Bilingual writing problems

When you think of a sentence in Finnish and put it through the dictionary into English and what you get is:

‘Ikkuna oli selällään.’

‘The window was on its back.’

I mean, I can’t say I didn’t expect this… but it still irritates me, ha ha.

‘Selällään’ means ‘on back’ but it also means ‘open’, the connotations being that it’s as open as it can go. Apparently, there is no English equivalent of this — except maybe ‘agape’ but I don’t know about using it, it sounds kind of ugly. If anyone is wondering, this is another reason why I’m so slow at writing, ha ha.

Well, back to the grind. Must practise so I get better and I can write all the stories I have in my head. And in notes. But I’m not sure the notes are doing much good aside from helping with memory.

Post-Canon Horror Fic Draft, Part 2

As it so happens, I’ve slipped into laziness again for the past two weeks. Well, okay, not quite since I’ve been busy with other things but I have definitely been lazy about the blog and I can’t say writing has been going exactly well either.

The yokai exercises halted on taka onna this time because I’m just not that familiar with Japanese prostitution? I’ve been wondering if I can do a twist on it because it’s not as if the prompt exercise has to be about historical prostitution? I mean, it’s my prompt and I guess I could make it about enjo kousai?

I also finally started on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets bookmarks and notes buuuut I’ve only done two chapters so it’s slow, ha ha. Since I started doing that, I figured I might as well edit the chapter breakdowns while I’m at it. Nothing major, I’m just pruning off the excessive cussing and adding a few thoughts here and there where fitting, and I thought I might as well add pictures to the early breakdowns too so they’re not a monotonous wall of text. The only problem is that my ebook reader really doesn’t like all of those bookmarks and notes. I was going through chapter two of Book Two last night and my reader kept crashing so I stayed up later than I meant to out of sheer stubbornness.

So yours truly feels tired today.

Moreover, I’ve slowly but surely been writing that Harry Potter post-canon horror fic. I have four new scenes and the deeper I wade into this fic, the more I realise I’m — going to have to re-write it, ha ha. *a despairing laugh*

I guess it’s okay in a way because I need to practise that “first draft” thing but on the other hand, I’m incorrigibly lazy and I don’t want to. *totally unreasonable*

So I figured I’d share another snippet in the hopes that it’ll help me get back into the groove of things and let those it may interest to know that I’m still alive.

There’s some implied Ron/Ginny in this snippet because I think of this as a continuation to my chapter coda series. I already ended that with all of these characters miserable but, as they say, if you can make something worse then do it, ha ha. Though, I am hoping that I can write this in a way that it’s readable as a stand-alone too.

∞

“She’s going to be fine.”

Ron looked up as Hermione sat next to him, holding out a cup of coffee. He tried to smile but it felt more like a grimace and he quickly dropped it.

“St Mungo’s Hospital has the best healers. Ginny will be fine,” Hermione went on in the confident sensible way she had. For a fleeting terrible second, Ron couldn’t stand it. Not when Ginny had been in labour for going on twenty-six hours and she might not make it.

The pregnancy had been bad too. She’d spent most of it bedridden, growing increasingly pale and exhausted and thin as if the baby had been — fucking sapping the life out of her.

Ron was careful not to look at Harry, sitting off to the side and scowling grimly at the wall, afraid that his anger and resentment might show on his face. It wasn’t Harry’s fault, it wasn’t anyone’s fault, but the sheer thought of losing Ginny was enough to make Ron violent and sick with desperation.

He looked down into the cup of watered-down coffee. Ron hated coffee, and then he drained the cup, crushing it in his fist. He stooped down to stop himself from getting up and punching the walls. Hermione placed her hand lightly on his back; Ron stamped down on the knee-jerk impulse to shrug her off.

After another indefinite stretch of time, the door of Ginny’s room opened and one of the healers stepped out. Harry stood and immediately strode up to her.

“The baby?” he demanded.

“What about Ginny?” Ron asked as he jerked up. “Is she okay?”

The healer smiled with placating professionalism. “They’re both fine and sleeping. You may go see them–” she started but Harry already brushed past her into the room.

Ron put his face in his hands, groaning with indescribable relief. He felt Hermione touch his back, almost humouring. “See, I told you she’ll be fine,” she said, almost smug.

“Right,” Ron muttered. “Right. Thanks,” he added distractedly to the healer, and followed Harry into the room with Hermione.

The first thing he saw was Ginny, curled up on her side the way she had when they’d been kids and she’d sneaked into his bed after nightmares. Ron’s chest went impossibly tight as he stopped by her bed, looking at the exhausted shadows under her eyes, the gaunt lines of her face. Without thought, he took Ginny’s hand in his and brushed his thumb over the delicate skin of her wrist. Her skin was disconcertingly clammy but the taut knot of dread in the pit of Ron’s stomach uncoiled all the same at the feel of her faint heartbeat.

Ron wished, desperately and pathetically, that he could’ve held her.

He was vaguely aware of Harry and Hermione standing by the crib on the other side of the bed. Hermione was cooing, her voice low.

“Have you decided what to call him?” she asked after a while.

“James Sirius,” Harry said, immediate.

Ron frowned, something about the answer bothering him. Maybe the one-sided abruptness of it when Ginny was still unconscious. He squeezed her hand and glanced reluctantly away from her — and then he paused at the look on Harry’s face.

There was no reason for the shiver that went through Ron or the way he instinctively averted his eyes. He stared sightlessly at Ginny’s exhausted face, the lank hair, and couldn’t explain the sudden knot of apprehension in his stomach.

Ron squeezed her hand tighter.

fin (for now)

You know… I think I need to practise adding more adjectives and adverbs and the like. Lovecraft had a knack for describing the emotion of horror. Should I re-read a few of his works? Because I don’t think I’m getting the feeling of increasing unease right?

I’m so going to have to re-write this when I’m done. *sighs*

Writing Progress!

I think.

I was free-writing Ron/Ginny, as you do. I’m not going to share it since, well, they’re older and the dialogue is a bit more explicit than the platonic childhood scenes I’ve posted here.

…..okay, I’ll share just a short bit because it’s funny. As a warning, Ron is canonically a total guttermouth and I can’t deny him in fan fiction so there are a few curse words. Also, I seriously couldn’t care less about Hermione and making fun of Harry and Harry/Ginny gives me life. I can’t help it, it’s like a compulsion! So what I mean is, that kind of colours how I write this ship, ha ha.

∞

Ron couldn’t sleep.

He stared at the ceiling of his room, listening to Harry mutter incomprehensible, vaguely disturbing things in his sleep the way he did. He kept thinking back to earlier that day, about Harry in Ginny’s room, what Ginny had been trying to do. He knew he shouldn’t and he hated himself for it but he just — he couldn’t.

Ron glanced at Harry from the corner of his eyes. He was fast asleep, curled up underneath the blanket, his back to Ron. He hesitated for a moment and then he eased himself up, holding his breath as he snuck out of his room and downstairs.

He shuffled into the kitchen to get a glass of water when he noticed the door to the back garden was ajar, a mild wind drifting inside. Ron saw a glimpse of long red hair through the crack and paused abruptly, his chest going tight with too many conflicting emotions to name. And then, because he never could stop himself when it came to Ginny, he went to the door and stepped out.

