sholio | Your daily dose of whine

Your daily dose of whine

I want to be finished with Fading Sun.
I want to be finished with Fading Sun.
I want to be finished with Fading Sun.

I always get this way in the end stages of a project, original or fanfic. It just seems huge and overwhelming, it always seems like there's more of it left to do than I want to do, there are other things I want to work on but I feel like I shouldn't until I finish the monster project that wouldn't die, I worry that the ending will suck ...

Right now it's clocking in at just about 70,000 words, and there are a couple of big important scenes yet to write. Maybe another 10,000 or so?

I really didn't plan this one to be another mega-fic! I was thinking 40K words tops. Ah, the best-laid plans...

I want to be done.
I want to be done.
I really, really want to be done.

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Welcome to my life. On top of all that you have described above, I have hit an emotional blackspot atm where am just in a crummy mood and simply cannot face writing. Fic writing simply is not happening right now and won't be for the forseeable... *sigh*

Ow, ick. I'm sorry to hear that. *sympathy*

As a reader of this wonderful fic (okay all your stories really), I'm looking forward to the end, but I love the journey of your stories. They are so incredibly complex and twisty. I can never second guess where you're going with a story and I love to read them as they slowly unwind. So, just feel free to take all the time you need ;-)

I'm glad you're enjoying it! Honestly, I *am* enjoying writing it, and I do like following along with all the digressions as my stories take me to new and unexpected places. I just wasn't expecting it to be quite THIS twisty!

I know the feeling.

Hee.

I'm writing the infirmary scene. It's sort of wandering all over the place because I had no plan for it. I have an ending, but I can't write the ending because the stupid infirmary scene is in the way, stopping them from all being all healthy and awake and snarking. Sigh.

So...I know the feeling.

Also, mine was supposed to be short too. I think it's just the way we are.

Also, mine was supposed to be short too. I think it's just the way we are.

*laughs* It's a disease! I wonder if there is a twelve-step program for this?

It's always fun when a fic takes on a life of it's own isn't it?

I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't have a problem with long stories - when I get the feeling that the writer is not just stringing the readers along. I don't the feeling with your stories. Yes, they are long, but they are long as they need to be.

I am looking forward to seeing what is coming next in Light of a Fading Sun...

Thank you!

I don't really feel as if it's too long for itself, if you know what I mean. It couldn't really have been any shorter and still developed the ideas that I wanted to develop. It's just a little too long for ME, in that I wasn't expecting to spend -- well, two months so far, and perhaps more to come, writing the blasted thing ... :D After Killing Frost, my plan was to stick with shorter stories, but, well, here we go again...

Ah, I know that feeling! Occasionally I'll have enough momentum to just carry through to the end without even noticing until I get there, but a lot of the long ones I'll be zooming along nicely until I'm a quarter or less from the end, and then suddenly panic - "What if no one likes the ending I've got in mind? Should it be more dramatic? Is this story worth it?"

But wow, what a satisfying thing it is to finally finish! (or else you have various WiPs dragging at your soul *runs away whimpering*)

Yeah, I kinda wish I could train myself not to post WIPs until they're done, or at least a lot closer to done than I seem to be able to achieve ... but I just haven't got the willpower! And then I made myself a rule that I wouldn't start posting a WIP until the ending was written (even if there was a lot of stuff in the way that hadn't been written yet), so at least I'd know that it *had* an ending ... but now I'm breaking that rule too, because with the current story, I didn't have the foggiest clue how I was going to end it when I started posting it.

However, there are people out there who are far worse about it than me. Back when I first discovered fanfic online, in, er, '98 or so, one of the very first ones I ever read was a Ranma fic which remains unfinished to this day ... and all that's missing is the last chapter, which, for the last ten years, the author has occasionally posted updates to say that she is still working on! I'm slow, but not that slow...

*laughs* That would be "Hearts of Ice", no? *was a Ranma reader, back in the days of "Waters Under Earth" and such. Hey, "Relentless" was finished last year! Much to my amazement!*

I can sympathize...for a long time I never had WiPs go over a year incomplete, but I've got a few now that I haven't worked on in that long. I still vow I will finish them eventually, but it is difficult when I've drifted from the fandom...

Ha! Yes, Hearts of Ice is the one! And she still says that she's going to finish it, although I actually don't reallly care at this point, I'm just sort of vaguely curious if she ever will!

I understand, though. And getting out of a fandom is what kills it for me. I don't know if you remember the one long DBZ story that I didn't finish -- I felt *horrible* about that, but it just got to the point where I really couldn't write those characters anymore, and I still had so much of the story to go that I just couldn't take the idea of writing that much more of it. That was why I ended up making my rule about never posting a WIP until I had the ending written -- at least that way if I lost interest, I could always half-ass something in the middle and then post the end! Of course I'm totally breaking rule that with my current WIP...

There are some fandoms that I fall in and out of over time, and I think I could probably always finish a story with them. I've been working off and on, on this one Saiyuki story I started posting awhile back in my LJ, and I *do* plan to finish -- what really stalled me out is that Reload appears to be covering ground that I was going to handle very differently in my fic, so now I'm stuck. But I still enjoy the Saiyuki boys even though I'm no longer rabidly fannish about them. Other fandoms aren't that way -- the shine has totally worn off DBZ, and even though I have fond memories of it, I doubt if I'll feel that way about it again. So my unfinished DBZ stories are pretty much dead.

soooooooo looking forward to more :) With as dense of happenings as you've set up ... I kind of was hoping for long - you need that much length for all your plots and angst and such :)

*grin* Well, long is certainly what you're getting. Thanks! I couldn't cut the angst short, now could I ... ;)

Agree with winter_elf. I'm so enjoying your story (your last chapter was heartwrenching), but I understand the "wanting to be done" part too.

