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eyesontheskyline · 4 years

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(about the whole fic writer asks, except those answered now) the story specific ones have to be about 'but if you really hold me tight' - I love all your cxg fics and it's the longest one :D) it's just I'm thinking of getting back to writing and since you're of my favorites authors out there now i'd love to get some insight. kudos for being cool about it!

Hello! Okay first of all thank you so much, that is a ridiculously big compliment and my face hurts. And yes yes yes you should definitely write if you feel like writing - just go for it! If you have any specific questions or you want a pep talk or whatever, message any time :)

Okay I’m gonna put these under a Read More because wall of text.

2) What fandoms do you write for and do you have a particular favourite if you write for more than one?Right now only Crazy Ex Girlfriend. I wrote for Criminal Minds under a different name then had a gap of several years. I’m pretty far removed from CM now but I can safely say writing for CXG has been a nicer experience community wise (partly a smaller fandom thing and I suspect partly a demographic thing), and there’s more established character stuff to work with because all the character development isn’t like… Crammed in the five minutes they have to work with either side of the crime solving.

3) Do you prefer writing OC’s or reader inserts? Explain your answer.I don’t really do either, but reader inserts are kind of a squick of mine honestly, so I’m gonna say OCs. I’ve only written OC kids though.

4) What is your favourite genre to write for?I am not entirely sure what this means… Fic genre? Original media genre? I have only ever written romance or friendship stuff for TV shows, an odd balance of fluff and angst?

5) If you had to choose a favourite out of all of your multi chaptered stories, which would it be and why?Mmm let the sun inside has a special place in my heart because it was the thing that got me back into writing after a really long gap and turned out pretty much how I wanted it to. Writing it was just a very intense ‘I am writing again and my brain is on fire’ experience for me.

7) When is your preferred time to write?I would love to have a less dysfunctional answer to this, but probably between 1 and 4am unfortunately? That can’t be a thing on work nights because I get up at 6.30. If I can get myself on a roll early afternoon in a coffee shop though, that’s a better feeling. Just… Less common than ‘the rest of the world around me is asleep and my brain just woke up’.

8) Where do you take your inspiration from?Oh everywhere. The media I write fic about. The stories I read. My life, my friends. The world.

9) In but if you really hold me tight, what’s your favourite scene that you wrote?Oh god I really don’t know. This story is really hard for me to have perspective on because of the ridiculously time pressured way I wrote and published it. I’m probably proudest of chapter 12, where they discuss the ‘do we want a baby’ question properly, because that just… Is an important conversation that you don’t really see in media? I’m not sure it’s the best writing in the story, but I’m glad I didn’t chicken out of it. I also enjoyed writing Rebecca meeting Plimpton Senior in chapter 19, because that feels like an opportunity the show missed and I will never see enough versions of it in fic honestly. (Do you have a favourite?)

10) In but if you really hold me tight, why did you decide to end it like that? Did you have an alternative ending in mind?That one was pretty much always going to end where it did – just because of the format, it was always going to end in a fluffy happy place around midnight on the 1st of January 2021. The last chapter was going to be longer originally, with more characters getting a moment, but it was just getting kind of unfocused – Rebecca POV can handle tone shifts pretty well I think because of the way her brain is wired, but at some point it all just got a bit messy so I pared it back. I think I’m pleased with how it turned out, but the chaos of writing it is still fresh enough that it’s hard to tell!

11) Have you ever amended a story due to criticisms you’ve received after posting it?Nah, but I’ve fixed typos (thank you @what-the-elle-n!)

13) Who is your least favourite character to write for? Why?I find Valencia and Paula pretty difficult. I love them, but I struggle.

14) How did you come up with the title - You can ask about multiple stories.(Since it says multiple and since I only have 3 currently…) Everything I’ve published for CXG so far has had song lyric titles – mostly because I am not good at poetic turns of phrase, and I like lyricists who are. (I’m also not a particularly romantic person, and I like lyricists who are!)

let the sun inside is from Ribcage by elbow. The full line is ‘I wanted to explode – to pull my ribs apart and let the sun inside’, which feels to me like that feeling of having bottled everything up for so long that you just can’t feel anything anymore until you kind of break down and come out the other side? And Rebecca = sunshine, so. That is basically the premise of the story, so that was a stroke of luck.

the landing light is from K2 by elbow (I swear I listen to other music, they just have words that really lend themselves to fanfic titles lol). I have a whole meta thing written to publish alongside the last chapter about why this song for this story, but basically the line is ‘Dickhead’s done a runner and he’s wondering if anyone cares – is the landing light on?’ which is just someone far from home feeling a bit stupid and homesick and wondering if there’s anybody waiting at home for him. And of course Nathaniel comes home to a totally miserable situation and there Rebecca is.

but if you really hold me tight… It had to be a lyric from a Christmas song, preferably one Frank Sinatra sang at some point, because that was the playlist I started listening to in mid-October while outlining this madness. So it’s from Let It Snow, obviously, although that exact line is not in that version, ssshhhhhh (he sings ‘but if you’ll only hold me tight’). I chose it because R&N being a team and getting through stuff together in a mostly-fluff-but-not-entirely way was kind of what I was aiming for, and it just felt like it fit.

