M.J. tries to write

[ravens-and-rivers]

Picrew OC Ship Tag Game

Thank you for tagging me, @writingbyjillian​!

Rules : Use this picrew to make the ships of your wip(s)

Here are mine!

Jessamine and Pier (The Age of Ravens)

Reese and Henry (The Maple Society)

Eliza and Philip (The Maple Society)

Zane and Ilya (Vampires + Coffee)

I don’t know who to tag, so anyone is free to try this. If you do, please tag me so I can see your characters.

[akindofmagictoo]

It’s Aella and Theo! (this picrew did not have good options for curly hair, hence Aella’s braids… but it worked quite well for Theo lol) 

(I have other WIPs but a) only one has ship/s and b) I haven’t posted about them so just doing this one!)

tagging @oddsandinks​ @ahowlinwolf​ :) 

[akindofmagictoo]

self reblog tagging @zmlorenz @isherwoodj and anyone else who wants to do this!

[mjtriestowrite]

I love Picrew so I couldn't help myself.

Introducing my bisexual love triangle:

Clara* x Skai (Champion of the Lost)

Jean x Skai (Champion of the Lost)

*Clara is probably standing on her tip toes on top of a pile of books in order to look almost as tall as Skai

I'll tag @aelenko cause she is cool , and anyone else who feels like doing it.

[aritany]

a moodboard for when you want to write but your brain says no

[aritany]

this is also a good moodboard for when you encounter a scene that you know needs fixing but you don’t want to fix it

[kiramartinauthor]

[butchamy]

Story idea when you try to actually write it:

[calamitycons]

Story idea when you first rewrite it:

Getting closer to what you saw in your head, eh? Keep at it!

[snurtle]

Your story when somebody else sees it:

[starspangledscarf]

hhhhhHHHHHHH

[thatincompetentperson]

(⚪д⚪)

[servicek9s-deactivated20180617]

This is a lovely post. It goes to show that when we percieve our own work, most of us have some type of insecurities about our own talents. 

[chocolate1721]

Mood

[elumish]

A couple notes on eye color descriptions:

First, eyes are small. If someone is more than a few feet away, there’s very little chance they will notice someone else’s eye color. Same is true if it’s dark or if they’re wearing glasses.

Second, people don’t pay that much attention to eye color. Most people don’t think of others (I don’t think) in terms of eye color. I’m not actually sure of the eye color of most of my relatives or friends

Third, this is in no way a useful descriptor unless it plays an important role in the story. Harry Potter’s eye color mattered because of his mother. Hermione’s eye color didn’t.

I know eye-color hair-color skin-color is a common descriptor for people when they’re first being introduced, but try something else, and stop relying on a thing that doesn’t matter. And, especially if the story is in first person or close third person, stop having people be able to tell eye colors from unrealistic distances or in unrealistic situations, or when they wouldn’t have any reason to pay attention to them.

[agwitow]

Some other first-impression-descriptors you could use:

Height (if it’s noteworthy–most people don’t really notice unless it’s unusual in some way)

Posture/their “walk” (e.g., do they slouch? hunch? scurry? stride? etc.)

Facial expression

Clothes (again, if it’s unusual in some way)

Hairstyle

Hands (gestures and appearance)

How they interact with other people and/or the environment

There are other ways, of course, to describe characters–see what other ways you can come up with that don’t rely on the standard eye/hair/skin colour descriptions

[letswritestories101]

ooo useful!!

[c-ptsdrecovery]

(Seen on FB)

RUN THE DISHWASHER TWICE. 

When I was at one of my lowest (mental) points in life, I couldn’t get out of bed some days. I had no energy or motivation and was barely getting by.

I had therapy once per week, and on this particular week I didn’t have much to ‘bring’ to the session. He asked how my week was and I really had nothing to say.

“What are you struggling with?” he asked.

I gestured around me and said “I dunno man. Life.”

Not satisfied with my answer, he said “No, what exactly are you worried about right now? What feels overwhelming? When you go home after this session, what issue will be staring at you?”

I knew the answer, but it was so ridiculous that I didn’t want to say it.

