#i wrote over 50k words in literally two weeks | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

filet-o-feelings · 1 year

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I posted 2,397 times in 2022

That's 2,343 more posts than 2021!

406 posts created (17%)

1,991 posts reblogged (83%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@stereopticons

@treluna4

@ramonaflow

@rmd-writes

@rosedavid

I tagged 1,014 of my posts in 2022

#thanks for asking! - 93 posts

#schittscreekdrabbleblog - 21 posts

#sc finish it fest - 12 posts

#schitt's creek fanfic - 11 posts

#wip wednesday - 11 posts

#snippet sunday - 11 posts

#yep - 9 posts

#love this! - 8 posts

#david x patrick - 8 posts

#thanks for the rec! - 8 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#i basically never got my enhanced license/passport once it became required to cross the border just so i wouldn’t have to drive in montreal

My Top Posts in 2022:

So originally my nano goal was to write 50k of one specific work (Library Boy) but almost immediately after the word count of that surpassed the longest thing I wrote at about 29k I just lost motivation in favor of working on other projects... but I've been tracking all of my writing, and if I write about 4600 words tonight I can still hit 50k words for the month. Not my original goal, but still something to be proud of. So, I'm working on a mainly stream of consciousness fic with nothing but a sentence and a sad personal memory twisted for creative purposes and hopefully lots of fluff.

So here goes... 269/4579

32 notes - Posted November 30, 2022

WIP Wednesday

David: hey are you guys okay over there? I’m going to have to stay with Patrick for the foreseeable future Alexis: oooh David! Mom is worried about her wigs if it gets too cold, but we’re fine. Have fun with your button! David: ugh it’s not like that, I literally have no choice, the ice has trapped me in here Alexis: sure David *wink* how many beds are in his room? David looks over at the bed, not having considered that just yet. Fuck. David: um just one… can you open your door? Maybe you can break the ice from the outside? Alexis: I just tried, I think we’re stuck too. David. I’m stuck in here alone with mom and dad. What am I supposed to do now? David: you’ll be fine. My battery is dying, I’m turning my phone off. I’ll text you from Patrick’s phone later, okay? Alexis: ughh fine. Have fun snuggling with Patrick in his bed! David powers his phone off and looks back up to find Patrick watching him. “I’m hungry. Please tell me you got enough food for both of us?” Patrick throws David a protein bar. “I have enough protein bars to last us weeks, but not much else. We won’t starve, but we’ll probably be craving the cafe’s food by the time we get out of here.” David laughs bitterly, “I can’t imagine that happening, but I really hope you have more than just protein bars.”

Tagging @rosebrewerj @hippolotamus @stereopticons @alysiswriting and anyone else with words to share!

34 notes - Posted November 2, 2022

Bargain + bonus word blanket

For @schittscreekdrabbleblog word of the week

“David Rose, do you understand what it truly means to make a bargain with the devil?”

“Um, are you the devil?”

“Of course I’m the devil. What did you expect the devil to look like?”

“Well, for one, I didn’t expect the devil to roll up in mid range denim and a blue button down looking like a boring business major.”

“Ouch, David. Stereotypes hurt. Now, is this blanket really worth giving up your soul to me for eternity?”

“It’s really fucking soft.”

“Alright, there you go. Eternally comfortable blanket, to keep you extra toasty in the fires of hell.”

36 notes - Posted October 10, 2022

For @schittscreekdrabbleblog word of the week: Inspiration

“I’m really lacking inspiration lately. Can’t you guys get up to some shenanigans or something?” The author says from everywhere and nowhere. “What, I thought you all love this domestic fluff?” Patrick says from the couch as David leaned further into his husband’s arms. “This is true, and you’re being absolutely adorable right now, but there’s only so many ways I can describe the two of you snuggled up together watching another rom-com.” “Sometimes I let him watch sports!” David pipes up, proudly. “And he rarely complains about it anymore.” “Fine, but I’m getting Stevie to shake things up tomorrow.”

53 notes - Posted September 12, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

When David's ex, Sebastien Raine, unexpectedly shows up in Schitt's Creek, David enlists the help of a stranger on the street to pretend to be his boyfriend in an attempt to get rid of Sebastien.

Chapter one

(thanks @statueinthestone for the banner! 💛)

63 notes - Posted November 14, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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ineffably-good · 2 years

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Nanowrimo 2022 Is Looming

Anyone else doing nano this year?

I did nanowrimo last year for the first time and found that, challenging as it was, something about my brain responds really well to the structure and deadline of the event. I drafted my first novel, The Afterlife and Other Problems, during last year's event, hitting 50k by the end of the month and finishing the whole initial draft about two weeks after the event ended at around 74k.

At the time, just getting it done felt like a major miracle -- I was reeling from the loss of a really important friendship, desperately burnt out at work, and literally wrote 15 of the 30 days of it at the hospital bedside of my critically-ill father feeling very dark and lonely and lost. (He survived, thank god.)

But writing it? Writing it saved me, I think, at a very bad time. Writing it was fun and exciting and above all, kind of a great distraction, and I went on to revise it over the next six months and came out with a pretty good book.

So, of course, I'm gonna do it again because I'm a glutton for punishment I'm highly motivated. :)

And I've got an idea I'm really excited about. It's funny and deep and weird and I think it's gonna be great, if I can pull it off.

So I'm doing Preptober, right now, where you outline and plot and do writing prompts and figure out enough of a roadmap to get yourself able to sit down every single day in the month of November and pump out 1667 words, more or less. Even though I tend to be a pantser when I write (meaning someone who just wings it without much planning), you have do at least some kind of minimal planning to write this much in a month.

And it's interesting, because I suddenly am seeing how much I've learned over the last year. My approach this time is very different!

For one thing, I seem to have learned something about how to outline. Last year I had maybe three major plot points and a series of possible funny events that would happen in the first third of the book and that was it. This year, I've got a high level, rough, but much more thorough outline of most of the book. (With some holes, sure, but for me this is a TON of information.)

More importantly, I'm finding myself instinctively starting from a whole different perspective. Last year I had maybe a hook and some events, but knew very little about my characters, and this year I'm starting from a very clear idea of who my main character is and what she wants and fears, which is how the writing books always tell you to do it, but honestly until now I've never begun a project that way.

It remains to be seen if this will turn out to be a viable book or not -- but I *love* seeing progress in myself with respect to the craft of writing. I've learned so, so much, since I started drafting Faeted, three years ago, or since I eeked out my first Doctor Who fanfics in 2017.

SOOOOO anyhow, that's a long-winded way to say this: if you're nano-ing next month and want to be buddies, drop me a note! It was fun to have writing partners on the nano site last year to chat with about the process and cheer each other on as we posted our daily word counts. I'd love to connect!

#writblr #writers on tumblr #nanowrimo #amwriting

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ultimateluckystudent-writes · 1 year

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1, 28, 30!! Sending love <3

I'm literally beaming so much love at you all the time Cressie I hope you can feel the little lasers

How many words have you written this year?

I was really hoping someone would ask me this!!! So, if we're just counting fanfiction but we're counting all fanfiction, 131,015 words!! About 50k I wrote in two or three weeks about Yu Ishigami and I couldn't tell you why or what's even in it. O.O. But so much of it won't ever see the light of day lmfao- I've been writing for myself since I was in seventh grade, back when I wrote literally like 500k words in one year when I was barely starting out! It was a really, really big coping mechanism.

Also, I almost included like, On Island Time in here? I could have sworn I wrote them this year but they were literally last summer... I looked at my fics and realized I kind of disappeared for the last school year... haha... whoops!

28. Favorite work you wrote this year?

alkfjlkdakf I was also hoping for this one!!!

All in all? Definitely When I Don't Remember You, which is why it got pulled from the shelf lol. It's the first multi-chaptered fic I'd ever want to post that I really consider finished. I love the Reader in that fic and the dynamic between her and Nagito even more... amnesia fics go brr... unhealthy people doing their absolute best to have a healthy relationship even when that means going their separate ways... devotion and codependency...

From what I posted? Love Me Dead was like a little bug in my brain (and still is lol) and was very satisfying to finally complete, but for some reason I really ended up liking Stress Relief for Dummies (or Two Bros depending on what site you're on lmfao) I originally had more planned for them but other dynamics took my attention, just like with On Island Time

Actually, you could probably see those in the same universe

30. Biggest surprise while writing this year?

How much comfort I'd get from it and the community around it! Around January of this year, I was kind of losing interest in DR, and then I thought I'd move on to Kaguya-sama, but I really don't pick the fixation I guess- It was a really hard year, especially during the summer, and I got knocked kind of flat on my ass. WIDRY was actually something I started before everything went a bit sideways and what I threw myself into after. But anyways, even after my radio silence for like a year, people still wanted to read my stuff and you all are so, so, so, so nice!!! I'm getting so sappy over self-insert Danganronpa fanfic lol, but talking about any of my writing no matter the genre always does.

#bunnyspeaks #again thank you ily cressie i appreciate all your love im just a shy little worm who cant reply to your comments like a nerd

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flameraven · 2 years

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Thought this would be fun! 1) Total words: as of 12/4/21, I've written 48,018 words! Hoping to maybe hit a round 50k by end of year if my brain will cooperate. 2) fav fic: no truer love, for the Ace Omens zine. Probably the softest thing I've written, and a lot of very personal feelings about aromantic love. 4) Favorite ship: Still absolutely obsessed with Aziraphale/Crowley 5) Crowley. 6) “I know you, Crowley. And I love you, exactly as you are, exactly as you've always been. You have shown your devotion to me, over and over and over again, for six thousand years now. You don't have to prove yourself to me.” He smiles softly, carefully wiping away the demon's tears. “I can ask for no truer love than what you've already given me,” he whispers. 7) Paradigm Shift, aka "the first time Aziraphale heals Crowley", which took roughly six months to write. I had to throw out most of the last 3 chapters and rewrite them (twice, in one case). I'm proud of the end result, but it was very frustrating to work on. 8) "One Step Forward..." Part 2 of my fantasy AU, has been 90% finished since June, and I cannot get my brain to write the last scene. I literally just need a paragraph or two for the conclusion, and I can't get it right. Very frustrating. 9) Paradigm Shift, with about 2900 hits. Although hit count in general has gone way down this year, I've noticed. (In 2020, fics would average 1000-1500 hits the first few weeks, and now they're hovering around 300-400) 10) Longest fic: Also Paradigm Shift, at 11,052 words 11)Shortest fic: be not afraid (I am here tonight) at 1179 words 12) Favorite title: Nothing that I've published, but probably either "Reach Out (and Hold Back)" my touch-starved/touch averse fic, or "Got Your Goat," which is a WIP about Crowley attempting to destroy the Gavlebocken (Yule Goat) 14) Fav comment: I had someone tell me that one of my fics was their favorite of all time, and that they saved it even before making an Ao3 account, and it helped them come to terms with their own ace-ness. <3 <3 <3 Absolutely melted me, I am always so glad when something I wrote can help someone like that. 16) Total published: Just 5 fics this year, 4 one-shots and one longer fic (5 chapters). I've been struggling with burnout and haven't been able to focus enough to finish things. 17) Hoping to finish some more things next year; in particular I would really like to complete my fantasy AU series (3 parts total). Hoping that we don't get too many spoilers from Good Omens S2! Right now I'm enjoying the few bts pics but I do not like the wild speculation fandom does when we hear plot details.

#fanfiction #writing #ao3 wrapped #2021 roundup

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kinnsporsche · 2 years

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1, 3, 4 💛

1: favorite fic you wrote this year

my kinnporsche fic it's my desire that you feed, you know just what i need (you got power over me)

3: favorite line/scene you wrote this year

im so torn between two unpublished snippets so ill just post them both the first is from an unpublished matchablossom fic

"It's supposed to be clear skies tomorrow," Flo tells him one evening. She's sitting across from him, watching him eat. He's on his second plate of lasagna because Flo is cruel but her comfort food is not.

"No," he tells her before she can get the 'why don't you-' out of her mouth. "I'm not going out to sea, Flo. It's too dangerous."

She frowns at him, and he's almost tempted to let her talk him into it.

Almost.

But not quite.

She sighs at him. "You haven't been out in over a week, my boy."

"It's not safe for him-" Kojiro explains. "The second I cast off, the second I let myself back into that ocean, I know he'll come for me because he's a stubborn idiot."

Flo takes his hand and holds on. "Oh, child, you can't be sure of that..."

"I can. I can because I feel it too. Whenever I get too close to the shore, I can feel him. And it's enough for me to know that he's safe."

She goes quiet at that, the silence stretching on for long enough that, if it were anybody else, it would be uncomfortable.

"You know-" she says, eventually, "-I think that boy gave as much of his heart to the land as you did to the sea."

oh boy oh boy i forgot how much my merfolk fic meant to me but anyway this second part is from my unpublished kinnporsche fic, and its literally just a sentence that rips my heart out whenever i get to it when im proof reading so here

Kinn smiles, just a small quirk of his lips, but it's laced with sadness; Porsche doesn't have to be his soulmate to feel it.

