Things I have learned while essentially writing a novel (Atlas):

1. Subplots are hard, especially ones centered around relationships, not action.
2. Pacing is hard in a fic that spans a year, not a few days or even a few hours (which is most of my fics).
3. Editing is even harder. This fic should be 30% tighter than it is.
4. OCs are fun.
5. I really like writing about food.
6. I really like writing about gender.
7. Many more people are into reading scenes from the submissive masochist POV than the dominant sadist POV (at least that I can infer from readership and Ao3 tags). Personal theory: because there's so much moral ~stuff in being a sadist that there isn't in being a masochist, people don't want to entertain the idea that they could have a sadistic streak, and the popular idea of sadists being dirtybadwrong psychopaths instead of (in my experience) kink dorks who get really! excited! about toys and techniques colors the fic that people write and want to read. (Not that there isn't something appealing in dirtybadwrong sometimes, but that's not representative of sadism as a whole.)
8. I HAVE A LOT OF SADISM FEELINGS OK?
9. Did I mention editing is hard?

Okay, I give up. There is no way on Earth that my lgbtfest entry will be ready by midnight. I don't know when, exactly, the tiny tense Mary/OFC fic that I was writing grew into a freaking novella - 4000 words before OFC is even introduced! 1000-word scenes! This never happens to me! - but it did, and it's going to take it's sweet time finishing, and drive me insane in the meantime.

(I suspect a lot of my irritation with this fic has a lot to do with the fact that I'm writing about a bunch of things that I know nothing about, like "guns", and "how to fix cars" when I don't even know how to drive. And babies. I'll admit I'm relying on thefourthvine's Earthling posts to an embarrassing degree, since I don't know a ten-month-old baby from a newborn from a potato! Thank god for babysitting; at least I have a vague idea of what five-year-olds are like.)

everysecondtuesday, it may... er, be a while before I get back your Mary/Ruby. BUT IT WILL HAPPEN. (My track record this year notwithstanding.)