Writing and Thinking · 8:19pm January 10th
Intro
Writing is thinking, and thinking is writing. I read that in a book last year about using fiction writing in academic research. It’s a really cool idea, and one that I bet rings true for many of you - it’s a cycle we all take part in, whether we are conscious of it or not.
I’m sure all of you have processed something by writing about it. One of the first ways we try this is “vent fic” - typically a short piece written in one go that serves as a way for the author to shake off bad feelings. Is this effective? Depends on the person and the depth of exploration in the finished piece. But there’s over 300 pages of it on ao3, so it must be doing something for us!
After this, there’s a lot of ways you could go. You can use fiction to teach something to your audience, a project which by its very nature requires you to rethink a subject matter that might be familiar to you. Sometimes you pick a subject matter for a story, then quickly discover you know nothing about said subject matter and are forced to teach yourself a whole load of information you may not have otherwise been interested in. If you’re me, you sometimes challenge yourself in this way: “I bet I could write a story that uses Bloom’s Taxonomy as a structure and no one would even realize I’d done it.”
Maybe you write horror stories to explore your own fears - all the best horror authors do. Maybe you write science fiction to breathe life into your vision of the future. Maybe you use stories to have philosophical arguments with yourself! Or, most likely, you’re using fanfiction to turn characters and concepts over and over in your mind. Like I said: familiar. Writing is thinking.
However, the opposite is also true: thinking is writing. And this is one of the quickest roads to burnout.
Brains That Don’t Shut Off
I took a fiction writing class in the fall (my first ever, which was a really interesting experience on a lot of levels), and my professor said something during our final class that I haven’t stopped thinking about:
“I hope I’ve ruined reading for you. I want you to dissect every story you read down to the smallest pieces and take your favorite ones with you.”
(She is really a very nice person. Kindergarten teacher energy.)
My initial reaction was “fuck yeah, Megan. I do that already.” I gave myself a little pat on the back for being a good writing student and went on my merry way. Then I really started to think about what that actually means. It means that, when you really start to get writing, your brain doesn’t ever shut off.
My typical day goes something like this: I wake up. I watch an episode of whatever sitcom I’m working through while I eat my breakfast. While I’m laughing, the dusty corners of my brain light up and start taking notes. What makes this ensemble work? What made that joke funny? What made that joke unfunny? How is the story constructed - how did we get from point A to point B (this is an especially great question to ask yourself during The Simpsons. Holy hell do they feature some convoluted ass storylines)?
Then I drive to work. On the drive, I listen to a podcast. Sometimes it’s actually about writing, and my brain keeps on taking notes. Sometimes it’s a fiction podcast that I need to tear apart into all the same itty bitty pieces, so I’m still taking notes. Sometimes it’s just one of those silly fun gossip-y podcasts - those are extra heavy on the brain, because I’ll spend the rest of the day turning it over in my head, ratcheting up the drama, making little edits.
Then I get to work. I spend all day reading and writing. That’s my job.
Then lunch: I regale my coworkers with a dramatic retelling of the fiction writing class. I put on my storyteller cap and I crank up the tension and my brain gets a workout in live creative non-fiction. We spend the rest of lunch talking about writing, because that’s our job and our hobby.
I spend my afternoon reading and writing for work. Then I go home. I watch something with dinner: a sitcom, or maybe something heavier. I’ve been enjoying the hell out of The Bear lately, and fuck does that show have some great writing. After that, the night is mine! And what do I do with it?
More. I read. I write. I watch youtube videos about writing. I play a video game and think about the way it’s written. I watch a movie and analyze the character arcs, the plot twist, the formation of the ending, the style of the dialogue. I listen to music and I read all the lyric notes and guess what? The album tells a story too, and now I’m gobbling that up along with everything else. And then, as if that weren’t enough, I can sometimes manage to squeeze in some light daydreaming as I drift off to sleep.
I think the worst part is that, when you enjoy writing, this stuff is fun. I mean, I guess I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t like it - none of us would. Stories are great. Thinking about them is challenging and rewarding. Figuring out what you like and being able to rebuild it feels amazing!! But what it means, practically, is that we all have brains that don’t shut off… and that’s exhausting.
