Onward and upwards!

[strangetomato]

Thank you for the comments and show of support on my last post. I find myself really excited about Strangetown again and wanting to get to Chapter 36, where lots of plot and drama starts happening and I get to do all sorts of things I've been waiting forever to do. There's only one thing standing in my way: Chapter 35 (part four). *groan* I think the only thing that will get me over this hurdle is my desire to get to the next chapter. I'm tempted to just post, "Bottom and Vidcund eventually find a way out of Faerie and some other stuff happens that I'll tell you about later and then Vidcund has to return to Strangetown because PT is dying. The End."

But no, I feel I must complete it properly. I swear, when I finally post that chapter my notes will simply read, "Fuck you, Chapter Thirty-Five. I WIN!"

Comments

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I have no idea how this chapter turned into such a monster. It seemed like a good idea at the time. XD

Now I'm working out all these tricks and shortcuts to tell the same basic story idea I had but with far less set building and posing, etc.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Yeah, writer's block is the worst, no matter what form it takes. For sim stories, image block is possibly even worse again. At least I wouldn't need to go on a cc hunt if all I needed to do was write. :S

[petchy-14.livejournal.com]

Dude, if you want to write chapter 36 and skip 35 till a later date I would't mind much :) It's fantastic to see you enthusiastic about this again!

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Hmm, now that's an appealing idea. Maybe that would be the thing to do here.

Hmm...

[so-goshable.livejournal.com]

That's always a frustrating, yet also exciting, place to be in; being bound by a chapter, when you have other ideas planned. I've been there too. You just got to sit down and get that part over with. Sometimes you'll the outcome can be a lot better than you evert expected. Strange things can happen in the writing process. Glad you're getting over the hurdle.

[so-goshable.livejournal.com]

Please excuse the typos, I am typing on the world's worst keyboard. Or, maybe it's really the world's best keyboard, because I haven't killed it yet. It has very few letters left on it though.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I wouldn't have even noticed. I'm like the Queen of Typos, and I don't even have a good excuse beyond lack of proof reading. :P

[so-goshable.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty guilty of that myself. ;)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I think this particular chapter is getting to me so much because it's mostly not essential to the story. I've worked in some things that are and there's some story there that I do (or did) want to tell, but if I dropped it, it probably wouldn't really matter that much to the story at large. It was always a bit of a tangent and now I just want to get back on the most direct path I can find to what's important to the story.

Thank you for the pep talk. :) I really do appreciate it. You're right about good things often coming from fighting your way through these things. I hope that ends up being the case here, rather than me simply running out of care juice and walking away from it.

[cindyanne1.livejournal.com]

You show that chapter who is boss! :D

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Heheh. I will, dammit! XD

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I changed it after the fact when I realized I had the perfect icon for a post like this. :P It's a Photoshop edit of a hula dance pose.

[skellington7d.livejournal.com]

Urgh I know how it feels to just want to skip to the big stuff. I thought I'd have gotten to it by now in my story but I ended up adding like 2 chapters and 2 interludes worth of buildup. But there have been times when the "bridge" chapters I wasn't too excited about ended up inspiring me into stuff I'm really proud of.

And when it comes to Sim stories I think it's okay to just do what you have to do to keep the passion burning. If you feel like you're muddling through, 'cheating' is forgivable as long as you're having fun.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Haha! I'm glad I'm not the only one who has had things snowball out of control, but 2 chapters and 2 interludes doesn't sound so bad. Nip it in the bud while you still can! XD You seem like you have a pretty good grasp on your story as a whole, though, so the last person you need any advice from in that regard is me.

I hear you about producing some good stuff when you feel blocked or even when it seems like it isn't a terrible important update. Maybe having the pressure off can be helpful? Or just having to make the most of the situation you're in.

I actually went back and read through the Veronaville chapter part one through three today and I do like what I've been doing there so far (and have some interesting stuff worked into part four), so I feel slightly better now. I'm still dreading the massive WCIF that has to come to gather the cc required to shoot scenes on the Summerdream lot again and have them look even remotely similar.

That's so true. This is meant to be fun, so I think it's fine for me to do whatever it takes to get back into it. I'm already committing myself to paring things back and doing less elaborate sets and posing to save time. I'm going to leave that stuff to the pros. ;)

[galialady.livejournal.com]

:D Can't wait for it!

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :) Your enthusiasm helps push me through it, for sure. I really want to get back into this so I can share it with people. What's the good of a story that's just in your own head, afterall.

[peni griffin (from livejournal.com)]

That's the trouble with a serial format that is published as you write. I could never do that - I rely far too much on the "shitty first draft" stage and the ability to work backwards and forwards putting in foreshadowing and taking out dead ends.

Anyway, one thing you learn by sitting down and writing every day is, that later on, you can't tell which bits you wrote in the white-hot fire of inspiration and which ones you wrote like pushing a mountain uphill. Put your butt in the chair and work on it every day and it will get done. Don't and it won't. That's all about it. Master the art of BIC, and the rest follows.

You'll do fine.

And the good news is - once you're through the long hard slog in the middle, the last part of the story is like rolling downhill. So you have that to look forward to.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Once again, you offer excellent advice. I really appreciate you sharing your experience on this topic. :)

I do sometimes wish I had more ability to simply edit out some of the "shitty first draft" stuff that has made its way in, but I enjoy the challenge of the serial format for those same reasons. I need to get all those balls in the air early on, and I may end up dropping a few (or have some that never come down), but when one falls into place, it's that much more rewarding. A sim story is pretty low stakes, so I get to play around with that and learn from it here, and I like that.

Some of my favourite stories have been serials, and I love seeing just how different they became as they grew over the course of their telling. I also love when reader/viewer reaction serves to shift the narrative one way or another, like it sometimes does in the TV format. That's easily half the fun for me. But I digress...

I really need to work on getting a Butt in Chair routine started, especially now that I have a baby to care for during most of my waking hours. I should schedule it in like I do with my trips to the gym or yoga classes.

I'm looking forward to that rolling downhill phase. :) It helps that I have so much of the ending already worked out, and some even written. If I don't make any huge changes before then, it should be a breeze.

[tov01.livejournal.com]

I was going to tell you to show that chapter who's boss, but cindyanne1 said it first. So I'll post this motivational speech instead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuMv86Ov7-8

Awesome

[zepheera.livejournal.com]

Wow, I started reading back about when you posted chapter 3 originally, and I had (very reluctantly) given up on ever seeing you coming back to this amazing story, and then I just happen to click on a link to here on tvtropes and find you posting again!

I'm thrilled, and looking forward to seeing what you come up with. Welcome back!