I see a lot of writing tips and I post a lot of writing tips but I feel like I’ve been forgetting the most important one: you’ve gotta learn to trust yourself.
And I don’t mean that in sort of “uwu have faith in yourself! You can do it!!” kind of way. I’m not here to repeat empty affirmations–I’m saying you’ve consumed a lot of media over the years. You know what you like and what you don’t like. You have good taste.
But if you’re like me, all that certainty goes out the window when you’re writing your own stuff. “Will the readers like that?” you think. “This is too weird. It’s unrelatable. Nobody else’s story looks like this–I must be doing something wrong.”
“This is silly,” you tell yourself. “Why do I even bother?”
And when you start doubting yourself like that, that’s the moment you stop creating. You get blocked and stressed and it gets all too easy to fall back on cliches and stereotypes. You start stripping away the things that make the story uniquely yours in order to make it look more like everyone else’s.
Which is infinitely sad.
You’ve lived a life no one else has seen, and you have ideas that nobody else in the world could think of. Even if the story has been ‘done’ before, there’s nobody else who can tell it like you. You can start with the most ‘cliche’ idea ever, but if you come at it with any measure of emotional honesty, it’ll still be new–because it’s being told by you.
I just finished a draft of a book that’s probably the most painful thing I’ve written so far. It’s way out of my comfort zone, and I had to explore aspects of myself I prefer not to think about. I did a lot of second guessing, and a good bit of whimpering facedown on the floor because writing is scary and hard.
And rereading the draft now, the absolute best parts are the bits where I gave up on convention and I wrote what I wanted exactly the way I wanted to write it. Yeah, it’s kinda silly and kinda dumb and kinda just a big load on nonsense–but it’s MY nonsense. If people like it, great. Wonderful. If they don’t like it, well–reading is a subjective experience, and maybe my work just isn’t for them. That’s okay.
Be you. Be honestly, genuinely you. It’s a scary, vulnerable position to put yourself in, but… Even if you’re one in a million, there are 7,000 people just like you–and that’s 7,000 people who will read your work and go “this writer gets me.”
Write it for them. Write it for you. Create shamelessly. Learning to write is only half learning the craft–the other half is learning to trust in the value of the things you have to say.
Tag: writing
Some writing doesn’t brush up against sentimentality as often as other writing. But whatever ‘bad’ edge your writing brushes up against, I think it’s important to touch it. You can always pull back from it, but at least you know where it is. It’s like when I was a dancer, we were always encouraged to fall in rehearsal, so that you could know what the tipping point of any given movement was. That way, when you did it on the stage, you could be sure you were taking it to the edge without falling on your face. It sounds like a cliché, but really it’s just physics — if you don’t touch the fulcrum, you’ll never gain a felt sense of it, and your movement will be impoverished for it.
Maggie Nelson, in response to ‘Is it important to risk sentimentality?’ in an interview with Genevieve Hudson for Bookslut (via bostonpoetryslam)
Sometimes I get SO EMBARRASSED writing about feelings!
But I love it. I mean, just look at that last sentence: I love it. That’s why I do it. I love to write about people (who are not real, but I love them, and they love each other, or hate each other, or both). Writing about feelings is a confession in itself, shameful and sincere.
(via wildehacked)
[The older generation of writers who had established the rules for modern fiction under the assumption that their experience was “universal”] gained the ability to write stories where they could “show” and not “tell" … They had this ability not because they were masterful stylists of language or because they dripped with innate talent. The power to “show, not tell” stemmed from the writing for an audience that shared so many assumptions with them that the audience would feel that those settings and stories were “universal.” (It’s the same hubris that led the white Western establishment to assume its medicine, science, and values superior to all other cultures …)
Look at the literary fiction techniques that are supposedly the hallmarks of good writing: nearly all of them rely not on what was said, but on what is left unsaid. Always come at things sideways; don’t be too direct, too pat, or too slick. Lead the reader in a direction but allow them to come to the conclusion. Ask the question but don’t state the answer too baldly. Leave things open to interpretation… but not too open, of course, or you have chaos. Make allusions and references to the works of the literary canon, the Bible, and familiar events of history to add a layer of evocation—but don’t make it too obvious or you’re copycatting. These are the do’s and don’ts of MFA programs everywhere. They rely on a shared pool of knowledge and cultural assumptions so that the words left unsaid are powerfully communicated. I am not saying this is not a worthwhile experience as reader or writer, but I am saying anointing it the pinnacle of “craft” leaves out any voice, genre, or experience that falls outside the status quo. The inverse is also true, then: writing about any experience that is “foreign” to that body of shared knowledge is too often deemed less worthy because to make it understandable to the mainstream takes a lot of explanation. Which we’ve been taught is bad writing!
