whenimonthenightshift

[whenimonthenightshift]

All I ever was

We were laying in the sun together, like animals do.

You ran your hand through my braided hair while

we read stories about magic, you said that the flowers

of elderberry would make me forget how it felt,

I dreamed of home and the sun came out that day.

We fell asleep again, and the sound of rain started

to fall but we didn't hide. You kept me warm.

On our walk home through the dark, we danced

under the warm streetlight, you didn't let go of

my hand and we were content.

You gave me your baby blanket and teddy bear

to be with my bunny, made me promise I'd be okay,

and strong.

It was our last good day.

When the stars used to come out,

I always thought the flowers that bloomed

in my yard were for me, something about

magic. I was small when you found me, when they cast me away, broken teeth, wiping sand from my eyes.

You were always by my side after, I'd bandage your stone

knuckles back together and you'd help me up the stairs

as we grew up, you always held my hand, and fiercely,

you'd scare them away from us.

I dreamed of warm light, our hands smeared with purple

nail polish, chalk in your hair, the rain washed it away

a few days later. I was always afraid,

you were never mad about that. Then the background noise

of a hospital light, my jewelry box, the little ballerina inside with all the

magic in the world.

We made paper boats and they'd give us

warm milk but wouldn't let me dance

so I'd curl up in your arms as you came up

with constellations to show me.

The cracks in concrete and in my spine were always there.

You were always there.

You knew how to run and taught me to fly with the wings

of a monarch butterfly, and we'd sit under the elderberry tree,

I listened to the way you hummed and the way you felt

when braiding my hair, little flowers everywhere.

I've never let go of the last one you did, a little braid,

a little song.

I asked what was left of the northern star

to lead you back home one day.

When you left to learn how to fight they hunted me down,

followed my trail once the rain stopped, ruined my hair

and took our teddy bear, ripping out everything by the throat.

By the side of the road, where they threw rocks at me and

kept calling me a strange animal. Bracelet beads falling

over concrete, dragging me by the hair, blood into water

as they pushed me down. And life sounded softer,

welcomed me when the church wouldn't,

and the world feels light.

And while you're somewhere in the desert,

I thought about finding my way home

to you.

They held me down and I'll never come up again.

Where I hurt less.

[whenimonthenightshift]

A few collage things I wanted to get rid of, so here, fetch and munch.

[whenimonthenightshift]

Nnooooo it's happened again after a few years, and again, no idea if it's actually for me or someone else, and this is from someone else. It kinda sounds menacing though, like double meaning at the ending. Oh I feel villainous in not a good way, now, back to writing.

[whenimonthenightshift]

Sleepy boy. Working a different series. Unrelated to him.

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Euphoria of life.

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My room one day.

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Constantly moving.

[whenimonthenightshift]

How to Write Horror

 - in order to be scary, a horror must include these 4 things:

   - the unknown

eg, the characters are threatened by something paranormal, a stranger, in a place they don't fully understand, or just by something they no nothing about.

maybe they don't know when it's going to attack, or there's an air of mystery over what it will do when it attacks, perhaps they don't know where it came from or why it's targeting them.

this makes it scary because it leads the reader to question their safety against something potentially much stronger than them, which they may not be able to defeat or escape from.

   - characters that feel powerless against the threat

if your character feels confident, strong and can easily defeat the threat (or with a bit of a struggle) then you're probably writing an action or something, not a horror.

horror is supposed to make the readers feel that little pit in their stomach when they begin to question how/if the characters are going to pull this off, and who may get hurt or killed along the way.

having a threat with seemingly unbeatable qualities adds more tension and suspense to the story, and makes the reader all the more releaved when it finally pays off and the characters escape (or don't?)

   - incorporation of the uncanny valley

the uncanny valley refers to a feeling that humans get when faced with something that is almost right, but not quite.

it is the reason why we find things like human-like robots or skinwalkers so scary.

it may have developed evolutionarily to stop people from going near things like corpses or people with a disease.

ways to incorporate this valley and leave your readers with the overbearing feeling that something just isn't right include: a threat that is oddly humanlike, a transportation into a world where things aren't quite the same as their previous, and maybe animals in the story start behaving oddly.

a good example of this in a book i read once was that the house where all the characters were staying in had been built slightly wrong; every room was not quite square, the stairs were just slightly different sizes, all the furniture and hallways and walls were just placed a little off. this gave the characters the effect of never being able to get comfortable in the house- they kept running into things, stumbling on the stairs and never quite got their bearings, which made the horror so much creepier.

