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tuesday | october 30
wheeeeeew this journal has been collecting dust for almost a year. well, in my defense, with the exception of a few attempts at tsurune fic in the earlier half of the year, I haven't been writing at all.
...since I'm writing this now, I'm back, of course. whether or not I will stay is a matter of contention, but for now, I am here... and an appalling 37k words into a fic that was intended to max out at... 10k.
clearly something went wrong somewhere huh LOL.
I got into Yowamushi Pedal late last month for the sake of one (1) ship that cheese RT'd fanart of, and said ship - ImaNaru - reeled me in hook line and sinker like I knew it would. by the time I realised how deep in I was, I was already 5k into the fic and the finish line was too far away to be seen. I'm 32k further now but the end goal is still a ways off yet. in other words, I ended up doing NaNo without ever intending to start.
I started this fic intending for it to be similar to what I did with the little bits and pieces of this world - a canon compliant, timeline tracing ship manifesto. I did not realise that it would be almost 6000 words before I even so much as caught up with the current canon present - which is, the summer after Inter-high of their second year.
I also did not realise that this fic would turn out this self-indulgent and tropey - nor that I would have so much fun writing it. I have not had so much fun writing a fic in literal years, probably since my Haikyuu peak in 2017. even now, when I look at the amount of things I still have left to write (I'm quite sure I will surpass 50k by the end, but who knows), instead of going "oh my god there's still so much to write" my brain is going "I WANT TO WRITE IT ALL RIGHT NOW!!!"
really, my writing in this fic is not even close to being good. I'm repeating words everywhere and my phrasing and sentences are all haywire. from an editing perspective, this fic is going to be a nightmare to fix and post. I was thinking of posting it on Nov 23, which is November ImaNaru day, but I have JLPT in December which I have been putting off studying for in favour of writing every single waking moment. so my current game plan is to finish writing by November - I've been working on this for two whole weeks now, and I'm entering the third - and then spend December editing it so that I can post in time for December ImaNaru. it'll also give me the benefit of fresh eyes and mind when I get around to reworking scenes and rephrasing things, though I'm a bit sulky that I can't post it up any earlier HAHA.
and more than that, writing such a long fic for a fandom I'm still new to means that I have a lot of uncertainties over the characters. I did a pretty good outline this time - not so detailed that it left me unable to write, which has happened a lot in the past, but not so vague that I have no direction. I think it is a good precedent for future longfic projects that I may want to attempt. but even with the outline, I am finding that scenes don't develop as I think they will because the characters start running away from me and insist on doing their own things, even if I'm not sure they will actually behave like that. for the most part, I go with the flow and only decide to make Big Changes when I realise it's really not going to work. otherwise, I work with what the characters are giving me and adapt the story from there. having an idea of the overall direction really helps like this.
where I would be frustrated and lost otherwise though - I did run into a wall around the 31k mark where a Talk turned into a Fight and would have affected the subsequent events too much so I went back to the 29k area and made huge amendments for the entire arc - I have been enjoying the whole process so far, which is surprising. I don't think any of my friends have seen me write this freely and happily in a long time, much less for a long fic, which I usually dread writing.
I've found that my writing style really does not favour longfic, so I have struggled with many things - pacing arcs, especially since my headcanon arcs are super long (my training camp arc is 13k long at last count), in comparison to the arcs that have already been covered by canon (my IH2 arc is 2k words long for the first two days, though it is missing the whole of the third day which is still manga-only). I'm also really bad at pacing dialogue, and my style lends itself more to introspection than to action, so I feel like I repeat many words and actions, but what am I supposed to do when Naruko Shoukichi is always smiling and always grinning??? I started off treating every scene like a ficlet of its own, but the longer, more detailed arcs have become entire full-fledged fics, and ficlet writing just doesn't work there.
see, this is why I said it'll be an editing nightmare.
