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alitheamateur · 5 years

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The Grind- Chapter 8

Warnings: Language. Fluff.

A/N: OHHHH, CHAPTER 8, HOW I LOVE YOU. This is one of my favorite chapters in the entire book, and I only hope you do enjoy it! It’s Colton and Liv, intimately behind closed doors, just how I like them. AND, DRUM ROLL.....You’ll even get a little insight into the mind of our boy Colton Ritter!!!

(GIFS FROM GOOGLE)

I hadn’t attempted to track Colton down once the weigh in concluded. He had hands to shake, and plenty of pictures to pose for. And as for me, there were a few colleagues I needed to speak with amongst the mass of people as well, before stealing away to him upstairs. Kate was on the list, a reporter for one of the local television news stations, who happened to live in the same apartment complex as I did. We weren’t tight pals by any means, but always spoke in passing every morning before work, and there was the occasional invitation to her flat for a drink to unwind. As a matter of fact, it seemed unwinding was precisely what Kate had in mind this particular evening, too. Her whining insistence on sharing a Cosmo in the lounge wouldn’t cease unless I caved. But, I was certain to make it a clear point that I only had time for ONE quick drink, and discreetly sent Colton a text to inform him I may be arriving a little behind schedule.

As promised, Kate let me part after a single drink order and some simple small talk over some perfectly salted mixed nuts. We exchanged predictions on how we thought tomorrow night would go and where she had bought the camel colored satchel bag she was displaying in the seat next to her. Then, out of the sheer goodness of my heart, I even sat quietly listening to the horror story of her latest blind date mishap. Bless that poor girl, she really was a catch. Confident, very intelligent, lightyears ahead of other anchors in the city her age. To most men though, her every quality was one that intimidated their sensitive ego, making it a struggle to find a match who would encourage her success, rather than smother it.

I left her alone in the bar with her sorrows, honestly feeling a bit bad for abandoning her to drown them, then aimlessly wandered to find the elevator. Thankfully, I reach Colton’s floor without any company in the confines of the metal box. Creepy, awkward elevator conversation was #4 on the list of things I hated as much as cherry licorice. I walked down the lengthy hallway lined with plum and green patterned carpet, then patted two light knocks on room 1893, and waited zealously. My toes patted in anticipation, and my lips buzzed a bit from the leftover coating of my stout Cosmopolitan. The door opened surprisingly quick after my tapping by a handsome fellow adorning a pair of light grey boxer shorts.

“Damn, I was really hopin’ you were that pizza I ordered from downstairs.”

I kicked the door open further sending him back to hit the papered wall to the left, and he snuffled from a closed mouth grin.

“Sorry to disappoint,” I snarled. “And come on now, Ritter. You can’t be opening your door looking like that. You’ll have the maids brawling for who gets to bring up your extra towels.” I gestured a hand toward him, alluding to his quite painfully sexy, underwear model-esque appearance.

The tv was muted on ESPN, only a gold desk lamp casting light into the rather large room. A king size bed stationed closest to the wall with the double windows, covers unturned, and curtains drawn. Faint music danced over my ears, something from the classic rock genre. Journey, maybe? Our taste in music had thankfully been another similarity discovered sometime in the days of our courtship. I bent over removing one shoe at a time, to hurl them in the corner. I so loved my beautiful collection of pumps, but my feet could only take small doses. My ankles begged for my past preference of high-top tennis to return.

“So, I thought we’d just hang out in bed. Watch a movie or somethin’? I kinda just wanna relax. Unless you wanna go out? I can get dressed.” His words offered to go out, but his crooked eyebrow & pursed lips said otherwise.

“Staying in is perfect, babe. As long as you promise to share that pizza you’ve got comin’. Black olives?”

“Yep. Jalapeños only on my half.” It was miracle. I had found a man who compromised on the most important thing in my life. Food.

“You know the way to my heart, Colt.” I smoothed tiny circles with my flattened hand over the comforter of the bed, enticing him to join me. Rather than lightly crawling up next to me, he lunged wildly to flop weightlessly in the empty spot.

“I brought ya’ a t-shirt if you wanna change. It’s in my bag by the bathroom, I think. Figured you’d be wearin’ one of those sexy lil’ business suits you’re always prancin’ around in t’ torture me.” He reiterated his remark by grazing the small line of my exposed stomach. “I didn’t want cha’ to be uncomfortable all night.”

“All night? Is that an invitation? Whatever on earth would make you think I’d want to spend the night in this gorgeous hotel room with you, Colton?” I threw a hand to my chest and closed my eyes in a prudish manner.

“ ‘Cause you, Liv Caroline Elliot, just cannot resist me.”

Although he was right, I wasn’t about to give in defeatedly and just admit guilt. He always gave an effort to come off so self-confident, and poised even, like he himself was the holy grail to mankind. Somewhat similar to how Mendez carried himself. But, I was well aware it was all an exterior front for the twisted, emotional mess he was inside. He was like one of those candies with the crunchy, seemingly unbreakable shell that had smooth filling in the middle. By this point I had pretty well pulverized that outer layer, and it really wasn’t as difficult as imagined.

“You’re just so sure about that, aren’t ya’? But I think I could say the same when it comes to you, my overly confident friend.” One finger prodded his flexed peck.

