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Gabapple Writes

@gabapplewrites / gabapplewrites.tumblr.com

Gabapple Writes This is the tumblr account where I talk about writing... reblogs of writing advice, news in the publishing industry, progress on my projects, and so on. If it's novel-specific, I'll post it to one of my sub-blogs, which I'll list here later. For now: Portfolio: gabapple.com Tumblr: Art | Reblogs Current Project: Fishsticks (salmoncoal)
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Anonymous asked:

WHY IS HIS NAME SALMON? -Hazel

His parents really liked the name ‘Sam’ but thought Samuel was too common, especially since his dad is a celebrity. So they tossed various names back and forth, and Will suggested ‘Salmon’ and it made Marion (yes his mom’s name is Marion, shush) laugh so hard that he put it on the birth certificate without consulting her for real when Salmon was born. 

They don’t even think of the fish anymore. It’s just ‘Sammon’ to them, really. 

Salmon would say that they hate him, though… giving him a name like Salmon Wilfred Coal. 

...the explanation from me as the author was “Sam is my favorite name but I already have a Samuel and a Samantha and a Samson so I needed something else and I thought of Salmon and I laughed forever and said ‘that’s the perfect name for this poor guy’ and thus it happened.” 

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Salmon is so awkward... there’s so much he doesn’t want to or can’t say... I just want to shake him and yell “EXPRESS YOURSELF!” and he just sort of makes this face at me instead: :/ 

#woe is me
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Fun fact: I clock the time actively spent writing my books, and I have it set to charge $25/hour. I have no idea if I’ll ever see any money from my work, but it’s motivating to see the numbers, anyway...

#writing
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Solving for X
In my continued attempt to answer reader questions, I decided to pull another one out of the stack today. Some of the questions I got were quite specific (like “what font did you use for the chapter headings in Lament?), so I’m trying to hit the ones that have the most universal relevance first. Here’s […]
maggiestiefvater.com

The author of The Raven Boys has some great advice about being concise in your writing. To paraphrase, her suggestions come down to this:

  1. Err on the side of not being boring.
  2. Keep your genre in mind (YA novels tend to be 50k-90k for a reason)
  3. You can always cut. She took only redundant sentences and words out and cut 40k from her first draft of The Raven Boys without losing a single scene. 
  4. Consider the reader’s experience: the book needs to be consumable without a huge barrier for entry, or many readers won’t even pick it up.

Go read the whole post here. 

It’s fantastic, as is The Raven Boys, which I have been reading the past week. <3

#the raven boys#writing#writing tips#writing advice#novels#ya#maggie stiefvater
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CRITIQUE NEEDED

Please. I am TERRIBLE at poetry and I promised I’d write one for my bff @mamodewberry for a project and I don’t even know what to do omg please help. I commit many poetry sins in this and I just... AAHHH

*sobs into hands* It’s below the cut. 

#poetry????#please help
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ociannecrinaeae

replied to your post:

“So my goal is to finish Fishsticks first draft by the end of October,...”

:

When you (eventually) go to do your big edit of the draft, I ran across what sounded like daunting-but-excellent writing advice: Retype the entire story back into a new document. It becomes easier to rephrase/cut/add when you’re retyping each word.

Oh my goodness, that sounds brutal... and EXACTLY the kind of thing I would be into. I can definitely see the benefit of that, and I’m a very fast typer...  YEAH I’MM DO IT. Thanks for the suggestion!

...I was also thinking about doing a rough draft audio book recording. If it’s not fun and easy to read out loud, there are definitely problems. 

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So my goal is to finish Fishsticks first draft by the end of October, including a couple of (light/basic) revisions... and I’ll take a break to do NaNoWriMo in November. I’m going to write my sappy fluffy summer love story, and I am so excited about that. 

I think this is definitely achievable. 

#writing goals!!!
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I ran out of Jurassic Park audio book, so grabbed a random one through Amazon Kindle Unlimited whatever about ghosts that sounded neat... but the writing was so clumsy, with so many of the same stock action/poses that *I* use in my OWN writing that I quickly gave up and put on Pride & Prejudice instead (which is a delight as always). 

And then it was Kesha time. 

But the point is... yikes. I am going to do a lot of revision and put a stop to that post-haste. No more sighing, brow-raising, eyerolling, turning to look, glancing, etc. etc. etc... 

Mostly it’s the sighing. Stock phrases. Crutches. 

And there was so much purple prose... and the narrator kept trying to do voices and just no...

#wah#writing
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While I don’t miss the drama and extreme stress of the tumblr RP community, I do miss my friends from there, and the whole ask/blog thing is such a great format for test writing. 

Feel free to ask my OCs questions. T_T; salmoncoal needs more yes please, even though I feel like I’m writing into the void.

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Reblogged graveyardlilies
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Goodbye shorts; Hello sweaters

Goodbye iced coffee; Hello Pumpkin Spice Lattes

Goodbye swimming; Hello crisp morning walks

Goodbye camping; Hello fireplaces

Goodbye sunflowers; Hello crunchy leaves

Goodbye flip flops; Hello boots

Goodbye August; Hello September

Goodbye Summer; Hello Autumn

#yES
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*casually saves collections of icon sets to build a fabulous FC library just in case*

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