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Entry tags:
some personal writing thoughts
Writing has felt great the past couple of weeks. I've honestly felt the healthiest I've felt in a long time, which has in turn resulted in more writing! This is a big deal for me right now. I'm nearly back to the frequency of writing I was last at before my giant 5-year TEF hiatus. I finally figured my life out enough to get back there, haha.
Hmm. That sounds very judgmental. I've finally managed to rearrange my life in a way that gives me that time back without resorting to unhealthy habits in order to make it happen. There. That's a better way to put it.
It's to the point where I'm thinking about participating in NaNoWriMo (unofficially) for the first time ever. I've never actually done so because when it was taking off, I was already in the middle of writing something novel-esque (TEF/MTH) and I don't think making progress on an existing work actually counts? So I tabled it for whenever I, you know, finished that behemoth. But I'm still going because writing long things is hard and tying all these loose ends together in a satisfying way is genuine work and also takes a long time and that's before you even get to the actual writing part of it, and part of those aforementioned healthier habits include not holding a metaphorical gun to my head that says I'm not allowed to work on any other fun things until I finish the stupid epically long high school fic about superpowered teenagers. Which, to be fair, is still fun. But it's also super exhausting to feel like I have to write about teenagers, exclusively, all the time.
In fact, looking back, the proportion of my stories set in HS made up like... 1/3 of the fic I actually posted? And they were all short one-shots to boot. IDK, it's surreal to me sometimes that TEF/MTH has the standing that it does. I know it's what I'm most known for now, to the point where I know there was an actual shift in the type of PpG/RrB HS fic that came after it, and TEF/MTH itself isn't actually a novel setting the way it was back in 2009jesus motherfucking christ I am OLD. Digression. I'm writing and I'm happy. It feels good to be in that headspace again.
So with NaNoWriMo coming up, I'm viewing it less as an actual participatory signup thing where I get my little badge of honor for completing it (assuming they still do that? see I am very very out of touch) and more of just a personal goal for myself to hit 50k written words in a month. Going off of my posted average word count per chapter for TEF/MTH, that's around 2 completed chapters. Which would be great, if I choose to work on TEF/MTH exclusively - that would leave me with just 3 to go.
Even at my most prolific, though, I would generally only do one chapter a month. (Which, GOD. It was good to be young and full of energy for that shit! What a time!) And... frankly, I've been doing a lot better with breaks from writing these kids in HS. Part of what's been so fun for me wrt writing lately is exploring all these different plot bunnies I've had for them as adults and not having to tie them in to one canon (off-topic but I cannot wait for this shared universe trend to wither and die, I shall lose absolutely zero shits if I don't see another God damn superhero movie made for another 20 years). Digressing again. All I mean to say is I have a bunch of options to get through 50k words in November, including TEF/MTH, some spicy fic *cough*, some birthday fic *squint!*, and idk, whatever the fuck else comes to mind. Most of it reds stuff.BITE ME
And also that it's nice to feel good when I'm writing again, because it'd been a long time. Letting myself treat it like a genuine hobby again and writing whatever the fuck I feel like instead of denying myself the right to feel good about what I've done until everything is done, because when is everything going to be done, really? That approach was really fucking up my relationship to what's supposed to be an enjoyable hobby, and I was also letting it define how "successful" I was as an individual.
So instead of being a Writer™, or self-identifying as one, or even calling myself out as someone who's too old for the hobby, I'm happy rn just being some fuckface who writes PpG/RrB fic for funsies. It's nice. Hope y'all are happy fuckfaces out there too ♥
AO3 | FFNet | AskFM | Ko-Fi
Hmm. That sounds very judgmental. I've finally managed to rearrange my life in a way that gives me that time back without resorting to unhealthy habits in order to make it happen. There. That's a better way to put it.
It's to the point where I'm thinking about participating in NaNoWriMo (unofficially) for the first time ever. I've never actually done so because when it was taking off, I was already in the middle of writing something novel-esque (TEF/MTH) and I don't think making progress on an existing work actually counts? So I tabled it for whenever I, you know, finished that behemoth. But I'm still going because writing long things is hard and tying all these loose ends together in a satisfying way is genuine work and also takes a long time and that's before you even get to the actual writing part of it, and part of those aforementioned healthier habits include not holding a metaphorical gun to my head that says I'm not allowed to work on any other fun things until I finish the stupid epically long high school fic about superpowered teenagers. Which, to be fair, is still fun. But it's also super exhausting to feel like I have to write about teenagers, exclusively, all the time.
In fact, looking back, the proportion of my stories set in HS made up like... 1/3 of the fic I actually posted? And they were all short one-shots to boot. IDK, it's surreal to me sometimes that TEF/MTH has the standing that it does. I know it's what I'm most known for now, to the point where I know there was an actual shift in the type of PpG/RrB HS fic that came after it, and TEF/MTH itself isn't actually a novel setting the way it was back in 2009
So with NaNoWriMo coming up, I'm viewing it less as an actual participatory signup thing where I get my little badge of honor for completing it (assuming they still do that? see I am very very out of touch) and more of just a personal goal for myself to hit 50k written words in a month. Going off of my posted average word count per chapter for TEF/MTH, that's around 2 completed chapters. Which would be great, if I choose to work on TEF/MTH exclusively - that would leave me with just 3 to go.
Even at my most prolific, though, I would generally only do one chapter a month. (Which, GOD. It was good to be young and full of energy for that shit! What a time!) And... frankly, I've been doing a lot better with breaks from writing these kids in HS. Part of what's been so fun for me wrt writing lately is exploring all these different plot bunnies I've had for them as adults and not having to tie them in to one canon (off-topic but I cannot wait for this shared universe trend to wither and die, I shall lose absolutely zero shits if I don't see another God damn superhero movie made for another 20 years). Digressing again. All I mean to say is I have a bunch of options to get through 50k words in November, including TEF/MTH, some spicy fic *cough*, some birthday fic *squint!*, and idk, whatever the fuck else comes to mind. Most of it reds stuff.
And also that it's nice to feel good when I'm writing again, because it'd been a long time. Letting myself treat it like a genuine hobby again and writing whatever the fuck I feel like instead of denying myself the right to feel good about what I've done until everything is done, because when is everything going to be done, really? That approach was really fucking up my relationship to what's supposed to be an enjoyable hobby, and I was also letting it define how "successful" I was as an individual.
So instead of being a Writer™, or self-identifying as one, or even calling myself out as someone who's too old for the hobby, I'm happy rn just being some fuckface who writes PpG/RrB fic for funsies. It's nice. Hope y'all are happy fuckfaces out there too ♥
AO3 | FFNet | AskFM | Ko-Fi