“I think we both know I can’t resist ya’, two-one. And I ain’t a bit scared to say so.” I had sat up ready to climb from the bed and retrieve the t-shirt he mentioned, but was immediately yanked in a near whiplash motion down on top of him. He gave me a look that I wished I could bottle up and carry in my purse every day. It was a look of total admiration, torturous passion, and loving fulfilment. There were no smiles, or laughing from either of us. The room was simply clouded with a haze of love so thick it was nearly visible to the human eye. I grazed my nose to his, not daring to disrupt the conversation our eyes were exchanging, and kissed him with opened lids. It was returned, with his addition of a spirited squeeze to my tail. One thing I had noted about Colton, was he could draw me into the deepest depths of a moment, hold it for delayed second or two, then undoubtedly jerk away from the overwhelming rush of emotion like he had been stung by an angry bee. But I’d wait for him to open the heavy iron gate to that conversation regarding his slightly detached demeanor.

“I love you, Colt.”

“And I love you, gorgeous. Now, go’n get changed. Imma pick a movie for us.”

The path of my outfit left behind me was enough payback for the little winking stunt he pulled earlier at the weigh in.

By the time I appeared from the bathroom, the pizza had been delivered, the covers turned back, a 6-pack on the night stand, and an unbelievably attractive man awaiting me. My makeup washed off and hair knotted into a messy bun, I was pant-less wearing a baggy soft t-shirt that smelled of Colton’s bodywash, and ready to sink into bed with him. I didn’t want tomorrow to come because I was certain there was no way it could measure up to this.

“Okay, so we got The Purge, or one of my personal favorites, the classic Harold & Kumar go to White Castle. You pick.”

“Shouldn’t we watch something like Fight Club, or, I don’t know… Rocky instead? That seems more your style.” I suggested raising one knee on the bed to boost myself up into the chill of the sheets. I loved the way his tanned, furry legs looked bold against the bleached white of the bedsheets.

“Although Rocky does top my movie list any day of the week, I can watch things that don’t involve fist to face violence, you punk. I ain’t a total adrenaline whore. I’ll have you know that I even saw The Notebook. Twice.” He informed me very matter of factly.

“I’m gonna go out on a limb here & say that date ended very well for you.” My mouth mimicked the act of vomit thinking about the lines he cooed into the ears of that poor girl causing her to all but leap into bed with him.

“Is somebody jealous? C’mon now, babe. Past is the past.”

There had only been one suitor he had been semi-serious with previously. Her name was Amber, they dated for 6 months, and he caught her in the locker room at Mac’s in a quite compromising position with his Physical Therapist. That was really all the details he shared, & it was definitely all I needed to hear. However, I knew his lack of romantic relationships was plenty compensated by his plethora of casual sex partners. The fact that he was experienced was extremely clear to me after that night in the ring at the gym. He worked fervently taking metal notes of what dips in my skin he could kiss that caused a gentle hum of pleasure, and which ones caused an almost violent writhing. 14 partners in his twenty-six years, a number I was far from comfortable with, but it wasn’t about to send me running scared either.

“Your past just seems to be a lot more.. eventful than mine.” I admitted placing the sweating beer bottle between my greasy lips, and dropped my head in sheepish discomfort.

“First of all, you know damn well that don’t mean shit to me. You gotta think more of me than that, Livvy. ‘N second, that’s just all the more fun I get to have bein’ your little teacher, huh?” Both brows raised and fell in unison at his perverse inuendo.

“Get over yourself, PUH-LEASE.”

By this very crude point in the conversation, he’d eaten his entire hearty side of the pizza in addition to two slices of my black olive half, and I was 3 beers deep. The chatting began rolling so immensely, the tv remained off, and instead we’d left his iPod to shuffle at random through his vast array of musical tastes. We prodded question upon question about the other, shoveling for every fiber of detail we could harvest. I was stunned in utter disbelief that he had never even been out of the country, and he seemed nearly repulsed in the discovery that I still wasn’t a Steelers fan despite living in The Burgh for coming up on three years. At some point I can’t recall, he stepped from the bed to open the drawn curtains, exposing the twinkling illuminations of the still very lively city even at the hour approaching 1 a.m.

He observed the world below him like he had created this kingdom himself. Colton was Pittsburgh through and through down to the marrow, and I wouldn’t change it for all the money in the world. The grouping of blue moonlight and changing street lights coated him in a glow almost angelic. He was laid smooth on his back, a bended arm beneath is pillow, and I laid in sideways position with my head situated across the rippling muscles of his inked abdomen, his fingers twirled lazily around an escaped hair from my updo. With passing minutes his words slowly developed a raspy, almost thorny tenor and his answering and asking of questions now more dawdled. He was like a tenacious child battling the certain feeling of sleep that enraptured him, afraid he may miss a revelation of crucial importance if he dozed off.

“Baby, I know I haven’t told you, but I want ya’ to know your article is really, really excellent. And I’m damn proud a’ ya’.“

I was confused at the compliment since he hadn’t read as much as one sentence from my piece yet. “Colt, it’s not even done yet. And how would you know since you’ve yet to see it, ya’ goof.”

“It’s your work, Liv. You’re a natural, kinda like me with fighting, ya’ know? It’s what we do best. And besides, you’re always sayin’ how proud you are of me, so I want ya’ to know someone feels that way about you, too. You got no idea how amazing you really are, do ya’ girl?”

His compliments nearly made tears spill from my welling eyes. This simple, yet so utterly perplexing man loved me to his core. I could feel it in his words right that second, and in the way his scarred knuckles brushed my cheek sending a shockwave of serenity to my soul. I had never fallen so deeply for someone in such a way, much less in just a few months’ time, and I was honestly terrified at every feeling I harbored for him. I shifted to rest my palms on his chest making eye contact with his flecked eyes.

