Tuesday, January 17, 2017

On Passion Projects.

Before I start this week's entry, I'd like to remind y'all that last week's was my query letter for STARWIND.  If you have a moment to take a look, I could always use a few extra eyes on it before I start sending it out and playing the "PLEASE LOVE ME!" game again.  Thanks.

So, I've been thinking.  (This is a process that never stops as long as I'm aware that I'm awake.)  I've been working on quite a few different things recently, as I'm in that wonderful stage of plot preparation where I try to figure out what works and what doesn't.  There are a lot of ups and downs in this part of the process, and a lot of sound and fury, if by 'sound' you mean the rapid-fire rattling of my keyboard as I try to type out ideas as fast as I can before I lose them and if by 'fury' you mean my rapid-onset dismay when things fall apart for one reason or another.

Through all of this, I've started to notice a pattern: the ideas that hit me the hardest, the ones that beg to be written, are rarely the ones that pan out.

I've gone through a few different iterations of something I thought was going to be deep and dark and amazing, one of the most personal stories I've ever told.  After so many strong emotions invested in the creation of the characters and setting, I have no idea what to do with it and have set it aside several times already.  Hell, I even spun something else off of it, thinking it was going to be new iteration and realizing it was a completely separate project, and that one's in a state of "I have notes and a plot outline, and no longer want to work on it."  Something about this strikes me as off - if it's a story I'm so passionate about, shouldn't I be driven as all hell to tell it?

And then there's the flipside, a little book I've mentioned here a time or two: STARWIND.  This was not a passion project.  I wanted to tell a "crew on a ship" sort of story, I liked the idea of traveling between all kinds of worlds, so I put together a bunch of things I thought would be cool and figured out how to make a story out of them.  Not only has that turned out to be one of the best things I've written in a long time, I have a full draft of the plot for the sequel, and it worked out better than I thought it would.

This is the part where I stare at my monitor with my hands clenched in writerly fury, and shout/whine "Whyyyyyyy. . . .", and never get an answer.  -_-  I know some people say not to question the process, but no, I'm going to question the hell out of this.

It's possible that I'm having trouble with passion projects because I get too emotionally invested in them.  Thinking about how amazing something's going to be when it's a scattered collection of images in my head seems like a really good way to make myself choke when it's time to turn those images into a story.  Whereas the other stories come to me as more of a "what if" or "how would that work" sort of thing - more wondering than realization.  The emotional investment comes from working on the story and figuring it out, rather than from getting smacked upside the head with a supposedly brilliant idea.

I don't know if this is something I can change, but it is something I can watch out for.  I can try to develop the sudden ideas more slowly, and not put so much mental weight on them.  With this, I can try to understand that if there really is a good story there, I'll figure it out as I work on it.  And I can try to hold onto the stories I want to tell the most, rather than just the ones I could work out.

Does anyone else have this problem?  If not, have you seen any pattern in what you can make work for you and what you can't?  Either way, how do you deal with it?

13 comments:

  1. Sorry the passion projects don't form into great stories for you.
    Most of what I have written was from an idea that sparked many years before. My series came from a story idea I had as a teen and my standalone came from a song I heard almost ten years prior. Maybe you just need to sit on those passion projects a little longer.

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    1. I think I do, and it's one of those lessons I need to keep learning over and over again. Things work out better for me if I sit on an idea for a long time. It's just not easy when the new idea is so very, very shiny. :P

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  2. Dude.

    I have the same difficulty on "passion projects." I get too emotionally invested and can't be objective, or it gets too emotionally draining just to try and do a draft because I want it to be *good.* So, I get you there.

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    1. It's always good to know I'm not the only one. And yeah, wanting this new thing to be *GOOD* is probably the biggest hurdle, which is hard to do when I barely know what I'm doing.

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    2. Drafting is hard. I know first drafts are going to suck, but I still don't want them to. I also get the feeling of "what am I even doing?"

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  3. Over 90% of my story ideas never get anywhere. Plus I've discovered that the ones which do go further are those which stew for a year or two or three or four (kind of what Alex said). Sorry that none of your passion ones have worked out so far. But who knows what the future will hold?

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    1. I'm right there with you. And this is why I never delete ideas, just keep them in the file and add bits when I think of things. I just need the reminder now and again that that's how I work best.

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  4. Most of my ideas end up incorporated into my bigger story in some form or another, though I don't typically come up with ideas outside of my world unless I'm prompted to at someone's request. I suppose I don't have any passion projects then, not the same way you do. Or if I do, they are short stories, and usually pantsed and not plotted. :)

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    1. Further proof that every one of us works differently. ^_^ I envy you a little for this - I'd love to be so focused on one big project or series instead of wanting to write ALL THE THINGS. But there's no way all the plot notes I take could all fit into one world.

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  5. Ditto Alex and T. Drecker. I have finally realized (and accepted) that my story ideas need to simmer for a looong time before they're ready for me to write. I'm also starting to realize that some of my ideas aren't a good fit for fiction but would probably make a great screenplay.

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    1. Eeyup. As I said above, I seem to need reminders that I work better when my ideas get to sit for a good long time. It's just far too easy to fall into the "Must work on this NOW!" trap.

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  6. I know what you mean.

    I still think you should pursue the passion projects, but alter how you approach them. You said you go in with realization instead of wonder. Go in writing the best version you can. Forgive yourself if it doesn't sound right the first or second or third time. Put it aside if you must, but keep coming back to it because every time you work on it you make it better. And eventually things are going to catch up.

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    1. Thank you; that's a good way to think about it. I have a real tendency to plot and re-plot things and have them fall apart along the way, so I should probably keep letting ideas sit a while before trying to form them into a full plot. Then I can better know how they're meant to go.

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