#to the bin (scraps/wip)

[dragon-subway]

uhh yea I’m. Im not gonna finish this so have the thumbnail

[snarkspawn]

I see you

[not-here-dragon-subway]

heyy so guess who's a page artist for the lmk fan zine :D and we have permission to show the pitches that weren't chosen

[x-pair-o-dice-x]

i've been at this for three hours straight y'all better appreciate this /lh

posted all my wips into my scrap bin! now you can see most of what i had planned! hope y'all enjoy!!!

[rileykitty]

I had a pretty ridiculous amount of files in my personal WIP folder (30+) so the other day I decided to send a bunch of them to the scrap bin and choose a handful to dedicate my focus to finishing. Here is what remains! :3

[celinou]

Thanks @lenorelovesmax for tagging me 🤍

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 2, currently. Well, more like one and a half baked scene that has no context, to be more accurate.

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 194.036 words.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? I have like the one fic, the other thing has 2 kudos. So... - A Walk in Chiaroscuro (354)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Yes, absolutely. It's pretty rare when I don't. I like to tell people that I appreciate their support and comments or to answer questions they might have about the story or the choice I made.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I don't do angsty endings. I'm too old and too jaded by life to appreciate them anymore. I'm at a point in my life where I need to know there's hope and happiness at the end of the line.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I'm guessing there will be some kind of repetition since I've only published Awic... Soooo, it's a Walk in Chiaroscuro! ...but if you want to know about the ones that I keep in my drawer never to see the light of AO3, the happiest ending goes to Let's Write a Love Story (it's a Homestuck fanfic)

8. Do you get hate on fics? No. I'm writing in a mostly dead fandom so far and for kind of a rare pair so, people have been starved of content. They were so nice and sweet to me in the comments.

9. Do you write smut? I wish! I don't have the chops for it but I so wish I could write good smut! Honestly it's something I really want to push myself into exploring. Unfortunately your girl is a bit too vanilla in her taste which makes for poor reading. I don't fear being bad... I fear being boring, you know?

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've ever written? I've never done that, no. But who knows what future will lead me to write.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? No. I don't have enough reach to be the target of theft.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Nope. And tbh I don't have the patience to translate it myself in my native language.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Could have... but no. There was an attempt at a joined project for Dragon Age but, unfortunately, it didn't work out in the end. I'm not abandoning the idea of writing for Dragon Age but I'll probably go in a very different direction since it would be a solo project.

14. What's your all time favorite ship? I... don't have one... Yeah, I'm not much of a shipper at the core. I mean I did write for Caulscott but I practically ship Max with everybody in LIS so... I was more interested by Nathan's potential as a love interest more than the ship itself. Outside of LIS... I can't think of any ship rn, I'm afraid.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? Tough question. If I abandoned a project I don't consider it a WIP. It's a dropped thing that goes in the reusable idea bin... and if I'm still working on it, I don't go into thinking I won't finish it. So, it's hard to say really. To not leave you with such a vague answer, I'll give you this: the fic I planned to write about the Hidden Object Games series Dark Parable, that never took off and never will (for I have better/much more attractive projects to work on). It's a dropped thing. But now you can see I have weird and obscure taste.

As for original projects: I have a Horror RPG project that probably won't ever see the light of day, called: The Clockmaker. (because I realized I'm shit at pixel art, tragic)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? Hum... No. I don't mind people doing it but I tried it myself in my pirate epic and, let me tell you, I'm not that good a multilingual as to be witty in more than 2 languages. I found what I wrote cringe af when I read back my text in the editing phase and scrapped it all out.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Homestuck. I started writing fics very late in my life. (I wrote original stuff before that)

20. Favourite fic you've ever written? A Walk in Chiaroscuro. Because it's the only fic I went into unafraid to write what I wanted without thinking about who might read it. And to this day it's the truer work I've put out. Not the most personal by any stretch but the one I indulged in the most. And I'm so proud of it. Flaws and all.

I tag @sourrind and @momochizoey if you feel like doing it. And everybody who'd want to as well, consider yourself tagged, friend!

[gumnut-logic]

*sneaks into your asks with WIP questions*

8. ♻️A scrapped idea for your current WIP

Follow up question if you’re up for it - how do you deal with shedding stuff that isn’t working?

(I’m struggling with getting attached to ideas or bits I’ve written and it’s hard to say nah I’ll bin it because WORDS exist 🥺)

11. 🛠Is there a scene or anything in the WIP you are struggling with right now?

