My Writing Stuff

Poems, fanfics, Original stories, etc. Also assorted writing related posts. Updated whenever I have time to write something. -My Main Blog: maxeytheviolin.tumblr.com-

[samurots-deactivated20160616]

i just found this website that can randomly generate a continent for you!! this is great for fantasy writers

plus, you can look at it in 3d!

theres a lot of viewing options and other things! theres an option on-site to take a screenshot, so you don’t have to have a program for that!

you can view it here!

[inkskinned]

I want to write like you so bad my heart kind of hurts. I want to move mountains the way you do with your words.

don’t write like me. don’t write like anyone else. write like you.

write like the time you broke your tooth. like riding a bike without handlebars. like when the dog bit you even after you thought it liked you. like who buried the hamster. like having your hair pulled. like having to say sorry. like a mistake you never forgot and like compliments you never got. like your mother’s lipstick and your first car. like what was under the couch. like who lived in the closet. 

i write a lot. it’s a lot of practice. i’ve written a lot of things i think are bad and that’s okay. five thousand poems later and some of it is going to be junk. but it’s mine. every word of it came from me trying to find out who i was going to write like. and it turns out the best way to write is to write like my dreams and nightmares and silly heartstrings. 

you are already carrying everything you need to move mountains. you’ve got your own words, don’t you?

“This is your daily, friendly reminder to use commas instead of periods during the dialogue of your story,” she said with a smile.

[onewordtest]

“Unless you are following the dialogue with an action and not a dialogue tag.” He took a deep breath and sat back down after making the clarifying statement. 

[joehywheelah]

“However,” she added, shifting in her seat, “it’s appropriate to use a comma if there’s action in the middle of a sentence.”

[tenoko1]

“True.” She glanced at the others. “You can also end with a period if you include an action between two separate statements.”

[cj-amused]

Things I didn’t know

[prismatic-bell]

“And–” she waved a pen as though to underline her statement–“if you’re interrupting a sentence with an action, you need to type two hyphens to make an en-dash.”

You guys have no idea how many students in my advanced fiction workshop didn’t know any of this when writing their stories.

[the-mega-trans-sjw-deactivated2]

ok @ my author friends i love y’all so much but when you’re describing a character, please don’t just give me their coloring. In fact, stay away from it as much as possible.

I really don’t care about their striking blue eyes and wavy blonde hair, i want to know that they have bony elbows, a small nose that scrunches up when they are excited, I want to feel who the character is through their expression, i want to feel how the character describing them feels, I want to know that their legs are chubby but pack a mean kick, i want to know if they are short and happy about it or short and angry about it, i want to know how they express their emotions, what they look like when they think no one is looking.

 I want to know the embarrassing things, the drool left on pillows, the endearing way they sneeze like a freight train. I want to know about the crows feet in the corners of their eyes and the sadness on their face.

Nothing expresses more love than having a character describe another’s imperfections as the most beautiful things in the world.

I want to know about laugh lines, and how they don’t laugh any more. I want to see how your main character wonders about this. I want to get a feel from their fashion style, I want to actually know your character. The style of their immaculate hair tells me nothing about the stress they are hiding from others. The shine of their “orbs” doesn’t express the heartbreak. The way your mc talks about their “golden tan” doesn’t communicate how self conscious they are.

Make the character that others will love and cherish and cry for and laugh with. Stop making the character that you want to be, make the character that others will understand.

[shrimplydelicious]

“I’m finally going to write! I have a great idea!”

[inkskinned]

hey i’m super late to the party but ur friendly internet poet here to Stop This Madness before you Become The Madness. 

i kind of think of the blank page of ms word as like. when you walk through a doorway into a room and are like “wtf was i even doing.” for some reason our brain sees blank and then draws a blank. and ur like. i was actually really excited about that 45 seconds ago?? come back idea we can still be friends!!

so how do you. not do that? here are some tips that i just PERSONALLY LEARNED and aren’t like. purdue university. 

