myaru: (Default)
I don't know how long it's been since my last public post, but you probably know that you shouldn't get used to it.

There are approximately a hundred books that I've always meant to read (or finish reading), eventually, once I got around to it--you know? Lots of people have things like that. Since "exercise every day" and "eat healthier" are a lot harder to get motivated for, I figured the intention I set for this year would be "read all those books you never got around to," instead.

But!

This list is special. You see, there are different tiers of the procrastination I have indulged in re: books. There are titles that have only been on the list for a year or two, titles that have been on the list for at least five years, and then ten, and then fifteen. Sooooo.... how should I title these categories? Hmm.

Note that with very few exceptions, this list will only include fiction. If we add nonfiction, I may as well move this to a spreadsheet.

Also, this list may expand as I remember titles. I'll try not to forget about it.

Cut - because I just couldn't do that to you. )

No guarantee I'll read all of them, but if I'm ever at a loss for what to read next, I know where to look.
myaru: (Default)
A password snafu prevented my last two entries from cross-posting to LJ, which is why you're getting an unlocked entry. Don't worry, you didn't miss much. Life hasn't been kind the last--(checks post dates)--two years. Since I'm posting this in the middle of a pandemic, I think we can all agree that there's no need to elaborate, because Covid-19 has made everything shitty for everyone. I hope you're all safe.

The corset thing isn't actually a gimmick. I've flirted with the idea of trying out a support garment like this for years, because one look at the back braces on the market made me think "these are basically the same thing, only with shittier material. Also, they're ugly." I figured that, if you don't tighten it to the point of pain, and instead just wear it at your regular body measurement as support, it's just a gentle pressure that feels a little like a hug. Which turned out to be right. I do not have trouble breathing and do not feel any pain, because: common sense.

10/10, will keep wearing this. Not only does my back stop hurting, but my shoulders do too, because 1) it strongly encourages good posture, 2) it gives me some well-distributed chest support, and 3) that slight compression feels really good.

Also? To paraphrase something my husband said, "Your hobbies are way better-looking than mine."

That said, back braces are waaaaaaaaaaay more affordable, so I can't recommend this option to everyone. Or... even most people. But I've wanted one for ages, and I just couldn't afford the cost of buying, nor did I have the skill to make my own. I wonder if the options for patterns and the material resources we have now would've been available ten years ago, anyway. But today? Things have changed. Now I can afford to buy nice things, although I will admit, this one was pretty high on the "affordability" scale, and I had to think carefully about it.

Maybe now I'll get off my ass and make that bustle dress. If I haven't talked about that here, that's because... uhhh. Well, I just don't talk much about things here anymore.

No offense to anyone, but... please spare me hysterics about how terrible corsets are. I did my research. I put in the time to find one that fits, and to get accustomed to it. People wore things like this for centuries before the modern bra was made, and the human race survived. I personally think skirt hoops are way more likely to get you killed, but that's just me...
myaru: (Default)
Sorry I've been away. I've been busy submitting stories and getting rejected, and having weird reactions to allergy shots. This all puts me in a bad mood.

However, because it amuses me to make fun of marketing AI, I thought I'd take the time to demonstrate how dumb SEO tools can be, and/or waste your time.

Read more... )

This is a silly example. It doesn't have much to work with, after all, but I guarantee the readability score won't go up much as I type, usually for the following reasons:


  1. Subheading distribution: I often type 300 (or more) words without dividing it into different sections.

  2. Sentence length: sometimes I use more than ten words in a sentence. Commence pearl-clutching.

  3. Transition words: good to have, but occasionally I don't use them because they don't make sense, and every goddamn paragraph has to start with one, apparently!

  4. Paragraph length: too long.

  5. Passive Voice: it'll ding you for using this more than 25% of the time. It might have a point. Maybe.



Now... to be fair, what this tool measures is search engine optimization (i.e., SEO), and it is meant to guide your writing in a way that gets good ranking on Google. Which is fine. Here's what I don't understand, though: all the raving in the comments about how this made various commenters' writing better, and their posts amazingly good, and so on.

If you're not a writer, I acknowledge that writing a blog post might be harder for you than it is for me. (Note I don't believe that's always true, but it's certainly a thing I keep in mind.) However, after working with this plugin for about seven posts, I've concluded that the nagging about passive voice is literally the only category that does me any good in terms of improving my writing.

Dividing your text with subheadings is fine when the subheading makes sense, and absolute garbage if you're only doing it because Yoast told you that it must happen every 299 words. Shortening your paragraph makes sense when you're dropping blocks of text on your reader and there are valid places within the paragraph to divide and transition. Writing 10-15 words per sentence is fine if that's your style, if it fits what you're writing, if it--well, this is style, in my opinion, and therefore subjective. Tons of short sentences can also make your work feel choppy and abrupt, which is bad for readability. Since readability is something this thing says it's measuring, that's a problem.

For me.

I'm picky.

Look, short sentences! Good jorb! But you've got no transition words. Bad jorb.

.

.

Tl;dr, this plugin makes me angry. I hate seeing people put blind faith in a tool like this. It does function well for its purpose when used with care, but this is why you should have writers populating your business blog with content--because they'll know when to ignore bad advice.

