What are you Writing?

[schiavona]

I feel ya! A lot of my friends have been writing fanfics for all sorts of fandosm for a long time! I usually end up with like, just writing an "OC" into the universe of the fandom and just indulge in tropes, lol!

I do the same thing! I think it says a lot about the media you're invested in that you'd want to go through the effort of trying to make yourself a part of it and play around with it a bit, and it's great fun too!

That's super cool, I love when the natural world is used in the themes, I find there's so much inspiration to be pulled from there! I hope it all goes well, plan and writing wise, don't be hard on yourself if you don't get it done when you planned. A little at a time will get you there eventually 

Thank you so much for the encouraging words! For what it's worth, I did eventually find the inspiration to get that first draft done! I can't wait to share it, but I do want to refine it because I want it to be as good as I can get it before I do.

[J. Soda]

Yep. I've got a bunch of stuff here: https://starbreaker.org/fiction/

Though I fouled up the year for Spiral Architect.

I'm not looking for detailed feedback, but if something worked for you (or didn't) I'd like to know.

Good luck with the draft. If you'll pardon a bit of unsolicited advice, now's probably a good time to start building up that audience if you do intend to attempt publishing. Publishers pretty much expect you to be big on TikTok or one of the other skeevy corporate socials.

Sick, sounds good!! I'll be sure to keep it light :)) And thanks, something I'm currently trying to build up a good formula for. Consistency is not a strength of mine, and I find myself uninspired by most stereotypical 'short form' content that's booming right now. Just gotta get creative with it, but hooo boy life never stops getting busy! I appreciate the advice and the resource :))

[J. Soda]

I'm currently working on a slice-of-life comic inspired by my relationship to my hometown and the relationships I had there. It's mostly about feeling stuck, forgiveness, and empathy. A lot of these characters hate each other for very silly reasons, and finally healing those old wounds for them is quite fun. This is technically fully written, but I don't consider it final until I've inked all the dialogue. I usually change things once I see them on the page.

Other than that, I write a lot of autobio comics. I'm in the brain-storming phase for one about mothers and what they owe their children (if anything) that I might end up turning into a blog post since I don't have a lot of time to work on anything but my main project right now. I have one that's technically complete, but needs to be expanded and reworked a bit before I send it to a literary agent which is about my dog and how I cope with death (my dog is alive and well, it's tangentially related).

At some point, I want to write about Roe v Wade being overturned, and how that felt as someone in the US who had an abortion prior and, at the time, was helping other people navigate potential pregnancies. Deep stuff! I want to interview one or two friends about their experiences for it, though, which is why I've been putting it off. Still a bit tooooo fresh.

My work is very personal, so it's hard to talk about without giving out way too much identifying info. Hopefully, though, it will get to the right people. That's all I can ask for!

Aw so cool!!! Hometowns and foundational relationships always bring up such raw themes and beautifully written media (in my opinion ). Hope the inking goes well for you, I'm hoping to delve more into some 'zine/comic' esque ideas I've had for a while myself! That seriously is so awesome, being so personal with the things you write, truly. You seem to really work with what really affects you, and that will come across in the media you make!! Let it come to you, and wait for the right time, it'll get there. Try not to open still healing wounds, in my experience at least, it usually gets me back to square 1 of 'ow ouch it's still raw.'

I do the same thing! I think it says a lot about the media you're invested in that you'd want to go through the effort of trying to make yourself a part of it and play around with it a bit, and it's great fun too!

Thank you so much for the encouraging words! For what it's worth, I did eventually find the inspiration to get that first draft done! I can't wait to share it, but I do want to refine it because I want it to be as good as I can get it before I do.

Heck yeah!!! Good luck with that refining, getting that first draft done is such an awesome feeling   

[starbreaker]

Had a late lunch break, and I ended up bashing this out. It's probably utter garbage, and it doesn't conform to any poetic meter that I know of. I'll stick it in a spoiler tag because it's long and not necessarily good or interesting.

