#i need to start drafting and organizing shit so I'll actually write it

[pin3-vin3]

Been feeling very girl deprived as of late

[genericpuff]

How long do you usually take to plan for a really long story/comic? Do you do a rough plan or a fully detailed one? Any apps you use for planning?

Thank you in advance!

It depends on the project. For my long-term series, it definitely takes me a good while to finalize everything from start to finish, but as a general rule, I try to keep my writing one step ahead of where I'm drawing, for two purposes: so I can have a goal in mind to propel the comic forward (I don't want to be writing or drawing on the fly more than I have to), and so I can have enough planned ahead for editing, because by the time I get to the thing I've planned, my writing has likely grown more and my perspective on it has shifted, so I'm not releasing "first takes", so to speak.

Usually I use LibreOffice and just sort of keep a few separate files for different purposes. I always have a "[story] shit" file of some kind where I just dump thoughts and notes that I don't wanna lose lmao but then I usually also have a file that's meant for outlining. I think Rekindled is the first comic where I haven't employed my spreadsheet method, which is when I'd use Excel/Spreadsheets to lay out panel descriptions and dialogue. So like this:

(Episode 14 of Time Gate: [AFTERBIRTH])

Rekindled is more just note-taking, what I want to happen in each episode, and if there's any dialogue I come up with that I definitely want to include, I write it down in there. I've done all of Rekindled's process through Scrivener, which I learned how to use shortly before starting it. IDK yet if I like Scrivener enough to use it for my bigger projects, but it's been helpful for organization and keeping my files all in one central "hub" area.

So right now I have up to about Episode 70 drafted out like that ^^^ but things do change during the actual production of the episodes. Sometimes I'll write something in my notes that doesn't flow well in actual comic form. Sometimes I'll write dialogue during the sketching stage that I don't like anymore by the time I get to the final rendering. It's all a stage-by-stage process from drafting to final release.

The question of "how long" really just comes down to the note-taking process. I tend to work in bursts, the last time I did any written episode layouts was a few weeks ago and that was because I got like, 40+ episodes done in a day LOL So I'm all set for the next little bit, but I'll have to get back to planning by Episode 50 if I haven't done any before then. I'd like to have the entirety of Rekindled plotted out by the end of the year so I can get a more exact answer of how long Rekindled will be :' )

When it comes to software/apps, keep it simple, use what you know. I've been using standard word editors and spreadsheets for years now because it works for me. Scrivener's been fun to learn but as I mentioned, IDK if I'm gonna be able to stick with it for bigger projects like Time Gate because it feels like I'm wearing different shoes that I'm not used to lol But that's just me, feeling "at home" with my software is just an important thing to me, for others it might not matter so much. Scrivener definitely has the most features for drafting/writing/editing, but it's also not very beginner-friendly and there's a huge learning curve to really understanding how the software is designed and what it fully offers.

There's also Plottr which I've been using for [AFTERBIRTH], it's really helpful for people who need visual aids because it allows you to lay out story timelines through imagery. But I really only use it for laying out story beats from end to end, I don't use it much beyond that, any extensive note taking or scripting happens in actual word documents.

(idk if this is how you're actually supposed to use Plottr but it's how I use it so w/e lolol)

Ultimately it's all up to you, what works for me might not work for others so don't be afraid to try things even if it ends up not working out for you. Obv that might be a bit more of a "nah" when it comes to paid software like Scrivener and Plottr, but there are loads of tutorials on Youtube that teach you how to use the software that you can hopefully use as a glimpse into how they work to see if they'd be up your alley before paying money for 'em.

Hope that helps! ˋ( ° ▽、° )

[elephant-in-the-pride-parade]

⭐️Star ⭐️

I think I'll dust off Eden's Deception for this one.

So what you'd never know about Eden's Deception is this story actually went through three drafts.

2018 - The romantic fluff fest hyperfocused on a J/C romance in their scifi "Garden of Eden" on my first rewatch of the series as a 25 y.o. i felt absolutely cheated and teased by the romantic undertones that this episode failed to fulfill. the first draft was wish fulfillment where they frollicked around new earth falling in love, but it kept getting disrupted by my impulse to write scenes with some very intense melancholy about being stranded. Think one second theyre cuddling on a home made couch making out and the next Kathryn is somberly assessing what would happen when one of the died and how she would bury his body all alone by herself. really sad shit. kept breaking the romantic story i had envisioned.

That first draft stalled completely when the romantic fantasy plot peaked at an accidental pregnancy. I was watching Call the Midwife at the same time (hollar at all the ways pregnancy can go wrong for older women with limited resources and no medical care) and I just could not figure out how to move forward with the romantic fluff tone when i had just put my character in this situation of functionally mortal peril. I put the draft down and had a long re-think.

2020: The second draft was a Viidian organ farm horror fic. Mid pandemic. I was very isolated. dark thoughts abounded. and I like everyone else got a crash course in virus behavior from the wall to wall news coverage. So I rewatched resolutions again and this time rather than the lack of romance it was the bullshit virus that needled me. Why had a virus that affected spacefarers evolved on a planet with no space faring civilization? Why was it's only symptom triggered outside the atmosphere? Why did the Viidiians have the cure. I tried to anwer that in the second draft, while still satisfying my wishfullfillment need to get Kathryn a baby. In that second Draft the vidiians had engineered the planet to be a tempting venus fly trap and the virus to first trap victims on the planet and then entice them to have a lot of sex and babies that the vidiians could swoop in and kidnap later. I'd intended pregnant Kathryn to go full rambo on their facility and somehow bs she and chakotay a way off the planet and back to the ship. but i never got that far. that draft was just a little too dark for what I wanted and also the idea of the show's modern vidiians forcing their prisoners to breed new organ donors the natural way seemed dreadfully inefficient for a species that had figured out how to create a whole ass klingon adult in a lab in a day from just half a dna strand. but I did like the idea that the virus was somehow their fault. and I was intrigued by the speculation that their organ harvesting plans might have started out on a much more accessible population than kidnapped passing spacefarers. so i hung onto those tidbits and some of the smut scenes too (one of the smut scenes from this draft became Fever actually).

