#writer goal ask list

[caliowl333]

Writer Goal Ask List for a New Year 🎉

I was asked a couple of writer goals by @calysto1395! 😀 Thank you so much for asking me about my writing goals! (Sorry the askbox wasn't set up yet, LOL 😅)

🛳 Are there any new ships you want to write for? (Platonic, romantic, or anything in between.)

Yes, actually! 😀 I would love to write for Katsuki Bakugou/Izuku Midoriya from My Hero Academia!

I already make so many amvs for them, but I really want to write for them, too! I have an idea that I'm hoping to write this year 😁

💥Is there a chapter, scene, or WIP you're most excited to write? Share a snippet or tell us about it!

OMG YES! I have one in particular I'm thinking of for HeiShin, but it would be a SUPER SPOILER so I'll go with a snippet for another HeiShin fic instead 😊

“Here’s your tea, sir!”

Shinichi looks up and smiles at the server beside him, taking in his charming grin and playful, viridian eyes. “Thank you…” He makes an effort to look like he’s studying the other man’s name tag pinned to his apron, even though he knows his name perfectly well. “...Heiji.”

Heiji grins, surprised and wide. “Anything else I can get for you today?”

“How about a little company?” Shinichi asks boldly, secure in the knowledge that his advances won’t be rejected.

Not here, anyway.

“Oh!” Heiji looks around the nearly empty tea shop before turning back to him. “I really shouldn’t…we have customers.” He bites his lip briefly before grinning again. “But I suppose it wouldn’t hurt for a little while. Hey, Kazuha!” He calls over his shoulder as he pulls out the chair opposite Shinichi’s at the little table. “I’m takin’ my 15!”

“Ugh, fine! But keep yer flirtin’ to 15 minutes, please!” She calls back from somewhere behind the cafe’s large counter.

Heiji laughs as he settles across from Shinichi and rests his chin in a propped up hand. “So, bold stranger. What now?”

“Why don’t you tell me about yourself?” Shinichi asks, taking a sip of his tea. It’s perfect, just the way he always takes it, and he smirks at the man across from him. “I’d love to learn more about the handsome barista I see every morning.”

Heiji’s eyebrows fly up and his mouth opens slightly in surprise. Shinichi loves that expression on him; moreso when he’s the cause. He doesn’t have the opportunity to catch Heiji off-guard often.

(One of the reasons he enjoys it here so much.)

Heiji laughs and rakes his eyes over Shinichi’s form slowly. “All right, stranger,” he smirks, making smoldering eye-contact. “You asked for it.”

Shinichi grins back, relaxing into his seat as Heiji opens his mouth-

And promptly fades to black, along with the entire scene.

“...No!” Shinichi yells into the aether, trying to keep a firm grip on the coffee mug that evaporates into thin air. “Wait-!”

Only silence and darkness answer him.

Shinichi sighs and folds his arms over his chest as he sulks into the void.

Not again.

[claudiajcregg]

🛳️, 🤖, & 🎉 for the writer goal ask list. Please & thank you.

Thank you for sending these, Danielle! 💜💜💜 They weren't easy, haha, especially the last one. It's hard to express all the thoughts in my head and make them make sense. (Spoiler alert: it's the end of a loooong weekend and I should be in bed. It does not make sense.)

🛳 Are there any new ships you want to write for? (Platonic, romantic, or anything in between.)

I am not sure! I'd love to explore a few more platonic relationships (the combinations are endless), but I cannot say any will be particularly new! I'd say maybe a new fandom but, I doubt it.

🤖 Are you looking to change your current writing setup? (Or establish one, if you don't have one?)

lmao, maybe the part where I write anything 😬 Things would certainly be easier! (My muse went on a trip after I finished the exchange fic last month, and it hasn't come back. What a weird year it's been.) Aside from that, not planning any changes! My setup mostly works fine for me.

🎉 How are you going to be kind to yourself if you don't meet your goals?

Let's talk about two quick goals here, I guess. (As much as I initially wrote about not having goals, lmao.) I do want to finish this pregnancy AU soon into the new year. (Muse, come back. Let's re-outline this chapter and this last stretch, and get it done. I want to start posting this flop in the spring.) Even if I don't post it, like every other long fic I've written in the last seven years, I want to finish it. But if I don't… It just means it wasn't meant to be now; I can always pick it up later.

