tahariel | Entries tagged with writing

As part of the campaign I am inflicting on myself to develop better writing discipline, I decided to instill some new writing habits into myself to try and reprogram my brain into settling down to writing when I tell it to.

It actually seems to be working, too, and no-one is more surprised than me!

This pretty much came about when I realised that as long as I was sitting on the sofa where I always sit my brain automatically fell into a sort of pissing-about mode where it just wanted to veg out and play computer games or read or watch TV. Which unfortunately was not conducive to writing.

So I figured maybe if I chose a different place to be my writing place, and always went there to write, then maybe my brain would reset to writing mode when I was there? Worth a try, right? But I hate writing at a desk, and obviously the sofa is out, so I settled on my bed as a writing place. And to reinforce it I decided to make myself a hot chocolate when I went to start writing as another sort of reminder that it was productive time now.

I've written every night this week, at least 800 words per night. Part of that, no doubt, is being excited about a new project, I'll admit, but I haven't written this much this regularly in at least three years.

So here's my wordcounter as of tonight, before I head off to bed:

9547 / 100000
(9.55%)

Dragonbird

Do you have any weird writing rituals or habits? Do they really help, or can you ignore them and still get on with writing?

Current Mood: creative
Current Location: my bedroom writing place

My scriptwriting teacher has asked me to co-produce a short film with her that one of my classmates is writing. I am so jazzed right now you have no idea.

It's gonna be AWESOME. Also there may be jobs for other people if anyone's interested? It's unpaid but expenses and food are covered and the film looks like it's going to be amazing. And if anyone knows any Spanish-speaking actors that would be immensely helpful.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

Suddenly and without my seeming input my current project has become a two-POV piece rather than my usual tight-third single POV. Bit weirded out to be honest. Last time I wrote multiple POV was in high school and it was a total disaster.

Then again, things seem to be going really well - probably just cursed it, but I started writing for reals on Friday and I'm 4000 words in now, which considering my track record of the last 3 years is pretty fantastic. Clearly all it took was a new project to get excited about and I'm off.

Now you can all look forward to the next time I stall, when as per usual I will complain about it vociferously to anyone who listen, including all of you. Fun times.

4156 / 100000
(4.16%)

(100k is a total guess, BTW. I have no idea how long this will be. Hopefully not crazylong but not ridiculously short. That's what I'm aiming for, anyway.)

Since my flist is made of awesome and diverse sorts, thought you guys might be able to help me with something.

Does anybody own snakes, or know somebody who does? Preferably someone in the UK I could go visit and handle the snakes myself, but I will happily settle for a chat about it.

Thanks in advance!

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

OKAY. In an attempt to break free of this slump I am having, I am going to list for you some of my cracky fic ideas!

Hawaii Five-O: What if Steve just LEFT HIS HOUSE ALL SHOT UP and every time Danny goes over, he is like 'this place is a wreck!' and Steve just shrugs and says he has lived in worse places, and just walks around the bloodstains and uses the bulletholes to keep things in?

Hawaii Five-O: Steve is RoboCop. 'Nuff said.

Star Trek XI: New Adventures of Superman AU where Spock is Superman and Kirk is Lois Lane, and they do that whole cheesy thing where they fly above the clouds and have "romantic" conversations (SHUT UP I LOVE THAT STUPID SHOW OKAY)

Star Trek XI: Spock cuts his hair an eighth of an inch shorter and is upset when nobody notices, because the cutting of the hair seems to be a really important human ritual and they are EXCLUDING HIM.

THIS IS WHY I NEVER WRITE FIC YOU GUYS IT WOULD ALL BE LIKE THIS.

( Whining about the slump I am having today, you don't have to read this part. )

C.S. Lewis never really put a lot of time into what life was like on this side of the wardrobe, and though I love the books dearly in many ways I think that's a shame, when doing so produces something like this fic.

burntcopper keeps each Pevensie perfectly in-character, but projects onto them and into them the way they might grow up, having grown up once already. Well worth reading.

Putting the Natives at Ease by

burntcopper. Extract: Everyone's children came back from the country changed. They were older, for a start. Some of them were wilder, some had no manners, some had been turned into country children with not a trace of London in them, complete with accent. The Tovey twins had come back well-behaved and with a strong work ethic, and wasn't that a surprise, considering the little louts they had been. The Pevensie children, though, came back... odd.

Tags: narnia, gen, fic, outsidepov, a:burntcopper

If you were a sexy mercenary/bounty hunter / badass, why would you long-term hijack a dragonbird and its hot female pilot/messenger? And also accidentally bind yourselves together so you can't separate by more than 300 yards?

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

The other day two ideas that had never gone anywhere suddenly snapped together like jigsaw puzzle pieces in an internet game. One of them might be the dragonbird idea. And so possibly I might be developing a new novel project. Watch this space :D

...I really, really need to find that old high school notebook that I suspect has been long since thrown out.

Today's rec!

Totally awesomely cute and in-character, something that very rarely happens, especially in a fandom like Inception where every character is a badass.

