#setting myself the arbitrary deadline of you need to finish this fic by the time you get your cast off/your bones are no longer broken

[crossbackpoke-check]

mods asleep it’s snippet saturday under the cut

dewey^2 p2 i WILL finish you… manifesting…

[celinamarniss]

Year in Review

In 2023 I posted 4 fics at 58,153 words.

Previous years:

2022: 4 fics at 45,096 words.

2021: 3 fics posted, 55,788 words.

2020: 7 or 10 fics posted, 125,738 words.

2019: 7 fics posted, 72,149 words.

2018: 7 fics posted, 87,752 words

2016: 9 fics posted, 51,643 words

2017: 9 fics posted, 115,336 words

2016: 9 fics posted, 51,653 words

In total, 49 fics posted to Ao3.

We Can't Keep Meeting Like This

34,355 words, gen, Din/Luke/Mara

The Din/Luke/Mara fic I told myself I wasn't going to write! As these things tend to do, it expanded into a much longer fic than I expected. The "five things (plus one)" structure helped to keep it from spiraling even further, but those individual chapters ended up being much longer than I expected and took much longer to write. At first, I serialized the first couple of chapters in smaller excerpts for WIP Weds on tumblr. It was fun to get a little feedback and the weekly deadline compelled me to write those chapters quickly. But when engagement dropped to basically nothing I stopped posting updates and waited to post each chapter to ao3 when it was done. My progress slowed down considerably, but the chapters got longer. I had fun, most of the time.

The Girl Who Traveled the Ways Between the Walls

4,938 words, gen, Animalis verse

Written for the 5k AU fic challenge. Luminous Creatures begins with Mara and Luke's daemons settling, and I regretted never writing a story with an unsettled daemon character. I wanted to write a fic with a fairy-tale vibe and I wanted to explore the weirdness of the Imperial Palace. The Palace becomes a fairy tale wood, and Mara sets off on a quest in which she encounters strange people who aid her or demand aid. Does she learn the right lesson in the end? Perhaps not.

Echo, Revenant, Targeter, Phoenix

15,431 words, gen, Winter Retrac character study

I wrote this one for the Star Wars Big Bang, an experience that ended up being so stressful that I dropped out. I still finished the fic on time and posted it. The fic attracted a modest number of readers (unsurprising given Winter has been basically forgotten these days), but their enthusiasm was very gratifying. I've always liked Winter and I wanted to give her a chance to shine.

However, while I love the worldbuilding and individual scenes and images in this fic, as a whole I don't think it's very gracefully written and I've never been very happy with it.

Cascade

3,429 words, mature, Luke/Mara

I wanted to include A Non-Zero-Sum Game in Vol II of my printed fic collection, but the series felt unfinished without the fourth and final story that I planned to write after Tether. So five years later, I finally wrote it. It was interesting to go back to those old fics and try to write a story that fit the series. I wanted to post it before the new year broke so that I could count it in the 2023 list, and I rushed to get it out. It could probably still use some work.

As the year went on, I failed to meet a lot of the arbitrary deadlines I set myself, and that made writing frustrating and unfulfilling. I don't want it to be like that! I want fic to be fun.

However, I have a lot of non-fandom projects coming up in 2024, and I'm going to have to shift my focus away from fic, at least a little bit.

GOALS FOR 2024

(almost exactly the same as the goals for 2023)

Triumvirate Finale! (explicit, very) The big finale of the Triumvirate series, in which the trio returns to Coruscant to face the Emperor. Doesn’t have a proper title yet. Progress so far: three chapters drafted, 15,410 words.

A Smuggler’s Guide to Joining the Rebellion (gen) The sequel to The Things You Find on Tatooine. Progress: the first chapter finished, 2,241 words.

Lando Calrissian and the Jewel of Andara (gen) The Lando and Mara heist romcom I’ve been promising forever. Progress: three chapters drafted, but in need of heavy revision, 6757 words.

Other fics on the backburner:

Courtship remix

Experiments

Daughter of the Rain and Snow

More daemon fic! 

[kinetic-elaboration]

January 3: Writing Resolutions

Okay, taking a break from rambling about Star Trek (...on tumblr, still talking about it on skype lol) to try to give some sort of order to my writing life in 2021.

I’ve had these ideas in mind for a while, but I’ve been trying to put them into words and put them in order.

I know I want to go back to writing more (and reading more) this year. But I also know that life is going to be just as hard as last year, probably for a while, and that my work schedule is not going to be conducive to me having a lot of time and energy to be creative.

I also know that I’ve been unhappy with my creative life for a while, for other reasons: my sense that engagement with my work is down; my lack of interest in the source material; my perception that the general tide of popular fandom stuff is...not wherever I am, I’ll just put it that way. So it’s hard to even convince myself that I should be here at all (I mean, in t100 fandom).

I ask why I don’t quit and it’s because of a sense of obligation to, and continued interest in, my WIPs and my unwritten ideas, plus a dash of ‘too scared to seriously write Star Trek again.’ That’s basically it. I can continue to support my fandom friends by reading and commenting and promoting their work, so that I know people around these parts doesn’t matter much to me re: my own output.

So, here are roughly my thoughts on where I want my writing to go now.

(Goals and Resolutions below.)

Goals:

To write regularly (at least every weekend) in order to keep my creative brain active, and for my own enjoyment.

To be organized with my projects, but not to set deadlines or put pressure on myself to write faster or more.

To finish things for the sake of finishing them, and for no other reason.

To separate myself as much as possible from fandom validation like comments.

To be okay with throwing out drafts, writing stuff I don’t like, experimenting and seeing some experiments not work, and possibly even with throwing some old WIPs in the abandoned pile.

