#I'm about halfway done with the rough draft for it

[meownotgood]

THAT'S 60,000 WORDS LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOO!!

[steamberrystudio]

05/11/2023

Hey everyone! Time for the bi-weekly tumblr update for Steamberry stuffs!

I feel like I have missed a few tumblr updates. I went back and the last one I can find is *dated* August 24 - but was actually posted on September 24th. LoL

I had one dated from October but it looks like I may have never actually posted it. That seems about right for how things have been going for me.

It's been rough. Like...really rough. I'm going to assume that the September 24th post was my last tumblr update. I have been updating on Patreon and even updated on Itchio, so there have been updates. Just apparently not here.

(below, you'll mostly find information on WSC but there is a quick update on GS remnants as well!)

Summary

Have written all but Yren's route *through* chapter 9

Numerous new BGs

Ramble

So the last time I posted it looks like I was just starting Chapter 8 in When Stars Collide. I am currently wrapping up the final scenes of chapter 9.

My word count in the September update was 373,000 and it is currently 413,000. I am just shy of 90% of the way towards my final word count goal.

I am about halfway through writing Yren's chapter 9 content (about 8000 words of content total and I've got nearly 4000 of that written). Once I have that bit written, I will be done with Chapter 9 for all characters.

I've gotten new art since my last post but honestly I'm not sure at this point how many. Looking back at my emails, it looks like I've probably gotten 3 new complete BGs + 1 BG sketch since my last update here on Tumblr.

I have updated all the CGs with the new background art as well - the introductory CGs in the current snapshot, of course, use the old backgrounds and the new conference room looks completely different and has different chairs. So I had to go back to those CGs and re-do the chairs. That is done but I haven't actually coded the new BGs yet. I have, however, updated the artwork.

That's basically the major stuff for now with WSC.

Gilded Shadows

Working on the lore book. The art book is complete but I decided to hold off releasing it until the lore book is done so I can release them together. Lore book is taking a while as there is a lot of content to format and I'm adding to it as I go.

It is nearing 100 pages already and...yeah. There's a fair bit more. So it's gonna be big.

Screenshots:

None this time....I don't think.

Upcoming Weeks:

Basically the same old stuff. I will be writing for WSC. I am currently trying to hit a goal of at least 6500 words a week so I can complete the draft by the end of December.

So far I have been able to do that although some weeks I barely managed. It's, as I said, been rough.

I'm continuing to work on the GS lore book. Most of the stuff is at least collected in one place right now, so I just have to format, organise, and add any commentary.

But I've changed computers at least twice since starting this game and some things I remember writing and am now struggling to find. So...that's fun.

Anyway I will try to make sure I post here every two weeks going forward instead of writing up a draft of the post and apparently never showing anyone. 💪

[bellaxgiornata]

So for those of you wondering when you get more FFTD, I am thinking I will update Saturday or Sunday with "The Revisitation of Moving In." It is a very sweet installment featuring a surprise conversation 😉 I'm currently halfway through writing the black suit smupdate "The Nighttime Visit" and hoping to finish that one today or tomorrow!

I also have a rough draft of chapter three written for Safe Haven and hope to update that one again sometime soon for all my Mikey lovers!! I'm hoping to work on chapter four once I get more FFTD writing done.

And for my angst lovers: I am hoping to get "Graduation" for All These Years hopefully done by the end of next week. Unless the urge to write angst hits sooner and I need to use that as my outlet.

So far these seem to be the stories y'all are most interested in so they have been my focus (though ATY is a short series so that one is probably almost halfway done?). But I appreciate everyone who has been patient with me lately with everything going on! There's been a lot of unexpected things happening with me these past couple of months which has slowed my writing. I know my FFTD updates aren't as frequent as you're all used to but y'all are about to get the EIGHTYTH installment soon! I can't believe we have reached that many...

