#i'm making some real headway on this new fic

[venusiancarbondioxide]

5, 7, and 9 for the fanfic asks!

fanfic asks for the new year!

5. Which WIP is first on your list to complete this year? Will you post a snippet?

i'd normally say hart and the hunter, which is my giant oc-centric post-tgaa2 fic, but that's a large enough project that there's a real chance it won't be finished in 2024. however, i do have a svin/gray (there are maybe ten people on earth who see the genuine potential of this ship and i'm one of them) case files au one shot i want to get done this month and i will happily give a little snippet of that.

After several months in London, Gray still isn't in the habit of wanting things. She has a respectable list going in the back of her journal, maybe half a page long: she wants El-Melloi II to see Iskandar again, and she wants to be less afraid of ghosts, and she wants everyone in the El-Melloi class to do well in the new semester. She wants the cute pair of boots she saw in a store window last week—black leather with the bright yellow stitching. She wants to make more friends. She wants to get better at understanding magecraft, to maybe be good enough to take some of the lower-level classes and get a decent grade in them. She wants to be happy, or at least to keep getting happier; she's on the right track for that one. She's getting better at it every day.  The last thing Gray wants isn't something she can write down. It's too incriminating, but it's darkly necessary information. It’s hard to want anything else, let alone everything else, without this one prerequisite met. If the answer to her question is yes, then she’s on her way to a bulletproof guarantee of safety, a way she can live long enough to try for all of her other silly little desires. The want from which all other wants spring.  It's also impossible to accomplish on her own; Gray needs a proper mage at her side, a bonafide practitioner of the art. She needs someone better than herself.  And so, in the stark early morning, Gray starts another list. Possible Accomplices, she writes at the top of the page. She underlines it, twice. 

7. Will you change anything about the way you interact with other writers?

i'm hoping to just do more interaction in general! so that definitely includes other writers. i will hopefully be commenting more and having conversations and all of the good stuff.

9. Short term goals… what do you hope to complete this week or in January?

other than finishing that svingray one shot, i want to get the first half of chapter 5 of hart and the hunter done, and maybe make some headway on an original project!

[pieceofcec]

It may be February now but I've been pondering what I want to have done this year so I'm gonna post some goals I have. Then I can check back at the end of the year and see what I've accomplished!

For reference: In 2023 I posted 78,514 words of fics on AO3. My longest fic is Iron and Ichor at 42,180, the majority of my fics are around 1k words. I have 3 dsmp fics, 1 origins fic, 13 hc fics and 20 sekai fics.

2024 Goals:

Write longer fics

Write multichapter fics

Reach 100k words on AO3

Write for 3 new fandoms

Reach 150k words on AO3

Continue The Folly Of Man

Finish one original work

Finish planning for two original works

Participate in NaNoWriMo

Rambling about my goals under the cut :3

For the longer and multichapter fics I want to have more practice for my original works. I like the stuff I write now, but I think it would be nice to get a better feel for more conflicts and where to give a good end to chapters. I think what I tend to write is mostly just one scene I thought was fun so I'd like to build on that.

I have a doc with a ton of fic ideas and there's some fandoms I haven't written anything for in there. I figure adding 3 to my fandom list will make me get through more of my ideas. I also have a couple of crossover fics I want to write that should be fun (and longer).

I think it would be cool to double my AO3 word count. Personally, I like having a very achievable goal alongside a harder one so that I get a midpoint to feel proud of - hence the 100k and 150k both being on there. I think this also goes well with writing longer fics and will encourage me to work on longer projects. They may take more time but they'll add a lot towards my goal!

I haven't worked on the Folly of Man in a while but I do want to continue it! I have a brainstorm for a sequel, I just haven't gotten it to the like,,, outlining/writing phase quite yet.

Speaking of brainstorming - I'm in the midst of brainstorming for a few original works right now. I have two main ones I've made a decent bit of headway on and a third that is still pretty hazy to me, but very personal that I'd like to get work done on. I want to have one of these fully written this year, but I want to have at least two finished with planning so that if I want, I can partake in NaNo with a project! I think I'll end up posting some snippets of my original stuff here when I have some stuff written that I'm proud of.

For the most part, I think all of this is super doable! They generally overlap enough that any fanfic writing will feel good as it's contributing to my writing goals (and also I just love writing fics <3). The hardest thing for me is taking my bigger ideas and breaking them down into something real that I can actually write. A lot of my big projects (original and Folly of Man) are like,,, very hazy and conceptual in my brain. So it takes me a while to figure out how to put them into words. I think all of my goals come down to figuring that out and bringing more things into reality :3

[gardenerian]

I don’t run a shameless account, but I have been watching the show for almost 5 years and I ran into your blog about 2 months ago and everything about your account makes me so happy (: The way you communicate with us, your short stories and 5+1’s (seriously how is your mind so creative😭) The point of this rant, I guess is just to say thank you for all the content you’ve been giving everyone, and I hope you have a great day/night! <3

what in the world 🥺 this is so lovely, you're so lovely!!! i'm just goofin around and having fun, but i'm so so glad if it brings yall a little joy. i feel so lucky to have this space to create and talk and be silly. i love to see everyone else create and have fun, i love the stories we tell, and i love all of you for hanging around with me. thanks for being here ❤️ i hope you're enjoying your weekend!

[thewrongshop]

8, 30, 43

8. Post an out-of-context spoiler from a wip.

ooh wow okay starting right off with a tough one! i like it! I don't tend to write very far in advance but here's something that might end up in the last chapter of amnesia fic:

Jon’s voice, too, is uneven and too loud when he says, “Easily? Martin, I ended the world."

