Working without a net on the net.

[alexandraerin]

I've got another blog post in me about self-reflection and the limits of it (or rather, why it's good for it to have limits), and I realized halfway through that it'd be better as two blog posts. So I'm making this one first, because this is the "action item" portion of it. But the other part was meant as pre-amble for this, so if this seems like it's out of the blue... well, it wouldn't have, if I'd put up the other post first.

But I didn't.

So it is.

So anyway, here's a thought I'm having about my work. Let's do this "embrace this technology" thing a little bit more... let's take the original idea, "working without a net", "writing as performance art", etc., and go one step further with it.

Basically, I want to let you folks watch me write. Not like sit there and watch the cursor move across the screen, or watch a YouTube video or live streaming thing of me sitting in front of a keyboard tapping away.

What I mean is, I put up the stuff I'm working on as I'm working on it. Not in the spot where it's going to end up. That would be confusing, some people won't want to see anything but the finished product, and it'd screw up things like RSS feeds and the like because the content wouldn't be "new" any more when it was finished. Also, it would mean the first big bulk of comments on any story would be its unfinished state, which is undesirable... as would be wiping out those early comments.

So the questions are:

1.

Is there value in this idea?

I think so. I think people might find it interesting. I think it would help keep me "on task", both in the sense of making me more aware of how much time I'm spending trying to perfect a 300-3000 word piece of writing and in the sense that it would require and engender more confidence in what I'm writing. I've been scrapping a lot more writing than I used to, and I don't think it's because it's bad, I think it's because I'm too caught up in analysis. My first idea was to start writing smaller chunks again, but then I realized I'm also doing this on the smaller pieces

But this is the thing: no matter how nervous you are when you're waiting in the wings, once you step out into the lights it's do-or-die, you know? But if nobody's interested in reading it, then it's not going to go anywhere.

2.

Having established that, what would be the best way to do it? Use some document-sharing tool? Make blog posts somewhere else (the right now-disused AlexandraErin.com)? Just do it here? Is there some site/tool out there somebody knows about that's more geared for this sort of thing, that incorporates publicly viewable comments?

If I go forward with this, then once I've got the space established for it I'd do the following: any smaller story segments (like Tribe and the others) would probably go up there when they're more or less finished, so people can see the "draft". If I'm stuck on an ending or missing a key line of dialogue, I'll put it up with that note and move on to something else instead of sitting there in frustration or throwing it out and starting again. With longer things, I'll put it up piecemeal as I finish. The whole story of a TOMU chapter might not make it up there... I might redact spoilers or withhold the ending until the final version goes up. But I might not. The whole thing will be "CAUTION: SPOILERS!"

Note that this isn't about letting the Viewers At Home vote on how the story goes or anything like that. I'm not giving up my driver's seat. I'm not really capable of giving that up. Really, I expect that with anything I put up anywhere some people will love it and some people will hate it and those two groups will vary in membership with each thing I post, so all I'd be looking for in terms of confidence-boosting feedback is that things go about the way I expect them in that department.

So... thoughts? Suggestions?

Comments

[mpilnick.livejournal.com]

How ugly IS the process? I bet a ustream would be pretty popular, at least during your productive phases. You'd have to hide the chat from yourself...

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's ugly at all, honestly. I convince myself the end result is ugly too often. But a camera would make me feel inhibited, and inhibition is the death of creativity for me... inhibited in the sense of "shy" and inhibited in the sense of feeling constrained. When I'm working, that often means I'm getting up and moving around.