Part-time Ghost

It's already been more than a week since I last posted here? I guess that's the thing about being unemployed in summer; you don't actually end up doing much, for a variety of reasons. Personally I've been sleeping badly, and not managed to muster up much energy to actually Get Shit Done.

Notable exceptions would be monday this week, when I went shopping for new art supplies. This was swiftly followed by an overwhelming sense of guilt, because art supplies aren't cheap and I don't feel like I'm good/productive enough art-wise to deserve them. :/

Still, I have some sketches/linearts lying around I need to finish, and a Doctor Who-based illustration project in mind I'll probably post more about soon, because I'll probably need some outside input. It involves water colours and lots of Wikipedia articles.

I also cleaned my room for the first time in... months. Because I'm a mature and responsible adult. Now my room is actually a place I want to spend time in (!). We celebrated Midsummer this week too, but it was unusually low-key for us this year; we stayed at home all day, ate good food, and I listened to my sister wailing in fan-agony about the Hannibal finale.

But other than that, I've mostly been reading, watching Doctor Who and listening to one or two audio plays. I feel like I should get around to writing reviews, even just quick once like last summer (what happened to those, anyway? I got halfway through the 80s and then I forgot) but my default state of emotion these days seems to be "meh".

Actually, I should get around to writing anything at all. I haven't touched my fic folder in two months, which is just sad.

Perhaps I should make another one of those bunny hatch posts. So even though I'll never get around to writing them all maybe someone else will at least no one can fault me for a lack of creativity.

Because I need to stop procrastinating as well as add some organisation to my increasingly busy life.

For someone who has been writing for almost as long as she's known how to, I recently realised that I've actually never written a proper chapter fic. Sure, I've tried, but never successfully. Or I've deliberately avoided it because I've been under the impression that without knowing the ending I can't write a proper beginning, or manage an overall plot/theme.

So if my fellow fic writers have any advice, I'd love to hear it. Do you finish the entire story before publishing separate chapters? Do you keep notes while writing, or have you done avid planning beforehand? Do you even know where the story is going to end up when you start writing?

I keep worrying I'll somehow lose sight of the overarching plot if I focus on separate chapters, or not give the side characters enough to do, etc (especially since I usually write from one character's PoV). On the other hand, I worry about never finishing at all, as I tend to be easily distracted by new shiny plot bunnies.

I'll probably look for a bit of advice online as well, but fic writers have a pretty unique experience in that they can publish several chapters at separate times. And... I just don't know how to go about managing an epic!fic I've mostly finished already, but have a lot of editing to do and some key parts left to write (most notably the beginning).