#do fanfics and discord dms count as development

[phoenix-is-the-hottest-thing]

On a side note, I also like MeiHua and EdenHua despite them having very little development, but that's mostly because my friends like them, hahaha. Blorbo in law? No. Ships in law...

[little-box-of-wonders]

A Writer’s Reflection

I can count on one hand the long-term creative writing projects I’ve finished in my life: One handwritten, unpublished Final Fantasy VII fanfic I wrote when I was 13-14 years-old and, as of today, my Horizon Forbidden West fanfic To Know Peace.

It may seem silly to some, since it's just a fanfic. But to me, it means that I finally managed to get back into creative writing following years of being too overworked and burnt out from my previous jobs and actually finish a project. As someone who went undiagnosed with ADHD until last year and whom at one point became disenchanted with writing, it's a huge milestone for me.

First and foremost, my brother has been my unfaltering support, both before and after I reembarked in my creative writing journey. I couldn't have finished this fic without your beta'ing and our discussions on how to approach the narrative (Chapters 3 and 6 came to be because of you). Gracias por nunca dejar de creer en mí.❤️

I can't thank @fogsblue enough for sharing the link to invite me to the Kotaloy Elysium Discord server. To say that the discussions and art from fellow Kotaloy shippers/Horizon fans have spurred my creativity is an understatement, and fogs made that happen. Thank you for this, and for always being one of the first people to read and comment on every new chapter and fic I posted.💖

Thank you to @jadefyre, for being a sounding board for ideas and to troubleshoot snags, and for serving as a fellow writer to commiserate with, especially during the more difficult chapters. Our DM chats have been been a highlight during my time in the server, and I’m glad I get to call you my friend.

And special thanks to everyone in the Kotaloy Elysium Discord server who became invested in my little famfic by hyping me up in the different channels, leaving kudos and comments, and just being an awesome group to interact with. There are too many to list, but each and every one of you boosted my confidence with every reaction, every flail and every message. 

I still got plenty of ideas to develop related to Horizon, so I’m not walking away from fanfiction. What I do hope for next is returning to my original fiction work, which had always been the intent after this little exercise. 

Thank you for coming along on this journey with me!

[veronicasanders]

If you could give any advice to new fan fic writers, what would it be? (Basically I’m asking what do you wish someone told you when you first started writing fan fic) 📝

Hi! This is a great question, and I have lots of advice! Take whatever you think is useful, and good luck!! XOXOXO

1. Create an anonymous tumblr account. Have a writing url that doesn’t include your name, location, or any personal info where you can post your ideas, collect inspiration, DM other people in the fandom/community, and reblog stories you like. 

2. Befriend the writers you admire! The best way to do this is to find the stories you love and message the writers - either directly or through AQ/AO3, and tell them what you loved about their stories. Most, if not all, of the writers who are currently active (and maybe even some who don’t seem like they are), will respond very enthusiastically to this. Often, they will happy to brainstorm with you, share headcanons, and even help beta your work. (If you want to write drag race fanfic, then you should definitely talk to other writers in this small fandom. There’s an AQ discord server for this - click here if you want to join.) (Side note: I DID do this when I started in this fandom, stalked poor @artificialzeezee and eventually she became a great friend.)

3. Keep notes about things you want to write about, prompts you like, ideas you have. I use google docs and the notes app on my phone. 

4. Follow tags like “writer tips” and follow general writer advice blogs. Read advice and tips from other people. AQ has a page with writing resources and a “writer tips” tag.

5. TAKE #4 WITH A GRAIN OF SALT. Fanfic writing should be, first and foremost, something that’s fun, that brings you joy or fulfillment or satisfies some kind of creative need. It shouldn’t be stressful or punishing, so if you’re trying to remember too many rules, you can really stifle your creative juices.

6. Write!!! If not every day, then as often as you can. I have found personally that word count goals are not very motivating for me, because I spend way more time editing/deleting than writing. So I schedule time that I know is writing time. That 30 minutes or hour or 2 hours is set aside just to write. I try to schedule writing days and editing days separately so that I’m not deleting words as I write them. Start small. 10 minutes before bed or when you wake up, or on a train if you commute, etc. Set achievable goals for yourself and get into a rhythm/habit of writing regularly. 

