Fandom Snowflake 2022: Challenge #8
Jan. 29th, 2022 09:10 am
Challenge #8: In your own space, celebrate a personal win from the past year: it can be a list of fanworks you're especially proud of, a gift of your time to the community, a quality or skill you cultivated in yourself, something you generally feel went well.
Six years after the last installment, I finally edited and posted the final piece for my Exchange-verse. I bragged about this when it went up, and I'm still intensely proud of myself for following Shia LaBeouf's advice and just doing it.
Fandom Snowflake 2022: Challenge #2
Jan. 3rd, 2022 04:40 pm
Challenge #2: In your own space, set some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private.
Well, last year, I challenged myself to take a picture every day. And you know, I never missed a single day. It's now just one of the things I do daily. I won't say I do it without thinking--there have definitely come a few evenings when I realized I needed to take one and just snapped a quick shot of my dog sleeping--but it feels natural now. And I realized what I really like is having that record of things I saw and did. I don't really care if I never make art this way, if they're mostly not shots anyone else would care to look at. It makes me happy to go back and say, oh, yes, it took until this day for the corn to be taller than me. It makes me happy to have so many pictures of my animals, most of whom are getting quite old.
In March, I took up a daily practice of Japanese to build back some of the meager skills I had from college. Haven't missed that, either. Don't know if I'm any good yet, but I'm keeping at it.
I already set a goal for myself in December to do a daily one-card pull from my tarot deck. Daily habits, things that take maybe five minutes of time, seem to be a winning strategy for me.
I've been wanting to set a daily writing goal for myself along these same lines. (I don't work on Lake Lewisia every day, though I do write for it every week.) I just can't decide what I want that goal to be. It feels like something dreadful will happen if I set the wrong goal. I'll burn myself out, or get frustrated, or just waste my time writing rubbish.
I've been thinking about Terry Pratchett's 400-word approach. He had a day job back then too, and a family, and he wrote every day because that was the thing he decided he would do. I'd like to do that. But as soon as I think that, my mind throws out all sorts of objections, all sorts of what-abouts, all sorts of reasons why I can't possibly commit to that.
Hm. Well, to satisfy my own curiosity, I just checked to see how much 400 words really is. It's...four Lewisia pieces, on average. Of course, like poetry, writing a three-line story takes a lot longer than writing three sentences in general, but that just drives the point home a bit more. 400 words, huh? Of whatever fiction I fancy working on at the time?
That...sort of sounds like a doable goal, doesn't it?
Oh, blast, I think I've convinced myself.
plague journaling
Mar. 28th, 2020 07:41 pmA thing that's been bothering me about the general situation is the question of creative choices. Now that Mostly Real has been finished and posted, I return to my weekly writing of new three-sentence Lewisia pieces. (Albeit a slow, uncertain return.) I've also got at least two other stories waiting in the wings, ready to be posted or nearly so. I'm still working my normal day job schedule, so I don't really have any more free time than usual, but I certainly don't have any social demands that would prevent me from spending my weekends working on writing projects.
I find myself paralyzed all the same, chiefly by the question of "what stories do people need right now?" That's essentially what it comes down to. Are the stories I have ready to put out or can write in this moment the ones people most need to hear? Are these the stories that would give comfort or offer escape?
I realize there is no universal answer to that, of course. People have vastly different tastes in fiction; they need different things in times of crisis. So I'm not speaking of people in general, but rather people who are already in my audience. For people who already want the stories I tell, what do they want right now?
I will note that this is the marketing question of every single professional writer, at least among the ones who care about the popularity of their work. We are all, always and forever, asking what our audience wants to see from us next. I think the difference right now is the undertone of...service, I suppose, that question has taken on. What can I write that will help my audience most right now?
Do people want fluff right now? Do they want stories of people having parties and picnics, all the things we cannot do right now? Escapism and nostalgia? Do they want a world as ours has been or could be, if everything were not so horrid and broken? Do they want far-flung worlds where none have ever dreamed of such troubles?
Do they want sick fic? Apocalypses like or unlike this one? A sense of solidarity with fictional people who suffer as we do? Tales of triumph to propose or promise what we can accomplish? Tales of catastrophe to which we can point and say "at least it is not as bad as that?"
