Well I just finished a longfic after a year of being untouched. And then I just started updating this WIP that I haven't touched for 2 years and am aiming to finish it this year. Then I'll circle back to another fic that has been untouched for 2-3 years that is its sequel in a way.
Life happens. It's never too late to finish your fics.
If we're talking about stories that eventually did *get* an update and not the many fics I abandoned a million years ago in elementary and middle school, 6 months! I prefer to take a ["say thank you, not sorry"](http://www.yao.nyc/shortcomics/2020/3/30/if-you-want-to-say-thank-you-dont-say-sorry) approach to things like this since I don't view updating as an obligation or anything to feel guilty over, so instead I just thanked my readers for their patience when I posted the long-awaited update.
I just wanted to say this is really lovely! I've been trying to do this when I reply to people later than I'd have liked to, and it helps me feel a lot less guilty. Thank you for linking the comic; gave me some more ways to think about this and think about where/how to apply it to my life.
I have some that are not abandoned but not finished either that haven't been touched in... 15 years? I'm planning to move them from FFnet to AO3 so they're staring me in the face all the time so I'm forced to work on them. š¤£
Ahh, I thought I was the only one like this.... I've been working on a chapter from a fic I first started in 2005 and last updated in 2009 for a few years now, planning to migrate it over to AO3 since I don't have access to FFN anymore, but I kind of want to find my old login so that people who might be subscribed to that fic can see the final updates... -.-;;;
Not alone!
I think I tried to see something in my FFnet profile the other day and I just... Can't edit it? The document manager wasn't in the side bar either. So I'm resigned to the fact that I likely wouldn't be able to update those fics there even if I had the patience to deal with FFnet anymore. But I do need to do a fair amount of rewriting/reworking before I would feel comfortable posting them to AO3 in order to continue them. So they keep getting pushed to the back burner... š
Eight years. No apology, more of a "thanks for sticking with me!"
Some of my readers actually did come back after that long, too. I was surprised, to say the least.
Nineteen years and about six months. Something really bad happened IRL and I just could not manage to get back in the creative headspace. By the time I was feeling better, I was obsessed with another fandom.
I finally wrote a few paragraphs of the final chapter last year, I think.
I topped out at 6 years but didn't really get into it during the apology because emotionally abusive relationships are heavy; but came back swinging in 2021
Literally me yesterday - havenāt updated a fic since Dec 2022, decided to mention that 2023 was shitty because of my momās cancer diagnosis and death within the same year. I appreciated the condolences, but somehow I was also bummed that some comments only wrote about my mom xD Whoops.
2 years. I started the fic when I was unknowingly very unwell and it was affecting my cognitive abilitiesā¦almost no hormones apparently causes severe brain fog and depression. I just let everyone know and they were all cool with it. It was bad though. Pass if you feel like you might have dementia with a side of depression get your hormones checked. I had almost no estrogen. Get hrt changed my life.
About five years. I had lost interest in the fandom (thanks ADHD) and left it at the very climax. Someone left a beautiful comment on the fic about how it had helped them get through a tough time, and that was enough to make me dust off my notes and finish it, just for them.
The entire year of 2019 I only typed two small paragraphs and got behind again a few years later ( I think it was 2022 ?? ) Slight depression mainly and then Covid spreading all over the world and the problems and losses from that happening didn't make me feel cheerful about very much either .
Although , to be honest , I only get 3 chapters done and posted in one year , three at the most , 2 on average since I type very slow and procrastinate almost always . Usually takes me six months to type , proofread and make various changes to , then finally post a chapter .
Plus my eyesight is bad so after posting , there are typically multiple errors so I have to proofread and edit again for what feels like another million times or more .
