#anon you are not alone though

[separatist-apologist]

I'm with you. What pisses me off about the gwynriel and elucien fandom now is that some fans nowadays are flooting the tags with anti el/riel content.

I love theories and all, but I miss the days in which the tags were mostly filled with fluff and fun content, not shipwar related crap. Maybe it's because of the hofas release...? They should just use the anti el/riel tag and leave out the gwynriel and elucien tag so that stans like me can enjoy the fun content.

From your lips to mine and LBs ears. We complain about this all the time, it genuinely feels so stressful in the elucien tag but if I say that someone is gonna race to my askbox to tell me to get off my high horse AGAIN. You're not the only one feeling this way- I recently unfollowed the Elucien tag because even if you're not in the tag, it pops up on my dash and it's never fic or art like before, it's just vaguing people who don't know or care about the endless rebuttals

[kedreeva]

#we spoke of this a LOT at work after that one tech was murdered and hidden in a wall

hi!👋 hello! kedreeva! i’m going to need to ask you to explain this!!!!

So back in 2009, a lab student named Annie Le was murdered at Yale university. Cameras saw her going on into a building, but not out again and it was like, the eve of her wedding (or close to? I don't remember) so clearly she had places to be and people waiting for her so they immediately started looking and the next day (or so? Anyway on the day of her wedding) they found her body in a recess in a wall, down in the areas where the research animals were kept. It turns out, a tech had killed her, but since there were cameras like EVERYWHERE, he just, I guess, left her there. Well, hid the body where it was. I don't remember how they caught him, but they did. It was a horrifying story. It still is.

And it was a huge news story among the folks at my workplace because, at the time, I was working at a different university, as an animal husbandry technician. As you can imagine this was a kind of intense time to be in that situation. They started offering, like, I'm not gonna say counseling but it was "if you need to talk we would prefer you talk to us about something wrong rather than kill anyone about it" and as techs (even if we were not even the same kind of tech, the killer was a lab tech and we were husbandry techs but I think a lot of people assumed it had been a husbandry tech since she was in an animal area), we were kind of getting the side eye from lab people for weeks afterwards. Like they thought we were gonna go "wow that's a fantastic idea, you're next!" or something, idk. And I mean like, people would freeze when you were alone in a hallway, or turn and walk the other way, or duck into the nearest room and watch you walk past, and they were all being super nice/civil to us when they did have to interact. It was very atypical behavior for lab people. Like not all of them, some of them had always been nice and weren't worried, but some of the people who had been unbelievable dicks previously were walking on eggshells. And the people who had friends in other universities reported this was happening at their jobs, too.

And instead of talking to The Man (because all the higher ups were garbage at the time), we just. talked among ourselves. It was a lot of "I may say I feel like strangling lab people sometimes when they do things that drive me up a wall but I don't MEAN it you know that right" and it also led to group discussions of what would be a theoretical *better* solution to hiding a body than what happened, with clear disdain for doing things like hiding bodies in walls, which is a terrible idea and one we would never do (looking at the people who think we might have decided this was a great idea actually).

Which consequently led to a lot of supervisors and/or managers that happened to overhear us bringing us donuts or arranging pizza for lunch in like, some kind of bid to help us feel appreciated, I guess, so that we wouldn't murder anyone, even though none of us were going to do that anyway. But also none of us were in a position to turn down free donuts or pizza or whatever.

And then after a few weeks, maybe a month or so, people just kind of forgot and moved on and things went back to normal like fifty people hadn't spent every lunch hour for weeks talking quietly among themselves about how human bodies would definitely fit into a carcass disposal barrel or that you'd have to crush hip bones and/or skulls before incineration. Hypothetically.

Like I said, it was a VERY weird time to be at my job, and every time I remember it happening feels like a fever dream. I can't even imagine what it was like at Yale.

