#I've had this in the backburner for quite a while but it's!!! finally finished!!!

[cipher-wise]

If y’all aren’t playing Sky: Children of the Light, well, you’re just missing out

[lifeofkaze]

💙 💜 🤍

Just take all my hearts.

Your hearts make me happy.

💙 Blue: What inspires you to finish writing a fanfic, and what makes you quit writing one at any stage in the process?

I don't think I've ever quit-quit a story. Ever. Only put them on the backburner to haunt me until the day I finally give in and write them after all.

As for what inspires me to finish... There's nothing quite like seeing the work come together, is there? It's like when you're doing a jigsaw puzzle and there comes this magical moment where it switches from "this is hard and bothersome" to "this is a breeze and I'm so smart let's do it again".

💜 Purple: Name one song you're listening to while writing your next/current fanfic. How or why does it help the writing process?

If I had to pick one song and one song only for Source of Balance, it would be Drops of Jupiter by Train. Idk why it just has the vibes. At least, Lizzie likes to think so.

🤍 White: What's a fanfic scenario or idea you'd like someone else to write so that you can read it?

There's a lot of things I miss about the old fandom days, but one of them was being able to write other people's OTPs as surprise or trade or somesuch, and getting your own OTP written for you in return. Anything Lizion not out of my own feather would be such a treat.

Call me selfish, but there's sth nice about getting to read about your fanfic fix without having to work for it first, lol.

[icewindandboringhorror]

Daily Log 4

Trying out (probably just temporarily) making short daily-ish notes about things, in an attempt to see if it helps me be more reflective or productive lol.

Activities: Woke up late because I went back to sleep with a headache briefly, then kind of struggled to focus all day ToT

Worked more on the aforementioned tapestry/painting type of thing. I've done the base layer of painting for the main image, now I'm lining in darker outlines. I wanted to finish the center art before getting into the intricate borders. Still haven't translated the text lol..

Made a small bowl and also a little box with a lid out of more avocado pits. Still just with random nail cuticle tool things and kitchen knives, as I don't have proper carving tools.

Finished editing and proofreading the new poll adventure post!! I don't have time to post it tonight because I need to get to sleep early but.. I have it Completely 100% Ready.. finally..

Also washed the clothes I got together yesterday. Called about the bloodwork. Sent an email to a doctor.

Reviewed some writing documents to get back into my game maybe?? (basically, I started working on a visual novel type game a few years ago, decided it was a huge project so kind of put it on the backburner for a while in favor of things that were more easily finishable/tangible. then later on a game website I play (similar to neopets or something, there are collectable little creatures, etc.) there was an opportunity for me to design a pet on site, so I made a smaller shorter visual novel centered around that, where people on the site have to play the game in order to earn the pet, and I have a google form for them to answer a few short questions about it. All of the feedback is quite positive (reached 200 responses a while ago! though still only like 4 comments on the itch.io page lol.. Mandatory Form vs. Optional Comments evil showdown), but sometimes I get commentary that's really enthusiastic and inspires me to start back working on the OTHER bigger game. The small game was kind of like, a proof of concept that was safe because I had a guaranteed audience, that has helped me gain more insight for the larger one.

Anyway, since I've abandoned the Main Large Game for so long, I have to re-read and review/probably rewrite A LOT of things just to pick it back up again as A Thing I'm Actively Working On, so it's another one of those tasks that I do maybe 45 minutes of and then realize it's going to take days and days and get discouraged lol..

Notable sights: Saw two cats in windows. No clovers. It rained a little today but I didn't get to go outside and see it. One of the pieces of asparagus in the fridge was like the size of a carrot, comically overgrown downright ridiculous looking asparagus. Maybe I'll get taller after eating it.

Goals moving forward: Consistent sleep schedule. Focus on social activities, finding new friends in the places I want to move, communicating with ones I have. Physical therapy exercises. Plant nasturtiums. Finish and upload videos, edit costume pictures & etc.

