grabbing new writers by the shoulders. it is important to write what you love and to love what you write. if you spend all your time trying to make something other people will approve of you will hate yourself and everything around you. learn at your own pace. you have time. i’m proud of you

life's too short to write for an imaginary critic that you fear will hate what you wrote

One of my favorite phrases my Creative Writing professor had for when you’re writing fantasy is ‘giving your story a Flux Capacitor’.

Because it’s not real, it doesn’t exist. But the way it’s thrown into Back to the Future, at no point does it throw the audience off or suspend any more disbelief than time travel would. You believe Doc when he says he created the Flux Capacitor - the thing that makes time travel possible, because the universe never questions him. 

So it essentially means like, there are going to be elements to your universe that are just not gonna make any sense, even if you set up a whole system based on it. And the only way to make it work is completely own it. You cannot second-guess your system or else the reader will too. You can give it the strangest explanation, but write it like you own it.  

So. Today in class we assigned Macbeth roles to students to read. When I asked the class who wants to be Lady Macbeth, a young man raised his hand. I kind of stared at him like “Lady Macbeth,” and he nodded like “I know what I’m about ma’am.” So then the student who ended up as Macbeth raised his hand and said “HE’S THE ONE, HE’S MY WIFE!” So I said “yeah sure why not,” and the entire class period they were blowing kisses to each other and winking at each other, and every now and then Macbeth would say “I’m the luckiest man on Earth” and Lady Macbeth would put a hand to his chest, and be like “BABE!”.

I just stared at them, knowing that they CLEARLY have never read ‘Macbeth’ before, so… all this lovey dovey… I don’t know if I have the heart to tell them the truth.

[Image description: a tumblr text post, edited blackout-poetry stye to read, "do not give up writing. there will be a story."]

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do not give up writing. there will be a story

genuine question for writers: what are your non-words hobbies? (i.e. not reading)

THIS CERTIFIES

that the Bearer has

PERMISSION

to make as much really terrible

BAD ART

as they need to make

and it’ll be

OKAY

(I have a Hugo Award and make a living drawing stuff, and I say it’s cool!)

Super Official Seal of Officialness

Ursula Vernon’s Certificate of Bad Artistry, for those days when it’s just not coming together.

Walter Benjamin’s Rules for Writing, from ‘The Writer’s Technique in Thirteen Theses’

Heyo, it’s poll time!

This time I’d like to know, do you prefer works with the use of “you” or with the use of “I”.

Example:

“You”: You took his hand into yours, gently caressing his soft skin. Your eyes locked in his gaze, full of longing and unconditional love. They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. Staring into those deep pools, you can almost see the galaxy within him. And even though you’ve been with him for so long, you can’t help but feel the tears spill over with pure happiness. The smile you love so much adding fuel to the fire within.

“I”: I watched as the sun peaked over the horizon. My favorite activity, sitting on the grass still wet from the morning dew. My lips curled into a soft smile, my eyes staring longingly at the hues of dawn. I once did this routine with someone special, someone dear to my heart. It felt foreign and unnatural, the space beside me was vacant and cold. But maybe, just maybe, if I look hard enough at the sky above, I’ll see them once again.

Pencil vs Keyboard

When I talk about my writing process, a lot of non-writers look at me with horror in their eyes "You write by hand?!" they say To which I very helpfully smile and nod I've often joked that I think better on paper, and for my writing I find it to be especially true. Having a notebook that no-one else is allowed to read takes a lot of pressure off, which makes it easier for the words to flow I like to cross things out while still having them around in case I change my mind (I have separate word documents for this when I type too). I make notes in the margins and leave blanks for things to come back to. These can be done while typing, but I find them less intrusive by hand I do eventually type up my work (I actually like to alternate days handwriting and typing to give each a moment of rest and reflection), and when I do that's part of my revising process. Sometimes the words on the paper are the same as the ones in the word doc, but even then I often shift things around or add new bits Writing by hand also means using pretty notebooks! I like to put encouraging stickers on the cover of my main writing notebook, but I also keep a miscellaneous "this doesn't count" notebook. The miscellaneous notebook is specifically allowed to have any writing at all in it (main project, random idea, fanfic, a neat phrase, literally anything) and no-one else ever gets to read it. Sometimes I've felt like I needed separate notebooks for each WIP, but having one where anything goes makes it easier to focus on writing things instead of organizing them. I often add post-it notes afterwards so I can find things in the misc notebook, especially when some of the writing in there is a continuation of writing elsewhere in that notebook. It's a bit chaotic, but it's also a lot of fun to flip through later and see what I experimented with earlier

YOU KNOW WHAT DAY IT IS

On Genres: Mystery

I put in my blog description that my favorite genres are (in no particular order) scifi, fantasy, and mystery. But those are pretty big categories and I can get more specific

Mystery is the easiest to specify for me - I love detective fiction. The investigator doesn't have to be an actual PI or police detective though, the idea is to have one main character who solves crimes. (For example the main character of Elsa Hart's Jade Dragon Mountain who is an exiled librarian who has the miserable luck to keep getting tangled up in murder mysteries). This also happens in other mystery subgenres and other genres altogether, but there are other more subtle qualities that differentiate them. My brother once tried to convince me to watch a horror movie (I think it was The Conjuring but I'm not certain) by claiming "It's a mystery!" I watched the first few minutes then walked out saying "dogs don't die on-screen in mysteries." (Despite the name, murder mysteries don't actually tend to be very violent in the story itself. They're typically about the aftermath of violence and the how and why, rather than being about the acts of violence themselves) To me, a good detective mystery is essentially the journey of solving a puzzle. The reader should be encouraged to try and collect clues as they go, and be wowed by the detective's investigation. I'll never forget my first Sherlock Holmes story - reading The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle back in middle school, the scene where Sherlock analyzes the hat (which, to be clear, is not even remotely good science by modern standards) stuck with me and inspired me to seek out the rest of the Sherlock Holmes stories. It's also important to detective mystery that the investigator is a strong character. A blorbo, if you will There are plenty of posts about how many modern adaptations make Sherlock Holmes less interesting than he is in the books (though I think that's partially because there are a lot of stories and that they highlight different parts of his character, so there's a lot of room for varied interpretations). Whatever you think of him, I don't think I've ever heard someone call him boring (I'm sure someone's said it at some point, but it's certainly not the majority opinion). He catches attention in whatever adaptation it is (though I'm sure y'all are aware, given this is the SuperWhoLock website) Agatha Christie's Poirot is a very different character from Sherlock, but just as interesting. I have some very strong opinions on the most recent movie adaptations of Poirot that require me to harness all my little grey cells and go "It's okay for people to put their own spin on a character. It's okay for people to interpret a character differently" through clenched teeth. They did right by his mustache though The Penumbra Podcast has Juno Steel in the Junoverse part of that podcast (if you're unfamiliar, it's 2 podcasts in a trenchcoat). It's called The Junoverse, but In universe, the world does not revolve around Juno. However, love for Juno and later all the other recurring characters is at the heart of that show (which you should listen to, if you don't already) tl;dr - Detective mystery is great because it's Investigator Blorbo solves the puzzles of other people's (sometimes murderous) actions