Not counting abandoned fics, around 2 years? I lost interest in fandom as a whole, came back later and realized I had some unposted material, and cleaned it up for posting. I don't think I apologized š¤£
Three months, I think. I had everything planned, but the character was so emotionally draining and so psychotic I needed a break. I can only be in the head of the serial killer for so long. This isn't āThe Cell.ā
I hated a fic I was writing because I posted the first few chapters with no plan, and it was just stressing me out every time I tried to figure out what to do with it next. But it was actually kind of popular so it sat in my mind for a good FOUR YEARS before I forced myself to write a few more chapters and end it properly.
In my notes, I wrote I was sorry, but I really just freaking hated the fic and that's why it took me so long to finish lol. I still worked hard to make a good ending for it, though. And the few return readers from four years earlier were happy with it, so at least there was that satisfaction I could get out of finishing it.
I have a TWD/SPN crossover longfic that I've had going since before JDM was announced as Negan. Over a decade now, I'm sure.
I had a 5 or 7 year hiatus. My apology was a brief AN for the reasons: multiple health issues, and I had to re-teach myself how to walk, read, & write.
Even once I technically *could*, it wasn't good enough to share, so I waited until I felt like I was producing good quality again. Unfortunately, I lost even my devoted readers who read & commented every chapter. My updates are still annoyingly slow, so I understand, but I'm still trucking along!
Technically something like six years since an edit, seven or eight years since an update? But at that time I considered the works in question abandoned. After that, I went back to them, and one is now finished, and the other has over 30 new chapters. Since that big gap, I'd say about eight months tops, though I try to update quarterly at the very worst
I was getting underway for a fic that's been hanging for 3 years, and the last chapter had an apology for taking a year.
I've already lost momentum on the next chapter so who knows when it'll actually happen.
This thread reminds me of the Loveless manga it's been ongoing since 2003 because the author keeps taking forever which is funny since the Manga is basically a fanfic of a sad cat boy doodle
Thankfully only 1 year, not adding in my abandoned fics that I wrote since 2011 lol
But yeah, my apology was basically I finally changed from anti-depressants to anti-psychotics which made me so much better lol I've been updating regularly after that, so grateful to modern medicine ā„ļø
yeah i went from a once a week upload schedule to a consistent biyearly upload schedule š shoutout to those who stuck with it though, itās been 7 months though so ig iām making my loyal readers wait a little longer for the last installment
I have not touched my BTS sickfic since I was in like high school which has been more than 4 years mostly because I was dealing with COVID happening when I first started it then life just got busy especially cuz I'm now in college I barely have enough time to write as it is like I have ideas that I want to write down but I've also also been working on other stuff and other fandoms So I'm getting around to it I actually touched that fanfiction the first time last week because I was rereading it and realized there was a pretty bad spelling error that made the sentence it was in absolutely horrid
It's been a month and a half. I had some OOC moments and I beat myself up about them and haven't returned ever since because of lack of energy and shame.
10 years. It was never posted, thankfully, so I didnāt have to write an apology. It was my first multi-chapter led fic and I ended up losing the whole thing when my flashdrive broke. Years later, I used the ideas to rewrite it into a darker version and as a one-shot.
I wrote my first fic 8 years ago. Wrote it for two days, never finished it. Never aim to. No apology cause nobody knows. It's in my old notebook, rotting away in some quiet, dark corner of my cupboard. I was 7.
Uh well, it's a long kinda fic which I started back in 2021... back then, I thought of updating it but life happened (I still have the continuation for it in my docs) but now, I lost the spark of writing for my main ship. I'd still read fics about them, but writing for them? *Shrugs* anyway...I truly don't know when I'd get the spark again for them and eventually continue my writing for them.
11 years for me. I just got busy with life, and I sort of grew out of the fandom during that time. Got into other shows I wrote more for and interested me. Then I realized 11 years had passed since I updated the story, cranked out the last 2 chapters to finish it up and posted them. I probably apologized, but I can't quite remember at the moment. I was just relieved I finally finished it.
