mcuflashmeme | Week 3 - MCU Flash Meme Social Post

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dira posting in

mcuflashmeme

Happily borrowing this idea from our neighbors at

starwarsflashmeme, this is your halfway-through-the-prompt-week social post, to bat around ideas, brush up on your fairy tales, or just chat about MCU things with your fellow flashmemers.

This week's prompt is a retelling of a fairy tale, and it runs through Friday--three more days! Are you writing something? Planning something? Have any questions or comments about the flashmeme so far?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

dira

I write a lot of long things! But as you note, the process is different for everyone, so--it depends on what motivates you, basically.

For me, I really rely on reader feedback to motivate me, so while I mostly don't publicly post WIPs, I am constantly recruiting friends to read along as I write things, emailing them scenes or dumping chunks of story into IM/Skype/etc. (This is also helpful because then if I get stuck on something I can poll people about how the next bit should go--or if I've written something that's unclear, they usually ask questions that help me figure out how to make it work better.)

I know some writers need to keep everything under wraps until they're done with the whole story, so that can be harder--you need to not talk about the story at all, to anyone, to keep yourself focused on telling the story by writing it.

Either way, you have to sit down day after day and add some words to the story, and on most days you're not writing The Most Exciting Part and you're a long way from writing the end. That part kind of just sucks and is difficult, but it's the only way to make those long stories happen, so if you love the story at some point you just have to grit your teeth and go for it, one day at a time.

I have a spreadsheet that helps me track how many words I write on various stories each day, plus I often make various writing goals dailies or to-dos in Habitica, but, again, everybody's process/motivation is different. 750words is a website that rewards you for writing at least 750 words each day and encourages you to keep up a streak, and I definitely have found that one helpful at various times. For lower word count, there's written kitten!

From:

helahler

Thanks for the reply - a lot of this is stuff I've had a vague awareness of, but it really helps to see it put into words. I think for me it boils down to getting motivation from an external source i.e reader feedback or a writing app that encourages me to keep a streak, so thanks for reccing 750words, which seems like it might do the trick.

And while I'm at it I should thank you for setting this whole thing up, too; having these weekly prompts to figure out how to fill before a set deadline has been really helpful in terms of encouraging me to get back into writing on a regular basis!

From:

rootsofthestories

I would love to know some of your writing goals and whatnot, if you don't mind sharing. I keep trying to set up goals for myself beyond a wordcount but have no idea how I'd like to structure them.

Also, one day I will use habatica again, I fell off trying to use it because I' so horrid about coming up with goals.

From:

dira

Eh, most of it is just wordcount--sometimes I'll put in "write to X plot milestone" or "finish this chapter" but usually it's "write X words per day" as a daily or "get to X word count" as a to-do. I mean, ultimately cranking out words is the goal, you know? Whether you quantify that as the actual word count or progress through an outline, that's the goal.

From:

rootsofthestories

*nodnod* Yeah, true. I'm just horrible at setting goals in general, even though I get so happy when I accomplish them. It's a skill, goal setting, and somehow I didn't expect that.

From:

peoriapeoriawhereart

*This* Really, this is one of the things that fails so often and hard.

If you've not seen people set goals, you don't have a model.

A good starting place is taking a task into its parts, chunks you've some idea of how long it takes to do and walk them back from when you want delivery. Start sooner and try to get a bit more done in your allotted time.