The White Lily (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thewhitelily) wrote2007-06-18 12:54 pm
thewhitelily) wrote2007-06-18 12:54 pm
Entry tags:
In which Lily is both down and up
*cough*
Um. Hello.
I'm The White Lily, and I'm... totally rubbish.
It's not working, it's just not working, and I've spent the whole week running away from that rather than accepting it. It's not working.
In fact, I ended up spending the whole of Friday in bed with a migraine, whether because I've been stressed and tense, or whether I've not been sleeping well (related to the first), or whether I've caught a minor bug of sorts. Posting here is the first time I've looked at my laptop for more than two minutes at a time without having a panic attack in... well, since I finished work on Thursday.
For me, this is overwhelmingly bizarre. I generally can't go more than two minutes without looking at my laptop without feeling odd, but even at the moment my gut is roiling with low-level panic. Usually, E makes merciless fun of me because I check my email before I've even rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and will thus haplessly click on links such as this and spend the day with neon flashing colours burnt onto my retinas.
That something can keep me from my computer, even in a semi-comotose leave-me-alone state, is worrying.
And the most annoying thing of all is that I keep having good ideas, and people are helping me a huge amount by talking through various plot points with me, sparking off whole new plotlines of how they could be better in my head. I know things I can do to make it better, damnit, and I still can't get over myself enough to just do it!
Argh. Where's the "I hate myself and I want to die" board from the NaNo forums when I need it? E, I really hope you're doing better than I am at this whole thing.
-- written yesterday by a Lily too depressed to press post.
Since writing the above, I've gone crying to my mother, been given an excellent perspective which made my main character light up in my mind like he didn't even do in November, had a perky song from the POV of a nightlight on repeat for eight hours, and - wonder of wonders - actually managed to do some real editing which has made a big difference. I've now:
1. Retitled all the chapters. (Never was so much panic inspired on so many occasions by so few words) They now follow the Howl's Moving Castle formula a little too readily, but even if they're still placeholders, they're doing a much better job of making me giggle and reminding me where I am, rather than making it hard to breathe.
2. Entirely deleted chapter 13, which I hated even before I wrote it, but wrote anyway becuase I didn't want to have any missing pieces. Yes, I'd rather have Gary making his decisions slightly unjustifiably than resort to ZOMG it is justified by the EVOL! *breathes into a paper bag and reminds self that it's gone now*
3. Rewritten half of chapter 7, that is, the setup for the no-longer-cringe-inducing scene that I managed to rewrite at the beginning of the week. Not bad. Apart from every single line of Warrick's dialogue being in bold for being Rubbish, but maybe I've got too high expectations of poor Warrick.
Yes, it looks small, but when I get a divide-by-zero error comparing with the rest of the week's work, I take my victories as they come.
Last night, of course, while I was trying to fall asleep totally hyped up on endorphins after having acheived the last three points, I worked out how to I've worked out how to fix the caveats in point three, too. The problem is that Murphy's so much fun he dominates any scene where he's present, and in his presence Warrick fades back into a supporting role where he does nothing more than parry Murphy's outrageousness and laugh himself hysterical. It's the right dynamic between their characters, but I need more from Warrick if he's going to believable, and there's no way I can get that the second or third times we see him; it has to be the first. So, easy fixed: Warrick arrives first and he and Gary wait for Murphy, rather than the other way around.
It's funny, it's only rereading now that has made me understand some advice I got a while ago about the way characters act in a group being influenced by which particular characters are also present in the scene, even silently. Yes. Of course it is.
Fingers crossed for this evening, for which I have started another list of small, acheivable specifics, including:
1. Rewrite the other half of chapter 7, focussing on the Gary&Warrick dynamic. If all else fails, I can write three versions of it from scratch on a timer, and then mine them all for bits of dialogue/plot directions/etc. -- done
2. Rewrite or just if all else fails, plain delete the last sentence of each chapter, which like the chapter titles, are giving me nightmares. -- done
3. Remove all other references to the Awfulness Of Chapter 13, then scrub brain in bleach. -- done
4. Brainstorm Serendipity - the message, the club, the project, and the totally underused set of possible plot threads coming from it.
