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zorosmalewife · 19 days

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Chain Reaction Notes - General

Want to know about my writing process? Want to see my POV style guides and areas of concern? Discussion of the writing of the fic, the writing of my notes, an old outline of the fic, and some other random shit under the cut!

As you all know, the last chapter of chain reaction that I wrote before the hiatus was chapter 9. I finished chapter 9 mid December 2022. I was working on chapter 10 soon after that, but my hyperfixation had shifted and I was more focused on other projects. That being said, I was still plugging away at chain reaction, and ended up finishing chapter 10 about 5 months after the hiatus started. At that point I had already decided not to post anything until the whole piece was completed, though, so it just lived quietly in my word processor.

Once again, I slowly worked on it in the background, and after a little over three months, I finished chapter 11. That puts us in early September 2023. I had started reading the One Piece manga around that time and it really inspired me to pick this piece up and try to finish it. By the start of November, chapter 12 was done, and I'd decided to take part in NaNoWriMo with the goal of finishing the fic by the end of the year. 10 days after finishing chapter 12, 13 was done, and I was really picking up steam. Two and a half weeks later I finished chapter 14. Three weeks after that I finished chapter 15. Eight days after that I finished chapter 16. Ten days later, I finished chapter 17. Three days after that, on January 19th, 2024, I finished the epilogue. After writing 50k in three months (a lot for me!) I took a nice long break from looking at or even thinking about the fic. Then, in late February, I started my final round of edits. I sent it to some friends and got feedback. And now we're waiting for my beta to check for grammar and other minutiae I tend to fuck up on my own.

Ultimately, this piece is 107k. Depending on how edits go, I expect it to end up pushing 108k, maybe more. That's long! The longest thing I've ever written, in fact! That's a lot to keep track of, especially considering that half of the fic was written over a year ago, so I kept a lot of notes, especially during the hiatus.

While writing the first half of the piece, all my notes lived in a single Google Doc. As you may remember, chain reaction is actually based on someone else's fic, so in the early days, the Doc was filled with a basic summary of that fic and what I was keeping, what I was changing, and what I was getting rid of entirely. Then my piece got farther away from the source material and I used the Doc to plan out my story beats. Even before chapter 9 was finished, I had the whole fic outlined, though that outline ended up changing significantly. (More on that later.) When it came to actually writing the hiatus chapters, though, I was getting frustrated with my notes in the Doc - they were wordy, and I find it very annoying to scroll through a long document in search of specific information. By the time I was working on chapter 13, I was starting to get genuinely frustrated. My Doc notes just didn't have what I needed - specific details about what I'd written, not what I planned to write. It was essential that I knew what happened in each previous chapter without having to reread prose every time I wanted to check a small detail. And I certainly didn't want to keep scrolling on my computer, clicking in and out of my word processor with my little trackpad. So I broke out an old sketchbook and started to take notes the old fashioned way.

Step one was figuring out what I needed to keep track of while writing the new chapters. What did these notes need to say? What was worth writing down? The more I wrote, the harder it would be to find what I needed, so I had to be selective.

Mostly, the answer to that was character dynamics. It was essential that I kept track of how the characters felt about each other, so everything progressed naturally instead of happening arbitrarily when I remembered to include it. I also created a list of things that needed to happen regularly that I regularly forgot to include. I'll list out all the variables I tracked at the end of this post, as well as the POV style guides I created for Ace and Zoro. I'll also put the original fic outline down there, too, one from November 2022. The final fic ended up much different, so it might be interesting to see how things were originally supposed to go!

Once I decided on the Essential Variables and Information for my sketchbook notes, I started writing them out. The first page was filled with the important variables, the POV style guides, some doodles, and a color coding guide. Then I set up one page per chapter. Each page had the chapter's theme at the top, followed by a summary of each scene in the chapter and all the relevant information for it - the scene's POV character, its corresponding number in the outline doc, how long until they have to return to Sabaody, how long Ace and Zoro have been together, and any of the Essential Variables that were included in that scene. Then, at the bottom of the page, after I'd written the chapter and finished writing up its notes, I'd pick the title!

