First of all, eeee! Thank you so much!

Second of all, No! Your stuff doesn't suck! I guarantee it just feels like that because you're the one with it in your mind, and you know all the beats and twists, and you know the ending and... you know?

I've been writing fanfic since before I knew what it was; I started posting my stuff online way back when the only place to do that was fanfiction.net and newsboards and, if you had the time to figure out how to do it, Geocities and Angelfire sites.

I had little knowledge back then of how to write properly. My grasp of grammar and tense and spelling were definitely lacking. But I wrote anyway because I had stories to tell, and I was going to share them one damn way or another! And you know what, people didn't much care about the grammar being less than perfect, because they were there for the story... and I was okay at telling a story. And more importantly, if you show love for what you're writing, then it will always be worth reading!

Other than that, the first piece of writing advice I would be inclined to give would probably be to practice writing drabbles. It takes a lot of work to be concise, and restricting yourself to a set word count really helps! Writing something complete in exactly 100-200 words will force you to decide which details need to be left in and which ones are best left out.

You can check out my TMNT drabbles if you want to see what I mean! It's a fun challenge, and in the end coming up with just the right combination of words to get the point across is so satisfying!

My youngest kid, zero_is_a_nerd, is 12 years old, and has posted three drabbles of her own so far to get the method down. She is now working on a longer story that she wants me to beta-read for her. My eldest kid, CharbroilLaFlamme, is 27 and has been writing for years. She hasn't posted anything in a while, but she is definitely still writing!

But I digress!

Another thing I do when I'm writing is keep a list of words that I tend to use too often. I'll search in my drafts for words like "leaned", "stared", "laughed", "looked", etc; and if they appear more than a couple times in a chapter, then I will replace them with other, lesser-used words and phrases, or even remove them entirely. There's only so many times a person can sigh before they start to hyperventilate, y'know?

Anyway, sorry for dragging this out and being fairly incoherent! I was just so surprised by your message! Thank you for making me feel so good!

Well, I have been reluctant to mention this, but does anyone remember a long while back... like three years ago, when this happened:

Well, apparently I continue to be an idiot, because I didn't follow my own damn advice about backing up your work. Because, you see this...

...this is the SSD from my computer, and on it is all my writing... and it doesn't work anymore. It just... broke, and my son had to replace it for me. So, fanfics, novel drafts, NaNoWriMo attempts, notes, short stories, character sheets... almost everything I wrote for the past three years is somewhere in that little sucker, and I can't get to it. I may never be able to get to it again, which means... some of my stories are just gone gone.

Relevant to my TMNT friends, perhaps, is that I had the entire first draft of Second Time Around on there, and now I just cannot carry on with it. You know how when you write something and then your mind simply cannot allow you to do it again? That's where I am with that one.

Something Wicked, at least, was being rewritten and posted one chapter at a time, so I can probably get back to that one, but Second Time Around? Gone. Done. I'm sorry.

So, here I am again, starting over... planning my stories with no notes, no first drafts, and having to abandon things that I was quite proud of because I, unfortunately, continue to be an idiot.

Just so you know

I haven't been writing much due to a variety of factors, none of which has anything to do with lacking the actual desire to write!

Basically, what is is that I have been doing a bunch of cleaning and rearranging rooms and furniture. Also, my dishwasher is now broken, so it takes me an hour to do dishes every day (there are seven people in the house); and the timer on my clothes washer broke, as well, so I have to stand by and change the settings manually (still beats when I had to wash all of our clothes by hand for like months a few years back).

On top of that, my 10-year-old is going back to school in a couple of weeks, so I wanted to give her as much relaxing time on the computer as possible before she dives into the stress of elementary (she has been virtual for the past two years, and is returning to physical school this year, so that'll be a shock to the system).

Oh, and ramen got spilled on my laptop keyboard (I am still finding sesame seeds under the keys), so I need to use a bluetooth keyboard, but I can't rest it on the laptop because it ends up typing, so I have to sit back and look at my screen from a distance. But that's just a minor inconvenience.

Seriously, though, I cannot stress enough how much I recommend this keyboard! It is multi-device, has a great click, the keys are not too far apart, it is tough as nails, and the battery life is excellent! Also, if you have an iPad or other tablet, you can rest it right in the groove.

What was I saying?

Oh, my writing.

Anyway, when school starts back up in a couple weeks I should be able to get some writing done on both Something Wicked and that hypothetical third Bayverse script. I might, in the meantime, re-edit one of my old (early 2000s) one-shots and post it. I am holding off on posting anything on Displaced for the time being, though.

I just wanted to let you all know that have not abandoned my fics!