chaicedtea

[bonesbuckleup]

Just thinking about like a hinge, like a wing and wondered if we could have a tiny preview of tim and dick meeting? As a treat?

Sadly, no, but mostly because that bit hasn't been written yet. 😅

I am physically incapable of writing things in order. So, like, when I estimate I have ~30% of the sequel written, it's not that I have the first third done. It's that I have the opening scene, the ending scene, and then a scatter shot of random paragraphs and bits of dialogue and moments that may or may not make it into the final version, which makes me hesitant to share actual bits. Something that's there and a major plot point right now could be gone in a week.

In the meantime, please enjoy this shitty meme (a companion to this one, if you will) that I made five seconds ago re: the Like a Hinge follow up fic--

[galactic-pirates]

1, 14, 27, 29 for the writers ask:)

Thank you for the ask!! ❤️

1) Do you daydream a lot before you write, or go for it as soon as the ideas strike?

I would absolutely LOVE to be able to write as soon as I get the idea. Back in the day I did sometimes do that and it was free, and fun, and so exhilarating until I ended up with half a dozen WIPs and felt so stressed about it all.

Honestly most of my ideas live on a list for years before they get written - if they ever do. It’s something that depresses me if I think about it, how so many ideas will never be realised because the ideas never stop. It would take me years - a decade or more - even writing solidly to write everything on my list now. To be honest because of this outside when I first get the burst of the idea, I try not to daydream about it too much. I can’t work on everything, all at once, and I don’t want to forget anything and then get that nagging feeling that I had a better idea if I ever do get round to working on it.

14) What is your favorite location and position to write in?

At my desk, on the PC. For my original novels I’ve been planning in Plottr (and have that open on one side) and drafting in NovelPad (open on the other side). I need that reference. I am so unbelievably spoiled having an UltraWide monitor (and before that I had dual screens) that I don’t function well without. I have attempted to write on the iPad and I get frustrated and give up if it’s anything more than a simple oneshot with little/no planning. If I can’t have it open in one window, then it’s a PC job.

27) What area of writing do you feel strongest in?

Revision analysis I think 😛 and yes I do know that’s not probably what the question meant. It’s by far my favourite part of the writing process (planning is second). I feel like I’m quite good at spotting where it needs improvement and then brainstorming how to fix it. I adore that rush when the brain goes like lightning and it all just clicks together. The execution (drafting) as always is infinitely harder. Very much “how do words work” as big picture - plot, character background/arc, theme etc. I am fairly confident but the actual description, making it all happen part, not so much.

To tie back a bit into question 1, this year I decided to reboot a series I first started writing November 2015. I hadn’t written in that world since late 2016/early 2017. I have complete drafts of the first 2 books, and half of book three. Anyway in January I tore into it and replotted Book One, reworked characters, went deeper into the world building etc. I kept the main plot points of the book but where before logic was lacking, I hopefully made it make sense. I then dove into redrafting it (finished end of March) and I’m taking a breath before I analyse it again to see how I did this time.

The thing with revision is it’s a learning practice. I read a lot of craft books but when I’m writing it’s impossible to hold all that information in my head. But when I’m looking at something that exists (aka not a blank page) I can see more clearly. At least I hope I can.

Besides I have been told that this makes me an “editing unicorn” as it’s apparently weird to like the revision part of writing haha.

29) What’s something about your writing that you’re proud of?

Hmm the way the question is phrased that doesn’t sound like “name a story, or name a scene, or a line” etc. it sounds like it wants a skill like the above question. But the thing is I feel very much like I am a work in progress myself with my skills. I don’t feel good enough yet, I hope one day I will, but that day is not today.

But! To go back to what I said about the execution being infinitely harder - I like my ideas. I mean I guess I should they are mine haha, but they are ideas I want to see in the world. I write what I want to read I guess (just dammit why do I have to write it? Haha) but yeah I think I am proud of my ideas. Nothing is new under the sun so I am sure they aren’t revolutionary but they mean something to me.

I’m a firm believer in the power of fiction. I feel like attitudes can be normalised. That if we see a lot of hate that hate becomes normal and more people hate. But vice versa if we imagine a better world, if we see diversity in all its infinite amazing combinations on screen/in books, that can become normal, and prejudice will become less prevalent and there might be less hate. I don’t know maybe that’s naive but it’s what I believe. But yeah I guess I am proud that maybe one day my work can play a small part in that.

[apieters]

When did you start writing your Swashbucklers story?

@tzarina-alexandra

I started writing the story in the summer of 2015.

When I was in college, I loved Game of Thrones, and wanted to try my own hand at writing a fantasy story that read more like a historical fiction novel (my favorite genre) but didn’t have as many naughty bits. I knew I had some latent talent from a high school English assignment, so I started reading blogs about how to write, in hopes of writing the stories set in a fantasy world that I named Heimar.

One piece of advice that professional writers consistently gave to novices was to write fan fiction. Writing fan fiction, they said, helps overcome Worldbuilder Syndrome by giving you preset settings and characters, allowing you to focus on the craft of writing. Since I knew dialogue was a weakness, I decided to try it.

Chris was a character I had been drawing since I was a toddler, and he was something of a fan fiction OC anyway, always doing something like my latest favorite piece of media was describing. I knew him and his personality well, including his proclivity for swashbuckling adventure, so I knew I could write him as a character, and I figured he needed his own story. But which world to set him in? And what would he do?

I’ve always loved Disney films, for their own sake and now as an adult for the clear craftsmanship that goes into them, so I decided that Chris would be part of the Disney world. I then remembered the show The House of Mouse. The conceit was that all the Disney characters were actors and that their movies were just that—movies. They had lives outside the movies and got into all sorts of shenanigans, but their personalities matched up pretty well to their on-screen depictions. So that was the conceit I chose, and I named that “real” world the Disney characters lived in The Magic Kingdom. Then, I realized that if there are actors in front of the camera, there must be people behind the camera.

Enter Maestro Christopher James Carnovo and his assistant partner André Caron, the fight choreographers for all the Disney movies. I was inspired by the book on fight choreography by F. Braun McAsh, fight choreographer for the Highlander TV show, and figured that was the perfect day job for Chris. Of course, being the Magic Kingdom, there would be enough oddball adventures going on in “real life” that may require a sword to solve, and thus the project was born.

It took me about 4-5 years to get about halfway through the plot line I was trying to write. I was definitely making it up as I went, which is great fun. However, I ended up accidentally checkmating my characters—literally any move they made would end in death. On top of that, I didn’t set up a story mechanic that was crucial to the plot resolution in the first half of the story, and there were plot lines that were not developed properly—it was a hot mess. So I decided a year or two ago to start over, but this time with an outline and the benefit of getting to know my character/my incarnations of existing Disney characters.

Thus, Swashbucklers of the Magic Kingdom is currently in the middle of this drafting process. I am currently writing the synopsis of the story in quite a bit of detail, and I decided to start with the second half of the story so I would know how to set everything up in the first half. I have gotten to the final scene and am writing the climactic confrontation between my heroes and the Big Bad (who is anonymous for half the story) in Notre Dame Cathedral. The first “episode” of the plot, however, was left almost completely intact from the original draft, and another massive action sequence in the middle of the story will only receive minor revisions. So I guess you could say I’m starting from Square 2.

Thanks for the ask—although I’m pretty sure I gave you more than you bargained for🤣

[thegirlwholied]

Hi, I just read your story ‘love’s such an old fashioned word’ on AO3 and god it’s such a good plot and so well written, but then I noticed it hasn’t been updated in years, so I figured I’ll ask here if it’s still in progress or abandoned?

first of all, thank you for reading & for enjoying my story enough to come find me! welcome to the few, the happy few; I write what I want to read so thank you for sharing my taste in fan fic <3

and second of all, I can promise it is NOT abandoned and that I do think about this fic often, so it will eventually get finished, if solely because yeah I do want to be able to go back and read a finished version of my own story when I feel like it-

...you may have sensed a "but" coming. There's a few. I've talked about some before, here...

but also. uh. Uh. I am conscious of... a behavorial pattern? A character flaw? Living up to that "procrastination is our Olympic sport" line on the back of my high school senior class T-shirts....?:

Note Glass of Water *is* complete...after just six years of getting kind questions like this about that fic.

Writing is a priority for me. ...Priorities, sorting out, not my natural skill set. But in between real job/social life/workouts/relaxing time, I already don't carve out as much writing time as I mean to.

So when I do... it's the short novel I just wrote under a penname as work for hire; it's winding my way out of the circles of editing hell on the Revise & Resubmit of my original novel (which will hopefully be my debut); it's the new original ideas I keep making notes on because I need to be editing right now but my inspiration's elsewhere...

Every fic I have posted since 2016 was not really intended - they were fits of inspiration directed other than where I wanted it. They were something I couldn't not write. When a story grabs me like that, it takes over every other priority - or, as when the early chapters of LSAOFW rushed out of me in 2020, is my escape from them. But if I don't get it all out in completion before the rush seeps out and the rest of life creeps - or slams- back in... they get bumped under my real priorities. Back to the backburner. Where they are still simmering, for someday. Barring lightning re-striking, which has been known to happen inspiration-wise, for the day I slog through to my intended finish. For a done-with-my-edit, feeling-good-enough-about-my-original-writing-status-to-take-a-fic-break kind of someday, if that makes sense. Close out some chapters both literally & metaphorically.

...this is I'm sure not the answer you were hoping for, but I hope you still find hope in it!

[magnus-sm-writes]

Short Story Update: End of 2023

Believe it or not, when I’m not writing novels, I’m typically working on short fiction. I know I talk a lot about my poetry—and believe me, I do write quite a few poems—, but I’ve been trying to work on my short fiction since October of last year. 

What really got me going was the realization that it had been a full year since my last (and only, as of writing this) short story was published. “The Ghost You Left Behind” was published in Coffin Bell’s October 2022 issue. I got a little panicky about that (I think I cried). I’d put off both writing and attempting to submit short stories for quite some time due to the hectic events of my 2023. In short, I needed to do something. I was getting antsy.

