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soidiallednine · 4 years

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Wordplay 2020 Meme

1. How did you come up with your ideas for the fics? Can you take us through your process after receiving the first prompt?

So, originally I was going to write a new fic for each prompt. When we got the first prompt, it fit so well with an idea I already had that I couldn’t not write that idea. But I immediately started intensely stressing because I knew that it would be a plot heavy fic that I could not possibly finish in a week. Luckily, my beta suggested writing one fic broken up over the 5 weeks. I think that worked for the particular fic I had in mind. And it sounded like fun to have to try to work the other prompts, which I knew wouldn’t be so on point, into the fic.

2. What is your favorite fic you wrote for Wordplay this year?

I think my favorite part of the fic, since it’s all one fic (that’s not even finished yet lol), was part 2, for bronze (Under a Bronze Moon). I initially struggled to figure out what to do with the prompt, but I was really happy with where I ended up. And I think in the end that part was a good balance of humor and angst and connecting between the pair. I needed to give them an obstacle to solve together so that they’d bond, and I needed to give Harry a key role in the solution to balance how in control Louis had been in part 1. I hope I achieved getting them on more even footing in that part.

3. If you’ve previous participated in previous years of Wordplay, what has been your favorite prompt from all the years you participated in?

I was a newbie to Wordplay! (And fic writing -- other than a drabble for the Halloween fest last year, this was my first fic.)

4. What was the shortest fic you write? The longest?

The shortest part was Mistaken for Sinners at about 5600 words, and the longest part was Under a Bronze Moon at 8200. I’m not surprised that Mistaken for Sinners was so short -- I didn’t start until Sunday night. That week got away from me and what I ended up with was not what I had intended. I hope the section worked to develop their relationship, but much of part 4 was meant to have been included in part 3. If I had done that, I would have finished the fic in 5 parts and not had a last part hanging out there to still be finished. I had intended to have about 5 10,000-word parts, but I now realize that I don’t have the experience yet to predict either how long it will take me to write something or how many words it will take.

5. What fic of yours surprised you?

Again, I think this is Under a Bronze Moon. I was struggling a bit with the prompt and the story that Louis tells came to me totally out of the blue well into my writing process. I think it worked well and it was not at all what I had intended going into writing that part.

6. Were there any prompts you struggled to find an idea for?

Shot. Since I always had the outline of the plot of my fic in mind, I knew what needed to happen in that part, but I really couldn’t figure out how to work in “shot.” I initially had this elaborate metaphor going on and scrapped it because it was just so artificial. (And my beta rightly pointed out that it was just too much). I’m still not happy with what I ended up with. I feel like a Chopped contestant who just threw a basket ingredient on as garnish, but alas. Next year, assuming there is another Wordplay, I am going to try separate fics, in part because sometimes all you can come up with for a prompt doesn’t fit the story of a longer fic.

7. Were there any prompts you had an idea for but ended up with something different? If so, what made you choose to change what you write? Do you think you’ll ever write your original idea at a later date?

The biggest change to the plot of the story I already had in mind that happened due to the prompts was a more fleshed out story of Harry being jealous, especially at the part in part 5. And that this jealousy would spur them into finally getting together. The “board” prompt, though, inspired a different idea about how their relationship would evolve. Plus, much of the work for the jealousy angle would have been in part 4 had what ended up being parts 3 and 4 been a part 3. There didn’t end up being room for it in the end. It would be fun to write jealous Harry someday, absolutely. Hopefully, I’ll return to it.

8. What do you think was the most difficult as well as the easiest part about the Wordplay Challenge?

I think the most difficult, for me, was meeting the deadline each week. And I didn’t for week 5, lol. I went in to it thinking I would appreciate the structure, but quickly realized that the structure just gave me anxiety. And when I get anxious, I procrastinate. I think if I had been doing separate fics, I would have put less stress on myself because one week could have been a short fluffy fic and the next something longer or whatever. Instead, I felt the pressure of putting out a WIP that was coherent, interesting, and stuck to the deadlines as much as possible. I think the easiest was how much the prompts made me think hard about my story and what I was writing. I really think they helped inspire my ideas to be better than they otherwise would have been, especially for a first-time fic writer.

9. If you participate again next year, is there anything you’ll do differently? If so, what?

Yep. Write separate fics. It’ll be a different challenge that way, I think.