Notable foods: ASPARAGUS AGAIN BABEY.. yeaAAAAGHHH asparagus squad !!!!!!

[savrenim]

hi hi hi. so I just got into the Hamilton fandom, I swear I am four years late where did everybody go, and, well. I am apparently a hamburr shipper. bcs that is my life now. anyway I saw your fic ifmlam and I swear it is my favourite of all the fics I've ever read (and trust me I've read literally thousands). I love it so so much, how do you write fics like that??? I cried about four times during the whole thing, I stayed up till 4am reading it even when I had to wake up at 7 because it is just. that. good. I could not stop thinking about it for days afterwards and ifmlam has just ruined me. I can't think of listen to Hamilton without thinking of ifmlam anymore.

on to my qursttion: is it abandoned? of course it's perfectly FINE if it is. don't let anyone tell u differently, your fic is YOURS and u are amazing.

but pls I really need closure from ur fic, it has been haunting me if its abandoned or ongoing and I've read ur other fics and they are just chefskiss and thank you so much for writing them all. thank you thank you thank you, I will never be able to thank you enough for writing this fic and for everything it's done for me. I am probably thousands of miles away but I am sending you virtual jugs through a co.puter screen right now.

(don't feel pressured to reply to this or update it flam, I know how overwhelming it can get with so many messages and after a while u get desensitized to it. u can literally reply "thx. itfmlam is abandoned" and I would still be amazingly star struck. anyway has gotten way too long and I need to sleep and I'm sorry u probably won't see this so I'm just talking to myself right now but bye!!)

and thank you so so much for writing itfmlam.

aaaah hello anon!

thank you so so much???? I am so??? honored??? that ifmlam rates so highly to you, and also that you've read my other fics??????

the answer to the "is ifmlam abandoned" question is probably the worst possible one, which is pretty much "I do want to finish it, both for the folks that still want closure as well as it bothers to me have abandoned projects that are in the public eye/ already partially published, but also, it is last on my current writing projects list"

my current actually active writing projects list, kind of in order of priority, is

I'm literally three chapters away from being Actually Fully Done with the not-quite-first-not-quite-second let's call it 1.5th draft of an actual?? full?? original?? novel?? Opus which of course then goes out to beta readers and then gets who-knows-how-much edited and then maybe beta readers again if a lot does change and then a copyeditor my mom, my copyeditor is my mom, and maybe my little brother he's one of the betas but is very good at catching typos and then I!!! get to publish it!!!! which is the single thing I am most excited for!!!!!!!!! this should be closed up in the next week or two, and then take a while for people to actually read the draft and get back to me.

I really desperately want to finish my open-but-like-90%-written fic, which means we raise it up, the final chapter of to the bottom of the river bc I realized that it was kind of incomplete, and the second chapter of a buried and a burning flame because any more work there will need to wait until the author publishes the next book in the series. this should be closed up in the next month or two.

Speedwrite the draft of the second book of the Opus series so that hopefully by the time book 1 edits are happening, I have an almost complete draft of the second book. this is mostly me side-eyeing myself about taking nearly four years to write the first book, but that is solidly in part because I had so many other open projects which point 2 is about clearing that docket. this should be done in the next year.

And then just have my major projects be, at least until books 1-5 are written and published, books 1-5 of that because that is arguably the first major 'plot arc' of the series, so if I'm looking for a pause point on writing, that's probably where to stop.

There are two or three other short side projects (a weird fun second person short story tentatively titled witch-queen, a collection of four short stories Memoirs about a not-so-evil necromancer and the shenanigans he gets up to trying to rule a kingdom, working title Perfectly Normal Recipe Blog which is a collaborative project about a perfectly normal recipe blog that definitely doesn't include anything out of the normal) that will happen when they happen

