To my fellow writers.

You're allowed to call yourself a writer, regardless of how good you are at writing. You're allowed to reach for the stars, to dream of becoming the next big thing. You're allowed to write just for the heck of it.

You're allowed to call yourself a writer, regardless of why you're writing. Regardless of how insignificant you believe your writing to be, because your writing is not insignificant. Nothing that brings you joy will ever be insignificant.

Yes I would rather date a book than a man. Next question

"Are we dying?" she asked.

"I don't know," was his response.

"How could you not know?" she exclaimed, her voice hoarse from her screams. "You follow the great goddess of Death!"

He huffed a violent sigh. "She is not the goddess of foretelling."

"Still, you should—"

"Let us die quietly, please."

Her lips curled into a snarl. "Never," she spat, though he had not been the one to bury them alive. "I will never die quietly. If I am to be yanked from this world, I'll scream the whole way out."

(This is based on the magic of Death in my upcoming series, 49! Book 01 is out on Amazon on May 7th 2024!)

(PREORDER THE EBOOK: UK & US)

‘relationships are work’ means ‘you have to put effort into loving each other intentionally & learning how to love each other and communicating properly’ not ‘your relationship makes you feel stressed and sad most of the time & the other person disrespects you and treats you bad but you stay anyway’

why is this about to make me sob

a poem i am sure everyone has seen but i'm still going to share anyway

as well as this other poem inspired by giovanni's

and this beautiful tweet

Please be nice to creatures. They may look different from us. They may look scary. But they did not choose to look this way- and with an open mind you can see the beauty in life forms different than we are. They are not movie monsters out to get you, they are just little guys trying to survive this big scary world. When given the chance, spiders can be quite cute! You can choose kindness. Choose kindness.

judas was probably like "jesus has pulled off so many wacky things, he'll get out of this one lickity split, and i get three shiny coins out of it, too"

Reading some of the comments, I found so many things interesting and it makes me want to read the Gnostic Books.

I want there to be a major reprint of the Bible. I want people to learn about the real origins of Lilith, Adam's first wife.

I want to see the lines of thinking and links among all the Gnostic Books and the "canon" Bible (whatever the hell that means).

I want people to be free to learn for themselves instead of people telling them what they should learn.

Which brings me to this thought: is it just me, or has Christianity become akin to a dictatorship at this point?

"No one can love you until you love yourself" is like the worst possible way of articulating "if you don't respect and value yourself, it's very easy to become attracted to people who don't treat you right and then justify their mistreatment, so be careful."

so THAT'S what it's supposed to mean. that actually makes sense.

i need feminism because when jesus does a magic trick it’s a goddamn miracle but when a woman does a magic trick she gets burned at the stake

fabulous 

i mean they did also kill jesus. that was a pretty significant thing that happened. like i understand where you’re coming from here but they very much did kill jesus.

#HAPPY GOOD FRIDAY

I can't believe this post still exists...

And while its hilarious, it's also very sad.

Here's some facts for you guys, feminists and atheists and anyone else who wants to jump in and read.

1. Jesus was a historical figure, and he was the son of God according to accounts from the books of gospel. (The Bible thing will come up again later).

2. Before Christianity, magick was actually the staple and backbone of many cultures around the world, but they knew it by other names. Medicine, for example. Most people who would have been called "users of magick" were medicine men and women, shamans, etc.

3. Pagans believed that men and women were born equally because their deities were male, female or could change between the two (Inari is depicted as being male or female), and many cultures actually held women on high pedestals.

●The Norse had women called Völvas, and whenever they visited a village, they were placed at the head of the table.

●The Japanese allowed men and women to train as samurai and ninjas (the female ninja is called a kunoichi).

●Sparta allowed women to speak during council meetings and hold positions of power.

4. With Christianity, there was a societal reboot, yes, but at what cost? Many "Christian" traditions we know today are appropriated from ancient pagan traditions.

●The dates of Christmas actually fall into the beginning of the pagan festival of Yule, the beginning of the dark of the Year. Jesus was actually born during the summer. The Christmas tree was a pagan tradition meant to be an altar to bring in wishes for the new year ahead, the new year having already happened with the festival of Samhain (Sa-wen).

●Easter comes from the pagan festival of Ostara, the time of new beginnings and the spring equinox. The symbols for Ostara? Eggs, rabbits, and new budding flowers.

5. Christianity abolished many traditions and culture while appropriating others. Much of the history and traditions of cultures such as the Celts/Druids and the Norse have been lost. And one holiday that people don't know the truth about is St. Patrick's Day. St. Patrick is known for "driving all the snakes out of Ireland." The word "snakes" means pagans. The Catholic church forced people to give up their culture and traditions. So, instead of celebrating the "great feats" of some Catholic saint, celebrate the fact that he didn't get rid of all the pagans.

6. Christianity has caused more death than any other religion. Hear me out. Before the expansion of Christianity, people were actually pretty peaceful. The only times you really ever had problems were when there were territorial disputes or honor had been sullied (the former was usually negotiated peacefully unless people were being petty, and honor was usually restored with a debt or honorable suicide [in the case of Japan]). Christianity comes along and they were pretty forceful; if people didn't comply with being converted to this new religion, the Church made examples of them. And this wasn't the only case. The Crusades killed 1.7 MILLION people, according to modern estimates.

7. Now, let's talk about the women. In paganism, women were held in high regard and honor. It was because of women that men and children could survive. They ran the home, but they also hunted. Women are able to create life (childbirth), and this was seen as gifts from their deities. Women were seen as strong (the Norse had shield maidens, and they were warriors, same as their husbands). But along comes the early stages of Christianity, a religion predominantly led by men, and they convince people (and themselves) that women are a huge threat to the "balance of nature." Christianity teaches that man came first and then woman was created from man, while in pagan traditions, man and woman were created at the same time. The church then proceeds to disenfranchise and sully women, calling them the reason for sin (a relatively new term), and women were literally forced into submission.