that's a problem for future Linn to solve, though, and if future Linn doesn't want to deal with it we'll just post it up wholesale anyway because I am not writing 50k of fic and release all my pent-up headcanons just to let it gather dust in my Google Drive.
part of the reason why it's spiralling is also because it's not /just/ a ship manifesto. I'm including the ensemble cast, more or less, and there are also many friendship scenes between the Protag Trio. this is possibly the starkest departure from what I did with bits and pieces, because in bits and pieces, with the exception of Kai, I more or less ignored everybody else's existence, even Kenma. but ImaNaru's story is so closely entwined in the Sohoku Bicycle Club and their shared experiences that I cannot afford to leave them out.
on a side note, I find it incredibly funny that I went into ImaNaru thinking they were Cycling Kuroyaku and while I am not wrong, writing them has proven to me that they are a mixture of Kagehina and Kuroyaku, though it can be argued that Kagehina are just the first-year versions of Kuroyaku. it seems fitting, anyhow, that the ship that brings me back to writing should be another Kuroyaku. it's at the stage where I've started amassing song muses already - and I already have an ImaNaru exes fic I would like to write once I'm done with this one.
+ one of the biggest reasons why I'm having so much fun writing ImaNaru is probably because of the characters themselves, not just the ship dynamic. Naruko is essentially cycling Nishinoya, so he has the exact same temper and energy that he can unleash in full force around Imaizumi, where Nishinoya doesn't get such a relationship dynamic in Haikyuu that I would definitely have torn into otherwise. on top of that, Naruko clearly has more brain cells than Nishinoya does, which makes him much easier to write since I can delve into introspection and pensive moments (whereas Nishinoya is all instinct and much harder to pick apart). and a lot of people call Imaizumi cycling Kageyama, but to me he is actually a very Kanda-esque character. writing Kanda is familiar, since I've known him for more than a decade now, so writing this story from Imaizumi's POV has been surprisingly smooth-sailing.
it's surreal to look at how much ground I've covered and how much more I have to go, but I am feeling pumped. it has been a long time since writing fic made me feel this excited, especially since I fell into a rut at the end of 2017. I'll continue working hard~
...since I'm writing this now, I'm back, of course. whether or not I will stay is a matter of contention, but for now, I am here... and an appalling 37k words into a fic that was intended to max out at... 10k.
clearly something went wrong somewhere huh LOL.
I got into Yowamushi Pedal late last month for the sake of one (1) ship that cheese RT'd fanart of, and said ship - ImaNaru - reeled me in hook line and sinker like I knew it would. by the time I realised how deep in I was, I was already 5k into the fic and the finish line was too far away to be seen. I'm 32k further now but the end goal is still a ways off yet. in other words, I ended up doing NaNo without ever intending to start.
I started this fic intending for it to be similar to what I did with the little bits and pieces of this world - a canon compliant, timeline tracing ship manifesto. I did not realise that it would be almost 6000 words before I even so much as caught up with the current canon present - which is, the summer after Inter-high of their second year.
I also did not realise that this fic would turn out this self-indulgent and tropey - nor that I would have so much fun writing it. I have not had so much fun writing a fic in literal years, probably since my Haikyuu peak in 2017. even now, when I look at the amount of things I still have left to write (I'm quite sure I will surpass 50k by the end, but who knows), instead of going "oh my god there's still so much to write" my brain is going "I WANT TO WRITE IT ALL RIGHT NOW!!!"
really, my writing in this fic is not even close to being good. I'm repeating words everywhere and my phrasing and sentences are all haywire. from an editing perspective, this fic is going to be a nightmare to fix and post. I was thinking of posting it on Nov 23, which is November ImaNaru day, but I have JLPT in December which I have been putting off studying for in favour of writing every single waking moment. so my current game plan is to finish writing by November - I've been working on this for two whole weeks now, and I'm entering the third - and then spend December editing it so that I can post in time for December ImaNaru. it'll also give me the benefit of fresh eyes and mind when I get around to reworking scenes and rephrasing things, though I'm a bit sulky that I can't post it up any earlier HAHA.