The final draft was written in 2021. In the US we had the looming threat of losing protections from Roe by then and that really put a damper on my own baby fever. That and I had by then watched like 7 seasons of call the midwife. So suffice to say I had come to see new earth baby was just a horror fic waiting to happen, and felt like Kathryn would just never go through with that while stranded or in the captain's chair. So I had Kathryn put a new earth baby in long term stasis for Parent Trap and I did away with the concept in Eden entirely.

Having also experienced two years of people trying to control a real pandemic by then the vidiians approach to the phage continued to facinate me. I don't think I would have come up with the idea of the New Earth virus as a quarentine measure otherwise. Creating a plot for Chakotay and his own skill set also helped bring the whole thing together. I let the potential of a maquis freedom fighter out to play to create a solution that was definitely the best option and definitely not starfleet sanctioned. He flies under the radar as a self-sacrificing maverick given how often it's Janeway pulling out the big guns. But he absolutely also is one. And that was really fun to explore.

Ultimately I think you see undercurrents of the first 2 drafts in the final story. The romantic yacht that they sail back to Voyager in certainly harkened back to the fluffier iteration. I really was very pleased with how it turned out. Rereading it two years later there isnt much that i would change. And that makes me really proud of it. I loved writing a mystery. I loved exploring a more mature and measured version of a romance. I loved bringing the science into it! (and I lucked out having someone with an anthropology/archeology background betaing it)

One thing I would change is the inclusion of some of Chakotays spiritual elements. It was kinda a trend at the time to have him say "Spirits" in lieu of saying "Oh, God" as a way to honor whatever indigenous beliefs he is supposed to have (as we all know theyre very mismashed/made up/etc.) and to show he wasnt from a judeo-christian background. I've realized that was quite foolish now. Saying "Spirits" doesn't come from the show or from any actual native american tradition that I can find. I'd just have him say "God" or swear or something completely different now. In the same vein I want to eventually go back and edit the vision quest scene. I've grappled for years with how much of his canon beliefs to include since theyre all appropriated from different nations or just made up whole cloth. Vision quests aren't something I have personal knowledge of and not something I can research or give the appropriate respect to. So I think that while I might still have him leave their campsite to do one, I'd change the vision/memory itself into a dream, similar to the way his flashbacks to the war worked in a later chapter.

[simmonsized]

for the writing meme: 22 and 24!!

(for the writer meme, "Weird Questions for Writers")

22. How organized are you with your writing? Describe to me your organization method, if it exists. What tools do you use? Notebooks? Binders? Apps? The Cloud?

Omg I'm so bad. It's so bad, skip. I have no idea what is wrong with me.

Okay it's not that bad but like. I use a notes app on my phone for primary drafts (generally speaking), but I only keep them organized by update date, and never numbered, because I'm silly, and only stuff i'm done with do I color code so I know it's Done. Then my second/final drafts are in various folders lost on my computer, mixed with google docs, and when I got a new phone, I uploaded all my old files onto my computer and didn't back them up anywhere else so i lost them for a full month because I left my charging cord on the boat, and it's like. what am i doing. why do i not have a binder for this shit!! help!!!!

24. How much prep work do you put into your stories? What does that look like for you? Do you enjoy this part or do you just want to get on with it?

I tend to get like, an idea, and then most of the time I'll just write little sections of that at a time, without actually blocking out scenes or planning. I really love doing that tbh, but that's primarily for things I will never post.

Nowadays, given my long long long fic, I have a full file that is just called Blocking that contains snippets or lines or at least a small breakdown of things that still need to happen, or what the next few chapters need to contain. For my more fanciful aus, I also do a timeline, just for funsies! To a point I enjoy the process of blocking things out, but I feel like if I plan too much, I stop enjoying it, because it starts to feel more like work and less like a fun hobby I do for enjoyment!

[dragonofeternal]

So this year has been really, really good in terms of like... reminding/validating that I'm actually like smart and good at what I do?

Like.

First off, I got my new job which whips ass and is super fun and challenging and pays way better and where my ability to do nine million different things is like very valuable. Like oh yeah, I can reformat this word doc/that powerpoint. Do you want me to do a little bit of graphic design to make this actually look nicer? Oh, you need this video for a presentation but it's on a site other than youtube? Yeah sure, I'll rip it for you. And also just the day-to-day of being able to take good notes, and being able to help copyedit training materials, and generally being a pleasant and mostly on top of things person in the office.

THEN, I took one of Killian's creative writing classes along with them. Which, for one thing, was super fun, good teacher, nice to have an organized space/time to hang out and talk about writing. But also it was really validating to have someone outside of the internet/my inner circle of friends read and critique my work who was like... I dunno another adult/serious writer type person? Our teacher is a published poet -- Though more specifically she's prolific as a TRANSLATOR of poetry. A fair number of the translated Palestinian poets you've seen being posted around tumblr recently are most certainly her work. -- and when she realized the level I was writing at she started critiquing my work a lot harder. Still had nice stuff to say! Just also being willing to dig in and point out places where I could improve.

We actually hung out with her last night at a fellow classmate's band's show and she took both me and Killian aside for expanded critique/thoughts on our final pieces, and said some really nice stuff which included that she sees both of us as like professional-grade writers who should continue to hone their craft and who she really wants to see succeed/get shit published/etc. I'm currently letting a short story (that is... probably gonna end up as a novella orz) that I wrote for class sit before I do another draft of it, and then she's offered to do a more critical line edit for me so I can shop it around and get it published somewhere really good.

(Which is also interesting because I see myself as working very much in genre spaces and she's very in the "literary" sort of mode, and she said that she saw a lot of literary prowess and style in how I wrote which she could see getting it published in a more literary type journal. And that's like a weird/wild thought bc of my complicated thoughts on the way the literary/publishing world looks at and treats genre writing blah blah blah....)

At the SAME show, though, our teacher had brought along a friend, who is also a teacher at the community college. Said friend works for the theatre department and recognized me from volunteering to act at a one-day event last semester for Killian's playwriting class. Like this was an event where I was acting for MAYBE a grand total of fifteen minutes. And she basically said "HEY YOU'RE REALLY GOOD, WHY HAVEN'T I SEEN YOU AT ANY OF THE AUDITIONS?" So then I chatted with her some about how I've done a lot of theatre over the years but time/jobs/money meant I haven't had a chance to in a long time...

