roselightfairy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
roselightfairy) wrote2019-02-25 05:25 am
roselightfairy) wrote2019-02-25 05:25 am
Entry tags:
"Deadline" panic
Does anyone want to help counsel me through some quiet WIP panic? I have these two WIPs that I've been working on for quite some time, both of which are very important to me, and both of which have just-- stopped talking to me. Just planted their feet firmly where they are and refused to go any further. One of them has been like this since the summer, and I recently thought I'd try to pick it up again and found that it's still refusing to cooperate; the other was started more recently, but it's been just as firm in its silence.
I'm not so much asking for advice on how to get through the block as I am asking for help... being okay with this. Like, I understand that work sometimes just needs to sit while mental processes work or life experience accumulates or emotional blocks resolve themselves or whatever. And maybe the problem is with the work itself, but I'm not yet ready to start doing deep revision on what I have until I've written a little more, so that's also something that needs time. And this is something I understand intellectually, but I also have this weird compulsion about time. (Maybe it's latent fear of mortality or whatever we say, or maybe it's just anxiety, but either way it exists.) I always need to get to places early, and freak out if I don't. Whenever I have to submit work for a class or something else, I submit way before the deadline and triple-check to make sure my submission went through. Last year for Fandom Trumps Hate (and this is a quick reminder that I'm offering fanfiction for it this year), I didn't realize the deadline was at the end of the year; I thought it was only a couple of months in. So I limited the amount I thought I could write, contacted my bidder immediately, and had my piece written within two weeks. I don't say this to brag about my speed or timeliness or anything, I say this to explain how extreme this compulsion is.
Now, I know these WIPs that I have aren't on a deadline. But I guess there's part of me that's terrified they have an expiration date: that if I don't finish them right now, I never will. Which would be a shame, because they're very important to me, and I want to see them finished. (Of course I'd like to post them and get validation, too, but that's not the main point.) It's like I'm on deadline to myself, beholden to a ticking clock that exists in no one's mind but my own-- trying to get them finished before whatever mystery date I have arbitrarily decided is "too late." Because for some reason it feels like if I don't get them finished before then, I'll never be able to finish them at all.
Again, I know logically that this isn't the case, but I can't help feeling it, and I'm wondering if anyone else has good advice for how to deal with these feelings? Suggestions for how to calm down and let it go, personal experience in coming back to an old WIP-- or maybe you're just in the same boat and we can commiserate together?
I'm not so much asking for advice on how to get through the block as I am asking for help... being okay with this. Like, I understand that work sometimes just needs to sit while mental processes work or life experience accumulates or emotional blocks resolve themselves or whatever. And maybe the problem is with the work itself, but I'm not yet ready to start doing deep revision on what I have until I've written a little more, so that's also something that needs time. And this is something I understand intellectually, but I also have this weird compulsion about time. (Maybe it's latent fear of mortality or whatever we say, or maybe it's just anxiety, but either way it exists.) I always need to get to places early, and freak out if I don't. Whenever I have to submit work for a class or something else, I submit way before the deadline and triple-check to make sure my submission went through. Last year for Fandom Trumps Hate (and this is a quick reminder that I'm offering fanfiction for it this year), I didn't realize the deadline was at the end of the year; I thought it was only a couple of months in. So I limited the amount I thought I could write, contacted my bidder immediately, and had my piece written within two weeks. I don't say this to brag about my speed or timeliness or anything, I say this to explain how extreme this compulsion is.
Now, I know these WIPs that I have aren't on a deadline. But I guess there's part of me that's terrified they have an expiration date: that if I don't finish them right now, I never will. Which would be a shame, because they're very important to me, and I want to see them finished. (Of course I'd like to post them and get validation, too, but that's not the main point.) It's like I'm on deadline to myself, beholden to a ticking clock that exists in no one's mind but my own-- trying to get them finished before whatever mystery date I have arbitrarily decided is "too late." Because for some reason it feels like if I don't get them finished before then, I'll never be able to finish them at all.
Again, I know logically that this isn't the case, but I can't help feeling it, and I'm wondering if anyone else has good advice for how to deal with these feelings? Suggestions for how to calm down and let it go, personal experience in coming back to an old WIP-- or maybe you're just in the same boat and we can commiserate together?
no subject
I can't really say I relate, because I'm a keep-polishing-things-that-don't-need-polishing-until-the-very-last-possible-minute sort of person, and have serious difficulties finishing anything if I'm not on an external deadline.
But my solution to a stalled WIP is usually to move on to another WIP (or to start a new one... please don't ask how many WIPs I have), which means I have plenty of experience in coming back to an old WIP.
If it's a really old WIP, it's usually a mix of internal cringe and "wow, that bit is actually quite good - did I really write it?". And I'm not going to lie, sometimes the cringe factor overcomes the "wow-that's-great" factor, and the WIP becomes a case of rewrite or abandonment. It's perfectly all right to abandon a story halfway through (or any other point); if it won't work, who better to know it than yourself?
But most often, staying away from a work for a while only makes it feel fresh when I come back to it; at the very least it makes it easier to ditch the parts that don't work, because I'm somehow less involved with them if I haven't reworked them to death for the past two weeks. (I also have a "Random Shit File" that's literally called that, where I keep a copy of all the bits and pieces I'm not quite sure I want to delete just in case I want to put them back in. I usually don't, but knowing they will be available helps to make the cut when needed.)
Otherwise, just quietly commiserating here *looks at the 7 WIPs she's written stuff for since New Year; none of them is finished*
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)