Despite the fact that I was working on chapter 13 when I started keeping the sketchbook notes, the first chapter I took notes on was 10 (the first hiatus chapter and second timeskip chapter). This was because chapter 10 is the first one that's unpublished - if there was a variable I forgot to include, or if I made a mistake with the continuity, I could still change it! On top of that, chapter 10 functions as a baseline; the theme of the chapter is literally 'learning our new normal'! So it was really important for the progression of the piece that I kept good notes about what, exactly, that baseline is.

Then, once my notes on chapters 10, 11, and 12 were done, I felt ready to continue with 13! I wrote the scenes from my Google Doc outline while regularly checking the sketchbook for variables. Honestly, I was often changing the order of scenes in the Doc, or changing their contents, or deleting them, or adding new ones, but I was still (generally speaking) following the outline there. Eventually, I abandoned the Doc, copying the scene ideas right into my word processor and organizing the outline in the drafts of this very tumblr!

By the time I was writing chapter 16, things had changed so radically from the original outline, and I was so close to the end, I got a little lazy with the notes. The notes for chapters 16 and 17 share a page, and all I did was reorganize the outline again, as well as change the way certain scenes played out. For the epilogue, though, I ended up writing 3 pages of notes. This is largely because I hadn't decided what it was going to look like until I got to writing it - I had one scene in mind, but that was it! So I had to decide 1. how much time I wanted to cover 2. what happened in that time frame 3. how much of that I was actually going to depict and 4. how I was going to structure it. I ended up going with something radically different from the body of the piece, but I think it's both effective and fun!

In the near future, I'll be typing up those pages of chapter notes. I'll post them here one chapter at a time. They'll have spoilers, obviously, because they're a summary of the events in the unposted chapters, but they're not very detailed, so it shouldn't actually ruin anything for anyone. They'll be under a cut so only those who wish to see them will!

Wow, okay, this post ended up really long. Wow. I'll put the POV style guides, Essential Variables, and original outline under this, and that'll be it, I promise. Thank you to everyone who has read any of my posts on this silly tumblr account about my silly fic. It means the world to me, truly.

POV STYLE GUIDE - ZORO

a lot of cursing

gets poetic sometimes (often)

holy mother of parentheticals!

a lot of "oh my God"s

calls people assholes / dickhead / fuckhead

says [word] ass

repetition girlie (in twos)

POV STYLE GUIDE - ACE

more casual voice (IN DIALOGUE)

um, uh, etc. (IN DIALOGUE)

doesn't really say fuck unless it's about sex

more hypothetical questions

loves 2 spiral

milder insults like jerk

repetition girlie (in threes)

can't feel heat

more formal prose

VARIABLES I TRACKED

Perona + Zoro's relationship

Mihawk + Ace's relationship (they are @ odds until a particular chapter)

Mihawk + Zoro's relationship

Perona + Ace's relationship (they become besties between two specific chapters)

Acezoro relationship obviously but this was the Point of the fic so the progress was baked into the outline. That being said, I did make sure to write down any instances of either of them using the word 'love' or something similar in regard to one another. The scene summaries contain information about the progression of their dynamic

Perona calls Mihawk 'boss'

Ace falling asleep in his food (I WAS SO BAD AT REMEMBERING THIS ONE)

Ace spirals. Always guilty

Zoro Autism Meltdowns (tm)

Zoro's always drinking

Perona shoots negative ghosts at the drop of a hat! (I was bad at remembering this one also)

Zoro calls Mihawk 'hawk eyes'

Zoro's training progress. esp w haki

Ace can't feel heat. (Really important!!)

ORIGINAL HIATUS OUTLINE - FAR DIFFERENT FROM FINAL PRODUCT - ANNOTATED TO SHOW WHAT STAYED AND WHAT DID NOT

The numbers are from the full timeskip outline, so the first 5 scenes are in chapter 9. The hiatus starts with chapter 10 so we'll start there

Chapter 10:

6. The alpha humandrill. Ends up being easier than anyone expected (zoro does it by himself) bc he's not fucking stressed out about his crewmates or ace or anything. He's like Back On Form and fully healed and everyone is like um. Okay. hello [stayed!]

