys (my MCs) in 2008 (speaking from long experience here) but that just came off as totally gratuitous and frankly gross today. That made me happy--the changes, I mean--because it means that our culture (high school boy culture) has changed a lot in 13 years. I was happy to ditch that humor and tighten up those scenes. And then the ending just...didn't work as well as I remembered it. But happily, I guess I have learned something since 2008 because making it work better didn't take much at all. I'm going to let it sit a couple of days and then go at it again and then, I hope, find it a home. It's horror-humor, so I think there are places that would like it. We'll see.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

badly_knitted

June 26th - a 1000 word challenge fic!

From:

sylvanwitch

Wooo-hooo! That's awesome! Go, you! *grins* *\o/*

From:

badly_knitted

Thank you! I was pleased, but I just realised I haven't even started a fic that's due by the end of the month, so now I'm in a panic...

From:

sylvanwitch

Oh, my friend, so sorry to hear this. Big *hugs* to you. I'm wishing you LOTs of unexpected writing time tomorrow. *hugs harder*

From:

china_shop

27th: 821 words on the WIP, mostly typing up yesterday's long-hand and jigsawing some of the dialogue from canon into it. :-)

From:

sylvanwitch

YAY! Look at you constructing a story out of its disparate parts! You're awesome! YAY! :-)

From:

shadaras

ysilme - alibi sentences still count! <3

sylvanwitch - *hugs* lovely editing work!

Day 26: Some meta and some comments on fandom5k fic. :) Plus some thinking about fic, but no actual words, which tbh is fair considering how much of a mental load fandom5k had been in the time leading up to fic reveals today.

From:

sylvanwitch

YAY for reveals and reading and commenting and meta and all the other great stuff that goes along with finally getting to see the fruits of your and others' labor. YAY! :-)

From:

li_izumi

Alibi still count.
Yay for some good editing!

I did 330 words on a review (yay for a blog post!) Tomorrow I hope to get some more words on my fic, though I'm driving down to my parent's and staying there over night, got stuff to do in my old hometown Monday morning, then driving back home, so I'll be running around/busy for the next 2 days. Hopefully won't be too distracted that I miss getting my words done. (Probably won't get a chance to comment tomorrow, but we'll see)

From:

sylvanwitch

Thank you!

YAY for review-writing! :-)

Please don't worry about checking in, given all the good reasons you'll be busy. Just let us know when you're back on what days you wrote. And if you can jot an alibi sentence down each day, you can keep your unbroken streak too! Enjoy your trip! :-)

From:

sanguinity

ysilme: some days are like that, but good for you for holding a place for your writing with an alibi sentence.

sylvanwitch: What excellent work! And fascinating to hear how much things have changed since 2008. Your skills have changed, too -- how satisfying!

Hid from the heat and wrote 1K of porn for Fake Marrieds; then did a heavy edit on the first 10K words of the story.

From:

sylvanwitch

It *is* satisfying, for sure! Thank you for the kind words! :-)

Mmmm, Fake Married porn! And YAY for heavy editing (which sounds kinda dirty after the porn part ;-). Great progress!

From:

cornerofmadness

I'm experiencing that too with a novel I'm revamping from the early oughts too, especially with the police and changes in culture.

807 words on two prodigal son stories I SHOULD be working on.

From:

sylvanwitch

Ugh, I can imagine there'd be a LOT to dig into with police characters. (I've been rewatching Wire in the Blood and thinking a lot about the differences between the police then and now, re: people's attitudes towards them, the way cops behave, etc. Also, of course, I'm doing some side-by-side comparison with American cop shows from the same period--early 00s again.) Anyway, good luck with those edits!

YAY for for adding words to stories you're supposed to be writing! *grins*

From:

cornerofmadness

Yeah some of the things that would have flown as a joke in 2001 does not fly 20 years later.

thanks.

From:

the_siobhan

ysilme Does writing for your church's home page count? (I think it should count.)

sylvanwitch That sounds really cool! I love finding old writing and finding out where my head was at.

Tonight's word count was about 450. I've closed a scene and now I'm at a point in my story where I'm not quite sure what happens next, but we'll see what I can come up with tomorrow.

Tonight's writing soundtrack: Everybody's being all dramatic, so I'm playing some goth music. As you do. Black Angel

From:

sylvanwitch

It has been a cool process, and it's nice to see that my skills aren't totally crap. (Seriously, the longer I go as a writer, the less confidence I seem to have that anything I produce is any good.)

Oooh! Sometimes, coming back to the "What next?" question can be daunting, but sometimes it's like a choose your own adventure! I hope your story took you somewhere cool and interesting today.

