Write Every Day: 03 November 02019
Nov. 3rd, 2019 05:50 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 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
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, ysilmeDay Two:
alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, azurelunatic, bladespark, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, ofmonstrouswords, redsixwing, sakana17, sanguinity, silveradept, st_aurafina, sylvanwitch, teigh_corvus, umadoshi, yasaman, ysilmeDay Three:
alexseanchai, auroracloud, bladespark, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, redsixwing, sakana17, sanguinity, sierranovembr, silveradept, st_aurafina,sylvanwitch, umadoshi, yasaman, ysilme
no subject
Date: 2019-11-04 09:48 am (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2019-11-04 02:17 pm (UTC)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!
no subject
Date: 2019-11-04 03:25 pm (UTC)Yay for words. And we hope the patient settles down some and accepts that the cone of shame is necessary for now.