#wip folder cleanout

[questinwitchface]

I need to clean out my WIP folder again. If prior experience is anything to go by, this will take the better part of a day. A responsible adult would wait until they had several uninterrupted hours to complete the task. I'm going to start at 11:30 at night and not go to bed until it's done. :)

[thechaoscryptid]

The Great WIP Cleanout of 2024

(and a general life update because hello, I am indeed still alive)

SO 👏🏻 I've been busy doing pretty much everything BUT writing for the bulk of the year, but especially these past few months I've been absent. There's been a lot of zine work (ended up as a surprise shipping and finance mod on four projects in various stages of completion), a lot of knitting (hats are my favorite things, actually), and I got really into M*A*S*H over the summer (Hawkeye...beloved.....).

Despite the large amount of not-writing, I have been working on SOME things. I published my first erotica story in @/duckprintspress anthology Many Hands, I have a narrative poem in an upcoming poetry zine from Memento Viviere Press, and have been picking steadily at some other short stories for publication and press patreon rewards.

I also have a really, really big creative journey I'm about to embark on, and that means getting serious about what I'm actually going to finish and NOT finish fanwork-wise (as well as doing some major housecleaning in my docs folders so I can go into this with a clear head).

I've got a whole shitload of work in my documents that, realistically, I am not going to finish. I'm either uninterested in the work, the fandom, or some other aspect of the ~process~ and those obstacles are making finishing the WIP more hassle than it's worth. That said, I want to share what I have, because some of it slaps (even though it's old)!

Sooooo over the next week or so, you can expect to see me putting quite a bit of unfinished and abandoned work on AO3 in the interest of utilizing its ARCHIVE function. I'll also be posting a summary to finish Wake the White Wolf - the fic was SO close to my heart for a long time, and I'm really grateful for every single person who's ever been invested, but the style and knowledge gap between when I stopped updating and now is just. Impossible to bridge (and not something I have the time and energy to do these days).

I'm gonna try and be here a little more too, because I miss interacting with y'all. I think the time away has done me a solid and left me a bit more centered, more able to get in touch with myself and really hammer out my next steps in both writing and life in general.

(and you can DEFINITELY count on me still doing fanwork, even though I've been moving toward more original stuff ❤️❤️)

[porcupine-girl]

Actual photo of me:

As part of this effort I’m (sort of) doing the WIP cleanout @bettsfic outlines in her most recent newsletter.

I went through my WIP folders and moved a bunch of stuff I’d forgotten even existed to my “unlikely to ever happen” folder, plus made an “other” folder within each fandom folder into which I tossed all the little scraps of ideas that don’t even quite count as WIPs just to unclutter things a bit. (This is all within my one huge fic scrivener doc.)

Then I did an inventory of what was left, recording how long each one currently was & about what % complete. Then betts suggests calculating your average words/fic posted on ao3 and tossing everything currently less than 10% of that. In the newsletter she notes that this part of the process took her from 18 WIPs down to 9.

It took me from 21 WIPs down to… 21 😅😭

Ftr, if my % completes are accurate (and chances are every single one is underestimating the final length), I would need to write about 350k words to finish all 21 of those.

[laurasauras]

down to 74 docs/folders in my WIP folder after the cleanout of the last couple days!

[blackholeofprocrastination]

Yup...Even MORE from the Island of Misfit Fics

Operation Cleanout My Fic Folders has uncovered a frightening amount of WIPS so...I figured it was time to just call it quits on a few...for my sanity’s sake. This is a dystopian AU I started YEARS ago...and then promptly forgot about lol. I may pick it up again at some point, but for now? This is adieu.

It’s almost impossible to see the road ahead, the asphalt blending in with the inky blackness that surrounds them. There are no other cars and they have not passed a building of any kind in miles. Still, Sansa will not risk turning on their lights. Civilians are no longer permitted to drive and she dreads to think what will happen to them if they are caught.

Stay in your homes.

That’s the public service warning that was broadcast on TV from morning until night before the power was cut. And when Arya found Daddy’s old handheld radio, scrounging batteries from toy cars and smoke detectors to keep it running, the same message repeated.

