Okay, I always title my fic documents with a number – I find it works for me. Different versions of the same fic have the same number, but with an a, b, c, etc, added. My counting system doesn't always work – sometimes stories split, or become amalgamated, but for the most part, it's an accurate guide. I started off with SG1-001.doc, way back in 2006 sometime, and I'm now up to SG1-207.doc. Of those, I've posted about 70-something (wtf? When?). That leaves 130-odd unfinished Stargate fics.
Some of them are pretty damn long, some are nearly finished but missing some element that I haven't put my finger on yet, some are just a few paragraphs of inspiration, some are rubbish but I like aspects of it and with some editing and rewriting they'll work… there's lots of variation. There's only a few that I definitely consider 'dead' fics. Pretty much all of them I'll go back to, occasionally, and chip away at. Sometimes I do finish ones that I thought I'd never get done, unexpectedly, years later (I did that more than once in a previous fandom, and they tended to be some of my favourite stories that I've written, and often some of the longest).
But surely I don't have 130 WIPs? I have hordes of fics from previous fandoms that never did get finished, and probably never will (well, unless the Wolverine film inspires me – which it might…). The same rule probably applies here, especially as the series has come to an end. My Stargate writing has certainly slowed down (much though I don't want to stop). About a year ago I did a WIP meme (posts here and here), and posted several snippets – two of them have since been posted (amalgamated into one story), the rest are still unfinished. And yet… I have worked on several of them, since then. And, prompted by this meme, I've picked up and worked on three of them again this week.
So, do you consider your WIPs to be things you're actually working on or thinking about? How recently? Do you have a shedload of unfinished fics, too, or am I spectacularly lacking in focus? What's your dividing point between work-in-progress and work-not-going-anywhere?
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chasethestars
chasethestars
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"Crap that I have written that is crap" folder-- this is basically a trash folder but because I can't actually delete anything, they end up here. I have from time to time pulled a line of dialogue or something from one of these for a different story, so I guess it's good that they're not deleted forever, but they will live and die on my hard drive.
"Doomed or dead fic" folder-- this pretty much covers the stuff that you mentioned that's iffy, like fics from old fandoms that at this point I probably am never coming back to. Stuff that I started and I'm not sure about and have sat on it for at least several months without me looking at it or thinking about it... That kind of stuff. It's not bad, not trash-worthy, but will it ever get done? Chances are better that I'll win the lotto.
"WIP" folder-- This is where I have what I would call active stories. They are all things I've add to or edited stuff out of sometime in the last three weeks. To me, these are true WIP because they are being *worked on* in some way. I could be as simple as I'm considering changing the opening line so I open the file up and reread that line every once in a while, fool with it a bit. But there is *something* active about them and active in the last 3-4 weeks.
"Ready" folder-- I don't call these WIP because they *will* get posted. They're at a point where there's no doubt about that, but they maybe need a title, or I'm waiting to get one final OK by my beta, or something.
that's how I look at things, but maybe I'm weird?
So do things ever get resurrected from your "doomed" file, and make the progression to "WIP" or even "Ready"?
Resurrection happens. There was a time when I did go back and finish off a story for an old fandom when I never thought I would. I also recall off the top of my head having a half-written fic that felt like it was dead to me and I stuck it in the doom folder. But then when I watched the end of AoT I had this great idea and was able to take the dead fic, add elements of what happened in AoT, and make it an AoT tag. *shrug* It happens from time to time.