#hopefully a little motivating

[narastories]

ramblings about writing longfic

So as you probably know by now I've been busy writing a chunky little fic over the summer. I wanted to look at the statistics of the process and ramble a little.

We got permission from Bob (@dresdenfilesbigbang) for a little vagueposting, although I don't think this post will even count because I'm not going to talk about the fic, I'm just going to use the process as an example to make a few points.

This time, I've used NaNoWriMo to track my word count, and that is the first thing. If you are motivated by tracking your word count, this is your reminder that besides being a yearly event, it is also a great tool that you can use all year around. Plus, you can create a project with any time length or word count, not just 50k in one month. I actually started off with 20k as the word count, since that was the minimum for the Big Bang, but ehm... well, it soon became clear that 20k is not going to be enough lol Point is, you can also update your goal as you go and it doesn't mess up anything in the slightest.

And I guess November is coming up if you want to do NaNo "proper". I did that once, and it was great to just see that I could. But honestly, 1600 words a day is way too much for me and I don't see the point. I would rather write 50k words over 3 months and push myself less. With the NaNo pace if you miss a day it really puts you behind, and that is just plain stressful.

Which brings me to my second point. If you look at this graph, your first thought might be "oh that looks so linear and disciplined" ...

(Well, okay your first thought may be "why the heck doesn't it start from zero?" I've written 5k before the start date, okay? It was a sort of "proof of concept" to see if this story was going to work out. And it's not like it was cheating, I've still written way too much lol)

And you know, you kind of would be right, I've neatly stayed above that dotted line, sure.

But then you look at my daily word count graph, and it looks like this:

(Again, ignore the anomaly of the first day please lol)

What I'm trying to say is this: if you write often enough, over a long enough period of time, it will look like consistent progress.

You don't have to write every day if it doesn't work for you. You really don't.

And I think it's nice to just pay attention to your process if you decide to start a bigger project because it will give you valuable info about how you work. And it will make writing the next longfic or bigger writing project easier.

My first multichapter work on AO3 is still unfinished at the 75%-85% point mark. I was posting it as I wrote and then I hit that point which now I know is critical for me. Now I know that when I'm 3/4 done with a fic of this size I usually want to go in and move things around, have a little crisis, and generally that I just go back and forth between writing and editing a lot. And because of that, posting as I write is a really bad idea for me.

So I guess the most crucial thing you can learn is how you write, and then everything will become a little easier.

Also, since this is a Big Bang fic with a deadline, it will drop all chapters at once which is something I haven't done before. Very exciting. (To me at least. To other people probably not, because of the tiny nature of the rarepair. But that never stopped me, has it?)

[thethoriumreactor]

more radio demon cause why not (cause I love him)

Not very proud of this one, but I’m sick and I feel like absolute shit and I can’t really be bothered to work on it anymore so there u go

Bonus close ups with and without glitch effect

[eldritchparasol]

[diginuisance]

The benefits of having a ridiculously tall sibling

[romatito]

oh no, lovino!! 🫣🫣

part one || part two || part three

[laurrelise]

alas, i’m nothing but a child

guys i’m dumbassing again

[notforclimbing]

||AAI2 MAJOR SPOILERS ||

Wip (lost motivation) but do you see the vision....

[stardecahedron]

it's another ambient lighting exercise!!

thank goodness undertale has so many cool settings with wacky lightning i realise i forgot about the true lab but whatever i finished these a week ago lmaoo

kofi // instagram // artfight // bluesky

[heynhay]

you know i got halfway through this before realizing i probably subconsciously ripped the concept from an old tumblr post sorry

[clownsuu]

Art block fucking sucks so

Poppet got pastries for the gamers :]

Hope you feel better my gamer🏵️🥄🥄

aWEE look at thembs ;;;

[slavhew]

fun fact the word "dirk" sounds exactly like the root of the croatian verb "drkati" which means to jack off

get the dirk brush here

[falmerbrook]

Not to be too corny but the new year has got me thinking and I really appreciate this blog because this is pretty much the only site/community/fandom where I don't stress out over posting every single thing I post, afraid I'll be shit on for... something (my brain is very good at coming up with hypotheticals). I know, I know I'm way too sensitive and i shouldn't care about what others think and the internet isn't real so it doesn't matter etc. etc. but unfortunately I just don't know how to get my brain to work like that. I mean, I'm still too afraid of being cringe to draw/write/yap about everything I'd hypothetically like to, but I've been way more social and open to posting my thoughts on here than I've ever been before, and it's made me more confident online overall. So thank you all for being so welcoming and chill!

[gossippool]

it's gonna take a while for the next chapter to be finished because of my exams and assignments and miscellaneous self-imposed deadlines so here is a not-so-peaceful peace offering in the meantime 🙏

[yikes-ajax]

It started raining hard at work the other day and I saw this bird take shelter under a car on its tire, and it made me smile, so here's your reminder:

Though things may be tough, you can endure. Trust that the universe will give you shelter even if it is in unconventional or small ways, and believe that you are strong enough to adapt ❤️

[nathalielpzart]

I just realized that it wouldn't make sense posting this sketch until Monday when I was going through my thoughts on this sketch, ahahahahha (；^∀^). Especially when I quickly sketched this yesterday upon a recommended reference from Pinterest, and I got inspired to draw Zukaang with that pose ✨️.

Fun fact about this drawing: I was planning to have this post-cannonish Fire Lord Zuko and, of course, aged-up!Aang... but!! But!! Buuuut!! I was suddenly intimidated drawing Zuko's Fire Lord clothes from this perspective (；∀； )...

( ´-｀)

I JUST DONT FEEL CONFIDENT IN PULLING IT OFF, OK?!?!?!?! ｡ﾟ(ﾟ´Д｀ﾟ)ﾟ｡

In either case!! (〝⌒∇⌒〝) I'm quite happy how this sketch turned out! Now let's pray and hope I don't f*ck this up once I start linearting this sketch, hahahahaha (;＞_＜;).

Anyways, (I really do love using this word a lot huh (。-∀-)), I hope you like another Zukaang fanart from me \ (⌒‐⌒) /✨️♥️. I'm having a fun time with them while getting back into drawing again and getting back my art style/how to draw like I used to (；^∀^) hah.

Good luck to me 😅✨️😖!! And may you all have a good, blessed day everyone! 😇😌❤️‍🔥

[marenwithanm]

Chapter 3 part 25. Y'all college chemistry is actively killing me send help. Also I know it isn't Tuesday but it's Thursday so that's basically the same day so this is basically on time 😎

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End chapter 3