For the WIP title asks:

Rising Tide (which is also a song by Sunny Day Real Estate)!

Tell me, do Kyogre and Groudon meet at the shore to enjoy a nice playdate while Maxie and Archie fight over land/water property lines like the suburban dads they are?

this ask is sending me, oh my lord. thank you--i laughed pretty hard at this :D

and this song is within the time frame of songs i'm referencing in the fic, so that's just perfect! thank you!

"color your skin with gold, and the violence remains cover your eyes with rose, but the stain remains will you repair your life with all the holes you fill? smother your will and drain you of your passion..."

oh yeah, that's going on the playlist.

as for our beloved suburban dads, i can't say too much without spoiling the last quarter or so of the fic--though i guess i have been pretty transparent about maxie actually succeeding in catching groudon. that's a thing that happens. gonna be mum about the circumstances and implications and fallout of that, though. i'm sure it turns out fine.

as for the wip itself, it's the first chapter of eye of the storm. the title refers to the circumstances that drive may to leave home in the first place--things get to be too much for her.

for a little context about my may, she's 22 at the start of the fic, and had moved out of her parents' house at 18, back when they still lived in johto. she opted to move back in with them temporarily when they moved to hoenn (instead of staying in johto by herself), and it's a choice she starts regretting very quickly. snippet under the cut. i feel like i should add a trigger warning for this as well--it's a bad situation if you've ever been in it before but pretty vague if you don't know what you're looking at. tw for implied emotional abuse, i suppose.

This was bad.

May sat on the carpeted top stair and gripped her empty mug so tightly her knuckles turned white. A faint “godsdammit” floated around the corner that led into the living room and up to her ears. Whatever her mother was fussing with down there had her, to be incredibly mild, extremely pissed off.

This was bad, but it had probably been worse at some point before. Not that May could put a finger on when, exactly; the last four years of solitude had papered over the memory of her mother’s moods with a series of perfectly pleasant lunches and borderline enjoyable outings to the movies. The tone of voice May was catching now, in snippets from the ground floor, was a knife widening the old wound of the six years before that, during their time in Olivine, after their last big move. The first time this had happened, May had been thirteen and stupidly hopeful.

She didn’t have age as an excuse this time.

Did she really need another cup of coffee? She could turn around, tail between her legs, and head back to her room. This one locked, though that might cause her more problems in the long run. She’d already endured the years of formless suspicion about why she kept her door closed all the time, and even that particularly bad summer where the door had been removed entirely. She didn’t need, didn’t want a repeat of that. Something told her the offense her mother would suffer over a locked door would be far greater than over a closed one. Teenagers were just like that, after all. From an adult it would be an insult.

Moving back in had been a massive fucking mistake.

hi!! these past few months i’ve gotten several asks about all different parts of my writing process and i thought i’d go ahead and make a full post that i can refer people back to in the future! with the fests coming up as well hopefully it may help someone because i know i always love reading about author’s processes! feel free to let me know if i’ve forgotten anything :) 

DISCLAIMER: this is MY writing process. these are my own opinions and maybe not methods that will work blanketly for everyone. writing is different for every person and you should always do what works best for you personally! 

this post will be split into four parts - before, during, after, and other tips and things to remember :)

inspiration & idea 

this is typically either the easiest or the absolute most difficult part of writing a fic. sometimes you begin with an exact idea and other times you want to write but have no idea where to start. personally i tend to draw inspiration from a few places in particular. writing prompt and dialogue blogs, although sometimes a bit cliche, are a huge help when trying to come up with ideas for scenes and outlines. these are some good ones – here, here, and here if you need some inspiration! pinterest and weheartit are also great places to search for inspiration both before or after you’ve settled on an idea. find an aesthetic you like and base the characters around it, do some world-building, create folders for your characters - this is a good place to reference back to while you’re writing! at this point i just try to pick something that i feel like ‘calls to me’ and leave the rest for later. the last avenue that i use to think of fic ideas is real life. i think of small things that have happened to me or to someone i know and make them much more dramatic and layered. add in some fluff or angst or whatever aspect fits and usually a storyline begins to carve itself!

outline 

once you have an idea, making an outline can help you figure out if it’s going to work for you or not. nailing down the important details and plot points before you begin writing is crucial so that you have a purpose to your scenes, so that things don’t feel repetitive or pointless. when i outline i tend to organize by word count. for instance, by the 5k mark let’s say i’d like to already have established what character A does for a living and some of their interests, and i’d like character B to be vaguely introduced. by 10k i’d like the characters to have formed a friendship and for the conflict to have been introduced, so on and so forth. the plot spacing may differ based on the goal word count for a fic (do things happen quickly or is it a slow burn? etc.). 

