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Writing prompts, tips, and cursed ancient knowledge from Finicky Quint, or whoever succeeds in hacking this account.

[finickyquint]

Your YA novel title is:

A (object closest to you on the left) of (last thing you spent money on) and (your current emotion)

Add your results in the tags!

[finickyquint]

Focus Features and I are having some feelings together about Emma (2020)

[filmgifs]

We gather here in this time of man’s great innocence. Innocence? Emma (2020) dir. Autumn de Wilde

[finickyquint]

Petition to stop calling it original fiction, and instead call it professional fiction. Wicked is no more original than that fanfic you posted on AO3. The only difference is that Wicked plays with a story that’s no longer under copyright, so the author could make money from it. That’s the only difference. Professional writing you can sell, and fanfiction you can’t (yet).

[fyp-science]

What an astonishing thing a book is. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time.

Carl Sagan (via wordsnquotes)

[finickyquint]

To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it

Osho

[finickyquint]

Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources

C.E.M. Joad

[finickyquint]

✨ when you see this post, add 1 line to your WIP to receive 1 week of good luck! ✨

[finickyquint]

are you Finicky Quint

I am indeed.

[finickyquint]

Working on your WIP like...

[finickyquint]

Hello, lovelies!

I just made a Twitter account (@ FinickyQuint), so come follow me there if you like. 🌱

[finickyquint]

Don’t apologize for writing something “self indulgent”. Fiction is supposed to be fun. It’s your chance to bring all the things you love to life, exactly the way you want them to be. This is one of the main reasons fanfiction is so popular, because fic writers allow themselves to indulge in all of their favorite tropes (which happen to be many readers’ favorites too). If your writing is “self indulgent,” that just means you’re writing something you actually enjoy--and, chances are, that other people would enjoy also.

You’ve probably heard the saying, “Walk in the direction of your fear.” Now, it’s time to write in the direction of your self indulgence. 

[finickyquint]

No matter how few views, likes, reblogs, comments, etc. you get on your writing, spending time writing is like putting in hours at the gym. You’re developing techniques in characterization, wordbuilding, plotting, organization, pacing, voice, description, and more. You’re building your writing muscles. Being a successful writer is much less about flashes of inspiration and groundbreaking ideas, and much more about having the learned (and practiced) skills to execute a story well. Learn the skills, trust the process, and you can make almost any idea into something special.

[finickyquint]

Writers, straighten your backs.

[finickyquint]

How would you go about making a "writer-sona?" I tried looking up Fernando Pessoa and how he made his heteronyms, but I couldn’t find anything.

There’s really no right or wrong way to do it. My advice would be to start with an idea of the project you want to write (genre, style, etc.) and then think about the type of person you would imagine writing it. Who could pull off that kind of story? What’s their name? What’s their background? You can keep it basic or answer more detailed questions to flesh out the character more; that’s all up to you. Mainly though, the goal is to create a character who you believe would be able to write what you want to write.

I hope that helps!

~Fin

[finickyquint]

I am someone who wants to be writing, but I have a lot of issues involving anxiety and perfectionism that are all intermingled with my ADHD that make trying to get started writing really hard for me. Like I can't just write without going back and fixing mistakes I notice while I'm writing. I don't know how to shut off my inner critic so I can just write and get it out on paper before I try editing.

First of all, don’t beat yourself up about it. That problem is extremely normal. I would say the vast majority of writers can relate. 

There are two apps I know that might help:

Write or Die (You can set it to give you rewards for writing or punishments for not writing. I used this during NaNoWriMo–the year I won it–and found that my desire to stop loud, obnoxious noises from coming out of my computer was stronger than my perfectionism. 10/10 would recommend.)

Draft (I haven’t used this yet myself, but you can set it to Hemingway Mode, which doesn’t allow you to go back and edit anything. You can only keep writing. Cut out temptation altogether!)

Good luck!

~Fin

[finickyquint]

*previous anon* When I read my writing after a couple of days, or changing the format (ink, on computer screen vs. phone), I realize that the work is convulted. And when my writing gets critiqued, people often say they ate unsure about what's going on.

It might help to spend more time outlining your writing before you sit down to write. I know many writers like to “pants” it (i.e. write by the seat of their pants, not planning it), but it’s so easy to go off on tangents, get sidetracked, and generally lose the thread of what you wanted to say. An outline gives you a road map that keeps you on track and helps you move from one plot point to the next in a logical way. You might try adding more detail to your main outline, so that you can see the whole story’s plot together. Also, each time you sit down to write, try starting by outlining what you want to happen in that scene or chapter (and check that it matches up with your main outline).

If you think the problem is the writing style, try simplifying your prose. Shorter sentences. More common words. Write more conversationally. You can always add more detail or description later when you edit!

Good luck!

~Fin