Wrting advice and planning

[louiselux]

To paraphrase matociquala, don't worry, you're probably not doing it wrong. She says lots of wise things, but I liked this:

"if you consistently find yourself pausing a third of the way into the book to rearrange the first hundred pages, and then moving on, that's okay. It's fine. Go ahead and do it."

I do this all the time with stories: start them and then about a third or halfway through have to stop and reconsider everything. It's always do it with a sense of guilt, like I should've thought things through better before I started. But hoorah! It's okay! I don't have to feel guilty any more.

It makes me feel a bit better about the pile of unfinished stories where I got confused about halfway through, then got too guilty about my failure to plot properly and gave up. It's not plotting that's a problem, it's allowing myself time to think things through and to tell the story how I want to tell it.

emungere showed me this cool to-do list site called remember the milk. My fic to do list is a little bit scary, but I whittled it down. Prioritised for the coming month:

1. Saiyuki livelongandmarry story
2. Fedal holiday exchange story
3. Rafa's diary
4. Vampiro!
5. To be confirmed

Comments

[cicer.livejournal.com]

It makes me feel a bit better about the pile of unfinished stories where I got confused about halfway through, then got too guilty about my failure to plot properly and gave up.

Glory hallelujah, it's not just me! *dances with relief* I have a truly embarrassing number of unfinished stories, because I always hit that point in the story, usually about halfway through, where I go, 'Oh crap, I don't know what the hell I'm doing', and then I panic, feel embarrassed about my inability to plot, and give up. Clearly, I need to stop doing this.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

It's great to know that other people share this exact same problem. We don't need to feel guilty anymore!