occasionally subtle
Stranger Things
noise dept.
tannertan36
Cosimo Galluzzi
styofa doing anything
Misplaced Lens Cap
d e v o n
JBB: An Artblog!
Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
祝日 / Permanent Vacation
Monterey Bay Aquarium
dirt enthusiast
todays bird
trying on a metaphor
Kaledo Art
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
No title available
will byers stan first human second
JVL
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@kevindamenauthor-blog
I love libraries
Just by looking at these pictures, I get this weird desire to hoard and collect books, and to become a successful writer so I can actually pay for an epic library of my own. Because let's be honest: we all want be able to say: "Meet me in the library at midnight."
When those opening lines start to slowly take shape.
I turned it into this, which may well be the opening to my next novel.
...
1 THE NIGHT BEFORE THE MORNING AFTER
Every living creature needs an escape from reality every so often or it risks losing what sanity it has collected over the course of its pitiful existence; I suppose I too have dreamed up wild delusions to cope with the inevitability of death. The Clock, inanimate but undoubtedly insane to its very core, stood in the attic of my grandparent's house, has done so for as long as I can remember, and will remain there as long as I live. I can only describe the Clock as a relic from a century long gone, but one with a face that makes promises of centuries yet to come. Its innards, those gears that will grind on forever and ever, they keep time with perfect precision, mostly. It hammers away the seconds, minutes, and hours of the day. My nerves become frayed whenever I think of the Clock, and whatever lives in between its tick and its tock hungers relentlessly, I am sure.
It's been thirteen years since I have last made my way up the winding stairs that lead to the attic, and the sight of the Clock was a shock to be sure. The scarce light my flashlight cast granted it an ominous shadow. The Clock and its creeping shadow loomed over the well-hole like a tower of darkness, as grotesquely gargantuan as my childhood memories have always suggested it must be. As it looked down on me, doubt gnawed away at my resolve to return to the house. If Nana Cole had anyone but me to turn to, I would have split. But no, I stood watching the pendulum's metal curves reflect a hungry grin at me, a sure sign I should run while I still had the chance, and assured myself it was nothing but an overly active imagination. With every step up the stairs the silence in between the pendulum's swings -shouldn't the ticks that marked the end of its oscillation come with satisfying regularity?- grew minutely longer. Nonsense, of course. Just bad memories that clung to the place and turned the attic's grey mood a brooding black.
Rain pattered softly onto the roof shingles above my head; a bucket put out to catch the drops of water dripping down from a leak added its metallic voice to the rhythmic chorus of raps ringing out across the attic. Stacks of firewood were lined against the side wall, and they were the reason I came up here in the first place. Nana had let the fire die, and by the time I arrived the ground floor had gotten cold. She's gotten much worse since I've last seen her.
I had nearly gotten used to the constant rapping of rain and the clock hands' incessant ticking, when the Clock chimed six. The discordant twang rang out from deep inside the Clock's guts, disgustingly overwhelming, and I was sure I would be able to hear the Clock's call anywhere in the house, despite the considerable size of it. The sound resonated with parts of me, uneasy memories perhaps, buried as deep as I'd been able to stick them.
Thirteen years ago, the terror started at the chime of six, and even though it's hard to conjure up an image of what happened, I am dreadfully sure it hasn't stopped since...
...
If you read this, please let me know what you thought, even if it's criticism ;)
When those opening lines start to slowly take shape.
Wanted: Horror Novelists doing Nanowrimo 2018
I was thinking of creating a Discord server for the duration of Preptober and November in order to maintain an open line of communication to like-minded writers, a place to discuss and share our writing and to encourage one another. Interested? Reblog, and reply or message me. Not interested. Just reblog it anyway. You might help me find a perfect writing buddy!
Cheers
What do you think of this premise?
A cosmic fear and flesh-eating entity takes the likeness of a human doctor and makes its lair (an extradimensional labyrinth) inside a rusty refrigerator in the local junkyard so it can prey on the locals' fear of death.
I didn’t realise that even a short review could be so important!
Review, review!
Today’s plans:
Editing a whopping 50.000 words, possibly pulling an all-nighter in order to be able to submit my novel in time. I was confident about it until I saw the call for submissions and doubt settled in. One more journey through its pages then.
Okay. Eight hours in and I’ve managed to make note of all the corrections I need to make. Now to properly format the manuscript and include those corrections!
Hour 18: I have made it. Edits are done. The manuscript is submitted. Now one of two things will happen: I'll either be able to start a rejection collection, or I'm going to be a published novelist in a couple months.
Today’s plans:
Editing a whopping 50.000 words, possibly pulling an all-nighter in order to be able to submit my novel in time. I was confident about it until I saw the call for submissions and doubt settled in. One more journey through its pages then.