(Any tips on pushing through? You’ve written so many amazing epics I’m guessing there must have been times you got around a problem)

*lurks and awaits nuggets of nutty wisdom*

Ooooohkaaay, a scrapped idea ::pokes brain::

When I start writing, a good part of the time, I have no idea where I'm going. Sometimes I will have a single scene to write towards, sometimes I will scribble down a vague skeleton of an idea, but a lot of the time I have the scene I start with and then have to work out how the hell they got into that situation.

For example, my current 'Virg got shot' fic. I wrote that from a prompt that pretty much outlined the scene in purpose. Someone interrupting another person, trying to get their attention, but that person is too busy and brushes them away, until they say that they are shot and the freak out happens. Which is essentially what I wrote.

The purpose of writing it was just to write. I had zero plans of expanding it, I don't need any more wips. But then...

What about Scott's point of view? Would be interesting to see his thoughts, so I started writing that second bit. John poked his nose into the equation as I often like to let my characters' thoughts wander - it can be entertaining.

By the end of writing that bit, the fic is calling out for more. What's next? Could be a hospital scene...eh, boring...hmmm, why did he get shot? Is it related to anything else that has sprung up in the story? Damnit, I can't write tomorrow cos I have to work all day pretty much 8am - 8pm. But that is not going to stop me from building ideas.

But anyway, I'm waffling, I do that.

For Sweetapple part 3, I have a definite scene I'm writing towards. There will be a moment and I will love it and it will be great. Whenever I finally get there. And if it plays out as I see it or the story demands something else, well, hopefully that will be fun, too.

Cos sometimes those scenes change. 'Gentle Rain' was all about one scene that occurred in Chapter 12, but that scene never happened in the way it was conceived (cos it would have killed da Virg and we can't do that), so it came out differently. Ultimately I find character logic and plot demands write the story.

I have written myself into corners, even one where things took a sharp turn simply because I didn't have the energy to write what needed to be written if the story continued in the direction it was going. See if you can work out where I changed direction in 'Who do you save, John?' It bugs me each time I reread it and I'm tempted to write an alternative ending because it could have been so much more.

Then there are the fics with massive plot holes that I can't fix and just have to watch them as they sail past. 'The Tattoo' has a massive hole in it, but I wanted to explore the concept, so completely ignored it. The pedantic in me has a fit every time.

And I'm still waffling, sorry.

A scrapped idea...none in my current wips because...hold on...Callisto. I stopped writing Callisto because it was Virgil's birthday at the time and I needed a break, but mostly because I felt I was writing into a corner. Virgil was too whumped to function and I needed him to be funtioning. Multiple rereads has me questioning that decision, I could just keep writing and work around it. Also, Jeff isn't working the way I wanted him to, plus the Mechanic went on the voyage but hasn't had any impact on the plot. Wanted him to do stuff, but it hasn't written itself. So I stopped to re-evaluate. Unfortunately that is not how I normally write and stopping was a mistake cos I stopped...for years. I haven't thrown bits of the fic out yet, but it needs some fixing.

If I do 'throw something out' of a fic, I always keep it. I have a file that usually sits next to my main fic file that says something like 'Callisto - cuts'. I stash cut text in there just in case I need it later. Most of my long fics have one of those files sitting around somewhere.

What am I struggling with? This is also for @sofasurf ::hugs:: who also asked.

My problem isn't ideas, it is usually focus. Put it this way, if I was a kid in school now, I'd be diagnosed with some attention difficulties or executive dysfunction or whatever. I'm definitely on the spectrum (that was diagnosed when I was four, but my parents didn't believe the doctor apparently). I've had years of practise working with my brain and have minimised its effects on work and my life (being unable to finish things is a real curse) but as you can see, my creative life is still impacted.

So writing...I can only write in short bursts. My longest ever was 7000 words in one day, all day. Most of the time I write between 400 and 1500 words at a time. I use the Terry Pratchett method of 400 a day when I can, which is why you will often see short bits of my fic flung up on my blog. I try to write to a publishable point and not stop in the middle of a crucial scene or something, but both my working life and my attention span impact on what gets written. Some of those fics were all written on the side of the road outside my kids school in tiny little bits, fifteen minutes here, ten minutes there, that kind of thing. It has been a big thing for me to learn that little bits can make big things. I am now using this theory with my crochet as well :D

As for my current WIPs challenges. It comes back to asking myself questions - why was Virg shot? (I have an answer and I like it, but the fic will likely get bigger and Scotty might need to take out another country :D)

Vamp!Virg fic - currently deciding between POVs for the next scene. Also need to build some world rules.

