how did you and cj meet!! i love y’alls frienship & content! read an author’s note where you said you had written for 18 hours that day and i am in AWE and also begging for a How To Write That Much For Dummies book
hi omg!! it’s a LONG story but i’d actually only talked to cj over the phone twice before i flew 30 hours across the world to see him. because i’m crazy. ahshshs no but i had a Lot going on in my life and needed to get away, so i asked my (then) barely-acquaintance if i could come visit. 2 trains, 3 flights, and a taxi later i was literally as far away as i could be from home.
within the first hour of meeting cj, he’d made me laugh so hard i legitimately started crying. i hadn’t slept in 24 hours. i was So Hungry. we tentatively approached the idea of writing together, pulled our laptops out, and just like that, an alliance was formed.
(he’s such an incredibly generous person. and he’s SO FUNNY. don’t ever let him tell u he’s not.)
we basically hunkered down. it turned out we think similarly enough to read each other’s minds, and differently enough to spark delight with every proposed, half-coherent idea we tossed out. we knew exactly how to communicate our thoughts to maximise efficiency. like, holy shit we wrote fast. 20k in one sitting fast. bananas. we had SO many bits going. and everything we posted performed pretty well, so we kept at it. and now we’re working on an original project (!!).
our biggest asset was, of course, time. we had two weeks to lock in and do whatever we wanted — so we chose to make our main focus writing. so! cliche, but my advice is: keep at it! and read as much as you can! write down phrases that make you feel something (examine them, figure out WHY they evoke the emotion they do), get yourself a usage dictionary(!!!), and alternate between fan fiction and published literature. don’t stick to one medium (aka don’t neglect your other hobbies)— if you like music, drawing, photography — do that too! so much inspiration can be found in simply experiencing your life. most importantly, let yourself have fun before you criticise your work.
and sometimes, if you’re lucky, you’ll find someone like-minded to write with :D
in between visiting cj and returning home, we’ve grown so close. i consider him one of my closest friends. my lover but not… a true queer alliance… we‘ve captained a boat together, sang Loudly and Badly on the same couch, watched heated rivalry with slack jaws… it’s safe to say i will be making the 30 hour commute to see him again as soon as i can.
thanks for asking!!! i love talking about cj. he’s the best <3