next I make a tentative timeline for the fic. I have to give myself sufficient time to plan and to write without rushing myself, but also make it reasonable enough that i can still look forward to it! writing takes different amounts of time for different people, but the more you write the more you’ll be able to estimate how long a certain word count is going to take you to complete. also, as far as advice goes, decide if you’re going to write everything and publish at once or if you’re going to upload weekly chapters, etc. i strongly recommend publishing a full work at once. typically people shy away from unfinished works and it can be very disheartening when there are almost no reads. publishing all at once will raise the chances of your fic being read and shared and will also help you as a writer not to make mistakes because you are able to go back and fix/edit certain plot points as you write. 

organization 

if you have more than one wip at a time, it can be really helpful to have some sort of organization in place. i write primarily in google docs, so i have one master doc with all of my wip information inside of it. i use a numbered chart (the docs themselves are titled with numbers only and correspond to the number in the chart) that has the tentative title, the goal word count, the current word count, which pov i plan to write from, and an estimated posting date. you can also limit the number of wips you have this way.once a work is published i move it from my wip list to my completed list, with the title, the final word count, and a link to the posted story. this part is optional, it just helps me to be able to see all of it in one place. i’ve found this method to be much more helpful than just making random notes on my phone that i forget about within the hour!

research 

depending on the topic of your fic and the setting, you may need to do some research beforehand. if it’s historical, I brush up on the history of it and watch some films or read some books about the time period to get a feel for the vernacular and style, etc.. if the protagonist has a job i’m unfamiliar with I search up what they do, how much they make, where they work, and things like that. it’s unlikely that someone is going to fact check every little thing, but accuracy when it comes to these topics is very admirable and i feel like it really adds a lot of depth and authenticity to a fic. 

another fun activity for this portion of planning is designing the characters. i try to do this for a lot of mine and experiment with personality traits, quirks, and appearances, and to create a character that feels layered as opposed to just surface level. it’s fun for me to figure out their morals and motives and opinions and to play around with those and see if they can be changed throughout the course of the story. an interesting activity here is to take personality tests from what you think they would answer about themselves! then, even if only subconsciously, your character now has interests and hobbies and feels more real, which will definitely show through when you write. there are some for you to take here, here, here, and here, and this is also a good resource.

atmosphere 

(meaning in real life, not the setting of a fic). i tend to produce what i feel is my best work at night, after dinner when i have nothing else to do for the day and i can just relax. having a designated time and space to write really helps with motivation and focus, and can be the difference in accomplishing your time goals for the fic. feel free to try different things like adding music while you write (i write with headphones in and music blasting!) and adjust your surroundings to your liking. put on noise cancelling headphones, stop the clock that keeps ticking in the background or turn up the floor fan to drown other things out, or play some ambience videos from youtube to help you focus. whatever works! sometimes i also create playlists for my fics that i listen to while writing them which can add some more depth to the story too! being comfortable and not distracted are my two main requirements. also, unless it’s for music or research purposes, i would suggest distancing a bit from your phone as well!

word vomit 

this is one of the most frustrating parts of writing but i can’t explain how many times it’s helped me, especially when i’m trying to reach a certain word count. i like to do an exercise when i don’t know what to write or i just have a vague idea where i sit down and just write. i don’t let myself backspace anything (unless it’s a small typo or something minor like that) and i just see where i end up. the reason why this is so helpful is because a lot of times subconsciously our brains already have some kind of idea of a direction to go in or what should be included. though this rough draft almost never makes it into my final piece and frankly doesn’t make much sense, i’m able to go back and read over it and think oh! that’s a good point, i can also write about [random plot point] here! as i think of it.

dialogue 

the very first part of a scene that i write is the dialogue. personally i find it the easiest, and it helps me make a skeleton of a scene where i only have to fill in the descriptions in between. most of the time getting the dialogue written can help to visualize a scene and make conversation flow easily when you aren’t distracted with everything else going on in the scene. a lot of times if you’re focused on what a background character is doing the actual speaking may end up choppy or not make sense when you’re finished with it, which is usually my issue. this method is a good idea to use if you find yourself stuck on a scene or if you don’t know what you want the setting to be yet. if the dialogue you wrote doesn’t fit just right once you’ve added in the rest of the scene, you can always alter it to your liking.

