4/17/2022 - I'm writing fics again
This year I’ve gotten into fic writing after so many years. I’ve had my Ao3 account since 2018, though I’ve used the site for much, much longer. I started using it around 2013, which was when I first heard of it. This was after Fanfiction.net’s second purge of adult content in 2012, which was when the site really began to spread around more. Especially in the corners of anime fandom I’ve hung around and lurked in. (Here’s a fanlore article about that for the uninitiated.)
I’ve read a pretty big amount of fics in my time. Mainly Sailor Moon, Zelda and Pokemon (Especially Pokemon Ranger), and later on I read fics in the Kill la Kill fandom in high school. Though I’ve always admittedly been more drawn to fan art, I love fics and my love for them has rekindled in recent years, especially the near end of 2021 and this year. I’ve been reading a lot of them again, which reminds me of the time when I would just consume various Sailor Moon fics online, whatever my grubby little hands could get because I was desperate, and as well as when I first got into Zelda in 5th grade.
Sadly my memory is horrendous so I can’t give many recs from my past. That’s no fault of the writers though, their work certainly left an impact on me!! My memory is has just always been very bad, so it’s the fault of that. And from 2016 onwards, my memory situation did not get better. I can remember things, but its all so cloudy and foggy.
I went on many places to read fic too. Various ones hosted on fansites, geocities, personal sites, fandom archives such as asailormoonromance, deviantart (probably not the most ideal place to read it, but by god, I did anyways) and of course fanfiction.net as some examples. Even if I did remember any off the top of my head, I don’t even know if any those fics even still exist on the web still. It would just be an nigh impossible search.
Back to the main topic here though, writing. This is a new skill for me I am honing. It’s tricky… I’m very often a person in which if I am not instantly good at something, I give up. I thought I spent all my stubbornness points in persisting onwards with art, but last year I learned I still do have that stubbornness in me via making this website and learning HTML and CSS. And look where my site is now. Nearly a year later after I first started actually making it. And said stubbornness is there with persisting with writing more.
I wrote some fics as a kid. Mainly Zelda, Pokemon (Again, mainly Pokemon Ranger, one being a 10 chapter long fic with my oc I made at the time), and a couple Kill la Kill ones I did as a teen. Only one has since survived the sands of time, computer transfers, and harddrive crashes. I actually put that up on Ao3 for archival purposes, if for some reason you'd want to see a fic I wrote as a 11 year old in 2008.
Also... barely anyone makes Harlock x Maya fics. So that also plays a BIG role in my motivation to keep on writing. (I gotta do everything myself in English speaking fandom don’t I!) But I love feeding myself, which I’ve learned especially in the past few years, and this is a new way of doing that! :D This year... I just want to write fics more!!
I don't have a word count goal or anything like that in mind. If there is a goal I have it is to simply just write more, and push away the fears and perfectionism that plague me and freeze me up, which prevents me from writing in the first place. Just enjoying writing fics, even if they aren't good or perfect. And so far I have been doing just that! I’ve posted some fics, both which can be seen in the Mayalock Zone on the Fan Fics page and In the Spice Zone. Plus a fic I’m doing as part of a rarepair fest in a server I’m in will be up in May! Which I will link when it’s up.
I’ve also gotten some very kind feedback from people both on Ao3, my friends in various circles, and even in kind emails from someone on Neocities!! (Shoutout to you holeinmyheart!! I think about your kind emails every day, and they make me so happy. It means the world to me, so just thank you so much!! I seriously can’t articulate the positive impact your kind, warm, and enthusiastic feedback has left on me. But its a massive one and really has given me so much motivation and happiness with writing! Hopefully you don’t mind me shouting you out by name here.) It just means a lot that my self indulgent fics of a rarepair from a 1982 anime movie bring happiness to others too, like they have with me as I wrote them.
Honestly I feel super nerfed by my neurodivergence sometimes, I’m an autistic, so its hard for me to word things (even though people always tell me I do better than I believe I do, but it is still a mental struggle to get words out for me on some days), and its been hard as hell to focus lately, but I've also got a lot going on in my own personal offline life. So it makes sense why my spoons are so little.
My fears and insecurities freeze me up, and they have for so, so long. “Will I write these characters well and they’ll actually feel like these characters?” “Will my grammar be okay?” “Is my wording good?” “Will this smut be at least somewhat sexy?” Are just some of the many insecurities I face.
