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It'll take time, but we're going far.
This is the first year in over a decade that I haven't written fic. Not even a drabble of exactly 100 words.
Though in retrospect, that's not precisely true. I'll be more precise: this is the first year in over a decade that I haven't finished fic. I did write, and I've got the drafts and emails chat logs to prove it. I managed to get the rough draft of a fic I'd love to read if someone else had stumbled over the idea first, and I should be able to finish the edits and beg the internet for beta-readers by the end of March. It's a big project, in scope and scale and personal ambition, and I'm hopeful I can get to where I want to go.
I just didn't finish anything.
That honestly doesn't bother me. When I think on why I didn't finish any fic to post, I find good reasons, not excuses. Like holding myself to high standards and wanting to get the structure in place so I could figure out what the story needed to be. Or finally visiting Denmark and traveling to London alone and seeing friends for the first time.
And writing a novel.
Now that's something that needs at least one more serious round of edits, harsh but fair critiques and the read-it-aloud phase, and then I can go scream into a pillow and begin working my way down the possible agents list and figuring out how to write a query letter. Because I wrote something I want to read, and it's just possible someone else out there wants to read it, too.
Though in retrospect, that's not precisely true. I'll be more precise: this is the first year in over a decade that I haven't finished fic. I did write, and I've got the drafts and emails chat logs to prove it. I managed to get the rough draft of a fic I'd love to read if someone else had stumbled over the idea first, and I should be able to finish the edits and beg the internet for beta-readers by the end of March. It's a big project, in scope and scale and personal ambition, and I'm hopeful I can get to where I want to go.
I just didn't finish anything.
That honestly doesn't bother me. When I think on why I didn't finish any fic to post, I find good reasons, not excuses. Like holding myself to high standards and wanting to get the structure in place so I could figure out what the story needed to be. Or finally visiting Denmark and traveling to London alone and seeing friends for the first time.
And writing a novel.
Now that's something that needs at least one more serious round of edits, harsh but fair critiques and the read-it-aloud phase, and then I can go scream into a pillow and begin working my way down the possible agents list and figuring out how to write a query letter. Because I wrote something I want to read, and it's just possible someone else out there wants to read it, too.
no subject
I've found that the more I've matured as a writer, my goals have shifted for what I want to get out of writing. Fic is still one of my loves, but how I approach the stories I write has changed, and I'm much more patient with them than I used to be, as you say, giving them the time they need to be the story they should be. Of course, I'm not very good at finishing my longer stories -- I get stuck in the middle -- but I'm working on that too.