Adventures in Low(er) Quality Writing! · 1:34am Mar 5th, 2014
So now that my former nemesis Skywriter, and my Royal Canterlot Library co-curators Chris and Horizon, have all kicked out new top-notch Luna stories for AugieDog's Luna contest—and now that I've hit 300 followers, while typing this sentence—I've decided to try something new and different. Hopefully I won't regret it.
I've been talking with some folks from the Intelligent Shipping Discussion group lately (bats and bookplayer in particular), and it's motivated me to try to be more productive with my pony words. Something that I've noticed a lot lately is that I find it hard to write because I really, really want my stuff to be good. You might think this is a positive thing, but it creates a couple serious problems.
One, it makes sitting down and writing a lot harder, because I feel like I'm doing a terrible job if I spit out bronze or silver rather than gold or platinum. Writers, above all, need practice—and it's hard to get practice when you put enormous pressure on yourself to try to be better than you've been before. When I look at stories like "The Amazingly Awesome Adventures of Tank the Tortoise (by R. Dash)" or "The Curious Incident of the (Robot) Dog in the Night-time", I'm struck by how easy they were to write. In both cases, I didn't really worry about quality. "Amazingly Awesome Adventures" didn't even have a pre-reader. On the other hand, Bell, Book & Candle, "A Filly's Guide to Not Making Headlines", and "Three Nights" have all involved a lot more of me beating my head against the wall trying to perfect my writing. I think those latter three are great products—I think the extra work shows—but it's creatively draining, especially when it means I can only kick out one story every few months.
Two, it makes editing much, much harder. When every word comes like blood squeezed from a stone, it's hard to step back from them and say that some of what I'm writing doesn't work. And it makes me very impatient to publish: as soon as I have something I can post, I want to rush it onto the site because it's been so long since I've gotten feedback on a story. This is just a bad situation all around. My good stories deserve to not have my frustrations holding them back.
So I'm going to try something a little different. We'll see how this goes.
You folks might remember about a month ago when I bought some very good beer and had a drunk writing session. The product, aside from hilarity and camaraderie, was part of the first chapter of a story I called "Twilight Sparkle Investigates". It's the sort of premise that lends itself well to serialization, and I sat down this afternoon and did a rough sketch of a 20-episode story that would fit nicely into the format. I want to see what happens when I try to write—and publish—with something like a regular schedule. I'm going to try to get the first episode rewritten, cleaned up, and publishable by Thursday. Then, I'm going to try to publish a new chapter either every Thursday or every second Thursday; I haven't quite decided. These episodes will not be pre-read (by anyone other than me), and I'm giving myself permission to write stuff that sucks. The important thing, I think, is that I need to be writing, and doing it regularly.
This also doesn't spell the demise of any other projects. I'm actually hoping that getting myself into a regular habit of writing and tackling material in a more spontaneous way will help me get more done on my other projects. I had to throw away about two days worth of writing on "Meanwhile, Back at the Palace" today, and I feel a lot more comfortable with that, because that's two days over a span of three, not two days over a span of thirty. But to let you guys know how more about the status on my writing, I'm also going to toss up a tracking widget for my user page where you can see the status on... let's say four projects at a time. I put together a list of the story ideas I've come up with over the last year, and I've got a load of them. It shouldn't be too hard to pick four and track my progress on them. In fact, I already know what I'll start with.
If you want the tl;dr here, I'm going to try publishing some less polished stuff, but doing so more often, because I think it's going to help me get more done on the stories I really care about. Also, fancy new widget coming on my userpage in a couple minutes (for selected values of 'fancy').
Remember: Silverwork has a place in every dragon's hoard.
Also, you should do that drunk thing again.
Also also, who was going to make that Skype group?
Good. I was wondering when/if that story was ever gonna pop up.
Well, I'm in favor of this. I've toyed with trying some kind of scheduled writing myself, but I doubt I ever will. Even if it doesn't work out, it'll no doubt be some sort of learning experience.