"She would have liked you, I think. My mom, I mean."

He doesn't say anything to that, because there's nothing he can say. He can feel the way it weighs heavy on Kinn's heart, can feel the sadness and grief that rips through him and aches and it hurts. It hurts him so badly, so god only knows what it's doing to Kinn.

4: total number of words you wrote this year

officially written stuff adds up to like 22k, unpublished drabbles and snippets would probably bump it up to anywhere between 40-50k

fanfic end of the year asks

#the way i teared up rereading the kp part help im obsessed with my own fic #answered #anonymous #kinnporsche #matchablossom #sk8 the infinity

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clevercatchphrase · 3 years

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2020 Year Review~

2020. Pretty unique year, don’t you think? It’s the first year since 2002 to have only two different digits in it. After 2022, this won’t happen again until 2111. Yep. Absolutely nothing more interesting than that.

Anyway! It’s time I reflect on my 2020, look back on my yearly goals and rant about things that happened to me this year. I made a post like this last year, where I went over my 2019 goals and talked about what I accomplished and what I didn’t, and it’s only fitting I do the same again this year. Read more under the cut for a random stream of consciousness ramble!

So, first things first, let’s look at my 2019 goals;

Finish paying off that last student loan

Put more stuff on my redbubble

Illustrate my own fan fics

Sew at least one stuffed animal

Make an enamel pin

Read one new book a month

Write one page a day/Complete at least one new fan fic

Learn Python or C# for the game I want to make

Finish fully scripting Ghost Switch

Boost my patreon

Paying Off My Last Student Loan: Going down the list, I am proud to say that I FINALLY paid off all my student loans! (and not a moment too soon. The last payment I made was literally days before the first quarantine rolled out). It took me roughly 4 years on my part-time paycheck to pay off all my loans, and once I finished, I had no money to my name (literally; I had less than 1k as emergency money in case of car troubles or health issues). Heck, I’m STILL living at home as a save up for a place of my own. Finally paying off all my student loans DID activate my secret 2020 new year’s resolution, which was to adopt a cat! I did this too, literally a week later! She is the best thing that’s happened to me this entire year and I love her so much and she is the snuggliest cuddle bug I’ve ever met. I’m so happy she’s in my life now~

Put More Stuff On My Redbubble: ah ha ha ha… I thought I did this, but then I went and checked, and it turns out-! I did not. I made art I intended to go on my redbubble, but haven’t put there yet. They are all drawings of some OCs from a game I want to make, but because I haven’t progressed on making the game this year, I never got around to putting more stuff related to it on my redbubble. At the time of writing, there are 7 days left in December, so I guess I could go and put it up on my redbubble right now, but without context on where the characters are from, there wouldn’t be much point, now would there?

Illustrate My Own Fan Fics: Another goal that I was so stoked to actually do… and then just didn’t. Gee, I wonder why I couldn’t find the energy or motivation to do it this year? Truly a conundrum. (Hey, you know what? If Ghost Switch counts as a fan fiction in a visual form, then I am doing GREAT on this goal. 2.5 years in, 1 of ~4 arcs done, and still going steady~)

Sew At Least One Stuffed Animal: Okay, I have a valid excuse for not doing this one. I even knew which stuffed animal I wanted to make, and had the pattern drawn out and everything, but I had no money for materials because I had just paid off my student loans. And then, by the time I did have enough money again, quarantine was in full effect and I couldn’t go out to the fabric store. I’m still trying my best to stay out of public places even if the rules are laxer now, because I don’t want to catch the plague even if everyone in my goddamn city thinks and acts like the problem is over already. Even if they’re all wearing masks, even if they’re staying 6 feet apart, I still don’t want to risk it. I will stay inside until health experts give the all clear, and when that day comes, then I will buy some fleece and make a plush.

Make An Enamel Pin: I ACTUALLY DID THIS ONE. TWICE! Halfway through quarantine, I was feeling anxious and depressed about my job and how they were planning to have me work with the public despite climbing infection rates and positive covid cases. I didn’t quit then, but in a desperate move to try and become self-sufficient, I went to madebycooper and made two enamel pins based on some butterfly dragons I drew last year. They’re on my etsy store now! I even went out of my way to open a P.O. box just to start a small business! I haven’t sold a single pin yet, and I’m actually really nervous to sell my first because I don’t trust the efficiency of the postal system thanks to the actions of the GOP that really screwed them over this year! (If you would like to see my enamel pins, click here!)

Read One Book A Month: I did this! With dragon books I bought a couple years back! In fact, I read FOURTEEN dragon books, and still have more books for next year to read! The 14 books I read this year were:

The Hive Queen

The Poison Jungle

Wings Of Fire Legends: Dragonslayer

Dealing With Dragons

Searching For Dragons

Calling on Dragons

Talking to Dragons

The Bronze Dragon Codex

The Brass Dragon Codex

The Black Dragon Codex

The Red Dragon Codex

The Silver Dragon Codex

Dragon Strike, and

Hatching Magic

To be honest, I had read The Red Dragon Codex years ago when it first came out, but completely forgotten what it was about. I remembered liking it, and I knew the reading level was on the lower side, but the whole dragon codex series was pretty good! So far, the Silver dragon codex was my favorite, and black dragon codex was probably the worst! Hatching Magic was also really slow and bad and had plot points that went nowhere, but the book was written in the 80s, so I don’t know what I expected. The Dealing with Dragons series was very charming and great for the most part, save for one line in the last book that really rubbed me the wrong way, and all the Wings of Fire Books go above and beyond in this third arc. The second legends book could be a little tighter, though (sky and wren are the best duo and I want a book solely about them, but I honest to god do not care about leaf and ivy’s stories.)

Write one Page of any story every day/ complete at least one fic: I… did this? Okay, I kinda cheated near the end of the year. I was keeping up the one page a day thing for the first four months, but then the world went to shit and my schedule and habits got disrupted and I fell off my good track record. I completed 7 out of roughly 12 one-shots I had planned for this year (my goal WAS supposed to be one short a month, but… you know how it happens) I kept trying to catch up on this goal all year, but the days kept piling up…. Until November hit. I managed to write over 250 pages for Nanowrimo, and I consider this goal a win. 365 pages of fiction in total, which averages out to about one a day~. SHUT UP IT COUNTS.

Learn Python or C# for the game I want to make: Another goal I didn’t have the mental energy to commit to this year. Truly a mystery to where all our willpower went in 2020.

Fully Finish Scripting Ghost Switch: still haven’t done this one yet! The Snowdin arc is completely planned, but I just haven’t gotten around to getting the other areas. I’m not worried, though. I know all the major plot points I gotta hit, it’s just weaving them together in a way that flows nice is the final task. I’m not too worried though. I don’t expect to finish the Snowdin arc for another year and a half, at the bare minimum.

And my last goal of 2020, Boost My Patreon. I did this at the beginning of the year, but then very intentionally stopped about a third of the way through. It didn’t sit right with me to tell you guys to donate to me when suddenly EVERYONE was financially strained from layoffs or being furloughed. I told my patrons the same, and if you ever need to stop donating to me to take care of yourself first, then by all means, please do. I would feel much better knowing you’re using your money to see yourself fed and housed instead of given to me (where it is pretty much only used to buy gas for my car, honestly)

Welp! That was all my goals for 2020! I achieved 4 out of 10 goals plus 1 secret goal! Pretty much the same ratio as last year, but now this time I can blame all my failures on the pandemic! I don’t feel so bad about myself anymore~

ON TO 2021!

I have 11 goals for the new year, again some rolled over from this list, and some from even older years. They are, in no particular order;

Read 12 new books (roughly 1 book a month)

Finish the first draft of 2019’s Nanowrimo project and rewrite it

Script TDV

Finish Scripting Ghost Switch

Build A Comic Buffer

Sew 1 Stuffed Animal

Finish 1 Song Comic

Make another Enamel Pin

Finish 2 short original comics (this one counts as 2 goals)

Finish the 5 remaining one-shot fics

Now to go into depth on each one, more for my own sake, really. I want to know exactly what I have planned for each goal this year, and sometimes just looking at a short list doesn’t capture all the smaller details.

1)Read 12 new books. Same as last year! I The only difference is I might not be able to make it all dragon-related books. (I try my hardest not to buy from amazon anymore, but half-price-books doesn’t always have the obscure stuff I’m looking for)

2)Finish 2019’s nanowrimo project. If you read my 2019 year reflection, you’ll notice I said I wanted to do some original writing. And I did! The story I wrote for nanowrimo back then was a story I’ve been toying with since 2017, but it was only last year I finally got pen to paper. Now, you may find it odd that the keyword says “finish”. You may think, “but isn’t that what you’re supposed to do for nanowrimo?” and to that I say, WRONG! I wrote 50k words for nanowrimo, but the draft was only about halfway complete. I was kinda discouraged about what I had written last year, because I didn’t like how it was coming out, but I did manage to get it half done. Now it’s time for me to bite the bullet and just finish the thing so I can finally revise it and make it into something I DO like. (It’s still gonna be hella long, tho. That’s what I get for trying to write an epic fantasy, I guess.)

3)Script TDV. TDV is the abbreviation of the game I want to make. I… still need to do so much for this project OTL… In addition to getting the story solidified, I still need to draw art and game assets, and learn how to code for it, both of which are no small task. I keep having some sort of new year’s goal related to this on my list, and every year I just don’t hit this one. Will 2021 be different?

4)Finish Scripting Ghost Switch. (Or at the very least, get the waterfall arc completely written out). I have a plan to break this down into simpler steps, by focusing on just one arc for a month or two. Every major arc has 2 to 3 parts, broken up by flashbacks, and if I can just finish one section a month, then I should have the entire thing scripted by the end of the year. It’s not a difficult pace, but seeing if I stick with it will be the real challenge, as it is will all my goals it seems.

5)Build a Comic Buffer: I’m actually working on this one right now! Since I paid off my last loan and got a new job this year, my current Patreon goals are kind of out of date. They had all been centered around me paying off that last loan, and working towards full-time employment, but those are both completed now! So instead, I would love to get to a place where my patrons could read pages at least a week ahead, and to do that, I need to build a buffer. And since I’m working 5 full days a week now, I can’t afford to fall behind. But you can’t fall behind if you constantly stay ahead! I would like to have… a 10 to 12 page buffer. That’s roughly 3 months’ worth of pages to always have on hand in case I get swamped with work, or something. Right now I currently have a buffer of 3, which will cover me for half a January, which is better than not having anything at all, but still not the best. (ultimately, I would love to have a buffer so big, I could queue them up for the whole year. Wouldn’t that be something?)

6) Sew one stuffed animal: same as last year. ASSUMING the plague gets under control in 2021, I don’t expect to get to this goal until the summer at the earliest.

7)Finish 1 song comic: I have 7 song comics planned. One is a gift, one possibly for wandersong, one is a collab that’s currently in the works, but I’m waiting on a friend to do their part before I can continue mine, 2 are UT related, and 2 (well, technically 3, but one is the collab) are KH related. It’s one of the UT ones that will probably get finished, if I’m being honest. It’s completely story boarded, and now I just need to ink and color it. I would like to get it done for UT’s 6th birthday, since I made a song comic on the fly for the anniversary this year, and it was fun, and I’d like to do it again! So, look forward to that next september~

8) Make another enamel pin: I have a dolphin design I’d like to make because dolphins are cute, if not little murder machines. (need to save up some expendable income first, tho. THESE THINGS AIN’T CHEAP TO MAKE.)

9 and 10) start and finish 2 original short comics: I’ve got some comic ideas I want to do, but I need to get them written out first. I don’t think either would be too long. Each maybe a couple “episode’s” length, if envisioned on a website like webtoons or tapas. They’d both be heavy in allegory, but not overly drawn out (hopefully)

11)And lastly, Finish the 5 remaining one-shots I had planned for this year but never got around to. I’m going to try to write one every other month. Pure self-indulgent shipping fluff. If I finish these 5, then maybe I’ll ask other people for more prompts and ideas, which I’ve never done before. We’ll see how it goes~

Also, Like last year, I’d like to look at everything that’s happened to me this year, though to be honest, I’m not sure how much I remember/how accurate it’ll be. God, I don’t even remember what January was like. Who was I back then? Who were we all back then? I guess I’ll start my yearly retrospective in march because, heh, god we ALL know what started happening in march.