Personally, I’ve reached the point where I’m thinking so hard that I can’t ever get to the actual writing. I think a lot - I can’t not think. Some of those thoughts might even be good! But they’re not going anywhere. I’ve convinced myself that all the other stuff counts as writing, but it doesn’t. It is a prerequisite, not a replacement.
Writing to Think, not Thinking to Write
There’s a lot of obstacles to writing, but one that I have recently constructed for myself is that writing is linear. I have to finish thinking before I can write - thinking interrupts writing, possibly even inhibits it. I have to have everything planned out and broken down into the smallest possible pieces. Writing is the reward that comes from careful planning.
That might work for some people. If that’s you, good on ya. That sense of predictability in the writing process probably feels very secure.
But uh… that’s not everyone. It’s certainly not me, I’m learning. In fact, that book that said the stuff about writing is thinking and thinking is writing (it’s really a very good book, I highly recommend it) has a whole section about how every project is different, and you can’t count on the same approach working every time. It’s nice to know that even professionals don’t always think ahead. Stephen King is actually another extremely prolific example of this type of writer - as he said in his book On Writing:
…actually I can’t find the quote. But he said something about how he doesn’t plan at all. He thinks of a concept, sets a character in that concept, and then just keeps asking himself the same thing: how can I make it bigger? How can I make things worse?
Of course, Stephen King is a horror author, so “how can I make things worse?” might not always be the best choice to drive your writing. But you understand the point: writing and thinking are the same thing. They happen together, for the entire process, or neither happens at all. Doing all of that thinking without putting it anywhere is a recipe for disaster, but so is writing with no intention of thinking while you’re doing it. It’s hard to do both things at once, because the whole process gets sort of messy as a result, which can make it feel like you’re going nowhere fast. And that sucks. But at least you’re going somewhere.
Writing About Thinking
As with many of my blogs, all of this is a very long way of saying that I have some stuff to get out of my brain. Some of that is story, and I do hope it comes out soon because it’s stuck good and it’s starting to make me feel like a crazy person. But some of it is slightly more nebulous: things I’ve learned about writing that I’ve yet to put into words. Not to get too metaphorical on all of you, but it feels a bit like I have a stormcloud in my head and it badly needs to start raining.
I want to start a series of blogs about writing. Just to talk about some of the lessons I think I’ve learned and hear what you all have to say about them. Possibly to post story snippets, character sketches, or other conceptual pieces that will maybe, possibly, eventually become finished pieces. It’s all starting to get lost in a sea of gdocs… and this is all so much more productive when you share it with a community. It also just feels very doable right now, and like a nice little social thing I can accomplish without much fuss, per my New Year’s Resolution. We in the business call that a win-win-win.
Outro
Wow. You actually read all that? Thanks, pal. I knew I could count on you.
If you didn’t read all that and you just skipped to the bottom to see if I ever reached a point at all: surprise! I did >:3 writing is nonlinear, all-encompassing, and extremely tiring. Unfortunately, it’s hard to escape a nonlinear, all-encompassing thing, so we need to work with what we have. The curse of be A Writer is that you have to write, always, even when you feel like you have nothing to say. The gift of being A Writer is that you always have something to say, even when you feel like you don’t.
So, two things:
- Expect more blogs! You don’t have to read them, you just have to expect them.
- Your assignment: tell me about a time when a story came together in an unexpected way. What was your process? How did it turn out? Did you ever use / try to use the same process again?
That’s all for today!
Mush out.
Your assignment: tell me about a time when a story came together in an unexpected way. What was your process? How did it turn out? Did you ever use / try to use the same process again?
~~
Ooh, this is a fun story to tell to people who write: the character who completely changed the scope and path of a series just by existing. Twice.
See, I had this one character, we'll call her A. I had planned out quite a bit of what this character was going to be like as a person, and was writing her introduction into the series, with the plan that it would continue on for maybe a handful of stories beyond that, and then I'd wrap it all up in a big bow and call it complete. Now, a big part of A's story is her grief, and how she handles it. The plan was that she'd get introduced to the cast, but for the most part stay fairly insular. She'd develop some friendships, sure, but nothing too deep beyond a surface level, at least with any of the characters except the one she was already attached to beforehand. Along comes character B, and tosses that entire plan out the window, number of fics in the series and all. And it was totally unplanned!