● The Malleus Maleficarum: it was a book written by the Catholic church that was basically an instruction manual on how to find, "interrogate" (meaning torture), and kill witches. Witches in this context meant "free thinkers" and "pagans". Religious fear having driven a massive wedge between time and tradition led to the deaths of anywhere between 40,000 and 60,000 people, and there are others that weren't documented. And these victims weren't just women, but there were men and even CHILDREN. They were all hanged (the burning at the stakes thing was a very rare occurrence, and I think it was primarily because no one wanted to deal with the smell of burning flesh).

●Jesus did, in fact, stand up for many women who were being persecuted during his time. He even invited the prostitute, Mary Magdalene, to walk with him and his apostles because even he knew that women should be treated equally. And this was a belief that would have been seen as heresy during his time. Also, during the resurrection, he revealed himself to his mother and to Mary Magdalene before he showed himself to any of his apostles. Just food for thought.

8. Now, to talk about the Bible, perhaps the most edited book in all of history. It's said that history is written by the victors, and in this case, it was culminated by the Council of Nicaea. It was at this first council that they debated and voted on everything from the dates of holidays and the acceptance or rejection of certain books. These rejected "accounts" or books were later called the Gnostic Books.

●of all the different versions of the Bible, they all come from a single source that was translated (TRANSLATED for the people in the back who can't hear) from Hebrew and Aramaic to Greek to Latin and then to other languages. For some of you who probably have a hard time understanding this, not all words in one language have a translation in another. This leaves gaps, and these gaps were left by human men. For the egotists who come across this, here's a little humbler from the universe: HUMANS ARE FLAWED.

Now, let me congratulate those of you for reaching the end and not scrolling away, and for also not being offended. I don't write any of this to offend people or their beliefs; I'm just opening the curtains to a very dark room that you all have seemed to be content with living in.

Religion is flawed, and that is because Mankind is flawed. All of mankind.

Those flaws come from our own hubris and pride, no matter your creed, but it also comes from ignorance. We've ignored history, choosing to edit out the parts that make us feel bad or uncomfortable.

The facts above I've listed are from my own research and understanding.

I know that I've put it into a Cliffnotes version, but that's the point I'm trying to make.

We take bits and pieces out of history to uphold our opinions, and in doing so, we fail to provide context and perspective.

I invite you all to do your own UNBIASED research and learn a thing or two. Knowledge is a beautiful thing, and it's important we have all the facts.

*Steps off the soapbox*

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Not Karl..

I probably put way too much thought into it but I do enjoy making a more in depth story rather than winging it. I like to actually think about the worldbuilding, make sure things actually connect and make sense. I am a big history nerd and I feel like it's the closest I can get to writing my own history.

Point of View: the Biggest Thing You're Missing!

Point of view is one of the most important elements of narrative fiction, especially in our modern writing climate, but you rarely hear it seriously discussed unless you go to school for writing; rarely do help blogs or channels hit on it, and when they do, it's never as in-depth as it should be. This is my intro to POV: what you're probably missing out on right now and why it matters. There are three essential parts of POV that we'll discuss.

With distant-omniscient, we only get the bare actions of the scene: the wind blows in, Piper shivers, the cloth rises and falls, Carmen points, etc. But you can tell there's some emotional and romantic tension in the scene, so let's highlight that with a first person limited close POV:

Here, we get into Piper's thoughts and physical sensations: how the frost rises up her, and how this sensation of cold is really her body expressing her nervous fears; how she "thought better" and put her arm around his waist; her thought "is this not confidence?"; and how she reminds herself not to talk like a mother. Since I was writing from the close, limited perspective of a nervous high schooler, I wrote like one. If I was writing from the same perspective but with a child or an older person, I would write like them. If you're writing from those perspectives in distant narration, however, you don't need to write with those tones but with the authorial tone of "the narrator."

This is a lot of info, so let's synthesize this into easy bullet points to remember.

Here's another way to look at it!

This is a confusing and complex topics, so if you have any questions, hit up my ask box, and I'll answer as best I can. The long and short of it is to understand which POV you're writing from and to ruthlessly stick to it. If you're writing in limited close, under no circumstances should you describe how a character other than your viewpoint character is feeling. Maintaining a solid POV is necessary to keeping the dream in the reader's head. Don't make them stumble by tripping up on POV!

MAY I OFFER YOU SOME WRITING ADVICE THAT I TYPED OUT WITH MY VERY REAL AND VERY FLESH FINGERS? EXQUISITE!

I SUGGEST TAKING BUT PRETENDING YOU ARE YOUR CHARACTER AND YOU ANSWER ALL THE THINGS THEY WOULD ANSWER IT CAN HELP YOU FLESH AN IDEA OUT

my beloved writers, here's a daily reminder that your writing is never ever trash or bad as long as you have fun writing it. go wild and have fun. there're someone out there who will love and cherish those words you wrote. ♡

🟢 You are still a writer even when you haven't written in a while.

🟢 You are still a writer even when you feel like you aren't writing enough.

🟢 You are still a writer when you feel like your work isn't good.

🟢 You are still a writer when other people don't like your work.

🟢 You are still a writer when you aren't published.

🟢 You are still a writer when you only have works in progress.

🟢 You are still a writer if all you write is fanfiction.

Seeing people reblog this with "I needed this today" in the tags always makes me smile.

You are all amazing writers, and I believe in you <3