Writing Daily So I Can Publish A Book!

[crystal-leiann-author]

About me:

33 ! She/her. Bi/Queer. English Lit degree in the works. Baking degree mostly acquired.

I’ve been writing since I was 15. Took writing seriously when I started writing fanfic around 2018. I love how fics allow me to explore skills and writing theories that I’m not used to yet.

Now I’m working on a queer enemies to lovers novel that takes place in a world where Heroes and Villains are sponsored by the government and magic shows up rarely enough that it surprises people. The Hero and Villain do not like each other, they try to maim each other, they try to 💀 each other… and by the end they’re gonna be lovers who will do anything to protect each other. It’s going to be a wild ride.

Fun facts:

* Dog named Bagel

* Cat named Fat Frankie

* 3 goldfish named Mark, Bob, and Wade

* Roommate’s cats named Pablo Picatso and Penelope Highjump

* Frequent video game enjoyer. Favorites include: Pokémon, RDR2, Hollow Knight, Nine Sols, Hades, and the Dishonored franchise

* Crochet relaxes me. I love making huge blankets!

* I will either read nothing for months or devour multiple books a day, there is no in between.

* Learning French! Would love to be fluent and at least not have an American accent.

* Work night shifts.

* Dog psychology is so fascinating to me! If I could handle the owners, I’d love to be a dog trainer.

* Video game OST’s are my frequent companions when writing.

* Other stuff, I guess?

[an0neemouse]

Two things absolutely changed my life as a writer. You ready?

One- Your characters can be bad people, they can do bad things. There doesn't have to be a reason or a moral. You can make them bad if you want to. No other reason needed.

Two- it doesn't have to be good, it just needs to be written. On my last book i literally wrote the words "dumbest version" on the top of the page because I had seen some advice to do that. It changed everything. I stopped trying to make it perfect, I just tried to make it. Period. Full stop. You can edit bad writing. You can't edit a blank page.

And honestly? Defiance is the best writing I've ever done. All because I let my characters be bad and I gave myself the freedom to write it badly.

[corpseprize]

the reality of being a writer

[ohwaitimthewriter]

Especially the last one!

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

my toxic writing trait is imagining the scene in my head in long, full cinematic detail and then writing: “they fought. it was intense.”

[tofutomato]

you gotta read, you gotta write, you gotta draw, you gotta watch films and shows. there is literally NO time to be employed

[crystal-leiann-author]

Howdy! What's the best book you read recently? And of everything you've read, what do you think most influences your writing?

Hey!! Hi!! :)

Best book recently? That’s tough because I’ve been listening to the Dungeon Crawler Carl series and while I like them I wouldn’t say they’re “best” books. But I read Water Moon by Samantha Yambao earlier this year and absolutely adored it. It has a wonderful premise and a lovely magic system that I wanted to fall deeper into.

Donna Tartt is one of my favorite authors. Her book The Goldfinch got me interested in long-form writing and purple prose, but The Secret History is an all time favorite now; I reread it every year in the fall. It has so much to unpack in every sentence and I like to study it to see how I can improve myself :)

[crystal-leiann-author]

The first time I made this I spelled villain wrong 🫠

[crystal-leiann-author]

Writing Log !

I spent last weekend cleaning so I didn’t get a lot of writing done. But I think I procrastinated the writing because I was at a scene that made me uncomfortable :/

I wrote it. Deleted it. Wrote it a different way. Deleted it again. I finally found a middle ground between shying away from it and outright showing some bad stuff. I hope it comes across that way.

I also made a few graphics I want to share in separate posts— I’m not an artistically creative person and they’re the simplest things… but I really like them. If I had known when I was younger that I would need to be a graphic designer and social media whiz to sell books (and that you have to start before you’re even close to the selling stage) I would have tried to learn how to do all this a long time ago, a little bit at a time. All in a rush is kind of overwhelming :/

I just want to write my silly little characters with their Big Feels and then make them kiss.

[an0neemouse]

It doesn't have to be good. You just have to write it.

[creativepromptsforwriting]

I don't need AI to write. I can create fake scenarios in my head perfectly fine myself.

[ellipsus-writes]

If you haven't heard, the em dash has been getting a lot of attention lately…

Because it was trained on pirated work—including freely accessible online writing (like fanfic, academic texts)—ChatGPT picked up patterns and quirks native to human writing.

Including (sigh) the em dash.

There are other victims here (RIP tapestry and delve 🫠), but the appropriation of the em dash—a punctuation mark beloved by writers everywhere—feels especially personal.

A kind of low-grade panic is ensuing. Writers who once memed their own em dash overuse—the greatest punctuation mark ever to grace the control-freak’s lexicon, frankly—are suddenly backing away to avoid accusations.

No. More. We have centuries of dash-abusing writers behind us. We will not sit quietly while AI repurposes our beloved stilted aside—or the just-one-more clarification the sentence demands—or the dramatic pause your comma could never—etc.

You don’t write like AI—AI writes like you.

Defend the em dash.

(Feel free to download/share/stick it where it matters!)

[kjscottwrites]

[X] <- psst click this

[kjscottwrites]

Click here to follow, order the ebook, or read FREE preview chapters <3

thank you!

[kjscottwrites]

And in case this piques your interest but you still have some reservations, well, don't take it from me!! Here's some glowing testimonials!

[crystal-leiann-author]

Writing Log Day 19:

I wrote the word “helow” so… after only a hundred words or so, I’m done for the day! Need to let my One Good Braincell recharge 😂

So instead I’ll post this:

What were your MC’s first impressions of each other?

“Stop it,” [said the Hero.]

“Stop me,” Kali [the Villain] shot back, shifting the bags on his shoulder so he could swing it at the Hero before making a hasty exit.

“You killed her,” the Hero said, the deepness of his voice breaking on killed. He’d never seen death before, then. “Why?”

“She was the first you couldn’t save.”

[The Hero] recoiled so hard he knocked into the wall, and Kali realized this man cared about people. Each life was a knife in his heart.

[crystal-leiann-author]

Writing log, day 18: I got about 1.5k written of a scene I hope will begin evoking sympathy for my Villain! 🤝 my vicious little feral king!

Otherwise I jammed to some Sleep Token, listened to Help I Sexted My Boss while doing my job, played too much of Scritchy Scratchy…. And spent an anxious hour or two desperately searching for kittens that only showed up when it was quiet. Such a cat thing to do!

[nondelphic]

"just write a little every day" ok but what if i write nothing for 3 weeks and then suddenly type like i’m being hunted by god

[bambistjames]

non-writers will never understand the mental illness of writing an entire conversation in your head while doing dishes and then forgetting every word the second you open a blank doc