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Hi! 😊

Motivation is a double-faced friend in this house. A whimsical pixie who finds a lot of fun at playing "trick or treat", just... all year round.  And it's not alone in that! It always roams my disgracefully messy mind-bedroom (don't look under the bed, ever) with its newfound hench...thing, Procrastination. You have to see them, bouncing on my bed like some crazed kids high on sugar, giggling their heads off while my lungs are catching fire with all my screaming for them to behave.

Actually, there's a whole gang in there, Motivation and Procrastination leading the reins of a squad of thugs: Anxiety, Joy , Desillusion, Excitement, Doubt, Confidence, Self-Deprecation (that one's a real pest!) and more. And God, they're hungry monsters, this lot! They grow from blank documents, missing punctuation, grammar atomic mushrooms, plot earthquakes. But also from the kudos, the "*** left a comment on...", wonderful readers who show so much attachment to my characters, smooth dialogues, that one time witty punchline I keep on repeating myself in the hope another shows up, or some on-point music to match that DAMN scene I couldn't seem to get right. I love these brats so much then.

*fake-annoyed sigh* I guess I'm stuck with them.

So, now I'm trying to muster them in a (kinda) organized rank and make them help me get back to my two-timeline wip. Each chapter is structured along two timelines (past and present) with correspondences and bridges between the two. But here's the thing, I've been writing steady on one timeline; a lot even: I have the current chapter covered and the next pretty much started. So much so that I can't get back to the other timeline...  

So, if someone could take Despondency and Weariness for a vacation somewhere, I'll be super grateful (if they fall off a boat without life-vests on, it's okay)

Thank you @the-wip-project for this amazing idea of sharing and writing 💜🙏 It’s going to be fun!

Happy writing everyone!

2021-06-01 Day One

Yay! Are you excited? I’m excited. I can’t wait to see what you all think and like to talk about. Let me give you a question for an easy start.

We’re starting with a bit of thinking about motivation. Write about what your motivation is to write at all. What got you started? What keeps you going?

The daily questions and mini-essays are just an offer to give you an idea to write about, you don’t have to use them. You can talk about whatever you want and show off whatever you like. You can reblog from this post or make your own post. Tag with #100daysofwriting, mention this blog, keep mature themes under a cut.

Mentions under the cut.

Afficher davantage

Wip, relief in progress

@the-wip-project Day 2, here we go!

For your current WIP:  What motivates you to write this specific story? What makes this story special for you? Is there a special twist/trope/setting you want to explore? What got you started on this particular story?

To make a long story short (haha), my current wip is a transposition of my own family (hi)story. Something that's been haunting the halls of the (complex) relationship between my mother and me, what with untold truths, heavy secrets, weaved into the fabric of historical events and past social norms, all of this distilling over the years into some damaging miscommunication, a feeling of estrangement, and even transgenerational trauma.

Ironically, it all started on the day I learnt my grandfather had passed away, which was also the day I learnt he'd been alive all along my childhood, teen and young adult years. You know, it's the kind of situation like when you step onto a big thump that has grown under the family rug for years and the cloud of dust that comes forth is downright suffocating. After a few years of stubborn research, of unfathomable frustration but also precious success that have changed me more than I could imagine, I thought I was ready to talk about it. I wasn't. Some friends advised me to write about it. I couldn't.

None would do.

Since then, I've become a fervent reader of fanfiction, and started writing my own. It was a couple of years into writing that the idea of transposing my story to other characters, another place, another historical context (still war time though) and in another language (that aspect is the most crucial I think) came to me.  I do a lot of research, but obviously I take liberties in the narrative too (I'm a sucker for soulmates au 🥺) 

The tacit deal I made with myself is that this writing would not only help me come to terms with what happened, bring it to life in the outer world (because nobody in my family cares about it but me, and that just looks like another sort of burial if you ask me) and find solace, through forms of reconciliation, which never took place in real life. 

