random writerly blahness

[krossero]

Yep... I'm sitting here in school, doing nothing productive (not that there's really anything *to* do), and started thinking about the lastest fic I've been working on.  It was sort of a dumpage of mushy goo (don't worry, *I* know what that means) and I've been trying to figure out if it's salvageable.  And that got me thinking about how long it takes me to write just one fic, either from want of perfectionism or writer's block or lack of time or whatever.  I've only actually posted four stories online, but I have so many more.

I'm wondering if I should try to give myself a deadline, of maybe one fic per week.  But I can't figure out if that'll put undue pressure on me that I don't want, or if it'll actually help me to get things moving along.  What do you guys do?  Does anyone have any suggestions?  Other than "go at your own pace". I've got that one figured out. *g*

Should I give myself a deadline, and if so, what has worked for you/people you know?

Thanks everyone! Love you all.

*smooches to all*

Comments

[raine-wynd.livejournal.com]

I sometimes do the "write as much as I can in fifteen minutes" strategy. Then I make myself write for fifteen minutes more. Or I decide "this is going to be roughly four pages long in Word" so I have a target length. It really depends on what I'm trying to accomplish. For the last three pieces I wrote, my goal was simply to meet the requests, and I didn't want to write very long fics. Basically, what I try to do is first figure out how long do I want the fic to be, because that gives me a framework on how quickly I need to wrap up the story elements, and then I set aside how long I want to write and what date, roughly, I want to be finished with the story. I tend to view my writing as "if I was writing this for a challenge, when do I need to be done, what needs to be in this story?" If I'm really stuck, I'll ask for a beta just so I have a sense of "is it working so far?" The latter usually helps me not only identify what I need to fix, but also gives me motivation to finish it.

Hope this helps.

[krossero.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the advice! I think that one of my biggest problems is that a lot of the time, even the smallest of my stories tends to want to be longer and more involved, and I can never decide how long to make them.

[callistosh65.livejournal.com]

I'm another one who writes like a snail, so I sympathise:)) Sometimes it's good to write a drabble, or something short when you're working on something longer. Check out the terrific comm flashslash. Weekly word prompts, a rather flexible 8 minutes to write them into a ficlet, and they don't have to be slash. I was terrified of it because I'm such a perfectionist and a tweaker, but it's actually invigorating and good for snail-paced scribblers like us to try that fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants style of writing.

[krossero.livejournal.com]

When faced with such a short deadline as that, my mind usually freaks out and runs away, leaving me completely blank and writer's blocked. But I do like to write in short bursts, so maybe I should try something like this, with a longer amount of time to write. :)

I get an idea.

[gillyp.livejournal.com]

I sketch it out, then I write till it's done. I aim for a min 500 words a day, a chapter a week but - considering my current wip is almost 2 years in the writing and currently 95,000 words long, I'm probably not the person to advise you. Honestly, the notion of writing a fic in a week is an alien concept to me. *g* But that's probably not a good thing. :o)

Re: I get an idea.

[krossero.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear. That sounds suspiciously like *organization* to me. And an utter lack of procrastination. How terrifying. *shudder*

LOL!

Re: I get an idea.

[gillyp.livejournal.com]

Sadly I am the very queen of procrastination as my Twitter page will attest. :o)

Re: I get an idea.

[krossero.livejournal.com]

Procrastination and I are old buddies. :P

[karieflybabe.livejournal.com]

Don't try so hard, is my advice. Every time I try a scheduled strategy I have always set myself up for a fail.

So take your time and if you have a good run, go with it as much as possible. If not, take the day and go online shopping with spending anything, or read some fic, or play a game of MahJong tiles. The muses and bunnies will still be there in the morning.

[krossero.livejournal.com]

That's good advice, but I don't know that it'll work with me. A lot of the time, I work better under some sort of pressure. But then again, there's the fact that I tend only to write when the muse strikes, in short burts and such. What a conundrum. *g*

[snycock.livejournal.com]

There's no set time for how long it should take to write a story, it depends so much on how long it is, how involved it is, and just how well the writing goes. I generally have a rough outline for my stories, but sometimes they go like woah and other times I'm just plodding painfully along.

I will say that I've felt, recently, that my writing has suffered because of having deadlines, but that's also more about me signing up for too much as well. But I do think it's important to write for happiness' sake and not feel like you HAVE to finish this.

Not sure if that was very coherent or helpful... ;-)

[krossero.livejournal.com]

My stories never seem to be able to make up their minds on how long and involved they want to be. Every time I think of an idea, my mind tends to add, "Oh, but this could happen, and he could react this way, but, oo, what if..?"

And you're absolutely right, it *is* important to write for happiness' sake. Thanks for reminding me of that. :D

Very coherent, and very helpful, thank you!

[sarituss.livejournal.com]

You have to have a goal otherwise you'll just mess it up... ^^''' believe me, I know... ;P

[krossero.livejournal.com]

LOL! Well, I'm trying, and I got this short little story going that I think I'll be finished with soon, so it's all good!