Unfortunately Not a Real Pony

Me: I have spent the last three years trying to plan out this time travel story I want to write, to no avail.

Also me: Fuck it. I'm just going to start writing and let the chips fall when they may.

Me: I wonder what the difference between softcore and hardcore pornography is?

Me, five minutes later: So I've been writing softcore porn for the last week instead of finishing my novel. Okay. Sure.

Almost a quarter of my department was born between 1994 and 1998, so they're all about turning thirty right now.

Good grief they're being so insufferable about it, acting as if their very lives are basically over and there's nothing left to look forward to.

I'm in my mid-thirties and having an awesome time of it. I got my life together! Finally recovered from the childhood trauma! Bought a house! Adopted cats! Made actual friends! Learned a dozen new hobbies!

The point here is that if you go into something expecting to be miserable... you will be. And also that youth desperately need older friends so they know life doesn't come to a screeching halt at some arbitrary number.

I got 95% of the way through writing this novel, then when it got down to a few finicky scenes that need to be filled in my brain just went "nope" and switched to a different project.

This is unfortunate.

You ever meet someone's family and realize "wow, this explains everything wrong with you?"

Sixty jars was not enough.

I've seen a number of "how to write female/queer/minority characters well" articles over the years, and I've read enough awful writing to understand where they're coming from, but as a head-in-the-clouds autist who creates blobs of personality and backstory and then adds identities almost as an afterthought, I can't always bite back the snarky three-step response: 

1. Convince yourself that marginalized people are in fact full people.
2. No, seriously, make sure you are fully and completely convinced on that point.
3. Write them like you would write people (including people in a hostile or bigoted environment).

Me, an aroace from a very sex-negative culture: Why are romance and sex scenes so difficult to write?

I am extremely picky about love stories in fiction generally: a number of common romance conventions annoy or even infuriate me (not backing off after "no" as a show of how strong someone's feelings are; love being demonstrated primarily by jealous behaviors; the cliched third act misunderstanding), either because it's so contrary to how I experience love, or because it's just bloody dysfunctional.

Queer love stories, in addition to these pitfalls, also have two common things I'm not particularly interested in reading at this point in my life: the queer awakening and coming to terms plotline, and the bigotry. We need stories that deal with both of these, and I fully encourage people to read and write them. They're just not for me - I'm not joking when I say I've been out longer than some of my subscribers have been alive. I want my stories to have queer people who exist and do awesome (and mundane) things and it's not a big deal.