do you consider becoming a published writers as your end goal in writing?

[Blue]

Other people will be reading it and making critiques, and they'll especially hate it if I write people ooc or forget important lore. So, yeah. Don't know what to do.

Nowadays (at least in my experience), fanfic critique is not something that seriously happens in the open (by that I mean the comment section on the site it's posted), mainly for the fact that people know it's not something to do unless asked to + serious critique is hard to come by because most people active right now in newer fandoms are quite young and don't know how to properly write a critique without it being "I didn't like this because it doesn't suit my taste therefore it sucks". So I would say that you most likely won't experience that, even if the fandom is on the older side, since people do tend to look for 'critique wanted' when doing so. In general, they're left for private servers or beta readers if you have one.

Additionally, most strict in character people and lore enthusiasts don't particularly go into the fanfic sphere as much as other fandom goers, so I doubt you'd encounter them in the wild. People aren't as strict with canon as it might seem at times; fanfic is there for the person to write whatever they want, even if it goes against canon information.

I don't think you should be too scared of trying fanfic, since at the end of the day, it is for you, even if it might not seem like that at first glance. It can be hard when you don't know what to do or what direction to take but it all evens out after a while.

[Nael]

Nope! I decided that writing is my for-fun hobby and I will not try to actively get better at it, I have other hobbies that I study for and try to improve but writing is not one of them and personally the lack of expectations is great. I am currently writing a fanfic that is over 170k words and growing but posting it online for me is more of a way to stay organized than anything else, I don't think anyone else is reading it but it doesn't bother me. If for some weird reason it becomes popular and a publisher approaches me then sure, lets have it published but don't expect me to edit it heheh c:

[thiscat]

i am currently worldbuilding for

fun

however i have a long term goal
of turning my world into a book series which will be published

[asillycalicokitty]

This is a really hard question, and one that I've been struggling with for a while now. Especially after finishing the second draft of my first novel, I'm wondering how in the world I want to share it with other people. And I do want to share it, which is a bit annoying, but I'd like people to see my silly characters and maybe even identify with a few of their struggles. It's already sort of happened in my beta reads, which is very cool.

Obviously self-publishing is the "easiest" upfront, although that comes with other problems such as the need to be my own marketer, having to spend a fair bit of money on material for that, (which I have no problem with; I just don't have that money in the first place LOL) and from what I've seen it effectively requires some kind of social media presence, which I currently do not have much of an interest towards. I have self-published a short story on my website and even tried to advertise it a little, but it never really got anywhere.

Traditional publishing would mitigate a lot of the problems I would run into in self-publishing, although it comes with its own issues, namely that querying seems like a bit of a nightmare, and my book does not fit neatly within a "popular" genre. It is fantasy with romance elements, although the romance is not the focus. Further, I have no clue how exactly to pitch my book! And that's kind of the most important part of a query letter! Then there's the worry that a publisher would ask me to compromise some parts of my story for the purposes of being more widely marketable, but I don't actually know how often that actually happens / if it does happen at all.

I think the answer to the question might be yes, but I'm afraid. Writing for me is extremely intimate, and effectively having a product of my being seen and judged is very scary!

[fablefound]

honestly? i think i wanna eat my cake and have it too, when it comes to publication... but i don't think that's all that uncommon a sentiment. some projects i really wanna take far, others i wanna keep close to my chest. all the old rpg campaigns from my teens? those weren't for anyone but me and the people who i wrote them with. my journals? just for me. but my novels and plays and stuff? i really want those out in the world some way or another!!