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Words words words
Earlier this week I helped my ten-year-old friend, Eris (the artist formerly known as Wee Babysitting Charge) format and illustrate a short story she'd written. It was a truly lovely day's work, because she is an incredibly clever and talented child and the story was delightful.
And also because it's been a long time since I felt that sheer joy of creating. Building something new and lovely, with someone whose company makes you happy.
I feel so blessed that I get to write and play with words professionally -- trust me, I know how lucky I am -- but I think the combination of the pressure at the day job, plus the pressure to write for publication which I put on myself in my off-hours, plus the various desperately sad or upsetting things which've happened this year (and there have been quite a few of those)... I think I got burned out. I forgot how pleasing writing used to feel.
Posting the Narnia/X-Men story on the weekend had made me feel that too, to a degree, but I wrote it while suffering from a killer headache and so the delight I felt was somewhat tempered by feelings of ow-ow-ow-why-does-everything-in-my-skull-hurt-like-stabbing-owwwww.
Anyway! My point: I think I need to give myself a little bit of a rest. I'm not really good at that, generally: I tend to keep the momentum of guilt-driven productivity until I burn out and collapse into a sobbing pile of illness (though it has been, like, two years since Audrey last had to drag me to the emergency room in the middle of the night with pneumonia! That's progress, right?).
But I'm going to give it a try. Next Novel can stay stalled at 20,000 words until I feel excited by the thought of working on it, rather than obligated and sickened by the spectre of failure. I have classes starting in a couple of weeks, so I'll have quite enough non-day-job stress on the go without also feeling constantly inadequate with regard to my extra output.
If I get some extra stories done, I get some extra stories done. If I don't, I don't. If I'm going to feel miserable and useless one way or the other, I should at least attempt to go easy on myself from time to time. (See, Lisa? I'm trying to be kind to me! I am occasionally capable of listening to advice. Occasionally.)
Ugh, even just writing out my intention to rest makes me feel incredibly guilty and lazy. Clearly I have some major issues.
In vaguely related news, I've added a few more old LOTR stories to AO3. I should have made more of a dent in the pile of fics still to put up, but I've been exhausted and unmotivated and blargh this week (with the exception of the delightful book-making day detailed at the start of this entry).
While I was going through those old stories, I remembered that I wrote a story for a Sam/Frodo zine this one time too, so I've also gone and updated the books and zines page at my site with some of the fannish stuff I'd forgotten about before. Man, I want to be in so many more zines. I love zines.
You know what would be awesome? In-world zines. Like, I want a zine set in the Killjoys universe! I want a zine set in the X-Men: First Class universe! I want a zine shop in Diagon Alley! I WANT ALL THE ZINES, BASICALLY.
And also because it's been a long time since I felt that sheer joy of creating. Building something new and lovely, with someone whose company makes you happy.
I feel so blessed that I get to write and play with words professionally -- trust me, I know how lucky I am -- but I think the combination of the pressure at the day job, plus the pressure to write for publication which I put on myself in my off-hours, plus the various desperately sad or upsetting things which've happened this year (and there have been quite a few of those)... I think I got burned out. I forgot how pleasing writing used to feel.
Posting the Narnia/X-Men story on the weekend had made me feel that too, to a degree, but I wrote it while suffering from a killer headache and so the delight I felt was somewhat tempered by feelings of ow-ow-ow-why-does-everything-in-my-skull-hurt-like-stabbing-owwwww.
Anyway! My point: I think I need to give myself a little bit of a rest. I'm not really good at that, generally: I tend to keep the momentum of guilt-driven productivity until I burn out and collapse into a sobbing pile of illness (though it has been, like, two years since Audrey last had to drag me to the emergency room in the middle of the night with pneumonia! That's progress, right?).
But I'm going to give it a try. Next Novel can stay stalled at 20,000 words until I feel excited by the thought of working on it, rather than obligated and sickened by the spectre of failure. I have classes starting in a couple of weeks, so I'll have quite enough non-day-job stress on the go without also feeling constantly inadequate with regard to my extra output.
If I get some extra stories done, I get some extra stories done. If I don't, I don't. If I'm going to feel miserable and useless one way or the other, I should at least attempt to go easy on myself from time to time. (See, Lisa? I'm trying to be kind to me! I am occasionally capable of listening to advice. Occasionally.)
Ugh, even just writing out my intention to rest makes me feel incredibly guilty and lazy. Clearly I have some major issues.
In vaguely related news, I've added a few more old LOTR stories to AO3. I should have made more of a dent in the pile of fics still to put up, but I've been exhausted and unmotivated and blargh this week (with the exception of the delightful book-making day detailed at the start of this entry).
While I was going through those old stories, I remembered that I wrote a story for a Sam/Frodo zine this one time too, so I've also gone and updated the books and zines page at my site with some of the fannish stuff I'd forgotten about before. Man, I want to be in so many more zines. I love zines.
You know what would be awesome? In-world zines. Like, I want a zine set in the Killjoys universe! I want a zine set in the X-Men: First Class universe! I want a zine shop in Diagon Alley! I WANT ALL THE ZINES, BASICALLY.
no subject
I just want more superhero RPF in general!
I want people in the DCU and Marvel 616 and every other superhero universe to be writing stories about these celebrities who save people and smash up cities. I want there to be flamewars about whether stories about Batman should be allowed in a superhero RPF archive because he's TOTES an urban legend, not a real person.
Because it would SO happen!
no subject
BATMAN IS A CONTENTIOUS RPF FIGURE. It's such a delightful idea! And people would get all argumentative about whether it's okay to write stories based on real rescues or if everything should be fictionalised.