startwearingpurple

[startwearingpurple]

Well, I suppose I’ll start one of these? I just posted a new story which came from an idea yearrrrs ago and I finally finished up.

Next in the pipeline for me…

i have three one-shots, loosely connected, pretty much just faffing about with my continued loves, Lily Potter and Evander Jinks, for no more reason than that I love writing about these two idiots  I keep going back and forth about actually posting these cause they’re at least 92% self-indulgent fluff.

I am working on a story about Johnny Lupin at Hogwarts. This one has been an on and off thing for me for a long time, cause Johnny is exhausting, but I think I’ve finally got a handle on where I want it to go. It needs more prep. I have a thing about not posting stories until I’m sure I can finish them (cause I never leave posted stories unfinished, I have a hangup about it), and I am not 100% sure I’ve gotten over the hump with this one yet.

And lastly, I wrote like 27,000 words and then have a five page outline of a character from The Dragon Keeper and I keep writing in this instead of focusing on Johnny. I do think I have this one over the hump where I can finish the whole story. Not sure how long it’ll be, novel-length for sure.

I may try to write them simultaneously. They happen in different story universes (although secretly in my head, Unsinkable and the Rose stories *might* be the same universe), so hopefully that will help keep them separate enough to write them both. It’s been a while since I wrote two novels at once. We’ll see how this goes.

In my real life, I just painted a small mural in my hallway and really need to vacuum my art studio. 

[Halie_15x_]

On 9/30/2024 at 8:01 PM, startwearingpurple said:

I have a thing about not posting stories until I’m sure I can finish them (cause I never leave posted stories unfinished, I have a hangup about it)

i completely get that! i also do the same but honestly i have just been completing them and posting them, something about poosting a story and losing motivation halfway through makes me feel judged lmao (idk its just a me thing). sometimes it allows me to stare at the story until i can nitpick everything wrong with it and change the things i rushed through. i think everyone has different processes. for me i love to plan a story and then wait a few months beforei start writing it to give me more space to come up with better plotlines or catch plot holes when i look at it with new eyes!

Halie_x_

[startwearingpurple]

I have held off on posting shorter pieces until they were finished, but I find it motivating with novel-lengths to get it to the point I know I can finish it and then start posting chapters. It’s like peer pressure or maybe reward system (watching the numbers go up) to keep me finishing new chapters and posting timely. I also like to do a ton of edits and rewrites! I don’t use a beta or editor so I just reread a hundred times before calling it good 

[startwearingpurple]

2024 in summary...

I posted 239,469 words.

I got 52 kudos, 11 bookmarks, and 4 story subscriptions. And a total of 1,564 hits.

Considering the bulk of that is in original character-focused stories, and that I hadn't posted anything but one-shots in several years, I am pretty pleased.

[Oregonian]

Very impressive! 

[starlitcastles]

Hello there, Megan! I'm here to spread some holiday cheer with these questions to give you something to think about, and or scratch your head, but no, really here are the WJ questions for you! I hope you enjoy answering these questions as I had trying to come up with them and that it's useful and or helpful in your writing endeavors especially for days where you're either stuck, unmotivated, and or need something to help you gain the momentum to keep your stories going!  

You can also find the questions below: 

 
1.  What has been a written project/work/story that you have wanted to give up on but are glad that you didn’t? What made you decide to keep going with it despite wanting to give up on it?

2.  What is something that you discovered about writing that you wish more people knew about?

3.   Have you ever visualized your characters not only speaking to you when trying to write them in a specific scene but also in other scenarios in your story? If so, have there been any interactions with you and them that stood out to you? If so, what was that interaction? If not, what would you say to them if you had a chance to sit down and have a chat with them?

4.  You have the option of a writing document, a notebook or hardcover journal, and a typewriter in front of you for your writing: the challenge is to pick one that you give away, another you would keep and use excessively, and another you would keep but would not use and it would end up being neglected it so you forgot it exist. Now, give me the reasons as to why you chose to give one away, keep and use, and the last: neglect it? 

