🙋♀️ Do any irl people know you write fanfic? 🌞 Do you have a preferred time of day to write? 🦅 Do you outline fics or fly by the seat of your pants? 🎉 What leads you to consider a fic a success? ⌛ How long does it take you to write a fic, or a chapter?
SORRY IT IS TAKING ME A WEEK TO GET THROUGH THIS GAME
🙋♀️ Do any irl people know you write fanfic?
Yeahhh, I think most of my irl friends do. When friendships and fandom overlap! It happens. I'm also 99.9% sure my sister knows (and I am 100% sure that she has) but by unspoken agreement this is never acknowledged between us.
🌞 Do you have a preferred time of day to write?
Afternoon and evenings for sure. I definitely wrote a lot of my past fic in the unholiest hours of the night, but now that I am old I don't even like bringing my laptop in my bedroom, much less writing porn past my bedtime.
🦅 Do you outline fics or fly by the seat of your pants?
This is another way I've changed as a writer. Writing late into the night was part of my process when I was younger because I did not plan, I just surfed on waves of inspiration, which frequently meant writing entire short fics in one sitting--if it needed more time, I might not be able to catch another wave. I got a little better at writing stories across multiple sessions as I went along, but without real planning it was always really difficult and I think it ultimately contributed to whatever made me stop writing fic for almost a decade.
When I started writing fic again, I found that without meaning to, I had become a planner. (I always think this has something to do with all the papers and the thesis I had to write for school in those missing years.) I no longer like to even start writing anything down before I have the full story fleshed out in my head, and if I do, it's because I have some really strong ideas that I'll put down in bullet point form, knowing I need more bullet points to make an entire outline with. Sometimes my outlines ARE very vague, more like a list of scenes/beats, and sometimes they're very detailed (I like to choreograph every move of a sex scene, for example), but again, even the outlines usually aren't committed to paper/screen until I've thought the whole story through.
🎉 What leads you to consider a fic a success?
I try not to sweat kudos and comments too much, although that's a lot easier said than done. Focusing on the individual reactions--if any one person, especially a friend or writer I really respect, loves it--I'll probably feel good about it. It's also about whether or not I really like it. If I want to reread my own story and still like it after it's been posted, that's an important form of success.
⌛ How long does it take you to write a fic, or a chapter?
TOO LONG. Here's what I'll say in favor of the inspiration surfing method from my 20s: I worked a lot faster than I do now. Nowadays I can maybe turn out 500 words per day. This doesn't count the planning/outlining stage, or rewriting (I rewrite a lot; most of what I post is at minimum a second or third draft), or editing. So... depending on length: weeks to months.
My current WIP (started about three weeks ago, though I lost about a week to heatwave) has about 4k words, almost all first draft, hundreds of which will doubtless be deleted. It also has several key scenes missing and a deadline less than a week away. Your thoughts and prayers, please.
THANK U FOR THE ASK MARINA ILU I HOPE YOU HAVE A GOOD DAY!!!!!!