Some of these are stories and angles I am more inclined to write personally, some less. As for my own reading tastes, I don't know what my answer is. Mostly, I'm grinding through old favorites. Familiar stuff, where all the emotional notes are ones I know the tune of and so cannot be surprised by. (Overwhelmed, yes. But then, I can be overwhelmed by emotion in commercials right now, so that's not saying much.) The familiarity is more important than the specific plot contents for me right now.
In the case of Lewisia, I have tried and tried to decide if I want to tell any stories about the quarantine. It's not a terrible idea. One of the things I've tried to build into Lewisia is the idea of a place in which civic systems and infrastructure work more sensibly than in the wider United States. I could tell a lot of stories about the ways that Lewisia handles quarantine with better efficiency and greater compassion. It is a town in which people pull together under normal circumstances anyway, and they are far more prepared to do so in a crisis than outsiders. I can imagine the support mechanisms that would activate in a quarantine. I've also talked before about fantasy illnesses present there, and it would be interesting to explore how supernatural and cryptozoological residents might be unaffected by this particular disease and what would happen when they are the only ones who can move and interact freely.
But do I want to tell those stories? Do the readers want them? Or is it better for Lewisia to tick along on its own timeline, facing unrelated struggles and enjoying a deliberate insulation from the woes of our world? Is the pure escapism better than the opportunity to show someone succeeding in the face of our current crisis? It feels strange to ignore current events entirely, when they otherwise occupy so much of the mind. But perhaps that's exactly why I ought to leave those things out of Lewisia and let it be a shelter from them.
It's one thing to show difficult or upsetting things happening in Lewisia, to show the hurt as well as the comfort. It's another to make Lewisia contend with our same challenges in real-time. Do I even know how to do that? Can Lewisia show the way?
I don't have answers to any of this. Perhaps there are none. I'd be interested to hear what readers have to say on the subject, even as I fear knowing. Because whatever readers might want, I also have to know what I want to write. And right now, I have no idea what that might be.
I find myself paralyzed all the same, chiefly by the question of "what stories do people need right now?" That's essentially what it comes down to. Are the stories I have ready to put out or can write in this moment the ones people most need to hear? Are these the stories that would give comfort or offer escape?
I realize there is no universal answer to that, of course. People have vastly different tastes in fiction; they need different things in times of crisis. So I'm not speaking of people in general, but rather people who are already in my audience. For people who already want the stories I tell, what do they want right now?
I will note that this is the marketing question of every single professional writer, at least among the ones who care about the popularity of their work. We are all, always and forever, asking what our audience wants to see from us next. I think the difference right now is the undertone of...service, I suppose, that question has taken on. What can I write that will help my audience most right now?
Do people want fluff right now? Do they want stories of people having parties and picnics, all the things we cannot do right now? Escapism and nostalgia? Do they want a world as ours has been or could be, if everything were not so horrid and broken? Do they want far-flung worlds where none have ever dreamed of such troubles?
Do they want sick fic? Apocalypses like or unlike this one? A sense of solidarity with fictional people who suffer as we do? Tales of triumph to propose or promise what we can accomplish? Tales of catastrophe to which we can point and say "at least it is not as bad as that?"
Some of these are stories and angles I am more inclined to write personally, some less. As for my own reading tastes, I don't know what my answer is. Mostly, I'm grinding through old favorites. Familiar stuff, where all the emotional notes are ones I know the tune of and so cannot be surprised by. (Overwhelmed, yes. But then, I can be overwhelmed by emotion in commercials right now, so that's not saying much.) The familiarity is more important than the specific plot contents for me right now.
In the case of Lewisia, I have tried and tried to decide if I want to tell any stories about the quarantine. It's not a terrible idea. One of the things I've tried to build into Lewisia is the idea of a place in which civic systems and infrastructure work more sensibly than in the wider United States. I could tell a lot of stories about the ways that Lewisia handles quarantine with better efficiency and greater compassion. It is a town in which people pull together under normal circumstances anyway, and they are far more prepared to do so in a crisis than outsiders. I can imagine the support mechanisms that would activate in a quarantine. I've also talked before about fantasy illnesses present there, and it would be interesting to explore how supernatural and cryptozoological residents might be unaffected by this particular disease and what would happen when they are the only ones who can move and interact freely.
