![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
It's done...it's finished...
Feb. 11th, 2013 06:57 pmYou know that scene at the end of "Return of the King" where Frodo is lying there next to Sam on the slopes of Mount Doom stunned that his quest, his impossible, awful quest is finally at long last over. In a weird way I sort of know how he feels. My own version of chucking The One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom was finishing the longest fic I've ever written in a fandom I had, until April of last year, never dared write a word in.
And it's now done, Ingenue wrapped up at just over 95,000 words. Not a huge amount I suppose, but it sure as heck felt like an uphill slog to me. But it did allow me to prove to myself that I could actually finish something that long without being prodded by anything more than the occasional feedback comment. The other thing it did was give me a daily practice that allowed me to easily produce 1,500-4,000 words per week. Not, perhaps the highest quality words every single week, but the momentum was really important. I missed precisely one week of posting and that was entirely intentional over the holidays, other than that I posted every single week, even with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aelfsciene's wedding stuff and two surgeries to deal with. Gotta' admit I'm proud of that.
The other thing it did for me was prove that I didn't need to go into a story with every single element of the plot worked out. Indeed with this one I knew where I was starting, writing an Anthea backstory in my case, and where I was ending, giving an explanation for the end of Scandal in Belgravia that made more sense to me. But the rest I made up on the fly, creating a variety of characters, embellishing a bunch more, and even offering Sherlock series canon scenes from a different perspective. I ended up answering questions I didn't even realize I had about the series and more often than not I was just as surprised by the answers as my readers probably were.
In other words I stepped way outside of my comfort zone when it comes to writing and just sort of...winged it really. I think it worked, I certainly didn't get much in the way of negative feedback and a good deal of positive. Not too bad really.
The only problem now is that a big part of me wants to just take some time off and give myself a break from writing...the other part thinks "Don't lose your damn momentum!" and wants to keep going with, well something. The question now is, do I play around with the Avengers fic I've been considering, go back to my Snupin novel-length sequel to "Scale of Dragon..." or get to work on my damn original novel. Decisions, decisions.
And it's now done, Ingenue wrapped up at just over 95,000 words. Not a huge amount I suppose, but it sure as heck felt like an uphill slog to me. But it did allow me to prove to myself that I could actually finish something that long without being prodded by anything more than the occasional feedback comment. The other thing it did was give me a daily practice that allowed me to easily produce 1,500-4,000 words per week. Not, perhaps the highest quality words every single week, but the momentum was really important. I missed precisely one week of posting and that was entirely intentional over the holidays, other than that I posted every single week, even with
aelfsciene's wedding stuff and two surgeries to deal with. Gotta' admit I'm proud of that.The other thing it did for me was prove that I didn't need to go into a story with every single element of the plot worked out. Indeed with this one I knew where I was starting, writing an Anthea backstory in my case, and where I was ending, giving an explanation for the end of Scandal in Belgravia that made more sense to me. But the rest I made up on the fly, creating a variety of characters, embellishing a bunch more, and even offering Sherlock series canon scenes from a different perspective. I ended up answering questions I didn't even realize I had about the series and more often than not I was just as surprised by the answers as my readers probably were.
In other words I stepped way outside of my comfort zone when it comes to writing and just sort of...winged it really. I think it worked, I certainly didn't get much in the way of negative feedback and a good deal of positive. Not too bad really.
The only problem now is that a big part of me wants to just take some time off and give myself a break from writing...the other part thinks "Don't lose your damn momentum!" and wants to keep going with, well something. The question now is, do I play around with the Avengers fic I've been considering, go back to my Snupin novel-length sequel to "Scale of Dragon..." or get to work on my damn original novel. Decisions, decisions.
