You know, maybe I'm trying too hard.

[sethgray]

These past few days I have spent my time lounging in bed reading a variety of web serials that I never have read before, and probably would have turned my nose up at them even a few weeks ago. In the process of doing so, I have discovered something. I am working way too hard about about conjuring grand schemes and epic details and not doing enough actual fingers-to-keyboard pay off. The serials I've been reading lately aren't high literature; hell, sometimes they barely describe the main characters, and usually that kills any enjoyment I may have gained from the story. But you know what? I've enjoyed the hell out of myself anyway.


This is, I believe, what they call an epiphany, aka: pulling one's head out, aka: going to the dollar store and buying a clue, aka: a blinding revelation of "no, shit, really?", aka: well, you get the idea.

Every little detail doesn't need to be planned out in advance, but I can't just whip an epic master plan in my head and hit go either. Instead of the dumb ass shit I've been doing, I should have been sitting down and putting what I do have in my head down on paper. Outlines, character details, what plot points I do have already, all of this stuff I've been avoiding because it isn't fun. A master plan is all well and good, but keeping it in my head until everything has "percolated," as I like to call it, is really, really dumb.

I think in the future I'm going to put a sticky by my computer this sticky is going to say, "Forget epic. Just WRITE!"


Uh-oh, is that maturity sneaking up on me? *flicks hands* Shoo!



Oh, in case anyone's curious, here's the two pieces mainly responsible for my little change of heart:

(Shadow of the Templar)

(100 Candles)

Comments

[jupiterrhode.livejournal.com]

...OMG! You just posted on my journal! You!

*faints*

Ahem, now that I'm done fanboying, I get what you're saying. See, I do all of that, I just do it in my head. I'm too dumb to just sit down and make myself write it out.

What I need to do it not worry about the nitty-gritty and just write down what I already know. But I don't like doing that because it takes the "magic" out of the process. Of course, when I don't do that it ends up an incoherent mess, but hey.

God, I still can't get over you posting on my journal. Hee!

[meilin-miranda.livejournal.com]

I can't get over you being excited about my posting on your LJ. :)

I only write out some of it. Things are getting complicated enough, considering I'm going to be doing this for the rest of my life it looks like (no joke), that I'm auditioning project management software, specifically Scrivener. We'll see. I'm getting tired of chasing all the little notes I have scribbled everywhere. If I didn't have the wiki already, boy, the story would be a REAL mess.

[jupiterrhode.livejournal.com]

*Toes dirt*

Well, c'mon. You're you and I'm me. Why wouldn't I be excited?

[meilin-miranda.livejournal.com]

Oh, you may be as excited as you like; it's very flattering and let's face it, I have an ego the size of a house. :) But there's really no call for it. Hardly anyone outside the small web fiction community knows who I am. Yet. I'm working on that. I'm discovering that half or more of the job of a writer, self-published or no, is self-promotion. But, you know, see ego, size of domicile. :)

[jupiterrhode.livejournal.com]

*lulz*

There's certainly call for it. You write an interesting, engaging, professional work that I regularly "tune in" for. You have a name among the web serial community. That's plenty star power for me. ~_^