Houston we have a problem: Points of re-entry

[seraphcelene]

Ok. So after admitting to wrongness -- if you don't know don't ask because I am mildly embarrassed by the whole thing -- my next question is very basic, straight forward and only mildly academic around the edges borders. (See how I have a sense of humor.)

How do you re-enter a fic that you've been away from for a significant amount of time?

I'm writing something for the lynnevitational. It's a piece that I started months ago and put aside because I had no real idea of where it was going. kormantic and tkp helped tremendously by doing a preliminary beta and gave me a list of questions and notes that have since helped me to focus my ideas for the fic. However, and here's the really jacked up part, I've lost the rhythmic thread.

You guys know how I write. There's is, with few exceptions, always a heavy sense of rhythm in my writing, a cadence. The Angel post-NFA piece that I'm working on is a typical example of my writing. Heavy on imagery, lots of rhythm. Problem is that now, although I can *hear* the pattern, I can't seem to reproduce it.

I know where I want to go, but I can't quite seem to get there. I can't figure out how to *say* what I want because I'm having difficulty mimicking the pattern already in place and that is how I write. I *hear* everything and it sounds a certain way.

So, I need suggestions. What do you guys do to re-connect with a piece that you've been on hiatus from?

I've tried music. I did have some luck with the soundtrack from The Last Temptation of Christ and also with some of Enigma's earlier tracks. Tonight I'll give the Xena soundtrack a shot and perhaps Lily and the Lamb. I think I've also got a tape of Balady music from a Belly dancing class I took awhile ago. I also have the soundtrack from Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love. Somehow, I feel that the Lord of the Rings soundtracks might be useful, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, I'd like to know what do you guys do to break through that wall of time and distance to re-capture the sen for a fic that you've been away from.

Help me out.

Comments

[minim_calibre]

I re-read it. Start tweaking the existing material some. See where I feel things are missing, and add little bits. To kind of go to the music metaphor, if it feels kind of familiar, I'll hum along with the bits until I finally remember the hook.

Weirdly, it also kind of helps to retype some of it.

[seraphcelene]

I like the idea of re-typing. Maybe that will re-establish the pattern. Hmm.. Will definitly give it a try.

Thanks!

[lettered.livejournal.com]

The main thing for me is to start writing again. Most times I write--but especially things with poetry and rhythm, that is, when I'm trying to be artsy--the beginning gets chopped off. I have to write myself *in* to something. I find that if I just sit down at the piece and just start writing down my ideas, the ideas narrow from very general into very specific, until the "ideas" are so specific that they are actually words that can fit in the fic. Then I go back and chop the lead-up off.

I've also found sometimes when I do this, I *don't* need to chop off the lead-in. Sometimes, I find a break in the rhythm is good for the piece. It is possible, after all, to get so caught up in the words themselves that a piece feels clausterphobic. In fact, sometimes, even when I am writing smoothly, I come to a part that I realize should duck back out of the style in order to later slip into it again...I close all the docs I have open and start on a fresh doc as if I'm writing something completely new. After a while writing on that, I gradually narrow into the previous style again, and then I go paste the whole thing in the story.

So, I know all that sounds freaky, but yeah, I find it's entirely possible to overwhelm people with style. This is how I wrote my 5 Ways NFA Didn't End piece. I got out of it and then got back in, over and over again. It felt like this:

\/
/\
\/
/\

This probably makes no sense to anybody but me.