#seebaru

[plurilinguismo]

*hugs you real tight* would you please send this to the first 10 people in your dash? Make sure someone gets a hug today and stay safe! ♥ (inoltre buon compleanno!)

Grazie mille!!♥

[brynwrites]

They probably ask you this a lot, but how did it feel when you finished writing a story for the first time?

I’ve never actually been asked this before, so thank you for posing it! 

A little backstory: I’ve been writing since I was old enough to daydream, but I never managed to actually finish a single one of my full length novels until I finished college. (There were a couple short stories I did in high school, but those never went over 5k words so the feeling of accomplishment wasn’t the same.)

The first novel I finished was a 110k word Fantasy, then titled The Warlord’s Contract (now Iron From Fire), and I was ecstatic but also a little bit in shock and incredibly tired, because it was the first time I’d ever pushed myself to write at least a thousand words a day. I didn’t start another book for almost six months after that.

I still feel incredibly happy every time I finish a novel, and I think in some ways I’m more proud of myself with each book I write because I churn them out faster, create more coherent rough drafts, and enjoy the writing process more due to the skills I’ve built that help me tackle the drafting.

[concerningwolves]

I'm going to be that person and ask: what do you do when the work you get is really bad? I mean, if the answer is "in that case I'll just have more to work, which is great" then fine, but when my creative writing teacher gave me a short story and told me to try editing it, I got very upset because it was really, really bad written. Plus there are some writers that write badly, then expect the editors to do their magic and turn the work into something great. How do you handle these situations?

I’ve had to learn that, as an editor, it is absolutely not my place to pass judgment. The whole point of being an editor is to improve what you’ve been asked to improve. If someone asks me to do a proof, I’ll do a proof, thereby improving the spelling. And then I’d leave it at that unless the client asks more of me (because at the end of the day that’s all I can do, or I’d risk irritating a good client). 

Back when I was working for free in order to gain experience, stuff would come into my orbit that was almost incomprehensible. But I wouldn’t have called that work bad, partly because (as I said) I can’t let myself think judgementally, but also because “bad” is a really subjective concept. The quality of writing might have been terrible, but there could have been a really good premise. Conversely, the concept might have been unoriginal and would have flopped if the writer was trying for a publishing market, but the prose showed a lot of promise. There’s a lot of nuance going on. 

So what you said about writers who write badly? That’s not the problem. The problem is when a writer hands over their work, says “give me a copy-edit”, you do a copy-edit, and then the client comes back and complains because their writing didn’t get the reception they were after. I’m lucky that I’ve not yet encountered a client like that (yay!) but I’ve read anecdotes from others in the field. In those cases, the writing itself isn’t the problem; it’s the attitude of the writer, who hasn’t taken the time to understand what an editor actually does. It sucks, but when you’re working freelance that’s A Thing That Happens. 

The client also usually has no idea that their writing would be considered bad. This is because they’re not yet self-aware enough about what they write, and are still growing into the craft. That process cannot be rushed. The editor will just have to do what they’ve been asked and send the writer onwards on their journey. It’s hard to make peace with that, especially if you think you can see exactly what the writer needs to do to improve, but it’s not your place to give unsolicited lessons. 

tl;dr - what you personally think about a piece of work is irrelevant. It was so bloody difficult for me to learn this in the early stages of training, but personal opinion has to take a back seat so that the editorial brief can drive, because good and bad are not measures that exist here. 

[ffuckgyu]

*hugs you real tight* would you please send this to the first 10 people in your dash? Make sure someone gets a hug today and stay safe! ♥

thanks love💖 stay safe and take care in these uncertain times

[whiteconfession]

*hugs you real tight* would you please send this to the first 10 people in your dash? Make sure someone gets a hug today and stay safe! ♥

[zwergenmaedchen]

came for something cool you wrote in a reblog about writing... I think? It was so long ago! x__x I stayed for the poetry and for the nice content. I never thought I'd grow to like poetry yet here I am, waiting for your next work. You also seem to be a very cool and nice person.

Aw thank you so much!! I've fallen a bit out of writeblr but I'm so happy to hear there's still people looking forward to my poetry!

Trust me, I'm anything but cool, but I'll happily take nice 😊 You're lovely yourself and I always enjoy seeing you on my dash and in my notes 💜

[zwergenmaedchen]

At a cafe with you I'd order Hot Chocolate (24)!

Thank you for asking, dear 💜

24.    Hot chocolate: Do you have (a) stuffed animal(s) sitting in your room? Which one(s)?

Yeah, there's a few! I have a biiiig super fluffy cow (her name is Sally, I didn't name her after @sailorsally bc I've had her for 11 years now, but she makes me think of her now 💜)

I have a dog that's filled with grains and can be heated in the microwave. He's called Mini-Max bc when I was still living away from home I used to miss my in-laws dog, Max, and so my sister-in-law gave him to me for Christmas.

Not technically a stuffed animal, but I also have Hedwig, the hot water bottle who's also super fluffy and reminds me of @ceraunos .

There's probably more, and definitely some smaller ones that I got as basically comforters for taking to school on exam days and such, if that makes sense?

[sabadorks]

seebaru reblogged your post and added: “A list of songs that every Italian speaker knows but are weird to...”

Somebody please tell me what’s the song about...

Splendido Splendente by Donatella Rettore.