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Crackfic recommendation: Mother of Vampires by AllisonIlluminated on AO3. Tags include 'Stephanie Meyer Made This Mess' 'I just live in her house' and 'exploring all the ways Twilight is kinda messed up sometimes'
Thanks for the rec, anon!
oh hey you're still alive! good! missed you!
how's your various books? i swear you were writing at least one. and i dont mean the fics.
Hey :) I'm always happy to hear from you. I suppose now's a good a time as any to give a general update about what I've been up to creatively for the past two and a half-ish years.
As you all probably know now, I've stepped away from fanfiction to focus on original fiction in the hopes of launching my dream career as a novelist. That means I've gone from about a 30/70 original-fanfic ratio in 2019 to about a 95/5 ratio now, in terms of what I'm putting out. I'm super happy with those numbers! As far as total output, I wrote 500k in 2020, and about 560k in 2021, and while I'm probably not going to manage quite that much in 2022 (shitty Life Circumstances are shitty), I'm still well on course to have a great output this year too.
The Series - My "novel" that some of you know I finished in June of 2021 actually turned out to be a complete seven book series! That means that I have full first drafts of all seven books. Additionally, in the last year, I've completed both a second and a third draft of Book One. My current goal with Book One is to pick up the fourth draft this winter, and then to query it in the spring with agents, which is super cool. The first draft of The Series was 665k words, all seven books together, but Book One now comes out at exactly 200k, so it's a real epic. Genre is on the very literary edge of contemporary, with some sci-fi and alt-history elements and some inspiration from superhero fic, but that's about all I'll say about it here ;) Keeping my fingers crossed for good luck in the querying process.
The Fantasy Novel - Additionally, I have been worldbuilding a fantasy world since I was in elementary school, which means that I am now in year eleven of its development. What began as a blatant D&D ripoff now has a fully realized world, a language, deep lore and history, and about eleven failed novel attempts in my drawer. But after I finished draft three of Book One, I started a new attempt at Fantasy Novel, and it's flown off of my fingertips in a really exciting way. I'm still in the first draft, but I'm about 11/17 chapters in, which feels like a really good place to be. Not sure how long that is yet, cause I'm drafting on paper oddly. My goal is to finish Fantasy Novel's first draft within a month or two, then set it aside for a while.
The Horror Novel - After The Series and The Fantasy Novel, my next most successful project from the COVID era has been a really cool horror novel that I started in the summer of 2021, right after I finished draft one of The Series. This one is about 60k deep, but it's very complicated from a research perspective, and due both to Life Circumstances and revising Book One, I've stalled a bit. Despite that, though, I think that Horror Novel probably has some of the best prose I've ever written, including one chapter that is decisively the best thing I've ever written, so I will publish this one at some point in my life. It's too good not to. I may take a while to finish it, though.
The Autofiction Novel - I started four novels this summer after I finished draft three of Book One, and this was the first of them (Fantasy Novel is the third). This one's currently sitting at about 24k - it's cool in that it toes a really interesting line between memoir and fiction, but the tone is pretty dark, and it gets at some pretty heavy stuff I've gone through in my life. Wasn't really in a good headspace for it after the Life Circumstances, so I've set it aside for a bit.
The Romances - I've made three stabs at these since the pandemic started, one a summer, and none have gone much of anywhere. The first was a silly, kinda campy concept in 2020, and it didn't manage more than a chapter (granted, it was about jet skis, mermaids, and Florida, so what have you). The second was about baseball lesbians and shitty relationships with intimacy in 2021, and that went about 14k before I started attempt eleven of Fantasy Novel, the one before the current, so that petered out quick too. The third is very recent, novel number four on the summer, at about 12k, kind of a fun play on your typical amnesia plot, but given how much else is going on in my life right now, not sure if I'll take that anywhere.
Other Stuff - I wrote a poetry chapbook and a song in the fall of 2021. I wrote 6k of a dumb, campy fantasy novel about lesbian vampires after I watched First Kill (novel two), which should tell you everything you need to know about that. Never gonna see the light of day. I wrote a cool short story for my Japanese Literature class as a trans take on patriarchal romance in the Tale of Genji - pretty proud of that. I'm currently working on a really long piece of philosophy, which we'll see where that goes. Some fanfiction too, I guess - just some silly Twilight and Harry Potter crack, plus I've managed a chapter or two of my Ranma fic. Otherwise, well - I mean, "That's all?" That seems like a hell of a lot to me. It would make more sense how much all of this is if I told you about the Life Circumstances, but I'm not about to traumadump that shit on the interwebs.
Anyway that's what's up with me - your latest update from your friendly local writer-who-really-wants-to-do-this-for-a-living Allison Illuminated. Check in later for "oh my god oh shit oh fuck how did she write more novels."
Tandem Writing Game
Here be the rules! I write a paragraph or 2 of a story and pass it on to @allisonilluminated, who reblogs it, adds another paragraph, and passes it back. We don’t plan anything out beforehand, it’s all flying by the seat of our pants. We repeat this process until the story reaches a natural ending, we write ourselves into a non-salvageable non-a**-pull-able corner, or we face the inevitable heat death of the universe.
I’m starting!
Aisling glared at the tantalizing display of cakes and cookies, willing the line to move faster. She’d been here for what felt like hours. The minutes luxuriated in dragging themselves out to a crawl and the line shuffled forward by mere inches. She wobbled on her too-small roller blades, narrowing her eyes and balling her fists.
“Miss?” Someone was calling her.
She’d reached the front of the line! “Yes! A slice of the oreo pie to go, please!” she cried.
