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processfest is a thing that's happening, and maybe will be happening on a recurring basis? Today's prompt was "multiple projects."
So, hi! It's December 4th, which means a request for something about my WIP culling/condensing process. Again, feel free to pitch in a question, although if I'm being honest, today's effort is not a great selling point for my further attempts at meme-ing.
Spoiler alert: this never goes well.
I've been storing my fic in the google docs (now drive) for my fannish e-mail since 2009, through at least three redesigns that attempted to ruin whatever order I had tried to develop therein. Tags on files might have been a thing at some point? Are they still? I can't tell. I think we're entirely on folders now, like civilised people.
In those 4 1/2 years, I have probably successfully deleted maybe ten files. When I posted a few days ago that I was going to go poke that bear, all I manged to do was to move things that were not actually fic out of the folder, and move things that I had posted from WIP to finished.
So as of right now, in my "active WIP" folder, I've got 13 stories in 6 fandoms. My "inactive WIP" folder has... 119 files in it, in roughly 25 fandoms and a few bits of original fic in the middle there. Over 20% of the filenames start with A, thanks to the preponderance of Arthur/Eames fic bits. I haven't opened the file with "Spidey New Avengers" in the name, because I'm pretty sure it's porn from when I had a very brief stint as a "CHALLENGE ACCEPTED" type of anon for really horrible prompts. That last one can probably go.
I have a bit of a problem with letting go of things.
Every time WIP amnesty made the rounds (remember when that was a thing we did?) I would go look at my fic folder and try, really truly try, to unclench my metaphorical fingers from any of the story bits that were languishing.
I think the closest I've ever managed to truly letting something go was posting the Ridiculous Die Hard Medieval Harlequin AU snippet, which was the epilogue to a story I will probably never write, for cliche bingo. Even as I say that, I was poking around tumblr the other day, and found the cover for the romance novel that that fic was largely going to be fused with, and now I want to write it again.
I will note that at this point I thought, wait, have I actually put everything in google docs?. The answer to which is no. Brief detour to rescue some fic from a beta version of Scrivener on one computer, and wait a year and a half for Open Office to load on my netbook so I can check the files there.
Yeah. Make that 123 files in inactive WIP.
The active files (but for one) have at least a few paragraphs each, and a solid premise. At this point in time, I expect that I can wrestle a finished story out of each one. Eventually.
The inactive files not so much.
Now part of the problem here is that I didn't post anything for pretty much a year between yuletides, but it's also that around 75% of the time, my story process starts with a paragraph rather than a premise.
Sometimes, if I'm very lucky, I get both!
But a lot of the time, the entirety of the file is a thing that I think some characters I'm interested in might do or say, largely with no context, and it's a thought that occurred to me in the middle of some non-writing time, and I never get back to it.
When I do have the patience, though, I pick a fandom, open up all the files, and figure out what story I might want to tell. I don't think I'd generally recommend quilting stories together out of bits, but I personally have better luck constructing a story around three seemingly random scenes than I do starting from a single specific prompt. My brain responds better to the challenge of figuring out how to connect things than it does inventing out of whole cloth.
The best case scenario, for most of these files, is that I've written something that's just not good. If it's got a plot behind it, I can pull the idea out and stick it in a prompt file which I will quite literally never look at again.
I moved to the couch because I was cold, and now I have a cat asleep on my left arm. So I think that's it for now.
processfest is a thing that's happening, and maybe will be happening on a recurring basis? Today's prompt was "multiple projects." So, hi! It's December 4th, which means a request for something about my WIP culling/condensing process. Again, feel free to pitch in a question, although if I'm being honest, today's effort is not a great selling point for my further attempts at meme-ing.
Spoiler alert: this never goes well.
I've been storing my fic in the google docs (now drive) for my fannish e-mail since 2009, through at least three redesigns that attempted to ruin whatever order I had tried to develop therein. Tags on files might have been a thing at some point? Are they still? I can't tell. I think we're entirely on folders now, like civilised people.
In those 4 1/2 years, I have probably successfully deleted maybe ten files. When I posted a few days ago that I was going to go poke that bear, all I manged to do was to move things that were not actually fic out of the folder, and move things that I had posted from WIP to finished.
So as of right now, in my "active WIP" folder, I've got 13 stories in 6 fandoms. My "inactive WIP" folder has... 119 files in it, in roughly 25 fandoms and a few bits of original fic in the middle there. Over 20% of the filenames start with A, thanks to the preponderance of Arthur/Eames fic bits. I haven't opened the file with "Spidey New Avengers" in the name, because I'm pretty sure it's porn from when I had a very brief stint as a "CHALLENGE ACCEPTED" type of anon for really horrible prompts. That last one can probably go.
I have a bit of a problem with letting go of things.
Every time WIP amnesty made the rounds (remember when that was a thing we did?) I would go look at my fic folder and try, really truly try, to unclench my metaphorical fingers from any of the story bits that were languishing.
I think the closest I've ever managed to truly letting something go was posting the Ridiculous Die Hard Medieval Harlequin AU snippet, which was the epilogue to a story I will probably never write, for cliche bingo. Even as I say that, I was poking around tumblr the other day, and found the cover for the romance novel that that fic was largely going to be fused with, and now I want to write it again.
I will note that at this point I thought, wait, have I actually put everything in google docs?. The answer to which is no. Brief detour to rescue some fic from a beta version of Scrivener on one computer, and wait a year and a half for Open Office to load on my netbook so I can check the files there.
Yeah. Make that 123 files in inactive WIP.
The active files (but for one) have at least a few paragraphs each, and a solid premise. At this point in time, I expect that I can wrestle a finished story out of each one. Eventually.
The inactive files not so much.
Now part of the problem here is that I didn't post anything for pretty much a year between yuletides, but it's also that around 75% of the time, my story process starts with a paragraph rather than a premise.
Sometimes, if I'm very lucky, I get both!
When John got home, there was a case - most of a case - of red wine on the kitchen counter, and his floppy-haired boyfriend was asleep on the couch with a bottle wedged in the corner of the cushions by his head.
But a lot of the time, the entirety of the file is a thing that I think some characters I'm interested in might do or say, largely with no context, and it's a thought that occurred to me in the middle of some non-writing time, and I never get back to it.
When I do have the patience, though, I pick a fandom, open up all the files, and figure out what story I might want to tell. I don't think I'd generally recommend quilting stories together out of bits, but I personally have better luck constructing a story around three seemingly random scenes than I do starting from a single specific prompt. My brain responds better to the challenge of figuring out how to connect things than it does inventing out of whole cloth.
The best case scenario, for most of these files, is that I've written something that's just not good. If it's got a plot behind it, I can pull the idea out and stick it in a prompt file which I will quite literally never look at again.
I moved to the couch because I was cold, and now I have a cat asleep on my left arm. So I think that's it for now.
