2017 in Writing

It's been an amazing year writing-wise.

On the fanfiction front, I think I started the year by writing Welcome to Night Vale fanfiction - which is one of my absolute favorites to write because I can get away with writing acid-trip-dreamesque things and it would fit right in. Like floating pillows and man-eating couches.

Most of the descriptions I like to write in most of my Night Vale fics (most of which are still in my hard drive and not posted here because I always keep forgetting them) are either inspired by or taken directly from my dream journals, and trust me, man-eating couches aren't the worse I've dreamed. I had a dream about acoustic guitars inside bee mascots once. And about photograph-portals. And cats bred from seeds and puppies incubated in cans. And that the secret to ending the universe is either four characters long or is just in eating a raw human heart.

My dreams never make sense, to be honest, but what's new?

Of course, most of my fics are also Night Vale tinhats, and even though canon has shot a lot of them down, I still love exploring things. That's my principle in writing things, especially fics - be as self-indulgent as you want. Writing is good when you entertain an audience, but it's great when you entertain yourself.

Case in point, A Lullaby for Gods. 

Now, Lullaby started in June 2016. That's when I started writing it. I had a 10k draft in a day in June. And then I forgot about it and it just sat there. A few months later, I wrote more. And then more. And then I kept coming back to it. And that was the first few chapters of A Lullaby for Gods. 

And then a bit later, I thought, hey, let's post it. It's not really the best, but I love it, and who knows maybe others will. 

And then somehow, people did. That's still a funny thing to me. I had like three to five reviews on each chapter, and that was more than enough for me. I already had the idea of a plot in my head and kept pushing it away because it was supposed to be fun without plot, but the urge to turn this indulgent fic into something more always scratched at me. So I did. I put the smallest hints in the early to present chapters that would easily be dismissed at first glance but would make a lot of sense in further chapters. (SPOILERS AHEAD. remember when Rose said, in one of the earlier chapters about Cecil being a Seer of Void and Kevin being a Knight of Light, and now we have Cecil actually using his natural psychic Seer powers and Kevin using his innate talent with sensing luck to his advantage - like telling Saph to stop driving before they crashed into another car while on the way towards the Safehouse? Yeah.)

(I'll give you another one. 

TA: rip. A - 1. W - 0.

PM is listing out their surname initials - or what they think is Loki's surname initial, since his alias is Luke Winters. Therefore PM's last name starts with an A :) Have I already dropped a hint on this in early chapters? Hmm.)

Now we have missing mutants, and nightmarish shapeshifters and the ever elusive Green Penned Bastard (who's always been in the story, by the way. GPB's been here since Act One. I just took a while to actually give in.)  and I am loving how everyone is tinhatting over it. Whether you're a lurker or an active reviewer, thank you so much for staying with this story, it means a lot to me, because this is one of the most indulgent things I've ever written in fanfiction (not counting my DHMIS fics, because hoo boy, those were worldbuilt from scratch). 

Will everyone ever find out what's going on in ALFG? Maybe. Do I know what's going on in ALFG? Possibly. Am I in control of what's going on in ALFG? My green glitter pen went missing two months ago.

For original writing,  I haven't done much, but I've been focusing on two pieces this year, which are extensive, so I don't blame myself for not writing shorts more. The first piece is one I've been hammering at for a while but have thankfully taken a break from. It's the also-indulgent story using the whole soulmate trope, except I might have made things a whole lot deadlier. 

I haven't touched it for a while. I'll try to get back to it next year (haha) because I recently dug up an eight-page (back to back) unfinished and unedited epilogue chapter for it that I wrote in orange ink, sat down and read it, and flailed around because it was surprisingly good and I'm proud of my past self.

The second was, of course, my NaNoWriMo piece, which I think has enough worldbuilding but weak storytelling, so I have to work out the plot and the writing, but that won't be for a while since all I finished of the novel is what would be considered Act One of it.

Truthfully, I haven't been keeping track of my wordcount this year (I should...hmm...) but I'm pretty sure I've gone past 200k (60k NaNoWriMo + 100k A Lullaby For Gods + all my other fics and personal writings) and I'm pretty proud of that! Go me! Look at your faded keyboard markings and the sticky notes on your desk and weep.

It's also impressive considering I still have other stuff to do, ahaha. 

I'm glad with my writing this year. Even though progress with fics and novels is slow, but it's steady, and I'm trying, which is more than enough and more than what I can ask for from myself. I'm actually organizing my writing notes, which is a start - I organize my notes, but it's organized chaos. 

I'm so tempted to go back to some of my old fandoms though. Or maybe not fandoms, but the material? I miss the stories, and I miss the uniqueness, and I'm willing to dive into them again just because I love them. And who knows, I might write fic for them again, even if they might be obscure. And of course, I like making myself happy with my writing, so I'll get self-indulgent. There's a lot of things to work with. OFF, Lenore The Cute Little Dead Girl, Gravity Falls, Undertale...

Of course, since this is New Year's, I'm supposed to make the traditional resolutions but TIME IS AN ILLUSION and any promises one makes will be LOST FOREVER TO THE VACUUM OF TIMESPACE WHERE NOTHING BUT THE SCREAMS OF THE FORGOTTEN AND THE DAMNED RING OUT, so I'm not making any promises. 

I will, however, try to do things. I will try to write better, as always, because a writer's goal is always to write up and up. I will try to meet the deadlines I have set for myself and stop procrastinating. I will try to upload on time (especially AO3, ahaha) - blackouts and wifi cutouts not counted. I'll try to be more creative, which, considering my already chaotic and curious nature when it comes to writing, will hopefully not be too hard to do.

And I'll try to have a wordcount tracker. I really want to see how much I can write in a year. It'll probably be a rough estimate considering I'm not counting any of the things I have to submit for school or anything else. 

Also, I forgot to say. My anemia recently got worse and my doctor had me drop out of school, ahaha. Well. Here's to...writing more with my free time, I guess. When I'm not sleeping too much. I'll have to change my Patreon introduction soon. 

Anyway, here's to a creative and fun new year! Thanks for sticking around 2017, guys! :)