Hello! This will be a special post on behind-the-scenes (BTS) for my stories. I always have a lot to say about my stories and end up leaving long author notes but I hate annoying people with my rants ;_;

2017 had been a huge milestone in my short history as an author. I wrote a lot of things throughout my 22 years of life; poems, short stories, essays and even attempted to write a novel or two (I was too greedy when I was much younger, now I think with a clearer mind and more realistic goal, taking one step at a time).

A lot of incidents happen throughout all of these and at one point of my life, I gave up on writing for a few years. I think it was sometime between 2013-2015 when I didn’t write a single story or poems or anything. I was too scared to write something, to be judged and criticized. And if you’ve read one of my stories, Star, I’ve said in my author notes that it was roughly inspired by my own experiences and one of them was me being told I’m not creative enough by one of the people I really love and look up too. It left a nasty scar on my confidence since (I think you can tell by now) I have a low self-esteem about a lot of things.

I’m super grateful for the people who commented and said they like my stories, for those who upvoted and even those who took their time in reading my stories. Thank you for your opinions and support, for energizing me to do what I love. I especially love those that shared their own experiences and feelings in the comments in response to my stories since I got to know that I wasn’t only writing these stories for myself, instead I struck a chord in some people’s hearts as well.

This BTS thing is mostly for myself, so that I won’t forget. I’ll share my experience and emotions while writing the stories and if you find something that interest you or you’re able to learn something from these BTS, I’ll be honoured. Without further ado now, I’ll start.

 

Encounter (18^th February 2017 – 29^th March 2017)

The first line in the story, ‘Shopping with her…’ described exactly what I was doing when I was writing it. I was being dragged around in a shopping mall and I was bored out of my mind. I took out my phone, wrote the first line without any real plot in mind and started writing.

Oh wait, maybe I was thinking what would happen if I see my ex at the mall during the time, LOL.

I never planned on posting the story. It was something I wrote on a whim and it was full of overdramatic moments (Joy taking Wendy to run away to Canada. REALLY PAST ME???) but I showed it to my other half, the best part of me aka Minty and she suggested that I post it, since I’d already been posting some stories about Sunny x OC anyway. After some editing and plot revising, the story was posted and the responses I received were the reasons I was driven to create more one shots of Wenrene soon after. So thank you, for all of those who were kind enough to leave your thoughts and encouraged me to write.

The story was also where I first got to meet my first AFF friend (waves, hi Shu) and…to be honest it’s still not completed LOL. I mean, it’s finished, but I still have an epilogue planned for it and I had most of the plot for the epilogue figured out and was planning to post it on Christmas Day 2017, but life happened and I didn’t get to finish it. I’m definitely going to post the epilogue though. So if you love the story, stay tuned!

 

Two Worlds (31^st March 2017 - ??)

My Sunny x OC story T.T I COULD HAVE SWORN I’VE WRITTEN THE ENDING DOWN AND EVERYTHING BUT EVERYTHING DISAPPEARED AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO T.T Will it stay as unfinished story? I don’t know. Maybe one day, I’ll find enough motivation to finish it but until then….I shall suffer a little bit inside every time I see that story among my stories….

Fun fact, the original title wasn’t Two Worlds but I’m not gonna say what’s the real title here, it’s kinda embarrassing.

 

Take Care of Yourself For Me (28^th April 2017)

I know I wrote this fic, but it’s one of my favourites among my collection and I love it so much I reread it so many times.

This story was started so randomly because one of my friends found out I wrote fanfics one day while we were having lunch at Kenny Roger’s Chicken and she requested me to write something for her, an angst if I may, since she loved angst. She gave the same prompt to me and Minty actually and I wrote one for gxg and Minty wrote one for bxb. The prompt was hanahaki and see…my brain came up with this. I wrote this in one sitting as I was super stressed about my thesis during this moment and I was so done with it, I decided to change genre and wrote fanfic instead of academic writing. At the end of the day, I made my friend happy (read: sad) from the completion of her prompt and finished my thesis for graduation so all’s good, yay!

I remembered typing away at night with ideas just flowing so easily…wow. How I wish all of my stories could be this easy. Alas.

This was the story that earned me enough karma to change my AFF username lol, since I was exposing myself with my previous username.