I honestly didn't know how to plot the story, like initially all the things my character does to start a magic ritual fails, because I planned on it never working. Also like I was in the middle of signing up in the army.
....I did write 2-4 chapters in my Notebook. I was really and I mean obsessed with the ship and this smoking hot romantic partner my mc was GUNNA fall in love with.
I DIDNT MEANT FOR IT TO BE FOUR YEARS ALR.
Also, the only time it was still working and I was active was when I was chatting about ideas in a mutuals server in their story channel. Well, guess what? After getting booted with no chance of redemption pretty much all my ideas have been...dry. like who do I even talk to about my fandom and ideas?
And getting past the initial hurt I felt and anger.
Probably a year or soā¦like I want so badly to finish them, but my mind is likeā¦.emptyā¦.so yeah not going so well.
At least I can say I have some completed fics in my roster, which hopefully those that read my fics can appreciate and enjoy.
As much as Iād love readers suggestions/advice/feedback of my WIP (especially year or so long), I get why theyād venture away to other authors.
3 years.
Didn't even give the poor buggers a good apology either. Came back and posted the next two chapters and then just kept updating sporadically.
Readers were pretty cool with it. I feel like most people understand.
*Glances guiltily at that one fic I swore Iād get back to mid 2021 after coming off an 8 month hiatus only to not update again*
I *swear* I will finish it. Eventually. At some point. Hopefully before I graduate college. Maybeā¦
At this point like year and a half. I reached some milestones in my long fic and several things happened (I fell out of love of the pairing that just had their first kiss, I realized I was always in love with the pairing that are frenemies in the fic but just made peace, and itās a kind of a plateau moment before things get very busy again). Iām trying to get the new chapter out before the 2 yrs milestone.
I need to write the last 2 chapters of my longfic and I last uploaded in October 2022
I kinda lost motivation and think about rewriting the whole thing but I know I'll never do that so maybe just leave it as it is? Idk
I put it as private on ao3 months ago and a few days ago someone asked in the comments of another fic where it went and now I think I should continue
3-4 years? No apology. I cranked out 11 chapters in less than a week and posted them all at once lol.
I had stopped writing during college from just stress and lack of time so it wasn't really anything I thought to share
This comes timely - I am about to start writing anew for a long fic I started in 2012 and last updated in 2018! 6 years is a lot, I havenāt written any āwell Iām back!ā yet, but I plan not to have it very long winded and thank everyone for reading and enjoying the story.
I wrote a pair of House MD fics back in 2010, and prior to picking them up again, I hadn't updated them since 2011. I picked one up last year for April Camp NaNoWriMo and finished it, so I picked up the other (still working on it).
Basically a lot of words to say...12 years. My apology: "I apologize for leaving this hanging for so long. I've been far removed from the House fandom and have been writing for other fandoms. I had an idea similar to this one for an Emergency! fic and thought, well, maybe I should just finish THIS one first."
10 years ago I started a fic on Livejournal, stopped writing it, and forgot about it.
Last year I found the fic in my drafts and was like āactually this is good and deserves to be finished.ā The community where I originally posted is dead now, so I doubt anyone who read it originally would even see it, but Iām currently rewriting and finishing the fic before putting it on Ao3. It will end up being my longest fic Iāve ever written once Iām done with it. I have about two chapters left to write.
By mid next month my primary fic will have been untouched for a year and my secondary has arguably either already hit that mark or is swiftly approaching.
The reasons being a mix of writer's block and lack of motivation due to IRL events, mainly just being exhausted from work. I've been steadily trying to update both and/or get a few oneshots out but all to no avail. Got so bad I dropped out of two fandom events I was looking forward to.
The longest a fic went dormant and was still eventually updated was around three years. The longest a fic went untouched, still hasn't been updated to this day, but is legitimately one I'd like to get back to one day is around 13.5 years.
Untouched as in not even trying to write it? I've never done that.