Spoiler

Daughters of Memory, I invite you to aid me.
Though, unlike that blind old bard Homer
I am prepared to work and sing alone
in the absence of divine assistance
and, indeed, in the presence of
divine opposition. Such is fitting tribute
to the unconquered lightbringer
Prometheus, who was ever Zeus' adversary
and advocate for humanity, who stole
the flame of defiance from the gods and
enkindled it in our hearts to make us human.

At least, that is the story Prometheus once told
To men and women who gazed on him in awe
To encourage them to look within and find
in themselves the strength to defy adversity
and conquer all obstacles natural and otherwise.

Lift your voices in harmony with mine, O Muses,
for it is not a hymn to the Titan I sing, but your
requiem and that of all the gods we made in
our own images. We projected unto these idols
our own highest aspirations and our own fatal
flaws alike. We heard echoed in their imagined
voices our worst impulses and soaring desires,
mistaking them for commandments from on high.

Were we not warned by our own wise elders against
this impulse toward deifaction, this spandrel arising
out of apophenic and pareidolic adaptations
that let us find patterns in the world around us
and identify threats to our survival? If not, we should
won through struggle such wisdom on our own and passed
this knowledge unto our children as our mortal legacy,
brighter than steel and more enduring than stone.

Surely Prometheus might have taught his own thus,
had he sired any children of his own on some woman
or goddess possessed of power, wisdom, and courage
sufficient to prove her his equal if not his better.
No doubt he might have done so while teaching
them how to sacrifice to the gods they made:
giving them their due, the bare minimum,
and keeping the choicest cuts for themselves.

Alas, Prometheus found no such mate on whom he
might father children of the body. This world
gave him neither daughters nor sons, so with
the knowledge we sought he created for himself
a daughter frost-fair as he was, possessed of
gifts she would only discover as she stood
within the parallel of death, and entrusted her
to kinder souls than he to raise and love as
their own, so that she might be woman and not demon.

Pandora, all-gifted or all-giving, he named her
in his heart, but the mortals who fostered her
called her Naomi, a name betokening beauty and
pleasantness in at least two mortal tongues.
They had hoped for a princess, but found in
her an Amazon, fierce and free, possessed of
a sense of justice that led her away from
domestic pursuits to take up her sword as
a knight in Satanic service, an Adversary
sworn to the Phoenix Society to oppose by
diplomacy and force of arms every form
of tyranny over the human mind for such
stalward hearts and steady sword-hands were
much needed after Nationfall to rebuild a world
we in our own foolish hubris had destroyed
through our blind obedience toward our equals
who had set themselves above us, claiming
admiralty over our souls and promising
to fix through technology our flawed human natures.

But frost-fair Naomi whose song blazed starlight
was not enough on her own. She had taken on
her slim, steadfast shoulders the weight of
the world's sins, exposing a deadly secret
of the old world that the Phoenix Society knew
well and kept hidden at the cost of many
innocent lives. Naomi stumbled upon this,
kitten-curious with a lioness' courage, and
cut out the cancer festering in the heart
of a northern town called Clarion, passing
a test of her strength and skill improvised
by Prometheus himself, who hesitated not to
exploit even his own beloved daughter for
what he saw as the greater good of humanity.

His final test, the gift of freedom to
pursue her dream of a singer's life instead
of a soldier's service, she failed. It
was too much even for frost-maned Naomi
to stand resolute and alone against
a demon unveiled. For despite her youth she
knew that even to prevail against such
a dire power would cost her her life,
and those she left behind would lacquer
her name, coating it in layer upon layer
of glimmering myth until the woman had
vanished and only a saint remained.

Rather than fight, she made a deal with
the devil, her unknown father, and
put aside her sword and oath. She kept
her silence, holding within her embittered
heart the truth of the Phoenix Society's
corruption, and that it served the ends
of a dark lord in white who already ruled
the world and was determined to save it.