Thank you! And it *is* getting there. I guess it took me something like 5 or 6 months to finish "Killing Frost", and I doubt if this one will take *that* long, so that's something anyway ...

Your stories (and Tipper's, too) always fall into the category my 8th grade English teacher told us to aim for:

"A story should be like a woman's skirt: Long enough to cover the subject but short enough to keep it interesting." ;)

I'm in it for the long-haul so you just keep doing what you're doing!

Lovely quote! And thanks for the comment and the encouragement. *grin* I do sometimes feel like I'm flailing around in the dark, but every scene does have a reason to be in there, and the ending inches incrementally ever closer.

*pets your icon* Mmm, Glasses!Rodney.

Well, I'm interested in your finishing the fic so that I can read it!

Frankly, you are very brave to begin posting before the fic is completely written, especially when you didn't know the ending when the first chapters went up. Actually, you must have some kind of special power, because when I write, I can't imagine the beginning of a story unless I know the end, since they often dovetail. You have a lot more story-writing experience than I, so maybe your technique depends on having a lot of stories under your belt?

Anyway, I do understand your desire to have the story done and posted. It is exhausting to approach the computer sometimes when you have the pressure of posting instead of the pleasure of creating as your biggest motivator.

Oh, I'm certainly going to finish it! I think this point in writing a story -- any story, original or not -- is like that point runners hit before they get their second wind. (I'm not a runner, so I'm just guessing here, but...) It's that point when you're just tired of it all and don't feel like you can do it anymore, and you don't really care about the process anymore because the end is SO CLOSE and you just want to be done!

One thing I find truly bizarre about it is that I often do some of my best work at that stage. The earlier parts of the story, where it's just pouring out of me, are often not as well written as the parts where I'm having to stop and think about every word because OMG THIS STORY DOESN'T WANT TO BE WRITTEN. I suppose there's probably some interesting writing-thought in there somewhere...

Actually, you must have some kind of special power, because when I write, I can't imagine the beginning of a story unless I know the end, since they often dovetail. You have a lot more story-writing experience than I, so maybe your technique depends on having a lot of stories under your belt?

Ehhh ... I'm not sure if it's that; maybe it's just a function of the way that I approach a story?

I always have a general idea of how it's going to end. Though with varying levels of detail. With Killing Frost, I knew that they'd be rescued from the planet and that the bad guy would meet his untimely demise; I just hadn't figured out *how* until I was most of the way through the story. The current one is similar: I know where the different groups of characters are going to end up at the end, but I'm not sure what mechanism I'm going to use to get them there.

Other stories, I pretty much know exactly where I'm going. With "Running on Empty", the end was one of the first parts I wrote. I knew from the beginning that they'd get to the point where Sheppard was "dead" and Rodney was so far down there was nowhere to go but up, and that's when the Daedalus would show up and get them off that planet. As opposed to knowing vaguely that they'd get back together with their friends, but not really how.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both kinds. Sometimes when I've got a really clear-cut ending in mind, I'll spend a lot of effort trying to get to *that exact place*, and sometimes it becomes a chore when the characters aren't cooperating and so & so is half dead when they're supposed to be instrumental in the rescue scene. But when I *don't* have a really definite scene in mind for the finale, I worry that I'll get there and I won't be able to come up with anything; there'll just be some kind of lame denoument.

Diana Wynne Jones (very skilled writer of young adult fiction) said that she starts each one of her books with three things already planned: the beginning, the end, and one especially dramatic/poignant/striking scene in the middle. This always seemed like very good advice to me, even if I don't always follow it!

You have my admiration both the amount you write and the length- I really have trouble writing (mainly the process of converting thoughts to text) and I definitely am bad about WIP, although I've promised myself to break the habit - next fic will be published when it is complete, especially given how unpredictable my schedule is.

Do you mind if I friend you?

Do you mind if I friend you?

No, not at all! I never mind being friended.

(And thanks!)

Y'know, I'm constantly in awe of the constantly high quality and qunatity of fic that you produce.

I have *ONE* WIP in progess at the moment. It has (and was always going to have) 3 parts. It seems to take a month to get each part out. 2 down and 1 to go and yet it's dragging on me like no one's business. So here I am - struggling with my measly little 3-part fic - and nodding sagely at your comments here because I kinda feel the same about my current "monster WIP". Even if mines a rather puny monster.

So howzat for perspective? My 11,000 (so far) three-parter overwhelms me as much as your 70,000+ masterpiece. I think the message there is pretty clearly that you are powerhouse fic-writing legend whereas I am a whiny wannabe ;-P

But anyway, *I* really, really want *you* to be done too. Coz your fic is AWESOME! And I *KNOW* the ending won't suck.

So get cracking, why don't ya?

Don't you love supportive friends? ;-P

*grin* I really do appreciate the support! And the compliments. Frankly I wish I spent a little *less* time writing fic; I enjoy it, but I get seized in the teeth of these rabid plot MAMMOTHS and hardly get anything else done until they're appeased.

I wish I could continue to be supportive and say "yes, I do wish you spent less time writing fic too", but I think we'd both know that I was lying, wouldn't we? I love the results too much to wish you write less.

GO THE MAMMOTHS!!!

Oh, dear. Was that me?

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Your daily dose of whine

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