I wanted to have something more substantial.

Something more profound.

But I didn’t.

So I told him, “Honestly? The dishes. It’s stupid, I know, but the more I look at them the more I CAN’T do them because I’ll have to scrub them before I put them in the dishwasher, because the dishwasher sucks, and I just can’t stand and scrub the dishes.”

I felt like an idiot even saying it.

What kind of grown ass woman is undone by a stack of dishes? There are people out there with *actual* problems, and I’m whining to my therapist about dishes?

But my therapist nodded in understanding and then said:

“RUN THE DISHWASHER TWICE.”

I began to tell him that you’re not supposed to, but he stopped me.

“Why the hell aren’t you supposed to? If you don’t want to scrub the dishes and your dishwasher sucks, run it twice. Run it three times, who cares?! Rules do not exist, so stop giving yourself rules.”

It blew my mind in a way that I don’t think I can properly express.

That day, I went home and tossed my smelly dishes haphazardly into the dishwasher and ran it three times.

I felt like I had conquered a dragon.

The next day, I took a shower lying down.

A few days later. I folded my laundry and put them wherever the fuck they fit.

There were no longer arbitrary rules I had to follow, and it gave me the freedom to make accomplishments again.

Now that I’m in a healthier place, I rinse off my dishes and put them in the dishwasher properly. I shower standing up. I sort my laundry.

But at a time when living was a struggle instead of a blessing, I learned an incredibly important lesson:

THERE ARE NO RULES.

RUN THE DISHWASHER TWICE!!!

(by Kate Scott 2018)

[meteor-sword]

i might elaborate later but fanfic replies literally develop writer’s metacognition and make them better writers

[meteor-sword]

so, Metacognition is the practice of thinking about thinking or identifying one’s cognitive process . in essence, metacognition is understanding how you prepare for academic challenges, exams, or tasks, and then being able to reflect on whether you did well, you prepared adequately, and what was most effective. in a writing setting, this type of self-awareness helps you transfer skills in writing, say, fanfiction into writing academically, competitively and professionally. 

here’s an article from brown university on the subject i’ll discuss further. there are 3 parts of practicing metacognition identified in this article: planning, monitoring, and evaluation. how might this look like for a fanfic writer? 

planning: asking oneself ‘what is my goal?’ ‘what strategies should i use to meet that goal?’ ‘how much time/length do i need to meet my goal?’. so maybe my goal is to write a meet cute where two characters kiss. i’ll need to use a perspective, an upbeat tone, and forward characterization to do this. it’ll probably take 5000 words and two days to write. 

monitoring: asking oneself: is my story making sense? am i reaching my goal, or do i need to summarize more succinctly to keep it to 5k? maybe you started with a lot of exposition and now you’re 6k in and the characters haven’t met yet. what went wrong/changed? is it ok that it changed or did you not realize it got away from you? what now? 

evaluation: asking oneself: did i reach my goal? was it effective? what would i change next time? 

this is where comments come in

it is incredibly difficult to evaluate yourself. comments like “i love this!” actually do begin to touch on the evaluation step of metacognition. it means, in general, the writer is on the right track. comments like “i loved the dialogue between x and y” or “the emotions of this section really hit me” begin to answer the questions of was it effective, did i reach my goal and conversely answer what would i change next time (by adding more of whatever was specified as working well). HYPER SPECIFIC comments, like analyzing the story between the lines or pasting in a line that you really liked and explaining why, is like jet fuel for the metacognition process and i’m not exaggerating. specifically pointing out what was effective and why is incredibly useful 

i can straight up credit my writing style to all of my friends and readers who have given incredibly detailed comments. when i found a community who gave feedback like that, my writing improved a thousand times faster than before. so! i guess what i’m saying is give feedback! it goes so much further than you realize!

[unnecessaryligatures]

Wired: Leave comments because it makes your fav writers feel good

Inspired: Leave comments because it will make them write better

[disregardcanon]

Eureka-d: leave comments because it will make YOU write better too. It develops your meta cognition as well

[jenroses]

The fact that people keep telling me, “Oh god I needed something this positive right now” keeps me writing the happy because I need it too. But the Untamed fandom has some AMAZING readers who go through chapter by chapter and pull out all the bits they like and talk about them and it’s honestly very motivating, mostly because it gets me out of my own imposter syndrome. 

