downtoithaca

[downtoithaca]

“how did you get into writing” girl nobody gets into writing. writing shows up one day at your door and gets into you

[downtoithaca]

spring horror is good because of the symbolism of death and rebirth and storms and everything being vibrant but still cold. and summer horror is good because sweltering heat and insects long days. and fall horror is good because halloween and death and scary movies. and winter horror is good because snow contrasting with blood and freezing temperatures and long nights. btw.

[downtoithaca]

i love writing desperate, enraged knights. those who scream at the sky, covered in dirt and gore and spit, a bloodied sword grasped in one sweaty hand, an item in remembrance of kinder days or the flesh of a friend/lover in the other.

[downtoithaca]

10 songs tag.

tagged by @downtoithaca ! the rules are: use your wip playlist and put it on shuffle. write the first 10 songs that come up and quote your favourite lyrics from each song and/or the lyrics that fit your wip best (they might be the same lyrics), then tag 10 people.

continuing my trend of not explaining forest with teeth... here are some songs and lyrics!

smother by daughter: i should go now quietly / for my bones have found a place to lie down and sleep / where all my layers can become reeds / all my limbs can become trees

in the woods somewhere by hozier: what caused the wound? / how large the teeth? / i saw new eyes were watching me / the creature lunged / i turned and ran / to save a life I didn't have

i of the storm by of monsters and men: i feel it biting / i feel it break my skin, so uninviting / are you really gonna need me when i'm gone? / i fear you won't

abstract (psychopomp) by hozier: darling, there's a part of me / i'm afraid will always be / trapped within an abstract from a moment of my life / the weeds up through the concrete / the traffic picking up speed / all my love and terror / balanced there between those eyes

into the unknown from over the garden wall: but where have we come, and where shall we end? / if dreams can't come true, then why not pretend?

meet me in the woods by lord huron: i took a little journey to the unknown / and i've come back changed, i can feel it in my bones / i fucked with forces that our eyes can't see / now the darkness got a hold on me

tomorrow by daughter: by tomorrow we'll be lost amongst the leaves / in a wind that chills the skeletons of trees / and when the moon, it shines, i will leave two lines / just find my love, then find me / don't bring tomorrow, 'cause i already know, i'll lose you

as it was by hozier: just as it was, baby / before the otherness came / and i knew its name / the love, the dark, the light, the flame

unknown / nth by hozier: it ain't the being alone / it ain't the empty home, baby / you know i'm good on my own / sha-la-la, baby, you know, it's more the being unknown / so much of the livin', love, is the being unknown

francesca by hozier: do you think i'd give up / that this might've shook the love from me / or that I was on the brink? / how could you think, darling, i'd scare so easily?

tagging: @cream-and-tea @moonssugar @coffeeandcalligraphy @dallonwrites @kiki-is-writing @filmografo @saltwaterbells @teddywriting @onomatopiya @subtlefires

[downtoithaca]

i think it's so fun when characters recognize that what they desire - fame, fortune, power, recognition, unrivalled skill in their chosen field - can consume them, but they consider themselves an exception. because they're different; they're self-aware, they're smart, they know what they're doing. they're not going to get caught up in the rush and forget that what they're dealing with has teeth. so they feed it and they let it grow and they feel so certain that it will never eat them alive because they're giving it what it wants, and you don't bite the hand that feeds. until one day they wake up and realize that they crawled right into its open jaws and let them shut behind them and swallow them up a long time ago and they've been living inside its stomach cavity ever since.

[downtoithaca]

everyone thinks they're a poet these days and thank god for that

[downtoithaca]

how am I supposed to go on when jeremiah says he's got a "fairly broken heart"

Jeremiah’s not even sure when he begins to cry—he notices only when Mav reaches into his pocket and pulls out a packet of Kleenex, dabbing one gently under his eye, and it amazes him that this is all it takes to attain gentleness, a catastrophic night and a fairly broken heart.

[downtoithaca]

Female characters who are the sole voice of reason <<<<<<< Female characters who think of themselves as the sole voice of reason but who are actually just as insane as those around them

[downtoithaca]

new ship dynamic called schrodinger’s divorce where characters are simultaneously bitterly divorced and fondly married for twenty years

[downtoithaca]

i think the most fun thing a character can be is a hypocrite. i wanna watch them tie themselves (and their principles) into knots rationalizing their behavior, or give up and embrace their hypocrisy. or, ideally, both

[downtoithaca]

[downtoithaca]

addicted to relationships where one person is a ghost but it's unclear who's haunting who

[downtoithaca]

the thing is, i love The Narrative, but i also absolutely adore a truly character-focused tragedy where everyone’s downfall is caused not by larger narrative forces, but by hundreds of tiny decisions made by characters who, despite their best efforts, just suck.

