iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

actually idk why i'm so upset that my crit partner hates my book and refuses to tell me, i have to learn by stumbling upon her reddit comments like why am i upset, my novella was so shit it proved i can't write and edits can't save it so im fully given up she hates my book? what book lol

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

today i was gonna apologize to my friend that ive been anxious lately but then she lied about the literal thing ive been anxious about and the only reason she has for doing so would be if i wasnt crazy, i was right like i genuinely dont know what to do, i had a panic attack and dunno what to say

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

i just feel so stupid i never shouldve given my crit partner feedback i need feedback because im stupid and need someone to tell me what to do because im not capable of doing this by myself but if youre a good writer, you dont need that. i was an asshole assuming she's stupid and needs help, too

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

i'm sure she won't send it to me, but if she does, i'm absolutely terrified to beta my crit partner's book every time i've been a beta reader i got told to stop reading if i gave critical feedback because "i wouldn't have sent it to you if i thought it needed edits, it's done" and i've been

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

it has been nearly 2 weeks since my crit partner and i last spoke, so... not my preferred resolution but i dont think there was any way i could ever stop feeling crummy and inferior and now i dont have to finish my wips because i lost my only reader. whos made it clear she wouldnt like it anyway

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

everyone has me muted but idc i need to vent because im crying, because yes my crit partner makes me feel so insecure. she says she hates everything my book is and still expects me to believe she likes it when at best it feels fucking shitty to have constant reminders that i'm an exception

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

where on the "reasonable/unreasonable" scale does it fall if i say i kinda want to stop talking to my writing buddy because i'm getting incredibly self conscious with how she keeps reminding me my book is everything she hates but i'm "an exception" "i hate this. not when its you though" it hurts?

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

also i'm still pretty hurt by the other day, crit partner saying that in fantasy, guns are too modern for her to read, and in historical fiction, cars are too contemporary so fuck my life for having cars in fantasy and she's so transparently bullshitting me when she says she likes my wip anyway

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

every conversation with my crit partner makes me want to quit writing more and more and tbh i think im already at the point of "i'd rather skin my entire body with sandpaper than write one more word" this mornings conversation? well my characters choices are probably fake and now i have no story

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Genuine question for... whoever So after 2.67 drafts I'm callin' it that the novella is done and nothing I can salvage on... every level tbh Nobody is going to read it But in any case... if you were me, would you at least "lazy edit" it just so it's at minimum readable? Or let it die

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

so twitter has been a rotten cesspool of biphobia for the last week as of yesterday, the biphobes have also upgraded to transphobia and insisting that it's woke somehow to enforce a gender binary out fucking standing

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

well i told myself id consider the novella done at the end of august no matter what stage it was in so the novellas done, i guess

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

i got curious my crit partner and i have only talked 7 times all month. and like. we used to talk way, way more than that. like we were friends, talking constantly and now i get 7 conversations that are mostly just "brief pop-ins to say hi" yeah wow she really doesn't want to talk to me

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

i dont even know what's more distressing at this point trying to write and failing and having exactly zero improvement between drafts and reducing it to a mess of annotations because i dont know wtf im doing or the fact that i gave up or the fact that i don't want to give up all, equally?

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

if anyone was curious (nobody was, but, hypothetically) i have kinda decided i'm never writing again i got reminded that it's childish to have free time as an adult, so i shouldn't have time to write and reminded that i shouldn't care about anything in my story beyond the immediate plot, but i do

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

My first beta told me they liked the premise but to "hire a ghost writer" I know it's childish, because I shouldn't care if a beta likes my book or not. That's not the point, the point IS to get told what sucks But it would still be nice. But yeah, I'm convinced everyone hates it, because they do

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

(you can tell my depressions back because of how often i've played tetris this week. like im so bored but nothing does anything for me but tetris is at least something active) like this sucks. i've felt like shit since... thursday i think? like ok cool thanks, my psyche, i wanted to be a husk again

