The Difference Between "Good" and "Good Enough" · 3:11pm Jun 9th, 2014
When I made this account it was basically under the condition to myself that I would never write anything longer than a One-Shot.
Given the circumstances under which I am posting this blog post (ie the posting of the second chapter of a continuing story) this may seem strange, but it all comes down to why I made this account in the first place. I am an idea person at heart. I plan a lot a write slow. This isn't just a fanfiction thing either--it's a decent characterization of my writing problems in general. I have a tendency to abandon old projects for shiny new ones when I get stuck too, so for a pretty long time I basically just forced myself to keep working on whatever I was, lest I give up at the slightest wrinkle. So about a year and a half ago I was working on my WIP Fantasy novel Alter and I hit a serious snag. I just didn't know how to reveal some information to the reader. I tried like six or seven different ways and nothing was gelling. I went weeks where I wasn't writing anything. I didn't want to drop it, but I just couldn't move forward. My main characters needed some one to tell them a secret and no one in the know would be willing to do it. I plotted in circles.
At the same time Fedora Mask and I were hanging out a lot, and I had just started to get into Ponies. I did some Beta reading for the second chapter of Lost friends, and we got to talking about the fimfiction community. I lurked a bit on the site and read a couple of stories from the featured box. I still wasn't writing.
Then, one night we were hanging out in the laundry room and I was talking about the song Lullaby for a Princess and how I really liked the complex portrayal of Celestia's character in it. I have written before about my thoughts on sisterhood, and I mostly felt that the song didn't overly simplify the relationship between Celestia and Luna. Anyway, so I told Fed I'd had an idea for a story (He'd known me for a while, "idea" conversations were almost a daily occurrence), a fanfiction about why Celestia couldn't use the Elements of Harmony anymore after banishing Luna. The idea was to frame the story with Celestia wandering around the castle at night after she had banished Luna, and to recount at the same time the story of the first night after she vanquished her sister. Fed basically convinced me after a few more details that this was a fabulous story that I needed to write immediately.
So I sat down to write. And you know what? It felt really good. I hammered out the first scene in like a day. It was beautiful, the prose was great. The emotion--Oh the emotion. Such emotion.
But you might notice that no story fitting this description currently exists on this account.
That's because I got stuck about halfway through. Not because I didn't know what happened next: I could have and still can summarize the rest of the story in great detail. I talked with Fed a lot about it, and yeah I made a bit of progress, but work was excruciatingly slow. Why? Because I was writing something Good. Like, really good. And I knew it. Every turn of the story had to be just so. I was worried about getting repetitive with the events, I had to keep the emotions building naturally without letting it peak to early. Was this speech too over the top? What if people get bored? Is the point of this story even coming across. The story, entitled Celestia Cannot Sleep, was something I couldn't just write anymore. I had to write it well, and that mean rewriting and unwriting.
So I tried writing something else. Something simpler, less fraught. One morning I jotted down some funny dialog. It was too short of course for fimfiction. Fed suggested that I just make a flash fiction story and use it as a repository for short stuff, but I decided that it could probably use some fleshing out. By the end of the summer I had done just that: added a new subplot, a bit of food porn. But now the ending wasn't good enough. I had everything except the key turning point of the story and I knew it. I also knew that I had to write it Right or the rest would fall to pieces. I let it sit for 8 months, until one night I had a break through. Then I edited hard for about Two days with a lot of help.
Thy Words was the result of my neuroticism. And I fully admit that if I had just dashed it out right away it wouldn't have been nearly as Good at was. And that's part of the problem. I wrote Thy Words to be a Good story.
Good is paralyzing. Good is neurotic. I didn't make this account to write Good Stories, I made it to WRITE!
A Good Librarian Can Find the Write Answer is my first multi-part piece on fimfiction. It is not written to be a Good story, it is written to be Good Enough. Because I want to write it. I want to finish. I want to share this story with you that has been an idea for too long.
This summer for me is going to be about Good Enough. And I hope that you all will be patient with me. I don't promise that what I am writing now will be the best that I can do. It will not be perfect of form or of prose. Some things might be uneven or unclear. But it will be Good Enough.
Let's go for a ride, shall we?
((This will also be my excuse for any and all typos.))
BRING ON THE TRUMPETS (stories)
Scratch that. I am retconning this whole post to being a three page apology to Fedora Mask for not taking some of his comments.
It is the creative individual's complaint throughout the ages: "I am my own worst critic". Learning to step back and say to yourself "Yes, this is good enough" can be truly daunting - after all, it is by our works that we are judged, and the amount of ourselves that we invest in our works can make us loathe to take step back until it is perfection in our own minds and eyes.
I guess I'm saying 'congratulations for taking this brave step'.
As for getting stuck; well, I count at least 49 individuals willing to assist in that matter, even if it is just having someone to bounce ideas off, or to hear a different, outsiders, perspective of the situation. I find that the 'answer' is often already in your own subconscious mind, and the act of describing it to another person is enough to shake it loose (or even set the story off on a different tangent that you hadn't previously considered).