Firstly, I paid off my last student loan! Then a week later on March 18th, I drove half an hour out of my city to adopt a cat and I love her and it was the best day of this year for me. Spring break is just beginning this weekend, but the attendance at the zoo is shockingly low this year. Apparently, a lot of people watch the news, and they’re all taking precautions about social distancing. I wasn’t too disappointed. Fewer people at the zoo, the easier my job is for me. I was looking forward to getting some free overtime on spring break, since I’m broke after paying off that loan, and I’m a cat parent now and have a furry child to feed. Monday rolls around. My manager calls me and tells me that the zoo is going into lockdown until further notice. I worry for the birds I take care of, but understand it’s for everyone’s safety.

For two months I sleep in and watch way too much YouTube. I join a couple writing discords. I have nightmares about my birds escaping their enclosure and I dreamed one of the security guards I really like at the zoo gets covid and has to go to the ER. I woke up really upset.

I started and finished BBS for the first time. I also replayed and finished KH2 final mix for the first time. It had been about 5 years since I last played KH2 before my PS2 died, and it was like coming home~ I also finished tearaway, and played and beat Ryme for a second time (which I can’t remember if I did that last year, but it was a fun experience regardless)

Mid-June, and I’m allowed to start going back to work, be it on reduced hours. The zoo is still closed to the public, but I’m loving it! I get to work with full-time keepers and do full-time keeper things. It’s so much fun not having to deal with the public. August starts to creep up and there’s a rumor that the zoo will be opening to the public again, which I’m not stoked about. I don’t want to go back to standing in one exhibit all day, talking to guests who don’t listen to the rules or to me. 2 of my younger coworkers (who had both only been there a couple of months) get chosen for full-time positions, while I get passed up which really pisses me off. My other 2 coworkers quit when they think we might be reopening because they cannot risk catching the virus due to at-risk family. I am now the last keeper in the interactive bird exhibit.

I keep working, the zoo slowly opens, but with me as the only interpreter in our interactive bird exhibit, we can’t open because I can’t run the entire exhibit by myself. So my exhibit stays closed. September comes and goes, and then October starts. Now there is more serious talk of opening my exhibit before the end of the year because the zoo expects to bring in larger crowds for the Christmas lights event in November/December. I ask if I get hazard pay or health insurance since I’m doing full-time hours until they hire more staff. They say no.

I immediately start searching for a new job feeling incredibly indignant/hurt/slighted/insulted/used/abused/ALL the negative feelings at my job. I had been there for 4 years, but never got a chance to work full time, while the two newest hires who had only been there 2 months both got moved up. I can’t help but feel they were holding one mistake I made two years ago against me and never wanted to give me a chance. (that, or they knew I was reliable when it came to showing up for work in such a volatile position that sees a lot of new faces, and they didn’t want to bother going through the process of hiring someone new) I don’t want to risk my life working around guests who don’t wash their hands and don’t properly distance. I don’t want to gamble with my health when they won’t offer me health insurance because I’m part time.

Mid October, I get an interview for a full time job and get hired on the spot. I peace out at the zoo 2 weeks later, literally 3 days before they planned to open my exhibit to the public. It was a close call for me to escape before they opened to the public (and pettiness was only partially the reason I dipped out so close to opening). Sorry new hires who are now in charge of the bird feeding exhibit. I taught you the best I could in the short time I had. If the managers are struggling with what to do with one less person, I can’t say I feel bad. I can only hope they delayed opening/closed you down again for your own safety. You are not lightbulbs. I really hope the higher ups stop considering you as replaceable as one. Will I go back to the zoo to visit? Probably. But not for a year at least.

I started my new job the very next day after I quit the zoo, and have been there ever since, (which isn’t that long yet, tbh. Christmas day was my 2 month anniversary). It’s full time, but it’s also a small business, and everyone’s hours this year have been on the short side due to the plague. I understand, though. They don’t want us to work if they can’t afford to pay us. Everyone is nice enough, though some people smoke and it’s hard to avoid them with how frequently we have to go in and out, and I really don’t want to get lung cancer, sorry not sorry, please and thank you. Also, with such a small team, gossip is certainly harder to go undetected, so it’s a relief knowing people don’t talk behind one another’s backs.

I participated and beat my 4th nanowrimo in a row, I made TWO apple crisps on thanksgiving, and made baklava on Christmas and both of these recipes were my first time making them, and they both came out adequately! I voted the first day of early voting, and I did an art trade/collab with two of my friends for my birthday! (normally we would have done monthly “art days” where we get together and do art projects for fun because we’re adults and we can spend our time together however we want, but the plague said otherwise this year) We drew pokemon and it was fun! (hopefully I can show you all the results soon. At the time of writing, I’m still waiting for the last two colored parts to get back to me)

I reached 100 pages on my undertale comic, and finish the first arc out of…! (im not sure. It’s either going to be 4 or 5, I haven’t decided yet)

Over all, I managed to stay healthy as far as I know. I wasn’t as productive as I wanted to be this year, but then again, who was? (don’t answer that. I don’t need that kind of comparison in my life right now)

Will 2021be any better? Honestly? I don’t think so. Not right away, at least. Just because a new year is about to start does not mean the slate is completely wiped clean. The change of the calendar year doesn’t magically make all our current problems disappear. Covid will still be here and cases will still climb when January starts. Small business will still be strained when the month rolls over, police will still go on murdering innocent civilians and getting away scot free, amazon and disney will still be monopolizing all consumer goods and media, and I can’t help but feel like there’s an impending shit show about to go down on inauguration day. I do hope things will get better, though. It’ll be arduous and unpleasant, but I do hope things will improve, because sometimes hoping is all you can do.

Good night.

#long post #new year's resolutions #year review #year retrospective

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theastrophilearchitect · 3 years

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I started writing a book.

And I’m mad about it, because I just started this post, brought up a new tab and lost it because I didn’t save my draft.

Anyway. That’s a thing I did. Wow.

As of this moment, this post won’t be going up until April 19th, but I’m starting writing this at 10.30pm on Sunday, February 21st, 2021. I’ve done a lot in the last couple weeks, and I want to have some record of all I’ve accomplished without just letting most of it fade over the next two months.

I’ve always wanted to be an author. From when I was reading under my covers with a torch past bedtime, through the years I wanted to be an artist, through the years I wanted to be a lawyer. It’s always been there - no matter what primary career path I went down, I wanted to be an author. The last few years, I’ve been invested in becoming a biologist, and that dream really took a backseat.

In the start of this lockdown, my mental health went downhill, and some advice my therapist gave me was just to prioritise myself. It sounds simple enough, but, even in my free time, I’d been focusing on schoolwork - revising constantly for exams I’m still not sure are actually happening. (Boris Johnson is apparently making an announcement tomorrow about beginning to ease lockdown, but we’ll see) So, on Saturday, February 6th, I started an attempt to coalesce the ideas I had floating in my head into something tangible.

I’ve tried to write books countless times (not technically countless - I have all the documents on my laptop, so I could if I wanted to), but mostly, I’ve never gotten further than a couple bare plot points and some characters, maybe some ideas for subplots, before I’ve stagnated and given up.

Three times, I’ve finished a skeletal outline. Twice, I’ve started to go back over those outlines only to realise they made no sense or just seemed week, and simply not cared enough to fix it. Until now, I guess.

February 6th, 7th, and fast-forward to my week off beginning the 15th, up until the 19th, I kept developing this concept I’d managed to form, but I was struggling to establish a coherent plot. I had up until and including a midpoint (which was later condensed into just a first act), but everything after that was just a void. I began searching for some skeletal structure I could apply to it, both to work on pacing and fill in the blanks. I tried several, and got a little further, but was about to give up hope.

Then I remembered a video by Katytastic I’d watched years ago about the 3-act, 9-block, 27-chapter structure she used, and couldn’t see the harm in giving it a go. And something clicked.

You can find the video here - the structure’s detailed and easy to follow, plus she even gives an example of using it to generate a plot.

I started binge-watching her writing vlogs in the background, and even started using her same writing program, Scrivener, which just made every a thousand times easier by taking away the need to juggle a billion Word documents. It’s fairly pricey, but I’m currently using the 30-day free trial - it’s 30 days of use, not of ownership, too: if you use it every day, it lasts 30 days, but if you use it once a week, it lasts 30 weeks.

Where Kat used the 27 parts the structure broke down into as chapters, I chose to refer to them as beats, and separate chapters later.

On Saturday the 20th, I finished defining my scenes and started writing an actual draft. I wrote two scenes, putting me at a collective word count (not including notes, synopses, etc.) of 2,580 words.

This morning, Sunday the 21st, I started over. I hated my opening. I’m not going to go through the mess of today’s process, but I currently have around 80 one-line-outline scenes, split into 3 acts. I wrote a draft of my prologue and detailed-outlined (which I’m mentally referring to as zero-outlining because it’s similar to how Katytastic does what she calls a zero draft, but is very much outlining, not a draft) two and a half other chapters. Scriver also tells me how many words I wrote in total, across notes, character profiles, location lists, a document I’ve named ‘Train of Thought’ for my ramblings as I go etc.

Today, I wrote a grand total of 4,141 words, which, rather counterintuitively, puts me at a draft total of 2,598. That makes sense. Anyway.

There are a lot of unknowns in the world right now, and I have no idea how much time I’ll have in the next six months to invest in this project, but I’d like, at bare minimum, to have one complete draft by the start of the next school year in September, which gives me just over 6 months. Which is probably too much time to actually motivate myself, but that’s not the point.

A manuscript needs to have a minimum word count of 50K words to be considered a novel, so, even though my ultimate goal for this project is around 80K words, 50K is going to be my goal for this draft.

I’m being optimistic about sticking with this.

Tuesday 23/02/2021 - Word Count: 3,099 I wrote nothing yesterday; planning to focus writing solely on days off rather than work days, but last night, watching through the incredibly long queue of Alexa Donne writing videos, I came to the conclusion writing every day, even just a little, would be the best way to ensure I keep working on this, so I set myself a goal of just 500 words a day.

Wednesday 24/02/2021 - Word Count: 5,350 After doing a little bit of maths as to how long this outlining and draft would take me if I were to only write 500 words a day, I decided to boost that goal to 1,000. I got started around 1pm today, online school draining me so much I couldn’t face another two hours. I worked on and off until 6pm, and around 4.45pm, I finished outlining Act One!

Thursday 25/02/2021 - Word Count: 7,022 I continued my scene outlining into Act Two, but I hit a brick wall around the midpoint. I have to write chronologically - some people jump around, but I have to write linearly, or it feels like I’m trying to make something in a void. It just doesn’t work. I didn’t know how to get from one scene to the next - there were so many things I needed to establish to get there, but I didn’t want to backtrack. I decided to re-jig the whole thing, but, after dinner, I realised I didn’t have to, and instead, decided to just start a draft, conscious of the things I need to establish as I go.

Friday 26/02/2021 - Word Count: 8,208 Starting draft one, I rewrote the prologue I’d already written, technically putting me to my second draft of it, because I’d been thinking about it for days and just wanted to revisit it, and it was so much better. Then I moved on to chapter one, but decided I wanted to re-jig my chapters. While outlining, I’d split the whole book into only about twenty chapters, but decided to go for shorter ones for more effective divisions of the story. I got most of the way through the first scene of chapter one, but basically ran out of both time and motivation, since I hadn’t heavily outlined that scene. in total, I wrote over 2000 words today, but because I only increased the prologue word count by about 100 words, it didn’t do that much to the total count.

Saturday 27/02/2021 - Word Count: 11,050 I got some chores done Saturday morning and focused on finishing my book so I could include it in my February wrap-up, but I still had time to get some writing done around mid-day. My goal was just to hit 10K this weekend, but I though I could do it in one day. I wrote about 1,000 words before feeling a little word-drained, but took a break for lunch, got back to it and wrote 2,400 words. Though that only added a little over 2,000 to the word count, it took me to 10K! I’m 20% of the way to being able to call it a novel! We’re in quintuple digits!

And then eight hours later, I wrote another thousand words and got to 11K.

Sunday 28/02/2021 - Word Count: 13,722 I spent most of my Sunday morning writing, though it took me more than two hours to write about 1500 words, though it only added about 1100 to my count. I decided to set myself an overall and weekly deadlines to hold myself accountable. Due to the fact I don’t yet have a clue how many words this will work out as, I decided I wanted to have either a complete first draft or 100K words (which I doubt I’ll reach, but it seems like a good way to make myself finish the draft before my deadline) by the end of April. Which works out to a little under 1500 words a day, or just under 11K a week, which is perfectly doable. Bearing in mind my current word count is including outlines, but I still believe in myself.

I wrote another 1600 words later, which took me to 14K, until I deleted the 300 word outline I wrote for one scene, but I worked out my words per day for the next two months with the assumption of a 10K word count as of March 1st and a target of either a complete draft or 100K words by the end of April, so I’m nearly 4,000 words ahead of schedule. Which gives me 6,606 words to write this week, instead of 10,328. (If you couldn’t tell, I like numbers. They just make sense to me.

