The giddy euphoria of obsession
May. 8th, 2004 03:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowscastMmm, writing has been fun this last while.
Writing isn't always fun. Sometimes it's horrible, like pulling teeth, and I sit at the computer for hours intending to write but getting nothing done, and I wonder why I call writing "something I do for fun."
This Spike/Xander fic, though, has been writing itself in a very obliging way, and now I'm past 20,000 words and I have a pretty clear idea of all the things that need to happen between where I am now and the end of the story, and I think I'll actually finish in another few days (if I can keep it up). If I don't finish in about three days I'll certainly slow down a lot, because friends and relatives are going to start descending from the heavens to celebrate my graduation next Friday and for various other reasons.
I'm even mostly forgetting to wonder in a panicky way whether the story is any good at all.
I tend to write in binges. I'll complete a novella in a week or two, and then be unable/unwilling to write anything else for months. I hadn't written a thing since New Year's before I started this story (other than one very painful paragraph in my giant guilt-inducing year-old WIP).
I guess at least it's slightly healthier than binge-eating (which, sadly, I also sometimes do. Damn you, Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie Ice Cream!!).
The things that intimidated me hugely about starting this story - Spike's dialect and the London setting - have turned out not to be too bad. I feel like my Spike is sounding right. He's sounding right to me, anyway.... I'll still be very comforted if an actual English person is kind enough to look it over before I release it to the world, but other kind people have pointed out to me that Spike's dialect isn't quite a real English one anyway. This is caused meta-textually by him being written and played by Americans, and in-character by it being a deliberately adopted accent - William having had a more posh accent, and Spike having spent more than half his unlife in the U.S.A. anyway. So I guess there's lots of leeway for Spike to use Americanisms.
As for London, I'm finding I remember a lot more details than I thought I did from the three months I lived there. In fact it's been a fun trip through memory lane, plus motivation to do some research. (Revelation: go to the "images" tab of the Google search engine, type "Paddington Station," and get actual pictures of the train station. Cool and useful!)
Writing isn't always fun. Sometimes it's horrible, like pulling teeth, and I sit at the computer for hours intending to write but getting nothing done, and I wonder why I call writing "something I do for fun."
This Spike/Xander fic, though, has been writing itself in a very obliging way, and now I'm past 20,000 words and I have a pretty clear idea of all the things that need to happen between where I am now and the end of the story, and I think I'll actually finish in another few days (if I can keep it up). If I don't finish in about three days I'll certainly slow down a lot, because friends and relatives are going to start descending from the heavens to celebrate my graduation next Friday and for various other reasons.
I'm even mostly forgetting to wonder in a panicky way whether the story is any good at all.
I tend to write in binges. I'll complete a novella in a week or two, and then be unable/unwilling to write anything else for months. I hadn't written a thing since New Year's before I started this story (other than one very painful paragraph in my giant guilt-inducing year-old WIP).
I guess at least it's slightly healthier than binge-eating (which, sadly, I also sometimes do. Damn you, Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie Ice Cream!!).
The things that intimidated me hugely about starting this story - Spike's dialect and the London setting - have turned out not to be too bad. I feel like my Spike is sounding right. He's sounding right to me, anyway.... I'll still be very comforted if an actual English person is kind enough to look it over before I release it to the world, but other kind people have pointed out to me that Spike's dialect isn't quite a real English one anyway. This is caused meta-textually by him being written and played by Americans, and in-character by it being a deliberately adopted accent - William having had a more posh accent, and Spike having spent more than half his unlife in the U.S.A. anyway. So I guess there's lots of leeway for Spike to use Americanisms.
As for London, I'm finding I remember a lot more details than I thought I did from the three months I lived there. In fact it's been a fun trip through memory lane, plus motivation to do some research. (Revelation: go to the "images" tab of the Google search engine, type "Paddington Station," and get actual pictures of the train station. Cool and useful!)
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Spikes dialect
Date: 2004-05-08 02:49 am (UTC)Hee. I'm right there with you. Writing is fun, scary, cathartic, thrilling,mind bogglingly dull and heartbreakingly necessary in turns. I really don't understand it. Got to do it though.
On Spkes dialect, I'd offer but I'm not Southern so I'm not an expert. My beta said something interesting about it (she is English but has lived in the states for a long time)
But the music of the voice, the intonation patterns are still English. I think that's one thing that JM never got right, his pattern is Californian.
So it's more about the music of the voice than the words, which is fine, cos this is written down so you can get away with almost anything. If you want to hear naturalistc London speech watch Eastenders.It's a little exaggerated in places perhaps. You can probably download an episode off a bittorrent site--there are lots of expat geeks in the states at the moment. The stereotype of Londoners in England is that they are very wordy, speak quickly, loudly and attach 'innit' or 'you know what I mean' to every statement. It's a rat-tat-tat accent. The rhythm goes something like this:
de dadada dadada dadada dah.
The vowels are elongated, bath becomes barth, or sometimes barf. T's and l's pretty much disappear, alright becaomes awroi'. The glottal stop is put to good use.
There is a community on LJ called cheapaschips (I think) that posts English slang words. I haven't looked at it because, hello, English, but it might be useful. And I think that's all I have to say about that. Good luck!
Re: Spikes dialect
Date: 2004-05-08 06:53 am (UTC)Mmm, thanks for the advice and info.