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clevercatchphrase · 5 years

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Just some numbers and figures~

So! I finished my fan fiction, You Monster, this week, and it took me exactly 3 and a half years to write/edit/publish. This post at the time of writing, however, is being written a few days before the final chapter goes up, just examining some numbers and trends around the wordcount and posting rate of my fan fic, because i’m obsessed with numbers and such, and i’m just trying to chew up time and keep myself occupied before the last chapter goes public. There’s literally no point to this post other than to marvel at how long this story is and how long it took me to get it out there, and reflect on what happened to me in The Real World during that time. Care to join me?

In Microsoft Word, this entire story is 609 pages and 209,235 words. The word count is slightly higher on AO3 (which I consider the definitive draft), partly because AO3 counts formatting tags as words for some reason, and because if I make little adjustments to the story, I’ll do it on AO3, but not on the original word file (or corresponding tumblr post for that matter) because I can’t be bothered to.

According to AO3, I started this fic on January 3rd, 2016, smack dab in the middle of my winter break in my last year of college. I probably started writing it a few days before, maybe in december. I’m not really sure, but I’m kinda surprised I started it so early in the year, especially since I was writing by the seat of my pants for the first 14 chapters or so.

The following pictures highlight what days/months chapters were posted, according to AO3 (I personally think there might be a discrepancy or two due to timezones)

Chapter-wise, the first third of this story (Chapters 1 through 12) was written and posted in 2 months, and TWO THIRDS of the entire story (Chapters 1 through 25 (rounding up)) were written in the first YEAR.

Wordcount-wise, HALF the story (roughly 100k words) was written in one year.

There was a dramatic drop in productivity at the middle/end of 2016 due to Real World Stress, mostly me graduating & getting a job, the presidential elections, and learning a family member was starting to have kidney failure.

God, 2017 was a bad year for me, productivity-wise. In early June I lost said family member due to their kidney failure, and was completely unmotivated to work on You Monster for the rest of the year. I remember forcing myself to write for NaNoWriMo that year, and it helped snap me out of my funk, but I didn’t like how the writing came out and kept pushing off revising and editing the drafts for several weeks. I also remember getting really sick on christmas eve/day with a terrible flu, which made me unable to post the next chapter until January.

I actually felt a lot better mentally and emotionally in 2018. I WOULD have written more in early 2018, but that was also when the Hiveswap Comic Contest started, and lasted for 3 straight months with me doing nothing more than drawing comics for 12 consecutive weeks. Then, after that was over, I started thinking/planning more seriously about writing ANOTHER story, which later became Ghost Switch, and I offically started that halfway through 2018. I originally thought about making Ghost Switch a written work, but it was basically going to be another re-telling of Undertale, which was what I was doing with You Monster anyway, and I didn’t want to write all of that out again, so I decided to make it a comic instead. It was a great decision for me art-wise, because now I’m improving my art skills through weekly comic pages, but it was also a terrible decision art-wise because now I GOTTA KEEP DRAWING POSES AND BACKGROUNDS AND DRAWING PEOPLE IS HARD.

Back to the point- I forced myself to write this fic again for NaNoWriMo that year, and was terribly upset that I still didn’t finish. But this time, I forced myself to revise and edit my writing until it became something I could tolerate, and posted the next chapter in January (again, but this time because my writing needed far more revisions than last year’s nano draft)

Getting back into revising and editing DID seriously help me get back in the groove of Wanting To Write, but it was a little trickier now that I was also drawing a comic, and it was hard to manage my time between the two, because when I write, I do it for great stretches at a time. I mean, like, 4 or 5 hours straight of writing. Same goes for comic making, too. sketching the pages can take me two hours, and cleaning/inking/coloring them can take me anywhere from 4 to 6 hours.

Hm. If I included the other fics I wrote during this time, I get the feeling these calendars would look a lot more active and colorful. Maybe i’ll do that for myself later, so I can see how much I posted in 3 years.

