And it hasn't really been happening for a while now. I got out a short little drabble-lenghtish oneshot for the February theme ("Reminiscence") for Rune Haven's contest titled Confidence back near the 26th or so, but I don't like it much and I lost terribly. I tied for last place, actually. Wooo I am a winrar.
Goes to show me: Write what you know. I figured I would write something that actually involved a heterosexual pairing (*everyone gasps*), but, you know, it didn't work out. It probably had more to do with the fact that it was really short and I had several people say that it left them hanging a little, wishing there was more, but I honestly didn't have any ideas at all except for that short scene so that is what it ended up being. I just really wanted to enter, so I went with what I had, which wasn't much at all. I really shouldn't be at all surprised, but it would have been nice to get at least ONE VOTE DAMMIT. (Although I can rest comfortably in the fact that I seem to be the entry that got the most reviews, at least initially. Incidentally, 40% were them telling me it left them hoping for more, but I GOT MORE DAMMIT I will be shallow about it if I want. XP) I should probably post that eventually, I just completely forgot about putting it here like the little memory failure that I am. :)
Which reminds me, I need to update the archive... I think. I don't remember if I did it or not. I probably did, because it's not looming around my head as a Thing I Was Supposed To Do But Never Got Around To like it would if I hadn't.
Okay, curiosity got the best of me and I went and looked. It took all of three clicks, wooo doing something. XD *shot* I did do it, and promptly after the voting deadline ended too! Which would be why I didn't think about it afterward. Although I guess it's always best to double check, even if I should have known I would have done it right away so I wouldn't forget (which I am very prone to doing, as you would know if you knew me personally. I'm looking at you, Taylor, the only person likely to be reading this at some point).
Duplicity is at a complete standstill. I haven't even opened any documents related to it in about two weeks. And the thing is, I'm not pining after it either--I don't miss it all that much, which either means that my attention has been successfully completely diverted from it by Hetalia, or Something Is Wrong. I have a feeling it's probably a combination of the two--normally, when I'm writing a story or even have a plot bunny running around my head, it's all I think about in my spare time. I fantasize, I come up with scenes and plot points and just generally think about it all the damn time, whenever I can, and it usually runs on autopilot. I don't have to think about thinking about it, I just do. I even dream about it every night, and not necessarily just the plot, usually just the characters. I can be related to the story, either as myself or as an OC, or I'm just the Narrator or the Omniscient Bystander. Recently, all that attention has been about this epic longfic novel-type thing that has been going around my head for months now; involving an OC named Miranda Bourdieu (I even looked up a last name and everything, which happens all of never, you can tell I have been thinking about this a lot), with only a few minutes here and there about Duplicity. I'm not going to go into detail about the idea because I'm still comfortable with just fantasizing about it, but I will assure you that Miranda is a human, not a nation, and I don't think she's a Mary Sue. She doesn't get involved with any of the nations (at least not on purpose, and not a "not on purpose" as in EVERYONE LOVES HER and wants to get in her pants, eww no way), at least not until she's at least 30 something, and it happens on accident/when she's drunk. She even has a rule that she can't get romantically involved with a nation, for various reasons, the biggest being that they don't age and wouldn't get older as she would, and she can't handle that. There's also the whole near-immortality thing while she has a lifespan of about 72 years on average, but whatever. XP
The basic idea is that one day, America is being his usual self after a meeting and is trying to drag England and various other possible nations (most likely to be France or Canada) out to lunch/dinner (at McDonalds). On the way there America sees a little orphan girl, looking no more than 7 years of age, sitting just within view in an alleyway. He disappears to go say hi, because he's the HERO and is worried about a little child being all alone in such a dangerous place as an alley in New York City, and when England finds him, he thinks he found a kitten or something and tells him to put it back. Turns out it's a child, so Iggy tells America to turn her into the police, she's obviously lost. But the girl panics and runs away, and after a series of events America and the girl bond (Miranda) and he ends up adopting her as his little sister. The story would basically chronicle her life (in not extreme detail, and not always centering on her) and her effect and interaction on/with America and the rest of the world. Not all of it is positive, and not all of it is negative, just as anyone in that position would end up. I've got a whole slew of things for her to go through, rofl. XD; So many of them are so awful... oh well.
I'm content for right now to just fantasize about it, so I'm not going to even attempt to outline it. I don't even really have a good timeline in my head: so many of the events happen when she's in her late teens/early thirties, it's hard to pick out where certain ideas should go and REMEMBER them all, so I haven't even attempted to pin it all down. I don't really want to, either, not yet.
The biggest reason (okay maybe second biggest) I haven't started on that is because I want to finish Duplicity before I start on it, because I need to finish this thing, dammit. Biggest reason is the story would be so freaking long that I don't think I could do it in any reasonable amount of time, so working on it before finishing Duplicity is out of the question. And with my writing time and output as it is now, there is no way I could do both at the same time. It just wouldn't work.
But the problem is, Duplicity has stalled for reasons I can't completely grasp, so I haven't been doing any writing at all, setting aside the fact that I just got Soul Silver and have been playing it nearly-obsessively and using all the time that I would be writing doing that and schoolwork owning my soul. I've just... lost the spark for it, which is AWFUL, because it happened sooner in the plot than the last time! I'm RIGHT before the wedding, in the little interlude where Ray angsts and doesn't know what to do, and I'm stuck. I've just got this feeling, similar to the one I got with the first version of this, of Something Is Not Right. Ever since the proposal/confession scene I've been fighting this way more than I should have to, and ending up with this overall feeling of wrongness, and I don't know what it is! I've read over the story in its entirety a couple times since I've stopped, pulling myself out of the equation and becoming the 'reader' instead of the 'author,' and I see nothing wrong with it. Characterization is fine, writing is pretty damn good for my style, and I'm left with a 'what's next tell me!' feeling where I left off, which is good. But something is just off, I know it is, but I can't seem to pinpoint exactly what. I have a good feeling of where it started to drop off with me, but how do I fix it, when I don't know what I don't like about it? I feel like I'm grasping at invisible threads here, and it's frustrating. I just don't know what to do about it, and I don't really have the time to be doing anything about it in the first place. I have a test in Calculus tomorrow that I am so not even remotely ready for, and a practical in Anatomy on every freaking bone in the body and all the little crests and bumps and groves on all of them on Wednesday that without several days of solid studying I can't even hope to pass, then another test on Muscle Anatomy the following class day, which will luckily be easier but not easy.
So the writer in me has died a little recently. :C Here's hoping I can play doctor on my creative soul soon and try and fix this, because the more I think about it the more it bothers me. When ignoring it I'm fine, but it comes up in my thoughts: "I haven't written anything in two weeks, wow" or "I wish I could get to this scene in Duplicity, but I'm nowhere near it" and I just get antsy and frustrated and wish I could fix it. I'm itching right now to go and open the chapter 5 doc and go to the spot that I think it started and try and change shit around, but I have homework to do. :/ Mehh. I can't wait for summer vacation. I always get the majority of my writing done then.
Here's hoping the next time I post (sans finally getting my lazy ass to post Confidence up here) I'll have something more positive to say and something to show. Ja ne, the one person reading this. ;P
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