Getting around problems can be simply switching POV or someone walks into the room. Characters can also be the greatest source of problems. Like the time Alan decided he wanted to visit the site of his mother's accident - I knew the moment I wrote his line that I now had several thousand more extra words to write and a pile of research to do (I now know a lot about Mount Rainier :D). But writing those words ended up with that ending....which I am so soppy about. I wrote poetry for goodness sake.

Ah, it's 10.30pm and I'm rambling all over the place making little sense.

In the end it is just writing. Don't push yourself too hard, remember it is supposed to be fun, not torture (yeah, right) and often a good thing to do is to poke a friend and ask them to slap you around the head a couple of times to knock some sense in. I have had several Thunderfam members do this for me. Thanks guys :D

Write little, write big, just write and see what happens.

Nutty

(sense is apparently optional)

[bonesandthebees]

Did I miss something? What fullmetal alchemist snippet?

-❄️

the other night I threw a few more old snippets into my scrap bin since it's clear I'm never going to finish those now. it was a snippet that was going to be a sandduo au of tlou, a snippet that was crimeboys in a fullmetal alchemist au, and then a slice of life sandduo thing ft. phil as a naturalist

I'm probably going to throw a few more things into the scrap bin over the next week or two or just whenever I remember because I still have older wips to share. you guys have no idea how much I've written over the years lol

[rebelpeas]

going thru my scrap bin and old wips folder tonight. augh

[dragon-subway]

[spinjitsuburst]

NWOD ASK BOMB 💣 INCOMING!

What is your oldest WIP? Do you have any WIPs that will never be finished? Do you outline a fic before you write it?

i've been meaning to answer these! wow it's weird being considered a writer again i should really finish and post something huh hgkjdfsghjkf

oldest wip

oldest wip is TECHNICALLY writing i've done for my original characters that have nothing to do with ninjago but since ninjago is like. the point of my blog

the oldest NINJAGO wip is actually this scene of the gang discovering that jay's snake tail stuck around in the cabinet man au!

wips that won't get finished

there's an old version of a cabinet man skybound scene that i'm scrapping, it's very cool and i like it but i think things are going to go differently than i originally wrote it, so into the bin it goes

i might take snippets of it but alas overall it's getting an overhaul

outlining

sometimes i outline! sometimes i don't. cabinet man has a rough outline given that it's a loooOOONG project, i've been making some revisions and i'll probably rework the outline and go into more detail when i do to make things easier on myself. other things i don't outline, like the technoshipping fic i'm working on

a scene that's been part of my wip from the beginning

while i AM changing up how the original comic is going to go to some degree in the fic (different mediums require some changes for ease of writing and user consumption) this pretty much has stayed the same from the beginning

what's the newest idea/scene you've added?

ehehe newest is actually classified cuz it's lategame story spoilers. SECOND newest is ideating how Jay's going to meet Wu post-PE. they don't exactly have time to interact when things are first happening, so it'll be interesting to write out how Jay approaches Wu and Wu's subsequent reaction to finally finding him

[not-here-dragon-subway]

happy International women's day to my favourite failgirl

bonus:

[clairelsonao3]

Damn, almost missed this somehow lol (sorry, the numbers don't copy 😔)

OC you most struggled to make?

How many projects do you have going on right now? Are there any that you doubt you’ll ever finish?

What are all the “kinds” of writing/art you do? (short stories, poetry, screenplays, digital, painting, clay, etc.)

What are your favourite books?

Thanks for the asks, Anna! From this ask game.

OC you most struggled to make?

Probably one of the ones that appeared in one of the WIPs I've since scrapped (which explains why I scrapped them). My characters talk to me, and sadly, sometimes they say "Yeah, I don't wanna be in this book." 😂

Before I decided to continue with my current WIP, I had plans for a contemporary romance focused on royalty (and non-royalty) from a fictional country. I loved the male MC, but the female MC was just resisting me at every turn. I couldn't get a clear picture of her face, her background, her motivation, anything. So into the bin she went.

I also had another YA historical romance going for a while that I put on the back burner because the male MC wasn't working for some of the same reasons, although I'm still in love with the concept (it was Oliver Twist-inspired!).

How many projects do you have going on right now? Are there any that you doubt you’ll ever finish?

If you count "projects that exist in my brain," the number is probably infinite. I've had things I've wanted to write for 10 years or more( see above) but haven't for various reasons. In terms of official WIPs, I'd say 3, but only one is really active at the moment.

What are all the “kinds” of writing/art you do? (short stories, poetry, screenplays, digital, painting, clay, etc.)

At different points in my life, I've written short stories, poetry, flash fiction, screenplays, stage plays, and even songs. I thought learning as many forms of writing as I could would make me well-rounded (it really just made me exhausted). And that doesn't even take into account the nonfiction writing I do. At the moment, though, I'm more or less only working in long-form fiction (i.e. novels).

