Sunday Snippet: Guardian
Mar. 29th, 2020 04:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xparrotThings are stressful but overall okay here for now. Like everyone we're operating on a "could be worse" basis, and yeah, things could be a lot worse for us.
In a more traditional whine (just like old times!), March is almost over, and I've managed to write every day so far -- my tally last night was a measly 155 words, I've only broken 1,000 twice this month, and it's frustrating as hell (I've done NaNo more than once, for pity's sake!). And there was just a Guardian exchange that I didn't sign up for, in large part because I'm so uncertain about my words now and the particular format of the exchange unduly stressed me out; but I do work better on deadlines, more often than not, and with a recipient to not let down -- responsibility is a good motivator...
...So I'm dealing with the stress and self-doubt by working on fic that I know no one will read -- okay, that's not totally true, my lovely and kindnaye is reading it! But I wouldn't read it, for all I want to write it (it's Shen Wei/other, pre-Kunlun, a prequel to the Dixing pon farr fic that's not even h/c, basically just all angst?)
In a more traditional whine (just like old times!), March is almost over, and I've managed to write every day so far -- my tally last night was a measly 155 words, I've only broken 1,000 twice this month, and it's frustrating as hell (I've done NaNo more than once, for pity's sake!). And there was just a Guardian exchange that I didn't sign up for, in large part because I'm so uncertain about my words now and the particular format of the exchange unduly stressed me out; but I do work better on deadlines, more often than not, and with a recipient to not let down -- responsibility is a good motivator...
...So I'm dealing with the stress and self-doubt by working on fic that I know no one will read -- okay, that's not totally true, my lovely and kind
naye is reading it! But I wouldn't read it, for all I want to write it (it's Shen Wei/other, pre-Kunlun, a prequel to the Dixing pon farr fic that's not even h/c, basically just all angst?) He's unprepared, when Hei Pao Shi moves--as fast as he would in battle, crossing the last distance between them. He twists Xia Zhi around in one head-spinning motion, grasping his wrist and bending his arm back to pin him in place. The table edge digs into his stomach, and Xia Zhi gulps in a breath, tries to steady his sudden tremor--he came for this; he should have been ready for it.
Though Hei Pao Shi isn't yet pressing against him. His arm isn't even braced, yet Xia Zhi cannot move against it. The hand around Xia Zhi's wrist is sweat-damp but firm, so tight a grip that Xia Zhi's fingers are going numb. Hei Pao Shi's breathing, this close, is a little fast, too shallow, but even.
"This will not be easy," Hei Pao Shi says. His voice is no louder than before, but there is a tension in it now, the sharp and quiet threat of a blade against the throat. "I do not intend to hurt you--but I cannot promise that I won't."
Xia Zhi cannot move--trying to push back, to free his wrist, is as futile as trying to lift a mountain. "And you," Hei Pao Shi continues, "must remember what I will not--you must stay focused, and adamant against me, or it will all be for nothing."
Xia Zhi holds himself still, works up the spit to wet to his dry tongue, to keep his voice from cracking. "I can," he says. "I will."
Hei Pao Shi lets him go.
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Date: 2020-03-30 12:11 am (UTC)I definitely sympathize with the lack of CAN. I'm glad you're managing fic steadily, by working on it every day. *cheers*
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Date: 2020-03-30 02:20 am (UTC)I hope you can manage some words yourself now that work has let up...though with everything else being so crazy, who knows...!
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Date: 2020-03-30 02:28 am (UTC)But yeah, it's frustrating since I also use writing for stress relief and distraction.
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Date: 2020-03-30 02:37 am (UTC)But revisiting canon for what you love can be such a great feeling (I should do that myself!), have fun with it!
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Date: 2020-03-30 03:31 am (UTC)Revisiting canon is surprisingly nervy after a while because "what if you don't like it as much as you used to??" but that worry doesn't tend to come true, as I remember what I love about canon every time.
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Date: 2020-04-01 03:43 am (UTC)This is pretty much always the case for me -- I honestly can't recall going back to something I used to love and not finding at least some of what I adored still there (the last time I watched the original SW trilogy I was meaning to put it on as background viewing as I crocheted and then just ended up watching without looking away ^_^) I'm glad it's true for you as well!