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

still upset that 2 years of my crit partner telling me i "got" her characters ended with her changing them into the thing she told me she was glad i didn't see them as "sappy guy pining for a woman he can't have" to "actually he's a stoic hardass who only wants a relationship to be responsible" 🙄

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

(had a 20 minute cry that only ended because my chicken burger, that i put in the oven before i started crying, is ready) i'll be blunt because i have to say it. knowing that nobody wants to read my story, that the only people who ever would are people on here who just want to read it and help and

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

i'm calling it, the novella's done. i still have 11 out of 25 scenes that aren't third drafted, but chapter 10 completely broke me, every time i think i've written something decent turn out it's the exact opposite of how prose works, and my crit partner doesn't want it and won't tell me it's done.

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

gonna be honest a sec crit partner telling me she likes xyz thing about my book and then going to reddit to say she won't to read that same xyz thing has really made me not want to write it anymore and now? chapter 10 has been written 4 times. it's still terrible. and i have no idea how to fix it

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

fuckin' chapter 6 rewrite okay in my defence i still have my hackles up because i only rearranged the shit that was already fine and still haven't addressed the stuff that made me flip my shit tonight so i might still crash and burn but i think half my problem was the wrong order, yes

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

(seriously if anyone saw the chapter 6 i have after 2 days and knew that this isn't the early days of a pantsed first draft but me being 1/3 through draft 3 and this was planned? you would tell me to quit and find a new hobby i'm good at, like "watching tv" or "filling in a paint by numbers")

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

(now im crying) chapter 6 was supposed to be done yesterday intsrad now im' only 900 words in, it still won't get done tonight, i dont know what to do, and i wish i didnt write any of these,

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

okay. i do want an opinion (NOT from the "just be happy😊all writing is good writing😊") crowd first drafts. they can be crappy. but. if you're mangling content and tone and "this isn't the vibe" and basically everything is wrong that's... a problem, right? like SOMETHING in it has to be good right?

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

well third drafting involves rewriting a chapter from the ground up because the old one doesn't work third drafting was going so well and i have been in fight or flight mode ever since i started "blind rewrite" i'm not breaking down, want to cry, and i'm more stressed than i've been in weeks

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

i hate how much i'm loving third drafting because the amount of times i've gotten takeout has tripled over the last nearly 2 weeks (and i literally had to pull myself away mid fight scene to go get takeout at a reasonable time lmao)

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

went down memory lane today and looked at every time i sent the crit partner a snippet like "look how bad it is, it's terrible!" wtf was i on? it was all fine? good, even? and now i'm torn between "no i am worse" and "okay so i'll like this next year too" so while i think on it, i made a meme

patrick wallet meme

this is your writing
yep
and you thought it was bad at the time
yep
but reading it a year later you like it
that makes sense to me
so your writing now is probably better than you think
no i'm shit

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

(guys who's good at computers and maybe mac's specifically because i am about to fuckin snap at a brand new bullshit problem that started a few days ago, is getting worse, troubleshooting yielded nothing, and apparently nobody on the internet has dealt with this so i'm in the dark)

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

ahhhh fuck i meant to engage more with awesomecharacters prompt responses tonight but i am tired as fuck (exhibit A: i had a bagel for supper because i had no energy for anything else) and i've basically been in a coma all evening (and spent an hour writing the same paragraph without realizing it.)

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Writing craft / reading experience question At what point do you think a character has "too much" personality and the author should be working to rein them in, make them a bit more subtle?

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

there's a tweet going around that "The best fanfic writers don't read a lot of fanfics" and i'm genuinely appalled by the number of people saying ether "no! good writers read a lot!" or "of course, i can't read when i write" when like, guys, they mean "good writers read a wide variety of shit" 🤦‍♀️

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

(re, "thoughts are telling, write like a movie, willingness is passivity") she works. as. an editor. and i'm genuinely terrified about what this means for the state of fiction if she got A JOB contradicting everything i learned in getting my creative writing degree please tell me she's wrong

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

so the person who thought calling me a "YA version of steinbeck" was appropriate criticism who marks every interiority as "handholding telling" and thinks books should be pure external who told me "don't write smells. movies don't have smells. write like describing a movie" now works as an editor

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

well, after last nights crashout over novella chapter 1 scene 2, i am screenshotting this becuase once again every. fucking. time.

