ao3commentoftheday

[ao3commentoftheday]

Rustic Hospitality AO3 site skin

This started off steampunk and then took a turn to more just rustic. If you like the look of this one and want to give it a shot, you can find the code and installation instructions on github.

oh! And I commented the code, so if you want to change anything (like remove the background image etc) you should be able to.

[ao3commentoftheday]

how to change the colours of the fic blurb icons with a site skin on ao3

The icons are all images, and images can be modified using CSS filters. I changed these by rotating the hue (moving the colour around a colour wheel) until each icon was a shade of green. I also manipulated the brightness, contrast and sometimes other filters.

The code I used is under the cut. Feel free to copy and modify it for your own site skins! (Note: I grouped together icons that had the same background colour)

I was just eyeballing it and not using any particular tools, but if you have tool recommendations for making the colour choices more precise, feel free to share them in the notes!

Full site skin, including this code, is available on github

span.rating-general-audience.rating, span.category-gen.category, span.complete-yes.iswip { filter: sepia(30%) saturate(60%) brightness(70%) contrast(160%) hue-rotate(40deg); }

span.rating-teen.rating { filter: invert(100%) brightness(130%) hue-rotate(280deg) saturate(40%); }

span.category-slash.category { filter: brightness(150%) saturate(40%) hue-rotate(280deg); }

span.category-het.category { filter: brightness(170%) saturate(40%) contrast(80%) hue-rotate(160deg); }

span.category-multi.category { filter: brightness(120%) saturate(40%) sepia(130%) hue-rotate(80deg); }

span.rating-mature.rating, span.warning-choosenotto.warnings { filter: saturate(40%) hue-rotate(110deg) brightness(80%) contrast(120%); }

span.rating-notrated.rating, span.category-none.category, span.warning-no.warnings { filter: brightness(0) saturate(100%) invert(6%) sepia(52%) saturate(815%) hue-rotate(250deg) brightness(91%) contrast(102%); }

span.rating-explicit.rating, span.category-femslash.category, span.warning-yes.warnings, span.complete-no.iswip { filter: hue-rotate(160deg) contrast(80%) saturate(80%) brightness(120%); }

[ao3commentoftheday]

I'm working on another site skin, and in doing so I figured out a much easier way to recolour the icon set at the top corner of fic blurbs (the 4 icons that show status and ratings etc?)

While I was updating this skin for that feature, I also went in and changed it so that links in the fic blurb's header get darker after you've clicked on them (so you know if you've clicked into a fic before). I changed the link hover background colour to the light green of this skin instead of the red of the default skin. I also updated the colouring on the stats chart on the Statistics page.

All updates have been made on the github link above. If you don't want those changes, then you can ignore this.

Glowy dark mode site skin

🎼 You would not believe your eyes, if 10 million fireflies ended up in the header of your AO3. 🎶

It's been a while since I tried glow effects, but I saw the fireflies and I couldn't resist.

CSS code under the cut.

#header {   background-image: url("https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2022/10/19/16/56/fireflies-7533056_1280.jpg");   background-repeat: no-repeat;   background-size: cover;   background-position: center center;   background-color: #152623; }

#header .heading {   height: 15em; }

#header .primary {   background: #0d1d1f;   box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #f9f6ce; }

#header .logo, #header .heading sup {   visibility: hidden; }

#header .heading a {   color: #152623;   text-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #f9f6ce; }

.event .userstuff {   background: #425e50;   border: 1px solid #f9f6ce; }

#outer.wrapper {   background: #0d1d1f;   color: #f9f6ce; }

#main a {   color: #8c9b76; }

#greeting a.dropdown-toggle, #header .actions a {   color: #f9f6ce !important;   text-shadow: 0px 0px 3px #152623; }

#greeting .menu, #header .dropdown .menu, #header .dropdown:hover a {   background: #0d1d1f;   box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #f9f6ce; }

span.submit.actions input.button {   display: none; }

#greeting img.icon {   display: none; }

#header #search .text, .search [role="tooltip"] {   background: #0d1d1f;   box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #f9f6ce;   color: #f9f6ce !important;   border: 1px solid #0d1d1f; }

form.search input[type=text], form.search input[type=submit], .autocomplete div.dropdown ul {   background: #0d1d1f !important;   border: none;   box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #f9f6ce;   color: #f9f6ce;   display: block; }

