I honestly just love writing. It’s a fun pastime and I’ve been doing it for years. Although, another big reason is that I adore reading about other people’s OCs. There’s something really nice about getting to know another person’s character.
It’s rarely happened that I’ve visited the places I write about. At least, outside of my country. I was in an rp set in Italy, once, and it just really made me want to travel.
I think it’s perfectly fine to have an OC you never role play with. Having an original character doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to use them for anything. Sometimes it’s just fun to make them.
Worst experience was years ago, when I had just started writing. Encountered a partner (and their character) who didn’t actually want me to write my own character. They just wanted me to write a world where their OC was famous, practically worshipped, and that was it. Like, I was supposed to...
I don’t do anything too out of the ordinary. In order to not lose my work by accident, I generally write in google docs first. It also helps me to catch typos. Then I just copy and paste it over to here or wherever. Sometimes I change the font type of my text, but that’s about it.