taking breaks 

this is the key to staying motivated for me. if i push myself too hard or write for too long i get frustrated and struggle to keep the flow going. it’s important to take a break when that happens because it becomes very obvious in your writing when you aren’t inspired. you’re more likely to take the easy way out of conflicts and dialogue and it could completely change the tone of the fic. by this i don’t mean procrastinate writing, but definitely make sure not to over-write. writing should be fun, not stressful.

similar fics 

this step is 100% optional, but i find that it really helps me. when i read other author’s fics and i get inspired, the scene really sticks in my brain. to avoid accidentally copying someone’s ideas from their own fic, if i know that i’m writing something similar, i avoid reading any fic with a similar premise during the entire writing process. even if i think i won’t, often times i’ll subconsciously mirror a scene or a piece of dialogue from another fic without meaning to. this is definitely something to look for when you’re reading it back over!

balanced elements 

this step really just depends on the type of fic i’m going for, but i’ve found that fics with some balance to them tend to do better than others. by this i mean fics that have a little of each important element like angst, fluff, smut, etc.. of course, this differs from fic to fic depending on the plot. if it’s a pwp, obviously the main element will be smut. if it’s got some heavy topics in it it may be primarily angst, or a holiday fic might be just fluff. all of these are okay on their own but it’s super easy to mix them together to create more realistic scenes and meaningful emotion in the dialogue. in a pwp i try to add some back story into it, something a little angsty or that gives the smut more meaning than just surface level (unless of course that’s what you’re going for!). on the flip side, you could take a really fluffy fic and at some smutty elements that enhance the love-y feelings from the fluff. even fluff/angst might be fun to explore! my point is that realistically we feel many emotions at once, all the time. when i write one alone my writing often feels like it falls flat and my message/theme doesn’t come across the way that i want it to.

resources 

there is a list of resources and links at the bottom of this post that may help during the writing process! they are ones that I have saved to look back at when I get stuck!

read it over 

this is my least favorite step. at this point, once i’ve finished the fic, i just want to post it as-is. i don’t feel like reading it over or doing edits - i just want to be finished with it. the benefits outweigh my dislike of it though, so i make myself do it anyway. it’s necessary (for me) to take a short break between when i finish it and when i read it over so that i can look at it with fresh eyes, just a day or two at least. the most important advice that i can give here would probably be not to delete anything you don’t like immediately. almost 100% of the time something can be re-written without being deleted, so if you don’t like the way a sentence is structured or the way a character speaks in a certain scene, don’t delete it! just see if you can rewrite it to model what you’re going for better. this step helps me to stay above my goal word count and not to let my insecurity get the best of me. everybody is their own worst critic, but usually there’s a reason you wrote something down, so give it every chance before you get rid of it altogether. i wrote about this here as well.

beta’s 

i’m going to link to another post i answered about betas here!

choosing a title 

when it’s time to choose a title for a fic i usually pick from one of four places. the first is a catchphrase from the fic. if there’s a recurring theme or nickname or description, it may be a good idea to title it the same thing so that readers will connect the title with that detail and remember it more easily in the future. the second place is from a song. there’s a lyric for nearly every different message and emotion, so there’s a high chance of being able to find one that goes hand-in-hand with a fic. the third place i look is in poems. i’m personally a big fan of lang leav, michael faudet, and bukowski, among others, and poetry usually also features a wide range of themes to choose from. the last idea i resort to when i can’t come up with anything else, which is to take a word that you feel represents the fic and translate it into another language like french or spanish, among others, or pick a word that has a meaning that corresponds with the fic. although there are no right or wrong titles, i would suggest to try not to pick a title that’s been used a lot already, or one that you think might be easily forgettable. even if you think it might be odd or not typical, people are going to remember it much more than if it’d just been a regular title.

choosing a summary 

this step is also kind of hit or miss for me! either i know from the beginning what i want my summary to be or i struggle up until the last second trying to come up with one. there isn’t really a right or wrong summary – except for one. my advice here is please, please don’t just put ‘i suck at summaries! just read it!’. people tend to gravitate toward fics if the author seems confident in their own abilities as opposed to someone quite literally pleading with them to read. other than that, there are several types of summaries that i see a lot of. personally i like to use a snippet from my fics in italics, so that people can get a feel of what my writing style is like beforehand. when i write drabbles though, i usually come up with a quick, occasionally witty tidbit of a summary to grab people’s attention. for example: 

a longer fic summary

Harry Styles takes his time coming out to greet them. Louis only knows what he’s seen on file and what he’s heard them talking about, but he fully lives up to the image he had inside of his head. 

