Gay Rebel Scum

Jeez, that sure happened, huh?

I'm still here and probably won't be going anywhere.

Good news: I still have 2 more chapters of BatE ready to go whenever and I'm almost done with chapter 6. I got 0 sleep last night, so I'm not sure how much of my Feeling Ick is sleep deprevation and how much of it is The Bad Thing.

Planning to have a few fics prepped for Femslash February. There are a few F/F ships that I'm desperate to write, and I've already started on one of them. It's honestly been a blast to write these characters!

Oof, it's been exactly one month since my last post. Oops. I hope you haven't forgotten me.

But anyway, just thought I'd update you about the fic in this post. And I know most of you aren't in Captive Prince fandom, but It's My Blog and I Can Post What I Want.

I told myself that I would post the fic to AO3 once I had 5 chapters completed. If it follows my loose-outline-thing, it's going to be an absolute Slow Burn beast, but 5 felt like a good amount of padding to start with. I'm planning to post it on Fridays since I get out of work early and I'll have the time to read and edit before sending it off into the ether. I've also commissioned a bit of artwork from fellow Yu-Gi-Oh fan and problematic fav ghostteaart. The illustration is meant to go with the first chapter, so I might actually have to wait until it's finished to post (which is fine with me! I'm terrified!).

I had to do some plane travel over the weekend for my birthday, so getting to hang out in an airport and just chug away has actually been pretty good for my productivity. It has been... a bit awkward to write some of the more sexually explicit stuff in public, but I do realise that almost no one is actually going to be reading over my shoulder.

But good lord, it is so much more difficult to write fan fiction based on a book than a TV show or movie. The original author's prose is so evocative and his plotting and dialogue are so tight. Granted. Pacat had been working on his story for years and had time to edit it (it was posted to livejournal in 2009, self published in 2013, then picked up by Penguin, with each iteration coming with an opportunity to polish it). Meanwhile I'm posting my polished first draft and publishing as I go to keep up the momentum and get feedback from my audience (hopefully).

I feel like I'm not doing this book that I love justice, and that makes me very anxious. A good friend of mine is a mental health councilor and has accurately identified my issues with imposter syndrome. I'm trying to manage it, but it's hard.

So yeah, things are going well. But to my fellow fan fiction writers, do you have strategies for managing these types of emotions? Do you experience them as well? Anything helps!

Oh! And the fic has a name now! The initials are BAtE, which is how I'll be referring to it until The Grand Reveal.