Cecilia Tan, from Uncanny Magainze 18 (via violetephemera)
There’s a lovely old English myth that if someone who truely loved and trusted the werewolf called it by name that it would turn back to human.
Others include throwing their human clothes at it and it’d turn back but that’s a bit less romantic
#ok i understand ppl would take the romancey route here#but imagine the werewolf’s mother#or grandmother#some wizened old woman or middle aged woman#with wrinkles or hands toughened from years of labor#just going out into the woods#where even the men with axes won’t go anymore#and facing down the ravening beast#and saying#it’s time to come home
I actually like the “throwing clothes at it” better cause now I’m picturing Grandma stomping out of the house at 3 AM in her slippers, arms full of clothes and facing down this horrible, snarling beast.
And then she just starts flinging clothes at it like “GODDAMN IT JEFFERY IT IS THREE IN THE FUCKING MORNING YOU GET YOUR PANTS ON AND COME BACK INSIDE RIGHT THIS MINUTE”
Everyone knew that the Widow Grumly’s granddaughter was a werewolf. She was bit by one and the prayers from the priest held it off for a little while, but she started going strange. Started saying things that didn’t make sense. And the next full moon… she was gone.
We all expected blood and murder, but for a while everything was mostly normal. The hunters and woodsmen, they’d see a big damn wolf sometimes, and find the leftovers of deer, but nothing came close to being what everyone told us a werewolf would be. No livestock dead, no attacks on people. It was a mercy, for the Widow Grumly asked after her grandchild every chance she could. Poor thing kept asking for her grandson; bedridden as she was, we hadn’t the heart to correct her. They’re fine, we said, not hurting no one.
Not until the wolfhunter came.
Talk spreads, as talk will. And he followed the talk, the hunter in the fancy clothes and the cape of scraps of wolf fur. Were-wolf fur, if he was to be believed. He offered to kill it for us, and we declined. He decided to kill it for himself, and we declined. Didn’t matter much- he set out anyway, calling for Jemma. That was her name, Jemma.
We found him dead as a doornail, throat ripped out as neat as you please.
Well, a man turns up dead and Authority will poke it’s nose in. Doesn’t matter if it was self-defense. No one listens to a werewolf, much less a peasant werewolf, not when a wealthy fool gets himself killed. Soldiers combed the woods and found nothing. Eventually they gave up, figured she had moved on.
She hadn’t.
The evening the soldiers were all cleared out, the Widow Grumly coerced the blacksmith’s sons to carry her outside, to the edge of town. She had a bundle of rags in her hands, shirt and trousers that had seen better days. We tried to tell her that Jemma might not be Jemma no more, and that killing people can turn the nicest were’ crazy no matter the reason.
She said nothing.
When the moon came up, the whole town heard her calling from her nest of blankets and pillows, there in the road.
“Jeremy! Jeremy, you come home now! I’ve been patient long enough! If you don’t come home for your birthday I will come get you with a leash!”
Those with windows facing the road watched the black shape come forward. Watched it nose the clothes the Widow held. Watched it change.
He goes by Jeremy, now. The Widow had family connections to a local pack, and when her grandson didn’t want to pretend any more, she called in a favor. Apparently, if you’re willing to wait a year or so, you can change how you look, a little at a time. Jeremy has hair now in places Jemma didn’t, and his voice broke a couple months back. The priest don’t like it, but he doesn’t complain too loud. Not after the hard winter, when Jeremy was bringing in the only meat the town saw. The hunters still say they’d trust his nose, four-legged or not.
With each change back from wolf, more of the man shows through. And the house of Grumly has never smiled more.