[emry-stars-art]

why do you draw kevin so yummy? 🤨

[corrodedcoughin]

some thoughts about Steddie and blowing kisses

It started as all things do with them, as a joke. He doesn't know when it started but it did, as part of his routine when he leaves Robin he blows her a kiss. Just a touch of his fingers to his mouth and a wave of his hand. Nothing elaborate. And Robin's response is equally routine, pretends to grab it and stick it in her shirt pocket.

Everyone is used to it, nothing new, just part of their relationship. Eddie is hanging out at family video with them both when Steve goes to take his break outside, desperate for some fresh air after being stuck in the stuffy store. As he is heading out the door, he sends Robin a kiss, she puts up her hand to catch it and that's when the routine changes. Eddie vaults over a display table of tapes and mimes grabbing the kiss and eating it. He’s like a wild animal, snorting and snuffling crouched on the ground, looking up at Steve when he's finished with a deranged smile

'Thanks for that Stevie, I was starving.'

Both Robin and Steve are trying so desperately not to laugh but they can't help it, Steve stumbles out the front door with a 'what the fuck' coming out between the gasps for air and Robin is applauding Eddie from inside the store. Eddie obviously gives a dramatic and over the top bow.

Eddie is involved in the kiss routine from then on and the response is always a surprise. Steve has witnessed his air kisses being hit by an imaginary bat achieving a home run with Eddie doing a victory lap around the parking lot, being clutched out of the air and stuffed in Eddie's back pocket 'for later', caught in Eddie's hands and let out the window like an unwanted insect, inhaled in like a hoover, cowered against and fought like it was a life threatening dragon 'Sir Steve, Lady Buckley stay close! I will slay the beast!'

They escalate and escalate until one day Eddie is standing next to Steve when he blows the kiss. Steve anticipates his response, he'd be lying if he said he's now only really blowing these kisses to see what Eddie will do, see the smile it brings to the other boy's face and tries to push down the butterflies in his own stomach when Eddie sends a wink to Steve at the end of the performance. This time though? Eddie pretends to grab the kiss out of the air, places it to his cheek, with a blush creeping up from his neck and leans forward. He leans and lets his lips brush Steve's cheek in return. Steve is frozen solid, trying desperately not to let his legs buckle in surprise and feels Eddie smile as he whispers 'figured I better start returning these. think I've got a lot to make up for.'

[whereismyhat5678]

*Me push Pepperman to kiss Vigilante*

Eheheh, I’m so evil 😈 *runs*

And a bonus:

Phil’s to scared to confront his feelings yet-

WELL YOU SURELY HELPED- (Jk- this was really fun to do thanks XD🫶💥)

[deoidesign]

I’m a trans man that recently got diagnosed with hyper mobile eds, so now seeing Steve makes me extra happy, because cool disabled ftm rep. Thanks for making the radical dude bro, he’s funky.

same disability (waving hand emoji)

Always extremely fulfilling to know my work makes people happy in some small way, it means a lot. Thank you for sharing with me

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia

Feel free to ignore if this is unwelcome, but have you ever thought about publishing traditionally to sublimate your income and draw in new readers? I know you've self published two books already and that you didn't feel like they did very well, but maybe the experience would be different if someone else was in charge of marketing and all the other business stuff?

Obviously everyone's experience is different but as an author myself who's published both trad and self, traditional publishing has been a completely different experience and has allowed me to focus more on writing because I'm not the one responsible for advertising/marketing/financing anymore.

There are a ton of literary agents nowadays that want to represent diverse and lgbtqia+ fiction, some of them even in Australia.

Websites like Reedsy, AgentQuery and Jerichowriters have extensive directories to find literary agents.

(This is lengthy folks so I'm putting the other two parts (and my response) under a read more! Also putting it under a read more so the anon can skip my response since it's very 'here's all the reasons I can't do this' and they just might not want to read that, lmao)

(continued -> )

Trad publishing houses have better resources for marketing and helping authors get more attention than any self publishing website could.

