I don't think many people realize how much they've been turned into a bunch of casually cynical jerks.

Someone may come to their parents and say "I want to write a book" and their parents will say "it's really hard to get published".

Someone might confide in their sibling and say "I want to sell my art on "x" platform" and that sibling will say "do you know how many people you'd be competing with? Do you know how many shops are even on that platform?"

I know a kid who once told his best friend "I think I wanna start a dnd podcast" and the friend was like "do you know what the word "oversaturation" means?"

Personally, I don't know why any of that matters? And even if it did, perhaps your response should be "Do it! Do it and see where it goes!"

The Art of Creative Writing by Lajos Egri (1965)

!@#$ Lajos Egri again, being creepy. First it was Child marriage and then it's this.

Almost immediately goes into creepy...

TW: sexual assault made "romantic"

... So this part is filled with back story of "How innocent Barbara was" And how Victor was a creep for not reading, or whatever, and how Victor saw girls as a commodity to sleep with.

Yep. And then sexual assault.

And then she's like, you know what, you almost tried to r* me without checking in first, that's sooo romantic. I'll let you do me after that.

This, BTW, is the end of it. OMG, so romantic /sarcasm. Welp, this explains how he ended up with his child bride.

I'll edit this later, to do a deeper analysis, but I needed to shout this out in case people want to borrow this book from the library or worse, buy it. He's not alive, but do you really want to add this book to your collection?

one of the best fics i've ever read, one that had me addicted to my phone and crying, wasn't even prose. it was a huge, casual, bullet-pointed outline with every detail of an au that the author never got around to writing in full. and it was amazing.

let this be a message to all you who want to write but can't do it "normally": write it! someone out there will eat it up. whether that be poetry, tiny drabbles, or bullet pointed list: your work is always worth it. your art (yes, art!) will alway deserve to have its moment in the spotlight. why? because you made it. even if it wasn't done in a traditional matter, it came from your brain and your creativity and that is amazing.

♡

Creative slump? No, no. Creative frenzy. Too many idea, not enough time, not enough energy. It's too much, I do nothing.

what if god said yes

what if you got quiet. what if you got so quiet and you curled up in a little ball in your bed with a stuffed animal or a blanket or a pillow and you said, “god, can we talk?” and because god is you and you are god you didn’t have to wait and you didn’t have to go anywhere at all and—“yes,” god said. and you said, “god, i want an apartment with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city.” “god, i want the boy with the kind eyes and tattoo-covered arms and exquisite taste in music.” “god, i want to feel alive again.” “god, i want to travel first-class to switzerland.” “god, i want a hound dog named finn.” and god said, “yes.” and you said, “but how can you make this happen?” and god said, “i can make anything happen.” and you said, “quickly?” and god said, “i love you. why would i not make this rapid?” and you said, “i can trust you?” and god said, “like your life depends on it.” and you said, “my life does depend on it.” and god said, “i know. i’ve got it now. you’re safe. let me take care of it.” and you hugged god. and god hugged you. and you hugged yourself. and you drifted off to sleep saying, “i have it. i’m safe. i have it. i’m safe. i have it. i’m—” and you woke in the morning and the world was new. because you knew it was done. because god said yes. and god never goes back on a yes unless you tell god “no.” and any time throughout the day you thought, “is anything happening?” god said, “it’s all happening.” and you said, “but i can’t see a thing.” and god said, “i am your eyes.” and you said, “but i don’t have to do anything?” and god said, “you did the only thing needed.” and you said, “but what about my thoughts and my state and acting as if?” and god said, “i love you.” and you knew what that meant. so instead of worrying or wondering or obsessing another second, you went to the bakery and bought a slice of chocolate cake and drove home and sat on your back deck and ate and ate and watched the sunset and celebrated.

A big part of cultivating creative discipline is accepting that you can't just sit around waiting for inspiration to strike and learning how to write without it, but the other half is learning never to let inspiration go to waste when it does strike.

If you've got an idea for something that you'll never be able to show to anyone else – maybe it's too personal, maybe it's too pornographic, maybe it just doesn't fit your idiom – you should absolutely go ahead and write it anyway.