Untouched as in trying but failing to write it and so not updated in ages? Nearly 2 years, due to a mix of writer's block and writing myself into a bit of a corner. It took me writing a one-shot, completely different to the chaptered fic for all it uses one of the same fandoms and one of the same MCs, to get back on track.
I didn't include an apology, though. Probably should have, I had a couple readers who always commented. I was just too excited to post the new chapter I'd *finally* written, and on a role with the rest of the fic, that adding a little apology AN completely slipped my mind.
Four years. My way of apologizing was having the rest of the story finished before I started posting it again so I wouldnāt return just to leave them hanging again lol
Left a chaptered fic untouched for a little over a year due to depression and self-doubt. Thatās back when I was trying to play the numbers game and no matter how much I promoted the story, it wasnāt getting the hits I wanted and it made me doubt myself. That, coupled with some personal IRL stuff made me take a pause from writing as a whole.Ā
Finally revisiting that story now that I have a healthier relationship with my writing, gave a middle finger to the numbers game, and am doing better mentally. For my apology I simply said āletās pretend it hasnāt been a year and some change xDā and thanked folks for sticking with the story. Got a new chapter done, already working on the next, as well as got an outline together for how the story is gonna end. :)
Depends. There's a fic I've left untouched for nearly two years now, because of writer's block and also because something unexpected grabbed my attention just as I published the latest chapter. I do plan on trying to go back and wrap the whole thing up at some point, now that I finally seem to have gotten my drive back.
On the flip side, there's a fic I wrote for a fandom I'm no longer in that hasn't been updated in six years. I have no plans to revisit it.
7 Months on a fic I'm currently working on (currently 5 months for the next chapter I'm working on).
And a year and 7 months on another fic I'm working on.
I'm trying to update sooner, though I have a lot of wips :')
Two years and going strong
I kinda lost interest and also the main character died IRL, so it felt wrong to keep writing it. I have so much plot for this fic, I canāt just cancel it, but Iām also not sure how to start writing it again
a once upon a time fic I wrote in 2020, I had already wrote half of the story before I published the first chapter so I posted a chapter 2 times a week. Then a month later I got bored of the show, was out of writen chapter, and didnt wanna write now ones so I just left it
so thats now almost 4 years ago
I think I havenāt updated my oldest one in 5 years and I donāt plan on doing that. Back when I was in that fandom I was still in hs, I had a different perspective that now doesnāt really correspond with my current beliefs so I just let it rot in the depths of my tumblr
It's been over a year now (only been writing since 2022) and my latest comment was "are you there god? It's me Fiona ITS ME FIONAAA" which made me laugh lol
Reason: it's only 3 chapters left and I already know how it ends so on a mental level, to me, it's done already. I kinda keep forgetting the story isn't resolved for everyone else š
A good few years, TBH Iāve started doing it with a lot of fics. Mostly because of my part time job and adulting. But the more people pester and demand I update the less I want to.
I leave a brief explanation in authors notes. But yeah, toxic fandom members really ruin any love I have for the stories
Well I just finished a longfic after a year of being untouched. And then I just started updating this WIP that I haven't touched for 2 years and am aiming to finish it this year. Then I'll circle back to another fic that has been untouched for 2-3 years that is its sequel in a way. Life happens. It's never too late to finish your fics.
5 or 6 years
If we're talking about stories that eventually did *get* an update and not the many fics I abandoned a million years ago in elementary and middle school, 6 months! I prefer to take a ["say thank you, not sorry"](http://www.yao.nyc/shortcomics/2020/3/30/if-you-want-to-say-thank-you-dont-say-sorry) approach to things like this since I don't view updating as an obligation or anything to feel guilty over, so instead I just thanked my readers for their patience when I posted the long-awaited update.
I just wanted to say this is really lovely! I've been trying to do this when I reply to people later than I'd have liked to, and it helps me feel a lot less guilty. Thank you for linking the comic; gave me some more ways to think about this and think about where/how to apply it to my life.
