If I have a plot, does that mean I need to write it? [personal stuff; feel free to skip]

[beccatoria]

This ain't flocked cus it ain't secret, but also, it's just me rambling about personal crap, so feel free to move on. ;) No awesome geeky fandom content here!

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So...once upon a time, I kind of wanted to be a writer, because I like writing and it sounded more fun than a real job. And I was sort of good at it, at least good enough to ace my pointless undergrad creative writing degree and sail through my pointless masters, before landing in the real world and discovering neither made me employable in any sense of the word. (I am too hard on myself; I knew exactly how ten-a-penny and useless they would prove to be before I took them, but I loved writing, and it sounded more fun than a real degree.)

(Let us also acknowledge and move past my simultaneous desire to badmouth my own academic achievements as worthless in order to prove I am a realist at the same time I hate the realist worldview that demands it and wonder why an arts degree in writing is considered less impressive than an arts degree in drawing, painting, music or film direction.)

So anyway. I love writing, but fuck me if I can handle plot. I hate plot. I'm bad at plot. All my plots require long, drawn out backstory explanations that are...boring and confuse people. The plot and I are nemeses.

And that's when writing stops being fun and starts being work and I tell myself I'm not giving up, I'm just...wandering away for a while few months four years.

(OMFG, srsly, I got my masters almost five years ago, I was 21, I was a baby - the youngest on the course and I don't think I had a teacher who didn't remark on that; it felt like there was absolutely no hurry and then suddenly shit happens, I've lived in three different countries, gotten married, am closer to my 27th birthday than my 26th, and know more about mental illness - not mine - than I ever, ever wanted to, from both ends of the system. I wonder where the time went and then I think, that's where it went. On my unspectacular, unique life. I wanted to write a book. I never had the time plot.)

Last week, I had an awful week. It sucked ass. And, for some reason, it gave me a plot. I had actual ideas about...not the nitty gritty detail plot; the sleight-of-hand that makes "and then they went to this place and found this clue!" moments seem organic rather than arbitrary, and I'm sure that will terrify me still. But about how to hang the idea I've had for two years on an honest-to-god sequence of events that involves four distinct protagonists and parallel plotlines and revelations and events. It has, I hope, a perspective-shifting endpoint, and characters who, through their existence, ask interesting questions. And the only human is dead and stuck in a robot body, which possibly I should address, but then again maybe not.

The point is, I'm kind of terrified. Cus now I have to write it. Which, if I do it, is going to be amazing. Cus I love writing. I love it. I always forget until I'm doing it and then...I have no words to explain how fantastic it is.

But now I don't have an excuse; now I might fail; now the way it is in my head might not be the way it is on paper.

I mean, I'm okay. I'm going to try and do this; I want to - that's half the reason I'm posting, diary-style, here. To remind myself I can.

But I feel like I'm about to jump off a cliff.

Comments

[frolicndetour.livejournal.com]

JUMP OFF THE CLIFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*G* Okay, I've possibly had too much caffeine today. But I know you can do it! Eeeee, I'm excited for you.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

There is never too much caffeine! Especially when contemplating jumping off a novel-cliff! ;)

Thanks for being excited for me. Now I just have to DO IT. O_O

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

Creative endeavors are scary. It's one of the many reasons why I would never attempt to do it for money.

But you love writing. And that's the bottom line. Every single person I know who pursues the arts - writers, artists, dancers, you name it - they have an almost physical need. It's such a part of them.

Go, be one of them.

I'll be cheering for you.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I think the problem with me and writing is that I know that physical need, or at least the heartache of having it unfulfilled, but I often don't have a direction for it, and then I end up just...depressed about the whole thing. Which is why I ought to grab this and not give up on it!

[daybreak777.livejournal.com]

Bow down to the plot goddess for bestowing this gift on you and jump. If it's that compelling you probably can't stop writing it anyway. ;-)

And yes, it's going to be amazing. Can't wait to see it. :-)

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Hee! Well I appreciate your faith in me and hope it turns out to be well-founded. :) Mostly I'm just awed that the plot goddess even noticed me, but I'm hoping not to waste the gift.