6.5. Spar interlude! Happens right off the tail end of 6 and ace is like. Distracted and flustered and ends up getting cut because of it. Ace explains that you have to consciously transform to avoid hits, but if you're good enough at observation haki you can pretty much do it automatically. Admits to 1. Being distracted by how sexy zoro is and 2. Not being good at anything other than armament haki [stayed!]

7. Farming! This is supposed to be an all 4 of them activity but perona quickly fucks off to go make lemonade and snacks for everyone so she doesn't have to slum it in the dirt. Mihawk makes her anyway. They have kind of a fun time time throwing dirt at each other and eventually manage to goad mihawk into throwing zoro into the lake [stayed, with less dirt throwing but zoro definitely still goes into the lake!]

7.5. Family Dinner interlude! Mihawk complains about how little work they got done that day and zoro grumbles about not being able to train and mihawk's like look idiot taking breaks is important. What do you think about this wine. And the two of them go back and forth about it and ace and perona are watching like :pogchamp: father and son…… [stayed! though it ended up shifting a bit to focus on mihawk and ace being at odds, and happens the day after 7 instead of the same day like i originally planned]

8. Mihawk explaining haki. The canon scene, expanded. [stayed!]

8.5. Spar interlude! This one is obviously zoro trying to get better with haki. Ace gives him tips and kind of accidentally teaches him ryuo [stayed - sort of. it's zoro practicing, but it's ace pov. he frets about being a bad partner, doesn't actually help zoro much]

9. Ace and zoro drunk convo number one. this one is about their relationship and what they want from it. also they go camping. Trying to figure out what it means to be together, what they want that to look like. [stayed!]

Chapter 11

9.5 Family Dinner interlude! Set up 10 [stayed!]

10. Perona doing zoro's nails. He won't let her do his fingers bc they'll chip from his workouts but he'll let her do his toes. They talk about his ankle scars and she can't decide if that's funny or infuriating. Ace thinks it's hilarious but does ride zoro's ass about it later lol. First inkling of zoro's sword throwing tendencies [stayed - sort of! perona does his fingers first, actually, bc she talked him into matching with her. then, when she's doing his toes, she see the ankle scars. instead of the reactions in this outline, they both freak out - they're upset that his first impulse in that situation was to cut his legs off. and they're even more upset when zoro is dismissive of their feelings and concerns about that. perona has to leave the room and ace and zoro have their first argument as a couple]

10.5. Spar interlude! Zoro's first spar w mihawk [changed! this became a resolution for 10, involving zoro examining his own tendencies, a mushy apology, and intense makeup sex]

11. Mihawk bonding! He and zoro go spearfishing [stayed!]

11.5. Family Dinner interlude! Talk about baths nd the devil fruit user feeling of powerlessness. Ace esp hates being cut off from his fruit bc it's become an essential part of himself [stayed! focused on ace's Issues]

12. Zoro and ace take a bath! Mihawk probably has a huge huge (room-sized) marble tub around somewhere. Ace agrees to heat the water up with his powers but zoro convinces him to get in. A very tender trust exercise. First inkling of ace's deflated sense of self worth [stayed but was moved to chapter 12!]

Chapter 12

12.5. "Spar" interlude! (it's just naked wrestling) [changed! this became a spar with mihawk to show the progress of his dynamic w zoro]

13. zoro lets perona give him a piercing… that's right. zoro nipple piercings. Ace gets his navel done in solidarity. Love wins [stayed! expanded a bit to cover the change in the dynamic the three of them have, and also to reassert the bond between them]

13.5. Family Dinner interlude! "Roronoa your nipples." [stayed!]

14. Drunk convo…… 2! They talk about sabo and kuina. ("so. Why three swords" "the honest answer?" "i think i deserve that. We're together, aren't we?" "yeah. It's just… i've never told anyone." "how about i tell you something in return?") They learn about each other's baggage. This, too, helps them get stronger [stayed!]

