#I hope that doesn’t make you uncomfortable 😅 — it’s not an unwelcome subject or something just I think sometimes it’s good to have open

[ziracona]

Hihi! I am a super big fan of your works, especially ILM! I just have a couple questions for you (so sorry if you've been asked these before; I tried to look but I couldn't see anything on these, but I'm kinda blind lmao): how long does it take you to write those super long chapters (e.g. vs in ILM)? How many words do you typically write per day? How do you deal with writer's block and have you ever dealt with perfectionism with your writing and, if so, how did you overcome that?

Generally, the shorter chapters took a week, the long ones later in fic often took two weeks, but some of the really really long ones (IE Vs and Rainbow Connection) took 3-4 weeks. Which is still a insane turnaround, given those were book length. 😅

The rest of these questions are harder to answer, because the answer isn’t consistent. For most of my life? I have been able naturally to churn out staggering amounts of content virtually overnight. I went through some intense trauma at the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020 though, on through the next year as well, and it kind of broke me, honestly. I dealt with writer’s block many times before then in my life, and my answer would have been “Make yourself start, and after the first twenty minutes, it’s easier. Even if you have to rewrite a lot, some of it will be good,” and “make sure the reason isn’t you genuinely need a break and if it is, take one,” and “Watch/read/play stories that inspire you—that brings passion often faster than anything.”

That’s what’s worked most of my life.

But there are tiers to difficult circumstances. And I still haven’t fully recovered. I write, but I’m a lot slower right now. Sometimes I can’t at all. And there’s very little I can do about it, which is new and frustrating. I had commissions in 2020 (requested, not paid) I just never did, because I just physically could not, which had never happened in my life before, so I didn’t realize that fast enough to handle it well, and I think maybe I’ll feel guilt over that forever. — still, some advice holds steady I suppose. For any kind of writing block, the most common success I’ve experienced, even in extreme duress, is genuine inspiration. Seek out something new and impressive—movies often work especially, but whatever thrills you. Rp like d&d can help too. It can give you motivation that helps override the rest.

If it’s something more serious, like I have now, you need to find the root cause instead, and heal it. That’s a long process sometimes, but there’s really no other way, and it’s worth it.

Anyway, the Ziracona who wrote ILM had a word count per day I’m not sure of, but something disgusting probably like 7,000-16,000. Now I don’t really have one, because it’s not that I write slow per day, it’s that there’s a lot fewer days I can write. So maybe it’s steady. I dunno. Haven’t thought about it in a while.

For perfectionism, I’m sure I have, but that’s easier to handle. The best things for that are start out by writing things you especially like anyway (you’ll be less critical of your favorite tropes), get at least one friend who hyped you and is a good source of positive enforcement who doesn’t mind doing beta for you and you’ll be alright, and take a break after writing and editing before editing more, because the more you read a passage, the worse it will seem to you as it loses freshness and you lose energy. You’ll become unduly critical, but fresh eyes will see it more as it is.

Thank you very much for the kind words, and I’m so happy you enjoy my works. I hope some of that helps. : )

#ask #anonymous #I hope that doesn’t make you uncomfortable 😅 — it’s not an unwelcome subject or something just I think sometimes it’s good to have open #information about that kind of thing bc people don’t talk about it much and I know I’m not the only one who has ever gone through it #it’s nice for people who do to occasionally see they’re not the only one