#i wrote around 150k in a year that's wow

[ufuckingpastry]

I've been feeling in a rough patch lately and most of it's manifested in insecurities and a general lack of motivation to work on any writing projects. I haven't touched PB since I put it on hiatus. I came up with a really fun writing series that just petered off into nothing. I've barely progressed and done anything, even though I'm having all these cool story ideas!

If you've been here for a while, you might've noticed that I stopped writing a couple years back, right around when Homestuck ended. Homestuck was the first major fandom I was in and the first one I posted fanfic for. My AO3 has 50 works just for Homestuck. And, when it ended, it felt like so did my desire to create.

Of course, this was right around my last year of college and ohhhhh fuck that was stressful. Plus I got really into WoW too. I didn’t really have much time to write in general.

I struggled for 3 years feeling like I could barely write anything at all. I was in such a depressive funk at the time, and the feeling like I couldn't create only worsened it. It took me 3 months to write 1000 words.

And then, one day, something amazing happened. I got into dsmp, I got into these characters, and on a whim, I sat down and wrote my first fic for it. In the span of 3 days, I wrote 3000 words! And I was happy! And I posted it and people seemed to love it!

My AO3 now has at least 30 fics just for dsmp, and I've got folders upon folders of other projects and ideas springing up every day for new fics for other smp series!

And yet, I'm starting to see myself falter. With the dsmp ending, and especially ending like it did, it reminds me so much of Homestuck. And I see myself doing the same things and behaving the same way I did 6 years ago. Struggling to write. A lack of focus and motivation to work on any of my projects. An external source of immense stress that makes me feel like I don’t have much time to write anymore.

And it's frustrating on a personal level to see that. Therapy opened my eyes to recognizing my patterns of behavior. I can prevent myself from spiraling. I can recognize when I need a break and I can take that break and barely feel guilty for it. And yet, here I am again. Will it soon take me a month to write 1000 words?

Have I even written 1000 words this very month?

... so I've written 5000.

In 2022, I decided that I wanted to track my yearly word count. I wrote so MUCH in 2021 that I broke 100k words posted on AO3 for that year. But that was just finished works! None of my wips, which I knew I had a lot more of! So I tracked my word count in 2022 and I think I hit around 150k? And that's impressive! That's cool!

So I did it again for 2023. But it's been harder to keep up with that over the last few months. I've been in a limbo of not knowing how many words I've written. Based on the fact that I haven't made any progress on my fics, that number must be very low, I thought.

And then I updated my word count yesterday. And I realized something:

I've written over 5000 words this month. Which isn't a lot, sure, but it's a lot for me. And, you know what? That's on track for January and February. March was fucking wild cuz I broke 14k words in March. And I know from tracking it last year, whenever I get a huge spike of words in one month, it takes maybe another month to recover. So my next month won't be as big or grand, but that's okay.

And that made me sit back and really look at what that means. I've been rping a lot, which is where the majority of those words come from. I wrote 1.5k words in a single DAY and I'm over here wondering why I don't have any words left in me! When I was in my last writing slump, I was still rping. All I did was rp.

I'm still writing, even when I don't think I am. I'm still expressing myself in these creative outlets even when I don't think it's "real writing". And why does it matter what's real writing anyways? Isn't it enough that I'm still doing it?

It is. It is enough. Therapy helped me recognize my patterns of behavior, and sometimes the answer really is to just. Take a break.

It'll still be here when you get back.

[dreamy-heichou]

2019 Writing Round-Up

Thank you @talkereritome for tagging me! <3

I started posting fics on AO3 at the end of 2018 so the majority of my works are from 2019. It was a wild year, I wrote much more than I had expected when I started writing for the Ereri fandom, and I want to thank everyone that read one or several of my works, left kudos and commented. You guys gave me the motivation to keep writing, and tbh writing has been playing a huge role with helping me with my mental health, so it really means a lot to me <3

I know I haven’t posted anything in a while, but you can expect more from me in 2020, I’m definitely not done writing! In fact, I started writing a new multi-chaptered fic that I hope you guys will like! It’s going to be quite long and I’m very excited to share it with all of you, hopefully soon <3

AO3 stats:

Kudos: 692

Comment Threads: 101

Bookmarks: 200

Subscriptions: 133

Word Count: 148,668

Hits: 8,756

My works from 2019:

Sunshine and Pumpkin (74,411, started in 2018): Multichapter, Complete, Teen, Texting AU

My Little Lover (34,795): Multichapter, Complete, Teen, Reincarnation/Soulmates AU

Second Time is the Charm (24,105): Multichapter, Complete, Teen, Time Travel AU

Getaway (6,445): One shot, Explicit, Top Eren/Bottom Levi

Captain, My Captain (5,502): One shot, Mature, Pirate AU

Mata Aeru Hi made (Until we Meet Again) (3,410): One shot, General, Childhood Friends

I also wrote prompts in 2019 that I haven’t posted on AO3 yet (but will once I’m done with all of them), so I’ll put a link to them here as well. They are all Reincarnation AUs: 1, 2, 3 & 4

Most of the people have already been tagged so I’ll only tag @soapy0-0, but if you’re a writer and are interested in doing it, please do so and tag me! I’m always interested in discovering new Ereri fics/writers :)

[brokenmimir]

I just finished reading Supernatural Affairs (again). It's probably my favorite work of fiction and I think it's an absolutely amazing work, and it served as my introduction to the lovecraftian genre. A few questions:

How do you get the idea for it? What inspired you to write a lovecraftian RWBY story?

