#a lot of it may wind up as carry-over goals for next year but I'm okay with that

[kitkatt0430]

Talk Shop Tuesday: What's one goal that you're working towards and what steps are you taking to try to achieve that goal? Why is this goal something you want to achieve? <3 -@fieldsofview

So my main goal this year is to have fewer Works In progress - both on the small level of unpublished fics/chapters and the bigger level of chaptered fics/series.

This is to a.) clean up my WiP folder(s) on my computer, try to move stuff that's been sitting there for a long time into the done pile and b.) to close out some of my unfinished works on Ao3 so that I can celebrate them being done!!! Or at least having made progress on them, which is still worth celebrating. I've got a number of WiPs right now and a strong desire to cut down on them, so that's why I set this goal.

The new Arrow Redux series that I started this year has actually been in service of this goal despite technically being a new series on Ao3. It's a WiP that's been sitting in my folders for several years now so it's been good to actually not only make progress on it but to be three fics in posting-wise with a bit written for the fourth fic. This is one that I had a lot of scattered notes for in addition to random scenes written for it (though not all actually work anymore) but it's definitely nice to get that sense of accomplishment at finishing pieces of this series instead of the "meh" feeling of closing the document unfinished once more.

It is admittedly a bit of a vague goal in many ways since I'm not specifying specific WiPs and series, but sometimes if I push too hard on one thing then I wind up burning out fast because I'm trying too hard. But considering I finally got the third part of Thaw completed (thus finally closing out the series) and made progress on two other open series, I think I'm doing pretty good at achieving my overall goal for the year.

Steps I'm taking towards this goal are

trying not to start new WiPs that I know I can't finish in a week or two which I've been surprisingly successful at

I don't open my fic files with the goal of completing them, just at adding to them. Often if I approach it with the 'i just want a little progress, don't have to finish yet' attitude then I wind up getting back into the groove of things more easily after re-reading what's there so far. And then it does wind up finished after all.

I do want to make progress on my older unfinished fics/series the most, so I'm also re-reading what I have so far. It's the best way to remind myself of what happened and where it's been headed... and sometimes also to realize that maybe it needs to move in a new direction. Once I've refreshed myself on what's there, it's a lot easier to move forward on what isn't.

[dnps-trashcan]

i would love you to write me a fic! (i'm lazy af) you can enterperet it however, do what you like! the only things i would love to have included are 1. more in depth into phil's anxiety as well as dan's 2. something about dan's old emo-ness coming back up and 3. lots of fluff! no/little smut. tysm! love you 💙

The Cheeseburger

The smell of thick grease was in the air from the second Dan and Phil walked into the bustling McDonald’s. Looking around, there was only one table free in the downstairs seating area, and the queue was winding down the entire length of the room, people stood nestled among the eating customers. The music was quietly playing Ed Sheeran.

The two British lads had come to this fine dining establishment with one goal in mind. To get Dan a cheesburger. He’s been craving it all day, and after working so hard and going on runs every day he’d decided he deserved a treat, so he’d decided to come down, and Phil, being the trusty sidekick, had come along with him. 

“So, mate, do you want to stand in the line or should we order on those fantastic machines?” Dan asked. Phil was a bit confused about why Dan was speaking in such an unusual way, but didn’t question it as Dan often does some pretty strange things. 

“Well, the line looks like it will take less time for Sherlock season 5 to come out, so I think the card machine is a safer bet.” Phil replies.

“Fair point.” Dan agrees and the pair approach the wonderful machines. Dan taps on the burger section, and hears a ‘D’ note on piano sound come out. His eyebrows draw together as he frowns in confusion. He looks at Phil. “Did you hear that?” he asks, and Phil nods, saying “yeah, what’s going on?”. Then, the two long lads notice a sign taped to the machine, and it read, “The machine is undergoing technical difficulties, strange noises are possible. We apologize for the inconvenience”. They read the sign, both shrug their shoulders and carry on looking for the delightful cheeseburger on the list of options. Phil locates it and taps on the picture. They select the no meal option, and proceed to the payment. A single cheeseburger costs 99p, “what a bargain”, Dan thinks, while Phil is calculating how many sponsorships he’s going to do next week so he can pay for Dan’s lavish splurges. 

When the screen takes them to the payment page, however, Dan realises he has left his card at home, and only has a single pound coin on him. They were going to have to pay at the till. The line had decreased slightly while they’d been ordering, yet it still took up more than half of the shop. Dan sighed as he tapped ‘pay at counter’. He ripped off the receipt and walked to the end of the line, with Phil following after him. 