He saunters down the front steps of the farmhouse in his Levi’s, brown snakeskin boots curving out from underneath the denim Louis’ sure he had specially made. He’s got on a plaid button-down tucked into the jeans because of course he does, curls spilling out from either side of his cowboy hat around his sunglasses and country-tan skin. 

“Harry Styles,” he drawls, extending a hand to Louis’ manager, “Pleased to meet ya’ll.” 

(from my fic baby blue)

+

a shorter fic summary

there is little harry hates more than truth or dare. 

and louis. 

(from my fic like it’s a game)

+

and sometimes people use both as well, like this one from @falsegoodnight​ ‘s fic, before we knew – 

“C’mon Lou,” says Zayn after a moment, He sounds even more exasperated than before. Louis sort of has a knack for exasperating people, especially people like Zayn who aren’t usually bothered by his brattiness. “Can’t you give this guy a chance? Harry Styles? Aren’t you curious about him at all?” 

Despite his best efforts, Louis still flinches at the name. He really shouldn’t be so affected after all these years. He’s seen the name printed down the curve of his waist in obnoxiously and uncommonly large loopy letters every single day since his sixteenth birthday eight years ago. He’s very familiar with the name Harry Styles. It sounds pretentious and Louis hates it. He hates everything about his supposed soulmate. He hates his large handwriting that stands out like a claim on his skin whenever he’s walking around shirtless. He hates his pretentious name. And now he hates his supposed curls and green eyes and dimples. 

- 

Or Louis has been skeptical of soulmates for years so it seems like fate when he finally bumps into the owner of the obnoxiously large signature printed into his skin since age sixteen: Harry Styles, a human rights attorney who is firmly against soulmates.

+

and this link has some other ideas and tips for writing summaries that I found to be very helpful! 

posting a fic 

as far as tags and ratings go, THIS PART IS IMPORTANT! all of the steps are in one way or another, but this one is crucial that it’s done correctly. warnings and tags can absolutely make or break a fic. people tend to have very strong preferences when it comes to fics so i try to be as specific as possible without giving the entire story away in the tags. if you’re afraid of doing that, you can always put the full warnings in the note before the fic and tell people to check there before reading. i won’t list all of the possible triggers here but be sure to look those up if you are unfamiliar with some of the common ones. when it comes to tags, you’re always better safe than sorry! i like to tell people they’re free to message me and ask about something if they’re uncomfortable as well, so i can explain the trigger to them and why i tagged it that way and they can decide if they’d like to read based on a more informed basis. tagging correctly saves many people from being blindsided by something they didn’t want to see, and it also protects the author from some very angry messages about warnings.

archive of our own has an extensive support page with all of the info you could need about posting a work on their site including tags, ratings, warnings, co-authors, translations, HTML, and more. you can find it here.

as far as wattpad goes, i am definitely not as familiar with it. i have only a couple of my fics over there and a few translations that people have done for me, so my knowledge is very limited. this link seems to have some good resources for posting with them.

moodboards, graphics, covers 

i feel like the writing does most of the work itself, but a graphic can really help when it comes to the next part of the process, posting on social media. some people like to do moodboards, some people commission artists to draw for them, and some like to create their own graphics completely from scratch. like most aspects of fic, there isn’t really a right or wrong way to do this. i usually make moodboards for mine! i try to stick to an aesthetic or theme, and pick a cohesive amount of pictures to use (typically three, six, or nine so they line up nicely). the pictures i use are almost always from tumblr, pinterest, or weheartit. i put them together using an app and then put a blanket filter over all of it so that it all looks unified. if you used pinterest or weheartit to create concept boards for your idea in the beginning, now is a good time to use those photos and media as well! if you’re curious, the apps i use to create graphics, moodboards, and covers are as follows:

canva (mobile app & website) 

tons of templates to choose from as well as patterns and fonts! some things are locked unless you’re a member but most elements are free! easy to download and share and lots of options to customize and play around with. i strongly recommend the website on desktop or laptop as opposed to the mobile app so that the features are more easily accessible.

picsart (mobile app) 

when i need to make one quickly and i’m not near my laptop (or just need something simple) i use picsart to make a quick collage and put a filter over them. there are some limited text options as well but they are not as advanced as some of the others mentioned here.

photoshop express (mobile & desktop app) 

a step up from picsart, but slightly different elements. photoshop allows you to control a lot more once you know how to use it. there are some nice moodboard layouts here, as well as text and fonts, borders, and color controls. my favorite tool on here is the style transfer option under ‘effects’. a very quick and easy way to make your pictures look very cohesive!

vsco (mobile app) 

perfect for adding filters and things like vignette, grain, and fade. it also has some color controls to customize those. this is typically the last step before i post. and you can save custom presets that you like to use again!