7. Once you’ve actually begun writing, GET A BETA READER. OR 5! This is probably the most important tip on the list. It is so important to most people’s creative process that they get feedback from other humans. Beta readers can help with everything from brainstorming to character development to proofreading and polishing. It helps to know your strengths and where you need assistance. 

8. Once you’re ready to publish, DO NOT BE AFRAID to reblog and hype your own work! You should be your own biggest cheerleader. 

[mad-madam-m]

So I'm just curious, how do you get yourself to write? And do you use prompts and if you do where do you get them? I meant to use NaNo to get me to write but it took 4 days into November for me to realize November started so I failed lol. I've been meaning to start this original thing and it's just not...working.

First of all, anon, you could start writing RIGHT NOW (yes, with 10 days left in the month) and you would not fail NaNo. You might not hit 50k (although I know people who have hit 50k in that amount of time, or less), but you won’t fail. NaNoWriMo isn’t about hitting 50,000 words so much as it is about putting a stake in the ground and saying, “Here. Today. I will start writing the project I’ve always wanted to.” And doing it. Doesn’t matter what that project is—original novel, short stories, fic, poetry, revising something, a series of blog posts—NaNo is about just. Fucking. Doing it. And you still have time to Do It.

To answer your questions:

Do you use prompts and if you do, where do you get them?

For original stories, particularly novels, I usually don’t. For fic, particularly short fic I’m writing for events, I do. Tumblr has a wealth of writing prompts that range from “here’s a situation” to “here’s a line of dialogue GO,” and I tend to reblog them under the tags “fic prompts” or “writing prompts.” Honestly, most of them would work for either original fic or fanfic, so if you are a writer who likes to work from prompts, go forth and enjoy!

How do you get yourself to write?

That’s kind of a big question, and uh, the answer to it got long. Very long. (I said once that if you give me half a chance, I’ll talk about writing all the live-long day, and this answer is no exception.)

Different things motivate me for different projects, and as with all writing-related advice, YMMV, but here’s a few things that really help for getting myself to write:

1) Develop your story.

The current original story I’m working on, for example, I have not really had to struggle to get myself to write at all because 1) I’m stupid excited about it and 2) I have developed the hell out of it.

I’ve talked before about outlining my stuff here, so I won’t go too much into it again; suffice it to say that I have done about the same amount of development on my current original story that I had on ADA by the time I started writing. I started around the very end of September developing my characters and spent a good chunk of October working on setting, worldbuilding, plot, and finally my notecards.

Shockingly, having some idea of what’s happening and where I’m going is making this story easier to write.

Right? Like WHO’D HAVE THOUGHT.

Because of that, I’ve been excited about writing my story, so getting myself to write on it has been (comparatively) a cakewalk.

That’s not to say any of the writing is good (oh God no) or that there aren’t parts that need fixing, or that I haven’t been stuck. But it’s been stuck like “how do I describe seeing a tree-covered mountain in the middle of fall from the POV of someone who has never seen something like this” rather than “I have no fucking clue what happens next uh…”

The stories I struggle the most with writing are the ones that I’ve worked the least on developing. The stories that have been the easiest to write have been the ones I’ve spent at least a month doing prep work on before I ever start drafting.

2) Love your story.

Being in love with a story makes it a lot easier to write, at least for me. Because here’s the thing, ideas are easy.

If you’re a creative person, you’re going to end up with a file of story ideas—maybe prompts you liked, dialogue that stuck with you, one of those “humans are space orcs” tumblr posts that’s just really clicking in your brain—that will be longer than you could conceivably write if you had a hundred lifetimes. That’s okay! That’s great. But it means a lot of them are never going to get past the idea stage.

For me, the stories that get finished—the ones that not only get started but actually make it through the first draft and then three rounds of editing and revisions—are the ideas that I’ve been percolating on for months, if not longer. They’ve been cooking in the back of my brain while I’ve been doing other things, sorting themselves out, and most importantly: they will not let me go.

Coming up with ideas is easy. Finding an idea that will last and sustain a story and my interest for at least a year, if not longer? That’s harder.