Another goal is to try and not check stats as obsessively and then be disappointed by the lack of movements weeks later, just because I cannot have the output I wish I did. It is so not healthy to compare myself to, or compete with, anyone else – this is not what fandom is about for me, and it's a boundary I've been working hard to set irl too. (Mostly the comparison part.) I feel I was much worse with this at the start of the year, but have finally found a good balance. It's a work in progress, so I'm bound to have my moments.

In the end, this is all a creative outlet for me, and I'm just trying to have fun! The last thing I need is to avoid any preventable disappointment as much as I can. I never considered myself God's gift to fic/writing/fandom (and I am not). I realized a couple of months into posting I'd never be popular (and this year just proved it to me over and over and over), but… I've come to adopt a more zen attitude and I manage my expectations a bit better, I think. So tl;dr: I cannot control other people's perceptions or thoughts of myself, so I shouldn't rely as much on that. If I don't meet any of my goals, I'll just give myself the grace I deserve, because being unkind to oneself sucks.

(Nothing about this makes sense to me either. It's 1am and have been trying to tweak it for a good half hour.)

More Writer Goal Ask List questions over here

[little-miss-chaos]

🥕✨🐌

🥕 What’s one area of your writing that you think needs the most amount of improvement?

I think sometimes I write in too much detail. Because I love details. And my brain wants to include every little thing (which is why some of my wips are so freaking long 😅��)

✨What’s one area of your writing that you think needs the least amount of improvement?

Generally, I'd say my dialogues are pretty neat 😎

🐌 What is one of your smallest writing goals?

Sitting down and writing at all tbh. My heart and brain craved to read lately and it's been difficult to establish a writing routine again 😅

[clarislam]

🪩✍️👾

So...there are three of these questions in the associated ask meme that have just blocks, so I'm assuming here that you want me to answer all three of them. Here we go!

🥸 Does anyone in IRL know you write fanfic or original fiction? If not, do you plan on telling anyone this year?

Oh, yes. My family knows. They don't read the fanfics but have been more supportive of my original writing in recent years, which I'm grateful for (having a couple publications in the past two years also helps a lot). A couple of my friends know that I write fanfics and/or original fiction as well.

🫘 Spill the beans. What's a new project you're doing this year?

For original fiction: Does writing my King's Quest-inspired novel count as "new" even though I technically started it last year? After all, I'm still writing the first draft as of this answering this question. XD

If not, knowing me I'll probably come up with "new projects" somehow along this year. I think last year I came up with a whole bunch of novel ideas, and knowing me I'll probably get inspired to write down a bunch of novel ideas. And from those new ideas, I'll probably start outlining or writing first drafts of them. Even if I don't have something immediate, it's only a matter of time before I do.

On the fanfic-related end, I am also posting chapters for a new Super Smash Bros./The Last Story fanfic starting next Monday, January 9th, as I mentioned in this post.

And, of course, I'm always writing and submitting poetry to lit mags on and off. I've been fortunate to have my poems published twice last year and three times the year before, so we'll see how this year goes!

🪩 Do you have any "good" writing habits you want to cultivate?

One "good" writing habit for me to cultivate is recognizing when I need to drop things and move onto something new. I mentioned the post I linked to above in the previous question that I want to take 2023 as a year of consistent writing, but in a way that I won't burn out.

In previous years, I noticed that I tend to try to "power through" certain things like reading a bunch of books I disliked for the sake of having enough for writing book reviews, or going through NaNoWriMo in a ways that led to burnout and a lack of consistency later on. (I'm still kind-of proud that I finished NaNoWriMo in 8 days once, but it did lead to serious burnout for the rest of the month.) If I can prevent that burnout from happening to begin with this year, it would be very awesome.

[ellowynthenotking]

It's time for me to try traditionally publishing

Life is going to heck in a hand basket, so I'm going to see if I can try what I've always wanted to do and make a living off writing.

I've got quite a few projects that are in various stages of done.

And, thanks to the events outside of my control, I feel just insane enough to try to finish and publish them!

Here's the plan so far

Goals:

Make a list of agents

Make a list of agencies

Make a list of publishers

Go through my projects and identify books/projects/anything workable really

Identity project genres and come up with connections

Write good blurbs for each project

Write letters to send to agents/agencies/publishers

Send 100 letters

Receive 100 rejections or one full approval

Rough Timeline

Gather all lists components before September 14th

Have all blurbs, lists, and letters written before the end of September

Send 100 letters by December 30th

If no approvals are received by Dec 30th, make a new plan

My ultimate goal though is just to get through the situation I've landed in. This is all hopes and dreams, sure, but we'll see how it turns out.

