I don’t really know what to do with myself. I’m trying to write a story. I’ve been refining it for nearly three weeks now in my head, and I have the plot figured out for all but one section, and I finally worked up the courage to start putting it down on paper today.
So far? It sucks. I am drowning in suckosity. Transitions and conversation that went so smoothly in the mental version, are showing all their rough edges on paper. I really someone to help me. Someone IRL, who I can talk things out with.
If this were original fiction- or even a fic of a more popular fandom- I can think of several people I could ask for help. Unfortunately, this is a Silmarillion story. The number of Silm fans around that I know is roughly 0. I should be finishing this paragraph with at least one more sentence, but my head is all swimmy at the moment and my thinky bits aren’t working right. Suckosity. That should be a word.
Hey, don’t sweat it. If this is a Silmarillion story, then you’ve got at least fifty years to finish it.
In the meanwhile, go get some sleep and look at it again in the morning.
Conversation isn’t something The Silmarillion was really big on…
M,I,S: If you like, I can connect you with quite a few Tolkien fic writers. Do you have a Tumblr?
ETA: Message me, I’ll fix you up.
That’s a good point. My head is too unscrewed to do anything except whine for today. Seeya tomorrow.
I’ve never read The Silmarillion, but I’ve written thousands of first drafts, been published hundreds of times, and my first drafts are almost always terrible. Many authors have said this before me. If you care about this story, write a second draft, and a third. And a 103rd, if needed. It may not become wonderful, especially if this is your first effort, but it will become much better.
Writing is weird; the only way to learn it is by doing it…and one’s early efforts are usually awful.
Ray Bradbury, not helpfully, observed that everyone’s first million words are garbage. I won’t be quite that pessimistic, but he isn’t totally wrong in concept.
The good news is that re-writing is much, much easier than writing, so just smear your words out on paper (or computer screen) however they come out, and you can neaten them all up later. First drafts are permitted to suck: that’s hugely liberating!
I did get in contact with someone whose profile said she was a beta reader. And she said she’d be willing to give me some pointers when I handed in a draft. But I doubt she’d be willing to hold my hand though the “putting it together” parts. And I don’t want her to get the impression I’m writing the Great Middle-earthian Novel, when it’s just a humorous fluff piece involving Finrod and a kitten. So I technically have a beta, I’m just not at the point where she’d probably get involved.
For me, rewriting is the hardest part. I don’t know what to do with all the possible paragraphs on my screen, and I end up with a clutter of bracketed paragraphs that I’m not ready to delete because maybe there’s something in there I’ll repurpose. And then I don’t know how to fit it back all together again.
But, uh, today… I deleted something? And added a phrase I’d thought of last night?
sob this is gonna take me another six months.
I’ve got my creativity too stretched out in all directions. I’ve got a play I’ve got the lead role in that I’m having serious doubts about whether I’m going to memorize my part in time, I’ve got a fledgling jewelry-making business, I’ve got a D&D group I just joined, and most of all, I’ve got stress. What I really should do is put the story away until at least after the play, but I know me, and I know that if I leave a project half-finished I won’t come back.
Keep two documents open as you write; when you decide to delete something, first copy/paste it into your ‘Keep This Stuff Just In Case’ document.
That way you won’t agonize so much about hitting that Delete key.