This year, I was absolutely determined to finish this story, even if it killed me. I was still struggling to manage my time between writing and art, mostly dedicating a few weeks to make a buffer of comic pages so I could have a couple of weeks dedicated to writing. It was time consuming, and I felt bad when I worked on one but not the other, but I finally got my breakthrough in May, when I had to take multiple trips to an automotive shop for several different car repairs. Instead of just leaving my car there and going home, I brought my writing spirals with me and just wrote and wrote and didn’t stop writing while I waited in their loby. I finally finished the rough drafts of my story after being stuck for 4 hours in a Pepboys, and spent two more full days typing it out. Then, I rested for a week, and spent 3 more revising and editing the remaining bits. I was hoping to get the whole thing done and posted before July ended, but that did not end up being the case. For me, when we finally get to August, we have entered “the end of the year”. Ah, well. Even though I didn’t get the story completely posted before August, I can still take pride in knowing I finished it before the year was half way over~!

NOW FOR SOME NUMBERS!

I personally divide this story into 5 arcs, Ruins, Snowdin, Waterfall, Hotland, and New Home And Beyond (Which is basically anything that can happen after you unlock the true lab in-game)

Ruins

The Ruins arc I consider everything in chapters 1 thorugh 12. It is simultainiously the longest arc (chapter-wise, with 12 chapters which as mentioned earlier, is 1/3rd of the story) and also the shortest arc, only taking up 24k words (Which is an 8th of the entire story, or roughly 12.5%).It was also the quickest writen arc, as it was primarily prologue/first act material. Pretty much all of it was written in that first January. It’s 80 pages long, or 13% of all pages

Snowdin

The snowdin arc (chapters 13 to 22) is just under 25% of the entire story, coming in at 49 thousand words (on the nose!) It is the second longest arc in both word count and in number of Chapters (10, to be exact~) It took me roughly 4.5 months to write this arc. We also spend the most physical in-story time in Snowdin. Almost 3 full days, which is half of the story’s timeline (not counting the 7-8 years in the Ruins. That was all set-up) It’s 172 pages long, or 28% of all pages.

Waterfall

The Waterfall arc (Chapters 23 to 28) is the longest arc wordcount-wise, making up another 25% of the story, coming in at 53.6 thousand words, and dead center when it comes to the number of chapters it makes up (which is 6). Looking at this now, litterally half this story takes place in Snowdin and Waterfall. Roughly one full day is spent in waterfall, from noon of the first day, to roughly late morning of the second. This arc took me 11 months to write/post, and if you read the notes for these corrisponding chapters, you can tell I was not having a good time during it. It’s 178 pages long, or 29% of all pages.

Hotland

The Hotland arc, (chapters 29 to 32) Is the shortest arc chapter-wise, with only 4 (10% of all chapters), and second shortest arc wordcount-wise, coming in at 36 thousand words, or about 18% of the story. It’s also the shortest in-story arc time-wise, seeing as you only spend about half a day here. I did not like writing the hotland arc! Mostly in part because Hotland is my least favorite region in the game. Chapter 32 is probably my least favorite out of all of what I’ve written. It was difficult figuring out what to do with Alphys and Mettaton, seeing as their interactions with you in game heavily focus on you and your human-ness. I am quite glad that each chapter was pretty neatly divided by in-game floors. It was a good way to know where a chapter could end and when I could give the characters some breathing room. It took me over a year to complete the Hotland arc, and most of that time was because I didn’t want to revise and edit what I wrote. It’s 123 pages long, or 20% of all pages.

New Home and Beyond

I don’t consider the True Lab part of Hotland because of in-game story reasons. You can’t access it until you’ve gone to New Home at least once, and once you enter it, you cant leave until you finish it, which, again, takes you to new home. Honestly, once you get to the true lab, you’ve won the game. There is no way to ruin your pacifist playthrough once you get to the lab, and while the amalgamates may kill you, you can’t “lose” once you get this far. That’s why I consider Chapter 33 the start of the New Home arc even though in my story we haven’t seen new home yet (mostly because there are no saves or resets in this story, so we kinda couldn’t have gone there first).