Monday 01/03/2021 - Word Count: 15,005 I didn’t quite hit my daily goal, but I was completely leached of motivation today, I’m ahead of schedule anyway and I was only under by less than 200 words. It’s alright. But, hey, we hit 15K! Two days after hitting 10K!

Tuesday 02/03/2021 - Word Count: 21,119 This was an insane writing day. My end-of-day target was only 16,480, and that was still ahead of schedule - if I was sticking to the 100K by April 30th, I’d only actually need to be at 12,950 today. This was the best writing day I’ve ever had. I wrote before school and during breaks, which kept both my writing and working momentum up.

I didn’t read a page of my current read, but I wrote a total of 7,681 words and increased my wordcount by 6,114 words, or literally an additional 40.75%. I hit 20K three days after hitting 10K, and am 42.238% of the way to being able to say I wrote a novel, be it a shitty first draft that won’t be complete at 50K words.

I also finished chapter three, which I’ve been working on for three days and came out ~5,000 words, and wrote chapters four and five in their entirety.

Note to self: this is day 10 of vaguely outline-drafting this project.

Wednesday 03/03/2021 - Word Count: 23,364 I've only written 490 words today, as of writing this update, but I just wanted to make note of the fact I've done some calculations, and can reasonably finish my draft this month. I'm still not completely sure how long it'll work out to be, so I can't quite work out my daily words to finish on the 31st, but if I stick to my current 1,475 words a day, I'll hit 63,894 words by the end of the month, which is a little less than I imagine this draft will be, but if I stick to that as a minimum, my first draft won't have to go into April.

I'd like to post this later this week, but I already have a post for this Friday, so God only knows how long this will be by the time it goes up. So far, I've written 1,900 words today, and I don't think I'm out of fuel yet, but I'm stopping because I need to read today, and I'd rather not burn out. I'm over my goal, anyway.

Oh, also, I'm nearly at 25K, which is halfway to a novel, but I haven't broken into Act Two yet, which means this book will be 75K minimum. I'm going to do some maths and work out how many words a day to hit 80K by March 31st. 2,030. That's doable. So I haven't read, but back to writing for like ten minutes.

I've now hit an additional 2,245 words for the day, though I wrote a total of 2,663

Thursday 04/03/2021 - Word Count: 25,415 I've decided to work out how many words I need to write each day to hit 80K by March 31st, and watch the fluctuations. (I like statistics). It should steadily go down throughout the month if I surpass it each day. Today's minimum word count is 2,023, already seven words less than yesterday's. How exciting.

The last scene of Act One was very heavy on world-building I haven't yet figured out, so I stuck what was meant to happen in brackets and just moved on, meaning I have now broken into Act Two!

I think, during the week, I'm going to focus on just meeting my minimum word count rather than exceeding it, just to save fuel for the weekends, when I can write so many more words.

And, we hit 25K! I'm halfway to a novel!

Friday 05/03/2021 - Word Count: 26,693 In complete honesty, I'm beginning to lose momentum. Maybe it's just today, but I don't really want to write and feel like I need a break, but I'm going to make myself write anyway. I'm going to make myself keep writing until this draft is done, however shitty it may end up. I really hate first drafts.

When you say 2,000 words is only 7-8 pages, it doesn't sound like that much to write per day but my god. Luckily, most of the stuff I've had to save to a Pinterest board called 'Writing Motivation' says if you write when you don't want to, it should pass instead of worsening. I wanted to hit 35K this weekend, but I'm not sure I'll have the momentum. I'll at least hit 31,270, though, which is my minimum goal for this week. I'm still over 700 words off my goal for today, but I'm taking a break because my head is foggy and there's still eight hours left in the day. Besides, 700 after dinner is easy. She says, realising she's probably jinxing it. Oh, well. 80K by March 31st would be difficult, even if I weren't going back to school soon, but that's a stretch goal. 100K by April 31st is my minimum, and I'm 9,000 ahead of where I need to be for that.

I think I’m stagnating because I’ve hit the ‘Fun and Games’ section, which I find really boring. I’m going to try to keep going with it, but I may just skip it and come back later.

Saturday 06/03/2021 - Word Count: 28,150 So, I did not get the extra 700 words in. Before dinner, some stuff I had to deal with came up, and by the time it was done, I just wanted to go to bed, so I did. Today, I'm going to try to make up for it, which I think is reasonable because it is now the weekend. I'm still kinda exhausted this morning, but I'm going to do my best, and my wrist hurts, but I'm not sure why. You'd think it would be from all the typing, but only one wrist hurts - you know what? Never mind. They do both hurt. I'm just not sure why, but it doesn't hurt typing this, so that doesn't make any sense. Anyway, to hit my word count for the day, I need to write 2,555 words, which doesn't sound like too much, but it kinda is because I'm primarily writing Act Two at the minute, and for every thousand words I write, I lose like 400 from my outline. You'd think I'd just not include my scene outlines in the word count, but it's too late for that now.

I'm thinking this over, and I really don't think trying to write 80K by the end of the month is going to be good for either my motivation, mental health, or ability to function back at school, so I'm going to stick to 100K or a finished draft by April 30th, and re-work out my goals from there, based on yesterday's word count, so I'm not making myself do catch-up today.

So, to hit 100K by April 30th, I only need to write 1,309 words each day (which will decrease over time because if that's my minimum now, I'll probably surpass it, decreasing the amount of words left etc.). That's so much less pressure.

God, I really don't want to write today. I just want to watch YouTube and Netflix and read.

Okay, so here's the thing. I've been working on this story straight for three weeks and I'm kinda exhausted of it. I'm not done with it, not at all, and I want to keep working on it because it exists, which makes it workable.

I watched a writing vlog by ShaelinWrites yesterday, and she said she writes different projects at once, alternating in week- or multi-week-long blocks. I think I might try that.

My plan with this post and the following updates was to keep updating it until the day it goes up, the day after which is when I begin drafting the next, but, since I may be switching projects for a while and this is really about the project I've decided to dub 'Bay Tree' (which is just, I guess, a pseudonym for here because while I have no idea what it would eventually be called, I know that's nothing like the title I'd want to give it) so I'd want to start a new post for a new project.

I'm now doing a little outlining instead of actually continuing writing, but I think this will help me, though I'm still not certain about whether or not I'm going to directly continue with this specific project for the minute. Instead of setting daily goals based on a target, I'm also just going to say 1,000 words a day, and see where that takes me.

I've just been outlining into Act Three, and I've met a major plot stumble, but I'm going to work that out and explain what I'm doing in my next writing update.

So, go drink some water, eat if you haven't eaten in the last few hours, stand in front of the mirror and tell yourself how wonderful you are and how much happiness you deserve, and, if you want to write a book, stop thinking about it, and go write.

#blog #blogging #blogger #blogpost #blog post #writing #books #book #reading #read #write #writer #author #draft #first draft #story #writing blog #writerblr #bookblr #novel #debut

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getalittleclosey · 4 years

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under 50k larry fic rec

hi! i’m becca and i read...so much fic. these rec lists are an accumulation of fic that i’ve read or reread and extra loved from 2016-now. there’s a wide range of stuff here and i think there’s definitely something for everyone!! i divided them up by length so you can check out all those categories below!

please make sure to read tags and warnings on all these fics!! the only things i think i can guarantee is that these are all larry, there’s no non-con, no age play, no eating disorders, no mentions of bg, they end happy, and they’re mostly aus. oh and they’re all on ao3 and some are locked so you’ll need an account! anyway i hope y’all enjoy!!!

under 5k

under 10k

under 25k

under 100k

100k+

☆ the beginning of everything by thedeathchamber 31k

“How do you take it?” Harry asked, pouring tea into a cup.

“Just a dash of milk, please,” Louis cast a look over the small table, filled to capacity. “They’re very fond of you.”

Harry ducked his head, grinning. “They’re trying to impress you.”

Louis smiled, shaking his head. “Why would they want to do that?” he asked as he took the cup Harry passed to him, their fingers brushing for an instant.

“Empathy,” Harry said under his breath.

A Belle Époque AU set (mostly) in Paris in which Harry is a struggling artist, in more ways than one, and Louis is a successful theatre critic and a failed writer, more or less.

☆ to kill the mess we’ve made by misandrogyny 43k

And when he's finally standing, Liam fussing over him, rubbing his hand at the red mark blooming on Harry's forehead, does Harry learn two things:

One, he wasn't actually hit that hard, and Tommo--or Louis, rather--is just as pretty when Harry is staring at him head-on and,

Two, Louis is the Adidas model he's going to be working with on today's photo shoot.

(or: AU where Harry and Louis are both models, and they decide being friends-with-benefits is a great idea. It isn't.)

☆ heart open, bloodstain on my sleeve by silkbombs (mulberrygrey) 36k

“I couldn’t help myself,” Harry admits, one hand coming to rub the back of his neck, “I stared at you for a good while before I finally got the guts to come up to you. You looked so pretty sitting there, with your little ankles and your pencil in your mouth, so enthralling… art in front of art.”

Louis’ not sure what to say, so he just kind of sits there, eyes bugging out as he stares at Harry.

“I mean, like you’re not an object!” Harry rushes out, babbling.

“I just, there’s something about you that’s so captivating, and maybe it’s the way your eyes are like a watercolor painting of the sea, or how delicate your hands look when you draw, but I just wanted to get to know you. It’s not like I pick up random boys at art museums usually, I swear. Not that I’m trying to pick you up! Unless you want to be…God, fuck I’m sorry this is so awkward now. I can go, um, if you want."

--- Or, the one where Harry's the long limbed, gangly, sweetheart who just happens be a high profile art thief who conducts heists for a living and Louis' the loud, pushy art student who just happens to steal his heart.

☆ a king beside you by stylinsoncity 26k

When the aliens invade, the last thing Louis expects is to fall in love.

☆ the boys of summer by afirethatcannotdie 45k

“I mean…we’re gonna have to sneak around anyway, yeah? Like, with that whole rules thing that I guess we��ve decided to ignore. Might make it a little more fun this way.”

AU. In which Louis is a reluctant sports coach, Harry's a fellow counselor who wears tiny yellow shorts, and camp rules say they're forbidden to date.

☆ don’t let the tide come and take me by kiwikero 29k

The aquarium in the lobby has been there as long as Louis can remember, and so has the merman inside. That is, until the day Louis loses his job and decides to set the creature free.

They set off on a road trip to the sea, learning to communicate more and more each day. Their destination is LA, but the closer they get and the more Louis gets to know the merman, the more he dreads having to say goodbye.

Or, the one where Louis decides to set a merman free and ends up finding his own freedom along the way.

☆ introduction to dynamics by juliusschmidt 29k

Louis Tomlinson is the outspoken omega in the 'Introduction to Dynamics' course Harry wishes he didn't have to take. He's nearly certain to present as a beta, after all. Things will be simple for him.

☆ saved tonight by objectlesson 31k

Harry is the world's most persistent seduction-baker, a questionable dog-sitter, and Louis's biggest fan. Louis hasn't written in years, is trying to pass loneliness off as cynicism, and absolutely hates his fans. It's probably destiny.

☆ once upon a dream by objectlesson 27k

“M’not gonna half-ass our fake relationship,” Louis almost snaps, voice sharp with a defensive edge, like Harry wandered too close to a bruise with needy fingers. “Now kiss me again. We’re gonna make every shitty tourist here wish they had stayed in the Midwest. We’re gonna burn Disneyland down with our gay. ”

Harry shuts his eyes and opens his mouth, because he can’t fucking say no to Louis.

Or, a fake dating AU where everyone is lying and they happen to be at the Happiest Place on Earth.

☆ rivers ‘til i reach you by embodied 29k

Louis can’t begin to understand how he’s always this close and still can’t manage to make Harry his. He stands up and gets another beer. AU. Louis studies astronomy; Harry studies Louis. They spend their summers on the water and it shouldn't be complicated (spoiler: it is).

☆ life was a song, you came along by rainbowninja167 38k

It's embarrassing how long it takes Louis to recognize his own song. Niall had sung it as a bright, hopeful love song, and that’s honestly how Louis had always assumed it should sound. But this new voice, slow and rough, stripped of any backing instrument, has infused the lyrics with just the tumultuous mix of fear and defiance that Louis can remember so clearly from the night he wrote them. It’s not a comfortable thing, to feel like someone is singing all your secrets back to you.

Louis is a songwriter trapped in a lie that could ruin his best friend's career. Harry owns a record store, distrusts everyone in the music industry on principle, but loves Niall Horan's newest album. A modern retelling of Singin' in the Rain.

☆ learning to eat by photo41 29k

Celebrity chef Louis Tomlinson has a problem. He’s opening his first restaurant in 9 weeks, and he has yet to hire a pastry chef- apparently people think he’s ‘standoffish’ and ‘rude’ and ‘quick to temper’. Whatever. He ends up saddled with an annoying, happy-go lucky rookie who also happens to be obnoxiously good looking. His tv presenter and pop star best friends only add to the drama, and for fucks sake would everyone please stop quoting Julia Child?!

