Settling In

Hello and welcome. Make yourselves comfortable. Grab a pillow here, or there, or anywhere. There’s blankets—yep, ok, you got ‘em. Ahem.

Making tea at mom’s

I moved out years ago. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a lot of years. It’s also not like I haven’t stayed back home before. There wasn’t anything different this time, until there was.

She has always loved tea. It’s amusing how after all these years, after much resistance, we do indeed end up like our parents, to some degree or another. Teenage me would never understand why one would drink hot chai during a ninety degree (Farenheit, I know), 2 p.m. afternoon. 

I didn’t remember where anything was in the kitchen; didn’t realize this until after I started boiling water. It was a bit of a rush, finding the sugar, the teaspoon (couldn’t pinpoint it—settled for half a tablespoon and did the math), and god knows where she keeps the honey. Saw all these new containers she had bought (whatever for?). Everything’s just that much different. It’s home, but it’s no longer my house. 

She still has that cup I gifted her a long time ago. She still has the other fifteen, too. I’d wager the back row hasn’t been moved in ages. One is still in bubble wrap.

There’s laundry spinning some ways away from where I write. The dryer and its sound, I missed it. I missed it? It’s overly dramatic, but I really think I did. The hum comes older, worn out, but it’s still the same machine. Do you know the Samsung dryer end chime? Mom had it on mute, I turned it back on for the couple of days that I’m staying over.

We have Substack at home

The mood with my writing oscillates. It’s a standard affair; I know this. Blogs seem to be a fun way to engage with the hobby and not have it be solely focused on fiction. I really need to find other avenues for prose. Being back in my old room reminds me of the things I used to write before. I should get back to that—which videogame would inspire me the most, I wonder?

When starting this blog—this blog meaning passingnotions as a whole—I never would have considered creating this type of content for this platform. It stands as a little personal and I had no plans in turning this ‘persona’ into such an important and ever present thing in my life. Perhaps these paragraphs could have been on another site, sure, but it’s been years now and growing an audience is a pain in the ass. (I’m not here for the attention, but that’s partly a lie; I write for myself, but, ok, obviously: thank you for reading.) 

My old WordPress account was in cryosleep. Reading blogs here on fanprose prompted me to find it and reset its password. Exploring it, also, reminded me just how quickly it was dropped. Will it be the same for this? I have nothing to yap about that comes to mind right away, and as I form this first draft, I’m not even sure this will be posted, but it’s a fun writing exercise nonetheless. 

(Editor’s note: ah, it did, in fact, make it out).

My stream of consciousness is a mess. Why do I obsess over its presentation? I suppose it’s for the sake of readability (sorry for making you go through this) but it’s certainly not only that. The egotistical need to be perceived but the conundrum to also hide behind a keyboard and a screen will forever clash. I don’t wish to make sense of writing nor what compels me to it.  

Also, my ‘writer voice’ sounds a little pensive, perhaps pretentious. I dislike being so self-aware of that. Thought there’d be more wit to this. So far, it has just been a public journal entry.

Moving on:

The queue

I have always been very cautious with saying which idols I am currently writing in fear of jinxing the attempts. Not every draft is meant to be published, and I have learned a lot behind the scenes, but my hit rate ain’t looking so tuff (never has). So, I’ll break that spell, sort of; give you a slight rundown of the current state of my drafts and things I have planned.

More Minjeong

The setting established in Balance was so open-ended (read: vague, undercooked) that there are, at least, two additional scenarios where Minjeong and her runner!OC could find themselves again in fic form. Sure: if you told me to sit down and brainstorm I could come up with way more, but I’m talking this has come up as recent, organic inspiration while out and about and touching grass. There’s a certain immediacy to the musings that I find give the drafts life, much like how the original piece came about (it was halfway written for way too long, until a bout of inspiration had me figure out how to fit all the pieces together).

While I consider the setting ripe for many, many spinoffs and cameos and whatever else, I wish to keep a healthy distance and not be overambitious. Scope creep has stunted many of my projects. 

Speaking of,

An Yujin

This one has been following me for a while and I’m still unsure about how to proceed with what’s left. It’s somewhat experimental, at least for me, and there’s a lot that I want it to do: it follows part of a movie script beat by beat, which was an entertaining exercise and I mostly consider a success; it treats with a subject matter that I’m not an expert in, by any means, and do not wish for it to appear as reductive or shallow while exploring its bounds; and it’s supposed to have a metric fuckton of sex—like, filthy, unabashed, cummy (god, how vulgar) sex. Introducing near-pornographic elements into what I consider to be a more “grounded” narrative is difficult, wbk.

In short: I need it to feel genuine.

There’s a part of me that, as always, wishes to cut the draft short—as the idiom goes, nip it in the bud. Unfortunately, it would mean that only one out of the three points listed above would be tackled, and it would prove to be a great disservice to post so much buildup without proper release. 

Kind of a fun fact: Of Equal Measure is quite literally just the introduction to a way larger work that mostly stayed as bullet points in a doc. I banged on and on in my head and even formed a whole freakin’ parallel narrative to match it. Convolutedly: it’s the intro of part two of an anthology that never materialized. It was bittersweet to let it go. 

(Within cells, interlinked. Not every draft is meant to be published.)

(The aforementioned script is not related to Blade Runner.)

Nayeon

Fuck me, dude. This one was supposed to come out last year! Technically, anyway.

Important: my writing mood and drafts change with the seasons. That’s a given for a lot of people, but I have some works that I constantly return to come Spring or come Summer (or Autumn, or Winter—you get it—the alliteration sounded nice but the list looked incomplete and—).

With this one, it’s more of a time-related concern, important dates and such. I want it to release on a very specific day, or at least around that time, but, wow, have I not done anything at all about it in recent times. Sorry, to myself.

It’s pretty simple; it’s all about execution. The general narrative is outlined to give myself a nudge or two in the right direction, and it’s not as difficult of a story as Yujin’s. I just have to sit down and get to it. (Please refer back to the hit rate comment—I have a real problem with focus and getting anything done.)

Ok, I sense the way I’m typing is reverting back to colloquial in not a good way. 

In closing

Fun. Blogging is fun. 7.8/10 not enough water—I ran out while writing the Winter bit and I am thirsty.

I will be posting not immediately because I wish to toy around with formatting (read: decor, pretty pictures) and this legitimately took me more than one sitting to finish, anyway. No rush. (Editor’s note #2: a lie. It’ll get done eventually.)

I guess this is the part where I tell you that if there’s anything you wish for me to write about, please drop it in the comments! Could be fic or blog related. There won’t be any self-pressure in doing more of these within a specific timeframe, as I am busy with offline endeavors, but I do try my best to read every comment and answer the ones I feel don’t require a full address in a more formal format.

Thanks, again, for reading.