It's a healing process, and more. Something I'd like to give my family, even if they don't want it (yet, hopefully one day they might) And that's why I really want to finish it, though sometimes it's not easy to confront some moments/scenes, especially the ones I wish I could have experienced myself.

The biggest challenge of all will be to write war scenes. I'm not fond of violence in general. So writing this will be tough.

Of loss and love

@the-wip-project Day 3:

What’s your character’s motivation? What motivates them to act like they do?

Since my current wip is structured along with two timelines, the plot revolves around two protagonists, namely a 2020-young man, and his lost-and-found grandpa when himself was young, in 1950.

Let's start in chronological order:

Grandpa is young and is about to come of age in a changing world, when his own country is literally birthing itself, in the most violent manner: invaders taking advantage of a vulnerable people, setting them against one another in a ruthless clash. Changing times, changing norms. Almost everything this character knows is questioned: his upbringing, his family dynamics, his feelings, even the relative peace he enjoyed when a child. But he soon learns that the future is out of the question however; only the present counts. Needless to say, it is hard for this character to find his way in the middle of chaos, and to learn who he is, where his place is. As he figures out as he goes how to deal with survival, loss and love, with little guidance, some decisions are going to be drastic, and their consequences dramatic.

His grandson goes through the same process actually (I play a lot on coincidences and parallels) but in the modern world. Changes are not as dramatic, nor violent, but it doesn't mean there aren't any. They're here, undercover still, subdued, internal. And when he discovers a whole part of his origins has been kept hidden from him, the same questioning occurs, and with it the same themes, with the same potential rifts with his family. But rather than risking major upheavals in his life because losing the ones he loves scares him, he tries to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds (looove that phrase) and it works... for some time. But he can't avoid decisions to be taken too at some point; reconciliation is a decision, which parties have to agree on.

*rolls sleeves up to get to work* Right...

GMC??? GMC!!

@the-wip-project Day 4

Thinking back to the motivation(s) you defined yesterday, what is your character’s goal (or goals) and what conflict(s) prevents them from getting to that? In short: Define the GMC for your characters.

Wow, I've never heard of GMC before, and I wonder how I've been doing without it! Like, it's basically the spine of a plot, isn't it?

And the fun part is that, I kinda answered all that in my Day 3-post yesterday, didn't I? 😅 So, not to make another lengthy and repetitive post, here is how I can sum it up:

1/ 1950 protagonist:

Goal: survive.

Motivation: love for the one and only.

Conflict: rigid social norms, discrimination.

2/ 2020 protagonist:

Goal: Learn more about his origins and rehabilitate a lost and forgotten family member.

Motivation: Some inner sense of what's right, supported by his boyfriend.

Conflict: Open past wounds (which are not his own in the first place) and threaten present-day balance.

Home and away

@the-wip-project Day 4

What’s a worldbuilding detail in your WIP that you really like?

It's not that the question is tough indeed, it's just that I don't really know what to answer, since it is all set in the contemporary era. So, nothing is exactly invented, or imagined. Or not really.

BUT

my characters travel a lot. And although, they travel to countries I've never been to 😅, I thoroughly enjoy doing the research on the places, trying to comprehend the landscapes, the distances, the geography, the names, the special features that make that place unique and use it as a realistic backdrop. I had a really fun time with @stankris going through the UBC campus last year 😄

Even more so now, as we can't really travel anymore ...

So I come to think of it as my future holiday planning 😁 (some day *sigh*)

Sneak Peek

@the-wip-project Day 6

I couldn't seem to find an appropriate answer to today's question, but since I've been working on my wip tonight, here's a sneak peek 😊

"It had been an interesting night spent by his mother's side, drawing a short family tree on one of the pieces of paper lying around on the kitchen shelves, scribbling names, dates, ages, places. Jungkook feels warmth spread all over his body at the memory, a smile naturally stretching on his face. He had not felt so connected to his mother in so long that he couldn’t get enough of her invigorating excitement. They hadn’t delved into the sensitive topics that night, and Jungkook hadn’t felt the need to. He never expressed it yet, but he’s been jittery with anticipation at his mother’s idea since then. Obviously, the idea of showing up there without informing them beforehand wasn’t exactly his idea of a first meeting, and the risk of their visit being bothersome was a probability to take into consideration. But he wasn’t going to tell her that. Instead, he had prayed, crossed all the fingers he could and sacrificed his sleep on the Fate altar for her initiative to be rewarded with a positive outcome."