The New Home arc is the second shortest chapter-wise, making up the last 5 chapters (13% of all of them), and is dead-center when it comes to word count, finishing with 46.5 thousand words, or roughly the last 25%. I was actually really excited to write everything from chapter 34 to 36 after having been fantisizing about it in my head for the last two years. I gotta be honest, the end of chapter 37 gave me some trouble. I was still making edits up to a few days before it went public, but I think I got the feelings I wanted across~ It’s 161 pages long, or 26% of all pages.

Extra???

I started keeping a word file for bits of dialogue and scenes that I originally wrote in my spiral, but ultimately cut for one reason or another. Mostly these are just sentences and snippets that sounded redundant, ooc, or were just an alternate dialouge I decided not to use. I didn’t start doing this until chapter 28, according to my files, but according to the masterfile, there were 6.4 thousand words I ended up not using.

There are, in fact, several bullet points I had originally planned and ended up not using, such as Sans ASKING Undyne to keep an eye on the kid while they were in waterfall, which sounded hypocritical after I wrote him coming to peace with them, as well as having Asgore tuoring the Underground that week, and thus Sans, Papyrus, Undyne and Alphys having to hide Frisk from him once they become friends. (the painkillers Alphys also gave frisk were actually supposed to induce drowsiness in Frisk, making them fall asleep so Alphys could keep them from going to New Home, but this was a point I dropped at the absolute last minute, and you can tell if you re-read chapter 29, because it’s hinted at, but the painkillers are never mentioned again. I figured that plot point was a little too dark for Alphys’ character)

Fun Fact: the zalgo text in Chapter 27 DOES actually have dialouge in it, if you know what to look for. Only one person has asked about it, but no one has yet to decifer it.

AT A GLANCE:

ARC LENGTHS (CHAPTER WISE) SHORTEST TO LONGEST

Hotland (4 Chapters)

New Home and Beyond (5 Chapters)

Waterfall (6 Chapters)

Snowdin (10 Chapters)

Ruins (12 Chapters)

ARC LENGTHS (WORDCOUNT WISE) SHORTEST TO LONGEST

Ruins (24k)

Hotland (36k)

New Home and Beyond (46.5k)

Snowdin (48k)

Waterfall (53.6k)

ARC LENGTHS (PAGE COUNT) SHORTEST TO LONGEST

(Same order as above)

TIME TAKEN TO WRITE/PUBLISH, SHORTEST TO LONGEST

Ruins (1 month)

Snowdin (4.5 months)

New Home and Beyond (~6 months)

Waterfall (11 months)

Hotland (>1 Year)

Other Numbers For Some Reason

Chapters 1 through 19 make up the 1st 50k words (this when Frisk falls into the underground, up to Sans attacking them in the kitchen) 19 chapters

Chapters 20 through 26 make up the 2nd 50k words (when Frisk decides to seek asgore’s help, to when Undyne cuts the bridge) 7 chapters

Chapters 27 through 31 make up the 3rd 50k words (when Frisk dislocates their shoulder to Flowey killing the messenger spider) 5 chapters

Chapters 32 through 37 make up the 4th 50k words (When Mettaton decides to change the programming, to Frisk’s final choice) 6 chapters

Only 5 chapters exceed 10k words, they are chapters 22, 27, 28, 33 and 36

Here’s a visual representation of all the chapters and their word counts in relation to one another. I was so startled by the spikes of chapter 22 and 28 that I had to go back and skim the chapters to remind myself what went down in them and why they were so long. Chapter 22 is papyrus trying to keep the human in snowdin while sans runs some errands, and then the human discovering the skelebro’s deceit. Chapter 28 is the human realizing Undyne tried to murder them, and then escaping from waterfall. I distinctly remembering saying I could have split chapter 28, but I was so tired of writing waterfall that I refused to do so because I just wanted it to end already.

I find it absolutely hilarious how consistant my word count was until chapter 20 (chapter 15 is an outliar), and then everything went off the rails.

