02-06-2015, 06:18 AM
Sometime early last year, an idea for a fanfic coalesced in my head.
When NaNoWriMo started, I started writing it for real. I had a few pages of notes before, but nothing else. It rapidly became clear that I wasn't going to make it to 50K, or anywhere close, just like every other time I'd tried NaNoWriMo. But this time, I managed to establish a habit: at least one sentence a day. Even that bare minimum was more than I'd ever accomplished.
In December, I expanded beyond one sentence, to a minimum of 50 words per day, more if I felt like it. On New Year's Eve, I managed to write more than a thousand words in a burst of enthusiasm and motivation. In January, I upped it to 100 words, despite everything else going on in my life (some of which is still going on) that left me feeling pushed past my limit.
And then, on January 21, that writing habit flickered and died, like so many of the habits I've tried to build. Now it's gone, like it was never there. Worse. It's always so much worse, trying to rebuild a habit after you've lost it, at least for me. The most important thing a writer's supposed to have, and I don't have it anymore. I've only written one day since then.
Even after January ended, with all the exhaustion it brought me, I was at a loss. Too many things that demanded my attention, both in Houston and in the Wired. Too many inadequacies.
And then on Monday, February 2, I read that a man approximately seven thousand times cooler than I'll ever be had died. A man who delighted, who thrilled, who awed, who inspired. A man who'd been doing so, showing talent and focus and a work ethic all far beyond my own, since he was no older than I am now. 160 miles away from me, though I'd never met him. I never would have, probably -- cons have always been too intimidating for me. This is what the people who knew him best said:
"In lieu of flowers or gifts, we ask that you simply do something creative. Use your imagination to make the world a better place in any way that you can. If you know Monty like we do, then you know he would certainly be doing that if he were able to."
I haven't done that.
In the past half-decade, what have I created? A few "In Which I Watch" threads on RPGnet. Index pages for Shadowjack's. Scraps of crossover ideas like my NanoStep or my snippets in this thread or this (which was more than a half-decade ago), not intended to be developed any further. The beginnings of a FanFiction.Net analysis. A single 7,000-word chapter of an Evangelion self-insertion in 2011 that I stalled on not long afterward, despite grand plans.
It's not lack of "natural talent" that's held me back. And it's not lack of time -- I've got the same 24 hours as everyone else, and I don't work more than 40 hours a week, with maybe a 45-minute round-trip commute (and that's only been over the past 16 months). It's been my own cowardice, my inability to manage the time I have, my lack of focus and self-discipline. Every project suffers, even watching a one-season anime series. Even starting this confession or whatever-it-is took an Internet outage for me to focus on it, and I'm struggling to finish it now that the Internet's back.
The story I started in November, under the title of "The Record-Keeper", is one I've hesitated to share. I haven't posted any of the 10,000+ words I've written online, though I've thought about it. I've thought that I could share it with a few people, in the hopes that they could tell me where my deficiencies are and how to improve, beyond the obvious matter of rebuilding the writing habit that I've lost.
Even though I hit a good dividing line at the end of the year, though, I've been too uncomfortable and intimidated to share. I've avoided the best motivational tool there is, by all accounts I've heard -- encouragement from others. The whole reason it's been three years since I've shown my face here is because I was too ashamed of not having another chapter of For the Future to present.
It's time I stopped the dithering. I don't have time for it. If Monday's news drove home anything, it's that I don't know how much time I do have.
An allergic reaction. Completely random. Might as well have been a lightning bolt. Who by water and who by fire...
Anybody who wants, I'll send a copy of the first chunk of The Record-Keeper. It's around 7,000 words long. I don't know if the whole thing ought to be the "first chapter", but the end is definitely a chapter break. I'd appreciate any and all efforts to diagnose its problems, so I can get a better grasp of where my writing skills are. In the meantime, I plan to get my FanFiction.Net profile up to date, and eventually start posting the fic online. FFN, AO3 if possible, maybe even Spacebattles and Sufficient Velocity. A new thread here, too. And maybe in the next few weeks, I'll be able to get my writing habit going again. God willing, I'll someday find what it takes to keep my better habits from collapsing at a stiff breeze.
