#I'm not counting the graveyard folder...

[shyspider]

Really @air-mechanical? You tag me when I'm at my most distracted time of the year, dabbling in other fandoms I'm super shy to admit I have worked on???? I keep my drapes closed for a reason 😅

Thank you for including me 💕 wishing you all the inspiration on your wips

Nope. I'm not gonna chicken out. I'm gonna share what is in my active WIP folder. I'm gonna do it.

I tend not to title my fics till much later, so I'm going to add a few details to give others an idea of what I have.

RULES: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

"TF4 - phase3" - [Transformers]

You/???

- Next installment after "When Sparks Burn".

"Season of the Smallest Stars" - [Transformers!Miniformers]

You&Friends

- Folder filled with different drafts. The "Summer Arc" draft is sitting and waiting for attention.

"TT2-p1" - [Transformers!Merformers]

You/Sunstreaker, You/Sideswipe, Other pairings

- Yeah. Twintails might get a sequel. Still in its very early stages. No ending planned, yet. Only concepts and worldbuilding written.

"Memory Glass" - [Transformers/Fantasy AU]

You/Optimus, maybe more? Want to write a reverse harem.

- Been wanting to write a fantasy AU for a while now. Concepts, Worldbuilding, and a bit of discovery writing done.

"SoulmateAU" - [Transformers/Soulmate AU]

You/Optimus

- Kinda just came up with the idea through worldbuilding. Only concepts written.

"Ghostface - I can weaponize him" - [Scream]

You/Ghostface

- Don't... I just needed to get it out of my brain. It was an idea borne from that whole "I can fix him. I can make him worse" thing.

"Mando mmhmm" - [Mandalorian]

You/Paz Vizsla

- Yeeahh just a lot of scenes I had to write out of my system.

"COD send help" - [Call of Duty]

You/Ghost, You/Konig, You/Soap, You/Price, You/Gaz, so many more

- Again, writing it to get it out of my head. Just ignore me.

I'm tagging all the writers I'm aware of. Obviously, ignore this if you're not interested.

@unusualjuggernaut  @moodymisty @murder-at-the-bingo-hall @montyuh @defaulttwig @afssh @ironwolf-gone @tarot-readingz @allswellinthiswell @maplesyruplover @circuitsrewired @energonbunny @vaultofqueenorion @snurtsnurt @techtainia-makes-things @solain-rhyo @ss-shitstorm  @themaskismyface @darkstarnovaphoenix

WIP Title Game

Thank you @supervisormeero for the tag! A lot of these wips were in just one document, so this was a good reason to organise them better.

Apart from the Tarkin one, all the wips listed below are for Andor - two absurd comedies, two keero, one abstract horror, one that's just weird.

[I've also got a heap of words for historical fiction shows, but I haven't listed them.]

RULES: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

1. A Pleasant Break from the Complexities of Living

2. Are you aware you're in a sewer, Mr. Karn?

3. ISB meets Pre-Mor

4. Office lock in Syril at the window

5. Keeping secrets from you

6. Car backseat

7. Tarkin-reader

I think most people I know who post their writing have already been tagged. @shyspider @moff-times throwing this out to you if you want to do it. And an open invitation to anyone else reading this who wants to! Sorry if we're mutuals and I don't know you write

[raina-at]

My fic year in review

Total number of completed stories: 6

Total word count: about 90 k, give or take. (Published, that is, you don't want to see my WIP graveyard...)

Fandoms written in: BBC Sherlock

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected? More, because I didn't expect to turn Nothing Gold Can Stay into a series, and three of my six finished fics were in that series. Also, I participated in the May challenge even though it was hell at work around that time, so I'm doubly proud that I produced 28k worth of ficlets.

What’s your own favorite story of the year? Hm, it's a tie between Lying in Winter, because I wrote it in two days in sort of a dreamy haze between New Year's and going back to work and it was lovely, and Guess Who's Coming to Christmas Dinner because it was a hoot to write from start to finish.

Did you take any writing risks this year? I wrote a series of fics that build on each other, which I've learned leads to diminishing returns the more fics into the series you are, but I'll continue this until I run out of ideas or every last one of you is sick of that series, whatever happens first ;-)

Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the new year? I've recently started working on a big, gigantic monster of a Mystery Project, lovingly nicknamed The Monster(TM). I'd love to stick with this one and finish it, because I think it could be really good. So keep your fingers crossed for me. I also want to finish and post the next fic in the Nothing Gold series.

Most popular story of the year? Guess Who's Coming for Christmas Dinner, you guys apparently love my Unilock fake relationship dorks.

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: See above, if you write a series, the individual stories will have diminishing return because you lose the casuals. But what you lose in quanitity, you win in quality ;-)

Most fun story to write: Guess Who's Coming for Christmas Dinner. I had so much fun with their banter, it was almost indecent. It's also super low stakes, and I needed that at the time.