For what it's worth, all of my posts score well on SEO, and that's in spite of the tool, not because of it. At least I'm developing good avoidance skills?
myaru: (Default)
Some people throw themselves into their work when bad things happen. Me, I read. Currently I'm employed, but that isn't always the case since I'm basically a freelancer. Anyway, books I've read since life went to shit in February:

Cutting for length. )

Currently reading Water Sleeps (Glen Cook), on my way to finishing the Black Company series, which I have enjoyed in spite of some less-than-flattering reflections of how women are treated by fantasy in the earlier books. Also of note is the slow upswing of actual swearing as the series goes on. Which, I mean. Given how much I swear, that's really funny to me. I wonder if the author had to ration his allotment of swear words very carefully until he hit the 21st century.

So like... If you happen to be curious about any of these books or series, feel free to ask about them. There are so many that it's not efficient to write a post about each of them.

Anyway.

I'm about 60% finished with a novella, probably only 50% through the visual novel script (and it's a first draft just like any other, which means I have to rewrite it as soon as I'm done), and 98% finished tweaking that short story for sending out. It's language now, I guess.

All of this has slowed down a lot since I got the most recent contract. It was full time, which meant very little time for reading, and only slightly more for writing. My guild community keeps me sane when I would otherwise wallow in misery, so I dedicate a consistent amount of time to hanging out with them as well. Attendance each day varies, though, so there are long stretches where I can sit around and fill that time with reading, hence the long list.

Once upon a time I read this much without family tragedies to drive me, but then school cured me of the need to read at all unless it was required. That fatigue lasted about ten years. Now I uh, I guess it's gone?

There are just so many interesting books to read. :(

Haven't watched any anime in a while, but I've got my eye on Seikaisuru Kado and the new Heroic Legend of Arslan series. The original never made it over here fully, I guess, and that has always left me unsatisfied.
myaru: (VP - Silmeria kicks your ass)
Or: working in retail/food service.

Making it "Retail: Killing the Soul" felt even more melodramatic, but on second thought, the title I stuck with is not much of an improvement. Relevant, though, because this is all about writing, even if it doesn't seem like it for the first few paragraphs.

I don't remember if I talked much about writing while working at Starbucks, and how it basically didn't happen at all. I worked there for about a year and a half, and during that time I wrote once or twice; plenty of story brainstorming went on in my pocket notebook during breaks, but when it came to actual prose, i.e. stringing enough words together to make a story, the practice didn't exist for me. Why?

Because I was so fucking tired.

When people--myself included--talk about the soul-killing nature of working retail, I think we're usually referring to the corporate element, or the customer service element, both of which are miserable. Every day brings good people, tons of neutral people, and one or two bad ones, so not everything is bad... although you always remember the bad ones, especially when they're outrageous about it. And everyone complains about the dictates that come down from "corporate," many of which are dumb and tone-deaf on the local level. Barnes & Noble, for instance, used to insist on mimicking their New York displays in every single store, even when the topic wasn't necessarily relevant anywhere else. (They might still do this, but I don't know anybody who works there right now.) Starbucks insisted that we push the current hot variety of coffee bean (example: the Anniversary Bled), even on the morning shift when customers were emphatically not there to buy coffee beans for any reason. District managers will ding you for not up-selling.

Never mind not getting paid enough for this shit, the lack of control over one's schedule, absence of sick time, and the trouble one could make for oneself clocking a piddling five minutes of overtime.

So yeah, all of that is shitty. None of that made me feel so bad I couldn't write, however. Asshole customers suck in the moment, but become epic stories later on. And, in the end, you don't have to take your work home, because you're definitely not getting paid enough to worry about it off the clock. What sucked, what killed my ability to write, was being tired. All the time. I hesitate to call it exhaustion, because I could still get up in the morning and function, but... it was a cumulative effect, like a gathering avalanche. Miss an hour of sleep here, two hours there, get up most days at four in the morning and try to sustain eight hours of constantly moving, lifting, talking, smiling, smiling again when some asshole thinks you should know how many pumps of mocha it takes to make something "super sweet" (anything from the regular three, all the way to the twelve I should've told the barista to put in there, because fuck that dude). Smiling again when another asshole asks for pastry recommendations, and then looks me up and down when I say I don't know (couldn't eat them for allergy reasons), and says, "yes you do," implying I was too overweight not to know every pastry in the case. Smiling some more every time I was called "sweetheart." And then being told by management that I don't smile enough and should work on that for the next review cycle.

I was tired all the time. I got home and went to sleep, got up to make dinner, and then went to bed again, and got up tired the next morning at four to show up for another eight hour shift. Lunch was at eight AM, unless the timing was wonky that day and I had to take it at six instead, which meant I didn't get to eat later when I actually needed it. Every once in a while I got scheduled for a closing shift and then an opener, precisely eight hours apart...but not always. Technically you're not supposed to do that (which might be a state-level law, and not the same everywhere), but it happened. All the time.

Starbucks treats employees surprisingly well, but don't be fooled by all of their publicized effort on behalf of employees: they still don't pay their people enough for the effort they're expected to put in for the customer, and the philosophies they're expected to swallow and then parrot back. You still can't live off of your earnings, at least in NorCal. Most of my coworkers had second jobs, or lived with their parents, were in a relationship with somebody who made more money, or had a roommate or two. More than you might think had advanced degrees, some in fields like chemistry, that made me wonder why the fuck they were working at Starbucks when they could have a real career. Only, it was for the same reason I did: there weren't any other jobs.

