Hi lovely,

I will definitely go back to it. I need to write it, because it’s important to me.

Here’s the original post about why it’s hard for me to write, for anyone who may be wondering:

https://green-violin-bow.tumblr.com/post/171561208840/some-of-you-read-my-potterstrade-series-if-you

I have been having a lot of plot revelations about it recently. I spent two hours awake in the middle of the night last week because I could see it all dovetailing together beautifully…

…and then I promptly had a crushing panic attack at the prospect of going back into the headspace with Mycroft’s dad.

You see, I may not live at home, but my parents’ situation is ongoing. In order to have any kind of relationship with them – particularly with my Mum – I have to play by my Dad’s rules. I can distance and protect myself to an extent, but the more I do that, the more I leave my Mum alone in an impossible situation. It’s all always there, waiting for me to think too hard about it.

Unfortunately, because we need every penny just now, I also don’t have my therapist (as I did last year, when I was regularly writing Occlumency). I don’t have a safety net to discuss my feelings about my Dad when it all gets too much. And it often gets too much, writing this story.

For the story, there are options. I can essentially strip out the stuff about Mycroft’s dad. Originally, when I wrote Butterbeer, this was meant to be a light Potterstrade fluff series. There’s no reason it couldn’t be again, I guess – and sometimes I think it might be easiest to do that. Just have Greg and Myc face the normal magical monsters of Hogwarts life, and ignore the problems of Mycroft’s childhood.

I don’t know – maybe I’ll end up having to finish the story that way. I’d like, instead, to write the version where Mycroft faces ‘the demons beneath the roads we walk’ and starts to heal. I’d like to give him at eighteen what I started to find at twenty-nine. But I’ll have to work out what I can face.

Thank you for asking 💜💕💙