#muddlling in words and stuff

[sirenofthegreenbanks]

fic writer q&a

thank u @geneticcatalyst for tagging me <3<3 (when i opened up tumblr and saw the notification i was floored!! u?? participating in a writing game?? this is really cool im really happy about it! a normal amount of happy for normal mutuals who have def not spend a lot of their free time scream reblogging each other's takes with further additions)

How many wips do you have currently?

i usually work at multiple projects at once, it keeps me fresh, so, like, less than 30 but more than 10. lets not give out numbers to cultivate the illusion that i know what im doing

Which one are you finding the hardest to finish?

this isnt easy to answer because most of my wips give me headaches. im reluctant to say that all of them do, because i am an optimist, but the truth is that :D all of them do. but these kinds of headaches are usually easy to content with. most often its really just myself who stands in my own way; i have a method for that by now. i fridge wips and let them marinate for a bit, and often that is enough to work out the snares. either the enforced distance also established an emotional recontextualization, or future-me, who is 9 out of 10 smarter and more level-headed, immediately sees the issue and immediately knows the solution. god bless her

anyways! that is a longwinded way to say that yes, i have a wip like that. and its chosen in great honours for this title because, other than the other headache-inducing wips, this one's headache doesnt want to vanish even if i ignore it very hard, to my greatest chagrin. for one, i have to research a lot for it and subsequently examine subject matter that is difficult to expose yourself to over a prolonged period of time. my wip is inspired by and works through the socialpolitical events during soviet germany, nazi germany, and china during the time of the cultural revolution and in its present day. (im being vague on purpose.) im not a historian, and my formal education is helpful but lacking. the second reason, the true reason, is that through this wip, im also examining my own family history and recontextualize who i am in relation to it. its deeply personal and very emotional, and very exhausting. it also makes me, like, very angry, all the time. which is also exhausting.

What does it usually look like when inspiration strikes for you?

that depends! im working on finding a better writing/resting balance for myself because im really bad at respecting when i have reached a healthy limit. i know that many people in the writing community struggle with getting words on the page or making daily writing a habit. i dont have that problem i dont have any problems im amazing, no im joking, of course i have problems, but its more the other way around. see afromentioned disrespect of personal wellbeing during working hours

my relationship to writing is super fraught. so when inspiration strikes me, i will not automatically open up my docs anymore and start drafting or editing, or to write down some notes, because that would mean to delegate the thing im currently doing to another time. i need to have a really, a really, really, good reason to do so now. (this is a recent development thats still in the trial and error phase.)

i dont want writing to have that kind of power over my day-to-day life, yknow. my motto is that if whatever im cooking up in that moment, if its really "meant to be", it can wait. and if not, well. thats not my problem! (it actually is my problem, but im trying to ignore that unfortunate happenstance. writing is, like, literally just a thing i do for fun, i dont have to do it, there are thousand other things i could do instead /threat, and not more. this is what im telling my brain everytime it tries to convince me to make more out of it than it is. takes out a knife.) i also find it super helpful to just, like, sit with the inspiration. to just enjoy that feeling of bursting creativity. it feels really good, like attraction. and i can channel that elsewhere. fortunately, i see myself as an artist (hairflip) rather than a writer, so, to my other innumerable talents belongs a variety of very cool creative hobbies that i literally could do instead. (and they arent nearly as stressful!!!!11!!!11! for me!!!! personally!!!1!!!!! oh look, a second knife, however did that come into my pocket.)

its been doing me a lot of good to just, like, not care too deeply, and only write when im in the right mood. i want the act of sitting down and tending to my wips to be a conscious decision i make in full-knowledge of the consequences, no matter how pressing it feels in that moment to “do” something with that strike of inspiration. cultivating that enjoyment of a story by spending a healthy amount of my writing time dreaming about it, and virtually “doing nothing” makes me happy, and helps me find to where i need to go in the end. that is also an argument i use to barter with my capitalist brain.

Do you curate playlists for each fic or is your process different?

i used to curate playlists for wips. i still have those! theyre great for when i want to get into a specific mindset. i dont do that anymore though, too much work. most of my wips are fueled by the same music anyway, because most of my music listening to is being done while writing. thats also why i dont listen to music just for fun anymore, my music listening to capacity is fully exhausted (i know! how can i! im currently trying out this new thing called "recreational listening to music while lying facedown on the bed being a blob in the troposphere" its really nice)

Do you go balls to the wall and write as you go or are you more organized?

balls to the walls!!!!!!!! but id argue that these two things arent necessarily at odds u just have to know how to ride that rodeo (takes out a third knife)(camera pans in and it is revealed: im a knife bouqet shaped like a woman disguised in a trenchcoat)

tagging: @aiyexayen @intertexts @ayjada @fanghuas @gingabish0ujo