Kitchen AU where Harry helps Louis re-learn how to eat. (METAPHORICALLY)

note: just to clarify this is NOT an eating disorder fic don’t worry

☆ runner on third by kikikryslee 40k

As Harry stood there, the other man turned around, and he knew he was correct in who he thought it was. “Louis?” he asked, still not quite believing it. Louis blinked. “Harry? Wh– what are you doing here?” “I work here,” Harry said. “What are you doing here?” “Um, I’m picking up my brother. The nurse called and said he was sick.” Harry felt like he was going to be sick. “Wait, Ernest is your brother? Since when do you have a brother?” “Since about seven years ago, I guess. Wait, how do you know Ernest?” “I’m his teacher.” “You’re his what?” Louis exclaimed. Harry gulped. This was going to be a long year. --- Or, the AU where Louis and Harry were best friends growing up, but lost touch after Harry moved away. Ten years later, Harry has moved back to town, but he and Louis don't pick up where they left off.

note: there are four fics in this series that total to 60k

☆ roots by cherrystreet 43k

There aren’t many things that make Harry Styles nervous. He’s spent the past couple of years on and off various stages, filled with screaming fans, all chanting his name, loud and adoring. He’s done countless interviews, some even on live, national television, never faltering over his words, answers meticulously planned out, smooth and steady. He’s signed countless autographs, taken just as many photos, and even when he sat in his label’s studio, waiting to see how high up on the charts his single made it, he didn’t feel uneasy or uncomfortable. It’s all been unbelievably fun. No, there aren’t many things that make Harry Styles nervous.

Enter Louis Tomlinson.

☆ once upon a dream by thedeathchamber 33k

Louis is psychic and gets caught in the middle of a murder investigation led by FBI Special Agent Harry Styles.

aka. the Medium/Criminal Minds-inspired AU no one ever asked for.

note: there’s a 24k sequel for this!

☆ the melody you never heard by bananasandboots 30k

It's one last adventure. One last chance to be young and carefree. One final weekend before they take up their internships, their corporate positions, before they enter the real world, fresh out of university. Niall's his best mate. Liam's been there for him since they were lost, little freshmen, trying to find their ways through an overwhelming first year. Harry can't disappoint them, even if it means enduring four days with Louis.

Louis, who he does share a history with, a history he's never told anyone about, not even Niall, a history he hasn't brought up in three years because it's stupid and embarrassing and confusing.

Or, the one where Harry gets roped into a four-day camping trip with the boy who kissed him and never called back.

☆ born to make you happy by objectlesson 26k

Harry makes a quiet vow to himself that he will be the very best girlfriend Louis has ever had, even if he never actually gets to be Louis’s girlfriend.

note: i literally had to take a break and reread this cause i love it so much

☆ close to nowhere by angelichl 35k

“I will kill you in your sleep,” Louis threatened as he quickly stepped out of his jeans.

“I don’t think that would work very well baby, seeing as you talk to dead people all the time.”

“I’ll kill you in your sleep and ignore your ghost. And don’t call me that.”

Louis and Harry are psychics who kind of hate each other. They go to Tennessee to investigate a haunting.

☆ adrenaline by reveries_passions 38k

“Harry Styles,” Nameless Boy who now has a name says. Louis is too busy having an internal crisis to realize the boy has just introduced himself as Harry Styles. Harry Styles, only son of Des Styles, PhD, Dean of Harvard Medical School. Harry Styles, known by everyone and their grandmother. Harry Styles, star rower. Harry Styles, youngest enrolled student in graduate school at Harvard University. Oh my god, Louis thinks, mortified. I just slept with Harry Styles. As he reaches out tentatively to shake the boy’s hand, another thought hits him. Oh my god. Harry Styles is gay.

louis tomlinson, college dropout, up and coming dj, and gay activist, is the notorious owner of exclusive underground gay club, adrenaline.

harry styles, med student by day, partier by night, child prodigy and seemingly heterosexual son of harvard professors, is the youngest and arguably the smartest student at harvard medical school.

or: a one night stand wasn't supposed to become the greatest love story of the 21st century.

☆ bloodsport by tofiveohfive 40k

“You know how our next game is against the Cardinals, right? You remember how vicious those guys can get. I wanted us to come up with some plays, maybe work on a block from the left—”

Louis stops when he hears a chuckle.

He doesn’t think he’s said anything particularly funny, so he turns to Harry, waiting for an explanation.

“‘S funny, ‘s all.” Harry throws his finished bottle somewhere near the other discarded ones. “This is the first time you’re talking to me in eight months, and it’s still about football.”

☆ the haunting of louis tomlinson helloamhere 31k

“I'm not afraid of ghosts,” Louis said.

Every single magnet unstuck itself from the fridge and fell to the floor in a clattering cascade.

“I'm only a little afraid of ghosts,” Louis said.

*** OR: Louis is a plucky Gothic Heroine, Harry is a Mournful Spirit, and Big Country Houses are full of mystery and suspense, as Big Country Houses ever are!

☆ can i not like you for a while? by larryshares 43k

louis tomlinson is awful. harry is just as difficult, and they're both terrible to each other. it makes being in the same acapella group together quite complicated.

☆ delight in masques by kassio 28k

Popstar Louis Tomlinson has been pulling one over on the mortals for years. In the five years since he put on a human illusion and tried out for the X Factor, none of them have realised that he’s one of the Fair Folk – a cat shapeshifter, to be precise – and he’d like to keep it that way.

When he returns to the X Factor as a guest judge, the last thing he expects is for some half-Siren fool to use magic on the judges. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Harry Styles does. Now Louis has to track down some rogue changeling before he exposes them all. Even worse? Apparently, Harry doesn’t even know what he is.

(An urban fantasy adventure, set in the world of - but not crossing over with - the October Daye book series. No need to be familiar with those books; I just want to give credit where it's due on a lot of the worldbuilding.)

☆ no love like your love by rearviewdreamer 43k

When it comes to saving the world from itself and convincing rich CEOs of environmentally harmful companies to go green, there's nobody better than Harry Styles. That is, until Louis Tomlinson, his ex and former Alpha, is involved.

note: i love vegan harry styles

☆ for neither never nor ever by fairytalelights 29k

Then Harry looked down. A newspaper was on the steps in front of him, looking new, like it had only just gotten delivered but no one had bothered to carry it inside yet. That, in itself, wasn't unusual. The unusual thing was the headline, Chernobyl - Half a Year Later, and the date in the corner. 5th November 1986. He looked up to stare at the girl in the doorway one last time, before he did the only logical thing his body knew how to do in this situation. He bolted.

or, the one where Harry travels through time and has to come to terms with losing everything he's ever known. Louis might be the only thing that feels real.

☆ worth dying for by whoknows 45k

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Louis says, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. In the center of the table, a set of three glossy photos stares up at him, mocking him.

“A security detail is non-negotiable, Louis, you know this,” his mum reminds him, tapping the middle photo with two fingers.

Louis doesn’t look back down at the pictures, gesturing towards them wildly, over-dramatically. “This is not a security detail!” he protests. “This is a lanky college student. In what world do you hire someone like this kid to protect me?”

☆ listen to your heart by lovelarry10 35k

Are you kidding me right now?

I… No? Louis frowned, feeling angry now. It wasn’t fair, he knew that, but at the same time, he couldn’t help his feelings. It felt like this had been brewing for weeks, and this was it. Give it a rest, Harry.

Why are you such a brat? Why can’t you just be happy for me for once?

You think I want to hear about you kissing James? Really, H? There’s things I just don’t need to know, okay? I’m your best mate, not your fucking relationship advisor…

*****

Louis has always been comfortable being Harry’s one and only. When Harry starts to branch out, Louis has a hard time letting him go.

Harry is very lucky to have someone who listens to what he has to say, despite the fact that he’s deaf. He’s finally feeling like he’s coming into himself, but Louis seems bothered by his newfound confidence.

☆ another day gettin’ into trouble by whoknows 26k

Harry’s drunk when the idea occurs to him. He’s also a pop star, so sometimes his drunk ideas turn into actual things instead of just ideas. The clone-a-willy kit is one of them.

In Harry’s defense, when he first thinks about it his intention is just to buy the kit and give it to Louis to make his own dildo with, because that’s what he wants anyway, right? To have a penis filling him up?

Then he realizes that it would be weird if Louis made a copy of his own dick to fuck himself with. It’d be super weird. Louis fucking himself? That’s a weird idea. Harry’s pretty sure Louis wouldn’t like that.

Clearly the only solution here is to use his own dick for the mold.

☆ all the right moves by cherrystreet 32k

This is the third game in a row that Harry has been distracted by the noisy boy in the stands, five rows back.

There’s really no reason that he should feel compelled to stare into the audience as frequently as he is, but he can’t help it. This boy is a nuisance. And he’s loud. Even from basketball court with nine other players running by him, shoes squeaking on the shiny hardwood floor, and thousands of cheering college students, Harry can hear this boy nearly shrieking, his laugh more like a cackle than anything.

It’s seriously obnoxious.

☆ play the odds by alivingfire 26k

Harry and Louis are best friends since childhood who, after a night of drinking, find themselves locked in a bet: first one to kiss the other a thousand times wins. Wins what? They don't know. Glory, Harry supposes. Bragging rights, though those don't do much in this economy. All Harry knows is that this is one bet he can finally win. What he doesn't expect, though, is what happens when he starts kissing his best friend on a daily basis.

Namely, he doesn't expect falling head over heels in love with his best friend.

Now all he has to do is make sure the bet never ends, so he never has to stop kissing Louis.

#fic rec #mine #larry stylinson #one direction #apparently i really love objectlesson #cause they have fics on every list i think #30 of these!#fic masterpost

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zerounitrgb · 4 years

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Fic Author Tag Game

Thank you @moonwolfhowl for tagging me!

AO3 Name: ZeroUnitRGB

Fandoms: Boku no Hero Academia, Fullmetal Alchemist, Naruto (I only wrote 1 fic for it though), Digimon (all fics on ff.net), Lion King (also all fics on ff.net)

Note: I’m going to focus solely on the fics I have on Ao3 but I wanted to at least acknowledge the old fandoms I used to be so passionate for. They were rather dark times but times I spent my time on nonetheless. Also, all mentioned fics will be linked if you want to check them out!

Number of Fics: 55 on Ao3, 1 WIP that just needs editing before it get posted, 2 completed zine pieces that I won’t or have not posted

Tagging: @cloversdreams and any other fic writer that follows me and wants to do this

1) Fic you spent the most time on: It’s a Digimon fic that I spent several years on though it’s not complete. For a completed fic that I spent the most time on, it would have to be What Hides Inside. The most words (50k), the most chapters (12), and the most time it took to write (five months). For those unaware, it’s an exploration into falling in love at the wrong time and dealing with mental illness from Tokoyami’s perspective. I’m sure y’all can guess who the ship is.

2) Fic you spent the least time on: That would be Best Hugger in Class A for BNHA. I think it happened after a conversation in the Shoutoko Discord server about Shouji being a cuddly drunk and also how wonderful it would be to get a hug from all six of his arms. Or more. Basically, it was just a quick, short story about Shouji getting drunk and all of class A wanting him to hug them.

3) Longest fic: Again, that would be a Digimon fic that has literally hundreds of thousands of words. For Ao3 fics, I already mentioned it, it’s What Hides Inside. Honestly, I wrote it because I wanted another multi-chap Shoutoko story.

4) Shortest fic: That’s a tie between Best Hugger in Class A and Where Is It? both at 1250 words exactly. I already talked about the first one, the second was just a quick story about Midoriya using One for All to casually search the dorm for something he lost.

5) Most hits: Midnight Sex Therapy which is currently at 25,350. That is over 19k more hits than the fic with the second most hits. You people love smut and this fic is all about it with six different ships. I’ve recently been thinking about a sequel but instead of clients from class A, it’s all pro heroes.

6) Most kudos: Again, Midnight Sex Therapy which is currently at 1118 kudos, more than twice that of second place.

7) Most comment threads: A tie between One Week in Kyushu and Midnight Sex Therapy! Both of them at 57 comment threads! OWiK was one of my fave fics and the one I credit for bringing me into Shoutoko stardom. I don’t feel like explaining what it’s about, just know it’s one of my earliest Shoutoko fics.

8) Fave fic you wrote: This used to be OWiK but that’s recently changed. I’ve reread it not too long ago and maybe it’s because I held it to an impossibly high standard but it doesn’t hold up to my memory. I still think it’s great. But my new pride is 30 Things I Didn’t Know. It’s romantic, it’s sweet, it’s got gay rights, and pervert Shouji was peak horny energy for me apparently. OWiK can be a really close second just because it does include my idea of Shouji’s “tragic backstory” that I want to be canon but 30 Things is special to me.

