Look at me, being all sensible!

[selenay]

It's autumn so it's getting to that seasonal time of year, when all the holiday exchanges and ficathons start opening up sign-ups and it gets tempting to SIGN UP FOR EVERYTHING OMG...

But I'm being sensible.

I'll sign up for yuletide and that's it *puts on determined face*

This is not to say that I'm not over-committing myself. Let's face it, I'm still going to do that. I'm planning to do NaNo and write the library urban fantasy novel. So that'll eat up November quite nicely. And I'll attempt to get some kind of MCU fic written and posted as a Christmas treat, because that's the way I roll. Plus, I've got two Marvel Big Bang fics to finish editing and post before November, so that's going to keep me occupied.

But Yuletide will be my only seasonal exchange this year. You all heard me, right?

Today we're endlessly waiting for test data and twiddling thumbs. So I'm writing some of the AU prompts I got on Tumblr. And somehow the little ficlet I'm writing has turned into a meta discussion about masks and their wearers.

Hmm.

How do people write short? HOW?

Comments

[gonergone]

Where did you get those AU prompts on tumblr? This is the time of year when I need them, too! :)

[selenay]

It was from this meme that was going around. There are some great prompts and I've been given some awesome prompt/pairing combos.

[jmathieson_fic]

I have no idea how people write short. I was very, very pleased with myself for managing to keep a PWP down to 2.5k... Good luck with sticking to your guns re: holiday exchanges. I'm doing 2, and only 2. And will try not to offer to pinch hit, which was my downfall last year...

[selenay]

I'm feeling really proud of keeping my AU ficlets under 2k, but I've got one that looks like it might go over already. These days, I count anything under 5k as 'short'.

Argh, pinch hitting. It's the worst for breaking sanity resolutions!

[paranoidangel]

How do people write short?

I sit down, write a scene and discover it's said everything I need it to say in 500 words. Then I add description and take out the crap and slowly manage to get it up to half the length again.

The most recent thing I finish I intended to be about 500 words and the first draft came in at 140.

[selenay]

I sit down and write a scene, and then realise there are a couple of subplots that I need to work in and I've resolved something too abruptly to read well and...

And suddenly my nice little fic is a 40k novel.

I admire your ability to keep things simple. Even my tiny ficlets end up over 1k these days :-(

[paranoidangel]

I don't think I've ever written a subplot. Most of the time there's not really any plot either. Which makes it really hard to write Big Bangs, which requires a plot and a lot of words.

[selenay]

I have great trouble writing anything that doesn't have plot. And as soon as I've got something with a big plot, it need some smaller subplots to mix in and...yeah. That's how I end up writing long :-)

Big Bangs are never a problem for me. I'm always waaaaaay over the minimum word count for them. It's getting ridiculous.