See, what was supposed to happen in the scene I was writing was that A would have a quiet little breakdown that would go mostly unnoticed by everyone else, and after she was steady enough she'd seek comfort from her existing attachment. But, as I was writing, for some reason what I wrote instead was that B sees that A's having herself a moment, comes over, and quite literally takes her away to her own little comfy corner to help her through it, and show her affection. And it made not only the scene feel so much better, not only the entire story the scene was set in feel so much better, but the entirety of A as a character feel so much better. So I went with it. And then I expanded on it. And then before I knew it, A had formed a whole bunch of very close friendships and intimate relationships with just about everyone, and I was planning a whole bunch of other fics to go along with that.
Fast forward to another fic focused on A and her story. This story was meant to see A exit the main setting of the series and go back home to where she originally came from. The idea was that this was an event that had been striven towards for her entire time being in the main setting - she wasn't there by choice, she was pulled in by a terrible accident, and while she had come to enjoy her time there, she was always taking measures to ensure she'd be able to return home. By that point, she had a partner, C. A and C were talking, chatting away about their plans for the future. C had pledged to A that no matter where that future took A, C would go with her, and stay with her always. This was a huge turning point for both of their characters earlier on in the story, having someone willing to do that - A having someone willing to come along, C having someone willing to have her along. All very important stuff. Enter B again.
As I'm writing the dialogue, A stops. She pauses a moment, and she thinks about what returning home will mean. Because it'll mean leaving B behind. And yes, they'd be able to visit as often as they like, but she still wouldn't be there in the same way she'd been up to that point. And she thinks about how B would miss having her around all the time, no matter how easy it would be for each to arrange to visit the other - it would still be an arrangement. And this completely changes everything yet again, culminating in A realizing that while the home she had left behind will always be home, it was no longer her only home, and she would be better off living back in the main setting with all her new friends and family, and coming back to visit her old home instead. And this helped me realize that as much as I loved the idea of sending A back home at last, something that had been the plan since her very inception as a character, it wasn't what she needed anymore; she had grown enough to leave the nest. And that was the culmination of that particular arc in her story, one far more satisfying than what I had originally planned, and also one that would allow me to continue writing stories with her there as a permanent fixture of the main setting.
The moral of all this, I suppose, is that sometimes your characters know what's best for themselves - and each other - better than you do. And it's worth listening to what they have to say, even if it's not what you wanted when you made them.
Probably happened most concretely with In Victory, We Are the Losers. Spent waaaaaay too long trying to nail down the theme and greek god corruption since I didn't want to go the obvious route of corrupting strength which is well, violence of some sort. Happened to read about Nike, which lead to me thinking about Victory and how you can lose yourself in the need to win... especially when you keep losing. Bam, got a story hook, got a theme, and now we're writing about daddy issues and murdering people.
I also admit that I very commonly write all of my "major" stories with theming and the emotional through point *first*. Certainly I think of the characters and the plot, but my first thought that the rest of my story always hangs off of is "what do I want to convey with this?"
Paranoia was about the perspective of a child when they can't trust adults, Pillars Anthology was about how easily one's virtues can be twisted against them, Rumour Has It was about mob mentality, and so forth (probably why I love horror so much).
Anygay, hopes this was at least somewhat entertaining. Thanks for the blog Mush :)
I honestly think that something like this was the catalyst for me effectively coming to a full stop when it comes to reading fiction back in 2018 -- I was just starting to hit my stride in being able to analyze what I was reading, I was making an effort to read outside my comfort zone by way of recommendations from Tumblr that these books were the Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread!! and I was trying to blog about my impressions of the books afterwards because I genuinely did (and still do) enjoy discussing reading with the friends who read my blogging attempts ... add all that extra Weight to the act of reading, add in the fact that I was tired from pushing myself to keep up with Hugos reading for the previous couple of years, and mix in a giant dose of That Sure Was A Stressful Time For Politics Reasons and reading kept getting harder and less fun and the moment I gave myself permission to stop, I just -- stopped reading.
(Didn't stop thinking, of course -- it's not that long after that that I started playing tabletop RPGs in earnest, which are yet another fun way to engage with storytelling and overanalyzing the act of fictionmaking, lol. Which means that now that I'm starting to feel more like maybe reading more would be fun sometimes ... man, rebuilding the habit of making space for it is its own Thing entirely. XD)
This resonated with me too, tbh -- I've got a couple of non-fanfic projects that are currently very stalled, because the first few times I decided to try and write it, I was deeply dissatisfied with how much "there" there was there, because I'm just not very good at coming up with deep interesting world details on the fly when I write without a significant outline. ... On the other hand, when trying to sit down and develop the world more in those projects, it's very easy to just wander around and make vague handwavy motions and not figure out the actual story I really want to tell concretely enough to really start.
