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patroklaIn which I complain about some writing difficulties.
(cw references to depression and suicide, largely Quentin-related)
I've set myself a (very procrastinatory) goal of writing a long fic in the next few months - Magicians, because apparently that's what I write now. It's going...okay, in that I'm drafting each chapter about 18 times because I keep trying to get more depth and refinement and decent writing in (I have now veered into overegging the pudding territory). I've discovered that I'm not very good at plotting (my placeholder for some scenes I need to write is just [things, things]) and also that I'm very good at getting bogged down in the weeds of emotions.
These are things that I expected to discover, because like - I've been writing approximately the same fic structure for going on 10 years now, and I've gotten pretty good at it, but I have a lot of underdeveloped writing instincts for anything outside of that structure.
What I didn't expect to discover, but have, in the last two weeks, is that I can't deal with writing Quentin Coldwater right now. I actually can barely deal with looking at Quentin Coldwater. This is a big change from pre-finale me, who found it very, very easy to put myself in Quentin's place and write some (short, but imo good) fics about him. Like a lot of people, I identified with him very, very strongly. And...I really don't want to, anymore. It doesn't feel healthy to, anymore - as someone with serious depression and regular, albeit infrequent suicidal ideation, I feel like me trying to get in Quentin's head is no longer me identifying with a character whose 'just keep going' attitude I really admired. Instead, it's me identifying with a character who kills himself. (And yes, sure, it's ambiguous. Right.)
In the short term, I've been dealing with this in fic by writing Quentin with as few lines as possible. Make it Eliot POV, make it Quentin trapped in a mirror world and unable to talk, etc etc. For the longfics, this is has been a little more difficult. One of my two current wips is a post-s4 eventual-fix-it where Quentin gets to his little bit of afterlife and discovers that every other Quentin from every other timeline is also there. I've pretty much stopped writing that one in the last week - the other Quentins were getting very (self?) recriminating in a way that was not fun to read or write.
My other long fic, which I started a while before the finale, is a very trope-heavy 'Q, Eliot, and Margo get snowed in' fic. I've been dealing with my Quentin-aversion by having Quentin avoid Eliot, the POV character, and by writing a lot of dubiously erotic Margo/Eliot scenes.
I'm frustrated by this, because I feel like I'm learning a lot with every new thing I write in this fandom, and I am enjoying writing, I'm enjoying pushing myself to try new writing things! I am enjoying having projects where I don't have to think about grad school! But for now, I'm going to keep avoiding Quentin. Or rather, he's going to keep avoiding Eliot, and stay stuck in mirrors. Hopefully that changes.
(cw references to depression and suicide, largely Quentin-related)
I've set myself a (very procrastinatory) goal of writing a long fic in the next few months - Magicians, because apparently that's what I write now. It's going...okay, in that I'm drafting each chapter about 18 times because I keep trying to get more depth and refinement and decent writing in (I have now veered into overegging the pudding territory). I've discovered that I'm not very good at plotting (my placeholder for some scenes I need to write is just [things, things]) and also that I'm very good at getting bogged down in the weeds of emotions.
These are things that I expected to discover, because like - I've been writing approximately the same fic structure for going on 10 years now, and I've gotten pretty good at it, but I have a lot of underdeveloped writing instincts for anything outside of that structure.
What I didn't expect to discover, but have, in the last two weeks, is that I can't deal with writing Quentin Coldwater right now. I actually can barely deal with looking at Quentin Coldwater. This is a big change from pre-finale me, who found it very, very easy to put myself in Quentin's place and write some (short, but imo good) fics about him. Like a lot of people, I identified with him very, very strongly. And...I really don't want to, anymore. It doesn't feel healthy to, anymore - as someone with serious depression and regular, albeit infrequent suicidal ideation, I feel like me trying to get in Quentin's head is no longer me identifying with a character whose 'just keep going' attitude I really admired. Instead, it's me identifying with a character who kills himself. (And yes, sure, it's ambiguous. Right.)
In the short term, I've been dealing with this in fic by writing Quentin with as few lines as possible. Make it Eliot POV, make it Quentin trapped in a mirror world and unable to talk, etc etc. For the longfics, this is has been a little more difficult. One of my two current wips is a post-s4 eventual-fix-it where Quentin gets to his little bit of afterlife and discovers that every other Quentin from every other timeline is also there. I've pretty much stopped writing that one in the last week - the other Quentins were getting very (self?) recriminating in a way that was not fun to read or write.
My other long fic, which I started a while before the finale, is a very trope-heavy 'Q, Eliot, and Margo get snowed in' fic. I've been dealing with my Quentin-aversion by having Quentin avoid Eliot, the POV character, and by writing a lot of dubiously erotic Margo/Eliot scenes.
I'm frustrated by this, because I feel like I'm learning a lot with every new thing I write in this fandom, and I am enjoying writing, I'm enjoying pushing myself to try new writing things! I am enjoying having projects where I don't have to think about grad school! But for now, I'm going to keep avoiding Quentin. Or rather, he's going to keep avoiding Eliot, and stay stuck in mirrors. Hopefully that changes.
