galaxysoup

Going by yesterday's poll, most people only sometimes know how the story will end when they start writing. I envy the ones who usually do - I used to be like that; the ending was what I started out with, long before I came up with the beginning. But in recent years that's changed more and more: I come up with a fun beginning, and then end up flailing because I don't really know where to take it. /o\ I'd really like to change that again, but I'm not sure how.

Also, most people in the poll said that if they don't know the ending, they'll just write the story until it gets there. More envy! But at least I'm not the only one who can only write bits and pieces until I know what I'm aiming for.

Today's writing

I've been having a headache all day, and if it weren't for fandomtrees reveals approaching, I probably wouldn't have written more than an alibi sentence. As it is, I worked a little on the treat I started yesterday, and I think I'm figuring out the ending, so it's good that I did.

WED Question of the Day



Tally

Day 1: alightbuthappypen, badly_knitted, brithistorian, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, goddess47, luzula, philomytha, sanguinity, shadaras, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, trobadora, ysilme

Day 2: alightbuthappypen, badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, goddess47, sanguinity, shadaras, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, trobadora, ysilme

Day 3: alightbuthappypen, badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, goddess47, luzula, sanguinity, shadaras, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, trobadora, ysilme

Day 4: china_shop, trobadora, ysilme

Let me know if I missed anyone! And remember you can drop in or out at any time. :)

In yesterday's poll, seven people said they never forget to write! I'm so envious, I want to know your secret.

(On busy days, sometimes when I finally have free time, I'm just mentally exhausted, and I remember nothing that doesn't come with dire urgency and a big fat red alert. *g*)

Also, in the tickybox question, "tock" is winning out over either of the "tick" options, and several people each ticked one of the boxes or all three, but none ticked two out of three. Fascinating! :D

Today's writing

I started a new fandomtrees treat today, and it looks like it's coming together! But I don't know yet how to end it, and as I said yesterday, that's always difficult for me. I'll just have to poke at it some more until I figure it out ...

WED Question of the Day



Tally

Day 1: alightbuthappypen, badly_knitted, brithistorian, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, goddess47, luzula, philomytha, sanguinity, shadaras, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, trobadora, ysilme

Day 2: badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, goddess47, sanguinity, shadaras, sylvanwitch, trobadora, ysilme

Day 3: china_shop, trobadora

Let me know if I missed anyone! And remember you can drop in or out at any time. :)

I haven't done this meme in a few years, but I thought I'd do it again this year!

My writing year started out strong; then I crashed for a few weeks in March, and by the time I was recovering, it all fell into a ditch due to work-related lack of time and sheer exhaustion. July and August ended up my worst writing months since the start of WED. But I recovered toward the end of the year, even though work picked up again in November, so the end result was pretty good anyway!

Some statistics:

Total number of posted stories in 2025: 12 - one fewer than in 2024; I hope to write more things again in 2026!

Total word count (posted): 88,174 - about 18k more than 2024: while I wrote fewer stories, many more of them were on the longer side. In fact, this is the second-highest amount of words I've posted in a year, only beaten by 2018 with 97,933 words.

Total word count (written): 155,611 - about 6k more than 2024. The last time I wrote more than this was in 2018; I hope to get back there some day.

Highest monthly word count (posted): 30,631 (December) - almost 20k of this is due to ficinabox reveals being delayed for three weeks; the rest is Yuletide.

Highest monthly word count (written): 57,548 (February) - my best writing month since I started keeping track in a spreadsheet back in 2014! Of course part of that was that I ditched my highadrenalineexchange fic post-deadline and wrote something entirely new, LOL. Maybe it's no wonder that I fell into a slump after HA reveals in early March. *g*

Most words written in a day: 6,583 (1st March) - the final rush to the HA finish line!
Fewest words written in a day: 1 (9th September) - before my writing started to recover a bit towards the end of the month.

Months I actually posted fic: 6 - one fewer than 2024.

( more meme and numbers )

Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?

Mainly, I want to write more words than in 2025, finish more stories, and post fic in more months.

Welcome aboard WED, everyone! Glad to see you all here this month, may it be a great one for writing!

It snowed here last night! And unlike the previous time this winter, it was cold enough that the snow stayed on the ground. I really should have gone for a walk, but felt very lazy today and only went out briefly for groceries.

Yesterday's and today's writing

Yesterday, I only wrote a small snippet and made some notes - but they were important pieces: I figured out how to end my fffx fic!

For this story, I had a great beginning and I knew some thing I wanted to have happen, but until yesterday I was completely unclear about how to end it. And I always struggle with writing when I don't know what I'm writing towards. I find it really hard to write without having an ending in mind! Now I know what I'm aiming for - the story still has a gaping hole in the middle, but now it's just about plotting a course from Point A to Point B. *g*

Today, I poked at various fandomtrees things, but didn't really make much progress. Hopefully tomorrow will be more productive!