Sort of Revolution by

pyrimidine. Extract: Before today, Eames had this ridiculous idea in his head that Arthur slept standing up, and ‘powered down’ seemed a more appropriate phrase than ‘slept’. This is one of the few times in his life that Eames has enjoyed being wrong and he has no idea why.

Tags: inception, arthur/eames, slash, fic, genre:fluff, a:pyrimidine

So yesterday was a good day for me! I wrote and posted a knitting pattern on Ravelry and it's been favourited by 52 people and put in the knitting queues of 21 people! Sooooo full of squee that people like it :) it makes me want to write lots more patterns! This is the book cover I made:

More fannishly, my fic Asymptote which I wrote last year has been recced on crack_van! Really flattered and excited about this, and again it makes me want to write more fic.

So an encouraging weekend! How was your weekend? Do anything exciting?

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

Feeling very productive today! Today I:

Got my hair cut

Bought a new outfit (I have been staring mournfully into my wardrobe for ages now, hating everything I own and yearning to buy something, and finally PAY DAY ARRIVED.)

Finally defeated the mountain of washing up that had been growing in my kitchen (it was approaching sentient life. This is what happens when you have 8 plates, 8 bowls, and live alone.)

Cooked a massive quantity of macaroni cheese (yum!) so I can freeze a lot of it for later meals and order less takeaway

Sadly this does not seem to have solved the problem of me staring at the blinking cursor once again going 'um. What do I write now.'

The problem is that I'm really bad at writing 'journey' sections, so either I tend to skip them or blast past them, but I'm trying to make an effort at making this one interesting and getting stuck. Anyone have any tips? (If you're interested, you can read the relevant section of my WIP ( behind this cut )

So I've found a way to motivate myself to write a little bit every day. Don't ask me why it works, because it's really simple, but it does, and I thought some of you guys might be interested (especially with NaNoWriMo literally just around the corner!)

It's called One Page Per Day and it's literally just this blank page you log into and just write whatever you want. It saves it automatically so you can go back to it, nobody else can see it if you don't want them to, and it sends you an email - not an annoying email, just a gentle reminder - to encourage you to write if you haven't already on a given day. I've written the last four out of five days since I signed up to this, so it seems to be working for me, at least.

Anyway, thought I'd share :)

Current Mood: cheerful

Whee!

11728 / 50000
(23.46%)

This Mortal Armour

I know this is still a WIP, but I've been thinking lately that I might really benefit from having a proper beta reader. Would anyone be interested? I'm looking for someone to give it a really in-depth reading and poke at it viciously until I weep but it's much better. (Kidding about the weeping... I think.) Mostly I want to approach it like a real editor would, if that makes sense.

Hope someone feels they can help! I'm not a big fan of asking on comms for a total stranger to do it, since you never know what you'll be getting.

Current Location: Mae - Reflections

11204 / 50000
(22.41%)

This Mortal Armour

50k is a total guess. This thing is looking to get longer all the time. Starting to think it's gonna be a novel.

Considering I have struggled to write even 200 words a day absolute max for the past - oh, two years? - writing 952 today has made my night.

Expect more wordcounters as time goes on- sorry if I spam you, but it helps keep me motivated :)

So it looks as though I'm writing again. None so surprised and pleased as I, I assure you!

It's funny. I realised today that I haven't quite absorbed the fact that I will never see a patient as an orthoptist again. I'm losing a big part of myself. But making that decision seems to be giving me back a piece of myself orthoptics had stolen from me. It's a weird kind of exchange to make. Weirder to acknowledge.

What deals have you had to make with yourself? What did you have to give up, and what did you gain?

Is it still a sin to include an anachronistic word in a period-type fantasy if by using that word what comes out makes you accidentally choke on your own spit because you laugh so hard?

Seriously, I don't know where Landon and his dialogue came from, because I don't feel like it's from the inside of my head. It's more like he's a real (crazy) person somewhere else feeding me lines.

(Getting to use my This Mortal Armour icon for the win!)

Current Mood: cheerful

Decided freaking out about my writing by myself was not really very helpful or productive, so I'm going to post the project I'm currently working on here, and I'd really appreciate it if people could take the time to read it and give me a little feedback? Any level of response is fine, just need some reassurance that it's not total pants.

ETA 13/7/10: now updated with additional crazy!

( This Mortal Armour )

ARGH ARGH ARGH I HATE EVERYTHING I'VE EVER WRITTEN. ARGH.

Seriously I just read something I know I loved yesterday and I think my brain has switched to another brain or something because everything sucks at the moment. All the words are bad words! All the sentences are bad sentences! WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME IDEK.

ARGH.

ETA: I guess I better rec something too, huh, to give this whining at least some redeeming value?

It is possible I recently watched The Fast and the Furious for the first time. Then all the sequels. Then made

ionaonie watch them all with me again in a marathon, at which I had her trapped and unable to run away due to the unfortunate state of her foot.

Read this fic, then read the sequel, because the sequel is smoking hot.