Most unintentionally telling story: I honestly don't know this year. How fucking long it took me to come up with a good solution for the plot of the new Nothing Gold fic, in that it tells me I suck at plot?

Seriously, The Light Gets In is about the healing powers of time, forgiveness and Yoga, and that's something I've experienced myself. I love Yoga and I think it shows in this fic.

Biggest disappointment: Oh my god, you guys, you cannot imagine how many abandoned drafts titled Yoga Sherlock I have in my WIP folder. It's embarrassing if I tell you how many fics I started, made decent progress with, and abandoned because they just weren't right. And then I went back to my original idea to make it a post Reichenbach story... Sigh. Only I switched to John POV and BAM. I had my story. The classic embodiment of the German saying "Warum einfach wenn's umständlich auch geht", which means basically why do something easy when you can do something complicated.

Biggest surprise: That you guys continue to like my fics. Seriously, the kindness, generosity and welcoming spirit of this fandom shouldn't surprise me anymore, but it gives me great joy. The fic exchange in May and the fic club were such highlights this year, an outpouring of fandom generosity and creativity. So my highlight this year is you, Sherlock fandom.

Tagging whoever wants to do this.

Happy new year, my dears. May we continue to rock in 2025, and may we continue being each others' lights in an uncertain time.

[wallbeatjournal]

10 non-canon riverdale concepts, fic ideas or AUs you can't stop thinking about?

OMG anon. i love this question, i love concepts i love riffing but i'm also overwhelmed by it. ten is soooo many!! lemme dig through my gdrive fanfic graveyard for a second...and lemme put this under a cut to save some eyes.

hirarchie plots in my drafts folder:

one of those "i didn't know where else to go..." hero turns up on villain's doorstep after a trauma fics, in which archie seeks out hiram bc he thinks he's more interested in revenge than like. medical assistance or emotional support.

continued vampire AU ft archie getting properly bitten, more veronica triangulation, more shame

s3 juvie arc AU in which hiram actually visits to be so so soooo soso so nasty and sick about it all

kind of a dreamy fairy tale AU where archie is an ex-mermaid with very sharp teeth (but he already traded his voice and fins away to a different witch who skipped town in her volkswagen beetle) and hiram is a warlock and veronica is in kind of a cinderella-rapunzel situation.

a sort of inception<>rivervale fusion in which rivervale is explicitly kind of built around archie's subconscious and he keeps trying and killing and dying over and over in an attempt to create a hiram-free world where his dad might come back. narrator jughead is there trying to pick up the pieces every time archie bails out. hiram might be becoming meta-aware, or it might just be that archie can't imagine him without every advantage

fic where there's a zombie apocalypse on, and hiram has zombie archie locked in the basement at pop's. (archie pov of course)

my long slow serial wip where s5 archie goes with hiram when he's exiled and kind of rehashes teen traumas but (he thinks) without any illusions about what he's doing. reggie is there now so all i do is think about toxic reggie-on-hirarchie dynamics now. it's going medium.

10 is a LONG list anon. i went deep into the abandoned projects file and i'm still short. so. brainstorming some other stuff i think about but haven't actually made any gestures at writing bc it's not ~my brand:

s7 archie/reggie fill-ins idk if this counts as non-canon because it's more of a "missing scenes" type thing, but i really want more s7 boys-supporting-boys soft romance archie/reggie fic filling in the emotional layers and plot gaps and what-next of archie working on the mantle farm, etc

s6 reggie/kevin(/percival) i've been thinking a lot about s6 reggie/kevin(/percival). troubling. troubling! anyway even outside of the dynamics of reggie wanting to rescue kevin from mind control, i keep thinking kevin would be fascinated with reggie's puppet conscience. i think he'd try to adopt it as his own or at least share, he needs one too. i think they could get intensely psychosexual or simply sexual about the whole situation.

sex pollen. traditional sex pollen. riverdale is from one angle a comics fandom, and you can't have a comics fandom without some writer doing the needful and launching fuck-or-die chemicals at some characters sometime. percival's reggie-on-archie stabbing aggression spell already kind of had that vibe, which is probably why i think it should be archie/reggie. but i would also accept kevin/archie with a slightly different tone, kevin/jughead with a VERY different tone, etc etc etc. (and betty/cheryl. idk why them, they're not even my main f4f ship. i just think they'd wear it well.)

[prolix-yuy]

Get to Know Me!

I found this fun lil AO3 list a while back and thought I would finally fill it out!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

50! Holy shit! I didn't think it was so many! I think I have more here on Tumblr because I didn't post the Bangathon or other challenge fics there.

2. What's your total A03 words count?

344,394!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Pretty much anything that Pedro's been in. Some more than others - The Mandalorian, Triple Frontier, The Bubble, etc.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Something New, One Very Good Night, Both Sides of the Door, A Sweet Response to Tragedy, and Good Company. Four out of five of these are in my I Think of You series.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes! Every single one I get! I just caught up on all of them after a hiatus, but it's my favorite thing to respond to the kind readers who leave comments.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Cognitive Dissonance, though it was redeemed by it's sequel. I do love an angsty ending but I don't write a ton of them on Tumblr.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Definitely Decoherence, the sequel to Cognitive Dissonance. They got the happiest ending I could give them after all the grief!

