if i fall
don’t hesitate while i’m
on the way down. show
me your resolve. splayed
fingers. eyes wide with
fear. jump if you must. join
me in the ether that swallows
us whole.
~K.T.
Cosmic Funnies
Keni
almost home
Acquired Stardust
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
Three Goblin Art

Discoholic 🪩

pixel skylines
Aqua Utopia|海の底で記憶を紡ぐ

#extradirty
Mike Driver
art blog(derogatory)

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AnasAbdin
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda

if i look back, i am lost

@theartofmadeline
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"

izzy's playlists!
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@digitalkiddo
if i fall
don’t hesitate while i’m
on the way down. show
me your resolve. splayed
fingers. eyes wide with
fear. jump if you must. join
me in the ether that swallows
us whole.
~K.T.
Roots & Veins
“Every artist is Me. Every heart that feels pain and just longs to be free”.
Last line tag
Thanks for the tag @pertinax--loculos
From Wings of Twilight:
——————————————————
“Thank goodness. I thought I was going to be left all alone here.”
“It was a tough job trying to spot you with all those miles of coastline. Good thing that barrel was that obnoxiously bright orange.”
——————————————————
Tagging @an-indecisive-nerd @kaylinalexanderbooks @indecentpause @pippinoftheshire @roselinbooks
@dyrewrites @storyteller-kara @rumeysawrites @world-of-iridensia @author-a-holmes and open tag
the research spiral got me again
writing confession time
I started researching con artists for The Confidence Game about eight months ago. I told myself I just needed the basics. How the psychology works. What makes someone trust a stranger with their money.
Fast forward to now and I have seventeen browser tabs open about Frank Abagnale, three notebooks full of handwriting analysis notes, and I recently spent forty five minutes watching a locksmith tutorial because one of my characters needs to pick a lock in chapter six.
The scene is two paragraphs long.
I also named a character four different times before settling on Tess because apparently I need the name to "sound right when she lies" which is not a real criterion but here we are.
Marcus was originally David, then James, then briefly "the other one" in my notes until I picked a name at random from a baby name website at 2am.
The research spiral is the part of writing nobody warns you about. One minute you're looking up what kind of pen someone would use to forge a signature in the 1990s and the next minute it's three hours later and you're reading about the chemical composition of ink.
How's everyone else's writing process going. Please tell me I'm not the only one.
writeblr follow train: let's find each other
Happy Wednesday writeblr! Time for a follow train.
I feel like my corner of tumblr has been a little quiet lately and I want to find new people to scream about writing with. So here's the deal.
Reblog this post if you're a writeblr looking for new mutuals. Drop your genre and WIP name in the tags so people can find you.
I'll go first: I write crime fiction and literary fiction. My current WIP is The Confidence Game, a collection of interconnected short stories about con artists, forgers, and the people who believe them. Think identity, deception, trust, and what happens when the lies start feeling more real than the truth.
I'm always looking for writeblrs who post excerpts, do tag games, and actually talk about their writing process. Bonus points if you write morally grey characters or anything involving people who are very good at lying.
No rules, no pressure. Just reblog, drop your info in the tags, and let's find each other.
WIP Wednesday | The Confidence Game
"You seem like someone who knows what she's doing."
Tess kept her hands steady around the coffee cup. Smiled. Not too much. Just enough to say I'm flattered without saying I'm trying.
"I get that a lot," she said.
The mark leaned forward. Daniel. Mid forties, recently divorced, still wearing the ring. He wanted to believe her so badly it practically radiated off him like heat.
"It's just... you said you worked at Meridian Capital, right? Because I called over there and nobody knew your name."
The coffee turned cold in her hands.
"I said I consulted for them." She didn't blink. "There's a difference."
"Right. Right." He nodded, but his eyes had changed. That soft, trusting look was hardening into something sharper. Something she recognized because she'd watched it happen a hundred times.
The moment before they stop believing you.
Tess set down the cup. Leaned in. Close enough that he could smell her perfume, close enough that proximity could do what words were starting to fail at.
"Daniel. If you don't trust me, that's fine. Walk away. I'll find someone else who wants in."
She watched the calculation happen behind his eyes.
He didn't walk away. They never do.
WIP Introduction: The Confidence Game
If you're new here, let me catch you up on what I'm writing.
The Confidence Game is a collection of interconnected short stories about people who lie for a living and the people who believe them. Con artists, forgers, imposters, and the quiet disasters they leave behind.
It's crime fiction, but it's really about identity. What happens when you've been pretending so long you forget which version of yourself is real.