[scintillyyy]

aw, thank you @silverwhittlingknife for the tag

WIP Files Game

RULES: post the names of 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! tag as many people as you have WIPs

listen i really only have one WIP atm (i'm not a writer and actually generally dislike working on more than one thing at once lmao <3) and it's the way larger than i expected canon rewrite (because i forgot how vast post-crisis was) (but i actually am over halfway done based on my outline i promise!!) with janet living instead of jack and it is lovingly titled

janet fic 2 the squeakquel

and since you combined the games, i shall to and here is an excerpt from the next chapter, last laugh, which is rough-drafted out and waiting for another read-through and edit after i finish up the fugitive/murderer chapter (which thankfully writing going much faster again because i finally get to give janet her only little storyline again rather than her just being present for canon events lmao.)

"A sweet tooth just like your son, huh?” Oracle shakes her head in mock-disgust, but her lips quirk into a small smile. “What’s the point of drinking coffee if you can’t actually taste the flavor of the beans?” Janet laughs.

“I’m surprised Tim even drinks it at all, to be honest,” Janet says, “He’s always hated bitter tastes. Once, when he was five, he snuck a chocolate bar out of my purse that I had put in there to snack on during work. And then gave me the silent treatment for an hour because it was clearly my fault that he was forced to steal and eat a dark chocolate bar instead of a milk chocolate one. He made quite the betrayed howl when he realized he didn't like his ill-begotten goods.”

Oracle lets out a laugh. “No wonder he has such a strong belief that crime doesn't pay. It's definitely not his go-to, but he'll force a cup down for the caffeine if there’s a pot on at two in the morning and everyone else is drinking it,” Oracle says. "But I'm not entirely sure you can even still call it coffee by the time he’s done destroying it. I think it was actually white from all the creamer and sugar he poured in it the last time he had some. I’m about to ban him from my kitchen for crimes against Arabica.”

and i'm not going to tag anyone because there's only one and i'm lazy, but anyone should feel free to do it if they like <3

[your-greatest-queen]

I know a lot of folks don't like ADHD meds, for a variety of reasons, but oh my god. Oh my motherfucking god. These are a godsend for me.

I've been on concerta for about a year now (lowest dosage) and it's helped improve my focus and has lowered my depression. I thought it was amazing. Recently, I got my dosage upped.

My bedroom was a high level depression pit. It was nasty. I haven't actually slept in my own bed in months because it was covered in stuff. But it was so overwhelming to look at that it triggered executive dysfunction with just a glance, and so I never could clean it. My room is now clean; reorganized, dusted, vacuumed, disinfected, redecorated- it's been YEARS since it looked this nice.

I'm in grade 12.5 because I was so dysfunctional in grade 11 that I dropped out halfway through. I spent grade 12 making up for it; but even then, on my first dosage and doing better, I wasn't doing great. I haven't taken notes in years. I have winged almost every test I've ever taken. I wrote every essay the night before it was due. Rough drafts who? I managed to pull decent grades, sometimes even pretty good ones. But it was never ending stress because of my habits and I was almost always behind.

I'm ahead in my classes now. I'm doing assignments the day they're assigned. I'm writing notes and brainstorming pages of ideas and breaking things down for myself. I'm getting straight 90s. I haven't felt this confident and secure in academics since middle school.

Our house was never totally clean. The basement (my charge) was always a disaster. Having people over was at best a little shameful and at worst downright humiliating. My mother cleans, but the messes she makes outweigh it. It was my job to handle the basics, at least, after school every day. I couldn't. I could do a few things, but I got burnt out or bored too fast to complete a day's work. Small projects were put off for months.

I come home from school now and within a couple of hours, I've vacuumed upstairs and downstairs, I've done the dishes, I've taken out the trash, I've brushed the cats, I've cleaned the living room and the kitchen, I've switched the laundry- yesterday I used the toilet and then just. Reorganized the entire bathroom. Today I came home and immediately untangled the huge knotted ball of my mother's necklaces that she asked me to fix for her weeks ago. On Saturday not only did I brush my cats, I also shampooed them, conditioned them, and clipped their claws.

I used to hoard clothing because going through them was the most tedious, boring task in existence. I've recently donated over six full garbage bags worth of stuff.