#header #search .text {   width: 7em; }

.notice, .comment_notice, .kudos_notice, ul.notes, .caution, .error, .comment_error, .kudos_error, .alert.flash {   background: #f9f6ce;   box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #f9f6ce !important;   color: #0d1d1f;   border: none; }

.notice a, .comment_notice a, .kudos_notice a, ul.notes a, .caution a, .error a, .comment_error a, .kudos_error a, .alert.flash a {   color: #506957;   font-weight: bold; }

.splash .module h3 {   color: #f9f6ce;   border-bottom: 2px solid #f9f6ce; }

.splash .favorite li:nth-of-type(2n+1) a {   background: #f9f6ce;   box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #f9f6ce;   color: #0d1d1f;   font-weight: bold;   font-variant: small-caps; }

.splash .favorite li:nth-of-type(2n+2) a {   color: #f9f6ce;   font-weight: bold;   font-variant: small-caps;   font-size: 110%; }

.splash .favorite li:nth-of-type(2n+1) a:hover, .splash .favorite li:nth-of-type(2n+2) a:hover {   color: #f9f6ce;   font-weight: bold;   font-variant: small-caps;   background: #425e50; }

#footer {   background: #425e50;   color: #f9f6ce;   border-top: 3px solid #f9f6ce;   box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #f9f6ce; }

#footer a, #footer .heading {   color: #f9f6ce; }

.actions a, .actions a:focus, .actions input:focus, .action:focus, .actions li input, .actions li input[type="submit"], input[type="submit"], .actions li label, ul.navigation.actions li a, .action:link, .actions a:link {   background: #425e50;   border: 1px solid #f9f6ce;   color: #f9f6ce;   box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #f9f6ce;   border-radius: 5px; }

.current, #dashboard .current {   background: #f9f6ce !important;   color: #0d1d1f !important;   box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #f9f6ce !important;   border-radius: 5px; }

#dashboard.own {   border-top: 5px solid #f9f6ce;   border-bottom: 5px solid #f9f6ce;   box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #f9f6ce; }

#dashboard a:hover {   background: #0d1d1f;   box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #f9f6ce; }

#dashboard a {   color: #f9f6ce; }

dl.meta {   border: 1px solid #f9f6ce;   box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #f9f6ce; }

.listbox .index {   background: #0d1d1f; }

.listbox, fieldset fieldset.listbox {   background: #f9f6ce;   box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #f9f6ce; }

form dl, fieldset, fieldset fieldset, fieldset fieldset fieldset, fieldset fieldset dl dl, dd.hideme, form blockquote.userstuff, input, select, select:focus, textarea, span.symbol.question, .own {   background: #0d1d1f !important;   color: #f9f6ce !important;   border: 1px solid #f9f6ce;   box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #f9f6ce; }

.autocomplete li.added, .post .meta dd ul li.added, label, label.required {   color: #f9f6ce; }

span.delete {   background: #f9f6ce;   box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #f9f6ce; }

span.delete a {   color: #0d1d1f !important;   font-weight: bold; }

.ui-sortable li, .dynamic form, div.dynamic {   background: #0d1d1f;   border: 1px solid #f9f6ce; }

.dropdown {   background: #0d1d1f; }

form.verbose legend, .verbose form legend {   background: #f9f6ce;   color: #0d1d1f;   box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #f9f6ce; }

li.blurb {   border: 1px solid #f9f6ce;   box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #f9f6ce; }

.draft {   background: #0d1d1f;   color: #f9f6ce;   border: 2px dashed #f9f6ce;   box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #f9f6ce; }

.draft .wrapper {   background: #0d1d1f;   border: 1px solid #f9f6ce; }

#header h2 {   background: #f9f6ce !important;   color: #0d1d1f;   box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #f9f6ce; }

#stat_chart svg rect:first-of-type {   opacity: 60%; }

#stat_chart g[clip-path^=url] > g:nth-of-type(2) rect, #stat_chart svg g:nth-of-type(2) > g rect:last-of-type, #stat_chart g[clip-path^=url] > g:nth-of-type(2) rect:first-of-type {   filter: hue-rotate(140deg);   opacity: 80% !important; }

.statistics .index li:nth-of-type(2n) {   background: #0d1d1f;   border: 1px solid #f9f6ce; }

