avrablake

[avrablake]

manuscript word search tag

I was tagged by @akindofmagictoo. Thank you, Zoe!!! 💖���� My words are surround, scared, shame, sun. As per usual, click the source's title for a link to read the whole thing.

surround (from "out of one box, into another")

[Rook] looked around at the three people surrounding him. He had never once in his life imagined having three people who cared about him so much. Who cared enough to follow him when he vanished, and check up on him. He felt comfortable, sitting here on the roof with them. Maybe even safe, though a part of him laughed at the idea. As long as Wolf was alive, there was no safe place for him.

(This whole scene on the rooftop is still one of the cutest things that's ever happened to Rook. Sadly the only PC who was there is dead now.)

scared (from "Pawns")

The drow man turned to face him. “Did you get the mask?” Deadringer nodded, grinning. “It was so simple too. For an archfey lady, she was pretty easy. The others, too. They were all so scared, little panicked babies.” His voice took on a mocking tone as he said, “Noooo, don’t kill my brother! I’ll do anything!” He laughed and tossed the mask to the drow – the doctor – who caught it clumsily, almost dropping it as it bobbled in his hands.  The doctor ran his hands over the surface. “It’s more beautiful than I was expecting.” It was an elegant thing, covered in jewels and depicting a serene yet stoic face. Whoever had made it was an expert craftsman.

(Shockingly this is the only time in either of my huge docs that I've used the word scared??? And this part is just me transcribing the DM's dialogue as Deadringer. But I've used the word "fear" 17 times in the Rook doc, and there's lots of "afraid" and "fear" in the Carrion doc.)

shame (from "Liars Will Be Shot")

“You’re awfully young to be captaining a ship, Mr. Norwood. I have a hard time believing Mr. Lockwood, as you called him, would allow someone so inexperienced to captain one of his ships.” Rook looked down, avoiding the captain’s gaze. “It’s not something I like talking about, sir.” “Not something you like talking about? What do you mean by that?” Rook hardly had to fake the look of shame on his face as he said, “I think he feels obligated, sir. You see, Byron Lockwood is my father.” He had to fight the wave of disgust that came over him at the thought.  “Is he now… Byron Lockwood doesn’t have any children.”  Rook felt his stomach turn. Azere was asking too many questions.

(For a little bit of context, Byron is Rook's half-brother, and a full elf, so he's several decades older than him. He manages the shipping company that their father owns. Rook decided slander him just for fun. Unfortunately that act of hubris is exactly what got him shot.)

sun (from "A Crisis of Faith")

[Reverence] woke to the sun beating down on him, its bright light prying at the edges of his sleep. Slowly, his eyes cracked open. It was daylight now, and the sun was visible over the ravine. That meant that half a day had passed since he’d been left here. Carefully, he tried to move, get a sense of his body. Immediately, pain shot through him, causing him to cry out. So he was still injured. And badly, it seemed. The paladins – his friends – had nearly killed him.  If only they had finished the job.

(I still fucking love this part of the backstory, even if it is a little bit Weird, hahaha.)

I'm going to tag @space-writes @avrablake @exe-writes-sometimes and @oh-no-another-idea (sorry for not doing the things you two tagged me in. I've been busy.)

Your words are: turn, twist, tired, and trap.

[avrablake]

haaattee that ✨ is associated with ai. that’s my emoji, not urs. you’re NOT whimsy.

[avrablake]

manuscript word search tag

I was tagged by @akindofmagictoo. Thank you, Zoe!!! 💖💖 My words are surround, scared, shame, sun. As per usual, click the source's title for a link to read the whole thing.

surround (from "out of one box, into another")

[Rook] looked around at the three people surrounding him. He had never once in his life imagined having three people who cared about him so much. Who cared enough to follow him when he vanished, and check up on him. He felt comfortable, sitting here on the roof with them. Maybe even safe, though a part of him laughed at the idea. As long as Wolf was alive, there was no safe place for him.

(This whole scene on the rooftop is still one of the cutest things that's ever happened to Rook. Sadly the only PC who was there is dead now.)

scared (from "Pawns")

The drow man turned to face him. “Did you get the mask?” Deadringer nodded, grinning. “It was so simple too. For an archfey lady, she was pretty easy. The others, too. They were all so scared, little panicked babies.” His voice took on a mocking tone as he said, “Noooo, don’t kill my brother! I’ll do anything!” He laughed and tossed the mask to the drow – the doctor – who caught it clumsily, almost dropping it as it bobbled in his hands.  The doctor ran his hands over the surface. “It’s more beautiful than I was expecting.” It was an elegant thing, covered in jewels and depicting a serene yet stoic face. Whoever had made it was an expert craftsman.

