#it's true. i've entered the writing phase of the hyperfixation

[imreallyloveleee]

honeymoon phase

She pulls him close and wraps her legs around his hips, runs her hands down his back, lets the bad thoughts bleed out while he makes her feel good.

(Set during 5x07, JMM.)

read it on ao3.

[harpywritesfic]

Look at me, a wants-to-write-but-blocks-themselves-because-the-first-letter-I-type-down-has-to-be-perfect-fanfic writer.

I've been hoarding various prompt lists like whumptober and fluffbruary. I even snatched myself one of those ironstrange bingo cards in hopes I could fill one of prompts in a year. But now half of the year is over and my card still empty.

I feel like a failure 😞

ah, you've come to the right place. abandon your perfectionism, all ye who enter here. this is a land of unedited drafts, fics written in a haze of hyperfixation, caffeine highs and/or mental breakdowns. i've mastered the art of "good enough".

remember- writing is messy! the process is messy, and the product can be messy too. in a sense nothing people write is ever truly 'finished'- there's always room for improvement. that's how art works, in my humble opinion. try to find enjoyment in the process, not the product. as the artist, your own work will always seem imperfect. but that doesn't make it any less valuable.

it might help to know how i write most of my fics. maybe my method isn't your style, but i'll walk you through it anyway since it might help.

sit down to write. or write standing up. where isn't important. what matters most is you've got an idea or a prompt or an anything that makes you want to write.

word barf. this is the very rough draft phase. throw out everything you know you want to have happen into the doc. try not to read over what you're putting down (the messiness of it all can be daunting). mine often are made up of unfinished sentences, half-baked scene ideas, 'they do x and then y", mixed with some finished portions. if you get stuck, you can always come back, and you'll already have a little something on the page :)

splice and dice. this is where i put my scenes in their order (if they weren't already, it rly depends on what you're writing. sometimes it's linear, sometimes it's not). biggest thing i use this phase for is working out where i need transitions between scenes, where i need to expand my "x then y" bits into writing, and and where i can just put a empty line with a "-" in the center to indicate a new scene.

flesh it out. i get stuck here a lot. this is the step where you weave your scenes together, write your dialogue, fill in your placeholders. it's okay to just skip parts and come back to them. some parts, if they're really giving you trouble, can just be removed entirely. you're the writer- it's up to you. choose your battles.

(optional) editing. sometimes i just don't even bother, especially if i know i'll hate reading what i've written (if this happens to you, it's best to skip the editing! a few mistakes are no big deal. i find it easier to just throw it to the wolves (readers), who are usually very nice and rarely point out mistakes. they're not picky). sometimes editing is just a quick pass for typos. but you can also get into it a little more, really go elbow-deep, and edit to improve things like flow, pacing, tone, and other boring stuff. totally unnecessary, though. if you hate this step? skip it.

it took me maybe a year to feel comfortable enough to post something i'd written. and it's okay, too, if you don't feel comfortable posting anything. you can never post it. or you can do it anyway. sometimes i say to myself, "i want to read more of this specific ship/trope/situation/dynamic/whatever" and i make it myself. they say to write what you want to read, and that's even more true for fanfic. there are people out there who want to read the same things as you. sometimes you gotta look your fear in the eyes, quote Freddie Mercury and say, "I'll fucking do it, darling."

having said that, this might be most important- it's okay if you never post anything you write. fanfic is something we do for fun- there is no failure. the most important thing is to enjoy yourself. there doesn't have to be any finished product- just enjoy the process.

i hope this wasn't too ramble-y or anything. my brain works in strange ways, so this might be totally unhelpful. who knows! but i'll post it anyway, in case it is.

[goose-books]

i read your wips intro/masterpost, they all look super cool (!!!) but the status sections look like they haven’t been updated in awhile—any updates?

first of all, THANK YOU!!! means a lot whenever anyone checks out my posts! i have a tendency to forget this blog exists, which i can only blame partially on my being in school; i'm part of a thriving community of writing discord servers, and so i've gotten into the habit of sharing more writing there than here. also, from the bottom of my heart, i never have any idea what to post. so thank you x2 for asking for an update, because i can certainly do that!

in the order of the intro post, shall we? (which i have now updated, because it was bothering me.)

The Mortal Realm & Quark: "starting second draft summer 2021," he said (about the first). so that was a fucking lie. summer 2021 i spent working at a children's summer camp, which, while i love kids, sapped my sickly-victorian-boy strength like tuberculosis. and then i went off to college! so quark didn't happen in the fall, either.

both of these are on indefinite hiatus for now, but not shelved! as my oldest long-running projects and the ones that saw me through some specific parts of my life, they're very important to me, and i think about the characters and plots frequently. that said, i've grown a lot since i began each one, so some of my old plans no longer align with the sort of things i like to write now... both are probably due for a rehaul, and as i'm focused on other projects atm, i'm not sure when that will be! but they idle in the back of my brain like screensavers.

A Modern Tragedy: the scripts for AMT are entirely finished! (barring the intermission episode i never wrote, i suppose.) i wrote the last words and immediately encountered some issues, namely: i know how to write, but not how to record and produce a podcast. plus, a podcast-enjoying friend of mine who read the scripts pointed out that honestly, AMT has too many characters to work as an audio drama; i have written a TV show in audio form. and speaking of things i know how to do less than producing a podcast--producing a TV show. so at present i sort of just... have this. sitting on my computer. i've half a mind to just post the scripts on this blog; if you're interested in seeing them... you can certainly shoot me a dm.

darkling: this behemoth is fully drafted, goddamn it, and i did do a round of beta readers over summer 2021. that said, this thing scares me. i am far better at drafting than i am at editing, and approaching a 200,000 word book (yes. i know. i know) to rip the seams out and kick that word count into shape intimidates me. i think perhaps we should all be very mean to me until i acquiesce to sniffing the draft through the bathroom door (??? <- will being mean to me work? unclear)

Valentine van Velt is Dead: oh now this is ridiculous; have i really not updated the intro post in over a year? i suppose not. valentine van velt is out! i posted the book in full in google doc, pdf, and epub forms; you can read it right now today!

love, h: finally something on the intro post is true. this is still in brainstorming mode, less because i haven't figured it out and more because i need to enter another intense hamlet phase to be able to write it properly. it'll happen.

godsong: ah, and we approach the reason the rest of these projects haven't gotten done. my silly little lesbian aeneid is eating my brain. in the past year and a half, i have 1. plotted an entire trilogy 2. written a book and a half 3. spiraled into related AUs for literally over a hundred words. the problem with writing a project that combines multiple hyperfixations is that it will crawl into your brainstem and never ever ever ever leave you alone. ever.

...which is to say that i've written a godsong! i've completed a first draft of the first book and i'm currently drafting the second; i've learned that editing scares me and bogs me down, so i'm riding this hyperfocus as far as it'll take me before i do a beta-reading round. this may come as a shock, because i've posted very little about godsong compared to my other projects, and again, this is because i have no idea what to post. every now and then i get frightened about posting real excerpts, in case it somehow fucks me up copyright-wise. this is a largely irrational fear that i have anyhow. i'm dicking around trying to make character moodboards for intro posts, but i keep running into the moral quandary of whether i can knowingly use unsourced pinterest images, like, morally. unrelated, yeah i do have OCD, how did you know?

thank you for asking after my projects, anon! ^_^ this was a very nice ask to receive and it reminds me i really ought to post here more often... if i ever scrounge up enough pictures from fucking unsplash, we'll see about those intros. if anyone has questions, opinions, or suggestions for future maxblog activities, feel free to shoot me an ask!