Cleaning Up

[loaded_march]

Things have been difficult -- and strange -- writing-wise, particularly lately.  I wouldn't call it Writer's Block, not in any way or form.  It's more of a Writer's Deluge.  Too many ideas, and it's like walking through thick forest to come upon a field of eggs in a marshy pond, they all crack open all at once.  There's all these little ducklings, suddenly, squabbling for attention and wanting to be fed.

Don't get me wrong.  They're awfully cute ducklings.  Fuzzy and soft, with light brown down with deep emerald green undertones.  There's the one with the wicked, devious gleam in its eyes, because it fully plans on stealing all the worms.  There's the sweet one with the golden feather-tips that just wants to cuddle.  There's even the runt, with down so light it might as well be a light blond, and it scratches itself with a little bit of confusion, as if it's not quite sure what it's supposed to do now.

They're worse than plot bunnies.  They're story duckies.

So I gave myself permission to take a break over the Easter weekend.  No writing, no thinking about any stories, no angsting over ACBB, no stressing over all the stories that are ony half-finished and nowhere close to being done.  To ensure that, I set my PC laptop to installing two years worth of updates (whoops) and filled the browser on my Mac with all the longfics I could find, regardless of fandom, because I'm just as much an avid reader as I am an obsessive writer, and I finish everything I read -- unless it's very, very bad (serious plot inconsistencies, for example), or, worse, doesn't have any formatting whatsoever.

My tactics didn't work, not 100% -- I'd pull out a sketchbook and start infodumping new ideas and plots for one of the original fiction novels I plan on rewriting sometime soon, since it was the one that had garnered the most attention from agents when I first shopped it around, years ago.  I'd write notes and sketch out scenes or draw out symbols for hours.

Or I'd knit, and get annoyed with it, and shove it aside.  Or I'd get off my ass, finally, and unpack some of the last few boxes since the move.  Guess what's in those boxes?

Papers.  Lots of papers.  I have an impressive collection of stationery and pens.  I have a pile of moleskins of full-fledged story ideas that never actually got written.  I found a ream of printed sheets for a book I'd forgotten writing but never submitted anywhere.  I found scraps of papers with seemingly random lines written on them -- including on the back of an envelope, the back of a coaster from a local bar, and a sheet of paper that, clearly, someone had been working on before I jerked it out from under their pen to appropriate.

So much for taking a break from writing and everything associated with that, huh?

Baby ducklings.  Worse than fucking plot bunnies, I swear.

Comments

[brunettepet.livejournal.com]

Baby ducklings are even cuter and more distracting than ever multiplying plot bunnies. It sounds like you are hip deep in cute and I don't envy you the fur and feathers.

[loaded-march.livejournal.com]

The worst part is that I like baby ducks a whole lot more than bunnies. So, yeah, super freaking distracting!!

[alilypea.livejournal.com]

I took a break from writing so long that I swear I've forgotten how to do it and I kind of ache because of it.

I just keep an idea list in a Google Doc and when I run out of ideas I go in there, just because there's so many platforms to save and access that in.

[loaded-march.livejournal.com]

The Google Docs thing is a good idea though for some reason I can't bring myself to use it. So I use text editor for that, except I keep forgetting I already have a file (okay, several) called "Story ideas" and keep saving them under a new name, so at any given time I have a bunch of icons on my desktop labelled, "Story idea 1", "storyidea", "stryidea", "STORY", "IDEAS", "Today's Story idea", with no idea of their contents, so I have to open every damn one of them to find out what's in them.

(though I don't dare)

(*pokes you gently to write again*)

[alilypea.livejournal.com]

I've gone to a few different things, but Docs or Zoho is what I go back to. I rather tragically lost a nano in the cloud once.

Oh gee, I guess I will. I have been feeling some Foggy/Matt feels from Daredevil.

[loaded-march.livejournal.com]

Ugh, that sucks. I hate that nothing is reliable and that you can lose anything.

(I'm not even going to mention the minor freakout yesterday, where I had to text the Spouse to ask if he'd seen my red USB drive, because that had the latest version of something I'm working on that wasn't saved anywhere else.)

