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Unless I'm asking for advice, I'm reluctant to write about my writing process, as I'm aware that a lot of folk reading my LJ don't read my fics and wouldn't be particularly interested. However, I've had such a lot of queries lately about Invictus that I feel it's time to answer them in one place.
First of all, I haven't given up on it. As some of you know, I had a bout of depression a few months ago that left me barely able to work, let alone write or do such mundane things as keep my living space tidy. I'm now on medication and feeling a lot better, but I was nervous when I started it that the drugs would affect my writing, and perhaps they have. As I've said before, writing Invictus is almost a meditative process; I need a timeslice of a few hours to get into the mindset and write what I see and feel. As antidepressants tend to make me turn away from my own darker places, I experience less... inclination to get into the Invictus mindset; it's not that the door has closed, but that the corridor onto which it opens looks dark and uninviting instead of dark and enticing.
Or maybe it's just that the drugs have given me the energy to focus on the external things, to try to start to get my RL into better order.
Even before this really hit, though, my writing speed was slowing alarmingly. I wrote the first few chapters in the summer of 2003 in an obsessional haze during which the urge to write overrode any inclination to socialise. It was sobering for me to realise in January that in the first week of January 2004 I was completing what is now chapter 9; it had taken just over seven months to get to that point, and a year to write the next six chapters. I suppose it's now going to come down to discipline and determination, and if anyone has any advice for sustaining WIPs, I'd be most grateful!
Since my posting caught up with my writing, I've kept one chapter in hand - i.e. I've not posted chapter 13, say, until chapter 14 has been betaed. This has allowed me to feel more secure about continutity and to make any necessary clarifications before I post. Usually these changes have been fairly subtle/subtextual, laying the groundwork for future developments and clearing up possible misunderstandings of which I would not ever have been aware without someone else seeing the chapter first.
This means that I do have Chapter 15 finished and betaed, though it needs some editing. Chapter 16 is half written. I've decided to post Chapter 15 now (though I have no spare time next week so 'now' might take a week or two), and hope that no continuity issues will arise as a result. Then I'll really have to make sure that writing time is prioritised and crack on with Chapter 16. I do have the whole story - bar a few details - mapped out in my head. My main uncertainty is where the chapter breaks around 18, 19, 20 will fall, but in the past the break points have become obvious as I write, so I'll worry about that, if need be, when the time comes.
Apart from Invictus...
A Bitter Road to Hell is still far from being travelled, I'm afraid. I did envisage having lots of time over Christmas to finish Chapter 3, but I cleverly set up each of my days to include trips to the coffee shop, cinema and/or pub with one friend or other, to stop myself sinking into a depressive nonfunctioning slump, and that broke up the days with the result that I didn't have the hours-on-end at home necessary to get into writing (or sorting out paperwork, for that matter). But I think that catching up with friends, and meeting new ones (*waves to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
threeoranges*) was more important anyhow. :)
In the week or so after I came back from my summer holiday, I mapped out two one-shots that I expected I could write over a couple of evenings. It didn't quite work out like that: the first got written over the following couple of months and I finally posted it just before Christmas. If you haven't read it, and are interested in school-age Bellatrix and Lucius, it's The Dawning of the Dark (the 'prequel' to The Dying of the Light).
The other piece is the Narcissa-PoV piece I was asking advice about a few months back. I've written about the first third of it and next time I have a whole evening or afternoon to spend writing (as opposed to editing or betaing) I'd like to try to finish it, just for the sake of getting it done. (Not to mention finally reaching ten one-shots on FA!)
I also have a longer one-shot mapped out for the Lucius/Hermione FQF. I'd like to get this done for the deadline but I don't honestly know if it'll be possible and I'm not going to kill myself to do it. In any case, I'd like to write the second half of Invictus 16 first.
I also have a few essays simmering in the back of my mind, and one at least I've committed to finishing (erm, and starting) this month. More on that in a week or so, I hope!)