She was sitting on the step, staring at the small dots of light floating in the air over the hedge. She looked small and unhappy and exhausted.

After a minute or two, she lowered her head and sighed. “What do you want from me, Ron?” She tilted her head, looking up at him. “I’m — I’m trying. I’m dating Harry like you wanted. I’m trying to make it work. And you just—”

“What, by trying to fuck him while everyone is in the house,” Ron blurted out angrily, reminded of that moment in the afternoon again, and immediately wished he could learn not to put his foot in his mouth.

Ginny flushed, embarrassed and guilty, but her eyes flashed dangerously. “That still doesn’t give you the right to butt in,” she said coldly. “And if you hadn’t—” She snapped her mouth shut before she could say more and looked away, her jaw clenched.

“It’s my fault now?” said Ron incredulously. “What did I do? I don’t remember telling you to fuck Harry when you’re not even together and everyone is in the fucking house.”

Ginny jerked up, pacing back and forth the cobblestoned path in whatever frustrated anger she’d been holding in. “What,” she snapped back. “So you can do whatever you want, you can have Hermione all over yourself, but I can’t even kiss the boy you wanted me to date?” she hissed, her voice shaking.

Ron felt himself go red, vaguely recalling Hermione throwing herself at him on the night they went to get Harry. Ginny stopped and looked at him, her eyes wide and pleading and desperate.

“What do you want, Ron? What… what am I supposed to do? What more can I do?”

Ron stared back at her, torn and pained and terrified. Ginny waited for him to say something but he couldn’t, at least not anything that wouldn’t be either damning or lying, his throat closed off. After a while, she huffed out a humourless laugh and put her face in her hands, her shoulders slumped.

“Forget it,” she said when she dropped her hands, sounding hollow, and moved to get past Ron inside.

Ron’s hand darted out without thought and grasped her wrist, holding on too tight. She frowned but before she could say anything, he started pulling her towards the gate and out to the grove by the river.

He let go of her wrist and paced back and forth before he stopped, his head tipped back to look up at the clear star-strewn sky. He took a few deep breaths and dragged both hands through his hair, all the while Ginny eyed him warily as if he’d gone mad. Ron felt mad, on the verge of something terrifying. “Okay,” he declared abruptly, and looked at her. “I’m gonna do something really selfish now. You can punch me or hex me if you want to.”

∞

I’m not sharing the awkward first/second kiss, though, ha ha. To be honest, I have way too much fun writing this little crackship for various reasons. Which is probably why free-writing it is so easy.

But anywhoo~ The important bit isn’t that I was free-writing Ron/Ginny, as you do. The important bit is this sentence, particularly the bolded part:

He hesitated for a moment and then he eased himself up, holding his breath as he snuck out of his room and downstairs.

This is a little embarrassing but I’ve tried writing this exact same sentence in that Tom/Hagrid fic that I will get to any day now. I tried writing it in a million different ways because I started doing that inner self-loathing thing until I had to stop lest I go mad.

But this time I just wrote it and kept going, and I — I honestly feel so happy. The magic of Ron/Ginny perhaps? My hilarious crackship, I have much fondness for you.

You know, there’s this poet who’s internet (in)famous for having written wincest (Sam/Dean from Supernatural). It would be hilarious if someday I’ll become the writer famous for writing Ron/Ginny, ha ha. Or I guess Cassandra Clare is already (in)famous for that but to be honest, I think this is a lie from people who dislike her and do that “oh my god, look at what a morally reprehensible ~sexual deviant~ she is for *checks notes* shipping fictional siblings fictionally!”

Because what you write and read sure determines what kind of person you are. I guess we should all just enjoy being terrorists, serial killers, genocidaires, etc too.

In other words for those who don’t get it: writing or reading about murders does not, in fact, make you a murderer. You’re welcome for this important life lesson. You can find them here for free.

The other progress I’ve made is that I finally sat down and wrote Tommy’s backstory for that Harry Potter rewrite that I will get to any day now. Well, okay, I already sort of started it and — it’s not giving me psychical damage yet? So should I feel relatively confident?

I have two problems regarding Tommy, though. The first one is that I wrote basically everything but what happened to him during the first war. Like, I honestly don’t know. I’m planning on keeping the Potters alive for this rewrite so I can’t exactly have the dude kill himself on a toddler. So I was thinking about it and then I thought, what if he just died? What if someone just got a lucky shot at him? It’s not as if it needs to be some significant thing? And then I need to figure out what happened to his corpse, ha ha. *despairs*

Another problem is that I’m planning on making that Tom/Hagrid AU a part of this rewrite. Because as far as I’m concerned, it’s practically canon, Rowling just didn’t even think to go there. But the problem is that I think the snake was stupid, okay? Like, I can’t even begin to explain how stupid the basilisk plotline was. But if there’s no snake, there’s no Tom/Hagrid AU. So I’m wondering if I can make the whole basilisk thing better somehow? Maybe Tommy just bred it himself? If the dude had ingenious dark powers, he should’ve done a bit more with them than just splitting his soul and killing himself on a moronic brat repeatedly? Or maybe he found it in the forest since there’s everything in that forest?

Or maybe I should just forgo the basilisk altogether and have Tommy attack people using his own powers? Wait, no, but then how would he frame Hagrid? No wonder I can’t get a start on this thing. *sighs*

So I guess that writing progress was one step forward and two steps backwards after all, ha ha. Whatever, I’m tagging it anyway because of ✧˖°.positive thinking.°˖✧.

Also, I’ve been thinking about those Tom/Hagrid and Ron/Ginny fics. They basically have no readers, at least readers who would comment. *side-eyes the mysterious 2000 hits on my only mature Ron/Ginny fic*

The thing is, with fan fiction you can post it while it’s still a work in progress. People usually do this to get feedback and comments and to keep their motivation going. But with these two ships, it’s basically pointless. So I need to practise keeping my motivation going by my lonesome.

And I think this is even more important for original fiction I want to write since I — don’t really have any writer buddies or someone who would read my stuff for me. And I can’t exactly post my original stuff as a work in progress online in the hopes of feedback and comments. I mean, I guess I can since I’m pretty sure there are sites for that but. I don’t know. Seems weird. I don’t mind posting the short writing exercises, though.

Never mind that I don’t want a repeat of Incandescent Snow that’s still! sitting unfinished. But hey, if things keep going well, I might be able to finish that ghost too.

Free-writing: Draco & Slytherin!Ron

So I did mention I might share more of these little practice snippets. This time I managed to practise free writing Draco and Slytherin!Ron. I had way too much fun writing this so I figured I’d share, ha ha.

And like, let’s be real. If Rowling was even remotely serious as an author, one of those kids should’ve been sorted into a house (Slytherin) they didn’t want to be sorted into so they could start dismantling their prejudices and bring about actual unity.

This is basically a disconnected snippet without a real beginning or end because, as I said, I’m practising with free writing. But as a bit of background: Ron was sorted into Slytherin and all sorts of shenanigans ensue. Hopefully, all this practice will eventually help me write all of those long(er) fics. But before then, I’ll just share short stuff here.

