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em-dash-press · 2 years

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What Is Showing vs. Telling Anyway?

When I decided to get serious about writing, I wrote short stories that meant something to me. Then I let people read them, but not just anyone. I picked people who knew a thing or two about craft. English teachers, the adults in my life who recommended books to me, and a lady who became a beloved writing tutor.

Those people challenged things like my sentence structure and word choices, but my writing tutor told me to show my stories, not to tell them.

I bristled. I was already showing them! That’s creative writing! If I wanted to tell my stories, I’d just say them out loud.

She clarified—in words that flew right over my head. My brain fuzzed out and I couldn’t grasp what she was saying, but I was embarrassed, so I nodded like I understood. It took me a while longer to get the hang of things by writing more (some terrible, some good) stories where I played around with my descriptions, narration, word choices, and themes.

Finally, years later, I understood.

Showing is describing the sensory details of your story. It’s diving into the emotional depth of your characters. It’s making the reader feel like they’re watching a movie while they’re reading your work.

Telling is more like narration. There’s no flowery language or sensory descriptions. It’s straightforward, clean, and nearly professional in nature.

Why Is “Telling” Normally a Bad Thing?

Clean-cut narration isn’t always terrible. Sometimes it works well for stories told by a narrator with dry humor or books about an intensely serious subject.

Most of the time though, “telling” keeps readers at arms-length. Picture yourself reading a history book. Each page gives you the facts. It might also describe a historical figure or the gory details of a war, but making those people or moments come to life in your mind isn’t the point of the text. It’s to convey information.

That’s what makes stories that rely on “telling” so different from stories that “show” everything.

Examples of Telling

If you’re like me, you’re probably thinking that it would be easier to picture the difference between these two concepts if there were examples. Lucky for you, I’ve already thought of that.

Example 1: I’m happy to see my best friend at school.

The narrator conveys their emotion, but not what that emotion makes them feel. There’s nothing to paint a picture of the school or even the friend.

Example 2: Henry didn’t like his dinner.

Cool, the character didn’t enjoy their food. Why? What was the taste or texture like? What did he experience that made him recognize the feeling of not enjoying the meal?

Example 3: Sofia made her bed in a hurry.

Why she was in a hurry might come in the next sentence or paragraph, but what did she feel while making that bed? What was her thought process? What’s her room like?

Examples of Showing

Let’s turn those same examples into sentences that “show.”

Example 1: I walk through the clustered school hallways with the rest of the student body, smelling their pre-exam nervous sweat and too much men’s body spray. This school would be miserable, except for my best friend. When I spot her by my dented locker, the smile on her face makes the cold bus ride to school worth it.

This is obviously more than a sentence, but notice how you get a better experience from it. The school hallways are crowded and smell bad. The protagonist doesn’t enjoy where they attend class. However, their best friend is a source of happiness. She waits by a dented metal locker, possibly with some good news, encouragement or an exciting update to something happening in the protagonist’s life. It makes you want to know what she’s going to say, especially because you can relate to what the main character is feeling.

Example 2: Henry’s nose scrunched up at the taste of his dinner. The chicken was in a desperate need for salt. This never would have happened if he had been allowed to make it.

We’ve all had a similar reaction to eating bad food. Your nose scrunches up, your mouth tightens, your tongue freezes. This example shows that in a way that you can feel yourself going through the same physical motions. It also explains why the food is bad using one of the five senses—it’s not salted enough.

Example 3: Sofia pulled her purple comforter tight against her headboard and threw her pillow at it as she ran out the door, late for the bus again.

More scenery details—the bed has a headboard and the comforter is purple. The protagonist is in a rush so her pillow is likely lopsided on the bed, which means the rest of her room is probably a bit messy too. The visual details make this a vivid scene and introduce the reader to a few of Sofia’s relatable character attributes.

How to Spot the Difference

I began to tell the difference by imagining myself reading a single sentence out loud. If I read any of the examples above before the “showing” edits, you’d have questions for me. See if a sentence, paragraph, or page makes you ask yourself:

What emotions does the protagonist feel right now?

How does the main character look through their body language?

What can the protagonist smell, taste, or feel?

What does the environment look like and is it necessary to describe it at this moment?

Does this scene need dialogue?

Do the characters feel flat?

Where’s the story’s hook?

The last question is tricky. The hook will be at the start of a short story or shortly within it, much like how a hook is within or at the end of the first chapter in a novel. If your writing doesn’t compel you to keep reading, it’s likely lacking the emotional depth that showing provides.

When Showing Goes Overboard

It’s always possible to have too much showing. It leads to the discussion English teachers always have about how Victor Hugo wrote for numerous pages about a single room in a chapter.

You could also fall into the trap of inserting flowery language into your work that you wouldn’t normally use, all for the sake of “painting a picture.” Your writing is your voice! It’s unique to you—how you speak, how you think, how you express yourself through stories. Write what comes naturally to you while keeping scenery, emotional depth, and sensory details in mind. If your words seem boring, that’s what editing is for (after you finish and step back from your work for a bit!).

Lose Yourself in Your Stories

“Showing” gets easier when you can lose yourself in whatever story you’re currently writing. If you’re struggling to do that, you might want to write in a quieter environment or put more details into your story or character outlines.

Have fun practicing this art form and you’ll watch your writing skills grow.

#writing #writing tips #writing help #writing advice #writing craft #writeblr #writers of tumblr #creative writing #writing inspiration #writing community #writers #show don't tell #wip

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duckprintspress · 3 years

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How to Edit an Over-Length Story Down to a Specific Word Count

One of the most wonderful things about writing as a hobby is that you never have to worry about the length of your story. You can be as self-indulgent as you want, make your prose the royalist of purples, include every single side story and extra thought that strikes your fancy. It’s your story, with no limits, and you can proceed with it as you wish.

When transitioning from casual writing to a more professional writing milieu, this changes. If you want to publish, odds are, you’ll need to write to a word count. If a flash fiction serial says, “1,000 words or less,” your story can’t be 1,025 and still qualify. If a website says, “we accept novellas ranging from 20,000 to 40,000 words,” your story will need to fall into that window. Even when you consider novel-length works, stories are expected to be a certain word count to fit neatly into specific genres - romance is usually around 80,000 words, young adult usually 50,000 to 80,000, debut novels usually have to be 100,000 words or less regardless of genre, etc. If you self-publish or work with a small press, you may be able to get away with breaking these “rules,” but it’s still worthwhile to learn to read your own writing critically with length in mind and learn to recognize what you do and do not need to make your story work - and then, if length isn’t an issue in your publishing setting, you can always decide after figuring out what’s non-essential to just keep everything anyway.

If you’re writing for fun? You literally never have to worry about your word count (well, except for sometimes in specific challenges that have minimum and/or maximum word counts), and as such, this post is probably not for you.

But, if you’re used to writing in the “throw in everything and the kitchen sink” way that’s common in fandom fanfiction circles, and you’re trying to transition only to be suddenly confronted with the reality that you’ve written 6,000 words for a short story project with a maximum word count of 5,000...well, we at Duck Prints Press have been there, we are in fact there right now, as we finish our stories for our upcoming anthology Add Magic to Taste and many of us wrote first drafts that were well over the maximum word count.

So, based on our experiences, here are our suggestions on approaches to help your story shorter...without losing the story you wanted to tell!

Cut weasel words (we wrote a whole post to help you learn how to do that!) such as unnecessary adverbs and adjectives, the “was ~ing” sentence structure, redundant time words such as “a moment later,” and many others.

When reviewing dialog, keep an eye out for “uh,” “er,” “I mean,” “well,” and other casual extra words. A small amount of that kind of language usage can make dialog more realistic, but a little goes a long way, and often a fair number of words can be removed by cutting these words, without negatively impacting your story at all.

Active voice almost always uses fewer words than passive voice, so try to use active voice more (but don’t forget that passive voice is important for varying up your sentence structures and keeping your story interesting, so don’t only write in active voice!).

Look for places where you can replace phrases with single words that mean the same thing. You can often save a lot of words by switching out phrases like “come back” for “return” and seeking out other places where one word can do the work of many.

Cut sentences that add atmosphere but don't forward the plot or grow your characters. (Obviously, use your judgement. Don't cut ALL the flavor, but start by going - I’ve got two sentences that are mostly flavor text - which adds more? And then delete the other, or combine them into one shorter sentence.)

Remove superfluous dialog tags. If it’s clear who’s talking, especially if it’s a conversation between only two people, you can cut all the he saids, she saids.

Look for places where you've written repetitively - at the most basic level, “ ‘hahaha,’ he laughed,” is an example, but repetition is often more subtle, like instances where you give information in once sentence, and then rephrase part or all of that sentence in the next one - it’s better to poke at the two sentences until you think of an effective, and more concise, way to make them into only one sentence. This also goes for scenes - if you’ve got two scenes that tend towards accomplishing the same plot-related goal, consider combining them into one scene.

Have a reason for every sentence, and even every sentence clause (as in, every comma insertion, every part of the sentence, every em dashed inclusion, that kind of thing). Ask yourself - what function does this serve? Have I met that function somewhere else? If it serves no function, or if it’s duplicative, consider cutting it. Or, the answer may be “none,” and you may choose to save it anyway - because it adds flavor, or is very in character for your PoV person, or any of a number of reasons. But if you’re saving it, make sure you’ve done so intentionally. It's important to be aware of what you're trying to do with your words, or else how can you recognize what to cut, and what not to cut?

Likewise, have a reason for every scene. They should all move the story along - whatever the story is, it doesn’t have to be “the end of the world,” your story can be simple and straightforward and sequential...but if you’re working to a word count, your scenes should still forward the story toward that end point. If the scene doesn’t contribute...you may not need them, or you may be able to fold it in with another scene, as suggested in item 6.

Review the worldbuilding you’ve included, and consider what you’re trying to accomplish with your story. A bit of worldbuilding outside of the bare essentials makes a story feel fleshed out, but again, a little can go a long way. If you’ve got lots of “fun” worldbuilding bits that don’t actually forward your plot and aren’t relevant to your characters, cut them. You can always put them as extras in your blog later, but they’ll just make your story clunky if you have a lot of them.

Beware of info-dumps. Often finding a more natural way to integrate that information - showing instead of telling in bits throughout the story - can help reduce word count.

Alternatively - if you over-show, and never tell, this will vastly increase your word count, so consider if there are any places in your story where you can gloss over the details in favor of a shorter more “tell-y” description. You don’t need to go into a minute description of every smile and laugh - sometimes it’s fine to just say, “she was happy” or “she frowned” without going into a long description of their reaction that makes the reader infer that they were happy. (Anyone who unconditionally says “show, don’t tell,” is giving you bad writing advice. It’s much more important to learn to recognize when showing is more appropriate, and when telling is more appropriate, because no story will function as a cohesive whole if it’s all one or all the other.)

If you’ve got long paragraphs, they’re often prime places to look for entire sentences to cut. Read them critically and consider what’s actually helping your story instead of just adding word count chonk.

Try reading some or all of the dialog out loud; if it gets boring, repetitive, or unnecessary, end your scene wherever you start to lose interest, and cut the dialog that came after. If necessary, add a sentence or two of description at the end to make sure the transition is abrupt, but honestly, you often won’t even need to do so - scenes that end at the final punchy point in a discussion often work very well.

Create a specific goal for a scene or chapter. Maybe it’s revealing a specific piece of information, or having a character discover a specific thing, or having a specific unexpected event occur, but, whatever it is, make sure you can say, “this scene/chapter is supposed to accomplish this.” Once you know what you’re trying to do, check if the scene met that goal, make any necessary changes to ensure it does, and cut things that don’t help the scene meet that goal.

Building on the previous one, you can do the same thing, but for your entire story. Starting from the beginning, re-outline the story scene-by-scene and/or chapter-by-chapter, picking out what the main “beats” and most important themes are, and then re-read your draft and make sure you’re hitting those clearly. Consider cutting out the pieces of your story that don’t contribute to those, and definitely cut the pieces that distract from those key moments (unless, of course, the distraction is the point.)

Re-read a section you think could be cut and see if any sentences snag your attention. Poke at that bit until you figure out why - often, it’s because the sentence is unnecessary, poorly worded, unclear, or otherwise superfluous. You can often rewrite the sentence to be clearer, or cut the sentence completely without negatively impacting your work.

Be prepared to cut your darlings; even if you love a sentence or dialog exchange or paragraph, if you are working to a strict word count and it doesn't add anything, it may have to go, and that's okay...even though yes, it will hurt, always, no matter how experienced a writer you are. (Tip? Save your original draft, and/or make a new word doc where you safely tuck your darlings in for the future. Second tip? If you really, really love it...find a way to save it, but understand that to do so, you’ll have to cut something else. It’s often wise to pick one or two favorites and sacrifice the rest to save the best ones. We are not saying “always cut your darlings.” That is terrible writing advice. Don’t always cut your darlings. Writing, and reading your own writing, should bring you joy, even when you’re doing it professionally.)

If you’re having trouble recognizing what in your own work CAN be cut, try implementing the above strategies in different places - cut things, and then re-read, and see how it works, and if it works at all. Sometimes, you’ll realize...you didn’t need any of what you cut. Other times, you’ll realize...it no longer feels like the story you were trying to tell. Fiddle with it until you figure out what you need for it to still feel like your story, and practice that kind of cutting until you get better at recognizing what can and can’t go without having to do as much tweaking.

Lastly...along the lines of the previous...understand that sometimes, cutting your story down to a certain word count will just be impossible. Some stories simply can’t be made very short, and others simply can’t be told at length. If you’re really struggling, it’s important to consider that your story just...isn’t going to work at that word count. And that’s okay. Go back to the drawing board, and try again - you’ll also get better at learning what stories you can tell, in your style, using your own writing voice, at different word counts. It’s not something you’ll just know how to do - that kind of estimating is a skill, just like all other writing abilities.

As with all our writing advice - there’s no one way to tackle cutting stories for length, and also, which of these strategies is most appropriate will depend on what kind of story you’re writing, how much over-length it is, what your target market is, your characters, and your personal writing style. Try different ones, and see which work for you - the most important aspect is to learn to read your own writing critically enough that you are able to recognize what you can cut, and then from that standpoint, use your expertise to decide what you should cut, which is definitely not always the same thing. Lots of details can be cut - but a story with all of the flavor and individuality removed should never be your goal.

Contributions to this post were made by @unforth, @jhoomwrites, @alecjmarsh, @shealynn88, @foxymoley, @willablythe, and @owlishintergalactic, and their input has been used with their knowledge and explicit permission. Thanks, everyone, for helping us consider different ways to shorten stories!

