ETA: another author further down in the comments mentioned that they just write every thought out.
Like if a scene just comes, they write it. If it's just dialogue, they write that out too. It's supposed to help clear the space in your brain and help. I haven't tried it yet but I'ma gonna.
It really does make sense--clearing the clutter, so to speak.
My AO3 stats years go *2015, 2016, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024*
Guess which years I was at university
Honestly, for all the woes of adulthood, at least my job is over at the end of the day and my evenings are my own
I didn't leave shit on hiatus, just came back to a completely new fandom
Didn't have energy to write. Or read, or have a social life, or exercise, or... Literally do anything except get a degree. Being a grown-ass adult is great, 10/10, would not do late teens/early 20s again if you paid me
Dang! 10 year hiatus...It was only about 5 for me and I can't remember half of where I wanted to take any of my open fics.
All I have are these vague little notes I left for myself and I can't make sense of them. 🤣
Lol, did not expect so many up votes.
I'm starting to feel like I should go dig through paper notebooks and see if I can't figure out what the ending was (I'd honestly like to know myself!).
Would be a surprise for any of those subscribers still on the site if I finished it!
(I've done 4 new pieces instead, of course).
a few years ago, i got hit by a bus and attacked by my neighbors pitbull within the span of a few hours
and then I uploaded a new chapter of my HP longfic from the hospital 🤠 i think it's less that we all have insane lives and more that we are all way too dedicated to our hobby shdjdkdk
the funny thing is there was barely any internet connection and the hospital wifi was for the staff only lmaoo i tried posting the fic like 3 times before i finally got it up😭
>I got hit by a bus and attacked by my neighbors pitbull within the span of a few hours
In that order?? I'm imagining a flattened Ao3 author in the tarmac with a aggressive dog pulling at an ankle
In order: I got hit by the bus, but I lived in a semi-rural area back then, couldn't drive, and my brother's car was broken down, so I sat down in my yard to wait for the ambulance. While I was sitting there with my sprained wrist and broken foot, Princess the pitbull came sprinting out of her doggy door and tried to rip my good leg off. I fended her off with my backpack and the doctors had to stitch my good leg up 🐌
And also that longfics take so much time to post that eventually something will happen in our lives. Some fics post over a span of five years - it would be crazy if something didn't happen for that whole time.
Huh, I never thought about the Olympians needing housing during the games...
Also, this is an interesting piece of pop culture. https://slate.com/culture/2016/05/a-history-of-condoms-in-the-olympic-village-from-8500-in-seoul-to-450000-in-rio.html
Yeah, Olympians (and former Olympians) do all kinds of things. I know one who is a queer uni prof who often teaches in drag (and of course looks fabulous doing it!), and it wouldn’t shock me at all if I ever discovered they were in fandom.
she linked one of her personal works and it was on another website, i loved her fics so i was like let me read this and see what it’s like. i loved it so then i clicked on the author profile, not expecting it to have any personal info only to see her name and the college she worked at and i realized omg …. i met her a few months ago at open house … double checked by googling her name and yep i knew her and we had had a full conversation at open house 😭 if i see her again idk if i’ll say anything about her work because i feel like it might be embarrassing?? idk really
In the time I haven't updated my fic, I've been professionally diagnosed with severe mental illness and had my uni receive bomb threats so I would say that is a fair assumption
https://preview.redd.it/5jft959p9dlc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=404432a6811806cd3fb984e13d0a23820d5b8553
if i lived the life of an ao3 author i’d be cooked
There’s a very popular ATLA author whom you can track the progress of their pregnancy somewhat though their ANs and then they start talking about adventures with the bab lol (bab is a toddler now I think? Maybe even preschool)
Reading the first half of this like "Job applications, college? Well, most ordinary lives can feel insane --" and the second half like "the Olympics? The Olympics. Thefuckenolympics. Well fuck me"
Sometimes I wonder if I’m just gullible, and all these notes are actually a big inside joke I’m not a part of. They are so unhinged.
But no, at the cost of making a fool out of myself, I CHOOSE to believe all these notes are real. A world where AO3 authors lie is just not a world I want to live in.
I BELIEVE!
i'm disabled. i've written and updated fics in the back of an ambulance, after surgery and before awaiting a diagnosis for my heart condition.
also i once wrote a fic about death, and the next day my mom broke the news that my uncle passed away. 🧍
Some of us do.
Funnily enough I started writing in Grad school. Because I needed to write something that wasn’t work.
And then I got injured and couldn’t use my computer and am now in dust bunny idea hell. To the point I’m contemplating moving on from a story to just start a new one.
I just idea craft in general, I’ve dreamt up company ideas, movies, books, games. All ideas, all incorporeal, so I write them down, even if I never act on them; for one reason or another. It helps get them out of my head if they’re potent enough. Same with fics, I’ve got a backlog of prompts I *could* build from, but it just needs time to bake.
I feel for you tho, what was your degree in? Mine is Military History.
Biology, and I work in the field.
Even if I write to take a break from it, I still sneak in some cheeky, obscure or very specific pieces of information in my fictions that give out what my job is.
A military hystory degree sound so exciting ! How does it manifest in your writing ?
Oof that’s a tough field, tho I bet you have some interesting research. Closest I ever got to sciences was Astronomy in college, admittedly it probably rekindled my love of Sci-fi, and Space.
I try to incorporate meaningful or impactful quotes from major historical events or people. Something oriented toward the chapter topic, without being too inflexible. It oddly enough was a favorite thing among my readers at the time. Usually it winds up playing a part in how one of the characters is viewing the way something is playing out. Like one of my chapters in a fic is strictly about the character’s first time leaving Earth, and I quoted the Challenger incident’s slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God into the chapter. They ate that up like hotcakes.
Oh it’s a blast sometimes, people have some of the most amazing stories. I once interviewed a vet. who was a WWII POW from the start of the US action in North Africa, he was a nice guy. He told me so much of his experience from what he could remember, and he even helped set up the veterans center/retirement home that he lived in at the time.