(Shockingly this is the only time in either of my huge docs that I've used the word scared??? And this part is just me transcribing the DM's dialogue as Deadringer. But I've used the word "fear" 17 times in the Rook doc, and there's lots of "afraid" and "fear" in the Carrion doc.)

shame (from "Liars Will Be Shot")

“You’re awfully young to be captaining a ship, Mr. Norwood. I have a hard time believing Mr. Lockwood, as you called him, would allow someone so inexperienced to captain one of his ships.” Rook looked down, avoiding the captain’s gaze. “It’s not something I like talking about, sir.” “Not something you like talking about? What do you mean by that?” Rook hardly had to fake the look of shame on his face as he said, “I think he feels obligated, sir. You see, Byron Lockwood is my father.” He had to fight the wave of disgust that came over him at the thought.  “Is he now… Byron Lockwood doesn’t have any children.”  Rook felt his stomach turn. Azere was asking too many questions.

(For a little bit of context, Byron is Rook's half-brother, and a full elf, so he's several decades older than him. He manages the shipping company that their father owns. Rook decided slander him just for fun. Unfortunately that act of hubris is exactly what got him shot.)

sun (from "A Crisis of Faith")

[Reverence] woke to the sun beating down on him, its bright light prying at the edges of his sleep. Slowly, his eyes cracked open. It was daylight now, and the sun was visible over the ravine. That meant that half a day had passed since he’d been left here. Carefully, he tried to move, get a sense of his body. Immediately, pain shot through him, causing him to cry out. So he was still injured. And badly, it seemed. The paladins – his friends – had nearly killed him.  If only they had finished the job.

(I still fucking love this part of the backstory, even if it is a little bit Weird, hahaha.)

I'm going to tag @space-writes @avrablake @exe-writes-sometimes and @oh-no-another-idea (sorry for not doing the things you two tagged me in. I've been busy.)

Your words are: turn, twist, tired, and trap.

[avrablake]

sunday snippet

Edited today and am never over how much I love this scene, how much I adore Simon and how much of a shit Adrian is and how much I enjoy the atmosphere 💙

This chapter and the next are amongst my favorite in the entire piece and I dunno, if anyone is interested I might post them in their entirety because I am just a proud book mom.

--

Simon

The arcane language that ran over the archways and through the cracks in the floor throughout the castle was etched into the edge of each stair. It ran down the stone bannisters and snaked the edges of the tiles in concentric circles around the room’s singular focal point. The walls surrounding this strange chamber were stacked with barren book shelves and the obelisk pulsed brightly in the center, a fat python in an empty rat cage. 

He approached it, or rather, allowed himself to be drawn in by it, and saw up close it was lit from within in every color imaginable. He could make out vivid, individual hues if he squinted: streaks of reptilian blue and honeyed butterscotch, popping sparks of amethyst and acidic pink. Allowing his eyes to unfocus turned the whole thing back to a turbulent white; a discordant light that beat like a heart. 

“What is it?” he asked Adrian, who lingered a few steps behind him.

“What would you say,” Adrian asked gravely, “if I told you it was the source of all magic?” 

He turned to look back at the man. The violent light of the obelisk cast sharp shadows across his face. “I’d say you were full of it.” 

Adrian burst into bright laughter. “Well, I’m glad to find your naiveté has an upper limit.” He approached the thing reverently and ran his fingertips over its crystalline surface. “Books can fall into the wrong hands. They can be destroyed, copied, read by unfriendly eyes. This, friend, is the most secure library in the world.” 

It connected then, why he could hear voices inside the thing — why Adrian, with his power, could control it. “These are memories,” he breathed. “Whole lives, like books.” 

“Precisely,” Adrian said. “Since Lyonall was founded, every headmaster has been charged with protecting and maintaining it. You’re aware of our roots; you’ve made that clear.” 

“You’re saying Nauxial’s followers made this thing?” 

“As a safe space to store everything they knew about him, and all the things they planned to do to further his agenda, to make magicians the ruling race.” 

Terrible, the way such things rolled off his tongue with ease. “What makes you think I’d want to see something like that?” 

“Because it’s knowledge,” Adrian said simply. “You want to understand everybody, Simon, even people you disagree with. I thought... well, I suppose I thought you’d want to understand what you were up against. Maybe I’m off the mark.” 

He considered it, and he had admit that Adrian was right. He did need to understand. He couldn’t expect to bring vastly different people together if he only ever looked into mirrors.  

“What do I do?” 