14.5. Spar interlude! Z spars one on one w mihawk again. Appreciable progress [stayed, but was moved down into chapter 13]

15. The first "i love you" and it of course comes from ace. Happens during very tender sex. Zoro does not say it back (yet) [stayed, was also moved into chapter 13]

15.5. Family Dinner interlude! This is where perona drops the infamous "he sacrificed his eye for you, the least you could do is give him your last piece of fish" and ace is like he WHAT. he and perona start freaking out and screaming at zoro and eventually zoro is like OKAY. BYE. and jumps out the window. [whew. okay. this scene stayed in the fic with a few changes, but ultimately ended up being the final scene of chapter FOURTEEN. this is because i wanted to expand more on zoro's reaction to scene 15, so i added 5 new scenes between 15 and 15.5. details on the new scenes will be in the notes for chapters 13 and 14]

Chapter 13

16. Zoro doesn't come back like they expected tho and by day 2 ace is like i'm going after this mf fr. ace repeatedly tries to play charades w the humandrills to get them to tell him where zoro is and eventually they lead ace right to him. [stayed (sort of. he only has to play charades with the humandrills once) but, because of all the new scenes, this ended up being the opener of chapter 15. i also added a new scene after it]

16.5. Spar interlude! This is actually a genuine fight between them, not really a spar. Ace tries to talk to him during it but zoro shuts it down. "But your eye!!!!!" "but nothing. You were going to die and now you're here, alive. That's all there is to it." they don't exactly work it out but ace does start to understand zoro more completely. He is going to make his own decisions independent of everything and then always double down [stayed - sort of. they do fight but it doesn't last that long. it's more of an icebreaker than anything. they eventually work it out (tho zoro doesn't say it back) and have more makeup sex. the dialogue in this outline was heavily edited in the final piece. again, so much stuff was added that this ended up being the final scene of chapter 15]

17. Cold snap. Lots of everyone following ace around bc he's a furnace. Even mihawk seems to always end up in the same room. It's very funny [deleted!]

17.5. Family Dinner interlude! Mihawk thanks ace for ^ but is like. Super cringe abt it. Perona starts sniffling [deleted!]

18. Perona gets sick :^( zoro takes good care of her. Ace hovers. Mihawk make soup. They're all being cute about it and graciously ignoring that abt each other [deleted!]

18.5. NO spar interlude! They worried about perona [deleted!]

19. Zoro, ace, and mihawk cooking (fail) compilation [deleted!]

19.5. Family Dinner interlude! Perona's all better :) [deleted!]

Chapter 14

20. They get a news coo that finally announces the fact that ace went missing. His bounty is increasing to a billion and the "He's Gol D. Roger's Son" thing is dropped, an attempt by the gov't to make ppl more likely to hunt ace and turn him in. he has a whole Mega Breakdown over everyone knowing, over ZORO knowing, and zoro finally hits him with the completely earnest "i don't fucking CARE!" "but you sacrificed your eye for me, someone with bad blood in their veins!!" "you think that matters to me? Do you think for one second that something like that would've made me okay with leaving you for dead? I love you! I'd DIE if it would keep you safe, bad blood or not!" "but i'm the son of–" "I DON'T CARE!!! YOU'RE MY PARTNER!!! YOU'RE MY CAPTAIN'S BROTHER!!!! YOU'RE THE ONLY MAN I'VE EVER LOVED!!!!!" (first time he's said it and not "me too" or some shit equivalent) and he Storms Out and ace has to really wrestle with how much he's allowed roger to cloud his vision. Mihawk is like well i met roger once and he seemed chill. Perona is like i really don't see why it's such a big deal now. You're twenty one years old. Like, would you care if the roles were reversed and zoro was the one who was roger's kid? And ace is like :O no…….. I wouldn't…… Wow Thanks Perona [wow okay so this scene stayed. technically. but only so far as the premise - they do get a news coo announcing that ace is still alive and has a one billion berry bounty and is also roger's son. but it plays out totally differently. more details on what actually happens in the chapter 16 notes!]

