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Wants more fanmixes
Nov. 1st, 2008 01:20 amSo, it's officially November 1st, and an awful lot of people on this FL know what that means. Once again, any plans I may have had for participating in NaNoWriMo (and me, here in the hometown of NaNo, likely surrounded by places to write and fellow writers!) are sort of... well, up in the air. See, I have no ideas for any full-length novel, and any of my half-baked ideas from years past are still just that: half-baked.
I'd like to do NaNo on my own terms, because hell, it's not like I'd be thinking of submitting a manuscript after NaNo's done.
As I delivered my ballot to the mailbox this afternoon, I thought, "What if I made it my goal to finish WDKY?" Shit, some single chapters of WDKY have been more than 50,000 words. (SRSLY: chapter 7 in both its parts is 46,745 words; chapter 8 is 32,393, and chapter 10 is 50,180! Of course, some of those words are author's notes, but not much of them!) So even if it was just ONE more chapter, it'd be an accomplishment, because it would mean I was updating more than once a year, which has become my pathetically small growth rate for WDKY.
It'd be funny if archives had "growth rates" the way Enthusiast 3 does for fanlistings. I would see something like "Growth rate: 0.005 chapters per day" (actually it'd be less; a chapter a year is a growth rate of 0.0027397, if my calculations are correct) and feel like pond algae. Maybe that's what I need. Some PHP calculator embedded into Dragonfayth so I can hate myself for not updating, and use it as motivation to update before that growth rate slips into the infinitesimally small zone.
Well, here's the thing. First, I'd need to finish WDKY26, because I've had the bulk of that done for some time. You can't work on something that's already partially started, it's against the rules of NaNo! I'd actually be bending that rule a bit, to be working on 10 remaining chapters but not a whole new story.
I think writing a whole new story would doom me, especially with all the other multi-chapter fic ideas in my head. And all the other WIPs, like TJOY.
To make matters worse, rather than working on WDKY26 these past few days, to make "finishing WDKY within NaNo" an even remote possibility, I've been revising "Only 16." Yeah, that ancient fic for a fandom that I'm not even that active in anymore? One of my first fics, and my first multi-chapter fic? Yeah, that one.
THAT ONE.
On the bright side, it is coming along, and it's kind of refreshing to revise that fic, because to be honest, so much of it sucked. It's one thing to leave it up as testament to how far I've come as a writer, or as a fan, or whatever, but I see nothing wrong with constant revisions. If people liked it 10 years ago, they might like it even more now, now that I bother with single point-of-view, forego the plot devices and dues ex machina, and that I expand on stuff to keep it both realistic and in-character.
What to do, what to do? I think I'm going to finish the revisions to "Only 16," chapter 1, publicize that a bit, and GET MY ASS BACK ON WDKY26. Must, must, must. And then see if I can miraculously pull any more chapters of WDKY out. Month or no, it'd be freakin' fantastic not to have another year between updates. I feel like scum for letting that happen with WDKY. Why is it that the multi-chapter fics that I fall in love with and think I plan to the umpteenth detail end up doing that to me? (Only 16 did too, for the record. And the revisions very well might, considering I plan on revising the last part in a major way, but I don't know what "way" that is just yet.)
And of course, school work. Can't neglect that. Have classes to register for in... 23 days, too. Geh. So many deadlines, so little time.
I'd like to do NaNo on my own terms, because hell, it's not like I'd be thinking of submitting a manuscript after NaNo's done.
As I delivered my ballot to the mailbox this afternoon, I thought, "What if I made it my goal to finish WDKY?" Shit, some single chapters of WDKY have been more than 50,000 words. (SRSLY: chapter 7 in both its parts is 46,745 words; chapter 8 is 32,393, and chapter 10 is 50,180! Of course, some of those words are author's notes, but not much of them!) So even if it was just ONE more chapter, it'd be an accomplishment, because it would mean I was updating more than once a year, which has become my pathetically small growth rate for WDKY.
It'd be funny if archives had "growth rates" the way Enthusiast 3 does for fanlistings. I would see something like "Growth rate: 0.005 chapters per day" (actually it'd be less; a chapter a year is a growth rate of 0.0027397, if my calculations are correct) and feel like pond algae. Maybe that's what I need. Some PHP calculator embedded into Dragonfayth so I can hate myself for not updating, and use it as motivation to update before that growth rate slips into the infinitesimally small zone.
Well, here's the thing. First, I'd need to finish WDKY26, because I've had the bulk of that done for some time. You can't work on something that's already partially started, it's against the rules of NaNo! I'd actually be bending that rule a bit, to be working on 10 remaining chapters but not a whole new story.
I think writing a whole new story would doom me, especially with all the other multi-chapter fic ideas in my head. And all the other WIPs, like TJOY.
To make matters worse, rather than working on WDKY26 these past few days, to make "finishing WDKY within NaNo" an even remote possibility, I've been revising "Only 16." Yeah, that ancient fic for a fandom that I'm not even that active in anymore? One of my first fics, and my first multi-chapter fic? Yeah, that one.
THAT ONE.
On the bright side, it is coming along, and it's kind of refreshing to revise that fic, because to be honest, so much of it sucked. It's one thing to leave it up as testament to how far I've come as a writer, or as a fan, or whatever, but I see nothing wrong with constant revisions. If people liked it 10 years ago, they might like it even more now, now that I bother with single point-of-view, forego the plot devices and dues ex machina, and that I expand on stuff to keep it both realistic and in-character.
What to do, what to do? I think I'm going to finish the revisions to "Only 16," chapter 1, publicize that a bit, and GET MY ASS BACK ON WDKY26. Must, must, must. And then see if I can miraculously pull any more chapters of WDKY out. Month or no, it'd be freakin' fantastic not to have another year between updates. I feel like scum for letting that happen with WDKY. Why is it that the multi-chapter fics that I fall in love with and think I plan to the umpteenth detail end up doing that to me? (Only 16 did too, for the record. And the revisions very well might, considering I plan on revising the last part in a major way, but I don't know what "way" that is just yet.)
And of course, school work. Can't neglect that. Have classes to register for in... 23 days, too. Geh. So many deadlines, so little time.