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not that I can remember? I've been corrected before, which is very helpful when I'm out of my depth.

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Oh yes. Oh yesssssss. Allllll sorts of smut with all sorts of people, though there's much more I haven't written yet! Plenty of time for that!

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I've already mentioned it several times but the Whiskey & Westworld series is the big one. I've also done a Mentalist/Kingsman crossover for a few spicy fics.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Hopefully not!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I know of, but if someone wanted to they could (with permission).

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Not yet! But that would be a fun time!

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

I was always a huge sucker for 9th/10th Doctor x Rose from the Doctor Who fandom.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I posted a snippet of a Joel fic that I don't have clear direction for, but maybe it will find the light of day. There are several dead docs in my WIP folder that most likely won't be written. Every writer's got a graveyard!

16. What are your writing strengths?

I have a pretty strong narrative voice in oneshots. I'm also good at adapting that voice to other story styles I write. I'm good at describing feelings and anchoring them in the body. I excel at making connections and foreshadowing. I'm also very good at writing smut ;)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Procrastination! I find that when I start writing it becomes all-consuming, but actually jumping into the writing is a big energy dump. I also tend to speed through sections in shorter fics, where I'd like to take more time in the scene than summarizing the scene.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I of course picked a fandom for which I do not speak the second language of the MMC I use. I'll use it occasionally, but I prefer to hint at speaking another language than try to translate it well enough for someone to not laugh at it. Trust me, I've fucked up translation so much in my second language that I am happy to spare myself the embarrassment.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Gundam Wing, back when fic writing was me and my friends handwriting our self-insert fics and reading them during sleepovers. What a time!

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

I Think of You, hands down. I love the feeling that series gives me when I read it or write it, and there's so much more story I want to tell.

Open tags for this because it's a long one!

[mfrancislewrites]

What Should Go In Your WIP Drive

Long-term projects are all fun and games until you're trying to remember where you put all your info on Character A or Fantasy Country #12. Not only do I recommend putting all that info in a Google Drive (or something similar to it; I just like the drive since I can put it on a flashdrive), but I recommend keeping it as neat and tidy as possible! Here's how I organize mine :) (under the cut)

First, you should create a folder where all of your long-term WIPS go. This way you can easily cross-reference your other projects if need be.

Create 3 files inside here: Drafts, Character/Worldbuilding, and Publishing (obviously adjust to fit your needs).

Drafts is where all of your... well... drafts go. Make sure to label them (draft 1, revision 1, revision 2, etc.) to make comparison more accessible too! If you like keeping yourself accountable for your writing, feel free to add a writing log in this folder (I use Google Sheets to track time and word count here).

I also keep my infamous chapter graveyard in this folder. If there's large scenes that I'm heartbroken to delete, I simply put them in the graveyard document. Who knows? Maybe you'll be able to use that scene as flashback later!

Character/Worldbuilding is always changing based off of your writing process. I like to put my chapter outline here as well as my story notes (a long Google Slides depicting all character info, setting, and worldbuilding rules). Again, this folder's really up to you and how you like to organize things :)

Publishing is likely going to be your least-used folder until your WIP is fully finished. That being said, I highly recommend creating it at the beginning of the project anyway!! In here, you'll want editing/revision notes (or they can go in your drafts folder) and everything to do with the query letter. This includes: your book's synopsis, the hook, the elevator pitch, and your 3rd-POV bio. You'll also want some way to track the people you query. I also keep this on Google Sheets with dates, times, and places that you send queries and/or questions to.

As always, you're free to adjust this however you'd like! If you have any questions about how any of this works, feel free to leave a comment here or in my inbox. I might even make a post about the chapter graveyard and my query masterdoc if anyone would be interested in that. :)

[kdsburneraccount]

WIP TAG GAME

Tagged by @xariarte, @khashmiddleton, and @churrobear (I’m so popular guys /j)

make a new post with the names of all the files in your wip folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! then, tag as many people as you have wips.

Oh brother this is gonna be a lot… (clears throat) technically I don't have a "folder" of wips but also that would be pedantic so i'll just categorize based on how much i've worked on them lately under the cut.

Tagging-wise I'm not going to tag (counts) 18 people 😭 but i will tag @phenanthreneblue @fritzes @cardiaccat @feddy-34 @glittersgloom @daggerzout @dear-space-cadet (no pressure to do this at all)

somewhat recently... ("recently" being in the past four months)

- Another gift in the future

- potential gift

- oh no (dramatic music) cringe

- breathless (runs away)

- subversive yaoi

- Nobody steal this idea from me >:(

- Bengals Special Teams... Long Snaps and Punting Over a Decade??

