Fic Talk > General Discussion
The Writing Thread: Orlando Passaggio (aka The Writing Thread 3)
nicksgal:
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on May 08, 2021, 12:24:59 PM ---Do you have to work in the summer with your new position? That sucks. Summer is my most productive writing season only because of the time I have off, plus the lack of stress that comes with not working. Winter is second most productive because there's just not as much to do when the weather sucks - plus, winter break.
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Our school is year-round, so I always have to work during the summer, unfortunately. But I've almost experienced a whole year of writing now, so that's fun.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on May 08, 2021, 12:24:59 PM ---I was hoping to watch it last night, but I had to run a bunch of errands after school to get stuff ready for Mother's Day, and by the time I got home, I was so tired, all I did was eat dinner, watch some TV, and go to bed. Luckily I did a little writing in the morning because I did not even get on the computer last night.
So hopefully tonight! I have to watch it when it's dark so I can turn off all the lights and sit close to the TV and pretend I'm there LOL.
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Glad you got your word count in for the day and feel prepared for Mother's Day! That was me on Thursday. I tried so hard, got like 100 words in and gave up for the evening.
I believe in you! And yes, get your surround sound on and immerse yourself!
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on May 08, 2021, 12:24:59 PM ---Ugh, that does sound terrible! I have a hard time sleeping on planes. I will doze, but I never really fall asleep long enough to make a difference.
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I'm not much of a plane sleeper, but the hubs will sleep the whole time if he can fall asleep before take off. If not, then he's tired and grumpy.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on May 08, 2021, 12:24:59 PM ---The trade-off for teachers having summers off and holiday breaks is that it's so hard to take off other time during the school year. I only got two personal days per year at that time, so I had to take a dock day just to be able to go on those cruises, and the thought of calling in sick after taking three days off just filled me with so much guilt, I couldn't do it. Not to mention I hate writing sub plans, especially when I already haven't been there in three days and have no idea how much of what I planned the class actually got through or what kind of mess I'm coming back to. So I just sucked it up and dragged myself to school.
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I feel you. I also don't like taking a bunch of time off at the same time for that reason, the guilt and the sub plans. It's lessened over time, but it's still there a bit. I say I would have called in sick, but I probably wouldn't have unless I physically couldn't move my body from the bed, lol. Possibly planned ahead of time for that recovery day though, even if I didn't get paid.
nicksgal:
How's everyone's writing going today?
Yesterday, I wrote a little more than Thursday (thank goodness), though I'm still stuck at that "give me something mundanely funny for Nick to do" part, so I am still taking ideas. Though hilarious, juggling was not quite what I had in mind. So if anyone still has ideas for that, I will take them.
A group of my friends started having movie watch nights virtually and the movie chooser for last night picked Thor: Ragnarok. At one point he said that "Hela doesn't do much, just shouts and shoots spears." And they were not at all interested in the many things I could have said about why polearms are both extremely useful and common weapons in warfare. Alas. My chance to impart my knowledge from research in a place it made sense and no engaged audience to share it with, lol. They did however want more information on why I claimed the movie was "sure fast and loose with its Norse mythology" and at the time, I couldn't remember enough details about the exact myth to back up my opinion other than that it was "not correct." I'm the no fun police apparently. This morning I wrote a dissertation about it and got told I "just need to watch [the movie] again," but I'll think the same thing every time.
Then this morning, I got sucked into watching Forrest Gump, lol. I'm utterly useless so far this weekend. But, it looks like it's about to rain and I'm waiting on our washer, so I may have this yet! Hope everyone else is getting less distracted by old movies. :)
RokofAges75:
--- Quote from: nicksgal on May 08, 2021, 02:29:13 PM ---Our school is year-round, so I always have to work during the summer, unfortunately. But I've almost experienced a whole year of writing now, so that's fun.
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Gotcha! I would actually be okay with the year-round school schedule where you still get July off and two-week breaks every quarter. That's awesome that you've been writing consistently for almost a whole year. I was just thinking this time last year is also when I got going on my burst of pandemic productivity with Heroic Measures and Road to Bethlehem. It's been a prolific writing year!
--- Quote from: nicksgal on May 08, 2021, 02:29:13 PM ---Glad you got your word count in for the day and feel prepared for Mother's Day! That was me on Thursday. I tried so hard, got like 100 words in and gave up for the evening.