I used to have to write down every single task as soon as it was given, even if there were only two, because I'd always forget at least one thing. Now I can remember upwards of five things at once, even better than the person who assigned the task in the first place.

My moods feel more regulated, I'm socializing more, I'm advocating for myself in situations where I'd previously let people walk over me, I'm making goals for the future, I have more real free time, I'm less stressed- it's a little sad that I've spent almost a decade not getting this, but I am BEYOND thrilled that I get to have this now :D

Anyway, lil happy rant because I'm very very excited!! Thanks for reading, byyyye~

[spiteless-xo]

Haiiii Tiff! Hope you’re having a good start to the holidays! I just wanted to ask how long did it take you to plan TBAW or any of your other fics? I’m currently in my planning phases for this Jean f.f but I don’t know if I’m hitting all my marks? If that makes sense? anyways happy holidays girl! 🫡🎄

hello!! 🥰 happy holidays to you too!

for my posted oneshots, i usually just come up with the idea and then bang out it in one sitting. i'll let them sit for like a week or so, re-read them and made changes, and then posted. so minimal planning for those. i've noticed that if it takes me more than one sitting to write a oneshot, i'll get really in my head about it -- but that's just a me thing so do whatever works for you!!

for tbas, i only had a beginning and ending planned out and then just kinda made it up as i went along lol

i was kinda the same for tbaw, but after i was halfway through the original draft, i realized that the story was way too long and decided to take what i had written so far and add some structure.

since i already knew how i wanted it to end, i split the story into three parts and then tried to plan out each part separately. i would break each part (arc 1, 2, and 3) into 11 chapters and then give myself a rough outline of key things i wanted to happen in each chapter and then i just kinda winged it for the rest 💀 sprinkling in foreshadowing and stuff where i could.

for the fics i'm working on now, i've done something similar to tbaw by splitting the story into 3 and then giving myself the key points that i want in each part. i'm not breaking it out chapter-by-chapter like i did with tbaw, but we'll see if that changes when i actually start writing

for reference lol here's some of the outline that i have for the reiner fic if it helps? there's also a third arc but i've hid it because i don't wanna spoil the whole story lol

i also have little "character bios" for each of the main characters and main details about them and what i envision for their character arc, why the make certain choices, and how the ending shows their growth 💀💀💀 ahhhhh sorry this is so embarrassing to talk about lmao

i keep the outlines vague so i can give myself some creative freedom when i'm writing, but the important thing to me is knowing how the story is going to end so i know what i'm working toward.

i try not to spend too much time working on a plan because things will change as i start writing and as the character take on minds of their own 😳 but as long as i know what the ending is, i can stay focused.

i hope this helps? idk 🙈

[winkle-pickers]

🦈🎁🚀 for the ask game! (If you're still doing it ofc)

Omg YES, I am doing all ask games in perpetuity 😂💞 Thank you for checking, and I'm delighted to answer!

🦈 Which character is the toughest to write?

I think last time I answered Jounouchi, and that is still true to an extent, but oh my god BAKURA. I just tried writing my first Bakura fic recently. Like yes I know being mysterious and strange and (deliberately?) confusing is like his whole thing, but if you haven't been steeped in the Bakurae/Ishtar side of the fandom for the last 20 years...it's a lot of meta to catch up on. A LOT. So many good takes, many in direct opposition to each other, many of them equally compelling despite that. WHEW. I tried my best, I hope I didn't write an offensively wrong Bakura, everyone's gotta start somewhere right?!?! ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ

🎁 Have a piece of a WIP you want to share?

Ooooh, yes!! A little Kaibros character study from years ago that has been languishing in my drafts, that I'm re-working and may actually publish someday. I'll stick it under a readmore, tell me what you think!

🚀 Do you like to outline your fic first or create as you go?

Unfortunately, I don't have the kind of brain where I can sit in front of a blank document and think a story out in bullet point form. I desperately wish I did lol. But alas I must charge in headfirst and get a few thousand words in before I have any idea of where I want things to go. Sometimes (often) I blast through the entire thing without outlining. Sometimes I hit a snag somewhere and realize I done fucked up and need to put myself back on the tracks.