"guys trust me i'll get to this" (waits like two years at least)

- Bills fanfic owo

- ao3 writers always try and squeeze in the entire atp tour in the narrative like their life depends on it FUKKKK ... why holgah da bus driver all of da sudden 😐 …..

- soulbond

- i like you, and i wish i didn't

- skewed priorities (the actual Mattnifesto)

- and they were roommates

tbh this category is kind of the graveyard (last edited pre-2024) but i WILL get to this (said even more unconvincingly)

- All the Roads lead back to you or something

- Wynaut

- monsterfucking

- Slow Burn? ಠ_ಠ

- one of these days

[golden-fairylights]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Thank you @espithewarlock and @your-littlesecret for atgging me to answer these 20 questions. ❤️

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

14 at the moment

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 

109,283

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I hav eonly written Formula 1 RPF for now, but who knows what the future brings. For now there is no other fandom I am as invested in though.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

no take backs (Lasdoscar)

the start of the rest of our lives (Landoscar)

to the love that you share (Landoscar)

The one where Lando is calling Carlos (Carlando and the first fic I've ever posted)

all I ever wanted (Piarles)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I really try to but I'm so bad at it. So, I'm sorry if anyone is still missing an answer, I'll get to it as soon as I have the mental capacity to formulate something that doesn't sound indifferent (because I promise I am truely not, I'm just really bad at formulating it).

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Well, I think that will have to be A graveyard dance.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I have no clue to be honest. All of my fics, except 'A graveyard dance', have a happy ending.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not unitl now and I hope it stays that way. I truely don't understand how someone can take time out of their day to leave hate on something they didn't like.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I've written two different smut fics, one of them is already posted, the other one is deep in my finished works folder and I don't know if I'll ever post it.

But it's both kinky, never without concent though. In both of the fics they are in relationships and have previously talked about what they are doing. Oh and then I guess there are also some scenes in my longer fics.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I don't.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think I have.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I didn't

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Actually I have. They are only my top three most liked fics, so thank you again Kit for writing with me.😊I really think we should get back to that.

I've also started writing something together with Immy after we've both been in a bit of a slump. 🥰

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

Piarles is definitely up there at the top, but Landoscar is there as well, even though I don't write that often.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I would say I'm good at finishing my wips but then the eight works I have in my wips foulder would probably come crowding me at night and won't let me sleep.

No but I've got a College fic that I started in Febuary and it's constantly growing. I started it as a oneshot and it just grew from there. I don't have a plan for it and I don't know where it's going to go. I don't even know an end for it so, I'd say that one for now.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I have no clue to be honest. I have times where I'm kind of confident in what I write and then there are times where I hate every single word. I think that I can just start writing without planing it out is kind of a strength, right? But then that has also been a problem for me at some point, but i guess thats my answer for now.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Similar to the one before, I don't know. I feel like I've not written for long enough to really figure all of that out.

It somehow depends on what I am writing and on my day in general I think. For example, on some days I love writing dialogue and on other days I hate it and everything feels wrong.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

As long as I can understand what the person in the fic is trying to say I'm okay with it.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Forumla 1 RPF

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

I like most of the fics I've posted so far but A graveyard dance holds a special place in my heart. I can't even explain why but it just felt right while I wrote it.

Thank you again for tagging me, it's been so much fun answering those questions.

I don't have any clue who has already answered these so I'm tagging @gaslybottoms @hrhgeorgerussell @leclercenjoyer @chaesonghwas and anyone else who wants to participate. ❤️

[walkawaytall]

tag game: fic roundup!

Tagged by @otterandterrierwrites. Thanks!

how many fic documents do you have/where do they live?

I will be answering these in reverse order because the answer to the latter makes the former sound less insane. So, I write using a program called Scrivener, which is used a lot by novelists and screenwriters. The way Scrivener works is there's a main project, and then each chapter or section or whatever has its own document in that project. All of my fanfiction is in one Scrivener project, so I have the main fanfic project, and then each story has its own folder, and each chapter of each story has its own document.

Anyway, if we're counting everything I've posted, scenes/snippets/WIPs I have yet to post, my scratch pad docs (AKA scene graveyards), and outlining documents, the total is 122.

what fandoms do you have fic for?

Star Wars.

And, I mean, technically Left Behind: the Kids. It's still out there on an archive page somewhere.

how long is your longest unpublished wip?

Fully unpublished? That would be the AU with the working title [not] my real dad, which is just short of 4000 word right now. Purpose of Heritage is obviously a WIP, but a lot of it is published. Currently, I have about 17K words of future chapters written that aren't published, but there are more to come.

what fic types are most common in your wips?

I have two AUs, shockingly, and then a mishmash of one-shots that have no unifying theme.

do you have any ongoing ‘verses/series in your wips, if so, what are they?

