your fanfiction is valid

what do you MEAN I have to finish writing the fic before I can receive praise and feedback?? why can’t I just pry my brain out, shake it at my laptop until the fully-formed fic comes loose, then gently blow off the brain and pop it back in like a fuckign gameboy cartridge

Do you sometimes read a fic writer’s work, and just… thank all the gods this person managed to get obsessed with the same fictional people you did?

Everything I have to share from Our souls lie down in the grass is spoilery as heck, so instead here's a bit from a currently untitled Christmas rom com fic I'm nearly done with. Brienne is in love with her bff Jaime and he's coming home for Christmas with her.

THIS

one day you too could be a fanfic author who updates a decade later

Scope and pacing are not concrete and immutable. Not everything you write has to have the same level of detail, nor always be a 100k novel.

It's completely possible to tell the story of a romance that blooms over months or years in a 1000 words of short, snapshot scenes-- as long as you show the important scenes.

This is especially true in fanfiction where the set up is done for you, but can, in the right circumstances, be achieved in original fiction just as well.

Sometimes you don't need to write the whole novel. Sometimes you can just boil the story you want to tell down to its impactful, punchy essence. (and then it doesn't take a year to write.)

sometimes u just gotta write the most cliche self indulgent fanfic u can think of. for your health

I enjoy the Two Cakes Philosophy and I believe it deserves its place enshrined in fandom culture.

Forgive me for the extended metaphor but I also want to simultaneously celebrate what I’m calling Bakery Display Case Philosophy. You know when you walk into a bakery and the display case is full of beautiful treats? And there’s a variety of different colors, textures, and flavors to discover? And that’s so deeply exciting?

You might say to yourself, “No one is going to want to read this pairing. No one is going to want to want a character study of that character. No one wants genfic in this fandom, only shipfic.”

And you might use that to discourage yourself from writing a certain fic.

Fandoms, like bakeries, need cakes and cookies and éclairs and cream puffs and shortbread and brownies and pies and tarts and petit fours and turnovers and cinnamon rolls and madeleines and meringues—and so many other things—to survive.

Write your dark chocolate pistachio croissant fic. Your fandom needs it actually.

fanfic writers are so fucking awesome in the sense that they can take one single scene, that lasts less than a minute, from the source material and turn that one single scene into a 40k word long fic with depth, feels, character study and development and create a whole storyline out of that one single canonical moment.

fanfic writers are so fucking awesome in the sense that they can take one single scene, that lasts less than a minute, from the source material and write 40 entirely different fics about that one single canonical moment and each one of those fics is a literal masterpiece.

shout out to us fanfic writers ♡♡♡♡♡♡

Imagine you're opening AO3 and search for a fic. Imagine you're finding one that fits all your criterias. Imagine it has the perfect length. Imagine getting lost in the story and feeling almost high when it's over. Imagine looking up the author and they have written. so. many. more. fics. exactly. like. that. Imagine.

One of the sweetest things is when you post a new work on AO3 and then one of your old works gets a comment because it means that somebody read the new thing and liked it so much that they went and checked what other stuff you wrote and they liked that enough to tell you about it and I just think that is so fucking precious!! thank you thank you thank you to the people who do that, keep doing it it's the best feeling as an author

So, @sits-bound offered to do a fanbinding of Heart Full of Gasoline for me after @adulthoodisokay had initially asked for it and I was absolutely not gonna turn that down. The books came last week and they are stunning.

The bookmark ribbons even have thematic charms! (The one for book two is a little heart.) I am so impressed and grateful. I need a good place to display these. They're hefty. 😂 Thank you so much again!

holy grail

don't want to write I want to think very hard about my fic until it emerges from my head fully formed like athena