Eventually, I had to quit because my knee wouldn't stop hurting, and my insurance didn't cover shit like that. It wasn't a work injury, so Starbucks wouldn't have done anything about it--and that's fine, I didn't expect them to. For what it's worth, I know that the company does step up when necessary, because coworkers of mine have been hurt on the job. I just didn't qualify.

Once I left, I started writing again. Once I didn't need to sleep so long, that is. Once my life wasn't work, sleep, do all the cooking and shit, sleep some more, work some more... Some people can write through that, but I just kept getting sick. I don't think I do my best work when I'm sick or exhausted. I did what I could, when I had a few moments awake that didn't also involve some kind of work, but for a year and a half I didn't produce a story.

I don't feel bad about it. Or, to be more truthful: I do feel bad about it (or I wouldn't be writing this entry), but I am determined to kill that guilt, because I think it's misguided.

Fuck anybody who doesn't like that, in fact. I'm not interested in showing myself mercy most of the time, but in this case, I have to admit: it's awfully hard to write when you're asleep or in constant pain. By the end I couldn't straighten my right leg (too stiff, too much pain), and that took a few months to clear up and stop hurting. I once was forced to take a week off because of intense abdominal and/or back pain that they never found a reason for, but which inspired my doctor to tell me to find a different job. I caught every flu virus making the rounds via ringing people up, because god forbid anybody sanitize their hands after they sneezed into them, but before they handed their credit card to me. I never got enough sleep, and was always on my feet. I was so fucking tired it took me a month to learn how to function like a normal human being after quitting, and even then I couldn't walk without pain. So yeah, about that writing?

I decided it could wait.
myaru: (Dragon Age - Alistair)
Things to Decide:
  1. Should I post once a week?**
    (For the sake of discipline, keeping ideas moving, etc. It's easy to fall into a rut.)
    • If yes, see list #2.

    • If no, what can I do to engage with people not in my head?
      (Which, for the record, is not something I'm good at. See: how I fail at characterization.)

    • If yes, still wondering if I should continue the "100 Things" tagging or just retag as "pretentious writing posts."
      (Don't get me wrong; I could write 100 posts about writing, but the question is whether I should.)

  2. Big projects: good idea, Y/N? Blog, or resource, or hahahahaha updating the rest of Guardian Angels (but I like the misleading update text. It makes me laugh)?


** Edit 05.21.2018: more like post once a month. How the fuck is it almost June?


God, nesting lists is ugly.


Things I Could Do:
  • What about that Heian-era-for-writers resource thing. Some kind of resource probably already exists, but it would be fun.
    (Also, it would make me read books. And Scrivener is actually a great tool for world-building documents...)

  • Replay and blog... Xenosaga. Or some other game, but I feel a nagging guilt for the way I talked about it back in the day.

  • Actually move down my Steam list and play/blog new games.

  • Be a good student and do some marketing research, e.g. analyze Starbucks internal marketing vs. external, the disaster of the Villainess relaunch, etc. This would not be on DW.

  • Slink back into my corner and do nothing productive.


Hm.

Been thinking of playing NeiR: Automata. Friends want me to play The Witcher 2 and 3, and there are a ton of visual novels on my list that I should read if I intend to write a script for one. (Not for any official purpose--just a personal project.)

Someday I should finish Fire Emblem: Fates. I want to, but I also don't want to. The last time I played it, bad things were happening, and it's hard to kill the associations. On the other hand, I could start over and fucking marry Xander! I mean. Hold me, big brother. I doomed myself searching for fan art just now.
myaru: (VP - Shiho)
It's funny that The Writer's Guide to Beginnings doesn't have a terribly compelling opener. Beginnings ARE hard, but I mean... good job.

I picked the book up because I need some inspiration. Writing books tend to remind me of things I already know, but for some reason have forgotten. Over time I've discovered that the only two books I really need, if I'm having craft issues, are the same two books I've had all along. Everything else is just a new way to say an old thing--and that's why they're such effective reminders.

Anyway, there's this story that's been a weight around my neck for seven or eight years. I've mentioned it once or twice. You wouldn't be interested because I'm not willing to tell you enough about it to catch that interest, but let's just say that I actually like the way it turned out--I've liked the direction it was going for quite some time--and that feeling is the most paralyzing problem I've ever encountered when working on a story. It means either a) the story is shit, or b) it's decent, but will probably still get rejected by everyone and rip my soul apart in the process.

Either way, I don't really want to know. That makes finishing it very hard.

I'm also paranoid, because I put the story up for critique once, in a locked community that I believe was built of trustworthy people, but... still paranoid.

tl;dr, someday soon I'll make myself declare the story finished and start sending it out, and then there'll be a post about revision, and how you should never do what I did, or at the very least never let yourself end up on the same kind of timeline.

I just need to get the beginning where I want it.