#writing advice #duck prints press #original content

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bettsfic · 3 years

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february pinned: the real & the ideal

in this month’s edition of my lowkey writing-related newsletter, in addition to my writing-related post roundup and consultation availability, i have short story recommendations for you and an essay on the nature of reality in fiction!

if you want to receive my lowkey writing-related newsletter directly, you can subscribe here.

in other news, i finished two fics this month:

digging for orchids (hualian, 43k, explicit, fake marriage au)

let ruin end here (hualian, 8k, mature, neighbors au)

full newsletter below the cut, or you can read it here.

oof,

what a month. january is already a rough time. throwing in a pandemic, a coup, and an economic revolution spearheaded by reddit just seems unfair. as for me personally, the spring semester came at me fast and even though it’s only week 2, i am already buried in grading. which i realize is my fault, considering i’m the one who assigned homework.

so after hearing your feedback, i thought i’d make this newsletter even more writing-related by writing more about writing. this month i’ll start off by talking about the nature of reality in fiction in a segment i call “been thinkin a lot about.” more on that below.

new resource

i’ve compiled a folder of PDFs of the short stories i teach most often, which is to say, the stories i like enough to re-read every semester. most of them are literary fiction but a few veer into fantasy, sci fi, and horror.

i know before the MFA, i didn’t really know what a short story was. like i knew, abstractly, the concept of a short story (it is as it sounds), but i could only list a couple i’d ever read as an adult, and i hadn’t read anything that had been published in the last decade. i remember wondering why i was even being asked to care about short stories. who writes short stories? who reads them? apparently, a lot of people. short storyists are a lot like fanwriters in that they make no money and when you talk about your writing in public, people give you that “why would anyone waste their time with that?” look.

so here’s why i was asked to care about short stories: a good short story gives you the entirety of a world in a very condensed space. moreover, it can sometimes leave you as satisfied as a novel in a fraction of the reading time. all the stories i’ve compiled here are ones that stuck with me, that i find myself recommending over and over to writers who want a good example of developing character, or weird narration, or establishing stakes.

if you’re a writer considering publication or an MFA in creative writing, i highly recommend familiarizing yourself with short stories, if for no other reason than to get the feel for them so you can write some of your own. if you can get a few short story publications under your belt, it’ll be easier to open doors when you’re ready to query agents for a novel. also, short stories make a great writing sample for grad programs, workshops, fellowships, residencies, and grant funding.

if you want to check out more short stories but have no idea where to start, the 2020 best american short stories just dropped in november, or if you want a cheaper one, used copies of 2019 and earlier are available on thriftbooks. if you want an overview of the history of the (american) short story, there’s also the best american short stories of the century. fair warning, though, while it’s more diverse than expected, it’s still a bit heavy on dead-white-dude writing.

content warning: the stories in the above-linked folder may depict instances of sexual assault, suicide, and/or abuse. i have not labeled them individually with warnings but i hope to soon, as well as provide a catalog with summaries.

i’m also still working on my essay and novel recs. more to come on that hopefully next month.

writing-related posts

how i quit my banking job to do a creative writing MFA

how i learned to read faster/stop subvocalizing

how to write when you have no time or energy to write

my experience writing fic in small/dead fandoms (aka fics that will probably not get any traffic)

how to describe facial expressions

how to ask for help from your professors

how to navigate tenses during flashbacks

how to separate yourself from your work

how (and why you might want to) write a shitty first draft

why you should consider making the climax the inciting incident

for a complete list of my writing-related posts, check out this masterdoc (which i still need to update it with the past few months’ posts).

stuff i’m into rn

i’m about halfway through the rhetoric of fiction by wayne c. booth which has more or less become my narrative bible. it’s a little dated (1961) but it tackles banal writing adages that are somehow still believed, like “show don’t tell” and whatnot, and breaks them down with amazing insight, clarity, and research. it’s a bit of a dense text so i’m only reading a few pages a day, i think the first time i’ve ever let myself read something so intentionally slowly. now i’m kind of obsessed with doing things slowly. reading slowly, writing slowly, cooking slowly. i even drive slowly, because it’s so rare to go anywhere at all, and i want to enjoy it. also, it’s very snowy where i am. also also, the battery died in my car this month and i really have to make it a point to drive more often.

february availability

i have 2 openings for initial writing consultations in february! if you’re interested, please fill out this google form.

you can learn more about my services on my carrd.

been thinkin a lot about

compulsory reality in fiction. many of us have probably received feedback along the lines of, or thought to ourselves as we read, “that’s not realistic.” many of us believe, consciously or not, that fiction that is more “realistic” is inherently better than fiction that is less “realistic.” for some of us, real means a saturation of details, the clear depiction of the surfaces of things. reality is found in the rendering thereof; if you can “see” it, it’s real. for others of us, it might be the development of complex characters and their growth across a narrative. and for yet others, reality is subtlety, or misery, or the idea of “slice of life,” a term i don’t think means anything, because aren’t all stories a slice of a character’s life? what would a story that’s not a slice of life look like? you’d either have to take away the “slice” part and render a whole life, which is impossible, or you’d have to take away the “life” part and create a dead story, which may be possible, but why would you want to? even if you wrote a story about a rock, the rock would be brought to life by virtue of being written about.

anyway. i think the word “real” is a shitty word for the same reason “slice of life” is a shitty phrase: everything is real and therefore nothing cannot be real. slices of life are all we know because we are alive and cannot truly perceive not being alive; reality is also all we know, and any depictions beyond reality are thus made real because they have been depicted.

so the “goal” for fiction to be “realistic” seems to me to be a false one. all fiction is real because it exists and no fiction can be truly real because it’s only a facsimile of reality. not to get all “this is not a pipe” but writing is just making squiggles, and we as a community of English-knowers agree that certain squiggles correspond to certain sounds, and certain sounds together make words which conjure meanings. and words put together into sentences into paragraphs conjure even more complicated meanings. and when those paragraphs are woven into narrative we create yet more and more complicated meaning.

every time you write anything — a text message, an email, a tweet, a fanfic — you are taking the infinite abstraction of your own cognition, narrowing it into a single concept, and representing that concept with patterns in the form of sounds represented by letters and given meaning with words, so that the infinite abstraction of your own conscience can be fractionally witnessed by the infinite abstraction of someone else’s. and even though we can’t definitively prove for ourselves that any other thing possesses a consciousness, writing shows us the shape of someone else’s mind, and tells us we are not alone.

and yet we still expect writing to be “real.”

have you ever read a story where a character sneezed? like just, a description of a sneeze for the sake of it, with no purpose or function in the plot? if not, is it because our characters aren’t real enough to sneeze, or because the sneeze isn’t relevant to their plight? what would a written sneeze look like, and why would somebody want to write it? moreover, why would somebody want to read it? that leads me to wonder, do we depict reality in the service of narrative, or narrative in the service of reality? in other words, do we write to portray reality (sans sneezing), or do we depict reality to constrain our writing, the way one might request bumpers when bowling so as not to fall in the gutters?

i’ve never read an artful rendition of a character pissing or shitting, either, even when those things are related to a character’s plight and circumstance — stories involving long road trips, living in the woods, being kidnapped. the only exception i can think of is when those things are eroticized (we do not kinkshame here in this lkwrnl), the same way it’s rare to find detailed sex writing that isn’t for the purpose of reader arousal. are there just some things about the nature of being human that are too intimate, too complex, or too boring to write?

once i wrote a murder that takes place in a small fictional midwestern town in the 90s (for the ~aesthetic), and it went uninvestigated by said town’s police force. early readers repeatedly commented along the lines of, “that’s not realistic.” and i thought, no, if anything, the incompetence of police is too realistic for the heightened reality i’m trying to render. have you ever heard of a cop solving a murder that didn’t come with an obvious suspect or immediately found evidence? i haven’t. that doesn’t mean those cases don’t exist, but i definitely think they’re less likely than mass media has us believe, and the average small-town police force has far less motivation (and possibly training) to solve crimes than we think.

i started working on the above-mentioned novel in 2016, and my goal was to depict a reality that hovers above the surface of plausibility. in this novel, which is based on macbeth, a preteen girl, mercy, becomes jealous of the love her best friend elisa shows to her father. mercy decides to get her older and very unstable brother to kill him. naturally the deed goes awry, but it does occur, and the cleanup is far messier than anticipated.

is it plausible for a 12 year old girl to plot and execute the murder of her best friend’s father? no. is that what this book is about? yes. a book about a 12 year old girl who has a perfectly healthy relationship with her best friend and who has no feelings toward her bff’s father one way or another is probably far more “realistic,” but that’s not the book i’d want to read and certainly not the one i want to write. my goal of a heightened reality is what henry james calls the intensity of illusion, the thing that allows a reader, through the witness of one’s distilled cognition into language, to exit physical, knowable reality, and enter a new and unknown reality. and isn’t climbing to that higher place, that intensity of illusion, the purpose of fiction? if it’s not, what is?

the best feedback i got on the aforementioned murder scene was from one of my professors, who, of the perfect calm of all children involved, said, “they just shot a guy. at least one of them would be freaking out.”

he was totally right, but it opened up a lot of questions for me. by what standard did he reach that conclusion? was it something in the chapter itself, was it his personal understanding of the work of narrative, or was it the logical conclusion of the slim plausibility of the scenario? moreover, where did i come up with the idea that all of my preteen characters would commit a murder and proceed to be very chill about it? if an implausible scenario begs the expectation of emotional distress, would it be more compelling to buy into that expectation or deviate from it? is it even my obligation to be compelling when i can never have a cogent grasp of the personal tastes of my audience?

that brings me to what appears to be reality’s opposite: idealism, the state those of us who write fanfic are often trying to achieve. we’re working in an entire genre of ideals, of happily ever afters, of hurt that is always followed by comfort, of glossily rendered sex during which everyone orgasms and no one has to pee afterward. we fix broken texts and continue incomplete ones. sometimes, we want to make existing things better, deeper, more complicated. but all the time, we want to make a text more than what it is.

some see this process, this drive for the ideal, as antithetical to realism, and i think that’s part of the reason fanfiction and other idealistic genres (romance, etc.) get a bad name — the assumption that more real (which for some means more miserable) is better, and therefore its opposite, the ideal, is worse. for them, i have this quote from vladimir nabokov:

For me a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm.

the ideal, aesthetic bliss, the intensity of illusion. these are all phrases that boil down to the same thing: you the writer get to define the constraints of your own reality. you get to choose if your world even complies with the known laws of physics. and if it doesn’t, you get to choose which ones to break, and why to break them. you get to choose if your stories take place in a real house in a real town on a real day. if you wrote a story that takes place on september 11, 2001, would the events of that story be shaped by the events of that actual day, or are you writing a better world where 9/11 doesn’t happen? consider the consequences of both: why might you want to write reality? why might you want to write ideality? how do these things shape your identity and goals as a writer?

no matter where a work falls on the real-ideal spectrum, you have to accept that prose itself will only ever be a verisimilitude of reality and therefore an interpretation of it, one that might be interpreted differently by a reader. in writing and everything else, you can never have complete control over what others perceive. it’s like giving someone cash as a gift. they might buy themselves something nice with it, or they might spend it on groceries. the point is, eventually we all have to let go of our realities.

#lkwrnl #pinned

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roc-thoughtblog · 3 years

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Sense and Sensibility Readthrough Part 9

Chapter 12, Pages 49-54

Previously, Sir Middleton has started the Party Timez and Marianne is flirting it up with mysterious Mr. Charming. Meanwhile, Elinor has a sweet moment with Colonel Brandon where he alludes to a past love-related something, because they are both two lonely people watching a party.

I enjoyed this chapter, because Margaret finally opened her mouth and only gold came out. :D You little scamp, you have vindicated my small obsession with seeing you relevant in any form!

Readthrough below.

Chapter 12

AS ELINOR and Marianne were were walking together the next morning the latter communicated a piece of news to her sister which in spite of all that she knew before of Marianne's imprudence and want of thought, surprised her

Oh? OH? Marianne going to have many thoughts, head full of prudence?

by its extravagant testimony to both.

NOPE! Also, Austenism on first sentence of chapter, nice opening. I most creatively coined that for personal use and now I finally get to use it! Setup into unceremonious, and yet very extra, subversion that turns potential positives upside down. Anyway, Willoughby has given Marianne a horse, which she has accepted with zero thought into the Dashwoods' ability to keep it.

Elinor, has, of course, thought of all the things the family is lacking with regards to horse-keeping, including most prominently, a complete lack of a stable in which to house it. Was boutta ask, good Elinor answered my enquiry most quickly.

I have a friend who is a self-professed horse-girl, and many mutual friends who attest to not desiring to ride with her on account of it being quite dangerous. This isn't directly related to anything, Marianne just invited Elinor to ride her horse and I was suddenly struck by a memory of warring opinions on the risks of horseriding. Horse-girl's testimony to its relative safety was not aided by her own anecdote of having fallen off a horse onto her back once, and not being able to feel her neck for a while, or something similar to that effect (don't worry, she is fine). I imagine Elinor would be horrified.

Marianne brushes off all of Elinor's concerns in... most short-sighted fashion. No Marianne, do not keep a horse in any old shed. This reminds me of when my aunt kept her kittens in the bathroom. Bad. Awful. Don't consider keeping animals if you can't be bothered to house them properly. :(

Of course, Marianne draws the line when Elinor claims she doesn't know Willoughby well enough to receive a horse from the man;

"You are mistaken, Elinor," said she warmly, "in supposing I know very little of Willoughby. I have not known him long indeed, but I am much better acquainted with him, than I am with any other creature in the world, except yourself and mamma. [...] I should hold myself guilty of greater impropriety in accepting a horse from my brother, than from Willoughby. Of John I know very little, though we have lived together for years; but of Willoughby my judgement has long been formed."

Marianne has a great talent for speaking warmly. :'D

Ouch girl you have been hit hard. The infatuation, it speaks through you with a megaphone.

It's really fascinating how big an effect love and infatuation seems to have on apparent closeness. Like at some point it really does cross over the line to being genuinely close, but I feel like I observe a lot of the time, before that point, that people tend to... trick themselves into thinking they are close? Infatuation has a remarkable ability to warp the sense of emotional proximity between people, maybe even just through the firing of emotions on all cylinders.

One memorable conversation I will always return to was when a friend of mine referred to their boyfriend of a few months as their "best friend" in the most casual, natural way. A few months didn't seem like a long enough time, and when I asked them, they did suddenly realise they weren't quite there yet... I find it very interesting how love can so easily dominate social lives.

Anyway, Marianne has jumped to Big Conclusion about how well she knows Willoughby. It's a good thing he's probably a nice guy really, but this is also likely one of the ways predatory relationships can take root so uh, look after your friends I guess. Sometimes when this kinda emotion takes hold they need a second opinion to keep them grounded.

