There are plenty of words!

[pensnest]

Visited my Dad today. He's rather weak, having disturbed nights and digestive problems.

On the way home I pondered Stuff, as I usually do, driving back from Lincoln on my own. And I realised that the most important thing I've learned since I discovered popslash is this:

There are always more Words.

That's right. Back in the days before LJ, when I wrote for zines and subsequently for the startrek newsgroup, I used to hoard my 'clever phrases', because I knew that once I'd used them I wouldn't have anything else to say. I wrote fourteen Trek fics of some kind.

But I was wrong. Something like a hundred pop fics later, it turns out, that I don't need hoarded words, because there are always plenty more. I can be profligate, and I won't run out! I wrote two MTYG stories of respectable length, neither of which I'd had any notion of writing until I had to write them, and the words came. You could even say I wrote *five* MTYG stories this year, what with the three written for the MTYG testing, and *all* of them came fresh, I didn't use up any of my storynotions. The words come. It starts off as a struggle (I remember posting a wail of I don't wanna dismay), but they come.

There are always more words. Yay!


Admittedly, this says nothing about the *quality* of the words in question, but that's another story. Or possibly another edit. Just as I'm too lazy to write much without a deadline, I'm too lazy to do real editing work on most of my fics. Bad Pen.


Afterthought: this joyful assertion probably heralds months of writer's block!

Comments

[phaballa.livejournal.com]

I'm the same way. I can always find *something* to say. Of course, I think I do much better when I start writing with a really strong idea, but it's not necessary for me to really know where that idea is going. I'm more of a character-motivated writer... it helps a lot when you (meaning me) never write actual plot :P

[pensnest]

I often find that my ideas of what is supposed to happen in a story is changed very much by what the characters do along the way - I find it very hard to write out of sequence, because if I write a later bit, the characters may never *get* to that point, having trotted merrily off down a slightly different path. Pesky chaps!

[randomling]

I've been finding it very easy to write lately - I think doing the test-SeSa stories and then real SeSa unplugged something, because I've barely stopped writing since!

Of course a lot of the stuff I post is short and not really edited or beta'd, but I'm starting to agree with you on the endless stream of words front. Of course, the difficult thing is going to be to stop just filling random requests and get started on my own fic!

(I've discovered that I'm a total whore for feedback and it tends to feed my writing soul. So how I'm going to write any of the long fics I have in my head, which will need to be written and then beta'd before I post anything, I don't know!)

[pensnest]

Popslash similarly unplugged something for me. It's such a joy!

I know what you mean in your last paragraph, there! It's much easier to write for a specific purpose (and deadline), because you know someone is going to pay attention... and long fics require more attention and more work than ficlets, woez.

[randomling]

Popslash is awesome - after years and years of no ideas at all, I now can't stop having them!

And yeah, it's much easier to write something when you know someone is going to read it. I'm determined to write the fics I'm planning, though, despite that! Although it does help that even for the weirdest ones, I've got a couple of cheerleaders. :D

And for Lance In Space I have a whole squad. I really must write that.

[pensnest]

Yes, you must!

[randomling]

Love the icon!

And yes, I know... I've started the first story, and it's sort of not doing what I want. I really have to work out what's going to happen. *frown*

[mickeym.livejournal.com]

About a year or so into my Sentinel phase, I had a good friend (who never really understood slash, though she tried, bless her heart) ask me, "so what happens when you run out of words?" -- this, after I expressed how happy it made me to write the stories in my head.

Man, she sent me into a tailspin of panic that lasted, off-and-on, until I hit popslash *g* When I realized, much as you have, that the words don't run out. Quality may be questionable at times, but there's always words there. Always a story there. The same idea can be recycled and words changed, added, subtracted, whatever...and there are words! *g*

I kind of hated her for a while, for making me question things like that--but I'm also glad she did, because it made me *realize*, which ultimately, is the more important thing.

Yay for popslash! *g* Or something.

[pensnest]

It's amazing really that we can still find things to say in popslash (or indeed, any other productive fandom, I suppose). Just goes to show!

I wonder whether the difference between assuming you'll run out of words and knowing you won't is the difference between a not-writer and a writer?

[nopseud]

When I realized, much as you have, that the words don't run out.

And boy, did we prove that :-)

[beckyo.livejournal.com]

re: trek fic ... Which newsgroup? And when? Trekfic is where I got my start. *g*

[pensnest]

Hmm. I think it must have been rec.arts.startrek.creative, but sadly, I can't remember! I can't remember whether I was pensnest (in some form or other) or not; I may have used Eve Robinson as my authorname. I put my stories up on my website, of course... I was writing Trek from about 1993-94 until, hmm, I think I finally acknowledged I'd lost interest in 2000.

What did you write? I was a Dataphile, absolutely.

LJ obviously encourages production of fic. The power of feedback!

[beckyo.livejournal.com]

It was my first writing experience. :) I wrote as Becca O (mostly with YCD), in Voyager fic. I started in 1995 and finally gave up interest in 1997 or 98? My daughter was born in 96, so that took a lot of time. I also dabbled in XF fic. Also on my website. :)

[zillahseye.livejournal.com]

I needed to read that, actually. I've been in that "omg I have written and read it all, maybe I should just die!" place lately, and with the aid of this post I now know I was in the "I don't want to write anymore I'm lazy MUST I?" place instead.

