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Oct. 16th, 2010 11:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cblj_backupI've spent the day trying to catch up on email (semi-successful), washing everything in the kitchen (partially-completed), and, oddly enough, reading Cartographer's Craft. I saw it recc'd somewhere recently -- on a bandom anon meme, of all unlikely places -- and thought it might be rather fun to look it over. I don't re-read my old fanfic, ever, in part because the really old stuff is humiliating compared to what I do now and in part because, well, you know. I wrote it. But I re-read it tonight and that was very, very weird.
Cartographer's Craft is an interesting event in my life. It's still one of the most popular fanfics I've written, in its own way more enduring than Stealing Harry, certainly containing more depth. It spurred my original fiction to a great extent -- Nameless is a very distant descendant of Animagus Winter, the book-within-the-story. And, re-reading, there's not a whole lot I'd change, which is surprising. Usually I feel more critical of earlier work. I've come a long way in five years, but it has aged pretty well too. I still prefer it to the canonical book seven; that sounds like ego, but I don't necessarily think anyone else should. I just do, myself.
It's not a depressing story. There's a lot of love and family and reassurance in it -- for god's sake, at one point they use powdered laughter to stave off an invasion -- and it ends almost embarrassingly happy. Still, reading it, I felt this overwhelming wash of grief. Perhaps it's because I associate the writing of it with the first few months after leaving school, when I was living at home and unhappy much of the time. On the other hand, I don't recall the process of writing it; there are swathes of it I don't recall writing at all. So I don't know if it's emotional memory or if it's just that I picked up on the points in it which are sad: all the fear of war, the themes of displacement, the horrible broken love story of Ellis and Sirius. I mean, really, even as a subplot that is probably the saddest story I've ever put to paper, though at the time I just thought it was a clever homage to Federico García Lorca. Artists who die in battle tend to hit me in the chest.
Anyway. The epilogue makes up for a lot, ill-written as it is, and I'm not unhappy this evening, just...pensive. The story changed the direction of my writing, not that I knew it at the time, and with a novel two weeks from publication I suppose I get reflective. (Or I could just be tired.)
I've been considering making November my National No Writing Month (see what I did there) to get a break from it for a bit because I do get scarily addictive about it sometimes; when I find myself wanting to skip my lunch break so I can write, it's time for a little attitude adjustment. It's not that I don't love writing, but sometimes it can be stressful too. I put undue pressure on myself to always have a story in the pipeline, despite anecdotal and statistical evidence telling me that people will not cease to love me if I do not tell them stories.
One of the reasons I understand power play in relationships so well, despite never having been in a D/s relationship or desired to be in one, is that I recognise in myself the need to turn off my brain. Ordinarily -- as in Exquisite, and a few others I could name -- this switching-off is a submissive act, placing another person in control and trusting that they will ensure no harm comes to the submissive. The removal of choice and of the pressure to make the correct decision, the removal of the ability to be in control, can be incredibly calming and helpful, though I don't advocate it as a way of life.
Because I am king of trust issues, not naturally very submissive, and also a stubborn bastard, I don't put this in other peoples' hands (not to condemn D/s relationships -- being king of trust issues is a flaw, not a prize). I do it to myself, with varying but usually high degrees of success. Instead of turning to another person, I build a structure, such as the Dead Year. I think giving myself the order not to write for a month could be very good for me; I hesitate to give up the deep and true pleasure I feel from writing, even temporarily, but I also think it could relax me enough that when I came back to writing I would actually be able to enjoy that pleasure a lot more.
On the other hand, I suspect that it would also make me want to finish all my WIPs before November and just...no. You guys should see my Gdocs file. It's bordering on epic.
Still, as with the traditional NaNoWriMo, I have another two weeks to decide. When it comes to November, spur of the moment is usually best.
Cartographer's Craft is an interesting event in my life. It's still one of the most popular fanfics I've written, in its own way more enduring than Stealing Harry, certainly containing more depth. It spurred my original fiction to a great extent -- Nameless is a very distant descendant of Animagus Winter, the book-within-the-story. And, re-reading, there's not a whole lot I'd change, which is surprising. Usually I feel more critical of earlier work. I've come a long way in five years, but it has aged pretty well too. I still prefer it to the canonical book seven; that sounds like ego, but I don't necessarily think anyone else should. I just do, myself.
It's not a depressing story. There's a lot of love and family and reassurance in it -- for god's sake, at one point they use powdered laughter to stave off an invasion -- and it ends almost embarrassingly happy. Still, reading it, I felt this overwhelming wash of grief. Perhaps it's because I associate the writing of it with the first few months after leaving school, when I was living at home and unhappy much of the time. On the other hand, I don't recall the process of writing it; there are swathes of it I don't recall writing at all. So I don't know if it's emotional memory or if it's just that I picked up on the points in it which are sad: all the fear of war, the themes of displacement, the horrible broken love story of Ellis and Sirius. I mean, really, even as a subplot that is probably the saddest story I've ever put to paper, though at the time I just thought it was a clever homage to Federico García Lorca. Artists who die in battle tend to hit me in the chest.
Anyway. The epilogue makes up for a lot, ill-written as it is, and I'm not unhappy this evening, just...pensive. The story changed the direction of my writing, not that I knew it at the time, and with a novel two weeks from publication I suppose I get reflective. (Or I could just be tired.)
I've been considering making November my National No Writing Month (see what I did there) to get a break from it for a bit because I do get scarily addictive about it sometimes; when I find myself wanting to skip my lunch break so I can write, it's time for a little attitude adjustment. It's not that I don't love writing, but sometimes it can be stressful too. I put undue pressure on myself to always have a story in the pipeline, despite anecdotal and statistical evidence telling me that people will not cease to love me if I do not tell them stories.
One of the reasons I understand power play in relationships so well, despite never having been in a D/s relationship or desired to be in one, is that I recognise in myself the need to turn off my brain. Ordinarily -- as in Exquisite, and a few others I could name -- this switching-off is a submissive act, placing another person in control and trusting that they will ensure no harm comes to the submissive. The removal of choice and of the pressure to make the correct decision, the removal of the ability to be in control, can be incredibly calming and helpful, though I don't advocate it as a way of life.
Because I am king of trust issues, not naturally very submissive, and also a stubborn bastard, I don't put this in other peoples' hands (not to condemn D/s relationships -- being king of trust issues is a flaw, not a prize). I do it to myself, with varying but usually high degrees of success. Instead of turning to another person, I build a structure, such as the Dead Year. I think giving myself the order not to write for a month could be very good for me; I hesitate to give up the deep and true pleasure I feel from writing, even temporarily, but I also think it could relax me enough that when I came back to writing I would actually be able to enjoy that pleasure a lot more.
On the other hand, I suspect that it would also make me want to finish all my WIPs before November and just...no. You guys should see my Gdocs file. It's bordering on epic.
Still, as with the traditional NaNoWriMo, I have another two weeks to decide. When it comes to November, spur of the moment is usually best.