I’m gonna cry
♥️
“You always were my favourite nephew,” Fingolfin said, once they knew Fingon would live.
It was patently untrue and had Galadriel hissing like a kettle come to boil and Curufin pursing his lips against a smile. Maedhros, fresh from rinsing clots of his cousin’s blood out of his hair, thanked him gravely and moved the subject on, to the matter of kingdoms and supplies.
“Fool,” Curufin snapped afterwards. “We can use this. The crown-”
“Is something we are well rid of.” Our priority is the Oath, he would have added, not long ago. “Fingon will not take well to being maimed,” he said instead. “If you’re so concerned with winning hearts, see what you can do for him.”
“It was not so bad as all that,” Fingon insisted, when he was well enough to insist upon anything. “Merely dull.”
“Boredom was the worst torture they could imagine for you, no doubt,” Maedhros said and held him through the nightmares without comment. It was, perhaps, the worst torture he could imagine for himself but that was a maudlin, self-indulgent thing to think.
“The ballad that I shall make of this!” Maglor cried. All his resentment over being left to rule as regent had vanished in the face of such a song. “A light of hope, blazing against the dark! A triumph of love and loyalty over wicked cruelty!”
Maedhros remembered well the eagle’s words and remembered too that Morgoth’s followers were loyal. He let Maglor have his song though, for they were in desperate need of hope and because it would likely annoy Fingon a great deal.
“I cannot believe you let them make a song of it,” said Fingon, greatly annoyed. “Fingon the Valiant they called me and yet in this great accounting of Noldorin deeds I am a useless, swooning lump. First my hand and now my epithet. What will you steal from me next?”
“Keep the Valiant,” Maedhros said soberly. “But add that stuffed horse I never returned to the tally of my crimes.”
“Do not think I have forgotten. Cloppy will be avenged once I can wield a sword again.” That Fingon could and would learn to fight with his left had not been in doubt since the moment he first woke.
There were apologies to be made. For the ice and the docks and for not being handier with a file. But when Maedhros opened his mouth and saw the look on Fingon’s fair, scarred face, he knew they would not be welcome. He kissed Fingon instead, and that was accepted with unprincely enthusiasm.
Love was not sufficient reason for so many things. But for some it was.
Across the galaxy, every life bearing planet evolved cats and nobody has ever figured out why.
My designation is Vespir, Radiant Prime. My exalted war-frame currently holds a geosynchronous orbit with a small blue and green orb of a planet. I am 276 solar cycles in age, according to the standardized time measurement of our Empire. Said Empire is vast, encapsulating 713 sentient species, over 2,000 habitable worlds in 1328 systems, and hosting three trillion individual existences. We are beautiful in our expanse, and gracious in our sovereignty. All are equal under the banner of the Empire, and all opportunities are afforded to those that would prove their willingness to work. Societal strife is practically non-existent, and our recorded history notes this current time as being the most peaceful to exist, other than skirmishes with anti-Empire federations. By all accounts, I am pleased and honored to live and serve in such a beneficent stewardship.
However, one question has always burned in the core of my being since my earliest days, and it is for this reason that I have come to this far-off world. The question? That in and of itself is a small tale. I believe I was 15 cycles old at the time. Hah. How young. My psionic crystals had just grown in and my toxin sacs were constantly full. Such a time of adventure where every stray thought caught in my receptor was prized upon as a shining treasure. Alas.
We were on a science vessel for an educational trip, headed to a small biological preserve, and it was there that an interesting…quirk of the universe was revealed to us. A bored-looking Shalui grasped a small, mammalian animal in it’s numerous manipulator tendrils, stroking it’s short black fur with one while gently supporting it with the other six.
“This life-form is a warm blooded, fur-possessing, carbon based quadruped belonging to the genus Helyne. Though many species exist under the genus of Helyne, all species are capable of successful mating with one another, producing viable offspring. Furthermore…” the Shalui instructor droned on, but we had long ago stopped paying attentions. Kaits, as they were called in our language, were admittedly adorable, but they were also everywhere. Our family took care of three. Why were we being told about something as basic as this?
My question was soon answered, though I had not voiced it with vocal or psionic activity.
