welcome to santa carla

all jokes aside, i'm in the works to start publishing my own shit and i'm kind of scared shitless but also really excited. i don't even know that anyone is going to care, let alone buy them. but once again i am sitting on a dragon hoard's worth of fiction that will never see the light of day unless i decide to share it, so. here i am, i guess. what do i have to lose?

and yes, much of it is inspired by existing media, and i'm conflicted because i have very strong stances on the validity of derivative fiction, pastiche, etc but i understand that those aren't always the popular stances, and i love incorporating pop culture and media into my work, even just as little side references, but i also do not want to get sued! lmao! but so much of my writing was already beginning to grow legs and morph into something new and enter original fiction territory anyways, so it was somewhat inevitable to make the jump eventually, really. and it is! this is scary! but i also have a lot of new characters and new stories no one else even knows exist yet, and they never will, unless i share this stuff. so. we (my fear and i) are at an impasse. but i'm winning.

so idk! this is me testing the waters, but i've also somewhat made my mind up. all i've ever wanted is to write and be an author, so i'm willing to take the leap despite the fact that i still have the whole legal side of things to sort out, and the fact that we are living in times where fascism and censorship are on the rise. so if anyone has resources or advice or recs for someone deadset on maintaining anonymity and privacy (as much as is possible), or anything regarding publishing in different countries, etc, anything in that sphere would be very welcome. and frankly, so would some encouragement. questions also welcome, so feel free to ask away!

and since i'm feeling silly.

hey so general psa that if you're trying to save fanfics for whatever reason, do not copy and paste shit (especially locked fucking fics) into google docs to try to save it. a lot of writers no longer use google docs due to ai concerns (i currently do not have the emotional bandwidth nor the spoons to get into detail about that at this very moment but if someone else has info/links handy and feels like it, go for it).

if you want to save your favorite fics (which by all means, do) i would heavily recommend instead: downloading them directly, or at the very least copying and pasting into your notes app (perhaps also debatable but better!) or into some sort of word document (i've heard good things about libre office as a replacement for microsoft word but have yet to try it myself, it's on the list). if you use your notes app, check and see how yours works - some don't actually save your notes as a file you can access in your phone automatically, and you have to do that step manually, especially if you want to back it up to an external source (like an external hard drive, thumb drive, etc).

-johnbender on a03