I know I know, I haven’t written on this blog in 100 million years. I was busy. Plus I forgor. It’s hard to keep all the ducks in a row when so much of your life is changing. But I do have plans for this, and I’m going to share those plans right now. I’m thinking of making this a Blog about my writing, rather than a blog for advertising it. That’s why all the previous posts are gone now, because I’m trying to refocus it all while also maintaining myself. My health, my home, my lovely cat Lola, my relationships, my mental health, my fanfics, and my aspiring professional writing. It’s a lot.
But the plan, such that it is, is to write a post approximately every week and focus on my experiences in writing. I have absolutely no idea to what end, maybe this will be helpful for other hopeful beginner writers out there, maybe not. But I think it’ll be fun, and maybe we can all learn something along the way.
Fans, subscribers, and haters in kind; it is entirely possible that I will write about you here, please don’t take offense or take it personally. It’s all part of the process, and I want to share that process with the masses, however small said masses may be. So, with all of that out of the way, let’s get to it.
So, What’s Up?
The past couple of months have been really hard, like really really hard. Hard to the point of wondering just what the hell life is doing here. There’s been nothing so dramatic as another divorce or a stalker taking down all my socials and website (RIP OG website, you were a real one). It’s been a lot of minor things. A lot of body issues and health stuff and remembering to eat and cook right while also exercising while also keeping on top of all my medicine while also managing my chronic body pain. Summer is certainly my least favorite season, and it’s fast approaching with all of its hateful wrath. I don’t like the heat, I am a husky dog made human. I need the snow and the cold to function, my motto is you can always put on more layers if you’re cold, but you can’t peel off your skin.
The daylight has been killer as well. I have my own place now, and they’re just so happens to be a skylight, directly over my bed. This seemed like a good idea when I moved in in October, it is no longer a good idea. It’s still bright out at nine fucking pm. It’s obscene, a scandal against my sensitive sleeping schedule. So I’ve been overtired, overheated, and despite all that. Still writing up a damned storm.
Writing and all That
Those who know me know that I aim to write or edit 2,000 words a day. Those who know me also know that I have a subscribe star, I imagine that’s where most of you readers come from actually. Hi substar people, I reallllllly appreciate you folks. But let’s actually talk about writing because I’ve been doing an absolute fuckload of that this year. I started off strong, publishing a full novella-length Owl House fanfic on AO3 in January; then a full novella-length TLT fanfic in February. April was supposed to be the next arc of The Last Princess, an ongoing dark Gothic post-post apocalyptic fanfic I’ve been writing for a few years. May? A redo/remaster of my ABO TOH series. June? A TLT story set in a Victorian Era styled AU.
July was supposed to be a sort of scientist Luz lost on a primal alien world story…
“But Elfie”, I hear you typing, “what about March? Where ARE all these fanfics?? I don’t see them here on your AO3.” Yeah… So the March one was obviously supposed to be done in February, so I could post it in March. It is now June, and I’m still working on it. So I went a little too hard, and that’s essentially what I wanted to talk about with y’all today. Pacing yourself. I know it’s exciting to get ambitious, it’s exciting to challenge yourself, to really push how far you can go and see what can come of it. But you really need to be careful, much like training for or running a marathon, you need to pace yourself. Otherwise you’re going to cause an injury, tear your ACL so to speak.
I haven’t even started talking about Blood and Roses yet, that’s my novel btw, the draft and initial edits are done and I’m just polishing it. That is to say, I’m polishing it when I’m not trying to catch up on my fanfiction or writing commissions for my subscribers. Or working out, or reading, or going to fencing, because I started fencing and it’s really really really really really really fun and I really really really really really really really like it. A lot. I feel like a swashbuckler in the best way, even when I lose constantly to the better students.
It’s been tough keeping up, and the backlog of things I need to post keeps growing. To the point where I could take a break for like 8 months and probably have content queued up no sweat. The problem is I love writing, it’s fun, it’s satisfying, and I want to do more. More I say!!! Video games are fun, but they aren’t writing. Movies are cool, but what about writing Enemies to Lovers? It calls to me, the siren’s song I can never shake. It lures me to the water’s edge and drags me down into it’s inky black abyss.
A big drag this past month has been a massive commission I took on. And to the client, if you’re reading this, don’t sweat it dude. I said yes, you paid, the contract was wrought. This is not me complaining about you, it’s me learning a lesson about my writing process. You don’t think 10,000 words is a lot until you consider that it’s, based on my daily writing goal, five days worth of drafting, and another five of editing. That’s 10 goddess damned business days in a month that only has 21. That’s a lot of fuckin’ writing bruh. And it’s been daunting, and draining, and it’s made it difficult to finish my other obligations, which means I can’t work on I’ll Always Be By Your Side (The march fanfic), or B&R. It’s not a nice feeling, and I’ve learned some important lessons from it. I hope you learn them too.
The lesson is to not bite off more than you can chew, don’t take such a big commission that attempting to finish it feels impossible so you don’t start. Don’t overextend yourself, make sure you leave enough time and space and energy for you to work on personal things. Be that writing or gardening or whatever. It’s tempting to go balls to the wall, to do a full send and become a writing legend overnight. But burnout is the vicious killer of creativity, and rest is the silver sword to slay it.
With that commission out of the way, I’m hopeful I can finish the rest of this month’s obligations this weekend. Which I realize it’s antithetical to what I just said, but fuck it we ball. I want to write about ghost girls being in love and polish a story about a gayass disaster vampire hunter bumbling her way into a pretty vampire’s arms. I realize that this post is very rambly, however I’m not going to edit it because I don’t want to. Editing is the bane of my existence and I hate it. You see, editing killed my father, and I have sworn vengeance upon it. Not really, but I… I just don’t like it.
With all that in mind, I hope you enjoyed the first new post of this new direction for the blog. Leave a comment if you want, otherwise check me out on my socials for more Elfie nonsense here.
Bluesky is mostly for art, Tumblr is SUPPOSED to be for writing but it’s mostly me screaming about my Locked Tomb reread. AO3 is obviously where you can read my fanfics, and check out the substar if you appreciate my work and wanna chip in a few bucks to fuel my MTG/Tattoo addictions. I appreciate all my supporters of all kinds.
Talk to yah next week.
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