∞

“I want to bully him!” Draco cried. “You don’t understand, Weasleys are made to be bullied, not — not slummed with!”

Morag gave him a level, considering stare. “You know, it’s really sweet how loyal you are to your housemates.”

Draco made a sputtering sound of pure outrage. “Take that back!” he demanded. “I’m a Malfoy! Malfoys aren’t sweet! We’re terrible and conniving and amoral!”

“Oh yes, you’re a terrible corrupt conniver,” Morag said but Draco thought she sounded unnecessarily dismissive.

He made sure to trip Weasley up the next day because he had a reputation to keep and besides Weasley’s feet were so large he might as well be tripping up on them anyway, the gangly git. Evidently, the rumours that the Weasleys didn’t have enough money to feed their litter of unfortunate accidents were a complete lie.

“Malfoy! Will you stop doing that!” Weasley raged at Draco in the common room later because clearly he had weasel rabies from that hovel he called a house.

“You are so right, Weasley, you should be more careful of your enormous feet,” Draco said agreeably, and used the leg-locker curse on him next time.

“MALFOY!” Weasley howled in the middle of the corridor, much to everyone’s alarm, and Draco cackled all the way to the Transfiguration classroom.

“You know, you’re losing Slytherin house points with your strange little feud,” Morag pointed out because she had a perverse need to kill Draco’s fun.

“Oh, hush. I’ll earn them back,” Draco said, and smirked when Weasley stomped into the classroom two minutes late, furiously red. For a kid who looked like an ugly Yule offspring with his red hair and green robes, he sure didn’t have a lot of cheer.

Professor McHarridan gave him a cold stare and took five points from him, and Weasley shot Draco a look full of hate. “I’m going to kill you, Malfoy,” he hissed under his breath as he threw himself into a seat like a lumbering bear.

“I’m shaking with terror,” Draco drawled. “How will I ever outwit the witless.”

fin (for now)

If it’s not obvious, I adore this dumb dork, ha ha. ❤

I also need to practise writing Slytherin!Ron from Ron’s point of view.

You know, I did say that I never want to build a story from disconnected snippets again but I guess even that is better than re-writing the beginning over and over until you can’t write it at all?

Free-writing: Draco

I’ve been feeling tired again lately and unmotivated, but I managed to free write Draco finally, that small massive dork. ❤ This one’s short but it turned out pretty cute so I thought I’d share here, ha ha. I guess it’s not that big of a deal but I don’t know about sharing these short scribblings at AO3?

Well. I mean, not that I’d get a whole lot of reactions here or there so I guess it doesn’t matter either way?

But ✧˖°.positive thinking.°˖✧. At least I got a bit more practice writing the Malfoys.

∞

“Harry Potter is said to be starting Hogwarts this year,” Lucius said.

Draco stared blankly at his father and thought about telling him that he was already eleven and thus he didn’t care about celebrities whose only dubious merit was not dying and getting scarred, and besides, he was already friends with Viktor Krum and Krum at least had wicked flying skills.

He started plotting ways to get Krum to transfer to Hogwarts and drawled somewhat distractedly, “Is that so?”

“It would be… beneficial to our family if you were to gain his acquaintance,” Lucius added.

This got Draco’s attention. His father rarely involved himself in Draco’s friendships or told him who to get acquainted with. Maybe there was more to this Harry Potter than disfiguring scars.

“Well, all right. I’ll see about if I can find him,” Draco said, and then he spotted Crabbe and Goyle, and forgot all about undead celebrities for the moment.

They boarded the train, and Lucius levitated their trunks to a compartment, and afterwards Draco leaned out of the window to say goodbye to his mother who looked forlorn that he had to go.

“Don’t worry, mother,” Draco said. “You raised me with impeccable manners. I will make everyone at Hogwarts my minions.”

Narcissa smiled fondly and leaned up to kiss Draco on the cheek before he could dodge. His cheeks went pink with embarrassment but he figured he could put up with her public displays of affection since his poor mother wasn’t used to him being gone.

“Have fun,” she said gracefully.

Personally Draco didn’t know how much fun he could have since his father had dismissed his brilliant plan to smuggle a racing broom to the school, but he was sure he could figure out something else. He had spotted Longbottom in the crowd before they’d boarded the train. He could bully him to pass the time. Just a bit. His reactions were always fun and Draco had earned a little compensation after Longbottom had dumped him like so much rubbish earlier that year.

“I’ll see you at Yule,” Draco said.

As the train started moving, he waved at his parents until they were gone.

fin (for now)

Not sure if anyone has noticed or cares but I was trying out posting once every other day. But then I realised that if I do it that way, it’ll take way too long. So I’ll just post whenever but I’ll try to limit myself to once a day so I won’t annoy anyone excessively. People can just toss the posts they don’t care about in the trash bin. Though, I’m sure people already do that which is kind of funny because I’m terrible at coming up with titles for these posts so I hope no one is missing out on the stuff they subscribed to me in the first place.

Also, since I’m practising ✧˖°.positive thinking.°˖✧ as well, I can tag this as writing progress, right?

Free-writing: Ron & Ginny snippet

I did some more free writing as exercise. I don’t know why these two dorks are so easy to free write for? But I can’t apply this to the fic I actually want to write for this pairing? It’s totally brain damage, isn’t it? Also, I’m not — really happy with Ron’s dialogue? But I guess it’s fine, making the characters mine~ and all that.

Maybe free writing these two dorks is so easy because — for all that Harry Potters are basically character-driven books because there is no plot and certainly no world-building to speak of — Rowling still didn’t do anything with any of them? So there is a lot to dig into?

I thought I’d share because, to be honest, these Ron & Ginny or Ron/Ginny snippets are whatever. No one reads or writes that ship — well, except me. And honestly, I’ve been feeling kind of misplaced and disconnected again lately so… maybe sharing this will help me back in the groove of things?

Never mind that those yokai prompt exercises have been going badly again but, like, weasels? Tanuki? Akaname? Amikiri? How am I supposed to write horror about any of those?

Also, I consider this platonic if a bit on the intense side? But this takes place post-Book Two so Ron’s feelings towards Ginny probably would be rather intense since, hey, his little sister almost died. Which ties back to what I mentioned above about Rowling not doing anything with any of these characters.

∞

“Ron!“

Ron started out of a doze when he heard Ginny’s scream. He jerked upright on the grass, his heart pounding wildly in his chest, and saw her standing in the shallows of the river, her face pale and her eyes wide with fear.

“Ron!” she called out again, her voice high and thin, and Ron was already up before he realised he’d moved, the water splashing as he rushed next to her.

“What? What’s the matter? Did you get hurt?” he asked urgently as he grasped her arm, ready to pull her away from whatever that’d scared her.

Ginny turned her body towards him and pointed at the pebbled shore, her arm shaking slightly. “Can you–” she asked, her voice gone very small, and it was then that Ron noticed the reddish-brown snake. It was basking in the sun, its head tilted up as if it was enjoying itself.

Ron huffed out a shaky breath, stupidly relieved that Ginny hadn’t got hurt. “Yeah,” he said. “Wait a second.”

