finishing stuff is hard. prior to my fandom debut last winter, I'm not sure I'd finished a piece in at least two years—I had cute scenes, beginnings-of-stories, outlines, etc, but I couldn't finish anything.
I've resorted to various forms of trickery, since then, to force myself to actually finish stuff sometimes, both origfic and fanfic—and I (quite tentatively) think that I'm becoming a better writer for it, just because I'm forcing myself to regularly wrestle with larger, story-structure-related issues that I hadn't been confronting in years. (mostly it's just made me aware of how much stuff I haven't tried, and how much experimentation I still need to do, and so much to improve so little time, oi.)
but yeah, re: words vs. works, I guess it sort of depends on what the writer wants or needs to focus on—I don't think the time I spent writing random unfinished scenes was a waste, and I learned things, but focusing more on finished works seems to be benefiting me for the time being.
and re: essay-ing on creative process... hm. there was a time when I basically thought reading/talking about writing was mostly navel-gazing bullshit, and the only way you could really learn or improve on anything of value was just sitting down and writing. so I guess this meta-writing talk still feels weird and new to me, and while I'm enjoying it, I'm still undecided as to how much it's impacting my own work, so I suppose the jury's still out for me on that one.
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Date: 2012-09-14 07:33 am (UTC)I've resorted to various forms of trickery, since then, to force myself to actually finish stuff sometimes, both origfic and fanfic—and I (quite tentatively) think that I'm becoming a better writer for it, just because I'm forcing myself to regularly wrestle with larger, story-structure-related issues that I hadn't been confronting in years. (mostly it's just made me aware of how much stuff I haven't tried, and how much experimentation I still need to do, and so much to improve so little time, oi.)
but yeah, re: words vs. works, I guess it sort of depends on what the writer wants or needs to focus on—I don't think the time I spent writing random unfinished scenes was a waste, and I learned things, but focusing more on finished works seems to be benefiting me for the time being.
and re: essay-ing on creative process... hm. there was a time when I basically thought reading/talking about writing was mostly navel-gazing bullshit, and the only way you could really learn or improve on anything of value was just sitting down and writing. so I guess this meta-writing talk still feels weird and new to me, and while I'm enjoying it, I'm still undecided as to how much it's impacting my own work, so I suppose the jury's still out for me on that one.