9) Fic you want to rewrite/expand on: This is a hard one. I don’t usually like to hit publish unless I think the work is perfect or complete in order to avoid repeats of the dark ages so most I’m pretty happy with. If there was a fic I’d like to fix up, then it might be Unplanned Love? It’s my first ship fic for Gang Orca and Selkie and it’s smutty but plotty. The thing is, I had originally intended there to be an epilogue in which the sexy hero calendar arrived and I wrote a more proper sex scene but it never came to fruition. Maybe I’ll come back to it one day but it is sort of okay as it is so who knows.

10) Share a bit of your WIP or share a story idea that you’re planning: Uh, I have one WIP. It’s done, just needs to be edited. Not sure about sharing any bit of it because it is extremely smutty. Like almost filthy. Like, I don’t think I go more than two sentences before something very explicit comes up.

Anyway, I will tell you some bits about it. It’s Shoutoko (of course it is) and they switch. I came to the realization recently that I only ever write Toko as a bottom so that needed to be rectified. That’s pretty much all I’m going to say about it so thank you for coming to my TEDTalk.

#Tag Game #About Me #Long Post #The WIP will probably be fully edited and posted on the 25th #So for the followers waiting for Shoutoko content from me it's coming

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heartbreaknow · 4 years

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Thank you for the meme asks, @aohatsu! Sorry it took me three weeks to finish answering them!

Vampires

Just thinking about adding vampires(!) to the MCU makes me cackle. This really ought to be another case of gilding the lily—one too many crazy elements in a story that doesn’t need any more crazy elements than it already has.

But what can I say, vampires are my weakness. I’m always down for some erotic creature-feature blood-thirst and neck chomping.

Also, I wrote an imagine for this trope and it got profoundly out of control, so I’m going to post it separately. Or not at all. But probably separately.

@learned-foot, thank you for the asks! Sorry it took me a year and a half to answer them. 😅 Also, this is long, I’m sorry, I don’t expect you to read the whole thing.

I answered Arranged Marriage over here.

Hate Sex

For Starker, I think it would be very difficult to make this trope work for me. You’d have to change the entire nature of their relationship, and a big chunk of the characterization for at least one of them. At which point I probably wouldn’t be super interested anyway, because for me, it wouldn’t feel like Starker anymore.

I did really enjoy the hatesex trope when I shipped Spuffy as a teenager (the scene where they bring the house down—unnnnf). But they’re the only antagonism-based ship I’ve had, and thus the only ship I’ve had that I associate with this trope.

I do have a huge weakness for fighting-to-fucking, and I could see that trope working for Starker (or just about any ship, really). But fighting-to-fucking and hatesex aren’t really the same thing. (@learned-foot, one of the first Starker fics you ever wrote had a delicious bit of fighting-to-fucking in it, and that makes so much sense to me now that I know you have a lot of antagonism-based ships, since fighting-to-fucking is basically hatesex for people who love each other.👌)

Mpreg

Wow, the complicated feelings I have about mpreg. SO. MANY. FEELINGS.

The appeal of mpreg for me is NOT domesticity, parenthood, and nesting. It’s kinking on the loss of body control. Also, breeding kink.

And to think, I’m usually so vanilla. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The problem is, I’m not very interested in my OTPs actually having kids. Plus I get ragey when abortion is treated like a bad option. So basically, I love mpreg occasionally—if the way the trope is written actually plays to my kinks and also dodges all my squicks. But that’s a pretty huge if.

I really should have saved my deeply iddy ABO mpreg idea and posted it here. It’s basically the only mpreg idea I have.

Road Trips, Fake Dating, and Sexting under the cut...

Sexting

The problem with sexting, to me, is that I just don’t find the idea of splitting one’s focus between texting and masturbating all that hot. To me, it seems like the most annoying kind of multitasking.

(RTC anon manages to make sexting hot in Revelations, but it’s RTC anon, so go figure.)

One Way I’d Do It:

I think the way I’d do a sexting fic would be to have Peter get unexpectedly wasted and end up sending Tony a flood of sexy texts. Like, he just goes completely off the rails. All inhibition vanishes and an absolute torrent of awkward, pining sexiness pours out. He’s not even trying to sext Tony, per se, he just starts compulsively telling Tony the truth about what’s in his head.

The way I imagine it, Peter accidentally butt-dials Tony while he’s at a party, and Tony hears party noise in the background when he picks up. So then Tony texts Peter to ask how the party is.

They text back and forth a bit, until Dum-E wreaks havoc in the lab, and Tony has to leave to deal with it. But unwittingly (or subconsciously), his final text to Peter is exactly the sort of thing to get Peter all hot and bothered. The words “good boy” may be involved. Those simple words, right there on Peter’s text screen where he can look at them, and read them over and over, and become increasingly fixated as he gets drunker.

An hour or two later, Tony checks his phone and discovers like thirty new texts, all from Peter. At the sight of all those unread texts, there’s suddenly an off feeling in the pit of Tony’s stomach, like missing a stair. He has a bad (hot, sick, anticipatory) feeling about this. He opens the text screen.

Sure enough, after Tony left, Peter’s texts slowly morphed from innocent volleys into—well—into unnervingly guileless declarations of sexual thirst and devotion.

Cut to the aftermath. Peter is crushingly mortified, and assumes Mr Stark won’t want to spend time with him anymore. Meanwhile, Tony tries to kid himself that he’s not hopelessly obsessed with Peter’s texts, even though he can’t bring himself to delete them, and has started thinking about them pretty much every time he jerks off.

Eventually, Peter accidentally discovers that Mr Stark hasn’t deleted a single one of the mortifying texts he sent him, which cues Peter to confront him about it. Which leads to actual sex.

(I might also have it turn out that Peter wasn’t actually just drunk; he was slipped something by someone at the party. But because of his abilities, he had an unexpected reaction to the drug, which is what led to his sexting spree. Tony is starring at Peter’s texts—warring with himself over whether to read the rest of them or blast his phone to dust with a phaser—when suddenly his phone starts ringing. It’s Peter, who slurs down the line, “I don’t feel so good, Mr Stark,” before Tony hears the awful thunk of Peter’s phone dropping from his hand.

So Tony traces Peter’s location and Mach 4s his way over to the party, where Peter has webbed himself in the bathroom before succumbing to whatever he’s been drugged with and passing out. Tony flies him back to the Tower, has him checked out by medical, and then cut to the aftermath.

The idea that Peter is not just drunk but also drugged is more complicated, which is bad, but it’s also whumpier, which is good—and it helps explain Peter’s total loss of inhibition, for anyone who thinks pure drunkenness wouldn’t be enough.)

Also, hah! I’ve finally conceived of a fic concept that wouldn’t necessitate a minimum 50K+ to fill it out! I could actually write this! 🤯

Fake Dating

I’ve been a big fan of fake dating for all my past OTPs, but my love of the trope is somewhat dampened for Starker. The problem, as I see it, is that it’s just kind of difficult to find scenarios where it makes sense to have Tony and Peter fake date.

The old standby of “get my family off my back about my love-life” doesn’t work for Starker. The other old standby of “make me look cool in front of my ex” doesn’t work at all for Tony, and doesn’t really jive with how I see Peter. The third old standby of “doing it for a case” is a lot harder to finesse for P/T, because it begs the question: Why Peter and Tony? Why not literally anyone but Peter? Or, if Peter is the linchpin of the entire operation, then why not pair him with literally anyone else besides his 50-year-old mentor?

If Peter and Tony are fake dating for a mission, that mission probably has something to do with a bad guy who abuses young boys or something. And I just find it difficult to enjoy the tropey “omg they have to MAKE OUT now” hotness when they’re neck-deep in sex traffickers or whatever.

Who was it who wrote the fic where they pretended to be dating in order to protect Peter’s secret identity? That was a really smart way of doing it! But it’s such a specific premise that repeating it might feel kind of like just copying someone else’s work.

So yeah, I like this trope a lot, but I’m not wild about the amount of fiddling it takes to make the trope work for Peter and Tony.

Road Trips

I’m into this trope, but I haven’t read much of it, so I don’t have a strong template for it in my mind.

There was a lot of road travel when I shipped Mulder/Scully, but they didn’t really road trip, they just drove to neighboring states for cases. Plus, they always stayed in separate rooms (unless it was a One Bed fic), whereas I’d like to think if Peter and Tony went on a road trip they’d share a room. Separate beds, but one room.

I feel like with Starker, there’s two basic modes for a road trip fic. There’s angsty on-the-lam fic, and there’s impromptu-vacation fic. I’m not really sure what could lead Peter and Tony to taking a road trip together for fun. But then again, I’m also not really sure what could lead to them going on the lam, either.

I suppose the answer could literally be as simple as: Tony wants to give Peter a fancy graduation gift, and suggests a trip for him and a friend. Tony is thinking something far-flung and expensive. Peter tries to be like, “Really, Mr Stark, it’s fine, you don’t have to do that,” but Tony insists. “C’mon kid, there’s got to be somewhere you’ve always wanted to go.”

Tony sees Peter’s eyes light up with an idea, and Tony is like, “That, right there. What you just thought of, just now. Whatever it is, the answer is yes.”

Peter says it’s nothing, really, he wasn’t thinking of anything, but Tony pries, stressing that he’s not going to say no, that Peter can have anything he wants. Until finally Peter says, with a poorly concealed edge of vulnerability, that he just thinks it would be really cool if they could, like, go on a road trip together. He totally gets that Mr Stark isn’t going to just drop everything and go on some lame road trip with Peter. Peter doesn’t expect him to. It just…seems like it would be really fun.

(And Tony, for all that he is baffled by Peter’s choice, can see that Peter is sincere. This is the one thing Peter really wants. And Tony can’t bring himself to say no—can’t bear to make Peter feel like he’s not worth Tony’s time, only his money. Even though he absolutely should say no, because the thought of that much time spent alone with Peter seems like a bad idea, for reasons he’s trying hard not to think about.)

So Tony looks at Peter, at his open, accepting face, and says, “You really love road trips that much?”

At which Peter blushes, and stutters as he says, “Yeah, yeah I really love road trips a-a lot.”

#ask meme #starker #starker imagines #starker headcanons #peter x tony #fanfic tropes

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writerofscribbles · 4 years

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it’s done. . final word count: 156,346 . . finished at 9:58 pm on apr. 8th

for the first time in my entire life, I wrote ‘The End’ on a novel. I finished telling myself the story of The Wrath King. On March 10th, I picked it up for the first time since November, when I wrote 50k for NaNo. In literally a week, A WEEK, I’d written 30,000 words. Now I don’t say this to brag (alright, maybe a little, but admit it, we all like to brag) but to say that writing became my solace again. It was my sacred space and haven where I could run away from my world and into the world of my characters. I don’t know exactly why I found the horrible world of The Wrath King much more comforting than ours since it is considerably worse, but I did. And I felt good doing it. I popped in my headphones and let my brain live somewhere else. Fast forward to now where in five months, I’ve written 150,000 words.

I looked back at my NaNoWriMo wrap-up post before writing this one and I laugh at it. “I estimate another 45,000 words need to be spewed out of my brain before I can call this zero draft done.” How silly of me. Turns out it needed another 106k before it was done. And I don’t think I’d call it a zero draft anymore. It isn’t bare bones, it feels like an actual story. At least, for now.

The first draft is messy, clunky, and I’m sure full of a lot of useless description. I am an overwriter, but I want every detail I see in my mind on the page. I wrote the last two words, ‘The End’ on the draft and they are bittersweet on my tongue. I don’t want the story to be over, but a massive weight has been lifted off my chest at the same time. I have unburdened the story from my brain. At this stage, I have nothing else to add to it.

Sometime soon I’ll probably do a rough edit of it. I wrote most of the POVs separate from each other in their own little folders. The third act is pretty much arranged now I would want it, but I have to go back and piece the POVs together, which is daunting. But for right now, I can take a deep breath and feel proud of the work I have accomplished.

keep on writing, I believe in you.

tag list - - please tell me know if you wish to be removed or added! <3

@roses-raindrops-and-writing @dramaticvoiceover @livvywrites @millionsoftea @poetic-leigh-me @wipshelves @trishsannethology

#the wrath king

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nevermindthewind · 5 years

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the beach house on crack: a love island au

alright lads so basically i’ve been binge watching love island and got to thinking about how jake and amy would be if they were in the villa bc you know it’d be spicy af so naturally i called up my resident brit @fourdrinkamy and the two of us wrote up some (4k words of) headcanons!!! If you dont watch love island then 1) culture yourself 2) it’s a british reality tv show that’s like a better version of the bachelor

“The premise of Love Island is simple. A group of attractive 20-somethings are made to couple up and share a bed—regardless of whether they have a romantic connection—in a villa on the Spanish island of Majorca. New cast members and challenges are introduced to make things difficult and they are made to recouple.” - time.com (oh + the winning couple gets £50k)

keep reading below the cut for some reality tv/brooklyn nine nine madness!!!

