tatterdemalion-sprite

Latest Posts by tatterdemalion-sprite

I like writing a lot…..

But when does it stop being soul sucking????

How can both be true??

(sigh) Easily. All the arts are full of apparent contradictions like this.

Re: writing, specifically: This work is a very particular kind of magic. And like all real magics, the use of it inevitably has a price.

"Soul-sucking" strikes me as a slightly harsh idiom for the payment of the Writing Price. But that's okay, because the idiom itself points at the remedy. And it's really simple! Just this:

Every time you sit down to write, you have to consciously work to do it well enough so that you grow some more soul.

(I mean, you don't think that souls run out when you use them, surely? Or can't regenerate over time? They can be surprisingly resilient... assuming you don't buy into the idea that they're limited to what you feel like you started out with, or what you've got at the moment.)

Repeatedly pouring your soul into your work is very much like bodybuilding. At first it hurts like hell. Then the body starts to adjust to the increased demands you're putting on it. After a while you look back and find you've blown way past the boundaries that you earlier thought were impassible.

When you start getting that soul-sucked feeling, it's just a sign that the workouts are having an effect. It's the equivalent of the lactic-acid ache after a session at the gym. But you still need to keep working at it to improve your results. If you find you need to take more rest time between writing bouts to replenish your reserves, fine: work out what your best refractory period seems to be, and adjust your workload to suit that as best you can. But at all costs, keep writing, at whatever interval works best. Over time, it does get easier.

Does it ever stop "sucking" / demanding that price?

Nope. Sorry! But you can learn over time to grow into those inevitable demands on your time, energy and commitment. Just keep reminding yourself: Nothing truly worth doing ever comes without a price tag. And the more you work at your craft, over time, the bigger the price tags you'll find you can afford without flinching.

...So get back in the gym. (And I hope this helps!)

i think ultimately you do really have to kill that part of your brain that vividly imagines how you would redo parts of your life.

been stewing on an analytical approach to fiction which I call "is this book afraid of me?" and in order to answer this question you determine how hard the book is trying to make sure you don't come after the writer on twitter

Things I’ve noticed are essential in plotting and would probably have saved me a lot of time if I had considered it earlier

The START of your story - how fucked up flawed is your premise/character at the start? what do they have to change? why are they HERE?

The END of your story - How do you want your main character/theme/universe to change after your story? Does it get better or worse? THIS SETS UP THE TONE DRASTICALLY.

What you want to happen IN BETWEEN - the MEAT of it. What made you start writing this WIP in the first place. Don't be ashamed to indulge, it's where the BRAIN JUICE comes from. You want a deep dive into worldbuilding and complex systems? Then your start and end should be rooted in some fundamental, unique rule of your universe (what made you obsess over it?). Want to write unabashed ship content? Make sure your start and end are so compelling you'll never run out of smut scenarios to shove in between scenes (what relationship dynamics made you ship it in the first place?).

The ANTE - the GRAVITY of your story. How high are the stakes? Writing a blurb or interaction? start with a small day-in-the-life so you can focus on shorter timelines and hourly minutiae that can easily get overlooked in more complicated epics. Or you can go ham on it and plot out your whole universe's timeline from conception to demise. Remember: the larger the scale, the less attached your story may get. How quickly time flies in your story typically correlates with the ante (not a hard rule, ofc, but most epics span years of time within a few pages, while a romance novel usually charts out the events of a few months over a whole manuscript.)

Everything else follows….?

It’s easy to forget JRR Tolkien was a fairly prolific academic translator with an interest in early medieval literature and philology. It’s so inspiring that he found time to write The Hobbit while fighting for his life over Beowulf.

favourite things about first drafts:

square brackets with notes to self mid-line like [does this make sense with worldbuilding?]

ah yes, Main Character and their closest friends, Unnamed Character A and Unnamed Character B.

bullshitting your way through something that you probably definitely need to research later

also square brackets to link up scenes. [scene transition idk] my beloved

the total freedom of word vomits

"I'll fix that later"

the moment when the world and characters start to gain a life of their own

pieces falling into place as you write that you were uncertain about before you started

the accomplishment of Made A Thing

Also: I think Aragorn gets a bad reputation now because so many lesser franchises have tried to imitate his archetype without understanding why he works. In the original movies he’s just a big gentle sad guy with a sword, who knows he’s not the real hero of the story and dedicates himself to supporting those gay little hobbits. The aragorn knockoffs are not his fault

