water for moses

[ a writeblr | poetry, prose, short fiction and longer wips | sci fi, fantasy, horror, -punk, life | ask me anything ] I follow back from my other tumblr @dustfingers-ferret

[painted-bees]

Character solidifying!

[rockinrpmemes]

1. How does your character think of their father? What do they hate and love about him? What influence - literal or imagined - did the father have? 2. Their mother? How do they think of her? What do they hate? Love? What influence - literal or imagined - did the mother have? 3. Brothers, sisters? Who do they like? Why? What do they despise about their siblings? 4. What type of discipline was your character subjected to at home? Strict? Lenient? 5. Were they overprotected as a child? Sheltered? 6. Did they feel rejection or affection as a child? 7. What was the economic status of their family? 8. How does your character feel about religion? 9. What about political beliefs? 10. Is your character street-smart, book-smart, intelligent, intellectual, slow-witted? 11. How do they see themselves: as smart, as intelligent, uneducated? 12. How does their education and intelligence – or lack thereof - reflect in their speech pattern, vocabulary, and pronunciations? 13. Did they like school? Teachers? Schoolmates? 14. Were they involved at school? Sports? Clubs? Debate? Were they unconnected? 15. Did they graduate? High-School? College? Do they have a PHD? A GED? 16. What does your character do for a living? How do they see their profession? What do they like about it? Dislike? 17. Did they travel? Where? Why? When? 18. What did they find abroad, and what did they remember? 19. What were your character’s deepest disillusions? In life? What are they now? 20. What were the most deeply impressive political or social, national or international, events that they experienced? 21. What are your character’s manners like? What is their type of hero? Whom do they hate? 22. Who are their friends? Lovers? ‘Type’ or ‘ideal’ partner? 23. What do they want from a partner? What do they think and feel of sex? 24. What social groups and activities does your character attend? What role do they like to play? What role do they actually play, usually? 25. What are their hobbies and interests? 26. What does your character’s home look like? Personal taste? Clothing? Hair? Appearance? 27. How do they relate to their appearance? How do they wear their clothing? Style? Quality? 28. Who is your character’s mate? How do they relate to him or her? How did they make their choice? 29. What is your character’s weaknesses? Hubris? Pride? Controlling? 30. Are they holding on to something in the past? Can he or she forgive? 31. Does your character have children? How do they feel about their parental role? About the children? How do the children relate? 32. How does your character react to stress situations? Defensively? Aggressively? Evasively? 33. Do they drink? Take drugs? What about their health?  34. Does your character feel self-righteous? Revengeful? Contemptuous? 35. Do they always rationalize errors? How do they accept disasters and failures? 36. Do they like to suffer? Like to see other people suffering? 37. How is your character’s imagination? Daydreaming a lot? Worried most of the time? Living in memories? 38. Are they basically negative when facing new things? Suspicious? Hostile? Scared? Enthusiastic? 39. What do they like to ridicule? What do they find stupid? 40. How is their sense of humor? Do they have one? 41. Is your character aware of who they are? Strengths? Weaknesses? Idiosyncrasies? Capable of self-irony? 42. What does your character want most? What do they need really badly, compulsively? What are they willing to do, to sacrifice, to obtain? 43. Does your character have any secrets? If so, are they holding them back? 44. How badly do they want to obtain their life objectives? How do they pursue them? 45. Is your character pragmatic? Think first? Responsible? All action? A visionary? Passionate? Quixotic? 46. Is your character tall? Short? What about size? Weight? Posture? How do they feel about their physical body? 47. Do they want to project an image of a younger, older, more important person? Does they want to be visible or invisible? 48. How are your character’s gestures? Vigorous? Weak? Controlled? Compulsive? Energetic? Sluggish? 49. What about voice? Pitch? Strength? Tempo and rhythm of speech? Pronunciation? Accent? 50. What are the prevailing facial expressions? Sour? Cheerful? Dominating?

[wordsnstuff]

Resources For Writing Science Fiction

Ko-Fi || Masterlist || Work In Progress || Request

Space

Space Engine

Artificial gravity calculator

Natural gravity calculator

EarthSky

WhyFiles

9 misconceptions about space travel

Space flight in science fiction

The weapons of Star Wars

Fiction writing versus physical laws

Cryopreservation in science fiction

Realistic astronomy in science fiction

Faster-than-light travel in sci-fi

Imaging over long distances

Relativity: Did Einstein kill steampunk?

