96 lines
5.8 KiB
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96 lines
5.8 KiB
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<h1>Zk | 05</h1>
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<p>date: 2019-08-29
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weight: 5</p>
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<p>If you went from a mockery of creativity to a mockery of play, when did you settle down and just write a damn story?</p>
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<p>I think it wasn't too long after, actually. I wrote <a href="https://writing.drab-makyo.com/fiction/all-of-time-at-once/"><em>All of Time at Once</em></a> in April of 2004, and that was the first time I started to think, <em>ah-hah, okay, there's a rhythm to this, a pace, a set of mechanics as well as an art.</em></p>
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<p>And from then on, I basically dropped writing in favor of music for months. Sure, there were a few others scattered around there. <a href="https://writing.drab-makyo.com/fiction/tu-pater-et-mater/"><em>Tu pater et mater</em></a> in May of 2003, and <a href="https://writing.drab-makyo.com/fiction/light/"><em>Light</em></a> in June of 2004, but other than that, I kind of just dropped it.</p>
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<p>Why?</p>
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<p>I graduated. I left language arts classes behind. I went to school for an engineering major.</p>
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<p>One you were supremely unhappy in.</p>
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<p>Right. And then when I started writing again, it was music.</p>
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<p>I wrote a few essays I was reasonably proud of, but it took another four years before I decided to actually sit down and give writing a go in a more structured setting, and then only because of NaNoWriMo.</p>
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<p>Ah yes, your "boy meets girl with a twist" story.</p>
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<p>Yeah, <a href="https://writing.drab-makyo.com/fiction/consequences-of-dissonance/"><em>The Consequences of Dissonance</em></a>.</p>
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<p>You originally named it <strong>Coming to Terms with Being a Terrible Person</strong>.</p>
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<p>I did, yeah. I was fresh off my relationship with Kayla and well into a relationship with Kanja, and had a head full of hatred for who I used to be.</p>
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<p>And who you were becoming.</p>
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<p>Well, it wasn't <em>Coming to Terms with Having Been a Terrible Person</em>, was it?</p>
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<p>Fair enough.</p>
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<p>It wasn't a bad story, really, nor even that poorly written. I've even thought of revisiting it sometime. It was sort of a coming out story, but a coming-out-for-the-second-time sort of thing. Gay boy starts dating a girl and has to go through the social process of coming out as bi.</p>
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<p>As Madison?</p>
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<p>I suppose. I went through my own series of comings-out, so maybe I have more insight into that now.</p>
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<p>And you're less of a terrible person.</p>
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<p>Doubt.</p>
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<p>There are perfectly cromulent reasons for you to think of yourself as a terrible person in the past, and even as a terrible person in 2008. Or even one now, really. You're just less of one.</p>
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<p>Always improving, I guess.</p>
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<p>How did it feel to come up with a schedule, a goal, and a plan, and then to stick to it?</p>
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<p>I never finished the story.</p>
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<p>But you won NaNoWriMo that year. You went over by eight thousand lines.</p>
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<p>I guess.</p>
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<p>And you're dodging the question.</p>
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<p>That's why, though. It felt good while it lasted. It felt good during that hypomanic rush to actually complete something, to come up with an outline and actually work through it.</p>
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<p>Then I finished NaNo with several hours to spare and tried to keep going, but there was something missing. I felt rudderless. I kept trying to poke at it, but I think I was working as well as I was because of the deadlines. I was still trying to balance the work with the fun that go into a creative endeavor.</p>
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<p>Did you stop having fun, or did you stop doing the work?</p>
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<p>I think it's more complex than that. There was fun to be had in the race to the finish line. I think that's why NaNo is so popular. And doubtless it was work, of course.</p>
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<p>But with the fun of having already won gone, I was faced with the fact that I had less outline than I had originally thought. Pantsing, as the community so eloquently puts it, may work well for some folks, but I was mostly left feeling uninspired and unmotivated once December hit. The same thing happened with <em>Getting Lost</em> and <em>Inner Demons</em>. I started strong enough with the basic idea as I tried to write by the seat of my pants, but without a direction or even any goal, I lost steam and wound up disheartened.</p>
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<p>Do you not do well without goals, then? You don't seem to have one for this project.</p>
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<p>It's not necessarily that. More that, the shorter the project, the less planning that's required. I do much better with articles and short stories than I do with novels. At least so far, given the amount of planning that goes into each.</p>
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<p>This project is working as well as it is because of my heavy reliance on these side-quests. I can break a story down into manageable chunks so that, by the time I might start losing direction, they're about overwith anyway.</p>
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<p>Besides, I have you to help.</p>
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<p>Me? Little old me?</p>
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<p>Yeah. It's much easier to have a conversation than it is to plan out a story. You keep taking me in directions I don't mean to go.</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2020-04-24</p>
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