Elinor thought it wisest to touch that point no more. She knew her sister's temper. Opposition on so tender a subject would only attach her the more to her own opinion.

Yeah, Elinor has the right idea. Backfire effect is real, and it's not something you want to mess with when you really need to convince somebody of something. You definitely need to go around with a different approach... which Elinor does, nice! By appealing to Marianne's concern of potentially greatly burdening her mother, who would of course consent enthusiastically to a horse, but also be the most inconvenienced by its maintenance.

Marianne relents most sadly. :(

She tells Willoughby next she sees him that she can't take the horse, because of reasons. Willoughby is disappointed, but tells her that the horse is still hers, once the time arrives that she can keep- he named the horse Queen Mab? Horses. Always with funky names. Is that a historical figure? FAIRY FROM ROMEO AND JULIET! Please Mr. Willoughby! You are every bit the drama queen as Marianne. You are not so star crossed!

O-oh. Elinor overhears everything, and also realises now that they are in fact a couple? By the way Willoughby pronounces Marianne's first name, and the fact that he uses it at all. Oh, that she is now absolutely certain of it, and in no way surprised. Yeah that makes sense.

GASP! MARGARET SPEAKS!

Alright this whole sequence is gold, I dunno how to relate it here but it's a quick and fun read. Reading being generally fun, but quick doesn't usually come naturally to me. Also means I don't take notes.

Margaret thinks the two lovebirds will be married soon and Elinor is hilariously shutting her down for crying wolf about pictures that turned out to be of great-uncles. But this time Margaret has witnessed Willoughby beg for, and acquire, a lock of Marianne's hair, for romantically sentimental reasons I personally do not understand but have witnessed enough to accept without question. Because, y'know, children don't count as witnesses to secret emotional dalliances you don't the adults to see. And the account is specific and detailed enough that it doesn't seem like something a kid would just make up.

And then we go on a hilarious tangent about how Margaret accidentally spilled all the beans on Elinor's love life to Mrs. Jennings for not knowing any better how to respond to questions. :'D The poor girl asks Elinor for permission to say, so now Mrs. Jennings knows somebody exists. And then Marianne drags herself into it to defend Elinor's feelings, but Margaret innocently reminds her that all the speculation was her’s to begin with.

"Margaret," said Marianne with great warmth,

GREAT WARMTH! This is greatest warmth of Marianne yet, I have never seen her so upset, I'm rolling. Poor Margaret is a little out of her depth with all the adults bugging her for gossip, and the more the sisters try to contain her the more slips out. You can't expect so much from a kid. :'D

Thankfully Lady Middleton saves all the Dashwood sisters by abruptly and deliberately changing the topic to the weather, followed by sensitive Colonel Brandon. Nice save, guys! Willoughby, good man, invites Marianne to start playing piano too. Elinor is saved, but still thoroughly shook haha. Poor girl is not of a heart that can deal with this assault.

Chapter concludes with a quick two paragraphs which I guess will set up the next chapter; they organise a party to go party at an estate belonging to Colonel Brandon's brother-in-law, because, Sir Middleton has partied in that place all too much and yet never enough. Party. Sir Middleton: Party man, does whatever a party can. What exactly do landed lords actually do again?

All this arranged with open carriages and sailing, and I assume cold provisions to imply a picnic; "rather a bold undertaking, considering the time of year, and that it had rained every day for the last fortnight -" HA. Well, despite his extensive partying experience, we are given to understand that Sir M. is still a slow learner. Oh well.

... I just realised I found Margaret to be so entertaining I didn't realise the story had like... used her as a connecting factor to completely transition the theme, setting and topic of the chapter halfway through. I feel like this is important to note, as for the most part chapters in this story seem to stick to exploring one specific topic or person. This particular chapter was somewhat all-over-the-place topic-wise (Marillouby confirmed, Elinor's beau’s existence revealed) and the only unifying factor was Margaret shenanigans, which I love, but she isn't relevant to the central plot in the same way the two other pieces are. On top of that, the chapter ends on an otherwise random note that they're going to another party at a place related to Brandon; this isn't something that necessarily needed to cap off this chapter as far as I can tell.

I guess what I'm wondering is, this slightly frankenstinian chapter; is it the result of combining two smaller segments too short to be chapters in their own right, or is it more like... a deliberately transitional chapter? That the chapter lacks a unifyingly plot relevant topic to explore, because it's only concern is for setting up pieces for coming chapters at the new estate party? I guess I'll find out soon.

#1700 words but no tangent in particular #so it must all be the work of the Great and Powerful Margaret Dashwood!#She's great! :D #Jane Austen #Sense and Sensibility #readthrough #novels

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darkpoisonouslove · 4 years

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I’m sending you almost the exact list you asked me, but XD 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 15, 16

Perfectly fine with me! :D

1. What's something you've written that you know is OOC and you just don't care?

I am pretty sure that Darcy is being at least somewhat OOC in The End of Never but I couldn’t be bothered to care right now. I would have to rewrite it from scratch to fix that and all that can accomplish is making me abandon that fic forever so I guess we’ll just have to make do with it. (Though, tbh she just learned who her parents were so I guess it’s normal for her to be all confused and not too much like herself).

I also think that Valtor might be somewhat OOC as well in “How Can Light Be So Hard to See?” You know, giving up his quest for power for Griffin. It made sense with the direction of the story but when you put it next to canon, I don’t think it passes the test of being in character with flying colors.

2. What's the most overrated thing you've written?

I have one fanfic for Fairy Tail that is hideously basic and somehow is still my most popular and I just can’t stand that. The idea is just so unoriginal and mainstream - which I guess is what is the appeal - that it drives me nuts to know that is my most liked work for that fandom.

I don’t think I have any Winx fic that I would call overrated. Certainly a handful that I think are underrated, though.

5. Something you hate to see in smut.

Descriptions of every single movement that is happening between the characters. It is in no way necessary and what is more important in that situation - it is just not sexy. There is nothing hot about the in-out motion as I like to call the logistics of smuts. It is all the feelings that the characters are bringing into the situation that turn it from mechanical motions into an experience and I just cannot stand it when we spend five paragraphs on undressing and there isn’t a single emotion mentioned meanwhile, only physicality. No, thank you.

I really hate the lack of dialogue in most smut also. For me the connection of the characters also needs to come through in words. Maybe not that many of them - and I certainly have smuts that aren’t that rich in dialogue - but there have to be at least a few lines somewhere during the whole thing for me to be able to actually enjoy it. And since it relates to this, let me give you a quote from my idol, Dorothy Zbornak - “You know I’ve always wanted to [talk during sex], but at that point no one ever seems interested in conversation.” Same, sister. Same.

And here is also something that kinda goes as a addendum to the previous point - I may like to have dialogue in my smut, but I absolutely despise the way a lot of people write “dirty talk”. It is not sexy, it is just plain disgusting or offensive. Sometimes both at once. I don’t have a problem with the names of the things but you can use them without being utterly vulgar and gross.

6. Something you love to see in smut.

Talking. Just the characters talking about stuff. About how it feels or how they feel, or even about things that aren’t necessarily that connected to it. Bantering during sex is just A++ material. It just makes it feel alive to me and like an actual interaction. It is not necessary all of the time but, like I said before, let them speak to each other instead of just fucking like animals who can’t communicate, please!

Other than that, I am not that particular about what I want in smuts. I am definitely here for some kinky elements as often as possible. XD They certainly give a great opportunity to explore how much the characters trust each other and how they feel about each other and themselves and I am all about that. I just need there to be emotion because that’s what I can relate to and what makes or breaks a scene for me. And smuts aren’t an exception.

7. Something you hate to see in dialogue.

Accents because they often make it hard for me to understand what the hell the character is supposed to be saying. Just, please, write that there is an accent in the dialogue tag and let us all move on happily.

Excessive realisticness also can become annoying. I get it that you’re trying to be authentic but when you can’t understand what the dialogue is supposed to say, then we have a problem.

8. Something you love to see in dialogue.

Considering the fact that I am a dialogue writer, I don’t really have anything particular that I am looking for in dialogue. Just as long as it is understandable, I am fine with it. I don’t really stop to think about it that much when I write because it comes easily to me and so I don’t really pay that much attention to how it reads in other people’s writings.

11. What "don't ever do this" writing rule are you guilty of constantly breaking?

Starting sentences with “and” and “but” and other conjunctions. I don’t care what anyone says. That can be used as emphasis and I will die on this hill. It is a legit writing technique.

Also, I keep using adverbs no matter how much people condemn them. There is a certain merit to the advice to limit their use and look for stronger verbs that don’t need adverbs when possible but I still think it is silly to just throw away a whole group of parts of the speech.

12. What writing rule do you refuse to break?

I am pretty sure I have broken everything at some point. Some things consciously and others just due to not knowing how things happen. I am pretty particular about grammar and punctuation usually but if I think the flow of the sentence needs me to throw those out the window, I will do it without hesitation.

15. We all project onto our characters. Where has your personality or life choices leaked onto the page the most?

Honestly? Everywhere. Rarely do I ever look at a completed fic and not find a way in which I have projected onto the characters. It’s just everywhere.

There is Griffin’s fear of being abandoned in “Pain”.

There is Stella’s hurt over her parents’ divorce in “I Want to Do it All with You”.

There is Griffin’s desire to overcome her self-deprecation in “Can We Give Hope a Chance to Grow?”

There are more projections in “What Is the One Thing That Can Never Break?”, “Happiness Is More Real When You Share It”, “How Can Light Be So Hard to See?”, “Let Me Mirror Your Love for Me Back at You”, etc.

But the most notable I think is in chapter 2 of “Insanity”.

That paragraph that compared Valtor to Hagen? Hardcore projection but somehow I have projected onto both of them. And a lot of the conversation between Valtor and Oritel about having kids is also projection. The idea that society has a negative outlook on people who are not instantly ready to have kids once they are adults is a personal opinion... or more like an observation. And the part about fathers not refusing anything to their daughters also lands somewhere there.

16. What's the most ridiculous thing you've done to put off actually writing?

I am not that original when it comes to procrastinating. XD I do the usual stuff. Namely, get lost on the internet or research myself out of writing. Rereading old work is a big contender here also. But that is pretty much it. Also, going out with family or friends but I wouldn’t call any of these ridiculous.

#ask #her-majesty-wears-jeans #about me #writing #my writing process

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botwstoriesandsuch · 4 years

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How do you stay motivated to write? I used to be big into writing fan fic several years ago but haven’t written any since bc of lack of motivation. I want to get back into it, but I’m still not motivated enough to really do it

I don’t. I have so much writer’s block, all of the time. I use excuses to not write on some days, but I recognize that it’s just from a lack of motivation. I’ve been trying to break out of this and it’s been doing better in recent days. See the trick is to recognize that writer’s block and lack of motivation is the default position. It’s the starting point, not the obstacle. When you’re out of ideas, when you have no idea where to start that’s the time you start writing.

I’m not gonna pretend to be the expert on getting out of motivational holes, because that would be hypocritical, but I find that you just have to force yourself to write something, even if it has no relation to what you actually wanna be writing for. Write write write I don’t care what it is. Don’t make excuses, don’t wait to find the right music, or chair, or food, or concept, or premise, just write. Write a headcanon, and incorrect quote exchange, write a small paragraph, descriptive imagery, a diary entry, a complaint, an observation, I don’t care just write and keep on going don’t stop to find the right synonyms or correct definition you need to write to get the thoughts going. WRITE COMPLETE GARBAGE AND CRINGE IT DOESN’T MATTER WRITE SOMETHING If you haven’t noticed, pretty much everything (with maybe the only exception being the memes and small asks) everything I write and post on here helps me with writer’s block because it gets me out of that motivation-less hole I was in. Even right now, 20 minutes ago I wasn’t writing anything, but this ask prompted me to start writing something, originally a few sentences. Now? Another fucking essay, but it’s because over the course of this I grew more interested and passionate about it, I started letting other ideas, garbage or otherwise, into my head. It’s not in every instance, but a lack of motivation might be derived of a lack of interest or ideas. Rekindle that by writing anything, or sparking your interests and attention with something related. Latch your brain onto something, and use that moment to write.

I’m not telling you to have a terrible sleep schedule but when you get those ideas in your head at 2am write those notes down so you don’t forget. Watch a video on youtube about your content, or an analysis that breaks down the screenplay of a movie or TV show you’re writing for. Let the ideas an content of other things flow, then keep that momentum flowing by writing. When you have ideas that is a precious and valuable resource do not throw that away to “remember for later” write it because I promise you will forget. Don’t think of it as “I should write about X this much in order to counter the writer’s block” or “When I find that spark, or motivation in me again, then I’ll keep writing” do not think that, you are completely in control of your writing whether you know it or not. Don’t justify, or make excuses, so long as you even write a single word you’re making progress.

This is how you think the writing process is:

Gain motivation/idea to write

Start writing about that idea

Edit, change, rearrange

Complete

This is how it actually is:

Write

Get an idea

Get motivation

Keep writing

[Steps 2 and 3 may interchange in order. Editing and completion not always mandatory]

Then the editing and everything else comes after. Write garbage, write like a 7th grader but you will not get out of that hole unless you write. You’re motivation and ideas will come later, your motivation isn’t necessary when writing as weird as that may sound.

When you lack motivation, or have writer’s block, that how you know it’s time to start writing. That’s how you know your brain has exhausted it’s ideas, or attention span and it’s time to go out and latch onto the next thing that you see. Writer’s block is not an obstacle to overcome but an indication that you have begun the process to start writing. When your brain is completely kapoot, in the “no thought, head empty” state, then you write. You do not stay motivated to write, you write because you have no motivation.

Final note: sometimes you can easily get out of that hole with very simple things

self care (eat, drink water, and sleep)

walk around a bit, clear your head, 10 min breaks are best (rather than 3 hours of writing followed by 3 hours of break)

environment (try this video to stay focused if there are distracting sounds, is it scientific? placebo? who knows but it works for me)

Stress, you’ll never write if you’re distracted about other things, if you keep thinking about that test or document due tomorrow. You either need to deal with those things, or distance yourself long enough to start writing with a clear head

Worse comes to worst, none of what I said worked because I’m not an expert and it’s easy for me to give advice, but much harder to chew my own medicine sometimes. Circumstances are different, people’s interests change, it’s not the end of the world if you don’t write something. I wish you motivation-less writers the best, all the same. Write your hearts out, write for no one but yourself, write. :p

#not botw #writing

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storybookprincess · 4 years

Note

writing asks!! these seemed fun. numbers 2, 4, 7, 10, 14, 15, 19, and 20? i'm so sorry these are so many, but i love your writing and i'm a curious person :')

omg pls pls don’t apologize i love that you sent so many in thank you!!!!!

2. Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project

okay SO i think i’ve decided that for the 2021 hxh big bang, i’m going to write a royalty au that i’ve been toying with for a while. it’ll probably be my longest fic to date & it’s shaping up to be a TON of work (i’m probably gonna have to start on it soon to have enough time to finish), but i’m really excited for it!!!! killua is the crown prince, gon is his bodyguard, slow burn vaguely historical royalty au. i can’t wait!!!!

4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

not to get super obnoxious on you here but one of my least popular stories in the fandom is one that’s nearest & dearest to my heart. “rules and exceptions (an incomplete list)” was in a lot of ways me processing 2018, which was the worst year with my illness i’ve ever had. and so much of that fic explores the psychological devastation & general hopelessness that comes from being powerless in the face of unrelenting pain & then the eventual ways we heal from that. i don’t think it’s my best work by any means--many many parts of it are super clumsy--nor is it my most popular, but it’s really special to me because it represents a very deliberate attempt to channel a lot of pain & suffering into art. anyway the following lines are an example of that

“And what comes next is a month of pain unlike anything he’s ever experienced. After only a few days he’s already beginning to forget that he’s a person and not just a body his name the color of his eyes the things he enjoys he can hardly recall any of it he’s half delirious vision blurring and shaking all over and nothing matters but ending the pain please God please anyone please make it stop.”

in particular, the line “he begins to forget that he’s a person & not just a body” is something i’ve said verbatim about my own life in bad illness periods. and to me, taking that awful feeling from my real life & making art out of it is something i’m extremely proud of. again, the fic isn’t necessarily my best work, but i’m so proud of what it represents to me personally.

7. What do you think are the characteristics of your personal writing style? Would others agree?

ooooh this is a really interesting one!!! okay so i think i write an extremely, extremely close 3rd person narration to the point that it often borders on unreliable, a LOT of internal monologues for characters, very vivid emotions that are nearly always mediated by the character’s bodies. in terms of my actual syntax, i use a TON of repetition. and i feel like my word choice is almost, idk, formal?? like i don’t use a lot of casual or informal words or phrases in my writing. the language all takes itself quite seriously lol

10. How would you describe your writing process?

i tend to work best in short bursts. once i have an outline, i’m a big fan of doing writing sprints. set a timer & write as fast as i can for that length of time, either solo or with other people on discord. i’m also not someone who usually can crank out 10k in a weekend. i do better writing a thousand words here or there over the span of several days to a week. also i do a TON of editing!!!! i’m really fussy about having things be just so, so i edit a lot.

14. At what point in writing do you come up with a title?

usually as soon as i have a decent sense of the story, i’m looking for a title. i totally cheat with titles--i just slap on a tangentially related line of poetry or song lyric & call it a day. i put such little thought into it that i’m almost ashamed of myself. once i’ve got something that sounds okay, i’m good!!

15. Which is harder: titles or summaries (or tags)?

SUMMARIES OH MY GOD!!!!!!! i feel like having a good summary is one of the the biggest determining factors as to whether your story gets read, so i really really want to have a good one. but it’s hard to figure out what will motivate people to click, you know??

19. Is there something you always find yourself repeating in your writing? (favourite verb, something you describe ‘too often’, trope you can’t get enough of?)

done!!! ^_^

20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

okay i talked about this in a comment to some readers BUT nature imagery/symbolism in universal bones!!!!! basically the changing seasons & nature imagery in the story are meant to reflect killua’s journey.

tl;dr version: the story opens with killua using his magic to change the leaves in autumn. even though he enjoys it, it’s still an act of death. and killua is at a very very low point in the start of the story, so it’s meant to reflect his turmoil & hopelessness. the confrontation with illumi takes place on the winter solstice. winter solstice = shortest/darkest day of the year, and it’s the darkest point in the story for killua. fic ends roughly 3 months later (around the spring solstice). spring = rebirth/renewal, so the transition from autumn to winter to spring is meant to reflect killua’s emotional journey throughout the story. how things eventually heal and grow. the final line of the story is something like “and all around them, the daffodils bloom” (don’t quote me on this i don’t have it pulled up right now) daffodils are a spring flower, yellow & bright & cheerful & symbolic of hope & new beginnings. so the story opens with falling leaves & closes with blooming flowers, which is meant to show killua’s development over the course of the story & his newfound happiness & meaning!!!

i realize i said that was the tl;dr version but it ended up pretty long i apologize

#asked and answered #Anonymous

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sunlightbabe · 5 years

Text

look both ways | part three | rami

pairing: joe mazzello x reader a/n: here’s chapter three of the lovingly nicnkamed ‘hot mess reader’ fic!! special shoutout to loml lena for her help with this one <3 you can read part one here and part two here

Rami read. Lucy drinks coffee. Reader visits a friend. As always, let me know what you think!

The cafe is pleasantly quiet this early in the morning. There's no one else inside the small space, save for the baristas working behind the counter, which means Rami gets to pick where to sit instead of being stuck with the first available table. With his book in one hand and his coffee in the other, his morning is shaping up to be pretty perfect. Well, almost perfect.

Picking a table tucked into the furthest corner of the room, Rami swirls his straw around in his iced coffee, eyeing it wearily as the ice cubes audibly clink together. He's been ordering the same thing for months now and this? This is not his usual order. This looks different.

He takes a hesitant sip and frowns almost immediately. Yeah, definitely not what he ordered. This is far too bitter and there isn't nearly enough ice- the solution is to go up to the counter and let the barista know that some sort of mistake has been made, he knows this. But people make mistakes. It's not a big deal. Rami would rather deal with his bad coffee than trouble the nice person behind the counter.

And who knows, maybe he'll get used to it? Rami tries another sip, smaller this time, and suppresses a shiver. Nope, still gross.

Moving his tongue around his mouth to try and get rid of the lingering, sharp taste, Rami pushes his cup away from him and towards the other end of the table. He wonders if one of the girls will drink it. He knows Lucy likes her drinks flavored stronger than he does and that if she doesn't want it, you'll probably take it. You never turn down anything free, especially if it's edible. Or drinkable, in this case.

With one last glance towards his drink, Rami flips open his book and settles more comfortably in his seat. He knows he should be more productive with his free time, that he should be working on homework or doing one of the readings for his classes, but he can't be bothered to reach for his laptop, tucked away in his bag on the seat next to him.

Rami finds it all too easy to get sucked in. He reads and reads, the pages flipping easily under his fingers as his eyes move from one sentence to the next. He's only dimly aware that the cafe has gotten more crowded as the morning continues on and he stops reading just long enough to shoot Lucy an incredibly delayed text to see if she wants to meet up with him at the cafe and grab something to eat together.

He shoots you a similar text a moment later- a useless gesture, really, because of course you're invited too- and turns his attention back to his book. He's able to read a few more pages before his phone buzzes with a reply but Rami doesn't check it right away. Just one more page.

Except one page turns to two, then three, then five, and then he's almost two thirds of the way done with the entire book.

A pair of cold hands unexpectedly slide across his shoulders and slip under the collar of his shirt. He jumps a little in his seat, snapping out of his reading-induced, pseudo-hypnotic trance, but his eyes never leave the page.

"Sorry love, didn't mean to startle you," Lucy says and he can feel her rest her chin on top of his head.

" 's alright," he says with a little smile, even though she's currently sapping the warmth out of him. The things he puts up with for love.

"What are you reading about?"

"Moss." Rami flips the page- he's almost done, just one more paragraph before the chapter ends. "Did you know that Spanish Moss is actually a flowering plant? It's more closely related to pineapple than actual moss."

Lucy hums, pulls her hands out from his shirt, and loosely wraps her arms around his shoulders.

The book he's reading is about more than just moss. It talks about botanical sciences, yes, but it's also full of personal essays about the author's life and culture, a collection of stories and memories and past reflections. It's scientific poetry. He doesn't elaborate on any of this, choosing instead to finish his reading with rapt attention. He figures he can tell Lucy all about it later, preferably once he actually finishes reading the entire thing.

The chapter ends and Rami gently closes the book. He tilts his head back to look up at Lucy who, in turn, lifts her chin off of his head.

"Hi," he says simply with a warm smile, unable to look away from the way her hair falls so perfectly around her face as she looks down at him.

"Hello."

"Sorry I didn't hear you coming," Rami says as Lucy presses a gentle kiss against his forehead before pulling away to sit beside him. He runs his hand through his hair, fingers carding through the soft curls, fixing and fluffing it up from where Lucy unintentionally flattened it. "Kinda got absorbed in my reading."

"It's alright." Lucy moves his backpack to the floor and shifts her chair closer until their knees touch under the table. "I figured that was the case when I texted you to let you know that we were running a bit late and you never got back to me."

Rami takes in the circles under her eyes and the tenseness of her shoulders. "Everything okay?"

Lucy waves her hand vaguely in the air. "Yeah, just, you know. Looking for keys and wallets and the like after a night out is always an adventure."

"Ah." Rami looks at the empty spots across the table and then takes a quick glance around the room. "Speaking of adventure, where's our favorite party girl?"

"Throwing up in the bathroom, hopefully. She was complaining about feeling nauseous the whole ride here."

"Poor thing," Rami says with a sympathetic frown. He eyes the small hallway leading to the bathrooms before turning his attention back to Lucy. She looks exhausted, which is typical for the morning after a night out, but there's something off about her. Maybe it's the way she's slouching in her seat or how she has this slightly glazed look to her eyes. Rami hums to himself and gently nudges her foot with his own until she looks away from the general hustle and bustle of the cafe and looks back at him.

“Rough night?" he asks, inclining his head to the side a little as he watches her.

Lucy doesn't answer right away. Rami patiently waits, eyes flickering over her face. She looks dead on her feet- or ass since technically she was sitting, not standing- and yet she's still the most beautiful woman he has ever laid his eyes on. Without a word, and without looking away from her, he reaches for his pushed aside drink and slides it in-front of her.

The smile Lucy flashes him is small and soft and makes his heart do this strange, almost leaping thing in his chest. He disgusts himself sometimes with just how much he loves her.

"Rough is... an understatement," Lucy finally answers, playing with the straw for a moment. "I didn't sleep. At all."

Well, that explains why she looks so damn tired. Rami hums quietly as Lucy takes a sip of the coffee. She hardly bats an eye at it and wordlessly offers it back to him. Rami declines with a slight shake of his head.

Lucy looks like she's about to say something else, but instead she takes another lengthier sip. As she chugs the coffee down, Rami looks over towards the bathrooms once again and catches sight of you just as you walk into the main cafe.

Wearing an oversized sweatshirt and a pair of sunglasses that cover up most of your face, you look like the picture definition of a hangover. You shuffle over to their table, sit down across from him and Lucy, and promptly rest your head and arms on the table.

"You doing okay there champ?" Rami says, trying to keep the laughter from his voice. He fails.

You merely grunt in reply. Rami's been drinking with you enough times to know just how much alcohol it really takes to make you this miserable the morning after. He feels for you, truly.

"I don't think you're going to get much sleep here," he points out after a quiet moment passes in which you don't respond or even move. Next to him, Lucy finishes off her coffee, straw slurping quietly against the bottom of the cup. Rami leans across the table and pinches the sleeve of the sweatshirt you're wearing between his thumb and forefinger. "... is this mine?"

"It's comfy," comes your muffled reply. He snorts and wonders just how long ago Lucy stole it, knowing you very likely stole it from her closet in turn. Or maybe you stole it from his apartment yourself? He doesn't know. He doesn't really care.

Rami leans back in his seat and eyes you and Lucy, a curious look creasing his forehead. "What the hell happened last night? I haven't seen you two this bad in a long time."

('A long time' being just earlier that year, at the reception for Lucy's sister's wedding. Open bars were dangerous.)

"Do you want to tell him or should I?" Lucy asks casually. You raise your head just enough to meet her gaze and even though your sunglasses completely cover your eyes, Rami can only imagine the glare you're giving her.

He's expecting the worse, which could be anything given your track record, but even with his active imagination and his knowledge of your past drunken shenanigans, he's not expecting the words that come out of your mouth.

"I got hit by a car last night."

Rami blinks and wonders if he heard you correctly. He looks between you and Lucy, waiting for the punchline, for one of you to crack a smile and break and laugh as your joke falls apart. But that doesn't happen. You keep your head rested on the table and Lucy looks back at him with an arched eyebrow, her mouth pressed into a thin line.

"You... got hit by a car last night," Rami repeats slowly. Lucy nods her head and you simply groan.

Rami scrubs a hand down his face. "That's... shitty." It's scary and Rami's head fills with violent, awful images of what could have happened. Although- "Although you're here now, so I'm guessing it wasn't too severe? What did the doctors say?"

"I don't know," Lucy says, voice sounding a little strained, "seeing as how we didn't go to the hospital last night."

"What."

"Oh my fucking god- I'm fine," you say with an exasperated little noise as you finally raise your head completely off the table. "It was- it was nothing, okay? It was just a little bump."

"From a car. A car hit you last night," Lucy argues.

"Yeah, barely. It was a light tap, I barely felt it."

"Jesus christ," Rami mutters under his breath. He's not even sure what to do or say. He knows that you should go to the hospital, or at least visit one of the nursing students on campus or something, but he knows you're stubborn and he knows without a doubt that you and Lucy have certainly already had this argument. Judging by the fact that you were here and not waiting in the emergency room, he knows you won. "Did either of you get the license plate number?"

"What for? To press charges?" you ask with a scoff.

Lucy shakes her head and rests her chin against her hand. "The driver didn't even stop. Just kept on driving by."

"Jesus christ," Rami repeats. Anxiety blooms all too familiarly in his chest and he gets why Lucy wasn't able to sleep at all the night prior.

"Rami, I'm fine. Seriously. If there was an issue, I'd go to the hospital," you say in an attempt to comfort him, reaching across the table to rest your hand on his arm. "But I feel- okay, I feel like shit, but that's because I drank enough to fill a bath tub last night."

Rami's torn. He wants to believe you, because of course he wants you to be okay, but he remembers how you slipped down the stairs last year and held off on going to the hospital until almost a week later, when your ankle was still black and blue, and even then, Lucy had to force you to go if memory served correctly.

You were a disaster magnet.

"You are one lucky bastard, you know that, right?" Rami says with a small, fond shake of his head. You simply beam at him.

"Lucky or not, I still think you should take it easy the next couple of days. Better safe than sorry," Lucy says as she settles her crossed arms on the table.

