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I am working on a novel. I started it for NaNoWriMo 2024, but in December 2024 I went right back to writing fanfics, and I sure made a lot of them (16 fics, and 350,000 words worth in 2025). I wrote about 25,000 words in that initial period, but I think most of that needs to be redone now that I have better focus on my plot and characters. That's fine, writing a lot of words isn't the problem, I think the problem is the fear that I will do that and then realize it's still bad. Which is probably still silly, since I tend to like pretty much everything I write. I like some more than others, but I don't usually make something and then look and it and think "that's bad".
Anyways, lately I've been struggling with the difference between what is preparation and what is procrastination. My story takes place in 2014 so I went on Wayback Machine and looked at old newspapers (local and national) over the months the story takes place to see what was the big news and filled out a calendar of real 2014 news. Now I need to make a fake calendar of a fake 2014 in my universe of what events take place when. I have a character running for election and another who is on a major league baseball team, things like that need to make sense in universe and I want it to feel cohesive and built out. But at the same time, is building a calendar an excuse to avoid writing? Is writing a post about the novel an excuse to avoid writing? Sometimes I wonder.
I have a "real" job and I have no aspirations of becoming a paid author, so ultimately, this novel is just for fun, something I do in the evenings and weekends with my hobby time. That's why I've been like 'if fanfiction makes me happier to write, why not give in to that?' But I do want to get around to this story for several reasons. Maybe I'll get into them more once I have a bit written to show off.
Until now, the original fiction section of the website has been out of commission. I've been too shy to share anything, thinking people either wouldn't be interested, or I haven't quite gotten good enough at writing yet to attempt original fiction, crafting my own characters and world etc etc. But my new year's resolution is to be less shy/braver, so hopefully I can flesh that out soon enough. I just have to… actually write.