Sort of? Purpose of Heritage is obviously the longfic I've been posting for a year, and I have a sort of side project called Perspectives that it, appropriately, scenes or referenced happenings in PoH from perspectives other than Leia (mostly Han; there is currently one Wedge chapter, and I expect to write something from Luke's POV at some point and possibly Rieekan's as well). And my plan with that story is to end it right as The Empire Strikes Back picks up, but to have a much shorter separate story kind of tying up how Han and Leia get (back) together, so it's sort of a series, but...yeah, I don't know.

long or short fic?

Oh, I don't know? It depends on what the story I'm trying to tell demands. Obviously my longfic is...real long, and I have couple of other multichapters, too. But I think most of my fics are in the 2K-5K range.

Thanks for asking! I cannot expend the energy to come up with people to tag rn, but if you want to do this, please do!

[emptymanuscript]

After several rounds of elimination played with myself, I think I have convinced myself out of ten of the possible projects down to four legit contenders for NaNoWriMo next month.

The Luna & Bacall Supernatural Detective Agency

The Fairies' Graveyard

The Count of Earth

Goal-Go!

They're all fairly different projects.

The Luna & Bacall Supernatural Detective Agency is fairly straight forward Urban Fantasy. Fairly silly people in terrible situations. It's essentially a fish out of water story with the least qualified detectives imaginable dealing with the worst sort of criminals imaginable and just sort of bumbling through in spite of the fact that they would have been dead in chapter 2 if it was an even vaguely realistic story. It has the advantage that I've already written some of it, and I expect it will be the most 'ridiculous fun' of the choices. Luna (Loon) Khonsu and Rebecca (Betch) Bacall the bff MCs are ridiculous. They have no place in a serious story and they're just going to plow through it until the story they're in stops being serious.

The Fairies' Graveyard is a very not straight forward. It's still fantasy but it is a novel-in-stories. A bunch of interrelated short stories (which is its real appeal to me because I want to learn the art of the short story) that convey a greater whole between them, sort of like Futureland: Nine Stories of an Imminent World by Walter Mosley. It's thread is an alternate 'history' where Fae survivors of a massive catastrophe have to figure out how to live in permanent exile in the human world. It also has the advantage that I've already written some of it and I'm very interested in the literary 'fuck you' that makes up a decent portion of the connective cores of the whole. Unfortunately it is also the grimmest of the choices. While I do (currently) think it has a happy ending, it isn't meant to be a light or easy read. I don't particularly expect it to be fun or comfortable. The only funny thing is that it actually started life as a porno-fan-fic idea until I realized that I had written something FAR too serious to have it match up with the original concept.

The Count of Earth is a Space Opera. Very soft Sci-fi that is meant to feel a bit like a folktale in space. The far future equivalent of one of the longer tales out of One Thousand and One Nights. Probably more accurately one of the French fakes inserted by one of the translators. It's one of the oldest story ideas that I'm still interested in, since I first had the idea for it back in 2014. I've written the beginning several times. I know, generally, what I want the story to be, but I kinda just can't quite get it to sing. The real advantage of it in NaNoWriMo will be letting go of its singing voice and just getting it down. It's also the only one of the four with no magic in it. The only "magic" is advanced technology (FTL, Interplanetary communications, Artificial Intelligences, Orbital Bombardment, etc.) and a massive amount of money. It's also the only one where a romantic love story will be a major plot line, as Jun, the MC who is the titular Count, falls in love with the Princess (? the Daughter of a Sovereign of a state like a King who is below the ultimate Sovereign of his political union like an Emperor) Mayari, who is the daughter of his 'master's enemy. Which is a mixed bag since I enjoy romantic subplots but I'm terrible at them.

Goal-Go! is Progression (Science) Fantasy. It acknowledges itself as existing within a Sci-fi universe while mostly dealing with magic within the 'scientifically' generated simulation. Even the blatantly 'scientific' ideas, like the transfer of files between folders on different computer systems for instance, are handled like magic. It's definitely the 'biggest' project, as in requiring the most amount of work from me, even if it is actually meant to be a fairly quick and easy read. Since my central conceit is that Goal-Go! is a 3rd person Choose Your Own Adventure. A game within a game. I will have to work hard to avoid making Inception references. I'm fairly certain I can't actually write the full text in 30 days but I could probably set up what I thought of as the default storyline, the one I would expect most readers to choose. And start working on the branches off of that. It's also just an ambitiously complicated structural idea. The story isn't much. Pulling it off will be a phenomenal amount of work and it may just simply be too much for NaNoWriMo even in abridged form. I think I'm only even considering it because I wanna and because I don't see it as very likely that I'll commit to it without something like NaNoWriMo, just some huge push against the phenomenal weight of the project. I wanna do it but it is intimidating. I'm also just not sure how fun Goal-Go! will be. And it will kind of be a waste of time if it isn't fun. Fun is its justification for existing. Though it's a different kind of fun from The Luna & Bacall Supernatural Detective Agency. It's gamey fun instead of fool victorious fun. The constant task will be keeping it from bogging down which I think it will simply tend toward. I probably should just nix it for safety and say no. But. I do kinda still wanna.