Here’s a graph of the total word count, shown to you NaNoWriMo style~ (I spent way too long in excel making both of these charts, please validate me)

The climb definitely looks a lot less drastic here, as it is always building on itself, but if you look closely, you can see one or two inflection points, roughly around chapter 20 and 28.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I’m so glad to finally be done with this story. It’s certainly deviated from what I originally planned, but I think all the changes are for the better. Now I can think about writing other things, like the PTA!AU shorts I’ve been meaning to do. It was fun and it was challenging, and this is literally the longest thing I’ve ever written in my life. Will I ever make a story this long again? Maybe?? If I ever encounter another game with as much character and worldbuilding as Undertale that also just hits me in the feels the same way, I might, but for now I’m going to focus on other projects (most of them still undertale related, but shut up)

Got any questions, comments, concerns for my fic? I’m so glad it’s done, now, and I’d be happy to talk about my thoughts behind it~

#Undertale #Fan Fic #My Writing #Long Post #you monster #I still dont have internet so I'm gonna push this up in the queue

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doctormage · 5 years

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hi i just need to be really dramatic and long winded bc if i dont get it Out im going to fucking explode

ive actually been trying really hard this semester with my thesis and its REALLY fucking difficult for me. my depression makes me catatonic and unable to complete simple tasks or be motivated to do literally anything; my anxiety paralyzes me at the slightest unexpected change and then obsess over whether everyone in my life hates me because of my anxiety; my sleep schedule is constantly fucked and my doctor is unhelpful; my bdd will sidetrack me from my work and responsibilities for literal hours or days, and sometimes if its feeling spicy send me on a full scale fucking breakdown; and my adhd makes all this shit worse on TOP of all the NORMAL adhd shit. like thats just!!! my life!!!! at all times!!!!! and there have been several times where i have genuinely considered leaving this program or not continuing school after bc i was so fucking overwhelmed and exhausted and scared but i didnt!!! like i make a lot of jokes about procrastinating and wasting my time and doing the least and whatever but in reality its really fucking difficult for me even when im medicated!!! but i dont like admitting that bc of all my exhausting childhood baggage and shit but that is not the point of this rant so anyway

this semester i made a specific effort to try and be a better student even tho all of this stuff has been exacerbated by grad school. i felt i owed it to my director and one of my committee members because theyve been so fucking helpful and put their faith in me and took a lot of their time to help me. i wanted to show them i was worthy of it and capable of being a good student who does all the shit she’s supposed to do, does it well, and does it on time. i overloaded my fall semester and nearly lost my goddamn mind JUST to have a lighter class load this semester so i could focus most of my time on my thesis (like for real that was actually incredibly stupid of me. i lost almost 30 pounds from september to december without conscious effort just because i was so fucking stressed. not a brag and actually kind of concerning bc that has LITERALLY never happened to me). it has been like....significantly taxing, but i wanted to show them how much i appreciate their time and effort and help by being responsible and respectful. my Trying Hard is a lot of people’s Barely Doing Their Best and i know that. turning something in 2 hours early is below average for some but for me, literally anything more than 30 minutes before its due is an actual goddamn miracle. but i wanted to work hard and do things right for my committee members because they deserve it

this christmas my parents asked what i wanted and the ONLY thing i asked for was help with my library dues. last year from like march to october i was significantly depressed and entirely out of my head, and i racked up some pretty bad overdue fees. i didnt even ask them to pay all of it, just some of it. less than $100. im really truly grateful for the gifts they DID get me, but i didnt ask for them for any of it, and my overdue fees were left alone. i was under the impression that they got paid and, like a fucking idiot, i didnt check up on it to confirm. ive been so hell deep in my thesis and teaching and grading and applying to phd programs and looking for apartments and shit that it really just slipped my fucking mind!!! crazy!!!!