“Why are you always so good to me, huh? Better be careful, babe.. People may think you’re going soft.” I warned, raising my brows to appear concerned.

“Oh, but you’ll be able to assure them that Colton Ritter is far, farrrrr from soft, baby…” One swift, lascivious movement now rendered me pinned at my sides by both wrists under two strong, veined hands. Although the act seemed to be hinting toward a much more lustful direction, he simply touched his lips to the corner of my slightly gaped mouth with a single extended kiss, lilting a melodious “I love you.”

Colton

She dozed off an hour or so before I had. The barely noticeable, gentle buzzing of her snoring mouth gave her away. The cotton-like thickness of my dry tongue screamed for a drink shortly after, so I had to scoot her head from crease of my arm, careful not to pull on the hair fluffed on top of her head. She had wallowed trying to get comfortable, I’m sure the damn hardness of my bicep wasn’t the best replacement for a pillow, and tangled strands of her blonde hair were brushing over her lashes. I often wished maybe I could give the gym a little break, and soften up a bit. Just so she’d be able to sleep tucked into my chest at night without feeling like she’d get a black eye if I moved the wrong way.

My high-school wresting t-shirt she slept in climbed up her belly, exposing more of the clean shade of white boy-shorts she wore underneath, and a teasing curve of the underside of her breast. I had seen my fair share of naked women in life, more beyond Liv’s level of comfort. But her? Damn it… She wasn’t Playboy, plastic lipped, and chiseled from head to toe like most empty fuckers like me would look for. Liv’s beauty was more palatable, and desirable to the real man. Beauty that maybe most people would miss out on. But me? She entranced me the minute she stabbed me with those emerald green eyes.

Her buttery soft skin, her blonde hair usually wild like the winds of Chicago. Not the kitchen sink blonde like you’d see down at the infested strip clubs downtown either. No, this was the sunshine yellow she was born with. Sandy, smooth blonde intertwined with some strands of caramel like the inside of a chewy candy bar..

Her perfect, pink, creamy buds painted rosy circles on the inside of the thin cotton of her shirt, and I thought very much that she might’ve been the sexiest thing I had ever seen. The screaming hard on pinned under my boxers said so. And despite the trickle of drool out the side of her slumbering mouth, and the smearing black of yesterday’s makeup stained under her eyes, I couldn’t look away. As if I’d even want to. And hell, if I wasn’t in love with this Indiana girl in every sense of the word.

Liv

Despite my desperate prayers for time to halt for just one night, it insisted on passing into the morning. I had slid from the bed just before dawn to close the dark curtains of the room, wanting to make sure he got undisturbed, restful sleep for what this day was going to require from him. And selfishly, it as also an attempt to keep our room as black as the unexplored ocean, foolishly thinking maybe the rising sun would just pass us by if I didn’t allow its light in. We had eventually forced ourselves to sleep the night before, after several attempts to kiss goodnight. One kiss, lead to three more, which lead to fifteen more, each holding more and more desire to carry those kisses elsewhere over the span of the other persons body. But, painfully so, I squandered it insisting he better get some shut eye.

Now, the digital clock on the nightstand closest to his side of the bed flashed 5:49 a.m., and I expected his internal clock to start stirring him very soon. From the sliver of dawn intruding through the minimal crack of the patterned drapes, I watched him sleep. Admired would be a better word. His lids smoothly sealed, no crinkles of struggle about them, and his mouth gently puckered. I made mental note of his naturally suntanned, unscathed face in the state it was now, knowing full well tonight would render it not so. There were no bruises, no splits in his lips, no blackened eyes. He was the nearest thing to physical perfection I had ever laid eyes on. I hoped he couldn’t sense my focused staring.

Suddenly, I felt a growing itch in my nose, a building sneeze approaching. Trying at all costs to avoid waking his lifeless form, I pinched my nostrils shut in effort to trap the noise from escaping. However, the harsh flinch my body released sent a jolt over the entire mattress. Colt inhaled a loud, groggy breath and stretched his hand to grasp for my side of the bed.

“Hey, you,” he said rubbing the rest from his waking eyes.

The hearty drift of his accent from the hours of 4 to 9 a.m. could very near send me straight into orgasm.

“Sorry, babe. I tried not to wake you.”

He rolled over to face me dragging his arm around my waist to pull me into his chest, I smiled and draped a bare leg over his warm body.

“I ain’t got no problem at all gettin’ woken up by the likes a’ you, baby.” He crowded me with a drowsy kiss, his tongue curling slightly under my top lip. I could feel him rattle with laughter at the sensual pant he sucked out of me.

“You’re not so bad yourself, sir. How’d you sleep?”

“Like a baby with a full belly. You?”

I kicked back the covers, breaking the wall of warmth it had closed around us and scooted to raise on the edge of the bed.

“Great. I’m thinking of getting one of these mattresses for my place. It may take up every inch of my entire bedroom, but it’d be well worth it.”

“Hey hey hey, where you think you’re going, little lady?!” Colton was propped on both arms, scowling at me under a lined forehead. “You ain’t even gonna have breakfast with a man? I feel so cheap.”

Always so witty, this one. “I just assumed you had a lot on your agenda today, Colt. I don’t want to hover.”

I was puzzled constantly over when to stick around, and when to leave him be. Appear as committed, but not obsessed. Interested but not overbearing. I had never been with an older man before, were the rules different? Sure, he was only 26 to my almost 23, but nonetheless older. Did the “hard to get rule” expire with men in their late-twenties?

