120523 Profiles & Process

[0jack]

One of the things I want to work on is room to talk about is (a) who you are, (b) how you work, and (c) what you write. But first: Anyone is welcome to take on posting duties here. If you want a day or a week, let me know.

Who you are: I always planned to do interviews with willing victims participants. Do you think I should post an interview list somewhere and if you want to be interviewed, you can just pick 3 or 5 questions off the list, fill it out, and send it in? Would you prefer for me to hit you up on chat or IRC or email and ask you questions?

How you work: Process, I love lists, book recs, product recs, pictures, you name it. I am a process junkie. I find it fun and inspiring to see how other people work. Here's a link to a shot of my Scrivener projects that are open right now, description in comments. If you want to email me screen shots, photos, links, or if you want to post them yourself, let me know. My email is evithwintergrey at Gmail.

What you write: I like looking at what other people are working on. I'm considering making the Members Only posts weekly to encourage sharing. If people want, I'll start accepting ~500wd "first page" excerpts to include in the body of those posts.

Poll #10584

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 8

View Respondents

Today's original fiction work included:

View Answers

adding to my word count
3 (37.5%)

research, world building, character development
2 (25.0%)

plotting, outlining, rough notes
3 (37.5%)

discussing or writing about my WIP
2 (25.0%)

daydreaming or working in my head
4 (50.0%)

editing my original fiction
2 (25.0%)

meta: reading about, writing about, or discussing writing
2 (25.0%)

meta: queries, submissions, contracts, taxes, etc.
0 (0.0%)

things external to but necessary for writing (sorting, filing, cleaning)
3 (37.5%)

something I will share in comments
0 (0.0%)

none of the above and that's okay
1 (12.5%)

none of the above and I need help/advice/hugs in comments
0 (0.0%)

How did you do in terms of meeting your goals today?

View Answers
Mean: 4.71 Median: 4 Std. Dev 2.19

Don't ask! 1		0 (0.0%)
2		1 (14.3%)
3		1 (14.3%)
4		3 (42.9%)
5		0 (0.0%)
6		0 (0.0%)
7		0 (0.0%)
8		2 (28.6%)
9		0 (0.0%)
I would like a trophy! 10		0 (0.0%)

Comments

[0jack]

What's cooking today in Scrivener: http://wintergrey.ca/images/Scrivener_Screenshot_120523.jpg

Right to left, bottom to top, we have...

Blog Posts—I keep track of major blog posts and posting content, including the poll you see above and interesting quotes. My love for Scrivener is unending.

DragonAge—Looks like I'm editing Chapter Two of my barely started, already huge, parallel-to-DA2 storyline. You can see the fanfic sorted by character name.

TirasLian—Original fiction. I really need to number those scenes. The Research tag on the right is expanded and you can see the multiple map images saved there, mostly of Kenya.

Not shown: Edits being done in Word. No one wants to see that sausage being made, I tell you. Draft four, edit round three. Shoot me with a Nerf gun.

[clare_dragonfly]

Scrivener = ♥.

Also, my sympathies on the edits. I hate edits.

Am also really bad at talking about myself ::hides:: (might answer interview questions if I see them though.)

[finch]

Hello, I'm new! Not sure whether I should use the poll above for things I plan to do today or things I did yesterday, but I'll have to pick one because my attention span is about three seconds so if I wait until the end of the day I'll forget. XD

I would be interested in either of the interview processes above! I also enjoy talking about process, so if you are looking for people to volunteer for that I'd be interested, though I don't think I have much interesting stuff to screenshot. Mostly I have google docsdrive, which is a huge, searchable pile of everything, and evernote, which is a similarly searchable pile of everything. I like search a lot, can you tell?

Right now what I'm writing is all getting posted. I have no idea when I should stop posting on my blog and start hoarding things for submission, so I just keep posting things. Plus it's Story-a-Day May, so that's my current excuse.

I think I will go ahead and answer the poll for yesterday.

