Hello Clari! I'm not sure if you mentioned what you studied in college (or if you are comfortable sharing), but it seems like it was something related to literature/journalism/languages, and I was wondering if you could share (or if you know of) some of the exercises you did for creative writing or resources you know of to get the inspiration juice going and practice and improve your writing! Have an amazing day bb <3

hehehe hello!!! <33

i studied film with an emphasis on both golden age hollywood + screenwriting!!! and then i minored in literature c: ooooh i actually do have a lil exercise to share with you that my screenwriting prof taught me!! okay:

every day, write down three ideas. they don’t need to be fully formed ideas. they can be anything, a character (if you’re writing fanfiction maybe this can be an AU version of a character? or an oc/reader? or you can just skip character completely), a location, one line of dialogue, etc etc etc. it can literally be anything. you do this until you have 50-100 written down. then you pick ten, and write one paragraph for each describing the plot. THEN, you pick THREE of these and write one page summaries of their plots, much more fleshed out and all that. AND THEN, you pick one out of those three and write a script (or, in our case, a fic!)

i say this often, but creativity is a muscle—we all have it, all you have to do is strengthen it. how you strengthen it, how much you strengthen it, and how fast you strengthen it, is entirely up to you, because there’s soooo many different ways to do it, and none of them are the ‘right’ way, because creativity is such a personal thing and what works for one person may not work for another!!

in terms of practice (aka how much/fast you strengthen it) only you know the answer to the right amount of practice for you at this current moment. i write every single day—sometimes it’s only a paragraph or two, sometimes it’s thousands of words, but i’m exercising my creative muscle every day. if you’re new to writing, or you’re new to writing often, every day may be too daunting or too overwhelming (or it may not! only you know <3) and that’s entirely okay. i was saying this a day or two ago but we often have a tendency to jump head first into things and overwhelm ourselves with too much too fast, and then we ‘fail’, and then we get upset at ourselves for ‘failing’ when we were expecting too much of ourselves to begin with.

so with that being said, ease yourself into it. it’s okay if you’re only writing a few lines a day, or a paragraph every other day, or a paragraph a few times a week!!! only you know what’s right for you. be patient with yourself, pick yourself back up when you ‘fail’ and learn from it (failure really is one of our greatest teachers!!! look at it in a positive light! you are growing!!<3). my advice, if you’re having difficulty figuring out what to write for practice, is to try working with prompts!!! there’s a billion and one prompts on the internet, there’s whole tumblr blogs dedicated to prompts (idk any off the top of my head but i KNOW they exist) and there’s thousands on pinterest, too. there’s also different types of prompts; some of them are just a word, or an object, while others have much more detail. try them out and see what works best for you!

inspiration comes from everywhere (literally EVERYWHERE) but i also always say art inspires art, because it does. read books, watch movies, listen to music, go to art galleries, paint even if you’re awful at it, go to shows etc etc etc. look at the people you love in your life, look at the people you dislike in your life, look at your experiences both good and bad, look at the things that impact you the most; there’s inspiration in all of them, i promise you!

the last thing, and i used to discuss this with my profs quite a bit, is that when it comes down to it, there is definitely an element of self discipline in all of this. just like a physical exercise, where you have to push yourself to get through those last few minutes, or seconds, or reps, there will be days where you have to push yourself to exercise your creativity. and, just like with physical exercises, you can also go TOO FAR and strain yourself. this is, again, only a limit YOU know, because of course as you strengthen your creative muscle you’ll be able to push yourself further and further. my point, tho, is that there’s a fine line between pushing yourself and overworking yourself. be very careful of this. rest and rejuvenation are just as important as exercise!!!

aaah anon babie i hope this helps a little bit!!!!! please let me know if anything is unclear or if you have more questions; i love encouraging others to create and i think it’s absolutely something everyone can (and should!) do <3 i hope u have an amazing day too my luv!!!

Hi Clari! I'm super interested in writing and I was wondering if you used any sheets to help you characterize your characters and who they are, I'm struggling to make them unique and keep them from being too similar to each other. Thank u loveling <3

hello anon!!! ah i do not, i’m sorry!!! i just use a blank notebook to create my characters! however, i’m sure there are several great articles and exercises on creating unique, distinctive characters on google!! making sure your characters don’t all sound the same/sound exactly like you is something my screenwriting prof cautioned us about a lot while i was in university.

a piece of advice i can offer you though is: to make your characters feel more real and three-dimensional, have a full story and background—a genuine life history—for every single one of them. know their likes, their dislikes, their mannerisms, their opinions and beliefs, their thought processes, their flaws and strengths, their traumas and successes, their most cherished memories, etcetera. about 90% of this will never end up in your story, but it’s important for you as the author to know exactly who each of your characters are, why they act, talk, and make decisions the way they do, why they react the way they do, and so on. their life history will influence and inform how they do everything, just like real people. creating a whole life history for them each will make them feel much more believable and fuller, even if very little of that life history pertains to or ends up in your story.