Function and Malfunction · 4:15pm Jun 27th, 2019
Blog Number 57: Mission Statement Edition
After one hundred stories and one million words, it's probably time you learned where I'm going with all this fanfic-ing. Short answer: via a gradual course on novel-writing to 10,000,000 words in the bank. Assuming I don't die or go insane first.
See, here's the plan at the moment:
- Write short fanfiction stories (say, 10,000 words apiece) to test my personal hypotheses on how to write a good story. (E.g. replace the "villains act, heroes react" philosophy of storytelling with a "heroes act, villains hinder" philosophy, or find ways to subvert and play around with storytelling conventions unpredictably).
- During this time, nail the twelve major components of writing: characterization, narrative structure/plotting, point-of-view/narrative voice, the texture and "music" of the prose, vocabulary and word choices, literary and figurative devices, genre conventions and subversions, worldbuilding, dialogue, grammar and punctuation, pacing and flow, theme and guiding concept(s).
- Progress from there to writing longer stories (say, 20,000-50,000 words) using the hypotheses that work out or appeal to me.
- Progress from there to writing novels (60,000 words plus), say once a year, as technique improves and overall narrative strategy becomes clear.
- Progress from there to writing novel series (120,000 words plus), at any rate from one novel a year to one novel a month depending on practicality and/or ambition.
- FINALLY: Publish original novels professionally, using what I've learned from steps 1 to 5.
Someone's probably looking at this list and thinking, "You reckless maniac!" So... here's why I think it's at least feasible:
- From previous experience, I've proven capable of writing at a rate of 60,000 words per month, which happily equals the lowest unambiguous word count for a story to be regarded as a novel. This roughly equates to 730,000 words per year, which allows for plenty of opportunities per year to practise and refine the theories I want to try out.
- It also provides a reasonable time frame for reaching 10 million words, or roughly 10,000 hours of practise within 14 years, a rate that strikes a good balance between not rushing too much but not taking too long to get up to full speed. 10,000 hours, according to some tangential but promising psychological studies, is roughly the average amount of time for expertise in a particular (complex) field to develop.
- Moreover, there's no shortage of ideas for me to work with. Many of my incomplete and cancelled stories were previous if unsuccessful attempts at novel-writing, and many more concepts await.
- Thanks to last year's achievement, I now have definite proof that a novel is within my capabilities.
And why I'm having problems getting to that point:
- I'll tentatively accept I'm a "good" writer. What I want to be is a "great" writer. The mismatch is overambitious, but it doesn't make me feel any better knowing that.
- I don't write even when I've got more than enough time to write in, more than enough enthusiasm about the concepts and characters to be written, and more than enough appreciation that practice makes perfect.
- I think I'm too sensitive to changes in mood, which is why I groan whenever I realize a project will take more than a day to finish (because tomorrow I might not feel the same way I do today).
- All too often, I find it hard to believe that anyone will miss it if I don't write it. So why not just keep it safely in my head to amuse the only audience member guaranteed not to hate me for it?
- I hate screwing up. Makes it hard to write even a first draft, never mind to publish it for a less-than-sympathetic public audience.
- Everyone else seems to have a miraculous X-factor that makes their awesome writing effortless, they are often rewarded way beyond what I get, and I feel like just a middling robot trying to understand this human thing called "emotion" or "comedy" or "drama".
- This fandom feels like it's dying at times, and whatever glory I might have gotten five years ago is a laughable delusion now.
- But I don't know any better outlet for feedback/people who might understand what the hell I'm talking about. Even restricting ourselves to writing and excluding pony, the last creative writing club I joined talked mostly about poetry. Besides, I suspect I'm too much of a literary philistine to get much out of that kind of avenue.
- Why write now to get better later when I can study and research my way to writing better prose now? And I'll do the actual writing tomorrow, and then tomorrow again, and then tomorrow again...
- Me saying, "For the love of all things beautiful, don't let me muck up this idea I've been cherishing for years."
- Me wondering why the buzz of getting published and liked only lasts a day or two at best. The writing takes way longer.
- Everyone else seems to have done it first and done it better. My efforts are existentially superfluous.
- Me wondering, "I've been dreaming of a writing career for as long as I've lived. Why hasn't it happened yet?"
I really want to make this work, and sometimes I'm sure I know how, and I laugh and see how obvious it all is if I just stick the course. Too often, it feels like I've set myself up to fail. Or I'm too stupid, or lazy, or incompetent to get anywhere really, when push comes to shove. I hate that feeling.
Unfortunately, I've no remedy at the moment other than Boxer the Horse's phrase from Animal Farm: "I will work harder!"
Again, assuming I don't die or go insane first.
Lastly, yes I know quantity does not equal quality. There are specific stories I want to write and publish; I've got more substance on my mind than "here's a jug of 10,000,000 words, please fill it up with whatever".
Alas, announcing anything more concrete to a public audience risks jinxing myself with stories yet unpublished or unfinished, to say nothing of getting hopes up unnecessarily. I don't need jinxes right now. At least a word count is more measurable and controllable than determining whether or not what I just wrote is genuinely "good", a word which I have many, many problems understanding.
There'll be a proper blog post in July once I've passed the vaunted middle of the year checkpoint. Trying to focus on the positive topics to report when that day comes, but frankly there's no getting around the fact that I'm not much impressed with how the last six months went. I know I can be better than a few short stories and a hundred go-nowhere ideas. I intend to make it better, sooner or later. I will work harder.
Until then, Impossible Numbers out.
Statistics
List of Reviews
N/A
Fics Accepted By Equestria Daily
Sunset in the Otherworld made it through, to no real fanfare (I mean darn it, even Equestria Daily feels slow these days). Now I'm seeing if Knitting Encouragement gets in, and there'll only be a couple more from 2017 that I want to submit before I start sending in the 2018 ones.
New Stories
Before the Rot Sets In.
New Updates
N/A
Story Count: 100.
7 in 2019.
29 in 2018.
26 in 2017.
16 in 2016.
2 in 2015.
0 in 2014.
8 in 2013.
9 in 2012.
3 in 2011.
Age: 2,753 days, or 393 weeks and 2 days.
Working: 19 days in December 2011, 2x366 days for 2012 and 2016 leap years, 5x365 days for 2013 and 2014 and 2015 and 2017 and 2018, and 177 days for 2019 so far combined.
My Follower Count: 244.
My Followed Count: 252.