and more than that, writing such a long fic for a fandom I'm still new to means that I have a lot of uncertainties over the characters. I did a pretty good outline this time - not so detailed that it left me unable to write, which has happened a lot in the past, but not so vague that I have no direction. I think it is a good precedent for future longfic projects that I may want to attempt. but even with the outline, I am finding that scenes don't develop as I think they will because the characters start running away from me and insist on doing their own things, even if I'm not sure they will actually behave like that. for the most part, I go with the flow and only decide to make Big Changes when I realise it's really not going to work. otherwise, I work with what the characters are giving me and adapt the story from there. having an idea of the overall direction really helps like this.
where I would be frustrated and lost otherwise though - I did run into a wall around the 31k mark where a Talk turned into a Fight and would have affected the subsequent events too much so I went back to the 29k area and made huge amendments for the entire arc - I have been enjoying the whole process so far, which is surprising. I don't think any of my friends have seen me write this freely and happily in a long time, much less for a long fic, which I usually dread writing.
I've found that my writing style really does not favour longfic, so I have struggled with many things - pacing arcs, especially since my headcanon arcs are super long (my training camp arc is 13k long at last count), in comparison to the arcs that have already been covered by canon (my IH2 arc is 2k words long for the first two days, though it is missing the whole of the third day which is still manga-only). I'm also really bad at pacing dialogue, and my style lends itself more to introspection than to action, so I feel like I repeat many words and actions, but what am I supposed to do when Naruko Shoukichi is always smiling and always grinning??? I started off treating every scene like a ficlet of its own, but the longer, more detailed arcs have become entire full-fledged fics, and ficlet writing just doesn't work there.
see, this is why I said it'll be an editing nightmare.
that's a problem for future Linn to solve, though, and if future Linn doesn't want to deal with it we'll just post it up wholesale anyway because I am not writing 50k of fic and release all my pent-up headcanons just to let it gather dust in my Google Drive.
part of the reason why it's spiralling is also because it's not /just/ a ship manifesto. I'm including the ensemble cast, more or less, and there are also many friendship scenes between the Protag Trio. this is possibly the starkest departure from what I did with bits and pieces, because in bits and pieces, with the exception of Kai, I more or less ignored everybody else's existence, even Kenma. but ImaNaru's story is so closely entwined in the Sohoku Bicycle Club and their shared experiences that I cannot afford to leave them out.
on a side note, I find it incredibly funny that I went into ImaNaru thinking they were Cycling Kuroyaku and while I am not wrong, writing them has proven to me that they are a mixture of Kagehina and Kuroyaku, though it can be argued that Kagehina are just the first-year versions of Kuroyaku. it seems fitting, anyhow, that the ship that brings me back to writing should be another Kuroyaku. it's at the stage where I've started amassing song muses already - and I already have an ImaNaru exes fic I would like to write once I'm done with this one.
+ one of the biggest reasons why I'm having so much fun writing ImaNaru is probably because of the characters themselves, not just the ship dynamic. Naruko is essentially cycling Nishinoya, so he has the exact same temper and energy that he can unleash in full force around Imaizumi, where Nishinoya doesn't get such a relationship dynamic in Haikyuu that I would definitely have torn into otherwise. on top of that, Naruko clearly has more brain cells than Nishinoya does, which makes him much easier to write since I can delve into introspection and pensive moments (whereas Nishinoya is all instinct and much harder to pick apart). and a lot of people call Imaizumi cycling Kageyama, but to me he is actually a very Kanda-esque character. writing Kanda is familiar, since I've known him for more than a decade now, so writing this story from Imaizumi's POV has been surprisingly smooth-sailing.
it's surreal to look at how much ground I've covered and how much more I have to go, but I am feeling pumped. it has been a long time since writing fic made me feel this excited, especially since I fell into a rut at the end of 2017. I'll continue working hard~