1. Tracking writing-related stuff daily so doesn't work for me and my brain. I track wordcounts only monthly for a reason!! Because I was planning to finish this proofreading within two weeks or so, I thought I would therefore update my little chart thing to track by day rather than by week so the chart looks more interesting. It does look cool! But tracking daily means I read high numbers as "This is what I am capable of" and any day in which I could only manage 15 minutes or so as a failure. May have to weeklify this chart after all.

2. Especially because, while finishing within two weeks would be convenient for a variety of reasons, I'm not sure the proofreading will go as fast as I hoped. My thought were: okay, the story is a third longer than it was last time I proofread it, but only the new stuff might sound janky! Well. It's been over a year since the last time I proofread, so sentences give me different feelings now. The first chapter hadn't changed a ton, maybe 600 new words, but I spent 3h on it anyway. Just like the average last round: proofread 10 chapters in a little under 3 weeks, average time per chapter 2h54. I have 14 chapters now. Grumbles, grumbles.

3. Thinking a lot about what I want to learn next. The last couple of years have been about "process" especially around editing, what works well for me in general, how to actually edit a big project, how to manage my stamina through it. Over the last couple of months, I've been learning about structure, and loving it. Like, there will be more to learn there for sure, but for the time being I need to put into practice my new learning until it comes more naturally. While this is happening, I really want to improve how I write sentences. Line editing, I guess? My writing feels very weak there right now, or not where I'd like it to be. It won't be something I apply on the witch (would require a complete rewrite), but it's something I hope to pay more attention to for the Soul Thief. Reflecting too on how I want to learn and how I could organise myself for it. For example, I got a copy of Le Guin's "Steering the Craft" a while back that sounds like it should fit the bill? But I found it very intimidating, and I'm not good at just doing exercises either. It's easier when learning happens as part of a real story. Anyway, whatever I end up doing next, it seems like I'm moving from a "learning process" to a "learning craft" kinda mood, for the next while!

Community Thursday challenge: every Thursday, try to make an effort to engage with a community on Dreamwidth, whether that's posting, commenting, promoting, etc.

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Over the last week...

Posted and commented on bnha_fans.

Commented on fan_writers.

Commented on 3weeks4dreamwidth. It's coming up soon, April 25th!! I'm hoping to run another rec fest in bnha_fans as part of it, we'll see how it pans out :)

Promoted meta_warehouse, vampiremedia.

Signal boosts:

• My regular signal boost for senzenwomen, as I enjoy reading every week about the lives of all these amazing women from the past :D

The meant-to-be-just-a-pacing-check-except-not-really cleanup is DONE! VERY anti-climactic because of the unexpected month break right before the end XD The soul thief revision plan is good to go I think, and maybe I knew this time I was happy with it because my mind immediately switched to "finish up the witch remaining work, then we dig into the actual revisions." I even have a tracking spreadsheet ready!! AND I made a chart this time! I learnt about secondary Y axis and how to attach a data series to it so it scales properly! Lol. There may be PICTURES in my next recap XD I'm kind of planning 3-4 months for those revisions, but it's the first time I go so deep during the structural phase so I have no idea how it will go. The witch only took ~14h, but the changes were a lot simpler (to my detriment, since I ended up having to make large structural changes 3 rounds of revisions later based on beta-reader feedback. Ouch!) Very eager to find out how it will go this time!! And feed data to that chart >:D

I was so excited about my little chart that I decided to make one for the remaining scenes of the cursed witch's pacing check, too. 18 scenes left. It took me nearly 1h30 to fix up that first scene because it was a fight scene that dragged a lot. Slow, slow, slooooow. So I figured, 18 scenes, 2-3 weeks to do it! I can copy my scenes-per-week chart, with a dot for each week! Well. The pacing check was intended to be light. Only the big, you know, PACING problems. Of which there were fewer in the following chapters, so I finished it all up in several feverish sessions over a 3-day weekend 🤣 MY CHART IS A SINGLE DOT. This is so funny. If I'd known it'd go so fast, I probably would have tried to squeeze it alongside the workshop, but maybe I just needed a break.

Anyway, it was a happy surprise to return to the witch and enjoy it! I've learnt a fair bit about structure during the last month, and while -- as I feared -- I do see all the places that I would handle differently now... I don't hate it, nor feel anguish at how much better it could be? I dunno. Although, the dark side of taking yet another long break is that I feel so refreshed that I could smash myself against another round of editing... I could. Forever over and over, possibly. But I do need to learn when to move on, too.

