"You say it, and I will listen..."

[malinaa]

Leigh Bardugo, A Darker Shore: Letters from Ketterdam

[malinaa]

A Darker Shore: Letters from Ketterdam (Art by E.K Belsher)

[stuckinapril]

“Do it scared” “do it alone” are all great tips, but my biggest takeaway from therapy is do it messy. This is especially true if you’re getting out of a burnout, which I experience often. Literally just do it messy. You don’t need to pick the perfect trail to walk, the perfect playlist to listen to, whatever the fuck it is. You don’t need to have a meticulous to do list and wake up at the exact time you planned and drink the exact amount of water you planned to drink. Like the biggest thing for people like me to remember is sometimes it’s okay to do it messy. Put on a random yt workout and just get it done in sweats. Do 5 minutes of a daunting task and go from there. Sometimes just getting up is a win during intense burnouts or depressive funks. Literally just do it messy.

[luke-thompsons]

#biblically accurate percabeth

[emziess]

Walker Scobell as Percy Jackson Percy Jackson and the Olympians - S02E05

[damienhaaas]

FAMOUS AUTHORS

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[science-junkie]

… and here is a gift for all of us.

[enchanted-nerd]

[cowardgrace]

annabeth just having almost died for percy even though she knew he’s invulnerable, percy telling her she saved him, her asking him where his mortal spot is (CRAZY intimate question), him guiding her hand to his bare back (he’s not even supposed to TELL her), her dropping her hand but him still holding it while she’s groggy with pain. they’re not even together

[cowardgrace]

annabeth hesitates briefly before asking percy where his mortal spot is, but the fact that she clearly thinks about the weight of what she’s asking and still asks is just insane. she considers for a moment and knows this is something she can ask percy. she trusts that percy has that amount of trust in her, and she is correct. that’s insane. percy also thinks for only a moment before he puts his fate in her hands, literally. this is not something you ask anyone. this is not something you tell anyone.

[allarica]

i didn't say boyfriend

Commissions are open! || Support me on Patreon

Prints on RedBubble || Follow me on Instagram!

[qqueenofhades]

Hi, I was wondering if you ever wrote a post about your writing process? I am so inspired that you can write so many words, and they are such good words, with what sounds like a busy life. If you haven’t written a post about that, would that be something you’d share?

I have written various posts about writing in the past; I think they will be in my "writing advice" tag. I definitely do write a lot and always have, but I also have long periods where I don't write much or at all. However, I also cycle through multiple genres (original fiction/novels, fandom/fanfic, nonfiction/academic/professional), so I am usually doing some kind of writing, in one format or another. For example, I'm usually writing for work or school, even if my creative muse is AWOL, and eventually it will come back. I have practiced to the point where I can usually just sit down and turn on the writing brain, hammer out a draft, give it a few tweaks, and be ready to go. This might not work for everyone, but it works for me.

This is because, as I have said before, the main way to write is to well, write. I have also organized my schedule so there are certain settings where my brain goes "okay, time to write [x] thing." This includes my Saturday coffee shop time for fun writing, my office for work/school writing, and so forth. I also try to get all my other work done during the week so I can write on the weekends, sometimes on weekday afternoons, etc. However as I said, I'm definitely not always doing all types of writing at the same time. When I finish a sizeable project, i.e. a novel or a lengthy fic, I can sometimes go several months or longer without doing something new, because I need to recharge. If you are in a place where it's just not happening for a while, that is also okay.

For the most part, as long as I'm interested in a project and it's clicking along in my head (i.e. I imagine the next set of plot developments, sections are mentally writing themselves, I feel like I need to get back and work on it some more), then I can pretty much sit down at any given time and work on it, even if only for a short while. When you do lots of short sessions in a few days, it tends to add up; for example, right now, I am managing to produce an average 7.5K+ word fic chapter each week. This is not necessarily what I always do, because my update schedule can vary wildly and is not always the most consistent, but it seems to be working for me at the moment. Likewise, if I sit down and go "eh it's not happening today, I'll do something else," then I go off and do something else. People often tie their self-worth as writers to whether they can always sit down and always write, and like, the only thing we all have in common about our writing is to bitch and moan about writing. You do not need to flagellate yourself for the approval of your peers, etc. We all get it.

