#calliopes writing

[calliopeslyre]

Amazing things happening over at the Kaical writing factory, after weeks of not touching a WIP I have now added 2k to my Santos Langdon forced proximity fic!

[calliopeslyre]

Breaking Down

Whumptober Day 29 'Fainting'

Summary:

Getting the worst period cramps of her life halfway through a twelve-hour shift had not been on Santos’ bingo card. Fleeing onto the roof to avoid getting questioned and deal with the pain on her own also hadn't worked out too well either- Dammit, why did people in this stupid hospital actually have to care?

[calliopeslyre]

this week's @ficwip word of the week is 'eyes'

Her head hurt, eyes burning and she was definitely dehydrated. Every little movement made the nausea act up, and going down fucked up memory lane hadn’t helped a bit with that either. She should’ve just stayed home.

From my Santos whumptober fic which I'll probably post today, once I've finished editing!

[calliopeslyre]

2026 Writing Goals

Finish those 5 Whumptober fics

write (& post) >75k

participate in a Big Bang

Post at least one 2025 (or earlier) WIP

get platonic with it

Yuri it up

DO NOT FUCKING FORGET ABOUT THIS LIST PLEASE

:D

[calliopeslyre]

my part of the @pittwinterexchange is live now!

Click here for 6.5k of awesomeness!!

Categories: F/F , Gen

Ships: Parker Ellis/Trinity Santos, Dennis Whitaker & Trinity Santos, Victoria Javadi/Cassie McKay (Background relationship)

Summary:

How Trinity almost gets lost in the snow, gets herself drunk and then discovers she might not be as useless as Whitaker implied by somehow getting Ellis' number. In that order.

Or: John Shen's holiday party

[calliopeslyre]

Stuck in a hell of my own making (20 minutes to midnight and still not done with the whumptober post for today)

[calliopeslyre]

11 + 12 for writing asks?

thank you for the ask! ^^

this is a bit of a longer one as well haha, little sneak peak into an actual plan below the cut <3

11: Do you write scenes in order or do you jump around?

Normally I write pretty much in order, though if it's like a 5+1 situation or something I do jump around a bit, depending on the length of the project (or if I just get really tired of a scene). "Ghost at the back of your closet" for example was entirely written in order, whereas my 10k Ted Lasso fic (WIP) was a lot more chaotic! It really depends! :D

12: Do you outline your fics? If yes, how detailed are your outlines? How far do you stray from them?

When I started writing fics I didn't outline at all, but once I got into longer projects I knew that I couldn't continue that way, simply because of all the errors that come with being a pantser (in my experience)!

If it's a shorter one shot I often only write the prompt like if it's for an event (+ DNWs and characters of the person), or the idea. Sometimes a bit of a short summary of how I want the fic to go, sometimes just the characters/pairings.

Some examples are:

-> "hurt!Rincewind and Twoflower escape from the slave ship with the luggage after their fall from the dragon" (Disc World, WIP)

-> "Modern CR setting (Percy is Caleb’s therapist)" (Critical Role, WIP)

-> "Techno main & Syndicate, Phil as quartermaster" (DSMP, posted (fic: Blow the Man Down))

For a longer fic I start with that and then sort of try to figure out a time plan. Meaning I divide by overall story and then specific chapter beats. Oftentimes I create a doc for draft planning, so the overall theme, what I want to happen and specific character backgrounds (like trauma, injuries or whatever) to keep track of everything, though often not the entire plot/just a plot with lots of holes in it.

For example my "Forced Proximity AU" has a planning Doc with ca. 500 words and a vague summary of the overall plot and a scene or two I already have in mind. I then pick 3-5 chapter beats I need to get the plot moving along, and try to connect them as well as possible in my draft. Sometimes I notice that one doesn't fit and change it or delete it before I write 2k and have to get rid of it all.

Right now I have 2 chapters planned for this AU but only about 3/4 of the first chapter written. The chapter beats help me jump to the right scene, to remind me what the fuck I was planning on doing and with pacing.

This is what it typically looks like, you can see that the chapter beats are really just the most necessary information, though sometimes I put a sentence below to clarify. Once I'm happy with a segment and have edited it, I put a ✅ emoji next to it (oftentimes only at the end, except for that 15k monster of a chapter I haven't touched in years). Before I post I delete them all so there's less hassle on Ao3 to remove them there.

[calliopeslyre]

Would you consider writing a fic about Javadi? Have you been writing fics at the moment at all?

Sure, why not, though I don't have any ideas about her right now! So I guess if you have any prompts or anything in mind I can see what I can do, but no promises :D

And yeah, I've slowly been preparing for whumptober (scheduled a post to go up tomorrow with more details) after taking a bit of a break after fic fight! ^^