Typo? Pun? Freudian slip? Unintentional plot reveal? Am I over-thinking this? (Probably)
And don't worry about the typos - you have nit-pickers like yours truly to catch them for you in post-production (with your approval, of course). Alternatively, if you are truly concerned, you could always put up a request for pre-readers/proof-readers to catch any slip-ups prior to publishing.
It is a ride that I am looking forward to.
Respectfully,
The Ponytrician.
Demanding perfection during the inspiration phase is the fastest way to not writing anything ever.
2191366 Madam, how dare you? I am uncertain that we can continue our friendship in its current vein if this is how you treat my precious pearls of writerly advice. And, might I add, HMPH!
(When you ask me to edit my job is to be an opinionated perfectionist. As a writer, your job is to write and post. So yeah. Not even a thing, LG.)
(Also I had forgotten that CCS emerged from a Night At The Laundry. There were at least 2 of those weren't there? I remember a laundry conversation where we discussed the possibility that Jasna [character for a fantasy novel I may someday return to] might believe in a morality where some people were evil, some few people had the fortitude to be really good, but most everyone was stuck in a gray zone in between, neither wholly evil nor really capable of straightforward goodness, and now that you mention it talking about CCS while staring at laundry sounds familiar. Didn't remember that being the genesis of the idea though.)
(Also way to make me hugely nostalgic for the incredible number of story conversations we've had over the years)
2191616 LISTEN TO THIS MAN RIGHT HERE HE IS A SMART MAN. And you know he's got a point because he's maintained a successful webcomic for a really long time with a regular update schedule.
In all seriousness, it's hard to let go and word-vomit, also because people like us (and really people like a large number of the writers I know) are aware of the difference between good and bad writing, and we've seen people who were just THRILLED with themselves for having written pretty bad stories or poems etc. And I think we're terrified to be those people. Nothing's worse than being proud of something and having someone think badly of it, except maybe when they also think badly of you for being proud of it.
But there really doesn't seem to be another option besides learning to write badly--or at least, not as well as you are potentially capable of--and fix later. So maybe the trick is to be that person who's proud of doing bad writing after all, not necessarily because of the writing itself, but because you were able to write in spite of feeling bad about the quality of the product.
So how much can I pay you to finish up this tantalizing Celestia story, "Celestia Cannot Sleep?" Or even just to post the first chapter? Money can be quite the motivator, you know...
2219986
Unfortunately it is only a one chapter story, so I really can't post it until it's done. I am working on it, and I think that once I get past this blocking problem I may well be in the clear. (Technically the description I give of the story is also unreliable now, since the original framing story actually split itself off into a separate, short sequel called Celestia Does Not Sleep, meaning that Celestia Cannot Sleep only covers the night after Luna's Banishment. They were both part of a hypothetical trilogy of related stories that gets progressively happier, ending with the straight Comedy "Celestia, Go to Sleep!")
2221812
Hmmm...
I have a proposition for you. See, I also have a Celestia one shot, one which I've more planned out than written. I haven't touched it in months, but I would like to. Now take this or leave it as you please (whatever you wish is fine :3 ), but I think we can help each other out. What would you say to us sharing stories? By that I mean we write and make progress and then show what we've got to each other, in hopes that it will encourage us (as we encourage each other) to write more and get us out of our funks.
We could set a deadline, say every week or so, in order to add a healthy dose of heat beneath our bottoms in order to make sure we do write, since after that week we'll share what we've gotten done. Or we toss out the deadline--whichever you're more comfortable working with, really.
Since I've only planned my story (it's about Twilight and Celestia the night after Shining and Cadance's wedding), I would first write at least as much as you have now of yours before we share for the first time.
So, what do you say?
2191366
You know something, practically everything that you wrote here mirrors exactly what I'm dealing with. Except in my case, what I'm writing is less of a story meant for FiMFiction (Something else that I'm still working on, as well) and more of a screenplay (In fact, it's one of many). I struggle to figure out what I'm going to write, how to write it and whether it will be any good. I have some of my ideas played out, but I just can't seem to get them out at times. I find myself writing slow and then stopping. Why I do this? I don't know. But, it's something that I'm trying to work through. One day at a time.
So, to make a long story short: I get where you're coming from.
Coincidentally, this other post: https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/168604/the-sandbox-that-is-my-mind summarizes how I feel when it comes to my own ideas. I have many of them, but no idea of how to put them to paper (or in this case, how to type it all out) in a way that makes sense. Something else that I'm trying to work out.
Also, this post: https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/161003/a-meditation-on-writing-preference-i-hate-empty-blogs seems like an interesting read. I'll give my full thoughts on it when I have time to re-read it again.
By the way, I found out about your work through a dramatic fanfic reading done by a YouTuber that you may have heard of named ObabScribbler. What you've written has me curious and I look forward to reading them, too.