But do I want to tell those stories? Do the readers want them? Or is it better for Lewisia to tick along on its own timeline, facing unrelated struggles and enjoying a deliberate insulation from the woes of our world? Is the pure escapism better than the opportunity to show someone succeeding in the face of our current crisis? It feels strange to ignore current events entirely, when they otherwise occupy so much of the mind. But perhaps that's exactly why I ought to leave those things out of Lewisia and let it be a shelter from them.
It's one thing to show difficult or upsetting things happening in Lewisia, to show the hurt as well as the comfort. It's another to make Lewisia contend with our same challenges in real-time. Do I even know how to do that? Can Lewisia show the way?
I don't have answers to any of this. Perhaps there are none. I'd be interested to hear what readers have to say on the subject, even as I fear knowing. Because whatever readers might want, I also have to know what I want to write. And right now, I have no idea what that might be.
I reblogged this post a few months ago, with the thought that yes, I probably WOULD make myself do this at some point. The gist is that you use retyping as a revision method for a piece of writing. Fresh document, the old draft either printed out or pulled up in another window. As you retype, make changes as needed.
I have now done this terrible thing! It was great! My hands are killing me! Probably you should not do this to a 12k story over the course of 36 hours!
It functions--and this is what made me think it might work for me when I first read it--a bit like reading a story aloud. That's been one of my go-to ways to work out what a piece needs. It's very useful for individual lines, of course. Reading a story for podfic makes me hyperaware of how lines can work or not, which is useful when revising.
But this retyping process just generally made me more aware of what is happening in the story. I picked up on patterns I hadn't realized were forming and places where the plot hadn't quite come together. Just because I'm tuned in to the story in a way that normal reading and revision don't always give me.
In summary: Very useful. Kinda painful.
I have now done this terrible thing! It was great! My hands are killing me! Probably you should not do this to a 12k story over the course of 36 hours!
It functions--and this is what made me think it might work for me when I first read it--a bit like reading a story aloud. That's been one of my go-to ways to work out what a piece needs. It's very useful for individual lines, of course. Reading a story for podfic makes me hyperaware of how lines can work or not, which is useful when revising.
But this retyping process just generally made me more aware of what is happening in the story. I picked up on patterns I hadn't realized were forming and places where the plot hadn't quite come together. Just because I'm tuned in to the story in a way that normal reading and revision don't always give me.
In summary: Very useful. Kinda painful.
IT'S A NOVEL, YO
61K IN SIX WEEKS
*TRIUMPHANT SHRIEKING*
.
.
.
.
.
FUCK I HAVE TWO AND A HALF WEEKS TO REVISE IT
DEADLINES
FUCK
WHATEVER
NOVELLLLLLL
*DISTANT VELOCIRAPTOR NOISES*
61K IN SIX WEEKS
*TRIUMPHANT SHRIEKING*
.
.
.
.
.
FUCK I HAVE TWO AND A HALF WEEKS TO REVISE IT
DEADLINES
FUCK
WHATEVER
NOVELLLLLLL
*DISTANT VELOCIRAPTOR NOISES*
I am informed by my byzantine and eccentric personal calendar that today marks ten years since I made my first fiction sale. I am having some kind of emotion about this!
...oh, I'm supposed to identify that emotion? Nope, sorry, no idea!
It was a bisexual threesome romance set in a traveling carnival in a largely unspecified fantasy world. I was too scared to write any explicit scenes. It has some vaguely cryptozoological ideas in it and a light con job of sorts. I think (because I have not reread it in ten years, so who can remember?) it ended with the timid third leaving his conventional life of expectations behind to run away, not so much on a whim as on a hope. There was some weird kink hinted at, and there was an attempt (however imperfect) at diversity in the characters.
So there's some continuity in my life, that's for sure.
My god, I was twenty-three once? How is that possible?