Anyway, the most important thing for creative/fiction writing is that you're enjoying the story and it's working/flowing well for you. Etc. etc., if you don't enjoy reading your own writing, nobody else will, so if you're doing low-stakes writing like fic, you should always be your own chief audience. If you have fun with it and you make it your own, other people will find it and enjoy it. We always want COMMINTZ, and they are great to have, because making art, especially in fandom spaces, is meant to be a collaborative conversation where writers put something out and create engagement with the community in return. It can definitely be disheartening if you write something that you're proud of and it seems to land in a void. But you also have to KEEP writing things, because as noted, if you don't write, you haven't written. Alas.

(Also, it doubtless goes without saying, but for the love of god don't use AI. Even your crappiest, shittiest, needs-a-total-rework first draft is better than some polished soulless technobabble, because YOU created it and YOU engaged with the process of putting words on a page and YOU, by the by, are an actual human who wants other actual humans to read your work. So yes.)

[beyond-the-page]

Heyy I saw you had reposted my lestappen fic. I'm glad that you enjoyed it so much! Writing for people who enjoy reading is my passion and I would love to write a fic tailored to your likes! Please do drop a fic req in my inbox and I will get to it!

Love,

Your friendly neighborhood F1 writer

hi, oh my gosh thank you for the ask! I wanted to apologize bc I've also accidentally reblogged the fic to this sideblog which isn't my Lestappen blog, I'm gonna make sure I reblog it there, but I would love to send a request, I'll send it from my main blog "a-kiss-of-stardust" :)

[officialfiaarchives]

Hey it's me🥰

Charles going feral about the grey hairs in Max's beard, that's it

Pairing: Charles Leclerc x Max Verstappen

Warnings: Heavy makeout; Implied smut

A/N: Lestappen fans are in for a treat with this oneee. Cuz my exams are over I'm updating fics faster than before. Anyways I hope you guys like this!

Word Count: 2k

It starts,  or rather, Charles finally admits to himself that it has been going on for some time,  on a Thursday morning in the motorhome, bad coffee going cold at his elbow, Max across the table reading something on his phone.

The light comes in sideways. That's the thing. The particular quality of early morning through tinted glass, hitting the line of Max's jaw just so, and Charles looks up from his own phone at exactly the wrong moment and sees it: the grey threading through the dark of Max's beard, more than there used to be, unmistakable in this light, silver-bright against the rest.

He looks back at his phone.

He looks back at Max.

It's fine, he thinks, with the energy of a man who is very much not fine. It's nothing. He's just sitting there.

Max scrolls something, unbothered, and Charles watches the corner of his mouth do that thing where it almost becomes a smile, and the grey catches the light again, and Charles's coffee goes completely forgotten.

He is, he understands with sudden horrible clarity, absolutely feral about this. Has been, probably, for weeks. He simply hadn't looked at it directly before.

He looks at it directly now. This is a mistake.

Max glances up, catches him staring. "What."

"Nothing," Charles says. "I was thinking."

Max holds his gaze for a second, then looks back at his phone. Charles does the same. His face is warm.

By race morning Charles has catalogued it with the obsessive precision of a man who has nothing better to do with his mental energy, which is embarrassing, because Charles has a great deal of things better to do with his mental energy. He is a Formula 1 driver. There is a race today. He has had exactly two conversations with his race engineer this morning that he could not fully account for afterward.

The grey is mostly in the beard, concentrated along the jaw. A little at the temples too, but it's the jaw that gets him. Something about the way it's distributed, not uniform, not a deliberate thing, just Max's face quietly doing what faces do with time, becoming more itself. More… his.

