Write Every Day: 03 November 02019

[silveradept]

Greetings! This is the Write Every Day Check-In Post for 3 November 02019.

I was rubber-ducking something today, and it turns out to be a useful thing to talk about in terms of writing. At times, I feel like I'm not providing enough detail in my signups for authors for them, because I don't usually need a Dear Creator letter to describe what it is I was thinking about when I did the signup for an exchange. At the same time, some author comments have said that they like my prompts and enjoy writing them (and some say they wished they could write a lot more of those prompts, but exchanges have deadlines), so clearly I've got to be doing something right.

My duck (honk) suggested that I have spent a significant time learning the art of summarizing in brief, pointing out that a significant part of my work in readers' advisory allows me to envision an entire work, in all of its detail, and condense it into something salient. Since RA's goal is to sell a person on a book and get them to conclude either "This is a book I will enjoy greatly, I'll take it!" or "Nope! I definitely do not want that book, and I can tell you why so we can try again.", being able to elevator-pitch a book (or scan its summary and pick out which parts you want to foreground to the person who is making the decision) is an important skill to have. That skill may be applicable to writing prompts that contain the important bits that will make the work sing.

My duck also suggested that, as a person, I tend to be someone who aims for satisfaction rather than transcendent bliss, and therefore, I don't spend a whole lot of time in a prompt request on the details and parts that I really, really, want to see and would probably write myself, but for feeling like I don't have the skill (or time) to do it. I'll be happy with socks and underclothes and a toy in my stocking, rather than going for broke on wanting the Princess Luna doll with the Nightmare Moon transforming action and unicorn-horn-blasting projectiles. (Because, well, I'm often cognizant the stocking could also be empty, so that there's something there at all is a good thing.) I also find that I enjoy works that the author enjoys writing, and that enjoyment comes through in the work, so I also don't tend to put in a lot of detail that might feel like a writer tried to make me happy and that wrenched the story away from what it wanted to be. (Optional Details Are Optional, sure, but they do help provide direction and ideas as to what the finished work will look like.)

So, if you want to answer it, if you do prompts or exchange signups or other such things, are you a letters person, an optional details box kind of person, or are you just thrilled that someone's making a thing? Why? I've been fandom-adjacent and such for a while, but I still feel a lot like I'm not actually in the middle of everything, and so that makes me wonder if I'm doing it wrong somehow and nobody has had the time to explain to me how I'm doing it wrong and why.

Today, in writing, I promised myself that I would get through this Giving of Grief Book, knowing that there was one major chapter, and then two things that could be summarized in a few sentences. I succeeded at this thing. I also posted a couple of works to fulfill challenge assignments, but those won't be coming out until later on in the month. It's a good idea to get those in, because other assignments are going to be appearing soon, and it's nice to have a nearly clean assignment plate in time to accept other assignments.

Here's the tally so far:

Day One: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, azurelunatic, bladespark, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, ofmonstrouswords, sanguinity, silveradept, st_aurafina, sylvanwitch, umadoshi, yasaman, ysilme

Day Two: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, azurelunatic, bladespark, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, ofmonstrouswords, redsixwing, sakana17, sanguinity, silveradept, st_aurafina, sylvanwitch, teigh_corvus, umadoshi, yasaman, ysilme

Day Three: alexseanchai, auroracloud, bladespark, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, redsixwing, sakana17, sanguinity, sierranovembr, silveradept, st_aurafina,sylvanwitch, umadoshi, yasaman, ysilme

Comments

[bladespark]

I did technically write today, so I guess I can check in. :3 It's been one of those days, a bit, though.

[silveradept]

There are no minimums required, and all writing counts.

[bladespark]

I know there's no requirement for this challenge, but I still get frustrated when I do so much less than I know I could do. I don't expect the pre-goober days of 4k a day, but I do expect to get over 100 words. :P Though I actually did between posting that comment and now, so I'm feeling more pleased.

[silveradept]

We do what we can to help.

[chanter1944]

Something like 200 words so far today, split between various ongoing stories. I'll take it.

[silveradept]

Excellent!

[sanguinity]

Nov 1: wrote.
Nov 2: wrote.
Nov 3: wrote.

Re sign-ups, I agree that the best stories are the ones they really wanted to write, and I always try to encourage my creator to make the thing of their heart. That said, I also adhere to the theory that good communication is as useful in a sign-up as it is in sex, in terms of getting to an outcome that everyone finds satisfactory. So I include some easy ways to please me, as well as a short list of my joy-killing nopes, and then I'll throw in a possible premise or two they can use to get started, in case they're having trouble coming up with ideas. Overall, I try to strike a balance between providing guidance for those who prefer it, and expressing trust and enthusiasm for those who want to go their own direction. The biggest thing, I think, is to give them space to be the creator they are -- to play to their own strengths! -- while making it as easy as possible to make me-in-particular happy.

[silveradept]

While I've read a small amount of a lot, I haven't noticed any particular "ooh, this theme is a surefire way to work" and I haven't run across anything where I wanted to go "noooope, that's going on the list of nevermore" yet, so that's part of why I feel like I'm missing something.