“Though a generally agreeable type of life, no one would call the Heylne line particularly noteworthy. Steadfast companions, to be sure, but utterly common in ability and makeup. However,” our instructor mused for a moment as one manipulator tendril splayed open to gently caress the fuzzy cheeks of the animal. Seemingly caught up in the affectionate motion, he hastily continued. “there’s one exceptional thing about the Heylne.”
Silence, other than the contented vocalizations from the kait in his hands.
“Across every star system we have reached, every world we have annexed, every regrettable war we have fought, one constant remains true. The genus Helyne. If you’re unaware of the significance of that…Vespir. Come here, if you would, young lord.” My features must have betrayed my rapt attention. I rose, not breaking sitting posture, enveloped in a blue shroud of psionic energy. Regarding me for a moment, the instructor whispered something into my mind and I nodded.
At the Shalui’s request, I unfurled my six slender legs, letting their scything tips gently click against the metal floor. It was considered rude for an Espiri to walk using their legs in spaces that were not their own and instead we moved with our psionic power once we were capable. Our legs were strong and slender, beautiful in a way, but had evolved as tools of fierce locomotion and terrifying weapons of predation. Not suitable for a civilized society.
I now stood directly next to the Shalui instructor. Our races had come into their own on the same planet, in the same biomes. We fought and killed for thousands of cycles, until we abandoned the hatreds of our past and formed the Empire some seventeen thousand cycles ago. I understood the point my instructor was trying to make then and there.
For living on the same planet, eating the same food, and adapting to the same circumstances, our races couldn’t be more physically different. Shalui were, to put it basically, a walking bundle of tentacles that had adapted to different tasks. That was a gross oversimplification, but enough to illustrate the point. Their faces were a gently pulsating mass of thin, gorgeous lines that fluctuated and reformed to make expressions. Espiri found them especially attractive when they were angry. On the other hand, an Espiri was a basic head-torso-limbs situation. Six legs, two arms, a slender build throughout. We possessed chiseled skulls, angular and almost geometric. As we aged, psionic nodes grew through our bodies, allowing us to manipulate our surroundings and communicate without talking.
So how had the kait, or rather, the Helyne spread all the way across our galaxy and remained so ubiquitous? Simply living in a different hemisphere provided interesting variations of life, not to mention the extreme changes regarding the long timelines and unique challenges facing evolutionary growth on entirely new planets.
From that day I knew. It was no accident, no random occurrence. Someone, or something, had seeded all worlds with this spark of life. Perhaps a great progenitor race, brilliant and wise in their infinite ages. For the next 250 cycles, I rose through the ranks of society, becoming Radiant Prime to Her Burning Will. Our light shone across the galaxy, illuminating the darkest corners, seeking answers lost to the scourges of war and time.
I found it. At the edges of the Empire, on the fringes of civilized society, I found it. That progenitor-world I dreamed of as a youth, and chased voraciously. I devoured every scrap of knowledge from every single sentient race we came across until I had the pieces in my hands, and could only follow them to their conclusion. We had no designated name for the planet, but radio wave blasts recorded millennia gave me a moniker. Earth. A curious planet. Holding orbit, I gathered data with my war-frame, perusing imagery of the surface. I glowered at the feeds. There was nothing here. Perhaps once, long ago, some 150,000 cycles ago, there was a spacefaring civilization. But it had gone, and all that remained was the peaceful husk of massive tower, gleaming near the equator. Faint traces of technology were visible in the scans, including what looked to be a data repository based on the banks of crystal lattices buried in the earth. The tip of the tower looked like it once contained a massive payload, presumably ejected long ago into starspace.
Activating the anti-grav psions in the flux core, I descended on the “Earth.” I had built a communications cipher using their ancient radio blasts, capable of translating their Eyglishe and Khainese to our native tongue. The spire was wholly consumed with vegetation, but the structure was built to last. Perhaps a final monument to a species that encountered too many genetic flaws to continue. Perhaps a world grave, built by conquerors. Perhaps…simply an entertainment center. I had no way of knowing.
Granting the space due reverence, I left the metallic shell of my war-frame and glided across the verdant flora that covered every inch. Holding one arm out in front of me, a holographic display popped to life, and augmented my vision. The data told me “down”, and so I descended from daylight into darkness.
