#tcstu

As some of you might have already known, @tcstu‘s competition has come to a close after whole 47 months of running! And what a load of fun it’s been while it was active <3

Gotta admit to something here - ever since I’ve started joining this contest back in January 2019, I’ve kept track of all my entries. And if you know me, you would guess that quickly escalated to keeping track of every morsel of publicly-available data regarding this contest 😂 So, when I heard the competition was going to end, i thought to myself: would I really let all that data I’ve kept go to waste? The answer was no.

After a number of conversations with TCSTU and other artists and writers who have participated in this event over the years, I have created the infographic you can see above. Let me assure you, it is much prettier than the spreadsheet with raw data xD

So! To the artists who left the biggest impressions - @mnstrcndy, @hydraart, @mienar, @4threset - and the 37 others who’ve joined us once; to all the 60 writers who have ever participated, and especially those whose words landed them on the charts - @evanthenerd83, @daalseth, @moonlightchess, @winterrose42, @coppercreationcreator, @to-kill-a-procrastinator, @vanrambling, @the-art-of-honormancy - and, most importantly, to @tcstu: 

Thank you for taking your part in this and bringing us all joy via this amazing contest!  💙 

If you’d like to see the art pieces included in their full glory, I’m including the links right below:

By @mnstrcndy : “Bake-kujira” in May 2021

By @hydraart: “Scientia” in December 2021, “Hide and seek” in January 2021, “They are coming back to life” in January 2020, “Nightmare fuel” in May 2019 and “It wasn’t that long ago, apparently” in January 2019

By @mienar: “Reaching for the stars” in June 2020 and “Getaway” in May 2018

By @4threset: “But Maybe, One day, You might be able to move on. Just Maybe” in March 2020 and “And I Am Breathing in a Sinking Room” in March 2018 

It sounds like an intriguing premise!

@brynprocrastinates​ Those are excellent points! I think a lot of people get intimidated by the 50K word goal. All that really matters is that you get inspired to write!

Yes! Honestly, I’ll never write 50k words in a month. Many professional authors won’t even write at that speed -- but they still do have are habits for writing on a certain schedule, so they know how much they can get done every week and can stick to that no matter if they have inspiration or not. 

tcstu replied to your post “NaNo Update”

For me, when I write the first draft of a book I like to power through without having all of it planned ahead. I find that when I know what's going to happen it ends up boring. When I'm experiencing the story for the first time myself, I get as pulled into it as much as the reader would and the end result is much more interesting.

(Since I know myself, and I know how rambly I get, I’m titling this so people can skip over it easily if they want to. Curse the internet for disconnecting me from the people who need to say shut up Danielle, we get it already. And since I’ve talked to a lot of people about this privately, I thought I might as well explain why I do things the way I do them and how I make them work for me.)

I use in depth outlines for a couple reasons:

(1) For exactly the same reason that @tcstu likes to wing it. I like to know ahead of time that every scene in the entire book is going to be exciting for me as a writer and for the future readers. I like to have already I’ve set up every scene and introduced every piece of information and applied every plot point in the absolute best way possible. I don’t want to get half way through the book and realize I have a scene that I can’t work around because of what I’m already written, but it’s boring as all get out, or that I wish I could’ve done something cooler but I’ve boxed myself in.

(2) I also don’t want to look back and find that I’ve written more than I need to in order to tell the story I’m telling. I don’t believe in filler. I don’t believe in suspense for suspense’s sake. Basically, I don’t want to end up writing even a single scene that doesn’t progress the plot in a intriguing way that’s unique from every other point in the book. No repeats, no excess. 

(3) My plots just flat out don’t support winging it. The books I write tend to have 15 or 20 different plot threads weaving together at any given moment, half of which are set up behind the scenes by masterful antagonists. If I want to end up with a book that doesn’t look like everything bad just happens at random, then I have to be very conscientious of how I plant and weave all of my plot threads. 

(4) Because my plot is composed of so many different plot threads, I like to be certain that I limit what is highlighted throughout the book -- that I’m only hinting at things that will actually come to fruition -- so that my readers notice my plants and can connect the reoccurring plot threads without frustration.

So if you see me fretting over my outlines for weeks and months, this is why. Its also why I don’t have to add or remove scenes from my first draft, and barely do any major rewriting.