And no, I'm not nitpicking; it's the last part that really does need work before I can tweak the language and say good-bye.
myaru: (VP - Weeping Lily)
A search on “writing and grief” turns up some interesting stuff. Not the “how to write grief in your novel” stuff, which is all cookie-cutter and boring, but the links here and there about using writing to work through the experience of grief. The New York Times turned up a conversation between Joyce Carol Oates and Meghan O’Rourke about their respective memoirs on their own grief, and how they came to be written, which was pretty interesting, but also out of my area of expertise. (This journal excepted, I have no plans whatsoever to do autobiographical work. DW is just a place for me to whine, not an attempt at memoir.) I only perused the first search page, because I’m the embodiment of typical consumer behavior as researched by marketing firms, which insists that worship of the SEO gods is the only way to get read--i.e. get your link to appear on the first page of search results. Which...yeah, it’s true sometimes.

So anyway, some writers use writing to deal with tragedy. Many of the writers I know say they started writing for reasons like that. I feel like an alien for not doing that. I know that I’m not; lots of us wanted to be princesses or space commanders (or both at the same time), and started writing to make those dreams come true. Only, it seems like most people eventually get over the urge to write that and start trying to express deeper emotions or issues in their stories, and I never did.

So basically, all I’m good for writing is Mary Sue.

There might be some trauma behind that. Someday I’ll give in and start seeing a therapist, and those sessions will reveal that I write Mary Sues because I felt powerless when I was younger, and needed a way to deal with it or get away. Or--something like that. I’m not a therapist, so who knows.

It’s possible writing is my way of dealing with emotions and situations I didn’t fully know how to handle. Maybe it still counts. I can’t pick up my emotional ball-and-chain and use it to produce work, though--or even journal entries meant to clear my mind. Some things can’t be cleared out or dealt with that easily. If I sit down and think, today I’m going to write about so-and-so’s death, or today I’m going to talk about what it was like to do this hospice thing, it’s not going to happen. Nothing will come out. When I sat on the couch to watch my mother-in-law, just in case she woke up and needed water, morphine, whatever, I could not write. When I got home at the end of my “shift,” I couldn’t write. Had no desire to write, in fact. I didn’t write when she was in the hospital and we weren’t sure what the outcome would be; I didn’t write when we brought her home to start hospice care; I didn’t write when she died, or after, for a very long time. All I could think about when I tried was the sound of the oxygen unit, with that rhythm we all agreed was the perfect nightmare fuel. And the fact that she wasn’t here anymore. Two years later there are still moments it doesn’t feel real.

Everything stops when someone is going to die. During the six weeks we cared for Dash, I read twenty books because I couldn’t stand to think, but stopped listening to music, stopped talking to people, and did not write a single word. We didn’t watch anything, go anywhere. The silence got to the point where turning a page sounded as loud as ripping up a cardboard box or dropping a pan in the kitchen--a phenomenon I had always thought was a shortcut to writing these exact feelings in a way that “shows” instead of “tells,” only now I know it’s real. The sound of my pen on paper stopped me before anything like writing happened. Not that this made a difference, because there was nothing to say. “Yesterday was better. Today he won’t eat. Last night we discovered he couldn’t see when he tried to reach the water fountain.“

Even writing that much hurts. I don’t know how to use it to work through the emotion; I don’t need help crying about this. Normally I don’t cry, but rules are temporarily suspended, and it’s hard to stop.

I used to call this feeling writer’s block. It’s hard or impossible to write; no ideas, no words, hard to string sentences together in an aesthetically pleasing way. No desire to do so.

But this isn’t a block. Writing more doesn’t help the words flow, and my feelings aren’t blocking them. I just don’t want to write. Why should I write when someone important to me just died? Fuck writing. I don’t want to escape from it and I don’t need a story or journal to understand how I feel; I want to remember this person, this cat, and feel the hole their passing just created in my life, and learn to live with it. I need to cry my way through two boxes of kleenex.

After about a week I made myself start writing again every day. It isn’t hard, in the sense that I have ideas. I don’t feel “blocked” in that way. I often wonder if I have any future in this field because ideas I can turn into stories are hard to come by, or feel like they are, but that isn’t abnormal, or a sign of grief or block. I’m just not great at stories, and when I feel like this, staring out the window is much more appealing than trying to write one, and it isn’t necessarily an imperative to overcome that and start typing.

I’ve been forced before to learn, the hard way, that sometimes writing isn’t always the answer, no matter what Goldberg or whoever might say. Everyone is different. Sometimes it’s better to stop for a while. Feel things. Stare at things. If not for that time, I wouldn’t have realized how silent my world became when Dash was sick, and how that felt, how it was echoed by my feelings, and how that might be useful if I’m dumb enough to try to write about the experience later.

To be honest, writing feels pointless and unimportant right now, but it’s what I do, supposedly, so it’s getting done.
myaru: (Tales of the Abyss - Natalia)
There’s a story I found during my university days, early in that period when I had nothing better to do than spend four hours in the library between classes. I lived too far away to go home. I spent most of that time on the fourth floor, seated by a window with a lovely view of the quad, where grass, pines, and windswept cypress made layers of green between banks of fog. This was early in the morning, when the sky was still gray and, sometimes, the orange lights still hadn’t gone out. I’d stare out there for a good long while, still half-asleep, before I started looking at books. My table was right next to the shelves with obscure religious texts. By obscure, I mean apocalypses like The War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness (not as epic as it sounds), excerpts from The Zohar, wide volumes of The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. That sort of thing. Even several volumes of the Talmud, which arguably isn’t obscure, depending on who you are.

