2. I think the first scene I wrote was the conversation between Bailey and John and then Roost. I wanted to capture the Dickensonian orphan gang feel and I added a little to the beginning to add context.

9. So many, I write terrible au one shots to deal with my insomnia. There was a version where Mycroft takes John in, one where Sherlock is shrunk, one where Elementary’s Joan Watson was shrunk – I really liked that one, I just couldn’t make the plot do anything. There’s also a version where John fights an alien invasion and one where John is sent to a special school instead of hanging with Sherlock and starts a criminal organization. So, lots. And then of course the first, second, third drafts of chapters.

14. I’d like people to learn that it’s okay to read and enjoy stories about people who love each other. That accepting the awful things about life is not mutually exclusive with optimism.

That languages and codes are some of my favorite things. I’ve always been into secret ciphers and all that puzzle stuff, but I’d been so busy working I’d almost forgotten.

I also had reinforced that creativity grows from a foundation of order and rules. Rules in ciphers are what allow them to be understood, even if the rules are turned in interesting ways. It was a reminder to me that I need to put a few rules in my own life to be creative.

3. Every time Tim looks puggish.

4. The conversation between Mike and John about Bad Davey where Mike says:
“He abducted me to a clothing store and threw furniture at me.”  

I just really love the mental image. 

5. Mainly the middle bits.  I knew the things I wanted to have happen and then had to connect the parts in between.  I struggle with pacing (and self-doubt) is it too fast, too slow?  It was agony some chapters.

11. Writing about people who genuinely, unironically loved each other and were honest about the limitations of their relationships – mostly.  That’s something that’s hard to find in media, people just loving each other honestly.

xxvioletlovexx:

elidyce:

kaitoukitty:

libertarian–princess:

just-shower-thoughts:

Imagine how much historical knowledge wasn’t written down because our ancestors thought: “What idiot isn’t going to know this?”

So ancient Egypt’s best friend basically was called Punt. They traded all kinds of fun stuff with them; ebony, incense, gold, silver, myrrh, leopard skins, baboons for pets… and the Egyptians wrote a lot about the land, the people living there, what their houses looked like, records of trading expeditions to there (like, robust, oceangoing ships with thousands of men); they wrote down everything imaginable about this place… except for where it actually was.

We still to this day have no geographic fix on this ancient empire’s whereabouts, because what idiot wouldn’t know, right?

Until the 1850s British condiment sets came with bottles for oil and vinegar, and three spice containers for salt, pepper and…nobody knows. Potentially mustard, but it’s just a guess because no one ever wrote it down.

And this is why historians love, really love, those incredibly dull people who write in their diary every day about what they wore and what they had for dinner and how many miles away their friend Mr So-And-So’s house is in that one village. Because they are the only ones who *do* write down what was in the third spice jar, how many miles away this now-nonexistent village was and so on. Seriously, the diaries of really dull people are HISTORICAL TREASURES OF OTHERWISE LOST MINUTIAE.

Somewhere out there there is almost certainly a diary that would expose the true contents of that third spice jar because of the one time it was low and this person had to have a quiet word with the butler or something and it was the most interesting thing that happened all week so they wrote it down. And I hope that diary is found someday because now I really want to know.

That’s weirdly heart warming. Like, even if you are incredibly dull and live a normal boring life, you still might be the most interesting person to some historian some day

One of my work friends was put in charge of digitizing the complete journals of this guy who wrote down to which slipper he put on first, I kid you not. It drove her team crazy and they’d sit around sarcastically going I have six eggs left, and I turned left on eighth today, and I had my trousers washed. It was hilarious, but because of this dude they know all about the store clerks near him, and the laundry, and what the lifespan of old timey slippers was.