--

💋 the insuppressible electra ray tag list

@avrablake​ @adie-dee​ @dontjudgemeimawriter​

@ryorine​ @thelaughingstag​ @winterandwords​ 

@afoolandathief​​ @asomeoneperson​ @cedar-west 

@diphthongsfordays​ @lowslore​ @poetinprose​ 

@cilly-the-writer​​​​​​​​ @harps-for-days @space-writes​

Comment to be added or removed :)

[avrablake]

Reblog and put in the tag your favorite work of fictional media where the female characters are leagues more important, well-written, and interesting than the men and how they are interesting! (To subvert the standard stereotype in fandom that male characters are better because they’re inherently more interesting than female characters!) 😉

[avrablake]

Day 3 - I decided to take a nap yesterday instead of doing anything productive, so today I drew two heads. still nowhere near consistent but I'm figuring out how to draw messy curly hair a bit better I think. and eyes

[avrablake]

Reading weird poetry and short stories and unapologetically strange novels really does teach you that a lot of stuff people teach you about writing is just not true. Almost anything someone tells you must happen when you’re writing has an exception and writing advice has trends and fads just like anything else.

I was struggling to find where I fit as a writer until I found writers like Daniel Olivias who wrote short stories in ways I’d never seen before. I owe a lot of my current inspiration in my writing to Latin American magical realism writers. Finding magical realism and surrealism really opened doors in my brain that had been shut before.

You can get weird with it. You can get weird in content, weird in form, weird in structure. You don’t need a plot. You can tell a story backwards, you can just sit in an idea, you can explain, overexplain, skip explanation, get political, start ideas, end ideas. No ifs ands or buts you can just throw traditional story structure out the window.

I know what kind of writer I am now. A weird one. You don’t have to be held to standards of predictability, genre fiction, markets, tropes. You can just do whatever. Truly. Honestly. Completely. For ten words or a hundred thousand.

[avrablake]

Birthday Month Sale

Hi. Hello. Hi.

September is my birthday month 👉👈

To celebrate, Beyond the Darkness is on sale all month.

$0.99 USD for ebooks

$11.99 USD for paperbacks

If I hit these benchmarks in sales, I'll be doing a giveaway.

10 books sold = ebook bundle giveaway (Signed ebook of BtD plus 2 short stories)

15 books sold = art print and sticker giveaway

20 books sold = annotated paperback giveaway

Please share so I can spread the word, and if you'd like to take advantage of the sale, you can buy my book here.

*paperbacks are $11.99 through amazon and $12.99 everywhere else because Ingram's print costs are higher

[avrablake]

Ive had this saved in my phone since April

[avrablake]

We need to do what we can to protect the Internet Archive. Here is a petition that you can sign.

This petition alone might not be enough, but everything we can throw at this counts.

[avrablake]

man i wish you guys could read this book in my head i haven't finished yet i think you'd really like it

[avrablake]

@emelkae you did this to me

how it feels thinking about two characters who are so intertwined with each other losing them feels like they lost a part of themselves

[avrablake]

Sometimes I think "bunjywunjy is a fish" in the cadence of "fuzzy wuzzy was a bear" and then I wonder, how would you finish that rhyme?

I have confidence that tumblr can figure it out

[avrablake]

Never forget how much fun writing is. You get to make up little guys and other people will love the little guys (because of their stupid human pack bonding brains) and then you can do things to the guys and make readers feel things. You get to make up little mysteries and put them in and watch readers tear themselves apart puzzling it out, but you don’t have to go through that, you’re safe because you know. You already know all the answers and they don’t. You get to put a guy in a situation and surround him with mysteries and be like “hahaha everyone is going to HATE this.”

But they won’t leave. No. They’ll stay to see what happens to the guy and what the answers are. You can force them to think and feel things for YEARS.

[avrablake]

Birthday Month Sale

Hi. Hello. Hi.

September is my birthday month 👉👈

To celebrate, Beyond the Darkness is on sale all month.

$0.99 USD for ebooks

$11.99 USD for paperbacks

If I hit these benchmarks in sales, I'll be doing a giveaway.

10 books sold = ebook bundle giveaway (Signed ebook of BtD plus 2 short stories)

15 books sold = art print and sticker giveaway

20 books sold = annotated paperback giveaway

Please share so I can spread the word, and if you'd like to take advantage of the sale, you can buy my book here.

*paperbacks are $11.99 through amazon and $12.99 everywhere else because Ingram's print costs are higher

[avrablake]

Two seemingly contradictory beliefs that we actually must strive to hold simultaneously:

You don't owe anyone anything

Meaning: you do not have to make yourself suffer for the convenience of others

We owe each other everything

Meaning: we could not survive without each other and everything we do to help another is crucial to ensuring our own continued survival

You don't need to be a doormat, but also don't get comfortable slamming the door when you have the resources to extend a hand instead.

[avrablake]

*gets abducted by aliens* thank you. you have no idea how much i hated living on that planet