Tag: writing

Writers on Writing

cinaed:

I sit down for eight hours every day– and sitting down is all. In the course of that working day of eight hours I write three sentences which I erase before leaving the table in despair.

-Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), letter to Edward Garnett on March 29, 1898

I find it only too easy to write opening chapters– and at the moment the story is not unfolding. I squandered so much on the original ‘Hobbit’ (which was not meant to have a sequel) that it is difficult to find anything new in that world. 

-J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) on the genesis of The Lord of the Rings, in a letter to Stanley Unwin in February 1938

You don’t say, ‘I’ve done it!’ You come, with a kind of horrible desperation, to realize that this will do.

-Anthony Burgess (1917-1993)

I tend to write in a fragile, edgy, doubtful sort of way, trying things out all the time, never confident I’ve got something right. 

-William Trevor (1928-) in 1989

thebibliosphere:

mojavejourneys:

fancyladssnacks:

reddragonsbreath:

barrett-the-babe:

caiusmartiuscoriolanus:

incestiel:

almostdiedthreetimes:

feasibleweasel:

autonomousartisan:

demoniccupcake:

the-guy-below-me-sucks:

doctorfeelbad:

couragemadnessfriendshiplove:

world-shaker:

Want to collaborate on a Google Doc with Nietzsche, Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, Dickinson, Dickens and Poe? 

Click here. Start typing. Enjoy the hilarity. 

Ninja Update: Wanna see something fun? Mention Shakespeare in a sentence and see what happens. 

Poe kept writing distinctly into my sentences so I wrote ”Edgar, you’re not funny” aND HE BLATANTLY DELETED THE NOT I AM SO DONE WITH THIS ASDFKJL

OH GOD IF YOU TYPE “EDGAR ALLAN POE” POE ADDS A 😦 AFTER HIS NAME PRECIOUS BABY

Oh my God so I typed ‘Shakespeare’ and Shakespeare butted in and wrote ‘The lovely and handsome Shakespeare’ but Poe burst in saying ‘The dreadful and lonely Shakespeare’.

aND FYODOR DOSTOYVESKY ADDED ‘ I do not wish to make myself a laughing-stock before these idle listeners.”

I’M DONE.

Look what they did to All Star by Smash Mouth

“Somebody once hushedly told me the world is going to roll me. I ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed. She was looking kind of glocky with her finger and her thumb in the shape of a “L” on her forehead. Well, the years start voraciously coming and they don’t stop coming; fed to the rules and I hit the ground running. It didn’t make sense absolutely to live for fun. Thy brain gets smart but your head gets dumb. So much to do, so much to behold. So what’s wrong with taking the back busy thoroughfares? In everything one thing is impossible: rationality. You’ll never know if thou don’t go. “You’ll never shine if you don’t glow”, he growled incoherently. Hey presently, you’re an All Star. Get your game on; go play. Hey now, you’re a Rock Star. Get the show on; get laid. As well as all that glitters is gold, only shooting stars break the mold. ~All Star by Smash Estuary of opinion…”

Imagine putting your research paper in here and letting them go at it.

OH MY GOD I WAS WRITING AND EDGAR WOULDN’T STOP FIXING THINGS SO I WROTE “Edgar shut up I’m trying to write” and he changed it to “Edgar shut up I’m meagerly attempting to write” THIS FUCKING ASSHOLE

I typed in “Hello” and Shakesphere erased it and wrote “Begone with this rubbish.”

HOW R00d

I typed “party in the Usa” and Poe changed party to “ill-fated gathering”

I just used it to yell at Dickens about Tale of Two Cities, I am happy now

I typed in ‘hello other writers’ and Edgar Allen Poe changed it to ‘Hello secondary writers’

After I had been writing for a while Edgar suddenly deleted my last sentence and wrote “THE END.” rude son of a bitch

I have to try this.

Rebageled again but to add if the link above doesn’t work, try this one instead.

I put my author bio into it and Edgar Allan Poe and William Shakespeare started fighting over the werewolf puns.

itstartswithablankpage:

I made this today as I find it’s a helpful tool when I make characters. I call it the 1-2-3 method.

1 value: Their core belief.

2 flaws: The limitations of the character. Things that can affect their actions and abilities.

3 traits: What makes them, them. the aspects of their behaviour and attitude.

It’s important that you justify their personality through their backstory and home life, however, and it’s good to have conflicting flaws/traits within a group which will help create tension and drama.

I’m using this today to create characters for my campnanowrimo WIP and thought I’d share.

Source: itstartswithablankpage

kakaphoe:

cassandrashipsit:

hoosierbitch:

allerasphinx:

fic writers i promise you–on my life–that readers remember that finn’s skin is dark brown. 

i promise that if you use a descriptor besides “the darker skinned man” in relation to all the characters around him, people will know who he is in your sentence.  

e.g. the sun’s golden rays made his dark amber skin glow as it slid lower in the sky.

e.g. the harsh white light surrounding his body roughened the soft lines of his face and made his skin appear greyish as though he were a wraith. 

e.g. the only imperfection marring his skin was the raised brown scar that slashed jaggedly across his back. (finn’s skin’s rich with melanin, so even if his fresh scar’s initially raw and pink, eventually it’ll heal to a brown shade–either slightly lighter, same tone, or slightly darker)

i promise that you can describe him as you do rey or poe and your readers won’t forget that it’s finn you’re talking about. 

i promise you, you can describe poe without making him sound like a white dude.

n.k. jemisin’s a master at writing her characters, who are predominantly people of colour. for this reason, she usually describes them in relation to each other and doesn’t rely on their skin tones. she explicitly describes her white characters’ skin tones to flip the dominant perspective that assumes white as default. here are some of her tips: 

describing characters of color

describing characters of color pt. 2 (some of her rowling thoughts are ehhh, because rowling does otherise her characters of colour, but this is an old post)

describing characters of color: other people’s poc

other resources: 

7 offensive mistakes writers make 

writing with color: poc and food comparisons (john boyega can call himself chocolate and black people might describe him as such, but you probably shouldn’t)

writing with color: words for skin tone 

words to describe hair (i’ve read a couple fics where y’all are clueless about finn’s hair)

describing natural hair 

writing with color’s colorful critiques 

describing poc and avoiding caricatures

writing authentic characters of colour in first person pov

in depth guide to drawing different ethnicities 

thank you so much for this post. it is so important and so helpful. 

Heads up for all my writers out there.

reblogging so I can find it later.

snamioneshipper:

lovefromdean:

sometimes i really love my fics. i wrote that because i wanted to read it. i love it. nobody visits my fics more than me. they remind me that i’m a hard worker, that i created something. it’s mine and i cherish it and love it because it’s exactly what i wanted so i made it.

and other days i’m crippled by self criticism and hate everything and can’t bear to look at my own work because i know it’ll never compare to the greats

but i live for the days i love my work. because it’s mine, and i made it. i didn’t wait for somebody else to make what i dream about. i went and did it myself.

so don’t feel like your work is awful

it’s the stuff you dreamed about. it’s the stuff you decided to make a reality. it’s not about quality, or poetry, or how perfectly your sculpt your words or keep it so deeply in character; because it’s what you dreamed and it’s what you wanted to see, so you made it.

keep writing; it’s yours, and you made it. and if you want to continue to sharpen and improve yourself? then do it. it’s all yours and you can make it whatever you want.

keep writing.

THIS.