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I actually get discouraged a lot, which is a reason I don't finish as many things as I'd like, or I do finish but I take so much longer than I expected. The only things that get me through, really, are some very severe talks I have with myself or patient cheerleading from my friends.
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On four different sets of shelves (which also hold a few other things) in my room and some boxes in the attic. I think some are in my closet as well.
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Honestly, I would map out what you intend to have happen, skip formally writing it, and keep going. You may be stuck on it precisely BECAUSE it's the first scene. If there's anyway you can pick up a a scene or so later and come back to the beginning when you feel less performance anxiety, try that.
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I don't think there's any answer to this that could be better than the question itself.
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Probably the single most effective thing I've been able to do is disable anonymous commenting. Not that people still won't be asses under a username, but you shut down the people who like to talk shit just because no one knows it's them. People who really, really want to comment anyway either email me or get a LJ account to do so, and considering how many other sites you need an account to comment on, I don't think of the latter as too much of a hardship. (And, again, now people can just comment with Facebook IDs.) If you're having your work published on someone else's site, however, I don't know how much of an option that is for you.
So there's really two issues here: how to minimize the amount of crap you have to take in the first place, and how you deal with the amount that's left. And there are a lot of things you have to think about--is the comment useful to you in any way? (I might not have liked the tone of people bitching that whichever newest Fifteen Minutes was too long, but enough people said it and I took it to heart. Of course, now a few people say that they're not long enough, so there you are.) Is it just thoughtless or cruel? Either look away, if it's not too late, or try to push it out of your head. There's a point where "toughening up" is going to come into play, which is why I have become fond of HATERS TO THE LEFT macros.
I guess a lot of my approach comes from a very analytical perspective--why is this person saying this? If it's a legitimate opinion that only hurts because I wish it wasn't true, then it's worth considering. If it's someone trying to be hurtful with no thought behind it, HATERS GONNA HATE, etc. It takes a lot of effort to work through it, mentally, but the important thing is to remember why you're doing what you're doing (because you love writing, presumably), and that comments either have something in them that you can learn from or they don't, and you handle them accordingly. -
CHOCOBO, I CHOOSE YOU.
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THAT WAS THE JOKE.
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A chocobo. Definitely a chocobo.
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Well, it depends on what the POV accomplishes and how well it's done. I love a good unreliable narrator, which is 1st person. On the other hand, 1st person excludes anything from the POV of other characters--there are a few chapters in the Harry Potter books we couldn't have had (the Prime Minister, the Unbreakable Vow) if it the series had stuck to a single 1st person POV. (Generally the books were 3rd-person limited, i.e., only focused on what Harry knew/saw even though he wasn't narrating, but I think it's easier for a reader to accept an occasional 3rd person shift to a different character than it is to suddenly have one and only one chapter from a different narrator.)
Anyway. I'm rambling. As a writer, I like third person a lot--generally limited, rather than ominiscient, because I like to center it on one character at a time--but I'm writing a side project in 1st person. Honestly, there wasn't a moment when I decided that--I just knew it was going to be a memoir-style narration. So I think POV is really the defining element of your narrative and what you're really trying to accomplish with that particular story. -
I didn't really know how to answer this, so I asked the internets (and proceeded to get 400+ comments of people being very upset over the deaths of various characters). Of those responses, I think these two are the most helpful in terms of actually dealing with this experience:
http://cleolinda.livejournal.com/905792.html?thread=55848256
http://cleolinda.livejournal.com/905792.html?thread=55800640#t55800640 -
Short version: "No, I can't really sell a print edition of this. I mean, I could, but it would be a defective product, because the outbound links and footnote jumps wouldn't work. So there's a reason this has to be an e-book; it's actually sort of interactive. I mean, it won't play checkers with you or anything, but it does stuff dead-tree books can't do."
http://cleolinda.livejournal.com/815178.html
Long version: Well, the footnotes/annotations weren't the problem--it was the hypertext URLs within them. And I had them in the original parodies as well--a lot of times I use links as a way to give credit to the originators of memes or jokes that I didn't actually come up with, i.e., references I'm afraid people will just attribute to me. Within the footnotes, the links were a way to cite my sources (because even if you print a full, extremely long URL in a book, it would be a pain to type all that into a browser when you actually wanted to use it).
I love annotated books, actually. But given that the parodies originally appeared on the internet, and that I have far more readers online than I do in real life (judging by the sales of the 2005 book), the whole annotation project seemed like it was better suited to an online existence. I would not argue this for all annotated books as a genre. -
Sadness.
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I just really feel that two people who love each other should be able to marry and have the accompanying legal and financial benefits. I don't see any reason to make it any more philosophically complicated than that. So I was very glad to see Prop 8 overturned, yeah.
What I think a lot of Prop 8 proponents are overlooking is that this judgment is actually striking a blow for *capitalism.* I mean, consider the wedding industry. Now everyone, regardless of gender or orientation, can be overcharged for flower arrangements and gowns they can only wear once. How, in an economy like this, can you really justify preventing anyone from paying too much for a reception hall? Think of the wedding planners, the florists, the tuxedo renters, the bakers of three-tiered cakes. Overturning Prop 8 could *save their jobs.* Striking down this law helps hard-working Americans and upholds our nation's core beliefs. AMERICA, FUCK YEAH. -
I'm not entirely sure which events we're talking about, since I think 1963 was the year of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing and the Bull Connor terrors, which may be what you're referring to. (Both of which were, in fact, awful and inexcusable.) Racially-motivated violence was hardly unique to 1963--there was plenty of it before as well, but those were the events that turned a tide for the better. I wish racism could be a finite thing that took place in 1963 and then was over. It's obviously still with us, though, as a country. We're just going to have to work towards something better as long as it takes to get there. If you're ever in Birmingham, you may want to visit the Civil Rights museum (which is right by the church). I've been there; it has some amazing multimedia exhibits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Civil_Rights_Institute -
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I'm really... kind of not seeing it.
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Justin Bieber. At all.
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I was mostly just appalled by how completely tone-deaf NBC and Leno seemed to be to the fact that they were not, in fact, the victims in the situation.
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