step i. buy another notebook

Sparrow // she/they A writeblr sideblog. Please don’t use my ideas without permission.

[inkstainslikefreedom]

in winter everything sharpens

frostbitten senses honed

into brittle pinprick icebursts

[eatingjupiter]

everything begins with something inside of something else. a man in a woman , a child in a woman , a woman in a child , a man in a box , a girl in dreams. all round and round till everything blurs and your holding a person off the edge of themselves.

now our everything here begins with a boy in a house . a boy well aged - and sweeter than sweet. a lick of sugar so tender it melts your tongue to hold prayers at his feet. everything begins with something else inside. and this boy begins with a fear of teeth . of walls falling over to feel him till they get inside to hold him down.

everything is a lot to measure , but in the space of the boy and the house and its simply the way the house watches the boy. the way it wants to be a man to stuff itself into the boy like he sees on the dirty little shows the boy sneaks of to wet himself on.

so we enter on a set of players - the hunter and prey . a trap inside a person , ticking hunger down a night of wanton desire. here cannibalism lies sweetly to the side for everything begins when a need to devour the one you love arises. where everything begins with a boy in a wilderness that plays itself as a house. a cold thing with long limbs and secrets in every corner , peeling off the walls to sit itself in god.

as it goes everything begins with something else inside of it.

for @nosebleedclub 's prompt dated january first , twenty-twenty-four : EVERYTHING BEGINS - taglist @snickiebear and @smidgen-of-hotboy .

[inkstainslikefreedom]

you will set the world on fire and you will drag your battered body through the flames and you will go to bed with soot ground into your skin and you will wake up the next morning with smoking embers for a heart and you will

still have to put away the laundry

still have to do the dishes

still have to take out the trash

still have to keep the ashes of your being from crumpling into a wet heap

because you lit the fire. you struck the match. you piled up the kindling and fanned the flames and looked the world in the eye and said it was over. and now you don’t get to complain that the explosion you triggered burned you too.

so you will do the laundry. and you will take out the trash. and you will wait for the smoke to clear. and you will find a way to rebuild.

[inkstainslikefreedom]

How is it that when the door closes, it leaves me and my breath on opposite sides — me here, aching; my breath with you, nestled in your coat pocket. Yet my breath must still be tethered to my lungs, because I can feel a tension pulling at me, ratcheting as you travel further and further from me, demanding I run after you and snatch back what is mine. If I spent a thousand hours assigning metaphors to the tangle of emotions twisting in my core, I’m sure I could write a lovely poem drenched in sweet agony. But this is a raw kind of despair that is flooding my lungs, that will drown me if I don’t spill it, unkempt, into these ragged lines, a facsimile for breathing, the real thing tucked into your coat as it is, and me on the other side of the door as I am.

[nosebleedclub]

Are you secretly in love?

[inkstainslikefreedom]

There is a story my father used to tell me when I was a child, a translation of a set of verses from the Ramayana about a woman named Shabari. In this story, Shabari was visited by the gods Ram and Laxman, whom she offered fruit from the nearby orchard. In an effort to serve with utmost devotion, she tasted each fruit before preferring it, wanting the gods to enjoy only the sweetest flavors on their tongues. Laxman—impetuous younger brother that he was—scoffed at her. “How can you expect me to eat this soiled food,” he asked, “already tainted with your preconsumption, your having enjoyed it before us?”

But Ram scolded him: “This fruit is a testament to her love for us. With every bite Shabari takes, every fruit she soils, she bears the burden of tasting sour spoiled rotten flesh so that we may be spared that unpleasantness ourselves.”

As Ram knew Shabari loved him, so does my lover know I love him. I tell him in words, yes, but also in soft touches, our fingers skimming past one other; in surprise postcards mailed from all corners of the country; in small adventures, mundane experiences; in eating the first slice of every clementine I peel, judging its sweetness to decide whether to offer him the rest. My love is no secret, but it comes secretly at times—in gestures so small as to be unseen, defined only by the absence of defects, burdens borne to spare him an imperfect joy.