Goth! I love it! :-)

From:

ysilme

If it were text I'd count it as nonfic in such a case. But as it's all been either code or just updating media content with descriptions, that's too far a stretch for me! *g*
Congrats to your own writing! I hope the story developed into a way that pleases you.

From:

lferion

26 Jume - 350 words on the crack-dragon piece. The crack part has decided it does belong with the main story. Yikes. Go with the muses I guess?

From:

sylvanwitch

Those muses can be wacky sometimes, can't they? *grins* It sounds like you're having fun with it, and I think that's awesome! :-)

From:

marvelouscity

Checking in for day 25 and day 26!

From:

sylvanwitch

YAY! I'm glad you're still with us and that words are happening for you. :-)

From:

marvelouscity

Thanks :)

From:

carenejeans

Checking in for days 24-26: The past week has been really hard. Mom is much better but I've had to do a lot of stuff for her and I've been exhausted (more from dealing with FAMILY ARGH than the actual tasks, sigh). So, alibi sentences and little bits for Days 24 and 25.

Today I had the whole day, blissfully, to myself and got more writing done, even if most of it was still plugging away at the silly essay. Or rather, chipping away, since I'm condensing and shortening it.

Ysilme: Argh, the last-minute chores, though work on a blog could be counted as writing, even if it wasn't what you really wanted to do right then...

Sylvanwitch: Interesting how both your writing and society at large has changed since 2008. It's great that you can now send out a New and Improved version of your story.

Edited Date: 2021-06-27 08:06 am (UTC)

From:

sylvanwitch

I'm so sorry to hear that things continue to be stressful. Coming from a family that puts the fun in dysfunctional, I can imagine, though never know, what you're going through. I hope that your mom continues to improve and that soon she's able to be more independent. I'm sure she'd like that too. (And, of course, I hope that means you get some of your time and peace of mind back as well.)

Good for you for doing ANY writing under these grueling circumstances. Take care of yourself, okay? Thank you for checking in! :-)

From:

ysilme

I'm sorry to hear you're struggling with all this. *hugs* Can totally relate to the dealing-with-family part being the most exhaustive... you rock for managing to write even so, no matter that it's only little bits! *\O/*
I'd counted the work for the homepage if actual writing was involved, but as no running text was part of it I don't want to count it. What I'm doing there is filling and maintaining a content management system, preparing and editing media entries (images), or copying and conversing texts I get sent from others. The calendar tool of the CMS has been totally revamped recently, making anything taking twice or thrice the time right now until I got used to it again and all bugs are found and taken care of. *sigh*

From:

luzula

Ysilme: Gah, I hope you get some uninterrupted writing time soon!
Sylvanwitch: Very cool that your skills have improved so much--and yay for the changes in culture.

On the 26th, I had a long car trip in the back seat and:
- wrote 600 words on the new longfic (total wordcount: 5,800),
- started preparing the posting of my poly fic on AO3 and put up the first three chapters in a draft,
- got beta feedback suggesting French phrases that could be inserted in a French-speaking character's speech/letters, and edited them into the poly fic.

From:

sylvanwitch

YAY! That car trip was hella productive, eh? AWESOME! Go, you! :-)

From:

ysilme

Thank you, so do I! Yay for car passenger writing, that's a terrific amount! *\O/* Are you doing it on a laptop or other device?

From:

luzula

Laptop. I have no other device on which I can write, ha ha (my phone is not a smart phone).

From:

ysilme

Ah, ok. :o) I sometimes used my laptop, too, but during one of our trips through Sweden or Norway when I first had a smartphone I tried that which worked surprisingly well. By now I have a good foldable bluetooth keyboard I wrote on parts of fics while in the car, or when sitting in one of those lovely Swedish museum cafés after a visit. ^^

From:

ljm

Couple of alibi sentences for the 26th

Edited Date: 2021-06-27 04:03 pm (UTC)

From:

sylvanwitch

YAY! That's two sentences more in the world than existed before you wrote them! :-)

From:

ysilme

Yay for alibi sentences! With time, they might turn into alibi paragraphs and then more. I'm having two drawer fics (a term coined by a former participant of WED referring to anything you write for your own pleasure only but are not likely to share with others) I'm kind of writing in this way; a sentence or two at a time when my mind doesn't want to do something else or is too busy or distracted. At first it's been a kind of crutch to keep myself writing, but over time, alibi sentences really turned into a useful tool for me: they give me that little bit of satisfaction of having written on that day to get me started with a good feeling on the next, and not the feeling of having failed the day before.