Trip! *bounce*

No I still haven't finished my Multiverse fic. Shaddup.

Ahem.

Dear flist, I shall be US-bound in a little under a year's time. This makes me excited, as I have never been across the Atlantic before. I will be going to Portland, Oregon, as my dear, dear friend Anna is getting wed. This is Momentous, yes indeed.

I'm going in July. As it's going to cost me an arm and a leg (and probably £1,000), I have decided to make quick stop-over visits to various cities / places / canyons.

If anyone has any thoughts on which things I should visit either to the blissful nuptials or on my way back, please take this opportunity to squee at length. I was thinking of a stop-over of probably new york, or possibly flying in to san francisco and then getting an internal flight the rest of the way, or possibly seattle and a train.

i can spend at most a week and a half doing this, because i also have to accomplish dissertation (tm) with the rest of my holiday time.

Emotional Attachment

So I was sweating blood over my Multiverse fic last night, when athena25 said, “you’re very emotionally involved with it.” To which I barely managed to stop myself from snapping back, “don’t be bloody ridiculous.”

I freely confess that I am emotionally involved in the writing process. If I just write 1-5K words of any old thing whilst drunk, it doesn’t have the same impact on me as writing 1-5K carefully-thought out words that have been edited and ripped to shreds. I might say, “oh, here’s a wee thing I just knocked out,” but by that I mean, “here’s something that has not undergone three weeks of rigorous editing and red ink but has instead been merely read through by myself – several times and with much agonising.” I do not mean, “I wrote it three seconds ago, I haven’t read it through, and I don’t give a toss whether it’s all spelled correctly or not.” Pride in the writing process is just like diligence in personal hygiene: it’s unseemly to suffer a lack.

Similarly to personal hygiene, of course, it is also unseemly to take pride in the finished product, for it is vanity. Vanity is not our friend. Vanity makes us think that our work is our baby, and every criticism is thus a personal attack. Vanity leads to arrogance and also to hysterical on-line fits, and that is clearly the Dark Side.

Regarding Multiverse, I am very emotionally involved in writing this fic, despite (because of?) the fact that it is now officially Late. It therefore has to simply glow with the sheer amount of effort I have put into it. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the finished product is going to be any good, but it should be as polished as I can possibly make it, given the original premise and any turns of phrase that I can manufacture that are not too hideous. So what does this ‘effort’ actually involve? For this fic:

( Genius at work )

Approximately half the fic is in a state where I am comfortable submitting it. Unfortunately, the key emotional scene (tm) is still missing. I will be sweating blood and tears over it until it is fucking done, and that does not mean that it’ll be good; it means that it’ll be polished.

It’s not an obsession. It’s dedication.