#that first answer reminded me that i've spent a lot of time writing memoir-style stuff

[piedoesnotequalpi]

🍄❄️🌿 if you want!! - @pigeonwit

(Writer ask game!)

🍄 (how did you get into writing fanfiction?)

This has...three answers, depending on how far back you want to go.

Answer 1: The first fanfiction I wrote was a cursed but hilarious Shakespeare mega-crossover that I've contemplated posting here based on a writing prompt on a sophomore year English final. I then proceeded to not write any more fanfiction (except for my Broadchurch-inspired poetry in creative writing), until...

Answer 2: At the beginning of the pandemic, I was rewatching Parks and Rec and was curious how, at one point, Ben knew about Leslie's favorite spot in City Hall. I wrote a short one-shot with my thoughts, made an AO3 account to post it, and thought I'd never use the account to post anything else, until...

Answer 3: A few months after I first watched Newsies, I thought I could fit the Newsies characters into a Much Ado About Nothing retelling pretty well--Javid as Ben and Bea, Spot and Race as Claudio and Hero, Katherine as Don Pedro, etc. My irl friend encouraged me to write it and helped with some plot stuff (Jack dressing up as Rapunzel was her idea if I remember correctly). I thought I wouldn't write anything else after that, but then I had ideas for one-shots and was kind of in a bad place mentally, so I kept going, and now here I am >140k words into the Bachelorette AU! What a time!

❄ (What's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?)

I thought about this in the shower, and I think I'd like to see a whodunit/murder mystery fic, which seems like the sort of thing @jack-kellys would be good at. I know I certainly would not be up to writing a proper murder mystery though (despite taking an entire English class on detective fiction in high school).

(Last answer under the cut because this got long, oops)

🌿 (give some advice on writer's block and low creativity)

I know I maintain the illusion of avoiding writer's block by having a semi-regular posting schedule for the Bachelorette AU, but I am very much not immune to writer's block. Here are some things I do, with the caveat that this is just my experience and my methods do not work for everyone.

If the block is coming from feeling like I'm not sure what I'm doing in the next few scenes, I'll take a bit to figure out and write down what the next few scenes will be. These won't be super detailed, but I'll sometimes specify the POV character and usually say "xyz happens." For example, right now I have notes in my bachelorette document about who's going in the hot seat when, as well as the scenes I want to have take place after the men tell all filming wraps.

If I'm just overwhelmed, I'll take a little longer and write a list of things, in order, that need to happen in a chapter (this is what I did for each chapter for the bachelorette au). In the Much Ado adaptation, I wrote down each scene number from the play and decided which POV(s) each scene would have and in what order, which served as a reminder of what each scene focused on.

If it's just that the words won't come, I look back over what I've read, go read a book, or I just sort of force myself to plod along (with the exception of these past couple weeks, where I've been really tired from work and haven't had much time to sit down and designate Writing Time). Brute-forcing isn't for everyone, but when I'm doing that, I try not to delete what I've written and I try not to think about whether it's good, since if I don't like the scene I can go back and edit or rewrite it later. I also do sprints sometimes.

After yet another abandoned novel attempt in 2022, I never skip ahead to the scene I really want to write. I'll write down single lines or bits of dialogue, but that's it. If I skip ahead, it makes it way harder to finish the fic.