Fic Talk > General Discussion
Writing & Thread (aka The Writing Thread 4)
nicksgal:
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 29, 2021, 05:20:02 AM ---Our conversation about how the stage is transported overseas for a tour gave me an idea for another question for whoever wants to answer. What are other aspects of celebrity/musician/rich people life you've wondered about while writing and never found a definite answer for (or maybe never even tried to find out)?
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I've always wanted to know what a typical work-day schedule is. Do they always wake up at the same time? Have the same breakfast? What personal things do they make time for (or only if they stick to a routine)? What's the absolute latest they can be for a sound check (or what have you) without getting called out on it? What's a post-show ritual they can't go to sleep without doing? I'm sure it's different for everyone.
How long do they get to practice their parts before recording? What's the turnaround time on learning choreography? Do they save mementos from tours? Like does someone still have their surfboard?
Just random stuff like that?
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 29, 2021, 05:20:02 AM ---This sounds so dumb, but I don't really understand how gated communities and homes work. Like for a gated community, is there a code you enter to open the gate, or is there a guard on duty all the time to let residents through? What about the gates celebrities have in front of their driveways? Do people have to enter a code to get through, or is there an intercom they can use to call the person who lives there to let them in? Could it be either? I don't live in an area with gated communities and don't know anyone who has a gate in front of their driveway, so this is something I'm completely unfamiliar with.
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I have an answer for this, but you're not going to like it, lol! Because... it depends on the community. Many of the pricier ones will have gate attendants, but only for certain days or times (though I'm sure some may be staffed in shifts 24 hours a day, I just haven't run into any of those); I think this is more for security than actual gate attending. Otherwise, the gates are typically coded. Sometimes they have two different gates, one for residents and one for guests. And keycards for residents are becoming more of the norm than code boxes, though there is still that option for guests. The code a guest inputs might be tied to an individual home or it might be a communal "guest code" that changes frequently. I will add the caveat that I have not been to gated communities with A-lister celebrities, so they might lean more toward a staffed gate, but they also may not.
I can't speak for certain on the individual driveway gates one way or the other, but a friend does some contracting work for a local celebrity and says it's a code for them (I asked once, but more along the lines of "how do you get into their house if they aren't home to let you in?"). But I assume it depends on if they pay someone to watch that. I know that if I had a friend coming over, I'd rather they could just let themselves in instead of me having to press a million buttons to buzz them through, at least until they got to the actual front door, lol.
So like, Justin "24 hour parenting is not normal" Timberlake probably has a buzzer, whereas I could see Nick not wanting to get up from what he was doing to let someone in until they got to the door. Didn't Rose say she'd been to his area when she was younger? She might have a more Backstreet-adjacent specific answer on this one.
nicksgal:
--- Quote from: mare on June 29, 2021, 08:10:49 PM ---Most celebrities have health coverage from wherever they are most employed by. Usually the artist or the actual record company supplies the coverage. That’s how it has worked for my friends in the music/movie industry.
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This makes sense to me, because I think even if you could afford to pay full medical bills out of pocket, why would you want to?
nicksgal:
Aw yay, somewhere between 4 and 9 people were looking at PBox's featured story thread. Thanks guests!
RokofAges75:
--- Quote from: mare on June 29, 2021, 08:10:49 PM ---Most celebrities have health coverage from wherever they are most employed by. Usually the artist or the actual record company supplies the coverage. That’s how it has worked for my friends in the music/movie industry.
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Hey, thanks! That's good to know. I figured they would have to get private insurance on their own since they don't have a typical job that would come with those kinds of benefits, but it makes sense that if they're signed to a record company, the record company would provide that. I guess they would have a vested interest in making sure their acts have access to healthcare LOL.
