hi i think your writing is beautiful

i don't specifically care about your line breaks or metaphors or prose or what have you just long as i am inspired and feeling; i have a writing blog too~

[schuylerpeck]

It is in small, fleeting flashes where I fall in love with life: how my dog leaves his toys by my side when I sleep so that I’m ready to play when I wake, how there is no better weekend recipe than warm coffee and singing in the shower, how some songs are exactly what you needed to hear, or when there’s no better feeling than the Sun simply kissing your skin.   I apologize to my body for ever wanting to leave this. It took a long time to learn I deserve every moment.

Schuyler Peck, A Lesson in Deserving (via schuylerpeck)

[teamcaptains-deactivated2019122]

when asked about where i’ve been, the first thing i think about is the backseat of a junior boy’s car when i am fifteen. it’s all i can think about: his lips a civil war, apart and together and crashing against me, wet with spit and blood. on the radio a song we hate plays; that type of thing doesn’t matter when the boy who’s dragging you up to heaven is simultaneously beautiful and breaking because he can’t get into college and can’t quite figure out the difference between being in love and being together. it is the sort of night where next mornings are unimaginable. looking out the window: the land is wide and flat and horrifying. i lean into him, and he breathes on my neck; something beautiful occurs in my head like a burning house.

[ofbeingfound]

Inktober 11 - Run

Compilation error,

Type List<String> cannot be cast to int

Ignore the possible ponderings

Of uncasting or miscasting

Today was forecast sun and it was…

Sunny, if only everything ran according to plan

We ran at just past 11

When the asphalt was just getting hot

From the sun cast shadow

Everything is lower contrast

I have yet to encounter

A real life null pointer

Empty lists are my biggest nightmare

Always interrupting my runs

Index out of bounds

As I turn the corner

Pavement buckles—

Someone didn’t code that right

Should have added more ifs—

Fuck edge cases man.  

–OfBeingFound

[inkskinned]

i think this year only taught me to love the smallest things. okay. okay. so the world is trying to kill us. so the world has succeeded in a few cases.

but in the shower this morning i realized that little girls are going to dress up as ghostbusters this year for halloween. that we have a movie where women save the day and don’t need to look pretty. 

okay. so a human pile of excrement is our republican candidate. but target, lifeblood of my middle-aged mom side - target took a stand for trans rights even though they didn’t have to. ben and jerry’s came out in full and explicit support of black lives matter. small things, i think to myself. how many people stood in the florida heat to give blood in the wake of the orlando shooting. how many people donated time and money to the victims, how the hospitals refused to charge the victims. 

it’s the small things. hamilton sweeps the tony’s with a cast of diverse actors and actresses. pokemon go gives people the chance to make friends and embrace nature. disney responds to public demand, makes mulan right and promises to cast all chinese actors. 

sometimes it’s us. us, our small bodies, just little atoms of resistance, sick of the way things are going, promising ourselves to the void. my school at umass amherst responds to the idea of a clown killer by dressing up in hockey equipment and threatening to hurt anyone who would hurt us; i watch frat boys form teams to get girls home safe just in case. i watch our generation flood the streets after police killings, i watch our footprints refuse to backtrack. i watch peace rallies, christians forming protective rings around muslims praying, young girls demanding better from double standards, protests that swell the streets. 

i think: okay. the storm is trying to swallow us. but we are somehow staying. more than lighthouse, we are the waves, picking up in the face of the wind, laughing, asking the world to keep throwing things at us because we only grow, we only survive, and we still make good out of terrible; carve it out of our own bodies if we have to; but we do it.

we make good. we make good. and it’s pretty incredible.

[matthcwfairchild]

album aesthetics ➝ pure heroine by lorde (pt I)

[ghostqueenofthesun]

But here’s a little secret for you: no one is ever the same thing again after anything. You are never the same twice, and much of your unhappiness comes from trying to pretend that you are. Accept that you are different each day, and do so joyfully, recognizing it for the gift it is. Work within the desires and goals of the person you are currently, until you aren’t that person anymore, and everything changes once again.