I just want to work on that and just enjoy making fics of my ships I love for myself, either it be smut, gen, fluff, angst, whatever. Fics for the things I love as a whole, even original stuff too, and just enjoy writing more in general without fear holding me back from doing anything. The kindness I’ve been shown with my fics and the enthusiasm I’ve been shown to also helps a lot too. And as I write more, I have been gradually getting less and less frozen when it comes to reaching “perfection” as well so I would say this year I am on the right track!
(Or should I say... the write track? ...As a bi I have to make a bad pun every now and then.)
I’m excited for what I’ll write next. I’ve always been quite bad with coming up with my own ideas for fics, even for art too! Thing is with art I usually can bullshit a sketch on a page or a file and the idea will come to me as I go along. But with writing I usually like to at least have a basic idea or an outline if possible. I find that that helps me a lot. Generators or posts dedicated to prompts, dialogue, AUs, etc are great sources for inspiration if I can’t think of anything. Also I’m sure as I write more, I’ll get better at coming up with things, like I have for drawing over the years.
It’s been wonderful writing for myself. Just feeding myself the Mayalock fics I want to see in the world is a really, really nice feeling. I’m gonna be as self indulgent as I want! I wanna write canon compliant, and canon divergent things. Fics in various Aus, College, Vampire, Regency Era, Sea Pirate, and so much more. Write things with all the various tropes I love (that I will go into another day) and feed myself some spicy, spicy Harlock and Maya smut!! I just want to write so much stuff about this ship I adore so much.
As 2022 rolls onwards, I look forward to writing more fan fics! Most likely a vast majority of them being Harlock and Maya, because I need more of this 1982 anime movie rarepair in my life. (I just love them so freaking much!! They were a MASSIVE drive in getting me to make this site after all! And besides, who else in the year 2022 is gonna write that smut of them?)
I look forward to continuing my writing and fan fic journey!
As a final addition: I will add some cool links here that have been great in my writing journey thus far:
(Some will contain 18+ content!)
Generators:
Springhole’s Generators are a classic and great resource
Ao3 Prompt Generator and Ao3 Prompt Generator With Custom Imputs, (Cool Ao3 themed ones! The second one gives you the option to put in your own custom names for fandoms and characters!)
The 100 Words Prompt Generator, A recent favorite of mine! Has over 5500 prompts as of writing, SFW and NSFW, and I love the description of “Get a prompt and write at least 100 words of fic for it.” I love the at least part of it. because you can write more words if you want, but there’s no pressure to!
Various OTP Generators: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
WritingExercises has tons of great generators, worth checking out all of this site!
Bleep0bleep’s on tumblr generators! Sfw Version, Nsfw Version
The Character Comma's Random Writing Prompt Generator
Prompts, Either dedicated tumblrs for prompts, or a tag on someone’s blog:
Other great links for you:
Bettsfic has great writing advice on her tumblr, I discovered her via the fansplaining podcast in an episode she guests in! Her newsletter is great too, and she has a pdf which compiles a lot of her tips too! Her whole tumblr is worth a look.
25 Ways to Come up with a Title - A neat reddit post on r/fanfiction of some ways to come up with a fic title! I don’t use reddit much, but I’ve been enjoying digging through this specific subreddit.
Three great resources about writing drabbles!(100 word stories!): How To Write Drabbles by Connie J. Jasperson, And Two Great Posts about Writing Drabbles by aimmyarrowshigh on tumblr! Post 1, Post 2
Confessions of a 36-Year-Old Fan Fic Writer - A really nice and thoughtful article about as the article puts it - "The joys of writing, reading, obsessing, and being “Fandom Old”" Despite being 25, (Though some would call that old…) There was a great number of things I related to despite that and this article really spoke to me in many ways, especially being a neurodivergent person myself like the author mentions in this article and I've taken a lot out of it too. It's wonderful, sincere and you can feel the passion the author has about making fics, and really worth a read!
A Little Nautical Know-How For Writers In Need - Hey a lot of us love that queer pirate show Our Flag Means Death (I know I do!) A tutorial about Tall Ship know-how, but useful knowledge for all, even those who haven’t seen OFMD.
A neat and handy Fic Writing Plan Graphic by ao3commentoftheday on tumblr!
And finally, a selection of Meta Monday posts by fangirlunderground-blog on tumblr (check out all of the Meta Monday posts, all of full of great fandom meta, resources and more!): Fandom - Writing Resources I and Writing Resources II, Fandom - Editing and Beta Readers + Promoting Your FanFic, Fandom - Keep Writing and lastly: Archive of Our Own - Tips for Readers and Tips for Writers.
You can check out the full list of posts that have been made here.