WIP Challenge Check-in, Day 26 -- Monday

[linaewen]

 Hello on Monday! How's the day going so far for fic? (If you haven't gotten started on your day as yet, how did yesterday go for writing fic?)

 

    - Excellent!

    - Terrible

    - Somewhere in between

    - Nothing doing

 

How much time have you spent on writing fic today, roughly?

 

    - None

    - 30 minutes or less

    - 30-60 minutes

    - 60-90 minutes

    - More than 90 minutes

 

In five words or less, how do you feel about that?

Comments

[linaewen]

I'm just getting going so my report on yesterday is that it went okay for the amount of time I was able to spend writing (which was about 60-90 minutes). It wasn't excellent but it definitely wasn't terrible, and progress was made. Even so, I requested an extension on my project for a bit more breathing room!

My five words: I'll just keep plugging away!

[g_uava]

Whelp I only realised the prompt for 5 words or less after I posted a comment with way more words than that 😅

Great on progress being made and may more follow with the extension. Having more breathing room is a relief except for those writers who could write like lightning under the pressure of deadlines.

[linaewen]

Thank you! Getting the extension was really good, it took enough pressure off that I can now write without worrying!

[scifirenegade]

Yesterday went great because I finished something! Took 3 rewrites, but it's done. Now onto other things (yesterday's writing sesh probably took an hour or so).

[g_uava]

Well done on finishing and going the extra mile to refine a fic 👏

[linaewen]

Yay for finishing something!

[fleetsparrow]

I have done none writing today. But considering that today started with terrible GI troubles (work stress), nerve pain (also work stress), and such things, I'm gonna call it a day and try again tomorrow. I did do some light RL stuff, so that took all my leftover spoons.

[g_uava]

Hope the multiple stressors abate soon and may more spoons take their place!

[linaewen]

Feel better!

[g_uava]

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.

[linaewen]

This is good advice about not checking your wordcount -- it really can be demoralizing to work super hard and then be deflated by the numbers!

[g_uava]

The words written sometimes really don't reflect the effort put into writing them, such as for descriptive parts in my case 😂 Like how climbing a hill is super tiring yet contributes not a lot to a step count goal.