Arya takes the radio with her everywhere. There is only one station left that is anything more than the crackle of static. It delivers stilted bulletins from the government on a 24hr loop. Arya doesn’t miss one.

She hopes there will be some word that Mom and Robb are all right.

There is a small part of Sansa that hopes for that too, but deep down she knows there is no point. The entire city center, right where Uncle Edmure was hosting his wedding, is ash and rubble now. There were no survivors.

Arya still listens attentively to each detached broadcast filled with words like ‘blast zone’ and ‘enemy units’ and ‘drone attack’ and ‘martial law’.

When the evacuations began, Sansa started to listen too. One by one announcements were made for the neighboring counties, instructing people to prepare to leave their homes. Where they were being taken was never specified, only when they should be ready to leave. As the evacuation notices drew closer, Sansa feared what it would mean for their family.

What if they tried to take Arya or the boys away from her?

Arya might be all right on her own, but the boys? Bran was so quiet about it all, but she knew he was scared. And Rickon? Rickon had just turned three. Still a baby. She couldn’t be separated from them. She wouldn’t.

For maybe the first time in their lives, Arya and Sansa had been of one mind. Together they devised a plan. Before the call for evacuation even came they would leave Winterfell and seek somewhere safe.

Easier said than done.

Sansa glances at where Arya is now curled in the passenger seat, her legs tucked up under her. Without Arya, Sansa knows she never would have had the nerve to go through with this.

It had taken the both of them and Bran to push the car down their darkened street. They barely managed, sneakers skidding along the pavement as they shoved with their full weight. They pushed it five blocks before she finally dared start the engine. It was far enough that it would not be heard from the makeshift base the military had set at the high school. And if any of their neighbors thought to report them? Well, it would not matter now.

They’d never guess where we are headed anyway.

Sansa looks anxiously at Arya again. She is hunched over a crumpled map holding a small flashlight. Sansa’s only been to Jon’s once with Robb, but Arya is confident she’s figured out the right route (one that keeps them on abandoned country roads and away from military checkpoints).

Sansa just hopes they have enough gas to get there. They found the canister Daddy kept in the garage for his lawnmower, and they siphoned what they could from the tank of Robb’s truck. She prays it will last. Jon’s place upstate is a long drive even when you’re not weaving on back roads.

And what if he’s not there? Or worse, what if he turns them away?

During all of their planning, Sansa tried not to think on those dark possibilities, but now, when she’s gone much too far to turn around, all of her doubts come creeping back.

Jon was Robb’s best friend. The two of them had been thick as thieves since they were four. Jon was a fixture at the Stark house during holidays and over school breaks. Sansa had always thought of him as a pesky interloper, but now she hopes those years spent sitting in their kitchen has fostered enough affection for her siblings that he will help them now.

Sansa’s grip on the steering wheel tightens almost painfully. Maybe it is reckless and stupid, but she is betting everything on Jon Snow.

[ao3feed-haikyuu]

Unfinished UshiHina

read it on the AO3 at http://ift.tt/2o2xQqd

by lojo

Hinata wears girls clothes at Ushijima's request.

Backdated to the time of writing and putting it here otherwise it'll never see the light of day. I won't be finishing it & please enjoy.

Words: 904, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Series: Part 3 of WIP Folder Cleanout

Fandoms: Haikyuu!!

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: M/M

Characters: Hinata Shouyou, Ushijima Wakatoshi

Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Ushijima Wakatoshi

Additional Tags: Crossdressing

read it on the AO3 at http://ift.tt/2o2xQqd

[porcupine-girl]

WIP Cleanout progress

Ok, so last we spoke I had 21 WIPs on the list and had identified why each one wasn't finished yet and given each one an excitement score of 2-20. Then I calculated the excitement/words-left-to-write ratio.

The fic with the lowest such ratio is one I started a billion years ago, literally one of the first SPN fics I started, and had never gotten more than maybe halfway through for a variety of reasons. I know I love the shitty first draft thing but most of what I've written here is so old that my writing has changed so much (for the better) that even what I've got would have to be heavily rewritten. So that one finally got tossed into the "unlikely to ever finish/post" folder, which was probably a decision that was long overdue.