[mikkeneko]

Plot twist, positive comments were Constructive Criticism the whole goddamn time

[aritany]

yeah but realizing that you can *make* motivation is a game changer

[fictional-semantics]

how

[aritany]

i was hoping you would ask! 

when i first started writing, i thought i had to have either The Idea or The Motivation in hand when i sat down at the keyboard. i thought that the thing that would get the story out of me was the desire to write. not a chance. 

here’s the thing about motivation. there’s a common perception that the order is motivation -> action, when it’s usually the other way around, and it’s actually action that triggers motivation.

i usually don’t know what i’m writing when i sit down at the keyboard. sometimes a scene chases me down and forces itself to be written, but that’s rare. motivation comes partway through a sentence. you’re going to have a lot of eureka moments in the shower and while you’re waiting around to write, but you’re going to have so many more while you’re already in the act of rearranging words.

schedule time to write, don’t wait for it to happen to you.

i’ve written over half a million words this year and that’s not a joke. this works.

tl;dr: motivation -> action, ACTION -> MOTIVATION

[viawrites-andacts-deactivated20]

Oh also!

Both motivation and self-discipline are not inherent traits! They are skills. And that's why you might experience bursts of motivation at specific times of the day!

I used to have to get up early for work, and so it used to be that my most motivated time was in the morning, because that was a skill and habit that I practiced in the morning. Now, I work best in the evening, because that's when I do my most work!

So yeah, don't think of it as something you're lacking, think of it as a skill you're practicing! And, like any other skill (e.g. cooking), you don't start out with Excellent Cooking Skills, you start with little and you build up the skill! You might have Natural Cooking Ability, but that can only get you so far, and you still need to work on the skill to use that ability productively. It's the same with motivation - some people might really have some Natural Motivatio Ability, but that can only help them to a certain extent, and you can certainly be better than them if you work at the skill and they don't.

[akindofmagictoo]

while worldbuilding the other day I wrote like 1.2k words of it in one sitting in my plan doc. normally I don’t like worldbuilding but when I sat down to flesh out one idea the ideas just KEPT COMING. and now that I think about it, it was exactly this!

I think for me it does still help to know what I’m going to work on because otherwise I’ll probably end up doing nothing. I like to have a plan of I’m going to work on this WIP’s outline for a bit. it might not happen, I might end up on another WIP, but that’s what gets me to open up my writing docs instead of YouTube. (or as well as. I use it for music)

[aritany]

i’m not sure who needs to hear this right now, but you’re allowed to like your first drafts. you’re allowed to be really proud of them. i’ve been seeing a lot of ‘let your first draft suck!!!’ advice and while that’s very freeing, don’t feel like you have to think your first draft is garbage. you’re allowed to be super excited about the achievement and love your world and your characters! 

[helenaklein]

morally grey does not mean “is bad but also sad”

[helenaklein]

a character that is morally grey will not burn the world down because it makes them feel powerful, they’ll do it because they perceive something about it to be broken. moral ambiguity has nothing to do with a character’s past, and everything to do with the relationship between their actions and their intentions.

[michaelbjorkwrites]

Great distinction!

A character who does bad things because they’re sad, betrayed, or hurt by their circumstances may be sympathetic, but they aren’t necessarily morally grey.

A character becomes morally grey when there’s a sense of truth, goodness, or justice in their purpose, but the actions they take to achieve that purpose are troubling, even amoral.

[glixbitch]

me writing a sentence

[margarethelstone]

okay but if fullmetal alchemist was a novel written in, say 1960s, we would totally be reading it at school

[writingquestionsanswered]

i know possibly that the answer to this question will be up to me but i wanna make sure,, is it ideal to start your first draft in first person's pov and in your local language (so im not a native english speaker hehe) but then editing everything in english & in 3rd pov? i wanna ask maybe u did this alr...

First Draft: First-Person POV and Native Language?