15) If you write OC’s, how do you decide on their names?I kind of have an OC coming up in a story I’m writing now, and I just… Knew who named them, and tried to choose a name those people would choose. I don’t really do OCs much in fic, but in not-fic (it’s been a while!) I try to go for a name that (1) means something, and importantly (2) I can imagine their parents having named them.

16) How did you come up with the idea for but if you really hold me tight?So a writer I used to read a lot from the Criminal Minds fandom did a Christmas fic a couple of years in a row – one short, mostly fluffy chapter for each day from the 1st-25th of December. So that was the plan. Except as soon as I started outlining it, I knew I couldn’t write an entire month fluffy and problem-free for these two (for anyone, but especially these two), so short and fluffy didn’t stick!

17) Post a line from a WIP that you’re working on.“I’ve gotten better at a lot of things since you’ve been away, but my self-deception skills have taken a real hit.”

18) Do you have any abandoned WIP’s? What made you abandon them?Yeah, I abandoned a few Criminal Minds fics. I still feel bad about them actually – I get comments on them occasionally. (On the offchance anyone reading this is someone who feels nervous about commenting on old stories – these delight me in ways you cannot imagine.) I ran out of steam in a lot of ways – I started them without any real idea where I was going and wrote myself into a corner, mostly, but also I was starting to really struggle to write unprompted. I am not the most mentally well person, and I just got my brain into this spirally tangle where I thought nobody wanted to read anything they hadn’t asked for, so I filled a lot of prompts but couldn’t convince myself to write anything else. It feels really weird to think about that now, which I guess is a good sign…

19) Are there any stories that you’ve written that you’d really love to do a sequel to?I toy with following the emotional arc of S4 but following let the sun inside sometimes – that was the plan, when I originally finished it and was panicking that I would never get another idea. Also, but if you really hold me tight created a world of warm domesticity for R&N that I felt really sad leaving behind, so I would probably like to write in the timeline again. And the landing light might get a oneshot sequel, depending on whether I end it the way I think I’m going to or the way I was originally planning to…

20) Are there any stories that you wished you’d ended differently?No, not in this fandom. I’ve only written two endings though! I’ve ended on some real cheeseball final lines in the past though.

21) Tell me about another writer(s) who you admire? What is it about them that you admire?@heartbash, who can do plot and slow-burn in a way my impatient ass will never be capable of. @justwanted2dance who deserves a million flame emojis and writes BDSM stuff in a way that makes my anxious brain comfy enough to enjoy it (literally nobody else has achieved this). @pictureofsoph1sticatedgrace who writes the loveliest fluff and is a badass individual. @notbang and @anthropologicalhands and @catty-words and @akisazame and @romansuzume who write beautifully and can do those poetic turns of phrase I am not good at. I’ve got to be forgetting someone but wowww there is so much talent and creativity in this lil room. So many people to be inspired by.

22) Do you have a story that you look back on and cringe when you reread it?God yes, but not in this fandom. It’s fine, 19 or 20 year old me, you were learning.

23) Do you prefer listening to music when you’re writing or do you need silence?Silence. Or like white noise or the Hufflepuff Common Room 10 hour ASMR video on youtube or something lol. Anything with words just ruins me – my attention span is laughable.

25) Have you ever cried whilst writing a story?Ha yes actually, but I’m really not entirely sure why. Sometimes my brain is just a really weird place to be.

26) Which part of but if you really hold me tight was the hardest to write?It depends how you measure hardest, I guess. Several of the smut scenes just said ‘[insert sex]’ for the longest time, sometimes with descriptions? So like ‘[insert feelingsy sex]’ or whatever lol. In terms of getting voices right (like to the point of still being unsure whether it’s any good), this gurl group chapter.

27) Do you make a general outline for your stories or do you just go with the flow?It really depends. Usually I know roughly where I’m going and how I’m getting there and that’s good enough for me, but my NaNo fic got an outline because of the format and timescale. And I’m planning a thing with an actual plot arc (gasp!) so that’s getting an outline, in the hope of making it look vaguely romance novel shaped. Basically it depends on the length of the thing for me, and how plotty it is.

28) What is something you wished you’d known before you started posting fanfiction?Writing advice: if you’re struggling to move past a particular point, the thing you need to change is probably a few lines back. It’s rarely the last line that painted you into the corner. If you think something needs to come out, paste it into an outtakes document – you might want to put it somewhere else later, or salvage lines from it or whatever, and it’s just easier to let go if you’re not actually hitting delete.

Posting advice: remember fandom is community – everyone is here because they love the thing you love. They’re gonna be excited there’s a new story to read, and they’re rooting for you! (Write the thing!)

29) Do you have a story that you feel doesn’t get as much love as you’d like?Nahh I mean, it’s a smaallll fandom.

30) In contrast to 29 is there a story which gets lots of love which you kinda eye roll at?Again, smaaalll. (Also I try not to publicly eye roll at things other people love even if they are my things – there’s nothing quite like loving a song just for the band to be like ‘ugh I fucking hate that song’, so I always try to keep that in mind.)

