Write Every Day: 12 November 02019

[silveradept]

Greetings! This is the Write Every Day Check-In Post for 12 November 02019.

Sometimes I think of the adage "Write what you know," which is sometimes a thing that I say when people talk about putting into stories things that they are either interested in or have experienced in their lives. Like many adages, if you only followed it, we'd end up having a lot fewer stories. At the same time, we could stand to have fewer stories of people appropriating or caricaturing the lived experiences of others. So, maybe "Write what you know and stay in your lane" is more the thing being offered. Except that sometimes, with research and care and sensitivity reading and a lot of things designed to make things not appropriative, exploitative or otherwise terrible, it's okay to have a story written that's outside of your lane. But there's still a lot more that can be done to bring and otherwise promote people writing their own voices before we think about stories that have done their research and gotten things put together and can do well.

The reason his comes to mind is that in today's writing material, I am about to include a family story. It's not something that I've experienced personally, thankfully, as it's not a completely pleasant story. But that also complicates the question of writing what you know. It's something in the family, told as a funny story or two, and it's going to be really useful in not only adding words but helping metaphorically explain something to someone who's having a bad day and not feeling all that great about themselves.

I also sketched out the possibility of another songfic, based on the potential implications of new canon, but assignments come first-ish, so maybe when there's enough of a cushion of words to feel like I can divert my attention for a bit, I'll think about that one. Maybe after the other fic that's been patiently waiting for me to get on with it, as that one is going to be much more comedic.

Plot bunnies breed if you're not looking at them and trying to get them closer to completion.

How are things going for all of you?

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

Day Four: alexcat, alexseanchai, azurelunatic, bladespark, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, nafs, redsixwing, sanguinity, sierranovembr, silveradept, sylvanwitch, umadoshi, yasaman, ysilme

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

Day Six: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, azurelunatic, bladespark, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, redsixwing, sakana17, sanguinity, silveradept, sylvanwitch, treonb, umadoshi, yasaman, ysilme

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

Day Eight: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, azurelunatic, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, redsixwing, sakana17, sanguinity, silveradept, sylvanwitch, treonb, umadoshi, yasaman, ysilme

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

Day Ten: alexseanchai, auroracloud, azurelunatic, bladespark, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, redsixwing, sakana17, sanguinity, silveradept, sylvanwitch, treonb, umadoshi, yasaman, ysilme

Day Eleven: alexseanchai, auroracloud, azurelunatic, bladespark, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, redsixwing, sakana17, sanguinity, silveradept, sylvanwitch, treonb, umadoshi, yasaman, ysilme

Day Twelve: alexseanchai, auroracloud, azurelunatic, cornerofmadness, carenejeans, china_shop, lferion, redsixwing, sanguinity, silveradept, sylvanwitch, treonb, umadoshi, yasaman, ysilme

Comments

[sanguinity]

Nov. 12: wrote, and then wrote again a bit later.

[silveradept]

Yay, writing!

[alexseanchai]

900 words!

on a new and different story explicitly not counting for NaNo, but like

(brains.)

[silveradept]

Words are words!

[lferion]

Day 12 - I somehow managed to get 1300 words today. And spent some time wreaking order on the Scrivener file for Lamps. I think this will benefit from the note-card-like feature.

[silveradept]

Excellent. And Scrivener seems like a tool I would enjoy using, but that I would have to resist the temptation just to play with Scrivener, rather than write.

[yasaman]

Day 12: edits on one section of the draft for a net of 22 words, and 1,089 words on the WIP along with the relief and satisfaction of knowing what the next few beats are for this scene. I was stalling out a little on it earlier, trying to feel my way towards what the scene needed, and I worked it out today, to my relief!

[silveradept]

Yay! I love it when a scene comes together.

[china_shop]

Day 13: A lot of time at the library, scribbling edits on fic #5; 397 net additional words added to the file so far (mostly all in one block, which I might have to find a way to break up a bit).

[silveradept]

Sounds like a healthy chunk of words.

[auroracloud]

I managed 450 words of the novel this time, as well as doing a bit of brainstorming/plotting for this podcast drama idea I've got. And I started editing my Femslash Exchange fic, thankfully discovered that at least the beginning is nowhere near as terrible as I was afraid it would be.

If I only wrote what I knew, I wouldn't be writing much. a) My life is mostly boring and about things I'm not into writing about, and b) even if I try, I run into a block the size of a continent if I try to write about anything too close to my life.

