If Only I Didn't Have to Work

[rynling]

This is the dream I mentioned in my post yesterday...

Zelda is a policy wonk. One day she's called on to deliver a report at a Senate hearing, and the reception she receives is chilly. Instead of going back to her office, she visits the National History Museum next to the Capitol Building, where she randomly joins a special tour led by Ganondorf, one of the museum's curators. It just so happens that his talk corresponds with the area of her current research, migrant labor in Hyrule.

Afterward, she comes up to him and says she noticed that a certain item on exhibit resonates with the strangeness in her historical data, which indicates that there is a dark underground even within the shadow economies of the immigrant workforce. Ganondorf doesn't want to talk about it, but he finds himself drawn to Zelda, and he takes her into his office to tell her that yes, she's right. In fact, people from the more magical races have long been used as slaves and then quietly disposed of in Hyrule, a process guided by both imperialist anxieties and a deep prejudice against magic. Zelda can't handle this information, but she's just as attracted to Ganondorf as he is to her, and they kiss before she rushes away.

Since this is so close to my own experience, I can easily write this story with all the serial numbers filed off. It would have four "acts," with four chapters per act that would follow a repeating pattern of A Plot -> B Plot -> A Plot -> Smut. The B Plot would involve the antics of Zelda's interns Link and Malon and Ganondorf's bosses Nabooru and Aveil (with, you know, the serial numbers filed off).

If I were to fashion this story as a short novel - my model would be Lev Grossman's Codex - I'd need to drop out of fandom, which is taking up entirely too much of my creative energy. This would be a hard call to make, since I'm already making steady progress on three separate fic projects. I think a more sustainable transition would be to write a pilot for the novel as a four-chapter fanfic, aiming for maybe 2,500 words per chapter. No one will read it, of course, but so much the better.

I'm super excited about this story right now. I wish I could take a week off from work to write it, but that's not going to happen. What do other writers do in this situation? Do people just not sleep?

Comments

[lassarina]

*handwiggle* I think it still depends. My hands literally will not stand up to more than a NaNo pace, which would still be 3-4 novels a year (allowing editing, etc.) nor will my brain. That being said, I tend to write intensely when I do sit down and pack it into a small space of time. I'm not saying she's wrong for her, but I'm also thinking of several full-time writers whose various blogs I follow and they very definitely are spending most of their days not following her process, so.

[rynling]

I will admit that my reason for citing this essay was partially to poke fun at how extreme Lackey's statement is, but it also seems to be partially corroborated by what a handful of other people have said regarding the timeline for becoming a "professional" creator (Spike Trotman's explanation that there's "a seven-year line" jumps immediately to mind).

Suffice it to say that I'm not planning on quitting my day job anytime soon, but I've been making the same sort of sacrifices you outlined in your original comment. Still, I agree with you that it's important to find a balance between input and output. Good luck to all of us!

Although 500 words in 15 minutes, hot damn. That is amazing.

[lassarina]

To me it doesn't seem amazing because that's just how I roll, but the thing is - I will usually get the same amount done in 15 minutes versus an hour because I work in small, intense bursts. Whether that's good or bad is up for debate, but mostly it seems to work for me. It's kind of the "if you want something done, give it to a busy person" - some years back when I was trying to fit in writing around hell job and a really spectacular social schedule, I had to learn how to do that or I just wasn't going to get anything done, and now I'm in that habit and don't really see a benefit in breaking it, so onward I go.

For me it helps that a lot of my friends are creative types in one way or another, so we do NaNoWriMo "write-ins" a lot during November but also intermittently the rest of the year, and the only rule is "something you can do quietly," so we've had people writing papers, doing legal briefs, planning tabletop/LARP games, NaNoWriMo, sewing, reading, writing reviews/articles, or just plain soaking up the environment while playing WOW, and it works really nicely for us. It's a good blend between social and not.