The baker took another lifetime and a half to cut her that precious slice, which she snatched up the moment it was even so much as pointed in her general direction. Aisling sprayed the cashier in the face with a handful of loose change and was squealing out the door before anyone could say otherwise.
hello it’s been a long time since I published any fanfic so here’s the best review I’ve ever received
Brief writing update: I hit 50k on my second original novel! That's over the third mark, thank God, so this one should be shorter than my first (but still long). I've also been writing loads of poetry, on the 'you won't see this for years' side of things. More immediately, I've got chapter twenty six of Gender Sleepy coming down the pipes, and Vixie and I are brewing up some (hopeful) progress on re:Bound :)
Galar VI
“Ash. You go missing too often and I was afraid for you.” Kukui’s voice strained. “I’ve heard the stories. I’ve read the old news. I know you’ve been presumed dead before and you’ve dropped off the radar for weeks. It was different when you weren’t on your own – I was responsible for you, and I made a promise to your mom that’d I’d keep an eye on you-”
Ash narrowed his eyes, still not looking at Kukui. “I’ve been responsible for myself since I got my license at ten,” he said. “Living with you didn’t change that. You- You’re- You’re not my guardian.”
“Oh, so I was just the professor who let you live rent-free in his house for a year?” Kukui snapped. “I had a- a- right to know you were safe, Ash! I know you can take care of yourself, but that doesn’t mean you have to!”
Lighting sharp, springing up, Ash whipped around to glare daggers at Kukui, who flinched. “Have you been stalked since you were ten?” he snarled, a strange blue film creeping into the edges of his vision. “Have you been captured? Attacked? Spied on? Have you been on the hit list of nearly every major criminal organization in the world? Why don’t you see the end of the world and come back and tell me you’d like to make it easier for the next bad guy with a legendary and a god complex to track me down.”
“Pikapi!” A light shock hit Ash’s side, startling Ash out of his anger – Pikachu stared up at him, ears flattened against the side of his head, arms crossed over his chest.
Ash blinked, deflating back to the steps, and gave Pikachu a tired look. “Thanks, buddy,” he murmured, massaging his temples. His aura wasn’t supposed to be so reactive. He’d never had enough aura for it to rise so easily to the surface, or if he had, it had been locked so deeply within himself, even his deepest anger had never been enough to bring it out. He remembered Korrina’s Lucario, how it had lost itself. Out of control. Feral. That wasn’t Ash, that wasn’t how he operated, but he felt such an acute sense of betrayal-
Caliber. Chapter Seven. 11.19.20
AO3 | FFN
October Update
Hey hey hey hey hey!
Guess who’s 283k into her original manuscript? And scheduled to finish the first draft by the end of the year? And also hasn’t failed out of college yet?
It’s ya girl Allie <3
I’m currently working my way up to doing NaNo (exciting!) to finish my first original, which is awesome. I haven’t been able to keep up the 1.5k a day pace I was making early in quarantine, but I know I’m close to the end. When I really get cracking on my second draft maybe I’ll peel back the curtain and let you guys see what I’ve been obsessively writing all year ;)
Of course, between my original writing and college I have no time. Fanfiction is unfortunately going back on the backburner for a while. That means no Caliber in October, or any of my other fics for that matter. Maybe I’ll pump out a TDOPC chapter or a bit of Gender Sleepy if I have a sec but I really don’t have much free time, and we out here trying to write a novel fam.
There’s good news tho - when I finish DENY’s first draft, I’m going to shelve it for a month or two while my alpha readers (read: my dad, my family, my friends) get through it (it’s a manuscript) and focus on fanfiction! That means finally finishing re:Bound (I hope) plus a chapter of Hidden Path, more Caliber, and potentially a Star Wars short story I’ve been brewing for a while. Stay tuned~
anyway y’all are great I’m having a good time stay safe everyone
cheers, allie
Things I’ve Learned After ~2 Months of Hardcore Tumbling
Doing shit well takes a ton of effort. This is no exception. Either put it in or don’t, but it pays off if you do.
I follow a couple thousand blogs, most of which are writeblrs. There are thousands more writeblrs I’ll probably never follow, either because they’re small or inactive or the algorithm just doesn’t like me. Being unique is a false paradigm. Just be you, and the rest will come with you.
If you’re a writeblr, write. If you’re a booklr, book. If you’re a fandom geek, reblog that fanart and discourse. If you’re me, ignore Tumblr theme norms and do it all.
Interaction matters. Social interaction is good. Talking to people is good.
Nobody actually knows what makes Tumblr posts go viral, so just keep mind vomiting and you’ll get some big posts eventually.
Kinda leading off of that, but original content is important. Reblogging is great but if you want to build a persona, it’s not gonna work
text posts do well on Writeblr (duh)
Don’t post too much. Every time I got to trigger happy with my reblog button and ended up with five or six posts on one day, those last few posts always did worse.
Have a queue and post other stuff on top of it. A guaranteed post a day is a good anxiety reliever. Bonus points if you queue your original content.
If you’re like me and you follow more people than you’ve met in your entire life, you know how fast posts get buried in your feed. Tag lists are a lifesaver. Obviously don’t be spammy or annoying, but build a dedicated audience.
Have a goal in mind. It doesn’t have to be specific - mine is literally just “be a successful writer” - but you can’t go somewhere if you don’t know where.
and finally
Be kind. We’re all doing our best here, trying to navigate a game with no rules. I love writing more than anything else I do in this world, and I’m just happy I get to share that love with the world. Positivity, hope, and love mean more to the people around you more than any one person can possibly understand.
I love you all, and keep on doing the write thing~
<3 Allie
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