Welcome to Night Vale: Episode 75: Through the Narrow Place (via andrewmicah)

[lachrymiformm]

run your fingers over the cracks of my skin, fill the emptiness with your sweetness. let your hands linger a little longer in between each secret page. kiss me until our tongues speak a language only the two of us know. hold me tighter, i’ll let you come a little closer, let our bodies remember every curve, every ache in our bones, every majestic imperfection, every crevice that holds beauty, every twist and turn of fate. love me, love me until it hurts. love me, love me until you start seeing me in every person you meet. love me, love me until the night ends.

(via mediwriter)

[writershigh]

Sadness found me again, like I was neck deep in water, like I was sending smoke signals. Depression tracked me down, but if I’m being honest I was leaving a bread crumb trail after every step. Heartache wrapped me in his arms, & whispered sweet words and lullabies & I finally slept soundly. Sadness is an old friend, & even though I stopped writing & answering his calls, he welcomed me back with open arms & I’ve never felt more at home.

No Place Like Home - Peyton Scott (via writershigh)

[bettersituation]

[moretherapy]

[praytomeinstead]

I wonder if god grieves me too, wonder if he feels that same heaving aching space in his chest and if like me he looks at his hands and says oh god this was all supposed to turn out differently, if he like me remembers those hot silver days before our house burned down and he burned down with it, those hot silver days when our land was flowing with milk and hymns and street preaching tactics and all the other believers the other brothers and sisters lived in that great holy chamber together with me and god was the echo but it was ours and he was my everything, if he remembers the day I exiled myself the day I found myself outside the gates and no brother or sister noticed and I didn’t either, for a while, if he even saw me leave, clutching my own hand like it was the passport and a small suitcase my therapist calls baggage, just trying to act natural in this new land of sex and drugs and Harry Potter where people listen to more than one radio station and don’t compare sexual purity to water balloons and needles, trying not to let my accent show through, to learn the new dialect the new diet and customs like Beyoncé and sleeping late on a Sunday, trying not to let my grief show through or the bruises and scars, if he knows I’m never coming back and the borders closed, knows I’m a refugee with my arms full of shame and the sound of his name, that people look at me and say wow you used to live there?, that I call it immigration but you could call it trauma, that I am still waiting for him to apologize.

Max, Ex-Christian means immigrant

[praytomeinstead]

Forgot to mention that this is gonna be in print in a campus mag! It’ll be the 2nd poem of mine I can hold in my hands. And I wrote it on the spot because we needed more pieces for the mag, hehe.

[lifeinpoetry]

You’ve ruined peaches for me. I can’t eat one without thinking of your hands dipping into my soft flesh, mouth dripping, teeth skimming across skin, tongue lapping at the excess: greedy, greedy, greedy. I am all rush and blush at a summer picnic lunch, hands shaking at the farmers’ market.

Trista Mateer, “Peaches,” The Dogs I Have Kissed (via lifeinpoetry)

[inkskinned]

the greatest irony was that it took me being myself before people loved me. i know that’s all they shoved down my throat for years: that if i was just me, just all of myself, unapologetically - somehow, people would feel that. but the thing was: i didn’t want to be myself. i hated every inch of who i knew i was, the person that itched under the surface of a veneer i’d carefully crafted. the real me was meaner, more sarcastic, less tolerant, less patient, was selfish and ugly and emotional. i knew that it meant no one could love me for being me. 

it took being so broken that i didn’t care how people saw me before i acted the way i’d wanted to for years. i spoke up in class. i said the comeback that was on my tongue. i didn’t let others walk over me. i stood up. it was a strange experience, watching people react to that. my sharp words were agreed with, laughed about, seconded. the impatience with chaos was understood as leadership. the selfishness was not as bad as i thought it was, but rather just occasionally providing for myself first. 

