Write Every Day: 09 August 02019
Aug. 9th, 2019 07:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptGreetings! This is the Write Every Day Check-in post for 09 August 02019.
Today, I realized that a project I'm working on might have an additional scene inserted into it from a character's perspective I hadn't originally considered. Which is good - more complete story, and bad because that means more words. And more writing.
But I did some writing over today on that project, and a lot of plotting, and plenty of responding to comments and such, so I've gotten enough writing in for today to say that I did writing. I also managed to successfully diagnose a weird thing happening with my computer and figure out how to straighten everything back out so that it would stop being weird. Which is pretty cool, honestly, and probably says things about my comfort and familiarity with computers and what I consider a normal thing that others might think of as closer to technical wizardry.
I think my perspective is a bit skewed on that in that for a large part of my job when I'm showing people how to do various technical things, it's things that I've done a thousand times, having seen it happen a thousand times, and so I know what to do with it, whereas they might be seeing it only for the first time and therefore not know how to fix it. Or not have had the opportunity to fix it. It's why we go to professionals to fix problems on sufficiently complex machines - what's weird to us is routine for them. And as expertise grows, what becomes routine begins to encompass a much much greater field of knowledge, technique, and practice.
I suspect that's the same with writing as well. As we write more, and write more in different forms under different constraints, trying to do different things, what becomes routine (or at least up to our standards of taste) increases and becomes greater and suddenly we find ourselves in the rather strange position of being someone others look up to or having our work recommended to others, while we're still gesticulating wildly and saying "Wait, me? No, you should be looking up to these people that I look up to, they're the real experts, they're [published / making a living at it / way older fen than I am]."
Except, without noticing, we've become that good, that practiced, that skilled that we have started to make things look effortless, even though we know full well how much work went into that thing. But from our own limited perspective, we don't necessarily see what's going on unless someone tips us off to it and can successfully help us understand what things look like from the outside.
I don't know if there are people out there writing or thinking "That![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
silveradept, that person is an impressive writer and I only hope that I can make something that cool some day" or not. (Or silveradept.) There might be people saying that about you and your works too, assuming they're not all stashed away in a drawer where nobody gets to read them but you.
I dunno. I think back a couple of convention seasons, and I remember talking with a small that had done some remarkably good plotting, character building, worldbuilding, plot hooks, and had everything they needed in hand to start doing the writing. The only thing really holding them up was making the decision to do the thing and trusting that it would turn out okay. I tried to encourage them, from the perspective of "hey, I'm a nobody in fandom and these are all the email notifications that I've saved that say I got kudos."
There are a lot of them. I don't have even 100 works on the Archive, but the kudos seem to trickle in, often slowly when there's nothing new to post, but they're there, a sort of regular pulse, a reminder that people are looking at my work and are happy enough with it to push a button that says they liked it. And that's with me still being a nobody in fandom, even well into my career at this point.
So, perspective and all that. Somewhere in there, there's someone consuming our transformative works, and it's helping shape their lives. Maybe in small ways, maybe in big. And maybe, if I'm lucky, they'll actually tell me when it happens.
People who have checked in with writing on Day 1:alexcat, alexseanchai, athaia, auroracloud, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, magnetic_pole, sanguinity, shopfront, silveradept, sonia, sylvanwitch, yasaman, ysilme.
People who have checked in with writing on Day 2:alexcat, alexseanchai, athaia, auroracloud, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, magnetic_pole, sanguinity, shopfront, silveradept, sonia, sylvanwitch, yasaman, ysilme.
People who have checked in with writing on Day 3:alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, magnetic_pole, sanguinity, shopfront, silveradept, sonia, sylvanwitch, talkingtothesky, yasaman, ysilme.
People who have checked in with writing on Day 4:alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, bladespark, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, magnetic_pole, sanguinity, shopfront, silveradept, sonia, sylvanwitch, yasaman, ysilme.
People who have checked in with writing on Day 5: alexcat,alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, magnetic_pole, sanguinity, silveradept, shopfront, sylvanwitch, yasaman, ysilme.
People who have checked in with writing on Day 6:alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, magnetic_pole, sanguinity, silveradept, sonia, sylvanwitch, yasaman, ysilme.
