WIP challenge: March 10 check-in

[insignia]

It's the weekend! I hope you all have a good one. How are your projects doing?

• Words!
• Revisions!
• Plans!
• Research!
• It's alive online!
• You expect me to work on a Saturday?
• ... or whatever.

Discussion: Do you only research what you know you'll need? Or do you often find yourself reading about a topic for hours, only to change the plot afterward and not use any of your new knowledge?

Comments

[enemytosleep]

Yuujinchou Exchange (due Mar 17): Finished editing and posted! \o/ No link as it's for an anon exchange that isn't live yet.

Yuujinchou Exchange Bonus Treat #2 (due Mar 24): 266 new words. One more scene and then it's time for editing. Current word count: 1,338

Help_Japan (due 18 years ago - 750 word min): No new words. I promise to give this love after the Yuujinchou exchange stops eating my brain. O.o Current word count: 3,666

I just got three chapters to edit that I've been waiting for, so I'll be working on those for my buddy's posting deadline (Big Bang) and will try to wrap up my second bonus treat as well. They have the same due date, funny enough. ^^;

[dhae_knight_1]

Well. I finished the third installment of my Jack-doesn't-like-Beth. Jack is in therapy, Hotch is sad, and Reid is being a self-sacrificial idiot. Jack isn't going to let him get away with it, though... :-D

I usually only research what I'll need, but it depends on my level of background-knowledge in the given field. If I know next to nothing, I need to do a lot of research to figure out what I don't know. If it's an area where I already know things, there's a pretty good chance I already kow what I don't know.

[snowynight]

I write 2K of teenage mecha pilot fighting Cthulhu. Probably doesn't fit my reverse bang though, I need to gear up fast.

[roane]

Holy crap what a day of writing! I wrote about 2,000 words on "Sublimation" and posted the first half. Yay! I think I might not be done writing yet, either.

I research what I think I'll need, and sometimes the research sparks off a new plot point or character development. With Defence Mechanisms, I've been doing a lot of reading on psychology and chemistry and biology, and it's definitely influenced things in a very interesting way.

[insignia]

You know how I said I'd totally stay on topic now? I was wrong ._. I wrote a couple of hundred words, but on completely different fics than the ones I intended. Still, words! I'll try to get some more done before I go to bed ^^;

[samecgh]

I am writing, but my brain is still partially distracted. The computer was not nice to me also.

Most of the stuff I write about, I tend to know enough so that research hopefully isn't needed. If I do need to look up something, I try to make sure I'm only looking up the stuff I need to and not getting lost in a similar topic. I don't know if I've ever done that.

[linaewen]

I got an idea in the middle of the night that might solve a troubling problem in a future chapter -- and actually remembered it when I woke up! Whoo! So I wrote that down, but that was about it. Nothing is going on for the current chapter so far today. This weekend seems to be working out to be about other things rather than writing, but I'm happy that I'm getting ideas I can use later on, anyway.

I really do a lot of research -- sometimes I do a bunch ahead of time and it's very broad because I don't know what I'll need exactly. Then when something comes up as I'm writing that needs more research, I go do a more specific search for info. Sometimes I don't actually end up using everything I've researched -- and sometimes I change the plot because what I find in my research shows that my idea won't work! ;-) Even if I don't use the info specifically, I feel like the fact that I learned it gives me a fuller feel for my "universe" and it has an effect somehow on what I write.

[roane]

Reid's good at that.

[bay_alexison]

Already started preparing getting ready to post my Big Bang by setting up the codes and a couple author notes. I still need to get the pics uploaded to my photobucket account and make sure the pics will be shown, but I might do that tomorrow. Today is actually the day Beta A says she'll finish looking over my Big Bang fic so I hope to hear from her soon. A bit later tonight I'll get to my Homestuck fic for God Tier as I had been thinking over how I'll approach the story next.

I mostly research what I needed, although there are a couple times where I had forgotten to research a couple topics (for instance castles and blindness, bleh). I had changed the plot based on my research a couple times before, but nothing too drastic.

[lilly_c]

Have another 700 words on my casestory fic and have been planning out some more things for it too.

Still need to post the 2 fics from yesterday :$ was meant to post last night but I went out instead. Always today.

With research it really depends on what I need and how much of it I'll end up using. If it's something I already know a lot about then I just look for the little things that are relevant and if it's something I know nothing about then I tend to spend a lot of time researching online and books, again it depends how much I need. Same with my fandoms, if there's something in canon that I need to use then I'll sit and watch the dvds, pausing it and making notes as I go.

[terabient]

Wrote a double-drabble for a double-drabble series I abandoned like a year ago. It was pretty much out of nowhere but I enjoyed it - will probably work on it again, at least for a little while.

Still haven't decided whether or not I should start over on bingo stuff.

I easily get sidetracked while researching, and when I start writing instead of being concise and focusing only on conveying what's necessary, I try to put ALL the research I've done into said fic. Basically I have to keep all the shiny new knowledge I have from totally derailing my fic, lol. :P

[dhae_knight_1]

They're such a set. Hotch is sacrificing himself for Jack. Jack is sacrificing himself for Hotch. Reid is sacrificing himself for Jack and Hotch.

But Jack won't let Reid sacrifice himself, Hotch won't let Jack sacrifice himself. And, obviously, Reid won't let either Hotch or Jack sarifice themselves.

I love these characters. I love angst, and they're such wonderful puppets to play it out with. :-)

[lea_hazel]

I slapped together a last minute tag to another fic. Not exactly craftsmanship at its finest, but I do so love writing about female friendship. At the end of the day, writing fanfic is supposed to be fun and relaxing (for me).

Like many, I tend to spiral into an endless nebula of research. For example, I don't actually need to know which marina my characters go to to lease a boat for a Saturday outing, much less what route they take, or even exactly how long it takes to get there. No, not even if the canon gives exact coordinates for the location of their house.

I also have a special spiral of research despair, reserved exclusively for name-related symbolism. Ack.

[lullabymoon]

200 words on the big bang. Pleased with it.

[insignia]

Woo, finishing! Well done :D

[insignia]

Sounds like fun! :D

[insignia]

That's a lot of words :D Yay, posting!

[insignia]

Ideas are good! ^__^

[insignia]

Oh, man. Researching for names will be the death of me one day.

[insignia]

Awesome! ^_^

[crowdog66]

The deadline is still riding me, but I did about 1000 words of plotting in the DS9 Gumshoe AU, so the day wasn't a total loss :)

Re: the discussion topic... I tend to be pretty focussed in my research, which is probably a legacy of four years of university training. I determine what I need, track it down, absorb it, and move on. If I find myself getting pulled off-track I tend to make notes to look into it (whatever "it" is) later rather than haring off in a new direction at that moment.