Please Spread And Donate.

Remember, you will always be growing as a writer. There is no peak, only improvement. It's a continual learning curve and you can only go up from here. So keep writing lovelies.

I agree with the above. My writing professors always said 'there are rules, break them as long as you understand how and why'. The rules are important, but you're allowed to play with them. Bend them. Writing is an art form, we push the boundaries and limits set to us and that's what makes it interesting to read. Makes each author sound unique. Just be sure it's all moving the plot in some way or revealing character. It has to have a purpose.

Otherwise, write what you want to write. J. K. Rowling was denied again and again till someone saw the magic - pun fully intended - in her work. Stephen King was told his stories were too depressing, that no one would want to buy science fiction with negative utopias. That his novels would never sell. In the end they got picked up by agencies. Keep your heads up, there is hope.

In case anyone needs to hear this today:

Drawing fanart DOESN’T make you any less of an artist.

Writing fanfiction DOESN’T make you any less of a writer.

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Your work is important.

Sorry for lack of posts guys, it's been finals week. I've had four papers due and most over ten pages.

Writers don’t write from experience, although many are hesitant to admit that they don’t…If you wrote from experience, you’d get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.

Nikki Giovanni  (via wordsnquotes)

hoo boy, here comes some serious talk about fandom mentality.

I feel like there’s a huge failing on readers’ parts to communicate to fic authors how much they appreciate their works or how much it affects them, unless the fic is “fandom famous” for some reason. sometimes it gets translated into demands (which are awful literally do not demand updates from an author ever).

more often than not, it gets translated into silence, and coming from a writer, the silence is probably the worst. you never know if they like it, you never know what the reader actually thinks about it. or even if they read it at all. and it’s… heartwrenching, and nervewracking and you start constantly questioning yourself and wondering if you’re actually good enough or if you belong. and you start comparing yourself. to the people who are popular, to the people with huge followings, to the people who get questions and art and compliments up the wazoo. and you start wondering if you should have bothered writing at all. in some cases you start begging. and in some cases, you do worse.

and it’s terrible. a writer shouldn’t have to beg. a writer shouldn’t have to only get attention when they’re frustrated or upset. a writer shouldn’t have to doubt themselves every time they pick up a pen or open their laptop. a writer should never feel so unimportant that they consider deleting their work–and do. and then be subjected to questions of why they deleted it.

(which, by the way, is kind of a rude thing to do. it’s their content, and they can do with it whatever makes them comfortable. and more than that–why wait until it’s gone to just suddenly unleash your appreciation for it?)

if, at this point, you are thinking, “well, writers shouldn’t write for attention anyway! writers should be writing for themselves!” then you are missing a Very Huge Point about the intricacies of and emotions behind creating art. of course art comes from the self, but art is meant to be shared. with people. like you. art is created for people to talk back to, to engage with, to live alongside–and yes, that in turn bolsters the creator’s own securities and motivation. it’s also a sad testament to the fact that we as a people have come to condemn the notion that anyone, especially content creators, should want attention at all.

and that’s toxic, and an awful mentality to have. (it’s also atrocious marketing. but, that’s another discussion for another time.)

what I’m trying to say here is this: a lot of this could be prevented by one simple thing. if you read a fic you like, *speak up about it.* make some kind of sign. about whether you like somebody’s work, or whether it excites you. reblog it to share with other people, gush in the tags, leave a comment/review if it’s on ao3 or ffn. (authors read tags as much as artists do, trust me.) kudos and likes are fine too, but like with any other kind of art, they’re very invisible. be vocal, y'all. spread the love.

and above all, *tell the author directly.* send them an ask, write a comment, tag them in an appreciation post. I can’t stress that enough. you’d be making someone’s day, relieving some securities, visible or not, instead of being complacent in this system, this mass way of thinking, that only popular writers deserve attention, that it has to be earned through working yourself raw instead of asked for. it causes these cliques and hierarchies and ultimately people start or keep maintaining this idea that people who are at the top deserve to be at the top, and people who get ignored deserve to be ignored. (which I have, in fact, heard people say, and that’s… I don’t even have a word for that.)

I just. something has to give, you guys. we have to stop doing this. we have to stop letting this happen. we have to be kind to our writers before they disappear.

and yes, you can reblog this post. in fact, I’d highly encourage it.

Thank you again! I'm so in love with this piece!

@alenkospanko 's Ulyesses Opries and my Sadira (ever changing last name) Benoit. They are witches, they are problem children, and they sometimes stop arguing with each other to be romantic idiots.