5.  Everybody talks about writer's block but there's also writer's slump (and believe me, that's also real), have you ever dealt with that? If so, how did you do so?
6. During the holidays, what are things that your characters like Johnny Lupin and Evander Jinks find themselves celebrating traditionally, changing things up to make it different and fun, or would they do a bit of both? 

7.  Most people have negative things to say about the Winter season but I want to know if there are positives or at least one good thing about it? If so, what are the positives or one good thing about it?

8.  What's your top five songs that you like to put on in order to get into the holiday spirit or it would be on a playlist if you had to share it with others?

9.  Okay so what Christmas character from any form of media can you relate to most during the holidays and why or how do you relate to them?

10.  What’s another holiday that’s not Christmas that you heard about that also takes place during this season that you like hearing about and have an appreciation for or feel fascinated by even if you don’t celebrate it? 

Once again, I hope that you enjoy answering these questions and or at least it's to your liking! I'm so sorry for the lateness or if it's late seeing as I was dealing with being sick for most of the holidays which was definitely no fun!  Despite that, I am hoping that you have had a wonderful and magical holiday season and that 2025 is a brighter and kinder to you and that you get to fulfill your writing, personal, and other goals this year!  

-Diana/Di

[startwearingpurple]

Hi Di! Thank you for the questions.

1. Hmm. For fanfic, I never gave up on The Dragon Keeper, which I had bits written of since around 2010 and finally wrote in 2024. I’m really proud of that one. I had a hard time with that one with the original storyline I’d thought up for it, it just never felt like something I wanted to write much of back then. I thought about it many times over the years and finally came back to it because I was walking in to work one day in December 2023, thinking about the story, and it literally stopped me in my tracks when it hit me where I was going wrong that the plot had never been right, and I knew how I wanted to write it. Then I couldn’t help but write it.

2. I think it’s that it’s more important to tell a story you want to read than trying to hit metrics of popular tropes or ships. I re-read my novel lengths because they are stories I genuinely wanted to read, and nobody else had written them so I did. I think as a reader you can tell when the author is writing something that makes them happy, something they enjoy, characters they love.

3.  No, not really speaking to me. I do envision full-on scenes of dialogue between characters fairly frequently. Sometimes I manage to write it down before I forget details. I do tend to think of my characters as living in my head when I’m writing them (and in fact, when I feel like they moved out of my head is when I know I told their story correctly), but not in a talking to me way. I don’t know that I really want to have a chat? I don’t tend to think of them that way, I’m not much for the self-insert fantasies I suppose.

4. Oh dang! I would for sure keep and use the document, cause I write best in digital form. My current method, cause I’m a commie Apple user, is that I keep the working documents for my WIPs on my iCloud so I can read/write in them in either my phone, my iPad, or my MacBook. Makes it very easy. Then I save local copies to my MacBook’s hard drive regularly. I would give away the typewriter- I make too many on the fly changes when I write to use one of those without getting annoyed. I do love to buy blank notebooks and never use them so that’ll be the keep and forget about it.

5. I’m not sure what the difference is between writer’s block and slump. Like getting into an endless loop of reading and making minor edits on what you’ve already written? Cause I do that all the time. Sometimes just opening up my laptop instead of my iPad to try to write makes a difference, or a new change of venue to write in. Sometimes I attend “Shut Up & Write!” sessions locally, which is basically a write-in, and that usually helps.

6. Ha, well Johnny is a kid so he’s doing what his family does, and he’s one of 8 children and part of the extended Weasley clan, so he’s off running around with cousins and talking shit in the grand tradition of Cousin Walks at holidays, eating too much food, wishing he had better presents, the usual 16 year old things. Evander Jinks is decidedly a non-traditional guy, and would go to his dads’ house. They being fabulous Artistic Fashionable Gay Husbands have fantastic Christmases with wine parties and dinners. Evander and Lily would definitely go visit them in the evenings after spending the morning with the more chaotic Potter-Weasley clan.

7. I do love Christmas, although it’s less fun now my kids are older and totally disinterested in it (aside from candy in their stockings and getting some new Lego sets). I love Christmas music and cookies. I love time off work haha. My favorite winter thing is snowy days that get me paid days off work. This past week a snowstorm power outage cause a catastrophic failure of our city’s water treatment plant, and there was no or low water at my office from Monday through Friday morning, which means I was off work the entire week (also had no water at my house Tuesday to Thursday) and got paid to be a lazy bum watching tv.