And then there was the time I got 100k words into a YGO/Zelda crossover and realized oh no i think this will be MUCH more than 100k and wrote a very rough outline, then another Zelda game came out halfway through the fic and I had to spend a solid month rewriting my outline to accommodate lore from the new game, and also I somehow accidentally turned the whole thing into a huge ensemble cast with multiple concurrent plot threads balancing both YGO and Zelda character arcs, Hyrulean politics, and an imminent multiverse collapse. My Scriv file now has a 120k word planning & research section. (Oops.)

tl;dr I have exactly one fic that is well outlined and the rest are me doing the writing equivalent of a Leeroy Jenkins. congrats if you get that reference and are ancient like me

ANYWAYYYYSS thank you for the ask!!! Kaibros snippet under the cut 🐉

“Come on, nii-sama,” Mokuba pleads. It comes out weirdly desperate, more pathetic than he’d intended. “This is so unfair. It’s unfair enough that I don’t have parents, and it’s even more unfair that you won’t tell me-”

“You do have a parent.” Seto's reply is so sharp that it makes Mokuba flinch.

“I know, I know,” Mokuba replies, irritated at the pedantry. “You’re my parent legally. But you’re not, you know...I just want...”

Mokuba realizes as he’s talking that he’s said something terribly wrong. The change in his brother’s face is minuscule and significant and makes his stomach flip in shame. He trails off, the words curling up and dying as they fall off his tongue.

“Please go to bed,” Seto says. His tone of voice is so perfectly even that Mokuba gets up and leaves without another word.

Mokuba doesn’t go to school the next day, opting instead to stay in bed and stare at the wall. Seto either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

For the first time in years, he cries. And then he thinks about the fact that it’s been years since he last cried. Mokuba spends so much time wondering what the fuck is going on in his brother’s head that he’s maybe neglected to turn the same scrutiny on himself. And he’s maybe leaned a little too far into his role as the ‘normal’ Kaiba - the charming one, the easygoing one, the one who exists to balance out the bombastic, powerful force of nature looming tall at his back.

But who had cried - just once - after Gozaburo hurled himself from the top of the Kaiba Corporation building, and who had watched the coroners wheel away the black-draped gurney with impassive, bone-dry eyes?

[konigbabe]

Hi. Just curious, how do you edit your work? I see a lot of writers say that editing takes them a lot of time and I just don't understand why?

Hello ♡ I don't know about anyone else but this is my editing process ⁀➷

I start by writing a rough draft in my Google docs. It usually looks somewhat like "He did that, you responded with that." and add all the dialogue I want. Also try to write as much "flowery" sentences I can think of during writing (Like "The scene is drenched in a potent blend of Satoru's possessiveness and desire."; metaphors, euphemisms, vivid imaginery etc.)

I leave it be for a few hours (or days sometimes); ocassionally adding sentences or paragraphs during the day when something pops in my head. After that, I sit down, open the draft and get to reading!

During reading, that's my main editing point - I fix grammar, change prose, add or delete what I need. It usually takes me few hours until I'm satisfied (I also get bored halfway thru so I usually split this part into segments as well).

I sometimes repeat No. 3 few days later if I don't have a posting deadline to add and change it up a bit more. It helps when there's no pressure on when to post.

After everything is done and written and I am convinced that this is what I want to release, I use two "apps" for finishing touches.

First, I run it through grammarly. It's not completely reliable and does try to correct the way I write (exclusing "is", "are" and other words for example...) but it sometimes points out mistakes that I managed to overlook.

Then I copy paste it into the Hemingway Editor. It's a web app and gives you suggestions on how to "improve" the text. Looks like this:

I only look at the number of adverbs and try to alter the text to get as close to the suggested number as possible. I also try to keep my grade between 6-8 but my main goal is the adverbs.