All of which gets me not really any closer to deciding which of the four to actually do. They're all kind of different enough that it's hard to compare them and pick out what will be the "best" experience for me. Hmmmph. Decisions. Decisions.

[alistonjdrake]

🤬 📄 🗣️👻 friend!!

🤬Is there a WIP that you hate?

I guess if there's anything I hate it's already in my Graveyard folder. I talked a little about which one I think is the worst in there before. I consider it the predecessor to TSS bc it has an unlikeable main prince character who has political aspirations while also being unlikely to inherit but it was uh...too much. The full post is here if you're interested

📄What’s a WIP you never finished that you would like to go back and revisit

That's like half of them :). We Heard the Devil haunts me. Would love to get that done. Someone Will Die is literally so close I just have to work out a few things. The Sorcerei of Cokumpoint, Silk and Hysteria...honestly most of the stuff in my wip tags that I just haven't touched in a while. I just got really busy and decided to focus on TSS since it's longer and more involved.

🗣️Talk about your favourite WIP

TSS counts as my favorite although I guess it really depends on the day but based on the sheer amount of effort I've put into it and the number of years I've been working on it...yes I guess she wins. I don't think I'll never not be proud of my world-building fo TSS, all the work I've put into developing the different countries, their cultures, and their histories. That's really why I don't think I'll ever truly leave that world and TSS ends up having some of my favorite characters. Zurina will always be so dear to my heart and I'd give her her own spinoff if I genuinely felt like there was something there

👻Is there a scene that you find intimidating that you have yet to write?

There's a riot scene I have to do soon for a chapter of OBS and any large crowd scenes in general do make me anxious. I think it's really easy to either get lost in the detail and lose urgency or to lack too much detail and fail to make it feel "heavy" and I'm probably gonna stress over it until I get it done.

[the-starryknight]

1, 10 & 18 for the weird asks, pls and thank youuuuu!! Feel free to swap if you don’t like them!! 😘

1. What font do you write in? Do you actually care or is that just the default setting?

Ooh I do care, actually -- I write in Times New Roman, size 11, indented, 1.5 spacing. Something about it tells my brain that I'm writing something "real" and kicks it into gear in a way that most other fonts and defaults don't. I do, however, often change the background and font colors! Sometimes to help my brain switch stories, sometimes for vibe setting, and sometimes to create low contrast for privacy when writing in public 😂

10. Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you?

I have a folder in GDocs that I call my WIP graveyard. It's where pieces of stories (sometimes many chapters) go to rest when I can't write them anymore. The above screenshot is from one of them, last year's fanfair that perished with much of the past year's inspiration. These fics reside in the back corner of my memory like a beating heart, as though if they thud loud enough, I'll hear and get back to the keys... although the muse is rarely so willing to work with me. Does that count?

18. Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end.

Ooooh. You wrote the sweetest rec of the other harry's happiness, so I'll give a little backstory of that. When I wrote this, I had finished this little microfic and the idea just would not let me rest. So I came back to a blank document and just wrote and wrote, as unable to pull myself away as Harry was from the mirror.

I found myself thinking about the original scene from the books, when Harry sees the mirror, and I wanted this to feel like that... that sort of almost-sinister compulsion to keep looking. So I actually just quoted the book. Harry getting caught, and almost exactly this dialogue happens with Dumbledore in book one:

“Back again, Harry?” Malfoy asked, a hollow tease in his tone. He was just as moved by it. “I didn’t hear you coming,” Harry murmured, and blinked at his palm spread across Malfoy’s neat grey suit jacket.

And then later in the same scene, Dumbledore tells Harry: "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that." So the last line of the fic became:

After all, it was better to live than to dwell in dreams; it was better to kiss him in reality than let hope remain reflected.

I'm not sure if folks ever picked up on it! But I was rereading that scene as I wrote this one, so I wanted it to feel referential. Thank you for asking!! <3

[sillyunicorn]

WIP ask game

RULES: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! and then tag others whose WIPs you'd like to see*.

tks for the tag @mostlymaudlin! I'll tag @starwarned, @seasy33, and @tea-brigade :) probably all of these are abandoned for good lol but i'm procrastinating so:

Snowbaz: NYC rats snowbaz, musician AU, half blood pitch (ok i do wanna finish this one day lol)

AFTG: Point Blanc AU, BAND AU

Bonus - things in my "Ideas" folder: tommy's party song fic, SIMPARD ROAD TRIP OUT WEST, Android BAZ, Alien Hunter Simpard and Alien Baz, Teen wolf season 6 au, Pride and Prejudice AU, penny simon make up, little prince au, how to train your dragon au, happy time loop for Marta, Hands, Halloween fic ideas, EGF, Counte of monte cristo AU, 27 dresses au ^ i think these are all simon snow

I was like wow I don't have many WIPs which is true but I do have a good number of "ideas" in my idea graveyard lol

*i amended it

[druidx]

writer questions!! Ask Game

I decided to answer a few questions from this ask game, because of encouragement from that one post that said, "don't just wait for people to ask if you want to answer"

I used a Dice chose the questions for me.