Street Rat by

lit_gal. Summary: In the movie, undercover cop Brian finds he can't turn his mark in. Dom--the head of a group of street racers who have been robbing truckers--gets hurt fleeing from arrest, but Brian gives the man his car and lets him take off. This picks up some time later, after Brian has left the force under some bad circumstances.

Tags: fastandfurious, brian/dom, pre-slash, gen, slash, fic, a:litgal

Thank you to everyone who replied to my post last week, and sorry it took so long for me to respond. It was a really horrible day in the long, ongoing saga that is my work situation - too long to go into in detail here and now, though I think many of you know about it already. We'll have to see what happens, as ever, but things are not as bad this week. I'm feeling better, anyway.

Though today I found out at the gym that I have lost a stone and a half since this January, and let's just say my gym visits haven't exactly been religious, so I know where that's all gone. Stress as a slimming aid?

On a happier note, I've started writing again! Or at least, I've written about 350 words two days in a row now, which is better than the nada it's been up until now! In celebration of this, a wordcounter and a rec for you all! I'm sorry I haven't been doing the recs up until now, btw, but things at work... well. You know.

7504 / 25000
(30.02%)

This Mortal Armour

My old word counter from Zokutou seems to be all gone - poop! I loved that wordcounter! - but this is an acceptable substitute :) A lot of this is from previous work, though, so only the last six hundred or so words are fresh.

And the rec:

What if Bella realised the power she has over Edward, and used it? This vision of Twilight, even if you hate the original, is mouth-wateringly dark, with Bella portrayed as a sociopath who knows exactly how best to use a vampire who is utterly devoted to her. Turns the original on its head without changing the premise, a task that sounds much easier than it is. Absolutely perfect.

The peaceable kingdom By

orange_crushed. Summary: "Say it," he tells her. He is so goddamn arrogant. He orders her words to come out in front of him like he'd order a coffee. If, you know. He drank. "Say it."

Tags: twilight, edward/bella, het, fic, au, dark, a:orange-crushed

Current Mood: creative
Current Music: Aftermath - Adam Lambert

Post a sentence (or two or a paragraph) from as many of your WIPs as you want, with no explanation attached.

This fic will probably never be finished, because I have no idea where it was going. But I like it anyway.

( Poetry for Vulcans, K/S, G )

Current Mood: cheerful

Title: This is a gift (it comes with a price)

Fandom: Let the Right One In (movieverse)

Pairing: Eli/Oskar

Word Count: 461

Rating: PG - dark themes, but nonexplicit

Warnings: None

Author's Notes: Let the Right One In is such a haunting and beautiful film, with a really... eerie romance at the heart of it, despite terrible things happening around the two children it concerns, if you can call Eli a child. I'm so glad

inmemorybound introduced me to it! Crossposted to

letherightonein.

( She let him grow until he was seventeen. )

Tonight was the first of the six sessions of my scriptwriting class at the local theatre, and it was ~awesome! We didn't really do any writing tonight, more talking about theatre and how writing works in and fits into this space and method of telling story, but I could tell it was going to be a lot of fun. The guy next to me kinda smelled, though, and was either a) not much of a talker or b) a bit on the dim side, which was a shame, but I will sit somewhere else next time.

I had an idea for a play, or a structure of a play, which I am going to try to start writing now for this class, and in April there is tentatively scheduled in a showcase for some of our work, so with any luck I can put something together for that and they will get Real Actors <™> to perform it! AWESOME. So excited.

Now for today's rec!

I don't know how many of you follow

rageprufrock's annual 14 Valentines project, which focuses on promoting women's issues and discussing difficult topics of importance to women? Every year she writes several amazing fics for this, and encourages other people to do so too. This is one of this year's fics, and not only is it a wonderful piece in and of itself, but like many fics in which a character's gender is swapped it also explores what difference that would have made in the character's life and work compared to how they are in canon. Pru is the master of these (SGA's Lustrous, anyone?) and, of course, at building romantic tension. I'll be honest, I've read everything she's ever written that I could get my hands on, whether I knew the fandom or not. So, I give you today's rec:

(Un)covered by

rageprufrock. Summary: Toni has spent her entire life hopelessly in love with people.

Tags: ncis, gibbs/dinozzo, het, fic, au, genderswapped!au, genderfuck, genderswap, a:rageprufrock

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I know I'm in my own world... it's okay, they know me here

...I want to be what you need

Entries tagged with writing

Writing habits

Next step: take over the world

(no subject)

Anybody who could help me out?

All the weird kids know how to take it slow

(no subject)

These images that fill my head; now keep my fingers from making mistakes

Whee!

La la la productive day la la

Pretty cool

(no subject)

Writing noises!

Trying to make your heart fit like a glove, what it needs is love love love

Writing and writing and trying not to admit to self that anachronisms are bad.

Got sick of my own whining, so

Y're leakin', man.

I was born with glitter on my face, babyclothes made of leather and lace

WIP meme

FIC: This is a gift (it comes with a price), Let the Right One In, Eli/Oskar, PG

You were wearing your red coat, that’s how I knew it was you.

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December 2011

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