I have some that are not abandoned but not finished either that haven't been touched in... 15 years? I'm planning to move them from FFnet to AO3 so they're staring me in the face all the time so I'm forced to work on them. š¤£
Ahh, I thought I was the only one like this.... I've been working on a chapter from a fic I first started in 2005 and last updated in 2009 for a few years now, planning to migrate it over to AO3 since I don't have access to FFN anymore, but I kind of want to find my old login so that people who might be subscribed to that fic can see the final updates... -.-;;;
Not alone! I think I tried to see something in my FFnet profile the other day and I just... Can't edit it? The document manager wasn't in the side bar either. So I'm resigned to the fact that I likely wouldn't be able to update those fics there even if I had the patience to deal with FFnet anymore. But I do need to do a fair amount of rewriting/reworking before I would feel comfortable posting them to AO3 in order to continue them. So they keep getting pushed to the back burner... š
I did so too and let me tell youā¦I have yet to update any of them (havenāt gone 15 years but it does feel like it haha)
I have been "finishing up the last chapters" of my first longfic for about two years now. I'll finish it someday, I promise.
Eight years. No apology, more of a "thanks for sticking with me!" Some of my readers actually did come back after that long, too. I was surprised, to say the least.
I'll come back to mine in Falloutober, at which point, it'll be about 8 months left alone.
Nineteen years and about six months. Something really bad happened IRL and I just could not manage to get back in the creative headspace. By the time I was feeling better, I was obsessed with another fandom. I finally wrote a few paragraphs of the final chapter last year, I think.
4 years for me.
I topped out at 6 years but didn't really get into it during the apology because emotionally abusive relationships are heavy; but came back swinging in 2021
11 months. All I said in the notes was: "Yes, I'm still updating this! Thanks to everyone who's been patient!"
Literally me yesterday - havenāt updated a fic since Dec 2022, decided to mention that 2023 was shitty because of my momās cancer diagnosis and death within the same year. I appreciated the condolences, but somehow I was also bummed that some comments only wrote about my mom xD Whoops.
2 years. I started the fic when I was unknowingly very unwell and it was affecting my cognitive abilitiesā¦almost no hormones apparently causes severe brain fog and depression. I just let everyone know and they were all cool with it. It was bad though. Pass if you feel like you might have dementia with a side of depression get your hormones checked. I had almost no estrogen. Get hrt changed my life.
About five years. I had lost interest in the fandom (thanks ADHD) and left it at the very climax. Someone left a beautiful comment on the fic about how it had helped them get through a tough time, and that was enough to make me dust off my notes and finish it, just for them.
Something like ten years between updates. (I stopped writing entirely for most of those years, to be fair). Zero apologies.
The entire year of 2019 I only typed two small paragraphs and got behind again a few years later ( I think it was 2022 ?? ) Slight depression mainly and then Covid spreading all over the world and the problems and losses from that happening didn't make me feel cheerful about very much either . Although , to be honest , I only get 3 chapters done and posted in one year , three at the most , 2 on average since I type very slow and procrastinate almost always . Usually takes me six months to type , proofread and make various changes to , then finally post a chapter . Plus my eyesight is bad so after posting , there are typically multiple errors so I have to proofread and edit again for what feels like another million times or more .
Not counting abandoned fics, around 2 years? I lost interest in fandom as a whole, came back later and realized I had some unposted material, and cleaned it up for posting. I don't think I apologized š¤£
Three months, I think. I had everything planned, but the character was so emotionally draining and so psychotic I needed a break. I can only be in the head of the serial killer for so long. This isn't āThe Cell.ā
2011-2023, so twelve years. never put it up on a fanfic site though until i came back to it in 2023, so no apology necessary.
