The Life of Me

If a scene feels flat and you can't figure it out, ask yourself:

• What can MC smell? Is there an ocean breeze, sweat, a cinnamon roll fresh out the oven?

• What can MC hear, besides the dialogue? Is a bird singing, river flowing, a car speeding, clock ticking?

• Can they taste something, even if they're not eating? Previously drunk alcohol or juice, aftertaste of a cigarette, smog, too instense perfume?

• Can they feel something on their skin? Rough clothes or delicate material, blowing wind, an allergy or a rash, grass that theyre laying on?

• What does the character see, besides other characters? Is the room dark or is sunlight coming in nicely? Are the colours vibrant or dull? Are there any plants?

• What's the weather? Is it snowing and the cold is making goosebumps appear on their arms? Is it hot and sweaty and clothes are clinging to their body?

• HOW DOES IT MAKE THEM FEEL? To any of the above.

Do they like the smell of cinnamon rolls or are they weirdos (I'm a weirdo, I don't fit in).

Does the clock ticking calm them down or annoy them?

Do they enjoy the aftertaste of a cig and like how dirty it makes them feel?

Are they sensitive to touch and how their clothing feels on their skin or are they indifferent?

Would they enjoy the scenery more if it was more sunny out, because they're afraid of the darkness?

Do they like it snowy or are they always cold and hate winter?

Come on, give them persoanlity, likes and dislikes, don't be scared to make them people and not only likeable characters.

how to write creepy stories

your reader's imagination will scare them more than anything you could ever write. you don't have to offer a perfectly concrete explanation for everything at the end. in fact, doing so may detract from your story.

Random question for fic writers

Bonus points: in the tags, has anyone IRL told you that they write fanfiction?

Three modes of feelings toward characters as the writer is writing them:

people say folks with adhd struggle with "delayed rewards" aka long term goals and as such we tend to focus more on short term rewards. what they don't talk about is that at when we Do accomplish long term goals we don't actually feel anything proportionate to the amount of work we did to achieve it. In my head I suffered for a while and then money spontaneously appeared in my bank account.

A collection, for a well loved garf

'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.” ― Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit

“omg you’re so creative. how do you get your ideas” i hallucinate a single scene in the taco bell drive thru and then spend 13 months trying to write it

Friendly reminder that Aang went from “Will you go penguin sledding with me?” in season 1 to absolute rizz god in season 3

The Headband proves that Aang was such an absolute chad.

The implication that asking her to penguin sled isn't god-tier rizz already-- this man had moves from the very beginning. Fashioned her a flower necklace out of fishing line on the fly in season 1. The most he did by season three was smooth out the bumps a bit. That's it

@giftober 2023 || Day 7: WATER

NEW VERSION. :)

Me, an intellectual, convinced that Lucy and Cooper will form a meaningful father-daughter relationship due to Cooper's underlying paternal instincts and Lucy's need for a mentor on the surface-

Lucy: YOU'RE SELLING ME?

Nevermind then.

Just saw a post about dolls and how kids play with them, and I remembered that my grandpa, who had real bad alzhiemer's, would buy me and my sisters the same dolls from the dollar store every Friday. It had became a routine for him, and he forgot that he'd already gotten us those toys

So that led to us having a shitton of super cheap barbie knock offs, and my parents could only sneakily return so many

We also had a shitty row boat, because my dad has really bad adhd and no impulse control. He also had no idea how to keep a boat, which meant it immediately filled up nearly to the brim with rain water as it sat next to our driveway for seasons unused

So what's a kid to do with dozens of unwanted barbies and what is basically an above ground pond at this point? I'll tell you

What you do is take those dolls and stick them in the boat very carefully. Then you watch as the seasons change, the temperature gets colder, and the water in the boat freezes as winter takes hold.

You never really forget bringing your mom out to the boat in the dead of winter to show off the homemade river Styx her children have crafted in the backyard, a dozen cheaply made plastic monstrosities carefully positioned to reach up to the surface in a frozen agony

Those dolls stayed in their frozen hell until we finally found someone who would buy the boat, like two years later.

Unfortunately, I cannot remember what the guy's reaction was when he actually came to see it and witnessed the art installation inside

This post went in a direction. I’m glad it did.

I hate the “we should have child free cafes but not dog free cafes” and the “kids shouldn’t be out in public” shit that’s getting popular again cause whenever you ask them why they hate kids they say their loud annoying etc.

Just because another person is inconvenient for you doesn’t mean they don’t get to exist in public.

Or they use their own disabilities or trauma to justify their hatred of kids; sensory issues, "I was nearly killed by kids", "I had to raise kids as a kid" etc etc as if your own disabilities or trauma would ever justify excluding any other group of human beings from a public space. As soon as you make it about an adult minority group, people get it, but they don't with kids.

“we should have child free cafes but not dog free cafes”

"Just because another person is inconvenient for you doesn’t mean they don’t get to exist in public."

Yes, but also people get to curate their own experiences. If business owners don't want to have children in their space, they get to make that decision. And if enough of the populace agrees, that business will stay open. If they don't, it fails. "But you wouldn't allow that with minority groups!" Correct. Because people want to do that to minorities due to bigotry. People want spaces free of children because we are tired of listening to screaming when we're trying to eat.

Adults with kids hate this because they want to continue their lives like normal after having kids. Sorry, kids are an imposition. They're a big fucking commitment. If you can't handle that, don't have them.

Instead, the rest of the world is supposed to shift to accommodate everyone else's kids. And yes, kids need help. But also, if people don't want to have to accommodate your kids, there should be places available for them to do so.

Okay, then let’s think of it this way: every reason kids shouldn’t be somewhere (their “loud”, a disturbance) can very easily be twisted onto disabled people too.

Being an adult existing in public is hearing kids and people you don’t wanna hear sometimes. A child learning how to be a person in public is not an imposition at all if you’re mature enough to ignore it or god forbid wear headphones. I’m not even sure where this “kids are screaming all the time” thing comes from, I rarely ever hear kids throw big tantrums in public unless I’m in a explicitly child friendly space like McDonald’s or idk the Walmart toy isle. And even then, I ignore it because it’s really not my business and you can be the best parent EVER and a kid will still scream cause their conscience is the size of a pea.

No human being should be seen as a burden to be in public. And even if they’re screaming and shit? I feel BAD for them cause their parents are clearly ignoring their needs. My first thought isn’t “let’s ban kids cause I can’t handle being in public”

writing fanfiction is just. i’m being so creative and original. i’m plagiarizing everyone by accident. i’m a genius. i’m cringe. i’m too angsty. i’m too cheesy. this is not in character. it doesn’t matter that it’s not in character because these are my characters now. i love my hobby. this is the worst possible use of my time. i’m seeking validation. i’m projecting my own personal problems onto this story and i’m barely hiding it. i know so many words and i’m using all of them wrong. im on tumblr posting about it instead of writing it.

#and then you do all that and you STILL have to think of a title

AND A SUMMARY

Times I feel like writing:

Times I don't feel like writing: