In case anyone is worried

Hello, all

I'm sure you know me by now. If not, hello, it is nice to meet you. Well, I'm not actually meeting you since this is a blog post and there is no back and forth going on, but still. I'm the Emperor of Sundagio and I'm here to tell you all something. Recently, a friend of mine brought up multiple key worries they had for content creation and how my stories operate as a whole. Mainly, they were worried that I might lose all my stories in the future.

Let me make this clear. If you ever want to make stories online, whether they be fanfics or original, you must back up your work. I've always done this. I have all my stories in PDF form and on Google Docs and I am about to download them in another document type as well. I've never been worried about losing my stories for this purpose. If FiMFiction, AO3, and Wattpad all disappear, I still have my stories and I will presumably reupload them on different websites. This is my NUMBER ONE piece of advice for any person wanting to create content. Always back it up.

My friend was also worried that someone would take my story ideas and produce them into original works. This is technically a valid concern, but one that I can easily shrug off since I have a LOT of proof of my ownership of these ideas. If someone took the main story of A Dazzling World and made it a film with only the names changed, I could easily show that these are my ideas. Again, this all comes down to proof. Back up your work. You never know when you may need it. In my case, I have downloads of my work, Google Documents with timestamps to show when I first worked on a project, screenshots of my uploads with dates and times, countless pages of written ideas to show when I came up with them, and even screenshots of my convos with friends of times I talked about these ideas. The devil is in the details.

Another concern my friend brought up was monetization. In short, they believed I should be paid for my work.

Let me explain why I don't want that.

It is an interesting idea at first. However, I know myself far better than anyone else. I know that as soon as something is a required task to me, I have a hard time doing it. I see it as a chore and then lose my love for it. I have had multiple hobbies ruined by this. This is why I very seldomly consider commissions. Unless I make my fanfics into original works with plans on publishing them, I have no want to earn money off of these since I would then see it as a form of income, thus forcing me to try and come up with more stories. If you want to earn money while doing content creation, go right ahead. I only want to advise you to really think about what you want to be your job and what you want to do for fun.

Finally, the last concern my friend brought up was the conflict actually trying to make content. They want to be a content creator, but they don't know how to keep up their motivation. So, if you pay attention to anything from this post, let it be this. Creating content is all about making something you are passionate about. Dull movies are so boring because you can tell no real passion was put behind it. Bland art can be seen from a mile away since you can tell where an artist is really trying and where they just forced themselves to draw something. The same goes for any medium of art. Do something YOU are passionate about. Not your fans. This is why I have been writing Sundagio for more than two years now. I could definitely make stories that are more popular and focus on ships that everyone knows about, but I don't because of my love for this ship. If you want to create something, do it from your heart and some people will surely see the intent behind it.

That's my advice for anyone wanting to make stories or any kind of art. Always back up your work, gather proof, and do something you are passionate about. Maybe this helps one of you. I just wanted to give you all some advice since it never hurts.

Sincerely,
Spyder27