They stood in the line for a few minutes, towering over all the people around them. Phil, who was subconsciously watching the workers hand out orders to people, noticed the teenager call out “cheeseburger?”, wait for a few seconds then shrug and put the cheeseburger back onto a tray behind the counter. He nudged Dan, quietly saying, “um, I think they may have just called your order, but we haven’t paid yet so we can’t collect it”. Dan’s eyes widened, but he shrugs his shoulders, replying, “maybe someone else also ordered a cheeseburger, we’ll see if they call ours after we pay.” There was no need to worry about what would happen before he knows that it definitely was his cheeseburger, Dan thinks, although he can feel the weight start to settle in his gut. Despite denying it, he knew that that had been his cheeseburger. 

When it’s his turn to pay, Dan hands over the receipt from the machine and his one pound coin. When given the penny change, Dan sees Phil’s face light up from the corner of his eye. Instantly he knows what Phil wants to do (and internally he himself does too). Dan smiles at and thanks the girl at the counter and (falsely) begrudgingly hands over the coin as him and Phil walk towards the spinny coin donation box. Phil is grinning at this point, as he knows what he is about to witness. This miracle of physics has never once gotten old for him in all 32 years that he’s been alive. Dan’s eyes widen in anticipation as Phil places the penny in the special slot; secretly, he enjoys this equally as Phil, but he must keep up his macho persona, so he keeps his expression neutral. Phil mentally prepares himself and then lets go of the coin. As it spins, his eyes get rounder and rounder, and his smile gets wider and wider. Even Dan cracks a smile, both at the childish wonder on Phil’s face as well as the literal magic happening before him. When the coin finally falls into the hole at the center, after a full 82 spins, Phil sighs, and straightens up. If only they’d had more change, he thinks as his lower lip slightly sticks out in a pout.

The elongated lads now take a place in the cluster of people waiting to collect their orders. Dan’s stomach is still tight when he’s reminded of Phil’s earlier observation. After about a minute of waiting, he looks over at Phil, and starts to speak, “do-”. Phil interrupts him, “Dan, I think that was your cheeseburger, and you are going to have to ask for it at the counter.” His words are slightly faster than normal as he’s also feeling that dread in his stomach at the thought of having interact with the person behind the counter, as he knew what was bound to happen. “How about we wait a few more minutes until we’re absolutely sure that that was actually my cheeseburger”, Dan replies. Phil nods in agreement but he knows that they’re both delaying the inevitable. 

After about 5 minutes of waiting for their order, the line has managed to decrease down to one person, so Phil, despite the heavy feeling in his stomach, turns to Dan and says, “Dan, you have to ask for that cheeseburger, and we need to get home.” Dan sighs, and says, “but can’t you do it, Phil?”

Phil knew Dan would do this, which is why he was dreading it from the second he realised that that had been Dan’s cheeseburger. “But it’s your cheeseburger”

“But you’re my best friend…”

“I don’t even like cheese”

“But I’m too scared”, Dan said with a pout, putting on his best puppy eyes.

“Dan, you know those don’t work on me, I’ve been desensitised over the years”

“But pwease Phiw, pwease”

“Dan, no, it’s your cheeseburger”

“Pretty please???”

“I’m too scared too,” Phil admitted.

“But please do it,”

The two overgrown men went back and forth like this for a full 15 minutes, until Dan finally relented. He could do this. This year and the last he’d overcome so many difficult things, such as actually exercising, and his perfectionism problems, so he could do this one little thing, and then he’d even get a cheeseburger out of it. Phil sighed in relief when he saw Dan steeling his shoulders as if preparing for battle, he knew he’d won. Phil watched Dan semi-confidently stride forward towards the counter, and say “hi-”, with the rest cut off because Dan suddenly lost all confidence and became a bumbling buffoon. But Phil could relate as he’d done the same on multiple occasions.

Dan had awkwardly explained his situation to the McDonald’s worker, going back over what he’d said a couple times, and with his heart in his throat the entire time, but after much palm sweating and embarrassment, he’d managed to get his point across, and he walked back to Phil, triumphantly holding up his cheeseburger, sporting a huge grin. Phil grinned back at him with pride, and the pair casually walked towards the exit. Just as they were passing over the threshold, a noise rung out from the speakers. It was louder than the pop song on the radio, and louder than the chilled chatter from the patrons. 

It was a single G note.

Dan, instantly paralysed with fear, collapsed to the floor and went into the foetal position, shaking and crying about how “it’s not a phase mom!!11!!!111!”. Phil looked on in shock, along with several other parents who were also looking at their traumatised children. He shook his head, and pulled out his portable trolley, dragged Dan onto it, and pulled him the rest of the way home. This happens every couple of days, so after the 18th time Dan collapsed in Tesco’s and wouldn’t get up until he could “join the black parade”, Phil had invested in one of these handy trolleys.