.reading h4.viewed, dl.index dd, table, th, dt.child {   background: #0d1d1f; }

#modal, span.replied {   background: #0d1d1f;   color: #f9f6ce;   border: 2px solid #f9f6ce;   box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #f9f6ce; }

h4.heading.byline {   background: #f9f6ce;   color: #0d1d1f; }

li.comment {   border: 1px solid #f9f6ce; }

.comment div.icon {   border-bottom: 5px solid #f9f6ce;   box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #f9f6ce; }

.thread .even {   background: #425e50; }

.unread {   background: #0d1d1f;   border: 5px dashed #f9f6ce !important; }

span.unread {   background: #f9f6ce;   color: #0d1d1f; }

span.indicator::before {   box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #f9f6ce; }

.warnings .tag, .work .warning a.tag, dd.warning.tags a {   border: 1px solid #f9f6ce;   border-radius: 5px;   background: #f9f6ce;   padding-left: 2px;   padding-right: 2px;   box-shadow: 0px 0px 10px #f9f6ce; }

.relationships .tag, .work .relationships a.tag, dd.relationship.tags a {   background: none;   color: #f9f6ce !important;   font-weight: bold;   text-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #f9f6ce; }

.filters .expander {   background: url("https://64.media.tumblr.com/3c89981f933f9f57157d6dcec6fd85a7/94c6737c6db9ad60-e5/s1280x1920/f7557e617a5439c506721bd326580a0cb4c1f8d8.png") left center no-repeat;   color: #f9f6ce !important;   font-weight: bold; }

.filters .expanded .expander {   background: url("https://64.media.tumblr.com/dab095a2fd9387bc1e0c57747ba6b13f/94c6737c6db9ad60-ad/s1280x1920/c1a4e14e0565cdcac5d3e20bebac3ab440f2d607.png") left center no-repeat; }

[ao3commentoftheday]

when the fanart is a series of images and the last panel has a completely different art style to make the ending really *hit*

I love that shit.

[ao3commentoftheday]

I'm just going to throw it out there that insecurity sucks and it makes doing things so damn hard, and if you're managing to do them despite your lack of confidence then you're amazing and I wish you the best 💗

[ao3commentoftheday]

don't judge a fic by its stats

[ao3commentoftheday]

I've been noticing myself doing this recently, so I figured I'd put it out there in case someone else needs the reminder too:

You don't need to diminish yourself in order to make others feel good about themselves.

You can compliment someone else without insulting yourself. In fact, demeaning yourself will probably make it more difficult for the other person to accept the compliment.

You also don't need to disparage your own abilities in order to give someone else confidence. You can be a capable person and support other capable people.

Don't tear yourself down to build someone else up.

[ao3commentoftheday]

first image is a hand holding a book by DH Lawrence titled, "Pornography and So On"

second image is the AO3 header

[ao3commentoftheday]

it's important to pause and remember sometimes that the story is more important than the word count

don't let an arbitrary number get in the way of telling your story the way you want it told

[ao3commentoftheday]

I've seen the same exact scene in 5 different gif sets today and each set was so different from the others

like, the actors were saying the same lines each time, but the way they were divided into gifs, the filters used, the fonts and text colours, the way they were formatted both in the software used and also in the final posts?

all of it showed an individual's time and care and priorities within the scene and it's just so wonderful to see that infinite diversity in infinite combinations that I love so much in fandom

thank you, gif makers, for that extra bit of happiness and wonder in my day ❤️

[ao3commentoftheday]

Thank you for reblogging it and reminding me of my own words. We all need to hear that kindness sometimes, even when it's coming from our own past selves 🥰

If you don’t like your own writing or ideas, or feel frustrated with yourself because of your lack of commitment/discipline or writing ability, or upset because your fics aren’t doing as well as you’d hoped, do you have any advice to how to be kind to be kind to yourself in spite of that?

I think the first thing you need to know, anon, is that you don't have to do anything in order to deserve love. You don't have to earn it. You're a valuable person whether you write fic or not. Whether people comment on your fic or not. Whether you think your writing is good or not. You're still you, and being you is enough. 💗

I'm hearing a lot of what you don't like in your writing, but I'm not seeing anything in your message about what you do like. I want you to set aside some time when you can be alone and uninterrupted, and I want you to think of something you like about your writing.

It can be one character you think you know pretty well. It can be a single line you wrote that makes you feel proud. It can be that one idea you actually do kinda think is sorta cool, even if you haven't written it yet. But I want it to be something you like, not something that someone else has said that they like, and not the number of comments or kudos you got from other people.

If you want to be kind to yourself, you have to listen to yourself (at least a little bit). Being kind to yourself is at least partially realizing when you're being mean too.

