It’s okay to take a break.
– We all need time to recharge, and your fans will still be there when you get back!It’s okay to go from fandom to fandom.
– Nobody is going to criticize you for following your muse, and if they do, then you know who not to associate with in the future!It’s okay to have a niche.
– If smut is where it’s at, then write smut. If you’re all about the fluff, then schmoop away. If angst is what does it for you, then invest in tissues. Nobody has the right to tell you that you should be doing something else if that isn’t what interests you!It’s okay to be critical of your own work.
– Just don’t allow yourself to become so self-deprecating that you freeze!It’s okay to ask for help.
– If you’re unsure of a trope, concept, fact or universe, reach out to your circle of friends. Chances are, they’ll be more than happy to help you because they want to see you succeed!It’s okay to ignore criticism.
– Constructive criticism is only constructive if it helps you. If someone says something that doesn’t assist or improve you in any way, then please feel free to ignore whatever nugget they are imparting, because chances are good they don’t have the best of intentions for you!It’s okay to stop writing all together.
– Your fans will miss you (and chances are good you have way more than you realize,) but sometimes, you just gotta do you!It’s okay to write with whatever method works for you.
– Long writing marathons where you bang out 12,000 words in one day? Great! Linear, dry style that means you occassionally get stuck because you can’t figure out this scene, but it’s all worth it in the end? Rad! Piecemeal work that you thread together at the end? Fabulous! As long as it works for you, there is no wrong way to write!It’s okay to have fun.
– I think this goes without saying, no? But it seems that sometimes, authors need permission. So consider this permission to wile the hell out, and enjoy the ride!I think there’s a few of us needing this right now, myself included.
Tag: fanfic writer struggles
Hi, kinda old fic writer here (started posting 4 years ago). My fics barely get comments or subscriptions and after four years the average kudos counts is 37… That is the main reason I sometimes don’t continue a fic because I feel like it is shit / nobody wants to read it anyway. I try to motivate myself to keep writing, but it is very discouraging. Especially when some of the comments I get are just “you made a mistake in this sentence”. I feel like I am whining when I tell anyone this though
It’s tough for sure, and sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason why some fics are more popular than others, it often comes down to the oddest things – too many tags or not enough tags, minor formatting or just being in a particular fandom or even just skating under the radar for some reason, it’s definitely not an easy thing to do.
I know for myself, in the end, I wrote stories for me. I still have stories on my computer that I’ve never posted because I wrote them for me. But it gave me a chance to practice writing and to see if I could do what other people were doing (i.e. not writing their stories, but following the formatting / tag systems etc. that other people were using). Even then, the first stories I posted when I sort of ‘returned’ didn’t do very well. It didn’t matter as much at that point though, because I really just…wrote them for my enjoyment.
But that doesn’t stop it hurting when something gets little or no notice.
That being said, something a friend said helped put things in perspective for me recently, which is something along the lines of this (paraphrased for your situation):
You wrote something that made on average, 37 people happy. If you imagine all of those individual people – more than can fit in most people’s houses, more than you’re probably comfortable seeing in a single day – with their individual lives and loves, all of those people got something meaningful out of your fic. That’s not nothing. There are people out there who get an average of 4 kudos per fic who would kill to have your average, for them, that’s nearly ten times as many kudos that they’re fighting for. Likewise, you probably see other averages, and feel the same way.
I still can’t believe that fanfiction is free
I sometimes have to pay for water, but with a phone and some wifi, I get to read whole novels about my favorite characters for exactly zero additional dollars
How goddamn rad is that
all the love to the fanfic authors who make this possible, y’all are the best
#yes we do this for free#you know how you pay us?#comment#review#tell us that somebody’s enjoying what we do#it takes two seconds and it’s also free (via @flintsredhair)
Whenever I check my phone and see I’ve got a notification from AO3, subject line “Comment on…” my whole day brightens up. I’ll hide my face in my hands and smile and smile – and that’s before I’ve read it. Even a simple ‘I loved this!“ or similar makes me giddy, but if it’s DETAILED. oh my god. I have definitely teared up before. Knowing WHAT somebody liked is the best feeling in the world. A line, a moment, a way you felt while reading, seriously, anything specific is pure ambrosia.
tl;dr: If you ever feel like making somebody blissfully happy, drop a comment ❤
Loki is the Philosopher King 