20.5. Spar interlude! Swing over to zoro, who is frustrated. Who feels unseen, misunderstood. It's him against the humandrills and he goes so wild that mihawk comes out and is like fucking. Stop. and zoro raises a sword against him in earnest anger and while he still cannot win, he pushes mihawk back. [okay so this scene kind of stayed, but it was moved into chapter 15 between ace's charades w the humandrills and their reconciliation spar. zoro does go crazy against the humandrills, but when mihawk comes out to stop him, he stops. and they talk]

21. Epic reunion. They understand each other and are like okay sorry for being dismissive of ur position. Let's both agree to not let this shit we can't change bother us. They will have to accept these things about each other (zoro's need to throw himself on the sword, ace's complicated feelings about himself and his value and history.) Finally get the "thank you for loving me" speech (edited of course) which zoro meets with "thank you for living. Thank you for letting me stay by your side" [this got deleted, mostly. some of the ideas were pulled into the highly edited version of scene 20]

21.5. Family Dinner interlude! Everyone is like um okay that was awkward. Why don't we own mihawk over his music tastes now [deleted!]

22. Drunk convo the third. What's next for us? Can this really survive beyond the shores of kuraigana? Do we want it to? [changed and moved - not a drunk convo anymore. combined with 25, ended up the penultimate scene of chapter 17]

22.5. Spar interlude! Zoro and ace spar. Zoro wins decisively. [deleted - didn't need to be a scene. it's a milestone that happened and is mentioned but that's it]

23. zoro doing perona's hair. Maybe ace's too bc it's been growing out [stayed - sort of. moved to be the first scene of chapter 14. he only does perona's hair]

23.5. FD interlude! Mihawk "are pigtails in season…?" [deleted!]

Chapter 15

24. Mihawk bonding! Ace talks to him about what his next step should be. What he wants it to be. They talk about whitebeard and legacy and what it means to want the best for your children [stayed, with significant changes - still a conversation between mihawk and ace about the future, but it doesn't really hit the beats in this outline. ended up in the second half of chapter 17]

24.5. Zoro and ace spar. It's Very Fucking Intense and when zoro pins him ace gets heart eyes and they smash on the forest floor like animals [deleted </3]

25. Ace and zoro have a serious talk. Ace "i'm staying by your side. Let's get married" "THAT'S how you propose to me?????" "yes?" "yeah ok. Let's get married stud" [stayed! dialogue changed slightly. ended up the penultimate scene of chapter 17]

25.5. Family Dinner interlude! Announce their plans + engagement, talk about how they're gonna get to sabaody [stayed!]

CHAPTER 16 - Epilogue [Not a breakdown of scenes, but basic notes about it]

– + them getting back to sabaody. All 4 of them go. Intentionally about a week early to make sure they can get married and have a little honeymoon lol. Perona and mihawk are their witnesses for the wedding. [true]

– + mihawk and perona say they're leaving but definitely stick around and watch to make sure everyone leaves sabaody together. They're both too aware of the straw hats' luck [kind of true - perona sticks around at least]

– + ace notices this by day 4 and is like hey. Let's go to the amusement park, as one final hurrah! [untrue - ace and zoro do go to sabaody park, but it's just the two of them and it's also off screen]

~ ace has to be in disguise. He has a whole Thing abt covering his tat, but it's also like c'mon brother. [kind of true - they do wear disguises but ace is not seen caring about covering the tat]

– + eventually they get the call from rayleigh that's like "ok everyone is back. You should head to the ship." and they're like :thumbsup: and they make it to the sunny first. When nami rolls up, zoro and ace are making out against the mast [kind of true - no call from rayleigh happens on screen but they ARE making out against the mast when nami rolls up]

~ nami "what the FUCK is going on???? Is that ace?????" and they're like "yeah. We're married now." namigetstrolled.png [true!]

