hello bella i am here for the fanfic ask game and i am going to use the letters of my name to pick questions. B E L A R. actually wait not A because pretty much all your fic titles are song lyrics which is pretty self explanatory. for E hmm… where would you take t-shirt ‘verse jalex next. that series was some of the first fics of yours i read and immediately fell in love. anyways hi! - bella
would you believe my first thought was "oh she's spelling belarus" hope it's okay that i just assume your full name is belarus from now on
this is once again So So Long so here's a read more
fanfic ask games
B: Any of your stories inspired by personal experience? oh boy. well the short answer is a capital-Y Yes. we were just speaking about emo lashton! the third one, aka i know that you're so afraid, was written after i had a really really awful day and pretty much embodies how i was feeling that day (the screaming/crying/destruction of property bit), though i did not do any of those things. also acappella 'verse (excluding the merrikat fic unfortunately) is HEAVILY influenced by personal experience in fact probably moreso than most of my other fics - the second one where they drop a single was written literally the night that my acappella group released our first single so it is like. Extremely Real Life. obviously jewish cake aka ha'ahava hazot shelanu is Very Very inspired by my personal experience, some chapters more than others, by which i mean the ones with the families lmao. brazil fic is inspired by personal experience though that one is a lot more "inspired by" than "taken directly from" because i lived there i wasn't just a visitor and also i never went to maracanã or like. did most of this stuff. but the location of the hotel is on a road i have actually been on many times and the pizza place they go to was one of my favorite places to eat so there's that. and the lashton sequel of brazil fic (you should have seen that sunrise) is based on a time when i actually went to pedra do arpoador and watched the sunrise, though for me it was with my family and it was on rosh hashanah hdflkgjdlksj.
i wrote this fic you should know i'll be there for you for jess where ashton misses his siblings and more specifically laments not being there for his sister when her gerbils die which was like a canon divergent version of me actually being present for when my sister's gerbils died. that's one. also wrote a cashton prompt fic where, again, ashton misses his siblings, are you detecting a theme here? i project basically all of my homesickness onto ashton because he's the only one with younger siblings. but those feelings are very personal and authentic. AND LASTLY: this jalex prompt fic where jack drives the wrong way on clara barton parkway is directly inspired by a time when i drove the wrong way on clara barton parkway and it was, in fact, one of the most terrifying moments of my life. okay i have to stop now because i've basically written you a novel answering this question and i could probably keep going. in short (lmao): yes. many.
E: If you wrote a sequel to t-shirt jalex, what would it be about? i actually know the answer to this!! the plan for the next t-shirt jalex fic, god willing lmao, is to write one where jack meets some of alex's students. i just really wanna see it happen. also, one day maybe i'll write their wedding, but like...that's a big Maybe since i have never been to a wedding that i remember well enough to write and i don't know shit about them especially non-jewish ones lol
L: How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting? i saw taylor answer this and i agreed very strongly with what they said. for shorter fics, especially when they're written on a whim (which i haven't done in a long time, excluding halloween fic event for which that was not supposed to happen), i'll read over it once or twice when it's done and do final edits and then just post it. for longer fics, like for example so damn familiar, i reread it almost every time i opened the doc, and whenever i'd finish a scene i'd go back and reread it and then probably reread it again. this serves a dual purpose though, because while it is good for editing, i also just...really enjoy my own writing lmao. and i will also add that i have not finished editing so damn familiar like before i post every chapter i go back and reread it and make small final changes so i can be sure that when i'm rereading it after it's posted there's nothing that makes me think "damn it i wish i had changed that before i posted it." so for short fics, very few, and for long fics, Very Many. i remember when i was writing hello hello i reached a point where i wanted to be done writing it so bad but i had to reread the entire thing every time i wanted to continue writing it, to get the vibe, and i was soooo sick of reading it. which is a difficult point for me to reach considering how much i like my own writing so do with that information what you will.
A: How did you come up with the title to [insert fic]? okay i know you said not to answer this one and it's not like i need reason to say MORE but i just wanna put it out there that i do in fact have a google doc entitled "good lyrics for titles" and if i hear a good lyric i throw it in the doc and when i need a title, especially for something short and spontaneous like a prompt fic, that's the first place i look. also on occasion i do listen to music when i write so i can get a title from a song i've heard while writing but a lot of the time i do not just because it's harder for me to concentrate or maintain a vibe while listening to music and in those cases it's convenient to have a doc full of potential titles so i don't have to go hunt down an appropriate song and scour the lyrics. ok that's all.
R: Are there any writers (fanfic or otherwise) you consider an influence? whew i did answer this one here also will add miss sam @tirednotflirting to the list because i've said it before and i'll say it again she is exceptionally good at writing description and that is Not My Forte! i make an active effort to include any bits and pieces of environmental description/imagery in my fics most of the time and she just. Does That. which i really admire and try to emulate with ~word pictures~ as much as i can.