I realized I needed to challenge myself more. Constraints equal creativity for me. It’s about testing myself, pushing to see if I can still write to a prompt or not.

This update showcases two short stories of mine: “The Boy & the Hag Stone” and “Plastic Fangs”. 

Out of both of them, you might think that “Plastic Fangs” was written first. But I actually began “The Boy & the Hag Stone” in October, and didn’t begin writing “Plastic Fangs” until December. What can I say? I’m a spooky boy year-round, except when it’s spooky season. Then I’m just a regular boy.

For both of these stories, I was inspired by visuals. Honestly, for any story, I am inspired by visuals. I don’t think in words; I think in pictures.

For “Hag Stone”, I was thinking a lot about the stone in Coraline. That cool little guy is actually rooted in beliefs that hag stones protected you from evil, and that looking through one could reveal hidden evils. Not exactly how it’s used in the movie, but I’m willing to give it a pass because I’m a sucker for a good Laika movie. I was also inspired by how much I personally hate wearing shoes. (I work in an office, and my coworkers know that I am most focused without my shoes on.)

“Plastic Fangs” was fun because it was my Halloween piece. (Just two months late on that, as always.) I had this idea of a scene where a vampire went as himself for Halloween. Not a very original idea, I know, but I was so inspired that I drafted the story in less than two days, and wrote a second draft in just as much time. 

(This is why I thought I could easily finish 2 short stories in the month of February. Which I did not do.)

These stories flowed from me with an ease that felt almost surreal. It was truly incredible. Perhaps that was because I had just gotten my full-time job and was finally able to stick to a schedule. Writing around an hourly work schedule was difficult for me because it was so unpredictable. However, with my work hours set (and by virtue of that, my writing hours set as well), I can easily finish more writing now than I could before, when I had objectively more time to finish things.

Both of these stories were fun additions to my growing collections of stories with fantastical elements. 

“The Boy & the Hag Stone” is about Rishi, a man who’s a little directionless in life, and the strange man he meets called Banshee. Banshee is the biggest manic pixie dream boy I’ve ever written. Quite frankly, I want to write more for him, even though he’s a very difficult person to write dialogue for. 

It is a little over 5000 words, though it needs some serious revisions. Somewhere in the middle, the style completely changes. I was going for a vaguely fairytale-esque vibe, in honor of the professor who encouraged me to write fantasy once again. It didn’t exactly work the first time around. Hopefully, a second pass will allow me to salvage the idea, because I think it fits the tone quite well. Banshee is mysterious enough to be a small-town folk legend. Funnily enough, that is my ultimate goal in life. 

My quote for “Hag Stone” is from Coraline, of course: “I think most things are pretty magical, and that it’s less a matter of belief than it is one of just stopping to notice.” I think that describes Banshee’s outlook on life perfectly. It’s not only that he himself is magical: he believes the world is full of magic, and that he’s just more attuned to it than the average person. 

What I love most about “Hag Stone” is that Rishi is just as willing to go along with Banshee’s weirdness as I would be. He’s having a far more interesting early-twenties crisis than I did. Mine ended (I think) when I became an administrative assistant; Rishi’s ended when he met a man who could see the future. We are not the same. 

EXCERPTS

His mother had swallowed a hag stone when she was pregnant, they say. He blew through town for a wedding. Though his name was Ian, they called him Banshee. 

Banshee came into people’s lives just as they needed him and left like a ghost. He was wild and unkempt, save for the polished stone around his neck, and had blank, colorless eyes like asphodels. I was a fool to let him sieve through my fingers, but I know I’ll see him again.

For some reason, I thought he would taste earthy. Like a mouthful of dirt, or of sand. Rotting leaves. Or like a mouthful of sugar. Pure and sweet. Like home, turmeric and sweat and heat, or home, wood polish and vanilla perfume and fresh laundry, or home, dust and stale noodles and horse. Banshee tasted like none of that, but somehow made me think of all of it. He tasted like a new home I could slip into. 

Songs I listened to while writing “Hag Stone”:

Haunted House - Florence + the Machine

Nobody - Mitski

Almost (Sweet Music) - Hozier

I Will Wait - Mumford & Sons

The second short story, “Plastic Fangs”, is one of my favorite things I’ve ever written. Marcellus is a vampire on the hunt for a lover and a good meal all in one. He finds that in Abel. But all is not as it seems.

It’s a rather wordy short story at 5800 words. The ending is the shakiest part. That much is typical of how I write short stories. (That is: with no ending in mind, only what feels natural.) 

“Plastic Fangs” was one of those works I finished in two days at most. I actually began writing the second draft before I finished the first. Marcellus experienced such dramatic character development in the middle of the story that I just had to change the beginning because it didn’t fit anymore. Originally, he was just a run-of-the-mill, angst-filled vampire. Now he’s just a strange person that reads people’s diaries to learn their deepest secrets. For a dead guy, he’s full of life.

Abel is a good contrast for Marcellus. He’s a little angsty, pretty lost. Marcellus has had a lot of time to figure himself out; Abel hasn’t. That’s what makes their dynamic so interesting to me, I think. They have different life experiences. 

I’m certain that “Plastic Fangs” will take far less time to edit than “Hag Stone”. For one, it’s already had one round of edits. I also didn’t take any risks with the prose. It’s a pretty typical example of my style. I could see “Plastic Fangs” and “The Ghost You Left Behind” taking place in the same world. They have the same sort of vibe to them. 

The quote for this short story is from Rachelle Lefevre: “The thing I love about vampires that I find so fascinating is that, unlike other sci-fi creations, they aren't monsters from the get-go, they're human beings first... and so what kind of human you are would dictate what kind of vampire you would be.”

EXCERPTS

In October, Marcellus’ penchant for the dramatic—that which made him what he is today—gets to come center stage as he attends various costume parties, parades, festivals. He buys a set of flimsy plastic fangs that sit strangely in his mouth. Tacky in a charming way. An amateur stage adaptation of Dracula. 

Marcellus loved performing Doctor Faustus in the troupe. We understand Faustus better than nearly anyone, Julius said, because we’ve already sold our souls for profane power. He understands making selfish decisions; Faustus was only his favorite because Julius got to be affectionate as Mephistophilis. 

Abel has a small, blown-out tattoo that might have once been a smiley face right above his hip.

Songs I listened to while writing “Plastic Fangs”:

Howl - Florence + the Machine

Waltz of the Bone King - Peter Gundry

Ravenous - Autumn Orange

Haunted House - Florence + the Machine

These two stories really helped drag me out of a writing slump. Moving into my parents’ house did a number on me mentally and creatively, and I only managed to get out of that when I began working full-time and forcing myself to go out more instead of succumbing to my depression as I was. I think you can tell that I was still pretty depressed when I wrote “Hag Stone”, even if it is a story about hope. 

My husband actually suggested I try turning “Plastic Fangs” into a book. I think there’s potential with that. These characters interest me so much that I want to do way more with them than I can within the parameters of a short story. I have a few scenes written for a larger project with them, but I’m not quite sure where that will take me. 

Please ask to be added to the taglist! I'm tagging @bardicbeetle, because Larkspur is and always will be my inspiration for writing weird shit about vampires. <3

[performativezippers]

I really hope you did not bail on continuing the dandelion Inn. That would break my heart a little. As long as I know you will continue/finish it eventually I can wait (very impatiently but still..).

Okay so typically I don't respond to things like this, but ignoring the last few I've gotten here and on twitter obviously hasn't worked, so here we go.

Yeah, don't do this.

You're trying to be funny, but this is a not-at-all-veiled "NEXT CHAPTER WHEN, WRITE MORE." And just...no.

You—and by "you" I mean the group of y'all that send comments like this to me and others, not this anon specifically because I don't know you—obviously mean for this to inspire me to write faster, but what this actually does is piss me off and make me work on something else. Why? Because it's not kind, it treats me like a production machine instead of a person, and it, frankly, makes you seem like an ungrateful asshole. Sorry! But true.

I find that people who write these comments typically—and I literally don't know who you are so idk in this situation—aren't the ones leaving long, detailed, enthusiastic comments on every chapter on every reread. Not the ones earnestly and consistently reblogging and retweeting and writing thoughtful commentary or even excited tags. You come off as an unengaged and ungrateful reader who will leave kudos but nothing else, and two days after I post will be saying "when is the next oneeeee" which is so frustrating.

I spend hours on these chapters. Literal hours of my life. If you want the next one so badly (and to be clear, I'm glad that you do), write me a long ass comment or ask about what you loved in the last chapter and what you're excited to see in the next. That motivates the shit out of me. That makes me happy and excited to write what's next.

This morning I woke up early with the intention of going into the office and working on Dandelion until my first meeting. But instead, I'm writing this. We all lose, basically. I am way less interested in writing it this morning than I was 30 minutes ago. And that sucks! I love writing, I love writing this fic, and I love being engaged with y'all. You just need to treat me like a person and understand that this "write faster, gimme" bs does not work. I don't know anyone this works for, so honestly, just stop it.

Next time you're desperate for another chapter of one of your favorite fics, try this: "Hey, I just reread [x fic] for the [6th] time because I'm obsessed!! My favorite part of this chapter is when [character] said [quote from fic]. I couldn't stop [laughing and my grandma thought I was dying]. Last night I couldn't sleep thinking about what will happen when [character] finds out [secret]. I'm not sure if she's going to [reaction A] or [reaction B] but mostly I just want them to KISS [IN THE RAIN]!!! I love you forever and ever, byeeeee"

And just in case this hasn't landed, here's another way to put it. If you are not in the following situation, I literally do not want to hear your thoughts on how quickly I write. If you're doing all of this, I welcome your feedback on my pace of fic output:

Drafting an original novel

Revising an original novel that is honestly your very best hope of being published and that is about to be sent to publishers

Watching as your second novel, Firefly, one of your loves, slowly dies in the hands of publishers, meaning that your agent, who you have worked with for over 2 years now, has still not made a single fucking penny off of you, and might drop you as a client

Celebrating your wife's birthday and generally spending time with her because you love her and value your relationship with her

Working on a long fic with a partner that you really care about and have a deadline for

Working a day job that is so intense and stressful you literally spent 5 hours the other weekend (on your writing day) ensuring that a student didn't do something to themself. Sorry I couldn't work on Dandelion that day, I need to make sure this person did not die.