In one of these books, I found a story about Elijah after his ascent to Heaven. He has a reputation for running around amongst rabbis and other citizens and variously helping or punishing the deserving. Once, he wrestled with the Angel of Death. He’s an interesting figure who unfortunately is used often to tell moralistic tales.

There’s one in particular running through my head on repeat right now. I will probably retell it badly, but here goes. Read more... )
myaru: (ToB - Perfect World)
Last in the series. Take a look at the opening explanation if you haven't already. What I define as critique/concrit might not be what you expect if you've been pointed here from a fandom source.

.

Obviously, there's no such thing as a perfect critique. But I wrote three entries about critique habits I hate. My suggestions for good critique habits are in there, but perhaps harder to find than my complaints, so it's only fair that I take the time to outline them more clearly.Read more... )
myaru: (Saiunkoku - Shuurei talks a lot)
Take a look at the opening explanation if you haven't already. What I define as critique/concrit might not be what you expect if you've been pointed here from a fandom source.

.

The message here is, essentially: consider why an author has decided to show their work to you before you comment.

Imagine you have just finished a story or article you’re proud of. You take it to your nearest friend or reader, ask them to have a look at it. What do you think? you may ask. You might be interested in their initial thoughts, or maybe you just want someone to see what you created. That’s okay, by the way.

Instead of delivering a few comments, your reader launches into a full-on critique of the work, complete with discussions on how it can be improved. That’s awesome, because we want our criticism to be delivered with ideas on how we can address the problems being outlined, right? Right.

However… maybe you weren’t ready for that level of commitment. There is a difference between asking for someone’s opinion and asking for a critique. Read more... )
myaru: (Tales of the Abyss - Natalia)
Take a look at the opening explanation if you haven't already. What I define as critique/concrit might not be what you expect if you've been pointed here from a fandom source.

.

Continuing with the theme introduced in the previous post - critique as a way of helping the author as well as oneself - we have what I call the "stream-of-consciousness critique," or the practice of taking notes as you go along and dishing that out to the author.

Like I said, the most well-meaning attempt at critique can be unhelpful at best, and destructive at worst. This is one way a critique can be misleading without the critic realizing how or why. Read more... )
myaru: (VP - Silmeria kicks your ass)
Take a look at the opening explanation if you haven't already. What I define as critique/concrit might not be what you expect if you've been pointed here from a fandom source. Granted, I'm several years out of date on fandom, so who the hell knows. Maybe now I'm preaching to the choir/totally wrong.

.

Critique and "constructive criticism" are--in my experience--contentious topics in online writing communities. I'm speaking mainly of fandom groups, but not just those. You could say I have ~feelings~ about it that I’d like to express in a pointed fashion. While I have never received a deliberately hostile critique, I have had several critique experiences that I found less than helpful, for reasons that I think can be fixed with some consideration from both parties. When you offer a critique to an author, I assume you’re doing it because you want to help them. I know I do.

So let’s be helpful! I’ll start the series off with an obvious point, which a whole lot of people still miss. Not everybody, just… a number of people that isn’t negligible.


Give the good with the bad when you critique.


No, this doesn't mean you should praise the author. (For some reason, this is always the first assumption. Why?) It means you should bring attention to the good things about their story in addition to the bad things.

Read more... )

I highly recommend taking a look at that Zen Habits article if you offer critique in any context. It's perceptive and definitely worth reading.

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myaru: (Miang - I want to be myself)
So, a while ago--maybe like, two years ago? Ha--I promised a post on critique. It turned into four posts, which I wrote some time last year to experiment with content marketing techniques. I needed something to talk about, and well, I have wordy opinions about critique that I firmly believe are the right ones, and I'm not going to let reasonable arguments get in my way!

However, since the series was originally written for a class exercise, the style is a little different from what I normally post on LJ/DW. I don't think it needs rewriting otherwise, so I'm slapping it up as-is. If you think it sounds arrogant, try to remember two things: 1) it is, and I'm not sorry which you should expect by now, and 2) you don't write the kind of article I was experimenting with unless you intend to sound like an expert. Based on my studies, it doesn't seem to matter whether that expertise exists or not. :P

Unfortunately, I've spent so much time in fandom that it inevitably crops up in my examples when I address things I don't like. Almost all of my fandoms have, at some point, had ugly fights (usually via anon-meme) about the right to deliver concrit and the obligation of writers to listen to their reviewers or have specific aims for their writing process. And I definitely have opinions about that.

Also, something to be aware of:

In this series, critique =/= fic reviews.

Confusion on this issue has cropped up in the past, so I want all readers to understand that I'm talking about a formal review process--the type you usually see in writing classes, circles, and so forth. I'm not suggesting that this process be applied to your average FFN/AO3 review. If it's applicable to anything fandom-specific, I guess you could draw parallels between this and the beta process, although again, it's been a long-ass time since I had a beta for my fan fiction. I do eventually criticize the point of view that cropped up in those anon memes, and I do it precisely because those commenters seemed to be equating the two types of feedback when talking about the importance of listening to their reviews, and in retrospect I don't agree.

tl;dr, this is the kind of topic that starts arguments. May as well get the most obvious potential misconception out of the way. I'm trying to define the good and bad things about serious critique, not just fic reviews or related concrit, but it comes up.

