i do writing

writeblr | adult | she/he/they | currently drafting Memories of an amnesiac

[paulinephonic]

Memories of an amnesiac reintroduction

[ID: The interior of a masonry temple with a fresco in the middle and a chandelier. The text on the edges says "Memories of an amnesiac", a wip by @caprifoi. end of ID]

It's been a long time since I introduced this and it's changed quite a bit since then so I thought I'd introduce it again.

Genre NA Gothic Fantasy

Main themes • family • religion • identity • grief • queerness • tradition • morality • bloodlines • the past coming back to haunt the present

Setting the port city of Thelerissa, a subtropical town at the conjunction of multiple trade routes

Status drafting book 2 of 3

POV first person dual pov (book 1)

WIP Playlist

Tags #moa #sef #cass

Synopsis

Cassandra has been living on a pirate ship ever since losing her memories two years ago, yet when visions of an unknown woman start haunting her, she knows it must relate to her past. Leaving the only life she's ever known, she ventures to her hometown of Thelerissa to find the woman she's been dreaming about.

Persefona has had enough adventure to last a lifetime. All she wants to do is live out her life in peace and quiet, but Cassandra's presence is making waves in town, forcing her to step out of the shadows and confront what she's been hiding from.

In order to find out Cassandra's past, they'll have to use their resources to delve into the world of the Thelerissan elite. However, secrets hide beneath the facade of a peaceful merchant city and the price for finding them may be too high for both of them...

Main characters

Cassandra "Cass" Diaz. She/her. Former pirate, currently an artist. Righteous and compassionate, but self-questioning. Believes in Fortune.

Persefona "Sef" Báthory. She/he/they. A solitary healer. Bold and debonair, manipulative. The only god he would believe in is himself.

Oscar Ehrenskïold Skavgaard. He/they. Sef's friend (?). Town darling. Actor, playwright and theatre administrator. Generous and affable, lacking in self-esteem. Willing to sacrifice himself if necessary.

Elias Alagumuthu DuPont. He/him. Ballet dancer. Incisive and courteous, inhibited. Believes in the gods of his mother.

Tag list (let me know if you want to be added/removed): @goldlikealexander​, @aphronysus​, @natalierosewrites, @sirius-xm, @wildswritey, @aritany

[actualized-animal]

as much as i poke fun at “tumblr prose,” i will acknowledge that sometimes when you’re writing and you’re really in the groove, you’re really feeling yourself, you’re on your capital-a Author shit, and you write a line that makes you go, “oh yeah, this is the Good Shit. this is so Subtle and Says So Much. this is Characterization. this is Themes and Motifs. you could write a whole essay about this one line. the master of the craft strikes again!” and then a month or whatever later when you’re editing you read over it again with post-write clarity and you realize you wrote some real “people die when they’re killed” bullshit

[muirmarie]

something i find really interesting about (some) people who don't write is the way they'll elevate plot over execution? it's the way you'll sometimes see people who think they have a best-selling book idea, and they want someone to write it for them while thinking they should get the lion's share of the imaginary profits, because it's their idea. and don't get me wrong, ideas are important! plots are important!

but there are so many stories i've read over the years that could be summarized into a few sentences of bland-sounding plot, and it's the execution that matters. it's the writing. it's the writing!

a talented writer can turn a bland plot into a story you want to devour. and someone who only cares about ideas can take the most interesting idea ever conceived and make it unreadable/unwatchable.

like it does feel like there are a Lot of people in this world who don't view writing as a skill that deserves respect, and who think that really it's all about coming up with shiny ideas. and it does feel like that's uhhh infected a LOT of different things in the modern world. tbh.

[luna-azzurra]

What helped me write trauma better is remembering that the nervous system learns predictions. If danger used to come after quiet, calm can feel threatening. If kindness used to come with a price, kindness can feel suspicious. So healing is not just “they know they’re safe now.” Healing is the slow, annoying, deeply unfair process of teaching the body that the old prediction is not always the present truth.

[feathernotes]

if you're writing your story and you think 'hm, this might be too weird' Wrong. Make it weirder

[luna-azzurra]

We write because it’s nice to look back and see proof that we existed in that moment. Old drafts are embarrassing, yes, but they are also little fossils of who we were. The jokes we thought were funny. The wounds we kept circling. The tropes we were obsessed with. The sentence we clearly thought was devastating because we used it twelve times. Looking back at old writing is like meeting a younger version of yourself who was trying so hard. Be kind to them.

