Thread by @ysabellesua

A Thread no one in the #WritingCommunity asked for, and isn't really talked about imo:

The Importance of Self-Indulgent Writing and Shelving Novels, and how they helped me get into #AMM.

Let me begin by saying this isn't prescriptive at all and that everyone's process is different and valid. I'm just sharing my experience and hoping it resonates with some people.

Let's start with self-indulgent writing, since that's the more straightforward of the two.

The very first non-fanfic manuscript I wrote was 100% self-indulgent.

Coming from an anime fanfic background and with so much of my studies/interests in East Asian identity and politics, I wrote a fantasy in a Heian-era inspired Fantasy Japan.

It had dragons! A slow burn romance! Leads who were duty-bound due to their families! The role of group politics! Political shenanigans!

Sound familiar? Yeah I play around with these in Filipino Reconquista (which got me in AMM) too.

But this self-indulgent novel was just that. I knew that I wouldn't query it, that I wouldn't submit it anywhere. It wasn't my culture to tell, and while I love research, I know I would have missed so much nuance.

The sole reason I wrote it was to get myself comfortable with writing original fiction. No canon to tether myself to, I had to learn how to world build, to create characters, to write arcs, to envision my own world.

Then I had to learn how to build a writing habit, and even learned some revision basics (and when I say basics, I mean BASICS).

I love Order of the Dragon (or Dragon Tales as I affectionately call it) but it was self-indulgent.

"This sounds like you shelved it though?" you may say.

But I answer back: if I knew from the start it was going nowhere, then was it really?

I think that's the core difference between shelving and self-indulgent writing.

Shelving carries a more emotional load.

Self-indulgent? It's for fun.

With my first novel, a purely self-indulgent project, and my current self-indulgent project (a historical rom) I learned the following:

- Characterization and description
- Trying new plotting techniques, and even realizing I'm a plotter (I pantsed Dragon Tales).

At it's core, I had and am having fun with my self-indulgent writing, it's a fun release for when my main projects get too much stress for me.

I suppose now is a good time to pivot to shelving.

One of the hardest decisions I had to make was shelving my second novel, Absolution (a Platonic Discovery of Witches x Da Vinci Code contemporary fantasy).

It was and still is the book of my dreams: witches, demons and vampires living in secret, a causalty of human experiments by an illegitimate child of a Duke of Burgundy, a secret that stems backs from Charles V HRE.

Secret societies, militarization of peace, emotional abuse in families, the dangers of dehumanization.

All topped with my favorite relationship, a slow burn friendship turned platonic soulmates between the two POVs.

But querying made me learn three things:

a. Market was not right
b. A retrospective realization: My writing was good, but not ready
c. Emotionally not ready for the harshness of publishing reality

When I queried, there weren't many looking for an aroace lead (Killian, my lovable grumpy demon) and they expected him to get together with Carina.

And well, contemporary fantasy was a harder sell all together, unless it was dark academia.

So I shelved it. And it was one of the hardest decisions I had to make. I cried. I mourned. And I still look at my printed first draft with wonder until this day.

But it was the right decision.

Absolution remains the longest time I worked on a WIP. A full 18 months, compared to Mythological Digimons 7 months before querying, and Filipino Reconquista just celebrated it's first birthday (February 15 lol)

My writing was just not ready. But I learned lessons that I needed, one's that helped me to become the writer I am today:

Craft level: description, character arcs, my love for outlines
The importance of revision
How to create a query and submission package

On rejection: It fuking hurts and no amount of talking around it will soothe you in the moment.

But you know what helped me? Having my wonderful CPs (hi Team Dark Fantasy) who let me marinade in my sadness, angst, and helped put me back together.

Now that I've shelved Absolution and it's been over a year since that decision, i can say it was an importnat time for me, writing, revisiong, workshopping, and then shelving it.

I learned what themes and character arcs resonate with me. So much of my craft level execution and story elements was planted through Absolution, took root in Mythological Digimon (not officially shelved but practically is lol), and now in full bloom with my AMM wip

So much of Writing Twitter is fueled towards querying and selling our stories that sometimes we need reminder that not everything needs to be for consumption.

At it's heart, storytelling is a cathartic, creative release.

Self-indulgent writing for our own joy is important and valid.

Shelving is a hard decision, and it's valid to mourn our stories.

They are valid in our growth as writers.

End thread.