From the Writing Advice dep't: A complicated ask, a serial answer (part 1)

Every now and then I get an ask in the box that's complex enough that it has to be taken apart and answered in pieces. Also, sometimes I get queries in that are painful enough (in varying ways) that I elect not to attribute them when answering. This one is both.

I read the ask (and reread it, and rereread it, four or five or six times after it came in, and a bunch more times while I was on my back this week being sick), and gradually came to realize that for it to be properly handled I had no choice but to break it into pieces for best management.

There are three main strands to the issues this ask brings up: motivation, growth as a writer, and coping with or succeeding despite the current state of the publishing industry.

So let's dig in. Here's the first part of the ask:

I know there's no One True Path, but I'm struggling with this, and I'm sure others are too, so I'll just ask it. I want to make a career out of writing, but with shrinking attention spans and so much content to mindlessly consume, how do you keep the motivation to write? My friends get mad at me for getting discouraged when not even they read my writing. They get mad and say, "write for yourself, not for the validation!"

Welp. (sigh)

First of all, I think your friends are absolutely right. But we'll come back to that.

You have to understand that as far as the Search for Motivation goes, I'm probably Spiders DD, the outlier who seriously should not have been counted. I have been motivated to write stuff pretty much nonstop since I was eight, and did my first novel in crayon in a school notebook. (It was one of the thick notebooks. The ones with the black and white marbled covers. Most of you who come of US schools know the kind.)

So I'm really the wrong person to be asking about this, especially since it's now nearly the Year of our (Wood!) Dragon 4722, which would make me nearly, uh, six Years of the Dragon old. And being of such age, and a career midlist genre writer, I have the same source of motivation as the vast majority of my similarly-aged colleagues: the need to write or starve. (There's an Irish saying perfectly descriptive of my situation: "Too old to dig ditches and too scared to rob banks." That's my situation exactly. There's nothing left for me to do but to write.) :)

...Anyway, it's kind of amazing how that kind of motivation'll focus your intention, and help you keep it in place, once you're been working with it for a while.

At the beginning of a career, though, things can look a lot different as you start getting a handle on exactly what it is you like to write and why you like writing it. And having another job to keep you afloat while you find your way is seriously a very good idea if you can manage it.

It sounds very much to me as if you're still in the early "finding your way" stages. This is a place that a lot of writers pass through, so don't be concerned. It's rare for sudden perfect motivation-to-write to crystallize out of nothing. And never forget, the word itself is based on old Latin roots for movement, and provokes the question, "Yeah, okay, but which way?" Movement without intended direction tends to turn into a lot of unfocused flailing, which looks good on Kermit, but not so much on the rest of us.

(inserting a cut here, because honestly, this is gonna go on a bit)

So you need to sit down and start asking questions—and answering them—so you can draw some kind of map. "I want to make a career out of writing"? Fine. What kind of writing? Fiction? Nonfiction? If fiction, what kind? What do you like to read? Why? Is that something you'd like to write? Why? Why not? If there's something else you'd rather be writing—what else? And why?

The more you ask the questions and answer them—"Keep asking the next question," Ted Sturgeon never used to stop saying—and the further along your investigations get, the more likely you are (as you get close to the answers that matter) to start getting the itch to write something, something in particular. This process may take a while, and the itch may take a good while to manifest. Don't be alarmed by that. The old saying is that the fire from Heaven won't descend until you've built the altar for it. And it may take a while piling the rocks up into the right shape. Don't hurry. If this is something you intend to spend a lifetime on, make sure the foundations are sound. The time taken will be worth it.

And BTW, do you intend that kind of length of commitment? If you're not sure, that's fine. But there's no one else to ask at this point who can give you meaningful answers. This is the time to get into it. Work out what "having a career in writing" looks like for you. Then start investigating to see whether your conception has any foundation in reality as a kind of lifestyle you actually have decent odds on achieving. (Again, I'm an outlier here. I'd been writing for pleasure for a long time before I had the good fortune to befriend an actual career writer, examine his habits [and those of other writers in the LA area] at close range, and realize that this line-of-work choice was actually something that could be successfully pulled off by mere mortals.) After investigation, this is a call that only you can make.