Sow an action, reap a habit.

@the-wip-project Day 7

Do you have a writing day? Or a writing hour? When do you get most of your writing done?

I'm a firm believer in schedules and planning; they just fit my personality.

Since all my leisure activities take place at home, they could easily be drowned under other tasks, such as school work for one if I'm not careful. So planning them is my way not to forget that they're as important as the rest and that I should not neglect them. My mental health needs them; I feel nourished from them; they keep my daily life balanced. To me, they're part of healthy habits, just like drinking water, 8h-sleep, or clay masks.

Writing falls into these habits of course, made even more enjoyable with the presence and help from my writing buddy @stankris 🥰 We met two years ago (Kris, can you believe it?) during a BigBang and bonded over our respective stories and more. Once the event was over, we remained in contact and have been organizing writing sessions, twice a week now, making do of our time zones, during which we chat, discuss plots, character development, share ideas, feedback, support... And write of course!

They've become a dear friend and these sessions are moments I've been looking forward to every week since we started. We hardly ever missed any, just postponed a few of them for exceptional reasons. And it's a blast every week!

My wips and I owe them a lot! 💜

Check out my new wip

@the-wip-project Day 10 (I'm back! I got lost, sorry)

Tell us about ideas you have floating around. Worldbuilding snippets, or ideas for new stories. Just a few bullet points.

I tell you what dear @the-wip-project, this challenge is really working wonders! Not only has it helped me approach my wip with a fresher stance and reconnect with its original soul, but it's also rebooted my creativity, which had been slumbering under the covers of the past year's strain.

In other words, another wip is born 👶 🎉! Just today, it just uttered its first 1k words.

I've come to realise that, as the first wip is gradually reaching its climax, the emotional charge coming with it is getting really heavy and tends to smother me at times. I didn't know I needed a breather until I started my hand at this A/B/O fanfic (my first). I still have to deal with the guilt of sharing my attention between the two but that's a question for later 😅

It's meant to be lighter, despite the serious subthemes of reproductive technology, of parenthood and its challenges, of social changes vs tradition (I did say it's supposed to be lighter, right? Because it really is)

The fun part, for now, is getting to pick the characters' scents. The challenge is not to forget to add these scents as subtexts to a situation, a dialogue, or an emotion.

So yeah, one new adventure 😊

Personae

@the-wip-project Day 11

How do you create your characters? Do you make a profile of them? Do you know your character before you start writing the story?

I've tried several tools, from the basic bullet list of characteristics on the first loose paper I could lay my hand on, to an intricate mind map of the story cast with pictures, places, dates, etc.

Since a lot of the creative process goes through an insanely vast amount of daydreaming time, my characters are quite happy with budding and growing in my imagination. Their features existing already, only some details become more precise over time. But overall, I like to respect canon in that regard.

But it's the writing that really gives them the consistency I'd like their personalities to have. And this is when the magic happens because I'd be at a loss to say with precision what they're like before I actually start writing. As the letters, words and sentences flow on the blank document, their profiles take shape; the traits which are meant to be set, revealing de facto those that are going to follow the arc of development and evolve along with the plot.

@the-wip-project Days 12 & 13

Prompt:

Unfortunately, things never go according to plan around here.

Indeed they don't.... I NEVER INTENDED TO WRITE THE FIRST CHAPTER OF A NEW WIP IN THREE DAYS!!! I'M SHOUTING BECAUSE I'M SUPER EXCITED!!!

Look at your characters, maybe even the one you created yesterday, and be honest. Do you have a type?