Having a chronic, persistent, and ultimately probably terminal disease that makes you so exhausted sometimes you can't lift your head up after a work day

*insert gif I can't find of Lucy saying thanks for playing!*

Like I said, I hate doing this, I hate writing this, I hate responding to this, but ignoring hasn't worked, so here we are. Please don't make me say it again.

[jeannereames]

Hi, Dr. Reames. This is probably a dumb question to ask, but I know you´ve been wrting your whole life, I think, so I thought I might ask you anyway, as I admire your work a lot. How do I overcome my fear of writing? It's kinda hard to explain, It's not about what other people will think about my work, It's what I will think of it. I never think it's good enough, in my eyes it's always bad written, unoriginal, boring. Even when I have an idea I love I struggle to get myself because of these thoughts. Any time I write something, when I think about posting it somewhere I´m like “I will cringe so bad for this in a few hours/days/months/years”. Every time I find something I wrote a while ago I think “how could I even think about writing this?” and I know I should take it as part of the progress, failing to win y'know, but instead I find it keeps me from writing and sharing my work, even when I think it is good. I want to write and post my work, I have too many ideas but I don't know how to overcome these fears to actually do it.

Right now I'm struggling with writing a story I have to do for college and give in a few days, but I'm completely blocked. I think it's a ridiculous idea, although I like it a lot, It is making me feel anxious and embarrassed beforehand.

First, I’m answering a little out of order for what’s in my inbox, as the asker mentioned she had a story due in a few days, so it seemed time-specific.

So, let me just open by saying I don’t know any professional author who doesn’t hit that “I hate my story” point somewhere in the midst of writing it. “This is terrible! What was I thinking? Who would be interested in this? Who do I think I am to believe I could write about that/that character?”

Seriously, this is a normal litany, particularly for women authors. (I do not know if the asker is female gendered, gender fluid, or male gendered, but it seems that a lot of folks on Tumblr belong to the first two categories.) After all, we’re taught to sit back, look pretty, keep our legs crossed, our hands neatly folded, and let the boys talk. Let the boys win. Nobody wants to hear from us. Our job is to showcase the men in our lives.

Even if you never heard those words said to your face, you’ve “heard” them in everything from the advertising industry to TV shows and movies to political dialogue and Twitter. It hurts EVERYbody. Men are not expected to question themselves, so if they (naturally) do, they assume they’re secretly a failure. And women are expected to question themselves, apologize for having an opinion/original thought, so they learn to do so from preschool on.

Writing a story that one intends to share with the universe is sort of arrogant, when you think about it. To assume that anybody besides me gives three shits about the stories I tell myself in my head is an act of either great self-confidence or great self-delusion. And if one wants to go pro, we add another layer of expecting other people to pay for my “little whimsies”? Who do I think I am? (Echoes one of the questions above, no…?)

That’s the negative way of thinking about it. Let me turn that around…

Writing a story that one intends to share with the universe is an amazingly generous action.

That’s right. Generous.

I will never recoup in royalties the blood, sweat, tears, (and cost) that it took me to write Dancing with the Lion. I can’t even begin to add up the hours devoted to writing, revising, rewriting, revising again, that story. And you get to read it for $6.99 each, or, if you go for the Riptide special, $8.99 for both! (Pricier if you want a paper copy.)

Some authors don’t go quite as overboard as I did in perfectionism (it’s kinda part and parcel of the phud). Yet even established professional authors with 5-figure advances do not make anywhere close to minimum wage, sometimes not even 6-figure advances (depending on what those 6 figures are). And the bulk of us will never see either of those.

Writers write because they have a story to tell. That’s an act of generosity. You don’t have to like that story. You don’t have to read that story. You may, in fact, think that story is utter crap and should be consigned to the dungheap. (There are some even professionally published novels, never mind self-published, I feel that way about.)

Yet it’s still an act of generosity. And even if I don’t like __ story, probably somebody out there will. More to the point, nobody gets better unless they, you know, actually work at it by writing (and getting useful constructive criticism because virtually nobody is Carson McCullers, to pen a classic at the tender age of 21). So yes, some writers may not be up to publishable quality fiction yet…although what IS publishable quality lies somewhat in the eye of the acquiring editor. But keep going.

The biggest and most munificent leap any author makes is to finish a story, hand it to someone else and say, “Would you like to read this?”

Writers are all but driven to write. I can’t NOT write. I’ve been writing since 6th grade when my English teacher gave us one of those “Use this word in a sentence” assignments and my sentences turned into paragraphs, then into little stories. And she let me get away with it. Lord above, she even encouraged me!

Write. Trust yourself. Share it.

Yes, take constructive criticism if somebody offers it. Ignore unconstructive criticism. The former pinpoints weaknesses with concrete suggestions for how to fix/improve them. The latter is just soul-sucking drivel.

Long, long ago when I was an ambitious but uncertain 18-year-old, I got to hear Lawrence Dorr give a talk on writing. After, I introduced myself and said, “I’m a writer. Well, I want to be. I’m not published yet.”

He stopped me and replied, “Do you write?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re a writer.”

That has stuck we me, coming from an award-winning published author.

So I will pass that on to every other aspiring author out there.

Do you write? If so, you’re a writer.

[todaydreambelieversfic]

Author Spotlight: Coffeegleek Day 3

Author : @coffeegleek​

How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

At least a few revisions. Then multiple editing passes, and even with my spouse as my proofreader for the past 25+ years, and doing more editing passes before posting to AO3, I still find annoying little typos, sometimes large ones.

If you were to revise one of your older fics from start to finish, which would it be and why?

There was a crack fic I stopped writing years ago. It was a self-challenge during one of those tumblr trope challenges. I was trying to combine all of the tropes into the same fic as they were announced. It got zero traction though so I gave up. I'd love to go back and complete it, make it better. I had the whole thing outlined too.

What do you look for in a beta?

My spouse. We've been together for decades. He's been proofreading my original science fiction work and various fandoms' fanfics since before we were married. He even proofreads my Klaine smut and doesn't blink an eye. (He's a Glee fan too and on tumblr.) He knows what I'm trying to say when I can't find the right words and supplies them. He catches things I don't. What I love the most is for my original work, he's written his own fanfic. It's BAD. It truly is, but it's so heartfelt and earnest. He even came up with a soundtrack should I ever publish my sci-fi novel and the movie or show rights be bought. You really can't get a better beta than that. <3

There’s a number of friends on tumblr that I bounce ideas off of and who give me advice for topics they know far more about than me and google. I try to thank them in my fics.

If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

I’m going to steal another author’s recent answer and say that I could never do someone else’s work justice. However, I would love to see the author’s ideas for their fics even if they couldn’t write a prequel or sequel.

I suck at remembering titles and author names. There were two political fics that I would love to read more of should their authors ever decide to write in those verses again. One was where Kurt and Blaine's dads were running for president and Kurt and Blaine were along for the ride, staying in the same hotels at time (where they first met,) having to do school remotely, having to be the perfect sons for the press and Blaine being fed up because his parents were conservative Republicans. Then there was another fic where Burt was president and Kurt was the First Son living in the White House, along with Finn, and it was hard to date when your every move is watched by the press.

Do you take liberties with canon or are you very strict about your fic being canon compliant?

I write AU, so canon is only a word often misspelled by me. :) Seriously though, I try to incorporate as many canon elements and characters into my AU fics as I can. It's the kind of AU I like to read as well. What draws me to read and write AUs is taking canon characters, putting them into a different setting, and seeing how they'll react. At their core, they still need to remain the same in principle and have many of the same traits. Like Kurt will always love fashion and be headstrong no matter what. Blaine is always going to have that spark within himself, no matter how depressed or oppressed he gets. Burt and Carole are always going to be loving and nurturing parents at heart. Even in fics where Burt isn't woke, there's a part of him that means well. (Not one of my own fics, but one I read a long time ago.) Different circumstances will change the canon characters and make them react in different ways though. Like, Kurt could end up more withdrawn and hide his love of fashion as a matter of survival and self preservation. He or Blaine could turn into "bad boys." Coach Beiste will always have a heart of gold. Miss Pillsbury will always have a problem with messes. Things like that. I know canon. Give me all the alternate universe versions of it and I will be a happy camper.

Talk about a review that made your day.

I haven't checked for reviews on my fics in ages (because I'm an insecure chicken) so I don't remember any specifically. I do remember there were many that made my day. There are those who take the time to review every chapter. Ones who write only a short note to thank me for writing the fic - both the angsty ones and the cracky fun ones. I love it when someone mentions something that no one else has that I was hoping someone would notice because I was proud of it. I'm not a popular author and don't get a lot of kudos or comments or reblogs compared to many. So each comment and kudos means a lot to me and I'd like to publicly thank every single person who wrote one or hit that kudos button.

Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them?

I once got a troll who decided it was his job to complain that I had misspelled hors d'oeuvres in one sentence out of an entire verse where the word was written multiple times correctly. It was a series of Klaine Advent one shots for the Empty Nest verse. At first I was shocked and replied with an apology. Then I was, "F this. The person is a troll who didn't read any other part of the fic or verse, just this one quickly written one shot entry, and if all they had to say was that I'd misspelled a commonly misspelled word, then they aren't worth my time." I deleted the comment. There's concrit and trolling. It wasn't concrit.

What advice do you have for people just starting to write?

