So it’s been yet another year since I updated Billowing Bloom. I’ve had a lot of adventures with this story, and to this day it’s one of my longest and most developed fics yet. Not to mention, it’s quite close to the end. 

As a result, it’s with a fair bit of sadness to say that at this point it may never be completed. The end of the next chapter is nowhere in sight, and writing it feels more like a chore than fun at this point.

I just can’t bring myself to work on it. If you’re following this blog and/or my writing blog you probably know I’ve moved into other fandoms (love live and bandori in particular) and haven’t been nearly as interested in FE as I used to be. Because of that, I have much less of a drive to write for the fandom as a whole. Other things, such as my guilt over the fact it was intended to remain a fairly lighthearted fic but ended up the way it is now, play factors too. Most importantly, I’ve been going through an EXTREMELY stressful patch of life for the past several months with issues that are beyond my control, and the thought of working on anything outside of my current interests is just not in the cards. I had a visit with my psychologist today, who suggested that with my current state of mind and situations, I should make a concentrated effort to focus on the things that make me happy, which is partially why I wanted to provide an update today. 

I’m deeply sorry to anyone who was waiting patiently, following along at every chapter, and expected its completion in any form. Especially to @thegadgetfish, who this fic was for as part of the art/fic exchange. Maybe someday I’ll get back into fire emblem and caminoka and decided to complete it, maybe not. But for now, I don’t want to make any more promises and end up breaking them once again. 

Thank you, all, for being great readers.

*sweats nervously*

@rainbowrowell reminding us why she’s our queen 👑

(x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

Sharing because I did in fact say all this – not because I feel 👑-ly 

tag yourself

Don’t think of rewriting as needing to suddenly make a story perfect, particularly when going from the first draft to the second. You can keep entire chunks of text from a previous version. You can make notes in your second draft, or your third, or your fourth. It’s okay to note that a line is awkward and then move on, or to make a note that you need to add a scene but not write it yet. Writing is a process, and you don’t need to get it all in one try.

This is, in fact, usually better for your manuscript in the long term.

Each draft should be focused around correcting certain things, specific plot lines or character arcs or relationships, descriptions or dialogue, actions or emotions, etc.

If you try to fix too many aspects during a single draft, you’ll run the risk of overwhelming yourself and/or making mistakes you could have avoided by limiting your focus.

me, every single time i get a kudos on ao3: someone liked my writing. one real irl human being read something i wrote and enjoyed it. they thought it was good enough to read to the end and click the button. an actual person. they liked it.

writer problems: trying to figure out how many chapters you’re going to stall until An Event™

more writer problems: trying to figure out how many chapters you can fit between Events™

even more writer problems: trying to figure out what Event to put in between your chapters

the ultimate writer problem: what are events and chapters and words