[nosebleedclub]

What does your regret taste like?

[inkstainslikefreedom]

“There’s all these things I used to want,” I say without prelude, “that I don’t want anymore. They wouldn’t bring me any joy now. Once they would have, when I was still a younger me, not yet disillusioned.” The cold air distracts me momentarily; I exhale with intention, pretend I’m a dragon. He smiles indulgently and doesn’t say anything, just waits for me to make my point. “I don’t want to follow those dreams now, don’t mind leaving them in the past, unfulfilled. But I regret leaving behind a version of me who will always be left wanting. Do you know what I mean? I wish she—the me from eight years ago, the me who thought she had forever to go after the things she wanted because she would want those things forever—I wish she’d gotten the things she wanted.”

“You could still make those dreams come true,” he points out. “It wouldn’t be the same, but it could be something. Closure for the girl you used to be.”

“I guess, but—” I try to conjure the words to convey the incompatibility between the wants that lay aching in the past and the person I am now but the words are ash in my mouth, they carry the acrid tang of a medicinal capsule that refuses to be swallowed, sitting at the back of my tongue and disintegrating into powder and demanding to be tasted, they are buried in the gums that once held my wisdom teeth as if taunting me for lacking the knowledge of how to pry them free. They flit capriciously out or reach, recede into the distance as I chase after them, like a moon pursued from the backseat of a car racing down the highway, and in defeat I cobble together a response from the only words that are left to me: “Yeah. It wouldn’t be the same.”

[nosebleedclub]

Discussion 4/8/22

1. Dream of you

2. Spring playlist

3. Another universe

4. Fluffy

5. In secret

[violas-notebook]

1. 

eyes wide open you

pierce my feeble chest through mist 

cruel dichotomy 

2.

i’ve been listening

to a lot of silences 

in between doorways 

3.

vines and leaves and teeth

circle this dreamspace like the

serpent embraced eve 

4. 

sugar on my tongue

stings gritty like sand - i can’t

taste this memory

5.

and the old moon waxed

gently over the rocking 

chair and its stories

[nosebleedclub]

What have you realized recently?

[inkstainslikefreedom]

At sixteen I decided, I will be happy when I am in college, when I am in my own space, when I find a community that does not judge and a family that I chose myself. At nineteen, in college, loved and accepted, I decided, I will be happy when I find a job that utilizes my skills and passions both, rather than one alone, a job that I choose free of external pressures. At twenty-one, working in an industry that valued my intelligence and creativity and adaptability and efficiency, I decided, I will be happy when I find my own apartment, when I can display my own books and listen to music without headphones, suffering no one else’s messes but my own.

In this decade, wanting has become habit. Striving has become habit. Ambition, hunger, knowing I’m better than this - all, habit.

At twenty-four, sitting at my desk with fandom prints adorning the walls and crafting supplies strewn across the coffee table and a vase of flowers wilting slowly, it is tempting to fall prey to habit. To decide, happiness will come with professional recognition; with marriage; with higher education; with international travel.

But happiness, too, is a habit, practiced each time I stop and light a candle, or play video games with my friends, or read a book, or vacuum so I can enjoy walking on crumb-free hardwood. With time, this, too, will become a well-worn path in the garden of my contentment, provided I take care to walk it on occasion.

[creativepromptsforwriting]

any tips for writing road trips?

Hi :)

How to write a road trip

For a road trip there are a few things to consider that change how you go about it:

Purpose

Just wanting to have a road trip

Is there a specific place they need to go to?

What is going to wait for them at the end?

Route

If there is a specific place, they need to be at they should take the direct route there

If it’s just for fun they can go and stop in any direction whenever they want

You can include some obstacles, like road blocks, traffic jams, construction sites, getting lost, etc.

If you use actual places, try to figure out the time it takes to get from point A to point B

Sleeping arrangements

A few options: in the car, in a tent, in a motel

Depends on where they are, their budget and the weather

Passengers

How many people are in the car?