 

Petty but Pretty (6^th June 2017 – 2^nd September 2017)

The prompt for this story was ‘Yeri’s girlfriend’s cousin is her ex.’ I’m pretty sure I found the prompt somewhere in the vast internet but I can’t remember where so yeah. I rushed and finished this story a day before Sooyoung’s birthday because I wanted to put something up for her birthday. I love Park Sooyoung and I cannot lie.

I like this story as well since it’s more lighthearted than a lot of my stories and also KIM SAERON. SAERI. They’re my babies and I love them so much T.T I wanna write more about them but WenRene is my first priority and to be honest…I don’t really get inspired by SaeRi. I do love love love their interactions though. Hopefully in the future, I can write more about them again. (pstt, I already have something planned. If we’re all lucky, maybe I’ll post it up this year. Maybe.)

 

Star (22^nd May 2017 – 18^th June 2017)

Ah, this story is heavy. It felt too dark for me that I just removed it from my one shots collection, because I don’t want people to be triggered by it although the dark sides of the story weren’t mentioned very specifically. I’m still scared people would be affected badly though so I did what I had to do.

This was the first time I put so much of myself in a story. It was hard to write and after I finished it, I almost didn’t want to review and edit the story.

And I posted it on the day my own grandfather passed away because I can understand the feeling of loss too well, just like Wendy in the story.

I hope one day I can find a constellation I belong to as well.

 

Wenrene Book of Joy, Bear and Squirtle

Okay the name might sound stupid and I wanted to name it WenRene Book of Joy, Laughter and Tears initially but I replaced it with Bear and Squirtle instead, since Joy is in the title. Remember when RV acted as Inside Out characters in MMA 2015? Yeah…fitting.

I kinda want to rename it? But I’ve also gotten attached to it. A lot of people seem to refer to it as WenRene Book and I find myself liking it more than I thought. Onwards to the first story now. I started it on 11^th May on my birthday and posted my first story on 15^th May. I'm just...obssessed with dates.

 

Fate Condui ( 10^th December 2016 – 5^th April 2017)

This was started under a different title but I honestly can’t remember what was the original title. My memory with this story was the time I had a writer’s block and couldn’t think of  away to proceed when one night, at a hotel room as I was on a trip, I got a rush of ideas and went up from my bed to sit at the cosmetic table with my laptop and just typed away until 2AM+. I still didn’t get to finish it then but I got 2-3 thousands of words in and the whole story just snapped in my mind.

Oh, I got the idea with another AU that I had talked about with Minty for a while (I still haven’t gotten the chance to write down the other AU) and I was really excited for this idea. Precious, younger me :’)

I received positive responses for this story as well and I’m very very glad that people like I, especially since it’s my first story in the Book. It encouraged me to post a lot more stories, moving forward.

I was kinda curious no one asked me what would happen if Irene chose different options but I guess it saved my brain from thinking lol.

 

Between The Lines (8^th May 2017 – 14^th May 2017)

Did I…really wrote this story in less than a week? Wow. Sometimes I look at my stories and wonder if I was the one who wrote it.

I do remember the inspiration for the story though. It was during the time I was super busy with my thesis (again) and I was spending a lot of time between the shelves with Minty, just chatting and looking for the books we need. The literature section in our library was a bit quiet and Minty was toying around with the idea being stuck at the library with Jin…of course I changed it to a wenrene prompt ^^

ALSO. I was doing As You Like It by Shakespeare and I just wanted something to commemorate it. Yay.

 

Rebel With A Cause (25^th April 2017 – 13^th June 2017)

I had no idea what was on my mind while I was writing this story. I don’t even curse. Or drink. Or smoke. Too gross by the idea of . And yet here I am trying to write a tough, badass Wendy (I’m highkey embarrassed lol). I guess I just want to try a new sort of writing? I didn’t really like how it turned out but I’m definitely interested in writing something like this again after I’ve improved my writing skills, a lot (and probably my cursing skills as well.)

 

Someone Else’s Angel (7^th April 2017 – 13^th June 2017)

I could’ve sworn I worked on this fic for much longer…and this fic had no name for a long time until I finally had to choose one before posting it. This is one of my favourite fics too. Minty helped me a lot in brainstorming the fic and to be honest, it was supposed to have an angsty ending but because of her intervention (since she hates angst), I altered the ending to become the way it is. The original ending would be no one ending up with everyone and that’s just too damn sad, although it was probably more realistic. But who read fictions to go back to reality.

The idea kinda began with someone that become friends after breakups, and how hurtful it would be and stuffs. That’s the kind of thing I want to explore in the story and how different people will react differently to their exes.