· so jake and amy are part of the original ten in the villa, obvs, along with charles, terry, gina, sharon and rosa and a few other randos who we don’t care about

· when jake comes in amy thinks he’s cute in a goofy sort of way but she doesn’t step forward (therefore admitting she would want to couple up with him) bc she wants to keep her options open and what not but jake thinks shes a BABE so he decides to couple with her anyway

She’s not mad about it though, he seems like a good time

charles choses rosa and she is Not Pleased bc he seems like a goober (he is)

Terry picks sharon and they become like the jack and dani of the season (kinda)

· Charles and jake instantly bond and have one of the best bromances in love island history

· Gina is the biggest pot stirrer the island’s ever seen and is constantly trying to get terry away from sharon but he doesn’t ever budge

· within the first few days its clear to amy they’re just gonna be buddies but that’s fine bc while he likes orange soda in his cereal and is possibly the messiest man she’s ever met he’s really funny and they’re really good at all the different competitions and she’s got the perfect wingman for when mr. right does come around!

· jake doesn’t mind either bc amy’s super chill and also wants to join the police academy so they can talk cop movies which is dope and also they smoke the competition when it comes to challenges

· Amy loves that they get given water bottles and forces Jake to drink it in its entirety x3 daily

· The first set of new guys/girls comes into the villa and while amy and jake both try neither of them feel anything so at the first recoupling Amy chooses to stay with jake so they both can stay and try to find someone

Rosa choses the new guy marcus much to charles’ disappointment

· jake gets everyone in the villa to start making title of your sex tape jokes and it becomes a running joke and the public gets it trending on twitter

· Over the course of the next week or so they have become each other’s best friend in the villa and often find themselves hanging out one on one even when they don’t have to, to the point where everyone else is questioning whether they actually like each other or not

· The islanders get a text from the producers (“I GOT A TEXT”) saying each couple has to pick two other couples they think are the least compatible and whoever has the most votes will get dumped from the villa, but even though jake and amy are in a friendship couple the rest of the couples think they have such good chemistry they don’t receive a single vote

· jake’s thinking the same thing and confides in charles after a few drinks and charles convinces him to say something to her

Charles is already a self-defined “melt” for jake & amy

THATS WHEN TEDDY COMES INTO THE ISLAND dun dun dun

Amy’s instantly drawn to teddy and everyone is excited bc she finally found someone she’s interested in

“He’s 100% my type on paper”

jake is genuinely happy for her ( “how do i look? Is this lipstick too much?” “you look great, ames”) but at the same time is a sad lil puppy

That night they recouple and amy chooses teddy and the public are sad bc jake and amy belong together!!!!!

Gina recouples with jake to keep him around bc she’s his mate le duh

amy’s all excited that night because she finally has someone to cuddle with but teddy just??? rolls over and goes to bed??? uh okay…

Also he snores. Big time.

Charles brings his sleep apnea machine and between that and teddy’s snores no one can sleep

On the brightside no one can hear the couples who are ~doing bits~

(A/N to clarify: in the villa, everyone sleeps in the same room which has six double beds & you share a bed with whoever you happen to be ‘coupled up’ with at the time)

· The jimmy jabs is totes one of the competitions they do and jake lets amy (and therefore teddy) win bc he knows how bad she wants it……and because he still likes her

· The heist, on the other hand, is something jake comes up with on his own and eventually everyone in the villa starts swiping things from each other

· Eventually this super hot girl sophia enters the villa and jake is SMITTEN

Jake in the interview room: “Looks like the gods have finally answered my prayers…”

iain the narrator: “Yes, the gods. Or, our producers wanted a bit of action so they asked our intern to find out your type.”

· Pimento enters the villa the same time as sophia and he and rosa are instantly drawn to each other and poor marcus doesnt stand a chance

They become co-presidents of the do bits society within like a day, even doing it in the middle of the day

Jake walks in on them doing it TWICE in one day and just silently backs out of the room, it’s not like he needed sun cream anyway

· sophia gets to pick two guys to take on a date and one of them is jake and amy is v jealous bc teddy is a dud (not that she’s going to admit that to anyone apart from in the talking head…just yet)

“I just don’t get what he sees in her honestly? Oh god…am i jealous of sophia?! Noooooo…”

Iain the narrator: “Yessssssss…”

· Amy’s been trying to get to know teddy, but it turns out the guy is a total snoozefest, which she tells gina and rosa one day while they’re getting ready

“All he ever talks about is pilsners. I dont even like pilsners!!!”

“Also, I dunno if you guys noticed this but the guy wears mesh underwear. Like why? Is it medical? How do you even ask that?!”

· Jake and sophia immediately hit it off and in the same episode it becomes v clear amy is over teddy and his lack of a personality

Theres a recoupling where boys pick and jake picks sophia and teddy picks amy but amy is Not Pleased

· A group of the islanders (led by Jake) creates a game where they take a shot every time Teddy chooses a pilsner to drink

charles is pissed by like six pm

· UH OH THERES A KISSING CHALLENGE

The islanders play snog marry pie, so basically the boys line up in a line and the girls pick a boy to make out with and one they’d want to marry (and one they want to throw a literal pie in their face)

Sophia snogs jake ofc and then says she’d marry some rando (again who we don’t care about)

Amy, however, chooses to marry teddy - “i’m marrying you because i think we’d have cute babies who would go to code camp” - AND KISSES JAKE. jake is surprised but also not upset?? And when amy pulls away jake seems to lean in for more!!!

Cut to sophia in the talking head like “HANG ON. why did she kiss jake and why did he look like he was going in for more???”

Sophia gets pissed off at jake who’s genuinely confused

“It was just a game?? Like i’dve kissed anyone bc that’s literally the game”

“Yes jake but you clearly went for more. And you didn’t have to slip your tongue into her mouth.”

Jake tries to clear his name but sophia’s not having it

“If you liked amy you should’ve just told me, not made out with her in front of me and the whole damn country”

She storms off after that leaving jake alone on the swinging couch

Cut to jake smiling in the talking head: “amy kissed me…”

NEXT TIME ON LOVE ISLAND…

Just kidding i don’t have enough follow through to make two posts so we’re just gonna do it all now

· After all that ~drama~ sophia goes to sleep on the couch but jake, ever the gentleman, tells her he’ll take the couch and she can sleep in the bed

Teddy and amy still share a bed…i mean it’s not like they cuddled before anyway…

· Everyone in the villa gives jake crap for his bedhead and amy crap for her old lady glasses

Jake def makes the glasses/penis comment and iain makes some snarky narrator remark

· Jake and Amy kinda dance around each other most of the day and then they hear Gina announce “I GOT A TEEEEEXXXXXT”

“Islanders, tonight there will be a recoupling. The girls will choose their partner. The remaining boy with be dumped from the villa immediately. #choosewisely”

Everyone in the villa immediately turns to jake and amy

· After a proper gassing up from gina, rosa, and charles jake finally goes over to amy

“Hey ames, can we go for a chat?”

Amy tucks her hair behind her ears as she gets up heheheh

Gina, rosa and charles don’t even try to hide the fact that they’re watching the entire conversation unfold from their spot on the day bed

· They go to the hanging couch (the best spot in the villa in my humble opinion) and jake finally tells her how he feels!!!!

“Look, i dont wanna be a jerk…I know you’re coupled up with teddy and it’s going really well. It’s just…”

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know what’s going to happen at this recoupling and I think I’d be pissed with myself if I didn’t say this. I kinda wish something could happen between us…romantic stylez. And i know it probably will never happen because you’re happy in your couple but…”

· Before either of them can say anything more they’re cut off by terry announcing he has a text!!!

“Islanders, it is now time for the recoupling. Whichever boy is not chosen to recouple will be dumped from the villa immediately.”

Jake and amy just kinda stare at each other for a few seconds before amy finally gets up wordlessly and walks to the bonfire

· In classic love island fashion, amy has to choose her boy last, so it’s down to just teddy and jake. Whoever she doesn’t pick has to leave the villa.

Everyone, e v e r y o n e is visibly stressed. Charles is full on crying, and rosa is clutching pimento’s hand so hard it may or may not break by the end of the night

Teddy, god bless him, looks completely at ease. Jake keeps scratching the back of his neck and wringing his hands

· Finally amy takes a deep breath.

“I chose this boy because…he makes me laugh. He’s a good friend, and he knows me better than anyone in the villa. Also – he’s probably gonna make fun of me for saying this – but he’s, like, really fit. I don’t know, I just would be so, so sad if he left the villa. And I want to give us a chance to go beyond friends.”

At this point the camera flips to jake who is giving her the smallest, sweetest smile and then to teddy who’s finally catching on.

“The boy I choose is…”

*dramatic-ass pause*

“Jake.”

· THE MUSIC SWELLS. JAKE WALKS OVER TO HER AND GIVES HER THE SWEETEST KISS. EVERYONE CRIES, EVEN ROSA.

Amy smiles as they pull apart.

“So, a lot of change around here, huh?”

He kisses her again. :’)

· The first night they sleep together they don’t kiss but they do spoon

Jake is almost always the little spoon and at first he gets crap from the other boys when they see this but he doesn’t care because being the little spoon is the best!!!!! He gets to wake up in amys arms like hellooooo

· Amy and jake are surprisingly affectionate??? Not in a weird way like charles and genevieve but amy just always seems to have a hand on his knee or what have you

For the record, amy was NEVER like that with teddy.

· Amy has a STRICT no-sex rule in the bedroom bc hello they are on national television her abuela could be watching!!!! + it would be super weird to do bits in the same room as charles…of course jake completely and utterly respects this and doesn’t even question it. If he has to go 6 weeks without sex even though he’s sharing a bed every night with the hottest girl he’s ever seen then so be it

· UNTIL it’s announced via text that The Hideaway (a private area/bedroom in the villa away from everyone else but still not the cameras Obviously this is love island) is open and the islanders get to choose a couple to stay there for the night. Having had to put up with their blossoming love and flirting 24 fucking 7 everyone else unanimously screams “jake and amy!!!! It has to be Jake and amy!!!!” and they just grin at each other

· The bed is so big and covered in rose petals & there happens to be a very handy bowl of condoms on the bedside table…at first they just talk about how nice it is to get some alone time and just hang out….which of course turns to kissing and then making out and then………under the covers they go (for those who don’t actually watch the show it’s literally like seeing sims wahooing but irl) (maybe we see a cheeky black and white shot of amy moaning)

· The next morning amy wakes up with the BIGGEST grin on her face and her hair all mussed, and she kisses jake awake “morning, baby” and he immediately pulls her into him and kisses her back

Jake’s talking head: “Last night? Last night was….it was amazing. Stupid good. That’s all I’m going to say.” our boy!!! Cannot!!! Stop smiling!!!!

· When they get back to the main villa they naturally segregate into boys and girls and the guys immediately ask jake “how was your night? Did you get any??” “oh my god, did you FRENCH???” “charles, no nothing happened”

· (in true Jamie style) he goes over to the day beds with amy and lets her cuddle into his chest and asks if it’s okay if he tells people what happened in the hideaway - he’s a gentleman!!! And he’s always going to respect her boundaries!! Amy tells him of course that’s okay, people are going to find out anyway and that it’s really sweet of him to check with her…and she laughs to herself when jake goes back over to the boys and she hears charles scream “I KNEW YOU WERE GLOWING”

· Rosa and Gina casually-but-not-so-subtly ask amy “so did you shag? Tell us everything” and amy just smiles….rosa and gina look at each other like noice, they’re so proud of her!!

Rosa later confides in amy “the amy i knew two weeks ago would nEver have done that with Teddy…i’m happy for you, santiago”

· CASA AMOR. the boys have to sneak out of the villa (jake goes into full on spy mode rolling around on the carpet) and get shipped off to a separate one that has 6 new girls in it and then 6 new boys enter the old villa to shake things up (reality television at its absolute FINEST YALL)…the producers’ twist? Fucking Constantine Kane gets put in the girls’ villa - amy’s eyes widen out of their sockets when she sees her most random ex enter. He of course is still so in love with her, or so he claims, and tells her how excited he is to couple up with her and share a bed and win her over and get married and have babies with her. Amy naturally is like no way jose and spends the entire time trying to avoid him (with the help of rosa) hiding everywhere she can fit and sleeping on the sofa at night (and, also naturally, she worries that Sophia 2.0 is with jake right now and she realises it kind of makes her sick to her stomach thinking about jake kissing another girl….maybe she likes him even more than she thought she did?)

· Just to mess with him, jake gets a text that has a photo of constantine trying to kiss amy and poor bb gets beside himself with worry…

Jake’s talking head: “I mean Amy can do whatever she wants, I’m obviously not going to stop her from being with another person - we’ve only known each other for what a month…” [he looks away from the camera and rubs his face with his hand] “But I really like her…so it just kinda…sucks.”