What are your favourite books?

Thank god the question was "books," plural! Here's a selection off the top of my head:

The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood

Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

The Magus - John Fowles

Dreamland - Kevin Baker

Ragtime - E.L. Doctorow (also Loon Lake by same)

Bel Canto - Ann Patchett

Labyrinths - Jorge Luis Borges

The Egyptologist - Arthur Phillips

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle - Avi

The Westing Game - Ellen Raskin

Troubling a Star - Madeleine L'Engle

The Secret Garden and A Little Princess - F.H. Burnett

The Chronicles of Narnia (favorite being The Magician's Nephew) - C.S. Lewis

This list should not be considered exhaustive 😂

[mayordoi]

i wanted to get back into the old “gray painting -> EZ color overlay” style just for the silly! also wanted to get into the groove of posting more wips here :D cuz i really need to stop caring about aesthetics and whatnot on my page. dumping more info/previous drafts under a cut tho teehee

anyway i’m painting god mode mariyam from qualia automata again because i still have some art ideas for it 😊 i originally wanted to do a more dynamic pose as well as combine their original monochromatic design, but it just didn’t pan out as i desired. so i’m taking a much more simplistic and plain approach and focusing more on colors and textures once i get to that phase. i should try dynamic posing more tho…. maybe another day 😅

might as well share my old passes actually. again, wanna be more open w what i share here. cuz i think wips and scrapped ideas are cool! 🥺

left: original plan. very much improvised the pose because i have effectively given up on using pose apps to help (magic poser is unfortunately a shell of its former self 😔). i’m pretty satisfied with it from that standpoint, but idk it was just not clicking with me. the glitch transition could have been better executed to save but idk. it’s chillin in the bin for now

right: after i was kinda meh on the initial pass i tried sketching around with the design. i had another one but it was just a bunch of vague lines so wasn’t really worth sharing haha

this is probs gonna take a while (usually my approach with doing mono values first is to do all the rendering in that pass before applying colors to the whole painting. it’s flawed but it’s gotten the job done for me in the past) but i’m willing to stick it out >:3 cuz i like where it’s going so far

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

Ask game

Distant

(send me a word and i'll reply with a sentence in my wip it appears in)

got a couple dings in my "short story scrap bin" doc for this one, so take a couple from the same scene!

It was darker up here, without as many lamps to light up the scene, and the shapes were too distant for her to make out many details.

/

Unfortunately, due to the current positioning, none of the other people were fully visible. A new voice—slightly distant—piped up, “Now, that doesn’t seem fair, does it?” 

[bedrockbones]

Q

fanfic ask meme ///accepting Q: Do you have any discarded scenes/storylines/projects?

oh i have a LOT

though...i guess it depends on what you mean by discarded lol. ive got, uh, a shameful amount of wips that have been lost to the depths of my google docs but I never made a scrap bin because one day I might finish them so I don't want to share yet

BUT there are some scenes from Secret of Being Colorful that I scrapped for one reason or another that I don't mind sharing? I saved them because I planned on making an extra chapter/fic in the series with all the scrapped bits because they're too short to share on their own but I can give y'all one of them as a little treat

this one was one of my first drafts of the morning after tommy's escape attempt. it was originally going to be from tommy's POV but I couldn't make it work so I scrapped it

(bit under the cut)

"So…bad time to say 'I told you so'?"

"I will kick you out of the nest."

"No you won't."

Tommy huffed, twisting around. The voices stopped for a moment. 

Calm-calm-sleep, came the gentle warble. Tommy sighed and relaxed. He was safe. Everything was fine. 

"What are we goin' to do?"

"..."

"...Let me do it."

"No."

"He's goin' to hate you. Let me-"

"I made the decision to take him. I need to handle this."

Tommy grumbled. He was trying to sleep.

A hand touched his wings and he fell limp. Yes-yes-flock-flock. He chirped and someone chuckled.

"I'm his father now. I need to do this."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I am. I chose to-"

"No. Are you sure that's what you are? That's what you want?"

The hand petting his wings stilled and Tommy chirped again, annoyed. 

The hand resumed. 

"Talk to me. Just tell me what-"

"I don't know, mate. I just-"

"He's dead Phil-"

"Don't. Don't you dare."

"..."

"...I'm sorry."

"Figure your shit out, Phil. I'll follow you until the end but only if you know where you're goin'."

There were more sounds. Ruffling sheets, footsteps, and a door clicking shut. Then a sigh.

Tommy was wrapped in something warm. He smiled, drifting along. Happy to be held by flock.