let's play good thing/ bad thing again

[melannen]

Good thing: They finally got me scheduled for my election judge training! Yay, tonight in the snow I get to learn our new voting system which will actually involve a hardcopy record of the votes for the first time in decades!

Bad thing: ugggghhhh can I just ignore politics until the inevitable fall of global capitalist civilization is finally ovvveerrr.

Bad thing: Still haven't found the USB drive with the next chapter of the fic I was using to ignore the election, I think it fell out of my pocket in public somewhere and is gone forever. (Also still haven't found the glasses, which is more worrying, because I know I lost them at home or in the yard somewhere, but where??? And also the warranty expires in like a week, I was going to try to get them replaced, but the warranty does not cover 'lost them'.)

Good thing: I think the only thing I lost from the drive was the one chapter, because I'd backed it all up after finding it after the last time I thought it was gone for good (last week). (I hope I never gave anyone the impression that I have my shit together.)

Good thing: Losing the USB key motivated me to finally finish the second original novelette! (I've been keeping the original stuff on Drive because that way I can't use "I lost my USB key" as an excuse for not working on them.) Thinking about what I put in the last post helped. It's a crappy ending but it's serviceable and the whole thing needs a major, major total revision anyway.

Bad thing: I have been super-unmotivated to write. Also to read. Or listen to podcasts, or watch TV, or basically anything, because I have been in a "what's the point of it all in the face of the coming climate catastrophe and fall of global capitalism anyway?" It's amazing how few things there are in existence that don't remind me of the upcoming fall of global capitalism.

Bad thing: ...I think maybe I will not be finishing Baru Cormorant before it has to go back to the library.

Good thing: Baby camels. Baby camels helped. Camels are an invasive species on three continents, so I'm pretty sure there will still be baby camels regardless.

Good thing: Also I got my period, which generally works as a total mood reset for things like nihilistic despair over the coming catastrophic fall of our technological civilization (I realize this is the best menstrual symptom ever, I'm not complaining). Plus I remembered one of the stories on my to-write pile was a little thing about Death set during a pandemic after the coming climate catastrophe and fall of etc. etc., so I started writing that, and it has really cheered me up a lot.

Bad thing: I forgot my cup so now I have to stop home after work to get it so I don't bleed all over the training and maybe won't have time to get a good dinner. That I will complain about.

Bad thing: I am so so so so blocked on doing revisions on the stories I've actually written. I know I have whined about 'revision is hard' before, but that's, like, 'revision is hard' is actually. Several steps beyond where I have gotten, which is 'I printed out the story and am now afraid to re-read it because WHO KNOWS WHAT COULD BE IN THOSE PAGES. What if it's terrible? What if it's good??? I don't know which would be worse actually.

Anyway, talking out the endings thing helped, so I'm going to whine about revision here at length,

So, why I am so blocked??

First, because I don't know what I am doing. It took a long time to figure out that the best way to make me procrastinate on something is for me to not know what to do. You would think I would have noticed sooner, but I guess when you're a kid and adults' response is 'it's so easy if you just sit down and do it! you know this! why don't you just do it!' it gets hard to articulate that you can't because you're afraid you might be doing it wrong.

I don't know if I have ever in my life done the kind of revision I want to do on these stories, with anything longer than, like, one scene. I was always a good enough writer that in school I could get away with line edits even when we were required to turn in multiple drafts (i know how to do line edits on my own stuff!) and then after that nobody ever made me, so I never bothered.

I have done as much reading as I can on how to do revision on fiction? But it's all been aimed at novels, and even then-- most of it has been advice on craft, 'this is what you need to fix and what it should look like afterward,' not 'first you do this step, and then this step, and then this step.'

I suppose it's really personal as a process, but the creative writing workshops I did were really crappy when it came to that kind of 'this is the process' stuff, so I don't even have a firm place to stand on to figure out what goes into that personal process, you know? Plus when I see examples of before-and-after-revision stories I nearly always like the pre-revision version better, so that doesn't help build trust.

THAT SAID, I did read a bunch of stuff that actually did go into process, and I have a notebook with sort of step-by-step process I can try. I think I do, anyway, I wrote it in the notebook and have been to terrified to open the notebook since then?

As long as I do not open the notebook it is Schrodinger's Story. I have a memory of what I wrote, but my memory is clearly inaccurate since I can't even remember if it sucks or not. as long as I don't read it there is a POSSIBILITY that it is actually a really good story. There's also a POSSIBILITY that it is a story with a few clear and obvious flaws that it will be a sheer pleasure to fix. And there's a POSSIBILITY that it's a terribly written story about a pointless idea that I never should have written in the first place.

wHAT ARE THE ODDS TO COLLAPSE THAT WAVEFORM.