But yes, I do want the creator to be happy as well.

[alexseanchai]

Small progress, mostly in tweaking scene one of the thing that still isn't either where the firelight fades or butterfly dreams. Also noted for potential future use a story idea I want to read and might like to write but that isn't going WRITE ME NOW either.

Letters person, but also I know I got trolled the other $ExchangeSeason on account of saying in my letter I would like progressive SFF—the gift reads like the Sad Puppy idea of progressive SFF, not, like, actual progressive SFF—so there's that.

[silveradept]

That's rather rude of someone to do. I hope the option to refuse and/or request they Get It Right was available to you.

[alexseanchai]

I couldn't figure out how to articulate what about the story gave me that impression that wasn't gonna make me look like I was starting shit. and it isn't like they hit anything I said was a DNW. so I didn't say shit that didn't look appreciative.

[silveradept]

That's still a less-than-optimal result. At least now you know?

[azurelunatic]

I think it would be fair to quietly go to the organizers and say that you don't know if anything can be done, but you asked for progressive and you got something that was more Flo from Progressive. If they disagree, you know something about the organizers; if they can see what you see maybe there will be red flags so that person doesn't pull that again.

[lferion]

Day 3 -- 544 words on several different parts of Lamps/Hostages. I'm not at all sure where these words are coming from, but I am delighted they are arriving!

Need to not forget the HLH piece. I hope the back of my brain is working on it, because the front certainly isn't yet. I do at least have the concept.

[silveradept]

That's good that the words are arriving. Balancing what pieces get written is a difficult affair.

[sierranovembr]

:tiptoes back in:

Hey, um, I haven't checked in for a few months - I had a really rough Summer in terms of having any free time. Soooooo, I stopped keeping track, but tonight I actually managed to write a few hundred words for fun.

[silveradept]

That's okay. Come when you can, we'll still be around. Glad you put down a couple hundred words.

[umadoshi]

Day 3: 535 words!

[silveradept]

Yay, words!

[cornerofmadness]

Got 1660 words which is better but still so behind.

Honestly I know the dilemma. I always worry I'll put too much detail in and actually hamstring someone's creativity or not have enough and leave them floundering.

That said fandom_stocking is about the only one I do these days that requires me to put out a letter like that and last year I slashed it down because of the over detail thing

[silveradept]

Yeah. I'm not exactly sure how I could put a letter together anyway, given that a lot of what I see in letters is either stuff I don't know about me, or I don't have that many things to list?

[cornerofmadness]

My basic guideline is I put in things I absolutely love and things I absolutely do not want and leave it at that

[yasaman]

Day 3: edited 3 sections of the draft for a net of 87 words, and wrote 125 words on the WIP. Not a lot, but I didn't get too much uninterrupted computer time today.

Re exchanges: I'm a letter person, because I feel like I want to share something about what I love about the fandom or pairing I'm asking for, and I like to offer up some general directions towards the kind of story I'm interested in, if not more specific prompts too. I know that if I find myself giving a too detailed prompt, then it means I should just write it myself, so I keep that in mind for what I actually end up requesting versus what I offer.

In terms of writing for exchanges, I'm actually alright with any of the three options of letter, ODAO, or free rein. With Yuletide especially, I'm very careful about my offers: if I'm offering it, it's because I already have some stories in mind, and I've taken the general temperature of people's requests for said fandom and know I'd be happy writing for them. Prompts or a detailed letter would be great to spark some new ideas or to help me better tailor a fic as a gift, but I can live without them.

[silveradept]

Thank you for the perspective. There is a certain point where you've written enough of the thing to realize you should write it rather than have someone else try.

Good word count, even if it feels small.

[china_shop]

I rarely do exchanges, and I find letters hard because I'm not very good at analysing, summarising or predicting what I like, whereas it's relatively easy to pinpoint things I generally don't enjoy -- so it's hard to write a positive encouraging letter, rather than a fun-squishing laundry list of DNWs. /o\ Good luck!

Day 4: 736 words on time travel fic #5 (including some notes and planning; I think I know where it's going now so that's a huge relief, assuming it works), and I gave #4 one more read-through/editing pass and sent it to beta. \o/

[silveradept]

Yay for works out to beta.

The DNWs list is still useful for me, at least, in that it helps me structure things so they don't get into places a recipient isn't interested in.

[sakana17]

November 3: 3802 words for a new story.

[silveradept]

That's a pretty big haul. Nice work!

[st_aurafina]

I wrote for the third! 1100 words for me.

[silveradept]

Good progress!

[carenejeans]

Wrote about 300 words on the novel, just about right for what I'm doing at the moment (writing little bits around other bits for now; later I'll have to be writing some longer sections).

Also worked on the nonfiction thing as usual.

[silveradept]

It sounds like steady progress is helping on both of these things.

[ysilme]

Yay for posting and going through the book!

