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Well, it's that time of year again.
Given my utter failure at Nanowrimo last year, I know I'm going to have to attempt it again this year (and likely have to keep at it for a few more years until I actually succeed). The problem in that plan is me.
I really don't have an idea for a novel. I've got my usual scraps and snippets and flickering bits of scene, but nothing substantial. I'm a little burnt-out, a little uninspired, a little bored. Right now, my action plan consists of writing something historical/fantasy-ish. That way if I get stuck or run out things for my characters to do, they can go milk cows or till soil or make apple cider vinegar or whatever else hand-to-mouth farmers do.
And that idea actually plays into my original action plan, which was to write a big, sprawling, unreadable servant-epic* and hopefully get all my service-orientated fetishes and dreary love of the mundane and fascination with cheese-making out of my system. It's not like my nano project is going to an publisher or a storyboard or anywhere except the delete bucket. I can be as mundane and plodding and side-story-y and full of half-made cheese as I want.
Except...
I can't operate that way. Usually. While I enjoy mundane minutiae, I don't enjoy writing it. In my head, I let myself imagine what I damn well please. Once I try to write it, I get all caught up in audience and presentation and need-for-plot and the over-riding SO FUCKING WHATness of the minutiae. I won't be able to enjoy it for what it is anymore, and so I'll try to compensate by crafting it well, and that never works because I'm way more of re-writer than writer at this point and I'll talk myself into abandoning all my treasured minutiae long before I ever get to any drafts to re-write.
I'm trying to talk myself into ignoring myself and just letting myself have a holiday in minutiae. Write all the damn pot-scrubbing I want. But, The Panics have a thousand insidious tactics that they can't wait to try out on me. *I* have a thousand insidious tactics to sabotage myself with.
How can I write 50,000 words on weed-pulling when half of my journal posts consist of mockings aimed at the pointlessness of other people's stories? I bitch endlessly about characters who angst while staring at hotel ceilings. There is no difference between that and my characters angsting while stacking hay.
And believe me, dealing with that realization is thoroughly destroying my snarky, smug little world. I am what I mock. Help!
*But Opera, you already did that with The King. Oh!*raspberries* ha ha ha h--*sobs* I suck.
Given my utter failure at Nanowrimo last year, I know I'm going to have to attempt it again this year (and likely have to keep at it for a few more years until I actually succeed). The problem in that plan is me.
I really don't have an idea for a novel. I've got my usual scraps and snippets and flickering bits of scene, but nothing substantial. I'm a little burnt-out, a little uninspired, a little bored. Right now, my action plan consists of writing something historical/fantasy-ish. That way if I get stuck or run out things for my characters to do, they can go milk cows or till soil or make apple cider vinegar or whatever else hand-to-mouth farmers do.
And that idea actually plays into my original action plan, which was to write a big, sprawling, unreadable servant-epic*
Except...
I can't operate that way. Usually. While I enjoy mundane minutiae, I don't enjoy writing it. In my head, I let myself imagine what I damn well please. Once I try to write it, I get all caught up in audience and presentation and need-for-plot and the over-riding SO FUCKING WHATness of the minutiae. I won't be able to enjoy it for what it is anymore, and so I'll try to compensate by crafting it well, and that never works because I'm way more of re-writer than writer at this point and I'll talk myself into abandoning all my treasured minutiae long before I ever get to any drafts to re-write.
I'm trying to talk myself into ignoring myself and just letting myself have a holiday in minutiae. Write all the damn pot-scrubbing I want. But, The Panics have a thousand insidious tactics that they can't wait to try out on me. *I* have a thousand insidious tactics to sabotage myself with.
How can I write 50,000 words on weed-pulling when half of my journal posts consist of mockings aimed at the pointlessness of other people's stories? I bitch endlessly about characters who angst while staring at hotel ceilings. There is no difference between that and my characters angsting while stacking hay.
And believe me, dealing with that realization is thoroughly destroying my snarky, smug little world. I am what I mock. Help!
*But Opera, you already did that with The King. Oh!*raspberries* ha ha ha h--*sobs* I suck.