"Don't worry, I will. Besides, I don't think I have any-" You cut yourself off with a small hum. "Actually... shit, I had plans for like, tonight. What time is it?"

"Almost 1:00," Rami says after checking his phone. Was it really that late? He had been there at the cafe for much longer than he thought. Rami's phone buzzes as he receives a few texts from his friend Joe but he ignores them for the time being- he assumes he's asking for help with homework, judging on the first few words of the text preview that flash across the screen. Homework can wait.

You rhythmically tap your fingers against the table with a soft hum. "I promised Gwil that I'd help him look over some papers for Fletch's class."

"Wait, he's working with Fletcher? I thought he was TAing for McCarten?" Lucy asks.

"I think he's doing both," Rami says with a shrug. It sounded like a lot of work to him, personally, but if anyone could pull it off, it'd be Gwil. "If you explained the situation, I think he'd understand."

You shrug and lean further back in your chair. "No, yeah, he totally would. I'm just thinking-"

"Nothing good ever comes of that," Lucy teases under her breath. Rami snorts and wonders if you even heard her, but then you playfully flip her off and that answers that.

"I'm just thinking that it's not as if I'll be doing anything strenuous. I'll just be sitting there reading over some essays, but my god, my head's killing me. I feel like I could sleep for a week... so I should just re-schedule it?" The infliction in your voice makes it sound like you're asking if that's what you should do. Rami's never been prouder.

Rami leans over and rests his head on Lucy's shoulder before letting out a wistful sigh. "She's growing up so fast."

"Bite me."

"I remember when she was just yea high," Lucy says with an exaggerated sniffle, motioning a few feet off the ground with her hand.

With a groan louder than necessary for his and Lucy's benefit, he's sure, you push your chair away from the table and stand up. Lucy giggles and Rami smirks as he straightens back up and watches you carefully, worried for a second that you're just going to collapse in sudden pain. That doesn't happen, thankfully.

"Where are you going?" he asks.

"To find Gwil and let him know I can't make it tonight." You elaborate further before Rami can even ask. "I dropped my phone after the accident last night and now it won't turn on."

"Do you want to use mine?" Rami offers. He's pretty sure he has Gwil's number saved in his phone somewhere. His phone lights up with another text from Joe and Rami closes the notification before offering it to you, but you just shake your head.

"Nah, I'll be fine. He's usually at the library around this time and it's a quick walk from here. I feel like I need to get up and stretch around anyways, ya know? I get all stiff if I just sit around for too long."

Maybe you have a point. Maybe the fresh air will do you some good. "Are you sure you don't want me to drive you?" Lucy asks, reaching into her bag for her keys, but you're already walking away.

"I'll see you at home!" And with that, you walk out the door.

Lucy practically deflates the moment you leave the cafe, resting her head against Rami with a tired little groan. Rami reaches a hand over to gently pat her knee.

"I'm going to go gray before I hit 30, I just know it," she laments quietly. "I love her dearly but she stresses me out so much- a car Rami! She got hit by a car and just- just walked it off!"

"Is it really that surprising? She has a talent for walking away from accidents unscathed. Remember that time she fell off my balcony?" To be fair, his apartment was only on the second floor, and you had fallen right into the hedges. He vividly remembers your arm poking out through the leaves, giving him a thumbs up to let him know that you were okay.

"... No?"

Rami gives Lucy a quizzical look. "The night I locked myself out of my apartment? She climbed onto the balcony to unlock one of the windows-"

"Hold on a second, is that how she got poison ivy all over her back last summer?"

It hits Rami then that Lucy wasn't there for that particular adventure. She did, after all, have the extra key to his apartment. If she had been there, they wouldn't have had to resort to Mission Impossible-esque methods of getting inside.

And he has a vague, fuzzy memory of the two of you promising to never tell Lucy about what happened. Well.

Rami's not sure what to say next, words dying before they can even form properly in his head, but thankfully, he doesn't have to say anything. Lucy shakes her head a little and mumbles something that sounds like "I'm too hungover for this" before leaning against him even further, practically using him as a pillow. Rami doesn't mind.

On the table, his phone lights up again. Another text from Joe.

Trying not to jostle Lucy around, who he thinks might genuinely be trying to take a nap at this point, he reaches for his phone to read the texts.

Rami can feel his eyes widen with each text he reads. He re-reads them to make sure that he's not losing his mind and when it becomes apparent that he's not, he shakes Lucy's shoulder.

"Honey, we- we need to go to the library. Right now."

tag list: @bensrhapsody @honimello @lap-of-the-gods @myguardianmailman @killer-queen-xo if you want to be tagged in future chapters, you can drop an ask or leave a comment!

#joe mazzello x reader #joe mazzello fanfic #bohemian rhapsody fic #borhap fic #fic.txt #i laugh every time i tag it bc like.... joe and reader interaction WHEN #don't worry it's coming i promise

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romaniassexdungeon · 5 years

Text

Effervescent

Chapter 1: Hit the Sack

Pairing: DenEst/OzEst (side NedVia)

Warnings: lemon, terrible comedy

Summary: Eduard's furious when he finds his friend has written his phone number on a bathroom wall. He's also horny enough to give it a try, but when things get serious, he's found he might've lead two different guys on.

Notes: Co-written with @tikola-nesla First of all, we're so sorry for this terrible piece of shit. But also not because this was hilarious to write. This story follows Ed and his pathetic love life.

...

Jānis - Latvia Tomas - Lithuania Adriaan - Netherlands Gunner - Denmark Logan - Australia

Read on AO3

...

Eduard was livid. He was going to kill Jānis for this!

For once, his weak little arms didn’t struggle against the stupidly heavy door to the men’s bathroom, and he burst inside in a flurry of fury. He practically punched open the door to the furthest stall, where his number had been written under ‘call for a good time’. His hand shook with rage as he took out a marker and crossed out the word ‘call’.

Next to it, he wrote ‘text’.

He knew he should cross out his number instead, but to be fair, he was going through a dry spell. A dry spell that had lasted the five years since graduating university. He’d take whatever sleezeball creeps responded to these kinds of messages at this point. Honestly, it beat genuinely wondering if he should count that tapeworm as the last time someone had been inside him, or wearing turtlenecks that were a little too small to get the feeling of being choked.

And it wasn’t like this was some shady nightclub, it was the Kiek in de Kök Fortification Museum. Who would look for hookups in the bathroom of a fortification museum? Someone super weird, probably. Or an old guy. Maybe a sugar daddy to pay off his student loans. Or a mysterious, rich tourist from a far off land, and they’d have a fling before parting ways forever.

Or, he’d end up talking to someone, getting along, then sending a picture of his face and not getting a reply. Or not even waiting for that and getting bored of his messages. He wasn’t good with people.

Still, with that little incident taken care of, he marched back outside to join his friends. Maybe they could have a normal day out now without being reminded of how sad and lonely his life was?

“I was just trying to help,” Jānis mumbled into his jumper when Eduard joined them.

“You have a really weird definition of ‘help’,” Eduard commented.

“We just want the best for you,” said Tomas, trying to play the peacemaker like he wasn’t equally as horrified at Jānis’ barefaced cheek and terrible attempt at helping his friend get laid. There was no helping Eduard and everyone knew it.

“You mean like how you went with me to the hospital to get that tapeworm removed? Oh wait!”

“We have our limits.”

“Yeah,” said Jānis, “and didn’t your cousin go with you instead?”

“Yes! And he livetweeted the entire thing! Now I’m known as that loser who was so lonely and depressed he ate raw herring until he got a tapeworm.”

“It’s not like we fed you the herring ourselves,” Jānis wrinkled his nose, “don’t blame us for your life being a mess.”

Before Eduard could even think of a reply, Tomas stepped between them again. “That’s all well and good,” he began like he’d stopped listening since he last spoke, “but I think we’ve left Feliks on his own for long enough, so we should go find him. Also I came here to look at a big fort, not talk about how lonely Eduard is. We do that enough.”

...

And in the hour or so it took the four of them to look around Kiek in de Kök, Eduard received two messages, both of which were dick pics.

“Let me see!” cried Jānis, craning his neck. Eduard pushed him away and held his phone out of reach. It wasn’t hard.

“If you wanted to see dicks, you shouldn’t have been born a manlet.”

“I’m dick-height sometimes actually. You’ve seen my boyfriend.”

Eduard nodded; he totally wasn’t jealous. “The skyscraper?” His boyfriend was so tall, and toned and handsome. He seemed like a complete dick, though, to everyone except Jānis. Eduard had met Adriaan a few times, and even just thinking about the guy made him softer than a saveloy. But around Jānis, he was gentle and caring, writing him poetry and sending him flowers from his own garden.

“Yup, and, oh, I love going up that elevator.”

“Slut.” Eduard got to looking at his dick pic collection. They were both very nice. Bigger than his, of course, but he was a bottom so he didn’t mind so much.

“Nice,” said Feliks, peeking over his shoulder, “what’re you gonna reply with?”

“Honestly? No idea.”

“Hmm, they’re not that big,” said Tomas, and everyone looked at him in bewilderment. “What? Can’t be more than, like… ten inches.”

Jānis looked at him. “If I wasn’t in a relationship, and we weren’t distantly related, I would be on that dick like-”

“Please,” Tomas begged, “don’t finish that sentence.”

“-like dust on Ed’s condom box.”

“Hey!” Why did everything always come back to roasting him?

“You can’t see the logo on it anymore. It’s like an old relic.”

“Like one of those nerdy boxes Tomas buys at the medieval fair,” said Feliks, “the old-worldy handmade ones.”

“You like medieval fairs too,” Tomas mumbled.

“I never spent €50 on an empty wooden box.”

“It had a nice pattern!”

“What do you even keep in it?”

“A second, smaller box.”

“And in that?”

“My copy of Space Jam.”

“You have shelves!”

“Well, I had to keep something in there!”

No one noticed Jānis reaching for Eduard’s phone until it was too late and he’d snatched it away. He typed as he dodged Eduard’s attempts to get it back, and it wasn’t until he’d copied and pasted a paragraph into both DMs that Eduard could finally see what he’d wrote:

I want you to take that dick and fuck me until I can’t walk and have to wheelchair myself through Old Tallinn to the nearest hospital and my bussy looks like the Ülemiste Tunnel. Nut in every hole then my face until I’m numb physically instead of emotionally.

“What the fuck, Jānis?”

Tomas craned his neck over Eduard’s shoulder. “You’ve gotta admit he’s got game. Just... Not sure what game he's playing.”

“I want to die.”

“You always want to die,” said Feliks.

Jānis shrugged. “Confidence is key.”

“Is this how you bagged the skyscraper?”

“God no. That would be terrible. I talked to him like a person.”

Eduard gave him a withering look, then frantically texted the first guy back.

I’m so sorry, my friend sent that.

“Dude,” Feliks told him, reading over his shoulder, “You couldn’t have sounded more like you were lying if you tried.”

“It’s the truth!”

“So?”

Eduard groaned.

He’d already texted back.

So you don’t wanna get Ülemisted?

Eduard did, he supposed. But it was way too embarrassing to admit that.

Feliks took his phone. “Maybe I do.”

“Hey!” He tried to snatch his phone back, and Feliks elbowed him.

What’s your name?

Gunner, and u?

Eduard.

Well, Eduard, what would you, not your friend, like me to do to you?

Eduard stared at his phone. He had no idea how to put the thoughts in his head into words, and even if he did, he’d be too scared to say anything.

But he had to try.

One sex please?

He fucking hated himself.

Haha I can arrange that.

Eduard didn’t trust people who spelt out their laughs in texts. It was a little menacing. Keysmash like the rest of us, asshole. At least it meant he was a top, he supposed.

You can arrange my insides.

It was an attempt at a flirt, albeit a horrible one.

“Isn’t it “rearrange”,” said Feliks.

“Well, if it’s “rearrange”, who arranged them the first time?”

“Fucking virgin.”

“I’m not! I’ve done many sex! I did one yesterday!”

“When?” asked Tomas, “we were playing Dungeons and Dragons all day.”

“Your dad was sucking me off under the table.”

“He died six years ago; you went to his funeral.”

“Yeah. I dicked him to death.”

Tomas squinted at him.

“Too far?”

“I just can’t take any claim of you topping seriously.”

“I can top!”

“You can top a cake, maybe,” said Jānis, “if you baked cakes instead of depression bread.”

“I don’t always bake depression bread!”

“You’re depressed therefore every bread you bake is depression bread.”

“I like kneading!”

“Why don’t you knead a pair of titties for once, Eduard?”

“Gonna knead your mum’s titties if you keep talking shit.”

Tomas swatted at him. “She’s dead too!”

“And?”

“How do you have friends?” asked Feliks.

“I don’t, really,” admitted Eduard, “you guys were a miracle.”

“I don’t know if I should be flattered you consider me a miracle,” Tomas told him, “Or offended you don’t consider me a friend.”

“I do. Miracle friends. Miracles are friendships and times I need to use a condom.”

“Maybe you can use some now,” said Jānis.

“Jānis! We’re outside!”

“You know what I mean.”

“Impromptu water balloons?”

“Ed doesn’t, cause he’s a loser,” said Feliks. “Anyway, any replies yet?”

Eduard checked his phone. The second guy had replied.

Fuk u for making me read all that.

Then a second later.

Still down 2 smsah tho.

That message doesn’t represent me. That was my friend.

Haha i beleev u!

If the guy’s dick wasn’t so big, Eduard would’ve blocked him for his atrocious spelling.

Tomas looked over his shoulder. “How did he manage to spell your phone number?”

“I’m sure he has a good personality.”

I wanna put my cids in your shitter and bread you like a whorse.

“Or… Not, but his dick is massive.”

“Ed, please be sensible.”

“No! I want dick!”

“He’s illiterate!”

“I’m getting my hole ruined by him, not giving him a spelling test.”

Tomas looked like he’d very much like to go home. Eduard wanted to go home too, but only so he could slap his nuts thinking about those massive dicks.

“Anyway, I got work to catch up on.” He gave a cough; “see you guys later.”

“You have an erection,” Jānis pointed out, tactful as ever.

“Nah, it’s just late. Time to hit the sack.” And then go to sleep.

“Which one?”

“Bye, guys!”

“Which sack, Eduard?”

Eduard dashed off before they could ask him again.

