New England (Expanded) and How I Write. (WARNING: Angry Rant) · 1:39am May 16th, 2014
So this morning I woke up like I usually do: Buried under like fifteen blankets, covered in cold sweat, with the sunshine from my panoramic bedroom window-wall streaming in and gently poking me awake. I tore off my blankets, enthusiastic to start my day, when the serial pedophile known as Mister Cold As Fuck New England Mornings came in through my open window and urinated forcefully on my shirtless body.
'So' ...I thought later, as I sat in the hot shower to decompress my near diamond-hard nipples... 'What kind of blog post could I write today that would simultaneously bitch about the shitass mornings around here AND explain my writing process?" Well, I've got the first part right here: DON'T move to New England if you value your sanity any more than a frayed piece of string. The weather around here swings back and forth like a motherfucking seesaw.
On Monday this week, it was eighty Fahrenheit plus and Amity was like a friggin' toaster oven. I actually took my t-shirt and wore it OVER the back of my chair, just so I could walk around between periods without trailing back-sweat like that slug dude from Monsters Inc.. And then on Tuesday, when I dressed in shorts and a surf top, Jehovah or whoever the hell my god is decided to have some good fun and drop the temperature to fucking Absolute Zero. (45 Degrees Fahrenheit).
Also. For those of you who don't live on the eastern seaboard, here's a fun fact: When we go to bed here in Bumblefuck Nowhere, it's usually around sixty or seventy. Seems nice, right? Leave your window open, get a good draft? Well, the reason that it's so hot at around 10PM or so is because (on Long Island, at least) we have a near-constant cloud-cover that rolls in just as it gets dark and dissipates soon after.
This means that the mornings can drop to like thirty or forty even in the summer. Which, in tandem with the loud-ass bird's nest that inevitably gets built above your room, makes you regret ever opening your window. EVER.
...
So, writing.
I recently browsed through my Gdocs files, did some math, and found out something ASTOUNDING: For every EIGHT fan-fictions I write, ONE gets published on FIMFiction (or anywhere).
I really don't know about this. It's kind of strange when you think about it: considering that most of my writing involves copious amounts of pot and/or tequila, and is the textual equivalent of a badly-written Spaceballs. I never really realized it before today, but I'm REALLY picky with my crappy writing.
When I think up an idea for a crackfic, I write it. No exceptions. Every time a "great" idea pops into my head, I take out whatever writing utensil is on hand and begin typing.
I don't make up jokes beforehand- I just think of a funny concept or situation and start creating. By the time I've written a bit, I have a really good sense of whether the idea is a real gold-mine for comedy. I simply write in circles, or linearly if that makes sense, and make funny shit happen as I go along. I have never written a fic (in the last two years, at least) in more that one sitting. The way I know when to ditch it one is when I stop typing or run out of jokes to make.
So, scrolling through Google Drive, I can spot a few things. Number one is that most of my "stagnant" and unpublished stories stopped getting funny (and written) right around the 600-700 word mark.
I think that this happens because I have a bank; A subconscious reservoir of funny remarks and situations that I have not yet used in writing. And these kinds of things, mostly canned slapstick humor and offhand remarks, tend to "run out" at about that point. And so I have come to realize- most of my more well-received or even published works have some element of deadpan humor and satire to them.
For example: Vinyl Scratch Becomes The Chief Justice, while a crackfic, was also a result of me watching of a movie about how Supreme Court judges can use their power and influence to keep their jobs well into senility. I decided to write about someone lackadaisically taking the job and dumping it after one case, mostly because I was "experimenting" with what would happen if a young and bombastic drunk were to have the job instead. (Naturally, Vinyl fell RIGHT into that equation.) It ended up being my most popular fic ratio-wise.
A close second would probably The Elements Of Harmony Get A Firmware Update. This work certainly didn't deal with the kind of political irreverence that Chief Justice did, instead taking a far more obvious road and making fun of mobile operating systems.
So I'm going to think on this for a bit. Maybe I should change my writing process- any advice would certainly be welcome from any of you.
Yours through rape,
-Cade YYZ , ,
P.S.: In two-thirds of my most popular fics, I kill off Blueblood. Just a thought.
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It's one of the stupid school blocks keeping me from direct editing; so I have to put it in all at once with copypasta. But about 5/8, I would say.
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Ya got it, m8