Via Lori: a metafilter story about the new Eye of Argon. Atlanta Nights [PDF] by “Travis Tea” is badfic with a vengeance and a higher purpose–exposing POD publishers for the scam artists they are. TNH has more of the story.
Jade was having a rant, so I looked up some slang in the online etymology dictionary. It’s lots of fun. (Here’s the word in question.)
This is a LJ meme (by way of Rocky), but I’m putting it here in the blog since it’s about writing in general.
1) The basics — edit as you go, or get it out and fix it later? How come?
Get it out and fix it later, mainly because later never comes. I think my prose is wretched while I’m writing it, but after I give it a rest it doesn’t look so bad.
2) Death to adverbs? Use in moderation? Sprinkle liberally? At the author’s discretion?
Death to adverbs. Every single adverb dies, except for those that are only called adverbs because they don’t fit into any other part of speech, either (e.g., either, only, not, etc.). It’s never the right time to use an adverb.
3) Do you start with a whole story, usually, or a spark of inspiration that turns into something else? If it’s a whole story, does it change as you go, or stay solid?
A spark that turns into something else. If I do try to outline ahead of time, like I did for NaNoWriMo, the story still changes significantly as I go.
4) Do you believe in One True Characterization in fanfic, or do you think there’s a spectrum? How broad is the spectrum?
I believe in the One True Characterization, but I sin against it frequently.
5) You’re wandering away from fanfic into the hallowed-yet-terrifying world of profic. What do you miss the most? The least?
I won’t say I miss the feedback, since so few people send feedback anyway. I miss the depth of a shared world, the subtle in-jokes, and the fun of playing off canon. Even in tie-in pay-per-fic you can’t really do that the way you can in fanfic.
What I miss least is the crazy people. Real Editors don’t have a lot of tolerance for lunacy or viciousness. It’s nice to see consistent grammar, spelling, and plotting as well, but they’re nothing compared to the pleasant company of the sane. I admit real writers can be preachy and condescending sometimes, but they mean well. They’re just trying to Help the Wee Newbies; they’re not stalking or defaming their fannish enemies like some people I’ve met in fandom.
Warning: Geeking ahead!
So I’ve been trying to reproduce a real operating system on Windows. The very first thing I did, of course, was install Emacs. Today I noticed that Emacs wasn’t finding RCS (my favorite version control system) even though I have Cygwin installed. I found the answer in noniq’s .emacs file:
It’s strange to wake up without 2,000 words hanging over my head. I didn’t write a thing today, but maybe tomorrow I’ll start in on the short story that I’ve wanted to write for a few weeks now.
I don’t hate the characters as much as I thought I would after spending four weeks with them. On the other hand, I think I’d have trouble writing fluff after 50,000 words of Serious Plot. I could write something short, gen, and episode-like, like “Revisions.” I enjoyed the Twilight Zone plot of that episode.
There’s nothing like a little gratuitous introspection to fill out those last 1000 words.
The management apologizes for the lack of content due to the twin distractions of turkey and NaNo. Today is approximately the 85% point of NaNoWriMo,
I’ve added more scenes to the novel for filler, since editing wasn’t increasing my word count quickly enough. So far I have a new opening scene, two alien sports events, and some Jack adventure (because the novel was low on Jack content). I’m hoping to finish early over the weekend, but I’ll probably be desperately typing until the last minute.
Yesterday was the 66% point (33,333 words) for NaNoWriMo, but since I’ve been slacking this weekend I just got there today. That means I’m still days behind on my special take-Thanksgiving-off NaNo schedule, but there’s still hope for the novel. Many apologies to Jerie for slipping into the NaNo category. I’ll try to blog about something not restricted to NaNo:
Here’s some advice from 43folders on how to hack your way out of writer’s block. Under his category of Do something important that’s very easy, I highly recommend writing a synopsis of your novel. Mine has helped me to see where my characters are being passive or running around in circles.
So the question arises, when you get home at 1 am and have written 62 words all weekend, do I try to catch up, or do I go to bed? I’m leaning towards bed.
Today is the 25,000 word mark. I’m a little behind schedule, but overall the novel is going well. The first draft is complete, with an exciting action-packed climax in which the fecal matter hits the rotary air circulation device and alien excrement ends up everywhere. As requested by Jerie, I canned the volcano plan and went with the stealth ending, so only a few aliens got chewed up, stealthily.
The urchin that Rocky suggested adding managed to survive all the way to the end of the novel, although another urchin got himself chewed. The two urchins may merge into one during the editing process (under that literary law about not multiplying urchins unnecessarily). I’m tempted to edit now to get the events into better order, but overall I’m happy with my 60 or so scenes. They just need to be twice as long by the end of NaNo.