Okay. Eight hours in and I've managed to make note of all the corrections I need to make. Now to properly format the manuscript and include those corrections!
What cramming half of Nanowrimo into a single day can teach you about writing
Now that I’ve gotten a bit of sleep, I wanted to do a post mortem on the 24-hour writing challenge, because honestly all of the most important lessons that came from it are things that you can absolutely apply to your writing life without ever having to do anything crazy like sacrifice an entire weekend to wordsmithing.
Here’s what we found out works, and tips for success for getting your own projects done – no matter what they are.
Just write. It sounds so cliche, but honestly, this is the single most powerful lesson of the whole experience. The biggest thing you can do for yourself is to get out of your own way and just sit down and write.
This means no excuses and no self-sabotage. This does not mean that you absolutely must sit down to write every day or you’re not a real writer or any such nonsense – it means letting go of the guilt and hidden rules and misplaced self-preservation that’s making you procrastinate. You’ll be honestly amazed at how much you can accomplish when that’s all you’re doing, even if it’s just for a short period.
Hold yourself accountable. Even better, get other people involved to hold you accountable. Schedule a specific time for writing, and tell people that you will be writing during that period. Make it hard to back out. Get a writing buddy and hold each other accountable.
Do short sprints. We did 20-minute sprints with a 10-minute break after, and reliably hit nearly the same word count on every single one. Doing this, we reliably found ourselves hitting about 1,500 - 2,000 words an hour. If you can do 1,000 words in a sprint, you can have a 60,000 word novel complete in two months writing just 20 minutes every day, and I promise you can find 20 minutes each day to write. Work smarter, not harder.
(I know not everybody’s gonna clear 1,000 words in 20 minutes due to typing speed etc. - but do a few of them, figure out your rate, and embrace it).
Use your non-writing time to prepare for your writing time. Let’s say you have a super busy life and can only commit to 20 minutes a day, tops. So how do you get your story written? You make that 20 minutes count by coming to the page prepared – which means spending time thinking about your story. You don’t have to do any formal planning if you don’t want to, but even just brainstorming, day-dreaming, etc. can help.
What helps with that? Letting yourself be bored. Leave pockets of time in your day where you have no entertainment – no podcast, no TV show, no social media, no radio, nothing. With nowhere for your mind to retreat, you can turn its powers toward your story. Your daily commute, showering, the gym, a walk through the neighborhood, the time before bed – any and all of those moments can be used to think about your story so that when you are able to get to the page, you’ve got something to write about.
Work will expand or contract to fit your expectations. Have you ever heard of Parkinson’s Law? It’s a concept that work will expand to fill the available time. In other words, if you give yourself an hour to do something, it will take an hour; if you only give yourself 20 minutes, you’ll get it done in 20 minutes. I’ve found this to be true more often than not in my life. I’ve also found that other weird factors can cause me to limit my productivity. For example: The size of the text screen when I’m writing. If I’m writing in a small window, I’ll write fewer words because the screen fills up faster. Same thing with a word count you set for yourself. If you set a 2,500 goal or a 500 goal, you might find you take exactly the same amount of time to complete them.
So, experiment. Test yourself. Set a goal, and see how you feel at the end of the session. Was it really hard? ease up a little. Did it feel like you could have done more? Inch the goal up. Figure out your happy place, and – most importantly – identify false limitations you’re putting on yourself without even realizing it.
Get out of the house. I find I’m often the most productive in an unfamiliar setting. Something about the novelty of it keeps my brain more engaged, I guess, and I’m less prone to distraction. When I’m writing on somebody else’s computer, I’m less likely to be alt-tabbing into other windows and programs. If I’m at a coffee shop, I’m less likely to screw around online instead of write (especially if I drove out and bought a coffee just to work on the book).
You don’t have to spend a whole bunch on writing in expensive cafes, btw. I’ve had pretty good success writing in fast food places – free drink refills + usually open late (sometimes even 24 hours). I’ve also written in diners, even mall food courts. Libraries are nother great options. They’re free, quiet, and usually have plenty of space to sprawl. You don’t even need a laptop: Use your 30 minutes of free internet time to do a writing sprint and, boom, you can keep up the pace on your WIP even if your PC bites the dust.
Sometimes a marathon is actually right for you. Sure, conventional wisdom says you need to write every day and build a habit. But maybe that doesn’t work for whatever reason – your life is so hectic that you just straight up cannot carve out 20 minutes a day for writing. But maybe you can take a day off to do a crazy 24-hour session every month, and you know what? If your body and your schedule can handle it, YOU DO YOU. There are no bad answers!
If you do decide to try a 24-hour challenge yourself….I recommend not waking up 9 hours before the challenge starts, for starters ;) Stay hydrated, pace your caffeine consumption, and prepare to have a recovery day handy afterward for the inevitable caffeine + tiredness hangover. You got this.