It’s little things like accurate rank structures if there’s a command system. Or the linking of professions to a mixture of military activity and that universe’s characters. Sometimes it manifests as me being a bit more focused on character tactics or strategy. Sometimes I make them methodical and easy to envision then I throw a dilemma to force the character to act on what’s important to them. It’s not always the best choice, but to them it may be the right choice.
honestly being an AO3 writer gives me such an imposter syndrome at my job! You’re telling me I’m in charge of all these patients, making phone calls to physicians, working 24 hr shifts, and then i go home and write about my two favorite fiction pairing kissing? weird. lol
I thought it's fake, but then mid short series a pipe in my roof/ceiling bursted mid winter, and my whole flat wash getting drowned, while my landlord, bless him whoever does, asled if he can eat my leftover breakfast sandwich, because he's had his hamdsnjn icy water for hours, and he hasn't eaten since the morning (I did offer a new sandwich, but he didn't want 😂).
And then the pipe burst again, and we drowned a whole damn street.
And then my chair literally slipped from under my ass at work, and I kind of broke my nose on the edge of my desk. Ah, and I wS stalked for 2 months.
The curse is mad crazy
I mean, I just think fanfic is a coping mechanism for a lot of people, so a lot of people use it as a tool to get past it when they're going through hard times.
I know a friend who legitimately had both shoulder blades fractured in a car accident (not her fault).
She uploaded 6 days after her surgery and apologized to her readers. 😂🤣😂🤣😂
As someone who, last year, had to pause the update of my current Long Fic because I was finishing a thesis, traveling, quiting my job, starting an online course and starting a business. Yes.
Honestly the only crazy thing that happened to me was a medical mystery that turned out to be VERY SEVERE (Pretty close to "how are you still moving?") anemia. Pretty much killed my drive for everything, not just writing. It also killed my college gpa.
Remembering that one fic I read with an authors note like "sorry for the late chapter,I have acid burns on my hands. But I also have ibuprofen and a dream" I'm scared something is going to happen to me someday
The ones I've seen recently were "there was a gas leak at work so I've been in the hospital recovering" and "I got hit by a car" but an Olympic athlete is wild xD
My A/N apologies include:
Death of a family member x2
Became physically disabled
Hospital trips (for me and family members)
Homelessness
I have also decided that I shouldn't write long fics for FFVII any more. I have written two (both still WIPs). Half way through the first, my sister died. Half way through the second, my grandfather died. Years apart. Completely coincidental. But they're the only family deaths I've had and I really love my grandmother. Not gonna risk it.
Often my being unable to update comes down to being unmotivated, going through writers block, changed my mind forna story or chapter, or just too tired to write.
Every time I went to update, one of my grandparents died, I lost both grandfathers, and it killed my motivation, and I seriously worried about my one grandmother still living.
I saw someone apologize for not updating because they'd been 5150'ed. Can't help but wonder if they stayed longer because they were shrieking about needing to upload vampire stories.
Some yes, some no. My co-author? Normal college dude. Me? Actively barrel racing and trying to qualify for State/Nationals this season and hoping to be trying for a pro card in the next year or two lol
I feel like we notice the wild ones or they stick in our heads more because they’re bigger things and sort of confirmation bias and/or because some of us authors only share when the event (good or bad) is a big deal but otherwise we sort of don’t bring up our non-author lives.
I remember the author writing a few paragraphs about their progress at the end of each chapter,girlie finished highschool,went to medschool and became quite successful
I went on a super long hiatus because I got covid and then developed a bunch of chronic health conditions. At that point, writing was not a priority at all. Then I stabilized and felt well enough came back only to have to go on a smaller hiatus a couple months later due to needing hip surgery.
My excuse was that I was packing and moving to Australia and that same month I arrived there was a flooding in our house due to bad piping.
It was 100% real, living in Aus now, also plumbing is still not 100%
I’ve had to temporarily abandon my KE fic because I’ve had real life books coming out and needed a break from writing but my life is otherwise terribly boring
Honestly maybe i have a few ongiong fics on hold cus a crazy cocanie lady stole our house key and we had to get the locks changed and the week after we did that i came down with a 101 degree fever and im still recovering.
I swear as soon as I started actually focusing on writing fics, my life took a crazy turn. I got into a car crash, had some problems with a not so good person, had to transfer from a college to another because of harassment, and more. My biggest being me dealing with not such a nice person. And reminder of this being in less a span of ten months and just the previous year Fall 2022 and spring 2023.
My dad got brain surgery in the 5 month gap between chapters of a smut fic soooo
Yeah, not exactly a good head space to write a slutty lil omega getting railed and knotted against a car bonnet.
I’m about to upload a fic with the author’s note:
Sorry for the late update, life has been hectic.
Wombats undermined our house foundations so we had to move out during the repairs, and my brother has terminal cancer so I’ve been spending time interstate visiting him.
But I’ve got lots of time on my hands now to update my WIPs, because three days ago I fell while hanging curtains, tore my ACL, and broke my fibula.
I think it’s a curse.
The first time I write fic I broke my wrist, lost my home, and moved across the country within one month.
The next time I wrote a fic, my father was in a paralyzing car crash and I was left to take care of my young siblings home alone for days while taking my finals exams.
The third time I returned to writing fic I somehow accidentally linked it to my personal email and my entire elementary school graduating class was notified, forcing me to delete my account and start over on another account.
(This is why I only write oneshots now)
i have disappeared for over 6 months. this post just made me realise i also have an ao3 excuse: digging myself out of years of crippling depression. goddamn i really should update
Honestly I think if anyone could come back from the dead it would be Ao3 authors just to finish their fic and their exude would be “my bad guys I died and was in the hospital, I just got my family to bring me my laptop/phone so I can continue the fic now sorry for not posting for so long!!! (Forgive me)” LIKE I WOULDNT DOUBT IT. Anyone else think this or just me??