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02.11.2018:

Links:

  1. Critique: Giving the Good With the Bad

  2. Stream-of-Consciousness Criticism

  3. Unsolicited Commentary

  4. The Perfect Critique



If there's anything else you'd like to see examined, let me know.

.
myaru: (VP - Shiho)
As promised some time back in September, I'm locking down the majority of my old entries. Here's what you should know if you're interested:

  1. A select set of entries will be unlocked again. Here's the list.

  2. Friends-locked entries from January 2016-onward are exempted.

  3. I'll take requests to re-open others, but no guarantees.

  4. I probably won't cross-post new entries to LJ, but I'm still thinking about it.


This process may take a few days. I'm not exactly in a hurry.

And uh, yeah. Guess that's it. Comment if you have any concerns, but I'm just going to plug away at this task while I'm still motivated. Feelings of motivation often die suddenly and horribly when I least expect it.

EDIT: But why the hell is LJ adding random number hashtags to my tag lists on edited entries? WTF. Not all of them, just some.

*

02.06.2018 - done.
myaru: (Default)
It's that rare beast: an unlocked entry!

My concerns these days are pathetic and not at all fun to read about. The one exception, I'd say, is the cats. Who doesn't like cat stuff? I mean.

...Yeah, I mean. If you don't, just don't tell me.

.

So, about the subject line.

Listen--I hate ads and like convenience, so I'll spend money on journal platforms if that's what it takes. Even though I don't post often nowadays, I still like to have an unnecessarily extensive selection of user icons to choose from, and LJ specifically locks its mass-entry editing behind a paywall.

Livejournal has shitty customer service, though--not to mention questionable policies and zero transparency, or at least that's how I remember them. (I'd be lying if I claimed to have paid attention the last two years.) I don't want to give them money anymore. Dreamwidth costs enough, considering my post frequency. More than enough. I kinda sorta want to get rid of the LJ account, but I have a few concerns about that:


  1. There might be people following me that still use LJ as their primary writing/reading service;

  2. There are probably a lot of backlinks to my so-called meta posts, which I've been encouraged to keep public despite my desire to shut the whole thing down;

  3. I don't want to risk losing the name.



While at this point I think it's dumb and paranoid to think people out there still hate me enough (usually for RPGamer stuff, but there were other... incidents) to impersonate my account, it HAS happened before, and I'm not interested in leaving that door propped open even a little. The one benefit that maintaining the LJ account has is that it's an established area I've been known to occupy for over a decade.

So, the point? I'm considering locking down the content on the LJ mirror (though I may unlock specific entries, like the ones on this list), and posting primarily on DW without cross-posting. However, I'm not sure how LJ's dead account detection works, though, so I might continue cross-posting, but stop keeping track of comments. Considering how inactive I've been, that won't make a difference for most. Just to keep everything clear:

EVERYTHING WILL STILL BE AVAILABLE/OPEN ON DW.

One of the things I'd like to do (eventually) is streamline what's locked and what's open so my journal looks more coherent from the outside. You know, just in case. But that's really hard to do--not to mention a whole ton of work I don't need--when you've got to repeat those changes across platforms.

Now, I'm buried under work/classwork at the moment, and probably won't make these changes any time soon, but I wanted to open comments to anyone who might have them. I've mentioned this in locked entries before, and have pared down my original intentions, which involved locking/deleting everything. If you have an opinion:

  • On DW, everyone with a valid account can comment.

  • On LJ, comments are restricted to my Friends List to avoid spam. Sorry. :/


If you don't have an opinion (which is what I expect), I'll do something about this lockdown when I need to avoid some real work or a final project. So, sounds like we're looking at December. :P Possibly earlier, but... yeah, no.
myaru: (Dragon Age - Alistair)
Brought to you by the mystery novel formula, although the post isn't about mysteries of that sort.

In the end, I had to give my Tales of Zestiria obsession a little outlet. Not too much, because the last thing I need is an epic on my hands, but something. I found out I'm pretty rusty when it comes to fan fiction. I also noticed a few other things.

1. It took approximately 0.05 seconds for me to slip right back into the Pairing Fanfic Formula.

2. I hit the same story/characterization triggers every other Zestiria author does, though I didn't know that until I looked at the AO3 archive afterward.

3. Gasp, this... is not actually a bad formula.


I also realized that I open original stories differently, but that's another topic. Short stories - at least as I write them - involve more plot, and therefore need more precise openings... not that I always manage to make that happen.

The formula I default into isn't a bad formula by itself. It has setting, buildup, and payoff, which is why it can be satisfying to read; it can, and often does, have some kind of "emotional turn" that makes the scene feel complete-- like something happened. (I don't recall which writer gave me the phrase "emotional turn," but it has served me well every time I've bothered to use the concept while writing.) It just so happens that in pairing fic these elements are focused on cuddling instead of something else. It's actually not a bad basic structure for individual scenes.