( So what comes next? )

Huh, there's at least two messages I didn't get any notifications for, either in my Dreamwidth inbox nor in my email, in the last couple of days. One on my own journal (but on a recent post, so I noticed) and another a reply to me on someone else's journal, which I would have remained unaware of if I didn't get curious to check and see if the interesting discussion has continued. It seems random what goes missing as other notifications are coming through fine.

This is a problem, clearly. I'm here for conversation but if I don't know the conversation is happening or continuing, what the hell ;v;

I see two people already reported it:

Ticket #51139
Ticket #51134
Edit: Another one Ticket #51128, and two more since Ticket #51141 Ticket #51142

I'm not quite sure what's the etiquette with saying "ME TOO!!!" on support tickets... Actually, from trying to help on older tickets, I think maybe replies don't show up at all unless they're approved anyway, so probably unhelpful.

For now, I know I owe pending answers on the tiny fandom post (and since it's my main discussion post at the moment, I'll be keeping an eye on it anyway as I slowly make my way through the replies - so much good food for thought, and kind words, I appreciate y'all!), and the word count pledge post, and the last vigilantes rewatch ep... if you expected a reply from me anywhere else, please let me know! I'm particularly bothered about comments I've left elsewhere :/ (Although things might be just as lost if they're on my own older entries ;v;). I'll probably try to keep track of where I spill my random thoughts for a while and check occasionally, though obviously this is Not Ideal (tm).

(Edit: nvm, there's a page to show recent comments received/posted that is way handier for keeping track, in the meantime! I can see the ones I know I didn't receive notifications for in there. Thank you tropicsbear!)

Wanted to make a post about this for other people who, like me, hadn't yet noticed! /o\ Hopefully Dreamwidth is aware and this gets resolved quickly.

Content notes: There are a few moments of self-pity in here :D I don't like being negative in general, but I thought I'd be honest about things, both for myself and for my future self who will totally be over it, yet able to remember what it was like not to be that cool, thanks to this post XD

I've written quite a few fics in tiny fandom-of-ones before, sometimes even for manga that didn't have a translation available anywhere so really no hope of finding fellow fans :D And I enjoy it, like, finishing a book, seeing there's no fics for your particular vision (or at all!), scribbling and dropping one, and then huuuh sometimes nothing because it was just about two background characters that deeply intrigued me and apparently only me. Or sometimes, maybe once a year, getting a comment like "I just finished reading the book and I'm so glad someone shared the same vision!" -- that feels sooo good :D Like having left a little treasure out there for someone else to find. (It's what I imagine geocaching is like??) And it's happened to me in the reverse so many times, too! Bless you yuletide folks in particular, for unknowingly having had my back so often!

( Writing for a tiny fandom and then staying there, however, feels very different )

( 'Write for yourself first' - sure! Why share, though? )

( K-9 canon aside, because it's been too long. But also the additional weight of not having folks to discuss canon with )

Which brings us to, coping mechanisms! Haha. ...You know, I spent actual time searching for how people do it, heh, when it started becoming harder. Here's what I found people do:

1. Keep writing, stop posting
2. Rope more people into the fandom
3. Get into a bigger fandom in parallel -- the bigger the better!
4. Mindset change: posting to connect vs posting to archive / connect quietly
5. Wait to post so there is less attachment to the story
6. RP being someone who doesn't care like you wish you were

( I think I've basically done all of these 🤔 )

This got so long again XD XD I'm adding headers! But also, now, with the important question!!

Beloved tiny fandom and fandom-of-one writers and creators out there, how do you do it? And how do you keep it up? How do you manage the psychology of it? Do you have down moments regardless of the joy of it, and how do you handle those?? Clearly I do suck at it, so I'm all ears! It'd be cool to reduce the amount of non-joy as I go back to my gigantic file of K-9 ideas and throw them into the cauldron, eventually... :D Any coping mechanism to add to the list? And I think this all probably applies to podficcers and icon makers too, who tend to navigate smaller circles. How do you sustain it?? Please allow me to learn your secrets :D

Community Thursday challenge: every Thursday, try to make an effort to engage with a community on Dreamwidth, whether that's posting, commenting, promoting, etc.

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Over the last week...

Posted and commented on bnha_fans. Vigilantes Season 2 just concluded!

Promoted jjba.

Signal boosting:

• Via followfriday, artistalley is a new comm for the convention artist community to share event news, ideas, and more.

