#this is just how my brain works. i've been typing this post for forty minutes. just sitting here and Thinking

[cornertheculprit]

Zak: Well, the prelude may have been longer than the main attraction. Shall we begin our game? My final competition?

Phoenix: Final...? Why?

Zak: As you said, I have come out of hiding today to make this document legally binding. Once that is done, I shall slip once more underground.

Phoenix: ...Without seeing your daughter?

Zak: ...... It would be best if I did not. ...Seven years ago, we played. Seven years ago, I lost. I already lost to Magnifi. I do not care to lose to another. And I have heard that you never lose.

Phoenix: ...It's just a rumor.

Zak: Yes... for it is impossible to never lose. Unless one has an ace up one's sleeve.

Phoenix: ......

Zak: As a magician, it causes me no end of irritation. To think a mere lawyer might be out there, pulling the wool over so many eyes.

Phoenix: Hey... I just signed your document for you. Maybe you could try lightening up?

Zak: That was that. This is this. For my final competition, I will destroy your perfect record, Phoenix Wright. This... will be my final performance. You are warned.

Phoenix: (This guy is beyond serious... So much for a fun evening of cards.)

my brain has been rotating this exchange around like a rotisserie chicken in the microwave for the past few days and for the life of me i can't pinpoint WHY it's driving me up a wall in an insane way so i'm just going to write everything i think and hope to god i hit the nail on the head and scratch whatever itch this is causing.

there's something to me about how trucy was the one thing that gave zak pause while he was planning the trick to abandon her and how he still wears the locket of her around his neck and yet how he refuses to even see her even though she keeps a picture of his face hanging in her home and talks to it every day so she won't forget what he looks like and then the next time she hears about him (presumably from phoenix, because she knew about it by the time of turnabout succession) he's dead. and also something about how zak is a man who prioritizes his pride above all else and how he was vengeful enough to hire someone to plant a card on phoenix so that he could either a) break phoenix's seven year win streak himself or b) expose him for "cheating". he was so genuinely pissed about the fact that a "mere lawyer" (or ex-lawyer in this case) was "pulling the wool over so many eyes" in a way that he, a fully-fledged magician, could not that he would resort to his own form of trickery. it kind of mirrors what kristoph did with phoenix seven years earlier—getting someone else to "plant evidence on him" as it were. earlier in their meeting phoenix literally described him as "dangerous" and zak is literally making phoenix go "hey man...calm the fuck down. lighten up a little" in a way that reminds me of people trying to calm a spooked horse. the dialogue when you present the wrong thing to zak (when talking about thalassa) actually reinforces just how fucking SERIOUS zak was:

Zak: ...Let me be frank. It is true I do not wish to talk of her. And now, there is another I could care less about. ...You.

Phoenix: Ah.

Zak: Take care you do not end up "missing" yourself.

Phoenix: (For some reason, it's extra scary when magicians threaten me.)

and i mean he literally did hit olga with the bottle later when he got pissed again so. hm. maybe what's still driving me so insane about it is that it all comes back to the idea of "foolish pride." because remember when phoenix was talking about edgeworth in justice for all and he said "he clutched onto his foolish pride too fiercely... and died for it" and then remember when trucy asked phoenix if he was so sad about losing his badge because of his own "foolish pride" and phoenix says "yeah that's pretty accurate" and trucy says that zak used to talk about "foolish pride" all the time and in the end it's literally zak's foolish pride that got him killed. he TRULY resurfaced from hiding to pass on the gramarye rights yes but given the context of the situation i think it's safe to say that became an afterthought when he realized where phoenix was and what he was doing and that phoenix was living on the reputation of having a perfect record. and speaking of perfect records!!! how funny is it that phoenix gave edgeworth shit for his perfect record and then proceeded to live on one himself? something about edgeworth going "i will do anything to get my guilty verdict. anything." in aa1 and zak calling phoenix out on using trucy as the "ace up his sleeve" during big games and phoenix going "er... gotta use the resources at hand, i always say" because even though he doesn't do it OFTEN he IS doing anything he can to secure his win streak. he's already sickeningly good at poker obviously (just like edgeworth is already sickeningly good at prosecuting) but sometimes you just need that little extra oomph. an extra resource to use. and zak knows. and phoenix knows that zak knows. and maybe that's part of the reason why zak was so angry? not that he has any room to speak (HE IS ALSO DOING ANYTHING TO GET HIS WIN) but that IS his daughter getting used as a "resource" and phoenix reaping the benefits (little as they may be) with his win streak and maybe maybe maybe that win against him seven years ago was a fluke. maybe phoenix wright is nothing without his luck and trucy. but then the game is played and not only does phoenix discover the planted card he even manages to win the game. zak came out of hiding for nothing and was killed for it. phoenix takes the locket (whether it's before or after zak is killed is unclear—nonetheless, he takes it) and eventually tells trucy about the fact that zak is dead. that he didn't want to see her (maybe he doesn't tell her this—but trucy being trucy would realize it). that the reason he was there was to beat phoenix in a game of fucking cards no matter what he had to do. and eventually phoenix hands her the gramarye rights and tells her the second reason zak was there that night and that doesn't really make things better but it doesn't exactly make things worse either. it all comes back to foolish pride doesn't it. foolish pride foolish pride foolish pride!

