#didn't work with the flow of the fic at all but i am rather fond of it as a standalone scene

[flowers-and-dndoc]

Find Me (Find Yourself) Deleted Scene (11/15)

They easily reach the Tardis before the Chuldur get anywhere near them, but the Doctor still hurries to pull Rogue inside and close the door behind them.  A wave of panic and pain sweeps over the Doctor as Rouge steps inside into the bright white light of the console room, and he feels Rogue’s hand leave his. He turns, and sees Rogue falling to his knees, his hands pressed over his eyes.  His own panic rising to meet Rogue’s, the Doctor kneels beside him, wrapping an arm around him and pulling him close.  Tension radiates throughout Rogue, his muscles taut with what could be either fear or pain.

“Rogue, honey, what’s wrong?” The Doctor asks, voice thick with concern.  Rogue’s mouth twists in a pained grimace.  

“Sorry, I’m alright,” he says, voice strained even as he tries to speak evenly. “It’s just been a long time since I was out of the dark.  The planet didn’t have any sort of daylight cycle.” 

“It’s okay, love, just breathe,” the Doctor says, rubbing small circles against Rogue’s back.  He snaps his fingers with his other hand, and the lights in the Tardis console dim drastically until they’re at about the same level as the glowing moss in the cave.  Slowly, Rogue begins to relax against the Doctor’s arm, and he lowers his hands from his face.  There’s tears trickling from his eyes that he quickly rubs away.  

“Sorry,” he says again, an edge to his voice that the Doctor might label anger if he couldn’t taste the man’s utter mortification through their bond. 

“How long was it, for you? ” The Doctor asks him, voice soft, still gently rubbing Rogue’s back.  The touch seems to help ground Rogue as he thinks about the answer.  

“Hard to tell time without days,” Rogue says. “But I think it’s been….two, maybe three earth-standard months since 1813?” The Doctor’s brow creases.  

“I’m so, so sorry Rogue.  I wish we could have picked you up sooner, the Tardis isn’t the best with precision and foreign dimensions-”

Rogue cuts him off with a weak smile.  “I’m just glad you found me, Doctor.” He gently takes the Doctor’s hand and inspects it, looking at the ring on his pinkie finger.  “You kept it,” he starts to say, before he’s interrupted by a pounding noise behind them - the Chuldur, presumably, have finally caught up to them, and are trying to break into the Tardis.  

“Right!” the Doctor says, jumping up suddenly.  “They shouldn’t be able to break the Tardis’s defenses, but I believe that’s my cue to get us out of here.”

[electricshoebox]

2024 writing retrospective

Tagged by @bardic-inspo, thank you!

What’s been your biggest learning point this past year?

People won't disappear into the ether and never read stuff again if work eats all my creative energy and writing has to wait. (Thank you all for your patience). Also that writing flows better if I don't force it. Not necessarily a new lesson, but one I keep having to re-learn.

How has your writing developed this past year?

To be honest, it feels like it was two steps forward, one step back. There are times I feel like that writing muscle almost atrophied, but I now that's probably more just slogging through difficult scenes I wasn't excited for, or pushing through road blocks in plotting. So I'm not sure I feel like I have a development milestone I felt like I achieved, just not giving up, which is something.

Good writing habits?

Listening to my gut on when I'm in a good place to write and when I'm not. I think I'm learning that I'm just not a writer that can keep to a set schedule for writing, at least at this stage. Work takes so much out of me that pushing myself to write when I'm running on empty just makes me resent the process. So I think even though I had to go long periods without writing consistently, that kept me from stopping entirely. Also, having a second pair of eyes is invaluable for me. It helps so much to have someone else help find the places that aren't working or need tweaking when I've been staring at it too long.

Bad writing habits?

This might not immediately sound like a writing habit, but I think not reading enough. I have a lot of trouble reading books since I got so burned out on reading in college, but I know it actually really helps my own writing to absorb and learn from others. I know I'm reading something good when it makes me want to write. I need to make more of an effort to do that.

Favorite thing you wrote?

Honestly, probably both of the X6 scenes in Eye of the Storm. I've never written him before, and it was a little challenging, but also kind of fun to find his voice and strategize what would be most in character for him. It took the story in a direction I didn't expect, in a really good way.

I was also fond of the little thing I wrote for Dragon Age: The Veilguard (Food for Thought). Fallout is my forever girl, but it was nice to step out (or rather back into) into a different universe for a little while. It's mostly just a self-indulgent fluff thing, but it was a nice treat for me.

Favorite reads?

I already confessed I am shamefully under-read this year, and actually ended up re-reading old favorites or reading older fics for the first time, and mostly Dragon Age in the lead up to the game. But I have some that made the end of the year a huge treat.

hold the hand of death by zythepsary (Alistair/Zevran, Dragon Age Origins) This is the Alistair/Zevran fic of my dreams. Set after the end of the game in a worldstate where Alistair and Anora are sharing the throne, this is so lovingly, carefully written with an absolutely cornucopia of wonderful, practical living details. Fake dating with so much delicious pining. Marie is the absolute is the master of both pining and kisses so exquisite they make you ache in your soul.