It was only when they had gotten home, that they realised, that the sole purpose of this outing, the delicious, warm, cheesy, cheeseburger, was currently lying squashed on the floor of the McDonald’s, from where Dan had dropped it then fallen on it.

Hit with the realisation, Phil asks Dan gently, “do you want to go back to get another one?”

Dan laughs manically, “I am never going back there ever again.” Dan states firmly, his left eye twitching.

[purrincess-chat]

So I've been meaning to ask for some time now: do you ever sleep? You have so many new ideas going on and constantly updating (btw I'm still waiting for the next chapter of Lady Luck). How on earth do you have time for that?!

Sleep is for the weak  Nah, I’m kidding. I actually sleep quite a lot lol. At least 7 hours or so every night cause I work during the week. I’m fortunately in a time where I can update and write so much if I can just find the energy. When I’m in school I have other things that I have to prioritize over writing when I get home at the end of the day, but I’m not taking any summer classes this semester so when I get home from work at the end of the day, my free time can be whatever I want it to be. I’m on a bit of a creative-high right now, but in some ways I always am, I just don’t have time to devote to it. I come up with new ideas all the time based on people’s fanart, text posts, conversations I have on discord, and other times I just have thoughts that come to me.

Like TTQ. The original idea came to me in the shower randomly one morning (because my writer brain never turns off) and it literally started out as “Ya know, if Chloe’s dad is the mayor, wouldn’t she be kind of on the press’s radar? I wonder what would happen if they found out how awful she is...” and you see what it’s become. Depending on the idea, I may start it immediately like I did with TTQ or I may sit on it for a while like Best Friends Forever and Cat-astrophe which I sat on for almost a year. Usually when I get a new idea, I flesh it out in my brain for a while then as soon as I can I start writing it down. I have a Word document titled “drabble ideas” for stuff like that and then if it’s going to be longer than a couple chapters or when I add more ideas to it, I give it it’s own doc that is usually “___ planning” I also carry around a notebook with me so if I’m out and about I can sit and write it down manually.

It seems like I’ve been going crazy lately with uploading stuff, but I pre-wrote days 1-4 of Think Outside the Love Square, so today I need to work on the next three days. I had also been writing that Ladrien chapter for like a month. It really depends on the story and how long it is. I haven’t started Lady Luck yet, but because they’re short, I can push them off a little. I do it with TTQ (and I also did it with Colors of the Soul) where I would wait until the day I wanted to upload/had time to write, and I literally sit and write the whole chapter in one session. 1000-2000 words only takes me a few hours depending on how many breaks I take and how caught up I get writing clever dialogue. For instance, yesterday, I uploaded 3 things, but I lazed around for most of the day actually. I woke up around 8:30 or so in the morning, checked all of the social medias that I usually do, logged on AO3 and replied to comments, Tumblr, Youtube, Discord, etc then I posted my pre-written piece for Think Outside the Love Square, scrolled around tumblr for a bit, posted the pre-written Ladrien piece, around noon I opened a new Word document and wrote “Chapter 12″ at the top, stared at it for a minute then went back to tumblr and actually closed out of it for a while, and then the rest of my day was more aimless scrolling, eating food, playing games on an off, I took a shower in the afternoon so I wouldn’t have to get up early this morning and do it, I took a two hour nap at one point, then around 8PM I opened up that document again and sat and wrote the whole chapter I posted last night in about an hour and a half or so with breaks every so often. Sometimes it takes me longer, and at one point when I was about halfway through I debated waiting to finish it until today, but then I just so happened to get a second wind and finished it. 

I can do that with short fics because I usually have an idea of what I want to happen in each chapter, so it’s just a matter of bringing it to life. When I plan multi-chapters, I usually plan events that I want to occur in each one, and for short fics like these, I stretch them out into 1000 or so words and call it a day, but for my larger fics like Lady du Coeur where my goal is at least 6000 words a chapter, I have a bit more planned and the overall length (6000-10,000 words) depends on what I had planned. I really don’t know how long a chapter will be until I write it, so sometimes things that I had planned for one chapter get spread into several chapters and other times I’m adding so much extra to make it stretch. 

How do I find time? I dunno. I don’t go out too often. I mean, I do a few times a week with friends, and on the weekends I sometimes do stuff with my family (like today I’m going to my parent’s house for dinner). But most of the time during the week when I get home from work since my roommates moved out, it’s just me so I have all the time in the world until I go to bed I just have to find the motivation and energy to do it. I can’t tell you how I come up with ideas cause I just do. I think writing them down helps me remember them. There are ideas that I have in my drabble doc that I forget about until I go back and look at them again. This week is going to be a little hectic for me, so we’ll see how it goes, but if you look at the calendar I posted (I should reblog that for reference) you’ll see when I have each story planned. The dates on there are my goal, so I’m going to do my best to stick with them. Fingers crossed. This got very long, but I hope it answers your question and wasn’t just me rambling for 20 minutes. :) 

[pocketramblr]

Pocket, I'm in the same boat as you, will need to have surgery soon to fix my back because of the scoliosis. Not gonna lie, I'm super nervous about it. If you don't mind answering, how did it go for you?

