#impossiblehazelnut

Thank you <3

I'm enjoying it! I'm a big fan, but not so diehard as to be looking out for or noticing any discrepancies, so I'm mostly just happy to watch a fun adventure series. It's very cool to see the pjato world come to life on the screen. In particular, I feel like they got the character of Annabeth right, so that's been great. Also Jason Mantzoukas as Dionysus is *inspired* casting.

Thanks Izzy!

11. Something you want to do again next year?

Write more fic, whatever that is! Host a birthday party! Take a staycation and just enjoy chilling and having time to do whatever I want (and get paid!) Challenge myself while still allowing myself grace for the things I need!

19. What’re you excited about for next year?

I'm excited to continue decorating my apartment. I'm excited to finish my painting. I'm exciting to keep working on learning to play the bass.

22. Favorite place you visited this year?

Answered here :) I also enjoyed going to see Louis Tomlinson in concert in Toronto. I hadn't done any solo travel in a long time, and I especially enjoyed getting to take the trains. I love taking trains! The next day (even though I was feeling very ill bc I feel sick when I don't sleep well) I went to a museum and had a delightful, extremely familiar grilled cheese.

Thanks Izzy!

29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

I really love this ending paragraph from everything's changed:

The community centre floor has been painted to look like a garden pathway, so that as they walk down the hall, they follow a painted cobblestone path with colourful flowers sprouting along the edges. It all reminds Jake of something that he thought years ago, back when the kids were young, before he was a writer, when he was first researching about ADHD. He had thought that maybe there was another path. At the time, it was a hypothetical thought, an imagining of a future that could have been, but wasn't. It wasn't hypothetical anymore. There were no maybes. There was a new path. And it had led him to publishing a novel, to finishing his college degree, to getting an ADHD diagnosis. It had led him to spinning legendary stories for Mac and Willa that they still reminisced about today, as adults. It had led him to discovering a love of the library. It had led him to learning more about himself. And this path was only one of many. If Jake Peralta, ex-cop and college dropout, could become Jake Peralta, MFA and published author, what other iterations of himself did he contain, all wrapped up in one another, waiting to be discovered?

I'm a sucker for some symbolism. And I especially love that final line.

30. Biggest surprise while writing this year?

Honestly, writing more b99 fic this year was a surprise. Last year at this time I had no imminent fic plans on the horizon. I wasn't expecting to get so into my b99 rewatch and it was such a joy to get back into b99 and write more fic. I especially love everything's changed. I'm not saying I'll never write more b99 fic, but if I didn't, this is a perfect send-off in my book. (And I feel even more bittersweet about it with the news of Andre Braugher's passing and knowing that I wrote a future for his character of Holt that he would never get to portray).

Thanks Izzy!

7. What is your deepest joy about writing?

When the words just start coming. There’s a place I can get to when writing where I don’t even feel like I’m in my own head or body. I’m just thinking about the story and I’m in it and the words are just coming to me and pouring out my fingers. It’s honestly magical and there’s no other experience quite like it.

Alternatively, the whole process of coming up with ideas. It’s just so deeply fun. It allows you to still play as an adult, to dream up a world and then delve into it. To answer questions and solve problems and explore every corner of your world and your characters. To know that you have the power to make anything as long as you’re willing to put in the time and effort to see it through. Truly joyful.

13. What is a subject matter that is incredibly difficult for you write about? What is easy?

Physical affection!! It must be the aroace in me, but I always forget to make my characters physical with each other. I can definitely understand, and therefore write, the more interpersonal parts of a relationship, but I find it much harder to try to imagine what physical attraction feels like, and moreover, how that kind of attraction could be a major part of a character’s world of experience. I think I do okay writing it, but it has to be very deliberately added, and I always feel like it never completely reads as natural.

Dialogue is easy for me. Especially writing fic. Once I spend enough time watching/reading/thinking about the characters, I find I can easily find their voice in most situations and figure out how they would respond to each other. Another thing that I think comes fairly easily to me is deciding on small details to describe to paint the bigger picture. I think I’m naturally pretty observant in my everyday life, so when it comes to describing a setting or situation, I can easily draw on that to pick some small, salient elements to describe.

24. How much prep work do you put into your stories? What does that look like for you? Do you enjoy this part or do you just want to get on with it?

It depends. All three of my longer fics I did a bit of prep work for. Anything smaller than that, I pretty much just do all the prepwork in my head—thinking out the story—and then start writing it. For longer stories, I like to generally outline the whole thing so I get a sense of the major events, beats, and turning points in the story. I don’t always stick exactly to the outline, for example with DFWYB there was originally a bunch of stuff about the boys meeting their alternate dimension selves that I really pared back. But it helps me keep the story and its core message or themes in my head, so I can make sure I’m writing towards those. And then I often will plot chapters with jot notes, either before or during writing. This helps when the ideas start coming faster than I can write! It’s so much faster to think about stories than it is to write it! (I do this for shorter stories too). I also tend to do a bit of research for my stories, which is a lot of concurrent googling while I’m writing. Two of three of my longer fics were travel stories, where the characters visited a lot of different places. And those same two fics never visited the country I’m from. So I do a lot of research to make sure my descriptions ring true and that I’m using the correct terminology. I do really enjoy this part! It’s a lot of fun to create a story in your head, and as I said, it’s actually easier than writing sometimes. Plus I absolutely adore doing random research.