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I've never had any reason to use the poll feature but i think i finally have one.

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Do you ever think you'll stop drawing fanart? No offense it just seems like the kind of thing you're supposed to grow out of. I'm just curious what your plans/goals are since it isn't exactly an art form that people take seriously.

Ah, fanart. Also known as the art that girls make.

Sad, immature girls no one takes seriously. Girls who are taught that it’s shameful to be excited or passionate about anything, that it’s pathetic to gush about what attracts them, that it’s wrong to be a geek, that they should feel embarrassed about having a crush, that they’re not allowed to gaze or stare or wish or desire. Girls who need to grow out of it.

That’s the art you mean, right?

Because in my experience, when grown men make it, nobody calls it fanart. They just call it art. And everyone takes it very seriously.

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filter on ao3 that only shows fic by women in their 40s who has a degree and works an office job and probably leaves authors notes that are like “sorry for the wait on the chapter guys! i had to give birth to my third kid😂”

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one thing that’s really apparent to me about people who think you can write something worthwhile using AI is that they clearly have no idea how much goes into crafting a story that is good and engaging. It goes several hundred miles past the technicalities of writing and even the prose

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Through gritted teeth: my first draft is allowed to be awful. My first draft is allowed to be awful. My first draft is allowed to be awful.

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every writer knows the pain of having an idea that’s “too good” to write because you know you can’t do it justice

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Big news everyone. Remember how I lost a ton of very important fic writing notebooks during one of my moves in college, leaving a slew of fics unfinished before their time???

WELL I FINALLY FOUND THEM!!

I don’t have any timelines to give you, I haven’t even read through them again yet. They’re located tho, so I can pick up the fics again whenever i’m ready.

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This hit home, and I think it will resonate hard with all my creative friends, here. You are amazing and brilliant and I BEG YOU to keep creating!! ❤️❤️❤️

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Google Ambient Chaos if you ever need background noises for writing! It's a customizable soundscape website.

Anon, when I first saw this ask, I thought it was going to be one of those mixers of nice, traditional sounds, like rain or a coffeeshop. And it is! And there's lofi hiphop, my favorite sound to write to! Which means this is legitimately an excellent tool for writers, and I love you for introducing it to me.

But I also want to say. There are some choices here. That I need to point out. Because they're either fantastic or questionable, and I can't decide.

Things like . . .

Couple arguing.

Medieval battle.

Beehive, where you can write to a fuckton of bees.

Crime scene.

And actually the perfect soundscape for NaNoWriMo.

(It's here, for those curious.)

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It's frustrating that you can come up with the plot of an entire fic in just a few seconds, but writing it all down can take anywhere from never to forever.

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Fic writers: have you ever studied writing as a craft (formally or not) or do you just do your thing?

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to anyone missing my writing please know i am also missing my writing

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A writer friend told me something that broke my heart a little bit today; they're going to quit publishing their fanfic.

My instant thought was that they had been trolled or attacked or that something terrible had happened in their life because this person is so passionate about their writing. It wasn't any of that. Engagement with their works has been going down, as it has for many of us. Comments are like gold dust a lot of the time, and just looking through the historical comment counts on old fics on ao3 demonstrates this trend very clearly. It was not simply the comments dropping off which caused them to decide to stop posting, however.

My friend came across a discord server for their fandom (I should point out here that their fandom interest and mine diverged a couple of years ago, we stay in touch but don't currently read each other's posts because I'm not into their fandom and they would rather gouge their eyes out with a wooden spoon than read anything Star Wars) and specifically to share fic in that fandom. They joined, because we all love a good fic rec, only to discover that their latest multichapter fic, which has almost no comments and very few kudos, is being hotly discussed in this server as one of the best stories ever. Not one of these people has bothered to say this to them on the fic. When they asked, none of participants could see the point in telling the author of the fic they apparently loved so much that they love it.

This discovery has absolutely destroyed my friend's love of sharing fic. They share because they love seeing other people's enjoyment, and fic writers do that through comments and kudos/reblogs/likes because we don't get paid. There is no literary critic writing a blog post/article about how amazing the story is for us to copy and keep/frame. There is no money from royalties. All we have are the words of the people reading our works.

Those people on that server could have taken five minutes of the time they spent gushing about how amazing my friend's story was to other people and used it to tell the one person guaranteed to want to hear that praise how much they loved it. They could have taken a moment to express their opinion to the person who spent hours upon hours plotting, writing, editing, and posting those chapters. Instead, they deprived my friend of thing that keeps them sharing their writing, and in the process have killed their love of it. My friend now feels used and unmotivated.

I won't be sharing a link to their fic, they said I could share their experience but not their identity. I know they plan to post one final chapter. I know they intend to express their hurt at being excluded from the praise for the thing they created, and I know they intend to announce that as a consequence they will not be posting for a long while, if at all.

So please, I beg you, don't hide your love of a story from the writer. It's just about the only thing we have.

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*emerges from the other room covered in blood* you should see the word document

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PSA: if you describe your sexy demons as "smelling sulphurous/like brimstone," that's not just vague mystical words.

Those are real smells.

They smell like farts.

Please know this. I'm begging you.