But anyway. Once you've started experiencing the kind of motivation that comes of increased certainty about what you want to do and why, you'll find you're way less concerned about sourcing or supporting it externally. It tends to fuel itself. (As once it does descend, the fire from Heaven is tenacious stuff: more Greek than otherwise.)

But also: trying to designate outsourced exterior stimulants for motivation is a bad idea. The reason's simple: one day you'll need them and they won't be there. Conditions will have changed, or the outside-of-you sources into the hands of which you've resigned your motivational agency may not be available for one reason or another, temporarily or permanently... and then where are you? The concept's a nonstarter. If your motivation's acting up, you need to be looking inward, not outward, for ways to kickstart it. This is one of the most personal parts of the writing process. You need to own it.

(And yeah, even career writers' motivation slips sometimes: annoying career things happen, cyclic lows cut in at a bad time, you name it. Most of us work out ways to jar the motivation back into correct operation when it acts up. But for such corrections to work you must first know what it's like to generate or mine yours yourself... and you're still working on that. The methods you find to generate motivation toward doing the Work will also assist you in diagnosing it when it goes south, and putting it right again.)

Also: (sighing) Please let your friends off the hook as regards reading your material, and feedback. Your motivation to write should not be dependent on their feedback, and it's not a good idea to try to make friends feel responsible for keeping you on the creative track. Chief among reasons for this: they may not feel themselves up to the task of giving you the writing support you're apparently asking them for—possibly because they simply don't feel competent to. (This is where we could get into how I had to stop @petermorwood from rewriting his third novel for the third time due to conflicting notes from friends... but let's leave that for later.) At best you're possibly making your friends deeply uncomfortable. At worst, the pressure may damage the friendships.

Tl:dr; our friends may love us dearly, but that doesn't make them competent editors. If you're online, so are many writers' groups who'll welcome a new member who needs advice. Wait till you've got more data and clarity on your motivational issues, and then start shopping around for assistance that seems friendly and trustworthy.

And finally (for the moment), about other people's attention spans:

It'd be good if you can start training yourself away from the habit of worrying about those. For one thing, there's absolutely nothing you can do about them. You might as well worry about the 11-year sunspot cycle. The attention-span issue is just one more distraction from things you should usefully be thinking about. But also: A lot of what we hear about that situation strikes me as fearmongering (as, IIRC, it was supposed to cause the downfall of western civilization around the time I started writing for Scooby-Doo).

If you look around, you'll see that loads of people are willing to spend HUGE amounts of their attention on stuff they love. (I mean, have you been on AO3 lately? And we're just talking about free stuff, there. Lots of other people will do the same for traditionally published work, given the chance and the money.) Your job is to get on with writing, start putting what you're doing out there where people will have a chance to fall in love with it, and then deal with the consequences.

More of this next time. (And please bear with me, as I'm still not up to best operating speed after the last week's illness. I'll get to everything else you sent me, I promise.)

HTH!

Been heart horny almost all day and finally got to take care of it. Took things nice and slow, and this time I managed to hold back most of my sounds for all of you that prefer just the heart. I tried to start from relaxed and record everything into the cooldown period.

Beware this is a long file. It's a 30 minute session and I had to split it into parts.

