my circle

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Posted and commented on bnha_fans.

Commented on fan_writers.

Commented on 3weeks4dreamwidth. It's coming up soon, April 25th!! I'm hoping to run another rec fest in bnha_fans as part of it, we'll see how it pans out :)

Promoted meta_warehouse, vampiremedia.

Signal boosts:

• My regular signal boost for senzenwomen, as I enjoy reading every week about the lives of all these amazing women from the past :D

The meant-to-be-just-a-pacing-check-except-not-really cleanup is DONE! VERY anti-climactic because of the unexpected month break right before the end XD The soul thief revision plan is good to go I think, and maybe I knew this time I was happy with it because my mind immediately switched to "finish up the witch remaining work, then we dig into the actual revisions." I even have a tracking spreadsheet ready!! AND I made a chart this time! I learnt about secondary Y axis and how to attach a data series to it so it scales properly! Lol. There may be PICTURES in my next recap XD I'm kind of planning 3-4 months for those revisions, but it's the first time I go so deep during the structural phase so I have no idea how it will go. The witch only took ~14h, but the changes were a lot simpler (to my detriment, since I ended up having to make large structural changes 3 rounds of revisions later based on beta-reader feedback. Ouch!) Very eager to find out how it will go this time!! And feed data to that chart >:D

I was so excited about my little chart that I decided to make one for the remaining scenes of the cursed witch's pacing check, too. 18 scenes left. It took me nearly 1h30 to fix up that first scene because it was a fight scene that dragged a lot. Slow, slow, slooooow. So I figured, 18 scenes, 2-3 weeks to do it! I can copy my scenes-per-week chart, with a dot for each week! Well. The pacing check was intended to be light. Only the big, you know, PACING problems. Of which there were fewer in the following chapters, so I finished it all up in several feverish sessions over a 3-day weekend 🤣 MY CHART IS A SINGLE DOT. This is so funny. If I'd known it'd go so fast, I probably would have tried to squeeze it alongside the workshop, but maybe I just needed a break.

Anyway, it was a happy surprise to return to the witch and enjoy it! I've learnt a fair bit about structure during the last month, and while -- as I feared -- I do see all the places that I would handle differently now... I don't hate it, nor feel anguish at how much better it could be? I dunno. Although, the dark side of taking yet another long break is that I feel so refreshed that I could smash myself against another round of editing... I could. Forever over and over, possibly. But I do need to learn when to move on, too.

( So what comes next? )

Content notes: There are a few moments of self-pity in here :D I don't like being negative in general, but I thought I'd be honest about things, both for myself and for my future self who will totally be over it, yet able to remember what it was like not to be that cool, thanks to this post XD

I've written quite a few fics in tiny fandom-of-ones before, sometimes even for manga that didn't have a translation available anywhere so really no hope of finding fellow fans :D And I enjoy it, like, finishing a book, seeing there's no fics for your particular vision (or at all!), scribbling and dropping one, and then huuuh sometimes nothing because it was just about two background characters that deeply intrigued me and apparently only me. Or sometimes, maybe once a year, getting a comment like "I just finished reading the book and I'm so glad someone shared the same vision!" -- that feels sooo good :D Like having left a little treasure out there for someone else to find. (It's what I imagine geocaching is like??) And it's happened to me in the reverse so many times, too! Bless you yuletide folks in particular, for unknowingly having had my back so often!

( Writing for a tiny fandom and then staying there, however, feels very different )

( 'Write for yourself first' - sure! Why share, though? )

( K-9 canon aside, because it's been too long. But also the additional weight of not having folks to discuss canon with )

1. Keep writing, stop posting
2. Rope more people into the fandom
3. Get into a bigger fandom in parallel -- the bigger the better!
4. Mindset change: posting to connect vs posting to archive / connect quietly
5. Wait to post so there is less attachment to the story
6. RP being someone who doesn't care like you wish you were

( I think I've basically done all of these 🤔 )

This got so long again XD XD I'm adding headers! But also, now, with the important question!!

Beloved tiny fandom and fandom-of-one writers and creators out there, how do you do it? And how do you keep it up? How do you manage the psychology of it? Do you have down moments regardless of the joy of it, and how do you handle those?? Clearly I do suck at it, so I'm all ears! It'd be cool to reduce the amount of non-joy as I go back to my gigantic file of K-9 ideas and throw them into the cauldron, eventually... :D Any coping mechanism to add to the list? And I think this all probably applies to podficcers and icon makers too, who tend to navigate smaller circles. How do you sustain it?? Please allow me to learn your secrets :D