Like in your message, you said that you're not disciplined and you lack commitment. That's not a very nice thing to say, and it's also a curious thing to say about a hobby. Hobbies are fun, free time activities that we do for the joy of them. You can still enjoy writing, even if you never finish a single fic.

So where is this desire for discipline and commitment coming from? Why is it making you feel frustrated? Whose voice do you hear in your head when you say those things? Is it your own or someone else's?

What is it about your ideas that you don't like? Are you uncomfortable with the subject matter and you're worried it says something about you that you find that interesting? Or do you think your ideas are too silly for someone else to take seriously? Or do you think you're the only one who would find your ideas interesting?

Let's do an example. You get an idea for a oneshot. It would take maybe 500 words. But you want to write a 100K epic, and this idea would never work for that. Besides, who even reads short fic anyway? No one would care. They all want 100 chapter slow burns with intricate plots where the characters don't even hold hands until chapter 83, but you get so bored when you're writing something that long and it takes forever to get to the end. You try so hard, but you only get a couple of comments per chapter, and you need more comments to give you the energy to finish.

In that example, what you actually want to write is a short little oneshot that might take you an afternoon. A couple days at most. Your perception of what other people want, however, is making you try to take your square peg (oneshot writer) and force it into a round hole (long fic writer). By trying to please other people instead of yourself, you're setting yourself up for a really rough time where you constantly feel like you're not good enough and where you need a LOT of validation from your intended audience to make it all worthwhile.

I don't know what your actual situation is, anon, but I encourage you to sit with yourself for a little while and try to tease out what you want and enjoy about writing and separate it from what you think other people want you to do. Discipline and commitment are easier to come by when you have passion for your project, and you might feel less frustrated by your ideas if you let yourself care about them a bit more instead.

This is a long answer to a short ask and I don't know if any of this helped in the end, but I do hope you'll say something nice to yourself today anon. Something just about you, not about what you do for other people or what other people like about you. What do you like about yourself. I think that's a good start. ❤️

[ao3commentoftheday]

"what's the worst thing you can do as an artist" is not "shade with black" or "not use references" or whatever the worst thing you can do as an artist is hate yourself. and that includes the person you used to be

[ao3commentoftheday]

If you ever have a suggestion for a new AO3 feature, your best way to let them know is to email Support. (I'm just a fan account who knows a lot about the site) You can send them an email through the Support & Feedback link in the footer of the site.

I don't know of any way that you could filter specifically for translations, unfortunately. The best idea I had was to use the Search Within Results box to filter for notes: "other works inspired by" but it didn't work when I just tried it, so I'm not sure if anyone else has an idea. Also, that would get you any related work, not just a translation.

The history one is something I can help you out with, however. If you hit up the About dropdown in the site's header, then go to FAQ, you can scroll down to Unofficial Browser Tools. I'm telling you this because there's lots of stuff there that you might also find interesting. The specific part of that FAQ I want to direct you to, however, is What tools allow me to download my stats and other information from AO3?

In that answer, you can find a link to Flamebyrd's AO3 Statistics CSV Bookmarklet which will download an excel file of any works listing page - including your History.

It's not as convenient as an in-site solution, but it'll get the job done? I really do suggest emailing Support though. Not just to give the suggestion but to find out if there's another resource out there that I haven't personally seen. Support volunteers know WAY more than I ever will 💗 (and they're super nice!)

Filters & Features I REALLY wish AO3 would add:

1) Filter or sort by: fics that have translations into other languages.

If someone took the time & made the effort to translate this story into another language, THERE IS A REASON why. I want to prioritize those!

2) The ability to filter our extensive reading history.

"What's that story I read a couple of years ago that had [insert topic here]? Regular AO3 filters show 4309 options, but I'm sure I only read ONE!"

We have some bookmark filters, but history gives us NOTHING!

@ao3org @ao3commentoftheday

[ao3commentoftheday]

hey, ao3 site skinners? is there a tumblr community or discord channel where you all hang out? I miss having folks to chat to about successes and failures

and also to ask questions when I have no idea why the site does that??

[ao3commentoftheday]

Podfic Appreciation Challenge

So often when we listen to podfic, we forget to go back and tell the creators how much we loved it. This challenge is to encourage people who love to listen to their fanfic to go back and leave a comment or a kudos and tell the recording artist and the author how much you appreciated their hard work. 