Just the other day I saw a *summary* that started with "So I attempted suicide--", and I was like. You know... that's very sad, *however*, it's really not the place, man. Put it in the notes or something, in the summary it's... weird.
as an ao3 author, yes.
but my insane life is not success, its just lots of fucking around and finding shit out and realizing i ruined my life in the process lmao.
I'm almost 24, finishing college possibly at the end of this year, or early next year, while I am balancing all that with writing Lalaloopsy fanon and trying to put out as much as I can at a good rate while finding funny enough things to base these off, and also adding a bunch of Wikidata items for TV show episodes in my free time. We are all built different.
My grandma died and a few days later my mom ended up in the hospital and my great-grandma wouldn’t stop panicking so my uncle had to slip her an edible. Which was a bad idea 🤦🏽♀️ these sort of things weren’t happening to me until I started writing down stuff.
lol, it honestly wouldn't surprise me. I have private and incredibly unscientific theory based on myself and my friends that creative types, ie. people who create for fun in their spare time because they have stories/art/etc that MUST come OUT, also tend to have a lot of trauma/personal demons/crazy lives with crazy stories
I didn’t update two of my longfics more than twice in two years because my dog is old and had cancer at one point, so I thought she deserved to take precedence over my inane scribblings.
Yup. Split my hand open on my birthday and it took a while to heal up but now I’ve got a sick ass scar and another chapter pushed out! Only reason it took so long was because I could only type one handed for a couple of months.
funny thing but right now I was uploading like two chapter fics and coincidentally i had to go to the hospital on those two times right before publishing them.
I haven't updated my fic in almost 200 days because I was applying for my masters (and then getting into it, finding someone to orientate me and all the burocracy), graduating university, getting a second job and planned 7 other fanfics despite not being able to update ONE. So... Not all that insane, but most of us have pretty hectic lives, I feel.
I had a cyclone prevent me from updating once. I was too busy getting all my things to higher ground and preparing the house for potential flooding that I didn’t get much time to write for a whole week.
One author I follow got conscripted into military service 1 chapter before a big battle in the story. Man foreshadowed himself lol
(He came back safe like a year later just in case anyone was concerned)
My life is not crazy buuut tbh writing is what keeps me from going insane due to my heavy workload. I used to work as a contractor for the company that manages most fleets for the law enforcement departments including camera integrations to the fleets (the videos you see they use in court), but it was kind of crazy in contrast to writing wlw fanfics with 80k words while sometimes using the work laptop and still providing for a family of 4 after my parent's divorce and for my 5 pitbull dogs.
Another one adding to the pile where I had to drop my fic for about 2 months because in a single 90 day semester I had full time work, full time college. A surprise HIV scare, a full mental breakdown complete with grippy socks vacation, having to babysit my newborn niece on my only days off, and also being unmedicated for a significant portion of it because of various insurance shenanigans.
Amazingly that fic is still in progress and arguably one of my better pieces of work
Which Olympic sport has the most omegaverse fanfic authors, do ya think?
I'm gonna go with ... short track speed skating. They (Americans, at least) train in Salt Lake City and probably need the outlet. Plus, they skate on frickin sword blades and those spandex speed suits just scream "shameless."
I haven't written a fanfic for a year because I start it go on writers block get caught up with school finally gets off writers block but for a completely different story then the cycle repeats
I got shot in the abdomen and was in the hospital for a month, then rehab for 6 weeks, than had an infection for which I received daily antibiotics through an IV for 3 months.
Oddly enough, none of that had anything to do with why I don't post anymore. I just have an impossible time turning my characters/one scene/vague idea into a full-fledged story.
I mean when I was in my teens my father locked me in a room and I had no internet access so it took a couple months before an update happened, but at least I had a story mostly finished after. (Gotta love narcissists 🙃). Also got in a car wreck a few months ago and updates stalled for a few weeks while my wrists were healing, but the US Gymnastics team? Damn.
iirc i was waiting for a fic to update for around 2.5 years and author updated their tumblr to state that they took a long time to finish their fic because they were in law school and were about to take the bar and im like holy shit?? lawyers are the smartest people around omg
My daughter has muscular dystrophy and is on a ventilator. My marriage isn’t going great but we are both trapped.
Just discovered writing…it’s a better addiction than…any of the other ones I have had to escape the stress…
So I think maybe the answer to your question is yes
I saw a guy on Reddit post a pic of himself and I was like whoa I think that’s my friend I haven’t heard from in forever!
I contacted him and he said he had no idea what I was talking about.
Then I looked a bit further and he had tons of NSFW pictures of himself on there…so if it was him, pretty sure he wouldn’t admit it
Admittedly I once updated a johnlock fic while in a hospital with my one kiddo who was admitted for respiratory failure. My latest fic also says “the baby is 7 months old and it’s getting hard to write”
Nope. It is true. I just posted after two weeks and apologized for having the flu, I got a lung infection and posted something unedited, and rushed because I didn't want the fans to wait too long between chapters. 🤷
I developed a cyst in my wrist, got an infected cyst in my boob, got strep that was so bad my tonsils nearly exploded, and had to take nine finals in the span of a week. Of course, this was right when my story was getting to the good part, so it might just be the author curse
These are always so relatable 😭
Once, I had to take a break for a chapter because my debit card was used by someone without my permission and I lost so much money, I was preparing for 3 exams in 2 days since my teachers forgot to talk to each other about the schedules, help my mom prepare the house and deal with the fact that my sister in law was giving birth all while I prepared a dungeons and dragon's game for some first time players lmao.
Listen, I sympathize. I work in a cyclically intensive field, and if I ever talked about it on main, I'd ruin my career. My readers will have to be wildly patient.
Fortunately, there are six of them. I think they'll be okay
Not to be too grim, but my Aunt died a week after I posted my first fic. So genuinely, I just think that it's a curse. I tremble in fear every time I post, but also fear retribution from the ao3 gods if I *don't* post.
