#and I'm loving the PoE I and II references

[lairai]

I need the solid five people that might see this post to know that I have been playing Avowed relentlessly and it has so far refused to let go of me. Art of my poor poor Envoy incoming I'm afraid

[pontevoix]

hii…. so cutting straight to the point, your writing is absolutely stunning. insane. would it be okay to ask what authors/novels have influenced or inspired you? i really want to return to writing but it’s been challenging :’) anyhow, hope all is well<3

hey, friend ! so sorry that this has been a late response - i was out of town the past week, but i just want to let you know that this question genuinely made me emotional. i'm really glad you enjoy my writing, & it means the world to me that you've reached out! i struggle a lot with trying to discipline myself with writing, so just know that i'm not sure if writing would be writing if it came easy. oof !

i have a few things that have inspired me over the years, though. historically, i really took inspiration from these tips based on edgar allan poe short stories.

as far as novels & authors though !

my number one is michael chabon with his novel the amazing adventures of kavalier & clay. it's an amazing story of jewish cousins during in new york during world war ii -- they write comics together & one's a magician, so it does a really lovely job of blending the mundane with imagination somehow? my favorite sentence in there is one about a gay man walking in on two other men kissing in a closet & their mustaches were interlocked like the teeth of a comb. that kind of sensory detail always gets me going! i haven't yet read it, but i'm really looking forward to reading pigs in heaven by barbara kingsolver. i just looked at the first page & there was a sentence about a woman's husband treating their marriage as though it could be fixed by spraying wd-40 on it, & the strength of that image really struck me. rosencrantz & guildenstern are dead, a play by tom stoppard, i think fundamentally changed the way that i write dialogue. i have a theatre background & worked in design, & so i think the pacing of things is really important to me. this play is a short read. it's heart wrenching but really highlights momentum in conversation & relationships to identity & things that spiral out of control. a well known line from it is: 'there must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said -- no. but somehow we missed it."' beautiful!! the book of goose (by yiyun li) is something i enjoyed recently for more naturalistic imagery. i tend to enjoy more gothic style writing where the ugly is emphasized just as much as the gorgeous. this book feels like southern gothic imagery, but it's centered on a distorted friendships between two girls in france who come from nothing who stage a literary hoax. i also take inspiration from crime & punishment as well as east of eden, & slaughterhouse five -- i cannot tell you how often i accidentally reference ' and so it goes ' when i write. finally, the other thing that really stands out to me is t.s. eliot poetry. i think the hollow men & the love song of j. alfred prufrock fundamentally changed how i think of rhythm in pieces of writing. i like writing poetry, but i have a mixed relationship with reading it. but that being said, i think that i am always thinking about momentum in a section. how do you write like you're building to a crescendo? i think poetry is a wonderful place to look to for that.

again! thank you so much for asking & for your time! let me know if there's anyway i can support you!

[magpiefngrl]

2022 Book Review

so the first thing I noticed, looking back at what I read this year, is that I haven't read any books that blew me away (with one exception, see below). Unlike 2021 (see last year's posts here and a short one here) when I read books that left me with my jaw on the floor. The other thing I noticed is that in 2022 I went for a lot of rereads. I'm a big re-reader, if I love something I want to expose myself to it as often as I can, but this year I reread way more than I normally do. Then again, I've had a super busy summer and some pretty tough months following that, so it's not so surprising I sought out familiarity and comfort.

Total books read: (if I finish current read) 82 81

Books that stood out in 2022 and other musings:

I. The Queen's Thief series (you'll also see me refer to it as The Thief). Prob my most enjoyable read of the year. Two of the six books thrilled me in a way I hadn't felt in yonks and the other four were pretty good too. Also: A. I'm proud of starting and finishing a series in the same year, it doesn't always happen. B. jfc I have a new blorbo I'd die for.