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peachymess · 5 years

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The lawyer update

Well, as some of you probably saw, I had a little vent session a few days ago, about a lawyer. The most keen of you may already know I got a lawyer for something in October last year - but I suppose it’s an open secret to most of you, so I’ll just start from the top.

I’m a long time mentall health struggler, and due to this, I have ended up needing welfare for the time being. The plan is to build a solid foundation to stand and grow on. I can’t focus on recovery before my life has stability. And that’s what I’ve been working on. I went through a several years long process of applying for this and that - only to be ALLOWED to apply for welfare. It was made clear to me that it was not a matter of “if”, but “when”. I talked to my case worker about getting a loan to get a permanent apartment (moving once a year has really worn me out over the years and keeps me uprooted), and she told me it seemed like the natural progression. Long story short, I got a loan from the bank based on what I would get from welfare - AHEAD of actually GETTING welfare (yes, that is how confident my caseworker, psychologist and bank were that I’d get welfare; after all, I meet every criteria and then some)... and then I finally get my answer. I am granted welfare! Hooray! And they agree I’m 100% in need (you can be granted different %s based on how well/non-functioning you are. They gave me 100%, meaning they absolutely agree that I do not function well enough to maintain any kind of self-sustainable income.

HOWEVER... I am eligible for “young welfare” as well - basically a slightly heightened income, granted younger people on welfare. This is the same as regular welfare, just an extra 1.5k a year or so, since you tend to be sitting on less at the time of falling ill, if you fall ill early in your life. This is for people who fell ill before turned 26 and who are still “young” - criterias I meet. The only difference in criteria from young to regular, is that they are generally stricter with “young”; you have to be “like super seriously” ill, not just legitemately ill.

The loan I got at the bank was based on the income I’d get including the “young” bonus (that I was told I’d get because I am exactly the kind of person this kind of thing was created for)... but in the same letter as where they told me they’d granted me 100% welfare, they also told me they’d be denying me the young bonus. Because, and I (loosely, from memory) quote: “although we do not contest that you feel like your illness is hard to bear, we do not see that it affects you in your day to day life”. This is absolutely laughable to absolutely everyone involved, except them. I am definitely affected (as they even agree themselves, giving me full welfare). I won’t go into detail to prove I’m affected, because this is not about me defending my claim as ill because the base of this post is that I AM ill, and thus what the process has been to claim the help I need because of it. But let’s just say: I am ill, and my life consists mainly of just managing this illness. Not only did they ask me to write a several pages long essay on my day to day, in one evening, knowing full well it would be a mental strain on me, but then they proceed to not take it into consideration. I didnt know whether to laugh or to cry (- so I did both, lol). I have an inkling that they deny people young bonus on their first application because it’s more money out of their pocket to say yes, and because ill people don’t have the energy to do all the paperwork needed to complain. Not to mention, in addition to the bonus, if you are granted young welfare, they are supposed to reimburse you for the time between applying and being accepted too (which often takes up to 8 months) - and in some instances, from the time you fell ill, which in my case can potentially be a lot of money give the fact that I “fell ill” a long time ago and only gradually got worse so nobody quite knows where to pinpoint the start. But whatever, irrelevant, because I wasn’t granted young bonus anyways. Cute. I’m sure it’s got nothing to do with that.

Anyways, because of my situation, I was eligible for free justice aid. Which nobody, of course, informs you about because they don’t want you to know. But my mother stumbled accross a story about something similar to mine and so she contacted a firm and they said yep send that sucker over and we’ll help. So I got a mail from them saying I had the right to their help for free (save a 150 fee + the cost of them getting all my records from doctors, about 250USD in the end) so I signed and they set off to work... or so I thought. This was in October. I only had 30 days to send in my complaint to get a second review from the welfare guys - and the lawyers did indeed send in a letter telling them that a further complaint letter would be sent. But in November my lawyer told me she had gotten all my records and would need a few weeks to read through them... then she went silent until mid- March. Count your fingers, guys. Start of October till mid March is half a year. Minus the month she used to get all my records, she’s been leaving me on read for 5 months while my deadline for complaining ran out early November.

After calling her and mailing her a lot, she finally sent me a mail telling me she was sorry and that she had been home with sick kids and been sick herself. And you know. That’s fine. But not for half a year. Either 1. She took a sick leave, at which case she should have notificed me and/or assigned me to one of the others in the team, or 2. She didn’t transfer me because she didn’t take sickleave, in which case she should have been able to find the time to send a single mail updating me on why it was taking half a year.

