Hi all!
So it has been A WHILE. I've been in lurker mode for...longer than I'd like to admit.
But, I wanted to share some news that some writeblrs may find interesting:
A developer friend and I are building a writing app.
We're getting close to alpha testing soon and opened up our Discord community recently. I'm hoping in time, we'll have a community that makes it super easy for writers to view each others' WIPs and find other like-minded writers.
If you're interested in either joining our alpha test (we need plenty of testers) or the community, please reply here or DM me!
Reblogs of course appreciated here to spread the word!
reblog and make a wish!
this was removed from tumbrl due to “violating one or more of Tumblr’s Community Guidelines”, but since my wish came true the first time, I’m putting it back. :)
holy fuck, I didn’t expect this to work, I was like psh, whatever it’s just a quick reblog, but I wished my Dad would actually respond back to me AND HE FUCKING DID A FEW DAYS LATER, I GOT A FUCKING TEXT FROM MY DAD TODAY WHO HASN’T SPOKEN OR RESPONDED TO ME IN MONTHS HOLY FUCK WHAT IS THIS MAGIC IT WORKS.
WTF OKAY SO THIS SHOT ACTUALLY WORKS BECAUSE WHEN I WISHED, I HAD WISHED MY CRUSH WOULD LIKE ME BACK AND GUESS WHAT? I HAVE A BOYFRIEND NOW. WHAT THE HELLLLL?????
ok I’ve said this before but IM DOING IT AGAIN THE FIRST TIME I SAW THIS, MY WISH DID COME TRUE SO I REBLOGED AGAIN AND SAID IT IN THE TAGS BUT THEN I WISHED FOR SMTH ELSE AND IT LITERALLY LITERALLY HAPPENED LIKE A COUPLE DAYS LATER WHAT THE HELL SO NOW IM WRITING THIS HERE FOR YOU BC I DONT BELIEVE IN THIS CRAP BUT STILL IT’S AN AWFULLY BIG COINCIDENCE
THE BOY I FELL I LOVE WITH LEFT TO TRAVEL THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD AND HAS BEEN GONE NOW FOR 3 MONTHS. WE HAVENT SPOKEN SINCE BECAUSE I DIDNT WANT TO MAKE HIM FEEL TRAPPED TO ME AND NOT ENJOY HIS TIME SO I WAITED FOR HIM TO CONTACT ME FIRST. I SAW THIS ON A PARTICULARLY LOW DAY WHEN I WAS MISSING HIM SO MUCH I CRIED FROM THE PAIN, GUYS I REALLY LOVE HIM, SO I THOUGHT MEH WHAT THE FUCK, AND WISHED HE WOULD JUST LET ME KNOW HE WAS OKAY.
guys ok ur probably thinking that this is all just bs right? WELL I THOUGHT SO TOO BUT I WISHED MY CRUSH WOULD CHAT ME AND HE DID AND IM FREAKING OUT not even kidding i swear on my grampas grave this works
The past few days ProWritingAid hosted an online conference on writing, with a focus on writing romance. I have watched everything and I filled nearly half my study notebook with interesting learnings.
The best thing is, it's free, it's online, and it's available until (I think) the 24th on a laptop screen near you. You can watch it on YouTube or on the ProWritingAid Romance Writers' Week hub. The hub also has some freebies YouTube doesn't have.
What if you don't have the time to watch 20 hours in the next 7 days? No problem, I have provided you with a shortlist. The best sessions, in my opinion, were:
The Inside Outline: How to Outline your Romance Novel (Jennie Nash's process merges the fire and emotion of pantsing with the analytics and structure of plotting AND is compatible with other beat sheets if you like it to be.)
Author interview: Carolyn Brown (Inspiring! This wholesome woman has published over 100 full-length novels! In just 20 years!! And sold MILLIONS of books!!! #authorgoals)
Your five plotting non-negotiables (If you need a kick in the ass to get writing, listen to this talk.)
The three elements of electric love stories; mind, body and heart (Mary Adkins shares her methods of bringing original, genuine, deep emotions to your characters and BOY did I feel INSPIRED!!)
Some other sessions, to give you an idea:
How I got published with Harlequin (panel interview with authors, agents, and the publisher) (I learned you don't need an agent to get published at Harlequin!)
Marketing your romance novel
Indie author's guide to indie editors
Romance and a sense of place (the influence of/on setting on/of your story)
A TON of author interviews
Etc. Etc.
Please take some time next week to watch these, because I have learned SO much and I wish the same for you.
Here's the link again, so you won't have to scroll up: https://prowritingaid.com/romanceweekhub (cue angels vocalizing)
Disclaimer: I have no financial interest in sharing this event, I just want to be helpful. Conferences like these usually cost hundreds of euros/pounds/dollars.
winter wind is one of the most difficult songs to pull off on piano. it's considered the ultimate "show-off" tune because the beginning is so unassuming and then BAM 4 pages of complete fuckery follows
here is the first passage. as you can see the piece is written in the key of what i assume is Am (aka no black keys/no sharps or flats) but however the interesting thing is that the paper is absolutely fucking LITTERED with chromatic notes and other sharps and massive leaps because chopin took one look at his piano and went, "i paid for all 88 keys so im gonna use all 88 keys goddamnit"
So I was curious about this because I only saw “Winter Wind” at first and don’t know the etude numbers well enough to recognize it unless I hear it (this is what I get for being a violinist with a pianist mother). Heard the first two notes and immediately started grinning because I knew what was coming immediately.