If you’re planning to publish your story in English but English isn’t your first language, I do think it can be helpful for some writers to write the first draft in their native language, then translate it into a second draft. (Has anyone out there done this? What was your experience?)

However, I would not recommend writing the first draft in first-person if you intend the story to be in third-person. There’s just no reason to do that, and it would be confusing for anyone, but it just makes the job of translating it into English that much harder for you. And there’s too much risk of ending up with a lot of POV slipping in your final version.

So... my advice is yes to native language--if you think that would be helpful for you (though, if you’d rather write the first draft in English, that’s okay, too), and no to writing the first draft in first-person, unless that’s the POV you intend to stick with.

Good luck with your story!

————————————————————————————————-

Have a question? My inbox is always open, but make sure to check my FAQ and post master lists first to see if I’ve already answered a similar question. :)

[mjtriestowrite]

Non native English speaker and writer here!

At first I did the translation thing but it was just a lot of work translating and editing the scenes. After I shifted to just writing in english with occasional words or phrases in portuguese, it became much easier in comparison. Translating takes a long time and when done badly it makes the sentences seem odd or hard to understand, when they were perfectly fine in the original.

Good translators are, in general, good writers, but not all good writers are good translators.

After that, my advice is to start out with English, although it may be hard at first, once you get used to flexing those muscles, it's much smoother than the constant translating business headache. It will force you to think in English and do your best with it until it comes out naturally.

Or at least that's what I found. Hope it was helpful.

[creativichee]

If your character has a trait you consider one of their key features and it is never challenged in anyway, that trait will probably have about as much impact as their “tiny mole on their left buttcheek” trait. 

For that trait NOT to fall totally flat, one or more of these things need to happen:

The trait exacerbates a situation in a bad way. (An extremely honest and trusting character reveals an important secret to the Big Bad’s lackey)

The character is given a choice to either act according to their traits or to subvert them. Often the subversion has the better outcome. They either maintain their trait and take a risk, or character development ensues. (A greedy character must escape. Leaving behind their riches goes against their very being, but it would allow them to escape easier. If they try to take some of their treasure with them, they do so at massive risk.)

 The character is put in an environment or must work with a person that opposes their trait. (An extremely tidy person must live in their slob cousin’s filthy apartment for a week. / The character has a debilitating fear of being alone and they are stranded on their own on an island.)

The character is put in a situation that requires them to suppress their trait (A hotheaded character needs to have polite discourse with someone they hate)

[rawhoneybliss]

IF YOU'RE READING THIS, YOU'RE GOING TO RECEIVE A SURPRISE BLESSING THIS WEEK

[biminib4bes]

rb this post and flex your wip and writing progress in the tags!!

title of your wip / genre / current words written out of total planned / which draft are you in? / favorite character? / favorite line? / one sentence synopsis-or-pitch

[gailynovelry]

I’ve decided to replace binging YouTube while I eat with using text-to-speech to read my novel manuscripts aloud to me. I strongly recommend it to any creator who’s willing to try. Folks who already like audio books or podcasts may enjoy this!

Pros:

Less time getting depressed by the state of the world, more time experiencing the joy of creation.

Allows me to constantly and cheerfully edit my work, because hearing it spoken aloud lets me find mistakes in the text that my eyes alone would repeatedly skim over.

Possible ADHD-friendly way to get into the editing phase!

Really, it’s just riveting to hear your own work read aloud; it’s like, who made this? Was it me? Did I write this?

And then you get feels when the characters do things. It almost feels like they’re real people acting independently, hearing it just… happen.

If I want more content to binge, it means that I have to do the good creative thing and write more content!

Cons:

If I want more content to binge, I have to write more content.

[ettawritesnstudies]

This is actually genius, I’ve been listening to podcasts at work because I can have earbuds in the lab, and I’ve been bemoaning my lack of ability to write and this would be the PERFECT solution!!

How do you go about making notes and comments while you listen? Or do you just make a mental note of it to come back to later when your hands are free?

[academicssay]

[kedreeva]

[strosmkai-rum]

i-

[mjtriestowrite]

It's honestly reassuring how common this actually is