n.r. @455wwwww - Tumblr Blog

I hate I when I get an idea for a novel. Like oh no here starts the slow sad slip n’ slide to dissapointment again.

You ever been 30,000 words and hundreds of research hours into a project when you realize hey wait a minute. I don’t like this. This is bad.

fassina

Ok adding to this though that even though it is extremely relatable, this is a KNOWN thing with professional writing. 10k is often referred to as "having a pot boiling" or "having a stew" - it's the point where you often see an idea coming together and it's exciting! But THEN... 30k-50k is the point where that fun has to start coming together. In theatre, it's usually week 3 of a 5 week rehearsal period where you have to stop talking about the play and really get it all up on its feet and cohesive. In art, it's committing to what are going to be the final visible layers of colour and texture, in sculpture the moment where you're truly at the point of no return with carving out the shape.

It usually feels really bad. Because this is the point it becomes real craft. It's so, so difficult to really be able to identify if it's truly not going to be anything or you're just in the hardest part of the process, and really the only way to know is to... write through it. Write it badly. Or, if you really can't, put it in a drawer and come back to it after a few months of breathing space. Remember, you can fix so much in the edit, but you can't fix nothing!

(I say, fully looking at my latest draft of my book and considering throwing it in the bin. But my editor said exactly this to me, so I'm passing it along.)

tjalexandernyc

this is 100% true. I've written 6 complete novels at this point and every single time around the 40k mark I feel lost in the woods. Nothing seems to be working. I feel awful; I can't sleep. I keep going even though I'm convinced I'm going to fail. And then... It's like leaving a tunnel and getting back out in the sunshine. Stuff starts coalescing. Things that weren't working have obvious fixes. I "can write" again, except I was writing the whole time. It just felt hopeless in the moment. It's not. You just gotta get out of the woods.

ariaste

Ah yes the Slough of Desponds. Professional author with 13 books, and this is normal for me as well. (Checking for tension issues usually helps!)

sainamoonshine

Lmao I literally wrote a whole blog post abt it once.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/writing-advice-1-82451675

Get more from Marie Blanchet on Patreon

#saving this for uh. for my friend. yeah.

hfourxor

Hi, my name is James Webbony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Space Telescope and I am a telescope in space (that's how I got my name) and I have a five-layer aluminum-coated Kapton sunshield protecting my instruments and gold-coated hexagonal primary mirror segments like limpid tears and a lot of people tell me I look like Lady Gaga (AN: if you don't know who she is, get the hell out of here!). I'm not related to the Hubble Space Telescope, but I wish I was because he's a major fucking hottie. I'm an infrared telescope but I am much larger than Spitzer. I have 18 primary mirror segments. I also study exoplanets, and I go to a telescope school in L2 where I'm in orbit (I was launched in 2021). I can see distant galaxies (in case you couldn't tell) and I wear mostly gold. I love space, and I take all my photos there. For example, today I was taking a photo of the Cartwheel Galaxy, which is about 500 million light years away. I was using my NIRcam, NIRspec, MIRI, and FGS-NIRISS. I was walking outside L2. It was around 1 million miles away from Earth and there was no sun, which I was very happy about. A lot of preps stared at me. I unfolded my primary mirrors at them.

galaxywarp

once you realize you don’t actually need to sleep, you can really (stops talking abruptly and stares straight ahead for 4 minutes)

banchie

i've been phasing the phrase 'google it' out of my vocabulary and going back to 'look it up'. fuck you youve lost your generic trademark privileges

prokopetz

Giving all of my OCs purely invented surnames because I don't want them to read as being part of any particular real-world culture, then later discovering that by pure coincidence there's a specific regional dialect from Eastern Europe in which every single surname I came up with is slang for "penis".

#any word can mean penis if you're brave enough

harrowedsoup

Gideon sitting in Harrow’s mind going ‘gay gay homosexual gay’ is practically canon but everyone leaves out that she’s going ‘gay 😡 gay 😡homosexual 😡 gay 😡’ because Harrow uses her tongue to check Ianthe’s mouth to see if she keep up her end of the deal like the crazy ass lesbian she is.

palestrangermoon

#the locked tomb

snugglesquiggle

i know characters who learn from their mistakes and they're all cowards

spilledkaleidoscope

detective

arriving

on the scene

#disco elysium #disco sapphics #jean vicquemare #<3

the-stray-liger

A lot of paranormal believers would actually benefit from reading about how hallucinations are much more common than you think and don't necessarily indicate that they suffer from a Scary Brain Disorder. Anyone is 2 sleepless nights away from a hallucinatory episode no matter how neurotypical they are

the-stray-liger

Also like hallucinations cover a broad swath of different sensory experiences, not only seeing a scary ghost. In my case my hallucinations tend to be auditory but it is also possible to feel like something touched you. Sleep paralysis hallucinations aren't paranormal happenings that's literally a type of hallucination and EVERYONE has them they're super common. Take my had. You have nothing to lose but your chains

the-stray-liger

And btw people who suffer hallucinations as part of a disorder aren't scary or dangerous. Neurodivergencies that include hallucinations don't make people scary psycho killers. Lose the stupid stigma already it's 2026 bitch

stjohnstarling

People on the internet love to criticize work by Some Guy with zero institutional power like it's made by Disney Studios, and talk about Disney movies like they're made by their personal friend Amy, who is just trying her best,

pallisia

lady of the shard turned ten years old yesterday. thank you to everyone who's ever thought fondly of it.

#lady of the shard

ot3

ultimately I think the place where I will never see eye to eye with the "you can do whatever you want forever" people is in the precision of language. I do think it is genuinely important for words to have widely agreed upon definitions that are only flexible to the same degree that the rest of a given language is. a word whose definition is whatever suits the speakers preference and makes them the most comfortable doesn't have any real reason to exist and serves no linguistic function. i support anyone's desire to do whatever they want so long as it's not hurting anyone, but there are always going to be words that accurately describe what they're doing and ones that don't.

ot3

prokopetz

You are an unreliable narrator because your coping mechanisms for your deep-seated trauma forbid you from acknowledging the reality of the situation. I am an unreliable narrator because I sincerely have no idea what the fuck is going on.

bophtelophti

#the locked tomb #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth

fairycosmos

did you know that apparently if you try to act normal the normalness doesn't come through but the acting does. and did you know apparently everyone can smell this on you like a bloodhound

#having a very sunk cost fallacy moment with this #surely i just need to act better

wizardpostsdotorg

made the most unappetizing and non-food coloured cup of tea of my life.

mushrooms, blueberry tea, coconut milk, honey. i cannot describe the flavour other than.. floral wood? 1/10 would not reccomend. i have named it the gnomes laundry water.