#the game is I only get as long as a Sprinto sprint

[cats-and-reclaiming-my-life]

Obi-wan, 15 minutes, 5/12

(my favorite so far other than all the other ones)

[sweatandwoe]

how do u write so much ??????

short answer: mental illness

long answer: in the readmore below

Okay main thing was mental illness and hyperfixation. Silco kinda came in and fondled my brain real hard that it made me write fanfic for the first time in a year. I used to do roleplays a long time ago, and I had written Mando fanfics the year prior.

I think something that helps a lot is sprints. It's fun to see your progress and create like a game out for yourself. The sprinto bot on discord really helps too and friends can join in if they want.

I think also just like sitting down and creating a setting for you to focus also helps. For me personally, I get too distracted by noise most of the time, so I either play an audiobook quietly as I write or just silence. Editing though, I need energy so it's Kim Petra Coconuts, Everytime we Touch by Cascada, etc. That shit helps when you're reading paragraphs over and over

I think the important thing is to write at your pace and write something that you enjoy. Like I know some people will write things they don't like but think it'll help their story and I'm here to say FUCK THAT. WRITE WHAT YOU LOVE. WRITE A COFFEE SHOP AU, WRITE A ROYALTY AU. JUST KEEP WRITING AUS YOU LOVE (me with time travel)

I have not written as much as last year, because I am having some mental health issues that are affecting me a lot with my creativity/self shit. I also haven't been reading fanfic a lot which I think is affecting it, cause reading usually always inspires me/gets me to write (I used to use it as a reward system, write this thing, and then you can go read this one-shot, but now I've just been very sad and not doing that

honestly writing this is making me realize I need to go read fanfic, it was literally helping my mental health so much to find joy in these fictions)

I have so many things that are almost done right now, but I find them so hard to edit or finish. Like I don't feel it's good enough, so I just keep tweaking at them or trying to finish them.

but last year I wrote around 300k? ish? My current word count including new ghost stuff is like 270k on ao3 and doesn't include any tumblr-only things I've written (plus I orphaned some stuff that cause I don't like the ship anymore) I wanna get back into writing, and I'm hoping school is gonna help me with that. I'm very excited to be going back to college and I think it's gonna help me start feeling a lot better about me in general.

anyway that was a ramble, but mainly like mental illness, setting a good work environment, a good motivation, and enjoying what you write are big things for me personally in a lot of what I got done last year

[bluejayblueskies]

2, 12 & 23 for the fanfic ask game

fanfic writer ask game!

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.”

this happens to me a lot actually--sometimes i'll have a plan for what direction a fic will go in and the characterization ends up taking it another way entirely. in it will be this, always, i'd often be writing an argument and it would stray into areas i hadn't intended to address but that jon and martin apparently felt very strongly about ajgkladf. another notable experience with this was when writing my big bang fic, By Virtue of Divine Providence. in chapter 4, i was originally intending to have jon leave without talking to martin about it at all, and then it would be after jon returned that they would tell martin that they loved him, etc., but when i started writing the scene jon was just ... there. chilling. telling martin that they loved him. and i was like 'okay i guess this is what we're doing' but u know what, they were right--the scene worked way better that way. if writing has taught me anything it's that following the natural flow of characterization is often better than forcing a predetermined plot path (so long as you don't stray too far from where your intended end goal is).

12 - do you ever have trouble focusing on writing? how do you get around that?

oh, yeah, absolutely, especially now that my fervency and ability to churn out three fics a week has ... calmed down a bit lol. writing is usually an active choice for me now rather than a 'oh i need to get this down on paper' and sometimes it's hard to get started. if i'm having trouble even getting a word doc open, i pick an idea that seems exciting to me in the moment whether or not it's what i was intending to work on. then, once i've started on that, usually i can transition over to what i need to work on. another strategy that really works well for me is using sprinto on discord. sprints with others are great because i'm a very competitive person and i will write nonsense i wouldn't normally allow myself to write in order to win <3 but i've also found them quite effective just by myself. i work well with defined chunks of time during which i focus entirely on one thing, and setting a 15 minute timer and being able to see at the end of it quantitatively what i've done really works for me. (side note: i do this when i practice my instrument as well, setting 15 minute timers and focusing on just one section of music. in both circumstances, it usually helps my brain focus because i know that i only have to do so for 15 minutes and can take a break after that.)

sometimes if i'm really struggling, i'll put on an ambient noise track that fits the vibe of the fic i'm working on. for example, for do the stars gaze back? i spent a lot of time listening to ocean sounds to get myself in the right headspace. having that constant noise also works well to eliminate outside distractions and let me immerse myself in the world i'm creating.