[toast-the-unknowing]

HI! I wanted to say that I really love your writing and I get really excited to see notifications that you've posted new work! And I was just curious if you worked in an office of some kind, and if so how do you find the time/motivation to sit in front of the computer and write personal work. It's just something I've been struggling with myself, and I wanted to ask if you had any similar experiences. If the answer is no, then no worries :) Thanks again!

Oh, that's a tough one, Anon.

I do currently work in an office -- as An Adult I've had an array of jobs, all of them either retail or customer service or "office assistant in a field I don't care about." And I’m sure that every job has the power to take away from your creative work, just as a simple matter of resources -- time and energy spent working can't be spent writing -- but there's something extra challenging about jobs you don't like, jobs you're doing just because you have to. They take so much out of you.

Motivation is one of my personal crosses to bear. I don't have it. I consistently struggle to find the motivation to do basic life tasks. So I don't know that I have answers for you, but I definitely have sympathy.

I also have, like, so many more words than I thought, so they’re going behind a cut.

When motivation is in short supply, the stuff that has to happen or you will literally die comes first. That's okay. It gets to come first. If I put on clothing and show up for work and eat some kind of food at some point, I got through the day. That's an accomplishment. And sometimes doing that uses up all my motivation for the day. Sometimes I can't even get up that much motivation, let alone do anything else. That sucks, but it happens.

But it doesn't happen every single day.

Some days have more motivation than others. Some seconds have more motivation than others. Why can I do the thing in this one second when for weeks it's been blocked like a grayed-out option on a computer menu? I don't know. But I could. Motivation is weird like that. You never know when it will show up, so you have to give yourself opportunities.

You know your office better than I do -- is the culture "get the work done on time and we don't care what you do" or "YOU MUST PERFORM 'PERFECT EMPLOYEE' AT ALL TIMES"? What's the layout of your desk? Can people read over your shoulder? How nosy are your bosses/coworkers? How strict are the internet controls your IT department uses? How busy are you? What are your own particular psychological quirks and philosophical attitudes? What's your anxiety look like?

It may be that "work on my writing while on the clock" is not an option for you. I get that; in the time I've been an office worker, I've been all over the place, from "my own writing is what I spend the majority of my time on while I'm at work" to "I won't even touch my writing on a company computer." Right now is closer toward the latter. But, if writing at work is an option for you, now, don't lose out because your current project is saved to a .docx file on your home desktop. Make it so that if you had to, you could write under literally ANY circumstance. I carry a Chromebook with me everywhere. Before that I carried a composition notebook and a pen at all times. I know people who write fics in draft emails or the notes app on their phone.