But now my job is a 9-5! So I gave her my number and I'm now basically the understudy for if/when someone drops out of the productions currently going on. Apparently they have a lot of issues with people dropping suddenly so it's likely that I'll end up doing something next semester! Which is good cuz like. Damn, do I love the theatre, and I've missed it A LOT.

I dunno just having two different people being really impressed about my creative work in a short time was really, really mood/ego boosting? I dunno. When I last did theater in Pittsburgh I ended up feeling really burnt out by the exhausting sense of always having to hunt for work, feeling like I wasn't good enough, etc... And last year I was struggling a lot with feeling like all my writing was futile/unwanted/etc... So having people remember me and be super complimentary was. Nice.

[alchemistc]

👓💛🔮 for the writer asks, please!

👓What helps you focus when you write?

-Clean organized workspace, Earl Grey tea, lavender and cedarwood candle, atmospheric background noise (if it has lyrics I'm fucked for focus)

The fic I'm working on right now already has it's own pinterest board and a whole ass playlist of atmospheric yt sounds. Maybe once artist claims are done for SBB I'll post a teaser of them.

💛What is the most impactful lesson you've learned about writing?

Ooooh, this is rough, but I think, honestly, the one piece of advice I only decided to take in the last year or so has helped me enjoy writing so much more: If it doesn't fit, or you're getting stuck: just Fucking Delete It And Start Over. If it's a word, a paragraph, a phrase, and you're deliberating too much or waffling or it's causing you to stare at your gd cursor but you still like it - Ctrl+V it into a new tab and then get rid of it. Move on. Come back to it and see if it's still something you need.

The number of times I've left a "scrap" of writing in a draft on G Docs or in my phone notes and then either found a better place for it, or been inspired by it to write something else entirely, AND gave my brain the audacity to move past it and keep going has been amazing.

That and [ELEPHANT]. If you're blanking on a word but the flow is there, keep those juices going and just bracket an filler word in there. Ctrl+F that bitch later when the juices aren't flowing so well.

The point is - don't get caught up on the details. Don't let yourself get stuck. A draft is a draft for a reason, and even me with my "reading it on ao3 and catching spelling mistakes 6 days later" laissez-faire attitude about editing, There's Always Time To Fix It.

🔮Any advice for writers working through burnout or writers block?

See above, but also - put it down. Walk away. Change your scenery, take a walk, actually touch some grass.

For burnout, literally put it away. If you're in a spot where it's just not working and you're spinning your wheels and shit's just not hitting, or you're sad or annoyed or beating yourself up or you're just fucking tired, take a nap and get back to it.

For a lost muse - change it up. Drink a different tea, take your laptop outside and sit in the sun, leave the laptop alone entirely and take a hike through the woods. Take a notebook with you when you draw yourself a bubble bath. Disassociate in the grocery store. Rework the scene with your pillow as an acting partner while you try to fall asleep (If you're anything like me, you'll do this for hours bc insomnia is a bitch.)

Most of all - let yourself be moved by the story if it needs it. I used to be a very stream-of-consciousness writer, and have only in the last few years really outlined a whole story before I write it, but the thing that always used to stop me from planning it out is the same thing that held me up once I started - I write where the words take me, and if you limit yourself to the story you started out with you might miss some happy accidents.

Thanks for the questions!!

FANFIC WRITER ASK GAME

[count-von-kit]

Current WIPs and Some Incoherent Ramblings

🌹 Realm of Roses & Rosaries: With chapter 2 of my silly little for-funsies writing mess completed, I have now started on plotting where I want chapter 3 to go, with an outline.

So far I have the first arc planned to be five chapters total. My issue with this is that I initially wanted to write shorter chapters (less than 15 pages), but there's so much yet I still want to happen that I feel like they may just be longer. And, I mean, so long as I'm not dropping some 25-40+ paged chapter, I think I'll be ok with that. My ultimate goal was to make sure I was having fun with this and writing strictly for myself, so that's what I guess I'm going to throw in my face whenever I start to question something I'm doing.

As for the other arcs, I'm... still trying to organize that all in my head. Because I know what I need to get the characters to where they need to be. If that's the case and I keep them all together, with 5 chapters each between them, that would be a total of 15 collectively for the trio. With a third and final arc being their revolution and the final battle against the big bad. I think for an approach that's fine enough, and satisfies what I want.

🌹 Abel's YTP: Ugh. I'll be honest I was working on this, but then since editing a side document during a TTRPG night, I forgot (maybe) to transfer over changes (maybe), so now I'm not sure which draft was my good draft, and I really hate when I do this to myself. So I haven't been able to go back to look at it just yet. I know I'll have to figure this out at some point, but the issue is that both variants read fine, so I'm just at a loss. That said, there is a lot still to this. Chapter 3 is "finished", but the revisions are what is keeping me from marking it as DONE done. I really need to sit down at some point and finish it so that I can move onto transferring chapter 4 from my notebook onto my PC's worddoc. Far as the full novel goes, it's still 5 chapters lone, with an Epilogue, and four smaller shorts in-between as intermissions (because music-based). So uh... This project is still nowhere near completion. But also I think once I get a lot of my other WIPs cleared (I know, that's a huge writer lol there. Don't look at me rn. I can hope), I'll be able to come back to focusing on this. That's my plan anyway.

🌹 Xmas Piece: This is the time of year I should be starting to wrap this up. I vented to a friend about this last night on Discord, about how I really don't have much left to do with this. Literally 3 scenes left to finalize. That's it. But I think the reason why I haven't gone back to work on it is because of two things:

The first being my mood so far has actually been pretty good! Which is surprising given my depression is amplified by the onset of seasonal depression which just makes it an awful time for me mentally? Despite the fact I actually really love autumn? I've been hanging out with some friends more which has fed my starvation of human interaction, and I've been laughing more at some of the silly things going on - whether its something I've been reading or watching, or just something off-the-wall a friend has sent me. I've just been getting a lot more serotonin lately, and it's been kinda nice.

