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Whiiiiiiiine
Man, I miss the good old days before I tried my hand at writing.
Those golden days when I wasn't plagued by plotbunnies and insecurities about my style and doubt about my handle on characterization and how much I really, honestly suck at dialogue.
Back then, all I had to worry about on the creative side was the fact that I just couldn't do anatomy or perspective. It was slightly inconvenient that anatomy and/or perspective are featured in just about every drawing ever, but at least I only sucked at two things.
Now that I'm trying to write, a whole new world of suckage has opened up before me. It's great XD
Nah, I'm just whining. And I know it. But hey, what's an lj for?
I know what the solution to writing poorly is, of course. Besides not writing at all, I mean. Writing more.
Which... well... I try to do that.
I think my problem is that I'm very, very prone to epics. I have two in the works that both look to be topping 70,000 words by the time they're donewhich is never and I got bitten early this week my a MASSIVE plotbunny for a third. I will fight valiantly against it.
Well, writing epics wouldn't be a problem if I didn't insist on getting an entire first draft done before publishing. I'm a feedback whore; I admit it freely. I'm woefully insecure about my writing, which I hope is not screamingly obvious to the casual reader. Mostly my friends and/or betas suffer for that. Feedback gives me those nice little ego boosts that help me get over all the self-doubt and actually write something down -- as opposed to doing massive plot outlines, which is what I tend to resort to when I want to write but don't feel confident enough. To give you an idea of the scope of this problem, the One Piece fic I am working on has notes, plot points, and outlines that total about 30 pages.
Yeah, see, that's just lame.
However, I'm wary of starting a big long story and having people read it (ahhh, I dream) and then just kind of running out of steam or not updating often or any number of other problems. So I have resolved to finish a first draft of each and every damn chapter of both my big huge long fics. I'm hoping to also get a round of editing in -- a very general beta, just to make sure I don't have to change anything major. Then I want to post each chapter after it's been polished by however many rounds of editing and revising is necessary. This way, several good things will happen.
First and foremost, I WON'T HAVE TO WRITE ANYMORE. It will all be mercifully, finally DONE, and it won't be hanging over my head making me feel horrible. Even if I suddenly lose all will and ability to write, I can still get the story up. The other nice things is that updates would happen on a fairly regular basis, and fairly often as well. That sounds great. Thirdly, this will also hopefully even out the writing quality across the story. A lot of multi-chaptered fics, even the ones I dearly love, start out pretty damn rocky compared to the shiny later chapters. Writing everything and then still being able to go back to the beginning to tweak the hell out of it sounds nice. Finally, I just think this is good practice. This way, everything is plotted out, all the details are already there, and everything holds together.
... However, it really isn't all rainbows and sunshine. I don't have many people I can talk about writing with, so generally speaking there's no one who will commiserate with all the little issues. And when those little things build up over the length of time it takes me to write the story, I just feel pretty damn LOW by the end, you know? I'm still terribly new to this whole writing business, and I'm really prone to failure of creative motivation. I'm a sodding perfectionist, and it really bites me in the ass sometimes. I know that just by virtue of being able to write in more or less correct English, and having some grasp of the concepts, at least, of what makes writing work well, I'm better off than the vast majority of people. Same goes for drawing. In both fields, though, I'm never satisfied. A constant feeling of not-satisfaction gets really damn annoying when all you want to do is write that damn scene. Argh.
Excuse me. I have to make fun of myself for a moment.
Good god! Such a whiner! Oh no -- I have creative urges! Oh no -- I get enough ideas to write DAMN LONG STORIES out of. HOW WOEFULLY SAD. And I'm just so toweringly NOBLE and PRINCIPLED that I won't post any of it until it's done. WOE IS ME.
And, unlike all those other creative-minded people out there, I SUFFER for my ART. Unlike everyone else, I am plagued by self-doubt and inadequacy. Everyone else is proud of their work and confident, and I'm not.
WAH.
EMOTEAR.
Yeah, see? It's ridiculous XD
Aw, whatever. It's going to take a lot more than that to make me actually give up trying =P
And good god! I just wrote a kind of life-related entry.