People who have checked in with writing on Day 7:alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, boxofdelights, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, magnetic_pole, sanguinity, silveradept, sylvanwitch, yasaman, ysilme.
People who have checked in with writing on Day 8:alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, boxofdelights, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, sanguinity, silveradept, sylvanwitch, talkingtothesky, yasaman, ysilme.
People who have checked in with writing on Day 9:alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, sanguinity, shopfront, silveradept, sylvanwitch, yasaman,
Today, I realized that a project I'm working on might have an additional scene inserted into it from a character's perspective I hadn't originally considered. Which is good - more complete story, and bad because that means more words. And more writing.
But I did some writing over today on that project, and a lot of plotting, and plenty of responding to comments and such, so I've gotten enough writing in for today to say that I did writing. I also managed to successfully diagnose a weird thing happening with my computer and figure out how to straighten everything back out so that it would stop being weird. Which is pretty cool, honestly, and probably says things about my comfort and familiarity with computers and what I consider a normal thing that others might think of as closer to technical wizardry.
I think my perspective is a bit skewed on that in that for a large part of my job when I'm showing people how to do various technical things, it's things that I've done a thousand times, having seen it happen a thousand times, and so I know what to do with it, whereas they might be seeing it only for the first time and therefore not know how to fix it. Or not have had the opportunity to fix it. It's why we go to professionals to fix problems on sufficiently complex machines - what's weird to us is routine for them. And as expertise grows, what becomes routine begins to encompass a much much greater field of knowledge, technique, and practice.
I suspect that's the same with writing as well. As we write more, and write more in different forms under different constraints, trying to do different things, what becomes routine (or at least up to our standards of taste) increases and becomes greater and suddenly we find ourselves in the rather strange position of being someone others look up to or having our work recommended to others, while we're still gesticulating wildly and saying "Wait, me? No, you should be looking up to these people that I look up to, they're the real experts, they're [published / making a living at it / way older fen than I am]."
Except, without noticing, we've become that good, that practiced, that skilled that we have started to make things look effortless, even though we know full well how much work went into that thing. But from our own limited perspective, we don't necessarily see what's going on unless someone tips us off to it and can successfully help us understand what things look like from the outside.
I don't know if there are people out there writing or thinking "That
silveradept.) There might be people saying that about you and your works too, assuming they're not all stashed away in a drawer where nobody gets to read them but you.I dunno. I think back a couple of convention seasons, and I remember talking with a small that had done some remarkably good plotting, character building, worldbuilding, plot hooks, and had everything they needed in hand to start doing the writing. The only thing really holding them up was making the decision to do the thing and trusting that it would turn out okay. I tried to encourage them, from the perspective of "hey, I'm a nobody in fandom and these are all the email notifications that I've saved that say I got kudos."
There are a lot of them. I don't have even 100 works on the Archive, but the kudos seem to trickle in, often slowly when there's nothing new to post, but they're there, a sort of regular pulse, a reminder that people are looking at my work and are happy enough with it to push a button that says they liked it. And that's with me still being a nobody in fandom, even well into my career at this point.
So, perspective and all that. Somewhere in there, there's someone consuming our transformative works, and it's helping shape their lives. Maybe in small ways, maybe in big. And maybe, if I'm lucky, they'll actually tell me when it happens.