Time was nigh-meaningless on this star, but I felt the moments slip away from me. The holographic display indicated a passing of a thirty-sixth of a rotation before I reached the presumed data repository. It went without saying that there was no power, but our civilization was great in it’s foresight and technology, especially in regards to discovering secrets of the past. From a canister I produced an adaptive nanopolymer and a universal hardline connector to the solar power bays of my war-frame. After clearing off the console that was connected to the crystal lattices, I carefully poured the polymer over the console and watched it think for a fraction of a moment before shaping into a plug for the connector.
I was finally here. Ready to learn the secrets of the past. 250 cycles in the making for me, but how much longer for the brave spirits that undertook this before me? I, Vespir, Radiant Prime, stood on the precipice of fate and prepared to be illuminated.
The console flicked to life. A holographic display of an Earth native seemed to spin in place, surprised, before looking up at me. It appeared female, with a thick mane of black keratin descending from it’s round skull. It wore garments of black over it’s leggings and torso, accentuated with a coat of white. It’s skin was an attractive dark olive colouration – most likely a defense against the somewhat strong ultraviolet radiation. It’s two eyes – front facing, predatory and keen, decorated in lavish black frames – centered on me for a long moment.
It laughed, loudly. Audio boomed through the undisturbed halls. This was a vocalization of joy? Despair? Displeasure?
“Holy shit, you’re kinda fuckin’ ugly man.” The hologram said, adjusting the frames on it’s skull, as if to see me better. It was a hologram. It did not need to perform this action to see me better. The translation was instant, and I understood the words, but I could not help my disbelief. The Earth-form continued.
“Well, I say ugly, but that’s from my viewpoint. Biologically, god damn you’re fucking beautiful. Look at those legs! And you’re not even using ‘em! Wow. Those crystals? Is that some sort of psychic waveform generation? Jesus. Wish the actual me was around to meet you.” The hologram mused on as I regained my composure.
“I am Vespir, Earth-form. Radiant Prime of Her Burning Will. Who are you?” The earth-form tapped a digit to it’s lips before speaking.
“I’m Emma, uh, a human being. I’m the…brilliant…researcher of a super long dead civilization! Like, 180,000 years dead according to the data I’m getting just now and oh god that’s pretty depressing. I’m also a mind scan, so I’m really not even Emma. But hey, close enough, right big guy?” Sadness touched upon my mind, and I identified this feeling as my own. Waking up from an eternal slumber to find your existence to be unreal and your species gone.
“I apologize for this intrusion, and for disturbing your much deserved rest. However…” I trailed off “Emma-Uh, I must kno-” In my excitement, I realized I had descended and splayed my legs out on the ground, so that I was supporting my own weight. My psionic nodes pulsed an embarrassed blue, and I retracted my legs, floating once more.
“Cute.”
“I….?”
“You were so excited you had to actually stand.” She was uncanny in her intelligence, noting my apprehension at using my legs in this space. I admired it.
“It was…not a deliberate action, this much is true. Regardless. I’m afraid I really must ask a question of you, before I return you to your vigil.” Emma-Uh seemed to regard me for a moment before she shrugged.
“Shoot, but I’m gonna give you a condition if you want my answer to whatever it is you hauled your alien ass out here for.” Her stance seemed aggressive. A power play, for sure, but it could not be contested. She held the correct cards, and I was surely performing a disservice to her by practically waking the dead.
“Agreed. What do you wish?”
“Take me with you.” She didn’t miss a beat. Bending down at the waist, she touched the non-existent ground and stood back up. “You’ve got some pretty amazing technology to interface with some old human junk this easily. You’ve obviously got a ship with some mode of faster-than-light travel if you’re here by yourself. You also have freakin’ psychic powers. I’m sure you can build me some kind of hot robot body in exchange for whatever priceless knowledge you want from little old me. Old, old, old me.”
To say I was floored would be an understatement. But I could not refuse. Brash and vulgar, but possessed of a keen intellect, Emma-Uh could be a fantastic asset to our Empire. There was also something else.