Here's hoping.

[violent138]

writer ask game questions:

🦷 Is there a chapter, scene, or WIP you're dreading to write (but is necessary to your plot)? Share a snippet or tell us about it!

✍️ Which stat matters most to you (if at all!): subscriptions, kudos/favorites, comments, bookmarks, word count, or hits?

🥸 Does anyone in IRL know you write fanfic or original fiction? If not, do you plan on telling anyone this year?

Went for the absolute hardest ones huh ;)

Yes, there is a chapter I am dreading to write in the work that gets the most requests for updates because it's very psychological torture/amityville horror and I'm losing my own mind figuring out how to write it. Very necessary to the plot.

Ugh. I hate this a little. Technically speaking I love comments (even though I always get anxious regardless of how happy they make me), however when looking for fics/mentally ranking my own I check the kudos.

The only two people IRL that know I write anything at all are the love of my life and my sister. I plan on telling no one ever.

[cwritesfiction]

Writer goal ask game, 🥳 and 🦷?

🦷 Is there a chapter, scene, or WIP you’re dreading to write (but is necessary to your plot)? Share a snippet or tell us about it!

I'm starting to get a clear vision of what I want the cryptid hunter rom-com (my next WIP) to look like, and I think it's going to involve media in fiction (like, transcripts of videos, wikipedia articles, social media posts, etc.) I LOVE reading that kind of thing in books and I'm dreading writing it out in my own because I feel like it's going to be difficult to pull off 😅

🥳 How are you going to celebrate when you achieve one of your writing goals?

My biggest writing goal this year is actually selling a book, and if I do that, I am going to buy myself a VERY stupid article of clothing (TBD)

New Year's Writer Goal Asks

[captainsy-cookiemonster]

Happy New Year !

For the ask game

💖 What is your primary writing goal for this year?

Happy new year to you too! ✨

💖 What is your primary writing goal for this year?

Getting stuff written in the first place, managing to post more than once every six months... Yeah...

Writer goal ask list

[sapphire-wine]

🪩 Do you have any "good" writing habits you want to cultivate?

🎉 How are you going to be kind to yourself if you don't meet your goals?

💌 Are you willing to take requests or prompts for writing?

Thank you so much for putting the questions with the emojis cause some of them I can see absolute shit for.

🪩 Do you have any "good" writing habits you want to cultivate?

I think I need to let myself write things I’m not good at because 1) it will help me get better and 2) what sounds like cardboard to me in my writing isn’t being held to the same standard as someone else. So it might be more of a habit of reminding myself/imagining that if someone else had written it, I wouldn’t sit there with such malice.

And another thing that’s a bit contradictory but not just doing “first draft, best draft” in terms of trying to cram a scene in that isn’t working because I like the sound of it. It can always go in another work or be modified. A few of my latest fics I’ve taken out chunks of text that put it in a different direction and I’m much happier with how they turned out.

Less habits and more mindsets but I hope these make sense!

🎉 How are you going to be kind to yourself if you don't meet your goals?

I’ll just be chillin with y’all cause my main goal is to have fun with this and if I’m not meeting that then I’ll have to reevaluate what I’m getting out of it. We do not have a grindset here we are too tired for that

💌 Are you willing to take requests or prompts for writing?

I’ve given it some thought and I don’t think I would take any formal requests. I know where my head is at in that it is always lost. I have such a loose relationship with writing that if you’ve seen my posting schedule you’ll know it’s either months of nothing or multiple fics in a short time span.

People are welcome to send asks about an idea but I’m v bad at those as well. Maybe another good habit would be better communication lmao

[samsspambox]

Hi Sam!

Do you mind sharing how you write your fics? Do you have a process? A starting point?

Also, I know a lot of ppl talk "show not tell" in writing, but how do you know if you're telling instead of showing (& vice versa)? That's the part of writing I struggle with most, cause I never know if I'm showing or telling.

heyo roshie! i've answered a similar ask before but i don't mind sharing how i write/my process! in all honesty it isn't much of a process but more of a 'what concept can i daydream about while doing stuff that'll evolve into a solid idea' type of thing lolol.

i guess my first step is getting inspired? this can look like many different things, but to me it looks like talking to friends, consuming media outside of the fandom you're writing for, deriving from your own experiences, stuff like that. a really good example of this is the ficlet i have on here, time, which is based off of personal feelings but twisted enough so it fits the von hagen dynamic.