The second reason I feel hesitant is because this is the emotional climax to the story, where a lot of shit just drops. Normally when I'm in a bad mood I tend to write that energy into these kind of scenes because mentally I'm already there so why not? But also because I've been in such a good mood lately I'm kinda terrified that by crawling into the bathtub of bad vibes and big sad to soak in, that it'll wipe away my good mood. If that... makes sense. I've had to forcefully put myself in not-so-great mindsets before just to write out specific scenes from my other novel that's just... kinda setting off to the side... and I guess because of that, because it pulls big ol' sad energy from very specific songs, I'm apprehensive maybe that it'll happen. It has a happen ending, so I know I don't have to worry about anything. But ugh. I just need to push myself at some point or another.

🌹 Soloing The Other Side: This one is super close to being done. I haven't worked on it for a while, but I only had a few bits to finish up. Unfortunately it won't make much sense until I finish up the Xmas piece mentioned above, because it follows directly after, but at least by the end of the day it's a smaller and singular (not multi-chapter) piece I can cross off once completed. It's not complexed, but uh... I've only been working on it because of my apprehension towards Abel's YTP and the Xmas piece. lol

🌹 Abel's Backstory, Part 2: Man... I remember all the shit going on with this, but at the same time I have to completely revise the first part before I post it up, because SO MUCH with Abel has changed. Anyway, I haven't touched this at all with the others above pulling me in different directions. Maybe at some point I will get this finished. It's still in the very beginning stages, but tbh I think to get those vibes going I should just relisten to Magnus Archives, because damn does listening to Jonathan Sim read really inspire me to write.

🌹 Other Miscellaneous Ao3 Projects: Of the multitude of ongoing Ao3 projects I have that were "almost finished and then forgotten", I know I have quite a few. On top of everything else listed above. In terms of priority, the ones I'd like to finish, ideally, are Les Vampires (because it's close to the ending), Espresso-ly For You (because it's also almost finished), and maaaybe Eleanor? I haven't quite decided entirely. I'd like to finish the Senpai one as well, but that one is a bit harder to do because it's filled with so many inside jokes. I just... I need to not have writer's block when revising things, or to lose interest so I can actually finish all of these. ToT

[ratralsis]

Brief update

I haven't written anything long in a while because I haven't had a ton of time.

My latest writing class ended a few weeks ago. The course report I filled out wound up hurting my tutor's feelings so much that, even after I wrote multiple emails apologizing, she didn't want to continue tutoring me in the next class. I didn't think anything I wrote in the report would surprise her, but I was wrong.

It's what I get for trying to be honest. I wound up saying at the end of my apology email that they should either ask me for my feedback more often than one time at the end of the course, to avoid being surprised like that again, or not ask for it at all. I'll do the work either way.

Writing classes are hard work. I don't view them as supposed to be fun. I can write for fun on my own time. And I do. You have no idea how much I cracked myself up writing last month that showing a non-gamer a photo of Squall from FF8 would literally kill them, and that the UN is actually an organization devoted to wiping FF8 from the Earth. That's fucking hilarious to me, man. Love that shit. Didn't get a single note. Most of what I write doesn't. Doesn't bother me. It did bother me when that Doctor Worm story didn't get any notes. I've said that before, but it does still bug me a little. That was a good fucking story, and I don't care who says it isn't.

My cat, Tina, nearly died of some kind of nasal blockage or respiratory infection. For $65, she got a quick exam from a vet and some amoxicillin, and now, nine days after starting that (and with a couple of days left of the stuff to go), she seems much better. But she hasn't jumped or run to play with the cat toy in over a month. I think that her new normal will never be as good as it was even three months ago. That's life. The vet she's "doing great for her age." Her age is 89 in cat years. "Alive" is great. "Typical for her age" would be dead. It's like if you went to the gym and saw an 89-year-old woman walking on a treadmill going 3 miles per hour. "Wow," you'd say. "A twenty-minute mile? That's great for her age." But that's because most people who were born 89 years ago can't walk at all, because they're fucking dead. So are most cats who were born 18 years and three months ago, so, yes, Tina is doing great for her age.

I discovered a small leak in the roof of my garage this afternoon. I called my home insurance company and will hopefully have someone able to give me an estimate on what it will take to fix it soon so that I can determine if I need to make a claim or not. There have been multiple bad storms where I live recently, just like there have been literally everywhere on the continental US recently. Where I live has been pretty mild, comparatively.

I'm hoping it won't cost more than a couple thousand dollars to fix. I can afford that much, though it will hurt, a lot. I've been saving like crazy all year, and that will undo much of that saving, but it won't even put me as low as I was last year when I was literally begging for money on the internet.

It's been over two months since I said on my Animal Crossing blog that I would post my photos from Leap Day and the few days before it. I haven't done that yet, and that really does upset me. I try hard to be a man of my word.

I'm not talented. I'm not charismatic. I have very few innate abilities. There's only one thing I know how to do, and that's put in the work. I updated that Animal Crossing blog every day for nearly a decade, so believe when I say that 1) I know a fucking thing or two about a work ethic, and 2) I'm sorry I haven't posted those photos yet. It's been difficult to do much writing lately that isn't for my novel.

I had to throw away everything I'd been working on on the latest draft about three months into my last class. I'm still working on catching up. I have sixty days before the next class starts. I have ten chapters left to write before I can call this draft done. Can I do it? Of course I can. Who the fuck do you think I am?

But it means I don't have a ton of time to write for fun, or watch TV for fun, or play video games for fun, or anything for fun. Every night, after dinner, it's an hour of writing, at least.

It's not supposed to be fun. Even chess grandmasters, the ones who love the game so much that they become the best in the world, don't get that good by playing casually. They work at it. The only way to get to that kind of level is to work at it.

There's no such thing as good enough. There's better than the last thing, which is always possible, and there's perfection, which never is. That's all there is.

I'll be better later. Probably. I don't like to complain, so I try very hard to do it very rarely, but sometimes I go so long without saying anything at all that I think even complaining might be better than nothing.

Let me know if I'm wrong.

Let me know if I'm right.

Let me know anything at all. I don't like screaming into the void like this, but I sure have been doing it for over twenty years, haven't I.

[amyisherenowitsokay]

LEAVES.

Pipes my beloved hello

Originally I was going to use Dead Weight, but since it's still in progress, and I want to avoid having to spoiler my files, I'll use Re: MHNY as my example. 'Behind the scenes' previews incoming.