I hated a fic I was writing because I posted the first few chapters with no plan, and it was just stressing me out every time I tried to figure out what to do with it next. But it was actually kind of popular so it sat in my mind for a good FOUR YEARS before I forced myself to write a few more chapters and end it properly. In my notes, I wrote I was sorry, but I really just freaking hated the fic and that's why it took me so long to finish lol. I still worked hard to make a good ending for it, though. And the few return readers from four years earlier were happy with it, so at least there was that satisfaction I could get out of finishing it.
I have a TWD/SPN crossover longfic that I've had going since before JDM was announced as Negan. Over a decade now, I'm sure. I had a 5 or 7 year hiatus. My apology was a brief AN for the reasons: multiple health issues, and I had to re-teach myself how to walk, read, & write. Even once I technically *could*, it wasn't good enough to share, so I waited until I felt like I was producing good quality again. Unfortunately, I lost even my devoted readers who read & commented every chapter. My updates are still annoyingly slow, so I understand, but I'm still trucking along!
Technically something like six years since an edit, seven or eight years since an update? But at that time I considered the works in question abandoned. After that, I went back to them, and one is now finished, and the other has over 30 new chapters. Since that big gap, I'd say about eight months tops, though I try to update quarterly at the very worst
Lack of interest. Both in writing it and from the lack of an audience. Can really do a number on your motivation
I was getting underway for a fic that's been hanging for 3 years, and the last chapter had an apology for taking a year. I've already lost momentum on the next chapter so who knows when it'll actually happen.
This thread reminds me of the Loveless manga it's been ongoing since 2003 because the author keeps taking forever which is funny since the Manga is basically a fanfic of a sad cat boy doodle
Thankfully only 1 year, not adding in my abandoned fics that I wrote since 2011 lol But yeah, my apology was basically I finally changed from anti-depressants to anti-psychotics which made me so much better lol I've been updating regularly after that, so grateful to modern medicine ā„ļø
yeah i went from a once a week upload schedule to a consistent biyearly upload schedule š shoutout to those who stuck with it though, itās been 7 months though so ig iām making my loyal readers wait a little longer for the last installment
I have not touched my BTS sickfic since I was in like high school which has been more than 4 years mostly because I was dealing with COVID happening when I first started it then life just got busy especially cuz I'm now in college I barely have enough time to write as it is like I have ideas that I want to write down but I've also also been working on other stuff and other fandoms So I'm getting around to it I actually touched that fanfiction the first time last week because I was rereading it and realized there was a pretty bad spelling error that made the sentence it was in absolutely horrid
It's been a month and a half. I had some OOC moments and I beat myself up about them and haven't returned ever since because of lack of energy and shame.
10 years. It was never posted, thankfully, so I didnāt have to write an apology. It was my first multi-chapter led fic and I ended up losing the whole thing when my flashdrive broke. Years later, I used the ideas to rewrite it into a darker version and as a one-shot.
I wrote my first fic 8 years ago. Wrote it for two days, never finished it. Never aim to. No apology cause nobody knows. It's in my old notebook, rotting away in some quiet, dark corner of my cupboard. I was 7.
Uh well, it's a long kinda fic which I started back in 2021... back then, I thought of updating it but life happened (I still have the continuation for it in my docs) but now, I lost the spark of writing for my main ship. I'd still read fics about them, but writing for them? *Shrugs* anyway...I truly don't know when I'd get the spark again for them and eventually continue my writing for them.
11 years for me. I just got busy with life, and I sort of grew out of the fandom during that time. Got into other shows I wrote more for and interested me. Then I realized 11 years had passed since I updated the story, cranked out the last 2 chapters to finish it up and posted them. I probably apologized, but I can't quite remember at the moment. I was just relieved I finally finished it.