   - the threat of brutality 

obviously, there's no point in the ghost story if the ghost is friendly. there's no point in the chainsaw guy only being there to cut down some trees. there has to be a reason why your characters need to escape from the threat and are scared of it.

when the ghost causes someone to jump off a balcony, when the chainsaw guy slashes someone, that's when you know there is a threat that could plausibly kill or hurt the characters, and only then can the readers begin to feel scared for them.

a close call isn't a close call if they didn't avoid anything- so give them something to avoid, give them something to run from, give them a reason to be scared.

some tips on the actual writing style which is most effective for horror:

short sentences in the action. you don't want to tie your reader down with fancy descriptions of how the walls look as they're being chased by a zombie, no? make it short and sweet, cram the action in.

have your characters never quite feel comfortable. as i said earlier, this adds to the readers' feelings of unease throughout the book. keep mentioning how the threat is still outside, or in the beginning of the story mention how something's off about the setting ect.

choose your words carefully. i don't remember who it was, but there was a roman poet once who wrote about a bird being 'ripped apart'. i'm sure we can all agree that those words don't have the same effect as 'attacked' or 'killed'. his choice of words mean that the story is more vivid, the picture that people build in their heads more violent.

[whenimonthenightshift]

Stephen King’s Top 20 Rules For Writers

1. First write for yourself, and then worry about the audience. “When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story. Your stuff starts out being just for you, but then it goes out.”

2. Don’t use passive voice. “Timid writers like passive verbs for the same reason that timid lovers like passive partners. The passive voice is safe. The timid fellow writes “The meeting will be held at seven o’clock” because that somehow says to him, ‘Put it this way and people will believe you really know. ‘Purge this quisling thought! Don’t be a muggle! Throw back your shoulders, stick out your chin, and put that meeting in charge! Write ‘The meeting’s at seven.’ There, by God! Don’t you feel better?”

3. Avoid adverbs. “The adverb is not your friend. Consider the sentence “He closed the door firmly.” It’s by no means a terrible sentence, but ask yourself if ‘firmly’ really has to be there. What about context? What about all the enlightening (not to say emotionally moving) prose which came before ‘He closed the door firmly’? Shouldn’t this tell us how he closed the door? And if the foregoing prose does tell us, then isn’t ‘firmly’ an extra word? Isn’t it redundant?”

4. Avoid adverbs, especially after “he said” and “she said.” “While to write adverbs is human, to write ‘he said’ or ‘she said’ is divine.”

5. But don’t obsess over perfect grammar. “Language does not always have to wear a tie and lace-up shoes. The object of fiction isn’t grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story… to make him/her forget, whenever possible, that he/she is reading a story at all. “

6. The magic is in you. “I’m convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing. Dumbo got airborne with the help of a magic feather; you may feel the urge to grasp a passive verb or one of those nasty adverbs for the same reason. Just remember before you do that Dumbo didn’t need the feather; the magic was in him.”

7. Read, read, read. “You have to read widely, constantly refining (and redefining) your own work as you do so. If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write.”

8. Don’t worry about making other people happy. “Reading at meals is considered rude in polite society, but if you expect to succeed as a writer, rudeness should be the second to least of your concerns. The least of all should be polite society and what it expects. If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered, anyway.”

9. Turn off the TV. “Most exercise facilities are now equipped with TVs, but TV—while working out or anywhere else—really is about the last thing an aspiring writer needs. If you feel you must have the news analyst blowhard on CNN while you exercise, or the stock market blowhards on MSNBC, or the sports blowhards on ESPN, it’s time for you to question how serious you really are about becoming a writer. You must be prepared to do some serious turning inward toward the life of the imagination, and that means, I’m afraid, that Geraldo, Keigh Obermann, and Jay Leno must go. Reading takes time, and the glass teat takes too much of it.”

10. You have three months. “The first draft of a book—even a long one—should take no more than three months, the length of a season.”

11. There are two secrets to success. “When I’m asked for ‘the secret of my success’ (an absurd idea, that, but impossible to get away from), I sometimes say there are two: I stayed physically healthy, and I stayed married. It’s a good answer because it makes the question go away, and because there is an element of truth in it. The combination of a healthy body and a stable relationship with a self reliant woman who takes zero shit from me or anyone else has made the continuity of my working life possible. And I believe the converse is also true: that my writing and the pleasure I take in it has contributed to the stability of my health and my home life.”

12. Write one word at a time. “A radio talk-show host asked me how I wrote. My reply—’One word at a time’—seemingly left him without a reply. I think he was trying to decide whether or not I was joking. I wasn’t. In the end, it’s always that simple. Whether it’s a vignette of a single page or an epic trilogy like ‘The Lord Of The Rings,’ the work is always accomplished one word at a time.”

13. Eliminate distraction. “There should be no telephone in your writing room, certainly no TV or videogames for you to fool around with. If there’s a window, draw the curtains or pull down the shades unless it looks out at a blank wall.”

14. Stick to your own style. “One cannot imitate a writer’s approach to a particular genre, no matter how simple what the writer is doing may seem. You can’t aim a book like a cruise missile, in other words. People who decide to make a fortune writing lik John Grisham or Tom Clancy produce nothing but pale imitations, by and large, because vocabulary is not the same thing as feeling and plot is light years from the truth as it is understood by the mind and the heart.”

