December plans

[gs_silva]

The month when everybody has to run a writing event because it's November is over now. I participated in 3. There was ushobwri progress reporting plus thoughtful questions each day. There were two on Discord: one character development question of the day, which served me well as prompts for the daily comic. And one that was a lot of writing sprints, sooo many writing sprints, and other activities too but I was mostly doing the sprints.




Now I have a backlog of prompts to work from, and Alien Romance also has an internally cohesive linear plot line, so I'll be catching up from all that November overload. The original November novel-writing event (which I don't need explained to me - I was involved to the explosively bitter end, and I don't want to talk about it; it's over now and it's nobody's business) had a structure of "write frenetically now; edit later!" But that doesn't work for me. What does anyone care when I edit? For the most part, people let me be me, but I ended up quitting two Discord groups because people were super weird about my writing process (or writing processes in general).




We won't do that here.

I guess one good thing about November writing blitzes being decentralized is that fewer people will be rules lawyers at me. Maybe very few at all. (Some people will be rules lawyers till the day they die, but without an entity they can perceive as a 'universal standard' it's just them against me, and I can just leave)




This is some of my very worst art from the early pages. I drew this 5 years ago, and some of the problem was my scanner. It had a tendency to blur the image, and when it got into a mood, there was nothing I could do to coax it back into doing its job. I'm trying not to fix it too much. It's a potential rabbit hole each and every time. There's no such thing as 'done'. I have to tear myself away from it each time.

Comments

[starmouse]

I'm really loving seeing your process in your redraws! I don't think the old art is bad by any means--in fact I think it has a lot of soul--but it's very cool to see how you approach your edits.

[gs_silva]

That's sweet; thank you. I admire how fast you've gotten! I'm not exactly slow, but being faster would be super useful.

Soul, hehe. "Where are all your facial features?" "Oh, they're inside my soul." I appreciate having soul. Hopefully my scribbles have less resembled a Hieronymous Bosch character over time.

[moth2fic]

Rules are rubbish. We're all different and find processes that suit us. Our differences contribute to the wealth of variety in our creations. I do a first edit as I go. Editing yesterday's piece gets me back in the zone. Pressure like nanowrimo drives me into total lockdown. Some people thrive on it! Just as with everything from food tastes to religious beliefs we can't legislate for others apart from ensuring people don't hurt anyone. Thou shalt not steal/murder etc. Fine. Otherwise leave people to their own devices!

[gs_silva]

I'm good at not following rules! I'm bad at not resenting them. Or rather, I'm probably good at not resenting them, but the times when I do resent them are more memorable.

[wantedonvoyage]

I did that unnamed thing several times and yes it's the reason I actually have a first draft, but I always felt like it was a terrible month for a big head-down commitment like that (February would be ideal, IMO). It's also the reason I have a very BLOATED first-draft which is in dire need of a machete.

I only know peripherally about the Troubles, and don't really need details. I had a converse experience in that I didn't feel like any of the local people were invested in my participating at all. I went to a few events where we mostly wrote in silence and that was that. I may have been doing it wrong.

[gs_silva]

You weren't doing it objectively wrong, but I guess you were doing it according to other people's right way instead of your own. I kinda went through that too. My very first one, and my last one too, I found myself in local groups that approached it the opposite way that I do.

The last one was funny. Every time I mentioned that I was about to switch to editing tasks, a bunch of old ladies would shout, "NO NO! DON'T EDIT! SAVE EDITING FOR DECEMBER!" and all nod at each other. Nevermind the fact that I was just redoing the script of the hypothetical Alien Romance Book 2 while still putting out 3 completed pages of graphic novel per week, an enormous workload. They never quite absorbed my explanation for what I was doing.

I'm glad you have a first draft, at least! I know that machete well.