“Livvy, stop worryin’, baby. Mornings before a fight are actually pretty laid back. I’ll spend most of the day with my headphones in my ears, prolly take a dip in the jacuzzi,” he was rolling his eyes, motioning his hands back and forth to explain the boring schedule of his day. “Then, meet the guys in Mac’s room to talk things out before we head to the venue. So, at least lemme order us some room service so I can enjoy breakfast with my girl, ight? Unless you got somethin’ else I could eat for breakfast? It’s the most important meal of the day, y’know…”

Damn this pig. This sexy, magnificently tantalizing pig.

I hurled the hotel menu on the desk speedily toward him, “Cold shower, Ritter. Cold shower.”

If he wanted breakfast in bed with me, who I was I to deny? Rolling my puffy morning eyes at him, I crept back into bed.

“Waffles, please! And bacon. Oh! Fruit on the side, too. And coffee. Don’t forget coffee.”

Like he said, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, right?

The man was impressed with my appetite for food, among other things as well. “Yes, ma’am!” he obliged. “Anythin’ else for the princess?”

“Maybe some whipped cream? For the waffles, of course….”

I was even surprised at myself for the boldness he brought out in me. Sex was a very.. taboo thing back home. Matter of fact, I never even got “the talk” from my parents, and instead was left to the uneducated murmurs of my fellow sheltered classmates. But with Colton, I felt audacious when it came to the topic. Mind you, the things he said most of the time could sent me blushing under the table, but I was growing more comfortable with his dirty remarks and was even starting to throw in my own ornery overtone on occasion.

“Oh shit. You a damn tease, Liv Elliott. A dirty, dirty tease.”

Our indulgent spread of breakfast variety was carted to the door in a very prompt fashion. I obviously indulged more than he, devouring two Belgian waffles, 3 strips of the crispiest peppered bacon I’d ever had the pleasure of eating, a grapefruit, and two cups of coffee. He enlightened me that he could’ve eaten every morsel in front of him, but it wouldn’t be a good idea to cram all the carbs and fat into his stomach, in case it made him feel sluggish. So, regretfully it was egg whites, two slices of dry wheat toast, and a protein shake for him. I did entice him to take just one bite of my syrup sopped waffle though.

“Sheesh, I’m gonna need a solid nap later to recover from that overload.” I crashed backwards onto the feather pillow behind me, crossing my hands over the settling food baby in my stomach.

“Hey, do me a favor will ya’? Wear that sexy fuckin’ leather jacket o’ yours I like so much tonight? I know I won’t see ya’ before the fight, but I want you to wear it out to celebrate after. My little badass, front-page writer out on the town.” He was kissing my individual fingertips one at a time.

“Sounds like you’ve got it all planned out then.” My gut bubbled with hope that tonight would bring to pass every detail he had said. Him, the newly crowned Middleweight Champ on my arm, and me, the newest front-page writer for the Pitt Pilot. Could life be that perfect for us?

“Course. A man with a plan.” I admired how he trampled every aspect of life with blinding confidence, and I wished he could somehow hypnotize me to do the same. “As much as I hate to leave good company, babe, I should get home. Let you get all angry and pouty and what not.” I sighed into a near pout, sincerely wishing I could spend the entire day as a part of his prep team.

“You’re probably right, baby doll. I can’t believe Mac ain’t been here beatin’ my door down yet.”

I was gathering my day-old clothes to redress, and Colt rose to begin lightly packing his gym bag. He threw in an unfolded change of shorts, his red headphones, then I saw him pick up the gloves I’d gifted him.

“C’mere, two-one..” I zipped my khakis up and lifted my hair out from under the neck of my shirt, then obliged to his request. He held one glove in each hand and squared them even to my chin.

“Kiss ‘em for luck?”

My heart hiccupped, and I topped his hands with mine and dipped my puckered lips to the padded mitts with an audible “mwah.”

“That’s it. The magic touch! The final nail in that jackoff Mendez’s coffin. A kiss of luck from my girl. Now, got one more kiss on that pretty little mouth for these?” he begged, one finger pointing to his own sinful lips.

I closed in on him with fierce eye contact. “I think I may have just one little measly kiss left in here somewhere for you, champ.”

My mouth was so close to his that the words nearly vibrated off of his parting lips, and I gently cupped his dimpled cheek. It was a lethal concoction made of salaciousness and loving romance that was slowly poisoning my entire body with bliss. Colton’s hand swept down the side of my head, combing through the tangled hair he had gathered it into his fist at the back of my neck. I was locked to him and I never knew being captured could feel so, so good. My tongue covered almost every surface in his mouth, mapping it out. He withdrew and I could feel his lips spreading upward into a smile.

“Wow. I think I may need to drown myself in an ice bath now. A cold shower ain’t gonna wipe that one outta my mind.”

I was pleased that I had to same affect on him, and his did on me.

“Good luck tonight. You don’t need it. You’ve got this. Step into that cage ready to battle. Clear eyes, okay? I love you, Colt.”

“Clear eyes. I got it, baby. And I love you too, Elliott. More than you fuckin’ know.”