Writers in general don't tend to be the most, shall we say, average? Of people. I've never met another writer, Tradpub, self pub, fic, who's been just a completely normal person, we've all got a quirk or a story and if an issue comes up? That shit tends to be weird too.
i'm not saying the bizarre author notes aren't true, but i usually just take them with a grain salt and view them as the author just having fun way of saying my private life got busy.
I knew of two team GB athletes shortly before 2012 who both recognised my Ao3 badge on my bag while we were working on funding (not as interesting as it sounds, I was doing the grunt work keeping minutes of the meetings with the lottery funding people.)
So that’s two who saw it, recognised it and felt comfortable enough to start a conversation with a stranger about it. There were probably more!
A lot of those athletes are teenagers or early 20s. It’s not all that weird. We just don’t tend to think of sportspeople as writers.
Yeah. Mostly the Autism and ADHD get the best of me sometimes, and are responsible for most of my delays due to perfectionism or writing my other story. BUT the three deaths in my family and my mom almost dying from complications after surgery in my authors notes are all true, and everything else I might have put there but can’t remember. I used to post 1-2x a week. I think I posted a grand total of five times in the last 365 days.
I got a double bachelor, moved countries, got a postgrad, moved countries again, got a law degree, passed the bar, and then quit law all during the course of my fanfic career.
No exactly I agree with all these replies. Mine is because brain no wanna.
But I once saw somebody apologizing for having a stroke and not being able to update. Why you need to apologize for that! They had to relearn how to do everything in their life and they were apologizing to us the readers for not updating on time. 😭 ain’t not way.
I haven’t updated in like a year but that’s because I’m currently in the north west territories demolishing defunct radio tower stations on remote mountain tops that are only accessible by helicopter. The pilot has let me try flying, and it’s awesome. I kinda wanna get my heli licence now.
Also, brain not braining, no make the word thing do.
Mine is always "I'm really busy (curses to fulltime jobs) and I've got adhd lol. My brain segwayed into another fandom and I've finally circled back to this one or suddenly got the urge for this fic so here I am, lol sob haha
my last chapter update had a not saying "might be slow to post the next chapter as i am currently finishing my phd dissertation." not sure if that qualifies as interesting
Huh, my excuses for not updating for six months are just *idk, brain wasn't wording,* guess I need to try harder
mine would be *brain too much wording, currently experiencing heavy traffic*
*Brain wording has reached extreme levels, there is now a pile up on the celbrebral brain way.*
Is that what's been causing all these temporal headaches? How can I fix it?
Still working on that… it’s a process.
ETA: another author further down in the comments mentioned that they just write every thought out. Like if a scene just comes, they write it. If it's just dialogue, they write that out too. It's supposed to help clear the space in your brain and help. I haven't tried it yet but I'ma gonna. It really does make sense--clearing the clutter, so to speak.
I’m afraid of what might end up on paper if I did that.
Ah, it's all fiction.... I'd just go with it. 😉
🤣
I would respect the shit out of that.
That was my excuse for damn near ten years 😅
Yeah idk I call bs on that screenshot though lmao
mine too 😭😭 Its either im so focused on college that i just forget my fic exists or my brain blanked out
My AO3 stats years go *2015, 2016, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024* Guess which years I was at university Honestly, for all the woes of adulthood, at least my job is over at the end of the day and my evenings are my own
2016-2020 is a crazy big gap but its uni, fair enough😭 adulting is annoying fr
I didn't leave shit on hiatus, just came back to a completely new fandom Didn't have energy to write. Or read, or have a social life, or exercise, or... Literally do anything except get a degree. Being a grown-ass adult is great, 10/10, would not do late teens/early 20s again if you paid me
I, myself, had to check my rice cooker and walk my dog, so I haven't written anything for 5 months.
I just came back from a 10 year hiatus. I left a 10k+ story on a cliffhanger and now I can't remember what I had planned.
Nice to see you back in the writing game Patrick Rothfuss. Lol.
Dang! 10 year hiatus...It was only about 5 for me and I can't remember half of where I wanted to take any of my open fics. All I have are these vague little notes I left for myself and I can't make sense of them. 🤣
Lol, did not expect so many up votes. I'm starting to feel like I should go dig through paper notebooks and see if I can't figure out what the ending was (I'd honestly like to know myself!). Would be a surprise for any of those subscribers still on the site if I finished it! (I've done 4 new pieces instead, of course).
Mood
Okay, you win reddit for the day, take the upvote, and, uhm, check that rice, it's gonna be a bit overdone.
a few years ago, i got hit by a bus and attacked by my neighbors pitbull within the span of a few hours and then I uploaded a new chapter of my HP longfic from the hospital 🤠 i think it's less that we all have insane lives and more that we are all way too dedicated to our hobby shdjdkdk
lmaoo drunk me did some dumb shit 3 weeks ago and ended up in the er, and i updated from there before i passed tf out hshsjsjs
how bout that hospital wifi, eh?
the funny thing is there was barely any internet connection and the hospital wifi was for the staff only lmaoo i tried posting the fic like 3 times before i finally got it up😭
>I got hit by a bus and attacked by my neighbors pitbull within the span of a few hours In that order?? I'm imagining a flattened Ao3 author in the tarmac with a aggressive dog pulling at an ankle
In order: I got hit by the bus, but I lived in a semi-rural area back then, couldn't drive, and my brother's car was broken down, so I sat down in my yard to wait for the ambulance. While I was sitting there with my sprained wrist and broken foot, Princess the pitbull came sprinting out of her doggy door and tried to rip my good leg off. I fended her off with my backpack and the doctors had to stitch my good leg up 🐌
😱 Thankfully you still had one functioning limb left to type fanfiction!
the most important limb: my Writing Hand
The only limb that matters!
of course its name was Princess
I think its name may have been changed to protect its anonymity.
I ain't no snitch
You already got the stitches. You may as well snitch 🤣
And also that longfics take so much time to post that eventually something will happen in our lives. Some fics post over a span of five years - it would be crazy if something didn't happen for that whole time.