Practical spaceship design

Exoplanets and habitability

Radio waves for sci-fi authors

Distance and legal systems in sci-fi

Near-future scenarios for us & our planet

Habitable atmospheres for authors

Gravity basics for SFF authors

The future of energy

Waste management in SF

Enclosed ecosystems and life support

Futuristic Technology & Medicine

Dimensions

8 things authors should know about viruses

Plagues in science fiction and fantasy

Rogue viruses in science fiction

Genetics myths in fiction writing

Mutation myths in fiction

Dispeling archaeology myths

Editing life in science fiction

A whirwind tour of the human genome

Chemical fallacies in fiction 

Explosions in science fiction

Nuclear radiation for writers

Climate change and cli-fi

Holograms in sci-fi

Writing believable nanotechnology

7 things to know about cybernetics

Computer and internet myths

Medical misconceptions in fiction

How to write about biomedical researchers

Writing realistic research labs

The science of poisons

Proper lab technique for SFF writers

The 4 Do’s and Don'ts of Time Travel 

The Science in Your Science Fiction: Time Travel

An Idiot’s Guide to Teleportation

How To Explain Superpowers

List of Supernatural Powers and Abilities

Terraforming and Genetic Manipulation Both

Terraforming planets

Guide To Terraforming

Aliens, Creatures, and Robots

What Will Real Aliens Look Like?

Wildlife Biology In Fiction

Writing Outside The Human Box

Insects in fiction: what bugs me

Space bugs: microbes in outer space

The science of animal communication

Writing realistic spiders

A writer’s guide to cyborgs

Creating Aliens In 3 Stages

Believable Aliens

Guide To Creating Aliens

Aliens: Relatives of Ours?

Everything You Need To Know About Writing Robots and AI

Alien Name Generator

Alien Species Generator

Science News

bionet.anounce

sci.chem

sci.math

sci.misc

sci.physics

sci.enviornment

sci.space.news

sci.geo.geology

sci.bio.ecology

Scout Report

Netsurfer Science

Science Daily

EurekAlert

UnSci

Science, Space & Robots

Physics Today

Space News Online

Worldbuilding

SciFi World Generator

Terragen

Planet Designer

Solar Bodies

Climatology

Planetary Geography

Water Geography

Creating Religions & Belief Systems

Tornado Project

Volcano World

ArchNet (Archaeology)

BioMedNet (Biology, Medical

HealthFinder (Medical)

OnHealth (Health)

Phys(Health)

The Weather Channel 

Space.com (Space)

Launchspace.com (Space)

Aquatic Network (Oceanography)

The Chemist’s Helper (Chemistery)

Physlink.com(Physics)

Earth Science Virtual Library

Constructed Languages & Miscellaneous

Creating a Language

The Language Construction Kit

The International Phonetic Alphabet – Audio Illustrations

Xenolinguistics 

Realistic translation in fiction

The linguistics in Arrival

Science Fiction & Death

Science Fiction Cliches

Gunn Center For The Study of Science Fiction 

Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

Futuristic Name Generator

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MY CURRENT WORK IN PROGRESS (Check it out, it’s pretty cool. At least I think it is.)

[dustfingerwrites]

Song tag game

Thanks @firewritten for the tag! ^^

Rules: Take the last three songs you’ve listened to and name at least 3 of your characters that you associate with each song (minimum 1 character per song!)

I mainly listen to music on Spotify and YouTube, but most recently it’s been Spotify. So I’ll head over there to find my songs!

*I added a little bit of info on each character, since I haven’t done a proper introduction post for any of them yet. Just what story they’re from and sort of who they are/how they relate.

Imagine Dragons -- Natural

Matisse, I think, from Grave Digger, and Michael from The Delicate Bones. Michael’s full of (righteous) anger and angst and the song can almost sound petty if you listen to it in a certain way. I imagine him spitting the words at Evie. She’d deserve every word, and that just makes it all the better. He would push the anger out of him at everyone else.

Matisse, on the other hand, could pull the anger in and use it, redirect it. He’s empowered by his emotions, rather than controlled by them.

*(Michael’s from a murder mystery involving a stolen painting, a handsome man in a greasy coat, and lots of cigarettes.)