[cactusringed]

(writes something) god this sucks so bad. this is awful. i'm the worst writer ever. this is nothing. (rereads it a while after writing it) oh dude this is fire. i'm the god of writing. (writes something again) god this sucks so bad. th

[cbk1000]

So, I lurk in some writer subreddits, and a frequent topic of discussion is prose: what constitutes good prose, how do you write it, how do you improve it, etc. And yesterday I stumbled across one topic about the difference between good descriptive prose, and purple prose. OP asks people to share some of their favourite authors who they think write beautiful prose without tipping into purple. No problem; people are happy to oblige.

One person says that Steinbeck is one of their favourite authors for prose, and then they share an example of what they would consider purple prose. It is so violetly awful that I think the poster must have written it themselves as a kind of parody of purple prose. Other people assumed the same.

But as it turns out, they are quoting from a book written by a YouTuber whose channel ia dedicated to talking about writing (namely, their own writing, which is genius, but often not comprehensible to the drooling plebs).

Naturally, I read the free sample of their book in awe and horror, and I'd like to share some screenshots with you. If you also have trouble defining or understanding what purple prose is, it's this.

Yes, every single fucking page is written like this.

[cbk1000]

Reading some more of the preview for this book, and I realise this is by far not the biggest problem, but I'm begging this guy to just use 'shadow' instead of 'umbra'. I promise I will not accuse you of being a philistine.

[cbk1000]

'Noctilucent orbs'. Even fanfic written by a 14-year-old wouldn't dare.

The author is a man in his 30s, btw.

[the-pen-pot]

*throws this in the face of everyone who has ever accused me of writing purple prose*

[neverwalka1one]

I thought the Amelia Peabody series was purple. I owe the author an apology. Uffda

[blradley]

I lost it at the pulsating nose, then again at the contracting cheekbones

[concerningwolves]

I usually don't agree with 90% of what people call "purple prose" because the phrase gets bandied around a liiiiittle too enthusiastically sometimes, I think. But this? Buddy, if you crushed this up, you could use it to recreate Tyrian purple

[captainofthetidesbreath]

David Lynch's Weather Report 3/6/21, 4/10/21, 2/20/22... among others! It was a very recurring sentiment. He wanted everyone to have good luck and fun with our projects.

[concerningwolves]

something to remember is that writing is hard. and I don't necessarily mean in terms of writers block or trying to solve plot holes etc (although that's part of it), but as in it's hard work. even when writing is going well, you're spending a lot of mental energy on it – on deciding which words to use and in what order, remembering how to spell those words, figuring out if character dialogue sounds good, remembering the things that happened around the bit you're currently writing + what you want to happen next, checking plot notes, remembering your established canon, holding different subplots in your head.... that's like having a whole bunch of programs running simultaneously on a computer, and even the best computer with high end specs can't run like that forever. so if you ever catch yourself thinking "man all I did was write/revise/edit. why am I so tired?" that is your answer. because your brain has been running multiple processes and it needs a break

[concerningwolves]

this is relevant again (to me, anyway), because I wrote for over two hours straight, totally in the zone, and only stopped because I was in charge of making dinner. "It's fine, I'll just carry on afterwards." I thought.

Until I walked away from my desk, and it was like a godamn avalanche of exhaustion crashed down on my head. Brain did too many processes

[mossbone]

"I have depression." - character who has been through extensive therapy.

"I feel dead inside all the time and nothing helps!" - character who does like, regular introspective thinking and is aware of the concept of mental health.

"Leave me the fuck alone I'll be fine once I get over my stupid shit." - repressed character.

"It's fine I'm just having an Empty Time. What? Yeah, empty times, you know, when everything is like bzzzzzz in your brain and you don't shower for two weeks. Why, what do you call it?" - ooooughhh now we're talkin

[ruffboi-mags]

#this post is a jillion times better than all the posts that complaina bout therapyspeak #this one SHOWS the relationship between characterization and conceptualization #of depression #as an example of that relationship in general (via @rubynye)

[tokkibean]

writing is so funny like. guys i typed a lot of sentences. named a blorbo from a baby name website. capitalised a word and now its the capital of atlantis. guys please applaud

[luna-azzurra]

Writers have two modes and they are "i haven't written in three weeks and i am rotting from the inside and everything feels wrong and i don't know who i am anymore" and "i wrote for four hours straight and forgot to eat and it's dark outside and when did that happen and i feel like a god" and there is nothing in between. no chill. no medium setting. just famine or feast and a very confused nervous system.

[lypsys]

"Write character relationships that are normal" WRONG ☝ CODEPENDENCY BEAM 💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥

[lavenderpanic]

all of my writing is actually just thinly-veiled fantasy about being seen at your worst and still being loved

[sycamorality]

"woah this is such a unique take on the character i wonder why is the character like that" >look inside character >it's the author's subconscious attempt to love themself

[fxhdskjz]

art is just iteration and reiteration and this one single paragraph changed my life