Experiment FAQ

What is the Experiment?

Originally, I designed this experiment to help myself out when I was having a hard time getting writing done just after getting a new job.  My lack of energy and feeling like I had no one to share my progress with started to get me down. 

So I came up with an idea: for every ask I received here on my writing blog, I would write at least 100 words before I answered it!  This method worked wonders for me because it gave me a caveat: if I wanted to interact with the community, I had to get some writing done.  It has since grown, and now over 30 other writeblrs are participating!

How Do I Participate?

It’s as simple as deciding that you want to start using this method, too!  I encourage you to let me know so I can add you to the participants list (linked below) and send a ‘checking in’ ask every once in a while, but that is not a requirement!

You can let me know via DM, reply, reblog, or through an ask! If you send me an ask, I will add you as soon as I get it, but I won't publicly answer until after I've written my 100 words XD

What are the Rules?

You get an ask, you write a hundred words, you answer it.  That’s it!  You can decide if you want to keep track of your progress, or answer the asks normally with no indication that you’re even participating.

Some have taken the idea and made it their own.  For instance, @sleepyowlwrites designates some time when the experiment applies, but otherwise is not always using this method.  @antique-symbolism asks that, if you want your ask to apply, you write “100” before or after, so they know!  And @himbos-hotline switched it from 100 words per ask to 15 minute sprints per ask!  All variations are valid and welcome, that’s why it’s called an “experiment,” it’s about finding what works for you!

What Should I Keep Track of and How?

It’s up to you!  I personally add which WIP I worked on, how many words I wrote for that ask, and how much I’ve written for the experiment as a whole.  I write it at the end of every ask after a divider image. It’s motivating for me to see the number slowly tick up at the end of every ask, but it’s a lot to keep track of!  Some only keep track of total, some only list how many the ask generated, and some don’t keep track at all!

If you're looking to use a tag on your blog to keep track of everything, you can use the collective tag "#the great motivation experiment" or you can make up your own!

What if I Don’t Think This Method Will Work for Me?

That’s totally understandable!  For some, this sort of thing can be overwhelming and the opposite of motivational. 

If you're curious but uncertain, you can always test it out and decide what to do based on your personal results. If it works, great! If not, you can message me privately and let me know you want to drop out. No sweat! I don't mind adding/subtracting your name to the list as many times as you'd like!

If you’re not interested in participating, but still want to be part of the community, you can always check out the participants list and send asks to motivate your fellow writers!  Everyone on it has signed up and agreed to be tagged!

What if Your FAQ Didn’t Answer My Question?

No worries.  I tried to cover the basics, but I am only human after all.  If you still have questions you can always drop into my inbox!  I’ll happily answer your question as soon as I add 100 words to my own word count :D in the meantime, here are some links that might help.

Helpful Links

#The Great Motivation Experiment

Original Post

Participants List

Ask Games (to get you started!)

Whether you decide to join us or not, I hope you’re able to reach all your writing goals!

Happy writing!

WRITE!!! YOUR!!!! FUCKING!!!! BOOK!!!! SO!!!! I!!! CAN!!! FUCKING!!!!! READ!!! IT!!!

sometimes all you need is one passionate person who goes berserk for your work to keep you creating

"How dare you."

Incorrect Quotes Tag [ 02 ]

Rules: use this generator and fill in your characters!

Tagging: @enchanted-lightning-aes | @did-i-do-this-write | @brb-writing | @andromedaexists | @unmellowyellowfellow

I did a thing with some transphobic comments that I had the misfortune of seeing with my own two eyes on TDoV.

There are screenshots below, the usernames and profile pictures have been covered up with colorful scribbles, as well as most of the text of the comment, leaving behind only a few words with a very different meaning than the original intent of the comments.

(you are not your DNA You can be transgender)

(Respect and love means affirming someone's truth)

(Biological sex is a mistake.)