People who have checked in with writing on Day 1:
alexcat, alexseanchai, athaia, auroracloud, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, magnetic_pole, sanguinity, shopfront, silveradept, sonia, sylvanwitch, yasaman, ysilme.People who have checked in with writing on Day 2:
alexcat, alexseanchai, athaia, auroracloud, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, magnetic_pole, sanguinity, shopfront, silveradept, sonia, sylvanwitch, yasaman, ysilme.People who have checked in with writing on Day 3:
alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, magnetic_pole, sanguinity, shopfront, silveradept, sonia, sylvanwitch, talkingtothesky, yasaman, ysilme.People who have checked in with writing on Day 4:
alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, bladespark, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, magnetic_pole, sanguinity, shopfront, silveradept, sonia, sylvanwitch, yasaman, ysilme. People who have checked in with writing on Day 5: alexcat,
alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, magnetic_pole, sanguinity, silveradept, shopfront, sylvanwitch, yasaman, ysilme.People who have checked in with writing on Day 6:
alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, magnetic_pole, sanguinity, silveradept, sonia, sylvanwitch, yasaman, ysilme.People who have checked in with writing on Day 7:
alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, boxofdelights, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, magnetic_pole, sanguinity, silveradept, sylvanwitch, yasaman, ysilme.People who have checked in with writing on Day 8:
alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, boxofdelights, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, sanguinity, silveradept, sylvanwitch, talkingtothesky, yasaman, ysilme.People who have checked in with writing on Day 9:
alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, sanguinity, shopfront, silveradept, sylvanwitch, yasaman, 
no subject
Date: 2019-08-10 04:55 am (UTC)I was thinking earlier about how writing is like weaving coloured wires around a balloon, where the balloon is the essence of the story, and the wires are the sentences and paragraphs. Other people can never see the actual balloon -- that's just in your head -- but if you place and structure the wires well, when you hand it to someone else (thus removing the balloon), the story will hold its shape and a copy of the balloon will appear in the reader's head, inside those wires. Or something? It made sense when I thought of it. :-)
/it's been a long, looooong time since I took philosophy of language
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Date: 2019-08-10 07:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-10 07:04 am (UTC)Now I want to try that. *g*
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Date: 2019-08-10 07:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-10 05:11 am (UTC)got another 1K on "falling hot and real", which brings me to 6.5K. since my remaining outline notes are still ~2K and I'm pretty sure I'm a third done tops, and also since (unlike, say, "lady in red") this has real live scene breaks, I'm thinking I need to make this a chaptered fic. which, for consistency in titles, will probably be renamed where the firelight fades, with chapter titles also from Seanan McGuire's "River Lies".
(finally figured out Akumabug's name, btw. Firebug.)
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Date: 2019-08-10 07:03 am (UTC)I don't know. I've always wondered about lyrics as chapter titles (they say, having used actual song titles as chapter heads in their own work, intending them to be the musical cues for the chapter itself) and whether or not people will get the hint. Or whether they're supposed to.
Firebug sounds like a good name to use.
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Date: 2019-08-10 07:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-10 05:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-10 07:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-10 06:48 am (UTC)348 words for me today. Feeling pretty drained from a long work week, but proud of myself for still plugging away at my WIP, however slowly.
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Date: 2019-08-10 07:06 am (UTC)We're proud of you, too, for working on the WIP. Although rest and self-care take precedence over writing.
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Date: 2019-08-10 06:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-10 07:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-10 12:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-10 04:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-10 03:55 pm (UTC)Yay for words! It sounds like you had a really productive day. :-)
As for me, I've begun my prep work for the new academic year (I'm a h.s. English teacher), which impinges on both my time and motivation for other work, but I did finish editing Chp. 9 and started editing Chp. 10 on Day 9.
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Date: 2019-08-10 04:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-10 06:20 pm (UTC)I wrote about 120 words on an idea for yet another essay.
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Date: 2019-08-10 06:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-10 06:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-10 07:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-10 07:32 pm (UTC)GOt 1517 words on Like Stone that's more like it.
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Date: 2019-08-10 07:38 pm (UTC)There isn't exactly an easy kudos system for more original or published works. I'm sure someone could figure out a way of rigging it up, though.
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Date: 2019-08-10 08:14 pm (UTC)As close as you get is the amazon and goodread review areas and they tend to be a toxic swamp. Yeah you get some honest reviews and then you get the people who get off on one starring everything (especially in the LGBT field where we get a lot of that from the people who think being gay is a sin)
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Date: 2019-08-10 08:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-10 08:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-11 12:45 am (UTC)I know what you mean about the oh, when did that happen aspect of writing. Especially when so much of the work is mental and not necessarily tangible, especially if you primarily work on a computer and there's no reams of red-edited paper to look back over. It feels like there's always something new and hard and challenging, or some creative mountain or other to scale (or be defeated by), but stopping and looking back at your previous work and realising how far you've come should totally be a required regular activity. It's easy to forget.
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Date: 2019-08-11 04:13 am (UTC)My problem is that I don't have the required perspective to see the improvement if I look back over time. I'm much more likely to see flaws and problems or dismiss successes as flukes. That's not the way to go about it, but it's the familiar pattern for me.