We now return to your regularly scheduled programming. · 6:48pm Jul 26th, 2015
So while I was away, I managed to write my 15,000th word of that Twilight/Rarity thing that came up a little while ago; it feels like I'm more than halfway done, but I can't tell just how much more. With short stories that are only a scene or two in length it's difficult for them to drift away from your original idea when you go to write them out (although it does happen), but longer stuff has this habit of wanting to keep making itself longer. I like the metaphor about writing where what you're working on is like an excavation, like you're pulling some work of art out of the ground that's been long-buried. It isn't entirely yours, your creation, but it is your responsibility, and you're in charge of making sure it comes out intact and restored to its former glory: sometimes you snap a bit off and you have to patch it back together; sometimes bits are just missing when you haul it out of the earth and you have to kind of make up on your own how to finish the thing; sometimes you fuck up completely and break bits off and lose them, like the Venus de Milo's arms. Sometimes you think you've found something small when it's really just the tip of some massive structure, which is what often puts me off writing very long things -- I have a bunch of ideas that are really only one or two scenes that are connected to gargantuan epics that I'm not brave enough to try digging out of the ground. But this Twilight/Rarity thing, I've felt around most of the places that are left to dig, and I've got a pretty good idea of what it's going to look like once it's whole. So with the Writer's Training Ground(*) wrapping up for a little while over the hiatus in a week or so, the grass in which I've been wiping all the crud off my writing weapon, hopefully I have something I can call a first draft to look at in a little while.
And then comes the editing. Ugh. Another reason to write mostly short things, they don't need a lot of editing because you don't have a lot of room and freedom to make mistakes. But that's probably a subject for later on.
(*) The prompt I missed is hot garbage, but I'm still going to do it retroactively. Last year I didn't miss a week while having a newborn baby to adjust to. This year I moved, which is like the biggest inconvenience you can possibly inflict on a human being. I'll be damned if I'm taking a week off even if the prompts continue to be amazingly mediocre.
If you like prompt based writing, you should check out the Writeoff. Might give you something to work with over the hiatus, and unlike the Training Grounds, you're guaranteed to get feedback on any submissions.You just missed the deadline for the one that just started, but I'm pretty sure they're monthly.
Just something to look into.