Write Every Day: Day 10

[the_siobhan]

I sat on the porch last night again and did some noodling. I thought of an angle that will improve the story about 1000%, but will also probably double the length of it. Then I got down two pages on long-hand on the new section.

People who write fanfic (which I'm sure is almost everybody here) do you post your stories a chapter at a time while they're still in progress? Every change I make means I have to go back and tweak the stuff that's already written, so I'm fascinated by the skill of people who can just plow forward and still make it work.

Day 10 Tally:
china_shop

Day 9 Tally:
china_shop ysilme regshoe trobadora badly_knitted sylvanwitch luzula sakana17 sanguinity shadaras cornerofmadness nafs yasaman lferion the_siobhan

Day 8 Tally:
china_shop ysilme regshoe badly_knitted sylvanwitch luzula sanguinity shadaras nafs chanter1944 cornerofmadness kate yasaman lferion the_siobhan trobadora

Day 7 Tally:
china_shop regshoe badly_knitted luzula shadaras sanguinity sylvanwitch sakana17 nafs yasaman lferion ysilme the_siobhan chanter1944 kate cornerofmadness trobadora

Day 6 Tally:
china_shop regshoe sylvanwitch houseof9cats luzula badly_knitted shadaras chanter1944 kate sanguinity cornerofmadness nafs yasaman silveradept lferion the_siobhan ysilme trobadora

Day 5 Tally:
china_shop regshoe badly_knitted sylvanwitch luzula shadaras nafs sanguinity cornerofmadness yasaman sakana17 lferion ysilme the_siobhan houseof9cats chanter1944 kate silveradept trobadora

Day 4 Tally:
china_shop regshoe luzula badly_knitted sylvanwitch shadaras chanter1944 nafs sanguinity cornerofmadness yasaman kate lferion ysilme the_siobhan sakana17 houseof9cats silveradept trobadora

Day 3 Tally:
china_shop regshoe badly_knitted sylvanwitch trobadora shadaras nafs sanguinity cornerofmadness yasaman lferion ysilme luzula the_siobhan chanter1944 kate houseof9cats silveradept

Day 2 Tally:
china_shop regshoe badly_knitted shadaras sylvanwitch alexseanchai kate nafs sanguinity cornerofmadness chanter1944 lferion ysilme the_siobhan trobadora yasaman luzula houseof9cats silveradept

Day 1 Tally:
silveradept sylvanwitch regshoe badly_knitted ysilme luzula china_shop trobadora nafs chanter1944 sanguinity cornerofmadness lferion the_siobhan kate yasaman houseof9cats

Let me know if I missed you and you can jump in any time.

Comments

[bladespark]

I absolutely never post a fanfic until it's done. But that's less to do with needing to get the details right and more to do with the kind of pressure well-meaning readers tend to put on the authors of unfinished stories they're enjoying. Unfortunately "I can't wait to read more!" does not make me happy to hear, much as I wish it did, it makes me incredibly stressed out.

[the_siobhan]

Just so you know, I really liked your Good Omens stuff. :-)

[bladespark]

Awwww, thank you! <3

[luzula]

I do post in chapters before I'm finished, with some stories. I write very linearly, and if I feel like I have a good grasp on where the story is going, it's fun to have the interaction and feedback of posting while I'm going, since I'm in a small fandom.

700 words of werewolf story; total wordcount 8,500.

[the_siobhan]

That could be the difference, my writing is anything but linear.

Great word count!

[regshoe]

I've never posted a WIP as I went; I don't usually find myself making big changes to the early part of a story after writing later stuff, but I do make small changes, and I don't want to give up the ability to make small-but-important changes.

Day 10: 550 words, plus some scribbling of notes on where the rest of the chapter is going.

[the_siobhan]

My changes always seem to require major revisions to the backstory.

Well done on your progress!

[badly_knitted]

I did post one fic while I was still writing it, but it took me over a year to finish and I was constantly having to re-read bits to avoid contradicting myself, so I won't be doing that again.

July 10th - 808 words, 4 double drabbles and a teeny tiny bit of editing.

[the_siobhan]

Ha! No doubt.

Great word count!

[badly_knitted]

I learned my lesson, lol!

Thank you!

