Wait, what? You've only been around for five years? I thought you'd been in Oz forever! I got in for the 2012 magi, so we came in around the same time. Though your love is clearly much steadier than mine. I have a couple of Oz half-stories I really, really wish I could finish, but I'm not sure I've got anything left in me.
But you know what would really help... Someone else's awesome long Oz fic...
You can do it! I used to be a short writer! I was always so jealous of the people who could churn out epic relationship stories with plots, but I got there eventually, and now I have three over 120 000 words, and one of those is the stupidly absurd 250 000. (There is now a disturbing pattern where long stories burn me out of fandoms, but I'm sure that's just me.) I'm slow and I'm definitely a re-editor, but that's good. I embrace that. It makes me feel better about shitty drafts. It doesn't matter if I just wrote a chunk of dialogue that was cheesy and OOC, because I'm going to come back and fix it anyway, getting the bones of the conversation down is harder than fixing it.
I'm sorry about oz_daily. It has made me very happy. (Muppets is still my favourite theme.) But if it's a chore, let it go. There are too many chores in life already. Use that time for writing something long and pornographic. You can go back to it whenever you want.
I highly, highly recommend the 'finish the draft, post in chapters on a schedule' method. That's the only way I got my longest stories out. I also need to be able to go back and fill out the early parts. I've done one classic-style WIP ever, and only could do it because it was a re-write of 'Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret,' so I was following Blume's plot. Even then, once, thank you, never again. (Also, I accidentally changed the gender of a character halfway through and never noticed.) But this method, the plot's all there so you can't lose your way, but you've got a little time pressure to drive you to finish the sketchy bits, and to prevent you from wallowing in perfectionism. AND you have reader feedback to help you massage things if readers are not reading how you want them to.
And also just to succour your soul. I'm not the least bit ashamed to say that for all my hours and hours of writing, I want to be fed with specific comments, people who'll give me emotional reactions along the way or flag scraps of dialogue they liked. You guys and the sense of community you gave and the soul succouring were what made the detailed effort worth it in a way that kudos button clicks or even singular, 'I read your story and generally liked the whole thing,' comments never could. (Though I also appreciate the latter.)
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branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2018-02-23 01:18 pm (UTC)But you know what would really help... Someone else's awesome long Oz fic...
You can do it! I used to be a short writer! I was always so jealous of the people who could churn out epic relationship stories with plots, but I got there eventually, and now I have three over 120 000 words, and one of those is the stupidly absurd 250 000. (There is now a disturbing pattern where long stories burn me out of fandoms, but I'm sure that's just me.) I'm slow and I'm definitely a re-editor, but that's good. I embrace that. It makes me feel better about shitty drafts. It doesn't matter if I just wrote a chunk of dialogue that was cheesy and OOC, because I'm going to come back and fix it anyway, getting the bones of the conversation down is harder than fixing it.
I'm sorry about oz_daily. It has made me very happy. (Muppets is still my favourite theme.) But if it's a chore, let it go. There are too many chores in life already. Use that time for writing something long and pornographic. You can go back to it whenever you want.
I highly, highly recommend the 'finish the draft, post in chapters on a schedule' method. That's the only way I got my longest stories out. I also need to be able to go back and fill out the early parts. I've done one classic-style WIP ever, and only could do it because it was a re-write of 'Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret,' so I was following Blume's plot. Even then, once, thank you, never again. (Also, I accidentally changed the gender of a character halfway through and never noticed.) But this method, the plot's all there so you can't lose your way, but you've got a little time pressure to drive you to finish the sketchy bits, and to prevent you from wallowing in perfectionism. AND you have reader feedback to help you massage things if readers are not reading how you want them to.
And also just to succour your soul. I'm not the least bit ashamed to say that for all my hours and hours of writing, I want to be fed with specific comments, people who'll give me emotional reactions along the way or flag scraps of dialogue they liked. You guys and the sense of community you gave and the soul succouring were what made the detailed effort worth it in a way that kudos button clicks or even singular, 'I read your story and generally liked the whole thing,' comments never could. (Though I also appreciate the latter.)
So yes! Do it!