periakman

[periakman]

Due to multiple issues I do not intend to return to this account, apologies.

[periakman]

sometimes being a writer is realising that you can write the most self indulgent, soft moments between two characters and no one can stop you

[periakman]

…Just storing this where I won’t lose it.

(transcription: “Today’s not-so-vague writing vaguetweet: Wordcounts & daily time “worked” are useless as metrics to judge the value, success or validity of your work (or others’). Someone dictates process to you? Kick them to the curb and get on with writing in your own way and at your own pace.”)

(For those who’ve missed it: today our buddy John Scalzi shared this tweet –

…to which there were numerous salutory responses. My favorite:

…So anyway: back to work. (With the day’s moral, if it needed one: Ignore the writer!baboons showing each other how big their daily wordcount is / how many hours they worked today / how red their butts are. Do your work, get writing done, however you do it, and let that speak for you.)

[periakman]

“I’m finally going to write! I have a great idea!”

[periakman]

Being my own fandom by making a timeline of a certain interlude protagonist

[periakman]

ye

[periakman]

obsessed with the description of the fabric of the lothlórien cloaks... how could you try approaching this effect irl? I think shot silk, probably chameleon tafetta but with four instead of three colours somehow? Here's an explanation of chameleon tafetta, a very difficult to produce type of fabric.

light but warm silken stuff that the Galadhrim wove. It was hard to say of what colour they were: grey with the hue of twilight under the trees they seemed to be; and yet if they were moved, or set in another light, they were green as shadowed leaves, or brown as fallow fields by night, dusk-silver as water under the stars."

Only silk probably wouldn't be warm enough, so perhaps lined with something warmer on the inside? Hm. OR somehow chameleon tafetta technique but in wool though given the description of the technique in link I don't know how well that could work? Textile people help...

Either way not quite like the movie cloaks.

[periakman]

This is your friendly reminder that the last few years have been hard, and if your writing has taken a toll as a result, that doesn’t make you any less of a writer. Maybe you went on hiatus. Maybe you got burnout. Maybe life gave you shit and other things took priority. It doesn’t matter. Writing is hard, so when life is hard, you might end up slacking in the writing department. And that’s okay. There’s no rule that says you have to write even when life is shitting on you. You’re allowed to take a break, and you can start writing again when you feel ready.

[periakman]

[true crime podcaster voice]

what's up guys? today we're going to be looking into another unsolved disappearance, and this time, it's the case of Phillip J. Fry. Phil disappeared on New Year's Eve 1999, and you better stay tuned, because the theories on this one range from Y2K to alien abductions. but first, let me tell you about Squarespa—

[periakman]

There’s more villain discourse in my activity bar from various posts, and something that I think sometimes gets overlooked:

Villains, esp in sci-fi/fantasy, are very frequently “writ large”—that is, they have qualities that are familiar and might even be sympathetic, but projected larger than life. Identification with them is often not identification with their literal actions, but with the familiar qualities that feed the large-scale behaviour.

The experience isn’t necessarily about them literally doing what identifying audiences wish they could or find cathartic. Rather, identifying audiences are often drawing a connection between much smaller-scale actions or impulses that are familiar, sometimes from personal experience, and the deliberately epic scale of the villains’ misdeeds.

This is, to be clear, not always the reason for identification or sympathy or always the thought process that goes on for villain fans. But sometimes it is! I would even say that a lot of the time, it is! And these fans’ connection of RL struggles to OTT fantastic villainy is frequently intended by the creators, not simply fannish projection (though I think it can be valid even when not intended by the creators).

This is all meta-level stuff; there’s usually a simultaneous in-story logic going on in which the villains’ actions are absolutely taken literally. But fiction does not only operate on the in-story level and I think a lot of the discourse around villains is so focused on the literal that it skims right past the more complex ways that people often relate to villains.

[periakman]

Got chapter 12 of part 3 up :D

[periakman]

for the record my problem with original lore is not coming up with it, it's that when i was 10k into this and throwing out made up country names i did not anticipate reaching the point 170k in where there would be an extended digression into comparative linguistics

[periakman]

In two months this is how much my todo list has changed RIP

so this has been my current editing hell

[periakman]

WHILE understanding that a hereditary ruling class is a fuck-stupid thing to have IRL, I have no intention of leaving off reading and writing about secondary-world nobles and/or royalty. It lets you elevate family drama to extremely weird levels and really raise the stakes on questions of obligation, tradition, inheritance, and being tied into a job you actually might fucking suck at. Feels like all my life I’ve been seeing finger-wagging about how it’s more virtuous to write about regular folks, and how dumbass fantasy fans just project themselves onto princes and princesses because they’re in denial that their ancestors did physical labor, and I’m like, “irrelevant. Sometimes you just want to see sibling rivalry escalate to stabbings”

[periakman]

Write for yourself.

Write to see the characters you can't find anywhere else.

Write to see that trope written just the way you like it.

Write to see yourself improve and grow everyday.

Write without the burden of perfection.

Write without the weight of others' expectations.

Write without fear.

Write with practice.

Write with purpose.

Write with passion.

Write for you and only you.

[periakman]

any last words mr. bond?

[periakman]

Fan fic authors are not professional writers.

Expecting them to be perfect and never make mistakes is setting yourself up to be an asshole.

Do you know how long it takes to write and publish a 60k novel for most published authors? Years. Plural.

That includes time spent writing multiple drafts and doing research and multiple rounds of edits. Access to a professional editor, and the ability to hire sensitivity readers. The list goes on and on and on.

Fan fic authors owe you nothing. They are churning out multiple novel length fics (or the equivalent in one shots) a year while still holding down school/jobs.

And you’re gonna jump down their throats because they wrote a pairing differently than you prefer??

Shut the fuck up.

Tags exists for a reason. Read them and move on if the fic is not for you.

I mean really. We all just lived through fucking 2020. Let people enjoy their FAKE gay porn in peace.

Jfc.