23 - how do you deal with writers block?

this is a similar answer to the last question. i use all the same strategies, but i also do other things specific to that feeling of just ... not being able to move forward or rewriting the same sentence 10 times in a row. quick 5 minute sprints are good for me for this--i don't allow myself to backspace, so whatever comes out is what i keep. i do this until i feel my rhythm settle back into something normal for me.

if it's a big section i'm stuck on, i'll write it out in very detailed outline form. that eliminates any hangups i might have on exact phrasing or the exact right words and allows me to just brute force the plot. then, i move on to the next section and come back to that section later when i might have more luck. for smaller sections, brackets are great. i use brackets for words i can't quite figure out and that would get me hung up if i tried to get them perfect the first time, and sometimes i'll do whole sentences or paragraphs in brackets.

some of the best advice i've seen about writing is that if you're stuck on a section or line, the issue is probably ten lines back. it really changed the way i handle snags in my writing, because instead of agonizing over which word or phrase isn't working, i just delete big chunks of the section (up to a natural point or a point i felt worked well or was comfortable) and start over. i have a junk document i put these chunks in in case i want them later, but i rarely go back to them because usually there was something in there that didn't work well--a character said something odd or out of character, there was a plot hole, something was awkward, etc.--which was giving me trouble later on in the fic. reflecting back on question 2--letting the characters guide those sections sometimes helps work out the kinks and usually results in something much better than what i originally had!

overall, working to get rid of my need for a 'perfect' first draft often helps with writer's block because i can allow myself to write absolute garbage. (sometimes, i even come back to that garbage and decide that it's quite all right, actually.)

[brynnmck]

Chapters: 9/9 Fandom: Game of Thrones (TV), A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth Characters: Brienne of Tarth, Jaime Lannister, Sansa Stark, Arya Stark, Margaery Tyrell, Rhaella Targaryen, Aerys II Targaryen Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Regency, Competence Kink, Battle Couple, excuses to get Brienne into men's clothes, and Jaime into Brienne's trousers, eventually, I overshot the minimum wordcount just a bit, I blame this amazing prompt, also fyi no one in this fic has sex with any of their immediate blood relations, the tags this fandom requires I swear Summary:

Faced with the untimely death of her brother and the resulting threat of losing her guardianship of her wards, Sansa and Arya Stark, Lady Brienne Tarth determines that she has no choice but to dress and act as Galladon until such time as she can see Sansa safely married. Enter infamous rake Jaime Lannister, Lord Casterly, sent to secure Sansa's hand on behalf of the marquess Aerys Targaryen. It should be a most fortunate arrangement, except that much as Brienne's present is not all it seems, neither is Jaime's past, and--quite inconveniently for both--they find themselves wondering whether they might have a future together.

Or: five times Brienne refused Jaime's proposal, and one time she proposed to him. (And also she's wearing 19th-century men's fashion because of reasons and fuck the patriarchy.)

____________________

Well so this was my @jaime-brienne-fic-exchange fic and it was a JOURNEY. I did not want to put myself in the position of having a deadline death-march to finish this and so I very faithfully kept myself to an average daily wordcount throughout July and I actually managed to stick to that and I was SO PROUD of myself and the only problem was that it ended up being almost twice as long as I had projected. Lolsob. ANYWAY. Aside from my lack of planning skills, writing this for @nire-the-mithridatist was a joy in all other ways; I absolutely adored her prompts, her feral comments once I started posting made my LIFE (seriously, if you read the fic please read nire’s comments just because they are so fucking hilarious; more than one of them made me giggle for DAYS), and getting to be friends with her and realizing we should’ve been friends all this time was an unquestionable highlight of the whole experience for me. So thank you to her for all the things, including helping make all of this happen in the first place, and thanks to the amazing @firesign23 and @slipsthrufingers as well--I know that wrangling an exchange of this size was not easy and all your hard work is so deeply appreciated!! Thanks also to @ajoblotofjunk for beta-ing and hand-holding and putting up with my whining and providing enthusiasm when I desperately needed it; she is the best and I would be lost without her. Thanks to @pretty--thief and @agirlnamedkeith for helping me brainstorm a couple of key elements and character moments (and to PT for naming the dog! ❤️). Thanks to my delightful sprinting buddies, particularly the 9 pm - 2 am Pacific time crew, including the ever-faithful Sprinto and our benevolent overlady Slipso (whom I am also so grateful to have become friends with as a result of all these shenanigans); SPRINT CHANNEL AFTER DARK brought me a lot of joy and a lot of distraction and some actual completed words and I wouldn’t have wanted to do it without y’all. And thanks to anyone who listened to me flail about this story, including @kiraziwrites and @naomignome who both found themselves on the receiving end of some not-entirely-sober DMs, as well as the thirsters who were lovely to me when I was like “listen, I don’t want you to read my draft, I just want you to tell me, sight unseen, that it doesn’t suck”. Thank you also to everyone who has already read and kudos’ed and commented and recced--I’m behind on replies, but please believe me when I say that I’m well aware of what a behemoth this is under the circumstances and so the fact that you’ve made time for it even with all the other amazing fic to read means so much to me. THANK YOU.  ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ And for those of you who read this sometime in the future, I hope you enjoy!! As challenging as this was due to the time constraints, getting to play in this style was a ton of fun, and I’m so happy to have been given a prompt that inspired me to try something new and intimidating and exciting. Thanks again to everybody!  ❤️