· OBVIOUSLY he has nothing to worry about and his face!!!!!!!!! Just lights up in relief!!!!! When amy walks back into the og villa during the Most Dramatic recoupling without bringing back anyone from the new one!!! She rushes over to him and cups his face with her hands and kisses him hard in front of everyone

· “I missed you, you know” “I missed you too” “Hey I have to ask…that guy you were with-” “You saw that?” “I got sent a photo…nothing…nothing happened between you, right?” “Yes - I mean no. Things did happen. In the past, on the outside. But I was young and I regret it so much - i tried to avoid him the entire time in casa amor. Honestly all I could think about was how much i wanted to be hanging out with you” “really?” she moves to sit on his lap, wraps her arms around his next and kisses his cheek. “the only person i want to be in this villa with is you” “i could say the same thing about you, ames” and then they get straight back to kissing :’)))

Iain: “nope, that’s definitely not a tear in my eye”

· One morning the islanders wake up to the delightful sound of babies screaming bc you guessed it!! baby challenge!!! (i.e. towards the end of the summer, the couples are given plastic babies and have to look after them for a day)

Amy is SO excited and throws the covers off running towards the cribs (after Charles and Genevieve) screaming - “We made a baby! Oh my god I have a baby!” leaving a half-awake dazed and confused jake still in bed

Jake & Rosa eventually bother getting out of their respective beds, definitely not as excited as the rest of the villa, but jake will admit his heart flutters a little seeing amy cradling a plastic baby to her chest so attentively

“Jake! Look we have a little girl!” “awww she looks just like you, Ames” “we have to name her” “Nakatomi” jake answers immediately, to which amy whines “jaaaake take it seriously! I’m not having a daughter called Nakatomi” “fine, i’ll compromise on Holly”

At first jake is a little apprehensive about having this new Responsibility (and he’s not about to blurt out all his dad issues on national television) and so he keeps his distance and mainly lets amy take care of their new offspring in the morning (“amessss why does it keep crying?” “i cannot Believe you would call our baby it, peralta!”) That is until the girls get sent off on a Mommy’s Lunch, turning the villa into daddy day care….

He knows how much Amy loves this little baby so he decides he is going to take this seriously and it doesn’t take long for him to realise that??? This is kinda fun??? He takes Holly on strolls in her buggy around the villa and plays with her in the pool with charles and terry and (tugging at the public’s heart) sits on a day bed with her and tells her just how awesome her mummy is

When amy gets back, her heart completely MELTS at the sight of her new bf with their little one……and they end up talking about how they’re the best parents in the entire villa nay the world (“our kid is WAY cuter than terry and sharon’s” “oh for SURE”) & then of course win the challenge

· For the Final Date extravaganza they go on a helicopter ride and ngl even Amy is beside herself with excitement…they’ve spent the last 6 weeks talking about their favourite action films etc. and now it’s like they’re in one! They definitely act like literal children/real cops pretending they’re on a manhunt for a fugitive (instead of appreciating the view like normal people)

They get treated to a romantic dinner afterwards followed by dancing with live musicians and that’s when they FINALLY say those 3 words to each other….(well 5 if you count “noice, smort”)

· AND THE WINNER IS…..jake and amy obviously this is a b99 x love island au :’) they’re so sweet and humble about it & amy makes jake promise on live national television that he’s not just going to spend all their cash prize on sneakers. They each end up with over a million followers on their instagrams, where they regularly post photos of each other on date night/ at premieres/ evenings at home…and also video sagas of them pranking each other which starts with amy pieing jake’s face unexpectedly and escalates into fake proposals and frozen shoes….and maybe some *light* tasering

· Of course they end up getting married for realz and a baby announcement follows not too long after that…they are utterly the nation’s sweethearts (and Charles keeps doing interviews to the press saying he’s the one who brought them together in the villa from the beginning)

#ive never been more proud of a piece of work than i am of this #fic #my writing #headcanon #peraltiago

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maxgrayarchived · 4 years

Text

40,000 Words Nano Update

ABOUT THE PROJECT

For whoever might not know, my nano project this year is a fanfic for the Sanders Sides fandom called Superkids.

When Virgil is granted the power to control shadows, he decides to use it to protect kids being abused like him. His dad and over enthusiastic boyfriend, Remus, have other ideas. As Virgil slowly finds himself becoming a supervillain and diving deeper into his own anger, Patton, Roman, and Logan make it their responsibilities to stop him.

Trigger warnings for abuse, violence, gaslighting, manipulation, misgendering, and mild transphobia from unsympathetic characters

WHAT’S BEEN HARD

Catching up. I was pretty decently ahead for the first week or two of nano, and then a few busy days happened, some writing fatigue hit, and suddenly... I was like 10,000 words behind or something.

That writing fatigue has kept itself going strong, which made catching up even more miserable... But I’m happy I did it. To be honest nano is a dangerous game because huge word counts are pretty easy for me, so the regular 50,000-in-a-month thing is pretty easy, but if something like THIS happens, it makes finishing nano really hard, and I know how much shit I’ll give myself if I fail nano. I would feel really bad and it would take a huge toll on my confidence and mental health. But completing nano is always a huge boost, so... Like I said, dangerous game.

And I’m not only happy I caught up for that reason, but just because I was pushing myself to write about 3000 words in a day before and now I can relax back into the normal 1667, which makes it so much easier to get lost in the scene (read: not easy, but easier. writing fatigue, remember?)

Let’s just say I’m excited to reach that 50,000 mark so I can take a break and edit this monster

Fight scenes continue to be a struggle. I’m also excited to finish the 50k so that I can go through and outline all my fight scenes. I remember finishing a really hard one, and then going to see what the next chapter had in it and it IMMEDIATELY jumped into another fight scene. Huge sigh. (I fixed that a bit btw bc I know that’s shitty pacing)

MY FAVOURITE PARTS

I SAID IT ONCE AND I’LL SAY IT AGAIN: ROMAN AND PATTON ARE FUCKING PRECIOUS.

They are platonically in love with each other. Okay? They’re so fuckin *clenches fists* in love. I love writing how they interact and how they treat each other and just little things like that.

When Roman got to his room, Patton was already in bed and watching cartoons. He paused it and sat up. His pale belly was hanging low out of his short sleep shirt, his hair mussed from laying in bed. Roman smiled.

“Are you feeling okay?” Patton asked as Roman turned off the light and crawled into bed.

“Yeah, I’m fine. It’ll just be sore for a few days. Probably good by the time auditions roll around.”

They turned the show back on and laid down, Roman with his head on Patton’s belly and arms wrapped tight around him. As Patton fell asleep, and started snoring, Roman was, for the millionth time, reminded how lucky he was to have Patton as his best friend.

Another repeat from last time, but Roman’s relationship with his mother and Patton’s with his dad remains one of my favourite things. Ophelia and Kyung are doing their best and even though Patton and Roman are chaotic they just love them so much and they just want them to stay safe, damnit.

Oh! Playing around with their powers is really fun- At one point Nightmare gets a shadow sword. Just for one scene, but that was a cool idea that made the fight scene a bit more interesting to write. I also hit a breakthrough with both Roman and Patton’s fighting style, which is really helpful, especially when Patton can’t really turn his powers into an offensive (however! i literally just wrote the scene where Patton learns an areal attack, so he should be able to use his powers in fight scenes real fast!)

HOW I PLAN TO IMPROVE

Mostly by making writing most days a habit. I’ve settled into a nice rhythm of coming home from work, eating, and then writing for a few hours before hanging out with my sister. That should work for a few weeks.

I’m also trying to just make myself happier? My depression is not making this easy. I put in my two weeks at work yesterday, and I have another, better job lined up just as long as I get my driver’s license. So I’m going to do THAT as soon as humanly possible lol. I’m hoping to have the license by the end of December, have Christmas break to spend with family and writing, take a little break from work... (they don’t actually need me until January)

That was a little messy ramble but whatever.

Before I go, I also made this character aesthetic for Virgil:

Alright! See you at 50k! Aaah!

Writing updates tag list:

@impossiblelibrary @writinginslowmotion @lucifer-in-my-head

#writeblr #nanowrimo #amwriting #maxgraybooks

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aaeoluss · 4 years

Photo

Nano Closing Thoughts: 2019 vs 2018

+ November 29 WC: 2,179 // November 30 WC: 5,562

WIP blog: @thesecondmoonwip // Previous nano updates: week one two three four

If you’re interested at all about the details of these graphs, I keep all my nano stats in this spreadsheet

Total WC: 2019: 50,198 (2018: 50,051)

Average daily WC: 2019: 1,673 (2018: 2,176 [avg not counting the obvious outlier of day 23: 1,880])

Average daily WC not counting days with WC of 0: 2019: 2,092 (2018: 2,275 [not counting day 23: 1,969])

Most words written in a day: 6,027 Nov 27 (2018: 8,700 Nov 23)

Least words written in a day not counting 0: 347 Nov 22 (1,000 Nov 16)

General Thoughts

Nano is really interesting because I think it’s a really fast way to learn things about yourself. When you set a goal, do you mean it? Are you good at making plans and schedules that work for you? And when you make a plan, do you stick to it? Do you procrastinate, are you always writing furiously right before bed or trying to write 15k on the last day? I’ve noticed that when I answer these questions, they don’t apply only to nano, but to writing and actually lots of things in my life.

You can tell by taking a quick peek at my graphs up above, but my nano this year was a little more chaotic than last year’s. Last year, I sat down and wrote the same amount every day, but this year I tried to be fancy and set different daily goals based on my work and school schedule. It... sort of worked. It worked really well the first week, but what ended up was I never got in the habit of doing it, and I ended up getting behind. At the start of the month, I was like, “oh, I know I couldn’t write 1,667 words every day, I’m too busy on Thursday, and I have so much more time on Wednesday” and etc, but by the end of the month? Writing 1,667 words seems really easy and I was cursing myself for not just sitting down and doing it every day.

I’m a better writer than I was last year. I’m better at writing itself, and I have more stamina, I can sit down and write faster and I can write for longer without getting tired. However, I’ve realized that nano isn’t really about that. Last year I went in after finishing my first book, and I was used to writing 400 words a night. I still walked out victorious, and it was because nano can be easy if you just sit down and write 1,667 words every night. That’s really not that many words when it comes down to it, and that’s the fun of it. Anyone can win nano (some people have really really busy lives and literally do not have the time to do it, but I’m not talking about that). It’s just about dedication.

Last year my takeaway was that you can write a lot more than you think you can if you set your mind to it. My takeaway this year is that the most important thing really is sitting down and writing every. single. day. That’s something I used to know, I used to hold it dear to my heart, but The Second Moon is my fifth book, and I think sometimes I get too caught up in trying to be cool and write a lot in one day and stuff like that and I forget about the basics.

What next?

Although I hit 50k, and I’m counting that as a win in terms of nano, the book actually is not finished. There are only 40 scenes in TSM, and some of them used to be two scenes but now they’re one long scene, or they’re important so they’re longer etc, but as a general rule, my scene comfort zone used to be about 1k, so that’s what I planned for. Most of the scenes in TSM are longer, though, so I hit 50k without actually finishing all the scenes. I’m not far off, I’ve only got one scene left, but I’m a little bummed, I didn’t really want this issue to run into December. I think if I can get it on my shelf before winter break starts (Dec 14) I’ll be alright with that, though.

Once I format it and design a cover, I’m going to use Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing to get my book printed. If you haven’t heard of it before, I’d highly recommend it, it’s super cool. I used it to print out all my books, and they all sit proudly on my shelf.

I know it’s bad practice to write a first draft and call it done, but I see nano as more of an exercise than anything. It would take an immense amount of time and effort to turn this draft into something I’m really proud of, and I’m honestly just not passionate about the project to do that.

I’ll be jumping back to my main project, Pseudonyms! I haven’t worked on it for a hot second and I am so excited to get back to it. I finished the first draft around six months ago (?), and it’s time for a complete rewrite! I have a lot of ideas, and I’ve grown as a writer a lot since then, and I’m really excited.

As for doing nano in the future, I’m unsure. Now that I’m done, it’s easy to look back and say, “hey, that was easy, and we got to get a book out of the WIP queue.” (because I have a lot of books I want to write, and when I can take a month and get one out of my head, that’s always great). However, I vividly remember a lot of times over the month where I told myself I would never do nano again. It’s difficult to say.

However, if I do end up doing nano again, I think I’ll set a higher goal for myself than 50k. Nano really lacked spice for me this year, I went into it feeling very complacent that I would hit 50k and I was rarely too stressed about it. Idk. I just feel like it’s not nano if you’re panicked for the whole month, + I don’t feel nearly as accomplished as I would if I had set a higher goal.

And that’s all I have to say on that! I hope everyone who participated in nano had a good month!

#writing #writeblr #nano #nanowrimo

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