#chain reaction by zorosmalewife

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dragonleighs · 4 months

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✨ Fic Writing Review 2023 ✨

I haven't actually been tagged by anyone but I saw @bereft-of-frogs give it a go and thought what the hell, why not (I hope you don't mind me tagging you 💜). I also don't have anyone in mind to tag but if you see this feel free to tag me (or not) and give it a go yourself!

Words and Fics

192,428 words posted according to ao3 but at least 90k of that has been carried over from previous years.

Broadly speaking, I've written for two fandoms. The Witcher (Netflix series and Blood Origin) and Jedi Fallen Order/Survivor.

14 fics posted, but again two of those were started in 2022 and another in 2020, all three finished in the beginning of this year.

13/14 of the fics posted/updated this year are finished, one started but on hiatus while my current jfo WIP continues to consume my brain.

Speaking of, said WIP is curently sitting at 132k and only has two or three chapters left before I can start editing.

most recent fic: It's only slaughter, we're only liars (jfo)

longest: that would be A Quest for your Memories (the Witcher), the fic that was haunting me from March 2020. Originally supposed to be a one shot, it ended up being 51,734 words long.

shortest: Echoes (blood origin, 1,118)

Top Fics by Kudos

A Quest for your Memories (794)

I'd Burn So Bright It Blinded (623)

What's The Point (440)

If You Ask Me For My Fire (299)

After The Blood Comes The River (211)

Unsurprisingly they're all witcher fics since it's a much much bigger fandom than jfo/s

Gonna give some love to my personal faves since the Jedi ones can't compete:

It's only slaughter, we're only liars

No more time for my loss

Touchdown

My fandom fic events in 2023

Whumptober which took up a lot of September but was a lot of fun. I enjoyed coming into it with a new fandom since I didn't bother last year.

Upcoming Events and Projects for 2024

My priority at the moment is to finish my current WIP and then start editing it. While I'm doing that I might try to finish off some of my older fics that have been left hanging.

After that I've already got a whole two part thing planned out that will hopefully be a litte shorter that I'm really looking forward to getting to. Beyond that, I don't know. I'll continue to tie up loose ends (there's a lot of them) or I'll keep writing new stuff. Either way, I don't see me stopping any time soon.

I've had a lot of fun writing this year, though for a couple of months I was worried I was running out of inspiration (mostly because my then current hyperfixation was waning). But then Jedi survivor came along and I've been hooked ever since. I didn't used to think I was capable of writing long fics but between finishing a couple of 50k's and now having such a long WIP I can see I was just being silly. "Do it scared" is good advice.

Happy new year!!

Rules & Tags* below the cut!

Rules: Feel free to show whatever stats you have. Only want to show Ao3 stats? Rock on. Want to include some quantitative info instead of stats? Please do this. Want to change how yours is presented? Absolutely do that. Would rather eat glass than do this? Please don’t eat glass but don’t feel like you have to do this either.

*I usually do stuff like this on my sideblog but that's not where my main focus is any more and idk how many people know about my main. Hence why I don't want to start tagging fandom people. Also idk many people in the jfo/s fandom or who has already done it.

So no tags becasue I'm too shy basically and I don't see that changing any time soon sadly. I love being tagged, I'm just bad at reaching out first...

#writing wrap up 2023 #tag game

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tentaclecore · 1 year

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end-of-year writing meme shit

the ao3 wrapped thing keeps popping up on my feed here and on twitter-- i don't do fandom anymore but i DO do origfic, so i'm just copypasting the questions and answering them in relation to original shit here.

How many words have you written this year? i do not count words anymore because they stress me out! but ballpark figures from completed projects at very least, well over 200k. not as much as i'd like ofc, but given this is the first year i've been able to write consistently since my crash and burn in 2017, i'll take it.

How many works did you publish this year? uhhhhhhh seven? seven!

What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)? Frantic Showstoppers, the novel i'm working on now, i think. no, it's not finished, and it won't be finished until February if all goes well, BUT it's the most complex narrative i've ever put together and if i pull this thing off it'll be spectacular.

