procrastinating...

[soobun]

the yappening, mostly inspired by aura. commence. (i’m gonna skip the boring/obvious ones)

1. i decided on ‘soobun’ in approximately 5 seconds when i was making a new ao3 account to post my First Ever Fanfiction (sookai…) in 2020. do i wish i could change it now? yes a little bit considering i’m not really into txt anymore but i’m still pretty fond of it. and i guess it’s cute.

2. tools for writing is literally just gdocs. i don’t even have the grammar checker on AND may judged me recently for coding directly into the doc like <'i'> this <'/i'> but it’s just the way i’ve always done it!

3. i have vivid memories of writing haikyuu fanfic by hand into a notebook inn i guess 2014? obviously (thank god) that never got posted anywhere. i never wrote anything with the intent to post until 2020, but i’ve been writing horrible poetry and snippets of things since forever.

6. LOL i have always just gone with the flow, and even with backstitch which actually has (some semblance of) plot, i wrote out this wholeee outline and then completely changed the second half because as i was writing the story just went in a different direction. there’s this REALLY funny nabokov quote that i always remember when i think about this sort of thing:

My knowledge of Mr. Forster’s works is limited to one novel which I dislike; and anyway it was not he who fathered that trite little whimsy about characters getting out of hand; it is as old as the quills, although of course one sympathizes with his people if they try to wriggle out of that trip to India or wherever he takes them. My characters are galley slaves.

first of all vlad lets put some respect on maurice but regardless i WISH i had his control over his characters… unfortunately mine lend themselves to that trite little whimsy. the story is formed as it’s written, once i’m in the character’s head, almost always.

10-11. i love all of my fellow &authors… i’m inspired every time i open the tag! i’ve been inspired by a billion works, but honestly my most formative have been ao3 user curledupkitten/kittebasu’s works… i read them in 2015-16, and then crossfire in 2018(?) and i still think about them when i’m trying to remember how to write an affecting emotional arc. i’ll never be able to write something of that length, but in a microcosmic sense - i’m trying! i also just love baseball fic. candle_beck may you live on forever. plus charactershoes’ pynch baseball au! (hence why i tried to pay homage, a little, in backstitch, since i know i’m probably never going to write the great ncej baseball au TT)

12. any feedback makes me really happy! comments make my day & i especially love when people share their own interpretations on my work:) that level of engagement is so lovely

13. depends. usually i’m pretty quick with it because i hate the feeling of sitting on a wip for too long, which i am Trying Desperately to break out of, but it’s still kind of unbearable. and when you’ve been sitting on something for a while & continue to tweak it, i feel like it becomes difficult to know like, when to stop? when you’ve become too close to it and become unable to see it objectively? i’m struggling with that rn… LOL. but on a sentence level i’m really slow. sitting there staring into space trying to figure out how to word something properly. it’s rough

14. it’s going to be backstitch. my longest individual fic is 14k and if you put the two sookai pieces together it’s ~18k. i think this one is going to be close to 28k. so!

16. i might be in the minority here but… not really! i mean sure, yes, to some degree, but i prefer canon comp stuff 100%. i’m not that creative and prefer to work in a universe that’s already been established, just drawing out pieces of it and adding my own spin, rather than having to birth an entire universe whole. i’m just not really sure it’s where my strengths lie, and the difficulty i’ve had w/ the actor au is probably proof of that. lol

17. i can overlook it if i think the writing/story is good enough, but i find it difficult to read fics when they’re double spaced and/or centered. just my own preference - when i download epubs of books i’m always tweaking the font/typesetting to my specifications too & often i’ll download multiple ones just to find the best one :’| i also struggle when characterization becomes too warped just to fit a specific trope, esp in an explicit context. it’s important to me that the story fits the characters, rather than vice versa. but everyone has different perspectives/priorities and that’s totally fine!

18. i pretty much always listen to music! lyrics don’t bother me unless i’m writing a section that i want to be especially intricate, when i’m Really focusing on the phrasing, then i’ll turn on something instrumental. or if i’m really struggling then i’ll sit there in silence for a while, but usually not for too long.

19. third person LIMITED and usually present tense. which is generally the norm for fic but even in books, when it comes to reading, i tend to prefer limited vs omniscient. ofc it depends but usually it’s more engaging to be trapped in one character’s head (unless the writing style is engaging enough in and of itself, ie something like infinite jest).

20. i wish i was a genre writer… i just like character focused introspective stuff. but not heavy-handed introspective (this is a difficult balance to strike). i struggle with writing (and reading tbf) stuff that’s kind of silly and lighthearted, i’d like to improve on that.

21. may was my first ever beta reader for part 1 of backstitch. ty to the goat

22. BOTH HAVE THEIR MERITS! but i think even with pwp there should be some thematic throughline. same with porn at the end of a plottier fic, sometimes it can feel like a strange leap especially if the characterization shifts once it veers explicit. i’m trying hard to not let that happen in backstitch3…sigh

23. ngl my favorite tag i have ever used is ‘Lee Jangjun: 1 on the Kinsey Scale’ for what was definitely my most niche fic. i think it’s funny to this day

24. i said it earlier but any comment that expresses, like, specificity re: connection or close reading is really a privilege to receive. and it terms of inspiration i absolutely would not have written as many words as i have without having found such a lovely community so TT despite the fact that i plan on taking a writing break soon i am sure i will be back!