What is their relationship?

Are they carefree and happy or is there tension between them?

Plot points

The plot is like a road trip itself - it moves from one point to another and then ends at a point you choose

So, you can choose different stations during the trip to include different plot points and further the plot

Maybe something major always happens when they have to stay in the car with nowhere else to go

Maybe they only have important conversations at night

End of the trip

You should interconnect the end of the trip with the end of the plot you wanted to get across

It’s like reaching the destination in both aspects

That makes for the most satisfying end for the reader

Road Trip Ideas

picnic at the side of the road

quick bathroom breaks

having a snack stock pile

homemade sandwiches

getting lost

fights about which way to go

being stuck in traffic

the perfect road trip playlist

and still fighting over the music

phone batteries being dangerously low and no way to charge them

trying to read an actual paper map

packing too many useless things

while forgetting something important

looking out for places to sleep

contemplating if the creepy motel is worth it

sleeping in the car, uncomfortable in all the wrong places

sleeping under the starry sky

not seeing a single soul for miles

randomly stopping at interesting things

watching the sun set and rise again

measuring time with McDonald’s signs they see

visiting small towns

coming across ghost towns

exploring the remnants of civilization

arriving at their destination feeling either more connected to each other or farther away from each other

I hope you enjoy this and have fun writing it!

- Jana

[nosebleedclub]

How can you tell if you are healing?

[inkstainslikefreedom]

In my bullet journal I keep a mood tracker, a grid of empty squares systematically flooded with one of six colors corresponding to one of six states of well-being. This is a new concept to me—tracking my mood. Keeping a record; the luxury of remembrance.

Who cares to remember a childhood dripping red? Red ink tallying the days I managed to move from future to past; red-hot rage shoving my shame and desperation into the pit of my belly; red on my mother’s lips as she cut me to size; red palms hidden in clenched fists as I waged silent wars against the tide.

I used to dream of blue: skies, flowers, painted walls. Of purple and pink: candles, wine, flowers in vases, oversized sweaters. Green: hiking through forests, ink on my skin. Of goldenrod and magenta and lilac and silver; a life without red: prismatic. Happy. Healed.

Today the sky was swollen with rain clouds and and my flower vase sat empty and disappointment burned fiery in my veins. When I sit down to assign today a color, I will pluck a red pen from the pack. Life is not so easy; wounds do not disappear without a trace.

But today was also pink (wine poured into glasses adorned with hand-painted roses) and green (my favorite shirt layered over a cute bra I bought last week) and purple (melted candle wax solidifying in a repurposed jar on the table) and orange (fresh fruit piled haphazardly on my kitchen countertop), a rainbow enhanced, not marred, by the red within it. Today was a kaleidoscope. A reminder that scar tissue is not a testament to an injury you failed to avoid; it is a record, bold and red and marked, screaming I survived, and I built myself up, and I’m all the stronger for it.

[nosebleedclub]

Did the pain

[inkstainslikefreedom]

soften my edges?

or was it simply the anvil

on which i molded my being

into shape?

[nosebleedclub]

I haven’t seen god

[inkstainslikefreedom]

since I was 7, kneeling palms-together before the shrine, repeating words in a language I spoke but didn’t know

under my mother’s watchful gaze I pressed first sindoor then haldi then a single grain of uncooked rice to a golden forehead hardly bigger than my fingertip, and when my mother closed her eyes I

kept mine open and searched minuscule bronze pupils for some hint of otherworldly presence, transcendent benediction

asked: are you there; are you watching; can you tell me if I’m good enough; can you tell me how to atone;

and god said: why should I distill my essence into 100 grams of silver rather than the gradual carving of aquifers into bedrock or the ebullience of frolicking through air currents with the eagles; why should I have eyes only when you provide them; why should your sins weigh heavier upon me than those of the raging ocean or the mountains that will not bow their heads

and god said: you will not find me by making me in your image

and god promised: seek the slivers of me dispersed among the infinite entities under my care and lay them one atop the other and in the amalgam you will discover the shape of me

two decades later my search has barely started and I will still be looking when I’m on my deathbed and if I am granted another life to continue paying penance my search will go with me

some days I think that must be the point

[starving4satisfaction]

HOW WAS YOUR SUMMER?

