notes on "this love isn't crazy"

[lackingdaze]

(source)

the inspiration

well basically, the idea for all of this came from the beginning of may when shakti was like "what if jay was a crwr major in one of your workshops"



and obviously i became obsessed with it bc well. I AM AN INSUFFERABLE CRWR MAJOR MYSELF WRITING BAD DIASPORA FICTION IN MY WORKSHOPS

i am also perpetually guilty of shoving agendas into my works [more on that later] so i thought this would be the perfect opportunity to a) write a heejay and b) write platonic sunjay [we all know my thoughts about that]





and from there it just sort of spiralled into 9k of blatant pandering to myself and ao3 user predebut

on writing comedy

i think i tweeted about this a lot on my priv but i had a blast writing this, which usually isn't the case for uh anything i write? i've actually spent the past 6 months mainly writing depressing gay ""literary"" fiction for school so writing this took a completely different unhinged brain.

idk if this is insane to put on a public dw post but the inspiration for this comedy style actually came from reading "beam me up" by ao3 user whiskeybusiness, who i think should win a pulitzer for writing the most entertaining and unhinged fic i've ever read in my life. like, i didn't even know who these ateez dudes were when i first read it but i still irl "ROFL"-ed? they're an icon for that tbh and i was really intrigued by [puts on workshop voice] the way they approached ""unhinged"" intimate third person narrator hongjoong and was like. what if i tried that with jay park?

i have rarely/never written comedy in these past few years, just because i think my writing style suits short, slice_of_life-ish fics better [which is also obvious if you look at all the works i've posted under deadtime on ao3]. also like I DON'T THINK I'M A VERY FUNNY PERSON? so i was kind of worried about how to pull this off.

i still don't know how i managed to crank out 9k of this shit but one of the things that did help was my new enforced practice of "write more think less". ok this is just devolving into a really long rant about my own #struggles with writing BUT basically i'm someone who tends to be very pedantic about diction and so it would take me super long to write anything because i just reread everything i write a gazillion times then hate it, which just made writing super painful? and i've actually had quite a bad few months of writing [re: hating everything i wrote for school] but one of the breakthroughs i had was just, forcing myself to not reread my writing and just steam ahead instead? write now edit later? which like wow who knew that would work . why am i still talking about this.

anyways one of the most validating parts of the feedback i've gotten on this fic is that people actually laughed ! wow ! that is news to me because i didn't know if anything was really funny but <3 glad it paid off ?

also not to meta more but, once again writing this was so fun. idk it just made me realize the #power of creating fan niche content for yourself and frands and how freeing writing outside of a workshop environment can be [when there is no pressure to impress ur talented and scarily discerning peers etc. etc.] it also brought me back to the type of fic i was writing when i was just starting out and did plainly for the shits n giggles like. WHEN WRITING CAN "SPARK JOY"?

which just brings me to

the agendas of it all

scream. actually kind of amazed at how much i managed to work into all of this. like the blatant 01z/02z interactions with no actual rhyme or reason? i shove a lot of shit into this but here are the big ones:
> platonic sunjay: i touch on this in my sunjay thesis but i'm just obsessed with the idea of them being unlikely #besties and i had a lot of fun writing their banter!
> the heejayisms: i am a residential heejayist so i guess i just had a lot to say? one of the things i wanted to highlight was that they both aren't #besties immediately because i think that is more true to their actual dynamics of prolonged fellow trainees to eventual friends. also something something about switching for the power of LOVE
> jayke antagonism: to quote shakti, "literally the battle of heeseung's housewives can be so personal"
> beomseung: even since the first draft, i wanted to write jay being petty towards beomgyu because well, i thought it'd be funny. also beomseung are one of my fave txtha tinhats. originally i wasn't going to write beomgyu as heeseung's ex, but then it just sort of worked out like that. sorry for writing "the worst choi beomgyu characterization ever" and also espousing the blasphemy that beomgyu would be in pineapples [but like, can you see the vision?]
> taeseung: my thought process here was "which non-beomgyu 01/02er would have an entertaining reaction to jay park walking in on heeseung / would it be a crime to have it be CHENLE" and "well i guess i like taehyun"
> taehoon: um tbh this whole exchange was 80% for the whole "and then they were bottoms" set-up but like. also obsessed with taeseung's one interaction on txtha playground where taehyun is like "we're the same age but he won't drop formalities with me" and sunghoon just awkwardly laughs like guys this has so much POTENTIAL
> "um what was that" background chenji: not much to say except tfw you are a recovering ex-nct fic writer. also they are still so endearing to me
> jay park writing vincenzo fanfiction: no comment but also are you really a crwr major in this day and age if you don't have an ao3 account?