6. Then I copy paste it to my Tumblr's drafts, add all the tags, warnings and other necessities and post!

EDIT: Forgot to mention placeholders!! When I'm writing and can't think of a good description, I like to add something that could easily be found with CTRL+F (like ***, or @ or any other specific symbol that won't normally appear in the story/writing) and then when I think of a good enough description, I simply search for the placeholder and replace it with the text!

Hope this helped!

[hamsamwich23]

⚠️Tw: gr//ming and manipulation⚠️

The fact that Sonia claims that I was harassing her with my call-out post as well as the fact that she'll go and pretend I "turned against her" because I suddenly"hated her for no reason" is so fucking funny (more below)

When we were friends it wasn't like that at all, I never hated her until I realized what she did to me and many people around her. In fact I was in shock when I found out

before I knew about the fucked up shit she did, before I knew about the gross stuff she put in her aus and before I found out she's a fucking gr//mer, when she wasn't, y'know, manipulating me and making me isolate from people and when she wasn't guilt tripping me for stuff I couldn't even control...

She was my friend (or so I thought)

I loved talking to her and I loved hearing about her aus, almost every day we'd talk and I'd listen to her talk about her latest works and her artwork and her ideas

Because a lot of her au concepts were Interesting and fun to learn about, she seemed like a nice person for the most part....

Until I found out about some of them including nasty stuff as well as just, finding out she's a horrible person in general

I was emotionally (platonically) attached to her, which was part of why I was in denial about her grooming me.

I never hated her until now. I considered her one of my closest friends until I found out the truth. So no. This is not something I'm fucking doing out of "hate" or "spite"

I know you can see this Sonia. I know you're stalking my tumblr.

The only thing I really did was not finish something for her for a trade, but that was because she was shit talking me and I called her out on it, I deleted what she made me from my entire phone (I took screenshots of me deleting them). She went on a hiatus for months as well and I had no way to contact her for more information (starting in June) until after September of this year(I like having people active for me to talk to just in case I need answers for something), it was halfway done, over 800 words and I gave what I had to her before I blocked her. She complained that it took her ten minutes to do sketches, but at the same time she told me to take as much time as I needed, and I told her that if I was working too slow she could rush me if needed.

In fact, that was the only reason I didn't block her immediately. I was still working on the rough draft of it (it was a really long one shot, more of a short story), I wanted to keep my end of the deal before cutting her off (even though she literally fucking gr//med me) but I found it even harder to complete, working on it began to disgust me. I wrote over ten pages in the rough draft, I wanted to make it special, and then I find out she hurt me and so many others. If it weren't for my friend blocking her and Sonia running to me to complain about it and guilt trip me, I wouldn't have been able to block her yet. I still would have been stuck working on the stupid thing.

Sonia is just a disgusting person in general, she may be gone from tumblr but it doesn't mean anything. She needs to be held accountable for her actions. She still has a platform on instagram, a privated account, because she's aware that she's been caught.

And yet, this isn't even the most disgusting thing she's done. But I'm not going to get into that yet. Not here. I still don't feel safe knowing Sonia is stalking me still (come to my face instead of just watching me you fucking weirdo)

All I can say is block and report Sonia, avoid her at all costs. Do not harass her, and PLEASE Don't harass her partner. At all. Leave her partner alone

[shadowynn]

I’m sorry if this question makes you angry but I was wondering when you might update in love and lore?

No, it's okay! I've been meaning to put out an update here, but haven't gotten around to it yet. I was going to a few days ago and then tumblr decided to be dumb and crash when I was about done with the post, so I decided to go to bed instead retyping everything out and then just never got around to doing it again.

But I'm aiming for around a week on posting the next chapter. I'm currently sitting around 4.5k words in a rough draft, so a little over halfway done with it, I think. After that, I'll go through and rewrite/edit it a few times before it'll be ready to post. Writing the rough draft is always the longest/hardest part, so once it's done, things typically go smoother after that.