That's the part Charles can't explain, even to himself. It's not just that it looks good, though it does, objectively, look devastatingly good. It's the possession of it. Something has changed in Max's face that Charles has been there to see happen, that only Charles notices in quite this way, that belongs, irrationally, privately, to the two of them.

Charles is aware this makes no sense. He is choosing not to examine it further.

The pre-race press conference is busy and loud and Charles is in the middle of answering something about his qualifying lap, something about the final sector, when he feels Max look at him.

He doesn't turn his head. He keeps his eyes on the journalist, keeps his mouth moving around words about commitment through the last complex, but he feels it, the specific quality of Max's attention, patient and level, and then in his peripheral vision Max raises one hand and scratches slowly along his jaw. Unhurried. Like a man privately considering something unrelated to everything happening in this room.

But he had looked at Charles first. Just for a second, before he did it. Charles had caught it.

Charles's sentence stops.

The journalist waits.

The room waits.

"Sorry," Charles says, smooth, almost convincing. "The final sector. Yes. It was about commitment through the last complex."

He does not look at Max for the rest of the press conference. He is extremely deliberate about this. He answers every question cleanly, smiles at the right moments, thanks the right people. He is perfectly composed and it costs him more than anything he will do in the car this afternoon.

In the corridor outside Max is suddenly beside him, and then Max stops walking, and Charles stops too because Max has stopped, and that's all it takes, apparently, that's the whole of it.

Max looks at him. Unhurried. Like he has assessed the situation and found it exactly as expected.

"Don't," Charles says quietly.

Max considers this. Then continues with a small smirk, "I didn't do anything," he says, and turns and walks back toward his garage, and Charles stands in the corridor and watches him go and does not move until he's out of sight.

He has a race to drive.

He turns in the opposite direction. His hands are perfectly steady and his chest feels like something has been wound very tight inside it and left there, no release, no resolution, hours ahead of him with absolutely nowhere to put any of it.

He walks back to his garage. He does not think about it.

He thinks about nothing else. 

The race is fine. Charles is excellent, actually, because he is always excellent when he has something to be furious about, and whatever Max has been doing all weekend, with full knowledge and zero mercy, makes Charles want to drive like he's trying to leave his own body behind.

He finishes third. Max finishes sixth.

Charles stands on the podium with champagne in his hair and Russell's elbow in his peripheral vision and thinks, with some bitterness, that he has won absolutely nothing this weekend. The trophy is real and cold and heavy in his hands and somewhere in the paddock below Max is doing his post-race obligations and Charles cannot stop thinking about a press conference that happened this morning, a single glance across two seats, a hand raised to a jaw.

Third place. And still somehow the one who lost.

The debrief, the interviews, the team dinner they excuse themselves from early. By the time the hotel room door closes behind them Charles has been carrying it for so many hours that the silence feels almost loud.

He sits on the edge of the bed and unlaces his shoes and does not look at Max.

Max doesn't say anything either. Charles can hear him moving around the room, unhurried as always, and then the movement stops and Charles can feel him standing there in that specific way, the way that means he is looking at Charles and has decided to wait.

Charles unlaces the other shoe.

"You did that on purpose," he says, to the floor.

"Did what on purpose."

Charles looks up.

Max is leaning against the wall with his arms loosely crossed, still in his team gear, watching Charles with an expression that is patient and warm and completely immovable. Like he has been here the whole time. Like he knew this was where they would end up and simply waited for Charles to arrive.

"The press conference," Charles says. "This morning. The whole- " he gestures vaguely at his own jaw. "You looked at me first. Before you did it."

"Did I," Max says.

Not a question.

Charles holds his gaze. His mouth is dry. "You've known. For how long."

