#the writing life

[anexperimentallife]

[shealwaysreads]

Saw my first post with someone admitting they used chatGPT to ‘write a fic’ which they then shared here on tumblr and on Ao3.

To be clear, using AI to churn out a piece of fiction is not writing.

Using a bot (possibly one that was trained using a scrape of Ao3, that is to say, the theft of work from every writer who has posted their work on Ao3) is NOT WRITING.

It is theft. It isn’t creation. It’s a regurgitation of the consumed collective work and effort and heart and time of every writer who has shared their work on Ao3.

‘I’m not a good writer’ is no excuse.

Want to be a writer? Put in the time everyone else does to practice.

Don’t feel confident in your work? Open yourself up to the same vulnerability and risk that the rest of us do.

You don’t get to use a fucking bot to vomit out an approximation of a story and pretend you’ve got skin in the game.

The sad thing? This bot-assembled fic wasn’t bad. It was bland, but it had internal logic, some passing context to character and canon. It wasn’t like those early AI art pieces that had surreal compositions and extra fingers. It wasn’t immediately obvious it was made by a bot.

In this instance the person who posted it admitted they had used a bot. Which, actually, I have some respect for. But it probably isn’t the first and it won’t be the last.

I don’t know that there’s a solution to this, but it is both hurting my heart and enraging me.

[zannolin]

every time

[the-modern-typewriter]

Just wanted to say thank you so, so much for writing Fate's Favourite. I actually found and loved your blog before I ever found that fanfic, and it was a delight to know it was written by you, and it's so clear how you've improved. But Fate's Favourite will always have a part of my heart, because it's the first story I've read that just has a platonic friendship that feels as equal as a romantic one without being romantic? And as a lonely aroace that means everything. EVERYTHING. (1/2)

(2/2) I had a conversation today that reminded me that I'm never going to have the queerplatonic relationship I want that I've always wanted since I was a child, and how it makes me want to write one so much more, but then I've never managed to write the story I've wanted to write my entire life because I'd always be afraid of being accused of queerbaiting or people just going, 'but it's actually just a gay romance this isn't what friendship looks like' and just. Thank you for Fate's Favourite.

--

Wow. FF is a blast from the past!

You are very welcome.

Apologies for the long, self-indulgent reply.

That story was one of the first things I ever properly wrote and my first (maybe second?) truly long-form story ever. I thus have a soft spot for it, even though in terms of craft and technique I can't so much as look at it without seeing all my numerous beginner flaws and cringing and can't bring myself to actually point people to it. Much improvement since then, as you say!

(An excellent reminder that writing is a learned skill.)

Anyway. The other interesting thing about that story is that I wrote it before I'd ever heard of asexuality or realised that was what I was. I was a very confused teenager being bombarded with this pressure to have crushes and date people and all that general societal messaging we have about romance being the most important thing ever. Especially in YA.

So I'd go home after school and write that story.

Obviously it's more unhealthy than what I'd want for myself in my real life, but the sheer intensity of feeling and importance of the platonic main relationship was something I had also never seen before but craved. And still crave, honestly. So I feel ya.

As for queerbaiting...

A lot of readers at the time told me they viewed the story as 'pre-romance'. AKA, it's a romantic relationship and they haven't realised it yet for whatever reason. They mostly didn't mean that badly, I don't think.

(Although I sometimes think though that if the term 'queerbaiting' was as broadly known and misused then as it is now that I would have been mercilessly lambasted out of ever writing again! And I wouldn't have known how to articulate the fact that wasn't, actually, what I was doing. I think we need to be kind to new writers. I think 'content creator' is gutting something vital in the ecosystem. But that's another rabbit hole.)

So I've been there. It happens. But other people's bad takes didn't change the story and what it meant to me as a lonely ace teenager or what it meant to you.

I have had readers before make a similar comment to you about how it was the first time they got to see something so important to their heart portrayed.

That matters so much more than whatever people say about your writing who don't need it.

Which is why we have to keep writing the stories.

Even if it's clumsy and raw. Even if it's the first thing you've ever tried. Even if it's (especially if) it's a messed up fantasy straight from the most primal part of your brain.

If we don't write it, it won't exist.

And that's so much worse.

The nay-sayers can come to the party, but it wasn't thrown in their honour.

[13-frinfransstudios]

When you badly want to write that one scene now but you're still in this one boring scene that has to happen in order for that one scene to make sense

[junemermaid]

hhhnnnggghhh okay I see it is a day in which my brain is being a magpie

but I have 2k of this smut draft done and I can knock out the rest today if I just fucking focus

so. with your draft or on it. bitch.

(if you see me here or anywhere for the next, mmm, eight hours, please take a megaphone and shout WHY ARE YOU NOT WRITING right in my face

or, you know, nudge me gently back to my draft, whichever)

[aconflagrationofmyown]

Writing Captain Presley nudging his boat into a tributary from the main river has become shockingly…suggestive.

I was not prepared for this, they don’t teach you this in fanfic school, y’all.

[space-blue]

Peeping at the process...