TAGS: @torialeysha @eap1935

#Tom Hardy #tomhardy #tom hardy fanfiction #tomhardyfanfic #tommy conlon #elizabeth olsen #tomhardy x ofc #thegrind

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danisnotofire · 7 years

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Do you have any advice for writing? I used to do it all the time but then I just didnt have time for it anymore. And now I want to get back into it and I keep trying to write, but Im hit with this overwhelming doubt/anxiety that it sucks. And I dont plan on posting my writing anywhere so I dont understand why Im so nervous about writing to the point where I want to cry and cant do it. And I really want to work through it but its just so difficult. Any advice? -🌳

i’m not sure how good i’ll be at giving advice on this, because i often feel the same way!!!

but ig that leads me to my first point, anon, and that is, you have to understand that that anxious feeling never really goes away. sometimes you feel better about it, sure, and sometimes you’ll write something and know you were meant to write it, but 98.7% of the time you will be screaming and crying into ur document and thinking you’ve been a failure and faking any ability to write this whole time. you have to understand that that’s all part of it. but you have to understand: it doesn’t mean you’re a bad writer. i really think you have to internalize that if u ever wanna write anything.

the best thing to get over feeling awkward and robotic is to separate yourself from what you’re writing. when i got back into writing fic (it’d been like, legit 4 years lmaooo) it was hard to put myself aside and stop feeling weird about writing it. i felt that same stiffness/awkwardness when i started journaling too. the best thing you can do for it is just understand that nobody is going to read it unless you want them to. it’s not going anywhere. the only person who’s gonna judge it is you.

once you get over that, write as much as fucking possible. it doesn’t need to be a lot. it can be a sentence. it can be a few hundred words. it can be a fuckin novel. just write something. the only reason i’m VAGUELY good is because i’ve been doing it for a longass time.

i’ve been writing creatively on and off since like,,, third grade. i’m now a sophomore in college. you just gotta churn out as much content as possible. i promise you, eventually it will be good.

if you can, i think writing classes are actually super helpful for this. i used to kind of shun them and look down on them because i thought somebody teaching me how to write would take away my own style. it actually helped me refine it, mostly because it got me into writing again after going so long without it. i was forced to write every week for a whole semester, and it kind of became a habit that i continued all through the summer.

fun fact: i don’t think no such mirrors would exist in the form it does now if i hadn’t taken that class!!

BUT: I get that classes aren’t always available to you. there are definitely ways u can get urself in that habit!!! you can do nanowrimo (which i did my freshman and sophomore years of high school, where you write 50k in 30 days just to pretty much see if you can. i CANNOT recommend nanowrimo enough. up until no such mirrors, that was my proudest artistic accomplishment)

FIND TIME TO WRITE WHENEVER, WHEREVER YOU CAN. you are going to have to sacrifice certain things to find time to write, but that’s all part of it. i struggled in doing this when i started school this semester because i went from having mostly my entire week free to having like, zero time to write, which is why it took a month for no such mirrors to update. it also sucked because writing makes me feel better about myself, because it helps me be a more productive member of society or something, and so, although it was hard, it became super important to me to find a time to fit that back into my schedule (i ended up carving out a few hours after my last class of the day on MWF, which happened to be my english class with a prof whomst i ADORE, so i always left feeling super inspired. and now i usually go to the silent floor of the library for a few hours and pound out a few thousand words. it’s not ideal, and ofc i’d rather be taking a nap or decompressing from class, but at least it’s something!)

i know this is harder to do, but i really do think posting your work helps!! i love writing fic because you get INSTANTANEOUS feedback on your skills, and it helps you develop them in a (largely) positive and supportive atmosphere. the people who are reading fic are the people who WANT to like it, who are just desperate for any content they can get. it’s such a good space to learn and grow as a writer (i started writing and posting fic when i was like, 12 years old. my percy jackson days. pre-tumblr. lmao #neverforget)

i know this is SUPER FUCKING CHEESY, but another thing that helps you become a better writer is to read as much as possible. read anything. read fanfiction from authors you admire. read YA novels. read children’s books. read the classics.

and then, (and this is something i will shamelessly do lol), pick your favorites, and try and mimic their style as an exercise!!! i recently read james joyce’s “a portrait of the artist as a young man” for class. it’s now one of my favorite books. and so what i did was go to google docs and pound out a few hundred words just trying to mimic the style. it ended up being a weird 1500-word-wip. most of it is garbage, but i wrote lines i’m really fucking proud of.

obviously don’t like, plagiarize. but what i’ve come to understand is that you can learn something from everything you read. whether it’s a certain type of metaphor, or a kind of characterization, or the art of simplicity, or a way of writing dialogue, or a stylistic thing. and by mimicking that style as a writing exercise or using their style as inspiration for your own work, you help refine what you like, and what your style is.

i will never be james joyce. that’s pretty obvious. but my version of james joyce is its own style of writing altogether, and it’s not necessarily bad! it’s its own style that i can then learn bits and pieces from later on. to me, writing is this weird ungodly mix of natural ability/learned style and compiling what you like about other authors into your own work. it’s a messy process, but eventually you will churn out something you like. and that’s what matters: producing content that you enjoy. everything else will come in time. (did i think anybody would read engagement sequence? uh, no. i hoped they would, and honestly i do wish that fic was recognized more than it was (bc any author who says they don’t care about feedback is LYING) but mostly i was writing it because i had SO MUCH FUN writing that fic. i’m probably most proud of that piece of writing out of everything i’ve ever written. it came from me combining poetry and prose into this weird pseudo mix of both)

another thing that’s easier said than done: DO NOT COMPARE YOURSELF TO OTHER AUTHORS. this is something i CONSTANTLY struggle with (to the point where i get SUPER down on myself if i’m not getting the same amount of anons asking about my work or comments or kudos or fuckin’ whatever). it’s something i CONSTANTLY have to work on, but it’s so so important, and the sooner you start working away from this habit the better off you’ll be.

if anything, USE these authors as people to learn from!! ask them questions about their process!! read their works and take note of what worked really well and how they executed it, so maybe you can incorporate that into things that you write later on.