8. Oh I love playlists! My kids roll their eyes at me cause I give my Spotify playlists silly names like “Chronically Online”, “It Was The 70s, Man”, “Random Shit I Keep Listening To”, “Driving Concert Starring Me”, “Am I a Swiftie cause I like this” (that one is up to five hours of TS songs so I think we can safely say the answer is yes). My big ones on my “Christmas Vibing” playlist would be:

• Caro Emerald and Brook Benton “You’re all I want for Christmas”
• Jamie Callum “Hang your lights”
• Paula Fuga “Mele Kalikimaka”
• Danielle Apicella “Somebody else for Christmas”
• Kylie Minogue and Iggy Pop “Christmas wrapping”
• and an honorable mention of non-Christmas holiday fun to Daveed Diggs “Puppy for Hanukkah”

9. I really, really love Kate Winslet’s character in “The Holiday”, which I know is arguably not a Christmas movie, but I otherwise dislike all your usually Christmas movies so choices are limited. I like that she did the hard thing to change her life when she wasn’t happy with it any more.

10. Saturnalia! I don’t celebrate it, I just do a Christmas/Yule/Solstice blend cause I grew up Christian and am now a secular humanist pagan. But Saturnalia sounds fun.

[startwearingpurple]

Why is it that what you “should” be writing often winds up more difficult to make progress in than the fun side project that you originally weren’t even going to post?

I’m still working on the next chapter of Johnny’s Girl. It’s maybe halfway done, maybe two thirds. I need to stew on it a bit more, not sure what it needs next.

I totaled up my word count in the untitled Cissy story and it’s over 54,000 now and I don’t think it’s even halfway done. What is wrong with me  

A reviewer left a request for more in the AU storyline and I’ve been thinking about that now too. There may be an AU one-shot coming.

And I’m about to leave for a two week training out in the Midwest where I anticipate accomplishing very little writing after work each day, cause there are bar crawls and Superb Owl parties planned (or is that Super Bowl?), and that guy from Florida who was in my last unit training will be there and he’s very flirty when we’re drinking 

[Oregonian]

Hi, Megan.  Frustrating, isn't it?  I totally sympathize. Maybe there's a clue in your statement that the untitled Cissy story is over 54,000 words, yet less than halfway done.  (I entirely identify with that!)    Perhaps you look ahead and envision all that needs to be said in this vast and complex story (I'm assuming it's vast and complex), and it's just daunting, whereas a side project with a simple plot and premise just seems like fun, a quick few chapters and it's all said.

So long as you don't lose sight of where the Cissy story is going, and so long as you keep in mind how important it is to you, it will get done in the end, even with little 'vacations' when you work on something else, something lighter, for a little while, just to take the pressure off.

Lots of best wishes for you.  As Justin Hayward said in his classic song "Nights in White Satin, "Just what you want be, you will be, in the end." 

 

Vicki

 

[startwearingpurple]

Ohhhh no the Cissy story is not difficult or daunting at all, that’s the one I’m writing when I should be writing Johnny’s Girl. I know where both of them are going but I do have a more detailed outline for Cissy. Johnny’s Girl is more difficult to write at the moment. Whenever I have a block of time to write, I find myself re-reading and editing and writing new bits in Cissy instead of writing Johnny. I’m really obsessed with that one. I do enjoy the Johnny story a lot, it’s just not quite as embedded in my head as Cissy is. Maybe cause I already wrote almost 200k words of Cissy’ parents  

A one-shot in the AU timeline does sound like a fun short project though…

[Goatspeed]

I think the thing you should be working on can be kinda like summer squash when you're a kid and your mom cooks it until it looks like something the dog ate and didn't like, but the thing you just thought up and started scribbling on the side is more like chocolate.  Stuff that's good for you is never as much fun as stuff that isn't.  It's like a law or something.

