Reading, Writing, Arithmetic ( Wait, No Just Reading and Writing)
It's a little late for resolutions but I had wanted to, even before the beginning of this year, really set a goal to start reading and writing more but so far I haven't had much success yet.
I've been meaning to start really reading again for ages. I've read a few books here and there over the years, but not as much as I used to. I used to be a huge bookworm. I loved reading so much as a kid that I had this weird habit of sleeping with books under my pillow. But I gradually stopped reading quite as much because I have a mild form of OCD and I sometimes get this weird habit when I read of reading lines or passages over and over again until I get it "right" in my head. It made reading a bit of a nightmare. But about five years ago I joined this book club and they sent me nine books in the mail. I've only managed to finish one of them. When I got really in to Torchwood (before the asinine decision to kill Ianto) I bought a bunch of Torchwood books. I started a couple of them, but never finished them.
I've had a little better luck with the "Harry Potter" books. Around when The Half-Blood Prince movie came out, I decided I wanted to try and finish the book series, since I had barely started the first book and never finished. Now that didn't actually work out but I did manage to finish the first three books.
I've bought the first books of The Hunger Games and Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogies, but haven't gotten to them. I want to try and get to those before all those movies come out. I also want to finish out the "Harry Potter" books. But first I want to finish Falling by Christopher Pike. Mike and I got library cars a couple of years ago when he was on his gardening books kick. I've had a book that I checked out from there for over a year and I just keep renewing and renewing. I'm close to halfway done with that. After I'm done with that I really, really, really want to read Gone Girl. I've managed to remain unspoiled with that and I want to get to it before it's ruined for me.
I also have a lot of fanfics I want to read. I've read less than a handful of M/A fics in the last year. There are so many great fics from so many fests that I want to get to. I have done a lot of reading lately in Teen Wolf with Scott/Isaac fics and I want to read more of those. I want to start making recs.
I think I mentioned in my resolutions post that I want to finish out this journal I bought ten years ago and do more writing in that. I want to try and start writing every day, or close to every day. I have a lot of upcoming projects, WIPS, and older stories I want to work on.
Upcoming Projects: When I started the year I didn't have many fests and now they've kind of started to pile up. I have merlinreversebb due March 1.
I have two stories due for reel_wolves on March 15.
I just signed up for camelotremix which is due April 13.
It won't be due for awhile but I signed up for aftercamlann with rough drafts due May 29 and the final submission August 1. I know it's crazy but I'm actually considering doing two stories for that. When I first heard of the fest I thought no way will I sign up for two, since I signed up for two stories for paperlegends and wasn't able to finish the second one. But I really want to finish that second story I was doing for PL. I've already started it and I have the outline done for it and everything. But there's another story I'm really excited about as well. I was initially going to write this story for glomp-fest until I realized it didn't really work for the prompt I had. But I had already started working on ideas at work for it and the story is kind of already fully formed in my head and I love it. But I know if I don't do it for a fest, it'll take my ages to get around to it.
WIPs and Past Projects: The first story I ever wrote for the Merlin universe was for merlinolympics in 2012. I started it but then it became massively longer than I intended and I didn't finish it in time. I hoped to get back to it because I had over 18K of it done, but I just never did. But I definitely want to get back to it, preferably the next freakin' Summer Olympics roll around. I've already got the 18K and I have the whole storyline outlined, it's just making time for it with everything else going on that's problematic.
One of the next fests I entered was uni_merlin At the time it was one of my first fests, so I wasn't aware it wasn't exactly kosher to enter a fest with a WIP. I hadn't planned on it, but when my due date came around I didn't have nearly as much done as I wanted to so I just submitted a small snippet of the story. I always planned on fleshing it out more and writing the whole thing. It's the only story I've ever written that I never answered the comments to because I kept telling myself I'd wait to comment until I could tell people when I would have more to the story. I had a couple of other fests to do after that one and then I figured I would get back to it. But then as the year went on I just kept signing up for more fests and never finished it. Like with my Olympics story I have a full outline for it.
I have a bunch of stories that I wrote for summerpornathon that I've expanded on. All but one of them are done. After I finish expanding that one and have the others beta'd than I'll be ready to post them.
I signed up for the November and December monthly theme challenge at merlin_writers and didn't do either one. But I had a lot of ideas for the prompt from November and I still want to pursue it.
When merlin_forever was doing their season re-watches they had a challenge to write fic based on episodes of the show. I did a story that was based off the very first episode. I thought I might do one for every episode, but I never got around to that. I'm not sure I'll ever do that, but it's something I'm thinking about potentially picking up again.
I don't think it's presumptuous to say that a lot, if not all, writers aren't 100% satisfied with their work. I think there's always something that you think you may have been able to do better, or if not better, differently. I have that feeling with a lot of my stories. I think they're only a handful of them that I'm anywhere close to 100% satisfied with or wouldn't change some things. I think a lot of that is because most of what I post are my first drafts. I have betas for my stories, but for some stories I just get a basic spelling and grammar job and put the story out there. I know that some of my stories would benefit from a second draft. Some of them I just want to make minor changes, some I want to make really big changes and expand the stories. Like for my story "Death Cannot Stop True Love" I had a couple of scenes I had to delete because I didn't have time to write them. I had wanted to do a couple of standalone deleted scenes with them but never gotten around to it (I'm starting to think "Never Got Around To It" should be the name of my autobiography.) I also thought about making a sequel for it, which hasn't materialized yet. My only reservation about that editing the stories is a lot of them have a lot of hits and have been well received, which is amazingly gratifying. But I'm worried about making changes that people won't like. Then again, even if I make these tweaks most people who already read it probably won't see it since the story will be such old news by then. I think if/when I make the changes it'll be for my own peace of mind to know I put out something that I'm as 100% proud of as I can be.