So that's where I am, at the moment, writing-wise. Hopefully some of it will be made public fairly soon; in the meantime, thank you for all the queries, nagging and concern. I really appreciate it, and though at times I've felt so bad about letting my readers down that I've been afraid to face the Invictus review board, it really means a lot that people care enough to ask. :)
First of all, I haven't given up on it. As some of you know, I had a bout of depression a few months ago that left me barely able to work, let alone write or do such mundane things as keep my living space tidy. I'm now on medication and feeling a lot better, but I was nervous when I started it that the drugs would affect my writing, and perhaps they have. As I've said before, writing Invictus is almost a meditative process; I need a timeslice of a few hours to get into the mindset and write what I see and feel. As antidepressants tend to make me turn away from my own darker places, I experience less... inclination to get into the Invictus mindset; it's not that the door has closed, but that the corridor onto which it opens looks dark and uninviting instead of dark and enticing.
Or maybe it's just that the drugs have given me the energy to focus on the external things, to try to start to get my RL into better order.
Even before this really hit, though, my writing speed was slowing alarmingly. I wrote the first few chapters in the summer of 2003 in an obsessional haze during which the urge to write overrode any inclination to socialise. It was sobering for me to realise in January that in the first week of January 2004 I was completing what is now chapter 9; it had taken just over seven months to get to that point, and a year to write the next six chapters. I suppose it's now going to come down to discipline and determination, and if anyone has any advice for sustaining WIPs, I'd be most grateful!
Since my posting caught up with my writing, I've kept one chapter in hand - i.e. I've not posted chapter 13, say, until chapter 14 has been betaed. This has allowed me to feel more secure about continutity and to make any necessary clarifications before I post. Usually these changes have been fairly subtle/subtextual, laying the groundwork for future developments and clearing up possible misunderstandings of which I would not ever have been aware without someone else seeing the chapter first.
This means that I do have Chapter 15 finished and betaed, though it needs some editing. Chapter 16 is half written. I've decided to post Chapter 15 now (though I have no spare time next week so 'now' might take a week or two), and hope that no continuity issues will arise as a result. Then I'll really have to make sure that writing time is prioritised and crack on with Chapter 16. I do have the whole story - bar a few details - mapped out in my head. My main uncertainty is where the chapter breaks around 18, 19, 20 will fall, but in the past the break points have become obvious as I write, so I'll worry about that, if need be, when the time comes.
Apart from Invictus...
A Bitter Road to Hell is still far from being travelled, I'm afraid. I did envisage having lots of time over Christmas to finish Chapter 3, but I cleverly set up each of my days to include trips to the coffee shop, cinema and/or pub with one friend or other, to stop myself sinking into a depressive nonfunctioning slump, and that broke up the days with the result that I didn't have the hours-on-end at home necessary to get into writing (or sorting out paperwork, for that matter). But I think that catching up with friends, and meeting new ones (*waves to
threeoranges*) was more important anyhow. :)In the week or so after I came back from my summer holiday, I mapped out two one-shots that I expected I could write over a couple of evenings. It didn't quite work out like that: the first got written over the following couple of months and I finally posted it just before Christmas. If you haven't read it, and are interested in school-age Bellatrix and Lucius, it's The Dawning of the Dark (the 'prequel' to The Dying of the Light).
The other piece is the Narcissa-PoV piece I was asking advice about a few months back. I've written about the first third of it and next time I have a whole evening or afternoon to spend writing (as opposed to editing or betaing) I'd like to try to finish it, just for the sake of getting it done. (Not to mention finally reaching ten one-shots on FA!)
I also have a longer one-shot mapped out for the Lucius/Hermione FQF. I'd like to get this done for the deadline but I don't honestly know if it'll be possible and I'm not going to kill myself to do it. In any case, I'd like to write the second half of Invictus 16 first.
I also have a few essays simmering in the back of my mind, and one at least I've committed to finishing (erm, and starting) this month. More on that in a week or so, I hope!)
So that's where I am, at the moment, writing-wise. Hopefully some of it will be made public fairly soon; in the meantime, thank you for all the queries, nagging and concern. I really appreciate it, and though at times I've felt so bad about letting my readers down that I've been afraid to face the Invictus review board, it really means a lot that people care enough to ask. :)