Um... something not-whiny that's life-related... um... well, the closest I can come is mentioning how I'm pissed about the NY ruling against gay marriages. Ugh.
Those golden days when I wasn't plagued by plotbunnies and insecurities about my style and doubt about my handle on characterization and how much I really, honestly suck at dialogue.
Back then, all I had to worry about on the creative side was the fact that I just couldn't do anatomy or perspective. It was slightly inconvenient that anatomy and/or perspective are featured in just about every drawing ever, but at least I only sucked at two things.
Now that I'm trying to write, a whole new world of suckage has opened up before me. It's great XD
Nah, I'm just whining. And I know it. But hey, what's an lj for?
I know what the solution to writing poorly is, of course. Besides not writing at all, I mean. Writing more.
Which... well... I try to do that.
I think my problem is that I'm very, very prone to epics. I have two in the works that both look to be topping 70,000 words by the time they're done
Well, writing epics wouldn't be a problem if I didn't insist on getting an entire first draft done before publishing. I'm a feedback whore; I admit it freely. I'm woefully insecure about my writing, which I hope is not screamingly obvious to the casual reader. Mostly my friends and/or betas suffer for that. Feedback gives me those nice little ego boosts that help me get over all the self-doubt and actually write something down -- as opposed to doing massive plot outlines, which is what I tend to resort to when I want to write but don't feel confident enough. To give you an idea of the scope of this problem, the One Piece fic I am working on has notes, plot points, and outlines that total about 30 pages.
Yeah, see, that's just lame.
However, I'm wary of starting a big long story and having people read it (ahhh, I dream) and then just kind of running out of steam or not updating often or any number of other problems. So I have resolved to finish a first draft of each and every damn chapter of both my big huge long fics. I'm hoping to also get a round of editing in -- a very general beta, just to make sure I don't have to change anything major. Then I want to post each chapter after it's been polished by however many rounds of editing and revising is necessary. This way, several good things will happen.
First and foremost, I WON'T HAVE TO WRITE ANYMORE. It will all be mercifully, finally DONE, and it won't be hanging over my head making me feel horrible. Even if I suddenly lose all will and ability to write, I can still get the story up. The other nice things is that updates would happen on a fairly regular basis, and fairly often as well. That sounds great. Thirdly, this will also hopefully even out the writing quality across the story. A lot of multi-chaptered fics, even the ones I dearly love, start out pretty damn rocky compared to the shiny later chapters. Writing everything and then still being able to go back to the beginning to tweak the hell out of it sounds nice. Finally, I just think this is good practice. This way, everything is plotted out, all the details are already there, and everything holds together.
... However, it really isn't all rainbows and sunshine. I don't have many people I can talk about writing with, so generally speaking there's no one who will commiserate with all the little issues. And when those little things build up over the length of time it takes me to write the story, I just feel pretty damn LOW by the end, you know? I'm still terribly new to this whole writing business, and I'm really prone to failure of creative motivation. I'm a sodding perfectionist, and it really bites me in the ass sometimes. I know that just by virtue of being able to write in more or less correct English, and having some grasp of the concepts, at least, of what makes writing work well, I'm better off than the vast majority of people. Same goes for drawing. In both fields, though, I'm never satisfied. A constant feeling of not-satisfaction gets really damn annoying when all you want to do is write that damn scene. Argh.
Excuse me. I have to make fun of myself for a moment.
Good god! Such a whiner! Oh no -- I have creative urges! Oh no -- I get enough ideas to write DAMN LONG STORIES out of. HOW WOEFULLY SAD. And I'm just so toweringly NOBLE and PRINCIPLED that I won't post any of it until it's done. WOE IS ME.
And, unlike all those other creative-minded people out there, I SUFFER for my ART. Unlike everyone else, I am plagued by self-doubt and inadequacy. Everyone else is proud of their work and confident, and I'm not.
WAH.
EMOTEAR.
Yeah, see? It's ridiculous XD
Aw, whatever. It's going to take a lot more than that to make me actually give up trying =P
And good god! I just wrote a kind of life-related entry.
