dragonimp

Anyone want a crack-ish prompt?

Thu, 04 Jul 2013 20:27:17 GMT

There's this tumblr page I follow - imagineyourotp - that posts little shippy prompts. A recent one made me think of a fic of mine that's been stuck in limbo for I won't say how long, so I posted a snippet.

I just got this in my Ask:

You wrote that "imagine your OTP" Royed thing about Ed being in a coma? OMG. If you finish it, maybe you could have Roy finally give in and kiss Ed and Ed wakes up because he got put in a coma by some sort of alchemy that works as a Sleeping Beauty sort of deal, and omg I can't believe I just wrote that. This is what my OTP does to me. They make me actually like terrible romantic clichés.

XD That sort of begs to be written, doesn't it? Problem is, crack really isn't my forté and the fic itself already has a planned ending. So does anyone want this? Please? I'd love to see it written!

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On critiquing

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 00:12:00 GMT

When proofreading his own copy, the author sees only what he meant to write, but not what he actually wrote.

That quote was referring to technical writing, but it applies to fiction as well, and it's why I've always had a tear it to shreds policy when it comes to feedback. I know I'm too close to a work to see all its problems or to see all the ways it might be taken. I see the scene I had in my head before I wrote. I need people who see the scene I actually wrote to tell me things like did you really mean to say that here? or why is that character doing this? or I think you're missing some details here, it's really vague, etc.

Maybe it's from being raised by an editor, maybe it's from passing stories around with my friends from the time I was in high school, but I actually enjoy getting redlines. Or maybe it's because I'm a perfectionist and I know I can't get there if my eyes are the only ones on the words. It's fun to see how another person reacts to my work. Even if I don't agree with the comment, it's still fun. And it's something I miss when I don't get it.

(And I know critiquing is hard work and we read fanfic for fun, but if something jumps out at you PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make a comment about it. Really. Tell me.)

I am back to writing, finally. Slowly, but at least it's going again. Part of the problem was both fics are at a turing point and trying to iron them out while dealing with the job stress was a bit too much. But I'm back at it now, so this has been on my mind.

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-_-;;;

Sun, 05 Aug 2012 16:46:36 GMT

For those who didn't see my sudden bitch-out on Twitter/Facebook last night: I thought I was done with the next chapter. I'd even compiled it and exported it to RTF for beta'ing. But when I glanced through the RTF document, none of the rewrites I'd done in the last few days were there. So I looked back in Scrivener, and - gone. Vanished. It's like nothing I'd typed had registered. It's basically back to the rough-draft word-vomit stage. I've never had it do this before so I have no idea if the problem is my computer or the Scrivener application itself. Scrivener is usually really, really good about saving. But all of it got switched off last night just in case. We'll see. But I can't really deal with this until maybe Tuesday.

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Thu, 19 Jan 2012 06:57:49 GMT

Must ... finish ... rewrites ...... chapter ... refuses ... to end ....

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A note on updates:

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 06:29:33 GMT

I'm really sorry about this, but I've hit a rough patch that is making it hard to write :(. Be assured that nothing has been abandoned. I'll get back onto things as soon as I'm sure it won't mean sub-standard work, I promise!

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Sun, 08 May 2011 23:41:41 GMT

I scared everyone off by asking for critique, didn't I.

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rewrites and memes

Fri, 06 May 2011 17:41:17 GMT

Rewrites partly done. I will want to run these through a beta, if anyone's up for it. A good harsh beta, preferably.

And on that note:

THE ANONYMOUS WRITING FEEDBACK MEME

"Feedback" means tear into it. You can post anonymous.

And a bit lighter:
Name one of my fics in comments (or a scene from one of them) and I will (try to) tell you what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what's going on in the characters' heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you'd expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

(The challenge will be to see if I remember.)

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Greek'd text, anyone?

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 18:31:58 GMT

I use Google Docs as an intermediary between my phone and Scrivener, but this is what the documents sometimes end up looking like when they come off the phone:

The text and formatting is all there, but geez. The phone doesn't even display it that small ^^;

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Scrivener's coming for Windows!

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 23:39:39 GMT

Good news for writers, Scrivener for Windows is coming! This is an excellent writing program and I've raved about it before so I won't repeat myself, but up to now its main drawback has been that it's Mac only. The folks at Literature and Latte have been working hard at changing that and they're almost ready to go into beta!

Seriously, ficcers, give this program a look. It's not that expensive (much cheaper than Word!) and it was designed by a writer to work the way writers think. Personally, I adore it.

(Okay, I'm done gushing now.)

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Scrivs!

