DTFic Diary - Writing Updates for 2024 W35

[g_uava]

A compilation of updates and reflections about my writing for the week. Some or all have been posted as comments for the posts for writethisfanfic.

Shall try sharing my thoughts and reflections on writing here! When talking about writing in private on either a digital or physical journal, I tend to ruminate on my troubles and why they shouldn't exist, and entries just become a compilation of unproductive thoughts. Maybe if I think out loud in a space where my thoughts are likely to be stumbled upon by someone else, I'd be inspired to spread positive vibes about writing, which can be hard and demanding, and so encourage myself and other writers.

The writing for me has been going well, after getting back into it since I paused creating new stories in April. I did get new story ideas and the itch to write in the intervening months, but I held off from committing myself to a draft in case I fall into just going through the motions.

Before 2022, I trained myself to be consistent about writing and posting on AO3 for the past 6 years, at the cost of burning out and breaking down as I pushed on with sharing fic while struggling to process my emotions along the way. Then I took a break to explore other interests and build non-writing skills, and when I started writing again in 2023, I set myself on a new approach to create stories that'd be good for my mental health and for my writing as a whole.

I'm a relatively slow writer and tend to take 30-60 minutes in a single writing session to get to a good stopping point. For the past 3 sessions, I delayed checking the wordcount until I'm really, really compelled like Orpheus just having to check if Eurydice is behind him. And just as how Orpheus loses the fruits of his artistic talent i.e. bringing Eurydice back to life, I lose my writing momentum after the first check of my draft's wordcount. I'd like to better stomach the uncertainty on how much I'm producing on a particular day and focus on manifesting a story, instead of getting distracted by numbers that only partially represent how the writing is going.

**

Had a great writing session while drinking a cup of elderberry apple tea (from Whittard) and went for a metabolic conditioning class at the gym! It's similar to high intensity interval training but with some strength work mixed in to optimize the burning of calories.

Today's workout is tiring without being torturous like how metabolic conditioning sessions often are. Still I feel good and accomplished at the end, and key to surviving a metabolic conditioning class is to keep going for classes. Whenever I take a break for more than one week, it gets harder to get used to the increased heart rate and shortness of breath during the class. That applies for writing too and perhaps for any kind of habit that involves putting in effort, and fortunately writing is more forgiving in that it takes quite a while for the skills involved in storytelling to truly atrophy.

Also updated my writing tracker to track the number of writing sessions for my current draft by putting at the top:

'Current Draft - Writing Sessions: 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1'

After completing a session, I delete the number at the back. Taking more than 10 sessions for a story means it's more challenging than I thought and I got to switch to longfic writing mode to finish in a timely fashion. That involves thinking through and prioritising what's worth the extra time and energy to include in the story.

**

Wrote today! Had the kind of writing session during which I periodically space out and think about my ship's dynamics, as well as potential story ideas for developing character and ship interpretations fleshed out in my current draft. For instance I got inspired to throw in an allusion to an event that happened earlier in the timeline of the established relationship, when it's less established, and I might expand on that if I'd like to.

I've got far enough to better understand the ship through writing about them and glimpse at a world of unwritten stories. Actually writing them at a comfortable pace is another matter 😆

**

Massive misshap occurred just after I finished my current story! Closed the window before Simplenote was done syncing what I just pasted in and on reopening the link, I lost 400 words of my writing 😵😱😭

Tried in vain to recover it for a while, then literally unleashed cries of despair and tore at my hair while alone in my room. It was pretty late, yet I wanted to buckle in and rewrite all that's gone, since the ending was still fresh in my mind. What motivated me were ideas for new stories I wanted to start.

Some false starts in writing the ending all over again as I was at first determined to put back together the lines that I liked. Then I just caved in to instead write a newish version and ended up with more words than I initially wrote!

The main lesson learnt is to write with a digital tool that enables file recovery. Through looking up alternatives to Simplenote, I discovered UpNote and created an account. It has many of the features I'd like for writing and editing stories, and so far more pleasant than other writing apps I've relied on. But it's only been a day since I've copied over my stories to UpNote and also edited my latest story, and so I shall see in the near future whether it'll be good to stick with UpNote.

**

Edited my latest fic on UpNote and shared it as part of bbtp_challenge! It's also the first story exclusively posted on my fanworks comm juicedguava. I'm taking an indefinite hiatus from posting on AO3 as I've been getting nervous seeing Inbox (0) whenever I view my AO3 profile 😬

Continued thinking about my ship and new story ideas for the upcoming week. Later during dinner at a restaurant with live music, the musicians opened the floor to song requests and I asked them to perform a song fitting for the arc of my ship, that is M2M's "The Day You Went Away." Very big brain of me to match an early 2000s song with a pairing from an early 2000s anime 😂

Comments

[vriddy]

Always fascinating to read about other writers' process!! :D :D Losing words really sucks orz No matter what you do, it feels like the stuff you lost was the height of perfection that can never be replicated again. Congrats on all the progress!! :)

[g_uava]

I really look forward to reading your writing logs too!

It did suck at first losing all those words but I shall remember having the inner strength to sit down and dredge them up again in the same night 😂 Those words were also the push to get me to change my writing app that's more appealing in terms of function and aesthetic.

Thanks for the encouragement!