G

Edited January 27 by Goatspeed

[Oregonian]

Oh.  I guess I got the two titles mixed up. But I'm glad to know that the Johnny story, while preceding more slowly, is not distressing you by its slowness.  Heaven forbid that our writing process should ever be distressing.    But it happens to me often that the physical actions of writing take a hiatus for several days while the current story situation just churns and revolves in my brain like a sauce in a pot on the stove that has not yet come to a boil because the recipe says "cook over a low heat."  Eventually, often when I go to bed but don't immediately drop off to sleep, the new ideas come thick and fast, like the point where the sauce finally reaches the boiling point.

It sounds like you're having fun with your stories, and that's nice. 

[startwearingpurple]

Ah no doubt my fault for not being more specific   I think Johnny’s Girl is in the churning stage. I did a little editing on the scenes in the next chapter (I think I’m on 6 now) last night, and today if I manage any down time at work (ha!) I’ll try to think about where it’s going for the second half of the chapter. Right now I just have a vague “Johnny’s perspective, impending Quidditch match” note.

I have been having a harder time writing since the election, I must admit.

[startwearingpurple]

*heaves sigh*

I haven’t finished the latest Johnny chapter. I did name all the chapters in the Cissy story and I think I have a title for it now. Tentatively calling it With Butterflies. My recurring love affair with song lyrics as titles continues. But the chapter titles are not song lyrics! Progress.

[RonsGirlFriday]

This meme is perfect.

[GotNoJamsss]

On 1/31/2025 at 4:48 PM, PurplePixie said:

My recurring love affair with song lyrics as titles continues.

Stopping by to say ^^^ is a mood. Also stopping by to spread some pixie cheer  I know you're still trying to figure out what this event is and where you might have space and I'm glad to have you on our misfit team  

More importantly, this event gave me a chance to read more of your Next Gen crew stories and I'm so obsessed with these pot stirrers and troublemakers! I have some questions to hopefully inspire more writing and editing and song lyrics titles (because they're the best and don't listen to anyone else on the matter)! 

1. Who is your favorite Next Gen character (yes I'm being really mean and saying it has to be one...okay maybe two)
2. What do you start with when writing an OC? Is it the name, their Hogwarts House, a spot they need to fill in a story? 
3. Same train of thought, do you find your stories start with a plot idea or a character/pairing idea? 
4. What's your favorite magical world-building you've come up with (p.s. love the apparition race so much!)?
5. What's a favorite comeback, sass, or just line that you've written lately? 

[startwearingpurple]

1 hour ago, GotNoBreadcrumbsss said:

Stopping by to say ^^^ is a mood. Also stopping by to spread some pixie cheer  I know you're still trying to figure out what this event is and where you might have space and I'm glad to have you on our misfit team  

More importantly, this event gave me a chance to read more of your Next Gen crew stories and I'm so obsessed with these pot stirrers and troublemakers! I have some questions to hopefully inspire more writing and editing and song lyrics titles (because they're the best and don't listen to anyone else on the matter)! 

1. Who is your favorite Next Gen character (yes I'm being really mean and saying it has to be one...okay maybe two)
2. What do you start with when writing an OC? Is it the name, their Hogwarts House, a spot they need to fill in a story? 
3. Same train of thought, do you find your stories start with a plot idea or a character/pairing idea? 
4. What's your favorite magical world-building you've come up with (p.s. love the apparition race so much!)?
5. What's a favorite comeback, sass, or just line that you've written lately? 

Yay so glad to hear you love my Next Gen idiots! They’re so much fun to write. They are entirely too old to be as ridiculous as they all are (except Molly, who’s the most mature despite that time she had a mohawk, and Lucy who is quite normal as Weasleys go). Victoire is only ridiculous when she’s pregnant and talking shit.

1. Choose one of my babies??? OMG. I mean obviously I love Rose cause I’ve written three whole novels on her and she was the start of all my Next Gen silliness. For a second I’d pick (if I’m not picking OCs or any of Victoire and Teddy’s kids) Molly. I really like her character and really loved writing her novel.

2. You know, it kind of varies, but most often I name them and then their personality starts coming to me. Sometimes they sort of pop fully formed in my head (Evander Jinks) and sometimes they need some thought (Hazel McGregor, who actually didn’t get named for quite a long time when I thought up the premise of Johnny’s Girl.