Obviously most authors, unless they're really prolific, don't get a huge advance (the average is between $1000 - $5000) but getting your foot in the door or on the traditional publishing "ladder' so to speak can have a huge benefit for your serials. Because it gives you more exposure. Plus it's in the agent's best interest to find a publishing house that accepts stories that contain darker themes and negotiate the best deal for you.

For some reason places like Amazon and the like accept and keep up more "dark" books that are traditionally published than they do with self pub ones. Maybe because they have more respect or leniency for publishing houses? I have no idea. But you could use this to your advantage. I think I remember you mentioning that writing novels felt quite isolating to you? But you already have 2 completed novels (3 if you count the fae one) that you could potentially revisit or rewrite to your liking and get them represented by agents.

You already have a loyal readership and that's very attractive to trad pub houses and agents.

As well as trad publishing, you could also make s simple website that doesn't require much maintenance. It could be just a landing page that says something about you and then has links to your tumblr and patreon where you're more active. That way you increase the chances of getting your serials found by additional readers and also come across looking more "professional". Not that you're not professional now. You are and I admire you greatly, but the unfortunate reality is a lot of people still judge by appearances and some will be more drawn to an author's website than a tumblr page, at least at first. So I think having a simple landing page would open up another door for you to benefit from.

Trad publishing is work but definitely not as much as self publishing, and you can continue on with your serials. Getting an agent can be time consuming but I personally believe the pros outweigh the cons and I also believe that your stories would be a huge treasure to the growing lgbtqia+ market. Seriously there needs to be more!

These are just suggestions and thoughts and like I said before, feel free to ignore. But I know you've mentioned wanting to grow your career in the past and I genuinely believe you can do so with some of these pathways.

~

Okay, my response. Posting this because firstly I think the suggestions could work very well for other authors reading this! And I hope they take the advice to note, and secondly because I haven't talked about this for a hot minute so let's talk about it again.

So the TL;DR is yes I have considered traditional publishing. I have actually been traditionally published in short stories, poetry, and also had my art published on covers and re: interior illustrations. But my Fae Tales works got soundly rejected when I sent them to publishing houses that were doing open calls for that sort of material. I've never heard back from an agent and I never expect to, heh.

~

Now for a bit more detail

I have been traditionally published before (it's how I got my writing out there long before I ever wrote serials), and yes, I have approached publishers with my writing since then. In fact Tradewinds was written for the traditional publishing market, and it got soundly rejected, and then shelved. The reasons it was rejected ran the gamut from 'I don't like that these fae eat humans no one is going to relate to these people' (while the editor then went on to publish vampire books idk) to 'There's too much worldbuilding you can't expect readers to keep up with this' to 'Your stories are too long, no one wants to read characters talking all the time.'

Meanwhile in my online serials I was getting feedback like 'my favourite chapters are the ones where the characters just sit in a room and talk' lol.

The traditional publishing world is also not quite as utopian for most authors as you make it seem. I'm friends with a lot of authors who are traditionally published because that's the world I came from, and unless they're solely in KU and doing generic rapid release formula romances, none of them are making that much money. Certainly not enough to live off. It may have been that you were very fortunate, anon, but I know hundreds more traditionally published authors that left trad pub to make money, and I know about 5 in trad pub personally who are making enough to live off of.

Only one of those is really writing what she truly loves to write, and even then, publishing houses have refused to commit to her entire fantasy series (and she's regularly in 'Top 10/20 Women Fantasy Authors in the World' lists) and forced her to finish the series prematurely. Something I never ever have to worry about in self pub.

The reality is that in trad pub these days, you're still in charge of most of your marketing unless you're one of the big earners for the publishing house. In fact I'd be expected to keep even more of a social media and marketing presence than I do now. I don't do almost any of the things you're supposed to do as an author in marketing to be appealing. I don't have a Facebook author account. I don't have an Instagram author account. I don't maintain or regularly send out newsletters (which automatically puts me in the like 0.05% of authors who make money doing this lmao).