THE CHARACTERS
Tess Malone is the heart of this collection. She's a grifter who's been running cons since she was nineteen, and she's terrifyingly good at it. She can read a room in seconds, mirror someone's body language without thinking, become whoever the mark needs her to be. But lately the masks are getting harder to take off. She catches herself using a cover story's laugh at the grocery store. She rehearses her real name in the mirror some mornings just to make sure she still remembers it.
Marcus is the one who keeps the records. He handles logistics, research, background checks on potential marks. He's methodical where Tess is instinctive. He knows the legal exposure of every con they run, down to the statute of limitations in each state. He tells himself he's the rational one, the one who can walk away anytime. He's been telling himself that for six years.
THEMES
Identity and performance. Where the con ends and the person begins. Trust as currency. The difference between lying to someone and lying to yourself. How far you'll go to protect a version of yourself that might not even exist anymore.
GENRE: crime fiction, literary fiction, psychological drama, dark character study
This project has been living in my head for a long time and I'm finally getting it on the page. If any of this sounds like your kind of thing, stick around. I post excerpts, character content, and way too many thoughts about what my fictional criminals would do in mundane situations.
Asks are always open if you want to know more about these two or anyone else in the collection.
In 1920 a man named Charles Ponzi promised investors 50% returns in 45 days. He wasn't investing their money. He was paying old investors with new investors' cash. It worked until it didn't.
The wildest part? Ponzi genuinely believed he'd figure out how to make it legitimate before the whole thing collapsed. He wasn't just a liar. He was a liar who'd convinced himself he was telling the truth.
That's the kind of psychology I'm writing about in The Confidence Game. The moment a con artist stops performing and starts believing their own story.
Writer Would You Rather
I wanna know what kind of writing chaos you're living in so let's play
Would you rather...
Write only dialogue for a month or only description for a month?
2. Have your protagonist be universally loved by readers but boring to write, or fascinating to write but everyone hates them?
3. Know exactly how your story ends before you start or discover the ending as you go?
4. Delete your favorite scene you've ever written or never be allowed to write in your favorite genre again?
5. Be stuck in an endless revision loop on one project or start ten new projects and never finish any of them?
Drop your answers in the replies or send them to my ask box. I genuinely want to know. Bonus points if you explain your reasoning because I WILL be judging (affectionately).
Reblog and tag your writer friends, let's see where everyone lands on these.
When the world decides to burn
I won’t weep
As long as yours
Is the last face I ever see…
- Oscar Kristinn
well tickle my balls and call me shawn, is that my writing motivation coming back???
Does anyone else listen to ambiance to help set the mood of the scene or atmosphere that you're trying to write?
Any recommendations? I tend go for solitary and spooky ambiance myself, and looking to expand beyond that.
I love my characters but they would all have the most unhinged search histories. Here's what I think they'd be looking up at 2am when they can't sleep:
Tess: "how to tell if you're a bad person or just pragmatic" followed immediately by "best foundation for looking trustworthy" and then "can people tell when you're lying by your eyes"
Marcus: "how to help someone who doesn't want help" then "signs someone you love is doing something illegal" then clearing his entire browser history and googling "do deleted searches actually delete"
Elena (Tess's cover identity): "charity gala what to wear" and "how to make small talk with rich people" which is actually just Tess doing research but it still counts
Detective Ashford: "statute of limitations fraud" and "can you charge someone with a crime if you kind of respect how they did it" and at 3am "why do I keep thinking about this case"
what would YOUR characters google at 2am? i need to know
I am a wilted flower
My stem and leaves are dry
My petals are all shriveled up
My path stopped in pursuit of the sky
But this little flower doesn't have time
To shrink in her despair
For there's always another flower that needs a little more
And she always finds she has something to spare
So here's a petal, here's a leaf,
Take the precious soil below
Infiltrate my roots and then
Let your poison flow
I'll find a seed or pollen
Something to keep me steady
I'll smile through the pain I feel
I'll be forever ready
I may be wilted but I always find
A way to tamp it down
To keep on growing up to the sun
To never, ever drown
Heterological words
Looks like Merriam-Webster did a post on heterological words. That explains my web traffic spike today! Glad a few more people have discovered this piece!
Heterological words like "long" and "minuscule" are annoying, and persistent reminders of just how hard it is to communicate and connect wit