[china_shop]

I used to sometimes post as I wrote, and I found it exhilarating and so much fun. Sometimes I was even posting nearly daily. But in my current fandom, I do a lot of rewriting and restructuring, so it's not an option -- I don't know if that's the fandom or my brain has changed. (I miss it, though. There's something very playful and fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants about it.)

11th: fiddled with my fic for an hour. Minimal progress, alas.

[the_siobhan]

Sometimes you just have to poke at things for a while. Well done on sticking with it.

[sylvanwitch]

I do still write fanfic on occasion and have, of course, written a ton of it in the past. I rarely post a work in progress, waiting instead until it's finished before I post it. I did once post a longfic in chapters, but in that instance, I had a meticulously detailed outline because otherwise, I'd have been a nervous wreck about potentially screwing up my own narrative order or whatnot. ;-)

On Day 10, I am still in the midst of cleaning, but I managed to add 267 words to Chapter 17.

[the_siobhan]

I think the act of writing things down sends me off into ideas that are often in wildly different directions. I may be figuring out why I never finish anything...

Good work on your progress!

[houseof9cats]

I think it depends on the writer. I would never in a million years feel comfortable posting something I hadn't worked out entirely. Others work differently. It would probably be fun to challenge myself to do it, though I'd have to be transparent about that being the point because I don't think I'd be very good at it.

I'm currently working on a sestina for a workshop. I don't think I like it, but I have to turn it in Wednesday anyway. Case in point!

[the_siobhan]

I hope you were successful!

[nafs]

Day 10: typed up stuff for about half an hour, which is less than I was planning on but I have discovered that while my transcription set-up before I moved in November was not gr8, in the condo it is worse. So I will have to figure out where to locate myself while typing that will keep both laptop and notebook stable and also not make me need a chiropractor.
Also handwrote about a page.

Oddly enough while I have severe struggles writing original stuff in any sort of order, what little fic writing I have done always ended up written sequentially, and yes I did post it chapter by chapter, with the exception of the one time I did a Big Bang. Also I seldom write fic by hand, it's almost all straight to computer. Brains are weird.

[the_siobhan]

I'm finding the longform work really productive. Maybe it's the lack of distractions. Yes, brains are weird.

Good work on your progress and good luck on getting a setup that works for you.

[sanguinity]

Chaptered fic: I generally wait until the fic is complete and fully edited -- or very nearly so -- before I start posting. If nothing else, near the end I tend to go back to early chapters and punch up themes and foreshadowing; sometimes there are plot points I've altered and need to change the setup for. But it's also not unheard of for me to write a chapter and then throw it out as having gone in the wrong direction. I just like having the privacy to work out what I'm doing and get it all shipshape before I start showing it to any but my most trusted confidants.

Jul 10: some editing, some new words. Haven't cracked the ending, but I trust that will come.

[the_siobhan]

Very much the same as me - whenever I write a scene I always think, "Oh this will work better if I add x to this scene two days ago..."

Good work on your progress!

[cornerofmadness]

I generally no longer post wips as I go mostly because of the Buffyverse and me not finishing anything because 30 year old me would get distracted. Nowadays I generally wait til it's done and post chapter by chapter as I do a final clean up. That said I DO post some of them as I go. I rarely change much.

day 10 - 1265 words on some story I didn't need to be writing plus I also sent in a story to an anthology

[the_siobhan]

Great word count!

[cornerofmadness]

thanks

[the_siobhan]

Do you think you would be able to take over next week? I have some stuff coming up that is going to suck up a lot of my free time.

[cornerofmadness]

sorry I didn't see this. My email put all of DW stuff into spam and I didn't realize it. Yes I'm good to go

[cornerofmadness]

thanks

[yasaman]

I'll start posting once I'm 1/2 to 2/3 finished, and then only if I'm confident of the last 1/3 or 1/4 in terms of continuity etc. The longer and plottier a fic gets though, the less likely I am to start posting until it's basically almost finished. For me, there comes a point where I just have to start posting if only to make myself stop fiddling with earlier bits though. So lol it's just a balancing act of which of these factors is more prominent in any given WIP.

Day 10: 2,054 words for me!

[the_siobhan]

I never stop fiddling. Possibly why I never finish anything. ;-)

Amazing word count! Well done.

[greylock]

I make my noodles in the kitchen. :P

[lferion]

10 July -- 100ish words on the archive piece, as well as some more poking about with names.

[the_siobhan]

Good work!