I think this would still be true if the content is entirely fluff. You can still have a transformation of mood and/or emotion in the scene, which satisfies the requirement for "change" in fiction, which I know people loooove to argue with. Stories don't necessarily need conflict! Shit doesn't have to change! It can still be interesting! And I guess that's all true in fan fiction, when a reader might want to just wallow in their obsession with Mikleo Sebastian Maglor a character they love, and see some stream-of-consciousness contemplation on a canon event. I don't think that's very interesting, but whatever. Some people do. Point is, it's more interesting if something changes, even if that change means we're just moving from contemplation to happiness, or giddiness to contentedness, or some other minuscule difference. The formula can do that.

Which isn't to say I think I should write it all the time. It IS a formula, and if I write ten things according to this formula, they're all going to sound the same, since those ten things will definitely all be pairing fic. Somehow this doesn't happen if I use it for the basis of my scene structure in a longer story, because there are other things happening (and how exactly is a Sorey/Mikleo makeout session not something happening, I mean really) and the formula becomes a vehicle for other elements of craft.

So yeah. I haven't come up with an excuse for #2 (automatically falling into all the cliches) yet. Give me a few more hours for that one.
myaru: (Default)
"The problem with writing is writing. The discoveries in writing will be made in writing. The solutions to story problems - structural, motivational, existential - will be found in writing. ... Your middle will not arrive through thinking, and while it may arrive in dreaming, dreaming is more likely to produce results if you fall asleep while writing."

The Portable MFA in Creative Writing, p.30



My own creative process drives me crazy. This problem probably isn't unique to me.

For as long as I've been writing, I've been what people call a "pantser" - when I've got an idea for a story, I skip the outlining and development parts and jump right in, figuring that it'll take care of itself. Who needs a plot to start with when it'll just grow out of the process on its own like a slimy, scary-looking mushroom? And I thought that's how it was done. I didn't take writing classes until much later, and it never occurred to me - apparently - to pick up a book on how to write fiction when I was younger.

By 'younger,' I mean seventeen or so, which is when I first attempted to write seriously. Prior to that I had written "novels" and storybooks and stuff, but not with any intent. I did it to get ideas out of my head, or sometimes to entertain my friends. Plot isn't really necessary when you're pandering to your own group and their in-jokes.

But this is still the way I work, and knowing how important plot is, thanks to my overpriced degree and experience (I guess), I keep feeling like I should grow up and start plotting before I write. Have an outline. Actually develop characters before I try to write them! No doubt that would make them slightly more interesting.

Have I tried to do this? Yes.

Has it worked? No.

I understand the concept. I could write an essay on it, or pass a test. I can diagnose the problems in novels, short stories, fan fiction. I can even (apparently) give good advice on improving plot and addressing related problems when I'm asked to give someone a thorough critique on their work. But sit me down with my own outline, which I will have spent quite a bit of time on, by the way, and I think I might be able to follow it for two chapters before I run off the rails and end up somewhere completely different. Part of me feels that sticking to that narrow path will stunt the creative growth of the story, but the real problem seems to come down to characterization. Like: I think Character A will do these things and make these decisions, but after writing her for two chapters I realize she'd rather do something different. I might've spent hours working on her backstory, her details (e.g. profile stuff like who her extended family is, or what her education is), and think I developed her personality, but I always find out I'm wrong.

So the character isn't going to do that in chapter three, and because she doesn't, chapter four is a wash. And we probably can't get to Point C on time; there'll need to be eight extra chapters. Maybe. Who's counting? And I can't say she won't change her mind in chapter five, because I just decided that such-and-such must've happened to her when she was a kid - it sounded good when I wrote it down just now, anyway! - and so Point C might be a no go. Oops.

This is both more fun (because I can do whatever the fuck I want and just have fun with it) and more irritating because it means I'm always going to have to waste a first draft on exploration.

Or it means I don't know what I'm doing.

Or it means I'm doing it wrong. Fuckit, then; who cares.

I like exploration. That's more than half the fun when I write fan fiction, after all. But I've never been comfortable or happy with the idea that I can't get something right on the first draft, so the suspicion that I'm always going to have to "waste" the first one makes me angry. There's no way I can get the first round right, because I don't know what it's going to throw at me, and yet that's the way I feel most comfortable in the development phase... you know, when it's actually going on. After I'm done for the day, though, I sit here and think I shouldn't do it this way. I should know better. Or do it better.

That quote at the top of the entry is something I found recently, which seemed fitting. But what made me think about all of this again - I don't normally dwell on it - was Terry Pratchett. He said two things that hit me as true-- for me.

How do you write stories? You make it up as you go along. This is a terrible thing to have to tell people.

[...]

But it's what I call "The Valley Filled with Clouds" technique. You're at the edge of the valley, and there is a church steeple, and there is a tree, and there is a rocky outcrop, but the rest of it is mist. But you know that because they exist, there must be ways of getting from one to the other that you cannot see. And so you start the journey. And when I write, I write a draft entirely for myself, just to walk the valley and find out what the book is going to be all about.

A Slip of the Keyboard, p.58-60


He goes on to compare his style of drafting with what he knows of Larry Niven, who's fond of index cards. He's "sure true writers do not work like this." Me too, except that apparently isn't the case.

So I read this, maybe two months ago, and thought if he could do it, I should give it another try. Try to embrace it. I did just say it was fun, somewhere up there. The process of discovery really can be. And when I try to change it, I clearly meet resistance on the inside, even if I think I'm trying to do the right thing. I tend to abandon stories that I start the other way, with outlines; I never abandon the ones that happen more organically. (Excluding some of the really long ones that I decide aren't working. If we're talking short stories, it's true.)