I don't know if you ever have looked that closely into what m/m publishing houses expect from most of their authors, but the newsletter swaps, cover releases, review circuits, interview circuits and more are fucking grueling. We're expected to be responsible for our advertising and our marketing to a fairly massive degree. Some traditionally published in m/m still have to pay for their release blitzes out of pocket. These publishing houses, by and large, do not offer advances. You say most authors don't get large advances. I don't think most authors in this arena get offered advances at all unless they're somehow miraculously acquired by a Big 4.

We're expected to have an already established social media presence because of that (that's why it's so appealing to publishers that we have social media presences already, anon, so we can market, they can save money, and we still see only a minimal cut from the royalties).

And you still have to focus on your finances, because publishing houses like Dreamspinner straight up didn't pay a whole bunch of authors for so long they destroyed careers. They still haven't paid some of their authors. And they're still running a business and people still buy their books.

Trad publishing houses have better resources for marketing and helping authors get more attention than any self publishing website could.

This is true if a) they're a big publishing house and not an indie publisher of which most LGBTQIA+ publishing houses are and b) they're willing to use them on you.

The authors that make the most money get the most resources. If they believe you're going to earn back your advance and move thousands or tens of thousands of units per book, then yes, you will get those resources.

I have been told so many times now - even from friends who run publishing houses, including one who works at HarperCollins - that my work will never be mainstream enough to have broad appeal. They literally told me not to keep trying re: trad pub, because that was my dream for a long time. These folks have given me rock solid advice in the past, it's one of the reasons I'm doing so well now via Patreon + Ream. But they were like (paraphrasing) 'you don't write 60-80k romances and you don't want to and that's not your strength anyway, you're multi-genre which makes you hard to market, you write psychological and literary trauma recovery which is hard to market, you write character studies which are hard to market, publishing houses often don't commit to series anymore if the first two don't move units and if they pulled the plug you'd be contractually obliged to never finish that series until your contract was up.' I could go on, but it was like yeah...actually. Fair.

For some reason places like Amazon and the like accept and keep up more "dark" books that are traditionally published than they do with self pub ones. Maybe because they have more respect or leniency for publishing houses?

They do, but most publishing houses want very formulaic dark romance which is not what I write.

I have a 300k omegaverse slowburn that still hasn't had any penetrative sex in it, anon. Publishing houses don't want that. They don't expect anyone will wait 4 full length novels to get to literally a single penetrative sex scene.

But you already have 2 completed novels (3 if you count the fae one) that you could potentially revisit or rewrite to your liking and get them represented by agents.

If I rewrote them to my liking, trad pub wouldn't want them. They'd be too long! I think agents etc. take one look at me and go 'oh god, no thank you!' I'm not an easy sell, by any means.

Plus I'm very e.e about all of that with the knowledge that they then give me only about 10-15% of the royalties on the sales, vs. self-pub where I get around 70%, or subscription where I around 80% of it. When someone subscribes to me, they don't have to worry about 85-90% of their subscription fee going to a publishing house. I don't have to think about how many thousands and thousands of books I'd have to sell to make the same amount that I do now via subscription.

As well as trad publishing, you could also make s simple website that doesn't require much maintenance.

If it was that simple, I'd be doing it. I don't mean this in a facetious way, I mean it in a: I've made a lot of websites, in fact I run one at the moment not connected to my writing (I've been running it for so long it's now in its 20s and can probably has a driver's license). I find it so tedious that I barely remember to check in on it. But forgetting about it means there's always maintenance to keep up with when I get back to it.

Running websites is simpler than it used to be, but it's still not simple. There's hosting and hosting costs, there's server changes, there's back-end maintenance etc. I'm considering it for down the track, but there's a reason I decided to go the route of Patreon over my own site. There are authors (like Christopher Hopper) who actually do subscription through their own domain, but it's a lot of work.

Even placeholder sites are still work. They need updating, details change, story titles changing etc. Maintaining my Patreon + Ream About pages is enough, they're always both a little out of date, lol.

