(no subject)

[sua_lay]

Had several discussions about Babylon 5 yesterday, none of them related and none really about fic. Still, I went to browse through some of my old notes and was then swept away by the WIP I was stupid enough to post ages ago.

'Elevates the Wise' is a project I'm still fond of. It's my first real attempt to write something larger than the usual A/A in a fandom. I started it over five years ago and was at one point quite obsessed with the whole thing.

It's actually quite a pity I got so swept away by Potter fandom.

Anyway, have now been reading through part 2 of the fic. Had planned it to be a trilogy, and managed to almost finish the second part before losing the interest in the story. It would be stupid for me to not finish it at some point, so every now and again, I read through what I have written and then polish the text and add stuff, hoping some day I'll actually manage to write the rest of the damn story.

The problem is, I read through my text and go totally nuts on the language I've used and the style just seems... bad. So I'll polish and polish and polish and eventually drop the whole thing because I'm so tired with the polishing.

Plot is total pain.

I always wonder about people who manage to write short stories or publish lots of long tales. How on earth can they just finish their stories and then continue with their lives? I seem to be stuck in some kind of a hellish plane of unfinished stories and can't get out of here.

*whine*

Maybe I should give myself a deadline or something. Spending all this time scribbling and never finishing anything is getting really frustrating. It's also killing my social life, since my mind is too full of things I want to talk about and frankly, there's only so many hours people can listen to me rant about a fic.

Comments

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

Surprisingly enough, I've found that these Friday drabble communities and ficathons have actually made me develop as a writer instead of, well, y'know, drying up in a fit of panic and unfinished storylines:). There's a thing there that kicks the back of your skull and says "Oi! Condense it and finish it NOW!" before you can say no...

My WIPs stay WIPs just because of the bloody polishing. I read one paragraph, desperately tweak it this way and that, and then read the second, the third and give up on trying to edit, thinking I need to read it through first, and then just end up... not tweaking the whole thing because it'd be such a huge task to more or less rewrite the whole story. Meh. I drown in my own crap!

[sua-lay.livejournal.com]

:D I'm at the point where I'm solemnly swearing I'll never ever start a long plot oriented fic again. Smaller stories or moments in time will be just fine after these damn sagas... if I ever even finish these.

The year 2008 seems about a good deadline.

These past months, I've been really tempted to just bury everything into the folder where all the unfinished stories go to die, but it seems like it would be an awful waste of time and energy if I didn't at least try to finish the long stories I have started.

*mopes*

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

2008? Whoo. I may have seen all of B5 by then, too... actually, this reminds me of the fact that A Zine (yes, cringe, B7 fandom and its obsession with dead tree formats) with some of my stories in it is *finally* coming out after *three years* in limbo. With the earliest grousefic in it being from '02--stuff that I'd never write now. Aaargh. At least with the 'net you don't get delays like that--hell, I might consider withdrawing some of the stuff entirely. (Not that I like it when good writers take their old fics off websites, because I usually like the older stories as well, polished or not.)

You've written so damn much you can't give up now! The HD has to creak for a reason! Someone, some day, will spend days and nights reading that finished fic and basking in fic joy, once you've finished it and put it online...

...I have a dead fic folder as well. It's C:\Krizu\Ficci\Minun\Doctor_Who. Arse.

[sua-lay.livejournal.com]

Ah, the evilness of old fic. Yeah, sometimes I cringe at the mere idea of reading one of my older stuff.

*hides*

You've written so damn much you can't give up now!

That's about the only reason I'm not giving up on a few fics. Must start writing pointless porn! Plot is bad!

*runs away screaming*

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

*Hands you a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster and a sex manual*

Whip 'em into shape, baby.

[digby-tantrum.livejournal.com]

How on earth can they just finish their stories and then continue with their lives?

Some people have co-writers, and the mutual support is an aid in this. But that might not be for you.

Besides, I can't help feeling you might be being too hard on yourself; indeed, I suspect the phenomenom of unfinished tales may be far from isolated.

Hell, what do I know?