II. The Wimsey books. I started going through them chronologically and read all of them (bar one, I think). I'm pleased that I started the series and finished it--like I said above, it doesn't often happen, esp in recent years. These are murder mysteries featuring a Duke's younger brother as the amateur sleuth. The mysteries aren't Agatha Christie level of competence (I figured out several murderers before the reveal and I'm not even particularly good at this), nor are all the novels equally good, but Sayer's witty prose was a true joy and her dialogue is a masterpiece.

III. Other top books of the year:

Siren Queen (queer SFF), Black Sun (native American inspired SFF), The Atlas Six (dark academia SFF), How to Bang a Billionaire (contemporary m/m romance), The Goldfinch (contemporary literary), Hogfather (fantasy, humour), and Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (historical fantasy, am at 70% and really loving it).

IV. I'm always excited to see fanfic authors moving on to original fic and I try to support those authors when I can. I've now created a shelf on my GoodReads so I can keep track. This year I read A Restless Truth, the sequel to Marvellous Light by Freya Marske, which was tremendously engaging, and I also read the self-published duology Magpie Ballads (Elegy is the first novel's title) by Vale Aida (only on Amazon atm). This author is superb, I truly love their writing style and how confidently they handle their craft (description, dialogue, narration etc). I have Thoughts TM on plot and story, but overall a very strong debut.

V. The exception (mentioned above): Lymond. What else. I finished Pawn in Frankincense in January and it destroyed me. Absolutely left me in a puddle weeping on the floor. I'd stalled in the book (and series) halfway through for years now. Each 1st Jan I'd be like "...and I need to finish the Lymond books this year!!!!" and it never happened--but then, in 2022, it (almost) did. I also read The Ringed Castle in autumn and am one third in Checkmate. Progress! (I had high hopes of finishing CM before NY but alas. Still trying to finish another long book.) Anyway, Pawn in Frankincense is the novel that blew me away in 2022.

VI. The new thing of the year: receiving daily-ish emails in my inbox with chapters from a classic book. I didn't go for Dracula as I read it some years ago but I signed up for Dangerous Liaisons. I was familiar with the plot, having watched the amazing adaptation (and the other, less than amazing one), but I still enjoyed the book a great deal. Receiving the letters in my inbox was a new and fun experience.

VII. Disappointments! Let's have some of those. The Glass Hotel: found it bleak and dull; DNF'ed it but I might return to it when I've got the energy for a slow story. Wilder Girls: not quite a disappointment but it could've done a lot more with that unique premise. Time Is A Mother (poetry collection): sacrilegious perhaps, but Vuong's Night Sky with Exit Wounds is unparalleled and this one suffers in comparison. Alix E Harrow has turned out to be a hit-or-miss author for me after all. Although I loved the first installment of her fairytale verse, I found A Mirror Mended lacked the depth of the first novella. Good but not memorable. And finally Nghi Vo's Into the Riverlands, the third novella of her Singing Hills Cycle, was OK. A decent read but nothing more.

VIII. I don't read non-fiction at all, it's really not my thing, unless it's books on the writing craft. I used to seek them out avidly, but not anymore. After going through a couple dozen of these books, you realise they all start sounding alike. That being said, writing craft books can be motivating during times of block and often you might find a few gems of advice that can be very inspiring. This year I only read one such book (Writing 21st Century Fiction by D. Maas), which was nothing ground-breaking but included a few exercises that I'm eager to try.

past years

2015 2016 2019 first half of 2020 top 5 books of 2020 2021

[genericswordsmaiden]

tct:d characters references, in order of appearance or mention:

Gregor McEwan: take a guess, lol. Ewan McGregor is my favourite actor, his smile is like a ray of sunshine. (In the beginning, it was actually a joke, I didn't know what name this magic amnesiac guy could have, so I just picked something random - but then I got attached to it. It would be great if I could make a movie or a series on the book and have "Ewan McGregor as: Gregor McEwan" in the credits lol)

Captain Radke is a reference to Ronnie Radke of Falling in Reverse, back when I was 17 I loved their stuff so much!