My summer was:

[she who double-knots her shoe laces like it matters and breaks hearts like it doesn't]

[when the new wears off and the new sets in/my brows are heavy holding up my tear-filled eyes/the skies weep for you]

[freckles I've never met before litter my skin and the bright July sun exposes pieces of myself I forgot existed]

[I want to be buried in the color green. I want to soak into the earth like water poured over a flower]

[Tell me why I can't come home and I will tell you why I left]

[I can no longer tell if I am falling apart or coming together these days]

[Every time I go into town I hope I’ll see you. We could live 1000 miles apart, and every time I went into town I would still hope I saw you]

[I know that you shouldn’t be in my life but that doesn’t mean I know how to live without you in it]

[I can’t remember which wrist I used to wear my bracelets on. And I don’t know my child hood friends voice/But I know the curve of your calf by heart and every time your favorite song comes on, I remember every word/And I still see your eyes when I close mine]

[If I could…if I could do anything, I would crack open my ribs and show you every thought that’s ever lined the walls of this body of mine and hope you understood why I did what I did. Why I did everything I ever did. I hope you would know how sorry I am. I hope you would know how much I loved you. How much I love you. How much I’ll always love you. How much a piece of me will always crave you, will always want to drop everything and run to you at the sound of your voice]

[She, who is willing to sell her life story to anyone at the cost of companionship]

[I just need to know that it mattered to you as much as it did to me]

[I don’t know how to live a life that’s not built around loving you]

[I paint the kitchen in my underwear; the cabinets need touching up, you see. And the trim could use a nice wash. My stomach flat against the floor, the arm stretched to the wall, the brush covering the scuff marks, my mouth exhaling songs established upon your name.]

[I just want to call you and say I still love you, I’m still here/Where are you?]

[I want to crack my head open and pour it out onto a plate for you/I want to spoon-feed you my brain/You say it is a galaxy, here, eat my stardust]

[I need to gently weep/I need to viciously weep]

[The window open. The air flowing in as freely as the tears streaming down my cold-pink cheeks]

[linkinmoon]

Anne Sexton, A Self- Portrait in Letters

[inkstainslikefreedom]

I wish I knew how to speak to you in a voice you could hear

[anghraine]

so I’m looking at short story publishers (fantasy)

Tor, cream of the crop. 25 cents a word. Stories can be read for free (YES). Slowish response time at ~3 months. Prefer under 12k, absolute maximum is 17.5k. Don’t bother if it’s not highly professional quality. SFWA qualifying.

Crossed Genres. 6 cents a word. Different theme each month (this month’s is “failure”). Submissions must combine either sci-fi or fantasy with the theme. Response time 1 month. 1k-6k, no exceptions. SFWA qualifying.

Long Hidden, anthology from CG. 6 cents a word. 2k-8k, no exceptions. Must take place before 1935. Protagonist(s) must be under 18 and marginalized in their time and place. Must be sci-fi/fantasy/horror. Deadline 30 April. Response by 1 October.

Queers Destroy Science Fiction. Sci-fi only right now, author must identify as queer (gay, lesbian, bi, ace, pan, trans, genderfluid, etc, just not cishet). 7.5k max. Deadline 15 February. Responses by 1 March. You can submit one flash fiction and one short story at the same time. (My network blocks the Lightspeed site for some reason, so I can’t get all the submission details. >_>) Probably SFWA qualifying?

Women in Practical Armor. 6 cents a word. 2k-5k. Must be about 1) a female warrior who 2) is already empowered and 3) wears sensible armour. Deadline 1 April. Response within three months.

