Your stories are works that I have never felt so viscerally moved by. Where do you get your inspiration? How do you write in ways that are so simple yet touch on such painfully beautifully human experiences and emotions? Like I need to learn from you, a master at whump and comfort.
Oh my goodness, what a beautiful thing to say! I'm really touched.
In terms of concrete details...
I tend to think in terms of scenes and images, and I don't start posting a story until I have the ending worked out (or maybe 7/8 worked out).
I think that can helpful because as you edit you might notice patterns that bring out a certain theme in your story, or words and images you want to return to.
Don't be afraid to sit on something until it's done, and to live with a story for a while.
Don't be afraid to rewrite a scene if it isn't working, especially with dialogue. With "Burned Out, Still Glowing," I think I rewrote one of the chapters at least four times because I realized a character needed to be allowed to feel anger in the scene, and my first draft hadn't given them the space to do it.
And the last piece of advice I can think of now: I try to express emotions and pain in language that I haven't heard before. I try to be simple with it but I also try not to use cliché, because that lets me off easy without having to examine the feeling and sit with what it means, what it might feel like.
This was a lovely question. Thank you for asking!