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Sideblog for reading and writing Lea | 🇭🇷 | 27 she/her, they/them

[carica-ficus]

🦋 My debut eco-horror double feature is out now! 🦋

It's still a little surreal to me that I've got a book published, and I'm so happy to announce it's officially out!

"The Last Witch of Lonjsko Polje" is a story about an old woman having to confront her past when her deceased colleague's granddaughter comes to town hoping to claim his abandoned estate. With a setting in one of Croatia's nature parks and an ample amount of rain, darkness, and uncertainty during the turning of the seasons, it might provide the perfect read for the crisp autumn days. 🍂🍁

The bonus novelette "The Secret of Mrtvi Kal" is set to the west, in the snowy mountains of Gorski Kotar where a man is trying to uncover the inspiration behind his idol's work. The unforgiving cold, a raging obsession, and a strange, ancient forest provide amplify that feeling of seclusion only winter can bring.

The book is available NOW through different sites and stores, both as a paperback and ebook, and you can add it on Goodreads and Storygraph. As for any additional information, you can find it on Shtriga.com, my publisher's website. 💚

Psst! There's also a little snippet of the book available in the 9th issue of Morina Kutija, on page 207. The magazine is free to download through morinakutija.com or through Smashwords!

Happy reading and don't let the bugs bite! 🦋💚

[laterkiss]

ever since i was a little girl i knew fiction would save me

[duckbunny]

fun fact about character development by the way. you can make them develop worse.

[duckbunny]

like I mean this very seriously as writing advice. the character should experience events and make decisions that make them different at the end of the story. they should be changed. they do not have to be improved.

they can get worse. they can make decisions of an increasingly terrible nature. they can stop taking risks on kindness. they can discover how much they can get away with. they can find religion, or abandon it, with negative effects on their moral creed. the character has to develop. the character does not have to grow.

[ellipsus-writes]

Today we’re shipping a HEAVILY requested feature

Comments.

On.

Main.

Say goodbye to the days of draft-only comments. Now you and your collaborators can leave comments right smack in the main doc. 🥵

Commenting on the main document works the same as in drafts.

Simply highlight the text you wish to comment on -> type, style, and post 💌

Comments can be carried over from the main doc to drafts (just select keep comments) 👇… as well as merged back into the main document from drafts 😱

We’re also using the opportunity to update the titles of collaborator roles to better reflect all the things Ellipsus can do now!

Can merge -> Document editor

Can edit -> Draft editor

Can comment —> Commenter (on both main & drafts)

Can view -> Viewer

To be clear: the permissions structure isn’t changing, just the names! You can get acquainted with the new role titles here: Collaboration in Ellipsus

One thing to keep in mind when working with comments between drafts & main doc:

When merging, a comment in the draft will overwrite a comment in main linked to the same portion of text. In other words, overlapping comments = merge conflicts, so try to keep your comments spaced out.

Keep the comments rolling 😎

And for the Plus users, we've got another snazzy update for you…

drumroll 🥁🥁

Introducing: Typewriter scrolling! 📜📜

Typewriter scrolling keeps the line your typing on in a fixed spot, while the scrolling view moves around it.

Typed lines will move up the page, rather than down, as your cursor stays level, for a super steady writing experience—just like a typewriter!

To toggle on go to Editor settings -> Typewriter scrolling.

[fellshish]

a lot of writing is sort of watching the film in your head like oh sorry can’t write the chapter yet i have to repeat hallucinate the dialogue first

[fellshish]

a lot of writing is sort of watching the film in your head like oh sorry can’t write the chapter yet i have to repeat hallucinate the dialogue first

[apolladay]

Which notorious English class short story fucked you up the most?

* I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

*The King in Yellow

* The Lottery

* The Masque of the Red Death

* The Monkey’s Paw

* The Most Dangerous Game

* The Nameless City

* The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

* There Will Come Soft Rains

*The Yellow Wallpaper

* The Veldt

* “you think those were fucked up? What about [X]!”

Which notorious English class short story fucked you up the most?

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

The King in Yellow

The Lottery

The Masque of the Red Death

The Monkey’s Paw

The Most Dangerous Game

The Nameless City

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

There Will Come Soft Rains

The Yellow Wallpaper

The Veldt

“you think those were fucked up? What about [X]!”