What work of yours has the most hits? the jokey mpreg short i published years ago consistently gets full reads on Kindle Unlimited, which i find hilarious.

What work of yours got more feedback than you expected? publishing original fiction doesn't really get feedback per se, but the erotica i published on a secret pen name just to try each got a few five star ratings surprised the shit out of me.

Favorite title you used lightspeed to love is an in-progress gay space opera romance thing that i had to ditch the first draft of cos it sucked, but damn do i still enjoy that title. it's so stupid.

If you use song lyrics, which artist’s songs did you pull from the most? sadly not allowed to do that for Legit Published Things. sucks, cos i am horrible at titles and could use the help.

Pairing you wrote the most for this year? wrote mostly dude-on-dude stuff. have a few projects i got words into that were sapphic, but nothing completed that i could show anyone.

Favorite pairing you wrote for this year? the lead and his Crush(TM) in Frantic Showstoppers are my faves, with the secondary pairing of two characters in the background as a close runner-up. these people are flailing disasters and i love them.

What work was the quickest to write? the erotica! spent no more than a week on most of them, quick to edit, even quicker to make a shitty cover for and to publish. there's a reason people do the erotica game with so many pen names to make money, and it's cos once you get into a schedule you can basically just bust them out quickly (lol).

What work took you the longest to write? on-going novel now, Frantic Showstoppers. started that mf-er in June. or was it May? god i don't even know anymore. longest amount of time i've dumped into any book tbh, normally i'm a "three months for clean draft to send to my editor" type of person.

How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year? i think i counted them recently and it was thirty-something.

What’s your longest work of the year? Frantic Showstoppers is currently over sixty thousand and like maybe a quarter to a third finished.

What’s your shortest work of the year? first erotica short was under five thousand words. le gasp.

What WIP are you taking into next year with you? ALL OF THEM.

What’s your most common “Additional Tags” tag? gonna answer this with a common keyword i dump into amazon when publishing, which is GAY.

Your favorite character to write this year? the lead in Frantic Showstoppers, Kenji Masuda. runner-up, the lead in Postscript Prometheus, which is one of those sapphic books that hasen't been finished yet and isn't a priority. the lead in that one is so gross and i love her.

The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year? uhhhhhhh the Love Interest in Frantic Showstoppers has been a bit of a bother because i forget he's got an interior life separate from Kenji, so i've got to go back and fix that over and over. one of the reasons i scrapped one of the versions of the third part in the book is because i just forgot everyone other than Kenji wasn't an extension of him. that was a bad week of writing, i'm so embarrassed with myself.

What’s one pairing you want to explore next year? i want to go back to the Debtspace series and finish rewriting Lightspeed to Love so i can finally get that bad taste out of my mouth. the characters were fine in the first version, but the rewrite will make them better.

Which work of yours have you reread the most? overall? Hooversuck of an Empty Space cos i keep having to edit it for one format or another and YES i keep finding shit to fix. recently tho i tend to reread what i have of Frantic Showstoppers just to try and get a grip on it before i dump another 10k onto it.

How many kudos in total did you get this year? going to focus on reviews and star ratings, not a lot. in the self publishing sphere people who leave reviews or even bother to do a star rating are either absolutely rabid with love for your book, or absolutely despise it. there's very rarely any middle ground there.

Which work has the most comments? see answer to last question lol.

Did you do any collaborative works this year? uhhh no. i'm not really a collaborative writer, mainly cos i'm so flakey.

Did you write any gifts this year? in the process of getting two done right now, but idk if i'll finish them before the new year.

Did you receive any gifts this year? not writing-based. which is GOOD, i'm so inarticulate over those kinds of things i devolve into screeching and it's just uncomfortable for everyone.

What’s your most common category? i think Science Fiction - LGBT is a category on every single thing i've published lol.

What do you listen to while writing? my spotify playlists are vast and diverse. good amount of city pop and synthwave in there tho.

Favorite work you wrote this year? the beat outline for this goofy space opera serial thing i haven't had time to work on. the jokes in that one are great, can't wait to get them in prose form.