A Beacon on Strange Waters by paperiuni (Neve/Davrin/Lucanis, Dragon Age: The Veilguard) A wonderfully intriguing intro to the Winged Creatures series that follows the development of this triad through the game timeline. June always writes with such incredible atmosphere and emotion, and so much attention to character voice. I was swept in and hungry for more immediately.

Strayed Purpose by AntigravityDevice (Neve/Davrin/Lucanis, Dragon Age: The Veilguard) The second entry to this wonderful series. I was absolutely on the edge of my seat for the whole fic. The quest that frames the fic is so well-crafted and compelling I am so genuinely disappointed that it's not actually in the game. Again, character voices just shine here, and all of the delicious hints at the building tension between them all were so delightful. I cannot wait to see how the series progresses with these two wonderful authors at the helm.

Biggest win?

Finishing my second fanfiction novel. I've already reflected on it a lot but just holding this story in my head for 4 years and then finally getting to release the last of it into the world is just... indescribable. My emotions are all over the place. I'm so overjoyed to have accomplished this, but I think there's a big part of me that's mourning the end, too. I'm so proud of it, but it's also hard to say goodbye.

Goals for the new year?

There is for sure one more story for the Line in the Sand series I want to post. I've already started working on it. It will just be a oneshot, but it's an idea I had that my friend pushed me to go for. Just sort of a coda. Not ruling out more in the future! But might be time to take a little break.

I do also have a few ideas kicking around back on the Dragon Age side of things, but I'm trying to give myself the breathing room to take a break if I need to. We'll see.

I also really would like to start working on something original. I'm not sure what shape that will take, but I think I've proven to myself that I can do it, and I'd like to try.

Your favorite words of the year, aka the words you check each chapter for, making sure you didn’t repeat them 788 times?

Oh lord, I know I have them but I'm blanking at the moment. I know I use "a little" more than I should.

What are you excited for in the new year?

I think just having the freedom to decide what direction I want to go next!

Tagging (no pressure, just if you'd like to!): @junemermaid, @zythepsary, @mercurymiscellany, @twosides--samecoin, and anyone else that would like to!

[phdmama]

HI HELLO I would very much like to know 27, 30, and a wildcard of your choice!! Love you!!!

THANK YOU BBY!!!! xox

27. What do you listen to while writing?

Oooof I can't really listen to music when I'm writing, my particular flavor of ADHD is the "get totally distracted by music" which is annoying. I can't even do mellow ambient stuff with no lyrics. Maybe it's good though because I get inspired by just about every song I hear? Obviously a lot of those are "ideas flow in ideas flow out" sort of things, but still.

30. Biggest surprise while writing this year?

Kind of two things come to mind. The first is writing Buddie - I never thought I would? But then I had an idea for @fraddit which turned into That's What Friends are For, which I'm rather fond of, and now I'm working on (haaa "working on") another Buddie fic in addition to, you know, all the Larry and Drarry I've got sitting around. I even am toying with the idea of my Hot Jocks for Cocks fic haha.

The second is how much less anxious and stressed I am about the fact that I really didn't write a lot this year. I feel like it's a mark of growth that I'm offering myself a lot of grace - it's been a tough tough year, and I know the words are there, I just need to figure out how to make room for them. I'm allowing it to be a work in progress (and have absolutely not plans to quit writing!).

and for the wild card...

16. What’s your most common “Additional Tags” tag?

Probably gratuitous use of italics! I do love them. I've decided to really lean into "you can do what you want forever" as my writing philosophy!

Thank you darling!!

ao3 wrapped [writers edition]

[kinetic-elaboration]

October 22: Writing Worries

Finally, finally, I forced myself out of a weekend stupor to write. It didn't go great in that it didn't feel very good, but at least I got words down. They did not flow easily. I do not know what I think about them. But they exist and that's really the most important thing.

Like, technically, it's fine if I finish this fic and am not really fond of it. My feelings about different stories change over time. There are some I've written that I used to really love and now I feel rather lukewarm about, and some that I've basically forgotten I've written, and some that I rediscover and go 'hey, this was really hard to write, but it turned out better than I remembered!'

So, today I wrote what I consider to be probably the biggest and most important scene. At least that's how I felt before I wrote it. In context, it seems of about equal importance with the others, but it loomed large before. I'm halfway through with my outline but because not all bullet points on the outline are equal, I'd say I'm more than halfway done in terms of both word count and, like, basic plot. What I would really, really like is to write most of it over the course of this week and leave the weekend open for ficlets. I realize this is possibly a big ask of myself but it's not impossible, especially if you divide the rest of it up, as it already is, into scenes and partial scenes.

I'm overthinking. Obsessing. I realize that and it's not helpful. I just don't feel like I have a good hold on this story at all. I'm writing it like painstakingly putting words together and then I read it over and I can't tell if it's good or bad or in the middle. I guess that's okay... some things are weird experiments and that's fine. And some experiments are duds and that's also fine lol.

Anyway. I don't desire to work any more on this fic but I do desire to get it over with and I do hope that stuff I write in the future goes better. I keep getting tempted to think long-term about projects and then I bring myself down to Earth by saying 'hey you actually suck now and it's un-fun so what's the point?' Which is, like, not helpful or inspiring at all.