(Post-)May Writing Update.

[hindsightseeing]

Finally!

I've wanted to post here for a while now, but I also didn't want to do anything at all, anywhere, until I got to the end of Part Two of the Endless Nightmare WIP... and boy, did the last chapter beat me bloody. Possibly one of the hardest scenes I've ever had to write... and given my tendency for plumbing extreme depths of angst, grief, and trauma, that is really, really saying something.

Anyhow, it's done now, and we can finally move on.

Move on to what, precisely, I'm not yet wholly sure.

I desperately need some kind of palate-cleanser after crawling through that horrible chapter, but I'm still not sure if switching tack and tone to write something else -- even a short little one-shot something else -- would be beneficial or detrimental. One of the big downsides, I suppose, of being neck-deep in the kind of WIP that requires constant attunement to a very specific setting and situation.

We shall see, I suppose.

Either way, May took me where I wanted -- to the completion of Part Two (out of what is still threatening to be five, oh boy) -- so I am going to call it a very, very hard-earned win.

I have a bunch more "questions for fic writers" that I saw on Tumblr somewhere, so I'll probably unwind with that over the next few posts... apologies in advance for the spam!

Comments

[kitarella_imagines]

Looking forward to the questions for fic writers!

Sorry you had to go through the angst but it'll be worth it in the end. I don't do angst or at least, only mild angst so I don't have advice, sorry 😜

[hindsightseeing]

Haha, I wish I didn't do as much angst!

Sometimes I just want to relax or unwind with something soft and simple and gentle... but my creative brain seems utterly unable to function without a bite of pain. C'est la vie, I suppose... and, hey, any creativity is better than none! ;)

[kitarella_imagines]

I just think the real world is so grim, dark and scary that I like to escape into funny, silly stories in fanfiction. If I can make myself laugh, that makes me happy. If I make other people, that's even better!

[hindsightseeing]

That's such a great gift, to have and to share.

I have so much awe and admiration for people who can write fun and funny so effortlessly. It's never come easily to me at all as a writer -- I almost always end up writing about healing and recovery, which naturally necessitates wading through a measure of darkness first -- but as a reader, finding those stories that exist to evoke joy and laughter is one of the things I'm most grateful for.

[tellshannon815]

I have an Endless Nightmare WIP right now myself that I know I should finish but can't bring myself to (basically, I'd tried to rescue my characters from getting trapped in the past as they do in canon, but started it without fully understanding the convoluted timeline that is Dark because I hadn't got that far into the show yet, and the fact is that the timeline wouldn't allow for said happy ending and I wrote myself into a corner.)

I do sometimes find that a one-shot of something else helps me though, for what that's worth.

[hindsightseeing]

Oh, man, writing oneself into a corner -- especially on a longer WIP -- is so disheartening! I've lost more than a few ridiculously long WIPs to that particular tangle, and it always sucks. Fingers crossed you can find a usable path through the convoluted timeline...

I definitely feel like a good palate-cleansing one-shot helps a lot most of the time, but the Nightmare WIP is such a specific kind of AU (and dusting off past-tense, which I haven't used in ages), I worry that returning to The (Slightly) Sane(r) Universe will end up derailing me completely from where I'm supposed to be going. My brain can only hold so many things at once, sadly, and that number usually maxes out around 0.25...

[kitarella_imagines]

That sentence should have said:

If I make other people laugh, that's even better!

Thanks for saying that, most people think my fics are just too silly and they prefer angst, whump, lots of emotion. But unfortunately I'm no good at all the popular genres like those.

Most of my stories are funny so even if you don't know the characters, they might make you laugh. I even do a challenge for myself every January, called Funuary, which is literally just to make people laugh in the cold, depressing month of January. So those fics are definitely all funny.