I mean, writing is hard because, as I know a lot of writers agree, there is a perfect story in your head, and you know for a fact that when you write it down you will ruin the perfect story. I bulled past that on these stories by starting with stories I didn't have a ton invested in, and by reminding myself I could fix it in revision, but now of course I've written them so I *do* have a ton invested in them, and of course if I totally flub the revision it will be TOO LATE to fix it in revision I will have ruined it FOREVER.

this is the inflection point between 'i want to be a writer but I don't actually write much' and 'i am a bad writer' and it is sooooo scary.

I don't know if that helped. Maybe that helped. Somebody, tell me what I need to do next in order to revise the thing.

Comments

[recessional]

Except it won't be too late to fix it in revision because you can ANYWAYS REVISE AGAIN.

That's the magic bit about writing.

[melannen]

But if I'm not good enough to fix it nowww maybe it will just be bad forevvveeerrrr.\

Or more likely maybe I will kill it by revising it too many times (which I have done with art, and with 'first hundred words of things' so I know it happens. :/

The plan is actually to do a first-pass revision so it is at least coherent (right now a character suddenly disappears halfway though a scene), and then see if I can find betas, but that means if I fail the first-pass revision I will get OTHER PEOPLE telling me it sucks, noooo

(I did warn about the whining, right)

[recessional]

Or maybe if it is not working now, later you will have had more practise and have more skills, so you can take a fresh look at it later. Save old drafts and then if "too much revising" gets to it now you can put it away and try again after it's had some time to rest.

I sincerely doubt other people will tell you it sucks. At most, you will get some people going "so this bit didn't work for me" and it will be something to take into consideration.

Deep breaths. Catastrophising is always distracting. We write, we practise, we write more, we learn, and there's no right or wrong way to do anything except what does our doesn't get the reaction you want out of the audience you've targeted.

shares tea

Re edit : you did! I just have a habit of being uncalled for reasonable and calm about these things, and genuinely do think one of the biggest advantages of writing is that we can always come back and fix it later. Even if later turns out to be much later.

[melannen]

Yeah, I know most of this intellectually, I'm just trying to get out the catastrophizing now and then maybe next time I get a chance to sit down with it I will be able to. (We'll see.)

The last time I finished an original short story was in 2003 and I put the draft aside to read and revise later and I still haven't managed to look at it again, because I am ridiculous sometimes. (What if I reread that one and it's better than what I'm writing now??? nooo)

[stellar_dust]

Don't worry, in the coming post-capitalist dystopia there will be no market for finished short stories, you can just tell them over and over again around the campfire until you get them right!

You can send me the things if you want! I am in the middle of my own "I don't know what to do with this" procrastination over dissertation data so would be pleased to have more things to procrastinate with.

[melannen]

"It won't matter after the fall of the global capitalist dystopia" IS NOT THE WAY TO FIX IT, THANKS.

....also I suck at campfire stories because I used to try to tell my stories to my sister and she'd say it was boring and I should go away. TOO LATE NOW. :P

[vass]

I think maybe I will not be finishing Baru Cormorant before it has to go back to the library.

How far in are you? I'm up to chapter 16, and have renewed my library loan twice already. I do want to finish it, I do care what happens, it just... hurts.

As long as I do not open the notebook it is Schrodinger's Story. I have a memory of what I wrote, but my memory is clearly inaccurate since I can't even remember if it sucks or not. as long as I don't read it there is a POSSIBILITY that it is actually a really good story. There's also a POSSIBILITY that it is a story with a few clear and obvious flaws that it will be a sheer pleasure to fix. And there's a POSSIBILITY that it's a terribly written story about a pointless idea that I never should have written in the first place.

I hear this. :(

[melannen]

I've only got as far as her leaving for her very first assignment. It is a really good book! But it's one of those books that's so unrelievedly horrible I start wanting to make excuses for the bad guys just to try to find a little bit of light in the universe, and then I hate both myself *and* the story, abd it's so good and trying to tell such important stuff that I hate myself for hating it, and what with the inevitable climate catastrophe etc. etc. it's probably just the wrong time for it for me.

Apparently there was a short story set just after the book, published in BCS before the book was written, that spoils the heck out of it. I might just try reading that and call it good.