and there are many others as well – almost all photo editing apps and software have a function that will allow you to make a collage or add text to a graphic! i know wattpad also requires a cover for their stories and I believe they have an app for that too!

here are some lovely graphics that have been made for my fics by @lovelylou​, @behisoneandonly​, @tomlinvelvet-ao3​​ and @brickredtoe​  as some examples :) 

and one that I've made as well: 

social media 

once i have a moodboard or graphic, i post the link to my fic on twitter and tumblr. in these posts i always make sure to include the title, the word count, and the summary. i try to make it as visually appealing as possibly by organizing the post accordingly and using fonts occasionally to catch people’s eye. this is the app i use for those on mobile! 

i think about the sizing as well – twitter has set dimensions for its photos and is known for displaying the photos awkwardly. tumblr on the other hand will let you upload up to ten photos of any size, and will display them fully without any cropping. according to this link a single photo on twitter should be 16:9. this page also has some good tips. and as far as i can tell if you’re using two or four photos, i would stick to the square images as that is what’s worked for me personally. i believe canva also has a template for a twitter post too.

write for yourself 

i think everyone knows this on some level but i tend to need to be reminded pretty frequently. if you’re heavily involved in social media and fic discourse, it can be very easy to get attached to what you know people want to see. writing should be a balance though, and you should always write for yourself before anyone else. we’re all free to write whatever we want and, even if it’s difficult, you shouldn’t ever let someone make you feel guilty for doing so. writing is an escape and a safe space but it can very quickly become something that causes stress and anxiety if you aren’t doing it for the right reasons.

don’t stress 

easier said than done, I know, but like I mentioned earlier, writing should be fun. a lot of people here don’t do it as their job and no one gets paid to write fics. these are projects that authors take on on their own time even while they work and handle everything else in their lives and those things should come first and foremost, as well as your mental health. this circles back into my earlier point – don’t let people make you feel guilty about anything like not finishing a fic on time or not writing exactly how they wanted it. authors are real people with real lives too and if things get to be too heavy or too stressful, they’re entitled to a break or to leave if that’s what’s best for them.

don’t be afraid to ask for help / validation 

there are tons of lovely writers in this community and others that would be more than happy to answer questions and give advice. if you’re struggling with something, there’s always somewhere to go to get help! 

however, the concept of validation is a bit trickier than the others. there’s a fine line ;) between asking for validation for a little boost, or relying completely on it. posting snippets and sneak peeks is a great way to get people excited about your work and to get yourself motivated if you’re feeling down, but i would suggest not to post one with the sole purpose of fishing for compliments. if you do, it can be very disheartening if you don’t receive any or the ones that you were looking to hear. in my opinion you need to be at least somewhat confident in your own abilities before you can expect other people to be. posting a snippet is more beneficial for when you’ve got a mental block or are stuck in a scene as opposed to just searching for validation for the sake of getting it.

cliche vs. copying 

there’s also two sides to this argument! you shouldn’t be afraid to write what you want, even if it seems like it’s a common trope or cliche topic. everybody writes in different styles and has different ideas and therefore may provide an entirely different view on what’s been poised as a ‘common’ theme. i think i could read a thousand of the ‘there was only one bed’ trope or the college au’s or the other popular plotlines. they’re popular for a reason and you shouldn’t be afraid to explore your own take on it! no one author ‘owns’ a specific trope. 

BUT there is a clear difference in doing your own take on something versus just copying what someone else has written exactly. the lines can get blurry here but it’s obvious to readers when something has been repeated word for word from another fic or when one too many elements are the same. to be on the safe side, always check to make sure that the specifics of your idea haven’t been done exactly before. 

resources 

+ masterpost of some resources 

+ how to keep readers engaged 

+ helpful tips 

+ 100 words for facial expressions 

+ how to write good villains 

+ good advice  

+ synonyms for commonly used words 

+ using metaphors and references 

+ more helpful tips 

+ descriptions

+ synonyms for ‘beautiful’ 

+ tips for dialogue 

+ writing enemies to lovers 

+ other helpful tips 

+ writing friends to lovers 

+ dystopian writing 

+ writing a realistic argument 

+ ways to cut word count 

+ how to write smut 01 * tw for body descriptions etc.  

+ how to write smut 02 

+ SUPER helpful smut vocab

+ how to write flirting 

+ how to write about grief 

+ even more helpful tips

Steve and Robin's less-than-excellent ET Adventure for the "post a snippet" ask meme! Just going off the title, it sounds magnificent

Oh my god, so that one is actually the very first working title for the fic I’ve also been referring to as the Monster Stranger Things Longfic! I was also debating calling it Homecoming and then Homecomings for a hot minute before settling on what is now its final title, the road goes ever on!

