There’s Not A Single Person Back Home Who Reads My Works. Or, If They Do Read Them, No Doubt They Merely

There's 15 books on there now, with 5 of them being random cook books.

I really hope the rightful authors of those books discover this problem ASAP.

Fanfiction Authors: HEADS UP

(Non-authors, please RB to signal boost to your author friends!)

An astute reader informed me this morning that one of my fics (Children of the Future Age) had been pirated and was being sold as a novel on Amazon:

(And they weren't even creative with their cover design. If you're going to pirate something that I spent a full year of my life writing, at least give me a pretty screenshot to brag about later. Seriously.)

I promptly filed a DMCA complaint to have it removed, but I checked out the company that put it up -- Plush Books -- and it looks like A LOT of their books are pirated fic. They are by no means the only ones doing this, either -- the fact that """publishers""" can download stories from AO3 in ebook format and then reupload them to Amazon in just a few clicks makes fic piracy a common problem. There are a whole host of reasons why letting this continue is bad -- including actual legal risk to fanfiction archives -- but basically:

IF YOU ARE A FANFIC AUTHOR WITH LONG AND/OR POPULAR WORKS, PLEASE CHECK AMAZON TO SEE IF YOUR STORIES HAVE BEEN PIRATED.

You can search for your fics by title, or by text from the description (which is often just copied wholesale from AO3 as well). If you find that someone has stolen your work and is selling it as their own, you can lodge a DMCA complaint (Amazon.com/USA site; other countries have different systems). If you haven't done this before, it's easy! Here's a tutorial:

HOW TO FILE A COPYRIGHT COMPLAINT FOR STOLEN WORK ON AMAZON.COM:

First, go to this form. You'll need to be signed into your Amazon account.

Select the radio buttons/dropdown options (shown below) to indicate that you are the legal Rights Owner, you have a copyright concern, and it is about a pirated product.

Enter the name of your story in the Name of Brand field.

In the Link to the Copyrighted Work box, enter a link to the story on AO3 or whatever site your work is posted on.

In the Additional Information box, explain that you are the author of the work and it is being sold without your permission. That's all you really need. If you want, you can include additional information that might be helpful in establishing the validity of your claim, but you don't have to go into great detail. You can simply write something like this:

I am the author of this work, which is being sold by [publisher] without my permission. I originally published this story in [date/year] on [name of site], and have provided a link to the original above. On request, I can provide documentation proving that I am the owner of the account that originally posted this story.

In the ASIN/ISBN-10 field, copy and paste the ID number from the pirated copy's URL. You'll find this ten-digit number in the Amazon URL after the word "product," as in the screenshot below. (If the URL extends beyond this number, you can ignore everything from the question mark on.) Once this number has been added, Amazon will pull the product information automatically and add it to the complaint form, so you can check the listing title and make sure it's correct.

Finally, add your contact information to the relevant fields, check the "I have read and accept the statements" box, and then click Submit. You should receive an email confirmation that Amazon has received the form.

Please share this information with your writer friends, keep an eye out for/report pirated works, and help us keep fanfiction free and legally protected!

NOTE: All of the above also applies to Amazon products featuring stolen artwork, etc., so fan artists should check too!

that feeling when youve written down 2k+ words and havent even got CLOSE to the main part of the fic yet </3

Just a small bit of my up coming BSD soukoku one shot, "Restocking & Recharging," that makes me giggle🖤🖤

Happy 38th Birthday to Dazai Osamu's Seiyuu (Voice Actor) Mamoru Miyano 🎉🎉🎉

Revising and Self-Editing

I’m currently revising and self-editing my mermaid x human boy romance novel, so I thought I would share some resources that may help other writers revise and/or edit their stories.

A list of resources to help you during the revision process or when you’re self-editing your story.

Editing and Proofreading An article written for college students from The Writing Center at the University of North Carolina. While most of it applies to writing academic papers, it has helpful tips (under the section titled “Some tips that apply to both editing and proofreading”) that can apply to any writer who is revising or editing their own work.

Beginning the Awesome Journey of Revision Provides helpful tips on how to get started on revising your story’s draft. The list of additional resources includes a few broken links, but most of them work.