Voting ended onApr 30

[it-grrl]

Okay I have things I should be seeing to but I couldn't help myself. In case you, like me, have not read all of these stories and would like to be amongst the lucky 10,000 today:

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison

The King in Yellow by Robert W Chambers*

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson**

The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe

The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs

The Most Dangerous Game by Richard O'Connell

The Nameless City by HP Lovecraft

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K LeGuin

There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Veldt by Ray Bradbury

Honorable Mention from the comments/reblogs:

All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury

*note: this is actually a collection of short stories and clocks in at about 72k words

**Originally published in the New Yorker in 1948; interestingly, the New Yorker still has this story archived on their website BEHIND A PAYWALL. CAN YOU IMAGINE.

[pigeon-princess]

I can't tell you how much fun I had illustrating this cover design for Lilac Library's edition of Hopeless Necromantic by Shiloh Brair! Kind of everything I love to draw all wrapped up in a cover! Bonus that this book has such a brilliant cast of characters aaa!!

[whatagrump]

Apparently a lot of people get dialogue punctuation wrong despite having an otherwise solid grasp of grammar, possibly because they’re used to writing essays rather than prose. I don’t wanna be the asshole who complains about writing errors and then doesn’t offer to help, so here are the basics summarized as simply as I could manage on my phone (“dialogue tag” just refers to phrases like “he said,” “she whispered,” “they asked”):

“For most dialogue, use a comma after the sentence and don’t capitalize the next word after the quotation mark,” she said.

“But what if you’re using a question mark rather than a period?” they asked.

“When using a dialogue tag, you never capitalize the word after the quotation mark unless it’s a proper noun!” she snapped.

“When breaking up a single sentence with a dialogue tag,” she said, “use commas.”

“This is a single sentence,” she said. “Now, this is a second stand-alone sentence, so there’s no comma after ‘she said.’”

“There’s no dialogue tag after this sentence, so end it with a period rather than a comma.” She frowned, suddenly concerned that the entire post was as unasked for as it was sanctimonious.

[thewritinggrindstone]

And!

“If you’re breaking dialogue up with an action tag”—she waves her hands back and forth—”the dashes go outside the quotation marks.”

[writing-is-a-martial-art]

Reblog to save a writer’s life.

[frenchmarshmalloww]

This will save my betas precious time !!

[jt-artsandfics]

Gonna have to star using this!

[fingons-rad-harp]

THE DASHES GO OUTSIDE THE QUOTATION MARKS?!?!?!?!?!

[arofili]

no they don’t????

personally i follow the same rule as commas: first dash inside, second outside

“I don’t know what that person is talking about—” they paused for dramatic effect— “and I think my way is more aesthetically pleasing.”

[tuulikki]

Non-standard, personal choices in punctuation are something you can invent for yourself, because nobody owns language. You can choose to put your em dashes inside the quotation marks for dialogue broken up with inserted action. You can choose to not use periods at the ends of sentences. You can do whatever you want. But doing so does absolutely break the rules of standard usage. Know the rules so you can break them deliberately rather than accidentally.

“An em dash is used for dialogue that gets cut off by a sharp, sudden break, like—”

“An ellipsis is used at the end of dialogue that falters and sort of trails away, you know, kind of like…”

“When someone’s speaking in starts and stops—speaking excitedly, even!—showing abrupt changes in thought, it gets broken up by em dashes.”

“A different… mood is evoked if… if… the writer uses ellipses for… hesitant speech that shows a speaker is confused or… insecure.”

“But the rule is”—she brandished the seventeenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style—“that em dashes go outside the quotation marks.”

[rottingfacade]

i love those blinking red lights they put on top of radio towers and windmills and skyscrapers etc, theyre like electronic flowers or something to me

[rottingfacade]

[guiltfactory-moved]

this lamb keeps trying to sacrifice itself even though no one really needs or wants it to do that

[darkaviarymc]

Tragedy alignment chart. Feel free to use, but please reblog if you do.

[mikkeneko]

And of course the second part of the tragedy, which is: which quadrant did you think you were in vs. which one you were really in

[mynameisrocks]

[despazito]

[velinxi]

SURPRISE!! Daughter of a Thousand Faces book reveal!

I am so happy to share with you guys Inklore’s DOTF Book 1 in print with you all 🌸

An angry underdog girl, an ancient demonic father, the strangest of found families in a Chinese inspired fantasy. If this is up your alley, pre-orders for my comic is available now, and B&N is running a 25% sale on all preorders until 6/26!

[Pre-order here] [Read here]

[moonssnail]

Piranesi concept art!

I hadn’t seen anyone really tackle the drowned halls yet (as far as I know) so I thought I’d take a crack at it to practice painting environments

[threedollarsdotcom]

scientists are hard at work exploring each others bodies

[vintageeveryday]

Vintage postcards of Austrian actress Mia May from the early 20th century. See more here...