31) Send me a fic recommendation and I’ll post it for my followers to see! (The asker is to send the rec not the answerer)You did not send me a rec! Feel free to send me one now! In fact, open call, everyone send me fic recs, even if I’ve definitely read them.

32) Are any of your characters based on real people?Mm no I don’t do OCs.

33) What’s the biggest compliment you’ve gotten?I mean, I enjoyed hearing that someone read my story in the corner at a party lol, especially because it was a chapter I was pretty pleased with and nervous about. Also any time anybody says something I wrote is a headcanon or ‘this should have happened in the show’ is a glittery feeling. When somebody notices a little clue or detail that isn’t obvious, it makes me ridiculously happy. Humans reading my thing then saying something about it is still crazy, so, yeah.

34) What’s the harshest criticism you’ve gotten?Story time: my old fandom has this one character who has a lot of pretty hardcore stans. I mostly dislike the word stan but like… Yeah. So anyway, I got an email saying I had a new comment on my ficlet collection (keeping in mind I was in my ‘very unhealthy relationship with feedback’ stage at this point), and clicked on it all happy, and all it said was ‘I didn’t read this because another comment said it doesn’t contain enough *stanned character* and you really should warn people upfront that he isn’t gonna be in it, I’m glad I didn’t waste my time on it’. Which was just… A bizarre comment. Like, commenting to say you didn’t read the thing is weird in itself, but also you list the characters who are in the thing, not all the ones who aren’t?? Anyway, I then went on my tumblr and I had several anon messages that were just straight up hate along the same lines and… Yeah. The Criminal Minds fandom was a strange place. On a related note, have I told you today that I love you, CXG people? I love you.

35) Do you share your story ideas with anyone else or do you keep them close to your chest?I am basically always up with talking stuff through with people.

36) Can you give us a spoiler for one of your WIP’s?This is actually difficult to do right now. There’s a baby?

37) What’s the funniest story you’ve written?I mean, I made myself laugh a couple of times in my festive fic, but I’m more of a ‘this one line is funny’ writer than a ‘this story is funny’ writer. I’m too angsty!

38) If you could collab with any other writer on here, who would it be? (Perhaps this question will inspire some collabs!) If you’re shy, don’t tag the blog, just name it.This question is faaar too terrifying. I’ve actually never collabed with anyone, I’d love to though.

39) Do you prefer first, second or third person?Third. I think because I’ve only written for TV shows, no matter how closely you’re following one character, if you’re seeing them on a screen, you’re in third person. So it’s just an extra struggle to make that jump to another POV for me. I have written my not-fanfic mostly in first though, and I’ve read some lovely fic in first and second. I’m just not good at it.

40) Do people know you write fanfiction?One person.

41) What’s your favourite minor character you’ve written?Hmmmm who is minor, really? I find AJ difficult but fun.

43) Has anyone ever guessed the plot twist of one of your fics before you posted it?I don’t write anything plotty enough for this to be a thing!

44) What is the last line you wrote?“Mm, because you know how irresistible your weird old timey voices are.”

45) What spurs you on during the writing process?I want people to read the thing, honestly. It’s a ‘reach out my lonely haaand’ moment with a little less melodrama. I want it to be out in the world doing what it’s meant to do. I also want it to be finished so I can read it – I get a very particular kind of happy feeling from reading a good sentence I wrote.

46) I really loved but if you really hold me tight. If you were ever to do a sequel, what do you think might happen in it?Lol it felt really weird to type that in there when you didn’t actually say it directly, but you said all so here we are! I’m just gonna take that compliment even though I wrote it… When I started coming to the end of writing that story, I started to feel really sad about leaving behind the warm domestic feel of it, so if I ever feel more domestic fluff coming on, probably it’ll be set after that.

47) Here’s a fic title - insert a made up title. What would this story be about?You did not insert a made up title! Although insert a made up title has potential for Rebecca hounding everyone she knows to help her title a song she wrote.

48) What’s your favourite trope to write?Is ‘let’s have an actual conversation about this’ a trope because that’s my brand so far! I haven’t written anything particularly tropey, I don’t think, although the pull of ‘omg there was only one bed’ is strong right now!

49) Can you remember the first fic you read? What was it about?Yes! It was a Criminal Minds fic, Hotch/Prentiss, canon compliant (ish) missing scenes kind of deal. I can’t remember the first CXG fic I read, which is ridiculous because it was a lot more recent. I started writing CXG fic before I started looking for it, because I hadn’t been inspired to write in so long that I didn’t want to scare myself away. I read some before publishing, but I can’t remember where I started.

50) If you could write only angst, fluff or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why?I can only dream of being mentally stable enough to have a consistent answer to this lol. Angst comes more naturally to me, but writing angsty characters into happy situations is one of the ways I make sense of the world, so… Fluff, maybe, as long as I can keep the characters screwed up, because they just… Are. And like, same.

#anon #ask meme #aggressively writes fanfiction

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