I've been scratching my head about this question. I don't know if I have a type of character. I certainly have a recurrent type of plot though lol.

What I could say is that my main characters are meant to complete each other one way or another and to meet half-way on their individual paths. My stories revolve a lot around building bridges, facing trauma, sweeping unpleasant truths from under the rug, starting personal inner journeys. So my characters are flawed from the start, aware or not of their own missing pieces and weaknesses (but soon to be) and I guess this is the type of personae I enjoy staging and following along the relative unknown of the plot, the encounters it brings about, self-discovery and retrieving some balance after their life being more or less disrupted.

I realise it may sound super heavy 😅, but it's not necessarily the case. It matches fluff as angst equally.

Folklore & Fanlore

@the-wip-project Day 14

Do you have figures/creatures of folklore in your WIP? If not, can you think of something that would fit?

So, which WIP are we talking about here exactly? 😉WIP 1 or WIP 2?

WIP 1 has no figure of folklore in particular, but is ingrained in a specific country's recent history. The context is actually central to the plot so it required some research at understanding of traditions, mentalities, ways of living. It was never my intention to tackle this aspect as an expert (far from it) and it still isn't. However, I love learning new stuff and I hate half-assing tasks, even for leisure. So it was important, and fun, to me to get those details accurate whenever they needed to be.

WIP 2 doesn't hold any figures of folklore per se, but figures of fanlore more like. The Alpha/Beta/Omega trope offers a very intricate and fascinating universe, and whenever you thought you had read every possible variations of it, someone surprises you with more inventiveness (your humble servant yearns to that privilege).

Writing was a healing process when I started it. Now it is part of a learning process, where I give as much as I gain. It requires effort, time and dedication, but the nourishment I get in return is amazing. I grow as a person, just as my characters grow. Add to that kudos and comments, and I'm on cloud nine.

@the-wip-project Day 15

Does your WIP have fairytales? Do your characters tell mythical stories to each other?

Yes, they do! And since my stories all take place in Asia, I've had a lot of fun digging out some interesting ones for lovely scenes. Here's an extract from one of the earlier chapters of WIP1:

“They’re well known folk-tales, which my eomeoni and halmeoni used to tell me when I was very young, back in Wonsan.” Hence why she thought about him when she found the book, Junghee believes: the idea that his mother is thinking about him fills him with some sweet nostalgia again and brings about the familiar lump that has kept him company here at the back of his throat. He’s so grateful she asked this book to be delivered to him; so grateful Jimin is the one who brought it to him.

“Let’s read some!” Jimin cheers, standing up. “Where’s that lamp you had?” Junghee hears him shuffle over the floor in the dark, blindly feeling along until he hears the scrape of metal. “Ah, here it is.” He winds it up, illuminating his face from underneath, as awake and lively as ever, before he takes his place back on the bed, by Junghee’s side this time, and directs the light towards the book. “So, pick one,” he adds. “Not too long though. And a happy one. Oh, and funny too.”

“Aish, hyung. Folk tales are not always funny. They’re meant to convey messages, lessons of tolerance, generosity, love and hope. This one, for instance, ‘The Two Brothers Who Threw Away Their Lumps of Gold.”

“You’ll have to tell me where the hope is here. The title alone is stupid. Pick another one.”

“But these two brothers love each other!”

“Doesn’t erase the fact they’re stupid…”

“Okay… so, ‘The Beggar Brothers’ —”

“No please, not poor people! I’ve had my share of poverty.”

Junghee pinches his lips to stifle a snicker, and flips more pages: “How about ‘The Net Bag for Catching a Tiger’? About how a man became rich.”

“Brilliant!”

They settle against the wall, bodies pressed close against one another across the narrow width of the bed, legs extended in front of them.