It's not much. But it should serve as a start.
Pronounced "shy guy."
When NaNoWriMo started, I started writing it for real. I had a few pages of notes before, but nothing else. It rapidly became clear that I wasn't going to make it to 50K, or anywhere close, just like every other time I'd tried NaNoWriMo. But this time, I managed to establish a habit: at least one sentence a day. Even that bare minimum was more than I'd ever accomplished.
In December, I expanded beyond one sentence, to a minimum of 50 words per day, more if I felt like it. On New Year's Eve, I managed to write more than a thousand words in a burst of enthusiasm and motivation. In January, I upped it to 100 words, despite everything else going on in my life (some of which is still going on) that left me feeling pushed past my limit.
And then, on January 21, that writing habit flickered and died, like so many of the habits I've tried to build. Now it's gone, like it was never there. Worse. It's always so much worse, trying to rebuild a habit after you've lost it, at least for me. The most important thing a writer's supposed to have, and I don't have it anymore. I've only written one day since then.
Even after January ended, with all the exhaustion it brought me, I was at a loss. Too many things that demanded my attention, both in Houston and in the Wired. Too many inadequacies.
And then on Monday, February 2, I read that a man approximately seven thousand times cooler than I'll ever be had died. A man who delighted, who thrilled, who awed, who inspired. A man who'd been doing so, showing talent and focus and a work ethic all far beyond my own, since he was no older than I am now. 160 miles away from me, though I'd never met him. I never would have, probably -- cons have always been too intimidating for me. This is what the people who knew him best said:
"In lieu of flowers or gifts, we ask that you simply do something creative. Use your imagination to make the world a better place in any way that you can. If you know Monty like we do, then you know he would certainly be doing that if he were able to."
I haven't done that.
In the past half-decade, what have I created? A few "In Which I Watch" threads on RPGnet. Index pages for Shadowjack's. Scraps of crossover ideas like my NanoStep or my snippets in this thread or this (which was more than a half-decade ago), not intended to be developed any further. The beginnings of a FanFiction.Net analysis. A single 7,000-word chapter of an Evangelion self-insertion in 2011 that I stalled on not long afterward, despite grand plans.
It's not lack of "natural talent" that's held me back. And it's not lack of time -- I've got the same 24 hours as everyone else, and I don't work more than 40 hours a week, with maybe a 45-minute round-trip commute (and that's only been over the past 16 months). It's been my own cowardice, my inability to manage the time I have, my lack of focus and self-discipline. Every project suffers, even watching a one-season anime series. Even starting this confession or whatever-it-is took an Internet outage for me to focus on it, and I'm struggling to finish it now that the Internet's back.
The story I started in November, under the title of "The Record-Keeper", is one I've hesitated to share. I haven't posted any of the 10,000+ words I've written online, though I've thought about it. I've thought that I could share it with a few people, in the hopes that they could tell me where my deficiencies are and how to improve, beyond the obvious matter of rebuilding the writing habit that I've lost.
Even though I hit a good dividing line at the end of the year, though, I've been too uncomfortable and intimidated to share. I've avoided the best motivational tool there is, by all accounts I've heard -- encouragement from others. The whole reason it's been three years since I've shown my face here is because I was too ashamed of not having another chapter of For the Future to present.
It's time I stopped the dithering. I don't have time for it. If Monday's news drove home anything, it's that I don't know how much time I do have.
An allergic reaction. Completely random. Might as well have been a lightning bolt. Who by water and who by fire...
Anybody who wants, I'll send a copy of the first chunk of The Record-Keeper. It's around 7,000 words long. I don't know if the whole thing ought to be the "first chapter", but the end is definitely a chapter break. I'd appreciate any and all efforts to diagnose its problems, so I can get a better grasp of where my writing skills are. In the meantime, I plan to get my FanFiction.Net profile up to date, and eventually start posting the fic online. FFN, AO3 if possible, maybe even Spacebattles and Sufficient Velocity. A new thread here, too. And maybe in the next few weeks, I'll be able to get my writing habit going again. God willing, I'll someday find what it takes to keep my better habits from collapsing at a stiff breeze.
It's not much. But it should serve as a start.
Pronounced "shy guy."