Get Your Words Out has pretty flexible and generous guidelines on "what counts" when choosing a word count pledge. My brain, however, doesn't count the same way. (I started by writing "unfortunately" instead of "however" but got stuck on the word -- I don't particularly think it's a bad thing! It just is a thing.)

When I first joined GYWO, I was already writing just about everyday and tracking "streak" with 4thewords. I was more interested in finding out how many "story words" I could write in a year, and challenge myself there. I still am... but recently, I'm also discovering the ways in which this works against me, too. For example, I HATE deleting stuff in general, but according to my way of counting words, if it's deleted or rewritten from scratch, then it shouldn't "count" because I have nothing to show for it at the end of the year. As of this January, I tentatively started counting deleted words in that I shelved the first version of the Leopard/Tree K-9 fic in January (1.2k words) because it came out with the same frustrating "flatness" issue I mentioned a few times recently. The second version I wrote in February ended up at 7.5k words and I'm a lot happier with it! In terms of content it's not that different, in the end, but it's (clearly!) expressed very differently, with a lot more emotion too, much more satisfying to me. I guess the first version could be considered a "Draft Zero" in a way; I was telling the story to myself and figuring out the broad strokes. I broke it down very differently in the second version, which I only could do once I knew where I was going. I'm vaguely tempted to write yet another version with (craft) stuff I've learnt recently, but we'll have to see about that!! I haven't even finished editing the new version, yet.

Another way I noticed my way of counting words works against me is in prep time. I (joyfully!) use the snowflake method, and so far that's meant "plot plot plot OMG SO EXCITED I'M JUMPING IN" which is fine, like, I wanted to see if I could finish long things. But having to do another set of structural changes after 3 rounds of editing and beta-reader feedback on the cursed witch was so painful, I know I should spend more time in the planning stages... but between "excitement for the story" and "nothing really 'counts' until I start writing actual story words", it tends to push me toward starting the writing asap (even though a snowflake outline is veeeery many words by the time it's done!). And likewise, I have written <500 "story words" this month, but I wrote a post-draft outline for the soul thief, then spent EXTENSIVE time planning all the structural changes I want to make, to the point where my new outline stands at about 10k words now. Grew from 30 scenes to nearly 50. And that doesn't include any of the analysis/brainstorming I did as prep writing by hand.

At first, I tried measuring "time" because as annoying as tracking can be, I've been finding that very helpful for understanding the amount of effort editing takes. I don't like that at all for plotting/brainstorming though, because it's "thinking" and that's less predictable or tangible. I think counting the snowflake and outline words could work decently, though, or is worth a try at least. But I don't really want to add those words into my GYWO pledge, I think, even though that would mean I met my monthly goal... Hm... HMMMMMMMMMMM... Hm!!

Okay. I think I would like to track the planning word counts on my spreadsheet, but separately from my "story words" (no idea what that's gonna look like, yet!). I'm not changing what I'm counting for GYWO this year, because I signed up with a particular way of counting in mind. I'll see how I feel about it when pledging for next year opens in December. Right now, I'm leaning toward still pledging only for "story words" going forward because, for me, that's what I'm interested in challenging myself to write more of. If I finished a year with only planning words, I would be massively disappointed.

But, if I notice that counting planning/plotting separately means I still get antsy and rush too early into writing "words that actually count" then I will have to reconsider.

I'm really hoping the amount of planning I'm making ahead of revising the soul thief will result in a lot less pain than the cursed witch revisions turned into, but we shall have to see. I'm excited about it, too! And of course, daunted as well :D /o\

Just doing my archive thing, as I do every Saturday and Sunday, and I'm currently mapping out what media the Sleep Token large fan-run discord st-media channel has and I am almost through 2022. The most recent entry I reached included a link to a video uploaded to YouTube from one of the first dates of the 2022 North American tour they were on opening for a band called In This Moment with Nothing More and the Cherrybombs. And I watched it (again probably but a year or separated) and they all doing more chaotic versions of what they do now on stage is so much fun. IV for example, his movements are a little more restrained but I see it on this stage in St. Louis in 2022 and III is always chaotic lol.

Anyway, here's that delightful video of The Offering from St Louis in 2022.

Now complete!

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Acting on instinct | Wind Breaker | Sakura/Nirei/Suou/Kiryuu/Tsugeura | 5.3k words | rated T

Summary: Something shifted for them all in that moment at Kiryuu's house. They all felt it. But Kiryuu was missing for it, so they can't do anything about it.

Not yet.


Read it on Dreamwidth or on AO3.