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Well, I ended up watching Titanic instead LOL. I've been wanting to watch Titanic for weeks (probably from all that listening to the soundtrack as my writing music), and this evening felt like a good time to do it. I may still go put on Unbreakable before the night is over, especially if I can't get any more written, but we'll see. I wrote like half a paragraph this morning, so I'm hoping to at least finish that before I get off the computer.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on May 08, 2021, 02:44:09 PM ---Yesterday, I wrote a little more than Thursday (thank goodness), though I'm still stuck at that "give me something mundanely funny for Nick to do" part, so I am still taking ideas. Though hilarious, juggling was not quite what I had in mind. So if anyone still has ideas for that, I will take them.
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Hm... pick his nose? Make pancakes? Pick his nose and then make pancakes without washing his hands? I'm not sure what you're going for... just trying to think of Nickish things to do LOL.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on May 08, 2021, 02:44:09 PM ---Alas. My chance to impart my knowledge from research in a place it made sense and no engaged audience to share it with, lol. They did however want more information on why I claimed the movie was "sure fast and loose with its Norse mythology" and at the time, I couldn't remember enough details about the exact myth to back up my opinion other than that it was "not correct." I'm the no fun police apparently. This morning I wrote a dissertation about it and got told " just need to watch [the movie] again," but I'll think the same thing every time.
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LOL! I love how fanfic research gives us so much knowledge to share. That kind of thing bugs me, too.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on May 08, 2021, 02:44:09 PM ---Hope everyone else is getting less distracted by old movies. :)
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Hahaha, I replied to your first post before I saw this one... but yeah... definitely did get distracted by an old movie as well. Forrest Gump is another great one! Long live the 90s!
nicksgal:
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on May 08, 2021, 09:35:01 PM ---Gotcha! I would actually be okay with the year-round school schedule where you still get July off and two-week breaks every quarter. That's awesome that you've been writing consistently for almost a whole year. I was just thinking this time last year is also when I got going on my burst of pandemic productivity with Heroic Measures and Road to Bethlehem. It's been a prolific writing year!
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I wish we got all of July off. I keep suggesting it, lol. It's about a week or so. I haven't taken a vacation since last March and I was only gone a day. I may use some of that in July. Live a little... And by that, I mean absolutely hang out at home an extra week, relax, write, and do chores/run errands, lol.
Yup! November would be the start of my almost every day writing, but October is really when I started writing again, so I'm looking forward to it. The fact that I'll have most likely finished a novel by then is exciting too. :) That's the fastest I've ever written something except back in my middle school/early high school days.
I'm excited that you finished up two stories in the past year and are now writing a third! That's great consistency!
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on May 08, 2021, 09:35:01 PM ---Well, I ended up watching Titanic instead LOL. I've been wanting to watch Titanic for weeks (probably from all that listening to the soundtrack as my writing music), and this evening felt like a good time to do it. I may still go put on Unbreakable before the night is over, especially if I can't get any more written, but we'll see. I wrote like half a paragraph this morning, so I'm hoping to at least finish that before I get off the computer.
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I think a Titanic night is well deserved! I'm glad you finally got to watch it; I know you wanted to when Tracy was finishing up If I Knew Then. As long as the streak's even a little bit alive, I'd say do what you want with your evening. :) Whether that's writing or Unbreakable or Titanic again.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on May 08, 2021, 09:35:01 PM ---Hm... pick his nose? Make pancakes? Pick his nose and then make pancakes without washing his hands? I'm not sure what you're going for... just trying to think of Nickish things to do LOL.
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LOL! Those are more along the lines of what I was trying to come up with, yes. He needs to wash his hands. This is why he's always sick. It just needs to be something that's enough for a little scene that would be funny to AJ and the audience... And I've drawn a blank. I finished the rest of that chapter, but yeah, I give up on that.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on May 08, 2021, 09:35:01 PM ---LOL! I love how fanfic research gives us so much knowledge to share. That kind of thing bugs me, too.
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Don't even get me started on how much I hated Gods of Egypt, lol. Here are my thoughts on Thor: Ragnarok versus Radnarok the myth, in case anyone was curious:
--- Quote ---Okay, now that I've slept, I'm ready to discuss Norse mythology with y'all. Admittedly, I don't know a lot on the details of Norse mythology; you wanna talk Ancient Egyptian mythology (or Greek), we could be here for days! So I did have to refresh myself on the details, but it did immediately strike me as "fast and loose," as I said. Of course I know that mythologies change over time, they're basically continuity stew, but there's one major reason for this that I will discuss in this essay, lol.
So we can obviously ignore that all our main characters would be dead, because if Marvel's Thor dies, well... then there's no more Marvel's Thor (or at least, Chris Hemsworth as Marvel's Thor...). And I am willing to accept suspension of disbelief for this aspect. The fight on the rainbow bridge is right, Loki getting/"teaming with" the fire devourer is right (though there should be several of them, not one, and we can call it a technical loophole on whether he's allied with them here), the giant wolf is right (though again, there's at least two of them).