So I've been *struggling* with my current fic chapter, and I wanted to show readers and people at large [waves at my adoring mob of followers, yes, you] an insight into the writing process on such painful fics, and also the amount of crap my friend @spicedrobot deals with (angelic levels of patience + reciprocity in bitching opportunities)

Presenting, in no particular order: "I only have 3 commenters so I can make it weird and fun, but I hope they enjoy it. Anyway, no need for this to be complicated or anything—"

You have a void of a couple of weeks, then an email ping the weird fic updated... this is what was happening during that time.

Also it's about the 2nd chapter of this fic, and it's currently 2x longer than chapter 1 and please someone send a rescue team before I die

[bettsfic]

Can’t seem to write without considering what I would want my author career to be like or what readers are looking for and I feel like to a certain extent this crippled creativity. I’m in no way saying there things should never be considered but sometimes, especially in the beginning it can feel like too much. Thoughts?

it is definitely too much. i used to feel it too. but once i started getting some wins, once i started really listening to the kind things people were telling me over the criticisms, i started to take myself more seriously. and then once i was on the other side of the mentor/mentee divide, when i realized i had been lifted up by writers who believed in me and my work and that i could lift others by believing in them and theirs, i started to see myself as one link in a long chain. and when you're part of a chain, nobody can move faster than you or slower than you; you all move together.

it's natural to consider your audience when writing. it's also natural to consider your market. every artist in history has experienced to some degree this same anxiety. it's the anxiety of creating something that you want to be see welcomed into the world. that fear abates but it never goes away entirely, so you've got to build up defenses against it. mine was 1 part hope, 1 part blind (possibly unearned) faith in myself, and 7 parts spite. hope, faith, and spite can take you a long way. "i hope this will happen," then "i have faith this will happen," then "fuck you, this is going to happen."

an audience isn't something that already exists. you're not a performer walking on stage for a theater of people waiting for you. you're a busker, or a mime, or one of those human statue guys. you're on the street trying to grab the attention of people who don't want to acknowledge you. you're saying, "hey, look at me, i've got something worth seeing," and you wave it around in front of them until they're finally forced to look at you. you're not just a creator of your work, you're also a salesman of it. success is all about the footwork.

and lastly, although novels are made from inspiration and skill, author careers are made of boring administrative tasks. sending your work out, receiving rejections, tracking rejections, finding more places to send your work out, replying to emails, applying for funding, querying agents, filling boxes of text labeled "please describe your current project" but only give you 250 characters to do so. the sooner you separate the ideas of "careers" and "audience," i think the happier you'll be. stories take creativity; careers take tenacity. writing is about words; publishing is about numbers. if you can't have hope for your work, or faith in yourself, or a simmering pool of spite, you can always rely on organizational tedium. you never have to learn how to Be A Writer. you only have to learn how to attach a PDF to a form and hit "submit."

[anexperimentallife]

[poemsfromthealley]

AO3 meme

I was tagged by @faejilly and I am in turn tagging @ladymatt @silver-lily-louise @lightwormsiblings @electricshoebox @lynne-monstr @michellemisfit and whoever else wants to do this!

Rules: Give us the links to your wonderful words with the most hits, most kudos, most comments, most bookmarks, most words, and least words.

I'm doing a Shadowhunters-only edition, so unsurprisingly these are all Magnus x Alec.

Most hits: Talking With Strangers, the university AU friends-to-lovers one which broke 20K hits a little before I could finish it. A departure from my usual repertoire but clearly well worth it!

Most kudos: bodies full of untold stories, the accidental soul bond case fic you never knew you wanted, which has been my one reasonably enduring hit in the SH fandom. Still a fic close to my heart.

Most comments: The Stair Into the Sea, the mystery/stealth ghost story channelling the spirit of Maggie Stiefvater's The Raven Cycle and plenty of old-school urban fantasy (albeit it's set in a remote seaside village). This is the fic I most want to finish—it's been a long time coming, and life has not been gentle in the last two years, but it's never left my mind. So it is up next!

Most bookmarks: This one is also bodies full of untold stories, but as a fine runner-up there is Walkers of the Winding Path, my Shadowhunters/The Witcher fusion, which, I'm delighted to say, has found its own weird niche audience. Truly the little monster-hunting romance romp that could.

Most words: Still The Stair Into the Sea by a tiny margin.

Least words: The Morning of a War, a small coda for episode 3.07 of Shadowhunters. This was a tiny slice of melancholy fluff to round out the Institute corridor hug in that episode.

[ahb-writes]

Great advice... No, wait.

(from Disenchantment S1E18: "In Her Own Write")

[irish-urn]

*slams head onto desk*

I cannot come up with more Dasey ideas; I cannot come up with more Dasey ideas; I cannot come up with more Dasey ideas; I cannot—

WHY THE SUDDEN NEED FOR VAMPIRE!CASEY AND WEREWOLF!DEREK?!?!?!

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Photograph of Annie Dillard receiving the National Humanities Medal from President @barackobama in 2014. (Alex Wong)

* * * *

“One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”

― Annie Dillard, "The Writing Life"

[Follies Of God]

[roseberrry]

[junemermaid]

okay time to fuck off tumblr and actually get some words down. this was gonna be my writing vacation so I have to post something or else

come back with your draft or on it. bitch.