“Ceaseless and sorrowless we”

This has been haunting me for the past 7 hours because I couldn’t think of a single fanfic plot until I got hit by the thought that this would work quite well for a modern AU for one piece I discussed with @ghostwriterofthemachine a while back.

First of all - did you just say graphic pictures of car accidents??? Can we take a moment to unpack this, please --

Second - yeah, my experiences in the PR job made me go "hm, maybe I just don't have the personality for PR!" so my next job was on the production side of publishing. The time I worked that job killed off any hopes I had for enjoying a future in the industry, made me recalibrate my entire career towards academics instead of publishing, and also drove my non-fandom writing away from fiction and towards poetry. All of this was a good thing in the long run, because I am much happier with my new direction so far, but oof it was a hard lesson to learn.

Hi!!! :D

1: How many words have you written this year?

This is. A very difficult thing for me to quantify because I am also in academia and write A Lot for essays/assignments, poetry, personal projects, ect.

If we're counting only published fic, I wrote 66,713 words as of the answering of this message (wowza that's a lot!!).

If we're counting published fic, currently unpublished WIPs, academic writing, and random other stuff, I probably wrote more like 120,000 askdjfdfsh

5: What work of yours got more feedback than you expected?

Practical Ethics for Heroics Students ! This is such a niche, nerdy worldbuilding concept, and I really expected a grand total of no one to be interested in it. I also expected it to be kinda difficult to comment on, because nothing really happens in it, lol. I was shocked and excited that people enjoyed it!

18: The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year?

Hmmmm. In OP, I always find it very difficult to get in the head of both Luffy and Roger — both of them are very easy to write from the outside, but harder to write from the inside, if that makes sense. I discovered that I have similar problems with Yaoyorozu in bnha for some reason, which is weird because those are three Very Different Characters ajddfk.

On the flipside, in the one jjk fic I wrote this year, I discovered that I struggled writing Maki as perceived from the outside, and think I would have had an easier time with interiority for her.

Thank you so much for the ask :D

6. Favorite title you used

Hm, it's probably a tie between "Misery Weightless as a Stone," which is a line from the Ellie Goulding song "Hearts without Chains" (which, of course, is where the title for "Hearts With(out) Chains" comes from, but that fic is from 2021) and, for some recency bias, "(I Made My Mind) A Sunless Space," which is one of my favorite lines from Luthen's incredible monologue at the end of Andor episode 10.

12. How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year?

Let's see: Still working on "Hearts With(out) Chains" and the various missing scenes from that world. I've also recently started "(I Made My Mind) A Sunless Space," which will be ongoing into next year.

If we also count the zine fics I'm working on since they won't be available until next year, there are my entries for the OP Summer Festival Zine and Corazine.

I have two more ongoing fics I'd like to start, but those are more in plotting form than actual WIP.

18. The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year?

Luffy is always a challenge to write. I doubt I'll ever be fully satisfied with him.

28. Favorite work you wrote this year?

This might be cheating because I started it in 2021, but I'm so proud of finishing "Lead Me Back to Suffering." It's the most successful story I've ever written, and I'm thrilled with how it turned out.

If we're sticking with just 2022 stuff, I'm quite fond of "Floriography," which is a Rosinante lives AU plus the language of flowers, or "Your Worth (More Than You Know)," which was written for Lawlu week about Luffy finding out Law was taken by Hawkins.

Thanks for the ask!

Answered: 6, 12, 18, 28