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On productivity
Nov. 26th, 2001 01:51 amI don't remember whether I mentioned this or not and don't feel like checking, but not too long ago I did a little inventory of all the writing projects I have in different stages of incompletion. It took several days, because I'd think I had everything down, then remember another thing to add. I think it's finished now, though. Counting collaborative efforts, the roster sits at eight graphic fiction (comic or graphic novel) projects, seven standalone novels, three screenplays, two novel series and about thirty short stories.
Some of these are blowoff/silly projects (the webcomic, the pulp novel Colin and I have been pounding out). Some of them are older ideas which I may not end up reviving (Searching for Everett Warren, or the series about the family of timetravellers, for instance; there's a whole series of short stories I didn't include because I've already decided that the unfinished ones really aren't good enough to merit the time I'd have to take revising them, and that may happen to these as well). Some of them are more for my own enjoyment and learning-experiences than for any sort of commercial endeavour (Clockwork, or the epistolary thing that Alex and I have been idly working on). But I'd say the solid majority are what I'd call Serious Projects: stuff I will finish and shop around, because I know they're good. Or will be good, once they're done.
The fact that I am so bad about getting things done annoys me. This semester I've proven to myself that I can get required things taken care of by the time they need to be done. Sometimes it's mere minutes before they're due, but hey, they get done. This does not happen with my writing, and I'm not sure why. Self-imposed deadlines seem to mean less than externally imposed ones. I told myself I was going to get most of Space City knocked out over summer break (the title's a reference to Houston, it has nothing to do with science fiction, damn you all), and here I sit nearing December, with a chapter and a half on the hard drive. About two weeks ago I started a short story that isn't going to break 4000 words (probably not even 3000), I'm even pretty sure how I want to end it now (thanks for the remarks, Diana), and I stare at it for two hours, coming up with no prose. Plenty of ideas. No prose.
It doesn't help that I'm sick, because that just makes me uncomfortable and bitchy.
I distract far too easily, and the driving thought in my life right now is "If I can just survive the next four weeks, I can get home and see C-kun and the cats."
(I miss those cats. Earlier today I ran across a PETA webpage talking about conditions at some animal shelter back East, how they euthanize the animals by sticking hypodermics into their hearts, and it brought on a serious case of cat-missing. I am such a fucking bleeding-heart when it comes to abandoned pets -- Bounce was a street kitty, and I insisted to Leo that we bring her into the apartment one freezing November night and we never put her back out -- and my DIY default reaction on seeing a homeless animal is "Ooh, adopt it!" In the increasingly less likely future where I end up single, I'll be that crazy lady who lives in a huge sprawling house with twenty-seven cats sleeping on the furniture.)
(Yes, I miss Colin too. These brief tastes of him, back in late September and last weekend, may be doing me more harm than good when it comes to keeping me focused. I get my fix, but afterwards I'm jonesing more than ever for the high. I could try and romanticize it, but there's no point. It's not like when I was a freshman in college and desperately missing John, feeling like I was missing a limb or something equally dramatic. It's more like the time in high school when I tried going vegetarian: I knew exactly what I was missing, I knew that the thing I was missing was something I enjoyed very much, and the fact of its absence was irritating rather than saddening, because I knew it didn't have to be gone and was in fact only gone because I had chosen thusly -- and the fact that its absence was in some respect "good for me" was pretty fucking cold comfort.)
Too many bad habits. Need some good habits. Concentration, diligence, enjoyment. Got the theory. Need the practice.
Also: dill Havarti is a very tasty cheese.
Some of these are blowoff/silly projects (the webcomic, the pulp novel Colin and I have been pounding out). Some of them are older ideas which I may not end up reviving (Searching for Everett Warren, or the series about the family of timetravellers, for instance; there's a whole series of short stories I didn't include because I've already decided that the unfinished ones really aren't good enough to merit the time I'd have to take revising them, and that may happen to these as well). Some of them are more for my own enjoyment and learning-experiences than for any sort of commercial endeavour (Clockwork, or the epistolary thing that Alex and I have been idly working on). But I'd say the solid majority are what I'd call Serious Projects: stuff I will finish and shop around, because I know they're good. Or will be good, once they're done.
The fact that I am so bad about getting things done annoys me. This semester I've proven to myself that I can get required things taken care of by the time they need to be done. Sometimes it's mere minutes before they're due, but hey, they get done. This does not happen with my writing, and I'm not sure why. Self-imposed deadlines seem to mean less than externally imposed ones. I told myself I was going to get most of Space City knocked out over summer break (the title's a reference to Houston, it has nothing to do with science fiction, damn you all), and here I sit nearing December, with a chapter and a half on the hard drive. About two weeks ago I started a short story that isn't going to break 4000 words (probably not even 3000), I'm even pretty sure how I want to end it now (thanks for the remarks, Diana), and I stare at it for two hours, coming up with no prose. Plenty of ideas. No prose.
It doesn't help that I'm sick, because that just makes me uncomfortable and bitchy.
I distract far too easily, and the driving thought in my life right now is "If I can just survive the next four weeks, I can get home and see C-kun and the cats."
(I miss those cats. Earlier today I ran across a PETA webpage talking about conditions at some animal shelter back East, how they euthanize the animals by sticking hypodermics into their hearts, and it brought on a serious case of cat-missing. I am such a fucking bleeding-heart when it comes to abandoned pets -- Bounce was a street kitty, and I insisted to Leo that we bring her into the apartment one freezing November night and we never put her back out -- and my DIY default reaction on seeing a homeless animal is "Ooh, adopt it!" In the increasingly less likely future where I end up single, I'll be that crazy lady who lives in a huge sprawling house with twenty-seven cats sleeping on the furniture.)
(Yes, I miss Colin too. These brief tastes of him, back in late September and last weekend, may be doing me more harm than good when it comes to keeping me focused. I get my fix, but afterwards I'm jonesing more than ever for the high. I could try and romanticize it, but there's no point. It's not like when I was a freshman in college and desperately missing John, feeling like I was missing a limb or something equally dramatic. It's more like the time in high school when I tried going vegetarian: I knew exactly what I was missing, I knew that the thing I was missing was something I enjoyed very much, and the fact of its absence was irritating rather than saddening, because I knew it didn't have to be gone and was in fact only gone because I had chosen thusly -- and the fact that its absence was in some respect "good for me" was pretty fucking cold comfort.)
Too many bad habits. Need some good habits. Concentration, diligence, enjoyment. Got the theory. Need the practice.
Also: dill Havarti is a very tasty cheese.
