Do you have a beta read your fics before you publish them? Or do you prefer to do your own checking & hope that's good enough?

Personally, I'm not keen on the idea of having a beta reader (no shade to any who do). I re-read (& sometimes re-write) my chapters A LOT.
And when I'm happy with them, I give it a few days & re-read them again for SPAG issues or inconsistencies.
And then when I've posted them, I re-read them again because my brain won't let me in case they magically changed between pasting & posting. (I do the same with emails & the like. 🤷‍♀️)
After all that, having someone else re-read it yet again seems kind of redundant.

Thinking that I wouldn't mind writing a trashy Christmas romance this year but acknowledging that I won't have time for it, only to find that I wrote 80% of one last year that I have a cute little idea for the ending of now. 🥳

#fanfiction

Does anyone read fics that are centred around OCs at the expense of canon characters? Like a story about an OCxOC pairing where the canon characters are only on the side or background to the core pairing?

I'm trying to figure out if it's worth posting a story I have an idea for (that won't get out of my head & demands that I write it next).

Woo! A productive weekend that means I have multiple chapters lined up to post while I'm traveling over the coming weeks. 🥳 For once, not being able to write in the regular order may have worked out for me as I just had to sort out one link in the chain in order to expand my buffer.
It has also made me realise that I probably only have half a dozen chapters left to write for this story before I'm done. So double-woo!, I guess! Or not, if my inspiration abandons me after that.

#fanfiction

Obviously this phenomenon isn't limited to fanfiction or even writing, but it seems to me that there are (at least) two styles to long writing projects:

1. Serial: Pushing through to the end on a long-fic before starting a new one, or
2. Parallel: Writing multiple long-fics side by side, depending on what feels right to write at any time.

I'm curious where other writers see themselves in this split, or if they do at all - maybe I'm totally off the mark!

As far as I go, I definitely fall into the first bucket, even when it's tough & I reeeaaaalllly want to explore the new shiny idea my brain has come up with. There's a sense of completion that comes from focusing on one core project & knowing that I'll see it through to the end. Sometimes my brain won't let me write it for short periods & I'll jump away from my long-fic to write a one-shot or shorter multi-chapter story but I don't maintain multiple long-fics at the same time because I'd just get confused & struggle to relate to my story (especially as I focus on the same characters/fandom for all my writing so far).

I'm always hugely impressed with writers who manage to juggle multiple long-fics at the same time, even if they don't finish some of them. It seems to me like it'd be a lot less stressful to be able to just write whatever inspires joy in the moment & leave a story without the need to complete it - I'm totally aware this is a "faraway fields are greener" situation, but it's nice to think that it's a more enjoyable approach.

I recently came across a writer who's maintaining at least 3 long-fics that I could see & every new chapter comes with a note at the end saying which story is next on the list to be updated. Now, chances are they have at least one of these fics pre-written, but either way, I'm in awe of them. 😮

Has anyone ever heard of stars library? A writer I followed a while ago said they'd moved their works there after fictionpad went offline, but this is the first I'd ever heard of it.

#fanfiction

Pretty much all my stories so far have featured a core OC & I realised today that for the couple of one-shots I've done, I have a passing relationship with those OCs, but for the longer stories, it's like I live in the OC's head. Part of it is no doubt the nature of spending months writing from a character's perspective, but it feels odd now that I've recognised it. Like having an alter ego or a twin.

Does this make any sense to any other writers or am I just talking complete nonsense?

Why, oh why, when I check my Bookmarks, is there nothing updated in the past 24 hours? Yes, I know I've a Read Later list as long as my arm... That's not the point! My brain wants comfy reading that it's already invested in, not a new thing to figure out. 😩

#fanfiction

Does anyone else have to resist the urge to turn every idea they have for a story/setting into a long-fic? Do you succeed & if you do, how?

When I started writing fanfic last year, I very foolishly allowed my teeny little idea to balloon into a series of 2 stories that's now 50-odd chapters & will probably be another dozen before I'm finished with it. I didn't mean to, the damn thing just got away from me!
In the meantime, I've started drafting an outline for a 3rd story in the series that I really want to write (must finish story #2 first!), I've written another multi-chapter story (having 1 on the go simply isn't good enough). Oh & I've written 1 single solitary one-shot (that I am half-tempted to add a sequel to just for the hell of it).

It's like not wanting to see your favourite TV show end even though you know it peaked 3 seasons back & it's all downhill from here. Halp! 🫠