WIP challenge - day 5 check-in!

[littlebutfierce]

Checking in! We're inching towards the end of the week. How's it going today?

Poll #6888 Day 5 check-in!

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 14

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How's the fic going today?

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Fantastic
3 (21.4%)

All right
3 (21.4%)

Creeping along
5 (35.7%)

Not going anywhere at all
3 (21.4%)

We're nearing the end of the 1st week of the challenge. Are you:

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Behind schedule for your goal
3 (23.1%)

Ahead of schedule for your goal
1 (7.7%)

On track for your goal
5 (38.5%)

It's too early to tell
4 (30.8%)

What did you do today, fic-wise?

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Write
6 (54.5%)

Edit
3 (27.3%)

Send to beta
0 (0.0%)

Research
1 (9.1%)

Procrastinate
2 (18.2%)

Something else I will describe in comments
3 (27.3%)

Three words or less about your fic!

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& today's discussion question brought to you by me having no time at all for fic today. Oh, & by the flamingo, of course. Let's talk procrastination! We all have days where, sadly, offline obligations prevent us from writing fic. But how do we prevent ourselves from writing fic? How do you slack off when you do, technically, have the time to devote to fic? Can you persuade yourself that it's not procrastination, but research or taking a break or catching up on other things? What's the difference if so? & how do you fight off the urge to procrastinate?

Comments

[littlebutfierce]

I've been really busy w/offline stuff this week, but today, even when I had a bit of time, I just couldn't make myself focus on fic. I'm really tired! So I did what I often do when I procrastinate: I refreshed various websites (my reading page on DW, etc.), checked my feed reader too frequently, etc.

Other things I do to procrastinate instead of writing fic? Reading other people's fic. Rereading my own fic. Checking my hit counts, ahahaha. & rewatching canon. Sometimes that's a genuine need to refresh my memory on details I need for a fic, but sometimes it's not. The line is very blurry!

I try to let myself consciously procrastinate once in a while--in hopes that this will make it easier not to procrastinate all the time. I don't know how well it works though!

[jagnikjen]

Reading fic and re-watching canon are good ways to refill the well and spark new ides. And giving yourself permission to *not* write is important too.

[glitteryv]

Sometimes, we *need* the break. The only problem is if we make a habit out of it. I've also realized that not getting enough sleep will affect (often quite adversely) the following day's writing. It's not like I go to bed at nine p.m., but I *do* try to go to bed at a decent-ish hour. *g*

[dragovianknight]

What I wrote is actually from a later story in the planned arc, but it is making me SO HAPPY I don't care (and usually, I write a little backwards, so when something hits me like this it means I'm going to be writing the setup for it soon).

As for procrastination, all I can say is: TV Tropes.

[jagnikjen]

TV Tropes

I can surf there for hours, too. :)

[charamei]

Oh God, TV Tropes.

And yay for happy-making scenes! Those are the best kind!

[glitteryv]

Writing is writing is writing. If your muse wanted to tussle with a later fic and it made YOU happy (therefore--hopefully?--inspired to work on your goal fic), then yays to you!

[littlebutfierce]

Yay for your writing making you happy!! If it's later in the arc, so what? It might make something click on the parts you're trying to write currently, & plus... writing making you this happy is totally worth going out of order. :)

& HAHAHA TV TROPES. Indeed.

[curuchamion]

Writing out of order is good, if it means writing vs not writing! I've been hopping all around my story (which isn't going to be laid out linearly anyway - it's flashbacks and framing story, and at the moment the flashbacks are taking over the madhouse.) :D

[jagnikjen]

But how do we prevent ourselves from writing fic? By filling the time with other important things.

How do you slack off when you do, technically, have the time to devote to fic? By watching TV or reading or cleaning house or doing laundry, shopping, or hanging out with my kids and playing board games.