8. if you had to write an entire story without either action or dialogue, which would you choose and how would it go?

I reckon I could turn my hand to either, but all action would probably go better than all dialogue - I find it easier to show communication via action, than action via speech.

11. do you believe in the old advice to “kill your darlings?” are you a ruthless darling assassin? what happens to the darlings you murder? do you have a darling graveyard? do you grieve?

I am pretty ruthless when it comes to removing characters from the story where it makes most sense (usually to spurr the other characters into the next part of the plot). I used to get sad about it, but now I'm less bothered. I'm not sure what a "darling graveyard" is, so no XD

22. how organized are you with your writing? describe to me your organization method, if it exists. what tools do you use? notebooks? binders? apps?

About 6, on a scale of 1 (bad) to 10 (amazing). I mostly use Wikidot wikis to organise my notes, especially across series, and imgur to organise the related images. All stories have their own folder, which may be nested inside a Universe folder. I try to ensure that each revision of a story is in a new file with the version number appended. Unfortunately, this is a more recent structure and some of my older stuff is a mess.

33. do you practice any other art besides writing? does that art ever tie into your writing, or is it entirely separate?

I like making moodboards/ digital collages tied into my characters or story, and using Heroforge to bring my characters to life.

I also build things in Starbound - sometimes I write based on the build, and sometimes I build based on what I write (IDK if that strictly counts as "art" tho).

[mistressarafax]

Rules: “post the names of all the files in your WIP folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have wips. I have deemed that this isn’t just for writing either. Sketch titles? Comics? Dnd campaigns? If you have an unfinished project, it counts!!” tagged by @lafeae

So my WIPs and completed stuff are all in one shared Google Drive. No folders. I live and die in a disorganized mess. But I'll try to keep it to just unfinished works. Some of them are partially complete, but it's all written in one document so it's listed here.

JotaWeather - JJBA

The Seed We've Sown - JJBA

Goten x Bra - DB

Welcome Back (the actual title this is published under is Altogether as One) - AoT

Lay Up - JJBA

A Score to Settle - KaiJou

Bohemian Rhapsody - JJBA

Fire and Ice - KaiJou

Golden Light - JJBA

Home.Away. - JJBA

Idolized - KaiJou

Life and Death - Bleach

Lucia - JJBA

Lunch Break - KaiJou

Menial - KaiJou

Nobu - YGO

Role Reverse - KaiJou

Sated.Hungry. - JJBA

Space AU (formally known as To the Edge of the Universe) - KaiJou

Tea Party - KaiJou

Temporarily This - KaiJou

Troubled Vision - KaiJou

Youngja 15 - Kpop

YuugixKisara - YGO

I've gone ahead and marked the fandoms. Send me an ask if you want to know about any of these or to get a snippet of something.

I'm a tag graveyard.

[mostlymaudlin]

writer tag game wooooo

thanks @palimpsessed and @captain-aralias for the tags!!

a few tags.. @urban-sith @snowybank @tea-brigade @seducing-a-vampire @xivz @facewithoutheart @unseelieseelie @motherscarf @stillmadaboutpetra but as always i love reading these so lie and say i tagged u if u wanna do it!!

How many works do you have on AO3? 17, 15 of which are for simon snow series What’s your total AO3 word count? 97,953 How many fandoms have you written for and what are they? ive published for three! simon snow, check please, and one direction. ive also written some steve/bucky that never went anywhere. What are your top five fics by kudos? In black ink my love may still shine bright Want to mark you up (e-rated part two to "In black ink.."!) Nothing Equals the Splendor a bully and a snob and a complete arsehole Light Me Up

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I try to but if too many come in at a time i get overwhelmed haha. that's only happened a few times tho, toward the end of my multi-chap when people were subscribed and ready. i love replying to comments bc i write a lot more than i post — if something makes it to ao3, that means i really like the story! and if people want to talk to me about it, that's like.. the best thing ever.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

i was gonna be like "oh i always give them a happy ending" but then ao3 told me — that's not true! Yellow was a lil deleted scene thing i did abt simon buying his yellow breakup stationery, so obviously the ending is big owie. and my humdrum fic, Hunger of the Shadow... i mean its a humdrum fic lol. idk which is angstier, its different types i guess.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

i got a comment that bothered me once that was like sort of judgmental abt a bit of my plot, and they were like "you should have done __ instead." and i was like ummmmmm... but not HATE i suppose.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

i wrote smut on my own once (Want to mark you up). i mostly wrote this one to capitalize on the horny momentum of In black ink my love may still shine bright, in which simon and baz go out to a bar, etc. also i wanted to make a joke about lamb hahahah.

then i did a few smut pieces with some pals via Frantic Fanfic. One of them, A for Effort, is actually technically my second most-kudos-ed fic, but it didn't feel right to claim it because Kay (xivz) did the heavy lifting on that one!

