Writing a little, fangirling a lot

the best fanfiction you've ever read was written by a woman in her 40s before she made dinner for her kids. it was written by a teenager after school when they should've been studying for a history test. and a barista came up with the idea while they cleaned the espresso machine and busser fact-checked it on their break and the post-doc edited between writing grant proposals and the nurse apologized for typos in the notes after a long shift and behind every drabble and one-shot and multi-chapter fic there is a person with a wonderful and interesting and chaotic life and it is such a privilege that we get to be apart of it because they decided to do this thing we all share, for fun.

(emerges 3 hours later covered in blood) i figured out what emotion i was feeling

as a writer, it’s very important that you know this: whenever you tell yourself “this will only be one-chapter-long” that is a lie. your brain is lying to you. it won’t, in fact, be just a short one-shot

me, quietly whispering to the ao3 page of an author who doesn’t even know I exist: I am obsessed with you

me, whispering to the ao3 page of an author who hasn’t updated anything in four years: I think about you often and I hope you’re alright

me, whispering to the ao3 page of an author who wrote one life altering banger and nothing else: I hope your pillow is cool and your skin is clear and you find money in a forgotten jeans pocket

me, whispering to every single person on this post: please leave one singular comment saying literally any of that

The most interesting question you can ask about any character is not what do they want. it's what do they believe they deserve. because those two things are almost never the same and the gap between them is where your entire story lives. a person can want love completely and believe they don't deserve it and that belief will destroy every good thing that comes toward them in ways they won't even notice they're doing. write the gap. the gap is the character.