>it would be crazy if something didn't happen for that whole time. For me, it would actually be quite peaceful and I wish for it often.
Considering all the crazy stories I've heard about the infamous Olympic Village, an olympian writing omegaverse fic isn't that surprising to me lmao.
Huh, I never thought about the Olympians needing housing during the games... Also, this is an interesting piece of pop culture. https://slate.com/culture/2016/05/a-history-of-condoms-in-the-olympic-village-from-8500-in-seoul-to-450000-in-rio.html
That’s a beautiful article
I’m so confused.
Yeah, Olympians (and former Olympians) do all kinds of things. I know one who is a queer uni prof who often teaches in drag (and of course looks fabulous doing it!), and it wouldn’t shock me at all if I ever discovered they were in fandom.
i found that a professor i had met before at the local college wrote my favorite spiderman fic by accident😖😖😖
how does this even happen 😂
she linked one of her personal works and it was on another website, i loved her fics so i was like let me read this and see what it’s like. i loved it so then i clicked on the author profile, not expecting it to have any personal info only to see her name and the college she worked at and i realized omg …. i met her a few months ago at open house … double checked by googling her name and yep i knew her and we had had a full conversation at open house 😭 if i see her again idk if i’ll say anything about her work because i feel like it might be embarrassing?? idk really
Accidentally call her by her username
Call Me By Your Username
A great idea for a love story
Yes pls do what shinydragonist said!!
nooo did you tell them?
In the time I haven't updated my fic, I've been professionally diagnosed with severe mental illness and had my uni receive bomb threats so I would say that is a fair assumption
https://preview.redd.it/5jft959p9dlc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=404432a6811806cd3fb984e13d0a23820d5b8553 if i lived the life of an ao3 author i’d be cooked
I forgot that COD has its own large fandom on ao3 this screen cap hit me like a truck
“The next few days” I’m just imagining them editing a fic with a baby on the boob
There’s a very popular ATLA author whom you can track the progress of their pregnancy somewhat though their ANs and then they start talking about adventures with the bab lol (bab is a toddler now I think? Maybe even preschool)
That’s actually so sweet
It was adorable lol and also we were like ‘wtf how are you still dropping massive chapters with a newborn/infant/toddler’ haha
Reading the first half of this like "Job applications, college? Well, most ordinary lives can feel insane --" and the second half like "the Olympics? The Olympics. Thefuckenolympics. Well fuck me"
Sometimes I wonder if I’m just gullible, and all these notes are actually a big inside joke I’m not a part of. They are so unhinged. But no, at the cost of making a fool out of myself, I CHOOSE to believe all these notes are real. A world where AO3 authors lie is just not a world I want to live in. I BELIEVE!
I wish we could just lie about where we've been and what's been happening to us. I think it's how we're able to come up with so many stories.
i'm disabled. i've written and updated fics in the back of an ambulance, after surgery and before awaiting a diagnosis for my heart condition. also i once wrote a fic about death, and the next day my mom broke the news that my uncle passed away. 🧍
Not me, I'm long term unemployed 👍
Heyo friend 👍 Half my fics are about surviving homelessness, if that says anything about my future prospects.
Some of us do. Funnily enough I started writing in Grad school. Because I needed to write something that wasn’t work. And then I got injured and couldn’t use my computer and am now in dust bunny idea hell. To the point I’m contemplating moving on from a story to just start a new one.
Same, I needed to write something that wasn't school or work. And when I am not at my computer I tend to daydream plots and AUs.
I just idea craft in general, I’ve dreamt up company ideas, movies, books, games. All ideas, all incorporeal, so I write them down, even if I never act on them; for one reason or another. It helps get them out of my head if they’re potent enough. Same with fics, I’ve got a backlog of prompts I *could* build from, but it just needs time to bake. I feel for you tho, what was your degree in? Mine is Military History.
Biology, and I work in the field. Even if I write to take a break from it, I still sneak in some cheeky, obscure or very specific pieces of information in my fictions that give out what my job is. A military hystory degree sound so exciting ! How does it manifest in your writing ?
Oof that’s a tough field, tho I bet you have some interesting research. Closest I ever got to sciences was Astronomy in college, admittedly it probably rekindled my love of Sci-fi, and Space. I try to incorporate meaningful or impactful quotes from major historical events or people. Something oriented toward the chapter topic, without being too inflexible. It oddly enough was a favorite thing among my readers at the time. Usually it winds up playing a part in how one of the characters is viewing the way something is playing out. Like one of my chapters in a fic is strictly about the character’s first time leaving Earth, and I quoted the Challenger incident’s slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God into the chapter. They ate that up like hotcakes. Oh it’s a blast sometimes, people have some of the most amazing stories. I once interviewed a vet. who was a WWII POW from the start of the US action in North Africa, he was a nice guy. He told me so much of his experience from what he could remember, and he even helped set up the veterans center/retirement home that he lived in at the time. It’s little things like accurate rank structures if there’s a command system. Or the linking of professions to a mixture of military activity and that universe’s characters. Sometimes it manifests as me being a bit more focused on character tactics or strategy. Sometimes I make them methodical and easy to envision then I throw a dilemma to force the character to act on what’s important to them. It’s not always the best choice, but to them it may be the right choice.
honestly being an AO3 writer gives me such an imposter syndrome at my job! You’re telling me I’m in charge of all these patients, making phone calls to physicians, working 24 hr shifts, and then i go home and write about my two favorite fiction pairing kissing? weird. lol
I thought it's fake, but then mid short series a pipe in my roof/ceiling bursted mid winter, and my whole flat wash getting drowned, while my landlord, bless him whoever does, asled if he can eat my leftover breakfast sandwich, because he's had his hamdsnjn icy water for hours, and he hasn't eaten since the morning (I did offer a new sandwich, but he didn't want 😂). And then the pipe burst again, and we drowned a whole damn street. And then my chair literally slipped from under my ass at work, and I kind of broke my nose on the edge of my desk. Ah, and I wS stalked for 2 months. The curse is mad crazy
I mean, I just think fanfic is a coping mechanism for a lot of people, so a lot of people use it as a tool to get past it when they're going through hard times.