Oh, dear. Well, I don't know how bad your curves are and which surgery you're getting- I know there's other options like the magnetic rods, or where you get it done in two parts instead of one. But for me, I had two (rapidly worsening) curves, one 66° and one 67°- I'm told that about 50° is where they start recommending surgery. I'd hazard that if you have smaller curves it'll be easier than I had it, and if you have larger it'll be a bit harder.

I got very long-winded below, but the short version is:

I'm sorry that you have to get surgery, and I'm sorry that I have to tell you honestly, it sucks. I know you're nervous and I was also terrified beforehand. I can't tell you it was actually super easy, but I can tell you that now, years later, I absolutely am glad I did the surgery. I'm stronger, and while I have days my back hurts still, I'm in a lot less pain. For the rest of my college career, I had to take a pillow with me everywhere because I couldn't sit down in the chairs without it. To this day I still bring a pillow with me in the car when I drive everywhere, because I can't sit comfortably without it. But I'd still say it was worth it.

It... Was hard for me. The recovery out of the hospital was harder than the surgery itself. I lost a lot of weight from the surgery and the time on bedrest after. It's been years and I still haven't actually gained it all back.

I was in the hospital for a full week after the surgery. Then I went home and was on bedrest for about a month- I needed a bunch of pillows on my bed in order to change my positions- lean my back up, bend my legs, change it so I was kinda tilted while lying down, not quite on my side but leaning more one way. Things like that. I also spent a lot of time in a recliner, reclined all the way down. Sometimes I slept in it, sometimes I had to move between the bed and the recliner at night. Expect a lot of interupted sleep, because positions were rarely comfortable for eight hours straight.

You'll need a shower chair- just a plastic chair you can use in the shower is fine, or you can get one made for it. Follow whatever your doctor tells you about water on your scar but I think once I was allowed to get it wet I found just pouring a lot of soapy water over it was the best way since I couldn't actually scrub it. About the scar- my surgeon apparently used a method from plastic surgery to minimize scaring? It still absolutely is there, but it's thin and pale. If you get your surgery this year I don't think you'll need to worry about the scar for any swimsuit wearing next summer.

You'll need physical therapy afterwards too. It'll hurt, but it'll help. Talk to your physical therapist. I'm serious, talk about what hurts too much, or what your actual goals or nervousness are. They have you working on carrying things but you really, really need to get better at stairs soon? Talk to them about when you can incorporate that. Talking to them lets them help you more.

Your PA- physician's assistant- will also be a help. My surgeon didn't help me much beyond the surgery, but my PA was who we called when the pain meds weren't working the first two weeks out of the hospital, and he went through and realized the hospital uh. Under dosed me. He's the one that offered tips for moving around the house, for dealing with other side effects of the drugs, and on how to use the death magnet.

Um, it's not really called "the death magnet" but that's what my family called it. Your surgeon might not have you use it, but if they do, then you'll just wear this magnetic wheel on your back for half an hour a day. Apparently it's strong enough you want to stay a certain distance away from any electronics when you turn it on, or it'll kill them. Hence the nickname. I had to use this thing for a year after surgery but it was really kinda weird and I don't remember it's proper name. If your doctor doesn't have you do it, it's fine. If you do, it doesn't hurt anything. The worst if it was I just was bored because I couldn't use my phone for half an hour.

I'm going to apologize again because I really wish I could say there's nothing to be afraid of and it'll be easy. It might be! I had an unusually difficult time because of some issues with the pharmacy about the painkillers and my unhealthy weight. But that wasn't normal. It probably wouldn't be a problem for you- at least not the undermedicated thing, really. There may be other problems. You could lose your appetite because of the painkillers, or you could get constipation, or you might even have to go to therapy afterwards because of it. But you could not. You could be out of the hospital in four days, you could get the right medication (you probably will), you could not have to worry about wearing a magnet for half an hour everyday, you could really end up liking you physical therapist and working well with them. (I did!)

But really, it'll be fine. It'll suck, it'll hurt sometimes, and be uncomfortable even more of the time, but it'll also be fine. Your body will be healthier, your spine will thank you for fixing it. You internal organs will thank you for getting the spine out of where they were supposed to be. In the end? It'll turn out alright.