Not that you're not professional now.

Oh no, I mean from a 'traditional publisher looking at me to see what kind of candidate I am' I'm really not though. Like I said, I don't have the newsletter (100 subscribers who get one newsletter a year is not really a newsletter), I don't have the Facebook/Tiktok/Insta/Twitter/Bluesky/Threads accounts, etc. I write multi-genre across multiple steam levels, and I'm allergic to writing serials shorter than 150k. One of my best performing original serials was an 800k contemporary story with no sex in it but a lot of BDSM. It can't be marketed as clean or sweet, it's not high steam, an entire chapter is 'boy saves snail from rain.' Also he was cruel to animals, so not exactly what I'd call a sympathetic main.

And yet that story did so well for me via Patreon + Ream, because people want the kinds of stories that publishing houses generally don't want and I happen to be writing them.

Trad publishing is work but definitely not as much as self publishing, and you can continue on with your serials. Getting an agent can be time consuming but I personally believe the pros outweigh the cons and I also believe that your stories would be a huge treasure to the growing lgbtqia+ market. Seriously there needs to be more!

Anon I just literally do not believe an agent would want to represent me. I have 0% belief in that. Not from a self-deprecating angle but from a 'I am not a good bet for the trad market' perspective. From a 'I have so many friends who are trad pubbed authors who stare at me like I'm insane for writing serials as long as I do' perspective. From a 'professionals in the industry have told me it's amazing I'm doing so well in serials because there's no way they'd take a risk on what I'm doing' perspective. From a 'just because it's queer and diverse doesn't mean it hits literally any other thing a trad pub is looking for' perspective. I've been doing this for 10 years. There are agents who represent work similar to mine who know what I'm doing and wouldn't touch me with a ten foot pole. They're not missing out on a trick, they know I'm not broad appeal, and they're right.

Also the only way I'd have the energy to manage trad pub is by quitting serials. And honestly, I never found trad pub all that much fun while I was doing it for non-novel stuff. It was fine, and it is nice to have my stuff out there, but it was a ton of admin and a lot of going back and forth between people who really only care about marketing a product, and that's great and what they excel at! But I'm too disabled to turn this job into something crushing just to potentially make more money, I'd rather just quit and go back onto a full Disability Pension. I can't see any way I still get to write the stories I want to write, in the way that I write them, and be remotely appealing to a single reputable trad pub or agent.

Also *gestures to everything in this article*

[dearweirdme]

[bluestonewings]

Kuruk 🤝 Yangchen

It’s not addiction if it’s helping me survive (about Kuruk’s alcoholism and yangchen’s energy tea)

LITERALLY!!!!

Every avatar 🤝 every other avatar

Life kicking them extra hard in the shins

I think one of the neatest things in the books is FC Yee sets stuff up in earlier books and then follows it up later. Kyoshi tells us kuruk is perceived as a failure because he follows up perfect yangchen. He struggles with alcoholism and he literally relies on it as a drug to survive his soul being broken up but nobody knows. And then in Yangchen we get hints about how much she struggles and has her demons and nobody knows and then we get told about her fucked up energy tea and it’s like oh.

Oh yangchen is so overworked she has to self medicate herself into functioning while she suffers. kuruk has no way of knowing that and he’s being tortured so he has to self medicate himself into functioning while he suffers. They both suffer so greatly while they are alive and cope in such tragic ways (self medication w alcohol or caffeine). it’s the parallels these avatars have w each other of pushing themselves to the brink

[ask-my-memoir]

???: "..."

Anon , @ask-everything-nice

Thank you so much for the asks!))