Have fun writing, even the hard stuff. Know that it's okay to take breaks. Try your best and know you'll get better the more you write and the more you read. Pronouns are your friend and free. Don't put, "I know this is going to suck, so whatever," in your fic description. We all suck at times. It's a part of writing. But if you want folks to read it, using that as your fic's summary isn't the way to go. Just my opinions, which won't even buy you a cup of coffee.

Which fic do you most like to discuss with other people? Why?  

I think it’s pretty obvious from all of my rambling that I enjoy talking about both of my series - Empty Nest verse and A Very Hallmark Christmas verse.  I'm not a popular author and I know my fics, especially the Empty Nest verse ones, aren’t everyone’s thing, so I never get to really discuss them except with friends that I bug to death in private and via long replies to comments on AO3. (You all are saints blessed by all of the good and patient gods.) I have so much to say about them - the process of writing them, the world building, research, and character decisions that went into every single one. I know they’re not perfect. I know the Empty Nest verse grew miles beyond the ficlette about Burt and Carole that it was meant to be. I know my sense of humor in the Hallmark verse isn’t everyone’s thing either. I still worked really hard on them and am glad that I did. Empty Nest let me release a lot of the fear and anxiety I had for my Hispanic and gay son after the 2016 election. The Hallmark ones were a needed break to put some humor into my life. If others enjoyed them, great. If folks want to know more, my inbox is always open.

What's one aspect of writing fic that gets you really excited?

Writing humor even if I'm the only one that finds it funny. As I said above, writing the Hallmark Christmas movie dialogue and plot and the actors as they were filming it was a blast. Writing the commercials was fun and exciting. In my angsty fics, knowing I wrote a good scene, line, or moment that brought out all the feels. That's more of “satisfaction of a job well done” than excited.

***

Check out Coffeegleek’s Fics

Humorous Spooky Drabbles -  Humorous drabbles to spookish type prompts based on a tumblr post called October Drabble Prompts #1 by hallofceleano. The parts in bold and italic are from those prompts. Characters include Kurt, Blaine, Burt, Carole, and Finn. All fun; only #4 has some mild angst. #4 is for snarkyhag and regarding #5 - I know next to nothing about Twilight and had to look up Taylor Lautner on imdb. The liberties I took are my own.

A Very Sloppy Christmas - lucy8675309 posted to tumblr a series of gifs with Kurt dressed up as an elf. It inspired me to write the following prompt, which CoffeeAddict80 encouraged me to write as a fic:

I now want a fic where real Santa’s elf!Kurt gets drunk and vents to Blaine about all the woes of working for Santa. He’s over 100 years old and the outfits are terrible. Why couldn’t they wear clothes like the elves did in that one movie? Drunk elf Kurt has no idea he’s venting to Santa’s son.

Bonus if he wakes up and realizes he just had a drunken one night stand. He isn’t sure who it was with. Only that he’s naked, the guy in the bed beside him is naked and showing off a really great ass. Then said guy turns over and after Kurt’s done staring at his dick, he looks at the guy’s face and realizes who it is.

It’s a Twisted World -  I decided to challenge myself by combining the posted 5 weekly Klaine AU Friday themes and adding another one of my own. So that means: Farm, Fairytale, Vintage (1900’s,) Super Powers, Zombie Apocalypse, and Harry Potter World Klaine with a splash of a fic idea I thought of while in the produce section of the grocery store. Each week, the story will continue, though each part stands alone. This is not a brilliant work of perfectly composed fan fiction. What it is, is fast-paced, cracky fun, with a large dose of innuendo. At least it had my son laughing his ass off. I hope y'all enjoy it too. :)

[wot-tidbits]

Live Signing Session—Dragonmount Patreon Stream

SOURCE

SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE SERIES!

QUESTION:

It has been 13 years since you were selected by Harriet to finish the Wheel of Time. After 13 years have passed, like, has the shock worn off yet?

BRANDON SANDERSON:

Yes and no. There are times when I look back and I just I’m like that was really a surreal event in my life. Nothing quite can ever compare to getting a phone call being asked to finish the Wheel of Time. I look back and I’m like how did that even happen?

For those who don’t know, I didn’t apply for it. Harriet just called me and it’s really, really strange. At the same time the fact that I am a best-selling author has kind of settled in because I have to deal with it every day and I’m very used to it at this point. And so the public’s attention being on me, I have gotten used to that. The fact that I got that random phone call still is really weird when you look back at. I don’t know if you have things in your life like that, where you’re like: “Man, that really happened!” That is really strange, like winning the lottery, right? I always describe it as winning the lottery that you didn’t know you’d entered. It’s more like actually getting an inheritance you didn’t know you were getting, but someone you loved of course had to die for you to get the inheritance. So it’s still wrapped up in weird emotions for me.

QUESTION:

The way that Harriet became aware of you was because her friend Elise Matheson was printing out blog posts and other news clippings that were online where there was a news report or tribute to Robert Jordan and yours was on that list and Harriet read that and ran with it from there. So it almost seems to me that you’ve written some amazing things, but maybe that blog post might have been the most important of your career in some ways.

BRANDON SANDERSON:

The single most significant three paragraphs in my entire career are probably that little blog post. […] The weird thing is that I was late. I spent about a week thinking about, “What do I write?” and everybody had tributes come out like the day after and I didn’t jump on that. You see me posting things later when I do blog post reactions. I often am like, “I want to think about this.” And so if I hadn’t waited who knows if that would have come up in the search results.  First, because it was brand new when Elise was looking for things. Who knows, if I’d waited one more day it wouldn’t have popped up? If I’d written it the week before, maybe it wouldn’t have either. That’s just one of those things, right?

QUESTION:

What would you say to 2007 Brandon?  

BRANDON SANDERSON:

I have read this book where you go back in time, and it never turns out well. I would not go back in time and say anything to myself because I would end up as my own grandfather somehow. And then I would need, like, Christopher Lloyd to show up and help me fix all the problems in my life.

But if I take it non-jokingly, I don’t know. I’ve never been asked this one before. It’s usually your young writer self, what would you say? I honestly have no idea. Maybe I would say it’s gonna be alright. You’re gonna do a good job. Don’t stress this as much as you are. But maybe it’s stressing it that made me do a good job? And I haven’t stressed over a book as much as those books ever. Except maybe my very first release with Elantris. But I am not high stress person, so even that level of stress is nothing compared to what I know a lot of other people stress about.

The nice thing is that by 2007 I was confident in my writing. There were things I needed to learn. There were going to be some hard things I needed to learn and I learned them over the next five years. And it was a tough growing period of writing.

I might say take another stab at Mat once you think you got him. Listen to Jason (Denzel) when he says Mat’s off. Because you (Jason) were the first to point that out to me. I might say Padan Fain. A lot of people are going to think there needs to be a little more. Can you write like 2000 more words on the Padan Fain narrative arc for a Memory of Light? Remember to do that. Brandon, they’re gonna split into three books anyway. Stop stressing about trying to get them all into one book. They are not gonna let that happen. Tor’s not gonna throw that money away. They are going to insist on three books. So plan it that way from the beginning and maybe the timeline issues and Towers of Midnight would have been solved. I’m mostly looking at warning myself to prepare things for the future.

QUESTION:

You and I have talked about that in the past. Rand had a very climactic moment at the end of The Gathering Storm. And then you had some moments but it largely became Perrin and Mat’s book in Towers of Midnight. And then we got back to Rand again…                    

BRANDON SANDERSON:

I actually like that breakdown. I don’t think I’d change that. I think that Rand in Towers of Midnight being a little bit like Rand in the Dragon Reborn where you’re getting some distance from Rand, because he’s gone through a major change and you’re seeing him externally for a little while.

Actually, I think that’s a selling point of the Dragon Reborn and I like having echoed that in my three, where you know that distance [is there] and then you get back in his head and you’re like: “No, this is the Rand I still love”. This is the same person, he’s just developed. He’s changed a little bit. And that distance, that time with distance, it just gives you a different perspective on the character.

Like I said you are in Rand’s head in the Dragon Reborn, but he feels like a different character, and then we get our Rand back in book 4. I really like how Jim pulled that off. I wasn’t doing that intentionally, but in hindsight looking back, it feels like the right way to do that.

I would try to fix the timeline issues though.  I did a lot of work in the Gathering Storm when it was one book to overlap Perrin’s climax and Rand’s climax at the kind of center point of the story which became the two endings of Towers of Midnight and the Gathering Storm. And because those originally had been overlapping back and forth timelines and were split into two books—which again I kind of like how it went—it was clunky since it wasn’t designed that way from the get-go.

QUESTION:

About the deleted chapters you did for the charity novels and are there anymore that might appear?

BRANDON SANDERSON:

No, the only other scene I think I’ve mentioned before; I have like that brief like two-page scene where ladies weave the bridal wreath for Rand. I’ve talked about that before. That’s the only significant chunk they got cut that’s left and it’s only like two pages. The ones were like full things, so someday we’ll find a place for that. I don’t think we have yet, but someday we’ll find a place for that, but it’s only two pages. It is real short.

Did I tell you why that got cut? I should mention it. So it was actually really cool. I wanted to get Rand engaged, have the bridal wreath and have all three of them like weave it together and kind of use some Aiel tradition there and whatnot. And it was a really great scene. I enjoyed it. Everybody liked it.

Then we put the book together. Because often I will write—when I have a large number of viewpoints, I will write a chunk of viewpoints from a character’s viewpoint, and then at the end is when I really start putting things together and then I have to smooth between these things and make sure that the pacing is right. Because you don’t want all sorts of dry scenes together. You don’t want too many action scenes together, unless it’s at the end where you do want a lot of action scenes, and you want to kind of be bouncing back and forth. There’s just a rhythm and feel to it that usually I have a pretty good instinct [for] while I’m writing knowing how they’re going to fold together.

But once in a while you get something that just sticks out like a sore thumb and this was one. Because it was opposite the Talmanes’ scenes going in Caemlyn and like dramatic scenes of people getting stabbed by myrddraal and nearly dying and all this stuff. And it was more powerful stuff. It was really nice tense stuff and then you jump back and the girls were like “Tee-hee, I am like this branch that I’m weaving into the bridal wreath. It has thorns!” And it just did not work!

