Okay, this is gonna sound weird but.
I'm currently spiraling hard with my fic. Like. Spiraling-into-the-void levels of hard.
I've always been super insecure about my writing (my self-esteem is like, flip-flop-on-the-sidewalk-tier lol), but now that I'm writing, editing, and beta-reading alone, I've become hyperaware of every little flaw in the story.
Add to that the whole AI panic—like, does this sound like a bot? Are these too many em dashes? Is my sentence structure too polished?? Too weird??? And I'm not even a native English speaker, so sometimes I panic thinking I sound like a robot (pun intended) just because my vocabulary isn't as rich or natural and suddenly it's like. I am doomed.
To top it off, I'm in a half-dead fandom. I know people are reading, but barely anyone comments. My beta had to step away for personal reasons. My friends and family don't know I'm writing this. My girlfriend hasn't had time to read it yet. So I feel so alone with it sometimes.
And somehow I've started treating this fic—which started as a silly self-indulgent thing—as if it's a Hugo-winning novel that'll save me from my depressing-ass real life or something. Like I'm submitting it to the Nobel committee. Like it's my PhD thesis in "Reasons My Life Is Not a Waste."
And then yesterday, for no reason, I gave myself the biggest emotional slap in the face. I was venting to my girlfriend, and she was being super sweet and supportive and trying to cheer me up—until I snapped and went:
"No. No. Yell at me."
And she was like, "What?? Why??"
And I basically exploded like:
"Because I'm writing a fucking fanfic about a shy girl with a bass falling in love with a Spanish tomboy who plays pedals like a mad scientist and cries when someone touches her face, and somehow I've turned this into a graduate thesis on narrative identity and queer aesthetics under late capitalism. HOW did I even GET HERE?? And then I'm like: 'But what if a Reddit user thinks I use too many em dashes 😢' WHO GIVES A SHIT. That Reddit user is probably reading their fifteenth 3k-word Harry Potter omegaverse fic tagged 'Harry is a mafia heir with tentacles.' AND THAT'S OKAY. You think that's the standard for prose now?? People just wanna have fun. I just wanna have fun. And of course it's self-indulgent! It's FANFICTION! It's a giant glittery sandbox where I get to dump my trauma, my joy, my horny little crushes, my literary aspirations, and my Spanish-flavored gay panic into a blender and hit 'pulse!'"
And weirdly enough... that helped. I'm writing again lol.
Also: I do take breaks and write one-shots sometimes. Or reread old chapters (posted or not) just to remember why I'm doing this. (Spoiler: for self-indulgent fun.) But sometimes the only way out is to yell at yourself about tentacle mafia Harry and move on.
Not long ago—either on the fanfiction subreddit or on the AO3 subreddit—someone made a post about what fanfics were like in ~2010 on ff.net. And it turned into this whole discussion. And people basically agreed: sure, there was a ton of variety (I SWEAR I read Nobel-tier fanfics on ff.net 15 years ago), but there was also this really strong vibe of:
"I'm doing this for the lols."
At least in my fandom, everyone kind of agreed: who cares if the characters are OOC or if we just inserted a random German kid into this Japanese high school AU? It was fun! We just wanted these two girls to kiss. And if you didn't like it, you didn't have to read it.
And I feel like... we've kinda lost that? Not completely. Maybe it's just the metrics. Or maybe it's social media and the constant feeling of being perceived. But now it's like: "I love this scene, it's unhinged and brings me joy but... what if someone thinks it's badly written or OOC :(" When literally. You're writing it for you.
I know this sounds like the most tired advice ever—"Write for yourself!" Okay, thanks Plato—but I think we need to reframe that.
Yesterday I told my girlfriend there's a chapter I've beta'd six times because it never feels "good enough" when all I really want is:
To have fun.
To get better at writing through this story.
To post the damn chapter and read it on AO3 like a reader, screaming when That Scene happens—because yeah, I wrote it, but in that moment? I'm not the author. I'm in fangirl mode.
That's what "writing for yourself" should be. Not "forget your readers" (you're posting on AO3, it has interaction). But:
Write like you're a reader waiting for the next update of your favorite fic.
Thanks for coming to my TED spiral.