IMPORTANT: COMMENT ON WORKS. COMMENTING ON WORKS DOESN’T ONLY BENEFIT THE AUTHOR, BUT IT ALSO BENEFITS YOU AS A WRITER. commenting helps you specify and work out EXACTLY what you liked about a certain piece. even if you don’t think it does anything, it actually puts words to specific things that you like, which then helps you incorporate it into your own writing. also?? long, thoughtful comments make an author’s fuckin DAY. someone once left like an 8 paragraph review on my fic, and i could. not. stop. rereading. it. for the better part of a week. TRULY.

take yourself less seriously. honestly. as much as it kind of sucks, writing is supposed to be fun and ultimately, it’s supposed to be rewarding. let yourself experiment with style and dialogue and characterization. who fucking cares? i wrote 300 words about spaghetti steam as a metaphor for jeremy’s parents’ divorce the other day. it doesn’t matter! nobody will read it!! that’s what editing is for.

it also might help to talk about your writing process!! i know i love doing this, and i see loads of other authors do it too. it’s so, so, so fun to complain about writing, because writing is really fucking hard. even the pieces that come easiest to me are still a pain in the ass to write. 99.99% of the time i write, i would rather be doing something, anything else. who wants to sit and cry into a computer screen? nobody in their right mind. ya do it because you love it, and you love the final product and you love seeing what you’re able to do, what you’re capable of creating.

if you’re having trouble starting, pick literally the first thing that comes to mind and write as much or as little as you fuckin’ want. remember, you’re in control! you can do as much or as little as you want. when i started writing no such mirrors, i had NO IDEA it was gonna become what it was. i started the fic with jeremy throwing a baseball up in the air and some random dialogue. i didn’t know what role everybody else was gonna play. i didn’t know it was gonna turn into an actual fucking novel. i had no idea! i just had the idea of jeremy laying on his back and tossing a baseball into the air repeatedly. why? i legitimately could not tell you! but it worked. it felt right and natural and easy, and here we are 72k later.

that being said, IT’S NOT ALWAYS GOING TO FEEL RIGHT AND NATURAL AND EASY! you’re just gonna have to write through that! it’s gonna fucking suck a lot of the time, especially with longer works! i fucking hate certain chunks of no such mirrors, to the point where i can’t even bear to look at them.

this leads into another point, which is….

you’re going to feel like you’re faking it. that’s okay. keep writing. i doubt in my abilities every. goddamn. day. i reread my fics probably daily and can’t understand why anybody would like them, half the time. i feel like the characters’ interactions are forced and awkward and unnatural, i think the dialogue is boring, i think their feelings don’t feel real and i don’t feel like their motivations have depth. i feel like the plot is hanging on with masking tape and thread. every author will feel this way at some point or another. i know that sounds fake, because i’ll read posts like that from my favorite authors and can’t believe they would write anything except perfection. so you have to remember, it’s in your head most of the time.

however, that’s not to say you’re perfect. you aren’t. there’s no such thing as a perfect writer. sometimes it’s healthy to listen to that voice in your head to try and improve. you just can’t let it become the loudest part of your writing process.

so yeah! those are my writing tips!! that was a lot and im really sorry if it was all cliche and cheesy bullshit, but i promise they work, or at least help a little bit!!

i hope you can get out of ur slump, because i love writing so much and hope i never stop doing it (even if i say i hate it l o l) and i really hope you can get to the point where you feel comfortable saying the same

#writing advice #writing tips #writing #Anonymous #I'M SO SORRY TO MOBILE USERS #long post //

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survivingart · 5 years

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PRICING YOUR ART THE RIGHT WAY Part III: Constructing and communicating your price

In the last two blunders we discussed the importance of calculating ones base expenses and all-around financial needs on a monthly basis and the concept of added value. Today, I’d like to combine the two and take a deeper look into how various models can help us to set fair and consistent prices for our work.

First of all, we need to acknowledge a very important fact; the pricing model we use to determine our value shouldn’t necessarily be the same one we use to communicate that value to others. Not to be misunderstood, I don’t mean that we should hide such info or act as we’re beyond money — the main problem here is semantics.

While it might be preferable for a contractor that comes to fix our heating or helps us build our house to disclose his or her hourly price and estimated expenses, so as we don’t end up either broke or hospitalised due to a heart attack after picking up the bill, doing the same in the arts isn’t exactly the best way.

There of course are bad examples of how prices are communicated (or even, not communicated) — some galleries for example don’t disclose prices because they never know if somebody would be willing to pay more than they or the artists would like to get from any particular work.

But many techniques and practices in the arts revolve around a very important fact: the collectors and buyers of art are not looking for contractors and price breakdowns, they’re looking for remarkable experiences at (hopefully) reasonable prices.

And because of this fact, the communication of a price should not look like the tab of a restaurant, but more as an organic part of the whole artistic experience — even at christian churches, they have fancy rituals like tithing that are integrally connected with the whole ritual of mass.

So, first of all, we’ll take a look at the various internal pricing models to use for our art and then we’ll package them neatly and fairly so as to make our communication with potential collectors and buyers smoother and most importantly more professional.

PRICING BY THE HOUR

This model has a lot going for it — especially for anyone starting out — as it is the easiest to use in order to determine how we’re going to make the minimum amount we need to make, for our business and personal life to flourish and even eventually come to the point, where art becomes our full-time profession. But it has a lot of problems, too!