“Once upon a time, there was a poor young bachelor. [why are they always poor?] Because he was really poor, he went to the mountains to find something to eat, [sounds familiar…] but then it became nighttime. He found a house while wandering around and asked the old man who was the owner of the house, if he could sleep there for one night. The old man told the bachelor to come in. The old man was making a net bag with straw. The bachelor asked, ‘why are you making a net bag?’ The old man answered, ‘if a poor person goes into the net, that person will get a lot of money.’ [sounds fishy already] The bachelor was very interested, and asked, ‘May I get into the bag?’[what?] The old man answered, ‘Of course’. He got into the bag, which had been finished. Then the old man suddenly tied up the mouth of the net bag [I honestly saw that coming] tightly and hung it on a big branch in the mountain. The man screamed because he was scared. [Gosh, is he gonna lure the tiger with that poor bugger?]”

Junghee stops his reading, thinking, then yawns loudly.

“So? What happens next? Where's the tiger?”

“Hyung, aren’t you tired? I’m exhausted,” he whines, standing up to get to the bed where the blankets are. He climbs onto it and spreads the two blankets over him.

“Sun Junghee! What happens next? How does it end?” Jimin threatens, hurrying to his side with the lamp and poking him in the ribs.

@the-wip-project Days 16 to 19 (Gosh, I'm so so late 😥)

Do you have prophecies and superstitions as part of the worldbuilding in your WIP? Could you add some?

In WIP2, the A/B/O fic, there's this trope about the bond mates create when they claim each other (which is one of my favourite parts of the ABO universe to be honest) that I decided to use as a prerequisite superstition from the point of view of one of the secondary characters; a secondary character who'll only appear at the beginning and vanish shortly after, but whose impact on the protagonist will be powerful enough to ingrain this belief quite deep.

Only to be debunked later by the other main character 😊

Think about an interview question for your main character/s and then write down what they don’t say. What secrets do they keep? What do they lie about?

Right, so I've decided to present this as an interview between my protagonist and his psyche:

Protagonist: Alphas are a plague. They suck, stink and can go to Hell. I don't need one in my life. I can totally live without them. I'm independent and strong and in love with myself. Who needs alphas anyway?

Superego: Right, I understand where you come from. Your reaction is logical and the emotional charge of your thoughts is legitimate. I'm sure though that, when you calm down, you'll be able to see things in a more composed and lucid way, and consider your words as a bit extreme.

Ego: SHUT UP! I.GOT. HURT! NOT THEM, I! So yeah, alphas are the scum of the earth. Just watch me live my life like I don't care, and learn!

Id: lol.

What ideas came to you recently from daydreaming?

Too many. Like....

I've trying to figure out how a toddler speaks in English and how adults would react. I've also been thinking about future scenes, which should normally happen a few chapters later, and I'm always debating with myself whether I should write them down while they're vivid in my mind or focus on where I'm at, now. I've also made some research on Hawaii for my other wip, so my head is also full of palm trees, paradise beaches, luxuriant vegetation in the volcanic outback (very pleasant part of the daydreaming here) and the serious talk that must take place in such an idyllic environment (pretty ironic)

How do you decide which WIP to work on?

I've been asking myself this question since I started the second wip *scratches head* (my writing involves as much daydreaming as head-scratching, I'm realizing) and I've come to the idea to write a bit of both at the same time. And it's quite satisfying, since I have the feeling of overlooking neither, even if I don't produce a lot. Besides, as they're very different, one really allows me to take a step back from the other and take the time to consider what I've just written (if it makes sense, what I forgot, didn't phrase accurately etc...).

Day 25

@the-wip-project

Look who's back at it after almost a week MIA 😅 The moodboard is finally ready, by the way. So surprise by the end of the weekend ✨! I couldn't answer the previous questions this week, but know that I read every single one of them and I love them! They got me thinking a lot about my writing and creative process, in more ways than one.

The proof is that I've been steadily writing the whole week!

Back to today's question:

What have you learned recently, about yourself, about your writing, about your story?

I don't know how everybody will interpret "recently"; I'm going to go with the past year, which also happened to have been a tough year for all of us, wherever we are. Ironically, the pandemic and various lockdowns my country has been through have enabled me to reconnect with myself in ways I couldn't believe existed.