Daredevil! \o/

[alilypea.livejournal.com]

I know, even paper.

Oh god, that would kill me.

#themomentuknowurdonefor

[forebodingpink.livejournal.com]

Omg now i want to read a story about baby ducks:(

I find myself doing that too though, writting everywhere. On my email if im on the bus, the back of my textbooks(whoops), scrap pieces of paper that would collect at the bottom of my bag...

The worst thing is that I'd buy one of those cute notebooks; the small/ pretty and expensive ones and find that I write everywhere except on that one!

Re: #themomentuknowurdonefor

[loaded-march.livejournal.com]

*points a shaking finger at you*

DON'T TEMPT ME

but yes, I do the same thing. Cute notebook, don't use them. Or, cute notebook, write in 4 pages, then don't use them again because they are Forever Ruined, or dedicated for that story idea alone.

[geekslave.livejournal.com]

Hope the ducklings can leave you alone for a bit and don't mind being backburnered.

Stacey

[loaded-march.livejournal.com]

They're baby ducks. How do you leave them alone? All I want to do is sit in the middle of their (quite useless) pen and coo.

[repna.livejournal.com]

Sounds a bit like the parts of the writing brain that were shouted out by LM, have finally realized the big bully in the room is gone, and now it's a free for all!!

I'm guessing giving the brain time to filter itself into coherence again is what's needed, albeit surely frustrating. Kinda like recovering from a stress fracture? :)

I have no idea what would be good to do in the interim... Perhaps pick a duck at random, and give it love for a predetermined amount of time, before allowing it to rejoin the flock, and then pick a second one? :)

[loaded-march.livejournal.com]

... that's exactly what's going on actually. I've been struggling with the Too Many Stories issue since the last part of LM was posted.

I've tried to pick a duck but it doesn't last very long, and I'm left feeling angry and frustrated because of All The Things I Have Not Finished.

[repna.livejournal.com]

Well, instead of picking a duck to kill (finish a story), how about allowing yourself to get to know the various ducks (start stuff, don't finish, just get a feel for the potential), and then let each go peacefully, knowing that as you get to know them all better you'll be able to start figuring out which ducks go together?

You probably have 2-3 big (or 20-30 small ones, but you don't do small) stories all jumbled up in there, and currently no way to tease them apart.

Patience and perseverance, I guess that's the name of the game.?

[loaded-march.livejournal.com]

Since LM ended, I probably have written at least a dozen beginnings of various lengths for different fanfics and original fics.

Then the computer crash happened, most of those were lost, and I've had to start from scratch again, and I have about 14 new folders of varying lengths of stories.

The newest duckie, which I woke up with this morning, starts with:

My grandmother is maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet, bakes the best raisin pie this side of Mayfair, and owns the largest collection of tourist spoons in the world. Every time a visitor comments on them, she jokes that she's used each one to kill a man.

After watching her take down the three men who broke into the house -- one with her bare hands, another with a garotte made out of the lace shawl she's making for someone's wedding, and the last with a gun from a hidden compartment in the stairs? I don't think she was joking about the spoons.


(sorry for inflicting this duckling on you; but I need to write it down somewhere!)

[repna.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'll take any and all duckies (or just a wing, or a thigh, even a beak!) that you allow to flutter into the world to us mortals.

Still, just a dozen, and then a fresh repeated dozen you say? Methinks you have at least a dozen more duck-pettings/mutilations to go before things settle down. Sorry! (But keep tossing us any discarded eyeballs, please!)

Also, that woman scares me, but I'd fear her more if she were in kg. ;)

Hello

[(Anonymous)]

When one day one of your original stories gets published (as I'm sure will happen) would you advertise/let us know about the book on here? I adore your writing style and would love to read anything you produce, but obviously there are so many books in the world and I wouldn't want to miss yours if you didn't mention it!

Re: Hello

[loaded-march.livejournal.com]

That's very sweet of you! Yes, I will let people know if I'm lucky enough to be published traditionally. If I chose another way of publication I'll post about it, too.

Thank you!