[downtoithaca]

“No writing is wasted. Did you know that sourdough from San Francisco is leavened partly by a bacteria called lactobacillus sanfrancisensis? It is native to the soil there, and does not do well elsewhere. But any kitchen can become an ecosystem. If you bake a lot, your kitchen will become a happy home to wild yeasts, and all your bread will taste better. Even a failed loaf is not wasted. Likewise, cheese makers wash the dairy floor with whey. Tomato gardeners compost with rotten tomatoes. No writing is wasted: the words you can’t put in your book can wash the floor, live in the soil, lurk around in the air. They will make the next words better.”

— ERIN BOW

[downtoithaca]

THE JUDGEMENT OF PARIS

this part in ovid's heroides intrigues me ngl

Ovid, Heroides 16 (trans. Harold Isbell)

the. the inescapability of it. oof.

society6 | ko-fi | twitter (pillowfort, cohost) | deviantart

[downtoithaca]

when comes the dawn monthly update {11.3.2023}

Is this late? Yep.

Not much was done for October. I'm nearing the end of my (hardest) semester so most of my time and energy was spent on school.

↳ OCTOBER'S UPDATE:

Outline → Chapter 10 has been outlined

Writing → 1562 words

Events → I did @/welcometowriteblr's Ghost Gala event! You can find my entries here or by going through the #event.ghost gala tag on my blog

Will I be doing NaNo this year?

Probably not. I'm spread too thin to even think of writing 50k this year. I have a hard time with that even on my best and least busy months lmao. But even though I'm not participating in NaNo, I'll still be participating in events! I signed up for @/writeblrgarden's Grow A Plant event with a goal of writing 20K this month :D I'll be spreading that goal out over multiple projects though for my own sanity lmao

Miscellaneous Updates

Yeah so I watched a movie in October and it inspired me to write a master-apprentice assassin novella, so that's been simmering in the back of my mind.

↳ WHAT’S NEXT?

Hoping to use Thanksgiving Break to post some intros or worldbuilding posts

Find more WCTD content with the series tag #series.wctd and keep an eye out for monthly progress updates with #wctd-monthly

↳ Taglist under the cut (ask to be +/-):

GENERAL → @charlesjosephwrites | @bearunicorn154 I @seasteading| @writting-in-blood | @trapped-inadystopianovel | @inky-duchess | @thats-my-type-writer | @serpentarii | @myhusbandsasemni | @aphaimaniis | @writinglyra | @belialwrites | @amoranza | @pseudepigraphic | @mel-writes-with-her-dragons | @uppoffringar | @fantasydisease | @sourrcandy

WCTD → @zmlorenz | @andiwriteunderthemoon | @ryns-ramblings | @marchdove | @cielnocturnes | @wren-is-writing | @lord-fallen | @tragicbackstoryenjoyer | @bloomingwrites | @marrowwife

[downtoithaca]

WHITE LINES

Nanowrimo '23 - Day Three

WC: 2239 + 890 after midnight (3129 total)

Total draft count: 7865

Chapters: POV: Felipe Chapters: Chapter Four, Scenes 1-3

Thoughts:

The words were harder today. It was an 'action' scene mainly, aka the first bit of actual tennis, and I was struggling to figure out how to write it. Hopped on a few YouTube sprint streams that were on though and they really helped get my word count up. I feel like this chapter is the strongest so far, though I don't feel like I've got Felipe's characterisation quite right - something I'll have to fix in Draft 2. Very fun how the main characters will all start to meet - or re-meet each other from now on.

Extract (From yesterday):

Context: This is a quote from 'High Ball' - the autobiography of Fred Kennedy, the tennis player who went missing in the eighties. Matthieu has read this book so many times he could probably recite it by heart.

"When the ball is falling, and all you can do is watch it fall, haloed by the light, that's the worst moment. That's when you learn the truth, that some things in life are inexorable and all it's in your power to do is watch them happen, transfixed in horror, powerless, actionless, until the ball drops and the spell finally breaks. Then, if you want to have any chance at all of survival, that's when you have to get back up. Everything depends on you getting back up."