Though liberated from her freely-chosen oath
Naomi, frost-fair with heart ablaze, bore
a burden deadlier still, an eigengrau sword
gifted unto her by her father in the guise of a
fencing master on the occasion of her finally
dueling her maestro to a draw. It was a victory
of sorts; to fight Prometheus to a draw was
to become his equal. Frost-fair Naomi could
only surpass him by discovering knowlege
that he himself in all his millennia lacked.

The dark sword called to her, its siren song
a clarion call impelling to violence. Forged
of a transuranic heavy metal not yet seated
at the periodic table, if known to human science
it might boast an atomic number of 666 and
an atomic mass of 1337; a physicist inclined
toward mysticism might call such an element
megatherium or antichristium, but this metal
was found only when black holes finally died,
breathing their last in a trickle of
Hawking radiation. Into such black metal
a blacker soul could be interred, that
of one whose hatred for tyranny defied
death itself to find its own tenebrous life.

Prometheus had learned to fear this sword
that could shatter even stars and celestial
objects far more massive; the Starbreaker
had been forged specifically to kill the
false gods that battened as lampreys or leeches
on the cores of distant stars, draining them
of nuclear fire until cold white dwarfs
radiating naught but a light that never warms.
It was a weapon no mortal should bear;
it made its wielder sovereign until
they were themselves enslaved, wielded
by the weapon they had presumed to wield.
Nevertheless, Prometheus believed as his
ancestors did, it was the only way humans
could free themselves from the tyranny of demons.

For it was not only itself, but the ur-sword,
the template from which all others of its kind
were fashioned. Throughout history other vorpal
blades have been its avatars and guises, from
Durandal to Changeling, carving out new fates.
All who face its wielder stand within the parallel
of death, and escape only by skill, luck, or mercy.
Beyond good and evil, it cares not who it kills.
The guilty and innocent alike quench its thirst;
the hand that grasps its hilt must decide who dies.
Even should its wielder strike down the guilty
alone, those innocents who loved the sword's
prey still suffer though they remain untouched.

[close]

[PurpleHello98]

I feel like this is stretching the bounds of what I'm "writING" since I haven't worked on it in Heaven knows how long, but I intend to start back on it soon. Since fall 2022, I've been working on a Regency romance inspired by Georgette Heyer and Jane Austen, with a trans heroine. I won't reveal any more at present but I really like this project!

I feel ya! A lot of my friends have been writing fanfics for all sorts of fandosm for a long time! I usually end up with like, just writing an "OC" into the universe of the fandom and just indulge in tropes, lol!

[...]

And yeah, my target audience is ....ME, and I re-read them when I want some real "comfort" stuff to indulge in, hahaha. 

Same! I don't write fanfiction that often anymore, but whenever I do it's blatantly self-insert and definitely cringe for my own satisfaction.

Had a late lunch break, and I ended up bashing this out. It's probably utter garbage, and it doesn't conform to any poetic meter that I know of. I'll stick it in a spoiler tag because it's long and not necessarily good or interesting.

Spoiler

Daughters of Memory, I invite you to aid me.
Though, unlike that blind old bard Homer
I am prepared to work and sing alone
in the absence of divine assistance
and, indeed, in the presence of
divine opposition. Such is fitting tribute
to the unconquered lightbringer
Prometheus, who was ever Zeus' adversary
and advocate for humanity, who stole
the flame of defiance from the gods and
enkindled it in our hearts to make us human.

At least, that is the story Prometheus once told
To men and women who gazed on him in awe
To encourage them to look within and find
in themselves the strength to defy adversity
and conquer all obstacles natural and otherwise.

Lift your voices in harmony with mine, O Muses,
for it is not a hymn to the Titan I sing, but your
requiem and that of all the gods we made in
our own images. We projected unto these idols
our own highest aspirations and our own fatal
flaws alike. We heard echoed in their imagined
voices our worst impulses and soaring desires,
mistaking them for commandments from on high.