Now my big issue here is the same one with most mythologies' portrayals in modern (or at least, non-contemporary to their time) media: Hela. Hel as a place is more ancient than Hel (not Hela) as a goddess -- similar to most mythologies' portrayals of death/the afterlife, though I'm not sure where Scandinavia falls on the scale of "creeped out by death" (like the Greeks were very creeped out by it; Egypt less so, but then again, most of the surviving artifacts we have are funerary in nature, so... who can say for sure).
Death is a natural part of life (albeit unknown and scary), but none of the ancient underworlds were all bad. They definitely had their horrifying parts (ask me to tell you some time about "he who dances in blood" from Ancient Egypt), but on a whole, they were pretty neutral. Everybody dies, they need a place to go, enter the underworld and someone to manage its day-to-day operations. But to a modern audience, "Lord of the Dead" automatically sounds horrifying because we mostly moved on from polytheistic religions, so it's very easy to make the leap from "Lord of the Dead" to "fire and brimstone Satan" (it's the same reason Hades gets a bad rap, when he's arguably the least problematic of the Greek gods; though again, death freaked the Greeks out, so he's also the least talked about in surviving texts).
And these "Satan analogues" make an easy, but cheap, villain for a modern audience. Realistically, all these Lords/Ladies of the Dead and psychopomps were neutral beings who happened to be underworld gods and goddesses that were just doing their job. Some of them have scarier aspects (and definitely don't make them mad because you're in for endless torment; luckily their hot buttons are often few), but on a whole, I'd call them pretty decent. And as I said, demonizing them for an easy analogue is cheap. Especially when there are plenty more problematic beings in mythology and even among the pantheons themselves.
Realistically, Thor's good versus evil thing is snakes (which is fairly common among mythologies, actually), ergo, the villain should have been a giant snake (and it was in the actual myth, for Thor specifically at least). This has been my diatribe on Ragnarok (the myth), I will now take questions if there are any. I am still also happy to discuss why a polearm (such as Hela's spears) is actually a great and accurate weapon for combat. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
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But then again, y'all knew this type of thing was something I could discuss for a very long time, lol (though, as I mentioned, my off-hand knowledge of Norse mythology is much weaker).
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on May 08, 2021, 09:35:01 PM ---Hahaha, I replied to your first post before I saw this one... but yeah... definitely did get distracted by an old movie as well. Forrest Gump is another great one! Long live the 90s!
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Long live the 90's! I am not much better this evening; our dinner came and while we were eating, I ended up getting sucked into the 30 for 30 on the 1983 Draft, which is fine... except I've already seen it at least twice, lol.
I did get almost 700 words down this afternoon after spending an hour making myself an outline! :o I kept thinking how you would be so proud. :-* (Although, this is around the same point in the novel where I ended up making a chapter-by-chapter outline for PBox too, and we all know how well that went as far as amount of detail, lol. Oh "Kevin's power to heal is awesome, also there's plants" you remain infamous.) I ultimately decided I probably do need to take the time to write one of the arcs fully before going back and forth to the other one because it has more clear events that need to happen. I want to make sure I give them all adequate chapter time based on what the story needs, rather than having to rush through them for the other arc, which has less events, so it feels more flexible in the number of chapters it could take up (even though they're ideally both about equal length arcs). My only real goal this weekend is to write bout 1,000 more words, because then I'll be a week ahead on my word count goal. :)
All this said, I have eleven chapters to go, plus that mundanely funny Nick scene I can't come up with, but that chapter is done otherwise, so I'm calling it done. That one was on the four days per chapter schedule, so I guess we'll see how quickly it goes sticking with one arc versus going between them. I wonder if I'll feel like writing the other one when I get to the parts I marked as cliffhangers. Not quite sure how I feel having an outline yet, lol.
Edited to Add (because I didn't want to make a new post):
Oh! I also found this compilation of twitter/tumblr jokes for writers today: https://www.buzzfeed.com/alliehayes/writer-jokes-for-writers-who-write-sometimes?origin=web-hf
I laughed so hard at the first one with Charlie and the string board because that's totally me. Also reacting to my own writing and the ones about character reactions to things I write and describing settings.
RokofAges75:
--- Quote from: nicksgal on May 08, 2021, 10:38:28 PM ---I wish we got all of July off. I keep suggesting it, lol. It's about a week or so. I haven't taken a vacation since last March and I was only gone a day. I may use some of that in July. Live a little... And by that, I mean absolutely hang out at home an extra week, relax, write, and do chores/run errands, lol.