He waded back to the shore and picked up the snake with practised ease. He carried it off and let it down in a nearby thicket where it couldn’t be seen, and then went back to Ginny.

She was standing exactly where he’d left her, still pale and shivering in the sun. “Better?” Ron asked and touched her arm, rubbing his hand up and down as if she was cold.

Ginny made a face, looking embarrassed. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s stupid, right? It’s not as if it even looked like the–” She stopped and lowered her head, looking down at the translucent water. She clutched her arms around herself, impossibly small.

She’d seemed fine on the train but ever since they’d got home, she’d been having worse nightmares than when they’d been little and seeing snakes made her panic.

Ron hesitated and licked his lips, thinking of what to say. “It’s not stupid. Hey,” he added, nudging her a little. “You always deal with the spiders for me, yeah? D’you think it’s stupid?”

They lived in the countryside and those creepy hairy fuckers found their way inside all the time. Ron could deal with the ones that straggled into sinks because he could just flush them down, but the ones in the rooms made him quickly step out. The twins just jeered about it and their mum was too busy to deal with them. Ginny giggled about it, too, but she always carried the spiders back outside for him.

Ginny frowned and darted a look up at him through her fringe, shaking her head. “No,” she said, a fierce stubborn undercurrent in her voice as though she’d fight anyone who thought that. “It’s not your fault. It’s not as if you can help it.”

Ron’s fingers twitched with the urge to brush her hair away from her eyes and he listened to that impulse without thought, inexpressibly awed and relieved and thankful that she was alive and breathing and whole. He didn’t think he’d ever forget those long, long hours after she’d been taken to the Chamber, the suffocating dread that she was dead. Ginny blinked, colour coming back to her cheeks.

“Yeah, it’s the same thing, isn’t it,” Ron said. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t mind.” He’d carry off all the snakes for the rest of his life if it meant Ginny was alive and okay.

Ginny looked up at him for a moment and then giggled, her arms finally relaxing. “Yeah. I guess that works. I’ll deal with spiders and you’ll deal with snakes.”

Ron glanced up at the sky. “Wanna head back? Mum must be ready with dinner by now and I’m starving.”

He swung his arm casually around her shoulders as she giggled again. “You’re always starving, Ron.”

“I’m a growing boy,” Ron pointed out.

“Yeah, and you sound like an old man when you complain about joint pains.”

“Hey, you try growing up inches at a time.” He glanced down at her. “Oh, wait.”

Ginny giggled and shoved him but left her arm comfortably around Ron’s waist. She kind of nudged her head against him and said, very quiet, “Thanks.”

And Ron just — He pulled her in closer and ducked down to press his mouth on the top of her head. It wasn’t quite a kiss because that was embarrassing, but she was alive. She was warm, and breathing, and giggling, and chattering his ear off, and Ron never again wanted to feel as if she could be anything else.

“Don’t mention it,” he murmured, his voice rough.

fin (for now)

I don’t know about sharing this on AO3 (yet) because I’m not sure if I want to add to this? Like, I really want to write a scene from Book Three where Ron gets absolutely mad at the twins for not using the stalker map to find Ginny in Book Two. I mean, that’s what he should’ve got mad about instead of lampshading what a Mary Sue Harry is for getting the map.

You know, I should try free writing Draco too.

Also, don’t try picking up snakes with bare hands at home.

Writing Tips For Me

1. Get over yourself
2. Write in a way that is comfortable to you
3. It doesn’t have to be perfect

Especially that last one. At its most basic, all writing has to be is readable. Forget compulsive descriptions, forget purple prose, forget everything else, all it needs to be is readable.

I’m going to pin this one until I internalise this and something improves.

Free-writing: Ron/Ginny snippet

I’ve been having some trouble with the next yokai entry which is kind of weird because it’s jorogumo. You’d think that a whore spider (its original name) that preys on unsuspecting men would be easy to write about but nope. So instead, I did some Ron/Ginny free-writing because the heart wants what it wants~, ha ha.

I don’t know why but Ron/Ginny is really easy to free-write? But this is not the case with the fic I actually want to write for that ship? Is it brain damage like I suspect? Or is this normal for everyone in artistic endeavours?

Anywho, I thought this turned out pretty cute but I’m not sure if I’ll ever manage to put this in a fic somewhere and I’d feel bad about letting it languish forgotten in my files. So I figured I’d share. And hey, who knows, maybe I might convert someone else into Ron/Ginny if I share my free-writing snippets! *totally delusional hope*

Also, I say Ron/Ginny but this happens right before Ron starts at Hogwarts so they’re eleven and ten respectively here. So no dubious shenanigans for these two. Besides, I do like writing platonic scenes more even if the feelings might be undefinably dubious. Which is what I find the most fun to write, to be honest.

∞

Ron stirred when he felt insistent, small hands nudge him. He groaned, frustrated, but shifted towards the wall and felt Ginny settle under the blanket next to him.

Ron rolled over and without opening his eyes he reached out and patted her head. “Did you have a nightmare?” he muttered half-asleep, the words slurring into each other.

Ginny must’ve understood because she nodded. She was quiet for a moment, and Ron felt himself slip in and out of sleep. He jolted more awake when she said, her voice small and choked, “I want to go to Hogwarts, too.”

Ron heard what she didn’t say. I don’t want you to go.

He dragged his eyes forcibly open, frowning at Ginny. Even in the ambient darkness, Ron could make out her miserable expression, the suspicious gleam in her eyes. He blinked and cleared his throat, trying to gather his sleep-frayed thoughts. “Hey,” Ron said, low and reassuring. “You can go next year.”

Ginny sniffled, and Ron’s heart constricted horribly. “I don’t want to stay here alone,” she said, finally honest, tears in her voice. “Everyone else has already gone to Hogwarts and now you’re going too, and I don’t want to be by myself for a whole year.”

Ron propped himself up on his elbow, the blanket rustling. “C’mon, Ginny,” he said, helpless and urgent. “I’m gonna write you loads of letters, okay. You won’t even notice I’m gone.”

“It’s not the same,” Ginny said tearfully, that stubborn undercurrent in her voice that Ron was intimately familiar with.

Ron reached out for her instinctively, and hesitated. He remembered mum saying that they were too old for this, they were both starting at Hogwarts soon, and then he thought fuck it. How was he supposed to just ignore her when her voice was wavering like that.

“C’mere,” he said, tugging her closer until Ginny burrowed her head into his chest, trembling with stifled sobs. He petted her hair with a lifelong habit and eventually she calmed down, going lax in his arms.

“Feeling better?” he asked, his voice low.

“No,” Ginny muttered, stubborn as ever.

Ron felt a ridiculous fondness fill his chest and briefly wondered if it was weird to think that he had the cutest little sister in the world.

After a moment Ginny went on haltingly, “Promise? About the letters?”

“Yeah,” Ron promised.

“Okay,” she said, and then shifted and moved around until she rested with her head over Ron’s heart, his pyjama top clutched in her hands. It was the same way she fell asleep after her nightmares.

Ron didn’t mind, already used to it.

The ghost of his mum’s words chased him into sleep, the strange, almost shameful admonishment that they were too old for this.