And this is why you can't write a grimdark LOTR that has ANY resemblance to the original - if you don't tell a story that's about kindness and light and love, no number of epic battles can save you

I'm reading the lord of the rings and I'm once again amazed at how... good most characters are. Like, they are genuinely good people. They are a bunch of kindhearted, gracious, caring people, coming together under adverse circumstances and trying to figure things out and find a solution and support each other through it all. Like Frodo and Sam meet Faramir and Faramir is a bit suspicious at first and kind of implies Frodo may be a spy, and then when he hears his story and he's like Frodo, I pressed you so hard at first. Forgive me! It was unwise in such an hour and place. And this blows.my.mind. He wasn't even particularly mean or threatening to him in the beginning, he's just such a kind, considerate man, recognizing the kindness and honesty of another man. And they're all like that. Even Gollum starts slowly changing (for a short while) when he encounters Frodo because that's the thing about kindness and humility and grace, they are contagious. They transform people, even a creature like Gollum cannot be immune to that. Like, you may consider all this simple and basic and I get it but, hear me out. It is quite rare to see that in modern media and it is also pretty difficult to pull off in a way that is not corny and simplistic. It is mind blowing that you actually don't have to present the entire palette of human cruelty and vice in order to tell a compelling story, contrary to popular belief. Lotr does the exact opposite, and it is just beautiful and it warms my heart. Especially taking into consideration tolkien's pretty grim growing-up experience, him being a double orphan without a home, raised between an orphanage and a priest and having no family apart from his brother and then the war and then he almost dies and then he's poor as hell and then a second war and it all makes sense somehow. He writes to his wife who is also an orphan two days before the marriage "the next few years will bring us joy and content and love and sweetness such as could not be if we hadn't first been two homeless children and had found one another after long waiting" and, yes, yes! The love and sweetness just radiate from his work, the entire lotr series is a little radiant bubble of hope and love and grace that he imagined in his head to deal with a dismal reality and then he just gave that to the world, and isn't that what imagination and art is all about after all?

In honor of watching the last 4 episodes of Rings of Power S2 for the first time yesterday, I feel like commemorating this philosophy.

[src]

writing badly and cringily is actually an essential part of the writing process, both in terms of individual projects and in gaining voice and confidence as a writer in the long term. there is no way around the cringe. there's no way around the work.

Never have I felt so much like a protagonist

your protagonist doesn’t need to save the world. maybe they just need to save their plant collection, one dying ficus at a time.

this poem. bro

(by joseph fasano)

Writing is about exploring your imagination. Writing is about self expression. Writing is about having fun. Your writing doesn’t have to be perfect. You can always edit it later. You can always improve. But the most important part of the writing process is actually enjoying it. 

Just realized I’m driving home through part of Arizona that’s considered an unofficial dark sky reserve and decided to pull onto an off-road.

It’s no wonder our ancestors believed gods lived in the sky. There are so many stars I can’t find the constellations. I’m not used to seeing them like this. Saying it looks like diamonds is damning it with faint praise. I CAN SEE THE EDGE OF THE MILKY WAY.

It really does look like a bowl or a dome over the earth when you see it like this. The stars look closer. I think this is what “sublime” was actually coined to mean.

It’s probably a good thing I’m out here at a time of year it’s too cold to stay long. I’d be bent back over my hood staring straight up for way, WAY too long and then not get home until midnight, assuming I could get back into an upright position.

But oh! If you ever have a chance to see it…stop and do. Take a few minutes. You’ve never seen anything so lovely.

A cosmic tribute to my current favourite comment in YouTube history

We actually have an epilogue to a 55-year-old love story that has consumed literal generations (no pun intended) of people. We have that epilogue NOW in 2024 when the world feels like nothing will be okay again, suddenly THIS. The fulfillment of hope. Expressed through two of the most beloved characters in history. And maybe things will be okay again, even if it's 30 years later. A lifetime. If Jim and Spock can find each other again, anything is possible.