*(Matisse is a sniper who dies and goes to Purgatory, where he meets the spirit of a fencer from the Renaissance who’s addicted to opiates and black lipstick.)

Florence and the Machine -- The End of Love

Anna. This oozes everything she is. Your heart climbs up into your throat, and you want to sing because it aches, but you can’t, because you don’t know all the words and your voice isn’t so good. So you hum along as loud as you can and mouth them against the bathroom wall while the shower runs. The way she feels when the universe is asleep and she stands outside alone watching the trees.

*(Anna’s from a story about the universe, a woman, and the earth sharing a little house in the midwestern U.S.)

Panic! at the Disco -- One of the Drunks

Oscar. Hell yes. Just the whirling mix of purpose and confusion and regret and motivation that fills him up and drives him.

*(Oscar’s from a steampunk story about the accidental creation of living // sentient? // AI. He’s a blimp/steamship repairman at the time of the story’s start.)

And, bonus song (because I can’t leave this one out. it’s been my power anthem for over a week):

Panic! at the Disco -- High Hopes

Sophia from Bellicose and David from my (currently untitled) story with the planets, pirates and such.

Sophia because it embodies the loud, constant chaos, the desperation, the thrill and adrenaline and power she holds over herself, but also the loss.

David, just because he is a mess. He has no idea what the fuck he’s doing.

*(Sophia tags along with a vampire on the hunt for revenge against the murder of her abusive uncle and nanny. Involves much magic, blood, and fantastical creatures.)

*(Futuristic YouTuber impersonates a famous author to go into space.)

Tag games are so much fun! Here’s my tags: @morriganwrites-0124 @hazeywrites @robbyiswriting @lavenderfables @forlornraven @elliewritesfantasy.

As always, you’re not required to fill it out if you’re not interested-- and if you want to play but weren’t tagged, feel free to say I tagged you!

[memeasaurus-promptus]

Please Reblog This If It’s Okay To:

Send questions about yourself

Ask questions to/about your characters

Ask about your headcanons 

Send questions about your works (fanfics, art, music, RPs, etc) 

Ask about popular ships/headcanons

Ask about plot ideas you’ve had but haven’t acted upon yet (snippets of AUs, a scenario you wish to write/draw but haven’t gotten to yet)

Questions about other ships/headcanons that aren’t as popular or are rarepairs

Questions or comments about favorite tropes, headcanons, characters, foods, weather, or anything else you are okay in answering!

[dustfingerwrites]

Rules: Tag 20 people you want to know better Tagged by: @robbyiswriting (*thumbs up*)

Name: Taylor Gender: They/them Height: 5′5″ Hogwarts house: Ravenpuff (nearly tied, Hufflepuff came out slightly on top) Favorite animal: Killer whales, African Elephants, White-Tailed Deer, Quarter horses, and dinosaurs. Cats or dogs: Both. I used to have a lot of cats, and now only have a dog. I prefer dogs though. Dream trip: Camping trip to upstate NY or Maine. Love the wild. And tents. Dream job: Author or Park Ranger. I don’t know about tagging 20 people but here’s some for now... @firewritten @captain-liddy @awolfthatwrites @eternalspandex-writing @ravenpuffwriter

Feel free to say I tagged you if you just feel like filling it out!

[dustfingerwrites]

The Beginning to an End

Mud.

The sight of it. Silk and water. Slick, full of bubbles, curled up at the edges like third-degree burns.

The smell of it. Bitter and earthy. Thick, rolling in clouds down the back of your throat, like the air just after it rains.

The feel of it. Cool and smooth. Moist, gritty between your fingers, under your nails, caked on your heels.

The taste of it. Rough and sharp.

I want you to stand in it, barefoot, alone, in the half-lit twilight hour when the roaches are all that moves and the air is so still that you wonder if you’re ever truly breathing.

I want you to wiggle your toes in it, burrow them down like worms, deep into the cool dark soil so the water trickles up from below and wets the cuffs of your jeans. I want you to feel it sucking at your skin, hungrily, greedy, as though it thinks it has the depth of an ocean and not just that of a puddle. I want you to live the mud, breathe it, long for it so badly that your very soul aches. I want you to feel its desperation. I want you to feel its hunger.

The mud needs to eat too.