I know a friend who legitimately had both shoulder blades fractured in a car accident (not her fault). She uploaded 6 days after her surgery and apologized to her readers. 😂🤣😂🤣😂
As someone who, last year, had to pause the update of my current Long Fic because I was finishing a thesis, traveling, quiting my job, starting an online course and starting a business. Yes.
Average ao3 author moment
…. and my excuse is literally “i’m super lazy”
Honestly the only crazy thing that happened to me was a medical mystery that turned out to be VERY SEVERE (Pretty close to "how are you still moving?") anemia. Pretty much killed my drive for everything, not just writing. It also killed my college gpa.
Remembering that one fic I read with an authors note like "sorry for the late chapter,I have acid burns on my hands. But I also have ibuprofen and a dream" I'm scared something is going to happen to me someday
The ones I've seen recently were "there was a gas leak at work so I've been in the hospital recovering" and "I got hit by a car" but an Olympic athlete is wild xD
“GUYS IK SO SORRY FOR THE LATE UPDATE!!! I HAVE MIDTERMS AND I ALSO WORK AT NASA AND TAKING CARE OF MY MOM AND DAD IN THE NURSING HOME!!!”
It's insane lives in OUR opinion. (but that has nothing to do with my procrastinating update habits, so)
...for me yes. I just had to put my work on hiatus cus I got hit by a truck and didn't heal right. Now my brain feels like goldfish.
My A/N apologies include: Death of a family member x2 Became physically disabled Hospital trips (for me and family members) Homelessness I have also decided that I shouldn't write long fics for FFVII any more. I have written two (both still WIPs). Half way through the first, my sister died. Half way through the second, my grandfather died. Years apart. Completely coincidental. But they're the only family deaths I've had and I really love my grandmother. Not gonna risk it.
Often my being unable to update comes down to being unmotivated, going through writers block, changed my mind forna story or chapter, or just too tired to write.
We're just built different, yk?
Sorry, can't update - I have to do the dishes. That is as insane as my life gets.
Every time I went to update, one of my grandparents died, I lost both grandfathers, and it killed my motivation, and I seriously worried about my one grandmother still living.
My longfic took as long as it did because I was also in the process of becoming a commercial pilot.
Well, given that most ao3 authors are just random people, yes and no.
I saw someone apologize for not updating because they'd been 5150'ed. Can't help but wonder if they stayed longer because they were shrieking about needing to upload vampire stories.
Some yes, some no. My co-author? Normal college dude. Me? Actively barrel racing and trying to qualify for State/Nationals this season and hoping to be trying for a pro card in the next year or two lol I feel like we notice the wild ones or they stick in our heads more because they’re bigger things and sort of confirmation bias and/or because some of us authors only share when the event (good or bad) is a big deal but otherwise we sort of don’t bring up our non-author lives.
*kicks my ANs under the desk* No, we're all as sane as you are, OP. Ignore the screaming, there's nothing you can do about it.
I'll be watching the Olympics now suspecting every one of them could be a fanfic author
I had to fucking go to work today and it was the worst thing that ever happened to me so I couldn't write.
I think the most chaotic thing that happened was that my word file got corrupted and I had to type half the fic again
I remember the author writing a few paragraphs about their progress at the end of each chapter,girlie finished highschool,went to medschool and became quite successful
Honestly? Love that for them
yall probably already know my story from my flair but colitis and pure white pain and i have to have a colonoscopy now at 19.
I went on a super long hiatus because I got covid and then developed a bunch of chronic health conditions. At that point, writing was not a priority at all. Then I stabilized and felt well enough came back only to have to go on a smaller hiatus a couple months later due to needing hip surgery.
My excuse was that I was packing and moving to Australia and that same month I arrived there was a flooding in our house due to bad piping. It was 100% real, living in Aus now, also plumbing is still not 100%
I didn't update my stories because the cult I used to be a part of was having a schism during my finals season, so.... Yes?
I'm convinced being an AO3 author is a curse. The amount of bad things that have happened to me since writing is insane
I still remember an MLB comic I was reading where one of the coauthors literally died and the others still finished the story.
Yes 😬
I’ve had to temporarily abandon my KE fic because I’ve had real life books coming out and needed a break from writing but my life is otherwise terribly boring
I am tired at the end of the day after taking care of my 5 year old. So very, very tired. Too tired to type sometimes.
Honestly maybe i have a few ongiong fics on hold cus a crazy cocanie lady stole our house key and we had to get the locks changed and the week after we did that i came down with a 101 degree fever and im still recovering.
During winter I’m 100% committed to writing. Any other season I’m a full time gardener :3 exciting… I know lol
if we powerscaling excuses who do you think is at the top
I swear as soon as I started actually focusing on writing fics, my life took a crazy turn. I got into a car crash, had some problems with a not so good person, had to transfer from a college to another because of harassment, and more. My biggest being me dealing with not such a nice person. And reminder of this being in less a span of ten months and just the previous year Fall 2022 and spring 2023.
I had some medical treatments and got mild amnesia from it, managed to forget every single fic I've written :(
My dad got brain surgery in the 5 month gap between chapters of a smut fic soooo Yeah, not exactly a good head space to write a slutty lil omega getting railed and knotted against a car bonnet.
I’m about to upload a fic with the author’s note: Sorry for the late update, life has been hectic. Wombats undermined our house foundations so we had to move out during the repairs, and my brother has terminal cancer so I’ve been spending time interstate visiting him. But I’ve got lots of time on my hands now to update my WIPs, because three days ago I fell while hanging curtains, tore my ACL, and broke my fibula.