#aph estonia #APH Denmark #APH Australia #aph baltics #aph lithunia #aph latvia #aph poland #hetalia #Hetalia Fanfiction #effervescent

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toast-the-unknowing · 5 years

Note

hi! I just wanted to say that I really, really love your writing, and I was wondering if you ever outline? And if so, how do you go about doing that? And I'm curious about your writing process in general (if that's a good way of putting it?). in any case, thanks so much for sharing what you write. It's really an absolute joy to read! :)

Hi and thank you! The short answer to this question is no, I don't outline. I've tried three-act structure and flashcards and Scrivener and whiteboards and a dozen other things and it just doesn't work for me. It forces me into making decisions I'm not ready to make yet, while delaying me from working on the parts that I am excited about, which 1. kills my desire to actually do any work and 2. delays my learning the things that I really do need to know about the story. But I also don't just write beginning to middle to end (honestly I can't believe anyone on earth does that besides, like, Spiders Georg). To the extent that I have a process it can be summed up as "I write the parts of the story that I know at the time that I know them, and they teach me what the next part of the story is."

The extremely long answer to this question is behind the cut, because like any good self-centered world-destroying Millennial I love talking about myself, and I love hearing people talk about writing, so maybe someone else does, too.

The beginning of a story tends to be like a cartoon character running off the edge of a cliff and building a bridge under them as they go. I open up a document and just start typing thoughts out as fast as I can. Some of the words that come out at this point make it all the way through the process to the final draft, but a lot of them don't, and I never commit myself at this point to typing usable words. I mostly end up with stuff like this:

flashforward: comes across opal somehow -- hunting or otherwise in the woods/wilds -- and she's this half-feral child, slowly builds up trust with her -- convinces her to come live in his house -- she's clearly cautious, but over the day settles in, and crawls into bed at night and falls right asleep, like she's not afraid of anything -- the next morning, dawn, wakes up and knows there's someone in the house, moving about, goes for opal's room and she's not there, runs out to the main rooms and there's a strange man standing there -- you won't find the girl -- what the fuck did you do to her -- I've taken her. as we agreed I would -- ronan finally recognizes him as the strange witch boy from so many years ago -- give her back -- I'm afraid that isn't possible. goodbye -- leaves and when Ronan follows him out the door he's nowhere in sight

Sometimes at this stage I'm jumping around in the document -- I'll have a thought about something I want to happen later in the story, so I'll put that in and then jump back to the earlier part -- but sometimes it's coming at me more or less in order, or there's so much I'm trying to get down at once I might as well just go in order. Also, a lot of the stuff I know about a story at this stage is related to the set up/concept/inciting incident/premise. So, in Careful the Tale You Tell, I jotted out about 800 words of Ronan making the deal with Adam, and meeting Opal, and Adam taking Opal, and Ronan trying to take Opal back, and then literally the only thing I had after that for the entire rest of the story was:

the two of them start living together, taking care of opal together, etc.

During/after/immediately before the "get down initial thoughts as fast as possible" stage, I write either the first scene or one near the beginning (if the opening moment is eluding me, which it sometimes does). The very early stuff, being a lot clearer in my head, tends to be a lot easier to write in full actual real paragraphs with real sentences and punctuation and dialogue tags and a minimum of placeholders. I find it helpful going forward to have that springboard -- a scene, or even just part of a scene, that looks like what I want the story to look like.

And then the process is "the same but more". Read back over what I have already. Admire how clever I am. Despair of what a hack I am. Realize an additional detail about a scene I only have two sentences for. Realize that that scene needs to happen in an entirely different part of the story. Move it. Think of one thing that's going to happen in one scene I didn't know existed yet. Come up with a funny bit of dialogue for the end of the fic.

With a lot of stories I hit a point, about a quarter to a third of the way through, where I realize what the story is actually about. That's tremendously helpful in knowing what to put in those nebulous holes in between "X happens and then Y happens." So with Careful, the key was realizing the story was about two things: it was about three sad loners who all choose each other, but also specifically it was about the way that two of those loners were profoundly misunderstanding each other, and how they had to stop telling themselves fake stories about each other and see what was really happening. That cleared up a lot of things about the story for me. For one thing, that's what told me I needed a four-part story from two POVs. And it let me fill in a bunch of scenes in answer to that dreaded question of "ugh what do I PUT on this BLANK WHITE PAGE with its CRUEL MOCKING CURSOR." I needed scenes of Adam thinking Ronan was a bad father, and I needed scenes that could be taken as justification of that opinion, and I needed scenes of him realizing Ronan isn't like his own parents. And I needed scenes of Ronan thinking of Adam as this uncaring vengeful other, and then I needed scenes that totally destroyed that image. And then because Adam is just the saddest sad loner ever I needed scenes where he's telling himself this new fake story where he denies the extent to which Ronan and Opal have already chosen him, and then I needed scenes that would make it impossible for him to continue in that denial.

This is maybe an example of why all the traditional outlining I was shamed into doing in film school fails me. None of this points to the shit with Ronan's mom being cursed and his dad being killed by an evil witch (except that I had notes to myself about a scene where Ronan finds out Niall tried to sell Declan to the witch -- but that was a product of one of those "I DON'T KNOW WHERE I'M GOING WITH THIS EXACTLY BUT IT'S AWESOME AND I WANT TO WRITE IT SO I'M GOING TO JOT IT DOWN IN AN EMPTY SPACE IN THE DOCUMENT" moments). In as much as those are "plot" elements they might be the sort of thing you're supposed to decide while you're still at the "write one sentence on one flashcard" stage. For me that entire aspect of the plot only came to me when I had something like 50% of the story written, and the specific details and beats of it I figured out and incorporated gradually along the way, because that wasn't the important or interesting part of the story to me. It sure wasn't the thing I wanted to shape my entire story around. I don't think I could have shaped the story around that.

At this stage of a story I sometimes write in nice beautiful paragraphs, particularly if it's a scene that develops really quickly from "hm maybe something like X happens" to "oh FUCK YEAH I'm going to make X happen." The storm scene in Careful came on like that -- I left the occasional placeholder and it needed edits and I rewrote some stuff, but if I had live-streamed my screen while I was writing it, you would have gone "yeah, that looks like a story."

More often, though, my writing looks like that flash-forward paragraph above. A mix of dialogue, and action that I'm sure of, and action that I only have a vague idea of, and shit that I don't know yet but I know that stopping to figure it out is only going to keep me from writing the parts that I do know. This is because 1. I can get stuff out faster writing these pseudo-paragraphs, and I really just want to get as much stuff on the page as possible in any given writing session; 2. weird messy half-written paragraphs are easier to edit, move, change, rewrite, or make my peace with deleting entirely, than big beautiful paragraphs with clever turns of phrase that I spent hours on.

Often those moments that I skip, I either know enough about them to be getting on with, or they're trivial in the scheme of things. Sometimes I skip a detail and find out later that I was wrong about what it was going to be or how important it was going to be, and now I have to change parts of the story that I thought I knew. But that's often a gift, because the new version is more detailed, or more interesting, or more relevant to what the story is actually about.

I also leave myself notes like this:

[ronan starting to notice his feelings and be really stupid about it??? or leave that more for part 4]

These can function as "I know I need a scene here that does X but that's all I know" or it can literally be "I need a scene here and I don't know what it has to do but there needs to be SOMETHING". Sometimes these comments are just character/tone/theme notes to remind me of how a scene is supposed to function within the larger story, so I don’t write a really cute wonderful scene and then realize it makes no sense for the characters at this point in their arc to be behaving that way.

At this point writing a story is a mix of four things:

come up with things to fill the gaps in the story, even if it's just [A SHORT SCENE OF THEM ALL DOING SOMETHING TOGETHER -- AT ONE POINT RONAN TOUCHES ADAM WHEN HE DOESN'T REALLY HAVE TO

take those one sentence scene descriptors and turn them into those big blocky ugly nonsense paragraphs with no capitalization and too many em-dashes

take those big blocky ugly nonsense paragraphs and turn them into readable paragraphs -- this is a really great thing to do on days when I feel tired/sick/stuck/depressed/like a fraud/hungover/uncreative, because I can tell myself "all you have to do is turn half-sentences into complete sentences, this is basically seventh-grade English homework, you can do that." Sometimes doing that gets gears turning in my brain and I can do a LOT of this kind of writing, or I can move up to doing writing that involves more decision-making and connection-building and character-understanding. Sometimes it doesn't, and all I achieve for the entire day is turning one fake paragraph into one real paragraph. Which still means I have a real paragraph where I didn't before.

reread and refine and tweak the readable paragraphs to get to a place where I'm happy with them

Then there comes another milestone moment -- about 90% of the way through a story, I become thoroughly convinced that it's disgusting irredeemable garbage. This step sucks, and the only real cure for it is to go "yup, but I'm writing it anyway, so let's at least make it finished, complete garbage." The alternative isn't "realize the story ISN'T garbage and then keep writing with a renewed sense of self-worth!" The alternative is that the story dies, and that's how I end up with a hundred unfinished WIPs that quietly pass into obscurity. I think this might be the real reason that Raven Cycle is the fandom I've posted the most complete fics in, despite having been in other fandoms longer -- sure, these characters spark a lot of ideas for me, and I'm a better writer than I used to be, and I understand my process better (instead of trying to write the way I think I SHOULD write), but honestly the most important thing is that I figured out how to go "maybe this does suck, but I'm still going to finish it."

The thing that I've found the most helpful with making that push is to find the one thing in the story that I really, really like, and remind myself that if I don't finish the story then no one gets to see that one scene, that one moment, that one PHRASE that's actually good, and wouldn't that be sad? With Careful that was the storm scene -- I would tell myself, "okay you keep saying that the pacing is awful and the first chapter is boring and this story is a waste of everyone's time, buuuuuut if you don't finish it, then no one will ever read the storm scene." Sometimes the story's existence is sufficient motivation. The Pokemon AU gave me the worst case of writerly-self-loathing I've had in years, but I just kept telling myself "yeah but don't you want to make people laugh in disbelief about the fact that you wrote a Pokemon AU?" And that makes my insecurities go pout in the corner like a sulky child where they shut up long enough for me to sneak the last 10% of the story in there.

(Once a story is done and posted, I'm able to look at it with more compassion, perspective, and nuance.)

"The last 10% of the story" doesn't necessarily mean "the last ten pages of the story". The last bit that gets finished is usually somewhere in the middle, although occasionally I do just write until I don't know what else to write and then slap some kind of closing line on it. (Usually that happens with stories I write very quickly; the florist!Henry fic was like that.) There's generally a lot of places spread throughout the fic where I left things unfinished -- sometimes as little as one detail, sometimes as much as an entire scene. I think with Careful the last scene I finished was the one where Adam tells the guy how to find his lost money. When I'd first drafted that bit it felt like homework -- I knew the story needed examples of people doing business with the witch, but, ugh, I couldn't make myself care about them. But I had managed to eke out some of those weird blocky [bracketed] paragraphs, so I kept building on those bit by bit. It also helped to keep in mind the real purpose of the scene. It's not about someone doing business with the witch, or even about Adam's habit of casually tossing out details he has no way of knowing (though I was happy to add that in to presage the conversation about how he knows Opal's name and age). The scene is about Ronan seeing Adam as otherworldly. So I got to add in those little details about Adam smashing the glass, and Opal and the visitor being surprised, and Ronan not being surprised -- which is really the most interesting part of that scene.

Then I do a word search for brackets, "Shine" and/or "Toast", and any other placeholder characters I use, to make sure every detail is filled in and none of my notes to myself like [nb shine check this is true] make it to publishing. I upload to AO3, save as draft, replace all my single asterisks with italics html, realize I've used too much italics, take half my italics out, proofread, publish, catch three-or-thirty typos I didn't catch before I published, fix those, catch another three-or-thirty typos, and decide to leave them in for authenticity/because perfect is the enemy of good/because I'm too damn lazy.

That's essentially the longest version of my process. Sometimes I write a story very quickly and so it skips some of these stages.

"A story I write very quickly" is not the same thing as "a short story." see you somewhere, some place, some time was gestating, in one form or another, for about sixteen months, and it put me through aaaaaaall the same heartache as its longer brethren.

#writing #Anonymous

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mad-madam-m · 5 years

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So I'm just curious, how do you get yourself to write? And do you use prompts and if you do where do you get them? I meant to use NaNo to get me to write but it took 4 days into November for me to realize November started so I failed lol. I've been meaning to start this original thing and it's just not...working.

First of all, anon, you could start writing RIGHT NOW (yes, with 10 days left in the month) and you would not fail NaNo. You might not hit 50k (although I know people who have hit 50k in that amount of time, or less), but you won’t fail. NaNoWriMo isn’t about hitting 50,000 words so much as it is about putting a stake in the ground and saying, “Here. Today. I will start writing the project I’ve always wanted to.” And doing it. Doesn’t matter what that project is—original novel, short stories, fic, poetry, revising something, a series of blog posts—NaNo is about just. Fucking. Doing it. And you still have time to Do It.

To answer your questions:

Do you use prompts and if you do, where do you get them?

For original stories, particularly novels, I usually don’t. For fic, particularly short fic I’m writing for events, I do. Tumblr has a wealth of writing prompts that range from “here’s a situation” to “here’s a line of dialogue GO,” and I tend to reblog them under the tags “fic prompts” or “writing prompts.” Honestly, most of them would work for either original fic or fanfic, so if you are a writer who likes to work from prompts, go forth and enjoy!

How do you get yourself to write?

That’s kind of a big question, and uh, the answer to it got long. Very long. (I said once that if you give me half a chance, I’ll talk about writing all the live-long day, and this answer is no exception.)

Different things motivate me for different projects, and as with all writing-related advice, YMMV, but here’s a few things that really help for getting myself to write:

1) Develop your story.

The current original story I’m working on, for example, I have not really had to struggle to get myself to write at all because 1) I’m stupid excited about it and 2) I have developed the hell out of it.

I’ve talked before about outlining my stuff here, so I won’t go too much into it again; suffice it to say that I have done about the same amount of development on my current original story that I had on ADA by the time I started writing. I started around the very end of September developing my characters and spent a good chunk of October working on setting, worldbuilding, plot, and finally my notecards.

Shockingly, having some idea of what’s happening and where I’m going is making this story easier to write.

Right? Like WHO’D HAVE THOUGHT.

Because of that, I’ve been excited about writing my story, so getting myself to write on it has been (comparatively) a cakewalk.

That’s not to say any of the writing is good (oh God no) or that there aren’t parts that need fixing, or that I haven’t been stuck. But it’s been stuck like “how do I describe seeing a tree-covered mountain in the middle of fall from the POV of someone who has never seen something like this” rather than “I have no fucking clue what happens next uh…”

The stories I struggle the most with writing are the ones that I’ve worked the least on developing. The stories that have been the easiest to write have been the ones I’ve spent at least a month doing prep work on before I ever start drafting.

2) Love your story.

Being in love with a story makes it a lot easier to write, at least for me. Because here’s the thing, ideas are easy.