Long answer below the cut. You hath been warned.

Since my tweens I've gotten a LOT more organized about my writing and editing, both because I want a better output quality of story, and because my memory is way more shit than it used to be, and I don't want to lose any ideas simply because I can't remember my train of thought. So I tend to jump between just word-vomiting, a bulleted list of major events, and then go in and organize whatever I just wrote into a coherent timeline. I would say 90% of my editing actually starts with the prep work.

For example, and for starters, this is what the original bullet draft looked like for Re: MHNY. Since I knew I wanted to mimic the original MHNY, but still incorporate the necessary revisions, I wanted to keep in mind the completely necessary parallels while writing so I didn't miss anything.

From there, I start making revisions and throwing darts at the wall for ideas.

Here's an example of some of the revisions. Anything with a (?) next to it was an idea I wasn't firm on. Although realistically, the entirety of this section was just spit balling, and nothing was really firmly in place. You'll note that this isn't in chronological order at all, lmao. The order was essentially what I felt most immediately needed clarification.

You'll also notice some elements were unclear. A lot of it was asking myself questions that needed narrative, sensible solutions. Also, some details changed! Skoodge originally was hanging out with the Resisty during his capture. I had a loose idea of them being in a community cell, such as is shown in Enter the Florpus's Moo-Ping 10, but then felt like it'd create too many problems with why the Resisty wouldn't just kill some Irkens for vengeance. I also felt like Tak probably would've caused too many problems with any budding friendships between them, so obviously, in the final version, they're separated, and Skoodge's reasons for joining end up being far more personal than just because he's kind of dumb and friendly.

For Re, because I needed/wanted the chapters to run so closely in parallel with the original MHNY, I also had chapter summaries. I don't usually do this, but for this iteration, and in this context, I felt it was necessary.

Here's an example for Ch 3. Notice the highlighted portion emphasizes that I hadn't yet made the decision on who was doing what at this point. I wrote/started versions for both. In the end, it ended up being Zim of course who comes up with the lie, but this decision I remember actually was made with a LOT of debate for/against Gaz and/or Zim being the instigator.

Here's another example of some of more major revisions that happened from the original plot. I actually have a ton of deleted scenes from ch 9 + 10 that used this original plot. However, as I started writing, I didn't like it anymore. So in the middle of writing 9, and some major chunks of 10 started, I scrapped the whole thing and wrote and wrote and wrote until I got something I was satisfied with. I thought Dib being there for support was a lot more meaningful to his and Gaz's relationship than him just showing up to one-up Zim.

At some point I may release those deleted scenes the way I did with MHNY 3, as I did keep them all, but for now, they are safely stowed away in my google drive for me to scowl at and berate for not being good enough. A quick glance shows me I have about 5505 words in that file (aka about as much as a chapter's worth of deleted or unused content). Some of it was actually even shifted into Re:MHNY2, as I felt the dialogue was more appropriate for a more mature relationship. As a fun fact, there's deleted scenes for Ch 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17 (pt 1), and 18.

The reason I kept all these is because I am deranged, and deleting them from existence hurt my feelings, but I also didn't want to publish them. So I hoard them like the little emotionally attached dragon I am.

Finally, sometime before, during, or after all this drafting happens, I actually just start writing. I write in whatever order I want. I have and will jump from the last chapter to the first, to the middle, to the semi-middle-beginning-ish with no concern whatsoever about chronology. A lot of times I will write an interaction between two characters that I feel fits better during a different timeline and just copy it over to that chapters document.

Each chapter gets it's own document. If I want to write something where I'm not sure of its position, it goes into a document labeled Random, Blank Document, or something else to emphasize that it's not a chapter and just random blurbs that need to be sorted at a later time. Those documents each get headings inside that I can jump to if/when they get sorted into the story, and are ready to be placed.

Since this is a competed story, all the scenes have been placed, so I'll use Dead Weight's current random blurb document (one of several) as an example (barely any spoilers)

If you're familiar with Google Docs, you'll know you can make headers within your document to jump to. It's super convenient for me, as a person who just likes to do the equivalent of throw pages on my floor and then painstakingly order them at a later time.

Just for fun, here's just how many documents I have dedicated solely to written scenes that are to be sorted at a later time for Paradorx:

You'll also see there's a calendar and a plot outline in that screenshot that was definitely on purpose and not the result of me just being too lazy to crop it out.

Once the actual draft is written, with words and paragraphs and everything, it gets revised.

Paragraphs get moved. Dialogue is taken out, revised, or thrown somewhere else that I feel fits it more appropriately. Grammar is changed. I reread every chapter about as much as I can stand to, take a break (ideally) and then read it again. I have deleted entire chapters, started entire chapters over, left a chapter halfway finished and decided it will pop up later in the story, etc. Dead Weight's next chapter for example has been restarted 4 or 5 times at this point, and I've only just now stumbled this week stumbled into what the next chapter is actually about.

Once it's been read, reread, reorganized, and picked apart until I hate it, it's deemed ready. Then I sit on it another week or so (depending on my deadline), read it again, and decide whether or not I want to add in any extra tidbits of foreshadowing for some later event that I've already written. At that point I'm just skimming for errors, grammatical fumbles, or anything that seems out of place. Finally, from there, publication!

An incredibly long answer that I hope really scopes out what I'm doing lmao.

As a spoiler/teaser for reading all of this, I can say that Re:MHNY2 is currently past the drafting phase, and is now in the "I throw words at the screen" phase. Not yet at the phase where I actually start ordering them into coherent chapters, but still developmentally in a good area.

[the-resurrection-3d]

hey mootie craziest ask ever but do u have any General writing tips bc on god. i have ideas i iust Cannot sequence them or put them on Technological paper im at a loss here

Oh for sure! This post ended up being rather long, but I wanted to be thorough -- feel free to let me know if I need to re-clarify something.

Anyway!