I’m finally reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and why did no one tell me this epic work of magical fantasy is written in the style of a Jane Austen comedy?
Susanna Clarke really woke up and said “I am going to create a once-in-a-century epic work of English fantasy with world building to rival Tolkien, and I shall do it in the style of a 19th century comedy of manners. Oh, and I am going to do so in the most Sarcastic way possible.”
Eldritch is more about “ancient and unfathomable, impossible to completely understand with a mortal human mind”. If something is just a very cool but entirely knowable monster with a lot of wiggly bits, like that’s tight but it’s not necessarily eldritch. We often use tentacles for eldritch horrors because tentacles remind us of the unknowable and alien depths of the ocean, and that’s cool as hell, but like. An octopus isn’t eldritch.
For example. Hm. Pyramid Head is a cool ass monster who is also a god, but on a scale of Eldritch to Euclidian (where 0 is entirely mundane and 10 is unknowable Lovecraftian horror terror) Pyramid Head is probably a 4? He can’t do anything without physically manifesting, and his manifestation basically follows the rules of physics when it engages with the world. The big knife is just a big knife. He gets points for manifesting randomly, existing in a state of unknowable limbo when he’s not tormenting you, and having an absolutely unknowable internal life if he has one at all. (I know the games did something with there being a red and a yellow pyramid head but tbh I can’t remember how any of that works so I’m just going off 2 and the good movie)
The dimension of Silent Hill itself, though, is like a 9. It’s mysterious, unknowable except in a state of madness. Madness, or communion with the divine, which is ecstatic madness. It’s a place with a mind of its own, whose manifestations are both literal and allegorical. It corrupts whatever it touches. It occupies stretching liminal spaces, defies its own boundaries at the worst times.
Fairies can be Euclidean or they can be eldritch depending on the writer—Euclidean fairies are born and (probably die) in the same body without changing, have powers with cleanly defined limits, may be wise but are limited to their own scope of experience from which to draw this wisdom. Eldritch fairies by contrast may have confusing, fundamentally inhuman bodies; they may have powers that don’t make any sense, or which are terrifying to think about too hard; their desires and goals do not line up with human desires and goals; to fully understand their perspective on the world would break a human mind and drive one to madness.
The eldritch is either profoundly horrific, or sublime—or both. It is uncanny. The more knowable it is, the less eldritch it is. Which is fine! There’s degrees. I’d put most Hive Minds somewhere on the scale, usually the lower end, by the way
#long post#a good breakdown!#because yeah the key to eldritch horror is its inability to be fully understood by human minds#a 10 on the eldritch scale is something that absolutely breaks your mind if you try to fully comprehend it#and there are differences between eldritch and cosmic horror!#eldritch is about the strange and unknowable#cosmic is about like. scale.#like in actual size but also in like 'infinitely more powerful than us and unstoppable in its might'#it's about inevitability and the relative insignificance of humans in a vast universe#full of vast forces that are uncaring at best and actively malevolent at worst#they just coincide a lot because y'know#it stands to reason an ancient and endlessly powerful cosmic horror god being's true nature would be beyond our mere mortal comprehension
I like this, this is also a good point. You can put the cosmic horror on a Y axis and Eldritch quotient on an X axis and chart a lot of things together
I’ve been thinking about Howl’s Moving Castle and how Sophie’s curse is a physical symbol of her self belief of being romantically unlovable (especially after growing up with beautiful, sought after women in her family.) How Howl tries to undo the curse the moment she steps into his castle but he *cant* because Sophie doesn’t want it to be broken. How, in the film, Sophie gets so close to breaking the curse in the field, but hearing Howl call her beautiful went against her self views, so she reinforces her sense of self by turning 90 again.
And the way that her love and kindness make her younger again and again. How film Sophie sacrifices her long hair, perhaps what past Sophie would have seen as her only beauty, for Howl but she’s grown so much that she still remains young, perhaps even confident about her grey hair, showing that Sophie no longer links her appearance to her lovability or worth and she learned to accept herself as she is. In this essay I-
Sometimes it might bother you that when you’re finished writing a story, you end up with enough discarded and unused material to make a whole second story.
Do not think of this as a failing. Those leftover bits are the Mirror Universe version of your story, and the fact that you defeated it is ultimately a good thing. Its goatee was silly, anyway.
the bits you cut out aren’t like building scrap that is only good for birdhouses and bonfires. they’re like cookie dough. you can mash them up, roll them out again, and cut out a whole new story.
use the fish shaped cutter this time. that one’s my favorite.
protip: If you’re writing or creating anything in a specific area of the world and need a list of plants and animals, just google “______ inaturalist” for an extensive list of native organisms with photos you can even sort by clade! I do this all the time