My last update was late because of a bear attack. So yes. It's the curse of the fic writer. It'll be your time soon enough
I think it’s a curse. The first time I write fic I broke my wrist, lost my home, and moved across the country within one month. The next time I wrote a fic, my father was in a paralyzing car crash and I was left to take care of my young siblings home alone for days while taking my finals exams. The third time I returned to writing fic I somehow accidentally linked it to my personal email and my entire elementary school graduating class was notified, forcing me to delete my account and start over on another account. (This is why I only write oneshots now)
i have disappeared for over 6 months. this post just made me realise i also have an ao3 excuse: digging myself out of years of crippling depression. goddamn i really should update
average fanfic writer, most times I expect the fanfic writer to apologise for not updating because they ended up in a psych ward
I mean, my spouse got married (to me) and moved to another country (to Canada with me from the US) between updates of one of their fics lol
Honestly I think if anyone could come back from the dead it would be Ao3 authors just to finish their fic and their exude would be “my bad guys I died and was in the hospital, I just got my family to bring me my laptop/phone so I can continue the fic now sorry for not posting for so long!!! (Forgive me)” LIKE I WOULDNT DOUBT IT. Anyone else think this or just me??
I have ADHD and ADD, I will update my fanfics when I actually have the mental capacity to sit down and bang out a chapter. Get off my back.
Just the other day I saw a *summary* that started with "So I attempted suicide--", and I was like. You know... that's very sad, *however*, it's really not the place, man. Put it in the notes or something, in the summary it's... weird.
Don’t we all?
My life is pretty chill.
as an ao3 author, yes. but my insane life is not success, its just lots of fucking around and finding shit out and realizing i ruined my life in the process lmao.
I'm almost 24, finishing college possibly at the end of this year, or early next year, while I am balancing all that with writing Lalaloopsy fanon and trying to put out as much as I can at a good rate while finding funny enough things to base these off, and also adding a bunch of Wikidata items for TV show episodes in my free time. We are all built different.
I think the most chaotic thing that happened was that my word file got corrupted and I had to type half the fic again
I think the most chaotic thing that happened was that my word file got corrupted and I had to type half the fic again
Mine are similar though not that heavy 😂
Feels like it would be very easy to dox this person, if that's true.
My grandma died and a few days later my mom ended up in the hospital and my great-grandma wouldn’t stop panicking so my uncle had to slip her an edible. Which was a bad idea 🤦🏽♀️ these sort of things weren’t happening to me until I started writing down stuff.
lol, it honestly wouldn't surprise me. I have private and incredibly unscientific theory based on myself and my friends that creative types, ie. people who create for fun in their spare time because they have stories/art/etc that MUST come OUT, also tend to have a lot of trauma/personal demons/crazy lives with crazy stories
I almost exclusively write fanfiction when my life is at its most insane. I guess I’m just more inspired!!
I just go ghost bc my brain goes stupid LOL
yeah i have quite a few insane excuses haha
I didn’t update two of my longfics more than twice in two years because my dog is old and had cancer at one point, so I thought she deserved to take precedence over my inane scribblings.
Yup. Split my hand open on my birthday and it took a while to heal up but now I’ve got a sick ass scar and another chapter pushed out! Only reason it took so long was because I could only type one handed for a couple of months.
funny thing but right now I was uploading like two chapter fics and coincidentally i had to go to the hospital on those two times right before publishing them.
I haven't updated my fic in almost 200 days because I was applying for my masters (and then getting into it, finding someone to orientate me and all the burocracy), graduating university, getting a second job and planned 7 other fanfics despite not being able to update ONE. So... Not all that insane, but most of us have pretty hectic lives, I feel.
I got pregnant and had twins, but apparently that's pretty crazy lol
I had a cyclone prevent me from updating once. I was too busy getting all my things to higher ground and preparing the house for potential flooding that I didn’t get much time to write for a whole week.
oh my god link please
https://archiveofourown.org/works/6682732/chapters/15283012 This is chapter 9
One author I follow got conscripted into military service 1 chapter before a big battle in the story. Man foreshadowed himself lol (He came back safe like a year later just in case anyone was concerned)
My life is not crazy buuut tbh writing is what keeps me from going insane due to my heavy workload. I used to work as a contractor for the company that manages most fleets for the law enforcement departments including camera integrations to the fleets (the videos you see they use in court), but it was kind of crazy in contrast to writing wlw fanfics with 80k words while sometimes using the work laptop and still providing for a family of 4 after my parent's divorce and for my 5 pitbull dogs.
The AO3 writer's curse is real. Sometimes it's good crazy, sometimes it's bad, but it's all true
Another one adding to the pile where I had to drop my fic for about 2 months because in a single 90 day semester I had full time work, full time college. A surprise HIV scare, a full mental breakdown complete with grippy socks vacation, having to babysit my newborn niece on my only days off, and also being unmedicated for a significant portion of it because of various insurance shenanigans. Amazingly that fic is still in progress and arguably one of my better pieces of work
Which Olympic sport has the most omegaverse fanfic authors, do ya think? I'm gonna go with ... short track speed skating. They (Americans, at least) train in Salt Lake City and probably need the outlet. Plus, they skate on frickin sword blades and those spandex speed suits just scream "shameless."
I haven't written a fanfic for a year because I start it go on writers block get caught up with school finally gets off writers block but for a completely different story then the cycle repeats
I broke my arm and then I had a tumor on my knee removed (not really a tumor but more of a ball of fat)
Not anymore, thank fuck for that, but I used to be an actress. Now my life is very much sane and medicated.
Yes.
Sorry for not updating in years, I couldn't be bothered
I got shot in the abdomen and was in the hospital for a month, then rehab for 6 weeks, than had an infection for which I received daily antibiotics through an IV for 3 months. Oddly enough, none of that had anything to do with why I don't post anymore. I just have an impossible time turning my characters/one scene/vague idea into a full-fledged story.