What I'm saying is: get cozy. 😉

[ no dl6 au ]

get your chapter one clothing refs here!!

that's right, i'm finally making reference sheets for this au, starting off with chapter one

[ID in alt text]

here we have:

phoenix and miles' teen designs (both warm and cold weather). these designs are mainly shown during the flashback case "turnabout ashes"

phoenix and miles' court outfits for chapter one. these outfits are the most often seen in chapter one. think about how everyone draws phoenix and miles in their courtroom suits. yea, it's like that

phoenix and miles case-specific outfits. in turnabout samurai, miles and phoenix have to dress up as steel samurai fanboys/journalists to get into the studio. it's.. easier for miles than phoenix.

hope you guys like these, i hope they're helpful if you plan to draw these characters, and stick around for chapter two refs

speaking of if you draw these characters, here are some details that i couldn't show on the ref sheet or are small and could be missed

(more info under cut)

in his teen design, miles' bangs are a lot shorter and choppier

phoenix's hair is slightly longer than his chapter one hairstyle, but not by much

in turnabout ashes, phoenix usually carries around a sketchbook

in his teen design, phoenix's clothes are usually splattered with paint here and there

phoenix also has his shoelaces untied a lot in his teen design

miles has red braces in his teen design

in chapter one, miles' bangs have grown out

in turnabout samurai, miles has the signal red samurai keychain on his backpack

in turnabout samurai, phoenix's bracelet reads "rainbow" as a reference to the rainbow samurai from the ace attorney anime

that's all for now :3!!

Billy has been a brat all day. No. Scratch that. Hes been a fucking asshole all day. Steve Harrington knows Billy, knows him inside and out, knows hes lashing and self destructing and pushing everyone away. It doesn't take a genuis to realize Billy had a bad night, his left eye is swollen shut and Steve knows damn well what that means. Every time though Steve tries to confort him, hug him, talk to him, Billy pushes him away. They actually ended up having a screaming match in the middle of the mall after a whole day of fucking shitty behavior and Steve had enough. "Get in the car Billy." His voice is demanding, no room for arguing. Billy is unwraveling, exploding, shrinking and bottling up every emotion, going off like a shrapnel filled bomb. Steve half expects Billy to beat the shit out of him. To his surprise Billy actually gets into the car and it is a very silent ten minute drive to Steves big empty house. He unlocks the door and looks to Billy..self imploding Billy. Steve sits on his parents expensive couch, eyes narrowed, "Get over my lap." Came his hiss. Inside his hearts pounding, nervous. "Wha- fuck off Harrington. Fuck-" "Billy." Its a demand, hes pissed off. Pissed off at Billys shitty insults, his fighting, his lashing. He grabs Billy, pulling him over his lap. He gives him a moment. If Billy gets up, he will let him leave. All Steve wants to do is take control, direct the explosion away. Billy stills his breath slow and deep, hes staring at the marbled flooring, heart pounding. Steve pulls down his jeans and takes flesh in his hand, rubbing and squeezing. He hits. Its a loud smack and Billy jolts forward, biting his lip. Steves spanking him and Billy goes bright red. He likes it. "You do not get to push everyone around you Billy!" Another smack, another, another. "You dont get to act like a spoiled brat!" Billy is crying, openly weeping. Hes pretty sure Steves hand print is tattooed on his ass. It hurts. It hurts in the best kind of way and Steve..lovely beautiful Steve is rubbing his pained rear, massaging the globes of flesh. Billy is heaving with tears, it hurts his eye, it heals his soul. Hes shaking, its utter catharsis. Steve slowly moves Billy, hes bulky and heavy and admittedly he struggles, but he pulls him into a warm tight hug, rocking the sobbing man. "Im here..im here.." Steve whispers, wiping snot and tears from the blotchy red face. "I-Im s-sorry. Im so s-sorry." Billy wails harder, face buried into Steves neck. Billy needs Steve. Steve who unlocks his heart when he buries it deep in a vault, who somehow manages to get him to exorcize these feelings before he goes insane. His ass hurts. A soft giggle through the tears and Steve is kissing his teary cheeks.."Im the worst." Billy mumbled with a half hearted snort. Steve shakes his head, "Youre the best Billy." And that makes Billy lip quiver.."You ready to..maybe go tell Hopper whats going on?" And Billy tenses, hes locking himself back away and Steve changes the subject quickly. They'd get there. Today wasnt that day.

