late night writing blather

So I legit had a dream last night that for some reason involved working out a plot snag on Queen's Gambit, and woke up and grabbed my laptop and started writing. (So I...incepted myself? I suppose that's fitting.) And while this hasn't been my most productive day ever, it did end up with several thousand more words written, and I'm only like two or three not-terribly-long scenes away from finishing the next chapter. Except now I'm having all kinds of weird self-conscious feelings about the fact that it's been nearly a year since I updated that fic, and nobody wants to read it anymore, and how the way I've broken up the next couple of chapters means that I'm banking everything on the hope that the handful of people who might actually still be reading are somewhat invested in Alex, because there is basically no Charles or Erik in this chapter at all, and ugh of course no one likes this fic as much as Boden's Mate because really the central character arcs belong to Raven and Alex, neither of whom are terribly popular characters in this fandom, and by now my brain is in some kind of weird awful feedback loop of fail.

In conclusion, this is a pretty good summary of why I haven't updated Queen's Gambit in close to a year. Um, that and the whole MASSIVE SERIES OF UPHEAVALS that have been the past ten months of my life, but yeah.

But I am only 2k words or so away from having the next chapter ready for beta. And for the record, Cain Marko's head is not a fun place to visit.