THE IMMEDIATE BEFORE:

don’t you dare even look at tumblr or any other site tbh just get out asap

if you have trouble detaching from reality, have an emergency Music Bin of classical music/instrumental/video game music saved on ur computer. Not the internet. not the internet. bc you type “youtube” in the url bar, goodbye cruel world. 3 AM and you’re watching compilations of cats talking. just have it saved somewhere on ur library and hit play. block out the noise of the Rest of the World.

the sound of rain/mood/white noise helps, there’s a bunch of sites for that, but tbh just download rain sounds from youtube when you’re bored one day so you don’t get lost in one of those ~calming masterposts~

if something is Immediately Pressing, try to “write” internally and do the thing at the same time - i can’t tell you how many good ideas i’ve had while making myself a sandwich. being away from the blank page and handling my hunger help.

don’t wait. write it now. NOW. now. not “after scrolling another second” no now , right now. i have left bed at 2 AM to write. you gotta #commit bc the truth is if you don’t, you have the worst anticlimax when your brain lets you down. it gave you a gift and you said you’d open it later and now it’s mad at you. don’t do that. just open the gift.

don’t fear. if it comes out bad it’s still OUT. writers live in the Void Of Self-Doubt, where sometimes we’re like “how can i do this idea justice?” and we get so tangled in being good enough for it that we never do it. who cares if you accidentally write like 3 sentences where u meant to write 16 pages. it just means that you’re concise as hell my guy. it’s always easier to build from something than nothing.

fuck everything else. if your brain is like “!!!!!!!!!!!” like mine is (24-7 my guy) it’s hard to “turn it off” how do you write when everything is crowded up there? my solution is to turn the writing up. turn up your imagination so loud it shouts down everything else. you can’t make inspiration but when you start thinking, those cogs get turning. and everything else drowns out. THE SCARY SCARY DURING:

fuck ms word. it’s so blank!!! tbh a lot of my writing gets started ANYWHERE ELSE, bc i can’t look at a blank page without getting Writer Sweats. start it at the bottom of your english essay. type it in a tumblr text box so it’s lowkey and not official. i have a saved document of just like … half-stories or story ideas and bc they’re not Official, they can be weird and painless and quick.

you gotta write bad stuff before you learn to write good stuff so who cares if it’s not poe like it’s yours just keep writing even if it doesn’t “measure up” to what you want it to exactly look like.

don’t start at the beginning, fuck the beginning. your brain started with the idea halfway, right? so you start there too. sometimes i just pick up in the middle of a sentence - “and it was good enough, at last.” who cares what happens before that, my idea starts there, so i’m gonna start there! 

on that note, trust your readers. half the time i just decide - u know what, i see this world like this, and you can catch up as i go. a writer when you sit there and have to explain “in this world mice are hording your secrets and They Know,” great, now you’ve written the whole story in one sentence. just write it and let ppl figure it out. don’t waste the inspiration trying to explain the rules behind your floating city. write the city and run in it while you have the energy. 

parts missing? like you just really have a setting there but wtf is the plot gonna be? or holy shit a character with bazookas for hands!! handgun guy!!! but like in what world — yeah it happens to all of us. the thing is, instead of being like “this is nothing,” remind yourself you have so much to explore because you just fucking invented something. even if you write fanfic and the world is already there and stuff like that - dang son explore everything. is there dust in the house is he allergic to cats what’s it like in the forest are there many dogs? does he like being kissed upside down how’s that desk they keep doing it on and what has it seen poor thing. and when you start that, you realize - wait! that’s the story! the desk breaks or family shows up and asks to buy it (why won’t u just sell it, laura dear, u hardly do any real work at it) - that’s where it’s all hiding. think of ur brain as giving you the whole idea every time - it’s just up to you to look. 

don’t edit fuck editing you’ll get around to it eventually

“oh i changed a rule i should go back” no don’t you’ll get to it eventually, just keep writing

“does this sound natural?” who cares just write

fuck it sometimes i literally will change what i’m saying in the middle of a sentence but instead of deleting i just keep it up because then i’m not starting back at the top 

grammar is a silly silly myth and you can break it with your big strong lobster claws and i even hope you do break it

meaning if you’re like me and sometimes don’t write in Caps or you start going forwards in Txt speech it literally doesn’t matter just go, heck, once i was in the flow and instead of writing a response for something i just had a character say “>:I” and it worked.

if none of the above is even helping not at all: DON’T CLOSE IT. SIT . BE GOOD.  SIIIITTTTT…. SIT. stare at it. stare it down. when u give up too fast the idea is like “fine. i wasn’t good enough to fight for? bye.” i would say that the average “stare-down” time i’d give an idea before giving up on it is 15 minutes. not 15 “changing the tab to be on fb” minutes. 15 don’t you dare look at anything else minutes. bc chances are? minute 5 your brain will become Bored - and it will open up bc it’s like “fine fuck you if this is all we’re gonna focus on let’s go.” THE GRUESOME AFTERMATH:

go get water and pat yourself on the back kid

even if it went badly do that bc writing is hard and you tried your best 

[writing-prompt-s]

Thanks for sharing @inkskinned

[maxey-writes]

I've been super busy lately but I'm working on a few projects so there's more writing on the way, fear not

[realrandomsam]

Some new Happy Writer Bun for the writing lovelies out there. Keep writing! You can do it!