Good luck! That's what Obiter Dicta is meant to be for me.
I got the 'permission to suck' part down. It's the 'write regularly' that I suck at.
1896541
Drunk writing is dangerous. I tried it once. The results were unspeakable.
1896541
I'd been thinking about doing a repeat for Valentine's Day, but wound up short on both beer and ambition.
Current plans are to do this Friday, 18 April while I'm at BABSCon for extra entertainment factor.
Everything that got me noticed was written for a writing prompt, either in the TwiLuna / Twilestia forums here, or for the former TMP. I posted them here all but unedited and barely proofread, even by me. At my peak for TMP I could (with luck, an outline, notes, and lots of planning) hammer out 900-1000 words in 30 minutes, after which I usually needed a nap and a drink. Or a drink and a nap, I forget. Purple Prose and Filly's Guide were what kept me smashing your Follow button, but I guarantee I'd have read and enjoyed them without all the extra effort, for principle and premise if nothing else.
TL;DR version: try it. Write fast and loose and trust your instincts, you'll amaze yourself.
I was going to type something in response but I realized I typed everything I was going to say here about half a year ago over here. It's probably more efficient than my trying to recreate it.
1896532
I need to print that up and frame it on my wall.
This is something I need to work on, too. Who cares how good the fics that don't exist are? That's why I gave myself a deadline. But-- augh.
Apparently, I don't have the nerve to ask you to look at it. That's an interesting observation.
1896622
There would have been something painfully ironic about the lack of efficiency it would have entailed if you hadn't linked to that piece. Which I'd never read before, because I don't follow Chris's blog half so regularly as I should.
That was an excellent piece of work, there, and I'm a better person for having read it. Thank you.
So, the first episode is going to be the Twilight investigates alcohol story? Sign me up!
Oh jeez, I know exactly how you feel. I have a huge, epic story that I haven't started writing yet because I want to plot down each arc ahead of time perfectly so that I don't have to fuck up and start over. Recently I've taken steps to make sillier projects that I don't have to worry about as much so I can get some writing practice in.
That doesn't solve my other problem of getting distracted from writing, but it's a start.
1896532
That's some GOOD wisdom right there.
You know, I always did prefer silver to gold.
1896560
Oh come on. You're among friends here.
Hahaha.
1896560
I do all my writing drunk.
Like, literally all of it, save the 30-minute stories. I even slugged down a couple shots before showing up to the Iron Author event to do 'The One'.
There's an ethanol-fueled free-association engine in my head.
More seriously, I think I'm just way too buttoned down sober. I can't manage to let myself do/risk/try anything. It's an ongoing battle.
1897737
Drunk Ghost is a strange creature. Even moreso than the sober version. What happens, basically, is that the bit of me that goes "Do people really care about that?" gets drowned in ethanol and so you can get long disquisitions on why I think Latin grammar is really interesting, discussions on visual variables in mapmaking, or, in the quoted case, a half-finished essay on abstruse sociopolitical theory all about what 'culture' is.
As you may imagine, exposure to Drunk Ghost is not a pleasant experience.
1897804
Drunk Ghost sounds reasonably entertaining to me. He just might need an edit pass the next morning
When I'm rolling, my brain fells like a nuclear reaction: concepts birth little ideas that run into other concepts and ideas, and it just cascades along merrily.
I've hit that state sober, but it's harder; it's like alcohol is a neutron moderator.
1897804
1897825
I've never been able:
To get past the horrible flavor of alcoholic beverages. A single sip of beer or wine or liqueur or what have you scrunches my face up like a mouthful of vinegar and quickly turns my attention back to my water glass. Just shy of the half-century mark, and I've never once been drunk. I feel downright disreputable.
Mike
1898767
Try a daiquiri! The whole point of those is to not even be able to tell they're alcoholic.
My parents started allowing me sips of their wine from a very young age, so that has had an effect on my taste buds. I'm still not one much for beer, though. Too bitter, mostly. Wine, whiskey, brandy, and cider are my arsenal. To me, they are delicious and subtle things, but you're not the first person I've ever heard from who couldn't stand anything alcoholic.
