6 months later, aside from ARC reviewers, my partner is still the only one to have read my book.

The ARC reviews were good though soooo at least my writing isn't trash? 😭

People who have self-pubbed, how's it going for you?

You can tell me in a normal ask or an anon ask or or a dm, with as much or as little detail as you want. What are your numbers like? What do you think you did well, or could have done better when it comes to selling your book?

I need suggestions for my WIP playlist. Vibes are:

🎄Christmas, but everyone's having a bad time

❄️Sinister snowstorm

🙅Small town with a terrible secret

🍵Cozy cafe ambience

😘I wanna kiss you under the mistletoe but we have to deal with the threat to our lives first

It's such a fun concept and I get why there's a fee, but omg every event is so out of my budget and it's a bummer.

I’m sorry, NYC Midnight want SIXTY-TWO dollars for the FLASH FICTION contest?

Absolutely not.

yessssssss

what if a normal woman discovers she's a necromancer, and the dead she rises can do awful, awful things? what if this doesn't horrify her? what if the power is a thrill? what if she can finally get revenge on the people who have harmed her, and maybe make the world a slightly better place? what if this thought consumes her until she's burnt her entire world to ash, and comes to live in a realm of the dead because they are the only ones undeserving of her wrath, having redeemed themselves through their obedience?

what if the dead she made come back to haunt her?

even if death is no longer permanent, there are still some things you can't take back.

I can't walk to the ocean and drop my laptop with all my writing in it into the waves as an offering to the mermaids so that they will bless me with the willpower to write a single fucking sentence in my WIP and

that sucks man. All artists deserve to live within walking distance of a large and powerful body of water/cliffside peak for this very reason.

Hot Tip: If you fall through the ice, do not make eye contact with the monster waking from their hibernation who lives at the bottom of the lake. Trust me on this one.

if you see this reblog with a fun fact about your WIP (world-building, lore, characters, anything!)

no, dude, hear me out. if you want to take your writing to the next level what you need to do is get yourself a nice $2 hotdog and a drink, plop yourself in the costco food court, and write.

impeccable people watching opportunities, good vibes, and you can make the rounds for free samples every hour or so.

cafes and libraries are overrated. costco is the new elite writing space.

shh wait wait stop and listen.

i have about an hour before i have to wake up my wife and we go to costco. i'm going to do a little bit of writing. you should do a little bit of writing with me! if you see this before 11am pacific, you can write where are and know i'm writing too! community!

shhhhh don't question it gogogogo let's gooo.

add me to your writeblr taglist

right now. if you see this on your dash, add me. if you don’t have a taglist, make one and add me to it.

i know it can feel pushy to tag people in your writing (trust me, i know) but we are a community that thrives on sharing. i promise i will always be delighted to read and boost your work, even if it’s a genre you don’t see me post about much.

consider this explicit permission to tag me whenever you post your writing. even if i don’t follow you, even if you’re seeing this as a reblog from someone else. add me to your taglist.

I have the opportunity to have an editor give feedback on a short section of my work, and I'm really torn because I want to improve. I do. However, I maintain that the pieces I have that are finished right now are GOOD. Maybe not excellent, but solid pieces of writing, and I don't want to have them torn apart because I genuinely like where they're at.

But then, to have someone look at a first or second draft and tear it apart also doesn't feel like the best use of anyone's time, because if all they do is point out what I already knew was wrong with it, what's the point?

There's nothing I have at the moment that's close to being done but not quite- it's all either first drafts or seven drafts in and polished as fuck.

It was entirely possible that she’d walked blindly into becoming a sacrifice but… no one would put a sacrifice in 100% cashmere, surely. That was too expensive to get all bloodstained.

I want to see the story about a 600-year-old vampire who has parked themselves in a trailer park in small town Florida. After sunset, they sit on their porch and talk to their neighbors.

They've seen great art being made, wars being fought, lovers breaking up and reuniting again, revolutions being won, and new frontiers being forged. They've seen it all 100 times, in fact.

But only once have they seen Brandon come home with the possum he wrestled trying to convince his wife that it'd make a great pet- and damn, do they want to see that again.

I think my biggest problem with stories about immortals who want to die out of "boredom" or despair over living too long and being jaded about it is that like...

Yes, after a few eons you'd run out of things to master and learn, but like... The idea that observing humanity or other sapient beings is something that would ever get "boring" or you'd tire of makes no sense to me, considering we're the species that keeps making stories and art and sharing it with each other. I find it much more interesting to frame such characters as becoming passive observers than disillusioned with immortality.

To put it in other words: You could spend innumerable lifetimes observing people and never see the same thing twice.

I really hate the narrative that I've been hearing from the tradpub world about how if your story doesn't fit their very specific length, there's something missing from it, or it's bloated, or it's inherently wrong in some way that must be fixed. If your novel is too short, then they say obviously you haven't done enough. If your novel is too long, they say you probably have all sorts of stuff in there that's irrelevant and boring.

I have read three novellas this year that were absolutely beautiful and entertaining with fully fleshed out characters and a plot that felt satisfying.

I've also just finished reading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which is a 1000 page epic that felt fast-paced, and left me wanting to see more of that world.

I have also read lots and lots of 300 page books that felt unbearably slow, ones with unfinished plot threads dangling like a cowboy fringe coat from the 70's, and ones that didn't bother to do any character development.

I think I should be able to walk into a bookstore and find short books for a little less money and longer epics for a little more money. Most people don't read even a book a year- maybe if there were more novellas available they'd get to feel good about finally finishing one.

There's nothing wrong with my stories being the length that they are, there's something wrong with the industry forcing stories into boxes and rejecting the ones that don't squish in correctly.

Psst - when you get this, you have to answer with five things you like about yourself, publicly. Then send this ask to ten of your favorite mutuals (non-negotiable, positivity is cool!)

I have a big, smart, creative brain that sometimes leads me in the right direction.

I finish things I start when they matter to me.

I do my best to be nice to strangers, and to take care of the people I love, even when I'm grumpy and don't wanna.

I'm not afraid to try new things even if it means I have to suck at them for a bit in public.

I'm a good listener, which is nice for other people, but also nice for me as I slowly collect everyone's secrets.

Tumblr would rather fuck a literal monster than even the most well meaning of real estate developers, and that is absolutely the correct choice.

FORESHADOW is the LUBE of storytelling