Nothing is always absolutely so.

Can’t remember my pw on my laptop though so I’m stuck typing this on my phone which I do not recommend since dw is not optimized for mobile whatsoever but anyway

Still alive

I look back at that September post where I was like “Maybe NaNoWriMo this year!” and not one week later life just exploded ugh

This is not everything but some of what happened includes

Stupid money bs

A couple of deaths in the family

Oh hey unemployment!

Stupid money bs again

New computer (this is a yay at least but also the reason I am not posting this update via it bc I can’t remember my damn pw)

Also got covid for the first time somewhere in the midst of all that since last year and it was stupid and I was miserable bc I am weak, do not recommend

People were also randomly rude on the internet which is hardly a surprise but in the midst of everything happening it did make me pretty fucking depressed

Anyway it’s settled down considerably now and I’ve got a much better handle on things BUT more importantly am writing again. It’s good for me. It brings me so, so much pleasure to write. I’ll go through some of the different things I’m doing and will find a cookie to post this week. But thanks for being patient and for sticking around and for all your messages and sweet comments. I appreciate you all so much 💗🩵💚

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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 2009 jesus 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 ♥

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(Today, lately, whatever.)

I'm not quite sure how I got on this kick, but I was hit with this weird sense of... nostalgia isn't quite the right word, but it's the closest approximation? I guess it's whatever the fandom version of looking up old classmates on FB/social media is. (Oh wait, I remember how this came about. I came across a post floating around about the MsScribe drama in ye olde HP fandom days and it got me thinking about fic and LJ in general.)

( And now for some old fandom bullshit. CW for references to others' fic involving assault and abuse/violence, in some cases against children. )

( And now for the part where it relates to me, because I'm a selfish bitch. As well as how it all relates to this NC-17 thing I am on/off-again writing. Previous CW still applies. )

There's a lot in my head lately.

Something's going on with my brain. I can tell because I'm thinking about doing crazy shit like an elopement/wedding with my s.o. of 16+ years and also started trying to figure out whether I'd be able to finish writing a complete first draft of the remaining 5 chapters of TEF (13-17) if I took two months off of work.

I mean, at my best I was writing a chapter within 3-4 weeks in an hour per day every weekday. My "best" (from an efficiency standpoint only) was nearly ten years ago. I'd have to try and kick that up to 2-3 hrs per day, working weekends too to be safe.

I don't think I'm actually going to do it. But it's one of those crazy ideas floating around in my head.

When did people get away from distinguishing between the definitions of the words “rant” vs. “rave?” In the past few years I've seen multiple people use the word “rant” in a positive context. I went into “articles” (more like: Tumblr/Twitter posts) where, since the author used the word “rant” I presumed there was going to be excited criticism, but no! It was excited adulation! Did we all collectively forget that if we're singing something's praises to the point of looking maniacal, it's actually called a rave and not a rant? Or did I learn English wrong? Is this what it's like to be an Old?

… I know this is basically a mini-rant about, well, ranting, and the ridiculousness of this does not escape me.

This is Old Internet, but I felt like sharing it today. Maggie Stiefvater put up a post last year about her experience with piracy and its direct impact on non/sales of her books. It's an interesting read. Also kind of depressing when you take into consideration the complete entitlement that possesses people.