I’m making it sounds sillier than it was. It wasn’t that silly, but it did not fit thematically. Harriet was like “Oh, this does not match at all.” I’m like “Yeah, you are totally right.” So we cut that one up, which made me feel sad because I did want to get them engaged. I know a lot of people have been waiting for that, but it had to go just for the strength of the opening narrative. That one’s around. It’s fun. You can imagine [it] exactly as what it is. All three go out and gather different things to put into the thing and you don’t seem them gathering, they just come together and say “Here, I brought this. It’s a good match for us because of this” and they kind of weave it all together. Maybe someday we’ll get that but there’s not a whole lot left.

Getting the Perrin through the Ways out—like, I had wanted to find a place for that for a while because I really liked that sequence. I’ve mentioned before that when I look back at it, I’m like, “it needs a lot of revision,” so I actually had to spend a lot more time revising that sequence for the charity anthology than I did the other one, which I just kind of chopped up and it was good to go. Because that had lasted all the way until the last edit, but the Perrin scenes got cut out earlier after we did a bunch of just timeline rejiggering and things like that. Harriet had not been pleased with my depiction of the Ways, and looking back—I think I mentioned this in the Forward—she was right. And that took a lot of revision to make feel right, which I wasn’t planning on spending, like I spent two weeks revising that little sequence for the charity anthology, but I wanted it to be good.

It was fun because when I sent it to Maria to look through to make sure I hadn’t broken anything too big continuity-wise even though it’s not canon, she wrote back. She’s like “This was so nice, being able to actually read Wheel of Time and edit it again.” It was like a bright spot. And that’s kind of how I had felt on it. So it was nice to work on but it was way more work than I expected. The bridal scene will not get similar treatment if we find a place for it in a future Unfettered or something like that.

QUESTION:

Aside from that do you have other scenes still remaining, deleted scenes that could potentially see the light of day?

BRANDON SANDERSON:

I don’t think there is anything else at all. I don’t think there are even any scraps or fragments. Everything that Jim wrote I put in the book in some way. There is maybe some Q&A stuff that didn’t get in the book. In one of his Q&A’s with Maria in the notes he was talking about … No, no, this wasn’t from the Q&A. It was just notes from books back that they found dug in there that they were having Rand use the Choedan Kal. Jim had in the notes Rand using the male one at the end of the series but that one was destroyed. It was the access key that was destroyed. I’m like so do we find another access key or was this just old information contradicted other things? Because this was like he was writing book eight or something, he was thinking about doing that and they found a little note file for it. They’re like maybe we use these things, maybe we find another access key or whatnot.

There is stuff like that in the notes that would be fun to release. The fans could like imagine the what if because it’s entirely possible that rather than going with the Callandor solution, Jim would have gone with the Choedan Kal that he would have decided: “No, no, the right thing to do is to find another access key” or something like that or whatnot. And then you have a different twist on the ending using that. There are things like that that could be fun to see from the notes. I don’t know how much has been dug up, how much of it Harriet put in the library.

QUESTION:

Mat and Tuon are my favorite characters. Is there anything little or unknown about them that you can share with us?

BRANDON SANDERSON:

Everything I had from Jim that was in the notes I was given—now, remember, I had people look through the notes and give me the stuff that they thought was relevant, Maria and Alan did. So there’s entirely possibly like a lot of the things that are notes that I didn’t see were drafts of appendices that Robert Jordan added things to, and then taken out from like book 7 and 6 and 8 and stuff like that. And there might be things in there.

Everything I had either was in the books—or because that last scene was written by him, the one with Mat and Tuon in the epilogue—he had done a draft on that scene so I was pointing everything toward that scene to just get it in. So that I could drop it in as close as how he’d done it as possible. The only thing that I know is that Mat does go to Seanchan and that eventually he’s found in a gutter without his hat having gambled it all away. And he’s muttering “I lost it all” or “I gambled a lot away” or something like that. That’s in the notes for the outriggers.

The notes for the outriggers are three sentences and one of them is about Mat having lost it all. We can guess he goes to Seanchan. We can guess that he ruins, messes things up and then spends several books fixing them again which is how Mat basically rolls. That would be my guess.

We can guess that Perrin has to go. We think Perrin thinks he has to go to kill Mat. We don’t know but one of those sentences is Perrin is going travelling on a boat thinking about how he’s got to go kill a friend. So there’s got to be some tensions between the continents and things like that, and I would assume that hijinks ensued, but your imagination has got to go on this one. That is literally all I know about Mat and Tuon going forward.

Fun fact is that this was somewhere in the notes but they hadn’t shown it to me, I came up with a new name for Tuon and then Maria’s like: “Oh, Jim came up with one of these” and it was two letters off. We’d both come up with the like exact same new longer name for her. And that was cool, that I had been enough on the same wavelength. And we of course used his. But that’s kind of fun because I think we were both looking at the list of Old Tongue words and found something that worked together and came together and it sounds like fortune and that’s the same direction I’d gone.

Maybe he’d written something that had told me that I should go that direction but either way, that’s a fun thing. There is a little email from Maria saying: “Hey, we should use Jim’s name for this!” And then it was almost exactly the same. I felt  very cool on that day. I can’t remember what mine is because Fortuona ended up in the book but mine also started with f, o, r and then I think I had an extra syllable in there and I had Tuon in there as well but maybe my ending letters to it were different or something, I can’t remember.

QUESTION:

I know you’ve spoken a lot about that you’ve read some of these early scripts and…

BRANDON SANDERSON:

Yeah, I’ve read the first six. Still haven’t seen seven or eight.

QUESTION:

I know you’ve had a chance to talk to Rafe (Judkins). I am really curious what your take is going to be and how you’re going to be involved or how, if I can use the word “possessive” of it, that you’ll be when they hopefully get to the end of this saga. When they’re in their season seven or eight and it’s covering your books and to see how much they keep and change. And how much they’ll have to change because their previous changes will lead to, you know, have ripple effects.

BRANDON SANDERSON:

This is uncharted territory for me. And I have no idea. It could be like Game of Thrones where despite the changes they stay pretty much according to what are the big events, so what I wrote ends up there. But it could go completely different.

As I’ve said to people, I envision this as a new turning of the Wheel. It’s the same souls but in a different actual turning of the Wheel. It’s not the one that Jim and I worked on. It’s a different version of it. And so some of the same events are happening, others are different and being rearranged and so. I don’t know. Like my experience has been fantastic working with Rafe (Judkins) so far. But the sum total of my involvement is: I talked to Rafe and tell him what I felt about various scripts and things. I went on set one time and I was mostly there so they could interview me for b-roll to use in their “making of” and to actually let me meet the actors and things like that.

I am not a significant player in the series. I don’t know, maybe they will want me to be more of [one] when it gets to my books. My instincts say that I will become less and less needed. And I am not even sure how much I was needed right now because Rafe knows, has a vision, and is doing a good job with it.

I’ve been in his shoes before but it’s almost like the handoff, at least the way it’s supposed to work, between past presidents where they like leave a letter and are there for a phone call if you have a question for them, but mostly you find your own way. And that’s kind of how it is with me.

QUESTION:

Did you ask them about having a cameo?

BRANDON SANDERSON:

I didn’t ask them about having a cameo, no. Maybe eventually in my own things I want to have a cameo but in the back of my mind I was like if I do a cameo I should do it when they get to the material I wrote. That’s more appropriate and so I haven’t asked for one yet. I hope the series takes off and then they get to mine and then we stick in a Brandon cameo.

For those who haven’t heard one of the things I want to do for my books when they get made is I want to die in various different—like I show up, I’m like the Kenny from South Park of the Cosmere or whatever. In every season there’s a version of me that dies in some horrible way, you know, just like a redshirt [from Star Trek] or something like that. I think that would be a lot of fun. You need people falling off the wall, getting eaten by koloss. I’m one of those people. Stuff like that. It just feels like revenge the characters could have on me and it could be this fun little thing. Stan Lee covered the cute cameo. I could cover the gruesome death cameo role.

QUESTION:

Having been through a full three books and years of working on it, what sort of high level general advice would you offer to the people, the writers in the writing room working on the series?

BRANDON SANDERSON:

I actually talked to Rafe about some of this stuff. Number one was of course, Mat’s harder to write than he looks. I actually did say ask Jason (Denzel). Mat is harder to write than he looks.

I talked about the kind of soul of the Wheel of Time. What makes the Wheel of Time work. I remember talking to him about the interview that I heard with Jim where someone asked him summarize the Wheel of Time and he hummed and he didn’t want to do it but he eventually said what it’s like to be the normal person and be told you need to save the world. They put that burden upon you that you’ve got to save the world and you’ll probably die doing it and it’s not a burden you wanted. What do you do with that? If there’s a core theme of the Wheel of Time it is either that, or the core theme of old things become new and new things become old, used in interesting and different ways both with the characters and the world building and things like that.

I talked about some of that stuff. But really what worked for me and what anyone has to do who’s in this situation is read through the books, feel the books and then try to have that in mind when you’re working on it. Anytime I started to get lost, I just went back to the books and read what Jim had written and it pulled me back in. When I was working on—and I reread the Eye of the World when I was working on the deleted scene we talked about—it threatened to do that to me again. I was pulled in I’m like “Ooh, this and that!” and the books are just so descriptive, with lush use of language in a way that never feels like it bogs down. You just have to go to the books. He won’t do it the way I did it and that’s all right as long as he’s going to the books and he’s like feeling the soul of those books.

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Huge thank you to @highladyluck for being my editor.

[novapark]

4, 8, & 12 please!

So this is gonna be a long post, brace yourselves and thank you. :D <3

2. Sims writing has a visual component. How do you utilize color/objects and settings in your stories?

I feel like Shadows Know utilizes the most purposeful use of color. I don’t even know if people noticed it but it was definitely deliberate.  

