(no subject)

[oselle]

Well, it's one a.m., so officially Christmas 2007. I've got a nice videotaped log burning on the tube (this version is without the cheesy carols, just crackling logs...SCORE!). No Christmas tree though, I just didn't have the gumption. I suppose at some point I'll tune into those 24 hours of A Christmas Story on TBS. Whoever thought up THAT one is a marketing GENIUS. I may try to make cookies tomorrow morning. Bought all the stuff, I might as well, but damn, my follow-through these days is really in the shitter. I did laundry three days ago and I still haven't gotten around to folding it. Haven't vacuumed in three weeks, either.

I've been trying to write a story and it's becoming more and more clear to me that I suck at it. Okay, don't feel obligated to be nice and refute that in the spirt of the holiday. I suck. Take it from me, I suck. Here's what I want to know: how do some other people manage to have jobs and kids and houses and pets and still crank out multiple novel-length pieces of brilliant fanfiction? I can understand how professional novelists do it because that is their job, but how the hell does someone accomplish that when it's a hobby? I am slow as...I can't think of a good similie because of the depth of my literary suckitude. Suffice to say I'm slow. It can take me two hours to write one page, and then I usually wind up scrapping it and starting all over. This story? Had three different beginnings, hours of work, all junked before sticking with Version Four. I wish writers would talk more about their writing process. Stephen King is really good at that, but he is a ridiculously prolific freak of nature so I don't think he's a good example. I recall seeing some of Tolkien's early drafts of LoTR and they were pretty awful and I'd love to know how he went from those painful first attempts to the real thing. Writers don't talk about that stuff. Is it inexplicable? Are they superstitious? Just full of shit?

I was trying to have a conversation with someone at work the other day about how incredibly good some fanfiction is. I don't think she really bought it. Anyone who's never read it thinks it's just a pathetic pastime practiced by the pitiful. They don't realize that there are writers out there in all fandoms who could whip the pants off a lot of published authors and who, worth repeating, are doing this in their spare time. I really think that's why some pro writers get so defensive about it. If I were a published author, I'm not sure how I'd feel if someone wrote fanfic off my stuff. On the one hand, hey, it's flattering and helps book sales. On the other -- I'm so fucking neurotic and insecure I'd be in a constant panic that someone was out there using my idea but doing it better -- which, I'm sure, would happen. I'd probably be institutionalized in no time.

Tried reading some Cormac McCarthy in the bookstore today. What is the man's problem with quote marks? I can only take so much "style."

I feel grotesque. I've grown to hate this time of year, I know I'll be in a paralytic funk from now until at least April.

Okay, this video Yule log is getting real old.

Merry Christmas.

Comments

[katakanadian.livejournal.com]

Ha! I could have written this (except for the part about writing, even very slowly).

Fear not. The holidays will soon be over.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but now we've got a good three months of gloom to get through. Yech.

[i-o-r-h-a-e-l.livejournal.com]

I also admire those people who can write long and fast. I never dream to be able to do that. *sighs*

*hugs you*

And Merry Christmas to you.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Those people are the lucky ones. Guess that's just something you can't learn. Sigh.

*hugs* :)

[marigold6.livejournal.com]

*BIG hug* Don't beat yourself up, sweetie. I wonder the same thing - and when I DO finally manage to crank something out, I edit the hell out of it until I wonder if it's even worth showing anyone.

Some people just treat this as if it's any other time of the year - because for some, that's all it is. If you don't feel up to anything, then do something when you do.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Argh, the editing is the worst part. I look at stuff that I wrote years ago and wonder how the hell I ever let it out in that condition.

Slow Writing

[lady_of_asheru]

Read this, in praise of Slow Writing:

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/07/slowcooked_books_the_virtues_o.html

Speaking as someone who takes 3 days to write a paragraph of creative fiction I found it positively inspiring!

Leave the laundry and go for a walk!

Happy Christmas!

Love Sarah

Re: Slow Writing

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Ha, this is me:

Platonic writers tend to see their works as imperfect reflections of an unattainable literary ideal. They do not celebrate the birth of a new opus so much as mourn the abortion of all the other versions that could have been. In short (a key word here), written books are sweet, but those unwritten are sweeter. Authors (and characters) belonging to this lineage have been known to give up writing altogether or contemplate destroying their own works, although they usually settle for spending an awful lot of time producing precious little.

"Precious little" about sums it up. And what little there is...SUCKS!

Larry McMurtry has written numerous novels and claims he only allows himself to write three pages a day. No matter where he is in his writing, he stops at three pages. Obviously though, they don't suck!

[mews1945.livejournal.com]

You have good advice here. You don't need mine. So I won't say anything except *hugs* I hope your muse will come back. And writing slowly isn't a bad thing. It's your process. *more hugs*

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Bleh, HATE my process.

*hugs* back and Merry Christmas.

[slipperieslope.livejournal.com]

I have met many authors on the job and in my experience about a third of them are superstitious and another third are full of shit but that last bunch are just inexplicably talented.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's that last third that I just fucking hate. Bitches.

[merylmarie.livejournal.com]

*Waves at you from my own morass of slowness*

Sometimes action (namely job, kids, housework, etc.) breeds more action and no action (my life) breeds more no action. Just a theory.

Mews is right. It's your process, roll with it. Makes me glad to know you're writing, though.

Now I must haul my arse to Brooklyn for a Christmas open house. Whee!

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Sometimes action (namely job, kids, housework, etc.) breeds more action and no action (my life) breeds more no action. Just a theory.

I think there's something to that, but at the same time, writing is such a contemplative, cloistered activity. I wonder how people with very active lives manage to disengage themselves enough to get into the writing zone.

Have fun in Brooklyn. Let me know if you'll be around in January, cuz baylorsr is coming to town and we can get together.

[merylmarie.livejournal.com]

I'm leaving tomorrow for Indiana, but I'll be back late on January 3. Would love to see you and baylor! Keep me apprised.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

She's coming the weekend of Martin Luther King, whatever that is. The 19th I think. Maybe we can get together that Saturday for dinner or Sunday for brunch? This is becoming an annual thing!

[merylmarie.livejournal.com]

Sounds great. All hail the traditional Winter Yakfest! :))

[mirabile-dictu.livejournal.com]

Oselle! I have missed you and your posts so much! I just today discovered that you've been back for a while, so I caught up on all your posts. I know you're thinking about Daisy today, and I'm so, so sorry at her loss. I loved your stories about her. I've lost pets myself, and I know how awful it is. I still miss my darling Amelia Jane, a black kitty gone more than a quarter of a century.

I hope 2007 is a better year for you.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think about Daisy every day, often more than once, especially at this time of year. Not a day goes by that I don't miss her. She was one of a kind. Hope the future holds better things for all of us, and nice to see you here on my page again!

[golden-berry.livejournal.com]

Hah! As someone who has trouble writing even a paragraph of fiction, I find the entire process of creating characters and plots and scenes to be utterly mystifying. So, no help here.

How long did it take you to write Zekasey fics?

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Some of them came out really fast, some of them took longer. But there was something different about writing them, maybe because baylorsr and I were the only people writing that particular storyline. Most of the Zekasey stuff I wrote weren't really full-blown stories with their own plots, but snippets of a whole. I'm pretty good at snippets but not so good at trying to execute a freestanding story with its own plot, etc. And that's what I'm trying to do this time around. The fact-checking and research alone is a bitch. I need an intern!