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 16:39:11 GMT

Latest chapter of Mother Arc is marinating, so I was playing around with Scrivener and thought I'd share the layout of my "binder":
( screenbits under cut )

Anyone care to guess what the colors mean?

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One more thing...

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 21:13:51 GMT

My urge to write manga-fic seems to have been smothered. I'm assuming it won't last, but .. interesting.

Yeah, so, back to the first anime.

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My mind can't make up its mind

Sun, 06 Jun 2010 05:23:42 GMT

Okay, my brain makes no sense sometimes. I've been trying to make edits on the latest chapter of Mother Arc for the last week or so without much luck. I've been in a discouraged bad mood since yesterday (over something unrelated) and knew I had little to no chance of making myself focus on the monster (I tried earlier in the day, but it was a no-go), but wanted to write something. Silver out because it's having more problems than Mother Arc. The other fic I'm currently working on is a liiiittle angstier than I want to deal with right now. So I did what any sane fanficcer would do and hopped over to the kink!meme.

So far it all follows a somewhat logical (for a writer) course. I snagged one of the prompts I've been eying, and went back over to Scrivener, opened up my One-shots folder and made a Scrivening. But then I happened to glance at the other editor window, where Mother Arc was still open ... and my brain decided that, actually, I want to work on that after all.

*headdesk* This would be great, except I was only going to write for 15-20 minutes and then go to bed, which isn't very helpful when one of my main concerns is the coherency of the chapter.

But yeah, looks like that's what I'm working on.

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Facebook and other stuff

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 21:09:36 GMT

I'm tempted to join Facebook just to be able to join the Respect my Privacy Facebook group.

Seriously though, convince me here: what would be the advantages of having a Facebook account? It still strikes me as kinda redundant, but it comes up so much I'm starting to wonder. Do I need yet one more social networking site y/n?

Other than that, I haven't really been able to sit down at the computer for more than 10 minutes at a time since last week. I've got a fic backlog (again), not to mention the half-edited chapter sitting open in Scrivener. But hopefully this won't last long. But on the down side, then I'll have no money again :P.

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writing software review

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:30:56 GMT

Scrivener comes in #1 but he also reviews 2 PC programs that sound really good (I'm pretending MSWord isn't on that list.) Besides, it's just entertaining to watch.

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Sun, 07 Feb 2010 07:24:32 GMT

We have bright shiny new double-paned argon windows! Unfortunately the clearing/installation/cleanup has pretty much eaten up both yesterday and today (as well as several hours earlier in the week) and my computer time has been limited. Yesterday my computer was off and pulled away from the wall for the whole morning and well into the afternoon, until I finally got to where I could shove the furniture back into position.

Of course this all means I didn't really get any writing done ^^;. But! I'm into the rewriting now.

I did get a start on the postcard which is my other obligation for help_haiti. That's going to have to go slowly, though.
(Zakai, I am working on that other picture, too, I haven't forgotten it! It's just, well, going to go slow.)

All right, my computer has issues whenever it's turned off for an extended period of time (it seems happiest when I leave it on for days and days, go fig) - I thought it was doing okay, but just now I noticed the Finder is not responding, and it wigged out when I tried to open iTunes earlier. So I'm going to have to restart, and then put it to sleep for the night, because it's gotten late.

Night, all.

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showing my ignorance

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:24:56 GMT

Old whiskey bottles, like from the 1910s, how were commonly they stoppered? For that matter, how are they stoppered now? What about brandy?

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Tue, 12 Jan 2010 05:50:09 GMT

1000 words down - on a totally random one-shot that has nothing to do with anything. Oy ^^;. I actually am getting somewhere on Silver - there are words being entered onto the page at least - but after trawling job postings and fighting with my computer I needed to work on something that didn't require so much thinking, where I could just write. So, random one-shot. I'll probably clean up this bit - the first half of it - and post it tomorrow.

Night, everyone.

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Etc.

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:53:12 GMT

I remember reading in Stephen King's On Writing the idea that we all write for a "perfect reader." His is his wife. It made a lot of sense to me because that's exactly what I do, or did. For original fiction, my perfect reader is my mom. She's also my editor.

But I realized I don't have that for fanfic (either one). I've unconsciously fallen into thinking I did a few times, only to be disappointed. I've tried to distance myself from it, but doing that is not easy and feels unnatural. I think it's only normal to write with someone in mind. So who am I writing for? Does it matter?

Not that I've been writing. I've been doing a lot of thinking about writing the last few days, but I haven't been able to get myself to sit down and put words to anything. Part of the problem is that I'm going to feel guilty no matter what I work on, and I haven't really wanted to deal with that. I know people are waiting for the fanfic, but Silver has been sitting for so long that anyone who might have been following it has probably given up. As far as I can tell, anyway. But this is my baby and I need to finish it.

