#bdwae

I have been struggling mightily with Chapter 10--I know where I want to go with it, but I just wasn’t happy with any of the 8 or so drafts I wrote for it. I scrapped the whole thing AGAIN and started over yesterday, and I’m finally feeling the magic instead of going “this road trip is onerous and I want them to kiss,” and cutting some scenes I thought weren’t working, breaking up some others, and adding some more fun ones means I’m currently at (checks doc) 9 pages, 3.8K words. It’s coming soon, I just know that this is the longest break I’ve taken between chapters and I think some of the pressure there to grind out the words (even though I learned in my writing workshops that if you only write when you’re inspired, you don’t do a lot of writing) kind of made it hard for me to enjoy the drafts. Which is not how I usually feel in fandom at all! Everyone has been extremely supportive and friendly and given nice non-commanding feedback and told me to take my time, including you, and I am so grateful for that!

I can recognize now that I did start to burn out in the middle of writing Things That Happen After Beverly Leaves--but then my dog passed away, and I decided to take some time off to grieve, and my brain got to recharge. I can feel some of that burnout happening now--the wick getting close to the bottom, I guess--and while I really want to make it to a certain scene before I take a break (I’m realizing I’m going to have to take a break), and I really want to have something to work on every day while the social distancing is happening to help me with that sense of accomplishment, I also want to keep enjoying writing the  story (number one), and I want the same kind of tone in the whole fic, which I’m worried about losing if I try to slam on the accelerator when there’s not enough gas in the tank, as it were. I’m thinking I’ll maybe get to Chapter 12 (that’s my projection for the scene I’m excited about), take a little rest, work on some other projects, and then come back when I feel ready to dedicate the same energy to the fic.

One of the things that has helped me regain my inspiration to a certain degree is writing little ficlets on Twitter. I started one night when I had to take NyQuil for my constant sneezing and coughing and blowing my nose, and decided to write like a 5+1 about Richie sleeptalking in like 7 or 8 tweets. Then the other day I mentioned I was feeling down and asked for prompts and I started writing little ficlets right there in the twitter thread. I do plan on going back and archiving them to AO3 at some point, but if you’re at all interested between now and then (they’re mostly Richie/Eddie but someone asked for a Bill/Mike that’s been pretty well-received) you can find them at my twitter: (https://twitter.com/IfItHollers/status/1243725597303623680). Also one of the prompts I received has really sparked an idea in my head that I’m thinking I might put into a bigger fic on AO3, so (in addition to Bill Denbrough Writes an Ending) I have other interesting irons in the fire.

Thank you for playing along!

15) Something you’ve learned this year

Oh man, probably that I’m capable of finishing a novel, actually! I didn’t know that I was capable of finishing a project of that length, but it’s been weirdly reassuring to know that I’m capable of cranking out a project like that and being happy with it at the end. I told myself that I would write like two chapters of domestic fluff and then I would have one more completed work on my profile and it would empower me to keep going with my more ambitious projects--and instead the creative process kind of crept up behind me and hit me over the head with a chair. It’s a good feeling--something I learned about myself, you know?

19) Any new fics to start next year

Okay I’m not sure if this is cheating per NaNoWriMo rules, because I have at least beginnings for a lot of the fics I want to write, but my current undeclared works in progress are:

a) Bill Denbrough Writes an Ending--the finale to the Things That Happen After Eddie Lives series. I’ve written the opening scene, I know what the very last scene is going to be, and I’m so excited to get there. Also, people who are here for Reddie (and to a lesser extent Benverly) will be able to see updates on what happens with them. And then I’ll be able to answer the spoilery post-fic questions I’ve been dying to talk about.

b) Indelicate--what I’ve been affectionately referring to as “the size-kink fic,” in which Eddie does get vibe-checked at the end of It Part Two (2019), but thanks to the intervention of a Mr. Stan Uris, manages to make it to emergency medical attention. With a new lease on life, Eddie decides to pursue the things he wants, which include eating ice cream out of the quart with a spoon, dangerous bike rides, and Richie. This was gonna be my NaNoWriMo project but I only made it to 20K words, and now I’ve decided to adjust my goals for this fic and redraft from the beginning.

c) “Eldritch Teen Losers” fic--the kids succeed in killing Pennywise the first time around, but the seven of them start changing in exciting, disturbing, and reality-warping ways after the fact. Which is not going to make puberty any easier, let’s be clear.

23) Fics you wanted to write but didn’t

a) Richie Tozier’s Obligatory Coming-Out Comedy Standup Special--I started to draft this on my phone, but what I’ve learned is that I haven’t watched nearly enough comedy standup to know what makes a routine good, and now I’m worried about my ability to pull it off to my satisfaction when so many people have done such great standup sketches for Richie. I’m not gonna say never, but it might be a while before I’ve done my research to my satisfaction.

b) And this is not an IT fic, but when I watched Undeadwood on Critical Role this year I absolutely made up a player character to go along with the four-episode campaign, so I might end up writing a gender-interrogating Western inspired by Brian W. Foster, my favorite beta reader (who’s a big fan of Westerns), and my undying love of “Wild Wild West” by Will Smith.