Usually, I have to write myself into the good writing -- by which I mean I begin a session with essentially artist's warm-ups, such as scribbling out a few words about the images that are coming to me, or starting my first sentence with some throwaway introductory phrase like "Thinking about..." and then describing the thing in whatever barebones form comes out -- "and then X, and then Y," and so on. It's not pretty writing by any means, but once I have those creative energies flowing, eventually I'll start to naturally slip in more description, more emotion, even dialogue. The "real" opening of the story is usually not the opening you first write -- Anne Lamott in her book Bird by Bird, for instance, mentions that, in her drafts for her three-page food reviews, her real opening usually was on page two of the first draft. I've had essays published where I had to literally revise every single sentence that was not a quotation from somebody else. By the end of last semester, I was struggling so badly to finish some first drafts of my final papers that I legitimately could barely finish my sentences. I'd write down half a thought, hit the enter key, and start a different thought entirely.

Which leads me into my main point, which is getting a draft done by any means necessary. To be as blunt as possible: you can't edit shit you didn't write. To quote the dancer Martha Graham:

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open."

So I have first drafts littered with Wikipedia summary-tier scene descriptions, huge quotes from other writers, half-baked ideas, completely context-less dialogue, and even abrupt swaps between first, third, and second person, because nothing else matters but simply getting it done. This is not to say I never edit as I write, but you have to give yourself the leeway to write bullshit. (For longer projects, @bettsfic in her most recent newsletter discusses writing out a "gauge" to figure out the project's writing style before committing to it, saying that:

in knitting, a gauge is a square you knit before you begin a project to make sure you’ll end up with the dimensions you intended. that way, a sweater you meant for a grown-ass adult doesn’t become a baby sweater by accident. a gauge makes sure you’re using the right yarn and the right needles so you don’t have to unravel the whole thing and start over.

Thus, she says she writes and rewrites the first chapter however many times it takes to find a perspective and "voice" that works so she won't have to, say, change an entire novel from past to present tense-- I dunno how long your ideas would be, but this could be helpful, too.)

Since you mentioned sequencing, I'll admit I also struggle with that a lot, so I find writing out of order pretty necessary. Once you actually have more story material out in front of you, though, thematic threads become more apparent and sequences can start to suggest themselves. Tying themes to specific reoccurring actions and symbols can also suggest organization, both on the more global story level and the more microscopic sentence-by-sentence level. The 5+1 fanfic form is a great example of this.

John McPhee goes way more in-depth with this thematic organization idea here, though he's talking specifically about narrative nonfiction. Peter Elbow also discusses in "Collage: Your Cheating Art" that, if you have a fragmentary draft of an essay, you can always essentially use it to reverse-engineer a more "professional" outline. Again, not fiction strictly, but I use the same principle a lot (alongside Kurt Vonnegut's suggestion to start my short stories as close to the ending as I possibly can, lollll).

If you have a general sense of what plot/genre you'd like to write, you can also try what I've seen Brandon Sanderson call scaffolding, wherein you look at the basic plot beats and structure of a novel in your genre and essentially use it as the traced deviantART anime base on which to design your new OC. You don't have to be completely beholden to that plot structure, of course, but this can be a great way to cheat-start making an outline or first draft.

I tend go back and forth between collage and scaffolding since I'm a mess, lol. After the draft is done (or even just 80-90% done, because sometimes I know I'm not finished, but I won't know exactly what to finish until I'm into the revision process), I find it particularly helpful to print out my drafts and physically cut them up and rearrange them into lines and piles, so I can test the flow of certain sequences more easily than on a screen.

I was flipping through my copy of Bird by Bird while I was writing this, and I think I'll end this (very ramblingly) post with a small but encouraging quote from it:

I hope that helps! It's 2:47 am right now, lol, so I apologize if this is at all messy or a little scattered.

[ylizam]

8 & 16 please :)

8. Is there a story idea in your mental vault that you’ve never been brave enough to try writing? Is this the year? Can you tell us about it?

Hmm, this is a good one. I think generally speaking I'm more likely to start-and-then-crash-into-the-wall-of-my-own-fear than to just not start something out of fear, but I'm really good at that crashing thing when something feels like it's Too Big. Too Much. Too Important to me somehow. There are the original things—just, super "what I want to read" stuff full of second change romance and reunited soap opera castmates and polyamory and navigating relationships and prickly people and sometimes those reunited castmates are actually in space and are union organizers or bakers or whatever those details keep slipping around based on what I'm into and so that's what I need to sort of drill down on in the coming months (or I can keep restarting the same basic story with new details, over and over and over, and then changing my mind again). The What if Bartlet Lost West Wing AU (the bravery of rewatching the West Wing and revisiting that part of myself) is another.

Or "never been brave enough to try writing" isn't exactly right for something new, but I'm feeling all these feelings about Moiraine and Siuan and Lan and the way their relationships interact and cross paths and what they look like (what do Lan and Siuan look like? what is THAT relationship?) and it's just all there bouncing around in my head and it's not a story idea, exactly, but it's this thing that I'm not quite up to putting shape to yet. Oh! And one day I want to write something about Beverly Crusher and Laris and the Troi-Rikers and Picard and what the fuck happened to her and what's happening to her and Why Picard The Series is Clearly Wrong (and oh shit coming back way too soon) and that's one where once again the story doesn't have a clear shape but it's also THERE, lurking, scary and too big and too dear to me to risk writing down.

As for whether "this is the year"? I don't fucking know. I'll poke at all of these at some point, I'm sure of that much, but I guess if I have to pick Just One (1) to finish it'd be the original thing just to say I did (or the Beverly Crusher one).

16. Do you have that one fanfic that you wrote a ton for, ages ago, but never posted? Will this be the year, come hell or high water, that it WILL get finished and posted?

I mean, I've already talked about wanting to finish and post one of the Berena fics that have been in progress for-freaking-ever in "honor" of the last Holby episode, so that? Them? (There are probably four-ish that have been in various stages of completion for years now, just drafts upon drafts upon unfinished drafts, almost-but-not-quite-THERE. I'm determined to finish and post one.)

[ask me new year fanfic asks! I will eventually answer!]

[its-ya-boi-autumn]

Miss you

;-; ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

I'm sorry I've been gone so long and been on hiatus forever. I want to write so bad but literally have like no ideas for anything sadly. I get the occasional request but my brain is so fogged I can't think of much to like put with it. It's just like empty and I hate it ;-; I'm getting writers block so bad dawg.