3. Most often with a scene. For example, Just Another Midnight Run came to me in two scenes: Ron calling Scorpius a shiftless layabout but totally eating the food Scorpius made, and Arthur cackling over Scorpius having his old job at the Ministry (“you hear that whirring noise? It’s Lucius Malfoy spinning in his grave!”). I write scenes and eventually they get connected and there’s enough of them that plot arrives in my head. Sometimes though the plot comes first, usually when it’s characters I’ve already been writing, like Siobhan’s story.

4. Totally the dragon reserve system and the whole 70s wizards at the nundu hunt. I could see it so clearly. And I have a really strong visualization for what each of the dragon reserves looks like and how they function, the interesting sort of people who become dragon keepers, like it’s a whole world in my head. Oh and magical tattoos! Totally loved writing those for The Dragon Keeper.

5. Gonna do one from each of my WIPs.

From Cissy’s story:

Spoiler

Tyler shot a wary look at the two of them. Cissy had always told him that she wasn’t sure whether her father had stolen the sailboat or not, but he’d never entirely believed it. This was an awfully big item to steal. “You didn’t really hijack this boat, did you?”

“Hijack is a strong word,” said Barry, still crouched down over the ropes. He hadn’t looked up, but Tyler thought he saw the edge of a smile on the big man’s face.

And from a few chapters ahead in Johnny’s Girl:

Spoiler

Johnny’s mum smiled fondly toward the two of them, and then said to Johnny, “I wish you lot would have such nice manners as your cousin.”

“Lupins are feral,” Johnny told her playfully. “Malfoys aren’t. Mum, I’m going to take Hazel down to the pond. We’ll be back later.”

“No snogging at the pond,” his mother told him. Hazel turned bright red.

Johnny rolled his eyes at his mum. “She’s not my girlfriend. Come on, Hazel.”

“It was nice to meet you, Mrs. Lupin,” Hazel managed to say, though she was still rather red.

“You too, dear. Johnny, be back in time for cleanup.” His mother gave him a stern look. “You are not getting out of helping because you have your friend over. Do you pay her to be your life coach?”

“Nah. She does it for free because she likes telling me what to do and calling me names,” Johnny said cheerfully.

“Well, who can blame her. Run along. Don’t forget what I said.”

“About the snogging or the cleanup?”

“Either,” said his mother.

 

[startwearingpurple]

On 1/27/2025 at 6:59 PM, Goatspeed said:

 It's like a law or something.

 

By the way, this just jumped out at me, this is literally a chapter title in one of my stories

[startwearingpurple]

I really thought I’d be able to do some serious writing this weekend but honestly, I’m so keyed up with anxiety I don’t think I can. I do not think it’s possible to balance staying informed with maintaining mental health.

I did buy eggs today ($5.50 at Aldi) so I can make a cake. And I am very happy with my little dragon tattoo I got this morning (also that the adorable twenties-ish tattoo artist was so shocked when I said I have twenty year old sons that she dropped the roll of paper towels and demanded to know how old I was cause she’d assumed I was early 30s, thanks Mom for the genes that make you look younger than your age). I had a peaceful tattoo hour and a half reading an e-book and listening to her Spotify playlist which had good stuff on it - Hozier, Billie Eilish, Sabrina Carpenter, Adele - and when I got home I looked at the fednews subreddit and my stomach is in knots again.

I am not a drink-at-home person. I need a new vice. Maybe I’ll start picking up random guys and have a ho phase. My sons would be so embarrassed 

[startwearingpurple]

Sat down and wrote the next chapter of Johnny's Girl today. The chapter after is partly complete already so I'm going to do some editing and further writing this week and hopefully have both of them done by this coming weekend. These two chapters I really like, plot-wise, so I'm happy to get them done.

I'm not really seriously writing the Cissy story, just scenes as it occurs to me, but I want to sit down and make myself finish the first three chapters. It's already just over 63,000 words and almost every chapter is half-written at best *forehead slap*. I meant it to be much shorter than The Dragon Keeper but that seems unlikely now. It does not need to be this long about an original character's original character kid that no one cares about but me. But I don't want to cut anything, so fuck it, just going to keep writing the story I feel like it is.