Favorite line/passage you wrote this year? oh god it'd take ages for me to scour scrivener projects for something decent to put on here.

Biggest surprise while writing this year? how fucking long Frantic Showstoppers is going. it started as a less than ten thousand word short for a free webzine, and now it's uh… significantly longer.

#blog

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ailendolin · 2 years

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2021 - the good bits

Since 2022 has now begun (or as I like to call it: the third year of The Plague) I thought I'd take a look back at 2021 and all the things that brought me joy. Because no matter how shitty a year might have overall been, there is always something that makes you smile.

So without further ado, in no particular order:

My fandom friends: the Hugh Crew, the Officers' Club, the Hornblower fam and, still quite new, the lovely people from the Six Idiots fandom. You've all made 2021 a lot more funnier and exciting than it would have been without your fics, art, headcanons, discussions, asks and messages. I love you, and I'm very grateful to know you all. I wish you a happy new year and I hope it will be filled with happiness, laughter and smiles.

My writing: I wrote 45 fics in 2021 which is a new record for me. They range from one hyperfixation to another and every single one of them is dear to me. Looking back, I can say that writing has become a lot easier to me (as in, I can write more quickly than before) but editing still takes a long time because I'm not a native speaker and always start doubting every second word I wrote.

My music: I have started writing my own songs this year and it's great to see the progress I made between the first one I wrote and the last one. My newest song, inspired by Thomas's death in Ghosts, is the first one I felt comfortable playing in front of other people and when my dad said I should put it on Youtube, I can't say I didn't feel at least a little proud. I haven't uploaded it anywhere yet but maybe (if there's interest and I overcome my lack of self-confidence) I will someday. This could be my New Year's Resolution.

My family: I am grateful we've managed to get through this pandemic so far without anyone of us getting sick. And I'm even more grateful my mum's cancer treatment was such a success. Getting her diagnosis during our summer vacation was a huge shock and even though we know she'll never be cancer-free, it's such a relief to know she responded so well to the chemotherapy and still has a lot of time left. And finally, I'm happy I got to see my godchildren again after months of isolation! Those three fill my life with so much joy and I love them with my whole heart.

Fandoms: I had so much fun diving into the Age of Sail fandoms and watching Hornblower for the first time and The Terror for a second time this year. Both are brilliant shows and I'm looking forward to another rewatch this year. Then there was the Loki tv series which made me fall in love with Owen Wilson all over again and discover a couple of great films of his I haven't seen yet. And finally, the Six Idiots. It all started with a gif of Thomas Thorne and ended with me watching Ghosts thrice, Yonderland and Bill twice and Horrible History once in the span of three months. I can't even begin to describe how much comfort these shows and the Six Idiots in general have brought me and I'm so, so grateful I took a leap of faith in October and ordered the Ghosts DVDs because of that one single gif.

Music: I will never get over the fact that for one brief moment at the start of 2021, sea shanties were cool and the whole world was singing Wellerman. It's far from my favourite sea shanty but omg did I have fun recording myself singing it and sending it in for The Longest Johns' Wellerman Community Project. I still remember the excitement when the final video was released and everyone was trying to spot themselves among 6500 other people. The Longest Johns are something I've been grateful for since I discovered them in 2018 during what so far was lowest point of my life and I am so, so happy they finally get the success they deserve.

Other: I'm still laughing about the Ever Given Incident even almost a year later. That poor ship getting stuck in the Suez Canal will never not be funny. Another great thing of 2021 was the German Youtube project "7 vs Wild" where seven people try to survive for seven days in Sweden's wilderness with only seven tools. Hands down the most exciting and nerve-wracking thing I watched that year. Then there was MagicCon where I got to meet John Rhys-Davies and Bernard Hill for the first time and also experienced the joy of having Craig Parker as MC again. And finally, one thing that makes me really happy is that the Kakapo of New Zealand are breeding again! With only a little over 200 animals left, every breeding season is good news and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for lots of little Kakapo chicks in 2022.

#personal

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