This chapter is also becoming longer than I expected it to be, so I think I'm going to split up what I originally planned being a single chapter. Part of me is sad because I can't wait to get to the daemon capital, but I think it's for the best to split things up because I don't want to rush anything and want to get an update out here soon.

Also, I might be posting a preview/snippet from the chapter here at some point, so stay tuned!

[meownotgood]

super soft tender morning sex with aki

or

super dirty slightly rough aki fucking cat hybrid!reader

choose.

[steamberrystudio]

04/06/2023

Halloo~oo everyone! Just popping in for a quick tumblr update on GS (trying to be more consistent over on this site! 🤔 ).

In my last update, here, I was incredibly close to finishing the rough draft for Yuu's route. that is complete now. And I've been working on editing. I got sick mid-way through this week (feeling better now) so that slowed me down.

But I am about halfway through with the edit. A little less. Like...45% done editing. Yuu's route is coming in at 115,000 words uncoded at the moment. We'll see where it ends up when the revision is done.

Unlike some other routes I don't think Yuu is going to need to really heavy revision passes. I think it'll need one heavy revision, then a mild line edit and proofreading.

Most of my editing so far has been really focused on continuity and smoothing out character development. I haven't had to do any major shifting around of events.

I have sketched out one CG and have started compiling references for sprite variations (new outfits/hairstyles for Morgan and Yuu). So yeah, that's about where the route is currently. Drafting complete, revising underway! When the revision and proofreading is done, I'll start coding the route in and move to art!

A quick WSC update:

At my last update, I had finished up with Daaz's content for the shared part of the route and was getting ready to move into his exclusive chapters. I'd had a new idea and was considering if it was possible and how it would work.

I did a lot of brainstorming for this idea and have decided to move forward with it. It's added in some new (and cool, imo) lore elements that I'm excited to explore.

Something else I did for this project was start solidifying revision concepts.

For anyone who has not followed me or been with me for my previous projects, my revision process tends to be pretty extensive. I rewrite huge portions, delete massive sections, and inject large amounts of new content. (I don't think this is abnormal but for people not familiar with the development process of a VN it might seem weird to focus so much on revisions.)

I have been essentially plotting out some necessary changes (some of which are substantial) for that part of the process. I have a whole new timeline of edits and everything.

So yeah, that's kind of where WSC is at the moment. Now that I've done a lot of prep work for the end of Daaz's route I'll draft that and move on to finishing up Noel's content!

Anyway, that's all for now. I'm hoping that by my next post here I'll be in the middle of coding Yuu's route!

That's all for this update. See you in a couple of weeks!

[stygiusfic]

hi styg !! i'm really curious about 14 and 15 for those end-of-year writer asks if you feel like talking about it 💖 !!

hi friend!! <333 thank you for the ask!!

14. a fic you didn't expect to write

I haven't posted this yet, but the question doesn't say it has to be posted, so. Inspired by my re-read of The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells this summer, I've written 40k words (and counting) of a Critical Role C2 fanfic trapping one of my favorite characters of the campaign, Essek, on the island that steals people's memories away and makes them slaves to the false god in its volcano. (Currently titled The Island of New Beginnings; I have a CR sideblog @bug4bread-sideblog which is where I'll share when it's done.)

It's not Hades, which is all I've posted in the past couple of years, and it doesn't mean my Hades days are over, but man, I'm having a blast playing in this new sandbox. It's also an experiment: I've only mentioned it to a few friends, and plan to start posting only after I finish. I want to see if multi-chapter is easier for me that way. So, unexpected but good!

15. something you learned this year

Feels like I learned a lot! Or gained more confidence in my process; probably a mix of both. (Under a cut because it got long!)

Overall, in the long long years I've been writing, I've written mostly short stories or one-shots, and I've always struggled the most with finishing the initial draft. There's always that perfectionist urge in me that wants to get all the themes and plot elements and character arcs in the right arrangement from the get-go, and if I'm feeling dissatisfied with my direction it's hard to stay motivated.