Good luck finding your words! --especially the nearly-done WIP, ahahah I have one fic in a random fandom that is literally like 2 paragraphs from the end (I really should go finish it!)
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Date: 2020-03-30 12:48 am (UTC)Also damn that snippet... The tension! I loved the pon farr fic possibly an unreasonable amount, and have always wondered about Shen Wei's past before meeting Kunlun and his traumatic experiences insinuated in the fic. I would absolutely read this prequel ftr, but I know there's a sense of comfort in just writing something you're not going to publish. It def helps take the pressure off. Good luck with fighting those writing demons!!! 💪
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Date: 2020-03-30 02:35 am (UTC)As for the fic... actually if I do finish this one, I'm fully intending to post it. Just if no one reads it, I fully appreciate why! Which is an odd sort of comfort. But it is a happy surprise to hear you're interested, does make me more determined to finish it 😄 (I love my pon farr fic too, and it opens so many cans of worms I've wanted to dig into...)
So, begone, writing demons! And good luck to you with your own battles!
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Date: 2020-03-30 01:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-30 08:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-30 08:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-30 03:31 pm (UTC)a Guardian exchange that I didn't sign up for, in large part because I'm so uncertain about my words now and the particular format of the exchange unduly stressed me out; but I do work better on deadlines
Oh man. Same here. On the one hand, I am regretful because I do think I would have gotten more writing done with the exchange - but on the other hand, none of us really need more stress in our lives right now. So in the end, I do think that people who find this kind of challenge stressful are right to abstain. Better times will come again, and then we can subject ourselves to the challenge bears with reckless abandon. ;-)
I am still pondering what a low-stress writing challenge might look like, that we could use to motivate ourselves without stress. I think we can put something together!
And writing what you want to write is definitely always the way to go, so more power to you. The readers will do what they want, what matters is that you do what YOU want. ;-)
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Date: 2020-03-30 08:54 pm (UTC)I pretty much always write what I want to write, but usually what I want to write is what I want to read too. When it's not, that's always confusing! Interesting, though...
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Date: 2020-03-31 11:19 am (UTC)I'm still thinking about the time frame and more ways to motivate people without stress, but something along those lines, perhaps?
I pretty much always write what I want to write, but usually what I want to write is what I want to read too.
Yeah, that actually made me very curious, and it is most definitely very interesting! I am trying to think back, but I think that - while I have definitely written stories that I was *ashamed* of wanting to read - I've never actually written something that I didn't want to read. Except for some very short drabbles that were the result of prompts that didn't appeal to me... and I couldn't say I actually wanted to write those.
What might have come closest was my attempt at writing a prequel to my one Eroica story, which would have filled in the backstory for one of the main characters in a very interesting way. But it turned out to be too harrowing for me to write (it would have been third person POV, and the narrator would not have understood what he was seeing at all, but... major warning territory there). I actually would have liked to read that story, even though it would have been hard even as a reader, but as a writer, it was just too much.
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Date: 2020-04-01 03:30 am (UTC)I maybe am exaggerating to say I'm writing something I'd never want to read -- it's more accurate that I sometimes write things that I would not read if someone else wrote them. Like, I've written death-fic before and those are pretty much always a hard no for me, reading-wise (but when I've written them myself I can always make up the happy ending that comes after? :P) And really, most of the explicit stuff I've written falls into this too, as I just don't enjoy reading smut but sometimes find it interesting to (attempt to!) write.
But yeah, I don't know why I sometimes am struck by inspiration like that. (And yes, I also have things I was ashamed of wanting but very much wanted to read anyway, that's a different thing! XD)
--oh ho you wrote Eroica?? I should look that up! :D
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Date: 2020-04-02 01:36 am (UTC)I am Rhea Silvia, and have asked to be your buddy. Should I make a group? Do you already have one? (I don't actually know how groups work... I've been a solitary NaNoWriMoer until now. *g*)
it's more accurate that I sometimes write things that I would not read if someone else wrote them
Ah, yes, that makes a great deal of sense to me - if you write them, after all, you have control over just *how* the story does the thing that you usually don't like, and that makes all the difference. And yeah, it can be very interesting to try to write something you don't like; in my case it's usually just to see what exactly it is that I usually don't like about it, and how I can make it work for me.
you wrote Eroica?