Did you have problems keeping up motivation to write the story? If so, what did you do to counter them?

It's been a couple years since you've written anything (at least one AO3), would you consider writing more? Did something convince you to stop writing? (This isn't meant to be pressure to write, more curiosity)

I remember in some comment you saying that Supernatural Affairs is a retelling of RWBY (in some ways) in a lovecraftian setting. Did you ever feel a tension between sticking to the RWBY plot/canon and telling the story you wanted to tell? If so, how did that play out?

Did you know it was going to be as long as it turned out to be when you started?

Follow-up, did you write all 410k words in the year and two months that Supernatural Affairs was publishing?

What is your writing process like? How did you get ideas for Supernatural Affairs?

What advice would you give to writers who are wanting (or in the process of) to write something as grand as Supernatural Affairs?

Dust Trader was one of the first fanfics I ever read, and also one that I enjoyed immensely (and really shows off how amazing a writer you are). I don't want to make you choose between children (so to speak), but which story do you like better? How they differ in your mind? Did you have a different process for them?

Apologies for the long list of a 'few' questions. Love your stories and I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Thanks!

Wow, I'm happy that you love my story so much, and I'll try to answer your questions as best I can.

I love Urban Fantasy with Supernatural Police -- I've seen it a few times, but it's pretty rare. I decided if I wanted to read one I might as well write one, and after a little thought I decided against using Vampires and Werewolves since they're a little cliche. I've read all of Lovecraft, so I decided to use that as the starting point for my setting.

It was very hard at times -- around the 20k word mark I realized how big it was getting, but it got easier after that until I was in the last case, which was _hard_ to push through. I decided early on that I really wanted to tackle and complete this project, and I decided to use a Stephen King quote as the basis for my writing -- "Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us get up and go to work." Basically, even if I was feeling uninspired I forced myself to sit down and write 1000 words a day every day no matter what.

The Quarantine did a number on both my motivation and my writing process. I know I need to just start writing again, but... it's been hard to do anything the past couple years.

Not too many. When I started planning the story I came up with a list of about 15 or 20 cases that would be fun to write. I then laid out the major events of RWBY seasons 1-3 that I wanted to re-tell. Then I looked at my two main characters, and decided what character arc each was going to experience, as well as what the relationship arc was going to be like. I then set down those 3 arcs in order, added the RWBY plot points I wanted to hit, and then divided all of that up into 9 segments. Then I looked at my case ideas and picked the 9 that would most easily tie into those arc segments.

I knew it was going to be longish (I had an outline written in advance as part of my plotting) but I expected all of my cases to be about as long as the first case -- 4-6ish chapters each, so maybe 30-50 chapters max, or around 100-150k words. Obviously I underestimated how big things would get as I got more comfortable with the story.

I started publishing when I had about 60k words written, and I wrote 1000 or more words a day every day going forward. I finished Case 9 about halfway through posting Case 8, so not too far off. I think the final tally was 1 year, 1month all told.

I start by taking my overall story outline and writing a much more detailed case outline. In the morning just after breakfast I sit in a comfortable armchair with no one around and the house silent so I can really concentrate. It usually takes around an hour to write and edit 1000 words, and I won't stop for anything until I finish that much, though I'll keep going if I have time and am in the groove. Every chapter (which usually takes 3 days to write) I give a second edit when I finish it. After the whole case is done I give it a third edit all the way through, and before posting I edit each chapter one more time. I like to write in the morning because before I go to sleep at night I think about my story, and I try to daydream out how the whole next scenes would unfold. In the morning I can usually commit those ideas to paper pretty easily.

I think the two biggest things that helped me are (1) have a very thorough outline! I spent weeks writing my outline, and I had an even more thorough outline for each case just before I started it, but it was still barely enough to keep a giant story like this wrangled. Feel free to follow your muse on details as you go, but an outline is super important. And (2), I will reiterate that Stephen King quote I lived by -- "Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us get up and go to work." Writer's block is just an excuse. You can write something no matter what. Maybe it'll suck, but if you try it'll usually be better than you'd expect.

I used the same writing process for both. I think my favorite is probably Supernatural Affairs because I like Urban Fantasy more than Sci Fi, but I really enjoyed both. Dust Trader let me play with my own plot structure since I wasn't borrowing RWBY's, which was nice. Supernatural Affairs was my baby, though.