if i like the concept enough, i'll start developing it in my head or ping pong it with friends to build it. i guess this is my 'outlining' stage even though i don't actually get down and write an outline myself. you know how every story has a beginning, middle, and end? well, if i can get 2/3, i'll start writing. like for the current fic im writing! i have the beginning and middle, but i haven't planned for the end yet. (i have an extremely vague idea where i wanna go with it tho, so i'll count it as a win) ((actually, most of the times i rarely have fic endings planned and if i can be my own worst critic, you can clearly tell. my openings are usually pretty good but some of my endings, to me, fall flat)

from there? i just write. i do a lot of editing while i write and the one thing i swear by is using a tts (text to speech) reader parse though my fic and read it for me. (i need to go back and edit the first chapter of return to sender bc i posted it without bc i was anxious but also wanted to go to bed lol). it's why my writing has a lot of commas. i like the pauses in tts lolol. after that i just chuck it onto gramarlly and post when i feel like i'll start to nitpick at myself. it's a habit i have with a lot of my academic papers but this reminds me that what i write doesn't have to be perfect. my target audience is me (and my friends), this type of writing should be met with liberty and warmth. i don't have to follow a rubric or a guide. it doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be.

as for your second question, i can tell you what i think seeing and telling is based off of what ive picked up reading other peoples stuff. i think 'showing' has a lot more metaphors, actions, and implications/inferences. let's say you wanted to convey that it was cold. you might not put that it was cold, but you could put that a character shivered and burrowed into their blanket. you're implying that it's cold with an action. showing, to me, looks more like cause and effect and blunt statements. here you state that it's cold, causing your character to shiver. or it's so cold that your character's breath is showing.

im in a weird third camp that is 'talking'. a lot of my fics are dialogue heavy but they do get a lot of points across, so there's that option LOLOL

but yeah! i hope this answers your questions! thanks for dropping by!!

[claudiajcregg]

🥵 Any plans to write steamy or spicy content this year?

👻 Is there a new genre you'd like to write?

🥵 Any plans to write steamy or spicy content this year?

Why was my immediate answer a 'no' 🫣 tbh no one wants my cringy spice. No concrete plans but I imagine there might be a quick scene or two like that in the long fic (there are already a couple suggestive moments). After all, I wasn't planning on writing the expanded au version of one of those one-bed ficlets either, but that happened and it's a thing that exists. At this moment, I don't see myself posting it, or even sending it to my trusty beta, but who knows!

👻 Is there a new genre you'd like to write?

Sure! I don't know what genre I haven't explored yet, but I'd love to take a more serious crack at gen/plotty fics. I don't think I'm made for those, though. (Maybe some angst, too? I have written it, but most of my posted fics have veered more toward hurt/comfort.)

Thank you for your questions, anon! Even if they put me on the spot, lol. More here.

[little-miss-chaos]

🎉🍕💌

🎉 How are you going to be kind to yourself if you don’t meet your goals?

I always try to see the progress I made instead of what I wasn't able to accomplish. (just like I cherish every ask, kudos and/or comment 🥰)

🍕Will you be making any changes to your posting schedule (if you have one)? (Or do you want to establish a posting schedule?)

Good question… there probably won't be many changes to the schedule, either here or on ao3. I'm trying to get back into some form of daily writing and then I guess let's see what happens 😊

💌 Are you willing to take requests or prompts for writing?

Absolutely! If you're okay with a little (or a little more 😅) wait, drop something in the ask box! 🥰

[clarislam]

🥵🦖💖

🥵 Any plans to write steamy or spicy content this year?

AHAHAHAHAHHA no, not that I have in mind immediately. XD

The last time I did was years ago (2017 I think?) with some fade to black/after the deed was done scenes in one fanfic. That's the spiciest I've gotten and the spiciest I think my writing will ever get (unless future me proves that wrong).

But no, I don't really write steamy/spicy content nor actively have plans to. I understand that it's much-appreciated content by many, but it's content that I'm just not as interested in writing as I used to be back in the day.

🦖 Are there any fandoms you wrote for in the past that you'd like to return to?

Oh, YES. A constant one I come back to is The Last Story, and I'll be posting chapters for a The Last Story/Super Smash Bros. crossover fanfic starting on Monday next week (Jan. 9th 2023!) The goal is to post chapters every Monday. The exception is the last Monday of each month either being a different fanfic or just a break from posting.

💖 What is your primary writing goal for this year?

Write consistently, but do so in a way that isn't going to automatically lead to burnout. This is a reason I'm taking the last week of each month off to give myself some time to breathe a bit and/or change things up for posting fanfics, for example.

