Dee Moyza

The drought is over. I have Written. Despite my uncertainty regarding exchanges, I picked up a pinch hit for trickortreatex, mostly to assuage my own guilt over defaulting on my assignment. Also, the prompts were juicy. Anyway, I ended up writing two stories but only publishing one, because the first one simply refused to play nicely. I was trying to be Deep and Serious with that one, but ended up scrapping it in favor of something more lighthearted.

I also received a fic that put a fun and unexpected spin on the prompt, which I enjoyed.

Anyway, oof. It's been a long, long time, but I finally have words to report! :)

Total words written this week: 5,108
Total words written this year: 8,119
Total days written this week: 2
Total days written this year: 5

(I think I'll go back to the Word Count goal for next year's GYWO.)

After months of nothing, this morning, a development:

I had an idea.

I know, right? Crazy! Silliness aside, it has been a good, long while since I've had any flicker of creativity, and for a while today, I just sat there and turned the idea over in my head, expecting it to dissolve like cotton candy in the rain. But it stayed solid enough that I figured I'd type it out.

Reading it back, it's...not good. But! It has potential.

So, what is it? A Transistor fic idea for a slightly-futuristic Mundane-with-a-hint-of-Soulmates AU. XD

...Yeah.

As I said in the previous post, finally getting medicated for ADHD has felt like coming out of a tunnel I didn't even realize I was traveling through. I'm hoping that getting on these meds and staying off the BC will help get my mind back on track and signal an end to the weird mental and emotional roller coaster I've been on for the past two years. Here's to hope! \o/

Even though I feel much better now, 2023 was pretty much a wash for me, so now I'm looking ahead to taking care of things that fell by the wayside during the year, mainly fic and fandom things.

❀ Read and comment on gift fics!

❀ Reply to comments languishing in my AO3 inbox since 2021(!)

❀ Reply to fic prompts (as I said, Fic or Treat might be Stocking Stuffers, or even NYE Party Poppers)

❀ Reply to prompts, asks, and memes on Tumblr (some also dating back to 2021; looking back, I think it's evident when my mental health began slipping)

❀ I signed up for Fannish Fifty this year, but didn't even get started, so I'm pushing that forward into 2024, and making it a multi-year project, if necessary.

❀ Go through my overstuffed Drafts folder on Tumblr, post and cull as necessary.

❀ Work on an outfit and a routine for a new burlesque act (a local show is taking applications until the end of January, and I'd like to give it a shot, even if I don't get accepted)

There's more, I'm sure, but that list is enough for the moment. With maybe one or two exceptions, I won't be starting on these until after Christmas, but they do give me a nice list of things to do during the post-holiday lull.

On a lighter note, even though it wasn't particularly productive for me, 2023 wasn't entirely terrible. I had some exciting firsts, and discovered a hobby and community I really enjoy. I'm looking forward to the holidays, to working day shift for a few weeks (yay!), and to bobbing along on the rest of the year as it slides on by.

Hope everyone is doing well, and here's looking forward to a cozy and peaceful end of year and a hopeful year ahead. :)

I am not ignorant of the concept of "filing the serial numbers" off of fanfic, and I've heard of authors who have used this method to make a successful leap from fanfic to (published!) original fiction. And really, good for them! It's a vicious business out there, use every tool at your disposal!

But I have trouble doing the same, not from any moral or creative standpoint, but because I absolutely freaking love hiding little nuggets of canon references in my fics, even the AUs! For me, that's a major challenge and reward of writing fanfic. However, recently, I've noticed that there are bits and pieces in my fics that I might be able scavenge to build another story around.

At the moment, I'm thinking specifically of "Special Order," which has some non-FF8 elements that I enjoyed writing, and that I might be able to incorporate into an original fic I'm planning, itself inspired by the need to spitefully rewrite an insipid romance my mom was reading on Kindle.

(Even she agreed it sucked, btw -- but not in exactly such gentle terms. Rather, the words pendeja and cabrón were flung about with abandon. There's little wonder from where I got my acid tongue!)

This new story wouldn't follow Special Order's plot exactly (for starters, there has to be a romance throughout the story, and not just some random hunk shoehorned into the final scene), but I really enjoyed the conflict between small businesses and large corporations muscling into their market, and I am still super enamored of the bakery name Qake. That's just how my brain works. :P

There will be a charmingly rakish fellow who runs a bar, a peppy and overly earnest bookshop owner (Rinoa, obvs. Can't leave her out!), a Marie Kondo-type decorator specializing in making the most out of small spaces (inspired by Ellone in one of the never-finished "Baker's Dozen" fics), and a mysterious older woman peddling crystals and incense and books of "magic spells" (inspired by Edea). There will also be unintentional violence against a beloved town statue, a fire that might be an inside job, and a sickly sweet fundraiser that will, of course, exceed everyone's expectations. This is a romance, after all--gotta have that HEA!

Now, if only I had written a single word of this! XD

It's definitely on my upcoming projects list, though, and I really had fun dreaming it up. One day, it will be written, and then schilled under a different, super-sweet pen name that just might give people cavities.

Don't mind me, I'm just dreaming out loud. :)