So I guess there's a challenge where you write for however long your screentime was the last day...............

eek i don't even want to look at mine

Mobility assistance

This makes so much sense

i might elaborate later but fanfic replies literally develop writer’s metacognition and make them better writers

so, Metacognition is the practice of thinking about thinking or identifying one’s cognitive process . in essence, metacognition is understanding how you prepare for academic challenges, exams, or tasks, and then being able to reflect on whether you did well, you prepared adequately, and what was most effective. in a writing setting, this type of self-awareness helps you transfer skills in writing, say, fanfiction into writing academically, competitively and professionally. 

here’s an article from brown university on the subject i’ll discuss further. there are 3 parts of practicing metacognition identified in this article: planning, monitoring, and evaluation. how might this look like for a fanfic writer? 

planning: asking oneself ‘what is my goal?’ ‘what strategies should i use to meet that goal?’ ‘how much time/length do i need to meet my goal?’. so maybe my goal is to write a meet cute where two characters kiss. i’ll need to use a perspective, an upbeat tone, and forward characterization to do this. it’ll probably take 5000 words and two days to write. 

monitoring: asking oneself: is my story making sense? am i reaching my goal, or do i need to summarize more succinctly to keep it to 5k? maybe you started with a lot of exposition and now you’re 6k in and the characters haven’t met yet. what went wrong/changed? is it ok that it changed or did you not realize it got away from you? what now? 

evaluation: asking oneself: did i reach my goal? was it effective? what would i change next time? 

this is where comments come in

it is incredibly difficult to evaluate yourself. comments like “i love this!” actually do begin to touch on the evaluation step of metacognition. it means, in general, the writer is on the right track. comments like “i loved the dialogue between x and y” or “the emotions of this section really hit me” begin to answer the questions of was it effective, did i reach my goal and conversely answer what would i change next time (by adding more of whatever was specified as working well). HYPER SPECIFIC comments, like analyzing the story between the lines or pasting in a line that you really liked and explaining why, is like jet fuel for the metacognition process and i’m not exaggerating. specifically pointing out what was effective and why is incredibly useful 

i can straight up credit my writing style to all of my friends and readers who have given incredibly detailed comments. when i found a community who gave feedback like that, my writing improved a thousand times faster than before. so! i guess what i’m saying is give feedback! it goes so much further than you realize!

Wired: Leave comments because it makes your fav writers feel good

Inspired: Leave comments because it will make them write better

ooooohhhh

@holdmyteaplease and @starryeyeddarlings and @sm-writes-chaos

and @sea-dwelling-wizard <-- you all. Thank you all for your comments <3

5 basic things you can do to improve your ao3 experience +1 thing that will not help

There is a process to this- you need to get on a waitlist and then will be sent an email to make an account (at this point in time the wait time is about a week)- but once you have an account you unlock a lot of features that make the whole experience better, such as the marked for later list, turning off the extra acknowledgement for adult content, mute users, and you can see more fics that are only available to people with an account.

2. Use a site skin

This can be as simple as just getting dark mode (the reversi skin), or it can dramatically change the viewing experience. There are premade ones to chose from that require absolutely zero coding. Skins can also just be applied to one platform- for example on mobile devices you can consolidate tags. You can also use skins to hide works or tags you don’t like or that have a lot of fics that clog up search results.

3. Search by things other than fandom

If you love a trope and want to see more of it or love a niche character, click on the tag to search within it. You may get fewer results but it will allow you to scratch that specific itch without having to wade through 100s of pages of results. If you search by a trope, you can then apply a fandom tag on top of that so you see the characters you love.

4. Download fics

AO3 makes downloading fics super easy and you should do it! Whether you know you will be offline, are concerned that a fic could be deleted, you want to read on a e-reader instead, or you just want to be prepared for the next AO3 crash, downloading fics can let you read with no limits. The download button is at the top of each fic and lets you download a bunch of different file formats.

5. Interact with authors

One of the things I love most about reading fanfic as opposed to traditional media is that the people writing the fics are just as into the fandom as you are. So by leaving kudos, commenting, subscribing and checking out any linked social medias, you can get involved or give back to the community. Take this with the warning that authors may not want to interact back with you and have no obligation to, but to some authors a comment on their fic will make their day which is just a good goal to strive for if you liked a fic.

Even if you don’t want to leave a comment or follow an author's socials, a subscription is a nice way to feel a bit included in the writing process. Once you subscribe to a work, series, or author, you get fun emails whenever something updates! It keeps you from wondering if you missed something and makes reading your email a more enjoyable experience.