The JoyGi section was really a nod to ‘Fate Conduit’ when Tiffany suggested to Taeyeon that Tae should make it so that JoyGi woke up together one morning after drinking together all night. What did they do during the time span when they were drunk? I’ll leave that to your imagination.

 

Piece by Piece (2^nd August 2017 – 11^th August 2017)

This, is also one of my favourites.

There were two songs that I listened to over and over again as I was writing the story:

1. G-Dragon – Untitled, 2014
2. Jonghyun feat. Taeyeon – Lonely

Honestly, I’ve been criticized for liking ‘sad songs’ and ‘ballads’ and for generally drowning myself in those sorts of emotions. I can’t deny that, it’s just who I am. Sad songs make me sad but I also find a lot of comfort in these songs, since certain songs will evoke a certain memory and feelings that I get while I was listening to it in some moments in my life. Lyrics touched me greatly too, and a lot of sad songs have lyrics that expresses emotions more deeply and that’s my inspiration for writing the fic. Maybe being a literature student grinds my brain to naturally extract novels, stories, movies and even songs so I find ‘sad songs’ attune well to me as a person.

I think another reason why I wrote the story was because I had just finished a collection of angst and I needed to channel those excess emotions somewhere lol.

Of course, Jonghyun’s song brings another meaning wholly now. Lonely will always be a song that comforts me in so many ways I can’t thank him enough for that.

 

 

In Loving Memory, Us (27^th August 2017 – 15^th September 2017)

Honestly, I have no idea what was my inspiration for this story LOL. I think I wanted to write an angst? So an angsty fic was produced magically. Really, the time taken to write this was a lot shorter than my other fics and I was going through quite a busy period of my life during that time, so I have no idea how I wrote this. The details are kinda blurry now.

I do remember the time I wanted to choose a theme song for the story though. I was frustrated because I could find no other songs that just clicked right away with the story so I randomly opened my music videos folder and saw an MV I didn’t remember downloading and I clicked play.

That was how J-Min’s Alive became the theme song for the story. I believe in fate and I guess it was really fated after all, for me to find the song right when I was writing the story. The song and the story took a toll out of me since everything was so angsty and I was drown in feels for so many days XD

Oh! I mentioned that this is supposed to be a book written by Joohyun right? I actually wrote a few more snippets of extra chapters that I decided to not include in the story because according to my beta, it would disrupt my story flow. But I’m going to put those snippets here now, special for those who are willing to read my long rant :D

Two extra chapters that were supposed to be placed after ‘SM chapter’.

 

Our Date Pictures Were Released (At Least We Looked Good)

Our first date picture that was released to the public served as a warning. In it, I was hugging Wendy’s midriff from the back with my face pressed on her shoulder and the caption of the picture was only mildly provocative. Her face was clear in the picture as she turned around to look at me with a huge grin plastered on her face and there was no doubt that it was a picture of Wendy Son.

The buzzing question in Korea during that time was: ‘Who was that woman to Wendy?’

There were arguments in forums, there were those on Wendy’s side and those who went against her ruthlessly like she had been a brutal murderer in her life. That moment, I remembered not worrying at all about the attacks against me. All I was worried about was how could Wendy cope with everything? And why were people sprouting such sharp lies against my sweet girlfriend?

Wendy took it all like a champion, like she always did. She did not deny accusations about her being homouals, instead her opinion rang loud and clear.

What’s wrong with love? It was between two people, so why did people get so riled up over someone else’s love life?

It did not end well. In less than a week, I saw my own face alongside Wendy’s everywhere. There were those pictures of our foreheads being pressed together, staring deeply into each other’s eyes and there was one, a favourite of mine in which Wendy was smiling as she pressed her lips against my jaw.

The reaction was explosive. We were called sinners, disgusting homouals, two erts and a lot of names but none could deny one thing.

They could not say that we were not in love.

 

Life in Canada (Mixing Up My Annyeong, Bonjour and Hello)

We got kicked out of Korea pretty fast after our pictures went public, not that either of us cared. Wendy had already made arrangements with her parents who were staying in Canada and I was ready to follow Wendy anywhere she went.

Naturally, we chose Canada as our new home and she worked as a vocal teacher here as I enrolled myself in English and French classes. Wendy’s parents love me like one of their own and I got adapted pretty well to the change of lifestyle, surprising even myself. Wendy and I got a house of our own and it became our own little haven as days flew so fast and our love remained, if not grew even bigger from everything we had been through.