How to Survive the Editing Process Provides tips and suggestions for how to get started on revising or editing your story’s draft and what to look for when editing.

The Big Bad Guide to Novel Revision A lengthy, comprehensive guide to revising and editing your story’s draft. Explains in detail the elements to consider when going over the story, the characters, and grammar. Includes a few broken links, but the guide itself is helpful.

When to Say You’re Done Revising Offers realistic advice on how to know when you’re done revising and editing (or how to know when you’ve edited your manuscript as much as you possibly can).

For a more thorough guide on editing, check out my post The Different Types of Editing, which also includes links to even more resources on editing.

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I’m a writer, poet, and editor. I share writing resources that I’ve collected over the years and found helpful for my own writing. If you like my blog, follow me for more resources! ♡

Excellent tips and habits for writers

The advice I've given before is to write every scene you think of, no matter if it gets used or not. Its always a great idea to go back every once and a while and edit these scenes, or revise them.

Never force inspiration or a scene. If it isn't coming naturally, take a break and come back later or the next day. it's important to give yourself time to think. use your break to day dream about your story and what could come next. if your brain is happy, this should be relatively simple. If your brain isn't happy, then you need to take a longer break, stop writing for the day all together, or write something else.

if you're a pantser, like me, and it's hard to plot. You can practice reverse plotting, and plot your story as you go. make notes of things that happen in your story, changes in a character, changes in the plot, changes in the setting, dates for events, timelines, important information that's been revealed, anything you deem important to your story.

always reread what you've already written. don't try to edit it. turn off your editor brain and reread your story so far before you resume writing, so you can get into the voice and tone that you've already established.

if you're finding it difficult to start writing or keep writing. try turning off your internal editor and free write. it's good practice to be able to write down your unfiltered thoughts or daydreams without having to stop and edit while you're writing. it helps with your writing flow, getting the scene down onto the page, and increases your writing intuition.

before you write, always take time to daydream or think about your story beforehand. it helps things go much smoother in the long run.

if you've been working on something for a long time, don't pressure yourself into confinement. if you want to work on something new but you're worried about what you've been working on, don't. stop worrying and write what you want. forcing yourself to keep writing something when you don't want to is just going to make you burn out faster.

don't be afraid to create visuals or playlists that help you with what you're writing. It's an enviable talent to be able to write something off a photo you saw on pinterest, or a song you really like.

if you find yourself in a mood where you want to write really badly, but you have no idea what you want to write, and none of the prompts you find are appealing enough. find an activity you use to destress, whether its listening to music, listening to asmr, doom scrolling on social media, or browsing pinterest. go do that. chances are, you'll find something that will inspire you what to write when you're not looking for it.

『𝙽𝚘𝚠 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚗𝚎𝚒𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚙𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚛 𝚞𝚗𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚙𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚜.

𝙴𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚙𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚜.

𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚒𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚘𝚗𝚕𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚕𝚎𝚍 𝚊 𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚝𝚑 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚘𝚌𝚒𝚎𝚝𝚢 𝚘𝚏 𝚑𝚞𝚖𝚊𝚗 𝚋𝚎𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚍𝚠𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚍 𝚞𝚙 𝚝𝚘 𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚊𝚜 𝚒𝚗 𝚊 𝚋𝚞𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚑𝚎𝚕𝚕.

𝙴𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚙𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚜.』

— 𝙳𝚊𝚣𝚊𝚒 𝙾𝚜𝚊𝚖𝚞, 𝙽𝚘 𝙻𝚘𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛 𝙷𝚞𝚖𝚊𝚗

In our lives we know joy, anger, sorrow, and a hundred other emotions, but these emotions all together occupy a bare one percent of our time. The remaining ninety-nine per cent is just living in waiting.

Dazai Osamu, The Setting Sun

Just a psa for fic writers who use the “trauma bond” tag, please make sure you’re using it correctly. A trauma bond is not two people who experience similar trauma and bond over it. It’s a carefully curated, manipulative bond between abuser and victim to keep the victim coming back because of the addictive highs and lows that come with abuse.

If you want to tag two characters bonding over shared trauma, a good substitute tag would be “bonding over shared trauma.” Trauma bonding is, by definition, an abusive relationship and may steer people who have experienced it away from your fic. Please spread the word and happy writing!