I literally never write outlines for long fics, maybe that's why all of mine fail so hard xD; I'd say keep it up for those who enjoy it, but maybe make a note on the last chapter that it's on indefinite hiatus while you try to get back into it? :c

Same honestly, writing is something I thoroughly enjoy and love and I even want to make at least an off-hand career of it, but I'm just so... insecure about my writing that I don't think it's good enough for anything outside of crappy little shipping oneshots that I post on my tumblr :c And I've never joined in on a NaNo before -- all the times before, I've been in high school so I just flat-out never had the free time for it unless I wanted to be writing during class (like I didn't do that anyways... lmfao) but the last 2? 3? years that I've been out of school I just haven't let it cross my mind because I know I'd never be able to make end's meet with it since my attention and muse is so fickle >___<

Yeah... I probably ought to, but I don't want to go in and edit it and make anyone think it's actually been updated (since I think the "last updated" date will change.)

If I could do anything in life, I'd be a writer. But ultimately it's probably for the best that I have an ordinary office job to do while I write to my heart's content at this stage of the game. I mean, I'm only almost 30 - there's still a lot of time to write! Most of my stuff lately is shippy things on my Tumblr, as well, though I just started cleaning them up and compiling them to start posting as a series on AO3.

I understand what you mean about not having confidence in your writing... absolutely, 100% I get that. Weirdly, writing fic has been helping me get past that. My first Dragon Age fanfic that I wrote ended up being highly NSFW, which is hilarious because I hadn't really written anything of that nature since college. I wrote it for me, without trying to "watch myself" for the things people say to do/not to do, when I was finished with it I felt... good. Like "I really like this thing, and if other people don't like it, well, tough cookies."

That fic? I posted it on AO3 on June 6. It has over 900 hits now... :)

Ooooh well hell I don't use AO3 l-lol

Same! I'd honestly love a laid-back desk job, even if i didn't pay much, especially because I have a lot of minor health issues that make it hard for me to work anywhere else >__< I'd definitely still write though, and probably even get distracted when work dies down and write then too xD I have a problem with getting the urge to write when I should totally be doing other things orz

Oh god I can't write NSFW at all unless it's with my girlfriend, I'm so self-conscious about it that it took me a good year??? I think before I was fully comfortable writing NSFW with her because I'm just so worried that I'll write something wrong and fuck up the mood xD; I would never have the confidence to post NSFW anywhere public aha...

AO3 is hella rad, I totally recommend posting there if you get the urge to post any of your stuff!!

I write at work..... all the time, basically. Most of my writing seems to be done at work anymore. Technically I'm only supposed to do it on lunch/breaks, but my boss is hella chill and as long as I've got all my work done and I'm not really obvious about it I'm able to snatch 5, 10, 15 minutes of writing time here and there.

I used to write NSFW stuff all the time in late high school/college (with my girlfriend and also with a few other friends), but that was seriously 10+ years ago now (oh Maker, I'm old) and at the time I didn't really bother to actually worry about... you know, plausibility and human anatomy. Now I'm older and I UNDERSTAND these things... LOL. So it does add to the pressure to perform, so to speak... but ultimately it's a good thing. But everyone has their own pace, and I applaud you for recognizing your limits and not trying to push yourself too far, too quick! Maybe someday you'll become more comfortable with it - maybe you won't ^^ But I hope you continue to grow your confidence in your writing and find yourself enjoying the things you produce!

I've lurked there to read fics and give anon kudos but I haven't actually made an account; I should do that even tho I'm not sure if I'd use it orz

When I was working a temp job that let me sit down for good chunks of time in the lull between actually working and such, I'd write xD it's actually how my current fic started, I just jotted down an idea and I couldn't stop writing it. Of course the moment I got it all transferred onto the computer (because I was handwriting it at work) my mind was like "okay I'm done with this for the next year and a half" uGH

I wrote a total of one NSFW small fic and it's been lost to time and space because I don't have a damn clue where the notebook it was written in disappeared to. It was like total "it's-3am-and-I-want-to-write-something-let's-see-how-much-I-can-sin" spur of the moment thing and the characters didn't even mean a damn thing to me because they were made on the spot lmao :')

I definitely know I'm far better than I was when I first started writing, and even all during school -- I for sure know I've improved, but it's like I see people years younger than me that can write as good or even better and it's like "oh.... well that's a blow to my self-confidence ahahaha" but then again, my moods are really wishy-washy to begin with so all-in-all those moods are pretty much just phases that pass relatively smoothly :'D

As the token fandom grandpa, I've resigned myself to seeing kids who are significantly better than me at everything - writing, drawing, cosplay, the whole 9 yards. Eventually you stop comparing yourself to them and just compare to you. You've gotten better, you've improved, and even if you aren't where you want to ultimately be (is anyone, ever??) you have all the space in the world to grow into. It's a long journey, though... and it's never over. And it's really, really easy to lapse back into self-hatred (I am absolutely guilty of it.)

Having someone you trust who can read your stuff and tell you honestly (but KINDLY) some places where maybe they got confused, or where they felt maybe the pacing felt off, or what have you, is a huge help too. Eventually you start to recognize things and correct them automatically. My fiancee is the person who does that for me :) Maybe your girlfriend could offer you a hand?

