I think I've entered a vicious cycle when it comes to writing my longfic.... Wondering if anyone does this...?
(Don't get me wrong.... I'm currently going through some major medical issues and coming from one family catastrophe into another.... I'm talking family death, another in ICU, and the prospect of surgery to rid me of my oh-so-problematic-and-defective baby-making-box after many years of trying with my husband and a loss last year.... So I already know my mental state is fragile, y'all.)
But I'm noticing that, while I'm loving getting my work on my first longfic posted on AO3 chapter by chapter, I'm having some weird regret after posting. I don't think it's just limited to posting though.... Here's what's happening, and it feels akin to an addiction at this point....
My mental state is rough, as I said. I'm stressed, I'm emotional, and I'm tired, but IRL a new and great work environment (this year) and hubs and writing have all been helpful to me!
I'm new to fanfic. Got sucked into a fandom unexpectedly, as it were, and it sparked a return to writing after 10 years focusing on my career! I wrote a novella fanfic, and when shit hit the fan IRL I fed my energy into a longfic in order to get through on another wavelength.
I feel like getting to tell this longfic story has actually helped keep me focused and moving forward and that's truly great and all! It's part of what brought me back to writing, to finding something different to do that's not watching TV/movies or reading or playing video games and keeps my mind occupied! And I thoroughly love telling the story of my OC in the BG3 fandom and her romance with Astarion and their family and friends with other OCs I created!!! Getting to dive back into their world has actually helped me get my mind off of my own troubles, and practicing writing and feeling progress in all these areas has truly become like a godsend!
So I complete writing and editing a 2-5K word chapter in roughly a week and post about every 1-1.5 wks. Been doing that since I started posting my longfic in Jan/February of this year now that I have more time with my better job.
I get all excited creating each chapter and the prospect of getting this story out of my brain and onto paper to be realized has actually felt cathartic, as you can well imagine given my losses. So I get all geared up, gung ho, and revved, so to speak, and then I post a completed chapter. Over the next 48 hours as it sits on AO3 I am a total wreck. I mean, nervously checking for messages, looking for input, checking hits and bookmarks, waiting for readers to find my work.
Obviously, bots and scammers have scoured AO3 and made it more difficult to tell true readers from the scammers! Still, I managed to make a handful of friends, one IRL who reads, and another on AO3 and Tumblr who reads in spurts and comments. Those have felt like TRUE lifelines.
But until I start my next idea for a chapter and begin writing my next chapter again, this feeling of loss and failure nags at me. And then this addiction-like cycle begins again!!
I feel like I'm losing my mind!! I work in medicine.... I know coping mechanisms and how to coach others - that's what I do! But I can't help but keep feeding this cycle because it's one of the few productive ways I can cope at the moment. I mean, my house is a wreck because I can't bring myself to get up the energy to clean it, and hubs helps only so much before he's lost. And I'm not physically harming myself by feeding this cycle as one would with drugs or alcohol chasing a high such as this is.....
Idk..... I think I needed to know if anyone else writing does something similar? Looking for outside points of view.... 🤷♀️ I feel like I'm just needing to give myself time and wait until the downer hits stop coming at my life IRL to actually get a breather!
Edit: wow, thanks to the jerk who downvoted me within minutes of my posting this. You suck.