In either case, thanks a lot for half a year of extra worry (why wont she answer? What if they won’t accept the complaint now since it’s been so long? What if she’s just gonna screw me over?). But whatever. What had me choking earlier this week, was that - after finally communicating with me again in March and promising to have the job done “this week” two weeks in a row - she contacted me again week 3, fishing about my job (the one I do for about 5 hours once a week and struggle to handle) until she had enough details to tell me that “oh that’s too bad, you don’t meet the requirements for rights to free justice aid now. So, you’ll have to pay me for the work I’ve done this half a year, and either do the rest of the job yourself, or keep paying me for my work going forward on top of what you owe me so I can complete the job - of which the majority still remains”. 1. I don’t have the money to pay her for half a year of jack shit. 2. If I don’t also then continue to pay her for the job I initially hired her for, I won’t win my case and get the money I’m entitled to either and this will have been a major loss, plus I’ll keep struggling to pay down my loan which is too big for me since it was based on higher income.

What’s extra bitter is I JUST blew all my savings on a vacation coming this August and I felt like an absolute ass for having spent what was apparently needed to be a buffer for shit like this, on tickets I can’t return. I had my priorities all wrong, and it made me feel like it was my fault for using my money so wastefully, even if I’ve been saving for years and going hungry a lot for when I run short. How could I complain about money to her or welfare for that matter, when I could spend my savings on a trip? I’m already feeling the consequences of my irresponsible actions and I’ll work to make up for them - however, I am making a consious choice to separate these two matters, as my rights still stand, bad prioritizing not withstanding.

The thing is, she was hired to contest the denial of money aid. She was aware from the getgo that I’d be receiving welfare (and exceed the limit of rights) come November. So she either should have not told me I’d have right to free help because she’d take more than a month to write a counter complaint (at which point my financial situation would change by about 300USD a month, which made all the difference), or she should have done the job within that allotted time. She told me I had this right going in. She did not tell me I needed to remain in the same financial situation throughout the entire case - nor did she tell me she’d use half a year and then some.

Instead of lying down and taking this beating like a dog, I have long since learned that institutions and the likes, will generally not go out of their way to help you. So I stay on my guard at all times, for better or worse. Had I not, I might be dead right now (throwback to that time I was severely siuicid and lost my right to a psychologist out of the blue because I was being transferred from one psychologist to another - que about a year and a half of “end of the rope Peach” writing complaints and making calls and working to deman that help back, I’m still so pissed that they apparently drop deathly ill patients like that; what about those not strong enough to contest this?!).

So I went to tumblr to vent about this shit situation of me suddenly oweing a lawyer an ungodly amount of money for half a year of “work” when I already only barely get by with my too big loan etc. and I was lured into it being told I would NOT have to pay. I found it hard to believe that she didn’t drag the days out just to make me enter into the new financial situation where I just barely exceeded the limit.

But while I vented, I also knew that once I was done blowing some steam, I’d get back on my horse and work until I found a solution. There is no other option. In the meantime, I sent that mail to my mother. She got in contact with my lawyer while I was having a cry, and the lawyer admitted that she didn’t know enough about the stipulations around this particular law/right, so she would send the case to her boss to have a look at.

The day after or so, she got back to us and she said that aha j/k you DO have the right to free justice aid! I’ll get right on the case and have it done within this week or the next!

See, this is the lesson, kids: don’t just lie down and take whatever people throw at you. If I had just said “ok guess I’ll just have to scrape together what I can throughout the year”, I’d have ended up in serious debt to a lawyer I didn’t even owe another penny. I’m not telling you to be difficult in every single instance (don’t become the “I want to speak to your manager about this slightly smaller than average chicken nugget”-woman); pick your battles - but do, indeed, pick some of them. The big ones. Because you don’t always have to accept all the shit you’re being presented with. Sometimes there is something in it for you to put your foot down.

TL;DR: lawyer hired to help me win a case of state withholding money I have the right to, suddenly demands a lot of extra money for her work, which would put me in severe debt. But I said um no and she retracted her demand. Bullet dodged, but oh man the unnecessary stress.

Or: the story of how I have the best mom in the world.

#personal #👍#life is easy #so grateful i live in norway though #i am taken care of after all #it just doesnt come for free; you have to be really god damn strong to be sick

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