Like all the scenes in the NKU are very dark.

Even during the day^. This is before I fully decided they were shades of blue, grey, black, and white in their true forms but in my head Kasri “originally” come from a pretty icey planet so when they left there they looked for another world that had a dim star. So the reshade I chose for the scenes set there reflected that. The only exception is at Fin’s house which is right on the edge of the habitable zone because in my mind this planet is tidally locked so in places where it does get direct sun it’s extremely intense. 

Adding to this atmosphere is the fact that in their culture shades are more sacred than color so all their homes are usually black, white, or greyscale inside. Generally black for personal quarters and white for public spaces as seen in The Chamber of the Five. 

Meanwhile when they are in The Fed, the color schemes are more varied and generally quite bright. The main planet Estra lived on is supposed to be a very large terrestrial planet with a wide tropical band so it’s a pretty warm place. 

And even in Mal’s apartment he’s taken to employing more color there despite being Kasri. 

---

With REM I’ve been trying to develop more unique spaces but I’ve only really just started that process. For example in my mind Myshuno and Newcrest are supposed to have sort of a Cyberpunk feel to them but I haven’t quite gotten in the mood to fully engage in building those sets. 

3. Which process do you dedicate more time to, editing visuals or editing your writing? Why?  

I think in counting making poses, sets, and doing special effects for the “magic aliens” the visuals probably get far more attention than the actual writing. I do a lot of development work though behind the scenes that help me write a bit better. I also have at least three documents per chapter before I write any full draft, one for outlining, one for blocking/pose needs, and another for dialogue ideas. Then there could be any number of drafts. The current chapter of REM went through four or five revisions. So maybe it’s actually pretty equal? 

4. What scenes do you find hardest to write?

Since I suffer from cptsd there’s actually a lot of subjects I find difficult to write about but I always sort of press on because I find it helps me face some element inside me that’s struggling with that feeling. The following subjects hit me particularly hard though because of personal experience with them: 

- All the abuse, especially towards children. - Abandonment/Rejection  - Severe injury/physical disability/illness  - Death, I kind of put off Ollie’s mom’s scene for a few days because I knew it’d be hard on me. Cara did nothin wrong man. 

5. Answered here. <3 Though there are more scenes I could probably drop in there from other projects. 

8. Are there any plots or characters that have changed dramatically since you initially began writing them?

Yes, 100x yes. This happens a lot actually, here are some major things that changed about REM: 

- Mal and Estra were not going to run into each other so early. In fact had I followed my original timeline, they still would be living seperate lives. I have no chill when it comes to my otps.  - I was not going to give Inika another chapter until after IIIOp2 but I changed my mind.  - Andy and Eva were going to run away together instead of Mal and Estra but I kinda thought it didn’t fit either of their characters to do that. They both are pretty spoiled by their parents and generally don’t like upsetting them.  - Fin was going to show up in DSV in the middle of Andy and Eva reconnecting but I liked the idea of him fuming online instead. Just fit him better, he’s a tiny bit of a coward.  - Luna was supposed to have a chapter far earlier but I keep trying to align her stuff with Ollie’s because they are so close and I haven’t reconciled all that yet. 

And there’s just tons more small things on top of that. A lot of the changes were made because I realized it didn’t line up with the way I had written or wanted to write the characters involved. 

10. If you could choose to be one of your characters for a day, which one would it be?

Technically answered this already but I kinda wanna do another because I keep thinking about it after answering. Grace’s life, I haven’t shown her yet. She’s coming up soon but aside from her job the rest of her life is actually kind of close to a lot of the better parts of my life. 

12. What is your favorite thing about the simblr story writing process?

I love how as a community we all inspire each other and sometimes work together to build stories or families. I’ve always found myself most engaged when I can enjoy the process with others on here and in various chat situations. 

I also like how the visual aspect to sim story telling makes it so easy to get attached to your characters. Like I write full form novels but I gotta tell you, I am not as attached to the characters in those stories as much as I am my sims.

  Thank you guys so much for all these asks! I really had to think about some of them. <3

[alarajrogers]

And then one day you find, ten years have got behind you

A lot of people post hopeful, positive messages like “It’s never too late” and “You’re never too old” and I’m not gonna lie, at age 50 sometimes the only thing that keeps me going is the fact that Georgia O’Keefe was 70 before her art career began. But I’ve got a different message for y’all.

If there is something you burn to do, something that has consumed all of your ambitions for years, something you spend enormous amounts of time planning to do or thinking about doing... do it. Do it now. You suck at it? Doesn’t matter, you won’t get better until you do it. You don’t have time to do it? You’re going to be 50, 60, 70 someday and then you’ll really feel like you don’t have time and you could be a recovered cancer patient in the middle of a pandemic that kills people like you going “Oh shit, I never actually did the thing I wanted to spend my life doing!” YouTube can wait. Tumblr can wait. Spend at least some time doing it, as often as you can.

I wrote my first story when I was 4. (It was a fanfic. My OC paired up with my two favorite heroes as her best friends. Very environmentally conscious; it was the 70′s, so it was all about Pollution Is Bad.) I have wanted to be a published writer my whole life. Not just a writer -- I am a writer. I’ve written over 4 million words in my lifetime. How many of those are professionally publishable, though?... a hell of a lot fewer.

I have published four short stories in professional markets, one of which never actually went to press as far as I know and two of which were authorized fanfic. I have also been one of three authors on a published technical book that’s already out of date. I have not published any novels. I’ve made, lifetime, about $2500 on writing, which would be awesome if I was 24, but I’m 50. It would also be awesome if writing was just a hobby for me, something to do to relax, rather than the sole burning passion of my life and one of the reasons I was put on this planet and the highest ambition I have anymore. And it’d be fine if I never intended to publish original work and all I wanted to do was write good fanfic and become a niche BNF focusing on single favorite characters in each of the fandoms I join.

But it’s not fine, because I wanted to make a living at this, or at least make enough to justify not working full time anymore. And it’s not fine, because when I’m on, when I know my characters and I know what happens next and I’m focused and the flow is with me, I can write 1500 words an hour... which means if I did it 4 hours a day, 5 days a week, like it was a job, I could put out a novel in three weeks. Have I finished any novel at all since 1992 or so? No.

And it’s not fine because I’m 50, and I’m a cancer survivor, and I have diabetes, which ruined my mom’s life before cancer finally killed her, and I have depression, and I’m living in a pandemic, and not only am I not done with my life’s ambition, I’ve barely started. I spent my life writing fanfic and goofing off and letting work that really did not deserve so much time and attention from me steal my life. And yeah, we all know we could be hit by a bus tomorrow, but a pandemic that’s killed 160,000 of my fellow Americans and that our fucked-up, idiotic, sadistic, selfish black hole of leadership has no plan for fixing or even ameliorating is out there, and I could be dead within weeks. Anyone could, but I’ve got medical history here, and I’m the only driver in my family so “just stay home and self-quarantine” isn’t actually an option even though I work from home.

Most of you guys out there are young, or at least, a lot younger than me. And a lot of you are just doing what you do for fun, a hobby, a way to relax and pass time and enjoy yourself, and my message is not for you. You’re fine, keep doing what you’re doing. But if it’s your life’s passion to be a published author, or a comic book artist, or an animator, or whatever, then get out there and do it. Not to the exclusion of all else -- even your passion shouldn’t eat your life -- but don’t accept excuses from yourself as to why you haven’t done anything to move yourself forward in your ambitions in a couple of weeks. Because you just don’t have as much time as you think you do. Thirty years is forever when you’re 20 but it’s so much shorter when you’re 50. You’ll look back and think where did all the time go? and Why didn’t I do more of this when I was younger? Because no matter how hard I work right now, nothing’s ever going to give me those thirty years back. And yeah, I spent some of that time getting better at my craft, sure, but I could have been doing this twenty years ago. I’ve been planning this 52 Project for over ten years, I could have done it in 2010 instead of 2020. The novel I started in 2006? Why is it not done? If this is how I want to make my mark on the world, why did I think I had the freedom to just... not do it?

I mean... of the 19 stories I’ve published since April 3, 7 of them have been completely written brand-new since February, which works out to one complete story from scratch a month, and I’ve revised or completed 16 others (not all of which have been published yet, that includes my backlog), and I’ve got 8 more that I’ve worked on substantially this year but haven’t finished yet. I could have done this any time. I’ve written 100,000 words of original short stories this year so far and also half of a children’s chapter book. If I’d had output like this for my original work in any previous year, ever, I’d be a lot closer to achieving my dreams now.

None of us know how much time we have left, but even 80 years isn’t going to turn out to be all that much if you don’t do the thing you love and desperately want to be a success at. If you burn with the need to do a thing, do it. Do it now. Or real soon, anyway.

[benmparks]

Shadow and Bone (Netflix) Review

Disclaimer: I started this post as a review for both Shadow and Bone the television show and Six of Crows the book, but as I say later on, the show review got much too long. Stay tuned next week for Six of Crows review, and maybe even a Crooked Kingdom review if I finish it before then.

When I asked what people wanted to see in this space, the most requested content was book reviews. Fun fact: I’ve been reading the same book for like two months. It is a long book, and not that easy to read. I still haven’t finished that book but I did finish another one which I will not be reviewing today because I feel the need to discuss the Netflix show Shadow and Bone first. (The book I finished is Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, but we’ll get to that next week. I promise.)

Shadow and Bone (Netflix)

A week and a half ago I decided to watch Shadow and Bone on a whim, it is not what I’d usually be interested in but I am very prone to peer pressure and everyone on my tumblr dashboard was watching it. I watched it all in two days while I neglected my novel revision because I was down in the dumps. Was it good? Sure. Did I like it? Less sure.