This year, maybe because I've recently wrangled with longer works, I feel like I'm building some endurance in that regard! You can get lucky with a one-shot and push it out in a day, and get a first draft that’s near perfect, but that’s just not possible with multichapter, for me, and I’ve finally started to accept that.

It's still hard to let go of the urge to polish right away, but I feel like I understand now more deeply that my process relies on multiple passes to get where I want to go. Especially for 20k+ stories, this is what I'm learning to accept as the process:

0.5 — Outline: In-depth outline of the whole story with its ups and downs, with a list of scenes too, and I'll usually outline each scene before I write it. (Who's in the scene? What do they want? How are the things they want out of the scene opposed?). The overall outline will be thin in the second half because I still don't know enough about my story, I'll find out what I'm actually getting at when I start writing it; I’ve learned that This is fine.

1. — First draft: Sometimes inspiration works miracles but waiting for a miracle is not a process. I really feel like this year I got a step closer to accepting that my first draft can and should be rough. It's a draft. It's sinking in that, when I look at my artist friends' progress videos, of course I don't expect them to make a perfect painting without sketching basic shapes first, so why do I keep expecting the writing equivalent of that from myself?

1.5 — Heart Notes list: This has been the game changer in 2022. It's a list of things to fix in a later draft, and/or think about on my next walk. When I'm drafting and dissatisfied with something (why would this character do this? why does this pacing fall flat? etc) or introducing some new element halfway through that I will need to rewrite earlier scenes to set up, I just put it on this list. And I don't think about it anymore for now. I used to compile these notes after the first draft was done, but those issues weigh on me enough that they would often discourage me and keep me from finishing the first draft at all. The list lets me mentally set down the weight of that problem, knowing I will address it later, so I can keep drafting now.

2. — Second draft: My beloved. Here is where I will do the larger rewrites based on my heart notes and rearrange stuff how I need it to be and just generally feel terribly relieved the first draft is behind me.

3. — Final draft: Just tweak some sentence-level stuff to make it read better and clearer, and we're done. (This is what I have always foolishly hoped the second draft would be, which meant I needed the first draft to be close to perfect already... and that’s how I got stuck.)

I still have a long way to go in terms of learning to let the first draft suck as much as it needs to, but I've been feeling a lot more secure in the idea that sucking is part of the process. I struggled a lot with writing in the first half of 2022. It's been getting better, and I think giving myself more leeway to suck at first and then seeing it work out in the end has helped a lot.

I hope 2023 is a good writing year for you (and in general too)!!

[bullet-prooflove]

HOW do you have something scheduled for every single day all the way halfway through August??? That is so fucking impressive

Ahh so you have looked at the schedule. By the way the schedule changes on a regular basis depending on what I'm writing and how excited I am about people reading it.

The WIP Board shows you what I am working on and ideas and stuff I have. - It needs updating again this week because I have been on a spree.

So what happened is this... I took a long break from Tumblr, I completed an Masters in Creative Writing - I was doing this part time around a job and other commitments so it took me two years. I got really good at dedicating time to writing because I had to for lessons and assignments - I am a super organised person anyway but this was next level because I also had lectures and reading to do around everything else.

When I finnished my MA I suddenly had this massive amount of time I hadn't had before and to be honest I was a little burnt out from the intensity of it. I had no clue what to do with it so I was like oh yea I used to love Tumblr.

So I started writing fanfiction again. It kind of started with the idea of one piece every so often but I guess all the writing habits I developed during the Master's stuck.

I usually get my rough drafts done on Google Keep on the way to work, afterwork I come home do something else for an hour or two and then sit down to work on a piece or pieces depending on how near completion they are.

It started to go up to one a week and then two, eventually it got to each one daily and I had to start prebooking it and now we're up to August. Some of them are series and if I am in the flow, I will get the entire series done in a small amount of time and then book it out once a week.

I do have a life outside of writing - I see family and friends. I go boxing and sewing on a weekly basis, dates with my husband, reading. I think the key is I just dedicate the time to it.