And the catalyst of this connection was my writing.

I already knew this activity counted a lot to me, to the extent that I adapt my weekly workload to my writing sessions (and not the other way round). Even though my writing buddy and I are really cool with the schedule, I know that I need it like breathing. And this past year, more than anything.

The lockdowns made me realise how much of an introvert I am, and the extent of 'me moments' I need to recharge: to quiet down my nerves, to ease my social fatigue (which I didn't understand before), even to reboot my work efficiency. Seeing my colleagues struggle with stress while their favourite sports club was closed, I really felt like the lucky one to be able to fulfil my favourite activity at home. Writing took a whole new dimension then. it was my luxury escape, away from anxiety-ridden news, from secluded areas, from masked interactions, from social distancing codes.

So did daydreaming about my story. I no longer try to control the phases I daydream but make do of any occasion I can seize. Just like the writing process itself, I purposefully allow myself to divert my thought to my stories, and turn this gloomy reality where I'm being tossed and turned, hanging by the thread of any overnight decisions on the way I'm supposed to live and act, into something positive, something productive, something I can control. Stories that are about healing, repairing, hope.

Writing has become the safe place, the respite my mind and body need to endure the reality. I don't know how long this situation is going to last; I pray it'll be better soon for all of us. But I've learnt to be resilient inside and to channel my powerlessness into redeeming creativity. And while at some point in my Wip 1, I feared I'd no longer be able to create after that, I was proven wrong and I'm awfully glad about it ✌

Paradise on Earth

@the-wip-project Day 27

Use at least five adjectives to describe the environment in your WIP.

So, basically in the newly out chapter, the place is peaceful, paradisiacal, luxuriant but also warm, homey and welcoming.

My character is gone to meet some long lost family for the first time in ... Hawaii, USA. The choice is not only for the pleasure of imagining it, nor in some anticipation for my future vacation (well....). There's a historical logic behind this location since my research taught me that after the Korean war, many people fled the peninsula to settle elsewhere. Canada and the USA were often first choices (Hawai, California, British Columbia in order to remain in the west). Hawaii having an important military base, it was relevant to imagine that one of my secondary characters would go and settle there after marrying an American GI, and build a family there.

@the-wip-project Day 28

Do you have an expression that you probably use too much in your writing?

I sometimes feel like my whole writing is nothing but an endless stream of the same expressions, the same syntax and the same words. Generally, this is the moment when my ever-so-caring self preserving reflex tells me that I need to read other works and other worlds to learn new sentences, new structures, new expressions. There was a time when I'd even note them down on a notebook (I should totally get back to that, come to think of it).

That reflex is actually more traitorous than I think (even after a couple of years - I'll never learn, right) because reading other works unfailingly stirs me to the edge of that self-deprecation chasm, where I stand for some time wondering if I should write at all. Come on, there are some many GOOD works out there (understand: far better)

I know this is a common feeling that many writers go through. Any tips? I'm really curious about how others deal with that?

@the-wip-project Day 29

First, thank you for pointing out ProWritingAid! I'm using it right now and the advice it gives is so much more consistent than Grammarly! The advice is really enlightening; I'm learning important things!

The question now:

What's a common theme in your writing?

There's no way to tackle that question other than directly: Family relationships are central to all my stories, and more specifically, how the individual can let their personality grow, express themselves and fulfil their goals or dreams in and out of the family circle.