anyways, "the only operating logic in this fic is pandering to ao3 user predebut" so. yeah <3

are you insane like me / been in pain like me

one of the biggest motivations for me to write this was the fact that i really wanted to write unhinged intimate third person narrator JAY PARK. i don't know how i'm going to make it through this section without an embarrassing amount of open tender-hearting about this man who has horrible tastes [see: his takes on hedi slimane] BUT I CAN'T HELP IT.

not to admit that i'm the same brand of dork but like. i am also ex-"fashion industry" delusionist / took french in hs bc that was how much i was into fashion / am a nerd who is into knowing pretentious things so watching park jay live out his existence as an idol is just exclamation mark question mark emoji to me ? i don't know how to say this without it sounding derogatory BUT YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. i am just a jay_park_luvr....

anyways writing him as a crwr major was really fun because um. well i just kind of projected! it's not quite realistic [ex. the frequency of workshops and how much writing he produces is exaggerated] but i did heavily base things off my experience in my own program. also one of the things i really wanted to get across was that in this universe, jay is actually a ""good"" writer? i don't know if this came off explicitly since i sort of circumvented the whole actual writing part [since i didn't think it would tonally match the rest of the piece] but it was important to me to convey that since. well i myself am a crwr major and i don't want to demean the act of writing by clowning it [this sounds more serious than it actually is, sawry i have pretentious writer disease].

there's this quote that i truly feel like speaks to this experience, which is:

"it takes a particular mix of madness and courage to write short stories—they do not pay the rent, they are not widely read—and it takes even greater courage to put them in the mail, submitting them for judgment by strangers. so thinking about these senders, batshit-crazy and full of hope and dread, and the fact that they would entrust our readers to judge their work, and for us to print their work, I used the word sacred." — david seggars, "the best of mcsweeny's".

this quote is in the context of magazine submissions and other litpub world jargon so maybe it doesn't really make sense, but i think the whole "batshit-crazy" thing encompasses how it feels like to be a crwr major in this day and age which is like. well that is certainly an insane and motivated choice. everyone i know who is a crwr major is really "in it for the craft" and takes it pretty seriously and i wanted to stay true to that aspect of my experience in this piece despite it being comedy! tangentially, i also feel that jay tends to get clowned on for his genuine interest in things and while i wanted to be like yes jay park is a disaster i also wanted to make it clear that he isn't a disaster Like That and hopefully not typecast him? if that makes sense. once again i am jay_park_luvr....

to wrap things up

when i was editing this fic, there was a part of me that was like "well i can add more" [esp. in terms of heejay's actual relationship] but also i feel like my writing process is just a constant race against my own overthinking/boredom and i didn't want to write myself into a hole? i'm also horrendous at plotting and i feel like most of the momentum of this comes from not actually the actions of the characters but from the structure of the piece so like. to restructure it would have been a whole Thing and then who knows when that would be done.

overall, i'm actually super happy about this piece and the reception it got. like genuinely so so happy, i feel like this is the happiest i've ever been about a fanfic piece. idk i just feel like everyone who i wanted to read this has read it and given me their thoughts on it and i'm very grateful. SOMETIMES WRITING SPARKS JOY.