I see one of the people I look up to and follow and honestly the whole reason I started this blog back like 2-3 years ago and they post like every single day and have a writing and I'm sure they have those planned out and worked on in advance and have like outlines and stuff organized ahead of time but I can't help but compare myself even though I know I shouldn't do that.

I miss you guys too and I'm sure I'll come back eventually whether it's on this blog or even the other one, just right now I can't think of jack shit for anything. I'm sorry I keep saying that too I need to stop and I think that's actually one of the reasons I went quiet for a while as well. I'll configure something up and post it one of these days though. I definitely have stuff in my drafts and in my inbox, just nothing in my brain will work right for me to continue it and output it at this moment.

[khaleesiofalicante]

so there's an essay competition. it's international and our school's also involved. For some time now I feel like I had convinced myself that I couldn't do it and that I shouldn't take part in things because I'll fail anyway, that I shouldn't hope because I'd just end up disappointed. I let go of a pretty big linguistics competition even though I've been part of it before 2 (?) years back (it's yearly but covid fucked that up too so we didn't have it last year) because of this internalized feeling.

Writing and Linguistics is my thing. I love doing it and I'd say I'm somewhat good at it too. I've been really trying to let go of this because it's holding me back and I don't like it. I mean even if I don't do well it'll still be pretty cool that I tried.

I just filled out the form for the essay contest and I'm just about to start writing. It's supposed to be a short essay, just 100-200 and the topic is "Life on a ship" I'm good at storytelling and putting myself in a situation in a book. I feel like I'm more convincing myself at this point.

I am nervous but this is also my first step of breaking the "you're not good at anything so better stop hoping either lol" mindset so I'm excited too. Our school is one that takes part in a lot of organizations and contests and events so there will be plenty of stuff to do in the future and I want to do it y'know? Has this turned into me convincing myself? yes.

I feel like even if I don't do perfectly I can still have fun and I can learn. Like during sports I always felt like I wasn't good enough but today I actually tried and learned how to be better and I had so much fun.

It won't be an easy journey but I'm excited to start. Time to crush that essay! (also teach myself to work with word limits because they stress me out. Do I have plenty of ideas for the essay? yes. But I can't write more than 200 so this will be fun)

Bye!!

I think taking chances - especially on ourselves - is the sexiest shit. You're doing great! Keep it up!

I understand your frustrations about word limits. I'm not so good with them either.

But just write it first, yes? Editing and tinkering and all that comes later.

The goal is to get that first draft. I hope it's going well.

If you need me to look it over or give feedback or need any help, let me know x.

GOOD LUCK!!!!!

[snowstark]

Hello! I saw someone not too long ago ask @vaguekiwi about her writing process and was curious to see how writers have their similarities and differences. If you don't mind sharing along the same lines that VagueKiwi has done, could you explain your process too?

hi! sure sure i'd love to talk about this!!! before we begin though, i gave grace's process a quick look and WOW that's a real mf sexy explanation 🥵anyway here we go—

like grace said, what works for me might not necessarily work for someone else. experiment and stick with what works best for you, there's no right or wrong way to write!

1. how i figure out My Story Idea™️

the best ideas have always come to me when i'm doing something random. i'll be in the shower, lying in bed unable to sleep, commuting, etc etc etc, and usually an image, a dialogue line, or a scene pops into my head. i use a lot of other things for inspiration too — my fic wolves go for your heart takes a lot of inspiration from the TV show "suits" (which has a super canonic d/s relationship between the two characters btw). i'm a strong believer in the fact that all forms of art are inspired by one another; it's hard to come up with an idea that's "truly original," you know? imo, as long as you give credit where it's due, there's no problem in being inspired by another piece of art!!

i'm not very good with just sitting on an idea once it gets in my head. the moment it appears, i usually jot down a note on a blank google document or else i forget it. my google drive is filled with 50+ documents that have a Single Line of Description of the story lmao. if i get to it, cool; if not, that's okay. but if i'm feeling inspired and motivated enough, i'll start writing on the spot.

2. outlining???? don't know her

i'm also not very good with outlining, personally. the majority of the time i try to outline, i get bored of writing the actual story and so it never gets written. so, i just write the story from wherever i start and see where it takes me. of course, i've found that this has some issues in the long-run; it's harder to make sure you don't have plot holes or contradict something you said in previous chapters, etc. i've had way too many moments where someone asked me about a plot hole and i was like 😋 whaaaatttt no idea what you're saying!

that's not to say i never outline, because sometimes, when i feel like being a responsible writer, i do. i've had a couple of stories where i outlined chapter-by-chapter, which i do recommend trying if you feel up to it! (it does give you a good sense of direction on where to take the story!) but, yeah, i wing my stories 98% of the time, because that's just how my writer's brain works.

i'm also not a chronological writer at all; i prefer writing scenes in bits and pieces and then i smash all of these pieces all together and edit the final draft multiple times so that it flows well. i need to indulge myself with the scenes that i want right in that moment, or else i just can't get myself to write. this means that 80% of the time, i have the ending of the entire fic written before the beginning of chapter 1 LOL

3. keeping track of The Story™️

notes !!! bullet points !!! random bits and pieces of a scene !!!

the moment a scene or dialogue pops into my head, i write it down and save it for later. i usually just put some space between each "bit" and keep them in the same document as my story, and then i'll paste them into whatever chapter fits it later on. it's a bit chaotic and disorganized, but it is fun, for me, so i guess that's what counts!

for if you give a billionaire, i decided to try to get my shit together and organized everything really nicely. i used the same program called scrivener that grace mentions in her post (grace also convinced me to buy it; salesperson!grace au?!) because it really is a great program that helps you stay focused and organized! so yeah, for that story, i have docs of things to remember, important ideas, peter's rules/limits/etc, a folder of future scenes/bits, etc etc etc. it is pretty helpful, so i would definitely recommend keeping things organized like this! or, you could just keep things chaotic; i'm a fan of that too 😌again, see what works for you!!