Haven't really found a fix to that yet, but at least via Quills I found that speedwrites are a great way to get the rust off the "putting words on paper" gears even if I'm still not quite sure how to turn that back into "interesting longfic I care about enough to finish", much less "non-fanfic that I care about enough to finish". I'm hoping my NaNo project was a step in the direction of that first goal, at least, though. (Once I finish it.)
(This is also reminding me of a podcast a friend was chatting with me about earlier today, where several authors were talking about their processes, and how really it's all the same thing in the end -- a zero draft is just an outline in story form / an outline is just a zero draft in bullet points or scene cards or whatever your outlining tool of choice is. The important thing is whatever gives you what you need to write :) )
So in the longest fic I have written to date (250k) I had a major scene midway through that I'd been planning for since before the story began, that was going to be the turning point for where the disparate threads of the story started weaving together in earnest. As a high level summary, character A had an existing fractious relationship with character B (read: trusted him about as far as he could throw him, could occasionally cooperate under duress), and had gotten separated from his beloved foster parents due to being in different locations when [major event] occurred. To setup this scene, he finds out that his foster parents are being "hosted" by character B and decides to rescue them.
In my plans, I had all these wild ideas of how he'd sneak in and rescue them out from under B's nose, maybe get caught in the act, exchange some strained dialogue, and then escape. It was going to be an incredibly dramatic scene. ... And then I got there and just. Couldn't write it.
To make things worse, I'd made the ... interesting decision to post chapters of this story on a regular basis, had yet to miss a posting deadline, and while I had a few chapters of buffer, the deadline and the threat of disappointing my readers was hanging over me as I kept trying to figure it out. (Spoilers: the one time I let my angst leak into my authors' notes, everyone was kind, because of course they were. XD)
And then one day I'm hanging out with another writer friend, complaining about how stuck I am, and I still clearly remember flinging up my hands and saying something on the order of "and really, what would probably happen is he'd march up to character B's front door and they'd have an incredibly awkward tea party instead!"
And to be honest? That 'incredibly awkward tea party' is still one of my favorite scenes I've ever written precisely because it was just so deeply in character for all the characters involved. (Also, several secrets came to light in the process, which is always fun. :D)
Overall process-wise it was also an interesting story, and I've recently been thinking I should try its process again sometime. After I settled on my premise, I brainstormed a bunch of ideas about "what happens next", put them all in little bubbles on a sheet of paper, and started marking groups of characters, which events it made sense to include earlier/later, and then just -- started. I had no idea how I'd end it, but I hoped I'd figure it out once I got closer. (And it took a lot of angst and late nights and outlining and re-outlining the last 20% or so, trying to fit everything together, but I managed to sort it out in the end. XD Maybe I should get better about being willing to take that sort of leap again.)
(As a side note, this was a great prompt! I love telling this story, and I had a lot of fun reading everyone else's stories, too. :D)
That's a really big one, hope to see you again soon with more awesome info about writing!
5763109
I love it when a character cracks open a story like this!! You know you're onto something when the characters feel so tangible that they fight your outline. I actually just recently had an experience like this, though not quite as organic - it's a little complicated for a comment here, but I'm planning to make it the topic of my next writing blog!
Have you ever had another experience like this? And/or have you ever tried to do something like this "on purpose", so to speak? I'm curious if this is a tool you (or anyone!) could use in the future, or more of a "once-in-a-creative-career" type of thing haha
5763153
Yes!! Love it when you stumble on the right thing at the right time. It can feel really magical and cosmic when the missing piece falls in your lap like that. The link to The Idyll Opus (a storytelling album) in the above blog was one such "missing piece" for me that opened up a story I'd been stuck on. It's one of the stories I'm hoping to return to soon!
I'm very much with you on the emotional theming. That's always been... maybe not my first step, but certainly an important thing to pin down with clarity and purpose BEFORE the drafting begins. If you have that (and you know what to do with it), you can almost always stumble your way through and early draft and find the heart of the story. This is a habit I'm trying to return to: find the core and get on with it. We all have much better instincts than we sometimes give ourselves credit for. Once you start thinking in this way, you're never truly pantsing!