Y’all know how much I’ve been talking about Tiger & Bunny over the past year? We’re talking that level of obsession with a story that I want to write, whether it’s fic or original. Sometimes it takes months or years for all the puzzle pieces to come together. Sometimes the whole thing will congeal within a few weeks, or there will be one crucial piece of story that will just make EVERYTHING come together, I will literally shout “OH MY FUCKING GOD” and that’s it, I’m off to the races. (In this particular case, it wasn’t anything I’d done in the first two weeks of poking at steampunk-y ideas; it was the realization that I could put a circus on an airship. The whole story just went WHOOSH after that.)

BUT. But. Sometimes you don’t have that. These stories are great and I love them and they remind me why I love writing so much (and if you’re writing something that’s gonna be 90k+, like I have a tendency to do, you need to be in love with it, IMO), but sometimes you’re in situations where you just have to get it done. In those cases:

3) Resort to bribery.

I’ve been poking at the third part of Alpha & Emissary, oh, basically since I posted the second part. My problem is that my fandom focus has been, shall we say, split for the past year. *coughs delicately, shoves Tiger & Bunny fics under the bed*

But here’s the thing: I hate having a published WIP on AO3 (it’s why I don’t publish long!fics until they’re completely drafted and mostly edited). I hate—HATE—having an unfinished series on AO3.

So that’s the rub: I have an unfinished series that I want to finish because I hate that it’s not finished. I also have a new fandom that is wresting my attention and inspiration away from said series. What’s a girl to do?

A girl tells herself she can’t write any more Tiger & Bunny fic until she finishes this one WIP, that’s what she does.

And it’s motivated me to sit my ass down and work on that WIP, because goddammit, I have a “but there was only one bed” TaiBani fic that I would really like to have up by New Year’s.

Your bribery will be different. Maybe you get to watch 1 episode of your favorite show per every 1k you write, or you get to try a new knitting project when you finish this short story. Maybe you binge-watch an entire season of your favorite anime if you exceed your NaNo goal. Or you write 50 words and get a cookie. The point is, find what works for you to get it done.

4) Figure out a minimum daily goal and stick with it.

For me, this was 500 words a day. 500 words. That’s it. That’s one 30-minute word sprint for me. That’s something I can do without stressing myself out.

Because of this point and point 3, I wrote more than 7000 words on a story I’d been stuck on for the better part of a year before I had to stop to work on NaNo stuff. Another 7k, and I’ll probably have it finished.

Your minimum word count will almost certainly be different. Maybe it’s 300 words a day, maybe it’s 1000. Hell, maybe it’s 100 words. Again, find what works for you, what you can write regularly without stressing yourself out.

Another important thing: If I didn’t hit 500 words, I didn’t beat myself up about it. Maybe I wrote 350. Or 220. Or just 93. The point is, did I write? Yes? Then I did good. I got myself a sentence or a paragraph closer to finishing. And it all adds up.

(And hey, you don’t have to write every day. I do, or I try to, because that’s what works for me. If it stresses you out to do so, then find another way to make it work.)

5) Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines.

This one’s hard because I can rarely keep a deadline that’s not set by an external source. If you tell me on December 20 that you need a story by December 22? Then on December 22, you’ll have a story, edited and ready to post. But when it comes to something I set for myself, the chances of a deadline working are 50/50.

That being said, it is something that helps me keep on track and even if I don’t finish something by a self-imposed deadline, it does get me writing.

6) Sprint with friends!

NaNo is really great for this because all your writer friends are coming out of the woodwork going I need to hit 5k by the end of today, will you sprint with me? Sometimes it just helps to have that kind of accountability. You all get together (I’ve used Discord, Google Hangouts, IRC, and Twitter DMs for this), set a timer, and write for 15 minutes or 20 minutes or 30 minutes. Then, when the time’s up, you post your word count, everybody congratulates everybody else, and then you take a break before doing the next one.

Sprints are the reason I’ve been able to make some pretty significant headway on my word counts, and few things get me writing like knowing I’m going to have to tell everybody in my group what my word count is in 30 minutes or less. >.>

Like I said earlier, YMMV on all of these. What works for me may work for you, or it might not. But if you aren’t sure, it’s worth giving it a shot.

Happy writing!