Fiction Vortex. $10 per story, with $20 and $30 for editor’s and readers’ choice stories (hoping to improve). Speculative fiction only. Imaginative but non-florid stories. 7.5k maximum, preference for 5k and under. (I kind of want to support them on general principle.)

Urban Fantasy Magazine. 6 cents a word. 8k max, under 4k preferred. Must be urban fantasy (aka, the modern world, doesn’t need to be a literal city). 

Nightmare. 6 cents a word. 1.5-7.5k, preference for under 5k. Horror and dark fantasy. Response time up to two weeks. SFWA and HWA qualifying.

Apex Magazine. 6 cents a word. 7.5k max, no exceptions. Dark sci-fi/fantasy/horror. SFWA qualifying.

Asimov’s Science Fiction. 8-10 cents a word. 20k max, 1k minimum. Sci-fi; borderline fantasy is ok, but not S&S. Prefer character focused. Response time 5 weeks; query at 3 months. SFWA qualifying, ofc.

Buzzy Mag. 10 cents a word. 10k max. Should be acceptable for anyone 15+. Response time 6-8 weeks. SFWA qualifying.

Strange Horizons. 8 cents a word. Speculative fiction. 10k max, prefers under 5k. Response time 40 days. Particularly interested in diverse perspectives, nuanced approahces to political issues, and hypertexts. SFWA qualifying. 

Fantasy and Science Fiction. 7-12 cents a word. Speculative fiction, preference for character focus, would like more science-fiction or humour. 25k maximum. Prefers Courier. Response time 15 days.

Scigentasy. 3 cents a word. .5-5k. Science-fiction and fantasy, progressive/feminist emphasis. Fantastic Stories of the Imagination. 15 cents a word. 3k maximum. Any sci-fi/fantasy, they like a literary bent. (psst, steinbecks!) They also like to see both traditional and experimental approaches. Response time two weeks. 

Beneath Ceaseless Skies. 6 cents a word. 10k maximum. Fantasy in secondary worlds only (it can be Earth, but drastically different—alternate history or whatever). Character focus, prefer styles that are lush yet clear, limited first or third person narration. Response time usually 2-4 weeks, can be 5-7 weeks. SFWA qualifying.

Clarkesworld. 10 cents a word up to 4000, 7 afterwards. 1-8k, preferred is 4k. Science-fiction and fantasy. Needs to be well-written and convenient to read on-screen. Appreciates rigour. No talking cats. Response time 2 days. SFWA qualifying.

Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show. 6 cents a word. Any length. Science-fiction and fantasy (along with fantastic horror). Good world-building and characterization. Clear straightforward prose. Response time three months. Yes, OSC is editor-in-chief. SFWA qualifying.

Interzone. Sub-pro rates if anything (but highly respected). 10k max. Short cover letter. Science-fiction and fantasy.

[minutia-r]

Whenever I see a post like this, I feel like I have to tell people about the Submission Grinder.  I just did a search on it and it came up with 135 markets that pay for fantasy short stories. You can search by genre, pay rate, length of story they accept, etc, and it’s constantly being updated, which a post like this can’t be, and you can also use it to keep track of what you’ve sent where and when, and since a lot of people use it for this purpose it’s got a lot of good data about response times and so on. If you are trying to sell fiction or poetry on the regular, it is such a useful tool and I encourage everyone to use it.

[salty-inc]

There should be more “coming of age” movies set not in teenage years

[salty-inc]

coming of age stories that feature characters who are primarily 15-19 really fucked with my perception of adulthood and growing up. Yea there’s a lot of stuff that happens in that phase of your life that shape you as a person but rarely does an event change you to the point where you come out of it all Mature and Grown Up. Feeling like I need to be ready to face the world by the time I’m 20 has given me too much anxiety than it’s worth.

When I ask older people when they finally felt like a “real adult” the answer has constantly been when they were 26-30. Their personal “coming of age” story happens about a decade after they do on the movies.

You don’t need feel Grown Up right away. Enjoy the bubbling uncertainty of your 20s