All of this is really solid advice, and fellow writblrs could do way worse than trying it out and accepting what works for them.
Also, can we just appreciate the determination a 24 hour writing marathon demands? What an achievement!
Going on a following spree!
Writers (and readers), reblog this post and message me with info about your WIP! I’ll be featuring some content on my blog, and following everyone!
Today's plans:
Editing a whopping 50.000 words, possibly pulling an all-nighter in order to be able to submit my novel in time. I was confident about it until I saw the call for submissions and doubt settled in. One more journey through its pages then.
A Poem
Dusk falls and night awakens, and I peer with heart aching,
Into shards of memories I've amassed-
The image flickers, nearly rips,
Then flashes a smile on its lips,
And mine, for it drips,
I'm sure that the shadow won't pass.
"It's nothing," I say, eclipsing my mental impasse."
"Surely it's naught but a trick of the glass."
It was inspired by the mirror-staring experiment.
writer wip asks✨
❤️: what’s the working title? 🧡: what were previous working titles/ideas? 💛: what is the title based on? 💚: how long have you been working on it? 💙: how has the idea changed between starting it and where it is now? 💜: where are you in the writing process? 🖤: what are your MC names? 💔: give a brief character bio of your 3-5 MCs ❣️: which scene has been hardest to write so far? 💕: what has your favorite scene been? 💞: which future scene are you looking forward to writing? 💓: is it part of a series or standalone? 💗: what genre is it in? 💖: are you planning on publishing it? if so, how? 💘: give us a huge spoiler 💝: who has your favorite character arch? give a brief summary 💟: how is your style different in this work compared to previous ones? has it more shifted for the story or just developed in general?
Go ahead and ask away. I'll be writing the end of it tomorrow so I should be able to answer all these.
In an interesting and unexpected turn of events; it seems I am sorta homeless.
I’m accepting emergency donations/ art comissions to try and get some money together to get myself in a semi stable spot.
My PayPal link is: paypal.me/kiwri (sadly it’s also got my deadname on it)
And for commission info shoot me a message!
Let's help a fellow human being out.
Oh, and if you're thinking:
"I'm broke, too"
at least spread the word. It's free and to someone out there it means a whole fucking lot.
Who’s up for a creative little game?
I’m playing around with this idea. NaNoWriMo is closing in and because I will be finishing a novel draft just before I’d rather spend the month writing anything else. So I decided that maybe it would be cool to write one short story a day for the entirety of the month, and to theme them around the dreadful things that happen in November. The dark months are great for dark fiction.
Instead of focusing only on the dark dwellings of my own mind I’d love to include some of yours. My suggestion is this:
Reblog this post and add your own November Dread by telling us on what you fear the most about a certain day of November. Please help me out and share this if you can. It’ll help me make my next project that much better. I’ll go first:
On November 16th the thing I dread most is visiting a particular grave, knowing that no matter how hard I try to prevent it, the picture in my mind belonging to the name engraved in stone will blur as time passes, and that I’d hate myself if I let it disappear entirely.
Don’t be shy. Join in!
Two down, 29 more to go. Care to tell me what you (or a fictional you) dreads about a certain day of November?
Who’s up for a creative little game?
I’m playing around with this idea. NaNoWriMo is closing in and because I will be finishing a novel draft just before I’d rather spend the month writing anything else. So I decided that maybe it would be cool to write one short story a day for the entirety of the month, and to theme them around the dreadful things that happen in November. The dark months are great for dark fiction.
Instead of focusing only on the dark dwellings of my own mind I’d love to include some of yours. My suggestion is this:
Reblog this post and add your own November Dread by telling us on what you fear the most about a certain day of November. Please help me out and share this if you can. It’ll help me make my next project that much better. I’ll go first:
On November 16th the thing I dread most is visiting a particular grave, knowing that no matter how hard I try to prevent it, the picture in my mind belonging to the name engraved in stone will blur as time passes, and that I’d hate myself if I let it disappear entirely.
Don't be shy. Join in!
Who's up for a creative little game?
I'm playing around with this idea. NaNoWriMo is closing in and because I will be finishing a novel draft just before I'd rather spend the month writing anything else. So I decided that maybe it would be cool to write one short story a day for the entirety of the month, and to theme them around the dreadful things that happen in November. The dark months are great for dark fiction.
Instead of focusing only on the dark dwellings of my own mind I'd love to include some of yours. My suggestion is this:
Reblog this post and add your own November Dread by telling us on what you fear the most about a certain day of November. Please help me out and share this if you can. It'll help me make my next project that much better. I'll go first:
On November 16th the thing I dread most is visiting a particular grave, knowing that no matter how hard I try to prevent it, the picture in my mind belonging to the name engraved in stone will blur as time passes, and that I'd hate myself if I let it disappear entirely.