today i was in crisis bc i thought i fucked up with scheduling my defense/exam/whatever the fuck. im going to call it defense and i dont give a shit bc everyone calls it some other shit and i dont CARE. anyway i really thought i fucked up but i went and talked it out with my director and it was all sorted out. i’ve gotten like 50% of her feedback on my thesis draft, which i’ve incorporated, and im waiting on comments from another reader (the other helpful person on my committee). we have to run some dumbass software before scheduling, so i ran it today and tried to schedule it but couldnt bc theres a hold on my account. i went on a fucking....ALMIGHTY QUEST to figure it out and i finally discovered that guess what!!!!!!! its my GODDAMN LIBRARY OVERDUE FEES!!!!!! THAT I THOUGHT WERE PAID!!!!!!! i had to pay them myself which is fine idc but it takes several days to process. this fucks up my life on SEVERAL levels

for one, its fucking impossible to get a hold of my third committee member. she is a vapor in the wind. shes like super busy and thats all good and well but the point is theres like zero communication there. i finally got confirmation on a defense date from all 3 members and had been literally planning MY ENTIRE LIFE around this date. after todays first scheduling crisis i was so happy i was still on track, but now this? now i have to wait 3-4 days before i can even SCHEDULE the defense. the super delightful part is that we have to schedule a minimum of 2 weeks in advance. so now i cant schedule my defense until tuesday at the absolute earliest, but that ALSO bumps my defense date several days ahead. i have no fucking clue if my committee is going to agree on another day that works for everyone bc theyre all busy as shit and we’d been working toward the original date for weeks if not months, and im so fucking upset because this is exactly what i DIDNT want to have happen. i havent tried to email them yet because im hoping beyond fucking hope i can call somebody at the university tomorrow and see if the hold is something else besides the fee, but it makes me sick to think of having to be like “oh sorry i know i constantly fuck up everything ever and im a piece of shit but can we change this date we’ve had set since january because i was an extra shitty piece of shit this time??” like OHHH MY GODDDDD

and the thing thats really fucking with me is that like, yes its my fault but this one time its not ENTIRELY 100% my fault. i asked for a favor and had the understanding that it was taken care of. yes the fees were my doing and yes i shouldve checked but oh my fucking god. i feel like all the effort ive put into being a better student this semester has been for fucking nothing because im going to have to email my committee asking for a different date and ruin all their fucking lives and theyll be so disappointed in me. i have like legitimately been crying on and off about it since like 4:30 today

it so shitty in and of itself but i especially dont want to do this to my director bc she is legitimately the reason im finishing this program AND that im going to a phd program. a year ago i’d barely spoken 20 words to her but she still agreed to be a reader on my committee just because she heard me explain my thesis for all of 30 seconds and decided to give it a try. she literally had not read a song of ice and fire at the time and she started reading them for me to help me with my thesis. in the fall when my original director basically threatened to leave my committee if i didnt change all my ideas, my current director stepped in and helped me and talked me through it and then offered to take her place even though my research is BARELY distantly related to hers. through all of this she’s been so insanely patient with me, super encouraging of my ideas both in this project and in others, helped me decide whether it was right for me to get my phd immediately after my masters, proofed and edited and helped me with ALL my phd application materials, and STILL is in the process of reading these goddamn books just to be a better director. i have lost my head so many times and shes always been there to help me figure my shit out, and i wanted to have it figured out for once. how stupid of me

like bumping the date isnt the end of the whole world but its really not just about the fact that i have to reschedule. i was trying real goddamn hard to be a better student this semester and i REALLY fucking owed it to my director and other reader, but especially director, and i still managed to fuck up this bad. i feel like such a DISAPPOINTMENT and it just will not leave my brain bc im so mad at myself. i tried watching shows and youtube compilations about game of thrones and shit but now my bf is asleep and im alone and its all i can think about. im so fucking tired of being the person i am honestly and i dont mean that in an edgy way its just like jesus christ i wish there was less shit wrong with me. i wish i had any kind of willpower or discipline so i couldve learned these skills and been a better student from the start. i wish i wasnt a giant piece of shit!!!!!

and now im going to be up late being anxious about all this which means that i will, once again, wake up late but also still be really exhausted, which means i’ll do a shitty job teaching and get overwhelmed by everything and who the fuck knows what fun bullshittery will ensue because of it. i am so fucking tired of me and my fuckery and the fact that it fucks with other people even why i try so hard for it not to. tired!!!!!!!! fucking tired

#p #this is literally like an essay #on why im a piece of shit lmao #ignore me!!!!!!

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