It's hard to embrace. However, it seems to me that kicking the plot into shape after might work better for me, because there's something to shape, whereas doing it at the beginning means trying to work with very little. And it's no wonder that it's so difficult when I'm trying to build a recognizable house with only a quarter of the materials when, if I wait, the others will show up later.

It might be less profitable to fight the process than it will be to fight the issue with multiple drafts. Which I've made progress on, but I still feel deep down like I shouldn't have to. Acceptance is hard.
myaru: (Default)
Wow, rain. It's coming down hard.

:D

Tales of Zestiria has a decently interesting world. It saw fit to explain very little of that world, unless I missed a ton of skits or scenes. Now, I'm not saying this is a bad thing; it told me what I needed to know, and anyway, a world like this, with so many mysteries, is exactly what I would've loved writing fan fiction for. It leaves room for creative speculation.

One thing I would've liked to see explained further, though, is The Five Lords... )

In Zestiria's defense, I did try to finish the game quickly; I might've missed things. I tried not to, because I like completing things, dammit, but I had limited time. :/ I went for the prize, and didn't take the time to do the thing with Edna's brother, or the crucibles, so I dunno, maybe those explain more? (Although the crucibles looked more like gameplay challenges.)

So whatev. Either these are dumb questions, or the game needs a sequel, so I can buy it.
myaru: (VP - Shiho)
When I think of writer's block (that thing which supposedly doesn't exist), I imagine what I went through in 2010: a complete lack of motivation to write, an inability to string five words together in a way I thought was decent, and a trend in which everything I managed to finish was awful. This sort of thing understandably makes me stop writing for a while. It's miserable. I've learned not to hate everything I write as a rule, so when my mental state starts backtracking into that territory, I know something is wrong. It took me a while, but I figured out that stopping was the only way to get past this for me, personally.

There's also the sort of block that involves not knowing what to do next. That one sucks too, but I think it's the easiest to break through, because the problem can be solved by continuing to work on the story-- just in a different way. Researching, reading, discussing with friends (if you're not as paranoid as I am, see the last entry), and all that.

The one that gets me every time is probably a type of fear. Not fear of doing badly, or of what people will think, or of failure, or of success... but of thinking. At all. And then of putting that thing on paper.

Years ago, Arcana and I decided to co-write on a story about angels. I love angel lore. He had just read some related material. In addition, some weird combination of Star Ocean II, Angel Sanctuary, and Vagrant Story had me itching to write some Lucifer/Gabriel fic, which may (or may not?) sound strange to you, but it worked wonders in my head, I assure you. (This was a long time ago. A REALLY long time ago, mmkay. It's a bit embarrassing to talk about, or at least this particular fixation is. :P)

We both eventually stopped working on the project. Only, I would revisit the universe sometimes and write new snippets, because my obsession with angel lore hadn't ended, and I liked the characters we had created. I think we had a really good plot hook, too. So one day, probably for some daily writing challenge, I came up with this story about Raziel asking Metatron to go down to earth and be human with her for a while so she could do some research, and this turned into a thing where she really liked him, which turned into a, well, a THING, and then my brain shut down.

If you don't know, the body of legends involving angels makes clear that sex is a Very Bad Thing for them to do, and they're not supposed to have desires of any kind. Yet while Lucifer (Samael, in our story) and Gabriel didn't bother me, Metatron and Raziel did. Does Samael's status as a fallen angel make it "okay" to be in love and have sex and all that, even though Gabriel's stint as fallen isn't very long or serious, and therefore shouldn't make it more "okay" for her than any other angel? Metatron was originally Enoch, according to legend - a human. So he knows more about being human - and being in love, theoretically - than Raziel every could; is it the disparity of experience that made me uncomfortable? (Clearly not, considering some of the pairings I got into with later fandoms.)

What I'm getting at with this anecdote is that I still run into a block when I try to imagine this story. For whatever reason, I do not want to go there: I don't want to transgress on some imaginary moral ground and write about angels doing it together. It's like I'm afraid of what they'll think when they find out, even though I'm not 100% sold on their existence as independent beings. Even if they did exist, I suppose they wouldn't give a shit. Maybe I've just been indoctrinated by years of listening to my grandmother watch television evangelists, and some part of me is afraid of committing a mortal sin by writing two angels boinking. I lol just thinking of it that way.

It may sound stupid, but this is the strongest block I've ever run into. Nothing else is stopping me; I have the plot, I know the characters at least as well as the game characters I used to write about, I have the history of the world mapped out in all the ways that matter for writing this little story, and all I have to do is start typing.

If you asked me, I'd say no: I'm not religious. I don't think the Bible is true, any more than I think the myths about Greek gods are true. I believe in God because I want to, and because my family, brought up Catholic, put that little bit of fear in me that says I'm damned if I don't. But if that tiny fear is the source of my block, it's no wonder I have such a problem getting over myself. That runs back pretty far.

Some people are afraid of what their readers will think of them because they write from the POV of a murderer or pedophile. Me? I'm afraid of what imaginary beings will think of me for writing them into what is essentially fanfic.

I'm laughing, even though it's kinda sad.

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