[skeletalheartattack]

Devil bottles takes control of your dog for revenge clawing and biting its horrible

not my fuckin dog man leave him out of this

[butwhatifidothis]

Hi, I'm really sorry if this does come off sounding rude. I've followed your 3h content for a while now so I was around to see the drama with raxis and things like moonlitboar occur. It really does suck and I've seen a lot of toxic edelgard stans myself in the fandom. I do understand how raxis does tend to block evade thus making it a prolonged conflict with no easy end. But I can't help but feel that the discord screenshots you've posted have not helped in resolving the conflict. I don't think that you have been wrong about the culture of toxicity inside the discord but I feel that the discord screenshots may have escalated the conflict since now there are people there who are becoming very paranoid about about "spying" (which in itself a little bit of a grey area because it is a public discord) . But I think that paranoia in the discord now has the potential to turn really ugly and further radicalize more people in the discord. And because there are some neutral people in that discord who do seem to want to just block and ignore/tired of some arguments, I think that an end to the discord screenshots would keep them from being swayed by the paranoia/ a sign of good faith. I really don't think that you are in the wrong when it comes to this whole thing with raxis. I think that raxis's actions and behavior do deserve to be called out in the past and present. But I just feel like trying to call out one person is one thing but a whole discord is just a very huge and impossible challenge. I think that the discord is just best left ignored as these people have clearly made it clear that they really don't want to be reasoned with or want to change and I think that they are getting really dangerous. I really do hope this doesn't come off as both sides are bad because I do believe that this problem has always originated from Raxis. Sorry this got so long and I really do wish you all the best.

It's no problem; I understand where you're coming from.

What I feel about it is this: people from outside the server did not know the depths this server was sinking into. Leaving them alone as we have been would have resulted in them continuing to go on as though everything was fine as long as they confined their rhetoric to a certain spot; I feel it's important to remind people that that is not true, as that would only isolate the problem while doing nothing to actually rectify it or stop it from getting worse (even though this of course isn't going to magically cure everything either, to be clear).

Even well before I posted these specific screenshots, they were paranoid about the entire fandom "persecuting and targeting" them for "no reason," they were paranoid about how everyone is "out to get" Edelgard in FE's general fandom spaces, they were paranoid that every single other person who ever criticizes them is some form of evil bigot (which would normally be a bit of an exaggeration, if it wasn't for them genuinely saying this every single time something like this happens); at worst, this will just be used as yet another scapegoat to continue their self-fulfilling prophecy of being generally disliked in the fandom. At best, this warns people about what's been going on - a miracle could even happen and some of the people in the server can see what the higher ups in their server have been letting slide and leave.

I called out Raxis because of the harm he was (and, frankly, still is) doing to others, and I am doing the same to the Edelgang discord because of the harm their mods have either allowed to happened or have outright participated in themselves. Given the general consensus of people from the outside's reactions (that being shock and/or disgust), I think it's ultimately important to warn people of harmful actors and the rhetoric they spread.

Especially given how they responded. If there was any sign of remorse for what was done - Shandale disavowing their previous beliefs, or if that didn't happen them getting unmodded/banned/some sort of action done from the mod team, or even just some pushback from the general members (something they were more than ready to do in defense of Raxis, and something they were willing to do when these sentiments were first said) - I would have been more than ready to delete the screenshots and apologize for showing them. But their defense of it - that it was "taken out of context," as though what was said could ever be alright to say, as though they do in fact stand by them - shows the importance of calling this behavior out.

They do not think it was that bad. They think these sentiments are okay to have, as long as they are in the "right context." And I don't think it's okay for people to not know that given how dangerous the rhetoric is

[ruelpsen]

the urge to post about the character currently giving me brainrot (canonically fat, hot, bi-coded) vs. the fear of recognition (they are niche enough that people in separate circles would recognize me here if I talk too openly about said character since there are few quite as obsessed about them as I am)

[strawbubbysugar]

I say this as someone who always uses anon for questions but uh. I completely understand if you revoke anon privileges after that. I think you should honestly. Good luck, stay true to the story you want to tell, and block anyone who starts shit in your inbox.

Nah. I love getting anons and I don’t want to punish people who did nothing wrong for one person’s actions. If I consistently get more asks like that the. Maybe, but for now, I’m not letting one bad ask ruin everybody else’s fun.