Um... something not-whiny that's life-related... um... well, the closest I can come is mentioning how I'm pissed about the NY ruling against gay marriages. Ugh.
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My epic is stalling out almost at the end. Bah.
Side note: I friended you because of the eye-pleasing Tidus 10-var and the cute Rikku/Wakka prezzie for cupcake (No, I'm not kidding, and apologies for not leaving a comment!) You know how to make Photoshop sit up and beg. I am still flailing and poking at layer blend modes going, "I wonder what THIS will do?" and getting all tangled up trying to understand masks and clipping and ...meh. So I thought I'd keep an eye out for your photoshop brilliance and attempt to figure out what the heck you were doing.
Also I've seen you lurking around the fandom.
And now that I actually look at your journal, by sheer coincidence, I see you swing to the gay-friendly end of the spectrum, and share similar LOTR opinions, so, hey, commonalities.
Also you write long, literate, coherent LJ posts.
So anyway. Superficial friending, but maybe not so superficial, since several of your laments sound similar to many of my own (including the problems with perspective, although your art skills are several notches better than mine).
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Thank you, first and foremost, for the kind and bracing words, even though you hardly know me. It really helps, and I'm very grateful.
I have a similar attitude about drabbles, although I have this problem where they go out of control and become way too long and then I don't know what to do with them because they're more than drabbles but not developed enough that I can think of them as short stand-alone stories. Curses.
Ooooh, an epic? Pardon me, I haven't read much of your journal, so if it's mentioned there I wouldn't know... but I'm curious. I mean to get through all your writing at some point, as I've loved what I've seen. If this epic isn't published yet, then I'd happily listen to what it's about and how your struggle with Epics of Doom is going.
As far as my Photoshop skills go -- I'm quite flattered, especially as I've only been messing around with it for a little while. I'm still new myself, but I'd be happy to try and help if you have any questions -- I might not be skilled/knowledgable enough to anser (yet), but you can always ask. If you'd like, I can gladly deconstruct some of my icons and show you step-by-step how they were done. You seem to be doing very well yourself, though. Photoshop is a bit of a bitch to get the hang of, but you already have a good sense of composition and mood, and the rest is just playing around and seeing what works. About the only suggestion I have for you on the spot is that sometimes the text is a little hard to read. I have a few suggestions about that (though I still have problems with it myself sometimes!) if you're like to hear them.
As for the rest of my journal, I'm glad we seem to agree on so much. I'm also way too lazy to write frequent small lj posts, and I'm
elitista dork and insist on using more or less correct English even in informal mediums.Anyway. Thanks again for your very nice comment. I hope to see you around some more! If you even need to lament about your writing, I'd be happy to lend an ear. If there's anything else I can do, let me know. I'm pretty easy to find via email or on AIM -- it's all in my info.
Psst -- the drawing was for
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I'm afraid the epic is just the third Resurrection story -- I'd been writing lemons (which, actually, is very alien for me; I got the urge to try my hand at erotica in March) and lapsed back into a story with actual plot.
Sort of. Except that I don't understand plot. My stories usually consist of "given this plot device/initial conditions, what would happen?" They are like lab experiments, and I'm very lucky if they find a satisfactory narrative conclusion.
E.G. after watching the second LOTR movie, I stared in abject wonderment at the Elves at Helm's Deep plot, and thought to myself, "Wow, this changes everything. I'm sure Peter Jackson hasn't thought through the impact of having Elves participate more directly in the War of the Ring, or the political ramifications of having Aragorn arrive at the Pelennor with ELVES at his back instead of an army of men! Let's play with this." Unfortunately I tried to combine that story with a "so why do Elves who marry mortals always have to pine away and die?" story, and the second plot turned Mary Sue on me, and the story died after some 60 pages. Meh.
I took your comment about text on icons and went back through and tweaked most of them. I prefer text that doesn't jump out and eat the image, yet I do want it to be readable, or, in some cases, to be that neato tiny text that everyone except me seems to be good at using. Your icons are so clean and balanced: not too much extra detail, and all the bits go together seamlessly.