Max tilts his head slightly. The lamp on the nightstand is casting everything in warm low light and the grey along his jaw is catching it and Charles is so tired of fighting this particular battle with himself, so tired of carrying it around like something shameful when it isn't, when it's just Max, just his face, just the unbearable private fact of him.

"Tell me," Max says, quietly. The same words from the corridor but different now, stripped of the corridor's noise and distance, just the two of them and the warm room and nowhere left to go. "What is it."

Charles opens his mouth. Closes it.

He tries again. "It's the.., when the light... " He stops. Looks at Max's jaw, the grey, the particular way it sits there being completely devastating without any effort at all. "I don't know how to..."

"Okay," Max says, and pushes off the wall and crosses the room, and Charles tips his head back to look up at him and Max is just standing there, close, waiting, and something in Charles quietly gives up on words entirely.

He reaches up. Both hands. Cups Max's face in his palms with his thumbs along the jaw, right where the grey is, and holds it there. Feels the texture of it under his fingers. The realness of it.

Max goes very still.

Then something in his expression shifts, the patience softening into something warmer underneath, and he reaches up and puts one hand over Charles's, not moving it, just covering it, keeping it there.

"Okay," Max says again, differently. Low and certain. "I've got you."

Charles exhales.

Max tilts his face into Charles's hands for just a moment, lets him have it, and then his grip on Charles's wrist tightens gently and he draws it down and pulls him up off the bed in the same motion and kisses him like the whole weekend has been leading here, because it has, because Max made sure of it.

Charles makes a sound against his mouth that he would deny later and grabs at Max's collar and kisses him back just as hard, weeks of cataloguing and carrying and pretending dissolving into this, finally this, Max solid and certain under his hands and the beard against his skin.

Max walks him backward until the backs of his knees hit the mattress and Charles goes down and Max follows and it's a lot, suddenly, warm and close and everywhere, and Charles tips his head back and gets his breath and Max's mouth moves to his jaw, his throat, and Charles has his hands in Max's hair and everything is fine, everything is exactly fine, and then he turns his head and the lamplight catches it again, the grey, right there, and something in his chest does that thing it's been doing all week.

"Wait," Charles murmurs.

Max stills immediately. Lifts his head. Looks at him.

"Tonight," Charles says, and his voice comes out lower than he intends. "I want to... " he swallows. Reaches up and touches Max's jaw, deliberate, fingers tracing where the grey is thickest. "I want to watch you."

The room is very quiet.

Max looks at him for a long moment. Reading him, the way he always does, unhurried, taking Charles apart with nothing but attention. Then something shifts in his expression, the certainty still there but warmer now, softer at the edges, and he turns his face into Charles's hand for just a second.

"Yeah," Max says quietly. "Okay."

He pulls back. Gives Charles exactly what he asked for. Lets himself be watched.

Charles keeps his eyes open the whole time.

The bathroom is bright after the dark of the bedroom. Max is at the mirror, jaw tilted up, turning his face side to side with the particular thoughtful expression he reserves for decisions that aren't really decisions.

Charles leans in the doorway. He has not been offered coffee yet. He is not sure he needs it.

"Maybe I should shave," Max says, to his own reflection. Considering. "Properly. All of it. Start clean."

He picks up the razor. Weighs it in his hand.

Charles says nothing.

He says nothing with his shoulder against the doorframe and his arms crossed and his eyes tracking exactly where the light is hitting Max's jaw, the grey catching it the way it always does in the morning, the way it has been catching it for weeks now, the way Charles has completely failed to become immune to no matter how many mornings he has tried.

Max sets the razor down.

Picks it up again.

Charles's expression does not change. He is a Formula 1 driver. He is a professional. He has in the past kept his composure under conditions that would break lesser men, and he is doing that now, and he is doing it extremely well, and if his jaw is slightly tight that is nobody's business.

Max looks up and meets his eyes in the mirror.

The smile comes slow. Knowing. Curling at the corners like he has just confirmed something he already knew, like he has been conducting an experiment and the results are exactly as predicted, like he intends to keep conducting this particular experiment for a very long time.