Another writing goal I have is recognizing when something isn't sparking my inspiration and such, and therefore knowing when to drop things. I tend to try to finish everything and/or power through things. This can be good at times, but it also led me to some bad consequences that can burn me out. One example is was me reading a *ton* of terrible books in the past few years purely so I can write some book reviews when I could've just dropped them in the middle and picked up new (and more enjoyable?) ones.

The same goes for writing - for example, I don't need to be in every NaNoWriMo event to be super productive, hence why I didn't really participate in any of those events last year. I think it's a fun event, it can be good, but the way I was handling those events (and finishing extremely early) just led to more burnout and less enjoyment of the writing process. I want to take 2023 as a time to be consistent with writing, but in such a way that I will still enjoy the whole process.

[radioactive-earthshine]

Writing tips for long fics that helped me that no one asked for.

1.) Don't actually delete content from your WIP unless it is minor editing - instead cut it and put it in a secondary document. If you're omitting paragraphs of content, dialog, a whole scene you might find a better place for it later and having it readily available can really save time. Sometimes your idea was fantastic, but it just wasn't in the right spot.

2.) Stuck with wording the action? Just write the dialog then revisit it later.

3.) Stuck on the whole scene? Skip it and write the next one.

4.) Write on literally any other color than a white background. It just works. (I use black)

5.) If you have a beta, while they are beta-ing have them read your fic out loud. Yes, I know a lot of betas/writers do not have the luxury of face-timing or have the opportunity to do this due to time constraints etc but reading your fic out loud can catch some very awkward phrasing that otherwise might be missed. If you don't have a beta, you read it out loud to yourself. Throw some passion into your dialog, you might find a better way to word it if it sounds stuffy or weird.

6.) The moment you have an idea, write it down. If you don't have paper or a pen, EMAIL it to yourself or put it in a draft etc etc. I have sent myself dozens of ideas while laying down before sleep that I 10/10 forgot the next morning but had emailed them to myself and got to implement them.

7.) Remember - hits/likes/kudos/comments are not reflective of the quality of your fic or your ability to write. Most people just don't comment - even if they say they do, they don't, even if they preach all day about commenting, they don't, even if they are a very popular blog that passionately reminds people to comment - they don't comment (I know this personally). Even if your fic brought tears to their eyes and it haunted them for weeks and they printed it out and sent it to their friends they just don't comment. You just have to accept it. That being said - comment on the fic you're reading now, just do it, if you're 'shy' and that's why you don't comment the more you comment the better you'll get at it. Just do it.

8.) Remove unrealistic daily word count goals from your routine. I've seen people stress 1500 - 2000 words a day and if they don't reach that they feel like a failure and they get discouraged. This is ridiculous. Write when you can, but remove absurd goals. My average is 500 words a day in combination with a 40 hour a week job and I have written over 200k words from 2022-2023.

9.) There are dozens of ways to do an outline from precise analytical deconstruction that goes scene by scene to the minimalist bullet point list - it doesn't matter which one you use just have some sort of direction. A partial outline is better than no outline.

10.) Write for yourself, not for others. Write the fic you know no one is going to read. Write the fic that sounds ridiculous. You will be so happy you put it out in the world and there will be people who will be glad it exists.

[nimata-beroya]

👻🍄

Thank you my darling @takadasaiko!! 💕💕

👻 Is there a new genre you'd like to write?

Not really. I'm pretty comfortable with the genres I write, and the ones I don't it's because I'm bad at writing them 😅 so I better stay with what I know.

��� Are there any fandoms you've never written for but want to try?

I'm pretty focused on Star Wars right now, but I'd like to give a shot at writing for Red White and Royal Blue. I loved the movie and it could be fun coming up with something for it. But nothing so far 😆

Send me one of the Writer Goal Ask List for a New Year 🎉

[cwritesfiction]

🥸 and 🐌 for the goals ask game :)

Does anyone in IRL know you write fanfic or original fiction? If not, do you plan on telling anyone this year?

Some people IRL know I write, but it's pretty rare that I talk about it, because it usually results in a lot of smiling and nodding 😅 Personal favorite interaction was bringing it up while tipsy at a Halloween party to someone who did not know rom-coms were a thing outside of film (I say with ZERO shade)

🐌 What is one of your smallest writing goals?

Man I just want someone to laugh at at least one of the jokes I think is hilarious in either WIP I'm actively working on!

New Year’s Writer Goal Asks