Check-in post, day 14

[lola_mento]

We're almost halfway through this month now. How are things going so far? Making any significant progress? Any significant panicking? Any deadlines suddenly creeping in on you, not that it happened to me or anything?

Today's discussion theme is Titles Hard part or hardest part of the story? Where do you get them? And does anyone else ever start with the title, or is it just me?

Comments

[laceblade]

I've been feeling pretty demoralized about my fic lately.

Firstly, depression has been bad lately so I don't feel like doing anything, fic not being exclusive.

I started replaying the game (my fic is Inception-inspired AU for FF7), and now I'm all, "Ugh! My fic doesn't do anything that the canon doesn't already do better! WTF am I even writing this for?!" blah-blah.

I haven't touched the fic in a couple weeks, I think I was sitting at something like 7,000 words at that point.

[mystiri_1]

I find that writing is pretty tied to my emotional state. When I am depressed, I don't want to write - I may have plenty of ideas, but my motivation to actually *write* is nil. At the same time, writing often helps with my depression, but only if I am doing it in a fairly social setting. RPing used to be pretty good for this, but I am not currently playing anywhere, so it's mostly challenge comms for now. In particular, things like song_prompt or fic_promptly, where it's comment fic, there are hundreds of prompts to choose from, and it's pretty low-pressure, but you are almost guaranteed a response to whatever you write. And sometimes it helps to get away from a big project. Maybe if the times cooperate you could join one of the writing sesions? I used to get a lot written during chat, especially due to the possibility of instant feedback. It's amazingly encouraging, especially to have somebody else tell you that no, your writing doesn't suck even while you're thinking the opposite.

[glitteryv]

How about breaking it up? Like, making the choice to just write 25 words today? It doesn't have to be the BEST 25 words you've ever written. But, it could get the ball rolling so to speak.

Although, I totally hear you on being down on your fic. I've had days when the idea of just opening the doc makes me do this /o\. Good luck.

[anyssia]

I'd say, don't force yourself to write. Or at least, not a lot at a time, because if you write when you're not feeling that good, you might get annoyed with what you wrote, at a later date.

That said, glitteryv suggestion's of 25 words a day is good too.

If you feel like you're 'copying' the canon too much, maybe try to tweak the plot a bit? Nothing huge, just enough to diverge a little.

Or as mystiri_1 said, try writing a short something else before coming back to your fic. That's what I currently doing too ^^ The last chapter of my main story as been beta-read and I need to check it over and changed a few things, but I can't get myself to open the file. So I tried writing something else in the meantime ^^