As you may imagine by the evolution of the working title, it has...ballooned from my original idea. It started out as a silly canon-divergence AU idea that was very #Steve Harrington Has Powers-centric, picked up a secondary plot about El dealing with the loss of Hopper and her powers, and then just fucking snowballed into an entire alternate season 4 (or maybe it’s more accurate to say season 3.5) complete with character arcs for everybody, Big Bads, chapter titles, new locales and characters, an 80s soundtrack, an El-makeover scene, and a Mr. Clarke cameo. I have been beating my brains out on this fic for nearly a year and I am a chapter and a half away from a finished draft, and then I have a number of edits and a bunch of interstitial scenes to add, and then I am going to post it and stop thinking about it and maybe finish one of my existing posted WIPs for a change. 

Also, you did say ‘post a snippet’, did you not? :3

...

Robin wakes up with a start.

Her alarm is blaring, and the sun pouring in around the curtains feels like a hammer to the head. There’s a coppery taste in the back of her mouth, and a tight, tugging feeling in the skin over her top lip and around her left nostril. When she scratches at it, dried blood clumps under her fingernails and flakes off onto her sheets.

Robin sighs, and smacks her alarm off before she rolls out of bed, heading for the bathroom to wash her face. She can’t say she’s a fan of this new routine.

She stares blankly into the mirror as she brushes her teeth, trying to remember what about her nightmare had freaked her out so bad. It’s weird. She’d half-expected to have nightmares about being locked up and held captive, about the Russians doing whatever fucked-up shit her mind can throw up, about the meat-monster and the guy it had taken over. About people she knows turning out to be – what’d the kids call it – flayed. Robin has, in fact, come up with some really creative nightmare scenarios, and that’s just in her waking hours. Maybe she should start writing horror stories.

It is weird, though. Her actual nightmares aren’t anything like that. Actually, Robin’s not sure how they’re related to what happened at the mall at all.

They’ve all been pretty much the same so far. Or, at least, what Robin can remember of them has been. She’s alone. It’s dark. She’s not sure where she is, but wherever it is, it’s big. And silent. And empty. And wet. She’s not sure what that’s about, but the ground’s always all wet, like she’s standing in a shallow puddle or a room with a washing machine that’s overflowed. And it’s completely dark.

It’s not that scary. When she thinks about it while she’s awake, anyway. But – when she’s there?

Robin can’t shake the feeling that there’s something out there, in that endless, featureless dark. That whatever it is, it’s looking for her. Coming for her.

That it’s only a matter of time before it finds her.

She doesn’t know what happens when it does. Something tells her that she doesn’t want to be there to find out.

Robin spits toothpaste foam and blood in the sink, rinses until her spit no longer comes out rusty pink. She checks the alarm clock on her bedstand. Half an hour until she has to meet Steve for lunch.

She swallows down the twinge of guilt that the thought of Steve gives her. She really shouldn’t have brought up the Russians to get him to shut up about her plans for the fall. He’d sounded so spooked on the phone.

But it’s not like she doesn’t know what that’s like. And it’s not like she made it up just to get him off her back. She could swear she’s seen the same truck in the parking lot outside the strip mall every day this past week, but she’s never seen the driver go into or come out of any of the stores. There’s an odd, hollow quality to all her phone calls that she doesn’t remember ever having been there before. And maybe weird rustling in the bushes is just the local wildlife, but…

“Is it still paranoia if they really are out to get you?” she asks her reflection. Unhelpfully, Mirror Robin has no words of great wisdom to offer. Steve was right, though. She does look like shit.

Robin squints at her reflection, sticks out her tongue, crosses her eyes, and then grabs her brush and starts to work it through her hair.