5763179
Oh my gosh, how could I forgot about TTRPGs?! I literally got a text from my DM this morning asking for some character details that I've been overthinking.. roleplaying games are such an amazing exercise in characterization, and they've totally changed the way I think about character scaling - you can push the little things as much as the big things. This is something I really want to talk about in a future blog!
Quills was also one of my first huge game-changers for exactly this reason. When the planning can only ever be a few steps ahead of the writing, you're forced to plan and write at the same time - which is, I believe, the best approach to writing. As 5763109 's story demonstrated, it's impossible to know what new possibilities will present themselves to you as you're writing, and you never want to limit yourself should a newer, better idea make itself known! That should be an exciting, fun thing, not a disappointment because you now have to toss out your carefully-plotted outline.
I so relate to your point about disappointing readers. It's fun to have a dedicated following, but it can also be a lot of pressure. I had this experience around Halloween - I had promised a horror story, and there was quite a lot of hype being drummed up in and around the site for its release. It can be a major stressor that makes those larger setbacks feel even more difficult to overcome. You said it though: the thing to remember is that the average fan wants the best story, no matter how long it takes. I've been overwhelmed by kindness twice now by the response to very personal blogs about my creative state.. sometimes your audience is your greatest asset.
I read about a really neat exercise lately I've been meaning to try: when you're struggling to get up the motivation to work on a project, pause the development and instead write the response you're hoping for. Is it an acceptance letter for publication? A notice that the rights have been purchased for adaptation? Just a really nice comment? Take a moment to explore not only what excites you, but what you're hoping excites other people. Give yourself a chance to look into the future and see the impact you could have. When the blockage is about disappointing people, I think something like this can really help.
5763195
Good to see you around! I'm hoping to be back soon with another topic - hopefully within the week!
5763218
Thanks for the swift reply and I'm tremendously glad to see you around during this era as well! I personally was never good at writing stuff and to be frank I don't like writing stories that much either, but I'd love to hear the thoughts of an accomplished (and according to some folks around here, the best) author around through their blogs because I'd love to open my eyes to new things~
See you later and onwards to creativity!
Major spoiler ahead for Soldier of the Moon. Go read that first, I promise it's good, Mush said so. And presumably if you're here you value their opinion even if you don't know who I am.
I don't usually write long stories very well. My preferred writing MO is "frantically, with no plan, an hour before the deadline." This works great for speedwrites and is terrible for everything else. If I knew any other way that worked, I might try it.
But Soldier was different. It was for the first Expanding Universes contest, which was a Big Deal at the time, and I'd been lucky enough to receive a prompt fic I really enjoyed, in a world I thought was really interesting. I was excited to write this story, and I had an idea immediately: I was going to expand one throwaway line in the original and write a war story. I knew how Rarity would get into the army, I knew what kinds of scenes I needed to write, and I knew I wanted to kill Rainbow Dash at the end.
It was incredibly ambitious for me at the time, and I only had 24 hours to write it. Normally, writing for that long would burn me out. But I forced myself to go back to the page over and over again, in 1-2 hour chunks, all day, until it was done. Because I had a vision and I wanted it to be realized and I knew if I let myself slack off it wouldn't be.
The story won first place, naturally. It was the longest entry in any quills contest ever for a long, long time. I'm still really proud of it. I have no idea if I could do it again. I know, theoretically, that I'm capable of it, but it smashed my single-day word count record and I only managed it because I was really excited for the story I was writing, and I knew exactly where it was going the whole time. That's not common for me - often I need to go through three or four bad ideas before I get to a good one, and even then those can stall out. I wish I could make myself write like I did that day more often, because there are so many stories I want to tell that just don't ever make the page.
But I guess you already knew that.
I've been noodling on this since I read your post yesterday like ten minutes after it was released haha. How appropriate of me. 👀
Anyway pls expect my long and involved answer later today when I am blessedly typing on my actual-facts keyboard & not going fir it pigeon peck-style on my phone. Oh uh, but you don't have to read it--just expect it. 💪✨️
I'll speak about a story that you actually judged for a contest, The River is Trying to Kill You.