King Anor II has Tom Odell's face in my mind for some reason

Antonia may seem like a reference to Vivaldi, since she's a violinist, but I actually named her after a song by Pat Metheny that I was listening while writing chapter 1

Dalo was meant to be a self insert in the very first draft, but in the current version, although some events of her past are direct references to my life, she's not. Her name though, is actually a mispronunciation of my last name. There's a personal reason for this but I won't talk about it now

The whole Coven of Writers - even though the only named characters are J. R. R. Tolkien, H. P. Lovecraft, C. A. Smith, E. A. Poe (mentioned) and his wife Virginia Clemm

Buck and Wynter are respectively inspired by Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks from Fleetwood Mac

Eyra and Troye are respectively inspired by Aurora Aksnes and Troye Sivan (who also has a city named after him lmao I'm not good with names so I gotta steal 'em)

Lastly, there's a whole cast of characters who are going to appear much later - or much before? but I've already figured out all of their stories and roles. They're safe, in one of my notebooks. They won't be anymore when they'll get in the actual book *laughs evilly* *breaks down crying*

Luka Sniegowski: despite being the son of a polish immigrant, in my mind he looks like Bradley James (specifically 2008 Brad) and I don't know how to fix this. His name is a reference to the song "Luka" by Suzanne Vega.

Sam Campbell: the jock of the group. He looks like Todd Howard in 2006. I don't know why. My brain is a mystery.

Mary: I don't like her very much. Appearance-wise, she kinda reminds me of "Inception"-era Marion Cotillard.

Simon McFarlane: a jack of all trades. he's actually a rehash of a character from another story that I wrote when I was 15. Basically, I looked at a picture of Colin Farrell circa 2007, when he had long hair, and went "oh my god he has just the face I need for Simon!" Idk, it kinda matches his personality.

Carl Richardson: Simon's coworker, he's based on "The Pelican Brief"-era Denzel Washington. He's the first black character I'll ever write, I honestly hope to not fuck things up.

Kwon Byung-ho (炳浩 / 권 병호): the older of two cousins. Spoiler: they were traveling to New York to see a distant relative but he saw some pictures of Providence on a travel guide and he just said "no wait who cares let's go here instead". He's based on Lee Dong-hun of A.C.E.

Shin Hae-seong (海成 / 신 해성): the younger cousin. He comes from Busan and he's on his way to steal everybody's heart. He's based on Yang Jeong-in of Stray Kids.

Veronica Hall: a photographer. Red hair, freckles, quirky - the incarnation of summer. Her name is a reference to the song "Veronica" by Onewe

[seospicybin]

Hiiii eff how are you doing I want to ask where do you get your inspiration from .

Hi, lovely Nada! I'm doing great, how about you?

Thank you for always asking interesting questions and I took my time to answer it, I love that about you!

My fics are inspired from a lot of things. Dreams, songs, books, movies, a quote/proverb, Greek mythology, personal experiences or just random ideas that struck me at 3 am.

For example, Dark Red is inspired from a few of my favorite horror movies and Anne Rice's books. Twin Flame is inspired by a Neil Young's song. I think I've mentioned it before that Venus is inspired by Aphrodite and Adonis's story in Greek mythology. White Heat is inspired by my own personal experience of being in a long distance relationship. Hunger is inspired by this quote from Edgar Allan Poe:

"Sometimes I'm terrified of my heart; of its constant hunger for whatever it is it wants; they way it stops and starts."

Sometimes I slipped my references in the fic too, e.g in Dark Red Part II, I put a quote from one of my favorite books, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald which inspired the theme of the fic.

From a lot of things really, my upcoming fics are inspired from a Japanese proverb, my wet dream, a tiktok, anything really.

I hope that answer your questions and pls do not hesitate to ask more, I'd be more than glad to answer :)

ily Nada, seriously thank you for the ask! <3

F.