...oh, I'm supposed to identify that emotion? Nope, sorry, no idea!
It was a bisexual threesome romance set in a traveling carnival in a largely unspecified fantasy world. I was too scared to write any explicit scenes. It has some vaguely cryptozoological ideas in it and a light con job of sorts. I think (because I have not reread it in ten years, so who can remember?) it ended with the timid third leaving his conventional life of expectations behind to run away, not so much on a whim as on a hope. There was some weird kink hinted at, and there was an attempt (however imperfect) at diversity in the characters.
So there's some continuity in my life, that's for sure.
My god, I was twenty-three once? How is that possible?
five years and the depth of ignorance
Aug. 14th, 2018 06:19 pmToday is the five year anniversary of my first self-published fiction. Like, up for sale on Amazon, has a cover and boilerplate and everything, P U B L I S H E D.
And I have known this date was coming up, and I have expected it to cause unwelcome emotions. After all, I know to expect a drop every time I publish something, just from the adrenaline letdown; a reminder of my cumulative publications seemed likely to cause more of the same. And I'm hormonal and overworked right now, so my resistance is low. It's just that the emotions aren't coming from the direction I expected.
I expected the distress to be about how much I have or have not published in five years. It is not a lot! I am not well pleased by this, it's true. Especially when I very much need to transform myself into the sort of person who writes and publishes such a goddamn deluge of fiction, I can afford to live on that alone and stop killing myself in restaurants. Not producing fast enough is, like, my top anxiety gremlin.
Mostly, though, I was struck by the continued depth of my ignorance. Whatever I have learned about the practice of writing, from dozens of classes and articles and events and podcasts and mentorship, it does not seem to have made a dent. Writing still frequently feels like a mystery.
How do I get myself to write? Faster? More? Smarter?
Why do some stories finish in an instant? Why do some have endings that evaporate as I search for them?
How does plot work? Structure? Pacing? What are the reliable mechanics of story?
Why do some stories that seem to rush, burning, straight from my heart turn tepid and saggy when I try to revise them? Why do I need to tell some stories yet cannot make them work for anyone else?
How can I surprise readers when so much seems to have been said and done already? How can I surprise myself? Why is surprise necessary?
Where is the market for the stories I want to tell? Why do I have such a hard time reaching it?
What do I enjoy in stories? How can I hang onto that joy?
And sometimes, when I am feeling very low and can see only the flatlined sales and the magazine rejections:
What am I doing wrong?
I published that first little collection in 2013, when my entire life was falling apart. I'd had a nervous breakdown, I was a situational mute, I couldn't keep down food most days. I was seriously figuring out the logistics of living out of my car, because I was going to lose my home.
I put together this collection of flash fiction about robots and bodies and survival. I did it out of spite more than anything. To spit in the eye of the people and the world that were trying to eradicate me. I barely remember the process, because it all happened in a kind of fugue state. I taught myself everything from scratch in a couple months: how to finish, properly finish, stories fast and right; how to design covers, albeit rubbish ones; how to layout ebooks in four different formats across three different programs; how to run shop software off my site.
Five years on, and it feels like I have learned nothing. That my ignorance of storytelling and publishing both are so profound, I could never hope to rise above them.
And I have known this date was coming up, and I have expected it to cause unwelcome emotions. After all, I know to expect a drop every time I publish something, just from the adrenaline letdown; a reminder of my cumulative publications seemed likely to cause more of the same. And I'm hormonal and overworked right now, so my resistance is low. It's just that the emotions aren't coming from the direction I expected.
I expected the distress to be about how much I have or have not published in five years. It is not a lot! I am not well pleased by this, it's true. Especially when I very much need to transform myself into the sort of person who writes and publishes such a goddamn deluge of fiction, I can afford to live on that alone and stop killing myself in restaurants. Not producing fast enough is, like, my top anxiety gremlin.
Mostly, though, I was struck by the continued depth of my ignorance. Whatever I have learned about the practice of writing, from dozens of classes and articles and events and podcasts and mentorship, it does not seem to have made a dent. Writing still frequently feels like a mystery.
How do I get myself to write? Faster? More? Smarter?