Luck. Miracles. You know how it goes. They make me believe in both.

HE DID IT FOLKS, HE DID THE THING

how did women in 1817 read wentworth’s letter to anne and not immediately start running through the streets screaming

basic things you should know about your main characters

how is their relationship with their family

what are their beliefs, if they have any

what is their motivation (preferably something unrelated to their love interest/romantic feelings)

who were they raised to be vs. who they became/are becoming

what are their plans for the future, if they have any

how they feel about themselves and how it affects their behaviour

how do they feel about things they cannot control

and last but not least: Why is This Character the Protagonist??

jason “idealism sits in prison” todd

dick “chivalry fell on his sword” grayson

tim “innocence died screaming” drake

damian “i slithered here from eden just to hide outside your door” wayne

do you see the vision

I cry when I go to the beach because I really really love sitting in windy places, it makes me feel clean and loved at the same time. I don't know how to sail but one day I want to learn more about sailing and boats.

I love Jimmy Buffett - Cheeseburger in Paradise is a banger that my whole family sings on roadtrips, but Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes or A Pirate Looks at Forty or Son of a Son of a Sailor are all some beautiful songs about life, he sounds like he's singing to friends.

I had a massive horse phase in elementary school that I've stopped talking about, except to laugh at my horse statue collection. I never quite left the horse phase, or at least I rediscovered it when I saw someone reference The Black Stallion series a month ago. The Black Stallion was my favorite, but Black Beauty, National Velvet, bunch of others I'm currently forgetting, I read a bunch of fiction about them. The nonfiction was interesting, but the horse phase centered around a truly irrational and excessive love for horse souls and motifs of freedom, which the nonfiction stuff didn't cover.

I love Russell Crowe's Javert because I saw the movie before I ever saw a theatre production of Les Miserables, and I've never quite been convinced that I'm wrong. I love the music in Les Mis a ton, but I appreciate how, in the movie, the singing can explore soft, conversational volume instead of having to belt everything in a theatrical style. For songs like 'Stars', I think that introspective tone is more intimate and more effective.

I have a theory that being angry and complaining online is the default for most because it's inherently scarier to be earnest and vulnerable. So I invite whoever reads this to reblog and tell me about something you love un-ironically that doesn't make you look more intelligent or conventionally hip.

The rules are if I see anyone giving each other shit over a thing someone likes I'm going to send them an ask that's just a picture of wet, sad cat with zero context. Same if someone claims that they like to complain and it's their god-given right to do it as often as they like and wherever they want. Of course you do. It is not interesting to defend your right to talk about all the small things you hate when no one is really challenging them in the first place. You can complain forever until you die and that's totally fine.

Anyways I'll start.

I love Jimmy Buffett.

It's not because his music is so bad I think it's amusing. I actually think his music is really good. If he was still alive I'd absolutely spend money on a Jimmy Buffett concert because that sounds like a super fun time.

Fruitcakes is a fucking banger. Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On is only one of his many songs that give big Good Dad energy when shit is rough. People mostly only know him for Cheeseburger in Paradise - but honestly? That rocks too. Sometimes I also want a cheeseburger.

People try to give me shit because he sold his likeness to the Margaritaville restaurants and hotels. I'm not even upset about this. The man struggled to be financially stable enough to play music in the beginning of his career, and sold his name to get money to make music and play concerts. He did a good handful of charity shows. He delivered tents to Haiti after the earthquake. He's not like known for philanthropy, but the vibe I get from him is that he's a pretty good guy who just wanted to make music and hang out with his loved ones.

He was literally in the middle of finishing an album when he died last year. He just made music as often as he could right up until it was his turn to go. His last words, according to one of his daughters, were have fun.

You can tell me you don't like his music, but you can't listen and tell me you don't think he'd be a fucking chill hang when the only real answer I got from searching "Jimmy Buffett controversy" is that he got caught with a bunch of ecstacy in '06 and paid a fine before being released. I don't even do ecstacy but holy shit my one exception would be trying it with Jimmy Buffett can you imagine??

