Rainer Maria Rilke, From A Letter Featured In The Dark Interval: Letters On Death

Writing Prompt #1

“I told you, I didn’t do it! I’m not who you think I am.”

going through a situation that you can’t even talk about is the hardest ever

10 Writing Things That Have Saved My Creative Soul (and Sanity)

↳ If your character’s arc isn’t making you slightly emotional or existential, it’s probably not finished. If they start and end the story the same person, that’s not a character arc—it’s a flatline. Make them squirm, learn, lose, grow. Bonus points if they make you question your own moral compass in the process.

↳ Worldbuilding is not a license to drown your reader in lore like it’s Game of Thrones on steroids. If you have to write a wiki page to understand your own plot, fine...but that doesn’t mean your reader has to read it. Give us breadcrumbs, not a 12-course feast on page one.

↳ If the theme of your story can’t be summed up in one slightly aggressive sticky note, you’re probably overcomplicating it. (“This book is about choosing yourself even when no one else does”—boom, theme. Now go make your characters suffer for it.)

↳ You will hate your manuscript somewhere between 30k and 50k words. That’s your cue to keep going, not quit. It’s like the literary version of hitting mile 18 in a marathon. Everything hurts, but that means you're doing it right.

↳ That “genius idea” you had at 2 a.m.? Save it. Write it down. But don’t drop everything for it. New ideas are seductive chaos demons. Your current project deserves monogamy… at least until the second draft.

↳ A character’s greatest fear is a shortcut to their heart. Forget favorite color or coffee order...what keeps them up at night? What would destroy them if it came true?

↳ If you don’t know how to end your story, figure out what question it’s been asking the whole time. Once you know the question, the ending becomes the answer. Maybe not a happy answer, but a satisfying one.

↳ No one’s going to write your weird little story the way you will. That’s your superpower. So go ahead and write the morally gray necromancer love triangle in space. Your people are out there. And they’re hungry for it.

↳ You are allowed to be a slow writer. You are allowed to be a fast writer. You are not allowed to be a cruel writer—to yourself. The world will criticize your art for free. Don’t do their job for them inside your own head.

↳ Some stories just aren’t meant to be novels. And that’s okay. Maybe it's a short story. A play. A fever dream disguised as a poem. The shape doesn’t matter. The story does. Let it tell you what it wants to be.

10 Soul-Level Secrets Your Character Is Carrying (And Hiding Like Their Life Depends on It)

These are the kind of secrets, that keep your character up at night. The kind that twist their decisions, poison their relationships, and build a wall between who they are and who they pretend to be.

» They think they ruined someone’s life, and no one knows.

It wasn’t murder. It wasn’t obvious. But maybe they said the wrong thing. Maybe they didn’t show up when it mattered. Maybe they walked away and something irreversible happened. No one connects the dots. But they do. Every day.

They smile like everything’s fine. They help people. But underneath? They’re trying to atone for something they never confessed.

» They don’t believe they’re capable of being truly loved.

They might flirt. They might date. They might even say “I love you” like it’s nothing. But they don’t believe it when it’s said back. They think people are just being kind. Or delusional. Or lying. It doesn’t matter how good they are—it never feels like enough. So they self-sabotage. Quietly. Strategically. Like clockwork.

» They’re living a life that’s not theirs.

Maybe they took someone’s spot, figuratively or literally. Maybe they’re fulfilling someone else’s dream, wearing someone else’s name, carrying someone else’s story. They were supposed to say no. Walk away. Be honest. But now it’s too late. Too deep. Too tangled. So they pretend this version of their life is real. Even when it doesn’t feel like it.

» They’ve buried a part of their identity because it was safer.

Their queerness. Their culture. Their belief system. Their softness. Their rage. At some point, they decided—this part of me makes people leave. So they buried it. Cut it off. And now they move through life like a shadow of who they were supposed to be. They blend. They perform. But deep down, something sacred is starving.

» They still love the person they say they hate.

They’ll deny it. They’ll joke. They’ll talk sh*t with a smile. But the truth? They never really let go. And they never will. It’s in the way their voice shakes. The way they remember the smallest detail. The way they get weirdly quiet when that person’s name comes up. Love laced with bitterness is still love. That’s what makes it so hard.

» They’ve hurt someone on purpose—and never apologized.

It was calculated. Or maybe impulsive. But they knew what they were doing. And they did it anyway. Now they pretend it didn’t matter. They laugh it off. “We all make mistakes,” right? But in the quiet moments, it haunts them. They remember the look in that person’s eyes. They remember the moment they chose cruelty. And they hate themselves for it.

» They think they’re a bad person deep down.

They might be kind. Loyal. Brave. But they’re convinced it’s a performance. A mask. That underneath all the good, they’re something rotten. Unforgivable. Wrong. So they wait. For the slip-up. For the fallout. For someone to finally say it out loud: “I knew you were never really good.”

» They’re still shaped by something they pretend didn’t happen.

That thing? The trauma? The grief? The shame? They’ve never talked about it. Maybe they’ve blocked it out. Maybe they minimize it. But it’s everywhere—in the way they react to conflict, touch, silence, love. They don’t think it matters anymore. But it does. It always has.

» They dream of leaving. But never will.

Every day, they imagine packing a bag. Burning it all down. Starting over. But they stay. Because of guilt. Obligation. Fear. They smile while doing the right thing. But in the back of their mind, they’re screaming. They’ve built a prison out of choices that looked noble on paper.

» They’ve built a whole personality around keeping people from seeing who they really are.

The loud one. The chill one. The one who always makes the plans or always fixes the mess or always has a snarky comeback. It’s not fake. But it’s not all there is. They’ve decided that the real them? The soft, scared, selfish, angry, insecure them? Can’t be loved. So they keep the performance airtight. But some part of them still hopes someone will see through it anyway.

I would have hugged you longer if I knew that’d be the last time we’d hug.

@chaiandpages

how i look at my characters existing in peace knowing that their happiness is just pages away from being taken

writing a multi-chapter fic is posting a chapter that is 1,000 word long and another that is 10,000 word long. there's no in between

"i don't comment on ao3 because i don't wanna be annoying or weird" skill issue + you greatly underestimate the power dynamic here, writing multi paragraph comments is like feeding a bunch of deeply insane and possibly starved ducks at the park and watch them go completely mad over having received a piece of bread

being a writer is having the wiki page for ancient plumbing systems open for weeks and refusing to close it because 'just in case'