There are other projects that are on the backburner -- The Numanok Files, a series of probably 12-15 short novellas about a mercenary/ bounty hunter esque person in space whose specialty is dealing with hauntings, but, like, 80% of their jobs is actually "you are effectively a space home inspector pointing out faulty wiring reacting to solar flares/ there's a weird alien fungus/ it's carbon monoxide okay change your atmosphere filters" and 20% of it is punching ghosts; there's a post-post apocalypse novel that I want to write that I know characters and general pacing and half the setting but need to work out the other half and figure out how much aesthetic I want to commit to; there's Strangeside7 aka spacerace book that is my reaction to how much I love how Redline the anime movie commits itself to "no we are about a race, like 60% of the screentime is just fully going to be an utterly ridiculous sci fi space race"; there's even a ridiculous YA trilogy that I would have to completely transplant the setting but might end up writing because the interplay between angel-physics and physics-physics was one of my favorite things in the world. and I guess the weird ridiculous technically a sequel series to ifmlam that was going to be published as original books that was basically me having fun with 'okay I fucking love star wars prequels old rotting space bureaucracy galactic republic style' except with seers and that also still might happen because it does have some of the coolest sci fi concepts and honestly I thiiiink that's all?

but the tl;dr of that timeline is I'm trying to finish a punch of projects Right Now, so that I can write books 2-5 of Opus, and then when I'm done that (which honestly, my average fiction-writing output is close to 100k a year. if I'm concentrating purely on one project, and writing books that are about 100k, we are talking four years. although my job situation is super up in the air in that period and writing might get put solidly on the backburner as I try to make it in academia, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) I will re-evaluate which projects go next, and that's when ifmlam is likely to come up for review.

I do not have any expectations that I will make it as an original author. I'm planning on posting all of my stuff online for free, but, like. it is incredibly difficult to convince people to try out even a piece of free and easily accessibly original work even if one has a huge following, I am a very small fanfiction author, and from what I can tell the majority of the people who are interested in my work are mostly interested in me finishing ifmlam. writing is a hobby for me, and while I'm writing mostly for me--and hence the for me bit at least for the next five years is pretty solidly going to be this series that I am deeply excited about and have sunk my heart and soul into every single aspect of--I'm human, and I don't really like shouting into the void, and I expect if I spend five years publishing to absolutely no response I will either stop writing for a while and do other things gods know my life is busy enough, return to fandom in general to write some other fanfic about whatever I get deeply into, or return to a work that I actually get response to. so ifmlam will probably start getting worked on a bit at that point one way or another. unless, of course, we are in the incredibly rare timeline in which I do make it as an original author, there are people who are deeply hyped for my original works and an actual demand for them, in which case as you may have noticed there are enough ideas there to keep me busy for a decade or two, and they will just get my full attention instead of fanfiction*. in this timeline, I will do what I was considering doing a few years ago, which is officially declare ifmlam otherwise abandoned and make one more giant chapter update which is a full and cleaned up outline of what I was going to write, interspersed with the scenes already written, and have ifmlam be given at least that closure.

*I want to make it clear that I very much love fanfiction and am proud to have been a fanfiction author and in my heart of hearts would keep writing it forever, I just also have a lot of ideas for characters and settings and magic systems and Aesthetics and I have been biting at the bit to write something that is //mine// and all mine and only mine for a while, I don't see original work as superior so much as there are a dozen fandoms that I am currently in and bursting to make content about except oops these fandoms currently only exist in my head, and I want to correct that

of course given how much as writing is my vent activity and I write what I'm in the mood for, there's a chance I'll feel ifmlam cravings before then, just... expect it to take a couple of years for an update, but also for there to be an update one way of another in a couple of years? but as for right now, I'm turning to original writing, because that is what brings me joy.

but I am really deeply honored that it brought you so much joy!!! and while I will never publish spoilers in a public place, if you message me off anon I am perfectly happy to give a run-down of my current plans for the ending, bc I know "wait a couple years and see" is not the most satisfactory of answers! and hey maybe you'll be like me and once you've given Opus a try you'll decide you like it better too, it does have Seers although they are deeply different Seers than in ifmlam but imo it's very gay and fun and at least politics on one side