More Happy Writer Bun

Ask Sam Writing Questions

[thewritershandbook]

© (c ) copyright 1990-2011 Rebecca Sinclair

See the original HERE

[just-tabletop-things]

Reblogging for RPG purposes.

[maxey-writes]

Review of: Gross, Robert, The Minutemen and Their World, 1976

The Minutemen and Their World, by Robert A. Gross, is a history of the revolutionary war, told from a viewpoint that analyzes and describes the day-to-day lives of ordinary townsfolk in Concord, and the political and social changes in the town leading up to the beginning of the war and throughout it.  Such is the claim that the book makes, as it tries to be a “unique” and “groundbreaking” approach to history that looks at events in a different light than history textbooks.  However, the book does not seem to live up to the standard it has set for itself.  Throughout the text, Gross contradicts himself, runs off on tangents, rambles, and generally butchers the idea that he had originally set out to write.  This makes for a very dry and unenjoyable read, and provides many a reason to find fault with this particular volume of history.

The book sets out to describe the events in the town of Concord leading up to and during the Revolutionary War, and admittedly accomplishes this task, albeit in a very roundabout way.  The text starts off with a prologue, providing a setting and background for the meat of the book as it describes the geography of the land in and surrounding Concord, as well as a general basis of the life of a farmer living in or on the outskirts of town.  In the following chapters, Gross attempts to provide a, perhaps chronological, accounting of events and changes in the town as tensions between the colonies and Britain grow tense.  The chapters seem to be set along a timeline of events, but at the same time each chapter appears to try to address a certain topic or area of life that affected Concord during this time.  Either of these methods would be effective in accomplishing the task Gross tries to, however, both methods combined ends up creating a very confusing and counter-productive end result.  The book addresses topics such as religious conflict, political conflict, and town-specific tensions that affect the vote of the town towards nation-wide matters such as the Stamp Act and other grievous punishments that were afflicted upon the colonies during this time, as well as accounts of real battles, both literally and figuratively, on and off of the battlefield.  

In general, The Minutemen and Their World is a very dry and confusing read.  In specific, the writing style in ineffective, the organization is confusing and haphazard, and the content contradicts the thesis in a multitude of places. Gross’ writing, although not bad in it’s own right, is very counter-productive to the concept he set out to write the book under.  The book, as stated in the preface, was intended to be a more personal and enjoyable study of the town of Concord during Revolutionary periods.  Gross’ style of writing is much too formal and dry for this idea, and comes off as extremely academic and stuffy.  If a reader wishes to “connect” to the townspeople of Concord during this time, Gross’ writing does nothing to help this.  The book’s organization, as addressed in the previous paragraph, is extremely confusing.  The events seem to be set in a chronological order, whereas the chapters are ordered by specific topic.  This method alone jumbles the facts and events, but even apart from that, the information jumps around constantly, and Gross will go from discussing the town’s pastor to one man’s quarrel with the rest of the public, with not much or none at all segway in between the two topics. Finally, the content itself is contradictory and, in some places, not entirely accurate or supported by research.  Near the end of Chapter 3, on page 66, Gross states that “concordians were Republicans, not Democrats.” The fault with this lies in the fact that the very concept of Republican and Democrat did not exist in this time period.  Gross may very well be trying to make a connection to modern-day politics and explain the mindset of the town, although this does not seem to fit with the circumstances.  He does not explain that this is his intention when he makes the aforementioned statement, and this comparison seems quite unnecessary in lieu of the context on this page, where he goes into detail on the town’s political mindset and ideals anyway.  In fact, on just the next page, he goes back to talking about Whigs and “the Whig community” with no clear transition from the two sets of political parties.  Interestingly enough, the paragraph in which he mentions Republicans and Democrats also seems to be the only, or one of the only, paragraphs in the book in which he does not end it with a citation, seeming to suggest that he has no real evidence to back up this point.  This is one of the many contradictions and redundancies in this work.