Of the next five lowest scores, three were on the "got intimidated" list, and so I set a goal of moving those from "intimidated" to "slow but steady" which probably means outlining them. The other two are SBS that would probably go a lot faster if I had more fleshed-out outlines for them, so that is my goal for them.

Anyhow, I won't go through every fic individually. I've put 3 in a "Later" bin - not ready to dump them in "won't get finished" yet but I am also not going to commit to doing anything with them during this cleanout. That leaves me now with 17 to do something with; I should probably move a couple more to that Later bin.

Of those I have 3 "Intimidated -> SBS", 4 "full outline", one "figure out ending" (once I figure that out it'll be an easy one to finish but I will save the actual finishing for after this cleanout), and 9 "finish". The intimdated->SBS are basically the same as "full outline" tbh, except that one (maybe two) of them probably also involve cutting down the overgrown plot to something more manageable.

So basically I'm hoping to finish 9 fics and outline 7, plus brainstorm the final plot point for one. That's still way too much lol. The "finish" fics have an estimated 67K left total, which again, the most I've ever written in a month is like 45k and that was pre-covid. Although a couple of them I think might have less left than I thought, but that doesn't cut it by 20k.

So I'll need to do another round of adjusting my expectations/goals, but for now I think I might be able to at least power through a couple of the outlines. Which hopefully my post-covid brain will see as more approachable than actually writing, and maybe will get me warmed up for the actual writing.

[questinwitchface]

In the "Never to Be Published" folder, we have:

1 almost completed SamBucky 5+1 Things fic

2 Steve/Thor fics that I adore

1 three-chapter-long rewrite of The Promise of Cheesecake and a Decent Wine in Bucky's POV

I'm sure I'll be adding to this folder later. Part of me wonders if I shouldn't permanently delete some of these WIPs, since I know I'll probably never write them. But I am a hoarder when it comes to my writing (also yarn and art supplies) so I know deep in my heart I won't be deleting anything.

In the WIP folder, we have:

1 SamBucky mission fic

1 Code Lyoko fic my sibling requested AGES ago (me looking at this fic like "she doesn't even go here")

1 Kate/Yelena/Joaquin fic with an entire made up backstory for Joaquin about him bringing his two girlfriends home for the first time

1 SamBucky smut fic about Sam's birthday that I didn't finish in time to post last year OR this year (writing smut is so hard please don't judge me)

1 Kate/Yelena/Joaquin scene that could honestly go into the above-mentioned KYJ fic, so idk why it's a separate doc

Falling/Fallen, which is an active WIP. Funny, it's still saved as "NOT Another Cheesecake" in my WIP folder (I should fix that)

1 Peter Parker/OC fic I was going to write as a spin-off from Pride Brought Us to Bad Decisions, but honestly the whole thing feels cringe now and this one probably needs to be moved to the "Never to Be Published" folder

1 SamBucky cosplay fic that I forgot I had? Why did I stop working on this? I remember loving this one?

3 Samtember fics from last year that I didn't finish in time. Probably should be moved to the "Never to Be Published" folder or completely reworked into something that wasn't so rushed

1 SamBucky breakup and getting back together fic

1 Joaquin rareship fic that I'm kind of nervous to even post what the ship is so we're just gonna call it the Joaquin rareship fic.

The Pirate Fic, which is the only other active WIP I have

The Sequel to The Pirate Fic

Tooth-Rotting Fluff and Angst, which is the very first SamBucky fic I ever wrote, which is 150 k, which will never see the light of day because it's awful

1 Kate/Yelena/Joaquin getting together fic

1 Halloween fic that needs heavy revision to change the main ships

Wow, that's so many fics. Typing them all out like that, like wow. I should've started this process earlier. Now to get to reading so I can decide what's moving to the "Never to Be Published" folder and what's staying in the WIP folder. Also maybe I should split my WIP folder into "SamBucky" and "Other"?

I need to clean out my WIP folder again. If prior experience is anything to go by, this will take the better part of a day. A responsible adult would wait until they had several uninterrupted hours to complete the task. I'm going to start at 11:30 at night and not go to bed until it's done. :)