#ask rai

[raiswanson]

Location, Location

Location, location : What are your top three (or,) least three favourite places to write and why?

I unfortunately only have a very boring answer to this: my desk, because I primarily write on a desktop 😆

Honorable mention to my bed though, which has the noble possible of favorite AND least favorite, by nature of "hell yeah, these words are good! This book is great!!" followed/alongside "fuuuuuck it's 3am why am I awake and hyped up now, ow my phone screen is too bright" lol

Second honorable mention to fill out the three: the shower. Have yet to actually pull my phone into the water to jot anything down yet, but mentally writing like 500 words and having to retain it while frantically scrubbing soap from my hair counts for something too. One of these days I'm going to get one of those waterproof shower notepads. And then it's all over 😆

[ranger-rai]

How about Riolu regional differences?

Oh this one is pretty cool.

Their Fighting Style combined with their aura color.

While it's not always likely to be drastic, Riolu from Sinnoh will be your traditional expected form.

However if they come from another region, let's say Unova, we'll their aura might be a different color, perhaps closer to a dark purple or red.

There are many more big cities as opposed to Sinnoh and their deeorr roots in nature, so meditating is harder.

There's also far fewer aura users out there, Mienfoo being the biggest example, but you know what they have a lot of?

So many brawls and brawler style fighting types.

Because of this, Riolu has become a lot more aggressive and sloppy with fighting, but pretty good at grappling.

It's pretty cool to see.

[ironpaladont]

🎀 for your guy? :o

Send 🎀 for a cute outfit

I think this gear set is very cute and I love the flowers in his hair. He's a bright cheery person so I wanted to give him a bright colored outfit.

[raigash]

How do you violate tumblr's ask character limit?? I want to send people super long asks too

So I couldn’t until very recently! I think the app updated on my phone, and it was suddenly possible! Not only that, but I can bold/italicize/underline text as well! And it gives me the option to add photos and gifs, and links and the such, as well as having the bar with the anonymous option still there!

This is what it looks like for me now:

Let me tell you, the day I opened my app and found *this* has to have been the absolute best day of my life recently. I was constantly sending people 2-3 ask long comments because there was only so much space and I had so much to say. Now whether or not this has been a good thing for the people I send asks to is another question entirely 😂 but I’m so glad, cause now I can add in pictures and links as references to things I’m talking about, cause some times I bring up things that are way off the wall, and from pretty far in left field

That all being said, I hope it updates for you soon, wherever you’re accessing Tumblr! It really is lovely!

[rakkuguy]

She loves bragging about them.

[raiswanson]

Not even a last name and Song bird (for Hag) for the "what type of writer" ask game, please! (from lady-redshield-writes)

Not even a last name : What is one thing you’ve never planned for your character?

Ohhh is it cheating to say "everything"?? 😆 Because wow, I am not...a good planner! I tend to operate on an "it exists if it's relevant" level as far as characters go, and the relevance tends to come up in the moment. Is that perhaps a crazy way to do things? Yes. And yet it...works! (mostly!)

On a more specific level, honestly, the thing I plan the least often is physical appearance. The rise of picrew has helped me a bit with this, as it's easy for me to quickly go "oh sure let's play with what they look like" but even that only does so much lol. Never ask me what a character looks like or how to pronounce their name. 🤣

I am an agent of chaos. Don't be like me, kids.

Song bird : If you could pick three songs to capture the feel of your WIP, what would they be and why?

AAAH OKAY I'LL TRY TO PICK THREE THAT ENCOMPASS HAG BEST...

🎵 FIRST is Dream (Priscilla Ahn)

because OOHHH if this song doesn't just encapsulate Ayla's character/arc I don't know what does. This is a song so good for my girl that it has an entire animatic in my mind and man is it a good one. 🥺I can't go into the DEPTHS of it without spoilers but man. Just. The journey of a life full of curiosity well lived and the acceptance of an inevitable mortality is very...fitting. For Hag as a whole but for my witch-hag especially.

🎵 SECOND is Bird Song (Noah Floersch & Em Beihold)

because well. The song speaks for itself I think, and if that Killer & Giver dynamic isn't apt for one of Hag's cores, then whoof. This song hurts me a lot when I listen to it in a Hag headspace. Hurts a lot. 😔(Almost as much as the MCs hurt each other, ayy)

🎵 THIRD is Inkpot Gods (The Amazing Devil)

because 1) like the other songs it just works so well at face value and 2) at it's heart, a base thread of Hag is two people who are Hurting looking at one another and thinking "wait, I want to protect this. I will fight to protect this" all while knowing that sometimes there's nothing you can do/could have done and and and— 🥺

[raiswanson]

honestly, that one was on me, I should have worded that clearer, the "whatever suits your fancy" is one of the options on the writing ask ^^"

but I appreciate the coming out as an early bird for writing =D

(LMAO oh no, no that's my fault, I managed to miss that one after 2 scans of the list. I swear I can usually read. Thats's what I get for trying to speedily sneak in tumblr time before doing my errands 🫣 I'll answer for real this time hahaha )

Beginning, middle, or end? Which is your favorite to write, and why?

End for sure!!! Getting to see all the little pieces come together and play out just right after months/years of carefully lining it all up is just. Unmatched catharsis. I love all the parts that lead up to the end, but man nothing beats the payoff of seeing it all happen in prose instead of as a little list of jotted notes!! It just hits so right 👌

It's also just, like, really fun to be in the endgame with the characters in their (so to speak) final form. No more room for more growth arcs. What they are is what's gonna be doing this. Love matching that against whatever conflict the book has and seeing how it all unfolds.

[raiswanson]

Plantser, overwriter!

Plantser : What is the first thing you do when you start working on a new WIP?

Cry, because now I have yet another book I've gotta write 😆

More seriously, by the time I decide a Fun Little Idea has evolved into an actual WIP I'm going to seriously work on at some point, I'll copy over all the rambling and chatting and theorizing I've done about it with the friends who've enabled my hubris into a writing doc and start building on it. By then I usually have a MC so I straighten out what I can about them and their history and where they fit into the world and so on. Which leads into building said world, and where the plot is going to go.

So. Lots of note taking. Lots and lots of note taking. And once I think I've sorted out a rough beginning, end, and a few landmark scenes to guide me along, it's on to chapter 1! We leap in mostly blind in this house!

Overwriter : What is the easiest thing for you to write/ what are your strengths?

Dialogue!! Oh I loooove writing banter/bickering/arguments in particular, but oooooh any time characters are talking a lot I'm delighted lol. I would say that (and dynamic characters in general) is where my writing shines the most. Anything that helps establish a character as a unique entity with their own thoughts and feelings and goals, where the character feels more like a Real Person to the reader. Love when they yap and react to stimuli and crash against all the other figures in the story ✨