tinknevertalks asked:

4, 31, and 35 for the wip asks, please! 🙂 (If I’ve already sent in my request ignore this one – my brain is not co-operating today.)

4) Last sentence written?

I debated about this question because I haven’t written anything in a month, and what I was working on then is a redraft of an original novel and I’m not confident enough to share that. So I think I will skip (sorry) and instead use the random number to pick another question to answer for you. Which is….

26) Google docs, word doc, or neither?

You are around my age I think? So does this question amuse you a bit too? I predate those options. Well maybe not Word but we didn’t have it until I was in high school. I started off with good old pen and paper. My grandparents had a computer (a BBC-B) and they let me play frogger on it sometimes but not work. My mums first computer was a Windows 3.1 which predates the taskbar start menu and all of that. That had a program on it called “Microsoft Works” which from google to shore up my failing memory looks like it was word/excel/publisher etc. all in one. So that was my first foray into digital.

But I digress because yes of course I went on to wordpad, and then I got Word 2003 (still haven’t upgraded btw) but then when I got an iPad which has no stinking USB socket, I couldn’t carry around my stick with my word files anymore to work on everywhere so then I jumped to google docs.

Buuuuuut I have recently jumped to… something else. The problem with google docs is it is rubbish at large files (lags horribly), it doesn’t have a decent dark mode, it doesn’t have any integral backup options for changes, and I just don’t think it is really intended for 80k novels. I used it for years but it was really starting to frustrate me. It’s free which is why I tried to stick with it but I have moved to use NovelPad. By the name it’s designed for novels. It is web based but with a good offline mode, backs up every minute automatically, you can split everything into scenes, the revision feature is my favourite (no more juggling multiple documents) and the dark mode is so good. It’s also not overly complicated like Scrivener (which I could never get on with). The only bad thing is it’s a subscription. But as serious as I want to take my writing and with all the quality of life it offers I decided for me it was worth it.

31) Are you doing this instead of actually working on your wip?

No… well I suppose technically all ‘free’ time could be used for writing. But it’s 7:30am and I am going out this morning to buy a new mattress. I have had mine for 25 years and I am now waking up with backache everyday (no springs poking through but I can feel them grinding). But yeah I am terrible if I have appointments for not being able to focus (even more than I usually can’t haha).

35) Are you more likely to make grammatical errors or spelling errors?

Hmm. There are some words I just can’t spell (like guarantee thank you auto correct), and there are some words I spell so badly that spellcheck can’t fix it and I have to go “google you are my only hope”. But for the most part I can spell. It’s more automatic than thinking about it, I think if you used me to spell out words I would probably be worse haha. So maybe grammatical? I’m not too sure what comes under the heading of grammar. I don’t do any of the big things (I think/hope) but comma splicing probably, passive voice definitely etc. I don’t get that many wavy underlines either way to be honest.

Thanks for the ask ❤️

sarcasticsciencefictionwriter asked:

For the Writing-WIP ask game, 23 and 37, if you don’t mind? 😊

23) Do you make your own wip covers?

Yup. It’s actually an ambition of mine to get good enough at drawing to be able to make all my book covers properly. Not there yet and I might never be but it’s a dream. Anyway for original novels I just do quick temp covers with a vaguely related royalty free stock image + text, nothing fancy. For fandom it depends I have done photo manips, I have done drawings, and for Sanctuary I did quite a few gifsets. I generally like to provide some kind of banner image to liven up the post whatever it is 🙂

37) Name a series you’ve abandoned writing

Ok I’m going to take the word ‘series’ loosely here. For the most part I am relatively good at finishing what I have started posting. Dredging my memory I think I have only abandoned 4 fanfics in my /cough 20+ years /cough. The first I was about 12 and it’s a very long story to explain. The second I was 19, it was a self-indulgent crossover and I wrote part 1 (it ended on a cliffhanger), but then I could not work out how to keep it going with the crossover element. It just failed the logic test of why everyone would still be included and so I posted all of my notes/thoughts as an epilogue (this was on ff.net) and gave up.