Interview: Mary Lattimore

“Lost Lake” could be the title of a Mary Lattimore song, but it’s actually the name of a Denver dive bar in which we met. It’s a sharp contrast to her music: more than a little dingy and situated right on Colfax Avenue, a one-time highway that Playboy allegedly called “the longest, wickedest street in America.” Not that you could tell once Mary started playing; her set, drawn in equal measure from the just-released Hundreds of Days and her back catalog, was utterly transportive. This isn’t particularly surprising; regardless of where it’s listened to, Mary’s music has always had a sense of place that offers a compelling alternative. Accordingly, our conversation revolved around exploration — sonic, geographical, and the many intersections thereof. --- Do you find the harp limiting at all, either creatively or in terms of how its perceived? Yes and no. It’s limiting as far as being able to transport it; stairs and taking it places to play. Otherwise, I can fit into a lot of situations, and people that ask me to collaborate usually know that. They don’t expect me to play just ethereal all the time. Sometimes you have to prove yourself, and I think I’ve proven so far that I can take it to a versatile place. I saw that episode of Against the Clock that you did with FACT, which was a bit of a stylistic departure for that series. I haven’t watched it yet! Every one that I’d seen, they were using Ableton and stuff, or just using their computer to record. My computer setup is just GarageBand, you know [laughs]. I do record myself, but I’m not an expert by any means. Does performing solo come naturally to you, or do you prefer an orchestra or band context? It does at this point, because I’ve just done it a lot. I don’t really have any preference at all; I just like playing the harp. I like being able to do everything — I went to school for classical music, I like being able to play in an orchestra, I like being able to play in a rock band, noise music, as a duo. I just like messing around and hearing what happens. Do you feel any sense of ambassadorship bringing the harp to listeners and spaces that might not be familiar with it? I love it. I prefer to play in places like this, where people say “oh, we’ve never had a harp here before.” When I played in Las Vegas, I was really nervous about it because I’d never played there before. I played in this bar with a good number of people, but the promoter told me that it was the quietest it had even been in that venue. People were really listening intently, and it’s cool to get quiet and have the audience be right there with you. That’s the beauty of playing bars like this; it’s a challenge to see if you can connect with people. Do you have an idea of where new listeners tend to get their preconceived notions of harp music from? Every single day, I get compared to Joanna Newsom, I guess because we’re both women and we both play the harp. I think the expectation is that I’m gonna be like a folk singer, which isn’t really my style. On Gilmore Girls, there’s a harpist in the lobby or something. Angels play them when cartoon characters die. Playing in this kind of world, Joanna is the main one that I get; I like her and I’m in really good company, but I do think it’s kind of a lazy comparison. I imagine it’s odd to be the first artist of x or y genre that catches on outside of those circles, but probably even stranger when the audience has exactly one point of reference. Right, or like… weddings. On Gilmore Girls, there’s a harpist in the lobby or something. Angels play them when cartoon characters die. Playing in this kind of world, Joanna is the main one that I get; I like her and I’m in really good company, but I do think it’s kind of a lazy comparison. One of my goals is to kind of normalize the harp, you know? It can be like a piano or a guitar sound, or it can be a noisier thing. Whenever I write parts for records with bands, I try and think of a lyric to play throughout or write like a guitar would. Everything doesn’t have to be all harp-y, with glissandos and fantasia or whatever [laughs]. You were talking about the difficulties of transporting the harp itself — were you to go to Europe, say, would you be able to take it with you? I bought a second harp, which lives in Europe. I won this fellowship in 2014 that came with some money, and I had to just nip it in the bud. I figured it would be like a savings account, that if I ran out of money later, I could just sell it. I just got too nervous to keep asking harpists if I could rent their harp in Europe and shove it in the back of a van and worry about every single scratch on it or the temperature. Someone else’s instrument is so precious to them, so for my own peace of mind, I had to just buy it. It lives in Prague, so whenever I go to Europe, I can see my second baby [laughs]. Do you generally write your songs start-to-finish as relatively discrete compositions, or are they culled from longer sessions? I usually just sit down and improvise until I come up with something that I like. I’ll take that and make a layer of it, then a layer on top of that, and so on, so it’s kind of like structured improvisation. I’ll either start out with a loop of weird sounds that I like and fuck around with that and add layers on top, or I’ll start out with a small melody and add a layer of bass notes or something warped underneath the melody line. It’s pretty much all one take at a time, since I don’t really know how to edit. I’ll record something, and then if I don’t like it, I’ll delete the whole thing. It seems like that would translate well to live performance, in terms of the piece staying true to how it was created. Exactly, yeah. I think it’s cool to have those surprises since you never know what’s gonna blossom out of it, but you start out in the key of D Major or whatever as a touchstone, so you have the safety of that key and some small melody that lets you take it to a different zone. With Ableton or whatever, I guess it’s a little bit of willful ignorance. I use this Line 6 pedal that every guitar player is over by now, but even if it’s not that cool anymore, it’s like another instrument to me, and I know how to use it backwards and