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so!

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Just the Frantic Fanfic stuff!

What’s your all time favorite ship?

i wanna say snowbaz because im elbow-deep in it right now, but i don't know! i've definitely written most for snowbaz, but i think that's just because i'm more confident of a writer now than i was in my other fandoms. i think ill always be a slut for a certain 1d ship that really embarrasses me but i like..... can't get over it lmfao. also steve/bucky comes back to haunt me quite often

What’s a WIP that you want to finish, but don’t think you ever will?

i have a lot of wips that im determined to do, but it might be a while. i have one wip that is heavily rooted in a new england summer setting that i recently moved to my Graveyard folder on google drive because i was like... i don't think i can write this as well now that summer's over. the first sentence in that doc (which is entirely scrambled outline) is "this fic should smell like sunscreen." i will probably revisit next summer if im still around because im super invested in it. it's a childhood friends>rivals>friends>lovers with copious new englandisms, ghost hunting, simpard, explorations of guilt that are like super catholic (again: hello new england), queer identity stuff. i think shepard is a trans dude in that one too which was fun. idk!! this answer got long. it makes me more certain i will return to it lol.

What are your writing strengths?

hmmm probably like - earnest descriptions of emotion? like, if the character is going through something, im going to take you through allll the stages. i personally think im funny, which is what matters to me as my own reader lmfao. and i think i like to break them out of the usual settings and plotlines! i really like setting as a literary tool, thinking abt the obstacles that come wherever your characters are. im in the ideas stage of a road trip fic and i think that's going to be a really good way for me to flex there.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Sometimes dialogue, sometimes not. Elaborate plots that can't be tied to character development. I've said this before, but I find my writing to be quite plain in terms of syntax/word choice/etc... this is usually fine but sometimes my writing can get very like "action, thought, action, though, action, dialogue." idk. i dont know that i have a word for this, am open to suggestions.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in fic?

i can only write in english!

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

one direction lol

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

pshhhhh....... i like really love everything ive published for the simon snow series so idk. im most emotionally invested in my multichap, Nothing Equals the Splendor. But also i had the most fun writing both Jump Up, Chosen One! (where they get stuck in a mario game lmfao) and Light Me Up (my stoner fic). theyre all my favorites for different reasons lmfao.

if you read this whole thing i love u. i put the read more cut in at the top and then i was like 'i can wax on as long as i want now" hahaha. i love talking abt writing and idc if it makes me self-absorbed i love my fics 😂

[chitsangenthusiast]

kath bb i love hearing about other people's writing processes and i am always impressed by writers who have the confidence to let the first draft be shitty. that takes a certain amount of humility and confidence!

(also, same hat: i love a good word graveyard of discarded lines. one story's trash is another story's treasure)

but also 👀 will you say more about scrivener 👀 i've been meaning to look into it because i'm getting fed up bouncing between six different tabs of google docs and two word docs because i am a messy drafter with no organization skills and was wondering what your relationship with scrivener is like

SCRIVENER MY BELOVEDDDDDD 🧡🧡🧡

i got introduced to it one? two? years ago and literally it is The Reason why i picked writing back up. it's basically the electronic version of having a three-ring project binder lol

you can have folders to keep all your drafts for a wip in one place! you have a notes section, dedicated outlining space, and a corkboard! you can edit with comments like on gdoc, insert photos/citations/links/tables/etc! it's GREAT

(tbh i don't even use all the features bc i write like. shorter fanfics vs manuscripts or anything Big, but scrivener is adaptable for any kind of writing, fiction or non-fiction!)

it is definitely daunting/a lot to learn it at first tho. you're gonna start it up and be like 'holy shit' because of how much you can do with it, BUT imo once you get your bearings it's insanely easy to navigate. also you can customize basically everything lol this is what mine looks like:

left: binder part! menu that shows all of my fic wips/drafts. i love having this bc i can see everything at once, and makes it way easier to switch between wips if i suddenly decide to work on smth else

middle: writing space. everything re: font, spacing, background color, and border white space size can be customized!

right: notes section my love <33 there's other things that can be displayed here, but i rely on being able to write+reference parts of my outline/other thoughts/'words to check' here, so find this to be extremely useful. it's like my scrap paper lol

some potential cons/things to note:

their dictionary doesn't always recognize words that are definitely real, so you'll have to save them

imo their synonyms offerings are fairly lackluster, but i rely mostly on wordhippo anyway so that isn't an issue for me

reasons why i final review in word: scrivener can miss some grammar mistakes, and also the their formatting doesn't stick when copying content to ao3 lol

it does cost money ($50) but there is a free trial that gives you 30 days of use! as in, it will only count the days you use it and not 30 consecutive days which i thought was p cool!

but yes: i love scrivener so much lol literally the best thing i've ever used for writing <333333