"We stick together and no matter what, have each other's backs. Through sickness and in health." They may have not been married, but he did take the vows and he would keep them.

"Careful Opries, you're starting to sound like a responsible and sound adult. Almost wise. How normal." His fingers were warm on her chin and his blue eyes were captivating. Her features softened, "I'm glad we have each other."

Commission from the wonderful and incredible @ib-gomes. They were so kind and patient and look! It's so beautiful, truly a million times better than I pictured! Thank you again so much!

Writing Tip #9

Have someone you look up to or respect read your work. It can be nice to have your parents and best friends read it, but face it, they’re prone to bias. You can still show it to them, but if you want feed back turn to someone else. A respected teacher, someone you admire on tumblr, or a friend you know will be brutally honest will all work. Just remember to ask nicely, they’ll be taking time out of their schedules to do this for you.

Give them a hard copy if you can or use Google Docs, it allows them to place comments so you won’t forget. Also, try not to be offended. You won’t be around to defend your work to other readers, so take it to heart. Don’t get snippy to that person, remember that you did ask them to do it.

Don’t get discouraged! There is always room to improve and so challenge yourself. Keep writing and don’t forget to thank your readers for helping you out. Maybe they’ll do it again.

48hr tumblr blackout proposal

tumblr mobile has seadily become near unusable these past few updates. not just from a user experience perspective (which is important enough in itself) but also from an accessibility perspective.

examples include the new way the image viewer works (if you can call it "working"), the tumblr live button replacing the profile button, and that newly created blogs will be forced to have their main dashboard tab be the 'for you' page.

the demands of the protest would be along the lines of:

reverse the recent image viewer update

scrap the new users 'for you' page default setting

let us turn off tumblr live indefinitely

increase efforts against spam / porn bots

make reporting abuse and hate speech as easy as reporting as reporting spam

let us go nuts show nuts again... for real this time

commit to improving usability and accessibility, and listening to users!

(suggestions welcome!)

to protest against these usability issues, and inspired by the recent reddit blackout, i propose a 48 hour blackout (where you don't use tumblr at all). preferably of both mobile and web (since web has problems too) but mobile is the focus here.

I suggest the 48 hours between the 30th of June to the end of the 1st of July.

this marks the end of pride month (for the "queerest place on the internet") and the start of disability month (since accessibility is a massive issue here).

tumblr office is in San Francisco, USA, so the times and dates will be calculated using their time zone (PDT).

you can find out the times and dates for your timezone here.

i can't afford to blaze this post so please spread it around as much as possible! protests only work if significant numbers show up!

idk if anyone will find this useful, but this is how i go about planning my stories. i mostly write fantasy, so that’s what this is most applicable to. but it could work with other genres too.

so there’s three major components to a story: the characters, the plot, and the world. creating them individually is the easy part, but they all connect and affect each other in different ways. (like you can’t have a character who loves peaches and eats them every day if they live a peasant in a region that doesn’t grow peaches, for example.)

so i created a cheat sheet to help connect all three components together.

1) the world creates the characters.

this is related to the peach example above. the characters should be a direct result of the environment they grew up in and the environment they currently live in.

2) the characters are limited by the world.

also related to the peaches. characters can’t do anything outside of what the rules of their surroundings and universe allow, such as eating peaches when they’re not available. this also applies for magic users. they can’t have unlimited magic, so keep in mind what you want out of both the characters and the world when creating magic systems.

3) the characters carry the plot.

we’ve all heard it before: “bad characters can’t carry a good plot. good characters can carry a bad plot.” but we all like a good plot anyway. try to make sure you’re not giving your characters too heavy or too light of a plot to carry.

4) the plot pushes the characters.

if nothing in the plot happens, your characters will remain static forever. if you struggle with plots, try starting with what character development you want to happen, then go from there.

5) the plot depends on the world.

you can’t overthrow the evil government if there isn’t one. think of what your world needs most and what your plot is centered around, and fit those two together.

6) the world is changed by the plot.

even if your plot is centered around something most of your world would call “insignificant”, the world will still experience some change from the plot. either the evil government will be gone, or maybe that one teacher is now way more careful about keeping an eye on the test key. either way, the world will be different from now on.

final note: usually people will be able to write one or two of the components with ease, but don’t know where to go from there. i personally can’t write plots, but thinking this way has really helped me actually make a story out of the world and characters because i looked at what i needed from what i had. i really hope this can help you too! happy writing!

tl;dr this is a cheat sheet to help anyone who struggles with writing one or two of what i consider the three major components to a story.