My Writer's Diary for "Goblet of Fire"

[Ithiarel]

Since this is my very first long piece of fanfiction, not to mention my first Harry Potter fanfiction, I thought, I'd keep a diary on my writing progress.

Mostly, it's meant to help me organise my thoughts and ideas, but maybe a recount of my experiences will be helpful for others who are planning to write an RtB fic.

As a side benefit, it will keep you (my readers) informed on how my writing on this story is progressing, and how the individual chapters are coming along.

Feel free to comment with tipps, advice, questions and any other sort of commentary you feel is needed. I'm thankful for all the feedback I can get. ;D

[Ithiarel]

Progress: Writing Chapter 1 - "Meet the Founders"

This afternoon, I spend three hours sitting at the marina, watching the kind of yachts and boats I will never own, and I managed to write 12 pages of dialogue and assorted notes for the first chapter.

I'm trying a new writing approach right now, which means that I write the dialogues in script form and just add everything that happens actionwise as stage directions and summaries.
This takes some getting used to. But I've been told by a friend that the approach works great for her, so I figured I'd try it out. And, indeed, my inner editor was surprisingly tame today.

So, tonight, I'll sit down and start writing the whole thing into real story format (expanding on the narrative parts and rephrasing the dialogue parts were needed) while I type it into Word.
Added to the 7 Word pages I already have for this chapter, I expect this chapter to end up being around 20 - 25 pages long.

Afterwards, I'll have to take a good long look at the dialogues themselves again. I would love for the Founders to speak in the dialects of their homes - or at least somewhat in dialect. The idea that the Founders of Hogwarts (the ones that every witch and wizard looks up to), speak in dialects considered common or even uneducated by todays standards, is simply too delicious to pass up. I've even decided on which dialects:
- Scottish for Rowena
- Welsh for Helga
- Cornish /West-Country for Godric
- Norfolk for Salazar
The problem now is, that (a) I don't know anyone who speaks the latter two, and (b) how much of the dialects do I put into direct speech? Too much of it, and people will have trouble understanding what is said. Too little, and I could just as well leave the whole thing out. Right now, I'm tending to just choose two or three characteristics of each dialect and just run with it...

[Ithiarel]

Chapter 1 is at about 4k words now, and not even remotely done.
*sigh*

I'm seriously contemplating sending this first part off to my beta's already, but that would mean, posting the chapter in two parts...

Unfortunately, I won't have much time to write on the weekend. And I'm still fighting with the character's dialects. So, who knows when I'll be able to finish the complete thing?
I could make take the easy way out and just have the books fall from the ceiling or something, but that feels like cheating. I want to do this right. And that includes writing a "proper" beginning to the story...

[Isilarma]

I know the feeling :/ Just take your time; I'd much rather wait a bit longer and read a really interesting beginning, than have a quick update and an introduction where things magically appear. That's boring. Your prologue was really good, and I'd love to see a detailed explanation of how the Founders get there and how they start to read.

So yeah, don't worry about taking ages. I wrote my introduction over the course of about two months and completely changed it three times, but was worth it in the end. I'll read it whenever it's posted.

Good luck

[Ithiarel]

Thanks.

I think, I'm going to take the time I need.
The first 9 pages deal solely with simply getting the Founders and the students together in one room, and now I'll have to get them started on reading the book. And, to be fair, Harry still doesn't actually believe that these four adults really are THE Founders of Hogwarts... So, that might take a while, too.

Also, it has become glaringly obvious to me over the last days that I suck at writing overly serious stories. So, I'm going to just take the humorous route. *shrugs*
It's a lot more fun to write anyway. ;D

[Isilarma]

Yay! I love humourous stories, but I suck at writing them. I'm really looking forward to reading yours.

I can't wait to see Harry's reaction to the Founders. I think disbelief would a fairly understandable reaction in those circumstances

[Ithiarel]

I was gone over the weekend, but now I'm back home and ready to finally finish writing this b****** first chapter. There's only one scene missing. Unfortunately, it's avery long scene. *sigh*

Hopefully, I'll have it finished by Wednesday. Because, let's be honest, there are a lot of other things I'll need to work on - first and foremost, I'll need to develop a rpg adventure for Doctor Who.
But my actual list of "stories" to re-/write is now officially 10 items long. It can't go on like this! If I don't get a grip on this procrastination-problem, I'm going to drown in half-finished stories...

How does everyone else handle sudden bouts of procrastination?

[Ithiarel]

Today, I finished chapter 1.

I've send it to kuma and eskimorock. Both have kindly agreed to betaread for me. After they give their feedback, I may need another day to work in their recommendations, but I'm fairly certain that the chapter will be up next week.

[Ithiarel]

Kuma and eskimorock are really fast readers. Not that I'm complaining, mind. Thanks for their great support, the first chapter is now up.

The next chapter will be a pure "reading" chapter, so hopefully that will be a bit easier to write...

[Ithiarel]

I'm really busy writing a roleplaying game adventure right now. The deadline for that is on Saturday, so I'll continue to write "The Founders at Hogwarts" at the beginning of next week.

With so much going on in RL, I had to prioritise. Sorry.

[Isilarma]

No worries, we all know how annoying Real Life can be. I'm going away myself tomorrow so I'm not going to be able to post anything for a couple of weeks.

Good luck with it all

[Ithiarel]

Thank you.

Where are you going? I hope you'll have fun.

[Isilarma]

Thanks. I'm off to Cyprus to visit family. We haven't been in about three years so we're all very excited about it, but the nearest computer with internet is in the town about 40 minutes away. So I'm not going to be on much, if at all. I've packed plenty of notebooks though, and I've got lots of ideas for scenes and oneshots planned out that I can finally get written.

[Ithiarel]

That sounds great. ;D

Sometimes it's good to take a break from the internet. I try to do that once a year, too. The first few days are always hell, but after a while (when the immediate internet withdrawal is over) it's great to feel everything going more sedately for once.

[Isilarma]

It is going to be an amazing holiday. It's going to be strange not being able to check for ff.net emails, but other than that I'm quite looking forward to the break. I'm not going to stop writing though; I honestly don't think I could at this point.

[Ithiarel]

Strangely, what I miss most in my "internet free" weeks is always Google. I gusee, I've become so used to simply looking up stuff there, that I always get stuck when I can't access it. ;D

Emails, I can live without. But take my Google-Access away and I'm reduced to a helpless crybaby. *snort*

Have fun on Cyprus. And enjoy the good weather there. ;D

[Ithiarel]

I started writing the second chapter today. It's slow going.

I keep forgetting the characters I have in the room, and there are only eight! I have no idea how writer's manage who have the whole Great Hall reading...

And some really weird plot bunnies for Stargate fics keep dancing around me. So, I'm kinda writing those on the side now, too...