Were we not warned by our own wise elders against
this impulse toward deifaction, this spandrel arising
out of apophenic and pareidolic adaptations
that let us find patterns in the world around us
and identify threats to our survival? If not, we should
won through struggle such wisdom on our own and passed
this knowledge unto our children as our mortal legacy,
brighter than steel and more enduring than stone.

Surely Prometheus might have taught his own thus,
had he sired any children of his own on some woman
or goddess possessed of power, wisdom, and courage
sufficient to prove her his equal if not his better.
No doubt he might have done so while teaching
them how to sacrifice to the gods they made:
giving them their due, the bare minimum,
and keeping the choicest cuts for themselves.

Alas, Prometheus found no such mate on whom he
might father children of the body. This world
gave him neither daughters nor sons, so with
the knowledge we sought he created for himself
a daughter frost-fair as he was, possessed of
gifts she would only discover as she stood
within the parallel of death, and entrusted her
to kinder souls than he to raise and love as
their own, so that she might be woman and not demon.

Pandora, all-gifted or all-giving, he named her
in his heart, but the mortals who fostered her
called her Naomi, a name betokening beauty and
pleasantness in at least two mortal tongues.
They had hoped for a princess, but found in
her an Amazon, fierce and free, possessed of
a sense of justice that led her away from
domestic pursuits to take up her sword as
a knight in Satanic service, an Adversary
sworn to the Phoenix Society to oppose by
diplomacy and force of arms every form
of tyranny over the human mind for such
stalward hearts and steady sword-hands were
much needed after Nationfall to rebuild a world
we in our own foolish hubris had destroyed
through our blind obedience toward our equals
who had set themselves above us, claiming
admiralty over our souls and promising
to fix through technology our flawed human natures.

But frost-fair Naomi whose song blazed starlight
was not enough on her own. She had taken on
her slim, steadfast shoulders the weight of
the world's sins, exposing a deadly secret
of the old world that the Phoenix Society knew
well and kept hidden at the cost of many
innocent lives. Naomi stumbled upon this,
kitten-curious with a lioness' courage, and
cut out the cancer festering in the heart
of a northern town called Clarion, passing
a test of her strength and skill improvised
by Prometheus himself, who hesitated not to
exploit even his own beloved daughter for
what he saw as the greater good of humanity.

His final test, the gift of freedom to
pursue her dream of a singer's life instead
of a soldier's service, she failed. It
was too much even for frost-maned Naomi
to stand resolute and alone against
a demon unveiled. For despite her youth she
knew that even to prevail against such
a dire power would cost her her life,
and those she left behind would lacquer
her name, coating it in layer upon layer
of glimmering myth until the woman had
vanished and only a saint remained.

Rather than fight, she made a deal with
the devil, her unknown father, and
put aside her sword and oath. She kept
her silence, holding within her embittered
heart the truth of the Phoenix Society's
corruption, and that it served the ends
of a dark lord in white who already ruled
the world and was determined to save it.

Though liberated from her freely-chosen oath
Naomi, frost-fair with heart ablaze, bore
a burden deadlier still, an eigengrau sword
gifted unto her by her father in the guise of a
fencing master on the occasion of her finally
dueling her maestro to a draw. It was a victory
of sorts; to fight Prometheus to a draw was
to become his equal. Frost-fair Naomi could
only surpass him by discovering knowlege
that he himself in all his millennia lacked.

The dark sword called to her, its siren song
a clarion call impelling to violence. Forged
of a transuranic heavy metal not yet seated
at the periodic table, if known to human science
it might boast an atomic number of 666 and
an atomic mass of 1337; a physicist inclined
toward mysticism might call such an element
megatherium or antichristium, but this metal
was found only when black holes finally died,
breathing their last in a trickle of
Hawking radiation. Into such black metal
a blacker soul could be interred, that
of one whose hatred for tyranny defied
death itself to find its own tenebrous life.

