community: snowflake_challenge Challenge #8 & #9

[matsushima]

Talk about your creative process.

I saw responses to this challenge start popping up on my flist and procrastinated because my initial response was lol what creative process??? because I've been blocked (in a fallow period*) for a long time now.
*getyourwordsout community locked post

… but while I have been not writing (or not writing much), I've been doing other things and, like I said in that getyourwordsout post linked above, Sometimes you have to let the field lie fallow. I've always written in a "boom and bust" cycle: weeks, months, or years of tremendous output (two more-or-less complete MG novel drafts in the 2015-2016 school year!!) and then weeks, months, or years of pretty much nothing… but it turned out I needed those nothing times, as much as I hate them in the moment. (Honestly time: I am in a fallow period right now.) One of my most creatively successful projects (an interactive poetry chapbook) would not exist without the hours I wasted ("wasted"?) on TV Tropes.

Unlike an agricultural fallow period, these empty times aren't planned and I can't control when they'll start or stop. I could wake up with a picture book draft tomorrow morning… or in two years. I have no way of knowing. I know some things make it worse, like work stress or not taking my meds consistently, but what makes it better? What makes it bearable?

For me, it's hands-on hobbies (crochet, doll photography), low pressure creative work (small/old/indie web design), and the boring (and sometimes expensive) everyday work of maintaining my physical and mental health. (It's hard to write when your teeth hurt.)

Extending the metaphor, some plants are good for the soil. Maybe other kinds of writing will help? Try fanfiction if you usually write original, poetry if you usually write prose, nonfiction if you usually write novels.
… all of which is to say: I got nothin' but I know that being mean to myself won't make me write more so I am doing my best to be patient and kind with myself while the world (and my day job career) is (are) on fire.

Talk about your favorite tropes in media or transformative works.

Like I said ↑, I love wasting time on TV Tropes. One of those low pressure indie web projects I mentioned is a tropes page for my paracosm(/inner world/other world/soulscape/etc).

It would be incredibly time consuming for me to list out every trope that I like, but here my Top Five Favorite Tropes*:
*in no particular order
Please note that this list contains unmarked spoilers for TSUBASA: RESERvoir CHRoNiCLE, Kuroshitsuji(/Black Butler but I'm old), Saiyuki…

• Twin Switch: Fay Yui, my love! Also: I started reading Kuroshitsuji again after a decade of not doing that when I heard that (real!)Ciel was back!!!
• Eye Scream: Fay again. In my defense, Tokyo Babylon/X/1999 was incredibly formative for me and Seishiro Sakurazuka/Subaru Sumeragi was my my first toxic ship and Hakkai is my favorite Saiyuki character.
• Unrealistic Gun Fights: This isn't a TV Tropes trope but I'm using it to cover Guns Akimbo, Gun Fu/Gun Kata, Unorthodox Reload and sniper/sharpshooter characters (Riza Hakweye in Fullmetal Alchemist, Jesper in Shadow and Bone, Vash in Trigun Stampede, the Ka-Tet of 19 in The Dark Tower, Meilin in Kuroshitsuji…)
• True Companions/Found Family: I think every single example of my favorite media has this: The Road to El Dorado, Lilo & Stitch, The Lord of the Rings, Saiyuki, TSUBASA: RESERvoir CHRoNiCLE, The Dark Tower… I am an absolute sucker for found family/true companions.
• Portal Crossroad World/Inn Between the Worlds: I am a former portal fantasy protagonist and low key/high key always looking for my way back to one of these…

I really enjoyed this prompt because I've been thinking a lot about what tropes I like lately. I've always written very quiet stories; my two complete(-ish) middle grade manuscripts are historical fiction friendship stories about kids who aren't famous or fabulously wealthy and don't have superpowers. Lately, tho, I crave adventure and excitement in my writing and I have no idea how to do that, so I've been analyzing my favorite Big Damn Stories to figure out which tropes I like best and how to use them in my writing.

Comments

[athaia]

I always felt lukewarm on Found Family, and then discovered that I basically write nothing else...

The Inn Between the Worlds is such a cool concept/trope, one that I absolutely loved as a teenager. Alas, I didn't write fanfiction back then.