You have been visited by the Thor of Positivity™! Take pride in your work and be confident in it! It may not be perfect but he knows you are working very hard and pouring your passion into it and therefore it is a Good Thing.
THE THOR OF POSITIVITY SHALL NOW AND FOREVER MORE BE THE BEST THING EVER
I call upon the fan fic writing gods to bless you with the perseverance to finish one of your unfinished drafts.
May your fingers dance along the letters upon your device with ease, may the devil of distraction stay far from you, and may your work not need much editing.
I pass this blessing upon every fan fic writer out there.
So, let me guess– you just started a new book, right? And you’re stumped. You have no idea how much an AK47 goes for nowadays. I get ya, cousin. Tough world we live in. A writer’s gotta know, but them NSA hounds are after ya 24/7. I know, cousin, I know. If there was only a way to find out all of this rather edgy information without getting yourself in trouble…
You’re in luck, cousin. I have just the thing for ya.
I got your back, cousin. Just head over to Havocscope.
((PS: In case you’re wondering, Havocscope is a database full of information regarding the criminal underworld. The information you will find there has been taken from newspapers and police reports. It’s perfectly legal, no need to worry about the NSA hounds, cousin ;p))
– you just had a brilliant idea. it’s 3am
– bonus: you have something important the next day
– “wow I wrote so much, let’s see the word counter” 350 words “LIES”
– when your worst work gets the most attention
– “[AO3] You’ve got kudos!” emails are your lifeblood, water your crops, and clear your skin
– B L A N K P A G E S O F D O O M
– playing the entire story out in your head. never writing it
– watching or reading anything ever and imagining an au
– making playlists to write to. never writing
– getting an “[AO3] Comment on ______” email and doing the thing. you know the one
– headcanons. so many headcanons
– spending days or weeks on a piece
– watching the hit count rise and the kudos count stay on said work
– when will the kudos return from war
– You have a great idea for a new fic. You have seven half finished fics already.
– Your story idea is no longer relevant/appealing because of things that happened in canon.
– You have a great idea for a story and no idea how it should end
– You have a great idea for a story and know exactly how it should end and how it should begin and in the middle is a vast wasteland of ????????
– Trying to figure out an appropriately literary way to say “and then they do that thing, you know, that thing they do on the show where they make that face and it’s just adorable?”
– Worrying your headcanons reveal way too much about your deep dark secrets as a person.
– Writing down a headcanon that DEFINITELY reveals too much about your deep dark secrets as a person and editing it to make it seem a little more subdued.
– Having to decide between what you want for your faves and their happiness and what’s actually in character.
– Being stuck on an idea for 9000 years and then taking a shower and figuring it out instantly.
– Seriously what is it with being in the shower did you make a deal with one of the fae where you’re only a good writer while you’re naked??
– “What are you writing?” “Oh, you know…just…a thing….”
– What the hell you can just copy/paste formatted work on Ao3 you don’t have to put the html in yourself WHY DID NO ONE TELL YOU THIS, WHY DID IT TAKE SO LONG TO FIGURE OUT?
– Wanting to tell your non-fandom friends about your story ideas, but they can’t understand a word you’re saying.
– Wanting to tell your fandom friends about your story ideas, but they’re all reading your fics and you don’t want to give them spoilers.
– when the plot decides to do is own damn thing and suddenly you have to add three more chapters to accommodate it all and fuck it all, this was supposed to be a one-shot
– spiralling down wikipedia hole in the name of research
– what’s that word? The one that means, you know, the thing?
– When someone reads your back catalogue and leaves a nice comment on Every Single One
– not being able to hit a 2k word essay, but churning out a 10k word fic the same night
-there is a very specific AU in your drafts. No one wants this AU. YOU don’t want this AU. But you keep going back to it, working on it, swearing you’re never ever posting it
-you know that you’re lying and will eventually inflict it on people in hopes of validation anyway
– writing pages and pages of “fic” in group chats and having zero motivation to write out of the fic idea when you open up a word doc
Writing is a process that often undergoes heavy edits… that includes responding to feedback.
I had no idea this post would resonate with so many people. I let my vitriol surrounding several comments I received on a recent update get to me and it spilled out into .gif form and it’s now morphed into the most widely shared thing I’ve ever posted. So many comments and tags have said things along the lines of, “This was why I quit writing” or “This is why I hate writing fanfic.” And that’s soul crushing to hear, but I can relate.
But while there are some crappy and entitled readers, there are also many brilliant ones and I’m so grateful for them. The huge response to this post made me go back and skim through the comments on my old stories, and comments like the one below are about half the reason some of those stories got finished, even if it was months later.
Comments like these are so rare, but when they do come up, they leave me staring at my computer screen, drumming my fingers on the keyboard, struggling to convey my feelings about how their words have touched my heart. These are the comments that take the longest amount of time to respond to and the ones that cause me to wear out my backspace key the fastest.
It’s easy to complain, but it’s literally just as easy to praise, so I just wanted to take a moment to recognize all those dear and dedicated readers who have propped me up when I wanted to quit. Readers like you are why I keep writing, and why I even feel honored to do it on rare occasion.
And fellow writers, keep your heads up if you can. 🙂
Shadow In The Light 