Why do some stories finish in an instant? Why do some have endings that evaporate as I search for them?
How does plot work? Structure? Pacing? What are the reliable mechanics of story?
Why do some stories that seem to rush, burning, straight from my heart turn tepid and saggy when I try to revise them? Why do I need to tell some stories yet cannot make them work for anyone else?
How can I surprise readers when so much seems to have been said and done already? How can I surprise myself? Why is surprise necessary?
Where is the market for the stories I want to tell? Why do I have such a hard time reaching it?
What do I enjoy in stories? How can I hang onto that joy?
And sometimes, when I am feeling very low and can see only the flatlined sales and the magazine rejections:
What am I doing wrong?
I published that first little collection in 2013, when my entire life was falling apart. I'd had a nervous breakdown, I was a situational mute, I couldn't keep down food most days. I was seriously figuring out the logistics of living out of my car, because I was going to lose my home.
I put together this collection of flash fiction about robots and bodies and survival. I did it out of spite more than anything. To spit in the eye of the people and the world that were trying to eradicate me. I barely remember the process, because it all happened in a kind of fugue state. I taught myself everything from scratch in a couple months: how to finish, properly finish, stories fast and right; how to design covers, albeit rubbish ones; how to layout ebooks in four different formats across three different programs; how to run shop software off my site.
Five years on, and it feels like I have learned nothing. That my ignorance of storytelling and publishing both are so profound, I could never hope to rise above them.
Crowdfunding Creative Jam
Mar. 17th, 2018 07:51 am The ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
crowdfunding Creative Jam is running this weekend with the theme of "hurt/comfort." Anyone can leave prompts or use them to create something.
crowdfunding Creative Jam is running this weekend with the theme of "hurt/comfort." Anyone can leave prompts or use them to create something.What I Have Written
Crowdfunding Creative Jam
Feb. 17th, 2018 06:20 pmThe crowdfunding Creative Jam is running this weekend with the theme of "trust and vulnerability." Anyone can leave prompts or use them to create something.
crowdfunding Creative Jam is running this weekend with the theme of "trust and vulnerability." Anyone can leave prompts or use them to create something.What I Have Written
"Eggshell" [MCU, Steve/Bucky, rated G] Bucky isn't sure he wants the new arm they built for him; he's not sure they share his priorities about its specifications.
From My Prompts
You cannot get out from here
Feb. 9th, 2018 08:31 pm(I originally posted this on tumblr, and it's still on my mind, so I'm cross-posting it here.)
*you cannot get out from here
I made the dubious decision to read a few pieces by writers, talking about the money they make on writing. This was not intended as an exercise in self-torment; I find this information interesting. That being said…
When writers making what my poor ass considers pie-in-the-sky extravagant amounts of money say, “hey, good thing I have a day job to supplement this, dON’T QUIT YOUR DAY JOB!!!1!” I begin very softly to weep myself into a coma.
I quit my day job in large part because it destroyed my mental and physical health? I don’t know when or even if I will be capable of working an outside job again? I am still kind of hoping that writing, which I couldn’t do while employed, will allow my disabled self to at least survive?
I get it--clearly I am not the intended audience for this advice. I’m not trying to find fault with the writers doing the community the kindness of speaking frankly about the often-taboo matter of finances.
I just…cannot find it in me to laugh at the old jokes about naive writers who quit their day jobs too soon. I can’t help flinching when I unfold The Map Out Of The Wilderness, and see
YOU ARE HERE*
*you cannot get out from here
Crowdfunding Creative Jam
Jan. 20th, 2018 02:52 pmThe crowdfunding Creative Jam is running today with the theme of "unicorns." Anyone can leave prompts or use them to create something.
"Belief is Sight" a short short story about making your own magic
"The Longest Hunt" a short story about a challenge to hunt down a unicorn
"From Town to Forest" by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alexseanchai
crowdfunding Creative Jam is running today with the theme of "unicorns." Anyone can leave prompts or use them to create something.What I Have Written
"Belief is Sight" a short short story about making your own magic
"The Longest Hunt" a short story about a challenge to hunt down a unicorn
From My Prompts
alexseanchai