This isn't a "write for yourself" thing (and there's no shame in being uninterested in writing for yourself – art is about communication!): it's a "building your portfolio" thing. Self-plagiarism is one of the most fundamental skills of any artist, and you never know what random scribble is going to turn up exactly what's needed for some seemingly unrelated project later on.

Like, it's not likely that that grotesquely self-indulgent character piece where your fandom crush inexplicably has three dicks will randomly prove to contain the missing ingredient for that novel you've been procrastinating on writing, but it can never entirely be ruled out!

Posting a sneak-peak of this now because I'm about to be In The Shit school workload-wise, so this'll take me a while to finish.

Doing some character design exploration/expression sheets for Celestia and Luna. Figuring out Celestia's weird ass anatomy while I'm at it.

i really dislike it when people don’t understand perfectionism.

like, it isn’t always “person who has tons of motivation and spends a ton of time making this thing *just* right”

wayyyyyy more often than not it’s:

”I know that if I try to make this thing, it won’t be perfect, so I simply won’t try.”

which definitely sounds bad, right? but when you realize that it doesn’t just apply to voluntarily making art, then you realize how perfectionism is not at all a good thing in any context. 

“i know that if I try to work on this assignment right now, it won’t be good enough, so i’ll wait until the last possible moment so that I have something forcing me to do it.”

”i know that I should start going to the gym, but I won’t see any improvement right away, so I just won’t.”

”i know that i should brush my teeth tonight, but that won’t be good enough to undo the fact that i haven’t brushed them 4 days in a row, so I just won’t.”

perfectionism isn’t the uncontrollable impulse to make things “just right”. (although it can occasionally manifest as this.)

perfectionism is the absolute, psychological inability to accept the concepts of “good enough” and “better than nothing”.

once i was in a creative writing class in college, and in a bit of humor i wrote the line:

"Um," I said, eloquently.

And my teacher was so adamant that I had to remove it because "um is not an eloquent word, so it makes no sense" and i was like my brother in christ it's called Irony

Must read. Here' s a snippet to motivate you :

For the still-not-convinced: If you need an AI to come up with ideas for you, you don’t even belong in the fucking room, because ‘coming up with ideas’ is literally the most basic level skill to have. A basketball player who can’t dribble doesn’t belong in the NBA, so why the fuck do you think you deserve a spot on my writing team if you need a computer to do what any goddamn fucking eight year old can do? Take the fucking hint, you fucking fraud: if you need AI to do the most basic tasks required of you as a writer, then you aren’t employable as a writer. Period. Fuck you. You’re a waste of everyone’s time.

The things you create don’t have to make sense! They can be messy and wild! They can be confusing and strange! They can be ugly and weird! Stop tethering your sense of creativity to what other people will accept. You deserve to create without inhibition.

If you love someone's art Someone's writing whatever they do if you love it and you're always checking for their new pic, their new comic, their new chapter If you don't even need to bookmark their site, blog, page whatever because you know how to get there on instinct and you have some dollars free Look for their Ko-fi/Patreon. Support. Creative. People. They are out here MAKING THINGS for you to enjoy. They are entertaining you, touching your spirit, bringing you grief and joy and everything in between. Most of them aren't asking for much and most of them will keep doing it even without your dollar. But if you can afford to support your favs DO IT. Not only will you have their unending gratitude, you will be helping to ensure they keep making the things. ♥

Wednesday, November 1.

NaNoWriMo.

As one door closes, another door opens. So if you are feeling a little glum, a little blue, a little crestfallen this morning, as you pack your coffins, drone-controlled ghouls, pumpkins, and Normal Human Man costumes into the attic for another year, fear not. Because the passing of October 31st can only mean the arrival of November 1st. And the arrival of this date will be exciting and daunting news for y'all in Tumblr's writing community—it's #nanowrimo. 

Keyboards, touchscreens, typewriters, pens, and quills at the ready, folks. You've got 30 days to do 50,000 words. They are not going to write themselves. 

Good luck x