So I really need to get on this and do some more reading and writing.
Stacey
I've been meaning to start really reading again for ages. I've read a few books here and there over the years, but not as much as I used to. I used to be a huge bookworm. I loved reading so much as a kid that I had this weird habit of sleeping with books under my pillow. But I gradually stopped reading quite as much because I have a mild form of OCD and I sometimes get this weird habit when I read of reading lines or passages over and over again until I get it "right" in my head. It made reading a bit of a nightmare. But about five years ago I joined this book club and they sent me nine books in the mail. I've only managed to finish one of them. When I got really in to Torchwood (before the asinine decision to kill Ianto) I bought a bunch of Torchwood books. I started a couple of them, but never finished them.
I've had a little better luck with the "Harry Potter" books. Around when The Half-Blood Prince movie came out, I decided I wanted to try and finish the book series, since I had barely started the first book and never finished. Now that didn't actually work out but I did manage to finish the first three books.
I've bought the first books of The Hunger Games and Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogies, but haven't gotten to them. I want to try and get to those before all those movies come out. I also want to finish out the "Harry Potter" books. But first I want to finish Falling by Christopher Pike. Mike and I got library cars a couple of years ago when he was on his gardening books kick. I've had a book that I checked out from there for over a year and I just keep renewing and renewing. I'm close to halfway done with that. After I'm done with that I really, really, really want to read Gone Girl. I've managed to remain unspoiled with that and I want to get to it before it's ruined for me.
I also have a lot of fanfics I want to read. I've read less than a handful of M/A fics in the last year. There are so many great fics from so many fests that I want to get to. I have done a lot of reading lately in Teen Wolf with Scott/Isaac fics and I want to read more of those. I want to start making recs.
I think I mentioned in my resolutions post that I want to finish out this journal I bought ten years ago and do more writing in that. I want to try and start writing every day, or close to every day. I have a lot of upcoming projects, WIPS, and older stories I want to work on.
Upcoming Projects: When I started the year I didn't have many fests and now they've kind of started to pile up. I have merlinreversebb due March 1.
I have two stories due for reel_wolves on March 15.
I just signed up for camelotremix which is due April 13.
It won't be due for awhile but I signed up for aftercamlann with rough drafts due May 29 and the final submission August 1. I know it's crazy but I'm actually considering doing two stories for that. When I first heard of the fest I thought no way will I sign up for two, since I signed up for two stories for paperlegends and wasn't able to finish the second one. But I really want to finish that second story I was doing for PL. I've already started it and I have the outline done for it and everything. But there's another story I'm really excited about as well. I was initially going to write this story for glomp-fest until I realized it didn't really work for the prompt I had. But I had already started working on ideas at work for it and the story is kind of already fully formed in my head and I love it. But I know if I don't do it for a fest, it'll take my ages to get around to it.
WIPs and Past Projects: The first story I ever wrote for the Merlin universe was for merlinolympics in 2012. I started it but then it became massively longer than I intended and I didn't finish it in time. I hoped to get back to it because I had over 18K of it done, but I just never did. But I definitely want to get back to it, preferably the next freakin' Summer Olympics roll around. I've already got the 18K and I have the whole storyline outlined, it's just making time for it with everything else going on that's problematic.
One of the next fests I entered was uni_merlin At the time it was one of my first fests, so I wasn't aware it wasn't exactly kosher to enter a fest with a WIP. I hadn't planned on it, but when my due date came around I didn't have nearly as much done as I wanted to so I just submitted a small snippet of the story. I always planned on fleshing it out more and writing the whole thing. It's the only story I've ever written that I never answered the comments to because I kept telling myself I'd wait to comment until I could tell people when I would have more to the story. I had a couple of other fests to do after that one and then I figured I would get back to it. But then as the year went on I just kept signing up for more fests and never finished it. Like with my Olympics story I have a full outline for it.
I have a bunch of stories that I wrote for summerpornathon that I've expanded on. All but one of them are done. After I finish expanding that one and have the others beta'd than I'll be ready to post them.
I signed up for the November and December monthly theme challenge at merlin_writers and didn't do either one. But I had a lot of ideas for the prompt from November and I still want to pursue it.
When merlin_forever was doing their season re-watches they had a challenge to write fic based on episodes of the show. I did a story that was based off the very first episode. I thought I might do one for every episode, but I never got around to that. I'm not sure I'll ever do that, but it's something I'm thinking about potentially picking up again.
I don't think it's presumptuous to say that a lot, if not all, writers aren't 100% satisfied with their work. I think there's always something that you think you may have been able to do better, or if not better, differently. I have that feeling with a lot of my stories. I think they're only a handful of them that I'm anywhere close to 100% satisfied with or wouldn't change some things. I think a lot of that is because most of what I post are my first drafts. I have betas for my stories, but for some stories I just get a basic spelling and grammar job and put the story out there. I know that some of my stories would benefit from a second draft. Some of them I just want to make minor changes, some I want to make really big changes and expand the stories. Like for my story "Death Cannot Stop True Love" I had a couple of scenes I had to delete because I didn't have time to write them. I had wanted to do a couple of standalone deleted scenes with them but never gotten around to it (I'm starting to think "Never Got Around To It" should be the name of my autobiography.) I also thought about making a sequel for it, which hasn't materialized yet. My only reservation about that editing the stories is a lot of them have a lot of hits and have been well received, which is amazingly gratifying. But I'm worried about making changes that people won't like. Then again, even if I make these tweaks most people who already read it probably won't see it since the story will be such old news by then. I think if/when I make the changes it'll be for my own peace of mind to know I put out something that I'm as 100% proud of as I can be.
So I really need to get on this and do some more reading and writing.
Stacey