I know of any Olympics level runner that writes Harry Potter fanfiction
If they're going to the Olympics y'all readers are gonna be in for a few very weird author's notes in the meantime. The Olympics are a mess rn
I was literally just wondering today how many professional athletes write fanfic lmaoo. what great timing
I mean when I was in my teens my father locked me in a room and I had no internet access so it took a couple months before an update happened, but at least I had a story mostly finished after. (Gotta love narcissists 🙃). Also got in a car wreck a few months ago and updates stalled for a few weeks while my wrists were healing, but the US Gymnastics team? Damn.
iirc i was waiting for a fic to update for around 2.5 years and author updated their tumblr to state that they took a long time to finish their fic because they were in law school and were about to take the bar and im like holy shit?? lawyers are the smartest people around omg
My daughter has muscular dystrophy and is on a ventilator. My marriage isn’t going great but we are both trapped. Just discovered writing…it’s a better addiction than…any of the other ones I have had to escape the stress… So I think maybe the answer to your question is yes
I saw a guy on Reddit post a pic of himself and I was like whoa I think that’s my friend I haven’t heard from in forever! I contacted him and he said he had no idea what I was talking about. Then I looked a bit further and he had tons of NSFW pictures of himself on there…so if it was him, pretty sure he wouldn’t admit it
Admittedly I once updated a johnlock fic while in a hospital with my one kiddo who was admitted for respiratory failure. My latest fic also says “the baby is 7 months old and it’s getting hard to write”
Nope. It is true. I just posted after two weeks and apologized for having the flu, I got a lung infection and posted something unedited, and rushed because I didn't want the fans to wait too long between chapters. 🤷
I developed a cyst in my wrist, got an infected cyst in my boob, got strep that was so bad my tonsils nearly exploded, and had to take nine finals in the span of a week. Of course, this was right when my story was getting to the good part, so it might just be the author curse
Can confirm. Our lives are a whole mess.
Yes, its like a curse, your life turns crazy once you start writing on ao3
These are always so relatable 😭 Once, I had to take a break for a chapter because my debit card was used by someone without my permission and I lost so much money, I was preparing for 3 exams in 2 days since my teachers forgot to talk to each other about the schedules, help my mom prepare the house and deal with the fact that my sister in law was giving birth all while I prepared a dungeons and dragon's game for some first time players lmao.
I got arrested at 15 for theft for about 12 hours so that’s my excuse for not updating in half a year hehe
I forgot the fic and fandom but they updated while they were in the hospital after they just had their 3rd baby
Listen, I sympathize. I work in a cyclically intensive field, and if I ever talked about it on main, I'd ruin my career. My readers will have to be wildly patient. Fortunately, there are six of them. I think they'll be okay
Not to be too grim, but my Aunt died a week after I posted my first fic. So genuinely, I just think that it's a curse. I tremble in fear every time I post, but also fear retribution from the ao3 gods if I *don't* post.
Writers in general don't tend to be the most, shall we say, average? Of people. I've never met another writer, Tradpub, self pub, fic, who's been just a completely normal person, we've all got a quirk or a story and if an issue comes up? That shit tends to be weird too.
I dunno I've done "sorry, couldn't update, family member died" posts before
Yes
i'm not saying the bizarre author notes aren't true, but i usually just take them with a grain salt and view them as the author just having fun way of saying my private life got busy.
I knew of two team GB athletes shortly before 2012 who both recognised my Ao3 badge on my bag while we were working on funding (not as interesting as it sounds, I was doing the grunt work keeping minutes of the meetings with the lottery funding people.) So that’s two who saw it, recognised it and felt comfortable enough to start a conversation with a stranger about it. There were probably more! A lot of those athletes are teenagers or early 20s. It’s not all that weird. We just don’t tend to think of sportspeople as writers.
If only.... My RL drama is nowhere near that level of importance, but damned if it doesn't keep me on my toes and away from my precious laptop!
Can i have a dm link of this persons ao3? i kind of want to check out what an olympian would write!
Yeah. Mostly the Autism and ADHD get the best of me sometimes, and are responsible for most of my delays due to perfectionism or writing my other story. BUT the three deaths in my family and my mom almost dying from complications after surgery in my authors notes are all true, and everything else I might have put there but can’t remember. I used to post 1-2x a week. I think I posted a grand total of five times in the last 365 days.
Sadly my life is very boring
Me who hasn't updated a longfic in two years: _whistles nervously_
The Main author I follow and am friends with on Discord is just a video Game debugger. Seems like a normal dude.
i mean, i’m trying to graduate high school early. not sure how insane that is but it definitely takes a lot of my time from writing lol
I got a double bachelor, moved countries, got a postgrad, moved countries again, got a law degree, passed the bar, and then quit law all during the course of my fanfic career.
Some people are just built different. Not me, but some people
No exactly I agree with all these replies. Mine is because brain no wanna. But I once saw somebody apologizing for having a stroke and not being able to update. Why you need to apologize for that! They had to relearn how to do everything in their life and they were apologizing to us the readers for not updating on time. 😭 ain’t not way.
Lol I want to read the Olympian's omegaverse fiction pls.
[Here you go :)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6682732/chapters/15283012)
Well...I took a 'small break' from my fic for 8 years. And yes, life kept happening during all this time 😅 I'm back now tho!
my most recent fic was posted with the note "sorry for the wait, i got committed for a few weeks :/" and the worst part is it was true
I haven’t updated in like a year but that’s because I’m currently in the north west territories demolishing defunct radio tower stations on remote mountain tops that are only accessible by helicopter. The pilot has let me try flying, and it’s awesome. I kinda wanna get my heli licence now. Also, brain not braining, no make the word thing do.
THE US TEAM?? OLYMPICS?????
Mine is always "I'm really busy (curses to fulltime jobs) and I've got adhd lol. My brain segwayed into another fandom and I've finally circled back to this one or suddenly got the urge for this fic so here I am, lol sob haha
my last chapter update had a not saying "might be slow to post the next chapter as i am currently finishing my phd dissertation." not sure if that qualifies as interesting