it is very strange and backwards and half-awful that what i was running from for so long was what it took to make me whole. that being genuine also gave me back the good things again: i was funny and quick and talented. and it gave me honesty. it gave me people being calm around me. in my lack of fear, in the fact i didn’t mind being the first to be wrong, to be a mess, to be who i was (and terribly unperfect) - people relaxed their own masks around me. so many were wearing such thick ones, such well-polished versions of who they needed to be.

and underneath was the same things that i had been hiding. bravery. wit. cunning. kindness. vulnerability. 

it is amazing who people are when they are not trying. it is amazing how hard not trying really is. it is amazing how long it took me before i was okay with it. sometimes i still do, even though i sort of resent it. there are many bad things about me still. but there are many better qualities that i forgot to admit to. 

it is strange that for so long i tried to be perfect when people aren’t looking for perfection at all. they are looking for someone who is like them, and flawed.

[inkskinned]

you blazed beside me, a million bad choices that i couldn’t stop making. you laughed and called yourself satan. you said “stick with me, kid.”

people like you are easy to love. you are an adventure i don’t remember swallowing. i liked the feeling of being wild, of having something beyond freedom. i liked the rebellion. you made everything dangerous.

when we kissed my mouth bled. i remember you asking me why i was shaking so badly. “relax, babe,” you breathed. 

you remind me while lighting a blunt that lucifer was one of god’s own. i look at you and i feel the fall. i look at you and i know what it’s like to be thrown.

i am not surprised when i end up alone.

[certifiedparts]

pain comes in sneezes. my advice? try to lie still. live in the sweetness of unfeeling. it coats you like the perfect cream, like mid-summer dock-water, like perpetual floating. massage chair mind, the world rolling. there is pain, but not now. let the pain comes in sneezes. we get so hurt, but there is hope. eventually we won’t feel it. my secret? I stole an egg from the sun (because it was warm and perfect). Inside there was a fortune, reading: “some things are clean. some things are still in their original packaging.” can you imagine? 

“allergies”, A.C.C. 

[icecream-eaterrr]

I just heard this woman say “you procrastinate because you are afraid of rejection. It’s a defense mechanism, you are trying to protect yourself without even trying.” and I think I just realized what was wrong with me.

[eupheme-butterfly]

Yep, this is a very, very common reason for procrastinating.  It’s also why procrastination, even though it’s often associated with laziness, is a fairly common trait in a lot of people with anxiety and perfectionism issues.

[ruthlessdilettante]

I… I… oh…

[chirotusinfinitum]

It is easier to deal with not completing something because you didn’t try to do it than to deal with trying to do it and failing to do it perfectly

[anguisettesnakedtruth]

I laughed in my psychs face the first time he told me I was a perfectionist because I was like ‘but I don’t do anything’ because perfectionism to me was always high-achieving. But as he explained…it can also be doing nothing, because you’re so afraid of doing something and failing that you’d rather just do nothing.  I’m slowly over coming that though! I think I’m doing pretty well. 

[fixyourwritinghabits]

One thing I always struggle with in my writing is when it comes to describing something that happens unexpectedly. For example, when a character shows up without warning, or if it suddenly starts raining. I always want those instances to stand out, but I always seem to revert to old, worn out cliches ("When finally, it happened", "An unexpected voice interrupted", "Before he could take a step,..") Any tips on how to write unexpected events like those so that they sound more natural?

I honestly dislike saying “show, don’t tell” because somehow, I feel like it’s become a tell, not a show, among writers. However … to make your surprises feel more real and less telegraphed, you need to set up and describe how the sudden occurrence feels and is experienced by your character(s). It can be a sentence or three. You will almost certainly NOT want to use words like finally, unexpected, surprised, etc… 

As for a rain event, you might want something like this: The first drops fell in Mae’s coffee cup as she reached to pick it up. She grabbed the cup and her tablet, then ran for cover. Too late. The rain had already drenched her white blouse. “So there is something to be grateful for,” Mae thought. “At least I wore a bra today.” Trust your readers. They’ll get that it was sudden and unexpected. 

There’s another example here. Remember, how you phrase your sentences is important. Keep them short, and the words as basic as you can. Active verbs.