There was a time when it was satisfied. When the world did not notice its existence, when the bugs that crawled across its surface, the eggs that hatched under its skin, the animal prints left to bake in the sun on its forehead, were all that it knew and all that it wanted. It languished in the rippling evening, flourished with the sunrise, dried by the afternoon and woke again come morning. The dew was its sole companion and the rain its giver of life.

And then the thunder. Distant, muffled. Crackling, sobering, splitting the sky night after night and on through the day as it neared and it grew. The mud heard, and the mud wondered, and the mud looked on in great terror and doubt. Great clouds of smoke and ash rose to the heavens and mice and antelope fled before the fires and blades that came from beneath, and the mud was trampled by the weight of their fear. It bubbled and spat and craned itself as high as it could and as far as its spindly arms could reach, seeking the bounds of the land that it ruled, growing and swarming and drowning as it crept across the earth. Creatures went down in its wake and it paused but a moment for them, so powerful was its yearning, its curiosity.

At the edge of the marsh, where the forest meets the river and the fresh water meets the sea, the mud stopped its travels, and there it lay and watched what grew on the other side of the currents. Rising against the brilliant sky, backdropped by jungle and mountainsides, gleaming with chrome and singular purpose, were the abodes of these new things which sought to call the ground home, that ground where the mud simmered and thought as hard as it could on what such a thing could be that could construct a spire so tall and so sleek that it could rival the sun itself in all of its shining glory.

They tried to enter the marshes, they did. Their hearts beat too fast for the air that they breathed, their bodies too weak for the ground which they trod. Their minds processed danger too slowly, too sudden was the retaliation which they found in the trees. Imposters, thought rock, bush, bramble and stone, imposters, thought the mud, where it lay under their feet. They tripped like children through the reeds and pools, fell splashing and barking in the holes where the night-walkers spent the light hours, tumbled and tossed pebbles into the oceans they stood still and gazed at for hours on end.

When they began to die, one by one, to the bugs or the snows or the Storm, the mud watched each one of them go down. The entire planet watched them perish, watched their children stagger swollen and drunk on exhaustion from one hillock of grass to the next before collapsing into the dirt. Their bodies washed up on the banks of the rivers, clogged the narrow inlets along the marshes and the sea, stacked against the base of the mountains and mesa, and fell to rot and ruin everywhere in-between. They came wandering from their shining cities to die, as though they could sense it’d be best to be absorbed into the ground rather than burned like those who came before, and one by one, all of them, their hearts ceased to beat.

It could have started because of what they ate. It could have started because of the air they breathed. It could have started because one got sick and all the rest went down in ripe succession. It could have been anything at all, so weak they were.

The mud saw, and the mud wondered, but the mud no longer cared.

An intro/preview to one of WIPs, the one about the planets and such.

Requested tags: @eternalspandex-writing @firewritten

Feel free to ask to be tagged, or ask any questions! I’m still new to this sharing thing. Any criticism is very appreciated as well.

[dustfingerwrites]

Hello there!

I’m not exactly new to Tumblr, but this is the first time I’ve set up a writeblr. I figured I’d throw out an intro post just to get my feet wet.

For anonymity’s sake, you can call me Dusty (they/them pronouns please); I’m a 20-something year old living in the Northeastern United States. I’m currently studying Geography with hopes of a future career in a National Park close to home.

I write as more of a hobby than anything else, and even then, not much. I hope to change that as time goes on.

I generally write poetry and fiction-- prose for the first, horror/fantasy/sci fi for the second. I’m occasionally commissioned to write backstories, lore, etc for characters on other websites.

Current projects? Right now focusing on getting back into writing, with two WIPs in the forefront, both unnamed (and in various stages of conception). The first is a collection of prose about a woman and the literal personification of the earth and the universe, among other beings; the second involves space pirates, sentient planets, and lots and lots of accidental murder.

I will also keep writing my poetry, as that’s my comfy place most of the time.

My favorite parts of writing are self-exploration, world-building, and playing with perspective and language. I love messing around with different ways to present ideas and rephrasing things until it clicks just right.

My main tumblr is @dustfingers-ferret; I’ll be looking for fellow writeblrs to follow here and over there. My writing will be posted under the hashtag #dustywrites, for easy locating later.

Thanks to @alicevanduuren (I may have used your writeblr intro as a way to form mine, as just thinking about writing one made me nervous) and @firewritten for guidance on how to begin.