[0jack]

Whatever works for you. :) Some people keep a tab open until they're done, other people just ticky whatever they've done since the poll went up last, and some people only ticky once in a blue moon. It's just a way for you to get to acknowledge that you DID THINGS because original fic writing can feel like a secret solo trek to the South Pole.

If you're posting under lock and aren't hosting ziliions of people, the answer to the hoarding question is NEVER. *g* It counts the same as going to a critique group or anything else. The issue traditionally has been saleability but as the Big Six buy from small presses and self-pubs more and more, I think we'll discover that exclusivity is not as important to them as exploited market potential. So ultimately, whatever makes you happy. For some people locking up their stuff is shooting their muse and in that case, for the love of kittens, do whatever it takes to keep writing.

As for interviews and process, awesome. And welcome aboard. :)

[finch]

I'll probably go with "whatever I've done since the last poll" then - I look at DW on a couple of different computers and I lose track of things easily. XD

My blog is actually entirely public, because tbh I don't feel like anything I've written so far is good enough that I'd get picked up. I don't know when/if I'll reach that stage; I suppose I'll worry about it when I do.

[0jack]

For me it was a really organic thing. I actually sat down to write something new and said, "this is the thing I will want to publish" and I was right and it did sell. All writing is practice and I certainly NEVER (I mean, I will write you a get-out-of-publishing note if you need one) advocate publishing as the end game of writing. I'll eventually post here what I recently wrote for inkingitout, a kind of manifesto of mine on the fact that publishing is not writing and, in fact, it means nothing about your writing at all. :)

[clare_dragonfly]

I pick stories-to-submit vs. stories-to-post on a case-by-case basis; my main criterion is length, secondary is completeness, tertiary is a vague sense of how interesting the story is. I also post stuff locked to my beta group (and/or rainbowfic) and let them tell me whether it's a good story!

[konsectatrix]

Hi, I'm K and I have a process kink (to the point that certain friends tease me about it). I seriously love that shit. As I mentioned earlier, I'm willing to take on days/weeks once I get sorted. I'm thinking if I start trying stuff like that now before things get too busy, I'm far less likely to have anxiety eat my head if/when the comm takes off later.

I also love the idea of willing victim interviews--of any of the forms you described. I've seen that in other blogs and I thought it was neat.

If people want, I'll start accepting ~500wd "first page" excerpts to include in the body of those posts.

That wouldn't be a problem, either.

For stuff that's more or less closer to finish, "first line of every chapter" posts might be fun too.

[recessional]

Hi, I'm M, and I'm all over the place. Currently I appear to be cheating on original fiction with Avengers-ridiculousness. I keep wanting to write a specific original story but cannot find a narrative voice that I like for it. This is a pain in the ass.

*flop*

[darthneko]

Today is the first day I have thought about/worked on original fiction in ages. God bless random jaunts through wikipedia and the worldbuilding it inspires. ^__^

Also, I would be gleeful at reading/participating in any sort of interview process thing-a-majig, I love looking at other people's process, and a regular member share thing would be awesome. I wish I could help with the posting, but I'm all out of time for volunteering anything with any reliability. =__=

[leia_solo]

I'm Destiny, aged 21. I work by writing down my notes and ideas and then going from there. For most of my projects, I started with the characters first and built around them. I'm currently writing a family saga called The Mondian Chronicles (But it might be renamed to Munda for what I have planned) which features the royal family of Monde and the various people that come in to contact with them.

[msmcknittington]

To sate evith's need for excerpts, I posted one here from my steampunk-ish thing.

Perhaps I will tell everyone all about me tomorrow. It is much later than I thought it was. Oops.

[konsectatrix]

*randomly following up* My chosen clickies are potentially confusing. Dreaming = a default state that I've been occupying since I have had a concept of "me." This state, while important, may or may not be actively conducive to writing. It's rest and it's processing time and it isn't necessarily fruitful, but it's hard to tell until well after the fact.