Empathy. Guilt. I woke her into a quiet and unmoving world where she was the last of her kind. In that moment, she was thrust into the future and found out she was the digital ghost of a long dead woman. To say I felt reprehensible would to understate the matter.
“Glowing spider dude, just let me see the stars, come on. I’ll tell you anything.” Her voice pierced my mired thoughts.
“…Agreed.”
“So what did you wanna know?”
I considered heavily for a moment, before I asked the question.
“What…are kaits? Helyne? Why are they on every habitable planet? Why are they such a constant?” The translator that met our words halfway formed these into the words she knew. Her eyes went wide and she laughed, laughed so hard she cried, falling down onto an invisible ground and rolling around.
“Cats? Oh dude, it worked? It fucking worked! Dude!” She yelled loudly, staring up at the forested ceiling. It was a long moment before she spoke, holographic eyes glazed over in remembrance.
“Well, our civilization was dying out, we never mastered faster than light travel on a scale big enough to move colony ships. Just tight-beam information blasts. Everyone else was gone, and I was here, alone. The real me, not this spooky Microsoft ghost. It was just me and Ike, my pet. And I was like, ‘gee, Emma, aren’t cats great?’ So I…well. I kinda took a sample of Ike and ran it through a profiler, and I made a million, million variations of that double helix, and…I blasted that information into the great void. I really just thought, ‘wouldn’t it be neat if everyone could have a cat, even when all the humans are gone?’ It’d be a shame if the best thing about Earth couldn’t be shared with the stars.”
Confusion and a strange joy welled in my core. It was a longer moment before I spoke, deploying a data-probe into the console as I did. It activated a prompt for Emma-Uh to respond to as I did. The prompt read, “Accept transfer?”
“So…you, blasted a genetic information wave to the entire galaxy, seeding countless stars with Helyne data, because you thought ‘cats’ were great?”
“Yeah, that’s basically it.” Emma-Uh nodded as she tapped the prompt, slowly transferring into the war-frame’s vast databanks. I spoke to the warm darkness ahead of me, unsure if Emma-Uh would hear my words. They needed to be said anyway.
“…You made a wonderful difference to the universe.”
The narrator and the protagonist fight over the affections of the oblivious reader.
You’ve come to the realization that your two best friends are actually an angel and a demon battling for your soul
squid’s laws of fic (not inclusive)
first law: write the fic you wish to see in the world aka goddammit do I have to do everything myself around here
second law: it’s going to be longer than you think. much longer. hahaha so long. why are you crying
third law: the time spent writing is inversely proportional to the amount of smut present, dammit
fourth law: flesh out your secondary characters. make them real people. have them take over. oh god. put them back. somebody please help
fifth law: the time spent researching canon is directly proportional to the amount of time you’ll spend altering your plot. that one person on the internet
sixth law: the time spent researching in general will eclipse the time you spend writing. the nsa agent monitoring your internet search history is curled up in a corner. his boss wants to know if you’re a threat. “I don’t know,” the agent sobs. “I just really don’t know.”
seventh law: at some point, someone will ask what your favorite hobby is. you will feign a heart attack to get away
You end up making good stuff by making a bunch of bad stuff, which is why everybody who’s blocked, the reason they’re blocked is because they are committing the cardinal sin of assuming their job is to make something good. You’ll never make that. Your definition of good will change as you get better. It will always be something you’re not capable of. Whereas you know you can make something that sucks. You live in terror of it. So, do that. You’re also a very critical person. You’re very critical of your own work, other people’s work. So make something that sucks and then criticize it, and fix it. That is a much better way to get something done than this idea that, you know, you’re gonna use your brain, which is so special, you’re gonna make all the right choices ‘cause you’re such a great, great person.
Dan Harmon (via digital-femme)
This quote kinda reminds me of a totally unrelated tweet by Ta-Nehisi Coates I read yesterday:
The thread tying them together in my head, I guess, is this idea that you should stop worrying about being smart and do the work. Study, Write, Listen, Consider what you’ve heard and what you’ve written, and how/why you respond to it as you do. THAT’S how you get to “Good”; not by being born with the right, ephemeral, mental “trait”. Follow one small step with the next, and before you know it a journey of a thousand miles is behind you.
(via zenosanalytic)
just moving along like everyone else 