#it's been half an hour 😭

[chocosvt]

hi choco! i'm so excited to see you back on my tl; i've missed you and your god-tier fics & i'm super duper excited to read your wonwoo fic as well (140k words? we will all be well fed fr 🤲)

i had a little rant? not exactly rant but something that's been itching my mind a bit haha, i hope you don't mind me sharing it with you! i genuinely want some advice over this.

as a long fic writer, how do you consistently come back to writing your fic without getting bored? i looooove writing long fics too (big lover of slowburn and angst lol) but i always get so impatient and bored of writing the story so quickly :(

i'd posted a teaser for a fic a while back and it got a good amount of traction (something i will always be grateful for) and someone asked me when i would release the full fic, to which i gave them a tentative date. fast forward to the day before the day i said i would post the fic and you have me typing out paragraphs upon paragraphs of stuff that i absolutely loathe in my writing. i ended up posting the fic anyway, but it's been only a day and i already want to take it down—not bc it's not getting any attention, because it is, but more so bc i hate that fic and would do anything to rewrite it.

iirc your joshua fic, 'best friend's brother' was a rewrite of a fic you'd written earlier, right? was your thought process similar to this? where did you start your rewriting process from? did you have any second thoughts when you took it down the first time?

i'm really sorry if this is too many questions 😅 please take your time if you do choose to answer this! much love and have a great day, choco!!! thank you so much :)

(is it alright if i use an emoji to sign off so i can find this ask later?)

— 🍫

first of all, THANK U SO MUCH <3

and i don't mind at all! these are rly insightful questions :o though i'll just chunk my answers a bit so i'm not all over the place.

not getting bored to be honest, i'm not sure if i ever "get bored" of writing out the plot. but i definitely get burnt out, and sometimes i get downright sick of reviewing my own writing, to the point where i just have to close my laptop and walk away. i think the most important & overarching piece of advice i can give--not just in terms of long fics but any fic for that matter--is to never force anything & take breaks!

when i'm busy at uni, there are like 5 month breaks where i don't bother writing at all. i always think that the second i have free time, i should theoretically want to write, but sometimes i just don't. and i make peace with it bc i know the second i force anything i will end up hating it (also takes the fun & enjoyment out of the process).

i think if you're getting bored, it's probably a sign that your body & mind just isn't interested in writing at the moment. so i would step away & take a break and attempt to get your mind off the plot. i think that taking a break also invigorates your mind a bit and gives you newer, better ideas (at least from my experience).

bfb rewrite the reason i rewrote best friend's brother was bc the og fic was from 2016, when my writing style was completely different. i still liked the concept but naturally, as my writing grew, i just detested the way the old ver was written, which spurred me to create the rewrite.

i wanted to give the characters a lot more depth & beef up the plot, so the new fic is actually a lot different in comparison to the old one. i wasn't attempting to do a scene-for-scene rewrite--it was simply just my approach to an old concept that i felt i could now execute better.

as to how i went abt rewriting it, i just picked out moments from the old fic that i liked and built around them. for instance, i rly liked the "skipping stones" scene that shows some intimacy & tenderness between joshua and reader. but it can't just happen out the gate. so i had to figure out the typical "why, when, and how is this moment happening right now?" from scratch.

the thing with long fics for me, it honestly is a test of patience & dedication!! bc it can truly be so frustrating :( a lot of times, you want to jump right into the good parts bc those are like the shiny glimmers that make the fic attractive. but depending on how impactful you want those moments to be, build-up is sooooo key! the thing is, build-up is just so critical in my opinion, but it can also be such a pain to write :p

i find when i review my writing, these are scenes i criticize or change the most--more than the big, hard-hitting scenes. bc to me, it's such a specific thing that you have to nail down justttt right. it's a lot of thinking and finagling and i think this process is what i dread the most? especially when it refuses to turn out how you want it--ugh, so discouraging!! but once you get it's like a silky flowy river!!

the big takeaways (i guess?) 1. taking breaks is so important! 2. don't force anything xxxx 3. take the big moments & build around them i totallyyyyy understand your frustration!! there have been so many moments where i'm like I NEED TO WRITE AHHHHH and then i promptly open the document only to sit there, blankly read a few sentences, and then get this rly big sinking feeling in my gut that is essentially telling me "never mind" and honestly i just listen to it bc if i'm gonna close & open the document 10 times in a row i obviously don't want to write. i'm just searching for something fulfilling and clearly not finding it in the task at hand so i should do smth else.

THIS IS EXTREMELY LENGTHY AND I''M BEYOND SORRY, but i hope somewhere amongst this mumbo jumbo there was something that stood out & may give you a bit of closure!

[flufflecat]

My eyeball bill won best crafted!!!!!!

[rileys-battlecats]

*guy that hasn't slept properly in several days voice* damn why am i so tired

[dottores]

well, i was going to wait to formally announce something when i got the time but i’m a bit irritated that the first thing i see when i log in is this ask

^ to answer your question anon, idk why you’re following if that’s what you feel 💀 respectfully, unfollow and never interact with me again. and this goes for everyone else who has left nasty asks in my inbox demanding me to update. my priority is law school and family, not to update fanfics that i don’t get paid for. this is something i do on the side for fun, it is not a job nor does it help me secure my future. spend less time demanding free work from people and spend more time working on your own future. it quite literally should never get to the point where you’re demanding strangers on the internet to provide you with fanfiction and insulting them when they have other things going on—seek help. that is weird.

but on a more serious note to everyone who has been respectful & kind about it—i don’t think i’m gonna be able to update anything until winter break, i apologize to everyone who has been waiting patiently, i promise i’m not abandoning heliotropes but it will not be updated for at least a month and a half. my workload has skyrocketed the past two weeks and my professors are warning us that it’s only uphill until after finals when we get our break. i need to be focusing on work, i barely even have the energy to answer messages from ppl right now.

^^ so if you are here for just my writing, this is the time to leave. i’ve been very vocal about this not being a writing blog. it is just my blog. if you only want writing, unfollow and find it in the tags.

i am going to be closing my inbox to prevent more asks like this because it’s rude and it’s not something i want to deal with. officially on semi-hiatus.

[warmsol]

do you crave to be home playing with your sims while you’re out or are you normal

[spaghett-onaplate]

depression is really weird actually wdym i spent 2.5 years of my life in bed

[svnflowermoon]

why is being honest about my feelings so embarassing i'm going to die

[elizakai]

on a scale from 1 to 10 how much r u getting booped rn

UH-IT FUCKING BROKE

[antiyourwokehomophobia2]

I feel a bit like an asshole.

[bittsandpieces]

.

[bibleofficial]

going to leather events solely to get my boots cleaned for free - not even into it, i’m just lazy & cheap

[the-real-couchrat]

Posting some mini art tutorials while I work on some bigger projects.

First we have Darceus Alamastern, created by @toothpastecanyon in Unto Dust

And last (but not least) we have Nxlar the Antithetical, made by @gnomewithalaptop in Transcendence AU dash simulator and also appeared in The Comfort of Agony chapter 8

[kyouka-supremacy]

The culturally accurate Mikus is the best thing to have happened on the internet ever since Goncharov

[twistedappletree]

i actually don’t know how i’m gonna go anywhere tomorrow even with my client’s car, there’s gotta be at least 6-7 inches of snow IN the city, which means it’s probably close to 12 where she lives

[cemeterym]

i'm begging my uni to stop making every fucking student social activity something where you have to walk around a bunch if you are a slow walker who cannot help it they literally want you dead

[souenkun]

It's my birthday today, and I'm now as old as kita shinsuke in the timeskip! 🥳