Some of my readers know me from the world of fanfiction. I write RPF, pretty much the same person in every story, which may mean my fanfiction days are coming to a screeching halt because if it’s one thing I hate, it’s the same story over and over again. But maybe a series……….. anyway.
The archive that I use to host my stories (and a lot of archives use) is efiction. It makes it easier to track and post chapter stories and even categorize your works. There’s a limit to how many characters you can post in one chapter. On mine I think it’s like… 50,000 characters or something like that. Elsewhere, the limit is lower, which translates to about 10,000 words, give or take.
Now, to some 10,000 words is an entire story. For me, for a serial story, it’s a mere chapter. I know, I write a lot. I’m wordy. It’s a blessing and a curse. I’ve found myself, over the course of telling this tale, tailoring my words to the word limit instead of letting the story tell itself. This amounts to undue pressure and stress and breaking the story up into chunks that don’t really seem to gel, if you read it all at once. It comes through like vignettes and not a complete story, something I may or may not fix once I finish it.
So my new approach is to just write. Not try to figure out what is going to happen chapter by chapter. I’m just writing. I’ll split it up into chunks later, edit so that they string together nicely, but I’m just going to write, write, write until it’s done. There is the small matter of reviews (feedback) that come with posting a new chapter. They are quite encouraging and it’s nice to know I’m being read. I’m not sure how I’ll make it without them but I’ll find a way, I’m sure. Maybe once I get stuck on a certain part I will start posting chapters, much like I did with Same Time Next Week, where I didn’t start posting chapters until week 3 of NaNoWriMo. Who knows??? I just know I’m going to try not to stress about it, and just write for the enjoyment of writing.
I so miss that, from the early days, rushing home to open Word and pound out a few thousand words. Fan fiction used to be my practice. Writing used to be fun. Time to get back to that, pull my head out of my…behind…. and write.
I’m also remembering that I had set a goal this year to write something new, some shorter stories. I’ve written two, I think– The Storm And Try to Say No (which needs to be added to my archive, I see). More, more, more I say!
Feeling renewed and inspired,