Lily, less depressed, signing out.
Um. Hello.
I'm The White Lily, and I'm... totally rubbish.
It's not working, it's just not working, and I've spent the whole week running away from that rather than accepting it. It's not working.
In fact, I ended up spending the whole of Friday in bed with a migraine, whether because I've been stressed and tense, or whether I've not been sleeping well (related to the first), or whether I've caught a minor bug of sorts. Posting here is the first time I've looked at my laptop for more than two minutes at a time without having a panic attack in... well, since I finished work on Thursday.
For me, this is overwhelmingly bizarre. I generally can't go more than two minutes without looking at my laptop without feeling odd, but even at the moment my gut is roiling with low-level panic. Usually, E makes merciless fun of me because I check my email before I've even rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and will thus haplessly click on links such as this and spend the day with neon flashing colours burnt onto my retinas.
That something can keep me from my computer, even in a semi-comotose leave-me-alone state, is worrying.
And the most annoying thing of all is that I keep having good ideas, and people are helping me a huge amount by talking through various plot points with me, sparking off whole new plotlines of how they could be better in my head. I know things I can do to make it better, damnit, and I still can't get over myself enough to just do it!
Argh. Where's the "I hate myself and I want to die" board from the NaNo forums when I need it? E, I really hope you're doing better than I am at this whole thing.
-- written yesterday by a Lily too depressed to press post.
Since writing the above, I've gone crying to my mother, been given an excellent perspective which made my main character light up in my mind like he didn't even do in November, had a perky song from the POV of a nightlight on repeat for eight hours, and - wonder of wonders - actually managed to do some real editing which has made a big difference. I've now:
1. Retitled all the chapters. (Never was so much panic inspired on so many occasions by so few words) They now follow the Howl's Moving Castle formula a little too readily, but even if they're still placeholders, they're doing a much better job of making me giggle and reminding me where I am, rather than making it hard to breathe.
2. Entirely deleted chapter 13, which I hated even before I wrote it, but wrote anyway becuase I didn't want to have any missing pieces. Yes, I'd rather have Gary making his decisions slightly unjustifiably than resort to ZOMG it is justified by the EVOL! *breathes into a paper bag and reminds self that it's gone now*
3. Rewritten half of chapter 7, that is, the setup for the no-longer-cringe-inducing scene that I managed to rewrite at the beginning of the week. Not bad. Apart from every single line of Warrick's dialogue being in bold for being Rubbish, but maybe I've got too high expectations of poor Warrick.
Yes, it looks small, but when I get a divide-by-zero error comparing with the rest of the week's work, I take my victories as they come.
Last night, of course, while I was trying to fall asleep totally hyped up on endorphins after having acheived the last three points, I worked out how to I've worked out how to fix the caveats in point three, too. The problem is that Murphy's so much fun he dominates any scene where he's present, and in his presence Warrick fades back into a supporting role where he does nothing more than parry Murphy's outrageousness and laugh himself hysterical. It's the right dynamic between their characters, but I need more from Warrick if he's going to believable, and there's no way I can get that the second or third times we see him; it has to be the first. So, easy fixed: Warrick arrives first and he and Gary wait for Murphy, rather than the other way around.
It's funny, it's only rereading now that has made me understand some advice I got a while ago about the way characters act in a group being influenced by which particular characters are also present in the scene, even silently. Yes. Of course it is.
Fingers crossed for this evening, for which I have started another list of small, acheivable specifics, including:
4. Brainstorm Serendipity - the message, the club, the project, and the totally underused set of possible plot threads coming from it.
Lily, less depressed, signing out.
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There aren't enough geek jokes on my friends list. Yay for this one!
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Sometimes it's just hard to remember why I'm bleeding, sweating, and crying, you know? Fortunately, sometimes it's really, really easy. :)
Thanks, Ivi, you're the best.