30. How much do you edit your fics?  Do you edit as you write or wait until you finish the first draft?

It really depends on how much writer's block I'm experiencing - my habit is to edit either when I'm completely done with a chapter or when I can't make myself write anything new, bc sometimes editing gets me back in the flow of writing and it doesn't need as much creative energy. Either way I don't usually do massive edits like rewriting whole sections unless something's really bothering me about what I have, it's mostly just phrasing and fact checking!

43. Is there a trope or idea that you’d really like to write but haven’t yet?

would just absolutely LOVE to get to work more on any of my inactive wips,,,, i'm kind of especially hung up on one of them rn though in which research-era Jon and library-era Martin accidentally kiss like four times before they have a real conversation. my notes app got a lot of action about that one tonight so I might make some actual headway soon :)

[flameohotwife]

Happy FFWF! What's a fic you could be writing right now? Can you tell us about it?

Happy FFWF! Well, since I can't tell you about the secret santa fic I'm (procrastinating) writing right now, I'll tell you about a series of fics that has been slowly working its way into existence in my brain (and very little in actual writing). I've mentioned before that I want to at some point write a cloudbaby birth fic. Birth is such a messy and beautiful and painful and precious thing to witness. Terrifying and amazing. It's life but it's bloody. The birth of a cloudbaby specifically; the rebirth of a nation(!) just strikes me as so poignant and I would love to write about it. What's kept me from doing so is that I feel I would need to do a lot of cultural research and I also feel somewhat unqualified to write about other cultures in this way, even though I KNOW that these cultures are *fictional* but they are based on very very real cultures and I would not want to be disrespectful in any way.

Connected to this fic, while I was researching for Happiness and Love, I learned about a Tibetan tradition to have a birth ceremony a few days after the birth of a baby, called a Pangsai. There would be a pancake feast and a gathering of extended family and friends who bring gifts, and the baby would be named at the end of this ceremony. I would LOVE to write about kataang celebrating the birth of their first child using Air Nomad traditions in this way that have not been seen for over a century; including the gaang and their families and the many others I'm sure would be interested in attending. I'm not confident in my sources, though, and need to do a lot more research before trying to write this type of birth celebration for the cloud family.

And finally, as a precurser to all of these... @coyotelemon may have encouraged me to write a labor-inducing kataang fic... For those who don't know, a very common natural way to try to induce labor is... to do the same thing you did to get the baby in there... and so I am somehow 500+ words into a fic where an overly pregnant Katara is trying to seduce her husband in an effort to get this baby out, bahaha. Maybe I'll be able to make headway on this and the birth/celebration fics in the new year, once the kids go back to school, haha!

[danpuff-ao3]

2022

Some fandom goals for the new year! I worry a bit about listing them, because of the pressure I will inevitably put on myself to complete them all, but...

> Stress less/pressure self less: Not so easy to do, but I will actively work on telling myself it's okay to aim for goals and not achieve them. And giving up when I need to, rather than pushing myself to and past my limits. This includes things like fests, NaNoWriMo, word count goals, or even just finishing projects that just plain don't work.

[That said, I will have some goals in place. Things to hope for, but not stress over. And it'll be interesting to see at the end of 2022 what I achieved that were on my list, and what I achieved that wasn't!]

> Kudos/comment more: Reading on Kindle makes this hard, but I want to make an effort to go back and kudos and comment on things. Even if my comments are small. Even if they are long/rambly/weird. Creators work hard and I want to give them my love and support!

> Fic recs: At least 2 a month! Probably more, let's be real. My "to rec" list is alarming. I do want to reread the stories before reccing them, so...

> Rec Lists: I have 2 themed lists in mind which seem fun! Maybe more, but we shall see.

> Read all fics in my 2022 TBR: I created a "2022" collection on Kindle. I have no hope of making a dent in my main TBR, but breaking it up into yearly reading goals is doable!

> Read more longfics: I've not read many longer fics in a while (mainly because it's easier to hack at my TBR by flying through short fics), so I'd like to do that. I have 2 longfics from 2 sweet friends I definitely plan to read, and both are in my 2022 TBR!

> Ron-Draco Fest & Remus Lupin Fest: I claimed prompts for both so I hope to complete them!

> Complete another Snarry fest: idk which for sure, but if I'm gonna do fests I have to do Snarry fests, right?? (Well I don't have to, but I'd like to.)

> Write for Kinkuary and Shipuary: Prompt events are so fun and both have items that are tempting me!

> Oh and Kinktober again, I guess

> Start a longfic: at the very least I'd like to finish an outline for one of my longfic ideas, but at best I can get started on it!

> Complete NaNoWriMo again

> Write more femslash: I have an idea for Ginny/Gwenog. And the world definitely needs more Hermione/Narcissa and/or Hermione/Minerva. And I loooove Fleurmione! Oh, oh, or Ginny/Hermione!! Unsure. But at least 1 femslash fic, but maybe more!

> Write Draco/Remus: I have a cute love story for this pair more or less inspired by my personal love story, so I'd like to get that written and posted.

> Finish smile with sweet surprise: This is why I don't post multi-chaptered stories before they're done. I feel awful it's been so long since I updated this! Chapter 2 is written but I won't post it until the whole story is done.

> Write Good Daddy: another part to the Yes, Daddy series I've been talking about for ages and have hardly made headway on!

> Mystery project: it's a secret but...😇

[I assume if I miss any of these marks, it's because I was working hard on other things! And thus, I should not count them as failures. But it will be fun to compare this list to my "success list" next year!]