The show follows a large cast of characters surrounding a central plot of Alina, a regular everyday map maker, finding out she is some sort of saint that can reunite these two nations that have been separated by a large slice of darkness that is full of monsters. It’s a pretty standard YA fantasy plot, she gets sort of kidnapped by the general of one of the armies who sweet talks her into believing that he wants to get rid of the darkness together. (He doesn’t). She has a childhood best friend, Mal, who is obviously in love with her and does some crazy stuff to get back to her and it’s all very romantic.

I’m sure anyone who has read the books, or even watched the show, is pretty angry about that synopsis but you get it, right?

From what I understand as someone who has not read these books, the show combines the original plot of the book Shadow and Bone, the first book in the Grishaverse series by Leigh Bardugo, and a new plot following the characters from Six of Crows. The events of Six of Crows happen after the events of, I believe, all of the Shadow and Bone books, so their inclusion in this is entirely new. (I believe. I probably should have done some research but this is what I’ve gathered from Tumblr.)

This results in a show that jumps around A LOT, which could have been confusing but I think it kind of worked in a way. I think they gambled on quality by including the crows, but in the long run it worked and everyone who wanted the crows involved were happy. I have one, tiny, small, complaint about it though and that is the inclusion of the Nina and Matthius plotline.

Nina is introduced as a grisha (sort of like a wizard, if you’re not familiar) who is supposed to help the crows kidnap Alina (the main character, very important grisha), but she gets kidnapped by witch hunters. That is her only connection to the main plot until the end, the rest of her scenes chronicle her time with Matthius (one of the witch hunters who she saves and then they fall in love, it’s very romantic). These are scenes taken from flashbacks in Six of Crows, except portrayed in a much shorter amount of time IMO.

My problem with these scenes and this subplot is that it has absolutely nothing to do with the main plot at all. I understand why they included it, I’m sure the fans wanted it, but I guess I just think it should have been included as a flashback later on when the characters become more important. (Kind of like it is in the book.) I also have a problem with how it sort of felt like insta love between a “witch” and a “witch hunter”, a little problematic in my opinion, but that’s getting too into the details.

A couple other negative notes: I’ve been told that Alina wasn’t intended to be Asian (or shu, as referred to in the show), and that any of the seemingly random racism in the show was added in because she was in the show. Obviously, I loved that they made the choice to make the show more diverse than the book might have intended, but I felt like the racist remarks were unneeded. They added nothing to the plot ultimately, and felt out of place since the cast was so diverse.

I think it was clear the show was made for people who have read the books, and I personally think that should not have been the case. I wasn’t really well versed on the lore of the grishaverse, and this first season didn’t provide me with enough information in my opinion. A fantasy show should spend more time lore building, I did just sort of feel confused a lot of the time.

Believe it or not, I actually did like the show! Just not for the plot. What I did like about the show was all of the characters. I really liked Alina despite my usual predisposition to not like main characters, I thought her and Mal were really cute. I liked that the misunderstanding of their letters being intercepted was smoothed over quickly, and that Mal was so accepting of Alina’s newfound power. I liked how the show jumped between the crows and the main plot until the end when they finally overlapped, with the crows joining the fight against the general who was actually trying to grow the darkness (called the fold). I love a good branching story that joins at the end.

And ultimately, I love lovvved the crows. Their scenes were the best, and I think that is possibly because they weren’t coming from a book besides the Nina and Matthius scenes. Also because the characters themselves were the best.

As I mentioned earlier, the crows were trying to kidnap Alina for a job. They’re a part of a gang, or are going to be, I don’t remember whether they already are in the show, but they take a job to kidnap Alina that offers a crazy amount of money. I should probably explain who the crows are, Kaz (the leader of sort, dark brooding sort), Inej (Kaz’s right hand woman, the spy of the group), Jesper (gunslinger with jokes, I love him), and then also Nina and Matthius but they aren’t involved in this season.

Their scenes were like a heist show suddenly, and I thought their dynamic was incredibly entertaining. Kaz is like all emo and dark and evil, and Inej is soft, religious, and also sort of dark and against killing people but...... she does......... for Kaz, and then Jesper is like the mood maker. They have to pull all these crazy stunts including disguising as entertainers, Jesper hooks up with a stablehand at one point trying to procure a horse, Alina straight up just locks herself into their carriage. The hi jinks, the banter, the longing looks between Kaz and Inej! The absolutely subtle way they did the Kaz and Inej relationship, knowing that at the start of Six of Crows (years later) they're still just pretending to not be in love. Needless to say, I finished the show and felt like I absolutely HAD to read the Six of Crows duology.

Which I think I’ll write a review of in another post because this got way longer than I intended it to!

Thanks for reading, I’ll see you next week (probably) for a Six of Crows review.

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

Fdioadgeajodnaejo ok so I love your regency Witcher au (I’m blanking on the title right now my bad) and one of the comments on the latest chapter gotta me kind of tight like they’re trying to offer a constructive critique of the setting but like it’s fiction??? Like one of the things is like oh there’s no dragon hunts in regency Europe and there’s no worrying about French wars on the continent but it’s like that’s why it’s an au??? And the whole acceptance of queerness being unrealistic like excuse me we know that but who wants homophobia in their (I repeat) FANTASY AUS?? Anyway, I know they meant well but I got indignant on your behalf and wanted to share-although I’m sorry if it came off poorly in the ask!

You’re very sweet to want to defend me, nonny.

Back in the much earlier days of fanfiction, people treated comments more like writing group comments - here’s what I liked, specifically, here’s what I think could be improved, specifically. This person sounds like one of those people. They said a lot of very kind things in their comment to me, and so I think their intentions are kind ones.

Luckily for me, I don’t care about their concerns for lack of realism or any thoughts on what they think I should have done better. I’m not going to go back and rewrite this fanfic, I’m not going to be editing or revising now that it’s out in the world, and it’s my choice to take or leave any thoughts people share about it. I feel sad for them that they can’t accept the happy fantasy world where we get to have our Regency cake and our queer icing on top without any bigotry to sour the taste, but that’s their issue, not mine.

If I’d really wanted to, I could’ve gone further into “oh here’s how I blended the Witcher world and our world together historically” (because I do actually have a headcanon for that, thanks to the book series) but really, I’m lazy, and I shouldn’t have to do that. Sometimes you just need a flux capacitor. What’s a flux capacitor? I don’t know. Neither does Marty McFly. It’s never explained exactly how it works. All we need to know is that it enables time travel when added to a DeLorean.

The Witcher fantasy element? In Regency England? How does that work? Well who cares? If you’re hung up on that, maybe you shouldn’t be reading fanfiction. Go read an original novel where it’s the job of the author to explain their worldbuilding to you.

I really am surprised (in the best way) and grateful that you’re so frustrated on my behalf. But I think this person is operating from a base of good intentions and I don’t think they at all realize how their comments might come across. Trust me, I’ve dealt with far worse comments in my time, from people with far less kind intentions and delivery of opinion, and this person’s concerns trouble me not.

Now if you’ll excuse me, someone is botching his proposal to his bard and I need to document this entire flaming car wreck of a conversation.

[esbarrison-writing]

Insights: My Thirteen Year Long Path to Publishing

I would not recommend that anyone goes through my insane publication process. It’s stressful, time consuming, but I hope it will pay off.

It starts when I was thirteen.

Enter Ms. Black’s English Class: I’m an aspiring writer already, with some little story pocketed away. Do I remember what it was? Not really. But it was the first thing that really sparked my interest in writing.

One day in October, Ms. Black told the class that our job was to write a suspenseful horror story inspired by authors like Edgar Allen Poe, in the spirit of Halloween of course. So, I wracked my little thirteen-year old brain. Horror wasn’t necessarily a genre I wrote, but suspense was something I enjoyed.

The idea started simple: an old priest, knowing his death would be soon, sat in his church writing a letter in red ink. He heard a hysterical woman in the graveyard, so he abandoned his writing and hurried out to hear the commotion. The woman was screaming because a bell beside the grave, known as a safety coffin, was ringing, and there was not a breeze in the air. The priest tried to calm her, but to no avail.

This is where I was caught off guard though. The woman transformed in my story from a terrified young lady…to the fierce and stunning Goddess of Death, or Grim Reaper.

This is my notorious Woman in Black. She was the first character I developed for The Mist Keeper’s Apprentice, and frankly, she hasn’t changed much over the years.

Granted, the story has undergone multiple makeovers. Names of characters have changed. Personalities altered. But with a few central themes: conflict in an ancient council, a kind-hearted protagonist, and strong women of different personalities.

So let’s go back to the beginning. From the age thirteen to eighteen, I worked on this story. Initially it was called simply “Apprentice”, then “Discipulus”, which was the name it kept for a long time. It took place in the modern world, the main characters were highschoolers, and honestly I was probably way in over my head. But I still wrote an entire five book series (Discipulus, Medius, Venator, Proditor, and Dominus). It was an accomplishment! I was proud of myself!

I think I wrote over five drafts of Discipulus alone.

Then college came. I abandoned them for three years after my story was accused of being childish.

I’m glad I did.

I grew beyond what I initially wrote. After three years of learning more about myself, I knew where I had gone wrong.

So I scrapped everything.

Okay, okay, scrapped is the wrong word. I have the original files backed up, but after trying to keep the premise the same, I knew it just wouldn’t work.

I wish I could tell you how I came to the revelation. Yet, no matter how I wrack my brain, I can’t. I think it comes down to how the story never really left me. It was always there, waiting to be taken again.

Over the course of a few more years, I worked on rewriting my novel. I kept the name Discipulus for the time being, but knew the change would ultimately come.

I finished the revised draft one sometime in early 2018. Then by mid-year, I came up with the name…The Mist Keeper’s Apprentice.

I was so proud, and I thought the idea was fleshed out entirely by the time I looked for beta readers in late 2018. A few circumstances led me to believe that was not the case: an overly ambitious beta reading plan, a low response rate, and the few readers that did finish pointing out the flaws.

In early 2019, I reassessed, and rewrote over half the novel.

It was worth it.