4. writer's block (fuck off)

ik this wasn't really mentioned in grace's post, but writer's block is a serious pain in the ass so i think it's worth mentioning. i've been going through a mild slump in writing for a while and it's really frustrating. (un?)fortunately, it means i worked on some tactics to try to work past it, so maybe these techniques will be helpful for anyone else reading this!

i'm a massive fan of fighter's block, i will literally recommend it to anyone who even hints that they're going through a block. you can set a word count goal for yourself and with each word you write, the little character battles the monster. this program is also great because it stops me from questioning every single word that i write — that's one of the main things i experience when i'm going through writer's block. sometimes, in order to write, you just have to write. don't let yourself pause or stop to edit something, save that whole process for later. your first draft can be as shitty as you think it is; i promise you it will look 10 times better when you look at it the next day. and even if it doesn't, you now have words !! that you can edit !!

it's also kind of important to figure out why you have writer's block. for example, with if you give a billionaire, i personally struggle to put our chapters faster than every 4-6 months (that brings me so much pain i'm so sorry readers) because i've put too much expectation on myself. in my head, if you give a billionaire is a story that needs to be perfect, meets everyone's expectations, has just the right amount of plot and smut, has good witty dialogue because they're both snarky assholes, and for some reason i'm convinced that each chapter has to be about 4-6k words. i know that it's all in my head and that no one else but myself is reinforcing these words, but i can't make myself stop thinking it. and that's why i take forever to update — the expectations i've put on myself scares me from writing it because i get worried i'll mess up. so acknowledging and understanding that has helped me a bit because i can try to work past it now that i know what the problem is.

another example: for something like wolves go for your heart, i'm going through a block simply because i've lost inspiration for it. it's not as deep as it is for billionaire, and all i'm waiting for is for me to get back into the mood to write that law setting and boss/associate dynamic.

anyways, the point is, figuring out what's making writing so hard will be the first step in fighting that block :)

you can also reach out to any writing friends; talking out some ideas and AUs are super helpful in fighting a block!! if you don't know anyone personally enough to reach out and text them about it, reach out to a writer in your fandom!! i promise you that everyone will be delighted to help and talk about ideas! @thymenottime has a fantastic queens au going on that you should totally check out btw, and through asks, she talked to me about what she was thinking and we both had a fantastic time!!! sometimes just talking with friends and other writers is the best thing to do for yourself as a writer :]

okay, i think that's about it from me?? if you have more questions feel free to let me know, or you can always reach out to other writers too, of course!! other writers, feel free to chime in! i bet everyone has different tactics that work for them, and fresh perspectives too! happy writing <3

[emcscared-whumps]

3, 9, 22, and 24 for the writing ask!

Questions from This Post!

***I actually received two asks for the from same post, and you have a couple of the same queries, so uh, my apologies I'm gonna copy paste those bc I feel bad about linking the other post as an answer lmao, but also, why write it twice lol

3. What is your writing ritual and why is it cursed?

I sacrifice the blood of my innocent characters on the altar of sadism and worship the Higher Powers in hopes they grant me 50 extra words to put into my doc

jkjkjk lmao

I don't have much of what could be considered a ritual. I usually like a moderately dim, quiet room, I brew some tea, put on a Spotify playlist full of neat but quiet instrumentals, and lay a weighted blanket over my lap, and I crack open both my planning doc and my ActualWritingTM doc and see where I'm at and which bit I want to work on :)

~*~

9. Do you believe in ghosts? This isn’t about writing I just wanna know

Uhh... Well, the feeling of eyes boring into your back and the sound of floors creaking in the night when no one's there is certainly unsettling (both true btw, I don't joke about that shit :bSweat:), but I don't think we have much definitive scientific evidence to prove anything about the existence of ghosts.

Just creepy anecdotes, unexplained occurrences, and horror campfire stories. And you have no real way to tell how exaggerated or not they are since you were never there. Or you never saw, even if you were. I think it's a lot to do with psychic and mind shit, so it's perfectly reasonable that one person could see a ghost and another, standing staring at the same spot, might not.

Personally?

I don't think our current science practices or approaches allow for large/reliable enough study into that field. We also might not have the technology. And we have the tendency to laugh at the psychics/mediums etc etc.

If I asked my uncle, I'm sure he'd say some interesting/existential stuff about about what it means to be alive, exist, and what our consciousness really is... whether the universe is real or just our brain's way of interpreting different stimuli... I would have to agree with the bits that I can wrap my mind around lmao

Short answer? I'm undecided, but if they wanna chill in my closet? Cool, just don't make a mess. You can look at my cool rock collection, ghost friend :)

Fun fact: I'm in the Danny Phantom fandom lmao because ofc I am

22. How organized are you with your writing? Describe to me your organization method, if it exists. What tools do you use? Notebooks? Binders? Apps? The Cloud?

I like to think I'm fairly organised-- I have different folders for different realms, and within those, the different stories set in those realms, and then inside those, I have note documents, outline documents, draft documents, and a snippet folder. They're all formatted the same, and the document names are also formatted the same.

I think it's very organised, and it helps me keep track of where I put everything so I can find it again.

24. How much prep work do you put into your stories? What does that look like for you? Do you enjoy this part or do you just want to get on with it?

I do sooo much prep work.

I am a notorious overthinker, and it shows in many aspects of my life, from my writing, to karate, to any kind of planning.

When I plan my writing, I make a lot of notes that stem from "main events".

For example, Timmy bb might need to go look for Pete in the aquarium. I'll write out what he does before finding Pete, and afterward, and I'll flesh it out with basic descriptors and emotions. It ends up half writing, I've started calling it 'scaffolding', because it sorta is.

E.g. Timmy blanches, he feels sick, and he feels his share of the guilt for getting it so so wrong. He should’ve known, he should’ve figured it out

It takes a little while, but if I already have the ideas, it's very quick because you can get a flow up very easily.

And then ofc, I come back several days, or even weeks later having daydreamed incessantly about it, and add more and more detail until it looks like Actual Writing.

Rinse and repeat and the process can take years :mElmoFire:

Shifting Phases though is a total fucking bitch because I started when I was 15 and wanted whump whump whump and didn't know how the characters worked yet. So, the plot is a constant battle, but I'm really making headway with the addition of 5 years of simmering on the cooktop :D

I suppose I do enjoy even the planning because it's still technically writing-- I'm not starting off on a blank page, and I have something to assist in the daydreaming :))

~*~