Yes indeed - just the one story, though (Peripeteia, one of my worst titles ever; truly the height of my Title Tribulations). It was a classic case of "why is nobody writing this extremely necessary story??". ;-) I suspect that I would do a great many things differently if I were to write it again today, but I would definitely still have to write it, if nobody else stepped forward. *g*
(And BTW, by "third person POV" I meant "third party/outside POV", argh. *headdesk*)
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Date: 2020-04-02 02:35 am (UTC)And yeah, it can be very interesting to try to write something you don't like; in my case it's usually just to see what exactly it is that I usually don't like about it, and how I can make it work for me.
Yes, that's always an interesting challenge! Sometimes it's not even that I don't like something, but that what I like about it doesn't seem to be quite the same as for other people, so I'll be trying to zero in on that element that I haven't seen focused on as much as I wanted (that was the whole deal for the pon farr fic, as it's a scenario I've always been into, and I like a lot of variations of it but I hadn't read the one I most wanted...)
Thanks for the link, looking forward to checking it out (when or if I get the time to read again 😅) Eroica has never been a major fandom of mine but it's one I enjoy popping into now and again...
And BTW, by "third person POV" I meant "third party/outside POV", argh. *headdesk*
Hah I totally read it that way, I didn't even notice what you'd actually written!
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Date: 2020-04-02 04:37 pm (UTC)*thoughtful* I enjoy reading smut for enough different reasons that I'm happy to try smut written by anyone whose writing I generally like, but most of why I enjoy writing it is because of the often-subtly different edges it brings to the characters' emotions. (My Fruits Basket fandom days left me a fan of the "people being emotionally honest with each other in bed in ways they can't be otherwise", which wasn't really something that came into play in Newsflesh fic but has opened back up with Guardian.)
So I'm always interested to hear how other people's experiences of reading (or not) vs. writing it--or reading vs. writing other things--vary, and why. ^_^
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Date: 2020-04-02 09:39 pm (UTC)There's actually a lot I enjoy about sex in fic - consent and loss of control are obviously big things for me, and also the intimacy, and the aligning of desire. And emotional honesty is an interesting one too, I hadn't thought of it like that! (That's a major appeal of h/c for me too obviously).
But for most of that I don't really need much... detail? The problem I have is that smut itself just doesn't do anything for me, I'm not wired for it. So I tend to be more interested in the lead up and aftermath, and the act itself is typically just boring to me (at best; sometimes it can leave me feeling...left out? 😅) And writing it is a challenge because I'm never quite sure how people will react to it, when I know my own reactions aren't a great metric. It's the opposite of when I write something indulgent to me, and I don't know if anyone else is going to react to it the way I am, but I know exactly what I'm going for myself!
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Date: 2020-04-04 04:53 am (UTC)*nodsnods* That makes sense. (Alas!) Anything involving sex, fictional or not, can be so sensitive. (And there's that aggravating double standard about reading/writing smutty fiction where some subset of people just...assume that the person reading or writing it is into whatever kind of sex is in there IRL. *sighs*)
All the facets of the emotional-honesty aspect appeal to me! People betraying feelings they were trying to hide (from themselves or from the other person/people)? Excellent. Only feeling safe/comfortable/relaxed/desperate/vulnerable enough to be able to be honest about feelings when in bed? Also excellent. Showing otherwise-inexpressible emotions non-verbally? Still excellent. *happy sigh*
I haven't finished writing much Guardian smut (only one fic!), but I've got enough written in general that I'm starting to get a feel for how I interpret SW and ZYL together, and one of the things I'm finding very satisfying is that, for all Shen Wei's general failure to ask for anything or to admit to wanting or needing anything (etc. etc., because SHEN WEI), in my head he's much better about those things when it comes to sex because Zhao Yunlan so blatantly wants it for him but also actively gets off on Shen Wei feeling good. To me that's an extra-lovely juxtaposition with all the complex emotional undercurrents and the timeloop fraughtness/payoff.