1898767
I can second 1898836 on this one. Daiquiris or Schnappeses tend to be very easy for non-drinkers, as do high orange juice content screwdrivers (OJ and vodka). Personally, I like margaritas better if you're going for sweet stuff, but they do have more bite.
When I was growing up, I wasn't a fan of alcohol, but then I moved to Japan and I was force-fed it at every opportunity, and now I love it. Scotch, gin, tequila, beer, wine, I'm down for just about anything. My favorites are probably good single-malt Islay Scotch and martinis, though, just because that's what I usually get when I drink with the folks I usually drink with. It's definitely an acquired taste, but... it's just so interesting palette-wise.
I have no idea what 1896560 drinks, but he deserves re-notification of the conversation!
So I guess we're in the same boat then? Or almost the same boat. You got my perspective via that email of course.
1898767
1898836
1898912
Since we are discussing alcohol—I don't drink beer. Can't. I've tried, but it is utterly unpalatable to me. Foul. Bitter. Horrible. I do drink wine, of course.
Aside from that, I've a fairly broad taste. Quite unlike AugieDog I like the flavor of alcohol, considerably more than the feeling of intoxication. My favorite general-purpose drink is probably the gin and tonic (it's a standard for a reason), and my favorite special-occasion drinks are various fruit brandies/eaux-de-vie. My very favorite is quince brandy[1] with walnut[2] brandy being a close second and plum brandy being third. I'm also partial to rum and whiskey.
Despite liking alcohol quite a bit, I don't drink that much. Special occasions, mostly, or a drink with friends, rarely.
[1] Yes, it exists. And, yes, it is delicious.
[2] The color of distilled night, sweet as sin, can be over 100 proof, and gives no sign of the latter quality right up until the point when you fall down.
His friends are the people he cares most about impressing! That's why he has me pre-read for him instead.
1897737 That's a really bad habit. See if you can use some less-destructive drug instead, like shrooms, or powdered unicorn horn.
1896532 Everyone understands this except me.
1899741
I have a stout German/Irish hybrid liver, and when I say 'drunk', I mean 'just buzzed enough to lighten my head'. I'm definitely in trouble if I ever try to make a living off of writing, though.
I'm afraid I've taken a moral stance against powdered unicorn horn, though. The legitimate trade in unicorn horns from supposedly 'natural' deaths serves as cover for a terrible poaching industry. I've sworn off.
1899638
Bitterness is also why I can't do beer. I find some very, very low IBU beers stomachable, but I do mean low--10 IBU or so. People tell me this should mean I don't like heavy red wines either, but that's just the opposite of the case. My little wine fridge is full of Bordeaux-style blends, Cabernets, Merlots, and Malbecs.
I'm happy with cider for a light drink. It's so appropriately thematic when writing about ponies, too! I had a bottle of applejack with me at Everfree last year, and that is what I had some of before doing Iron Author.
I don't even know how you'd make walnut brandy. Is it a normal fruit brandy that's had walnuts soaking in it while it ages, or what?
1900226
1899638
Same here regarding beer, (this actually came up in Bradel's little drunk writing get-together. He recommended looking for microbrews). I just can't STAND the bitterness the hops adds. Not much of a wine drinker either, but I did once have a spiced wine I found VERY tasty.
In general I prefer sweet alcohol, especially rum. Strangely enough, I have a taste for tequila as well.
Sometimes I think I might actually have some success at this whole "writing" thing if I got tipsy first.
1900266
Hey, that's how I got started. I literally started writing 'Snit' out in the comments of one of Device Heretic's blog posts because I was drunk.
Try it! Fun for the whole family!
1900387
This can only end really well or so hilariously awful it's worth doing anyway.
I suspect that all this advice about the importance of revising comes about because producing something and making it good are separate skills, each of which work best with undivided attention, and ...
Wait, no, wait. We're talking about booze now.
Uh. I like Kronenbourg?