Find a podfic you’ve listened to recently and give it some love. I’m sure the creators would love you for it. ❤

[ao3commentoftheday]

The Neurodivergent Writer’s Guide to Fun and Productivity

(Even when life beats you down)

Look, I’m a mom, I have ADHD, I’m a spoonie. To say that I don’t have heaps of energy to spare and I struggle with consistency is an understatement. For years, I tried to write consistently, but I couldn’t manage to keep up with habits I built and deadlines I set.

So fuck neurodivergent guides on building habits, fuck “eat the frog first”, fuck “it’s all in the grind”, and fuck “you just need time management”—here is how I manage to write often and a lot.

Focus on having fun, not on the outcome

This was the groundwork I had to lay before I could even start my streak. At an online writing conference, someone said: “If you push yourself and meet your goals, and you publish your book, but you haven’t enjoyed the process… What’s the point?” and hoo boy, that question hit me like a truck.

I was so caught up in the narrative of “You’ve got to show up for what’s important” and “Push through if you really want to get it done”. For a few years, I used to read all these productivity books about grinding your way to success, and along the way I started using the same language as they did. And I notice a lot of you do so, too.

But your brain doesn’t like to grind. No-one’s brain does, and especially no neurodivergent brain. If having to write gives you stress or if you put pressure on yourself for not writing (enough), your brain’s going to say: “Huh. Writing gives us stress, we’re going to try to avoid it in the future.”

So before I could even try to write regularly, I needed to teach my brain once again that writing is fun. I switched from countable goals like words or time to non-countable goals like “fun” and “flow”.

Rewire my brain: writing is fun and I’m good at it

I used everything I knew about neuroscience, psychology, and social sciences. These are some of the things I did before and during a writing session. Usually not all at once, and after a while I didn’t need these strategies anymore, although I sometimes go back to them when necessary.

I journalled all the negative thoughts I had around writing and try to reason them away, using arguments I knew in my heart were true. (The last part is the crux.) Imagine being supportive to a writer friend with crippling insecurities, only the friend is you.

Not setting any goals didn’t work for me—I still nurtured unwanted expectations. So I did set goals, but made them non-countable, like “have fun”, “get in the flow”, or “write”. Did I write? Yes. Success! Your brain doesn’t actually care about how high the goal is, it cares about meeting whatever goal you set.

I didn’t even track how many words I wrote. Not relevant.

I set an alarm for a short time (like 10 minutes) and forbade myself to exceed that time. The idea was that if I write until I run out of mojo, my brain learns that writing drains the mojo. If I write for 10 minutes and have fun, my brain learns that writing is fun and wants to do it again.

Reinforce the fact that writing makes you happy by rewarding your brain immediately afterwards. You know what works best for you: a walk, a golden sticker, chocolate, cuddle your dog, whatever makes you happy.

I conditioned myself to associate writing with specific stimuli: that album, that smell, that tea, that place. Any stimulus can work, so pick one you like. I consciously chose several stimuli so I could switch them up, and the conditioning stays active as long as I don’t muddle it with other associations.

Use a ritual to signal to your brain that Writing Time is about to begin to get into the zone easier and faster. I guess this is a kind of conditioning as well? Meditation, music, lighting a candle… Pick your stimulus and stick with it.

Specifically for rewiring my brain, I started a new WIP that had no emotional connotations attached to it, nor any pressure to get finished or, heaven forbid, meet quality norms. I don’t think these techniques above would have worked as well if I had applied them on writing my novel.

It wasn’t until I could confidently say I enjoyed writing again, that I could start building up a consistent habit. No more pushing myself.

I lowered my definition for success

When I say that nowadays I write every day, that’s literally it. I don’t set out to write 1,000 or 500 or 10 words every day (tried it, failed to keep up with it every time)—the only marker for success when it comes to my streak is to write at least one word, even on the days when my brain goes “naaahhh”. On those days, it suffices to send myself a text with a few keywords or a snippet. It’s not “success on a technicality (derogatory)”, because most of those snippets and ideas get used in actual stories later. And if they don’t, they don’t. It’s still writing. No writing is ever wasted.

A side note on high expectations, imposter syndrome, and perfectionism

Obviously, “Setting a ridiculously low goal” isn’t something I invented. I actually got it from those productivity books, only I never got it to work. I used to tell myself: “It’s okay if I don’t write for an hour, because my goal is to write for 20 minutes and if I happen to keep going for, say, an hour, that’s a bonus.” Right? So I set the goal for 20 minutes, wrote for 35 minutes, and instead of feeling like I exceeded my goal, I felt disappointed because apparently I was still hoping for the bonus scenario to happen. I didn’t know how to set a goal so low and believe it.