There is a point about being careful not to appropriate realities of the kinds of lives you haven't lived, especially when talking about marginalized communities who anyway get their stories told mostly by others without their own input. But that's different, though I don't yet know exactly how to explain how.

Anyway, the way I use things I know is that I may write about people in past centuries or in future faraway planets, but I give them the sorts of feelings, thoughts and interests I'm familiar with, even though adapted into their culture. So in my historical fiction, the girls may still be book geeks or feel like they don't fit in, but their day-to-day realities are very different from mine. Meanwhile, reading discussions about cultural appropriation have made me understand that it's probably not my place to write historical fiction about the Sami or the Romany or other ethnic minorities in my country, not before those people get their voices out first. And if I include them as minor characters, I should check with a member of that group (or several) if I'm doing it respectfully and with correct facts, in addition to doing my own research.

[silveradept]

Yay for finding you've done better than you thought you had.

That's a neat way of writing what you know. Probably because some themes are relevant, even in completely different societies. Usually a safer bet than writing a story steeped in stereotype about another culture.

[carenejeans]

Wow, I'm farther behind on checking in than I thought. Oops. So, er, for days 8-12, I was doing the same thing I've been doing all month, working on the nonfiction project (mostly) and writing a bit of fiction every day.

I've got about 2,000 words on my story for the Highlander holiday exchange, about halfway there, I guess. It's hard to tell because it's all in bits and pieces. I'm hoping these will sort of fling themselves together into a story at some point. ;-)

[silveradept]

Yay, words. Sometimes, when I have fragments, it usually means I've got one scene to write that ties them all together and also indicates which order the fragments go in, so hopefully things will coalesce for you soon.

[redsixwing]

~500 words on a Yuletide fill. One scene written of six planned. \o/

I'm highly ambivalent about advice to 'stay in your lane' but I feel like I might be reacting to things you didn't say, so I'm going to go think about that for a while.

[silveradept]

Yay, words!

It's entirely possible I made implications that I didn't say and that I didn't notice.

[umadoshi]

340 words for day 12!

[silveradept]

Huzzah for words.

[azurelunatic]

I wrote another 3000+ words.

This project is pouring forth because I'm writing exactly what I know, and I know how to draft blog posts, especially ones based on previous items.

[silveradept]

It does go a lot faster when you are writing what you know and have experienced.

[treonb]

Day 12 - 460 words. Currently at 24k, which is less than what I was aiming for, but it's almost all written.

[silveradept]

Good that it approaches the conclusion, even if it doesn't have the length you were aiming for.

[ysilme]

I always took the "write what you know"-adage more in the meaning of "write what you know, be it from experience, or listening carefully to people who know it, or through thorough research and so on," as well as a reminder to be very aware about the degree of details to write about any given subject. Like, for example, I can't write about breaking up or ex relationships from personal experience as I never had that, but have listened so often and been the support system for various friends and sisters that I'm confident I can write this, just not in a way that'd be very personal, or detailed. Or I've written a scene where a warrior (an elf) rides on a huge eagle into battle, jumps over onto a small dragon and kills it. I've obviously done neither, and I can't even tell where I got the knowledge from to describe various details of it, but according to several reviews it works really well, so I must have done it right. *g*

Yesterday wasn't a good writing day for me; I was even more tired (although I'm not writing at the cost of sleep, I just can't seem to get enough at the moment), and between the usual niece-herding on Tuesday and an unavoidable meeting in the evenign which ended late, and the increasing lack of inspiration, I ended up with only 1,5k. I'm still at 25k already, so no worries about finishing, but I'm rather frustrated that I didn't even met the typical daily word count, let alone my own minimum. I urgently need to find ways how to motviate myself even if the usual NaNo-related inspiration is missing, which is more or less the case thanks to the new site. *sigh*

[silveradept]

I'm sorry the new website isn't as exciting as it was before. Good that you've made your goals so far, but it can be tough to write when you're trying to get motivated and rested at the same time.

[sylvanwitch]

D'oh! I forgot the date. Sorry! I wrote about 200 words on Day 12, completely reimagining the ending I had for the fanfic I was working on and doing it from a different POV. I think it sticks the landing better now, but I'm letting it percolate while I work on another fest fic.

[silveradept]

Yay! It's always nice when something hits the landing better than before, and there's time to let it percolate into something better, if there's something better to be had.

[cornerofmadness]

I got 1423 words on three projects so not bad

[silveradept]

Not bad at all! Good things.

[cornerofmadness]

Thanks