Sometimes fanfiction is a love letter to the original canon, sometimes it’s just that one telegram that says “Fuck you. Strongly worded letter to follow”.
I feel like when you’re writing, organizing chapters and dialogue is easy
but jfc, the amount of time it takes to constantly keep people moving and make sure they’re in the right spaces and trying to come up with wording for it is always such a shock.
Like, fuck, I made you pick up a coffee cup, you need to put it down at some point. also I can’t remember what I dressed you in, can you push up your sleeves? I don’t remember if you even have your shirt on.
and YOU. YOU OVER THERE, you got out of your chair earlier, but did you come back yet? Are you coming back? Where did you even go and why’d you get up? Fuck, I can’t make you sit down again already, you just stood up, go…over there. go get more coffee. Did you bring your mug with you? fine. bring the pot to the table and—wait, wasn’t the coffee pot already over here? shit, hold on, I need to go back and re-read and re-write
this is the most relevant thing i have ever read.
I think one of the most wild things as a writer is the sensation that you’re not actually directing your characters– they’re sort of directing themselves, and you’re scrambling around attempting to copy down whatever it was that they just did, but they don’t wait for you to finish copying. They just keep walking and talking and moving around and existing of their own volition and at some point you look up and you’re like “WHOA OKAY EVERYBODY BACK THE FUCK UP WHERE ARE WE”
It’s kind of like trying to write sheet music for an orchestra while it’s playing
OMG, THIS. THis, this, this….
I dreamt an amazing two chapters to madness. They were heartfelt and really hot and Sherlock was massively pregnant and swimming in the ocean and it was lovely. Now I’m awake and there is a blank page in front of me I have no idea where it went.
Sorry I’n not posting much and behind in some of my betaing for y’all. We’ve just stared school and the 1st graders are sucking all my energy just like they’re supposed to. It will settle down soon. *hugs*
There’s this fic on AO3 that, according to my history page, I have visited 176 times. Which means I alone am responsible for 176 hits on that fic. I commented on some of the chapters, but only a few, because I feel like a stalker when I comment every week. I gave it kudos, but I can only give it one, even though it’s one of my favorites.
So just remember, when you’re looking at that hit count and wondering why you don’t have that same number of kudos (divided by the number of chapters, because each one of those also counts as a hit), it might be because some people out there love your fic. They read it when they’re feeling down. They open it in the waiting room at the doctors office, or in the lonesome dark of night. They turn to it in celebration when they did something right. They open it over and over so they can send the link to their friends, or just to revisit the characters that they love. They checked it ten times in one day, hoping that you had updated.
A disparity between hits and kudos does not mean that your readers didn’t like your fic, or that they were too lazy to hit the kudos button. It means that some of them came back, and there’s nothing that makes me happier about my writing than that.
go write three sentences on your current writing project.
# my favourite part about this post # is that nowhere does it say to reblog this # but we’re all reblogging it # because if we have to suffer # so do other writers
– you just had a brilliant idea. it’s 3am
– bonus: you have something important the next day
– “wow I wrote so much, let’s see the word counter” 350 words “LIES”
– when your worst work gets the most attention
– “[AO3] You’ve got kudos!” emails are your lifeblood, water your crops, and clear your skin
– B L A N K P A G E S O F D O O M
– playing the entire story out in your head. never writing it
– watching or reading anything ever and imagining an au
– making playlists to write to. never writing
– getting an “[AO3] Comment on ______” email and doing the thing. you know the one
– headcanons. so many headcanons
– spending days or weeks on a piece
– watching the hit count rise and the kudos count stay on said work
– when will the kudos return from war
– You have a great idea for a new fic. You have seven half finished fics already.
– Your story idea is no longer relevant/appealing because of things that happened in canon.
– You have a great idea for a story and no idea how it should end
– You have a great idea for a story and know exactly how it should end and how it should begin and in the middle is a vast wasteland of ????????
– Trying to figure out an appropriately literary way to say “and then they do that thing, you know, that thing they do on the show where they make that face and it’s just adorable?”
– Worrying your headcanons reveal way too much about your deep dark secrets as a person.
– Writing down a headcanon that DEFINITELY reveals too much about your deep dark secrets as a person and editing it to make it seem a little more subdued.
– Having to decide between what you want for your faves and their happiness and what’s actually in character.
– Being stuck on an idea for 9000 years and then taking a shower and figuring it out instantly.
– Seriously what is it with being in the shower did you make a deal with one of the fae where you’re only a good writer while you’re naked??
– “What are you writing?” “Oh, you know…just…a thing….”
– What the hell you can just copy/paste formatted work on Ao3 you don’t have to put the html in yourself WHY DID NO ONE TELL YOU THIS, WHY DID IT TAKE SO LONG TO FIGURE OUT?
– Wanting to tell your non-fandom friends about your story ideas, but they can’t understand a word you’re saying.
– Wanting to tell your fandom friends about your story ideas, but they’re all reading your fics and you don’t want to give them spoilers.
– when the plot decides to do is own damn thing and suddenly you have to add three more chapters to accommodate it all and fuck it all, this was supposed to be a one-shot
– spiralling down wikipedia hole in the name of research
– what’s that word? The one that means, you know, the thing?
– When someone reads your back catalogue and leaves a nice comment on Every Single One
– not being able to hit a 2k word essay, but churning out a 10k word fic the same night
-there is a very specific AU in your drafts. No one wants this AU. YOU don’t want this AU. But you keep going back to it, working on it, swearing you’re never ever posting it
-you know that you’re lying and will eventually inflict it on people in hopes of validation anyway
– writing pages and pages of “fic” in group chats and having zero motivation to write out of the fic idea when you open up a word doc
Beltainefaerie's Flights of Fancy 