When time and motivation are scarce, you have to build in the opportunity anywhere that you are able to. Those might not be the same opportunities that work for other people. I've heard established writers say things to newer writers like "if you don't have the time during the day, just wake up earlier," and that's so discouraging and heartbreaking for me to hear. "Wake up earlier" isn't an option for me. "Wake up on time" is barely an option for me. Getting out of bed is a bottleneck for all of my motivation issues to all run into each other at the same time. But "work on the bus" does work for me. Not every single day. Maybe one day I'm tired. Maybe the bus is really full. Maybe the person I'm sitting next to looks like my mother and that makes it weird to write about boys kissing. Maybe the one fic I really really really want to work on that day is porn, and no I'm not going to do that on the bus/at work/on my lunch break. Maybe I pull out my Chromebook and open it and look at my fic with every intention of working on it and just.....nothing happens, for forty minutes, and then I'm embarrassed and put it away. That's fine. Because if I do write something on one of those commutes or lunch breaks or "just gotta kill time" evenings even once, then it was worth it. If I give myself lots of opportunities, then even if I don't take most of them, I still get stuff done I wouldn't otherwise.

Little bits COUNT. If all you manage to write is "in this scene the characters argue" THAT COUNTS. You wrote a thing. Because the next time you write, that can become "in this scene the characters argue about money and Adam storms off". And then the next time it can be "the characters argue about money and Adam storms off and Blue says something really cutting to Gansey and Gansey is crushed." And then, and then, and then.

It sucks to write a story one tortured sentence at a time, but it can be done, and sometimes that's the only way that it does get done. Some days all I do is turn [gansey says hi] into "Hello," Gansey said, and you know what, that counts.

Sometimes when writing has been hard or impossible for me, I've done writing adjacent tasks. Maybe the motivation isn't there, right now, to get writing done. Can you daydream about something you know you'll never write in a million years? Can you spend your commute, or the time you spend watching paper feed through the scanner, or that awkward minute in the break room when your boss is getting coffee at the same time as you -- can you spend that time thinking about a Hogwarts/ABO/vampire/fake dating/rock band/Groundhog day/all-of-the-above fic that you would never write? Because daydreaming and dicking around can be very helpful for getting your brain in gear to write. And if you daydream about the story you're actually writing, or one you'd like to write, (a) you get caught up in it needing to be GOOD ENOUGH which is anathema to free wheeling fun times, and (b) you run that risk of coming up with that PERFECT bit of dialogue that you aren't able to write down and then you forget it. If you forget that really funny bit of dialogue for the Declan/Henry soulmate alien abduction shapeshifter fic you were never going to write, well, what does it matter?

I've done this before when I've been in a place where I'm not writing, and there's something about being able to say, "okay, I didn't write anything, but I came up with five different fun little stories that I can go back to, in my brain, any time I feel like it." And I've discovered things about the characters that I do then want to use in a "real" story . Maybe you will stumble across an interesting dynamic or interaction in that OT6 West Wing crossover you were never going to write, but it's worth revisiting in something you do want to write. When you're able to.

The ways of motivation are mysterious. I don't really know why it's easier to find the motivation now than it's been at other points in my life, in other fandoms. I think part of it is momentum, from accepting "okay I'll just try to do a little bit of writing" and then the little bit happens and keeps happening and becomes a big bit. There's been so many times now where my bus pulls up to my stop and I go "ugh I have to put the laptop AWAY and GO HOME why" and I just try to race home so I can sit down on the first chair I find and keep writing.

Are there some places, or times, or situations, or writing mediums, where the motivation comes a little easier? If you don't know of any can you pay attention for those? Is there any way to capitalize on that? If super boring meeting where I don't have to do anything but I'm not allowed to skip is a great time for day dreaming about your writing, is there anyway to take your lunch/a coffee break/a really long bathroom break where you hunt & peck type into your email drafts right after that?

I tried tracking my writing once, on the suggestion of a very convincing essay by an author who promised that only good things could come from meticulously noting where the writing happened and when and how many words. The result was that my word count dropped to zero. Very easy to track! Not so great for literally any other goal I had. But I've learned a lot about my process since then, not from spreadsheets and journals but just from...paying attention, and asking myself questions, and thinking back on all the thinking about writing I do, and it's become easier to make words happen. Not a guarantee, but -- easier. So I think the most helpful thing is just to give yourself opportunities, even little ones, to write or create, and then just...pay attention. To your process and your words and your motivation and your situation, and try to work within those and not against those.