Am I crazy? (Note: that question is rhetorical)

[darsynia]

Sorry about the lack of an LJ cut--I want as much input on this as possible. If it's terribly awful and you absolutely NEED me to cut it (as I'm not entirely sure just how long it will end up being), please let me know, no grudges held, no grumpy, I promise.

Art for art's sake does wonderful things to you. It makes you laugh. It makes you cry. It makes you want to take naps and go places wearing funny pants. Doing something just for the hell of it is a wonderful antidote to all the chores and "must-dos" of daily life. Writing a novel in a month is both exhilarating and stupid, and we would all do well to invite a little more spontaneous stupidity into our lives.

Thanks to delicatetruth, I've discovered National Novel Writing Month... and a very interesting challenge. While I DO have a lot of responsibility on LJ in various places, I have come to realize that the only reason I haven't been writing is the simple fact that I haven't taught myself to write whether or not I feel like I can come up with something fantastic. 'Cause, really--that's an unattainable goal ANYWAY. The honest truth is that I don't want writing to be an 'in the mood' thing, I want it to be a thing I do a bit of every day. The process of writing 50,000 words in a day MONTH is a way to get me to do that.

Plus, it's not like I haven't done it before, right? In the month of April I updated TSIK daily; the time I actually spent (as in, sitting down and doing it, rather than thought about it) writing TSIK is roughly two months, give or take--that's 130k words in two months. 50k should be cake.

So now comes the question: Should I write fanfiction, or should I try to pull an original story out of...somewhere?

[Poll #839687]

ETA: Changed the 'day' to 'month' so as not to look psychotically insane. Also apologies to lilbreck, for whom I REALLY wanted to put James/PANDABEAR but couldn't do it as I really wanted a serious opinion :(

Comments

[delicatetruth.livejournal.com]

While I DO have a lot of responsibility on LJ in various places, I have come to realize that the only reason I haven't been writing is the simple fact that I haven't taught myself to write whether or not I feel like I can come up with something fantastic. 'Cause, really--that's an unattainable goal ANYWAY. The honest truth is that I don't want writing to be an 'in the mood' thing, I want it to be a thing I do a bit of every day.

Exactly!

I've got quite a few prior commitments, but I realized that if I ever wait until I have free time to try and write something longer than a one-shot (which I've never done btw, I'm quie nervous) I'd never do it.

Though for some reason I had it in my head that it had to be original fiction. I may stick with that, even if fanfiction might be easier for me. I'm not sure now.

[darsynia.livejournal.com]

To be honest, with all the votes for Original Fic (something I really wasn't sure I would have the guts for), it's VERY encouraging, and I just may need to try it out. 'Cause, like they say on the site, usually we aspirers (new word++) need that extra push to go for something scary like that.

And... well... I already tend toward the lonnnngggg in fanfiction, so that's not much of a challenge.