Setting it up is simple; we find a fair hourly wage (we calculated this in the first blunder of this series) and calculate how much time we spent on making the work. Then we just multiply both and hopefully what we get is a decent number that won’t make us starve to death. Easy.

This option may be good for any classical portraitists or realistic style painters and sculptors, as it reflects the labour intensive work of creating realistic depictions, and communicates the sheer number of work hours that one puts into making such works.

But it gets problematic for anyone that makes abstract paintings that only take about a day or sometimes a few hours to complete (especially if they’re big ones); this isn’t a realistic approach and a different pricing structure should be used if you work quickly — especially if the speed at which you are able to work is based on a lot of years of training.

Though you could brag to your fellow artist friends that your hourly wage is 400€! Just don’t tell anyone how many hours there are in a work day — or year for that matter!

There’s an issue with such an approach to pricing art though; you just don’t base the price of a Rothko on the number of man hours he and his assistant put into any particular work — and you don’t compare him to Raphael or Tizian either.

Also, if we just compare a Pollock vs. a Rothko; the Pollock’s price is inflated solely because of his story — let’s face it, the art part isn’t that great — but a Rothko actually is exceptionally well made and the concept behind his works only enforced his quality, effectively making him one of the most expensive painters of his era (and in my opinion rightfully so, but I’m a blotchy painting fan boy, so I’m not being unbiased here).

My point is: Any pricing model that depends solely on the work and/or materials input, but does not consider the added value of the artist’s skill, background, or any other trait of the creator, that differentiates them form anybody else who could’ve attempted to create a similar work (and the varying levels of success any one of us could have had — compared to the original creator), must be taken into account when pricing our work.

Art is a commodity (at least in our price bracket), but it’s never without the added value factor that actually creates the experience of it being art vs. just a pretty picture. If indeed all were making were pretty pictures with no stories and no added value to be uncovered by the right audience, we would be artisans — I’m not saying this is better or worse, but our goals and pricing structures should absolutely be different from those that don’t actively produce narratives around their work.

To put it simply; a decorative pretty flower print is worth as much as the paper and colour it was printed with, combined with the work that went into it and maybe a 10% mark-up because, I don’t know, the printshop manager felt like it.

A flower painting made to embody the profound sensual experience of the flower petal and that was actively imbedded into the then contemporary flow of culture and time — like Georgia O’Keeffe’s work for example — will be worth as much as the market deems this particular experience of artistic expression valuable in the context of not only her time, but ours and the totality of what we think has happened in human existence and how it all relates to the story her work is telling us.

As we have figured out in the last blunder on added value and worth, the reality is, this is how art is valued. To be honest, it’s how everything ever made is valued, at least by any average human that has their basic needs met — a person dying of thirst will indeed not give one damn about the perceived difference between generic tap water and a crystal flask of pure Evian.

(Fun fact: Try reading Evian backwards and think about this particular product being extremely overpriced — compared to other, similar quality products.)

So, pricing by hour is great if you work a decent amount of hours, but bad for anyone that works quickly. But there’s a variable we can use to adjust this issue:

PRICING BY SIZE

Similar to the hourly-based model, pricing by size focuses on the physical aspects of ones work, but unlike the former, does not base the value on the time spent creating the work and as such only focuses on the finished product — rather than on the process.

I find this perspective especially useful when making my abstract paintings — they usually take less than a day to complete but are equal in quality to anything more realistic in my opinion, because the time spent on one such work is incomparable to the effort spent on something as complex as mimicking natural forms.

But just because abstraction doesn’t take that long to create, doesn’t mean it’s crap compared to realism (my guess is, we’re opening pandoras box now); both realism and abstraction require a lot of learning, skill and attention to detail in order fo any one artist to produce a quality product, but often a realist work will take a long time to complete (especially if you put a lot of effort and energy into shading and texture work).

And because it takes a long time, the process is divided into a myriad of small steps — easy to do and simple to fix if done incorrectly (unless you spot a mistake in the proportions or composition only long after you’ve painted 80% of the work).

But the process of abstract painting (or sculpting, drawing, etc.) isn’t as segmented; you really only do maybe 10% of the amount of steps compared to a realist portrait, but as such the steps you have to take are larger and harder to fix if done incorrectly.

It’s not hard to fix weirdly painted eyes (even though it might have taken you 60 minutes to get them to that point), but it’s incredibly hard to fix a badly executed bold brushstroke — think of Cy Twombly’s pantings; I don’t like his work, but one can imagine that if the last stroke on his white canvas was badly executed, he couldn’t just correct it by painting over it — he’d have to start all over again.

You can think of it as risk, really; a slow, controlled process like realistic portraiture isn’t risky, just time consuming (think of all the videos of people drawing realistic portraits; they always segment the work into small batches and almost never work on the face as a whole).

But a fast-paced process like abstract expressionism (again, think Rothko, not Pollock), is quick, semi-controlled and chaotic; the percentage of bad paintings that are created and then binned by abstract expressionists is exceptionally high, but quite low for realist painters.

So, what the price-by-size model compensates for is exactly this difference; time vs. amount of risk. It would maybe even be better named as the risk-evaluation model, but I think such a funky name wouldn’t really cater to us creatives as I guess it makes a convoluted topic like compensation even more foreign — we’re not financial analysts, our games are played with crayons and paint tubes, not Bollinger Bands.