Ron ignored it. After all, he was going to start Hogwarts tomorrow and this was going to stop anyway.

fin (for now)

It’s frustrating

when you want to write and post something but you’re still kind of stuck so the work is extremely slow. I also think it would be nice to write and post something that’d get comments for once. I don’t know what to tell you, comments are like — well, they’re like something addictive but preferably healthy.

Which reminds me! I was supposed to gush about this earlier but never really got a chance but! I got my first ever comment on something original I wrote. I was so happy and of course my reaction was more or less, “omg! thank you so much, you kind person!”

I’ve also gotten a few kudos here and there, and of course the likes here ❤, and I’ve spied a few bookmarks. But sadly, I can’t exactly thank people for the likes or the kudos (or bookmarks). I wish there was something like a return like or kudos.

Ugh, it’s so late but I guess I’ll try to get some work done. There’s so much to do and so little time.

Well, okay, no. Positive thinking~ There is plenty of time and I don’t need to rush. I think.

Someone stop me

I’m doing that annoying soul-withering thing again where I obsessively re-write the same thing over and over and over.

I mean, I have the first sentence! For several stories! But everything after that first sentence? It’s like,

*tap tap tap*

*backspace*

*tap tap tap*

*backspace*

For example, this (I don’t feel comfortable sharing bits of my hitherto unfinished original stories so fan fics it is, ha ha):

“Weasley, Ronald!”

Ron gulped as his name was finally called.

Because I want to write this inconsequential fluff piece about Ron getting sorted into Slytherin, befriending Draco, getting together with Ginny, and saving the wizarding world. Though, that last one is a little vague, ha ha. But evidently! I can’t even do that much.

Also, basically no one reads or writes Ron/Ginny so who would even steal whatever bits I post on my blog, right? So hitherto unfinished Ron/Ginny fics work great as examples, ha ha.

Another is this:

Harry didn’t think he was in Surrey anymore.

And this one is honestly frustrating because I have written more for this, right up until Harry meets Narcissa, but then I started doing that re-writing thing and now I’m just stuck.

I really don’t know why it’s such a struggle to just get over myself. Maybe I should try doing that placeholder thing, like: [describe the bloody forest here, you enormous loser, you]?

Okay, I guess I’ll try that tomorrow.

Post-Canon Horror Fic Draft, Part 1

So I’ve been free writing fan fiction lately because, well, why not? I get to practise writing and I get to practise writing Harry Potter characters for that rewrite AU. I’ve also been a bit lazy with the blog again so I figured I might as well share a snippet (and complain, ha ha). This is basically an idea for a post-canon horror fic I got after reading the last chapter of Book Seven.

∞

“I’m pregnant.”

Ron fumbled the mug. It clattered on the counter, spilling tea everywhere. He cursed loudly, and picked up his wand and vanished the mess.

He stared at the bustling muggle street out the window for a moment afterwards, over the green hedge skirting the house. Hermione had wanted to move here since it was closer to the Ministry of Magic. Ron hadn’t had the heart to tell her that he hated it.

Then he told himself to stop being a miserable coward and turned around.

Ginny was sitting at the kitchen isle, staring at nothing in particular. She held a mug of tea between her hands, looking exhausted in the wan light from the window.

Ron licked his lips and tried to come up with something, anything to say.

“Congrats,” he rasped after a pause. “A baby. That’s—”

His throat closed on the words.

It was a good thing, right? This was what he’d wanted for her? A real relationship. A real family. And Ginny was going to have it with Harry. His best friend. The Boy Who Lived. Twice, as it were. She could have everything she wanted with him. It was a good thing.

Ginny turned towards him, dark shadows beneath her eyes, the usually bright brown dull. Ron felt an ingrained, bone-deep urge to brush her hair behind her ear and comfort her. He clutched the counter behind his back, leaning on his hands.

Ginny stared at him wordlessly for a long moment and then she looked down into the mug of tea as if she couldn’t really see it. She huffed out a humourless laugh that made Ron’s chest ache. “I thought I should tell you first.”

Ron didn’t ask why.

He opened and closed his mouth, and then said the past the obstruction in his throat, “Ginny. Are you happy?”

She didn’t look happy. She looked like a ghost of herself, and Ron couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her smile.

Ginny didn’t answer.

“Are you? Happy?”

Ron thought of the house and furniture and appliances that Hermione had picked out, of being constantly surrounded by unfamiliar muggle things and muggles, of hardly seeing his family anymore or Hermione even though they lived together. The most company he had in his spare time was Crookshanks. He’d had to leave Pig at the Burrow because there was no way he could keep him in the middle of a muggle city.

He thought of Ginny, the way he did whenever his mind wandered.

Ron didn’t answer either.

—

“What’s this about, Neville?”

Neville looked up from the flotsam of papers as Harry stalked into his office, Ginny trailing in after him. He set the quill down, and picked up his wand with absent-minded habit and conjured a pot of tea and a plate of biscuits.

“Hey,” he said. “Thanks for coming so late.”

“You said it was serious.”

Neville waited until they were seated, his usually cheerful expression awkward. “Yeah. It’s about James and Lily. We’ve — heard some worrying rumours about them lately.”

“Rumours?” Harry asked, his voice flat, and Neville remembered he’d been a constant subject of rumours during their days at Hogwarts.

He hesitated and then told himself to just say it. Like kicking off with a broom. “A student says he caught them behind the greenhouses. Kissing.”

Harry and Ginny stared at him blankly for a moment, and then Ginny went alarmingly pale and Harry scowled. Neville reminded himself that he hadn’t been terrified when he’d faced down Voldemort and he wasn’t going to be terrified of Harry, the Boy Who Lived, either.

“That’s a lie,” Harry said, his voice dark with anger. “You really called us here for some nasty, malicious—”

“Harry,” Neville interrupted, serious and apologetic. “It was Albus. Albus told us that he caught them. I know he has his problems but I don’t think even he would go so far as to lie about something like this.”

“Albus,” Harry repeated, blank. “That’s—” He gave a short bark of a laugh. “James is her brother. Lily’s thirteen. There’s no way—” He stopped again, the strangest shadow of an expression crossing over his face.

Neville frowned, staring at him. He went on, slowly, “We figured it was best to separate them until you’ve talked to them. Lily’s in—”

Harry jerked up abruptly, the air around him crackling and flickering violently. His voice was cold when he demanded, “Where’s James?”

fin (for now)

The first part was easy enough to free write but then I got to that bit with Neville and all the free writing in the world died a swift, screeching death.

I’m not sure if I’ll share this on AO3 even if I finish writing this because, well, basically the idea is this post-canon horror fic about the consequences of Harry’s madness and obsession, with these characters’ flaws turned up to a hundred, told in achronological order.

Most people write and read fan fiction for self-indulgence but evidently, I’m not ready to be kind to these characters, ha ha. This might come off as out of character, too, but I don’t know, almost all the Harry Potter fics are ooc anyway so probably no one would care about that?

Prompt: Nekomata

(And bakeneko.)