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

(i maybe fixed the scene that drove me to tears yesterday) (maybe. still a large chance draft 4 rolls around and i spend another half hour sobbing in my car) (but fuck it im adding a physical conflict into the scene and see how things shake out then) (mildly optimistic?)

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

jfc i was so naive "yeah i can churn out draft 3 edit notes in a single afternoon" anyway so i'm on day 1.5, and 6 scenes down, 19 more to go so much for my "start on saturday" plan. shit, my "start sunday" backup is looking grim too

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

(quick follow) the person who told me "sharing means you wrote for others, if it was for yourself you'd just put it up somewhere for people to find, but not care if they don't" they're the reason i didn't do the character prompt today and the reason im TERRIFIED to even share with my crit partner

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

genuine question AM i allowed to share my writing AM i allowed to ask for critique AM i allowed to edit based on how it does/doesn't land AM i allowed to try to trad pub because that's all i've wanted. but i've been a wreck a few days because ive been told thats selfish and not writing for myself

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

well i WAS taking draft three notes but then the cat decided to lay down on my binder so i guess i'm done for the day

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

guys how much ibuprofen do we think is safe to take in ~24 hours i had about 800mg last night and another 800mg about 7 hours ago and now my headache is back and actively preventing me from prepping for draft 3 can i take more without fucking up my kidneys / dying

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

am i allowed to say i finished novella draft 2 without someone telling me "if you were writing for yourself, you wouldn't be posting about this, because you're posting this for other people which means you wrote it for other people"? if not: i'm sorry if i am: i finished draft 2

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

i really shouldn't have shared a prompt snip earlier i know i'm not good at writing anymore. i'm incredibly self conscious. and sometimes i think "maybe it's not so bad" but then i catch myself writing lines that "i wouldn't have done this when i was actually good." because it IS that bad

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

i hate internet writing advice. anyone who indiscriminately preaches "thought verbs create distance! distance bad!" is banned from giving critique until they read 10 books highlighting every time the character "wonders" or "knows" or "realizes" some distance is... how third person limited WORKS

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

and frankly, yeah i write my novella and "someone reading it one day" motivates me but nights like tonight? when i remembered ive been specifically told never to share my writing, its rude and selfish and not for myself anymore? i kinda don't want to finish. its DEPRESSING knowing no one cares

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

update: it was in reference to notes on a blackboard that i dont have the bandwidth for anything that would require world-specific lore (looking at you, history or literature) i said fuck it to the class subject idea, it's just gonna be notes from a debate with the topic TBD lmao thanks all!

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

i officially hate being a fantasy writer i literally just wrote "english class," took 0.5 seconds to realize what was wrong with that idea, and now i need to figure out how to write around it (or another class that's thematically fitting) why do i do this to myself

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

people on twitter really trying to argue that "9 year old girl" is somehow a dehumanizing turn of phrase everyone in the comments coming for the reporter's head for apparently "avoiding saying child" as if "0-17 year old person of any gender" is more humanizing than two specific facts about her

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

past me was wildly overconfident in her ability to make an infodump chapter interesting and not an infodump chapter (i'm finally getting somewhere but it has taken 3 hours and 3 failed versions) (if this version isn't the one i'm just gonna throw my laptop off the roof idk)

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Beanie @meanbeanie.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

yknow, i DID say that the cure to my burnout was "just stop being burnt out and muscle through it" because i know me well enough to know i thrive off momentum and productivity anyway (checks out the 1k / day pace I've had going the last week) oh yeah we're so back actually, this time 😎

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