What's a hickey?

Fic for Lenny Week Day 4: Kids/Babies!

The Parenting Retrospection

gsxdoug

R&R'ed!

Tensor

R and R'd doug

R & R'd

FoxPhile

I wasn't sure I was going to manage another one. This week of daily story writing has been fun, but a bit of a challenge! But a fun one

At any rate, here's the next one, for Day Four: The Twin Turbulence

ETA - Katie, Brit and gsxdoug - you've been r&r'd

WeBuiltThePyramids

Alright, this is the fanfic thread so I'm sharing my woes.

I've found it so hard to write lately. And Lenny Week was supposed to help me, but...I feel like all these scenarios have been done to death, and I'm really struggling with originality for these prompts. And my creative process is shutting down in response to that.

TerribleWaitress

Even if a scenario has been done to death, write it anyway - chances are, what you write will be completely different to whats been written previously - and out of that, you'll probably think of something else. With Lenny Week, I don't read anybodies until I've put mine up because last year I found myself worrying too much that other people have done something similar, and not knowing has made it so much easier. I just write whatever first pops into my mind at the prompt word and hope for the best rather than actually thinking about it. Dunno if any of that helps? You've been writing longer than me so those are just my 2 cents so they may not actually be of any use

FoxPhile

I agree with TW - don't worry if something seems to have been done to death.

First - as fans we have voracious appetites for this stuff, otherwise things like Lenny Week would never work.

Second - Despite these being standard or common themes, it's unlikely that what you write will be so similar to something else that it would seem redundant or boring. In part this is because, again, fans can't get enough. But it's also because we each have unique perspectives and experiences and preferences that we draw upon when we write.

A few weeks ago, Phanta posted a similar lament because she was inspired to write a post-SIK fic, but was concerned that she could not do anything original. Apparantly she was convinced to write it anyway and the result was a superb examination of Sheldon's mindset in the moments and days that followed. Of course, there are other post-SIK fics that are also wonderful, and also delve into Sheldon's thoughts. But this one had it's own twists and observations that made it unique and enjoyable.

If no one wrote about subjects like Weddings and Babies and any of a number of other common themes in drama and comedy, there would be very little new fic to read - and few new episodes of any television shows and few new movies to go to.

I hope you get past your block. What you've done for Lenny Week so far has been terrific.

WeBuiltThePyramids

Part of it, I think, is that I have written so much LP that it seems like everything I think of doing I've done myself. Especially with babies. I have hundreds of thousands of words of babyfic. And family visits? Still thousands of words on that.

TerribleWaitress

A lot of mine are inspired by trips to the kids section of the library when babysitting and reading various books there that gave me ideas... though that might seem a bit odd on your own I suppose

WeBuiltThePyramids

I don't have time to do any of that. I work 45 hours a week and am taking two classes too. Plus it'd be an hour of driving round trip to be anywhere like that. Worth it for long fic research with no deadline. Not so much Lenny Week.

TerribleWaitress

Ah yeah that's quite far and a lot of hours I've been on so much bed rest this year already I think that's why I've been writing so much. You can always reflect on your own family visits and funny occurrences that have happened and turn that into something!

Musickat18

I have this problem with writing Shamy. I feel like I"ve pretty much written all the stories I can with them, aside from just little ficlets.

WeBuiltThePyramids

And if I get an idea that I'm like "omg must do this!" I want to save it for another long fic, not a oneshot.

TerribleWaitress

You could write the one-shot when you have that feeling and then you have it for the longer fic but you haven't pushed the creative juices away? (Can you push juices? Who knows.)

WeBuiltThePyramids

Do you mean get inspiration to write one thing and use that inspiration to write something else? If you can do that, I'm envious.