Eraser: Reborn (2022): “Thank You.”

tried to vent in a trans space about how, as a trans man who’s been on T for a long time (over 7 years now), i have noticed that the more i pass as a man, the less welcomed i am in queer spaces unless i go out of my way to feminize myself. and how that sucks! and it’s isolating!!! and it feels horrible to see ppl who used to like you and be close to you drift further and further the more masculine (& therefore more comfortable in urself) u become…

only to get ppl replying to me and saying “well if you dressed more fem then ppl wouldn’t be intimidated by you. you signed up for this”

i’m sorry but i didnt sign up for social isolation when i transitioned, i signed up for gender euphoria and comfort in myself and my life. and i had hoped that the ppl in my life would be able to see how much joy that brings me and continue to love me.

can't believe we're all adults being forced into the club penguin level of censorship in 2024

you guys are so fucking annoying so this post is my favorite canon comic now. shut the fuck up

"Lesbian Weddings" by Wendy Jill York

source: The Femme Mystique, edited by Lesléa Newman

hello everyone! i posted this over a week ago but it’d be really nice if you guys could watch part 1 of my hazbin hotel critique ^_^ part 2 is on the way!

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

Extremely dangerous how "grooming" in the context of child sexual abuse went from being a very specific pattern of isolation and trust-building with the aim of abusing someone to "telling children anything that contradicts their parents' ultra-conservative worldview is grooming" to "selling rainbow flags in a store is grooming" to "literally anyone I don't like is a groomer".

These days the word seems to most often be used by people who don't care about what it actually means and just want an easy "this person is irredeemably evil, kill them now" button.

wanted to do my photo project this semester on the notion of mobility aids being extensions of our bodies, the yarn was done by a friend

edit: the shibari comments are one thing but if you put these non-sexual photos of me in my wheelchair on your porn blog i'm blocking you 👍🏻

Pirate Terms and Phrases

-> Pirate Lingo

-> A Pirate's Glossary

Batten Down The Hatches - tie everything down and put stuff away for a coming storm.

Brig - a prison on a ship.

Bring a Spring Upon 'er - turn the ship in a different direction

Broadside - the most vulnerable angle of a ship that runs the length of the boat.

Cutlass - a thick, heavy and rather short sword blade.

Dance with Jack Ketch - to hang; death at the hands of the law (Jack Ketch was a famed English executioner).

Davy Jones's Locker - a mythical place at the bottom of the ocean where drowned sailors are said to go.

Dead Men Tell No Tales - the reason given for leaving no survivors.

Flogging - severe beating of a person.

Gangplank - removable ramp between the pier and ship.

Give No Quarter - show no mercy.

Jack - flag flown at the front of the ship to show nationality.

Jolly Roger - black pirate flag with a white skull and crossbones.

Keelhaul - a punishment where someone is dragged under the ship. They are cut by the planks and barnacles on the bottom of the ship.

Landlubber - an inexperienced or clumsy person who doesn't have any sailing skills.

Letters of Marque - government-issued letters allowing privateers the right to piracy of another ship during wartime.

Man-O-War - a pirate ship that is decked out and prepared for battle.

Maroon - to leave someone stranded on a. deserted island with no supplies, typically a punishment for any crew members who disrespected the captain.

Mutiny - a situation in which the crew chooses a new captain, sometimes by forcibly removing the old one.

No Prey, No Pay - a common pirate law that meant crew members were not paid, but rather received a share of whatever loot was taken.

Old Salt - experienced pirate or sailor.

Pillage - to steal/rob a place using violence.

Powder Monkeys - men that performed the most dangerous work on the ship. They were treated harshly, rarely paid, and were expendable.

Privateer - government-appointed pirates.

Run A Shot Across the Bow - fire a warning shot at another boat's Captain.

Scurvy - a disease caused by Vitamin C Deficiency.

Sea Legs - when a sailor adjusts his balance from riding on a boat for a long time.

Strike Colors - lower a ship's flag to indicate surrender.

Weigh Anchor and Hoist the Mizzen - an order to the crew to pull up the anchor and get the ship sailing.

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