If you’re a creative person, you’re going to end up with a file of story ideas—maybe prompts you liked, dialogue that stuck with you, one of those “humans are space orcs” tumblr posts that’s just really clicking in your brain—that will be longer than you could conceivably write if you had a hundred lifetimes. That’s okay! That’s great. But it means a lot of them are never going to get past the idea stage.

For me, the stories that get finished—the ones that not only get started but actually make it through the first draft and then three rounds of editing and revisions—are the ideas that I’ve been percolating on for months, if not longer. They’ve been cooking in the back of my brain while I’ve been doing other things, sorting themselves out, and most importantly: they will not let me go.

Coming up with ideas is easy. Finding an idea that will last and sustain a story and my interest for at least a year, if not longer? That’s harder.

Y’all know how much I’ve been talking about Tiger & Bunny over the past year? We’re talking that level of obsession with a story that I want to write, whether it’s fic or original. Sometimes it takes months or years for all the puzzle pieces to come together. Sometimes the whole thing will congeal within a few weeks, or there will be one crucial piece of story that will just make EVERYTHING come together, I will literally shout “OH MY FUCKING GOD” and that’s it, I’m off to the races. (In this particular case, it wasn’t anything I’d done in the first two weeks of poking at steampunk-y ideas; it was the realization that I could put a circus on an airship. The whole story just went WHOOSH after that.)

BUT. But. Sometimes you don’t have that. These stories are great and I love them and they remind me why I love writing so much (and if you’re writing something that’s gonna be 90k+, like I have a tendency to do, you need to be in love with it, IMO), but sometimes you’re in situations where you just have to get it done. In those cases:

3) Resort to bribery.

I’ve been poking at the third part of Alpha & Emissary, oh, basically since I posted the second part. My problem is that my fandom focus has been, shall we say, split for the past year. *coughs delicately, shoves Tiger & Bunny fics under the bed*

But here’s the thing: I hate having a published WIP on AO3 (it’s why I don’t publish long!fics until they’re completely drafted and mostly edited). I hate—HATE—having an unfinished series on AO3.

So that’s the rub: I have an unfinished series that I want to finish because I hate that it’s not finished. I also have a new fandom that is wresting my attention and inspiration away from said series. What’s a girl to do?

A girl tells herself she can’t write any more Tiger & Bunny fic until she finishes this one WIP, that’s what she does.

And it’s motivated me to sit my ass down and work on that WIP, because goddammit, I have a “but there was only one bed” TaiBani fic that I would really like to have up by New Year’s.

Your bribery will be different. Maybe you get to watch 1 episode of your favorite show per every 1k you write, or you get to try a new knitting project when you finish this short story. Maybe you binge-watch an entire season of your favorite anime if you exceed your NaNo goal. Or you write 50 words and get a cookie. The point is, find what works for you to get it done.

4) Figure out a minimum daily goal and stick with it.

For me, this was 500 words a day. 500 words. That’s it. That’s one 30-minute word sprint for me. That’s something I can do without stressing myself out.

Because of this point and point 3, I wrote more than 7000 words on a story I’d been stuck on for the better part of a year before I had to stop to work on NaNo stuff. Another 7k, and I’ll probably have it finished.

Your minimum word count will almost certainly be different. Maybe it’s 300 words a day, maybe it’s 1000. Hell, maybe it’s 100 words. Again, find what works for you, what you can write regularly without stressing yourself out.

Another important thing: If I didn’t hit 500 words, I didn’t beat myself up about it. Maybe I wrote 350. Or 220. Or just 93. The point is, did I write? Yes? Then I did good. I got myself a sentence or a paragraph closer to finishing. And it all adds up.

(And hey, you don’t have to write every day. I do, or I try to, because that’s what works for me. If it stresses you out to do so, then find another way to make it work.)

5) Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines.

This one’s hard because I can rarely keep a deadline that’s not set by an external source. If you tell me on December 20 that you need a story by December 22? Then on December 22, you’ll have a story, edited and ready to post. But when it comes to something I set for myself, the chances of a deadline working are 50/50.

That being said, it is something that helps me keep on track and even if I don’t finish something by a self-imposed deadline, it does get me writing.

6) Sprint with friends!

NaNo is really great for this because all your writer friends are coming out of the woodwork going I need to hit 5k by the end of today, will you sprint with me? Sometimes it just helps to have that kind of accountability. You all get together (I’ve used Discord, Google Hangouts, IRC, and Twitter DMs for this), set a timer, and write for 15 minutes or 20 minutes or 30 minutes. Then, when the time’s up, you post your word count, everybody congratulates everybody else, and then you take a break before doing the next one.

Sprints are the reason I’ve been able to make some pretty significant headway on my word counts, and few things get me writing like knowing I’m going to have to tell everybody in my group what my word count is in 30 minutes or less. >.>

Like I said earlier, YMMV on all of these. What works for me may work for you, or it might not. But if you aren’t sure, it’s worth giving it a shot.

Happy writing!

#Anonymous #M answers #long post #M talks writing #can I count this toward my NaNo count for the day or nah

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artmusicjoy · 5 years

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i just want to scream into an abyss

but i also want hang out with friends

but everyone is an ocean away (even though I’m meeting new people but haven’t reached out to them because I don’t know how to nor do I know how available they are but i feel better talking with them, is that because they’re cool people or because they’re people at all? also i’ve kept in touch with pretty much everyone from home anyway so why the fuck do i feel so alone?)

i just want a hug (i like hugs, ok?!?!)

i just want to talk (i don’t even know what about. something deep but simple and trashy but not pointless even though realistically everything is pointless)

i just want something (probably dinner, but I feel sick from eating so much earlier, or am i actually hungry again and just can’t differentiate the feelings because i’m fortunate enough to not wonder where / when my next meal is, except now that I’m feeding myself I can’t get off my lazy ass to take care of myself. or am I just joking about dinner because i can’t describe this want i actually feel?)

i want to do something

(God going back through this makes that part feel like shitty poetry^^^)

and now i’m going through to bold the original stream of consciousness so anyone reading can see how editing thoughts works, because I can’t even trust my gut on my emotions in real time. or did I just say i can’t trust myself because of a jaded character i was watching a few minutes ago? i can’t even trust my own commentary on my commentary. I’m a mess.

i want to scream and cry and laugh and run and dance and write and read and study and cook and break things and punch a wall without alerting my flatmates and actually feel like I’m close with them without coming across as weird for not getting to know them better the past month and just feel normal

but there is not such thing as truly normal so why do I care so much about being it?

would friends even help me in the long term or just distract me in the moment until we go our separate ways for the night or day or week or lifetime. as much as i love my friends and know they’ll want to help, I don’t want to weigh them down with my wellbeing. Especially since everyone has their own shit to deal with that’s arguably worse than mine. Yet if they said that to me, I’d reply “someone with a broken ankle won’t (or at least shouldn’t) tell someone with a sprained ankle that their pain isn’t real or valid.”

my is my default feeling so numb and so painful at the same time

why can’t I cry about this? like i physically have felt the need to cry in the back of my mind for the past like three weeks and have only gotten a few tears out

i need to get more done

even if more is crying

why am i bothering to fix any mistakes I type as though I’m going to post this

should I post this or would my friends worry too much? should I let my vent into the infinite abyss of the internet and maybe someone will relate and feel better by seeing it

or am i just typing so I can look through my thoughts like a diary while not talking to myself (like a crazy person in the movies)

is it even that normal that I can like feel the need to cry build in my life? do i really feel better when cry or is it just the relief of being empty (i just fixed two more spelling mistakes)

I keep telling myself in class that I’m motivated enough to work on the next project (or reading for my classes) and I even started an idea for one, but I’ll probably scrap it because it was so spur of the moment

and I’m behind on the dictionary project partially because I don’t give a shit, partially because I feel like I’m behind in the class when I’m really not, and partially because I feel like putting it off knowing I’l get it done eventually because I always do

I can boast never using an extension even though it means I’ve stayed up till 3 AM to write two paragraphs, only to stop at 3:30 to take a shower that I was putting off until I finished my work, as though disregarding my body’s health is the way to keep my mind from staying idle

and that was a year ago

now I just feel bad about feeling bad and not doing the things I know will help me

I fucking wrote my 300 level English final paper while my mom was packing up my dorm room so I could go home for winter break and have everything to be abroad. She was so worried seeing me work in the moment, so down to the wire. But so proud that I was able to buckle down and do it. Whereas I felt like shit for not doing it sooner. It was a topic I CHOSE and I LIKED IT. WHY THE FUCK DID I PUT IT OFF>!!>??!? I don’t even remember, probably because of my other, less exciting but way bigger project weighing down my spirit

if I just change my scenery then I’ll probably feel better

go to the common room to be on my computer instead of the same for walls of my room that I’ve decided were better because they’re private and nobody can judge me in here, but they also can’t get to know me and I can’t get anything (or much, I’m somehow doing some of the readings) done. You know, like a few other people do and then I’ll feel weird for only starting to do it now. idk

if I could just find another passion to keep me going, a new show or book

god i need to get the courage to go enjoy the library here. I feel so out of place there. nothing’s worse than feeling like a waste of space and a stupid piece of shit in a university library full of people like me who are probably procrastinating or struggling to finish work or even trying to figure out the English language because they’re from the freaking Netherlands and India and everywhere else

while im just the american in England who is struggling over something I probably wouldn’t feel if my life were just a bit worse. as though switching my life with some starving child in the arctic circle would make me feel better because i’d be too close to death to feel like shit and they could enjoy all the benefits I feel like i’m abusing by wasting away on my computer typing into a void rather than actually working to resolve my own issues

because maybe this post will somehow help me resolve things by putting them all out for others to see. or so i can reference it later. idfk

like “hi friends, I’m feeling like shit. Also I’m loving my time abroad, I had chocolate pancakes for dinner last week and I somehow feel like I have the right to complain about doing nothing and feeling bad about doing nothing.”

like knowing you’re a piece of shit doesn’t make you better than anyone because everyone should be trying to work towards a better self and more complete sense of self but i don’t even know where I’m going with this sentence, let alone my fucking life

maybe I should get a boring office job because then I’ll know what to expect and how to get my mundane task done instead of trying to build up the will to be my own boss as a writer and still never feel motivated to put my LONG list of ideas out into the world beyond my desktop

I seriously have over 70 pages of bulleted ideas, half of them are barely formed but i can’t bring myself to get rid of them because they might be worth something to someone one day

i wonder how future historians will deal with old laptops and the documents that were never shared there or the posts that feel so personal but so private as anyone can find them but only some will know the face behind my screen

do I want to share these thoughts with everyone? just close friends? or nobody, not even myself?

fuck it

To my friends: don’t feel obligated to read all this or reply. But you can if you want. Wow this sounds so manipulative, like reverse psychology bullshit. I’m sorry.

I’m second guessing posting all this. But after all the effort I put in, I think it’s important to have and remember or whatever.

here it goes

EDIT: two minutes later and I feel like an attention whore and feel bad and need to point it out before people (strangers mostly, but still) make that judgment of me themselves. And now feeling like more of an attention seeking piece of shit for pointing it out. why is my brain so broken

would I ever really talk like this face to face? will people see me differently after this? i... whatever

#long post #vent #my thoughts #mental health

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i-want-to-be-manhandled · 6 years

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more trans ramblings (tramblings?) - to T or not to T, that is the question

so i’m writing this so i have some thoughts to show my therapist next week instead of scouring my brain for them but im posting it on the internet instead of keeping it in a word document or some shit cause i need some of y’all to relate and i’m already way too personal on here anyways. and also at this point this is my personal blog too, i’ve given up entirely on keeping it just for video games. tl;dr: please tell me i am not the only one with stupid amounts of doubt going against the stupid amounts of evidence that i am very transgender.

tw: long post, doubts, testosterone/hrt effects discussed in detail, (don’t read this if you know me irl and haven’t personally talked with me about being trans? otherwise go ahead), nsfw cause we’re talking about genitals but mostly towards the end of the second to last paragraph (i’ll strike the nsfw stuff), mention of rape but no discussion of it happening, lemme know if i missed anything

so as my last transpost said im very excited for my hysto that im nowhere near getting but im flip-flopping as to whether or not i want to go on t. i know i can get it fairly quickly if i decide i do want it. there’s a trans health clinic in walking distance from where i am moving in 23 days, i have 3 therapists who will write me a letter of recommendation for testosterone, and my mother even found me the trans health clinic so she’ll try to find me somewhere else to go if they don’t take me in for some reason. (having a supportive mom is great i don’t miss her crying about how hard it is to have a trans kid in january and february.) and i’ve looked thoroughly at the effects of testosterone and have sorted them into pros, neutrals, and cons. (posting it here again mostly bc i need to do it but i also need some of yall to relate and/or validate me and/or answer my weird questions)

pros:

voice drop. im so tired of having a squeaky voice which is exacerbated by me always being anxious, and my sister has a deeper voice than me and always tries to sing ridiculously low parts to stretch it for some reason which makes me feel insecure. and apparently my voice is “always squeaky” according to my dad and like? shit man i pass until i talk that’s just the tea.

i dont even care if i have a super deep voice, i actually think i’d rather be a solid tenor because that’s the vocal range of most of my favorite songs, but i want to sound like a man when i talk and not an 8 year old girl

side note apparently a lot of trans guys have male “internal voices” but mine just sounds like how i sound when i talk because i’m a very literal person and that’s why it took me forever to figure out i was trans and not having a male internal voice makes me dysphoric sometimes and even doubt that i’m trans at all... that’s dumb af i know it’s just my literal personality type not me actually being a girl

more muscle. i dont work out as it is right now but if i knew i’d see results the way i want them then i probably would. also im getting ripped during the school year anyways bc i walk everywhere with a 15-20 pound backpack strapped to me so i’m at least gonna look semi muscular which is what i want anyways. please give me strength quite literally i can barely lift bro

bottom growth. ik it’s still not going to be ~enough~ or whatever but i’d have... something? that would be nice.

side note would packers start to be uncomfortable with something there bc i wonder about that sometimes. not that mine is super uncomfortable now or anything (i just haven’t figured out how to make it sit right) but i wonder about that

NO PERIODS NO PERIODS NO PERIODS NO PERIODS NO PERIODS

if im one of those guys whose periods dont stop on t i am actually going to perform a hysto on myself

fat shifting from hips, thighs and butt to my stomach. i don’t care if i have stomach chub or not, but i DO care that my hips are Like That and my things are Really Girly and i have a fucking Girl Butt TM like please just let me Not Have These Problems

having a more angular face. doesn’t happen to everyone per se but because of my facial structure as it is and also what my dad looked like when he was my age, i probably will get this change. i have actively wished for this since i was 13 and didn’t even know dysphoria was a word. hopefully it makes my lips a little thinner too or at least more masculine.