Resolutions:

Take on as few events as possible. As of right now, I’m committed to 2 projects. One is the BBB, which I might drop out of as a writer--I really don’t know. I’m still at a point where I could drop and not hurt anyone else, which is the important thing. The other I have to keep working on. I’m open to participating in rounds of Troped, but not as much to rounds that require sign ups before hand (for example, if another version of Madness happens this year). I didn’t sign up for BJJ, which took a lot of self control, but I have no regrets about it. I am currently leaning against applying for This Simple Fanzine.

Perceive (and speak of) this year as a hiatus. I’m not going to go so far as to ‘retire’ from writing or from posting or from T100. I’m not on an official hiatus. You will see things from me. But my default is “I’m not really going to post much this year” so everything you DO see on tumblr or AO3 is a deviation from the norm rather than an expectation.

Re-organize my writing projects. My current organizational tool is Notion, which is probably better than the documents I was using before but... I’m not actually that fond of it, tbh. It works for other things but not for my writing. I don’t know if that’s the platform or me or both. I have some ideas for how to re-conceive it to be more helpful, including subdividing projects into scenes, arranging the columns as a timeline, changing the default views and metadata fields, separating fandoms from each other, and pulling out projects that are only ideas, not yet started. But we’ll see how that goes.

Start a second system for ideas. I know I can’t continue to treat “fic that’s half written” the same as “hey I had this random thought.” Properly categorizing different types of projects has always been a major difficulty for me. Does an idea suddenly become so much more important because there’s an outline or a few hundred words written for it? Does an idea become more important simply by virtue of time? I’m still not sure what’s going to end up counting as a “pure idea” or “plot bunny” versus “story” or “work in progress” but I do know I need some kind of new level or organization, some kind of strict (if inevitably semi-arbitrary) dividing line.

Return to free writes. I almost entirely stopped doing this after I finished my rare pair project last year. I think this was partially about burn out and partially about my new work schedule, and I admit it can be hard to come up with a whole new idea on the fly. But I also think I need to carve out that sort of space for myself: where there really aren’t any consequences, I don’t care about plot or even characterization, I don’t care if the idea is complete, I don’t care about editing, etc., etc., etc. I’m still on the fence on where I’ll get the inspiration. I might make a generator or open my inbox to requests more often.

Finish those WIPs. Some way or another. I have too many and I feel like they’re a burden on me. I hope to actually finish, as in complete according to the original idea and then post, as many as possible. But “finishing” for current purposes can also mean “cutting out bits and reconfiguring them into something else.” It can mean “throwing them in the abandoned pile.” In some cases it might even mean acknowledging that the story in question isn’t even a WIP--it’s an idea, and maybe one I don’t care about anymore.

Be forgiving. If it’s not fun, it’s not worth it.

I think that’s it.. I’ve also been considering trying to put myself out there as more of a cheerleader to other people, but I’m not sure how. Like, I want my inbox to be open to writers who just want to rant or be proud of their work or throw around ideas, even, but I don’t know how to... market myself that way, especially without sounding arrogant lol. I don’t claim to have qualifications, I just want to be supportive and I want to feel excited about stuff I am not personally writing!

[bisamwilson]

ooooo fic writer asks yis yis! 55! 68! mmm 75! 78!

thanks for the ask, bee <3

55) Have you noticed any patterns in your fics?  Words/expressions that appear a lot, themes, common settings, etc?

i have a particular stylistic habit for using lots of em dashes, colons, and semi-colons! also i tend to write sentences that would generally need an "and" but i just connect with a comma instead (e.g. "Sam wonders if maybe he’s feverish, thinks if he has the damn flu it’d be worth catching it to keep Bucky’s warmth near him.")

outside of general writing style, i tend to write a lot more from sam's pov, dealing with any issues or wants sam might have! i have a few bucky pov fics, but even then most of those are pretty focused on sam (except maybe stuck a feather in his hat). bucky calling sam "angel," "sweetheart," and "sammy" are particular staples of mine, same with sam calling bucky "baby"! and also if the fic isn't an au, i tend to set it in delacroix unless i specifically want them away from home, and most of the time they're wanting to get back home then.

68) Are there any fics that influenced you to write the way you do?

honestly? there aren't many off the top of my head that i can point to as being a /particular/ influence, tho a lot of napricot's works inspire how i write sam, just because i think we have similar ideas of who sam is. i developed a particular writing style when i was writing for and editing my high school newspaper in like 2016, and obviously i've refined it, but the bare bones of that are still there. a lot of my college papers that i could get away with stylizing read the same as my fic does too!

75) Is there a particular fic that readers gravitated towards that you didn’t expect?

is all of them an answer????? lmao! i'm still shocked when people are like "you're one of my favorite sambucky authors!" or "omg as soon as i saw you updated i ran to ao3!" bc asdklfdjs people recognize me??? as a fic writer????? idk i just feel like i'm so new comparatively speaking that that's wild

as a real answer, oh so saccharine bc it blew up on tumblr kind of out of nowhere? like the post for this has like 200 notes or something which is wild!!!!!!!! like 4-8x more than most of my other posts. also people really liked some invisible string tying you to me which shocked me bc i feel v out of my depths with omegaverse

78) What motivates you during the writing process?

i must have Tasks™ in order to thrive and when i finish a fic i have completed An Task™. so mostly it's the arbitrary deadlines i put on myself to finish things, but also the sweet sweet validation of knowing i'll get a comment or two. i pretty obsessively check kudos/hit count/comments/any possible statistics ao3 gives you for a couple of days after posting. (can u tell one of my primary love languages is words of affirmation lmao)