Can you persuade yourself that it's not procrastination, but research or taking a break or catching up on other things? Nope, I know better and I've learned/gotten to a place where I just go with the flow. If I don't write, I don't write. And that's okay, because I just came off a year from hell where I had this enormous pressure to write and produce words and it was exhausting and I was tired of it. So in reality, for me it's not procrastinating most of the time. It's just that I don't feel like writing, so I don't. :)

What's the difference if so? & how do you fight off the urge to procrastinate? Mostly, I truly procrstinate when it's time to write a sex scene. I just tell myself to put the words on the page and go back and tweak it later. You can't fix a blank page. :)

As for the poll, I haven't had a chance to write at all today so I couldn't really answer the questions. I'm hoping tonight, I'll be able to work on a fic or two. I got my beta'd story back last night so I'll be looking at the comments and making changes as I deem necessary. And then I'll try to start a new fic...or work on polishing up one of my others and get it ready for posting.

[jagnikjen]

Edited one fic, which is now ready for posting.

Realized another fic had a serious flaw--so I'll have to decide if I want to make it sort of AU or revise it to reflect canon.

Started another fic.

[glitteryv]

Yah, sometimes RL/offline life can eat most (if not ALL) of one's writing time. While I don't stall when it comes to sex scenes, I can sometimes have a hard time keeping the momentum when I'm writing a bridge scene (meaning, a scene where the characters regroup/go about their day/what-have-you before I throw an obstacle or two.)

[bay_alexison]

Haha, I'm like that with sex scenes too. I tend to imagine a lot how I want the the sex scenes to go, but when I try to type it I'm like, "GAH! WHAT IF I MESS UP? D:" But yeah, I then make myself write it out and edit it out later.

[curuchamion]

110 words. Work ate my brain. To my utter disappointment, I am not going to bed yet.

Scribbled more notes - about a canoe trip, this time - got some character stuff a bit more settled. Still love my characters.

Running on fumes, apparently, because incomplete sentences like this are just above calling the mastodon a dinosaur, for me. *sleep-deprived*

[jagnikjen]

Any words are better than no words. Don't despair. :)

[charamei]

110 words are still words that you don't have to write tomorrow! Sleep well :)

[glitteryv]

Dude, 110 words IS 110 new words. I hope you get some rest soon. Tiredness will eat at your urge to write or lower your concentration levels or something ridiculously sucky like that. *hands you a cup of tea and a cozy throw*

[charamei]

Apparently I suck at procrastinating, because I was fully intending to give writing a rest until Monday and yet in the past hour I've cleared my workspace (read: wall), taped a piece of A2 paper to it and got half my story arc(h) for the novel drawn up. Ahhh, the dewy-eyed first romance between author and story. It won't last ;)

I have a bad habit of procrastinating by writing other fic, or working on the wrong story ;) But that's assuming I get as far as opening Word... half the time it's refreshing the reading list, refreshing Lifehacker, and The Sims 2. And TV! And, you know, everything else in the world...

[jagnikjen]

Ahhh, the dewy-eyed first romance between author and story.

Go with it--even if it doesn't last. We gotta get while the gettin' is good.

[anehan]

277 words. Too tired to writzzzzzzzz.

[jagnikjen]

277 words is nothing to sneer at--great job.

[terajk]

A big part of procrastination for me is fear--either I feel like I don't know where to start with researching, or I've never written [fandom, character, scenario, type of story] before, or I worry the story won't be good enough (if it's for a prompt) or whatever.

Thanks to all the 3W4DW writing fests, I *have* written a lot of new-to-me things, which is awesome. And I want to write more things! (So many awesome prompts!) But I'm nervous about my queer_fest fic. Maybe since I've been having so much fun writing drabbles, I could write it as a drabble first? Maybe that would give me the kernel of something to build the fic around, and more importantly, get me to at least write something. I call it a plan.

[jagnikjen]

Maybe since I've been having so much fun writing drabbles, I could write it as a drabble first? Maybe that would give me the kernel of something to build the fic around, and more importantly, get me to at least write something.

Sounds like a great idea.

