Sigh, Whine, Moan -- Fest Woes

[kelly_chambliss]

The above picture is me, slain by fanfic woes. And worse, they're woes of my own making.

Woe #1 -- It looks as if my long-awaited, beloved minerva_fest is going to have to proceed without an entry from me. Oh, I'll still be modding it and reading and commenting, but I don't think I can contribute. And I've got no one to blame but myself.

The road to this point has been a long and winding one. I signed up for a prompt that fit an idea I'd long had, but the first version I tried to write just wouldn't go anywhere. So I scrapped it and started again. I got further along in the second version, but then it, too, started to falter, and I finally just had to face the fact that the story idea was deader than the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade (i.e., the doornail). So I set aside the 5,000 words I'd written and decided to choose an entirely new prompt.

One of the other claims I'd considered was a perfect fit for a story I'd been planning for quite a while. I checked my file of prompts, and this one didn't seem to have been taken, so this weekend, I got started on the new prompt. And the fic just sailed along. 3,000 words done yesterday, 1,000 today: I was on track to finish a draft tonight, I thought.

But then, as part of my modly duties, I started checking the already-submitted stories: and lo, there sits a fic based on "my" new prompt -- a fic that's already been written, polished, and submitted.

What happened? Well, in choosing my new prompt, I made the mistake of looking at the prompt file that I kept in the "Minerva Fest" folder on my computer; I didn't look at the list on the actual comm. I'd kept track of the prompt claims as they came in last April -- or so I thought -- but evidently I'd missed this one.

So yes, someone had already claimed it and written a fic based on it. The rules state that each prompt can be used only once, so it would hardly be fair for one of the mods to override this rule and write a second story based on a given prompt, when this is not an option that other participants have had.

So there's another 4,000 words I can't use.

In theory, I could choose one of the remaining free prompts and still write something for the fest, but. . .

I look at the prompts remaining and am disheartened. They're either far more complex than I can manage in the next couple of weeks, or they don't interest me, or they call for stories very similar to something I've already written or pairings about which I have nothing fresh to say. And in any case, I don't want to just dash something off at the last minute.

Ergo, I don't think I will be participating in the fest I cared most about participating in.

But the woes don't end here. All this whining is connected to the much larger

Woe #2 -- Writer's burnout. It's a trajectory that we all face, I suppose: when I was new in HP, my mind brimmed over with story ideas, character notions, plot bunnies. I couldn't write them all out fast enough. And in my first year or so in the fandom, I produced over 100,000 words.

But then the law of diminishing returns kicked in. I began to have fewer ideas and less to say. I'm not a person whose imagination runs to infinite variety, so on certain subjects and certain pairings, I think I've said all that apparently I have to say. I sit here and try to think and create, even about Minerva, and I find. . .

I got nothin'.

It's just not there; it's not happening. The HP fanfic brain, she is empty. Sure, I could probably write something for the Minerva fest, but I fear it would be just a rehash of things I've already said or that others have already said. It might be okay, but it wouldn't be good.

Now, to paraphrase Rick from Casablanca, I realize that the problems of one little fanfic writer don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Still, I'm sad about it. I do not want to be finished with HP fanfic! I want to keep writing. But I don't know if I can.