#but 13 yo me still kinda traumatized by being screamed at as a self insert mary sue writer from back in the day

[emilykaldwen]

Asking about writing - do you have a current favourite writing project right now? What is it about?

Oh! Thank you so much for this! I was popping in to look up something I saved and saw this!!!

So I really just have the one main project I'm working on right now and that's The Maiden and the Drowning Boy, which is a canon divergent AU for House of the Dragon/Fire and Blood.

Basically, I aged down one of Lyonel Strong's daughters to be the same age as the kids, and it's Arranged Marriage, Childhood Friends/Sorta Sweethearts to Lovers to Oh shit we have a war to get through because cycles of generational trauma and terrible coping skills and do we keep going down the paths our parents set for us or do we make a better world.

Abrogail Strong and Aegon Targaryen own me body, heart, and soul and I wouldn't give them up for anything in the world. It's been a really exciting challenge of creating a character that can exist in the world on their own - I don't want Abby's existence to simply be because she's in a romance, you know? I want her to exist as her own being.

Additionally, I'm really using this as an opportunity to work on my own perfectionism issues, practice the craft of writing, and challenge myself (god, am I fucking challenging myself) in terms of themes, through plot, and basically just... IDK. I'm writing this for me, but I want people who read it and stick with it to experience pay off in the little things I put in that come full circle. It's romance, yes, but I also like a ton of plot in my romance, and so I want to try see how I can give a lil bit of everything in terms of 'here's a story, and here's some yummy romance' and balance those out.

I've been working on this since last October! But then I had bariatric surgery, scrapped the initial 35k, and now I'm on four chapters in caught up with that previous word count. I'm HOPING to start posting soon, I'm just slow AF and I sorta want a consistent posting schedule while I'm also trying to pack my house up and move. So.