[vass]

I feel like I'm missing the point of the novel by saying this, but I want to read Baru's parents' story. All three of them.

I thought I'd love Baru as a character -- an accountant hero! I find accounting fascinating! -- and I do, but watching a character I love be so comprehensively set up not just to lose but to fail, Hamartia-style, is very hard to take.

[untonuggan]

First, because I don't know what I am doing. It took a long time to figure out that the best way to make me procrastinate on something is for me to not know what to do. You would think I would have noticed sooner, but I guess when you're a kid and adults' response is 'it's so easy if you just sit down and do it! you know this! why don't you just do it!' it gets hard to articulate that you can't because you're afraid you might be doing it wrong.

THIS

THIS IS MY PROBLEM RIGHT NOW

[untonuggan]

sometimes I have to trick myself into fixing things?

idk if that works for you

like

if my brain/creativity were a cat hiding under a sofa, i do not drag the scared cat out in the open
or stick my head under the sofa and go HI CAT I AM YOUR FRIEND
i pretend the cat is not there and i maybe do something enticing so the cat gets curious and comes out

so like when i get stuck with knitting, sometimes I tell myself I am just going to make sure I have the right notions in the bag with the project I am sure is ruined. and maybe bring it with me to knit night with a group of sympathetic people there to coax me along (or maybe have it around when no one is there to see my HORRIBLE ERROR OF SHAME depending)

with writing i'm still working it out, but last night what worked was being all "i am just going to open the files and have them open. I don't have to DO anything. I'm just going to open them and look at music playlists."

idk what your particular catnip is, but. that is a thing maybe.

[melannen]

I sort of have been doing that with writing? I have gotten myself into a good run of "you just have to write 333 words, which takes almost no time, and it's so few that if they're bad it doesn't matter," and usually I can do it and it's fine.

I don't really know what the equivalent of 333 words of revision is, though? I think part of the problem is that all the process advice I found talked about going through the whole thing in one pass first to get the overall shape down, and that's not really something to break into tiny easy chunks. (I would love instructions on how to do early-draft revisions in fifteen-minute chunks but I don't think there are any.)

So far, carry the notebook places with me has not helped.

[beatrice_otter]

Question: what is the goal of the revisions? What do you hope to accomplish?

[melannen]

a) have a good story, b) sell the story to a pro-rated SF magazine.

...or do you mean, like, what kind of revisions? Story #1 I was worldbuilding-on-the-fly, so I need to go back and make the worldbuilding consistent, and it also needs some work on pacing and characterization, I think, and general punching-up, and I'd like to be able to cut it a lot, although that might not be first-pass. That one probably I could send to a beta without a major rewrite, but I need to at least re-read it and do the worldbuilding check first. I have a list of stuff in the notebook I'm afraid to open...

Story #2 I cut out a character halfway through writing, I need to change the entire first couple of scenes/setup to work without them, and I really need to make the POV character's stuff more central: they make the central choice in the story right now, but other than that they mostly stand around and observe stuff, and I don't think I've built the groundwork for that choice enough for it to work as a climax, which is probably why the ending was such a bear. Also I realized belatedly that one of the secondary characters is an abuse survivor who's being forced to deal with unwanted reminders of her abuser the whole time and I really need to either take that out (which would require changing her motivations entirely) or do a much, much better job with it. (Also, it needs worldbuilding work to, although less on consistency, more on, um, scene-setting?)

[justice_turtle]

EVERYTHING YOU SAID ABOUT REVISION. ALL OF IT. *nods vigorously*

I think the only writer I've ever seen talk about revision in a way that made sense to my brain was Rudyard Kipling, who said that when you have written a story, you should stick it in a drawer for six months, and then take it out and ink out everything you didn't need to have put in (he spoke of using india ink, I believe the modern equivalent would be sharpie), and then put it back in the drawer for six months, and then take it out and ink out all the other things you didn't need to have put in.

This does not much help with the part where characters disappear halfway through scenes and things need actual Re Writing rather than merely taking out. I haven't figured out how to revise yet either. (My writing has always been one of those things where you hammer out one word at a time and if you make it to a thousand words for Yuletide it's either a miracle or a badly-padded-out story you should've cut more of... ;P) Hence the first-draft NaNo that has the potential to be an excellent and much-needed queer novel if I could only figure out what to do with it. Opening the document just makes me cringe at how much needs to be done. ;P)

Sorry. That was a lot of babble and probably no help at all. It was meant to be sympathetic? :S