I realised yesterday that I really hate my tags. ( ╥﹏╥ ) Like, there are so many of them. I don’t know what to do about it. And as a result, it honestly made me less interested in using this blog, ha ha. I guess I could just — stop using it because it’s not as if I’m obliged to and the initial reason why I got this in the first place has kind of lost its meaning? Also, the internet is a graveyard of defunct and missing blogs so what would one more be?

Hm… I guess I need to think about what to do. And if I ever want to start anew here or somewhere else, I guess I need to invest in a blog that’s better for showing off pictures. Because this layout doesn’t really work for that, I think.

Anyhow~ Here’s today’s prompt writing exercise. I actually ended up rather liking this one so I decided to share, ha ha. I think I’ll make this into a case too in that ghost detective story. And this time it’s even an originally evil yokai. Or well, since evil is kind of a loaded term that I don’t want to use lightly, let’s say “not human-friendly yokai”.

But recently I noticed that there are actually quite a lot of stories that tell about people investigating ghostly crimes. On the one hand, I suppose that’s good because it indicates that people are interested in reading them? But on the other hand, it’s like… can or will I stand out?

I — guess I’ll think about that when it comes time for that bridge?

But anyhoo, here’s a very short story about a creepy cat. ❤

Disclaimer: While writing this, I realised that Kiki from Kiki’s Delivery Service also had a black cat but the name was a total coincidence, ha ha.

Words: 541

∞

Nekomata

Kiki had always found the cat strange. As a kid, she’d thought it was scary, always staring from the shadows with its unblinking, blue eyes.

It had been her grandmother’s first. She’d always loved cats, and had got it from somewhere in her old age as a companion. Kiki could no longer remember the details or if her grandmother had even said anything at all.

She’d died six months ago, and Kiki had somehow ended up taking the cat in. Her flat was the only one that allowed pets. Not that it mattered. Two months after her grandmother’s funeral, her parents had died too. And then her cousins had started dying.

Kiki hadn’t understood and she’d tried going on in spite of the relentless, inexplicable tragedy and death. Then the gossip started, at work and around the neighbourhood. People whispering and whispering and whispering whenever she passed, avoiding her gaze and presence.

Cursed, they said. An omen of death.

It’d been six weeks since Kiki’d gone to work or outside.

She lived in her own flat like a ghost, her only company that cat. Every night as she went to sleep, it stared at her with its unblinking gaze, the shadow of its long tail splitting in two in the wan light of the moon coming in through the windows. It flicked and swayed somnolently, hypnotisingly, until Kiki fell asleep.

Every night, she had disturbing dreams.

She dreamed of shadows walking past her flat, beneath the flickering lights of the street lamps, familiar shapes slumping and shuffling. She dreamed of the faces of her family in the windows, rotting and decomposing. Sometimes she would wake up to loud, violent knocks at her door and she’d huddle under the blanket until they stopped.

At other times, when she hovered on the boundary of sleep and wakefulness, she thought she heard a voice in the flat. A furtive, unsettling voice that stopped as soon as she woke up fully. On those nights, she’d get up and go through the flat but the only thing she found was that cat. It would sit in front of the windows, staring outside intently.

Gradually, Kiki started thinking that there was something intelligent, something sinister in its gleaming blue eyes.

She thought about getting rid of it. Taking it to the doctor to be put down. Snapping its neck. Drowning it in the bath.

How old was it again?

Kiki stopped eating, and sleeping. She lay awake in the bed, staring at the iridescent flicker of its eyes in the darkness. The cat stared back, something maliciously amused in the ceaseless flicking of its tail, as if it could read her thoughts.

There was only so long she could resist the weight of sleep, her eyelids growing heavier until she simply lost consciousness.

She never woke up.

Not even when the cat jumped noiselessly off its perch on the sideboard and padded over to the bed. Its shadow on the wall grew, and grew, and grew and then its enormous jaw unhinged.

In the morning, the cat got up off the bed and went into the bathroom. The face of Kiki stared back at it from the mirror, her usually dark eyes now an eerie, gleaming blue.

fin

I usually don’t like making my tales very explicit so if some parts seem confusing, I suppose you’d need to know nekomata lore? Well, if anyone has questions, I will answer them.

It’s late and I’m too tired to proofread this so mistakes and all that, ha ha.

Hm… I don’t know, did I manage to make it sound creepy? I can never really tell with my own writing because it honestly doesn’t make me feel anything?

Less thinking, more writing

This week has been so terrible that I was supposed to do a comfort post about the next chapter of Bramble: The Mountain King. But it’s late and I’m really tired and honestly, my comfort posts take a lot of time. I need to actually play the chapter, take loads of screenshots, re-size the screenshots, name them somewhat sensibly, and post them. Just thinking about it is exhausting.

…..maybe I need to re-think my ideas on comfort posts?

So I figured I’d just do a short post on writing again.

Progress… has been made. Sort of. At least in regards to fan fiction. I finally have just one chapter of Harry Potter left. I was going to wait until I’d read it but then I realised that I seriously couldn’t less about the epilogue so I wrote and posted my last chapter codas a couple of days ago. They basically have no interaction which is to be expected, I guess. It’s not exactly encouraging or motivating, though, especially since the week has been bad.

But that means I am at liberty to start writing that re-write fan fiction or any other non-chapter coda fic.

*stares into the abyss of writer’s block*

Oh, what? I mean, I’m totally excited.

Bad, anxious thoughts, away with thee.

The character family tree is still a mess, though. I haven’t even started on the Harry Potter characters or English gods or mythological figures. I wonder if I need to abandon it, ha ha?

As for original fiction, I finally have an idea for a first case from those writing prompt exercises. The only problem is that now I have to actually write it. And maybe put those character profiles down, ha ha.

I was thinking that I’d start trying the rule of three. I mean, three bullet points and each of them has one sentence max. Some people like to write very elaborate notes, backstories and profiles but I honestly feel as if this might be more of a hindrance than help with me?

For all the story ideas that I’ve written elaborate notes on very lovingly, it’s like dead crickets. And completely conversely it’s those free writing exercises that I actually manage to write? Which is of course great because that the point but it’s also, why isn’t it this easy with the stuff I actually want to write?

So I guess the goal is less thinking and more writing.

But to be honest, I haven’t exactly been feeling motivated this week because the bad days just kept piling. Does anyone else have the troublesome personality that when you’re in an anxious and depressive mood, you’re like, I don’t want to do anything? Or is it just me?

Prompt: Yamauba

Hee, for once I have good news that probably interests no one. I’ve been doing those “prompts” which are just me picking a japanese folklore creature from the yokai books I read last year and free writing it. A few days ago, the prompt was yamauba which are basically these mountain hags. They’re not necessarily evil since, according to some accounts, they might be similar to baba but I’m trying to do horror so horroresque it is.

Anyhow, as I was writing the prompt I started thinking, oh, I actually rather like how this is turning out. So I think I now have an idea for a case that my ghost detectives can investigate! I rewrote some bits of the prompt and figured I might as well post it here. So without further ado for those it might interest.

Words: 813

∞

Yamauba

Azuri was never going to forgive Kaneta for talking her into this.

The beam of her flashlight swept over the threadbare walls, stained dark with spreading patches of mould. Fallen leaves and bits of earth littered the gnarled floors, rustling inordinately loudly as she moved apprehensively further in.