To give an example of a price-by-size approach: In Slovenia, a 50 x 70 cm painting averages about 400€ (I know…). 50 x 70 cm is 3.500 cm2 and to make it short, a square centimetre costs about 0.10 € total.

This 0.10€ can now be used to define prices of any other works we do, so a 100 x 100 cm painting would then cost about 1000€ (and yep, again that’s the average price in our beloved country).

But while prices for larger works are easy to calculate like this, it gets tricky for smaller ones; an A4 work would cost about 63€ (if calculated like this), but the average is about 100-150€, because to sell a work for 60€ is effectively akin to giving it away.

That is why a good practice for this model is to start with a base price; a set amount to which we then add our price calculations. Call it studio fee, or base cost or whatever you like, the point is to always start at 50€ or 100€ (or any other number that works for you) and then add to that the size calculated price (I usually make an average of my material costs and call that my studio fee — mine’s 100€ — then add the total material costs for that particular work and the size calculated price on top (effectively doubling my material cost reimbursement, which has many times helped me cope with unexpected material expenses I forgot to calculate into my price, but as it was my mistake could not add to the final sales price at the end).

The point is: Never forget to add you material costs to any model you use!

The smaller works will always cost more than you spent on them and as such, selling them will make much more sense, but the base price won’t affect your larger work as much (an A4 sized work will cost 200% more if a studio fee of 100€ is added, but a 100 x 100 cm sized work will only cost 10 % more if 1 cm2 is set at 0.10€).

Now, there are other ways of calculating price, these two are the main ones I use and therefore the only ones I feel adequately comfortable discussing as I have tried them extensively throughout my time working as an artist.

You could also price your work by value to the customer for example, but such a structure is more commonly used in design (because with design, the value created for the customer can be much more easily measured). So as far as visual art is concerned, I myself like to stick to size and time variables form my pricing structures.

But if you work with a lot of advertisement agencies or businesses that create a lot of value form you work, value based pricing is probably the best way to go; think if you worked on an advertisement campaign that used your paintings or a licensing deal, where a company would use your drawings or paintings as designs for their products.

If this is the case, the best way is to have a long and thorough conversation about what the company you’ll be working with has in mind, how much the audience size will be and what they wish to make (they might not give you this information on a sliver platter, but most will be willing to talk about it if you’re persistent enough and ask the right questions — or more importantly aren’t afraid to ask such seemingly unrelated and direct questions.

To really establish a good price based upon the potential value created by our art, we need all of the info we can get, because without it, it’s impossible to pinpoint the ballpark of how much we should charge — let alone an exact number.

COMMUNICATING OUR PRICES

We’ve talked about setting our prices by the hour and calculating them via size and base fees, and touched upon value based pricing. Now it’s time to tie it all together and package it up into an easily communicable and (this is important) easily replicable model.

The easiest and most straightforward way is to just add-up all of our expenses, base fees and pricing model of choice and end up with some rounded-up number, but a bit of tweaking can make our prices a lot more understandable and transparent to our customers.

I always divide my prices into two main segments; the value of the materials I use and the value I bring to the table (so the price of me making a painting, rather than somebody else).

To just touch upon material costs; it’s a great idea to talk about the materials we use and to give a little bit of context about how much they actually cost.

A lot of people do not know that high-quality acrylics cost a fortune and if we can explain to them that the paint we use is future proof (most brands say that they won’t crack or fade in direct sunlight for at least 100 years if not more) and the canvas of a high quality.

So, just quickly describing the value that such materials have, compared to the cheap ones, can not only make the higher material costs understandable to anyone who may not be aware of their prices, but also provide a lot of peace of mind to anyone, that has never bought art before.

From my personal experience, people do value the information that the work they are buying is made with quality materials, because while they are of course buying you and your story, that story has to be embedded into something (the art work) and it’s preferable that it ages better than an open milk bottle on a summer day in Florida.

As for the artist fee; this is where I use my price calculations and base fees to determine its amount. The important thing to keep in mind here is that nobody cares how you structure your prices — and as we said, usually telling people the exact mechanics of your pricing will actually devalues your work!

We all know that prices need to originate from some place (preferably a consistent one), but I feel that as soon as somebody tells me they charge 500€ for their work, based on some simple size calculation, it subconsciously devalues the experience of their art for me.

What I mean by this is that while all the pricing structures we use focus solely on the product and thus make determining the price much easier for us (especially when we need to give a quote on-site), the end goal of our art isn’t just to make a product.

The main factor is actually the experience that it provides for our customers. And if we do not address this experience as part of our evaluation for the customer, they will deem it unimportant — when in reality, it’s the most important one!

How I tackle this issue is by roughly calculating my price via one of the two models I use (mostly I do price-by-size, as most of my commissions are abstract paintings) and add my base fee and a varying markup percentage — this only changes if I am doing work for a friend (because I know they won’t sell the work and as such I don’t fear such price inconsistencies affecting my market price as a whole), but thinking about sales to friends and family and having a “discount” preprepared for such occasions just helps me stay consistent with my pricing.

So, after I have my price, I tell them the whole number as my fee; I don’t discuss the ways I calculate it, I do not defend it or try to persuade them in any way if the price quote I gave is too high. We might sometimes haggle a bit, but usually I only do so when making more than one work.

I feel a large order deserves a bit of flexibility but I would never give discounts to my customers (especially on commissions) — I might let some older work go for less than what I want if it turns out there’s no demand for it though.

Giving discounts only teaches people to ask for one every time we make business and nobody wants to be known as the discount artist.

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#artist life #contemporary art #surviving art #make art everyday #blog

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