Galaxycon in my city is approaching (apparently Galaxycon happens in a lot of cities, which I think is weird), and my bestie got tickets. I'm only doing a low-key cosplay, where I wear my hot pink Star Trek TNG uniform top and some yoga pants haha. She's not sure what she's going to dress as yet. I suggested we do a hippie Jedi cosplay next year when we can be bothered to actually make some stuff and not just wear things we already have. But I think it'll be a fun day. I haven't been to a con in years.

Also, Easter candy is the best. I don't make the rules, it just is. Cadbury mini eggs, jelly beans, Cadbury creme eggs (the mini ones are the best!), and I love Peeps (no judgment!). The bunny Peeps are the best. And they always remind me of when I was in college and we discovered the Emory University Peeps experiments website (see here) and makes me laugh.

[Pixileanin]

On 3/16/2025 at 5:52 PM, PurplePixie said:

almost every chapter is half-written at best *forehead slap*

Ok I just have to say that I ADORE this, because I write this way, too. I call it a Summary Outline Expansion, and then one day, SUPRISE! It's a novel when I wasn't looking!

FYI, I'll read it. 

[startwearingpurple]

17 minutes ago, Pixileanin said:

Ok I just have to say that I ADORE this, because I write this way, too. I call it a Summary Outline Expansion, and then one day, SUPRISE! It's a novel when I wasn't looking!

FYI, I'll read it. 

 I love that! Summary Outline Expansion. I write non-sequentially, so I have scenes that go here and there, and usually the outline happens afterward. And eventually the scenes connect and become a whole chapter, and sometimes that happens in order!

Thank you  I often struggle with thinking nobody is actually reading my stuff. Like one or two people. I’ve got one reader who reliably leaves a comment on every Next Gen thing I post so sometimes I think it’s just her rereading lol. But I’ll finish it if only for my own sake. And if I start posting then I have to complete it. I have a hangup about that, I don’t leave unfinished fics. I’m weird. But it’s nice to hear you write the same way! 

[Oregonian]

Hi, @PurplePixie and @Pixileanin.  I'm enjoying reading the last few posts in this WJ because I write the same way you do.  Valuable scenes that pop into my brain non-sequentially and have to be fleshed out, then put on hold until they can be slotted into the narrative.

The imperative that I must finish my story, whether or not anyone reads it.  It must get out of my head and onto the paper.  I started posting it before it was finished as a way to force myself to keep going because I never leave a story unfinished.  Giving up worrying about how long it is going to be --- it will be what it will be, as many words as necessary to tell it to the end.

So no, you''re not weird, either that or else we three are all weird.  What's good: this 'weird' way of writing produces some really nice stories.  

Vicki

[startwearingpurple]

1 hour ago, Oregonian said:

Hi, @PurplePixie and @Pixileanin.  I'm enjoying reading the last few posts in this WJ because I write the same way you do.  Valuable scenes that pop into my brain non-sequentially and have to be fleshed out, then put on hold until they can be slotted into the narrative.

The imperative that I must finish my story, whether or not anyone reads it.  It must get out of my head and onto the paper.  I started posting it before it was finished as a way to force myself to keep going because I never leave a story unfinished.  Giving up worrying about how long it is going to be --- it will be what it will be, as many words as necessary to tell it to the end.

So no, you''re not weird, either that or else we three are all weird.  What's good: this 'weird' way of writing produces some really nice stories.  

Vicki

Yessss this is so me! Scenes, and then they sit and wait to be connected and enfolded into a chapter. Bits and pieces and then I solder them together lol. My people! Fellow piecemeal writers.

I am for sure the same way about the story: it has to come out of my head. I write it down and eventually the voices stop living in my head  I often think of it as the characters have moved out. Like I wrote three novels of Rose Weasley’s POV, and now she doesn’t live in my head anymore. But she still pops up as a cameo character! She’ll be in the next chapter of Johnny’s Girl, actually.

I start posting when I think I’m over the hump and can finish the story, as a way of making sure I really do finish it. Cause once I start posting, it has to get completed. I can leave unfinished knitting and crochet projects until the end of time, but not stories!

[RonsGirlFriday]

Romione one shotS as in multiple?