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LOL That is exactly why I never/rarely take an actual vacation during winter or spring break, because then I wouldn't have time to relax and write at home and catch up on life before I have to go back to work. But it would be nice to have more breaks during the year to travel when it's not scorching hot and peak tourist time.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on May 08, 2021, 10:38:28 PM ---Yup! November would be the start of my almost every day writing, but October is really when I started writing again, so I'm looking forward to it. The fact that I'll have most likely finished a novel by then is exciting too. :) That's the fastest I've ever written something except back in my middle school/early high school days.
I'm excited that you finished up two stories in the past year and are now writing a third! That's great consistency!
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That's awesome! What a good feeling that will be when you finish it.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on May 08, 2021, 10:38:28 PM ---I think a Titanic night is well deserved! I'm glad you finally got to watch it; I know you wanted to when Tracy was finishing up If I Knew Then. As long as the streak's even a little bit alive, I'd say do what you want with your evening. :) Whether that's writing or Unbreakable or Titanic again.
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Yeah, it's been a long time coming LOL. The writing streak is still alive, and I think once I get past this chapter (or even into this chapter), I will get back on track with my word count. I knew this would happen when I hit this point in the story; it's why I wish I could make a video montage instead and move on LOL. It was nice to just take a break and watch a movie.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on May 08, 2021, 10:38:28 PM ---LOL! Those are more along the lines of what I was trying to come up with, yes. He needs to wash his hands. This is why he's always sick. It just needs to be something that's enough for a little scene that would be funny to AJ and the audience... And I've drawn a blank. I finished the rest of that chapter, but yeah, I give up on that.
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On one of his Twitch live videos last weekend, he changed Saoirse's diaper, threw the dirty diaper away, and went right back to cutting strawberries for breakfast WITHOUT WASHING HIS HANDS! No wonder both his kids had stomach bugs last week! That's probably how they got it LOL. I thought maybe the pandemic had taught him to be more hygienic, but apparently not. The whole chat was like, "Nick! Wash your hands!" He's gross LOL.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on May 08, 2021, 10:38:28 PM ---I did get almost 700 words down this afternoon after spending an hour making myself an outline! :o I kept thinking how you would be so proud. :-* (Although, this is around the same point in the novel where I ended up making a chapter-by-chapter outline for PBox too, and we all know how well that went as far as amount of detail, lol. Oh "Kevin's power to heal is awesome, also there's plants" you remain infamous.) I ultimately decided I probably do need to take the time to write one of the arcs fully before going back and forth to the other one because it has more clear events that need to happen. I want to make sure I give them all adequate chapter time based on what the story needs, rather than having to rush through them for the other arc, which has less events, so it feels more flexible in the number of chapters it could take up (even though they're ideally both about equal length arcs). My only real goal this weekend is to write bout 1,000 more words, because then I'll be a week ahead on my word count goal. :)
All this said, I have eleven chapters to go, plus that mundanely funny Nick scene I can't come up with, but that chapter is done otherwise, so I'm calling it done. That one was on the four days per chapter schedule, so I guess we'll see how quickly it goes sticking with one arc versus going between them. I wonder if I'll feel like writing the other one when I get to the parts I marked as cliffhangers. Not quite sure how I feel having an outline yet, lol.
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Wow, good for you with the outline! And for being ahead of your word count goal!
I don't do a novel without an outline these days, but there are definitely some stories where I rely on my outline more than others. They come in most handy when there's a lot to keep track of (characters, events, dates, whatever) or when it's a story I don't work on frequently and need to refresh my memory when I come back to it months or years later.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on May 08, 2021, 10:38:28 PM ---Oh! I also found this compilation of twitter/tumblr jokes for writers today: https://www.buzzfeed.com/alliehayes/writer-jokes-for-writers-who-write-sometimes?origin=web-hf
I laughed so hard at the first one with Charlie and the string board because that's totally me. Also reacting to my own writing and the ones about character reactions to things I write and describing settings.
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OMG, the first one is SO you with the PBox series LOL.
#7 was me this morning - spending more time revising the chapter I was about to post than writing the chapter I'm actually on.
All the ones about daydreaming/brainstorming vs. actually writing... so true! It always seems so much better in my head LOL.
I think #17 is all of us LOL. Our poor characters... and it's even worse because they're real people. Sorry, Boys.
Normalize writing things that make your friends go "jesus christ, dude” <- Hahaha, yes!
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