I haven't participated at that many varied exchanges so far, and those were are kind of older, I think (as in, running since at least a decade or more), from a time where a dear author letter wasn't yet customary. Or whatever reason there was that no participant ever made one, so I only learned about these when I saw the first on WED friends journals. We had sign-up forms instead asking a certain kind of questions, mostly in the form of preferred pairing, rating, likes, dislikes, will-writes and will-not-writes, and that was that. I found it always hard to fill them out in a useful manner, and no matter how detailed I was, or the contrary, it never really worked out. I got good gifts, ok gifts and meh gifts, and once, when I was very detailed, the reader missed that any of this was optional, they tried to squeeze in everything I had listed, which resulted in a well-meant and doubtlessly labour intensive story, which was totally overloaded and difficult to make sense of. I never got a gift I really loved, and concluded that maybe I'm too difficult to write for. ;oP Thankfully, at least the gifts I wrote mostly were very well received. (I got lovely gifts, but not for exchanges.)
Since I saw the first of the letters I tried to write up a general dear author letter for the off chance somebody wanted to write something for me out of the blue, but I never managed to finish it. Too complicated. I guess for me, the problem really is me. ;o)

Our furry patient is starting to become a bit un-patient with his collar, so yesterday was spent with a lot of time of trying to entertain him. We also tried a variation of the collar I saw in a video, essentially a large foam disk worn like a Renaissance priest collar; we'd made that for our younger girl back when she was neutered, but she had it off too quickly to be useful. It looked fine with him at first, but then he managed to work it down his body and suddenly was wearing a foam tutu. So back to the proper collar it was, and for a few hours I was Big Bad Mummy who does mean things to poor kitties.
Writing went well, too: 2,5k overall, with 2216 words for NaNo.

[sylvanwitch]

Yay for excellent words for NaNo!

Boo for bad mommy! *grins* I'm sure he's quite put-upon and does not know how anyone can treat him like this! Lol!

[silveradept]

Thank you for answering the question. I fear that I might create one of those big letters if someone really wanted to know all the things about all the things.

Yay for words. And we hope the patient settles down some and accepts that the cone of shame is necessary for now.

[auroracloud]

I wrote, just 161 on the novel but I did write more than my daily minimum, so that's okay. The rest of the time was spent on the Yuletide sign-up/letter.

...Which partly answers your question. I write letters and optional details and I go out of my way to assure the writer that it's all optional, DNWs aside, just stuff to help prompt them or get a feel for what I like if they're a writer who works better with that. I'm the kind of writer who mostly works better with details and prompts, because otherwise I just sit there with something like an infinite cloud of options floating around my head and don't know where to start. So, naturally, I mostly get assigned to people who give me about two sentences max. :-P And I'm always worried that my rivers of details and prompts and likes will stifle my assigned writer if they think, despite my reassurance, that they have to use something I provided.

I always need to add DNWs because there are a few things that can physically sicken me and/or set off my depression/anxiety/other mental issues. And I don't want to just leave DNWs, so I feel I need to add some details, at least. I don't usually have super-specific ideas about what I want - which is probably good because that can feel constricting! - and I'm luckily into a variety of genres, tropes and ships - but often there are at least some things that particularly tickle my curiosity or charm me, like "what are X and Y going to do about such-and-such"? So I try to drop in things like that. And I always worry my sign-ups are way too confusing and I appear terribly silly. Oh well.

[silveradept]

Hooray for words and sign-up letters.

It sounds sensible when you describe it to do a letter that way, especially when you have to have DNWs added in. I try to at least provide a suggestion of a possible vector to write in when I do a signup, but it's a "if you don't already have an idea in mind" kind of thing more than a "write this, write this!" thing.

[sylvanwitch]

Checking in super-quick before the 1st period bell rings--lol! I wrote 477 words on a fanfic yesterday for an advent thing. :-)

[silveradept]

Yay for words!

[redsixwing]

I wrote several alibi paragraphs. Word count +2-300.

[silveradept]

Nice. Good alibis.

[azurelunatic]

I wrote. There was writing. A lot of the time was spent on research.

[silveradept]

Hooray for writing.

[jenett]

Coming to this late, but ...

I like (and try to write) letters that include stuff I like about the fandom, and a few suggestions for types of stories I'd like. (Plus my DNWs - in particular, there's stuff that works for me really well sometimes, but not reliably in fic and/or which usually takes more set up than is fair to expect in an exchange fix.)

I try to have multiple different kinds of plots, to sketch out, constellation style, the general types of things I'm likely to find interesting or particularly enjoyable.

I have a bunch of stuff I read outside of exchanges, but I am not generally thoroughly aware of the zeitgeist of the ongoing fandom for things I request (or they're really small fandoms!), so I figure giving that idea is more likely to be helpful than not.

Sometimes they're pretty broad (my current Yuletide prompt list has two fairly "I want more about X character" from two short stories), but I also figure if someone matched on those particular people, they know what they're getting into there.

[silveradept]

Makes sense. Maybe if I ever have enough detail to need to express it that way, I'll end up writing a letter.