Yea, that's true xD I definitely know I'm a lot better than when I was younger, and tbh that's good enough for me sometimes when I'm not in a self-loathing mood oops I think everyone gets those self-hatred spikes, there's no real way to actually get rid of them D;

My girlfriend could do that, yea. I'd probably get flustered and self-conscious even doing that but I am an sinful innocent soul who can't write smut to save my life xD Everyone has to start somewhere though :p I think my main problem is I have problems with terminology cause I write and I'm like "oh god this sounds really dumb, what do I use? The anatomically correct term? A slang term? Will the slang term sound stupid????" and I basically run in circles like a neurotic dog chasing its tail.

LOL! In general, having someone to proofread your stuff is awesome. When writing things of a more... primal... nature, it's also good to have someone proofread you (and let you know what does or doesn't "work" for them... if you get what I mean). The way I write it is the way I like to read it. So it's like... if you've read enough fanfic, or even decent romance novels (I've read some that are great, some that are terrible, and some that I alternated falling asleep and shouting "Oh, come ON!"... LOL) and you like the way they sound, go for that. I tend toward slang, picking a couple of terms and sticking with them throughout. Generally the fewer euphemisms you use, the less likely you are to lose your audience. At least, that's what I've found... I could be wrong.

I have to admit I haven't written much with ladybits, myself, so for the couple of het fics I have in the pipeline I'm going to go dig out the MaryJanice Davidson books I have in my library. Her writing style is super engaging and it... well, it does it for me so why not use it for pointers? ^^ It's helpful to get an idea of how to get my brain working on forming sentences and word use and stuff.

That's very true; I've never had a beta reader, so a lot of my writing tends to have tiny little typos here and there and I always go back and nitpick it after I post :p I tend towards slang too, mostly because the anatomically correct terms just... don't sound right to me? when it comes to smut. It definitely throws a wrench in my reading ><

Neither have I, for some reason I don't lean towards female pairings :/ Nearly all of my ships are M/M and, like, the rare 1% M/F pairing, so the anatomy is something I don't deal with at all lmao

Yeah, I write mainly M/M, but I've been trying to expand my boundaries. Also, I've been playing a female Inquisitor and now I'm kind of dying to write a little bit with her and her LI from the game. So... research! LOL

Yeah when it comes to terms, the scientific ones feel too clinical but they're still better than "soft but hard, like velvet over steel~" or other purple euphemisms LOL! There's a reason why things like "turgid meatstick" are used as jokes... XD

- Wait wait, I musta missed something, when did the girlfriend start getting referred to as the fiance? Congrats!

I tend to be really bad at writing relationships in general, M/F, M/M, F/F, or whatever/whatever. As an asexual I have little experience to pull from myself, and reading fanfic can only get me so far, especially when I tend to skim over the NSFW stuff. I did listen to an interesting documentary on the radio a while back though about the difference between writing about male-bits and lady-bits, and how we have so many diverse words to describe male-bits, and using their scientific names is pretty common place, but for lady-bits the words are all flowery and using the scientific words is pretty much taboo.

Basically xD I had M/F ships once upon a time that I wrote for, but that was way back in middle school pfffft

Oh god yeah, there's making the words flow and just going absolutely overboard with it and making the writing absolutely cringe-worthy xD

- Oh god, it's like what I did for nano a couple years ago. I was really stuck with my story, so I decided to write some NSFW side stories for it in hopes to spark my interest in it again... it was bad. So bad! Nano word garble + awful anatomy descriptions = definitely did not help with the wanting to write my story more! (it did succeed in getting more words towards the 50k goal... that's about it) Hopefully when I go back into it this year, starting over at the beginning and pulling out the parts I liked and scrapping all the awful stuff it will work better.

I don't doubt it xD I'm asexual as well and, add in the fact that I write M/M and am not male, that adds in a lot more difficulty than there should be while writing fairly mindless smut lmao

Oh lol! Thanks ^^ It happened... back in April? I'm just really, really terrible at getting out of the habit of typing girlfriend!

I'm sure being ace makes things a little tricky when it comes to writing certain things. I'm bi/pan, myself, which I will admit does make it a little less squicky to write whatever and whoever.... ^^;

Things do change over time XD

- Well, I kinda expected it would have been a while, this chat was pretty dead all summer too.

- Yeah, but at least reading it/doing research feels much less awkward :P

I've been very out of fandom recently. It's been so long since I even read any fanfic. I've been more into RPing lately. Where writing relationships is even more awkward because you have to interact with another person and there's no re-writes!

That's very true! And change with writing is definitely good xD

The most I've done lately is read fanfics, I've pretty much just stuck to RP with my girlfriend, which makes things definitely a lot less awkward xD;

- I used to read fanfics a lot in university, I was part of a bunch of fandom groups on Live Journal, but live journal is pretty much dead, and so I haven't really been getting into much fanfic. Unless someone sends me a rec, I don't really go out looking for any either. My sister is on AO3 a lot reading fanfic, but I dunno, I'm perfectly happy finding other ways to fill my time.

Yeah, I used to read a lot more during my school years, but I don't much anymore unless I see a fic cross my dash on tumblr lmao I still haunt fanfiction.net funnily enough cx I like the search style that FF.net has, I dunno.

Weirdly enough, I don't really read fic anymore. I haven't read more than a handful of fics in the past... at least 5 years, lol, and all of the ones I did were recs from friends or they popped up on Tumblr. But I write it? And it's fun... :x

One of the big plus sides of NaNo, for me, are the forums. It's nice to be able to go into a forum and ask "Hey, what's it like to XX?" or whatever. Like in my initial draft of my original NaNo project, I had a character wind up with a black eye... but I've never had one, myself. So it's cool to be able to draw on other people's experience. Useful!

Oh wow, ff.net is still around? Dang, that's oldschool XD