I think the trick to making it work this time lies more in the groundwork of training my brain to enjoy writing again than in the fact that my daily goal is ridiculously low. I believe I’m a writer, because I prove it to myself every day. Every success I hit reinforces the idea that I’m a writer. It’s an extra ward against imposter syndrome.

Knowing that I can still come up with a few lines of dialogue on the Really Bad Days—days when I struggle to brush my teeth, the day when I had a panic attack in the supermarket, or the day my kid got hit by a car—teaches me that I can write on the mere Bad-ish Days.

The more I do it, the more I do it

The irony is that setting a ridiculously low goal almost immediately led to writing more and more often. The most difficult step is to start a new habit. After just a few weeks, I noticed that I needed less time and energy to get into the zone. I no longer needed all the strategies I listed above.

Another perk I noticed, was an increased writing speed. After just a few months of writing every day, my average speed went from 600 words per hour to 1,500 wph, regularly exceeding 2,000 wph without any loss of quality.

Talking about quality: I could see myself becoming a better writer with every passing month. Writing better dialogue, interiority, chemistry, humour, descriptions, whatever: they all improved noticeably, and I wasn’t a bad writer to begin with.

The increased speed means I get more done with the same amount of energy spent. I used to write around 2,000-5,000 words per month, some months none at all. Nowadays I effortlessly write 30,000 words per month. I didn’t set out to write more, it’s just a nice perk.

Look, I’m not saying you should write every day if it doesn’t work for you. My point is: the more often you write, the easier it will be.

No pressure

Yes, I’m still working on my novel, but I’m not racing through it. I produce two or three chapters per month, and the rest of my time goes to short stories my brain keeps projecting on the inside of my eyelids when I’m trying to sleep. I might as well write them down, right?

These short stories started out as self-indulgence, and even now that I take them more seriously, they are still just for me. I don’t intend to ever publish them, no-one will ever read them, they can suck if they suck. The unintended consequence was that my short stories are some of my best writing, because there’s no pressure, it’s pure fun.

Does it make sense to spend, say, 90% of my output on stories no-one else will ever read? Wouldn’t it be better to spend all that creative energy and time on my novel? Well, yes. If you find the magic trick, let me know, because I haven’t found it yet. The short stories don’t cannibalize on the novel, because they require different mindsets. If I stopped writing the short stories, I wouldn’t produce more chapters. (I tried. Maybe in the future? Fingers crossed.)

Don’t wait for inspiration to hit

There’s a quote by Picasso: “Inspiration hits, but it has to find you working.” I strongly agree. Writing is not some mystical, muse-y gift, it’s a skill and inspiration does exist, but usually it’s brought on by doing the work. So just get started and inspiration will come to you.

Accountability and community

Having social factors in your toolbox is invaluable. I have an offline writing friend I take long walks with, I host a monthly writing club on Discord, and I have another group on Discord that holds me accountable every day. They all motivate me in different ways and it’s such a nice thing to share my successes with people who truly understand how hard it can be.

The productivity books taught me that if you want to make a big change in your life or attitude, surrounding yourself with people who already embody your ideal or your goal huuuugely helps. The fact that I have these productive people around me who also prioritize writing, makes it easier for me to stick to my own priorities.

Your toolbox

The idea is to have several techniques at your disposal to help you stay consistent. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket by focussing on just one technique. Keep all of them close, and if one stops working or doesn’t inspire you today, pivot and pick another one.

After a while, most “tools” run in the background once they are established. Things like surrounding myself with my writing friends, keeping up with my daily streak, and listening to the album I conditioned myself with don’t require any energy, and they still remain hugely beneficial.

Do you have any other techniques? I’d love to hear about them!

I hope this was useful. Happy writing!

[ao3commentoftheday]

you're not taking your love of something and using it as a tool to hurt yourself are you? loving it so hard that you forget to take care of yourself? telling yourself that people only care about you because of what you make and that they'll stop if you take a break? pushing yourself to work instead of rest so that the thing that used to give you joy and energy is now also burning you out, like everything else?

you're not turning your fandom hobby into a job are you? giving yourself deadlines and quotas that you have to meet? focusing on the numbers instead of your enjoyment of the act of creation?