#ficcing

[theunimpairedcondition]

Just read something where the writer has confused brassiere with brazier and I was imagining a set up where we're about to discover that the tiny mc tossing fireplace hardware around the room is supernaturally endowed... Only to discover that the text is referring to undies and she's merely endowed

[idleleaves]

Calling all AuDHD fic writers, or anyone else who finds themselves frustrated and discouraged when conventional writing-productivity advice just doesn't work for them: I have a system.

It's not foolproof, and it doesn't guarantee words, but it's much more aligned with how my brain actually functions than anything else I've tried. My focus is mercurial, at best, and I've never been able to lock in even when I really want to write; trying to apply the 'butt glue' philosophy (apply seat of pants to seat of chair and stay there) just leaves me scattered and fidgeting. So a few months ago I thought… what if I tried including the restlessness in the routine?

I downloaded a pomodoro app and set a 10-minute focus timer followed by a 3-minute break timer—ten minutes to write, then three minutes to get up and pace or otherwise move around. I set it to run four times in a row, then tried it out and… it worked. Ten minutes is long enough for a few sentences, and three minutes is short enough to avoid picking up my phone to doom-scroll or fall into another distraction.

It works best (for me, at least) with Pomocat, because it can continue on its own from one timer to the next, from focus to break to focus to break, until the end of the session without my input—I just start it up, set it aside, and listen for the pings that tell me to switch between words and wandering. It also works best when I get up and actually move—pace, or stretch, or shake out stiff muscles—during those three minutes.

I'm still a turtle-speed writer (that much will never change) but now, at least, I'm a less consistently-disappointed one—and some weeks, that's all I need.

[stillness-in-green]

A few Kagurabachi points of order:

As I said I would, I did put for his foot did touch the earth for thee up on AO3 - you can find it here! includes author's notes about the various religious/mythic/spiritual nods in the fic as well as a few bits about setting stuff; there've also been some corrections to things I initially slipped up on, like clothing terminology and the couple of times I accidentally failed to portray Hokuto as being down a hand (whoops). I've also since realized I wildly forgot about the Kamunabi HQ being mostly underground, which would affect how Akeyura was able to extract his allies(?), but....eh. I'm just going to claim plausible deniability on that one. The fic doesn't technically specify where Hokuto is when Akeyura cuts the building in half; maybe Shiba 'ported him outside or something.

Anyway! More excitingly to me personally, that fic inspired a follow-up by @milkywayoni, a writer whose Kagurabachi work I've been enjoying for some months now - indeed, if I hadn't been reading so much of their work, I don't know that I'd have been in the fandomy mindset to write fic of my own! It's a great fic! If you liked mine, go read theirs! You can go straight to AO3 here or wait for me to reblog their tumblr post, which I'll do shortly.

Finally, I've started work on a chunk of meta about Kagurabachi's antagonists and the story's portrayal of its protagonist's responses to them, which tend to come in one of two forms - the first vindicating Chihiro's ideals as-is, the second forcing him to change his ideals in some way. This steady rotation between opposite modes of conflict resolution makes Chihiro a very appealingly dynamic character in ways I'd like to examine in more depth - and also I want an excuse to talk about Yura's invocation of Kunishige's "defeat evil and save the weak" mantra, because it's a little more buried in the text than Chihiro's, Samura's, and Akemura's, and also because I think it's the most interesting. (<-blatant Yura bias)

It'll be up on Tumblr eventually, but I've got an introduction and a rough set of headers with a few odd notes jotted down for myself up on the Patreon, available to free and paid members alike, if anyone would like to see a preview!

Happy New Year, all!

[lunarblue21]

22, 23, and 79 for the ask game.

Thanks so much for the questions! Sorry this is late :/

22. Do you title your fics before, during, or after the writing process? How do you come up with titles? For me, the titling process is usually something I do when the story/fic is in "pre-production" as my first process, because coming up with a title is often something I have left for myself in my Prompts doc along with the idea for the fic. And how I come up with titles - titles for me can come from anywhere, though common inspirations for me have been songs. :)

23. Is writing the beginning, middle, or end of the story easiest? Hardest? Hmm... I would say the middle is the hardest becos the middle is such an important and crucial part of any story (with the beginning and the ending, I usually have a rough idea in my head for how those should look before I sit down to write a longfic, for instance) since the middle has to lead the ending's culmination. When I was finishing up writing CI: Lacrimosa back in 2022/2023, I actually went back to my synopsis doc and wrote up those sections of it I hadn't gotten to when my mental block in 2013 happened since having a definitive synopsis/outline is a very good way to maintain one's story's course.

79. Do you have any writing advice you want to share?

This writing advice will go into the synopsis/outline I mentioned above. I cannot downplay how useful and significant having a synopsis is for one's story, since it allows one to track and see all the plot beats and different character intertwining and developments, especially for a large story that might extend over several longfics or installments.

[catwithabook]

When you have an almost crack level pairing that you have no idea how to write and one very clear song association... sigh.

[idleleaves]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Fandom: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien Rating: Teen Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Fingon/Maedhros

Additional Tags: Grief/Mourning

Summary: Maedhros comes to Barad Eithel after the Dagor Bragollach and the fall of Fingolfin.

[idleleaves]

Well, it's not Six Sentence Sunday, so here, have ten sentences of a couple of idiots and some definitely-not-happy-funtimes sex pollen. * * *

But Maedhros kisses him - over, and over, and over - while the blood hammers in his ears.

Not like this. Not like this. Not like this.

Fingon can't breathe.

He takes his hands from Maedhros' hips, brings them up between them, and shoves, stumbling back to collide spine-first with a gnarled tree, dark branches spreading above their heads and blotting out what remains of the moon. A harsh gasp forces its way from his lungs.

Maedhros stills; his eyes are dark in the absence of starlight. Fingon's hands begin to tremble as a bone-deep ache spreads from the centre of his chest. His vision blurs and dims, and when he opens his mouth to speak all he can manage is a sigh, or a sob. * * *