Not that I've been completely unproductive. I rediscovered the joys of velour and pastel dust, and impossible to open fixative cans. I can't even express how it feels to be able to draw again. I still have to be careful, but it's not making me want to curl up and weep afterwards.

Tomorrow I will get back on the writing. Though on what, I'm not sure.

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Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:22:10 GMT

It struck me last night that they'd talked to a couple cops a few chapters back. It wouldn't be too random to bring them back in .. .I think.

Any thoughts or ideas would be much appreciated, I'm still kinda floundering here. Though I suspect most people didn't follow my babbling. I know NaNo and other things are rather pressing.

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Small update

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:33:43 GMT

A short backstory to Silver, Worth, is up at Paper Demon. I'll deal with Elfwood later.

Silver's voice is always an interesting challenge to pin down. I don't think I've yet done it justice, quite, although no one would know that but me. He's the only character I have that pushing my vocabulary in that way, for most other characters I have to tone down the academia.

I ought to be working on the main story, of course, but it's still stuck in the what-happens-next problem. I was talking with my mom about it the other day, and she gave me some ideas to work with. I miss brainstorming like that. But it still comes down to figuring out what the various characters are going to do. And working around my narrator being locked in a room.

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One last thing.

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 05:28:59 GMT

I really hate the way I obsess over things. Although I did hold off on posting until I was in a much better mood. I was going to not post at all but I think I need to get this out so it'll hopefully stop interfering with my life and getting in the way of my writing.

Like I already said, I worry that the third chapter of Now and Then comes off as a cop-out. I was worried about it when I was planning the story, I worried over it while writing, I worried about it all the way up to posting. I thought I'd be done with the worry when I posted, but I should have known better.

Critical comments are a rare thing online and in a way, that's a pity. If I'm at all uncertain about something, I tend to think people are being polite or are too scared to say anything negative. In other words, it means I can't completely trust that people are being honest. Because I know my own habits, and I know I shy away from being critical, because I've seen authors react negatively.

But as an author I hate it, I'd rather be secure in the knowledge that readers would tell me if something I posted sucked. Or even if it was just disappointing in some way. It's not only so that I can trust the positive comments; if something is off in my writing, I want to to know about it. How else would I be able to improve? I don't normally get any feedback beforehand so comments after the fact are the only thing I have.

The last thing I want right now is reassurances, because in the state of mind I'm in, I wouldn't believe them. That's why I disallowed comments on the previous post. But that seems cowardly, so they're back on. So if the last chapter was a disappointment, I'm sorry. I gave it the best ending I could while staying true to the story and what I was trying to do with it. And now I need to let this go and move on with things.

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x_x

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 05:52:16 GMT

Writing a conversation between two people who have no intention of showing their hands is ... eh ... interesting.

*bashes head*

At least it's moving forward. If painfully.

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Writing in chunks

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:20:58 GMT

( scene breakdown for Now and Then )

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Random post on spelling

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:30:18 GMT

Word and Scrivener disagree on whether it's "nicknacks" or "knickknacks". But then, Word also doesn't like "grey" or "judgement" (or "thunked"), so I think I'm going to go with Scrivener on this one. Besides, "knickknacks" has far too many Ks, it looks awkward and stuttery. (Incidentally, Safari's spellcheck doesn't have a problem with any of those words - except for "stuttery", which I think isn't actually a word - but Safari also lets "kinda" and "gonna" get through.)

(LJ's spellcheck, on the other hand, dislikes "nicknacks", "judgement", "thunked", "stuttery", and "spellcheck". It's fine with "kinda" and "gonna". It wants me to change "nicknacks" to either "nicknack's" or "knickknacks", which really doesn't make much sense. "Nicknack" can be possessive, but not plural?)

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Blue!

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 05:05:00 GMT

Ha! I found out how to display the non-printing characters in Scrivener! They're called "invisibles"! This makes me absurdly happy. And I'm well aware of the "absurd" part. But whenever I opened a document in Word for formatting, I'd react with, "oh, hello non-printing characters, I missed you~~" But now they're right there - in blue! - in my Scriv. file, and I can oogle them all I want.

::Cough:: I appear to have some weird typography kink...?

I printed out chapter 3 for a read-over but somehow haven't gotten to it c_c;. I will pick it up tomorrow, promise. In the mean-time, at least I got my current kink!meme fic moving again. I don't even know why it was stuck, it just kinda was. But it's moving, and hopefully I'll be able to wrap it up before long ~~and start on the next one~~. And then get back to the WIPs I've left hanging.

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