Leigh Writes

|| Searching for my voice || Finding it in the garden

[leighwritesstuff-blog]

Italy.

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Write like it doesn’t matter; edit like it does.

[leighwritesstuff-blog]

My first goal was to learn to write on a professional level. I had heard that a person’s first few books are usually pretty bad, and so I decided to just spend a few years writing and practicing. I wanted time to work on my prose without having to worry about publishing.  You might call this my “apprentice era.” Between 97 and 99 I wrote five novels, none of them very good. But being good wasn’t the point. I experimented a lot, writing a variety of genres. (All sf/f of course—but I did some epic, some humor, some sf.) As you can probably guess by me writing five books in two and a half years, none were very well edited and while I had a lot of fun writing them, they were done very quickly, and had a lot less planning than my later books. Not many people read any of these novels, and I only ever sent one out to publishers.

Brandon Sanderson

[leighwritesstuff-blog]

Pluto concept art.

Cats are the eyes of the underworld.

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Change is scary because you waited too long to enjoy something before it was gone.

[godzilla-reads]

“You have nice manners for a thief and a liar,” said the dragon.

J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Hobbit”

[mainflopgirl]

[erinbowbooks]

I know this is prolly about Game of Thrones, but allow me a general writerly shoutout to the power of fulfilling expectations?  By which I mean motivating your characters, laying out what’s gonna happen, and then actually doing it, no magic escape card.  Let me tell you, I this surprises readers.  I don’t know WHY it surprises readers, but it does.  And it’s so satisfying.   Subvert tropes, if you like.  Twist plots.  But here’s to expectations.  

[leighwritesstuff-blog]

Unexpected twists only hit the reader once. Strong character arcs and satisfying expectations keep readers coming back.

How many times are you willing to dip back into Lord of the Rings? Star Wars? Harry Potter? It doesn’t matter that I know they win at the end. If I connect with that story, or that character, I will probably jump back into the journey again.

(I bet you still cry every time at “You bow to no one”!)

[leighwritesstuff-blog]

i really wish i’d spent more time experiencing life

[tangledasterisms]

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The point of editing is making it look like you knew what you were doing all along.

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When someone tells me my anxiety is irrational:

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Plot Bunny

1. A plot bunny is a story idea that refuses to go away until it is written.

2. An idea for a story, usually referring to an author having more ideas than he or she can use.

[star-plasma]

bi sky (｡’▽’｡)♡ vers 2!!

// star-plasma LGBT sky collection //

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it’s okay to believe your creations are worthy

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"Not again," he sighed as he stirred a spoon of flour into his coffee.

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Do you ever wonder what you would have to achieve in your life to become a Google doodle?

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