![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Resignation and acceptance
Aug. 11th, 2014 11:06 amI need to post more, it's been like two months...
I've resigned as an Ao3 tag wrangler. I'll miss being the den mother for Castlevania and MST3K in particular, but I hadn't been keeping up on things like I should, and when I took stock I didn't feel like the job was really important to me, so it was time to pass the torch. They've been getting lots of new and energetic people in; I'm sure my babies will be in good hands.
Part of what brought it on is, I've been mobbed by plotbunnies lately, so mercilessly that I've been having trouble getting much of anything done except writing. As I've told a couple of people elsewhere, my bitching about The Hunger Games turned creative and spiraled out of control. In a way it feels great, but I have been badly disorganized, and also the writing is like, way out of my comfort zone.
My process has been unusual this time; I've been writing stuff as it comes in non-linear chunks and trying to prune and massage it all into place later as the story takes shape more. Also, apparently I enjoy writing things that are really freaking dark and I haven't been at peace with that fact for years (which is probably unfortunate because past evidence suggests that I'm really good at it). With the Hunger Games, yeah, it's both a license and practically an obligation to go really freaking dark --- on some things I don't want to and/or don't think I can capture the canon's level of grimdark, but on other things, I might be even worse, so I just hope it all works out.
At any rate, I'm uncommonly terrified. I'm having a blast on my own, but my brain keeps wanting to weasel out of sharing. "Maybe I should sit on Mildly Related Prequel until Huge Rambling AU Sequel is completely done." "Maybe I should sit on it until I re-read the relevant books from cover to cover for enough canon-check to prevent any possible embarrassment." "About that Mildly Related Prequel, I don't have to mention who the viewpoint character is and what it's about, do I? At least not yet? That seems really scary. OMG, if I even mention what all the trigger warnings are people could probably guess and the title is a dead giveaway..." "Maybe I could just post it somewhere anonymously..."
It doesn't help that my last time working with a YA Bestseller was Harry Potter, where I had a similar sort of canon-apostate fixer-upper-AU project, and I love the stuff I did and would like to get back to it sometime, but it ended up being kind of a harsh and lonely experience. Harry Potter canon still triggers discomfort for me (which is both embarrassing in itself and downright inconvenient because the thing is so damn huge).
In bad moments I've had to re-fight one of the very first lessons I learned in my JFW days (no really, it's okay to write as if your favorite characters are your favorite characters). And you know, it's a pain in the ass when the fanfic-writing brainweasels start questioning your sacred right to make shit up about canon characters/settings/etc.
I'll have to deal with this sometime soon and go looking for supportive alphas --- I almost have a completed draft of Mildly Related Prequel --- but for now I just wanted to own up to what's going on with it.
I've resigned as an Ao3 tag wrangler. I'll miss being the den mother for Castlevania and MST3K in particular, but I hadn't been keeping up on things like I should, and when I took stock I didn't feel like the job was really important to me, so it was time to pass the torch. They've been getting lots of new and energetic people in; I'm sure my babies will be in good hands.
Part of what brought it on is, I've been mobbed by plotbunnies lately, so mercilessly that I've been having trouble getting much of anything done except writing. As I've told a couple of people elsewhere, my bitching about The Hunger Games turned creative and spiraled out of control. In a way it feels great, but I have been badly disorganized, and also the writing is like, way out of my comfort zone.
My process has been unusual this time; I've been writing stuff as it comes in non-linear chunks and trying to prune and massage it all into place later as the story takes shape more. Also, apparently I enjoy writing things that are really freaking dark and I haven't been at peace with that fact for years (which is probably unfortunate because past evidence suggests that I'm really good at it). With the Hunger Games, yeah, it's both a license and practically an obligation to go really freaking dark --- on some things I don't want to and/or don't think I can capture the canon's level of grimdark, but on other things, I might be even worse, so I just hope it all works out.
At any rate, I'm uncommonly terrified. I'm having a blast on my own, but my brain keeps wanting to weasel out of sharing. "Maybe I should sit on Mildly Related Prequel until Huge Rambling AU Sequel is completely done." "Maybe I should sit on it until I re-read the relevant books from cover to cover for enough canon-check to prevent any possible embarrassment." "About that Mildly Related Prequel, I don't have to mention who the viewpoint character is and what it's about, do I? At least not yet? That seems really scary. OMG, if I even mention what all the trigger warnings are people could probably guess and the title is a dead giveaway..." "Maybe I could just post it somewhere anonymously..."
It doesn't help that my last time working with a YA Bestseller was Harry Potter, where I had a similar sort of canon-apostate fixer-upper-AU project, and I love the stuff I did and would like to get back to it sometime, but it ended up being kind of a harsh and lonely experience. Harry Potter canon still triggers discomfort for me (which is both embarrassing in itself and downright inconvenient because the thing is so damn huge).
In bad moments I've had to re-fight one of the very first lessons I learned in my JFW days (no really, it's okay to write as if your favorite characters are your favorite characters). And you know, it's a pain in the ass when the fanfic-writing brainweasels start questioning your sacred right to make shit up about canon characters/settings/etc.
I'll have to deal with this sometime soon and go looking for supportive alphas --- I almost have a completed draft of Mildly Related Prequel --- but for now I just wanted to own up to what's going on with it.
