#and that'll be the first birthday we have without him to share it with... bc. we're twins

[carbonateddelusion]

I will forever hold L is Real close to my heart

[reveriesofawriter]

2021 Writing Self-Evaluation

thank u @clumsyclifford for the tag :))

1. Number of stories posted to AO3: 14 full fics (arguably, I could expand on any of those at any given moment) and a chapter of one that I do want to post as a weekly chapter update thing as soon as it's done (or as a bi-weekly update with the first part being story and the second being babysitting) but idk if I have the patience for that

2. Word count posted for the year: 55,007 words posted

3. Fandoms I wrote for: 5sos & atl

4. Pairings: in descending order starting with the most fics - jalex, merrikat, rilex, malum, mashton, and an atl ot4 who did I become for that week writing that idek

5. Story with the most Kudos/Bookmarks/Comments:

kudos: We Dream Impossible Dreams and Knock Me Out (hit me with your punch-drunk love) are tied for first place, probably bc bella sings their praises 😌

bookmarks: Knock Me Out once again

comment threads: Impossible Dreams

6. Work I’m most proud of (and why): I feel like it's cheating to claim my all too well fic collabs with @tirednotflirting as things I'm most proud of but it's not just the writing but the fact that we actually did that and it was not only coherent but pretty fuckin good?? yeah I'm proud of us for that. for the things I wrote on my own, bella's bday fic probably takes that title just because it's always intimidating to write things for people, especially other writers, and even more so on their birthdays, but also I cannot believe I managed to come up with 5 reasons someone would punch someone else that weren't like unnecessarily aggressive, that was truly the biggest challenge of all

7. Work I’m least proud of (and why): none of the works I'm not proud of have found their way to ao3 (if I don't think it's worthy of posting then likely no more than two people have seen it) I'm proud of everything on there :))

8. Share or describe a favorite review you received: bella consistently calls me a criminal, which I love. my sole goal is to stay on her public enemy list. bella's comments in general are like reading a summary of the fic with yelling interspersed it's so funny I adore them like

also my friends who have read my writing and told me I should write a book 👀 I love you

9. A time when writing was really, really hard: uhhhhh the last 4-5 months of the year? I mean I was still writing, to an extent, but I wasn't writing anything to post for a while and I'm sure that'll loop back around, so I should probably ride this writing high while I can

10. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you: how much time do we have lol okay The more you treat me cruel felt so out of my wheelhouse and I can't explain why but in the end I like how it turned out, the entirety of if you leave the light on, then I'll leave the light on because it felt out of character for me to write but it's still really good and not to gloat but I don't think many people could have written that the same way I did without crossing any nsfw lines but also the tenderness of it all idk it felt like it came out of nowhere and a majority of it was written in my phone notes before it ever saw a doc because I didn't expect it to all go together into one story

11. A favorite excerpt of your writing: all of starlight fic? every bit of original dialogue in the elevator fic? everything in the street lightning fic? all of the kid scenes in One more time for second chances that I technically wrote last year but haven't posted? *rian in tower of truth voice* you guys haven't seen it yet. also bella says this part in light on:

Jack didn’t wake up whenever Alex had left, although if he thinks about it he can feel Alex falling asleep against him, a memory of mist that could disappear if he tries to touch it now. So he doesn’t. He doesn’t think about how, if Alex had stayed, he could have seen Jack with his glasses on. He could have seen the way the sunlight comes in over the top of the next building in the mornings and leaves a yellow-orange glow on his wall, turning his room into a kaleidoscope when the light hits his mirror. He could have learned that’s part of what makes Jack a morning person, even when he’s mildly hungover. They could have nursed their hangovers together. Jack doesn’t think about it.

12. How did you grow as a writer this year: let me take another moment to say how writing with sam made me a better writer and taught me how to marry description and dialogue better to where I can write things like street lightning without overthinking the way people talk and how to fit that in with talking about like the metaphor of catching fireflies in a jar

13. How do you hope to grow next year: I'd love to see what I can learn from a co-write with bella 👀 also I want to finish this thing I'm working on and slide into cmq's dms like hey wanna read this and tell me if it's any good? 👀

14. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc): @tirednotflirting and @clumsyclifford obviously, they are all of the above, so much so that part of their gifts this past chrismukkah were based on things we've all written. let me brag for a second and describe the magic: sam got a set of pastel pencils etched with a line from a bella fic, bella got a little sticky note pad with a photo I took and a line from a sam fic, and sam also got a little painted dinosaur planter from our all too well sequel 😌

15. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year: mostly just my music taste lmao no there's a fair amount of projection that goes into them but most of it doesn't directly come from things in my life since I'm not exactly full of romantic life experiences to write about and I can't (yet) do justice to the feeling of driving or open night skies or concerts with friends

16. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers: first and foremost, writing is supposed to be fun. this isn't a job, no amount of other people's [perceived or real] expectations of you should put pressure on you to write if you're not feeling it, and if you're not enjoying anything from the experience of writing, then take a break. words will find you when you're ready. in the meantime, nurture some other hobbies or habits you want to try to keep up. inspiration can come from anywhere, not just from sitting at a keyboard and forcing yourself to get words out.

that being said, no two people have the same writing style, both in terms of method and voice. don't worry about writing the same thing as someone else (unless you're doing a plagiarism on purpose then knock that shit off) because two people falling in love at a coffee shop will always be cute no matter how many times you read it.

17. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year: well first of all I need to finish adventures in babysitting so I can start posting that regularly, unrelated to fics I want to write more poetry to submit to journals and magazines, my first one was accepted two days ago (!) and I want to keep that energy going into this year

18. Tag some writers whose answers you’d like to read. ahhhhhh I'm skipping this one, everyone do it, everyone is interesting