June of Doom & Gloom - Week 4 discussion and etc. post

[huinare]

Welcome to week 4 (challenge details here yadda yadda)! We still have a week until July 1st, so we're not off the hook yet. I'm excited that finished stories have appeared on the scene!
Discussion in comments, if so desired. Woes, gloating, links to your stories? Optional discussion topic for all: Are there ways in which your writing has changed since around this time last year--in terms of writing style, themes, plot devices, characters, or whatever else? Go!

Comments

[tehta.livejournal.com]

I have a link to share! Because I did finish a thing.

Title: Cliffhanger
Summary: Climbing partners get very accustomed to saving each other's lives. The habit can prove hard to break, as Findekáno and Maitimo discover.
Location: AO3.
Warnings: It starts out fluffy, but does not end that way.


As for your question... it sounds apt, since the three parts of this story were written in 2006, 2013, and 2014 respectively, and they are clearly different. However, I do not think the differences are due to their dates of origin: tragically, I am so old that my writing has pretty much stabilized. (I know there is more I could learn and develop, of course, but it does not seem to be happening...)

[huinare.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed the changing mood of each scene in that story, and the whole rock climbing motif as I mentioned in my ridiculous comment. Thanks for writing/posting!
_________

Not to be interpreted as asking your age if you're not inclined to discuss, but, hypothetically, how old would one need to be for writing to stabilize? Would it have to do also with how long one has been writing? I was pretty convinced I was a badass writer when I was a teenager, but since I started writing at age 11 I probably was good compared to most people my age and many older. I learned more finesse over the years and I think I'm still learning that. My issue has always been complying with the "less is more" axiom, and I really do think I've gotten much better at that in the past few years (round about since I turned 30).

[tehta.livejournal.com]

I am in my late thirties. (Don't tell anyone!) And I think my writing stabilized oh, a decade ago? I do not mean that it became perfect, just that I "found a voice", or a range of voices, that seem to work and that I have been using ever since. (My early Tolkien stuff, like Flawed and Fair and Gathering the Pieces, is from right after it happened. I don't think I could write those stories better now.) I believe I *have* learned a little more in the intervening, but it mostly has to do with how to self-edit better so I get the same result faster.

And of course it is possible that I will have some major shift in the future!

[huinare.livejournal.com]

I believe I *have* learned a little more in the intervening, but it mostly has to do with how to self-edit better so I get the same result faster.

This is one I could probably stand to learn more of also, although that also has improved for me recently. I have colossal projects sitting stagnant because I'm so bummed out just thinking of the massive editing overhaul required...