I honestly didn't know how to plot the story, like initially all the things my character does to start a magic ritual fails, because I planned on it never working. Also like I was in the middle of signing up in the army. ....I did write 2-4 chapters in my Notebook. I was really and I mean obsessed with the ship and this smoking hot romantic partner my mc was GUNNA fall in love with. I DIDNT MEANT FOR IT TO BE FOUR YEARS ALR. Also, the only time it was still working and I was active was when I was chatting about ideas in a mutuals server in their story channel. Well, guess what? After getting booted with no chance of redemption pretty much all my ideas have been...dry. like who do I even talk to about my fandom and ideas? And getting past the initial hurt I felt and anger.
Probably a year or soā¦like I want so badly to finish them, but my mind is likeā¦.emptyā¦.so yeah not going so well. At least I can say I have some completed fics in my roster, which hopefully those that read my fics can appreciate and enjoy. As much as Iād love readers suggestions/advice/feedback of my WIP (especially year or so long), I get why theyād venture away to other authors.
3 years. Didn't even give the poor buggers a good apology either. Came back and posted the next two chapters and then just kept updating sporadically. Readers were pretty cool with it. I feel like most people understand.
*Glances guiltily at that one fic I swore Iād get back to mid 2021 after coming off an 8 month hiatus only to not update again* I *swear* I will finish it. Eventually. At some point. Hopefully before I graduate college. Maybeā¦
At this point like year and a half. I reached some milestones in my long fic and several things happened (I fell out of love of the pairing that just had their first kiss, I realized I was always in love with the pairing that are frenemies in the fic but just made peace, and itās a kind of a plateau moment before things get very busy again). Iām trying to get the new chapter out before the 2 yrs milestone.
I need to write the last 2 chapters of my longfic and I last uploaded in October 2022 I kinda lost motivation and think about rewriting the whole thing but I know I'll never do that so maybe just leave it as it is? Idk I put it as private on ao3 months ago and a few days ago someone asked in the comments of another fic where it went and now I think I should continue
3-4 years? No apology. I cranked out 11 chapters in less than a week and posted them all at once lol. I had stopped writing during college from just stress and lack of time so it wasn't really anything I thought to share
This comes timely - I am about to start writing anew for a long fic I started in 2012 and last updated in 2018! 6 years is a lot, I havenāt written any āwell Iām back!ā yet, but I plan not to have it very long winded and thank everyone for reading and enjoying the story.
5 years, I didnāt apologize lol.
I "finished" a fanfic in 2018, it's not actually finished because I want to rewrite it and add more to the story, but I didn't touch it since-
I wrote a pair of House MD fics back in 2010, and prior to picking them up again, I hadn't updated them since 2011. I picked one up last year for April Camp NaNoWriMo and finished it, so I picked up the other (still working on it). Basically a lot of words to say...12 years. My apology: "I apologize for leaving this hanging for so long. I've been far removed from the House fandom and have been writing for other fandoms. I had an idea similar to this one for an Emergency! fic and thought, well, maybe I should just finish THIS one first."
10 years ago I started a fic on Livejournal, stopped writing it, and forgot about it. Last year I found the fic in my drafts and was like āactually this is good and deserves to be finished.ā The community where I originally posted is dead now, so I doubt anyone who read it originally would even see it, but Iām currently rewriting and finishing the fic before putting it on Ao3. It will end up being my longest fic Iāve ever written once Iām done with it. I have about two chapters left to write.
17 years. And yes, I finished it.
By mid next month my primary fic will have been untouched for a year and my secondary has arguably either already hit that mark or is swiftly approaching. The reasons being a mix of writer's block and lack of motivation due to IRL events, mainly just being exhausted from work. I've been steadily trying to update both and/or get a few oneshots out but all to no avail. Got so bad I dropped out of two fandom events I was looking forward to.
The longest a fic went dormant and was still eventually updated was around three years. The longest a fic went untouched, still hasn't been updated to this day, but is legitimately one I'd like to get back to one day is around 13.5 years.