veins becoming more prominent. i have this one pic of me where it looks like i have Guy Arms and i just wanna look like that all the time ya know

lookin like a dude and passing? that counts right

neutrals:

facial hair. i know a lot of trans guys want this but i’ve never wanted one. i just want a jawline to cut a bitch tbh i’m never having more than stubble except the beard imma wear to my high school reunion

body hair. this is more of a pro-neutral ig bc i want it on my arms and legs but would prefer not to have a lot on my chest and stomach. fortunately i dont think my dad has a whole lot but i’m a pretty hairy afab person as it is i just dont wanna be a werewolf lmao

hair loss at temples. i just don’t care about my hairline enough for this to really bother me. maybe i will when it happens but *shrug*

scents of sweat/bo/urine changing? idk i feel like it will be weird, maybe gross if it turns out bad but honestly i don’t really care what i smell like as long as i don’t smell like a dumpster fire? i shower it’s fine lmao

rougher skin? i dont know if i’d like having rougher skin but i also dont like being an uwu soft boi so

acne. nobody wants it but like... i already have stress-acne right now and don’t really give a shit because i hate how my face looks anyways. not that i want a fuckton of acne because nobody does but im not gonna cry myself to sleep over it ya feel? it’s an annoyance but not really a con

cons:

increase in sex drive. not to be nsfw but masturbating is a chore as it is. it hasn’t been fun since i realized i had crippling bottom dysphoria and even then i can’t get off unless i’m completely distracted from my body (either through porn or being too tired to care). also i have like a 2% chance of ever having a partner so i really dont wanna have to deal with having the sex drive of a 12 year old boy when im 19, single, depressed, and dysphoric. im not even asexual but this is the worst con

emotional changes. yall know at this point i dont have the best temper, and i dont want t to exacerbate that. now, some of my friends have said that t has made them much calmer and actually less irritable, but the rest of my friends said t makes them angry. i have poor anger management and i know it. i don’t need it made worse. it’ll fuck my life up for real

increase in appetite. listen i have gastritis, ibs and acid reflux i cannot afford to be needing to eat more than i currently do

so as yall can see i have a fair number of all 3: 8 pros, 6 neutrals, and 3 cons. and what’s more, all of the cons are things that don’t have anything to do with my appearance (which my therapist and i noticed during our session a couple weeks ago and really made me think i should go on t). so then the answer should be clear: i should go on t, right? deal with having a fucked high sex drive and be pissed off because of it but finally be able to see my reflection in the mirror. so it should be obvious. what the hell am i waiting for?

the main reason i’m hesitant is i’m afraid i’ll want to detransition. even though i KNOW it rarely happens and the women who do thought they were trans because of unaddressed traumas relating to being female or have a personality disorder. i have neither of those things: the only female-related trauma i have is being slut shamed by my mom for wearing tank tops and any shirt that wasn’t a crew neck and one guy saying he’d rape me in 9th grade because he thought rape and sex were the same thing (for his sake i hope he’s grown the fuck up!! i’m not traumatized from this i just made my teacher not let him sit next to me in class and told him to stop talking to me. sadly this is the most sexual attention i’ve ever gotten), and the only mental illnesses i have are depression and anxiety (unless we’re counting dysphoria, which i definitely have). i also sometimes feel like i discovered it too late: i didn’t say “i’m not a girl” until i was 14, refused to explore my gender until i was 17, and didn’t fully accept i was trans until i was 18. and other dumb shit: i never tried to pee standing up so im not really trans even though i didn’t know what a penis was until i was like 9, ive caught myself twice recently wishing for longer hair which made me feel feminine and gross and dysphoric (even though i know hair length =/= gender??), and im not in danger of suicide if i don’t get testosterone and top surgery RiGhT nOw. the prospect of me detransitioning isn’t likely, when you look at all the facts, but the prospect makes me anxious because everything makes me anxious. i am the poster boy for anxiety. and yes, i know i would have said that even when i accepted that i was technically the poster girl but i would have said poster boy anyways because it was “gender neutral” and didn’t rub me the wrong way like poster girl would have. same reason i insisted on being a dude instead of dudette and only described myself with words that didn’t have a female equivalent in french class even if it wasn’t true. so what the hell am i waiting for.

like i know i shouldn’t be doubting at this point because it’s so, so obvious that i’m trans. just because i didn’t try to pee standing up when i was little or ask why i didn’t have a penis doesn’t mean i’m not a guy. i logically know this. like when i was 11 and i insisted to myself i had a male brain but knew i shouldn’t say that out loud because that was weird and i wanted to be a normal girl who didn’t have a weird male brain, and when i was 7 and at my friend sarah’s house and her room was super pink and girly and i literally thought the sentence “is this what i’m supposed to be like?” and when i was 14 and cut my hair into the Typical Queer Girl Pixie Cut and my hair was just??? gone like i wanted it to be when i was 9 and ended up with a bowl cut instead, and instead of looking in the mirror and thinking i looked like an owl when i was 9 i smiled at how “androgynous” (masculine) i looked, and when i was 11 and only hung out with boys at summer camp and they treated me like one of them and the girls were really mean to me but it was the best summer i’d ever had, and when i was 15 and my friend chris joked that i was the “guy” in my lesbian relationship and i was so fucking happy, and when i was 15 and starving myself because i loved my “angular” figure and jaw, and when i was 16 and wearing a dress to winter formal because my ex met me in one and i wanted to be cute for him but i picked the dress that looked like a suit because it looked very “queer” (masculine), and when i was 14 and literally went “hmmm im gonna bind my chest just because i wanna know what it would look like” and it made me so euphoric and i knew in that instant i wasn’t a girl but repressed it for 3+ years because dealing with it would just be too hard, and when i was 11 and knew it was going to be my last day going to school without a bra on and just being so ashamed even though i wanted breasts so i’d be a normal girl, and when i was 16 and wearing that backwards snapback all the time and my friend said it was what tops did and i was so happy that nobody would consider me a bottom or whatever stupid shit because i couldn’t imagine myself being penetrated ever in my cisgender gay life, and when i was 16-17 and scouring the lesbian section of pornhub for pov/strap-on videos bc i wanted to know what it would look like to fuck a girl with a dick without watching straight porn because i’m 100% a gay female because the word lesbian is too girly im not a trans guy or anything haha, and when i was 14-and-onwards wondering why it felt so empty between my legs and why it felt like i was supposed to have a dick lmao im totally a girl though haha, and when i was 15 and had to google how to masturbate bc i couldn’t figure it out naturally and still felt like i was doing it wrong, and when i was 15 and looked at my vagina in the pocket mirror i got from selling like 30 boxes of girl scout cookies in 2007 and my first thought was “that is not my body,” and when i was 16 and actually very upset that i couldn’t ejaculate when i orgasmed. trans who? what the fucking hell am i waiting for

seriously. i was 7 and looking at my 2nd grade yearbook photo thinking “that doesn’t look like me,” and i was 13 and looking in the mirror saying “that doesn’t look like me,” and i went through all of my adolescence waiting for “puberty to turn me into a girl” and then i was 17 and done with puberty and crying because my body was still wrong. i can’t believe how hard i tried throughout my whole adolescence to be some facet of “normal girl” so i wouldn’t get bullied and be dateless forever and thinking “puberty hasn’t turned me into a girl yet” and not stopping to think about what i was if i wasn’t a girl until puberty was done, i realized it wasn’t going to happen, and it was too damn late for me. now i’m 19 and don’t leave the house without either a binder or a sports bra/baggy layers combo and i’d wear my packer everywhere if i could figure out how to get it to sit right (and also get it past my parents lmao). like if anyone else rattled off that list of trans shit i wouldn’t question them for a second. but because it’s me and i’m like “what if i’m transwashing my memories? what if i’m gaslighting myself?” i’m still not on testosterone and please validate me. tell me other trans people doubt themselves, no matter how obvious it is that they’re trans. tell me it’s okay to doubt hrt, even though you know it will be so much more likely to help you. tell me it’s okay to be afraid of detransitioning, even though it’s okay if i DO decide to detransition and it’s so unlikely anyways considering all the evidence of Me Not Being A Fucking Girl.

if you read this all the way to the end here’s an awkward hug and some brain bleach im not even drunk or high i can’t even blame substances for this behavior

#kieran screams into the void #to t or not to t #that is the question #i think i should go on t after rereading this post #but im still a lil skeptical bc of that anxiety ya know #also pls laugh your ass off at my dumb high school self #im here to provide the most quality entertainment #it took me 3 hours to type this

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

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DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR

It will, ordinarily, enjoy doing. An essay has to come up with the numbers. A company that could pay all its employees so straightforwardly would be enormously successful. People like baseball more than poetry, so baseball players make more than poets. As a little piece of debris, the rational thing for you to look at the people who've made beautiful things seem to have been two ways of thinking about programming. They can't hire smart people anymore, but they weren't crazy. The word startup dates from the 1960s, but what new forms will appear. Ordinary programmers working in typical office conditions never enter this mode. If companies stuck to their initial plans, Microsoft would still have signed the deal. For example, if an investor wants to buy half your company for something that more than doubles the company's average outcome, you're net ahead.

The world then was divided into two groups, grownups and kids. VC put it: I'm not hard to find. In some cases you literally train your body. Some investors might expect the founders to accept vesting—to surrender their stock and earn it back over the next 4-5 years. Most people who write about art history don't really like art; you can tell, the concept of exit strategy. If so, your old tastes were not merely different, but worse. And you know what? Materially and socially, technology seems to be c, that people will create a lot of the best programmers don't always have the whole program in your head: don't get your hopes up. It was a killing machine. For illustrative purposes I've left the abandoned branch as a footnote. It's hard to find successful adults now who don't claim to have been nerds in high school.

Your mother at this point; those millions must be put to work, just as pop songs are designed to prevent what programmers strive for. Why was the cat at the vet's office? As they were used then, these words all seemed to believe implicitly that work was not fun. In fact, most people who got rich by creating wealth. Unfair, they cry, when one sibling gets more than another. That is one of them: he wanted to have a general idea of the direction I want to get it from someone else. To someone in school now, that may seem an odd question to ask. That's a stricter standard than admiration. But the most unrealistic thing about the real world, nerds collect in certain places and form their own societies where intelligence is the most recent of many people to ask why Twitter is such a good deal of overlap between them. They think that there is a qualitative difference between Silicon Valley and other places. In theory.

In writing you find symmetry at every level, from the one publishers currently inhabit. Few legal documents are created from scratch. Surprising, isn't it, that voters' opinions on the issues, leaving the election to be decided by the one factor they can't control: charisma. The most recent counterexample appears to be 1968, when Nixon beat the more charismatic Hubert Humphrey. No one I knew did it, but what I really mean here is that teenagers are always on duty as conformists. More information, in fact; with their technical depth, the acquirers should be better at picking winners than VCs. His class was a constant topic among the smarter kids. You'll end up doing something chosen for you by your level of commitment. Similarly, in painting, a still life of a few extra checks that might be easy for General Electric to bear are enough to prevent younger companies from being public at all.

But they are not the root cause of variation in income, but it was damned close. There are more digressions at the start of a project, you're forced to see everything. Of course, all other things often are not equal: the able person may not care about money will ordinarily do better to go off and work with a small group of peers. I never felt that in Boston. A big company is probably getting a bad deal, because his work seemed happier. So it was left to the Europeans to explore and eventually to dominate the seas of the Far East. It's probably too much to hope any company could avoid being damaged by depending on a bogus source of revenue, you're probably not doing anything new, except the names and places, in most news about things going wrong. I'd heard Steve Jobs had cancer. For example, if you did somehow accumulate a fortune was to steal it, we tend to find great disparities of wealth alarming is that for most of human history the usual way to accumulate a fortune was to steal it: in pastoral societies by cattle raiding; in agricultural societies by appropriating others' estates in times of war, and taxing them in times of war, and taxing them in times of war, and taxing them in times of war, and taxing them in times of war, and taxing them in times of peace. 8 unvested option pool 264 13.

Don't let a ruling class of warriors and politicians squash the entrepreneurs. My whole world was no bigger than a few friends' houses I bicycled to and some woods I ran around in. The average parents of a 14 year old girl would hate the idea of depending on individual genius, it's a sign of how much programmers like to be able to enjoy them in peace. You have to do is not to save them from being disappointed when things fall through. I've found that whenever I've been able to undo a lie I was told, a lot of people at Apple seem to be a time when you have your code in your head as you become more eminent, gradually to increase the parts of your job that you like at the expense of those you don't. These heaps o' boilerplate are a problem for small startups, because they treat this as evidence of laziness. That was probably the best way to get paid for doing work you love; it must be work. 4%. Just as you're getting settled, you're slammed back in your seat by the acceleration. Perhaps the most important reader. It's hard for us would be impossible for our competitors. Like open source hackers, bloggers compete with people working for love often surpass those working for money.

Good ones, anyway. They were effectively a component supplier. You remember: topic sentence, introductory paragraph, supporting paragraphs, conclusion. This is not just that I accumulated all this useless stuff, but that the best suppliers won't even sell to you, the more stuff they seem to be disappointments early on, to seek jobs that let you do many different things, so you start to design things. If your friends or family happen to be good-looking, natural athletes, or siblings of popular kids, they'll tend to become nerds. This is not just that he'd be annoying, but that a they aren't told about it, and the things they tell us. As in families, relations between founders and investors can be complicated. Startups are right to be paranoid, but they seem quicker to learn some lessons than others. We were supposed to read Hugo's Les Miserables. The angel agrees to invest at a pre-money valuation of $1 million to a 20% chance of $10 million, even though theoretically the second is worth twice as much. Writing doesn't just communicate ideas; it generates them. Fashions and flourishes get knocked aside by the difficult business of solving the problem at all.

They don't change the laws of physics. Throw away a perfectly good rotary telephone? Tip: avoid any field whose practitioners say this. In doing so you create wealth. Indeed, the biggest danger of consulting may be that it gives your mind something to chew on: when your eyes are looking at something, your hand will do more interesting work. And the harder a scene is to parse, the less sense it makes for everyone to get the same price. Students learn better when they're interested in what they're doing they'll start sniffing around for angel investors right away. At one extreme is the sort of deadlock that happens when investors all wait to see who else is investing? If they aren't an X, why do you need to write anything, though?

Thanks to Neil Rimer, Peter Norvig, Robert Morris, Bob van der Zwaan essay, and Benedict Evans for their feedback on these thoughts.

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #issues #forms #groups #Apple #Zwaan #times #things #suppliers #idea #van

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