“’Let’s do a test of courage, Azurin’,” she muttered under her breath, repeating what Kaneta had said to her. “’It’s going to be fun, Azurin’.”

She flinched when she felt a breath on the back of her neck and whirled around, her heart pounding sickeningly fast. The corridor behind her was empty, long veils of gossamer swaying soundlessly by the flashlight. Azuri exhaled, scrubbing her hand over the prickling on her nape. “It was just the draft,” she said to herself, and ignored the slight waver in her voice.

They were on a field trip in the mountains and the girls in her class had got the idea of doing a test of courage. It was just a thinly veiled excuse to have a date with the boys because what better way to start a young love than wandering around in the middle of the night in search of ghosts and abandoned huts. Azuri hadn’t been that excited about it, and she’d been even less excited about it when it’d turned out that they had an uneven number of boys and girls and she’d pulled the short end of the stick and had to do the test alone.

She should’ve just gone back to the room, Kaneta’s pleading expression and crush on Yukuri be damned.

The black holes in the shoji seemed to stare at her, the shapes of the shadows queer and sinister. Azuri kept flicking her flashlight at them, her breathing tense with increasing anxiety and fear. “Okay,” she said, her voice unconsciously low. “Okay. I think this is far enough. Time to go back.”

When something pattered quietly on the roof, she jumped and dropped the flashlight. It clattered to the floor loudly, the beam spinning over the time-worn walls. “Shit,” she said, picking it up with nerveless fingers. She listened for a moment and then let out an explosive breath, pressing the flashlight against her forehead. “It’s the rain, Azuri,” she told herself, and after a pause opened her eyes in alarm. “Wait. Rain?”

Azuri rushed back to the entrance and stopped on the engawa outside. The few drops she’d heard inside had turned into a torrent, sheets of water falling down the edge of the eaves, splashing the porch. Azuri stared into the blurred darkness despairingly; she could barely make out the trees looming over the hut, the long drooping branches scratching the roof and the walls.

“How am I supposed to get back like this?” she cried, dropping down into a crouch and putting her face in her hands.

Did anyone even wait for her or had they all run back inside?

The wind picked up, tearing through the trees and banging the branches against the hut. Azuri flinched, huddling more in on herself. She shivered, and then she thought she heard something. She looked up warily, the beam of her flashlight angled at the underside of the roof. Azuri listened, her head tilted. The rain was so loud, all other noises drowned beneath the relentless hammering.

She heard it again, muffled and distant, piercing through the night.

“…what is that?” she asked, haltingly. More noises followed, similar but different. Azuri was inordinately aware of her heartbeat, pounding with increasing unease. The thought hovered in her mind but she didn’t want to voice it.

The noises sounded a lot like screams.

Abruptly, they stopped as if cut off. The hair on the back of Azuri’s neck prickled, her body aching with unexplained tension. She clutched the flashlight, her knuckles white. She inhaled a quick sharp breath, and instinctively clicked the flashlight off.

She thought there was something moving in the dark.

Barely daring to breathe, Azuri strained her eyes. A shape seemed to move in the rain, a prowling void against the black outline of trees. It moved oddly, unevenly. It reminded her of Kimotsuki when she’d broken her leg. Azuri wasn’t aware of trembling, shivers wrecking through her.

She blinked, and the shape seemed to be gone.

Slowly, Azuri looked around. She couldn’t see anything except for the glint of rain by the flashlight and the swaying outline of trees.

“It’s okay,” she muttered. “It’s okay. It was just the wind. Or an animal. Or you’re delusional.”

She exhaled tremulously, her thumb hesitating over the flashlight’s button.

There was a sound behind her, negligibly small. A creak as if someone had stepped out on the engawa. Azuri stared ahead, petrified. A childish thought filled her mind that if she didn’t look, there would be nothing there.

The last thing she felt was cold, gnarled fingers sliding over her throat.

fin

Mostly this was a free writing exercise as well so mistakes and all that.

Can I tag this as writing progress if I haven’t actually written the progress yet? I guess it’s fine, positive thinking~.

Today’s Writing Prompt and Exercise

So in the interest of the new year, I thought I’d try to shape up. My goals for this year are: to stop and re-direct my tired and lazy impulses. I mean, as funny as fandom and internet drama are, they’re neither important nor conducive. Finish the stuff I’ve started and for the love of gods, stop backlogging things. This includes finishing Poetic Edda, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Tomb Raider re-play, Bramble: The Mountain King re-play, and Song of Horror! Like, seriously! Before the equinox!

Other goals: trying to make those writing exercises regular again. Finish an original story, doesn’t matter how long it is, just write something. Finish that Harry Potter character tree and figure out the Dumbles/Tommy stuff. Start the fic! “Just write” even though I hate that advice.

That said! Here’s a snippet of today’s writings. You know, as a commitment or whatever.

The prompt: kodama

The exercise: practising for that ghost detective story. The detectives aren’t ghosts. They just investigate ghost attacks, ha ha. The goal is to practise writing Japanese horror and folklore for that story.

∞

Kodama

The town was perched on the edge of the ocean, the water lapping against the foundations of the wood houses, painted black with pine soot. A single street cut through the town, winding along the root of the nemorous mountains, a jagged, susurrous outline against the sky.

The woods were dark even during the day and uncannily quiet. Here and there crumbling, moss-coated steps led to nowhere. Rotting, dilapidated torii stood among the shadows. In the deepest parts of the forest, queer lights wavered between the old, massive trees that bled if cut.

It was an odd place, the inhabitants said. The trees did strange things. The shadows moved. Echoes took longer than they should to return. A person could get lost in there for days — if they came back at all.

fin

And this word: nemorous. EVERY TIME I’m like,

Hey, let’s use that word.

*pauses*

*totally does not remember how it’s written*

*tries to look it up online*

*internet search engines yield no results*

*increasing frustration*

Is ‘nemorous’ even a real word? It’s not on etymonline? No wonder I didn’t find it there.

Writer’s Block and a Snippet

I have three chapters of Harry Potter left which probably means I should get started on those long(er) fics I want to write for it and which are the reason why I started this whole thing in the first place. So I figured, hey, you know what, let’s complain about my writer’s block, ha ha.

In other words, it hasn’t gotten much better? I’ve been writing those chapter codas still whenever I get an idea, but my original writing fell a bit on the wayside when I started having those early mornings and I was too tired to do much else than stare vacantly at the computer screen.

And the other day I tried writing this fic again as a “just write” exercise because I want to do this inconsequential fluff piece with Ron/Ginny shenanigans, Aunt Muriel and Draco shenanigans, and make fun of Harry which always gives me life.

Here’s a snippet:

∞

Ginny looked up when she heard a creak on the stairs. It was Ron. He glanced at her blearily as he trudged into the kitchen, his expression disgruntled and tired.

“Can’t sleep?” Ginny inquired, keeping her voice low. It was the dead of night, and she didn’t fancy accidentally waking up her mum or the others.

Ron grunted and scrubbed his hand over his face. “Harry’s muttering something Malfoy,” he grumbled with a scowl. “It’s like he’s obsessed with that git.”