[sincerely-nines]

I want them to realise how bad they actually make Jimmy feel and allow him to do the same back but he just,, fails and feels too mean :( He doesn’t have the gene to be that mean!!! He CAN be an asshole tho. As a treat.

Sometimes I miss Evo. The bullying wasn’t that bad and The Mafia and the property police war…I loved them. I remember watching the last few episodes of Jimmy’s Evo series and seeing him and Zee together like. Yeah they gay for eachother enemies to lovers. THEY CALLED THEMSELVES DAPHENE AND FRED (Jimmy was daphene ofc ofc) Teehee they are so much better than the Flower husbands- WHO SAID THAT. I don’t like Fh, people just kept trying to force it and Jimmy finally was able to shut it down with Double life and Limited life. I’ll never forget how people made Jimmy seem like a villain for saying that…ooo he chose Tango over Scott after Tango treated him better and treated him like an equal oooo sooo baddd

It's true, he doesn't have the gene to be that mean BUT HE TRIES A LOT THOUGH, HE TRIES TO MAKE HIMSELF BIG, ALL LARGER THAN LIFE, BUT TENDS TO DEFLATE AT THE FIRST POKE. When he does act like a bastard (which is very often) he's so quick to follow it up with a small act of apology (not the exact word im looking for but i mean he'll smack your cubito but then say im joking or kiss you) even when he takes he feels like he has to give to some degree.

I honestly should pick up Evo some of these days, I need to see what Jimmy's dynamics with other people are like. Also, I like fh somewhat, I think in isolation they are a really cute pair and they have their moments. But I don't really want to talk about them because they are a whole can of worms I don't want to discuss. In general, I don't want to step on other people's ships. If I have nothing nice to say, I really wont say it. But, um. coughs I am Team Rancher trash so obviously i cheered a little when that whole limlife "scott or tango" shebang happened. I had no idea people villainized jimmy for that though! That's wild.

[x-gon-give-it]

how's your writing process?

I think I've got a pretty good system down--at least for me.

Step 1 is the rough draft. And I mean the roughest rough draft to ever draft. Lot's a run-on sentences. Nonsense descriptions. Awkward dialogue. Really just getting the bare bones of writing on the page. The type of writing I wouldn't let anyone see lest they judge my writing capabilities.

Step 2 is something that every writer dreads hearing, and when I first heard of it my knee-jerk reaction would be to self-destruct instead of doing it, but it actually really works. That would be rewriting the entire thing from top-to-bottom. Full on blank page, retyping the whole thing word for word, but at a slower, more detailed pace.

I initially though it would be like pulling teeth, but actually, it helps me slow down and flesh out the world, scenes, and dialogue way more. It's easier to catch it if something isn't flowing right.

Sometimes, if I feel like the draft really needs it, I'll rewrite the entire thing 2-3 more times.

Step 3 is transferring the entire thing to Google Docs (I write on Scrivener), changing the font, tidying up the format, and going over it again in a new, fresh layout. Sometimes, I'll also edit it on my phone to give my brain a different perspective of it.

Step 4 is putting it into a editing software, like Grammarly or ProWritingAid (<- I prefer this one, personally). It has a lot of cool settings. The ones I typically put my stuff through go is grammar, flow, style, and echos.

Step 5 is then listening to the chapter in a text-to-speech app, which makes it way easier to any spot clunky sentences, weird dialogue, grammar mistakes, spelling mistakes etc.. that I might've missed in my previous run-throughs.

Sometimes--this is more like a side-step--I'll then have a beta go over it, because as any writer knows, the more you look at your own writing, the easier it is to not see mistakes T.T After the beta goes over it, I'll listen to it one more time, just to be safe, and then:

Step 6: Prosper. Post that shit on AO3 and obsessively check my email for immediate validation >.<

Writing it all out, the whole thing seems a bit complicated, but it works for me, so it's the general process I follow when writing stuff ^.^