One of my school years's reads (and study) had been "Nourritures Terrestres" by André Gide, from which the famous quote "Famille, je vous hais!" (Family, I hate you) comes from. I remember it had resonated powerfully inside me at the time, dealing with complicated relationships with my own family. The theme in the book advocated existentialist theories, advocating an individualistic stance, disobedience to educational principles, on the premise that a family was a closed-off space, where jealousy and pettiness festered, where sexism and other forms of moral violence thrived. The book dates back from 1897 and of course society was not what it was when I was a teen (Good Lord, thank you) but some representations were sadly still current (and still are, to be honest)

It turned out that it took nothing more to shed a different light on what was happening around me. And although I never took such a drastic decision as to disown my family, like Gide advised, I started thinking about what my place was, and what I wanted it to be. Ironically, I decided little about what happened thereafter; I more or less watched things happen with painful clarity, never knowing what to do with what was thrown at me. I'm a firm believer in communication; so nothing is more frustrating than when it doesn't work. Misunderstanding was ripe, division reigned, and living far away didn't help.

In hindsight, I still don't know what I could have done differently, and although I reached an even state of satisfaction in my personal life, my family is the shadow of what it used to be. I did reach that state where I can express myself freely and be at peace with whom I want to be. Outside of my family indeed; but it saddens me to no end.

So, yeah, no surprise my stories are mostly all about family misunderstandings, secrets, division and reconciliation, hurt and comfort.

@the-wip-project Day 30

Did your main characters change as you wrote them? Was that the plan or did they surprise you?

Oddly enough maybe, my wip's mains have changed little from I had planned over a year ago (yes, it's been ongoing for that long and it's getting near the 200k mark slowly but surely). The plot is all about growing and changing from experiences, meetings, explorations of one's past. So change has always been on the agenda, as far as the main characters are concerned. Some are meant to change more than others.

I can't say the same thing about my secondary characters though. There are quite a few secondary characters who play a crucial role in the plot, and although they will be affected by the main characters' own evolution, writing them gradually took a turn I didn't expect.

Let's talk about the main character's sister, for instance. She was supposed to be the one responsible for her brother's downfall, and my intention was to make it cruel. But as I wrote her over the months (and year), building up a strong and determined personality for her, along with a fragile soft side and carefree dreams, I really took a liking to her. I've grown to admire her resilience, her way to put up with tough circumstances (war, refugee camp, flight on deserted roads, deprivation of food) and keep a determined front, yet still nurturing dreams that a teen her age should totally be having. She's been doing everything in her limited power to afford a life as balanced and satisfying as the situation could allow. She's such a great character!

She's still flawed, as all my characters are. And her young age and broken heart are going to crush her for a moment, an irreversible moment, after which everything will be lost. It will no longer be her direct responsibility, contrary to what I had planned; she'll just confide in the wrong person. That moment of unexpected treason will trigger a series of fateful events that will smash everything to pieces.

@the-wip-project Day 31 (I finally understood the question!! Yay! I was waiting to read other replies to see what I didn't get - pardon my English)

So now I can answer: 🔞

What’s a pet peeve you have, that you focus on to do differently in your own stories?

In intimate, or even downright smutty moments, I literally skip depiction of "bedroom eyes", or other "liking lips for entrance", or "liking lips in anticipation". That kind of stuff makes me C R I N G E like nothing else does. It's porn, but it's poor, cheap porn to me and I can't stand to see my favorite characters shown in that light. They deserve better smut!

I don't pretend the smut scenes I write are the best, but as much as I can, I don't objectify my characters, nor do I use what I call unnecessary details that just make the whole thing a mood-killer.

@the-wip-project Day 32

What’s your favorite trope you’re not writing and why?

I don't think I have a favorite trope overall, whether in reading, or (even less) in writing. My reading depends on my mood of the day, so I've covered a large variety of tropes that I thoroughly enjoy. I figured some that I don't particularly like, so obviously my writing is going to stay away from those.

There are some tropes that I really like but would not try out (like royals au for instance), for the simple reason that, so far, no idea of a plot, or a prompt, has emerged in my mind. But I wouldn't go as far as saying that I will not write any at all. Mafia au are also really cool, but complex to set up. I'm not sure my imagination is as flexible as it needs to be to imagine a world of crime and violence (graphic or not).

But now that I think about it, no trope is as intimidating as canon compliant. I'd be too afraid to mess things up, while I love reading about it. Some writers are exceedingly good at it!