[glitteryv]

I worked on another story (adding about 1,650 words and doing a final edit before sending it to beta). Then, opened my goal fic doc and . . .kinda . . . stared at it for a little too long. Added my (now usual) 400 words. I'm focusing on spending some time wrasslin' with this fic over the weekend.

As for procrastinating, well, there's the usual surfing of DW, LJ and the handful of blogs I read. I can get distracted rather easily.

What I figure works for me is to sit down and write about an hour or so after I get home from work. By then, I've already shaken off the workday, have had dinner, answered emails and commented on my close friend's posts.

That's not to say that I do this everyday. I just work at making it a habit. Occasionally, I struggle (like in the past two days when I had all the intention to really work at my goalfic, but ended up a little on the the slacker side), but there comes a point when I end up looking forward to shutting the whole world out and seeing where my fic is going to go.

[littlebutfierce]

Wow, yay for all the progress on your fic! Writing is still writing, so even though it mostly wasn't on your goal fic, that's awesome. Good luck focusing on that one this weekend.

By then, I've already shaken off the workday, have had dinner, answered emails and commented on my close friend's posts.

Oooh, I try to do this too, except it doesn't end up being an hour after I get home, b/c I do get sucked into playing on the internet a lot first. :/ I have my 750words.com e-mail reminder to come in at 6 pm, but oftentimes it just sits there for a few hours before I get to it. & if I'm just doing a brain dump in there, no fic, then sometimes it's even harder for me to get around to writing until much later. Sigh.

[lola_mento]

I rewrote one of my unfinished commentfics to get my mind out of the WIP that never ends. I don't even know where I'm going with this commentfic, so it's shelved for now.

[littlebutfierce]

Oh, good plan! I hope switching gears for a little bit helps you reset your writing brain a little bit. Good luck moving forward from here!

[snowynight]

I wrote 2000+. Then my eyes needed a rest.
I procrastinate by obsessively reloading my reading list, checking my email account and in these several days making icons. I call them a necessary break if it doesn't last too long.

[mystiri_1]

2k+ is awesome!

Ditto.

[mystiri_1]

Reached 5677 words today - 28% of my monthly goal which puts me ahead of schedule - yay! And today's writing was one of my potential big bangs for hardmode. (Best thing about hardmode - other than GAMING BIG BANG, YAY! - is that you have until the first draft is due to sign up. So you can figure out if you're actually going to get a fic done first.)

The internet. The internet is a dangerous place, full of flash games and journal sites and rss feeds full of other people's fic, and you really need to read it ALL right away, or you might miss something. No, really, YOU MIGHT MISS SOMETHING. Or at least it seems extremely possible at the time. I am trying to limit the number of tabs I will allow open at a time. (Somebody once asked me why I didn't like IE7, and my answer was 'you can only open 32 tabs before it freezes.' Yes, I hit this problem ALL THE TIME.) I possibly have an attention disorder of some sort. Or maybe just the attention span of a mayfly on speed.

[jagnikjen]

Congrats. Great job!

[bay_alexison]

YES, got rough draft of one of my help_japan fic done! Took about 650 words to get to the ending, haha. I decided in the end to finish up the conversation and wrap up the story. I might do quite a bit of editing in a few days, but for now I'm glad I got the story done at least. Also, I had written over 500 words of that same story I mentioned last check in, so today overall I have written close to 1,200 words. :3

Over the procrastination discussion, when I procrastinate I tend to read a lot of fics, watch anime, and surf around the web to catch up on some fandom related news, haha. Half the time though I ended up doing some research by looking back over the source material to make sure I got certain canon stuff right, like the characters and double checking certain events. Sometimes I do make myself take a break from writing if I need to catch up on real life stuff or if I felt overwhelmed after having done some writing for a few days straight. I mostly fight off the urge to procrastinate if I know the plot bunnies in my head won't leave me alone until I write them out. That's how I get a lot of my stories done. XD

[jagnikjen]

Fantastic that you finished the rough draft.

Definitely take a few days away from the story-a good week if that's possible. Then when you go back to it, you have a bit of distance to catch.