Anyways. Your turn, friends.

Astronaut tweets

fireflies lighting up a rural Pennsylvania field at dusk

“You can examine a text closely as a doctor of letters, but you are utterly incapable of examining yourself. You, the zoologist, never the beast. You, the reader, never the text. What if you are both?”

— Viet Thanh Nguyen, A Man of Two Faces

20 Compelling Positive-Negative Trait Pairs

Here are 20 positive and negative trait pairs that can create compelling character dynamics in storytelling:

1. Bravery - Recklessness: A character is courageous in the face of danger but often takes unnecessary risks.

2. Intelligence - Arrogance: A character is exceptionally smart but looks down on others.

3. Compassion - Naivety: A character is deeply caring but easily deceived due to their trusting nature.

4. Determination - Stubbornness: A character is persistent in their goals but unwilling to adapt or compromise.

5. Charisma - Manipulativeness: A character is charming and persuasive but often uses these traits to exploit others.

6. Resourcefulness - Opportunism: A character is adept at finding solutions but is also quick to exploit situations for personal gain.

7. Loyalty - Blind Obedience: A character is fiercely loyal but follows orders without question, even when they're wrong.

8. Optimism - Denial: A character remains hopeful in difficult times but often ignores harsh realities.

9. Humor - Inappropriateness: A character lightens the mood with jokes but often crosses the line with their humor.

10. Generosity - Lack of Boundaries: A character is giving and selfless but often neglects their own needs and well-being.

11. Patience - Passivity: A character is calm and tolerant but sometimes fails to take action when needed.

12. Wisdom - Cynicism: A character has deep understanding and insight but is often pessimistic about the world.

13. Confidence - Overconfidence: A character believes in their abilities but sometimes underestimates challenges.

14. Honesty - Bluntness: A character is truthful and straightforward but often insensitive in their delivery.

15. Self-discipline - Rigidity: A character maintains strong control over their actions but is inflexible and resistant to change.

16. Adventurousness - Impulsiveness: A character loves exploring and trying new things but often acts without thinking.

17. Empathy - Overwhelm: A character deeply understands and feels others' emotions but can become overwhelmed by them.

18. Ambition - Ruthlessness: A character is driven to achieve great things but willing to do anything, even unethical, to succeed.

19. Resilience - Emotional Detachment: A character can endure hardships without breaking but often seems emotionally distant.

20. Strategic - Calculative: A character excels at planning and foresight but can be cold and overly pragmatic in their decisions.

These pairs create complex, multi-dimensional characters that can drive rich, dynamic storytelling.

I used to hate it when people said the trick was to just do it until ‘do it scared’ started going around, because that’s truly it. Life didn’t start changing until I applied for jobs with one hand in front of my eyes and a trembling hand navigating my computer mouse. Or until I said everything on my mind (in moderation) with my fists clenched and my legs weak. Or until I refused to accept that I’d ‘just’ be shy forever while also kind of being nauseous at the idea of trying to be the opposite. Two things can coexist and that’s exactly the point of believing that you can do anything.

Alternatively, wear a skirt for the pockets in alchemy, and put on pants after dinner for a cry in the woods.

the great thing about medieval literature is that it returns us to a time when men were men and women were women, *insert gritty realism gif here*, featuring such important and eternal gendered characteristics such as

(M) Why Would I Learn To Think Critically When I Could Find a Random Damsel In The Woods To Tell Me What To Do

(F) Demands To Be Brought The Heads Of Her Enemies

(M, to F) Be Mean To Me, No, Meaner Than That

(F) Meticulous Maintenance Of Social Connections And Alliances Via Writing Letters

(M) Crying

(M) More Crying

(M) Even More Crying, While Being Held Tenderly By Brother In Arms

(F) Necromancy

(M) Meticulous Maintenance Of Social Connections And Alliances Via Mistaking Friend’s Identity, Attacking Him, Then Kissing And Making Up

(F) Expert Medical Practitioner

(M) Self-Care By Episodes Of Madness In The Woods

(F) Owner Of Haunted Castle

"Cheer up!" Said she.

"Alas, no cheer there either."

sir gawain would do numbers on tumblr