[pensnest]

I find a deadline concentrates the mind wonderfully...

[bubbleforest.livejournal.com]

This is a lovely post. And so true. :)

[pensnest]

*smiles* It's such a relief, too.

[vaudevilles.livejournal.com]

I get less worried about having no words and more about running out of stories. With a grand total of five fics behind me I'm probably being neurotic, but I have a horror of repeating myself. Or, worse, failing to improve my writing.

And wow! 100 fics is really really impressive

[pensnest]

Most of my 100 are very short and inconsequential, but still - *I'm* impressed! ;-) I think that's one of the fantastic things about popslash fandom, that we go out and make stories happen. So many challenges, and fic_requests, and people asking for prompts for ficlets, as well as those inevitable stories that we *have* to write.

And stories are all repeats, and all different. I mean, I've read so many first-time stories, and I love them still.

[vaudevilles.livejournal.com]

The making things happen stuff is absolutly brilliant - I'd never have even tried the pairing I ended up writing for SeSa normally, and the story wasn't my best by any stretch, but it got me writing something different, which is good practice.

I guess my fear is less the repeat of situations, of plot, and more the repeat of the 'feel' of a piece, repeating themes and emotions too many times, which turns into writing as therapy. I mean this is a romance genre so there are only so many tropes around, its the way the tropes are handled that makes the difference.

[pensnest]

I've got to the point where I quite *like* SeSa to be a bit of a challenge! (I also read through the list by recipient, so I don't know what the pairing will be. It's fun to read without knowing that in advance.) It's nice to stretch, by doing a pairing that's out of your normal range, and I find that I learn to like a character better by writing him.

I know what you mean about fearing the repeats... it turns out that what I *most* want to write is long-term, pining Trickyfish, in that my long stories tend to go that way even if I hadn't planned them to. (And I'll read as many long-term pining Trickyfish stories as I can find!) And there are certain things that do show up, after a while - but more obvious to us in our own writing than in someone else's; we only write our own, but we read many, and a theme would have to get very blatant to be really noticeable to us as readers.

[vaudevilles.livejournal.com]

Oh I adore your icon, it encapsulates snarky Trickyfish perfectly. Which, funnily, is exactly what I most want to write (preferably with friendship, obtuse obliviousness, followed by a bolt of lightening to the head and smut). I was talking to a friend about this last night and realised that I'm just repeating the scene inside the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon between Han and Leia in The Empire Strikes Back. Because I fixated on that aged 11 and that's romance to me.

But you're right about readers not being noticing the themes as much as we do (self criticism is one of the bits I weirdly enjoy about writing). And at some stage I'll manage an AU, and a story that isn't a first time (though first times are wonderful to write because you get to tell the story of HOW it all happened instead of just picking up in the middle).

Long-term pining Trickyfish is a fabulous thing (your confession explains Thirteen Years and Counting and why it's so wonderful too).

[pensnest]

I think I fixated on Pride and Prejudice, where the snark is very refined... I don't remember whether I wrote 13YaC with Trickyfish as my intention, I have a feeling it just turned out that way because, well, Trickyfish rulez!

[vaudevilles.livejournal.com]

Ah the wonder that is Elizabeth Bennet combined with my allegiance to Beatrice and Benedick pretty much set me up for liking snark in any form (which is why Trickyfish rulez to teh max 4eva).

[pensnest]

We are soul-sisters! I saw 'Much Ado About Nothing' on telly in about 1984, with Robert Lindsay as Benedick, he was *perfect*.

Trickyfish 4 evah!

[vaudevilles.livejournal.com]

YES! That version! I was 14 and desperately wanted them both.

[nopseud]

I have trouble remembering sometimes that it isn't necessary to have something really *different* to make a good story. I struggled with my SeSa story so much this year not because I didn't like the assignment because it's a pairing where there are already lots of fabulous stories with the themes my recipient wanted. I just felt like I was failing them by not coming up with some nifty new take on it. But I've been getting nice feedback, and people seem to be enjoying the story, so I think the problems with it really were all in my head rather than actually on the screen.

[pensnest]

Let's face it, if we wanted something really *different* all the time we probably wouldn't be reading fanfic at all. But it can be difficult to write a(nother) story where you know you've read many wonderful ones already - in that respect at least, unusual pairings win out.

[nopseud]

But it can be difficult to write a(nother) story where you know you've read many wonderful ones already

That was exactly it. I felt like, there are so very many wonderful [pairing] stories in the world, written by much better writers than me, how can anything I give them for MtYG be anything other than a disappointment?

[pensnest]

And yet, I trust it wasn't a disappointment? Anyway, as readers we can read them all and find them all 'true', and still want more, and as writers we can always (I hope) find the spaces in between where the story hasn't been written yet.

[nopseud]

Well, it seems to have gone down very well, which is a BIG relief :-)

[turps33.livejournal.com]

It's amazing where those words come from at times. One minute you have nothing, the next thousands of words, and I love popslash for always providing those words.

I hope your dad will be okay.

[pensnest]

Oh, that it could take place in as little as a minute! Though I spose the time taken to put the words on to the screen is probably time well spent.

And, thanks.