if you would be so kind as to reblog this if you feel insecure about your writing skills.
(via thessalian)
(via adaamparrrish)
Writing is zipping along through six pages in under an hour and then getting stuck on a single transition sentence for three weeks.
when the fuck did this get notes
While you were pondering over the transition sentence
(via shakeskp)
the first 200.
see also: I can’t quiet my thoughts enough to be legitimately productive, so here are 200-odd words of unedited shit from the 3 different projects I am currently juggling. I have probably posted at least one of these before, but I am incapable of looking up my posts right now. SORRY.
Back when I was brave enough to query agents, the general advice was that the first 250 words of a story could make or break a project’s chances. 250 was the difference between a request and insta-trash—-it was the space in which an agent could decide whether to reject you or request a little more of the story for consideration.
I haven’t had a project worth querying in … 6? 7? years, but that advice sticks with me, and when I run aground all I can do is count to 250 over and over and over again. It’s as soothing as it is maddening.
These beginnings have a helluva long way to go before they can entice anyone into committing, but for now the only audience I have is me, and all I do is start and start over, again and again and again.
One day I’d like to learn how to write like an adult; this simplistic style I can’t seem to shake gets depressing after a while.
Oh, oh, we like this very much
Hearing “HELLO” the first time helped me finally frame the initial problems with Monochrome, but the mood it conveys makes it really hard to keep the story focused on the main cast and not the tension between the two background characters, no matter how important those two are to the story itself. This version, though? Oh, oh, it is quite lovely.
me: i feel awful in so many different ways. I have no idea how I’m supposed to cope and process everything that’s happening.
me: turns to my ocs
my ocs: sweats
me: jaws theme
(via theubergrump)
So before Tumblr showed up on my doorstep there was just Twitter ((back when it wasn’t a locked, controlled mess, anyway)), and back then there was a lovely lady named Judith who I was pretty sure was the only person outside of my beta readers who’d actually read The Foxhole Court and given it a chance. She’s since started a small press of her own, which is very exciting, and she invited me to rambleabout Elysium for 500 words or less. So I did very vaguely. I feel like ya’ll’ve heard most of this before, but if anyone is bored you can find it over here.
Also if you guys do the Twitter thing I recommend following her, she is constantly reading & reviewing & reccing new things, and she’s just all around a really cool person. <3
tagged by @exyfexyfoxes
–> go to page 7 of your WIP, count down 7 lines, share 7 lines/sentences, and then tag 7 other writers.
Casper meets me at my bedroom door, arms folded across her chest.
“Betty says go to hell,” I tell her in lieu of hello.
“Vicereine Alexandra,” Casper corrects me, a little dreamily.
I frown at her. “How do you know she has a title?”
Casper’s look is pitying. “It’s how she answers her phone. What’s the point of being a ghost if you can’t spy on people? Rude,” she says, sliding through the door I just tried to close between us. “The yard is still on fire, if you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t wondering.”
@aionwatha, @selurdour, @wasdplz, @mysoulforcoffee ((if your job isn’t eating you alive rn)).. and if you haven’t been tagged by anyone feel free to do it & @ me so I can find you. :O
#Humor literario… estos novelistas, siempre cambiando las cosas
(via coldsaturn)
me: I’ll throw my computer out the window before I ever write again
also me: I can’t wait to write that scene where that thing happens!!!
When you see this, share three random lines from a WIP.
Remember that time we wrote a book about sentient raptors who lived off the coast of Australia and successfully subjugated the country on their first invasion attempt? Haha, good times, so glad we’ve evolved to fictional sports and cannibalistic priests.
Also I’m cheating and doing 2 WIPs because they’re both stalled out til Portland.
E.
She shoos me out from behind the counter with long fingers and longer nails and takes in my outfit with a hooded gaze. “You’ve gained weight. You should probably invest in a bigger skirt.”
“You should probably invest in a cup of No one fucking asked you,” I shoot back. Her slow smirk says she’s unimpressed by my comeback, so I give her a good look at both middle fingers. “Casper says you look fabulous tonight, by the way. She also says you snore.”
That’s enough to take the smile off her face. How the undead can be so prejudiced against the actual dead, I don’t know, but it’s nice knowing even vampires can get the creeps. “How many times must I tell you to keep your ghost out of my room?”
M.
Luciana only once made the mistake of asking “Why?”
One word for too many questions: why had Ale turned on her, why had Jess chosen her over her own coven, why couldn’t Jess have been fast enough to save the part of Luciana that really mattered?
Jess had considered it for only a minute before saying, “Some kids get pinatas and a cake. You got to be a sacrifice. Them’s the breaks, kiddo.”
and now for something different
((apologies in advance to mobile users if the cut doesn’t work))
unrelated to pretty much everything but
as fond as I am of the final draft of TFC, I know the books are pretty much a failure in diversity. It’s a mistake I hope I won’t repeat. I’ve taken another look at Monochrome, since it’s the most likely to get finished next, and so far we’re 50/50 with the 8 main characters. There’s still the lingering fear that I’m going to fuck something up along the way, but I want to try, and I want to learn, and I want to do better going forward.
monday check-in
Monday again? Feels like we were just here. Time flies when you’re having.. fun? hahahasdfasdfkj My update is going to be very boring today, so probably best to just skip it and @ me or reblog with your news.
1. Clemson vs Alabama tonight. please please please. I’m going to be wearing my neon orange hoodie in a sign of support. One day I should take a picture of it for you, because it is the same shade of ow-my-eyes bright orange I imagine the Foxes’ sweatshirts to be. I don’t think a camera can perfectly capture it, though.
2. Was talking briefly to @selurdour about deleting characters, which had me thinking about Marissa. Ya’ll know Marissa as Katelyn’s roommate and a cheerleader – I knew Marissa as the 11th Fox. ((surprise)) She was recruited over Christmas break and joined the Fox line-up in spring, which is how the Foxes got through several of those games when Neil was down & out. She added a balance to the striker line-up, since Kevin was brilliant and Neil was fast and she was brutal. She got removed in the final round of edits because she added nothing to the line-up but the convenience of her presence and because too much happened in TKM for me to do her character justice. She also kept getting sidelined in emotional moments because she didn’t have enough invested in the team for it to matter. The brief cameo of her as a cheerleader was the best I could offer her.
3. Monochrome is coming together as quickly & often as it falls apart, but every time it shatters it pulls together a little sturdier. We’re back to having a female MC, though – and an ace one at that. The pick-up lines you’ve collected for me are still super useful, though! I have a character who can put them to good use.