highadrenalineexchange

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I completed my first Heart Attack last year! Some things I found helpful:

During and after signups, look at the offers you may be matchable to. Jot down any ideas you might have. For me, this also helped me refine my signup - I thought I could write A/B, but when scrolling through requests for it I realized I really wanted to read A/B but wasn't comfortable writing it. It might save you the pain of matching on something only to realize you have no ideas or aren't comfortable writing for it.

Pay attention to people's safety fandoms. Some of them might be media you've meant to consume but have put off for whatever reason. This is your reason now to consume it (and can also be done during signups!).

Be aware of your own tendencies as far as underwriting/overwriting. I'm a chronic overwriter (something I think will take 10k words actually takes 15k) and with such a tight time limit I needed to be aware of that so I didn't accidentally bite off more than I could chew (ex: I knew my "little 20k idea" was actually going to be 30k, and I could not write 30k in 14 days, so I picked a different idea). Conversely, you don't want to aim right for the 10k word mark only to have written 8k with no idea how to squeeze the extra 2k out of the story.

Similarly, be aware of your own process and figure out how that's going to be spaced across the creation period. I always need to let ideas sit for a few days before they feel "ready" to write, so I didn't schedule myself to start writing until four days after I received my assignment (and knew that meant I would be writing more words per day on the other days).

On scheduling: look at your schedule outside of fic writing. Are you actually going to have time to write 10k words, or have you scheduled a bat mitzvah, wedding, and job interview in the two weeks HA is going to be running? There is no shame in not signing up. Even if your schedule looks wide open, I found it helpful to set aside specific writing time in case I got last minute invitations to coffee/dinner/whatever.