Untouched as in not even trying to write it? I've never done that. Untouched as in trying but failing to write it and so not updated in ages? Nearly 2 years, due to a mix of writer's block and writing myself into a bit of a corner. It took me writing a one-shot, completely different to the chaptered fic for all it uses one of the same fandoms and one of the same MCs, to get back on track. I didn't include an apology, though. Probably should have, I had a couple readers who always commented. I was just too excited to post the new chapter I'd *finally* written, and on a role with the rest of the fic, that adding a little apology AN completely slipped my mind.
Four years. My way of apologizing was having the rest of the story finished before I started posting it again so I wouldnāt return just to leave them hanging again lol
I left my oneshot collection fic last updated in June last year... Should probably go back and write a new oneshot for it
Left a chaptered fic untouched for a little over a year due to depression and self-doubt. Thatās back when I was trying to play the numbers game and no matter how much I promoted the story, it wasnāt getting the hits I wanted and it made me doubt myself. That, coupled with some personal IRL stuff made me take a pause from writing as a whole.Ā Finally revisiting that story now that I have a healthier relationship with my writing, gave a middle finger to the numbers game, and am doing better mentally. For my apology I simply said āletās pretend it hasnāt been a year and some change xDā and thanked folks for sticking with the story. Got a new chapter done, already working on the next, as well as got an outline together for how the story is gonna end. :)
Depends. There's a fic I've left untouched for nearly two years now, because of writer's block and also because something unexpected grabbed my attention just as I published the latest chapter. I do plan on trying to go back and wrap the whole thing up at some point, now that I finally seem to have gotten my drive back. On the flip side, there's a fic I wrote for a fandom I'm no longer in that hasn't been updated in six years. I have no plans to revisit it.
7 Months on a fic I'm currently working on (currently 5 months for the next chapter I'm working on). And a year and 7 months on another fic I'm working on. I'm trying to update sooner, though I have a lot of wips :')
This thread is definitely reminding of how old I am š and how inclined I am to abandon fics
Two years and going strong I kinda lost interest and also the main character died IRL, so it felt wrong to keep writing it. I have so much plot for this fic, I canāt just cancel it, but Iām also not sure how to start writing it again
Only about 3 months now, I posted about 4 chapters in the same month and am having trouble writing the next one, its about halfway done now
Well... The longest was probably.... Wait SHIT I FORGOT ABOUT MY WATTPAD ACCOUNT.... That's probably like... A year and a half right there.
a once upon a time fic I wrote in 2020, I had already wrote half of the story before I published the first chapter so I posted a chapter 2 times a week. Then a month later I got bored of the show, was out of writen chapter, and didnt wanna write now ones so I just left it so thats now almost 4 years ago
Not a fiction, but OG. 10 years. I finished it and it felt so good! It's never too late ;)
I think I havenāt updated my oldest one in 5 years and I donāt plan on doing that. Back when I was in that fandom I was still in hs, I had a different perspective that now doesnāt really correspond with my current beliefs so I just let it rot in the depths of my tumblr
I don't know about years but I do know that I stop writing them for one of two reasons, 1 I just lose steam or 2 I get stuck on how to proceed
Over a month because I was busy at work and stuck on the chapter. I was struggling with finding the right words. I didnāt apologise in the notes
At least 3 years, maybe 5. Was out of energy for anything creative.
2 years. The fanfic itself is 6, I believe so I jokingly said āsee you in two yearsā after posting my last chapterā¦ about 2 years ago.
It's been over a year now (only been writing since 2022) and my latest comment was "are you there god? It's me Fiona ITS ME FIONAAA" which made me laugh lol Reason: it's only 3 chapters left and I already know how it ends so on a mental level, to me, it's done already. I kinda keep forgetting the story isn't resolved for everyone else š
A good few years, TBH Iāve started doing it with a lot of fics. Mostly because of my part time job and adulting. But the more people pester and demand I update the less I want to. I leave a brief explanation in authors notes. But yeah, toxic fandom members really ruin any love I have for the stories