He sets the razor down.

"Yeah," he says. "That's what I thought."

[ijustwannawritepls]

Scenes to Write When You’re Blocked

Not to keep, not to polish… Just to shake the rust loose.

• A character deletes and rewrites a text three times before sending it • Two people arguing quietly so no one else hears • Someone almost confessing something and backing out • A character lying about being “fine” in a way that convinces no one • Bonus: Same scene but they convince everyone, and it's even worse • An apology that comes moments too late • A secret revealed accidentally, not dramatically • A character overhearing only half a conversation • Someone packing a bag and pretending it’s temporary • A reunion where one person is happier than the other • A goodbye that is meant to be casual but isn’t

Low stakes, high emotion. Momentum comes from movement, not brilliance.

[sheyri]

Why the plot worked

Jess: "I have connections in the smuggler network."

Thomas: "I can build weapons from scrap metal."

Khalila: "I'm smart and diplomatic."

Dario: "I'm related to the king of Spain."

Glain: "I will kick everyone's ass."

Morgan: "I can do magic."

Niccolo: "I have one company of High Garda soldiers, possibly more."

Christopher: "...I've been told I'm pretty."

[cloudcreates]

Percabeth Medieval Au anyone?

[sirenchow]

they said “🙂”

[nifflerdream-blog-deactivated20]

me as a writer: Oh no I can’t write that, somebody else already has

me as a reader: hell yes give me all the fics about this one scenario. The more the merrier

[obsessivewriter]

This one is so hard to accept. Reblogging to knock that into my brain.

[primarybufferpanel]

Me as a writer: I feel like I’m repeating myself, I’ve already used that theme, I’ve already written that kink, that other character uses that speech pattern so this one in another fandom can’t, I feel like I’m writing predictable things, is this different enough from that other thing I wrote, are people filling out bingo cards by my work? :sobbing:

Me as a reader: oh hell yeah this hit the spot exactly, I hope this writer has written 20 more just like it

[deelaundry]

As one friend said when I felt I was reusing a theme too much, nobody ever says, Did Agatha Christie write about murder again?

[caledoniaseries]

I actually laughed out loud at the last one. A very good point.

[giraffeter]

“I love this, I hope there isn’t anything else out there like it!” Said no one ever

[salmiakkivodka]

Listen James Patterson has written so goddamn many books you can’t count them and they’re all exactly the same but they’re all best sellers. Write whatever the fuck you want.

[guildofscribes]

Ruminating on the way Tolkien wrote hope and goodness has been such a Thing lately.

He wrote hope as this thing as everpresent and untarnishable. It’s the sun that cannot be poisoned like living trees, the light in the sky that is not a tower that could be cut down. It’s the sun that is alive and not a thousand, thousand light years away as a reflection of something beautiful that might already be dead and the darkness has not caught up to it yet.

Hope the way Tolkien wrote it is a living thing that races to show the light to every creature, that they may do with it what they will.

The sun does not set forever, and it doesn’t not burn forever at it’s zenith to wear down all that live and must have both light and sleep.

Hope is the thing that can be counted upon, even at a distance or under the watch and away from the light.

Hope is the sun that shines behind the clouds and past the storming mountain.

Hope is the star that cuts through the choking smog.

Hope is the gentle moon that soothes that dark and casts the soft light for the weary to see by.

Hope is the thing that carries the weak and the weary through the sorrowing dark into the brighter day, and lends them the strength to endure and the hardiness to take the violence of the reality of victory that came true - not without losses - without breaking under it.

Hope is the renewed strength in the hand that carries the sword and the heart that longs for the peace to lay it down.

Hope is the silly, foolish thing that sends nine people across the continent to walk straight into the enemy’s Capitol stronghold with the instrument of his greatest power and his final defeat… all nestled around the neck of a kind and gentle hobbit.