forwards. I like working with a little bit of constraint, being a little bit dumb and being crafty to get my way out of something if I get stuck. Given the emphasis on improvisation in both composition and performance of your work, what do you view as the purpose of an album? Just establishing a permanent reference point for the work? You got it [laughs]. Records are like souvenirs, a little bit, of a time. A diary-style souvenir of a place and time. It just immortalizes the situation. It’s a little bit narcissistic, I guess, to be selling people your diary. The point of it is to mark the time, but also to try and connect with human beings. Having a wordless conversation with people that might find a spark of connection in there. If you don’t mind me asking, do you find that your livelihood as a musician is especially dependent on one of albums, commissions, or tours in particular, or is it a balance of all three? I’m hustling all the time, so touring is just another part of that. I do a lot of session work. I like momentum, I get paid through session work and playing shows. Record sales… I don’t really know what to say about that. I love records, I worked at record stores for years and years, and there’s something about albums that’s a complete thought. All the work that goes into a record — the artwork, the mixing, and mastering — it’s like a book. You wouldn’t want to just read one chapter of a book and think that’s enough. You can get disconnected from the fact that a human being made it with a specific intention. That’s what art is. I like working with a little bit of constraint, being a little bit dumb and being crafty to get my way out of something if I get stuck. Speaking of wordless conversation, I understand how a melody could be said to have narrative qualities; with regards to song titles, do you view them as something more akin to writing prompts or as a quick note about your own experience or interpretation? That’s like an indulgence for me, jotting down where I’m coming from. But people can take it to the wrong place; you don’t have to think about this specific convenience store by the ocean. You can take it to wherever you want, though. I read that this album was recorded at the Headlands Center. Can you describe that scene a bit? I just got a residency, so I was there for a couple months. I had a studio in this big redwood barn right near a lighthouse. They cook for you and give you a big, beautiful Victorian house to live in… there’s barely any cell phone reception, so you just have to buckle down and make your work. You take in the landscape too, which totally infuses the music. It’s such a gorgeous place, with no real worries except for mountain lions, I guess [laughs]. There are like 14 different people at a time, but they’re visual artists, writers, all different disciplines. You can do whatever you want to there, there’s no strings attached. I just used it to write a record pretty straightforward, but some people just use it as a break from life. I saw an older interview of yours where you said that a lot of your collaborations had come about through friends. How would you compare Philadelphia and L.A. in terms of fostering that sort of creative community? In Philly, I definitely had a kind of scene where it was really social playing, with everybody supporting each other and stuff. I just made the move to L.A. about a year ago, really intentionally because I wanted to move forward with music, getting involved with film scoring and things like that. Getting really professional about session work. There’s money to be made with art there, and it’s not so much social, like “I respect what you’re doing, let’s work together.” You’re there to follow the ambition; it’s dog-eat-dog a little bit. Do you think that creative work necessitates a trade-off between social and professional functions? I guess it all depends on the city. The rent, how affordable the place is. You can be much more social about it if you’re living in a cheaper city where you don’t have to hustle all the time. I’m doing a lot of work in L.A., but there are so many people who have moved there that were friends of mine from all over the place, so now we’re collaborating a ton as well. It feels great. I never want to have a stupid office job ever again in my life, so I’ll totally supplement my playing for fun with playing for, like, a commercial [laughs]. I don’t consider it selling out when it can enable my playing for fun and getting experimental or whatever. I have a ton of respect for artists who are working totally outside that framework, but it seems like the necessary compromise of that approach is that you can’t stop working at any point. Are you able to take vacations or maintain some semblance of a regular schedule? I love to tour, and I consider it really fun. It’s a way that I get to see all my friends from across the country and hang out with them. It feels like a vacation, because I’m on my own terms and in my own car; I can eat at nice restaurants, and if I’m making money, I can hang out a lot. I’m lucky, because I don’t have to support a band or have anyone depending on me. I like going onto Atlas Obscura, which is this website that can locate weird, kitschy places around you. I do a weird kind of tourism between dates. I’m going to Lawrence next, but I don’t have to be there until Tuesday. I wanna go to the Clutter house — you know that book In Cold Blood by Truman Capote? It’s fascinating, it’s about the murder of a family, which was real, and Truman Capote befriended the murderers. I guess you can see the farmhouse where it happened. Do you find yourself drawing influence from across different forms of media often? I know that you re-scored a silent film once. Yeah, definitely. I’ve written a couple songs that were for books or authors — one of the songs on the new record was written the day that Denis Johnson died, the author of Jesus’ Son. Making music is a way of processing things that happen in the world. I always say it’s like exorcism a little bit: getting out feelings or navigating things that are happening. I like thinking about writing and turning that into music, trying to bring a vibe from one work to another. http://j.mp/2Lui5mI