(Possibly "fraughtness" is not a word. Oh, well!)
I tend to be more interested in the lead up and aftermath, and the act itself is typically just boring to me (at best; sometimes it can leave me feeling...left out? 😅)
This makes a lot of sense to me too!
Personally my reasons for liking to read smut vary somewhat, but they're basically always in the emotional range, not the visceral "this is a turn-on for me" range. (And yet I do tend to be very aware of if I think something is hot--I find some fic absolutely scorchingly hot! But even then, it's about 90% a very pleased emotional response of "these precious people I love enough to constantly read about are having a VERY GOOD TIME, and that makes me extremely happy".)
I guess basically as both a reader and a writer, what I want most is to have the emotional stuff seeded heavily right through the entire scene, so as a reader, if the actual sex is mostly about the physical mechanics, I won't love it. But what I'm always aiming for when I'm writing very explicit fic, and am absolutely delighted to find as a reader, is a sense of the characters being utterly caught up in it (unless the point is that they're not, of course) and aware of all the physical things going on, but filtered heavily through the emotions it's evoking or that they're working through. I'm content to read just about any degree of explicitness if I get that.
...ooh. As I was writing that paragraph, I thought of this: to me, the degree of physical explicitness is like the brightness of light coming in a window. If the window's clear glass, it can get too bright for me to want to look at it much or for long, but if the emotional stuff is stained glass, just about any degree of brightness coming in is okay, and the permutations of color and intensity are basically all beautiful.
(But also I'm sleepy and not sure how much sense that makes. I thought I'd write it down anyway. ^^; This got rambly, though.)
writing it is a challenge because I'm never quite sure how people will react to it, when I know my own reactions aren't a great metric.
Oof, yes. I can see how that'd be tricky. But sometimes the outcome of a challenge is so good! *^^*
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Date: 2020-03-30 06:07 pm (UTC)But it's great that you've been writing every day! Every little bit helps.
Your fic sounds really interesting. Not sure if it will be my thing, but this snippet looks great!
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Date: 2020-03-30 09:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-31 12:13 am (UTC)*hugs* I'm sorry you're having to wrestle so hard with the words. I hope they start flowing more easily again.
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Date: 2020-04-01 03:32 am (UTC)And good luck with your own words too, may April be better for them!
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Date: 2020-04-02 04:39 pm (UTC)Given that I love your writing in general and don't actually have any particular squicks, I think you can safely assume that I will always want to read anything you write in this fandom. ^_^ Even when it's not pinging things I'm specifically interested in, which this idea clearly is.
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Date: 2020-03-31 01:12 am (UTC)The scariest part for me when I hit a writing slump is always the fear that this is just what my writing is going to be like from now on. This March has lasted for years and sucked all the way through and I don't like it!
I'm glad that you're all safe and reasonably well, though. And I believe that your writing mojo will come back to you!! It's really good that you've managed to write every day - even if it's only a little bit, that's really impressive!!
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Date: 2020-04-01 03:40 am (UTC)The scariest part for me when I hit a writing slump is always the fear that this is just what my writing is going to be like from now on.
Oh man, yeah. This. This is the worst part. For the longest time I used to have slumps of a couple months, often in winter, and I was used to them...but then I fell into a hole and I didn't really get out of it for a couple of years, until Guardian came along. Which was very good for me but makes this struggle now all the worse. And I had some major RL stress that was the main root of it, I think...but I need to find some way around that, because at this point it's not looking like life is going to be getting less stressful anytime soon, and I can't wait that long!!
I hope you and yours can all stay safe too, and back atcha with the writing mojo!! (of anything! though I admit entirely selfishly on my part that I would love the romcom sequel ^^)
(and now I really need to finish this pon farr prequel, knowing people might read it after all! <3)
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Date: 2020-04-05 04:30 pm (UTC)RL stress is the worst - writing is such a good escape, sometimes, but then sometimes the stress you're trying to escape RUINS IT like a big ruining ruiner and it's extremely unfair!
My fingers are crossed on both of our behalves for writing mojo.