Life felt so perfect then and for a split moment, I let my guard down. I thought I deserved to feel that happy after suffering for so long. I was ready to rest and live the rest of my life with Wendy, spending day by day being in love with her for the rest of our lives.

When you let your guard down with life, it would sneak up on you and gave you a nasty surprise.

 

Then There’s You (17^th October 2016 – 12^th November 2017)

As I’ve mentioned, this was the first ever WenRene story I’ve written tada!

 

Through this story, I got runner-up in the first writing contest conducted by WenRene Trash Can (a chatroom which is full of WR h*es – I’m not even insulting, it’s what most of us call ourselves). I even got a prize! And it shall remain a secret hewhewhew.

Honestly, the inspiration for this story was really my crush from my first year until my third year; that’s about 2 years of casual crush. We shared a few classes together and an idea of ‘what if’ came to mind…and I never finished the story until I had to do it for the competition, lol.

 

Long Live the Queen (4^th May 2017 – 3^rd December 2017)

The story is long right?

It was supposed to be much longer. But because I was busy doing so many other projects in between, I forgot what else I wanted to include here LOL. I’m rereading this story as I’m typing this and I feel a bit regretful, since the timeline is a bit botched and there are moments that I just remembered. Alas, I’m not going to make a huge change to it.

I kinda rushed through the story because I had to stage a Shakespeare play a few days before I planned on posting it and I wanted it to be a birthday gift for Kim (Godna) since she was supporting me to write renaissance AU so much because she likes it. She might have shat on me a bit for not making it a floof ending BUT EH. I started the story knowing what kind of ending I wanted to have – and I didn’t even know how it would get there.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Slinky for being my reviewer and beta. I usually beta my stories myself (although my grammar isn’t the best out there, it’s pretty passable). It’s my storylines that I worry most. Whether it’s interesting, whether it touches people’s hearts, if it makes you happy or sad, stuffs like that. Slinky reviewed the story for me AND helped me to correct some of my glaring mistakes which saved me a lot of time in editing (are all Californian girls as pretty and nice as she is? ;_;)

Tbh I haven’t finished editing the story yet. I still find some mistakes here and there but I’ll do the editing slowly. Maybe next year when you come back, you’ll find lesser mistakes than you did this year. Who knows, lol.

Anyway if the timeline confuses you a bit, the story starts when all of them are in their 20s, and ends when they’re in their 60s. Wendy and Irene managed to stay together for roughly 10 years before Wendy eloped with Bogum. Well, not really eloped, it was more complicated but yeah. I imagine the young Irene would’ve felt betrayed when she did not know the full story – her best friend and her beloved getting married! How long had they been cheating behind her back? Thank god for Wendy’s family who cleared her name and told Irene the whole story T.T

Also, if you’re wondering why Wendy is able to have kids with Bogum if she’s in love with Irene…it’s to save her too. If they have no child, Wendy’s womanhood would be belittled during the time and producing heir, especially for someone of royal line was very important. Bogum and Wendy genuinely loved each other, though they both knew it would never measure up to what WenRene had. In the end…Wendy was selfless till the end in the story although all she wanted was to be with Irene.

(Wtf all these infos are making me sad as well, why did I write the story in the first place.)

This was greatly inspired by Queen Elizabeth I (Irene being imprisoned, her cousin rebelling against her, her father killed her mother, she being a queen at 25 and died in her 60s etc) but I took liberty in switching the period of war between England and Spain and of course, her…relationship and the reason why she was known as the Maiden Queen. Ahem. I would suggest you to read the whole story of Elizabeth I, it’s very interesting and while some say the stories have been vastly exaggerated, maybe even fabricated, it’s still not wrong to make someone out of the stories as your role model (she’s mine and I blame it all on all the Shakespeare digging I had to do during my thesis era).

Some quotes from my research that I really like that I semi-included/wish I could include in the story:

“What will my enemies not say, that for the safety of her life a maiden queen could be content to spill the blood even of her own kinswoman?”

"I have the body of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a King of England too."

There is no jewel, be it of never so high a price, which I set before this jewel; I mean your love.

 

That’s it for my 2017 rant. It’s the end of January and I haven’t posted anything yet lol but I’m working on several stories right now. Also I’ve been getting so many angsty dreams lately ;_; Should I incorporate those in my stories as well? My dreams were so vivid and I remember the weirdest details.