heyyy bestie asking these anon coz im shy but 🛒 🤗 🤲 love ur writing btw &excited for the big bang fic!
That’s okay! Thank you for asking and thanks for the kind words!! 💕
🛒 What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.
HANDS (lol). No but in all seriousness I think just focusing on smaller moments is something that comes up a lot in my fics. Sometimes that’s the light touch of fingertips accidentally grazing, or sometimes it’s prolonged eye contact. Breathlessness at the expense of another person too is something I tend to play with A LOT!
🤗 What advice would you give to new fanfic writers that are just getting started?
Go with the idea that you’re the most excited about— that’s really going to drive you to keep writing even if you don’t see a lot of engagement on your stuff at first. And to that point, high engagement is not indicative of how good or bad your fic is so try not to get too swept up in ao3 stats or comparing your ao3 stats to others.
🤲 Would you please share a snippet of a wip?In an embarrassing twist of events most of the WIPs I have started are smutty 🫣 I know smut isn’t everyone’s cup of tea though so instead, here’s a coffee shop au that I think I started for Jukebox Appreciation Week but never finished! (Under the cut though because it’s a bit lengthy!)
send me Fanfic Writer Emoji Asks!
(For some added context: I initially envisioned this as a coffee shop au where Julie gets a job at the same shop Luke and the guys work at. Luke ends up being assigned to train Julie on bar so they bond over that but the ball really gets rolling when Julie finds herself without a duet partner for the big winter showcase at school and Luke steps in and volunteers to help. Okay I think that’s all you need to know— please enjoy!!)
“Alex, take over for me,” Luke says impulsively.
Alex looks like he’s about to protest. Luke knows he tends to avoid the register during the late morning rush, but he follows Luke’s line of sight as he tracks Julie’s form as she rushes past the the bar, offering a halfhearted hello to Willie, who’s elbow deep in soap suds at the back sink, before she ducks back into the warehouse.
“‘Yeah, okay, go,” Alex says finally.
“We got you, buddy,” Reggie assures him from his spot at the bar, using his free arm to give Luke’s ribs an encouraging nudge. “You know...there was a chocolate croissant left in the pastry case last I checked,” he adds casually.
“Thanks, man— I owe you,” Luke says gratefully, making quick work of plating up the pastry in question before heading out.
He makes a pitstop at the coffee lab, making use of the toaster oven before he begins his search. It doesn’t take long to find her tucked away on the old couch someone, at some point, had tucked under one of the many steel pallet racks that line the coffee shop warehouse. And despite scuffing his shoe on the smooth concrete floor, she still looks startled when Luke sets the plated croissant on the table in front of her and slides it toward her.
“But...I didn’t order anything,” Julie remarks in confusion.
“On the house,” Luke grins before adding, “And freshly toasted.”
“Thanks,” she whispers, picking the plate up and balancing it on one knee.
“Can I…?” He asks, gesturing toward the opposite end of the couch.
“Sure.”
The silence is thick around them as Luke takes a seat beside her, his right knee bouncing restlessly as he deliberates over how to proceed. What little rationality is still left in his brain is screaming at him to abort, but he knows he’s not going to do that. Especially not after he catches sight of the way Julie’s worrying her bottom lip between her teeth while she picks halfheartedly at one corner of the chocolate croissant he’d just brought her.
“You good, Boss?” He asks carefully.
“Yeah. Fine.” Julie answers, with a bit too much lightness to be believable.
Luke doesn't press it, but he quirks an eyebrow up at her when she chances a glance at them and their eyes lock.
“Not really," she concedes through a heavy sigh.
“Wanna talk about it?”
Luke waits with bated breath for Julie to hit back with some sort of quip about respecting boundaries, but by some miracle, he must have played his cards right. Instead, Julie launches into a rant about some tool in her music program named Nick who flaked on their midterm project to work with some other girl.
“You’re right. You aren’t anything like her,” Luke agrees. “But you’re Julie fucking Molina! You’re like a human wrecking ball, and you’re worth ten Carrie Wilsons any day.”
She turns away, the corners of her lips turn up in the barest hint of a smile.
“That’s sweet of you to say but I’m not sure you’re the best person to pass judgement here. You haven’t even heard me sing— I could be awful—“
“You’re not!” Luke interjects.
It’s quick enough to raise some suspicions in the girl sitting next to him, and when Julie quirks a questioning eyebrow up in his direction, Luke realizes the jig is up.
“I…may or may not have heard you singing in the walk-in while you were putting the milk away?” He confesses. “And— don’t be mad— but I…may or may not have gone home that night and spent a little too much time scrolling through every video you have up of you playing on your Instagram.”
“All that time spent doom scrolling through my profile and you couldn’t even bother to double tap on any of those videos? Luke, I’m hurt.”
“In my defense, I didn’t want you to think I your new co-worker was some crazy internet stalker.”
“Too late now— you’ve outed yourself as my number one fan,” Julie giggles.
She gets lost in her thoughts when her laugh fizzles out, and when a crease of worry materializes between her brows, it takes everything Luke has not to reach over and try to smooth it out in an effort to take that worry away.
He settles for reaching out and giving her wrist a comforting squeeze.
“Hey, I’m serious Julie. Screw that guy— you don’t even need him.”
“Maybe you’re right but…well, it would’ve been nice to have a partner again,” she muses. “I haven’t written with anyone since my mom died. I guess I just thought it might be nice to try again.”
Hi Ela!!! First of all excited to hear about an up and coming JATP big bang fic of yours! 🥰 And please, ✨, 💖 and 💔 for the ask meme.
Ani!! Thanks so much for the questions lovely!
✨ Give you and your writing a compliment. Go on now. You know you deserve it. 😉
I don’t know if this will make sense or if it comes across in the work, but I feel like I choose my words carefully and with intention. For me, that’s really the key to writing introspection that really peels back the layers on emotions big or small. And I like to think that’s a strong point in my writing!
💖 What made you start writing?
I came back to fic writing at the start of the pandemic. Part of it was because I just couldn’t get these two characters out of my head, and part of it was because I was itching for a creative outlet to fill the void. This isn’t at all part of the question but I do think it’s interesting that the things that made me start writing again are also the things that keep me writing three years on.
💔 Is there a fic of yours that broke your heart?
Cross Your Heart was really tough to write so I think that would be my answer for this. I started it right after my grandma died because I just needed something to focus on that wasn’t just all-consuming grief, and I finally finished it almost a year to the date after she passed. I think the overall hopefulness/fluffiness of what that fic ended up becoming is sort of beautiful in hindsight because the first few iterations were super heavy. I can see now that as frustrating as it was to chip away at that story for an entire year, it ultimately ended up making for a better finished product.
Felt like I needed a bit of fluff this week so I started a little something new. Here’s a little taste with absolutely zero context— I really like the way this one’s turning out so far so I hope y’all like this tiny excerpt.
There’s something about Julie that’s always made it easy for Luke to wear his heart on his sleeve. Something about her that’s always made him feel like it’s safe for him to lay his soul bare for her to read like an open book. And maybe that’s why giving his heart away to Julie had felt as easy as breathing once Luke had come to realize resistance was useless. In a lot of ways, it feels like his heart’s always been meant for her.
“I don’t want you to stop.” He says it without skipping a beat, his voice colored with a sort of broken honesty that makes her heart ache something awful. “I don’t ever want you to stop.”
for every "🌹" received in my inbox i'll post one random sentence of a random WIP i'm currently writing