Where I start to feel guilty is with the more recent ones. I wrote for Once Upon a Time for a year or so and I really wanted people to like me, I wanted to feel included. So I jumped on every prompt going. My desperation could probably have been seen from space 🙄. Anyway I wrote two chapters of a rare… crossover pair (hard to explain anyelle quickly but basically that) and then I had so many WIPs in those days that it just constantly fell to the bottom of the pile and when I ran out of steam and stopped, it’s what was left undone. The other one I feel even more guilty about as I actually won a fandom award for it. That was called Painting Layers of Love, and the problem with that is I poured far too much of my own anxiety into one of the characters, and then obviously I wanted the character to be happy which meant dealing with their issues. Problem is I don’t know how to “fix it” as I can’t fix myself. So I stalled as I couldn’t see a way out and eventually just officially abandoned it /guilt /guilt.

For original novels… I struggle with the ‘abandoned’ part because I might go back to it, or I will cannibalise it and use parts elsewhere. I mean sure technically there is a series. I actually indie published Book One. I thought I had been so sensible as I had waited until I had drafted Book Two but I was behind and it was only a first draft. I should have had it fully ready, and if I had waited I would have known, but I had booked promotions and so couldn’t delay. Anyway when I went to revise Book Two it just fell apart. I tried redrafting it from scratch but I could just not make it work. Fortunately nobody had been all that interested and so I took Book One down quietly and decided to chalk it up to experience. I later indie published the first two novels in another series and had to also take them down (this time due to a mental breakdown) buuut that’s another story. And that series really isn’t abandoned as I do intend to fix it up and republish eventually. But yes I suppose the time travel crime series is abandoned. I get nostalgic for it but I don’t know that I will pick it up again. Never say never of course. But my original ideas are many (I could write solidly for a decade and not be done) so it’s not like I need to go back to it.

Thanks for the ask ❤️

purlturtle asked: 

🪄 and 🤲 for the fic writer’s asks please!

what is your post-writing/sharing aftercare? How do you take care of yourself or celebrate yourself when you’ve finished a fic?

I’m not so good at any of this 😂 I’m much better at moving the goal posts. Like I’ll say “finish X” but then once I have there’s another story, another task etc. I never feel like I have done enough, or done it quickly enough, or done it well enough. And that’s just doing the task. Sharing the thing… so much anxiety.

Obviously I make what I make because I personally like it, so I’m the target audience. I can’t say I always enjoy the process because it is often a struggle, a crisis of confidence as I never feel good enough, but I want it to exist. I also hope that it brings somebody joy. For all that I don’t share my work for the attention I am only human and after I post I desperately want some kind of recognition. Screaming into the void is lonely. I worked hard. I want somebody to see that, I guess I just want someone to care. Which is needy probably and not very healthy because it depends on other people.

So to summarise I don’t really deal with this very well at all.

what do YOU get out of writing?

A poison nightmare?

Sorry that’s a little snarky and also more than a little negative. I can’t do so many things. I am a depressed, anxious mess. Writing is simultaneously my hope for a future, and so much pain and fear. I am terrified I can’t do it and I will never be good enough, I will never get to where I need to be. I have lots of ideas and I want to see them realised. I would like to share them with the world. But are they actually any good? Even if the ideas are, will my skill ever be at a level where I can do them justice?

I once said that if I couldn’t write, then I was less than nothing because writing was the only thing I had left. It was my one chance to make a future for myself. But honestly as time goes by the hope gets chipped away and I have no faith left.

Obviously this is written with original work in mind because all of this mess in my head ^^ is why I quit fanfic. I was using fanfic as a crutch. Telling myself that so long as I was doing something, that was better than nothing, but really I was avoiding. Hiding. Not to say that fanfic didn’t bring me joy because of course it did. But it took a hell of a lot of time and effort and as short on spoons as I am, I knew I wasn’t spending them wisely.

Writing is hope, it is dreams, it is life. So what do I get out of writing? Mostly fear, so so much fear, with a side order of self-hate. I want it too much and everytime I fail, it gets harder to conjure up the self-faith to persist and try again.

#not the answer you wanted I am sure but I am always honest