I don't recall exactly what spawned this concept in my head. Like most ideas it was probably a culmination of things: the quiet beauty that national parks can bring, survivor's guilt, and the myriad of things happening in our lives that sit just out of our control. I think I borrowed the search and rescue ideal of Night Glider from you (I can't exactly remember where it came from anymore), and I figured she made a good vehicle as a beleaguered first responder facing the worst of situations.
It's funny how these sorts of things always tend to happen whenever we make plans. Everyone's got one until you're punched in the face, after all, and sometimes life makes for a great Muhammad Ali. I think that I put a part of myself in Night Glider: the part that always feels alarmed and dismayed watching things fall apart around her. The part where she stays up at night to wonder if she did enough, while life keeps knocking on the door demanding more and more. Because time moves on a schedule, and it isn't stopping for us to get over ourselves, as nice as that would be.
Rereading this, it strikes me just how absent Night Glider is as a voice in this story. I can't recall exactly why I decided to opt for a full epistolary story, but upon rereading it a lot of decisions honestly surprised me (such as the empty chapter containing nothing after Night's implied suicide attempt). There's something almost liminal in seeing a chapter with nothing in it, because something is happening in the background. We just can't see it.
I remember the very first idea about this project came with the receipts: i wanted them to appear normal, mundane, and then veer off as she descended into self-guilt and depression, ending with the alarming purchase of razor blades and alcohol. Rereading that part now... It feels insanely powerful, and something that may not even register on a first read. It's not the first idea I had that started with an ending, but I do feel it was this one part that let the rest of the story grow.
There's actually a lot of stuff I did here I liked. The graphics however... let's just say graphic design is absolutely not my passion.
5763211
It's only happened the twice thus far, but it was far enough apart in writing that it made me really go "hey wait a minute" lol. I don't think this is something I could ever do on purpose; it's very much the character(s) deciding when it happens, but what I really think the takeaway from the experience is is to not fight it if/when it does happen. Let the story take you along for a bit, see where it goes, rather than trying to force it back into your outline. Which is also just good advice in general: an outline is an outline, and you should be prepared to pivot if something happens to shift you away from your plans, even if it's not something as obvious as what I experienced!!
5763300
I had something like this happen a few times in the giant fic I mentioned before, too, though not quite in as fundamentally direction-shifting a way as as in your story. I think for me, it usually happens because I either haven't thought deeply enough about the character's reaction(s) to the situation while outlining, or I shift the situation slightly while writing in ways that ripple much more than I anticipated.
The clearest example in that fic was when I had a character (A) who had a close relationship to another (B) that he was currently separated from, and was also thrust into a position of ~responsibility for getting a group of other characters (C) to a safe location. My initially outlined plan was that A would shepherd group C to the safe location, then run off into the wilderness to find B. Except when I got there, I realized that from A's perspective, there was still no guarantee that this location was safe enough, and that his sense of responsibility -- especially after getting everyone else this far -- would not let him just run off into the wilderness alone. ... Luckily, I had another sub-thread that I threw in as a lark come to the rescue; I have no well-reasoned explanation for that one. 😂 And then IIRC a couple of the people from group C got particularly pointed about their intentions to come along whether A wanted them to or not -- something that I think also ties back to the "not thinking through their likely intentions clearly enough ahead of time" theme.
So my personal gut feeling is that that sort of magic is repeatable if you know the characters you're playing with sufficiently well to be able to recognize when your surface-level plans are missing something? (And theoretically, might even be able to factor it in in the planning phase, though that might be asking too much. XD) How to go about building that deep knowledge, especially for OCs, I'm not sure, though ...
5763217
The fact that I don't know exactly what you mean by 'character scaling' makes me particularly intrigued to read that post whenever you get around to it. :D (Though also, like, I will nerd out about TTRPG given literally any excuse. :D) Though re: little things vs big things, I totally agree that they're both really important/interesting/fun -- like, does it matter in the grand scheme of world saving shenanigans that my otherwise fairly solemn and straightlaced character cheats vigorously at cards and has a great deal of fun doing so? Hasn't affected a single plot point yet. But it's still a sub-thread that I greatly enjoy and that helps her feel more real in a very cool way.
And I'll have to think more about that exercise you mentioned! The fact that I don't have a ready answer for most of my work (other than "idk I hope people enjoy them?") makes me think it's worth poking at more. :D