Beta readers loved the story. Over 70% of those interested finished, and they raved and loved the book! So, at the end of 2019 I knew that this year, 2020, I would finally publish this story. I sent it to an editor, Charlie Knight, who helped make the story stronger, hired my cover artist, and got to work.

I’m two and a half months now from the book’s release. I can go on about why I chose to indie publish, but I think that’s a story for another day.

Needless to say, the point of this rambling is to say this: don’t give up. It’s a lot of work, no one is every going to say it’s easy, but if you stick with it and are willing to adjust due to criticism, you will soar.

Will this 13 year journey of mine pay off? I don’t know. But I am proud of what I have put together.

And isn’t that all that matters?

Originally Posted on esbarrison-author.com

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The Mist Keeper’s Apprentice is a Fantasy Novel coming out on June 14th, 2020! Be sure to follow for updates.

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[faireladypenumbra]

Writing in 2020: Some Reflections on Creativity, Depression, and The Last Four Years

When I first started writing seriously in 2012, I declared on my earliest drafts that I would never write with the intention of publication.

This might seem odd coming from a 19-year-old whose only claim to fame by this point, were a couple a popular fanfic. I was worried then, as I began to shape up my first original novel (a half-written steampunk time-travel book that will never ever see the light of day) that the active chase that was publication would kill my relationship with writing.

The relationship I had with writing at the time was still very young, but I have always used the metaphorical well to describe where my energy to write comes from. There is a well somewhere in my brain, and in that well is all the imagery and beauty and terror that I can draw out into my works. This as a sacred space, from which That well is still the image I picture if I am conjuring some physical embodiment of my writing, or what my process might look like. It’s eight years since I started this journey, and I have watched my well diminish over the past four years in a quiet circling of the drain. It is not that the desire to write is gone, but the thing that connected my brain and my work is less palpable than it was before. It’s a complicated idea to venture on as well, knowing I still occasionally write fiction and still write a great deal academically. But there are many days when ever those parts of writing have become a trial of self-doubt and struggle.

“This is just a part of writing,” I tell myself for the hundredth time- but by this time, I’m not even really writing, and just considering the idea of making time for myself and my art makes me ill.

It is in these times that I realize how much damage- not just the pursual of publication, but the active work I did in publication, did to my process.

I: The Public- And My Complicated Relationship With It.

I really like the public, first off, and I like sharing my work to the public when I have the absolute confidence to do so. Chimehour was one of those times, in 2015, when I first emerged on Inkitt quietly. The site was still small- barely creeping over 15,000 members when I joined, so I had a fair amount of confidence that my work would be safe here.

It was. And it was not, all at once. I was revived by every good review I got, and the encouragement pushed me to finish my novel properly and even push back my release deadline. I tried to actually edit the book and revise it properly before I either released or queried it, which was a good call.

Around the fall of 2015 though, my relationship with the website and the community became something negative. Not bad, just… counter-intuitive to creativity. 2015 was a hard year beforehand: my uncle suddenly passed away on the same day I finished my, as of now, unpublished second novel. My grandparents both passed away not long after. My academic life had been unturned in the fall semester by an extremely toxic professor, who I eventually had to help report to the university. I didn’t really tell my writing community these things were happening, but I leaned into Inkitt as a support for my emotional wellbeing.  I turned to the reviews, and contests, and to the public to help ease the burn from everything else going on in my life.  This was the first time I felt the well begin to empty: not writers’ block, not a creative burnout, but a slow, easing drain on my resources. I suspect now that an author’s relationship with the public is complicated, and that at times, it can be more addictive to be popular than it is to make things.

II. Inkitt

I place some blame on what happened to my writing with my paid job in 2016 with Inkitt. I became their community manager for a period of time. An extremely long story lies behind that statement, but I will add that my writing was a tool that got used in the company’s favor during that period, and this wasn’t something I consented to. I was bullied, harassed, and made to feel very small for the period I spent with the company.

I started to write again in Europe that year: I remember penning chapters on a rainy afternoon in England, perched on the sofa of a hotel bar, and this was after a very long stint of creating nothing, but my work remained on the same novel.

Deep down, I felt like if I polished it enough, it would do better than any of the other pieces I’d thumbed through or reviewed for this godforsaken company. It was a nasty, mean-spirited line of thinking that led me to resent the very authors who had supported me all this time, not because I thought they were bad authors, but because I was so burdened by the company’s demands. I became angry that the other authors couldn’t see all the work I did- “how dare you ask things of me? How dare you write when I can’t? When they won’t let me anymore?”

It was a very blackened spot on my mind, and I have recognized this place for what it was: anger at my oppressive job (which I quit) and some unchecked grief over the previous year. It took me time to fully grieve my uncle, and even longer to fully bury Inkitt. I forgive nothing of them, and I can only hope my author community will forgive me for what I sometimes became in the wake of the company’s damage.

The writing well was never quite the same after Inkitt: it felt poisoned, or even hard to access. It’s important to note that I changed schools during that time, but… I knew something was unwell in the space of my brain.

III: The Aftermath

I speak of all that’s happened as if my creative force suddenly ground to a halt four years ago, but that’s not quite right. I’ve just written less and less as years have passed or contributed less with a passionate fervor. I do love some of my academic writing, I do make things from fiction that are great, but these pieces emerge from a sort of inner morass that takes a great deal of effort to push back. I have to fight with a work to make it happen.

As for the finished second novel? It remains finished: I have diced it up and attempted to rework its contents, but the original draft is very painful to read and colored by the things that happened around it. Last year, I surmised to scrap the whole draft and start Chimehour’s sequels fresh, with maybe one or two scenes intact. It was a hard call: one of the most agonizing things I have done in my writing, in fact. 188k of words, and only a few people will have ever read them. Some of it is to do with a principle character, whom my uncle inspired and who became- after his death, very difficult to write. Some of it is the flawed nature of draft that maybe, just maybe, was meant for me to grow from, and nothing else.   Outside of that, I suppose I’m sharing this to admit, with confidence, that I’ve been dealing with anxiety spikes and depressive episodes for about three years. This is not new: I’ve had depression and anxiety for a long, long time, but the return of these episodes caught me off guard. I had not felt so low since I was in middle school, I had not had bad panic attacks after I settled into college. But here we are. I have not decided if I need to see a therapist yet (I might), but I do know that I feel lighter for expressing these struggles and acknowledging their realness.   We’ll see what the writing well brings in the future.

[in-arlathan]

2019 Writer’s Round-Up

I was tagged by @faerieavalon. You are wonderful, thank you! <3

Since I quit my job in April to pursue writing as a career (yeah, I’m that crazy person), I’ve spend my time working on both original fiction and fanfiction and I’ll take both into account for this round-up. I hope this gives me the much-needed motivational boost for 2020.

Total word count: 132,229

Broken down

Original Works – 84,784

The Rebel’s Ascension – 19,827

A Little Light – 1,513

Winter’s Heart – 1,292

At Wit’s End – 991

To Heal The Hurt – 1,643

A Change of Heart – 859

Lessons Learned – 3,492

These Stolen Moments – 5,826

What Friends Are For – 2,178

First To The Keeper – 3,413

Mythal’s Mark – 3,791

The Scar – 2,620

Wow, just... holy sh*t. I can’t remember a single year in my life I wrote this much. And this not even taking revisions into account (I rewrote approx. 50,000 words on my novel). I know there are many writers out there who accomplish much more in the same amount of time but eff it, I’m proud of myself. Especially with all the OCD bullcrap, I had to deal with this year. Hell yeah!

Number of smut scenes: Zero. Yeah, you read that correctly. It’s not that I avoid writing them, I just feel weird writing smut. Am I a strange person? Probably... only time will tell.

New things I tried this year: Writing in English! I do consume most media in English these days (roundabout 90%), but I never wrote anything ficitional in that language. I learned so much by trying to transform my little headcanons into enjoyable stories. Oh, and revisions. Lots and lots of revisions. Especially for the orignal works to make them publishable. I’m on round 6 for my novel and I start to hate every single word in every single sentence, but it’s okay. I know it’ll be worth it in the end.

AUs. That’s a zero again, I guess. Sometimes I do hate my love for canon-compliance. I admire a lot of writers who can embrace their AUs whole-heartedly but I suck at it big time...

Writing others’ OCs. I never tried that, tbh. I’m too afraid to ruin them. 🙈

Favourite thing I wrote this year: Uh, this is a tough one. When it comes to emotional impact, I’d say it’s “To Heal The Hurt”. Otherwise, I really enjoyed “The Rebel’s Ascension” (and still do). I never expected to find so much happiness writing a pure Solas-centric fanfic without any romance.

Favourite fic I read this year: “Looking Glass” by Feynite. It was the first fanfic I read since I dropped out of the Star Wars fandom ten years ago and it delivered everything my Solavellan hungry soul desired after finishing my first Solas romance playthrough of DA:I. I've accumulated quite the reading list with amazing fics by many talented writers since then, but I haven’t gotten around to reading them yet. It just so happens that I can either write or read a lot, but not both. I’m terrible that way. But I’m determined to get to “Borderland Sorrows” by @serial-chillr, “Sule Tael Tasalal” by @faerieavalon and “Begin Again” by @cornfedcryptid and many more fics by many more wonderful writers like @johaeryslavellan, @kita-lavellan or @solas-disapproves. And I’m pretty sure, there are more that I simply forgot. But the DA fandom has so much to offer and I’m so glad I joined it.

Writing goals for 2020: Get two of of three novels published and crank out some more fanfiction in the meantime. I want to finish “The Rebel’s Ascension” very badly, but there is a ton of Solavellan stories I want to write, too. I may even write my first smut scene (I really want to). Apart from that, my main focus will be honing the craft. I know my English is not bad, but it can be improved to make the stories more impactful.

One more thing before I go

All the lovely and encouraging responses I’ve recieved from the DA fandom thus far really kept me motivated. I’m used to writing for myself with only a few people taking the time to look at my stories. Every kudo, every like and every comment is a god-damn gift for me––and I can’t thank you enough for it. Thank you all so very much! <3