+1

Don't make it anyone else's problem if you didn’t like a fic

This is a little obvious but it is worth repeating- commenting that you didn’t like a fic changes nothing. If you don't like a fic, you don’t have to finish it! If you did finish it but wish you didn’t, that is what the back button is for. If you keep forgetting you didn’t like a fic and keep clicking on it, you can create a skin that blocks it from view, or mute the author. If you didn’t like the content, filter out the tag describing that thing using "Other Tags to Exclude" within the Sort and Filter menu.  If something is against the AO3 terms of service, you can report it. 

None of those things need to be shared with the author and doing so just makes the internet a less fun place. 

Happy reading!

Pictures like this are so important! I wish I would have seen more of this when I was younger. I’d have been more receptive to my body’s need for mobility aids if I had seen it in a positive light like this.

"I didn't want to ask for help."

Experiment FAQ

What is the Experiment?

Originally, I designed this experiment to help myself out when I was having a hard time getting writing done just after getting a new job.  My lack of energy and feeling like I had no one to share my progress with started to get me down. 

So I came up with an idea: for every ask I received here on my writing blog, I would write at least 100 words before I answered it!  This method worked wonders for me because it gave me a caveat: if I wanted to interact with the community, I had to get some writing done.  It has since grown, and now over 30 other writeblrs are participating!

How Do I Participate?

It’s as simple as deciding that you want to start using this method, too!  I encourage you to let me know so I can add you to the participants list (linked below) and send a ‘checking in’ ask every once in a while, but that is not a requirement!

You can let me know via DM, reply, reblog, or through an ask! If you send me an ask, I will add you as soon as I get it, but I won't publicly answer until after I've written my 100 words XD

What are the Rules?

You get an ask, you write a hundred words, you answer it.  That’s it!  You can decide if you want to keep track of your progress, or answer the asks normally with no indication that you’re even participating.

Some have taken the idea and made it their own.  For instance, @sleepyowlwrites designates some time when the experiment applies, but otherwise is not always using this method.  @antique-symbolism asks that, if you want your ask to apply, you write “100” before or after, so they know!  And @himbos-hotline switched it from 100 words per ask to 15 minute sprints per ask!  All variations are valid and welcome, that’s why it’s called an “experiment,” it’s about finding what works for you!

What Should I Keep Track of and How?

It’s up to you!  I personally add which WIP I worked on, how many words I wrote for that ask, and how much I’ve written for the experiment as a whole.  I write it at the end of every ask after a divider image. It’s motivating for me to see the number slowly tick up at the end of every ask, but it’s a lot to keep track of!  Some only keep track of total, some only list how many the ask generated, and some don’t keep track at all!

If you're looking to use a tag on your blog to keep track of everything, you can use the collective tag "#the great motivation experiment" or you can make up your own!

What if I Don’t Think This Method Will Work for Me?

That’s totally understandable!  For some, this sort of thing can be overwhelming and the opposite of motivational. 

If you're curious but uncertain, you can always test it out and decide what to do based on your personal results. If it works, great! If not, you can message me privately and let me know you want to drop out. No sweat! I don't mind adding/subtracting your name to the list as many times as you'd like!

If you’re not interested in participating, but still want to be part of the community, you can always check out the participants list and send asks to motivate your fellow writers!  Everyone on it has signed up and agreed to be tagged!

What if Your FAQ Didn’t Answer My Question?

No worries.  I tried to cover the basics, but I am only human after all.  If you still have questions you can always drop into my inbox!  I’ll happily answer your question as soon as I add 100 words to my own word count :D in the meantime, here are some links that might help.

Helpful Links

#The Great Motivation Experiment

Original Post

Participants List

Ask Games (to get you started!)

Whether you decide to join us or not, I hope you’re able to reach all your writing goals!

Happy writing!

shaking myself (very gently) . being in pain takes a lot of energy!!!!!! being in pain is exhausting!!!!!!! you are not lazy or weak because you need to spend so much time resting, this is your body coping with how much pain you’re in literally 24/7!!!!!!!!!

addition: feeling big emotions is exhausting & takes a lot of energy!!!!!!!! needing to rest after having big feelings isn’t a sign of being weak or lazy either!!!!!!!! your body needs time to rest & recover even when it isn’t for a ‘normal’ reason