I like short ficlets-- single scenes, 500-5000 words or so. Drabbles are too short -- they can be devastatingly good but always leave me hungry. Something a tiny bit longer, or your long drabbles, allows for a little more time to savor.
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Oh, wow, you're that new to writing sex? From what I've seen of yours (from the
As far as plot goes... oh man, am I ever bad at plot. It's why I make myself work it all out beforehand, because it would be a DISASTER if I didn't. I start out with a very vague idea, a "what if?" or some other question I want answered and then I have to spend a long time figuring out what actually happened, and why, and what effects it had and everything.
That kind of "what would happen" attitude is what actually attracts me to ships, more than anything else. I just like considering the possibilities, which is why I can find something I like in just about any ships. But it's still an inconvenient mindset when it comes to writing, sometimes, seeing as I ask a lot of questions and think up answers eventually and then... what? What now?
Oh, Peter Jackson. I have a long list of grievances against him, the very vast string of unintended consequences that he apparently glossed over being one of them. You had an interesting idea there, though. Let me know what you came up with? Even if half of it went downhill, I'd still like to hear your thoughts.
And wow, thank you very much about the comments on my icons ^^;;
If by "tiny text" you mean pixel fonts, the ones that are really tiny but still all sharp and crisp, I might be able to help you out there. Take a look at this list of pixel fonts (http://community.livejournal.com/icon_tutorial/120093.html), which also has some helpful notes on the right side about using pixel fonts in general. The essential thing is to use them at their intended size and with anti-aliasing off. These fonts are really useful in iconmaking, and you can find most of them at Da Font (http://www.dafont.com). If this is not what you meant, then sorry for the spam; if it is, then I hope this is useful!
As far as drabbles go -- we seem to agree there as well. I've read some absolutely stunning drabbles, but I always want more. I know it's supposed to be a good trick to leave the reader wanting more, but I don't always enjoy the sensation. I need a little more meat, usually.
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One of my friends from high school told me a couple of months ago that he'd noticed my writing (in my journal) had improved immensely since I first started. My stepmother (who has very particular and high-brow tastes) was following my travel blog last month, and when I returned, she told me, "You're really a very good writer. I was quite impressed!"
So, yes, it does pay off. Self-doubt in the arts can do two things, though. It can make us stronger, better artists with great attention paid to detail; or it can make us destroy our best creations.
I wish I could see some of the art Van Gogh destroyed. No one liked his work until well after he was dead, but look now...
Пока,
John
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Glad to see you're alive. I forget, when are you next in town? Lemme knwo, we need to see Pirates together.
And hey, thanks for the words of encouragement. I had actually been debating posting some memoirs here, about my life when I was young, in Russia, Denmark, Tajikistant, Los Angeles. Stuff like that. I figure it would be a good writing exercise, and maybe people are interested in my experiences with immigration and different cultures as a child. What do you think, does it sound interesting?
I need to go an read your travel blog. Like you, however, I am lazy. We'll see how it goes.
Well, my self-doubt hasn't made me stop trying yet. And I preserve everything I make, even if I hate it. If nothing else, I can learn from the mistakes I made =D
Oh man, it *would* be interesting to see what the great artists found unworthy in their creations...
I can't make my keyboard go Russian on me, so, uh, spasibo!
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I'll next be in town circa Aug. 11, I believe. I actually saw Pirates again, and will probably wish to review it by the 11th, but I was actually somewhat disappointed. It was still a "good movie," but I think they sold out on some things that were really great about the first one.
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August 11, huh? Well, I'm outta here on like the 20th or something.
And Pirates? Man, I LOVED it. I had a BLAST. I was thoroughly entertained, which is, in the end, all that I ask of a movie. I don't yet care to analyze the movie or the experience. I'm going to bask in the sheer awesome for a bit, and then I can go and think about the bad things. For now, though, I'm all about the good =D
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(Anonymous) 2006-07-10 02:44 pm (UTC)(link)...hey, wait. Keira Knightley.
Yeah, damn, good flick. =P
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I must also say that Elizabeth looked quite fetching in pants.
But in the end, how can you resist the hamster ball o' pirates, or the sight of Jack chasing after Will and Norrington fencing atop a rolling water wheel?