RokofAges75:
--- Quote from: nicksgal on June 29, 2021, 09:14:29 PM ---That is a lot of good advice, even if it's stuff we've talked about here. For the different font, this is part of my editing process! It's a lot of why I do use "suggest mode" to edit because it makes everything green. If I'm editing, I leave it all until I finish the chapter, then reread back the whole chapter with the green bits and it will usually end up helping me catch things I missed because I'm switching back and forth between the colors. Then the final step is posting to AC and giving it a cursory skim while I format. Since the AC font is so different, I will still catch a few things or notice a place the text is awkward. :)
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You know, I use suggest mode when I'm giving my students feedback on their writing, but I always forget about it when I'm writing myself. Normally I think all the green and strikethroughs would bother me, but I could have used it last night. I ended up cutting out a few paragraphs from a previous Kevin chapter, but I didn't want to completely delete them until I had filled the gap between what came before that part and what came after to make sure it still flowed well, so I just awkwardly wrote around it until I felt comfortable deleting it. That would have been the perfect time to turn on suggest mode.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on June 29, 2021, 09:14:29 PM ---The one that really resonated with me (I won't say stood out) was "If you start to hate writing or you feel like something isn’t right, STOP." I've said it before, but I think I honestly needed time off from writing to really get back into a creative head space. There were times fandom was lonely because of it, but it all worked out for the best. I think this is scary advice if writing is something anyone spends a lot of time on, but I think there's definitely a point where forcing through it just isn't worth it. All that said, I do think making writing a habit is a good thing, but if I was truly unmotivated, I think I would let the streak die for at least a little bit.
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That one resonated with me as well. I've never stopped writing for more than a few months at a time, but even in my day-to-day writing, I can tell when I've hit a wall and it's time to stop for that session because forcing myself to keep staring at the computer is not going to get me anywhere. The nice thing about making it part of a daily routine is that I can just say, "I'll come back to this tomorrow, if not before" instead of wondering when I'll work up the motivation to open the story again. The times when I have taken months off have been because I was busy and overwhelmed with real life stuff and couldn't devote enough time to writing without taking it away from something more important (but not necessarily enjoyable). As much as I love it, fanfic just became one more thing that stressed me out because of the pressure I put on myself to keep writing, keep updating, so I had to give myself permission to take a break from it until I had more time. When I was backdating chapters of SAMS on AO3 yesterday, I got to the point in the story where I literally didn't update it for eleven months because of that. I'm glad I've been able to get back on track. I'm sure that must have been even harder for you after being away so long, but it sounds like it was the right decision for you to make. You do seem to be enjoying it a lot more than you did right before your hiatus. :)
--- Quote from: nicksgal on June 29, 2021, 09:14:29 PM ---I can't think of other advice that isn't in there and painful. I guess it's that the times I've been happiest writing were when I tempered my expectations, "dance like no one is watching" if you will (except I will always dance even when people are watching, lol). There was something really freeing about telling myself "Chances are high that no one will read what you're writing." And of course it makes me happy that people do (I would love to talk to them more), but just still being interested in writing even if that was a high chance was enough to keep me going. I'm not explaining this well, lol.
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You explained it perfectly! I get what you're saying, and I agree. We've said it before, but we have to write for ourselves first and foremost - because we enjoy it, and because we have a story to tell that we believe in and want to finish, even if no one else reads it. Feedback is wonderful, but so is the satisfaction of finishing a project you've worked hard on, whether or not anyone else acknowledges your effort. It's that intrinsic motivation.
I think that comes with experience. It's easier to write for yourself and not worry about feedback when you get to the point where you actually enjoy your own writing. I still enjoy and look forward to feedback, but I don't beat myself up and wonder what I did wrong if I don't get it. I hadn't gotten any in a couple weeks and had accepted that maybe what I'm enjoying writing just isn't what other people want to read right now. Then, out of nowhere, I got a comment on my site from a reader who has given pretty regular feedback on the last few stories I wrote before MBK. She apologized for being MIA the last few months, said she had just been busy, but got caught up on the story so far and was loving it. Just a reminder that you never know who's reading or why someone may have stopped reading - often times it has nothing to do with your story at all. We're just at that age where life happens.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on June 29, 2021, 09:14:29 PM ---I laughed so hard at the comment later on about listing colors of furniture with semicolons. I am an ellipses nut! I should be better about them, but...
:biggrin:
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LOL! I enjoy ellipses as long as they're not overused... and I love semicolons! I did not understand the semicolon hate in that thread; I think semicolons are a sophisticated alternative to the comma and conjunction combo. ;)
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