[sabaceanbabe.livejournal.com]

Jump, baby, jump! And remember that we'll be there at the bottom with the trampoline thingy to catch you. :)

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Hee! Thank you. I think I'm probably gonna need that thing to bounce me back up! :p

[sache8.livejournal.com]

Man, I love learning about how people write, and why, and which bits are scarier for which writers. I'm feeling enormous pressure to nail my Shakespeare/theater book because I really do believe in its potential, but the first draft, in which I wrote a lot of it the way I first imagined, didn't work like I thought it would and now I have to revisit the whole thing and figure out a different approach that will work. And that's both frustrating and liberating. If I'd never written that first draft, I'd never have known that it wasn't going to quite work. But now I have something to make better not just a vast field of white with one blinking cursor.

I think a plot bunny born from a bad week sounds like it has amazing potential without knowing a single other thing about it. Commit, one way or another. You know it will be worth it. It's damn straight every bit a 'crafting' process as a painting or a sculpture, and therein likes the joy. :-)

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm very glad to offer an insight into my (non)process! :) The whole redrafting thing is something I'm familiar with from shorter stories including the whole...frustrating part where you know that it's just going to improve it but GOOD GOD right now it seems like an epic task.

Can I ask is your book a novel, or like an academic book?

As to the plotbunny, it wasn't entirely born from a bad week; it's more like I'd had the plotbunny for about two years but it wasn't going anywhere and the end of the plotbunny came from the bad week, but yes, I do think that it came to me so quickly kind of...I don't know if it suggests the idea is better or just weirder but it certainly says something about it?

[sache8.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it suggests the idea is better or just weirder but it certainly says something about it?

I think it just means that you know it's believable and that makes it worth investing in. :-)

My book is fiction. I wrote this draft for Nanowrimo last year after almost a whole year of compiling ideas for it. It's a hybrid mix of a story about a theater troupe with some fantasy elements. I think it's a genuinely original idea and I have a lot of faith in it. Which is why I will face the gauntlet of 'damn this needs a lot of work!' as many times as it takes to get it right. :-)

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

I have the opposite problem with plot. Mine are always very small. Like "Dude steals rocks." ;)

I'm here for editing and idea bouncing if you need me.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Hee! Dude, at times I would kill for your problem instead of mine. ;)

And thank you for the offer. Maybe if I FINISH IT (which is still a glorious and terrifying prospect), I'll need to take you up on it. :D

[asta77.livejournal.com]

I know you have vidding (and OMG I STILL NEED TO WATCH YOUR VIDS!) and you love it, but something tells me you really need to write right now. It's something you've obviously been passionate about for a long time and that you had a breakthrough at such a low point I think is your brain's way of telling you you need this at this particular time in your life. And maybe it won't be awesome (maybe it will! :), but it will be all yours and you'll have a real feeling of accomplishment when you are done. And if you need anyone to bounce ideas off of, I'm here for you. I owe you! And, yes, I still plan on writing that fic. ;-)

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

There's no hurry to get to the vids; they're not going anywhere. ;) And yeah, maybe that's what my brain is trying to tell me. I certainly have a feeling of relief at having come up with it; even if I don't finish it (though I hope I will), it's...nice ot know I at least don't...suck too much to even have the idea?

And I may have to take you up on that offer! At the moment, I'm still in the early phases; I have to do more fleshing out of characters and worldbuilding and...stuff. But...I hope to keep going with this in a tangible way rather than just letting it lie dormant.

And I haven't forgotten that fic either! And you know I'm ALWAYS available to chat about it more... ;)

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Just Do It. :)

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

I'm sure as hell gonna try! :D

[chaila.livejournal.com]

If I have a plot, does that mean I need to write it?

Yes. As you know. :) Yay I'm excited for you!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Yes. As you know. :) Yay I'm excited for you!

...curse you. ;) *is also excited. AND TERRIFIED*

[emmiere.livejournal.com]

This is entirely awesome. EEEE! Yay you and JUMP! :D

[cyborganize.livejournal.com]

plot is overrated! you can be all pomo and shit. have you read much Shelley Jackson? I don't think her novels have plot.