(no subject)

I finished a chapter of the novel and I'm so pleased—it's not long, even for my generally short chapters (mine were originally ~20 pgs a piece and I had to completely re-divide), and a lot is just dialogue/squabbling, but it actually has building tension for the big-scale stuff. And towards the end, the major plot for the final act arrives. YAY, FINALLY. The end is in sight!

Also, I found a dollmaker that's nearly perfect for my co-protagonist:

whining about original fic writing

I think that most of the takes on fanfic as an incubation tank for bad writing habits are ... uh. Wrong-headed at best. At most, some kinds of fanfic feed habits that can be obstacles to writing original fic (which may or may not be the fic writer's goal, anyway!).

That said, one of the things I struggle with re: original fic is that, even when I feel inspired, there's little to no feedback. Fanfic often (not always; it's different for rarepairs and small fandoms, of course) supplies a built-on audience who are going to show up for the ship tags or whatever and stick around if they like it. It's not I don't put a lot of effort into it, but I get reasonably frequent reinforcement from people who like/don't like the characterization, who are curious about what happens next because they already care about the characters and the setting.

In fairness, I've always had an inclination to throw in original characters and that's a steeper hill to climb, but even so, the investment in the people and setting those OCs are connected to gives me a boost up. I have occasionally had readers who follow me from fandom to fandom, which is really nice, and probably the closest thing to original fic support, but I don't think there are enough of those who'd follow me to original fic to make connecting the identities worth the risk.

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