I know how I am with deadlines, so why do I keep signing up for ficathons and exchanges???

[edenfalling]

That took WAY TOO LONG.

It is, of course, at least 85% my own damn fault -- I'm the one who chose the story, and I'm the one who is terrible at time management and kept getting distracted by other things -- but even so. TOO LONG. (The word count is too long as well -- and yes, it did end up longer than "What Isn't Broken," because apparently I enjoy torturing myself.)

I was starting to go nuts Thursday and Friday night, when I couldn't get more than 500 words a day. Normally that is a good pace for me, but here? Not nearly enough. Tonight (I have not gone to bed; therefore it is still Saturday; shut up) I realized the problem was that I had written an entire scene that shouldn't be there, yanked it out, and wrote around the information that had been there. I also tweaked the beginning slightly so it at least pretends to match the ending, inserted several references to what ended up being kind of a major plot point, so it seems to grow organically out of the story instead of being something I pasted on about two thirds of the way through, and did a bit of pruning for commas and general wordiness.

And it is SENT IN.

Gah.

...

Now I just need to get started on my Femgenficathon story... *cue ominous music and Liz running away screaming*

Comments

[theodosia21]

Congratulations, I can't wait to read it! ^_^

[edenfalling]

The middle third is kind of sloppy and the final third is... well, I only had approximately an hour to edit it after I finished writing and before I hit send, so consider yourself warned. I don't think I ended quite the same story that I started -- I didn't resolve the plot threads in the right order or with the right relative emphasis -- but at least I ended some story. *wry* (Thank you for looking over the first third, by the way! I took your advice re: descriptions, insofar as I could find a smooth way to insert them, and I think that helped.)

Ah well. When it's no longer "anonymous," I will print it out and tear it to pieces with the Editing Pen of Death. Then I will put it back together properly.

[lurker-lost.livejournal.com]

Congrats on getting in in!! And TAKE A BREAK. Maybe you can just meditate on it/do plotting in your head for now. And wow, that is super long!

[edenfalling]

Today I slept in, read a book and two magazines, took a long walk, talked with my friend on the phone, and wrote nothing at all. It was very relaxing. :-) I think if I kept it up for more than another day, though, I would start to go stir-crazy.

...

Probably I should get back to work on "Weregild" before I dive headfirst into research on UFO-believers in the 1980s, though, because if anything is guaranteed to drive me up the wall, that is. Vampires are much less irritating, even if they bring Anita Blake along with them. ;-)

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

Congratulations. I've been cheering you on and I cannot wait for the story. I'm really proud of you for sticking with it and to it. And yeah, I'd be working on the femgen, too, but I've got an NFE abandoned prompt that I'm going great guns on. YIKES. Well, Femgen isn't due until Sept 8? Isn't that right?

[edenfalling]

Good luck on your pinch hit!

Femgen fics can be posted as early as August 15, but the final posting date is September 8, yeah. And thank goodness! I have a LOT of research to do for mine... and probably for no real return, since I intend to write about a disliked secondary character in a teeny-tiny Yuletide fandom with deeply disturbing subject matter. (In other words, I want to explain Avalyn Friesen from Mysterious Skin. Hence UFO research. *headdesk*) Nobody is going to read that story, but apparently my subconscious is bound and determined to see it written.

[autumnia]

Congratulations on finally finishing! This is why I'm so hesitant on signing up for these things as well -- I totally do not work well under deadlines.

Even if it's not perfect, you can still tweak it to your heart's content and post your "final" version at a later point. I've been doing that many, many times after I sent in my own submission and I bet others are doing the same. :-)

[edenfalling]

Oh, I am going to edit the living daylights out of this story once it's no longer anonymous! Right now, the first third or so has been beta-checked once, the second third is at the stage where I would normally send a story beta and/or post it to see what reaction I get, and the final third is a hastily-written mess, which normally I would have set aside for a day or three until I could come back with a bit of perspective and a better sense of how it fits (or doesn't fit) in with all the preceding scenes. I mean, the conclusion works, more or less, but it's horribly sloppy. :-(

I have a love-hate relationship with fests and exchanges. On the one hand, I am terrible with deadlines, but on the other hand, I think I also do some of my best writing when I am handed some constraints and forced to bash through any problems right now instead of setting a stalled fic aside for six months until something unlocks in the back of my head and I know where to go with it. The craft of the writing suffers, but there's a certain "aliveness" to the results that I can't always get with stories that I take more time to write. *shrug*

[cherokee1.livejournal.com]

You mentioned your other surprise! long fic "What Isn't Broken", and I went back and read it along with
"Put A Little Fixin' On It".
Very enjoyable. I have always marveled at your ability to get into characters minds.
C

[edenfalling]

Thank you! I am not inclined to write NaruSasu without also including Sakura (I love them best all three together, whether platonic or otherwise), but megyal's story has such a lovely set-up that it was a joy (a frustrating joy, but still a joy) to see if I could rework it on my own terms. :-)