No create, only vibes
Mar. 13th, 2024 08:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kathleen_daileyIs there a statute of limitations that applies to WIPs?
A WIP has been tagging along with me from computer to computer since the turn of the 21st century. I posted a draft to a private ST fic mailing list in 2001 or so, got some good feedback from the list members and from my beta readers, and resolved to finish it and post it on my (now dead) personal website.
And yet here we are, almost a quarter of a century later, and I haven't made any progress beyond the first ~6,500 words (maybe half of the story?). It's as if the tap that once gushed unending streams of plot, pacing, and character development into my brain has been turned off and soldered shut by some cheapskate landlord.
Every once in a while, I take out the draft and read it through and think, Huh, that's not too bad, I could probably do something with that, and then I put it away without taking any action. I did that again recently, for the first time in a few years, only to realize that I've been jossed by SNW.
I've been generally liking my main character's modern-day portrayal in SNW, but until now I hadn't thought about how close (in general attributes, not in fine detail) the SNW character is to the character in my 20+-year-old WIP.
So I'm asking myself--is there a story here that's still worth telling, a story that will hold a reader's interest? I'm still invested in the character and the universe, and if someone else wrote the story I'd probably consume it in one sitting. But if TPTB are doing a reasonable job of showing character development that more or less aligns with my perception, will I really be able to add anything that illuminates the character further? Will readers be interested in learning about "whatever happened to" a character whose backstory and personality have been reimagined in the current canon?
Even if the answer is yes, I can't seem to get restarted when I have the draft open onscreen.
Much has been written about overcoming writer's block (see Diane Duane, for example). But all the good advice doesn't help when that mystical electrical charge of inspiration and character insight is missing.
Maybe part of the problem is the reason for writing. Claire Gabriel, my first and finest beta reader, taught me that many fan authors write solely for self-expression; they're interested in exorcising demons or documenting fantasies. But those who write to be read--those who want to honour the craft and tell an engrossing story that values character, setting, plot, and theme--well, they may have a more difficult job to do, if only because so much hard "bricklaying" work is involved in the act of creation. I'd place myself in the second group, but sometimes I really, really wish I was in the first.
I'd like to be able to produce some fic output again, but the supply of whatever magic creative powder I inhaled so many years ago seems to have dried up at the psychic border. Intellectually, I know there's no solution except sitting down and writing--in fact, that's what I've always told my own RL authors with great authoritativeness. Too bad the speech doesn't seem to work on the speechmaker.
A WIP has been tagging along with me from computer to computer since the turn of the 21st century. I posted a draft to a private ST fic mailing list in 2001 or so, got some good feedback from the list members and from my beta readers, and resolved to finish it and post it on my (now dead) personal website.
And yet here we are, almost a quarter of a century later, and I haven't made any progress beyond the first ~6,500 words (maybe half of the story?). It's as if the tap that once gushed unending streams of plot, pacing, and character development into my brain has been turned off and soldered shut by some cheapskate landlord.
Every once in a while, I take out the draft and read it through and think, Huh, that's not too bad, I could probably do something with that, and then I put it away without taking any action. I did that again recently, for the first time in a few years, only to realize that I've been jossed by SNW.
I've been generally liking my main character's modern-day portrayal in SNW, but until now I hadn't thought about how close (in general attributes, not in fine detail) the SNW character is to the character in my 20+-year-old WIP.
So I'm asking myself--is there a story here that's still worth telling, a story that will hold a reader's interest? I'm still invested in the character and the universe, and if someone else wrote the story I'd probably consume it in one sitting. But if TPTB are doing a reasonable job of showing character development that more or less aligns with my perception, will I really be able to add anything that illuminates the character further? Will readers be interested in learning about "whatever happened to" a character whose backstory and personality have been reimagined in the current canon?
Even if the answer is yes, I can't seem to get restarted when I have the draft open onscreen.
Much has been written about overcoming writer's block (see Diane Duane, for example). But all the good advice doesn't help when that mystical electrical charge of inspiration and character insight is missing.
Maybe part of the problem is the reason for writing. Claire Gabriel, my first and finest beta reader, taught me that many fan authors write solely for self-expression; they're interested in exorcising demons or documenting fantasies. But those who write to be read--those who want to honour the craft and tell an engrossing story that values character, setting, plot, and theme--well, they may have a more difficult job to do, if only because so much hard "bricklaying" work is involved in the act of creation. I'd place myself in the second group, but sometimes I really, really wish I was in the first.
I'd like to be able to produce some fic output again, but the supply of whatever magic creative powder I inhaled so many years ago seems to have dried up at the psychic border. Intellectually, I know there's no solution except sitting down and writing--in fact, that's what I've always told my own RL authors with great authoritativeness. Too bad the speech doesn't seem to work on the speechmaker.