Prometheus had learned to fear this sword
that could shatter even stars and celestial
objects far more massive; the Starbreaker
had been forged specifically to kill the
false gods that battened as lampreys or leeches
on the cores of distant stars, draining them
of nuclear fire until cold white dwarfs
radiating naught but a light that never warms.
It was a weapon no mortal should bear;
it made its wielder sovereign until
they were themselves enslaved, wielded
by the weapon they had presumed to wield.
Nevertheless, Prometheus believed as his
ancestors did, it was the only way humans
could free themselves from the tyranny of demons.

For it was not only itself, but the ur-sword,
the template from which all others of its kind
were fashioned. Throughout history other vorpal
blades have been its avatars and guises, from
Durandal to Changeling, carving out new fates.
All who face its wielder stand within the parallel
of death, and escape only by skill, luck, or mercy.
Beyond good and evil, it cares not who it kills.
The guilty and innocent alike quench its thirst;
the hand that grasps its hilt must decide who dies.
Even should its wielder strike down the guilty
alone, those innocents who loved the sword's
prey still suffer though they remain untouched.

[close]

I quite like this! I feel like this could be taught in an English class. You're quite the poet!

[starbreaker]

I quite like this! I feel like this could be taught in an English class. You're quite the poet!

I appreciate the compliment, but I'd pity the English class on whom my doggerel is inflicted. As much as I crave an audience, I'd rather it wasn't a captive one.

[SilentHope33]

I'm working on a highschool romance story about two boys who fall in love, but both have mental issues that might be a hurdle to get over. Also one of the boys wants to be a musician and is really good at playing the guitar. [Spoiler: It's the main protagonist Calum]

[alexela64]

i'm working on an investigative report on certain plastic lobbying companies in the US. It's been super interesting so far, but you have to do a LOT of legislation reading...

[SilentHope33]

Totally, my dad does news for the republican party (Which I don't agree with that group) but he has to do a LOT of reading, and then has to proof read his work and then rewrite his report. So It's a lot of work and I don't get to see him a lot, but when I do it's a good time.

[Memory]

[removed by author]

[Memory]

[removed by author]

[tertiaryapocalypse]

i'm writing a comic! it's about florence seong, a guy who has weird psychic dreams about people dying in the town he lives in. the plot follows him trying to figure out why he has them without losing himself in the process! i'm really bad at properly defining genres but itd probably be supernatural horror? if i can get it to come off the right way.

[Wildcat]

I'm writing... a lot, at the moment. A visual novel, a novel, and a screenplay. I bounce between these three projects in my spare time. I've got some OC stories and concepts as well, but these are my main stories.

1950s WIP (Screenplay): This story is so underdeveloped that I can't really give a summary of it. Its core concept does revolve around an idea I've wanted to execute for ages, and I realized a screenplay would be the best way to do it. Without revealing too much, it's about a housewife turned serial killer during the 1950s. I had a concept like this before, but its execution was so poor that I refuse to think about it. This is basically my second go at this idea.

A Jackrabbit of a Man (Novel): It's a historical fiction novel about a Navajo guy who enlists into the military and fights in WWI. It's a character study more than anything, since I imagine the narrative delves into his trauma and his ambivalent relationship with his sister. I have no real plot for this yet, other than his service, so finding a way to tell his story that isn't just rehashing every WWI novel ever has been a pain to figure out so far.

Desires of His Heart (Visual Novel): It's a furry American Gothic tragedy set in the 1950s. The baseline story is about a troubled, widowed, Catholic lioness who ends up in a secret relationship with the church's sheep parish associate, who is equally troubled as her. It's basically doomed toxic yuri. I'm not sure how to approach the entire plot just yet, but I do have four endings planned for it so far.

I try to not talk about my writing too much these days, since it prevents me from actually working on them. It was a huge issue with one of my past projects, which was planned for six years and has nothing to show for it except for a ton of concept art, some short stories, and a commissioned AMV.