WED Question of the Day



When I'm busy, I sometimes forget or just don't find any time/energy to write. So my strategy is to keep a physical notebook on my pillow so I'll be reminded when I go to bed.

The other thing that helps - because I do try to write every day, and don't want to break my streak - is to use alibi sentences with abandon. (Those are the sentences you write just so you can say you wrote something. No matter how short they are, they're still something - and enough of them in a chain can add up to considerably more. *g*)

Tally

Day 1: alightbuthappypen, badly_knitted, brithistorian, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, goddess47, luzula, philomytha, sanguinity, shadaras, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, trobadora

Day 2: china_shop, trobadora

Let me know if I missed anyone! And remember you can drop in or out at any time. :)

My second Yuletide fic is a crossover! My recipient prompted for a Guardian crossover with Da Qing, so I included a tiny cameo in Heart-Seed, Heart-Flower - and then I couldn't resist writing more about what happened.

Because:

• Da Qing is always so much fun to write!


• I had a dragon! And Dragon City should have a dragon in its history, right?


• And most importantly, my story was already about someone travelling realms and healing worlds with magic water/flowers, so naturally I had to have him do the same for Guardian and provide a fix-it there, too. *g*

(The story turned out very Guardian-heavy, so it's just as well that I didn't manage to finish it in time to put it in the main collection.)

Also, I have to share this because I used it for the fic, and it's very cool: Here is a time-lapse video of a cotton plant! It has white flowers, while the one in the story is yellow, but still. *g*

**

Dragon of Flowers, Dragon of the City (2,275 words)
Fandoms: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018), Thermos "Flower Series" Commercials
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Characters: Da Qing, Zhu Yilong's Thermos Character, Zhao Yunlan, Shen Wei, SID team
Content Tags: Canon Divergence (for Guardian), Episode Related, Episode 37, Fix-It, Hallows Shenanigans, The Wick of the Guardian Lantern, Magical Flowers, Cross-dimensional Wanderers, Saving Worlds with a Magic Bottle, Dragon City is named after a dragon
A/N: Many thanks to china_shop for beta-reading!

Summary:

Lao-Zhao leaned forward, resting an elbow on a knee. "I thought you got all your memories back."

"Yeah, yeah." Da Qing waved a hand in the air, dismissively. "Not remember like 'I don't know my past', remember like 'where did I put my keys'. Except not my keys."

Yuletide author reveals have happened! I had one story in the regular collection and one in the Madness collection this year.

For my main fic, I matched on a request that I'd been eyeing for some years - for Zhu Yilong's Thermos Flower Series commercials. (Here is a nearly-complete playlist, lacking only the lily of the valley one, though the first on the list is a bit atypical.)

There's only one regular character in this series of commercials, but there is also a white cat that appears in several. So those were the two characters I decided to write about:

• Zhu Yilong's character, the man with the magical thermoses, who I decided is a dragon (with some canon support, given the little cartoon dragon on the thermoses :p), and whom I named Ao Xing (after the dragon kings of the four seas, who are all "Ao Something").


• the white cat - I decided this is a cat spirit, called him Xiao-Bai, and gave him a human form that - no surprise - looks like Bai Yu. (This Bai Yu, to be precise, which I knew my recipient would appreciate. *g*)

I didn't tag this as "Bai Yu/Zhu Yilong Character Combinations", because it isn't that, and I didn't tag it as Guardian RPF, because it isn't that either, but it's still Guardian-adjacent and Weilan-adjacent, after all. *g*

And I had a complete blast with this, worldbuilding and all! Tying things like the magically appearing flower decorations on the thermoses into the worldbuilding, inventing flower worlds of my own, and of course developing the relationship between the two characters - it really was a lot of fun. :D

And I did a fun thing with the narrative voice where the beginning of each chapter starts in a more distant/mythic, omniscient voice and then zooms in on the POV character, which I hope worked well!

I think this one's completely readablewithout canon knowledge, btw. Hardly anyone has read it (it really is niche even for Yuletide), but I hope a few more people will give it a chance. I'm pretty proud of how it came out!

**

Heart-Seed, Heart-Flower (8,465 words)
Fandom: Thermos "Flower Series" Commercials
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Characters: Zhu Yilong's Character (Thermos "Flower Series" Commercials), White Cat (Thermos "Flower Series" Commercials)
Content Tags: Magic Flowers, Magic Waters, Dragons, Cats, Shape-Shifters, Multiple Worlds, Lonely Wanderers, Magical Quests, Saving Worlds with a Magic Bottle
A/N: Many thanks to china_shop for beta-reading, and to douqi for double-checking the character naming!

Summary:

The bottle was plain and unadorned, the lotus pattern that would have signalled the success of his quest nowhere in evidence.

He'd failed.