Ginny fiddled with the cup of tea in her hands and politely refrained from voicing her thoughts about Harry’s fixation with Malfoy, or any other pretty boy. Not that Malfoy was pretty or anything, she amended quickly, what with the heart-shaped face and refined bones and sleek blonde hair.

“Well, guess it beats him screaming about You-Know-Who,” Ron went on despondently.

Ginny stared.

“There’s a lot going on in your dormitory, huh,” she said. The most that happened in hers was one or two girls crying because of homesickness. And Aubri Avery tended to snore.

Ron looked at her suddenly, and frowned. His hand twitched and then clenched into a fist. “Did you have nightmares again?” he asked, his voice rough. “You could’ve woken me up.”

Ginny had wanted to. She had thought about it when she’d stood in the dark hallway outside her room and stared longingly up the stairs, the handrail gripped tight in her hand. She had always gone to Ron after her nightmares; he grumbled about it but he made space for her on the bed and stayed up with her until she fell asleep again, reading his comic books together or sneaking outside to play quidditch.

But Harry was staying over. She always seemed to have more nightmares when he was at the Burrow.

Ginny shrugged, averting her eyes. “I didn’t want to wake up Harry,” she said. “Besides, tomorrow’s an early morning.” She made a face and Ron groaned.

“Don’t remind me. Aunt Muriel’s a nightmare,” he said.

Every summer their mum dragged them to her place and made them help her clean the house while Aunt Muriel sat back drinking and making disparaging comments about the quality of their work, their looks and their general attitude. None of them would’ve agreed to go if they didn’t get a sickle each and if their mum didn’t look tremendously fierce when she told them that Aunt Muriel was family, no matter how unpleasant, and they better help out or else.

∞

I actually have over six thousand words of this stupid thing. Because I started doing that thing where I obsessively re-write the same sentences, and just because I realise I’m doing it again, it doesn’t mean I can stop doing it. Luckily, I feel relatively calm about that above snippet so who knows, maybe I actually manage to finish something? All writing is good writing even if no one is interested in reading it! I think.

Like, you have no idea how many times I re-wrote just this part:

Every summer their mum dragged them to her place and made them help her clean the house while Aunt Muriel sat back drinking and making disparaging comments about the quality of their work, their looks and their general attitude.

But here’s the thing. There’s this Harry Potter fic I always wanted to write because there is something I want to convey and I thought that a Harry Potter fic is the perfect medium to convey it. This is the fic I started this whole re-read project for. It’s basically this Epic Rewrite!AU as I pretentiously call it (I hope I manage to come up with a real title by the time I have something to post, ha ha).

I have, like, these elaborate character profiles for Draco, Harry, Severus, Hermione, Sirius, Regulus, Peter, Lucius, Quirrell etc. but the most I have for Tommy is this:

• has a crazy messed up relationship with Dumbles
• had a brief relationship with Hagrid in their respective 5/3 years
• obsessed with immortality
• some ideas from Fullmetal Alchemist and H. P. Lovecraft

And that’s kind of bad because Dumbles and Tommy will be the main antagonists in this fic. So I should really get on with figuring that stuff out, ha ha. *laughs in despair*

The thing is, it seems that my brain is wholly incapable of understanding the “just write” part of “just write”. I mean, it’s a fan fic. It’s free. No one cares except me even if it isn’t grammar perfect. I’ve read plenty of fics that I liked even if they weren’t grammar perfect (for example, one randomly switched tenses). And aside from, like, egregious mistakes, I don’t think people would care that much in a published work either?

Or at least I hope so because there are several original stories I want to write too and I’m writing them in English but I basically never studied English grammar. I did my studying for all of my subjects, like, five minutes before the start of class.

Did I have a point in all this rambling? Maybe that the approaching end of Harry Potter is giving me existential dread about that Harry Potter fic I really need to get a start on. Because there is no way I will accept that I re-read those terrible books for nothing. And I know how I want to start it — with Lucius and Narcissa — but I really need to figure that Tommy/Dumbles stuff out. Like, asap.

I also started re-doing that Harry Potter character tree (for the third time) but — and I seriously don’t know why I do this to myself every time — I started adding characters from mythology and other stories in it too. Mainly because I started reading Poetic Edda last year (should finish it, preferably this month) and thought Odin is so totally a Slytherin and wanted to add him as one of Draco’s ancestors, ha ha. ❤ But do you have any idea how messy mythological family trees are? Especially when they start to bleed into legendary family trees and historical family trees?

Very. They’re very messy and evidently I’m insane.

This is needlessly cruel

That you need to actually sit down and write the stories, you can’t just imagine them.

Maybe

the hardest thing about writing after all is keeping myself motivated.

In other words, I’ve been feeling really unmotivated lately. About everything, not just writing.

Does anyone else get post-good fiction blues? Or is it just me?

Tonight’s Writing Exercise

Well, I recently wrote about 4,000 words of this Ron/Ginny fic (unfortunately, not the one I’ve been complaining about in other posts). Here: Dark Night of the Soul if anyone is interested. So I kind of optimistically thought that yay, maybe I’m finally getting over my writer’s block. But as it turns out it was probably just that Ron/Ginny fic because that little crack pairing has a surprising wealth of material to explore.

I tried starting that canon!AU today again but I just — I seriously can’t get past this first sentence:

Harry didn’t think he was in Surrey anymore.

So since that didn’t work out, I wrote this 200-word exercise about how Hogwarts would appear to muggles instead. It’s very influenced by Lovecraft because, as far as I’m concerned, Harry Potter is a horror story presented in the most vacuous way possible.

But here’s tonight’s writing exercise because I’m in a sharing mood.

∞

Hogwarts

The hills east of Dufftown have always been a bit queer. The heathered slopes are shrouded in perennial mists and preternatural shadows lurk in the deep woods to the southeast. A mountain rises on the shore of the twilit lake and when sunlight falls on the jagged cliffs in a particular way they conjure uncanny suggestions of handcrafted structures.

The locals shun the place. Most of the young folk have moved away, and the old folk whisper about voices in the foothills and odd lights up on the mountain at night and glimpses of nightmare shapes in the dark woods. They whisper about people going missing near the nemorous hills; many are never found but others turn up days, weeks, months later disoriented and confused.

People outside of Dufftown dismiss these as superstitious talk of rustic folk. For in their eyes, even the locals are a bit queer, dull and vacant-eyed. But even the rare traveller or a visitor who passes through the town doesn’t like to get too close to the hills or linger too long.

Whatever the truth, the hills to the east remain untrodden and the shadowed woods undisturbed. And if chilling howls shred the air on the nights when the moon hangs full in the sky, well, it’s likely just the wind.

fin

I posted this on AO3 too because it’s “finished”. Here: Hogwarts.

Honestly, I’ve been feeling so anxious and nervous about the new stuff that I’m starting on Monday that it’s probably affected my ability to write. Like, anxiety does not help with writer’s block!

Oh, but there was one thing that made me happy: someone bookmarked two of my original writing exercises that I’d posted on AO3, ha ha. Thank you, mystery bookmarker, even if I can’t thank you directly. ❤

I forgot

how much I hate trying to write Hagrid’s dialect. *sighs*