When I was studying for my Master's you kind of work out ways around writer's block because the nature of the course. I learned to identify the issue pretty quickly so that I can respond to it. Sometimes I'm too fried from work which is why I need that hour or two gap to adjust and relax. If I'm having a bad mental health day, or sometimes I just need to sit down and read or watch something because that kind of feeds my soul and allows me to go huh that maybe something interesting to work with or play with. I try not to let myself feel guilty about not writing but it can be hard!

Here's a bit more insight to how I keep myself organised if you are interested:

[beaiola]

2 and 27 for writers asks if you’re still doing them?

Hi! Yes, I'm still doing them and thanks for the ask 😁

2. talk about a notable time a narrative or character has looked you dead in the eyes and said “fuck your plan, here’s what we’re actually doing.”

The first one that's springing to mind is for a current WIP that I don't want to give too much away on. I will say that it was supposed to be a PWP but the part immediately before it has shifted unexpectedly and now they have some more stuff to talk about!

From my published fics, the original plan for 'Just For You' was for the feelings reveal to take place when David and Patrick exchanged gifts but they didn't want to wait that long and so the timeline had to be readjusted.

27. do you share rough drafts or do you wait until it’s all polished?

Other than short snippets shared here I wait until a fic is all done before posting. I don't have a beta (I have considered it but I don't know if my skin is thick enough to put something rough out there before I'm at least halfway happy with it.)

[empressvika]

greetings

hey, this is vika. I think i did an intro on the bird app but this is tumbles so i’ll be reintroducing myself !

about the empress

yes, I am the empress. that's it. that's who i am.

ha, just kidding.

i'm a fanfic writer who started writing seriously (and a lot) in 2021 and hasn't looked back since. i have way too many drafts and too little works actually uploaded on the holy grail that is AO3.

you might've seen me on FFNet but pretend you didn't :)

i'm kinda antisocial and may come off as cold (hence, the winter empire thing) but I. Am. Just. Shy ! if you wanna interact, interact! i can't promise responding because most of the time i don't know what to say but know that i always appreciate it <3

ongoing projects

right now, I’m working on completely rewriting the two WiPs i had semi-abandoned. It’s My Life is Yours and Distance of Futures (From Mine to Yours). They’re both BKDK and I’m still outlining them.

Warning: to those who’ve read and subscribed to them on AO3, know that I’ll be orphaning them once I finish rewriting. I like to start on a clean slate and the new changes are definitely drastic enough to warrant a new fic entirely.

Progress report on them:

DoF - the rough outline is halfway done but I’ll be refining it a bit more. Not sure how long it’ll be but the chapter count might go for 20 with 4-6k each. Again, no promises there. The story is the same but very different as before so please look forward to it !!

MLY - Ah, yeah, I haven’t started on this at all lol I’ll start on the outline once I finish DoF’s outline.

writing habits

In my early shameful days, I used to do WiPs. I had no outlines to follow and just wrote like the damn wind. Now, I’m a changed person (ish).

I finish writing fics (that’s editing + beta reading) before uploading them on a schedule. This is why I’m technically ‘on a break’ most of the time.

That’s not to say that I’m always writing fanfics. I write original content too so my time is split because of that. What can I say? Writing is how I live.

my ships

BKDK hands-down is my muse. They’re what brought me back to writing and I’ve never looked back. They’re also the ship that has the most drafts in my computer haha

TDBK has also snared my heart several times. Gods, they’re adorable. My fav trope is a sugar daddy!tdrk and a broke hero!bkg

TDBKDK is something I haven’t written a lot for but there’s a lot of potential in it methinks. I don’t like dynamics where tdbk hate each other and bond over their like of dk though… let all three love each other dammit !!

Ehem, now for other fandoms & ships:

HP; Tomarry/Harrymort

TGCF; Hualian

Witcher; Geraskier

MDZS; Wangxian

Genshin; Zhongchi/Tartali

Bleach; GrimmIchi

One Piece; ZoLu

where else to find me

Twitter - sometimes i do threadfics here but I post them on AO3 afterwards as a series

AO3 - my main abode ✌️

between bkg’s pecs ahaha