In short, Robert A. Gross set out with a task to accomplish it, and a rather creative and unique way to go about this task.  However, his style of writing and poor organization were ill-fitted to the idea at hand, and Gross would have been better off collaborating with a more effective writer in making this idea happen.  Despite the many shortcomings, The Minutemen and Their World is in fact a unique approach to the history of this well-documented area and time period, and is full to the brim of information, if one is willing to wade through the layers of dry writing it is encased in.  

[maxey-writes]

I Won’t Let You Go

We lay on our backs in the grass, looking at the stars.  Carmilla had her arm around me and I was cuddled close to her, enjoying the warmth in the chilly night air.  We had been like that for hours, talking long into the night.  

“Sometimes I feel so small, ya know? Compared to the constellations.  It puts everything in perspective, like even when I’m having the crappiest day I know that in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t even matter, because the stars will just keep shining. It almost feels peaceful.”

I look away from the sky at her face.  She’s gazing at the stars, with her lips slightly downturned, and her eyes looking like she might close them.

“Wow, Carm, you’re getting all philosophical on me here.” I nudge her leather-clad shoulder and smile up at her.  I see an eyebrow raise, and she tears her gaze away from the night sky to look at me, a half-hearted smirk on her face.  

“Yeah, I guess I am.”  She turns her face away.  I take the opportunity to gaze at the back of her head.  God damn, she’s beautiful.  Her hair falls in lazy waves over her shoulder, the soft ends just barely tickling my nose, and I can smell her conditioner.  It smells like vanilla and cinnamon, and I close my eyes for a minute and lose myself in a cocoon of her closeness.

Without warning, she rolls over, placing her arms on either side of my head.  My heart leaps into my throat and I wrap my arms around her waist, holding her close.  She holds her weight up, suspending herself just barely off of me, and my heart is beating a million miles a minute.  Her lips are just centimeters from mine and barely parted, but I know she won’t kiss me.  We’ve been seeing eachother for a few months, and although there have been many heart-stopping moments like this, never once has she kissed me, and never once have I closed the gap myself, not wanting to push my boundaries.  Nevertheless, that doesn’t stop my stomach from becoming a butterfly garden as I allow myself to fantasize seconds into the future.  

She looks down at me, saying nothing, for what seems to stretch on for a lifetime.  I can hear my heartbeat thundering in my ears, and her stomach is flush with mine, the warmth flooding into me.

“Laura?” The word is a hoarse whisper, barely audible if she wasn’t this close, and I swear I hear her voice catch. Her eyes are dry and clear, but it almost sounds as if she is on the verge of crying.  

“Yeah, Carm?” I remove one hand from her waist and lift it, moving my arm to gently caress her face.  I trace her cheekbone with one finger and stop, lingering on her smooth skin and holding her.  She blinks, and she is so close that her eyelashes almost touch mine.  For a moment, it seems like she might say nothing at all, and then she does.

“I love you.” and I swear my heart has stopped in my chest.  Carmilla stares down at me, her mouth still slightly open as if those words had pulled the last air out of her lungs, and I’m sure I am mirroring her expression.  

“Carm..” the single syllable escapes my lips, and I realize that we are both holding our breaths.  Almost in synchronization, I feel our chests start moving again, and she closes her mouth, tightening her lips by the smallest increment.  I presently remember the three words that she just said, and the fact that I have yet to say them back.

“I love you too.”  

As soon as I say it, the oxygen rushes into my lungs as if I have never breathed before.

Carmilla stares at me for a second, and I am about to say something else but-

Suddenly, she drops her weight entirely onto me as if her muscles have given out.  I let out a small huff of air in surprise, and for a second wonder if she has somehow lost consciousness.  Just before I am about to try to push her off and check for a pulse, I hear her sigh.  It is a very soft, contented sigh, and although I can’t see her face, I know she is smiling.  Slowly, I wrap my arms around her and hold her tightly against myself.  She feels more relaxed than she ever has since I met her, and I wonder if this amazing girl has finally taken down her walls.  As our breathing falls into rhythm, I close my eyes and let myself drift off, and I can only remember thinking one thing++.

It’s okay.  I’ve got you, and I won’t let you go.