15. Dig. “When, during the course of an interview for The New Yorker, I told the interviewer (Mark Singer) that I believed stories are found things, like fossils in the ground, he said that he didn’t believe me. I replied that that was fine, as long as he believed that I believe it. And I do. Stories aren’t souvenir tee-shirts or Game Boys. Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world. The writer’s job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground intact as possible. Sometimes the fossil you uncover is small; a seashell. Sometimes it’s enormous, a Tyrannosaurus Rex with all the gigantic ribs and grinning teeth. Either way, short story or thousand page whopper of a novel, the techniques of excavation remain basically the same.”

16. Take a break. “If you’ve never done it before, you’ll find reading your book over after a six-week layoff to be a strange, often exhilarating experience. It’s yours, you’ll recognize it as yours, even be able to remember what tune was on the stereo when you wrote certain lines, and yet it will also be like reading the work of someone else, a soul-twin, perhaps. This is the way it should be, the reason you waited. It’s always easier to kill someone else’s darlings that it is to kill your own.”

17. Leave out the boring parts and kill your darlings. “Mostly when I think of pacing, I go back to Elmore Leonard, who explained it so perfectly by saying he just left out the boring parts. This suggests cutting to speed the pace, and that’s what most of us end up having to do (kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your ecgocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.)”

18. The research shouldn’t overshadow the story. “If you do need to do research because parts of your story deal with things about which you know little or nothing, remember that word back. That’s where research belongs: as far in the background and the back story as you can get it. You may be entranced with what you’re learning about the flesh-eating bacteria, the sewer system of New York, or the I.Q. potential of collie pups, but your readers are probably going to care a lot more about your characters and your story.”

19. You become a writer simply by reading and writing. “You don’t need writing classes or seminars any more than you need this or any other book on writing. Faulkner learned his trade while working in the Oxford, Mississippi post office. Other writers have learned the basics while serving in the Navy, working in steel mills or doing time in America’s finer crossbar hotels. I learned the most valuable (and commercial) part of my life’s work while washing motel sheets and restaurant tablecloths at the New Franklin Laundry in Bangor. You learn best by reading a lot and writing a lot, and the most valuable lessons of all are the ones you teach yourself.”

20. Writing is about getting happy. “Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink.”

(Via Barnes and Noble)

[whenimonthenightshift]

[whenimonthenightshift]

“i don’t like writing about my day, but i want to keep a journal”:

quotes and copywork. when reading, if you find something you enjoy, just copy it into the notebook. you can copy a whole chapter if you wish, highlighting what caught your attention the most.

definitions. look up on a dictionary and copy it. you could write your own dictionary as well, making up definitions for words.

lists. a classic, write movies to watch, books to read, the playlist of the month or just the groceries you have to buy.

maps. when going somewhere, you could draw the route you took or just a map of the place itself. just look up the place on google maps and copy it. you can draw a little map of all the places you have lived or the schools you have attended as well.

photos

take “notes” as you watch movies / documentaries. write down phrases that caught your attention or doodle.

illustrations and clippings. if you see an image or piece of art that you liked, put it in your journal. if it’s from a book or from a magazine I would recommend scanning it, tho’. it will serve as a record of what kind of art you enjoy through the years.

newspaper clippings from the day.

tickets and pamphlets. from movies, museums, transportation.

postcards

records. you could record for a month what the temperature was when you woke up and when you went to sleep. if you do that for a year, it gives you a better notion of the passing of seasons. you could record rainfall and other seasonal changes as well. you could choose something (an animal, a plant, an item or object) and write down every time you see it.

rubbings of leaves, coins, landmarks.

count. there’s a scene in the movie Caroline (2009) where Caroline’s dad tells her to go count the windows. you could do the same type of counting game if you are bored and write down.

mindmaps/sketchnotes + timelines of books, movies, music albums.

collages

pressed leafs and flowers

your collections. if you collect anything you could write down an inventory or maybe try to draw the items.

recipes. write down recipes and give it a score every time you try it. you could do the same for drinks you try out.

stickers

comic strips. you can find a bunch of it online, glue your favorites in your notebook.

[whenimonthenightshift]

How do you fall back in love with life?

clean your room.  clean space, uncluttered space, space that doesn’t have miasma clinging to it can work wonders.  clean the dishes.  sweep.  take out the trash.  peel the clothes off the floor and wash them, and then actually fold/hang them.  take a long shower.  scrub behind your knees.  brush your teeth.  (this can be utterly exhausting, but try to get it done in a day, if you can.  the end result is worth it.)

pull out your notebook.  it doesn’t need to be a new notebook, but preferably one that you don’t usually write in, or that you haven’t touched in a while.  fuck moleskins.  the yellow legal pad will work fine.  sit in your room, or in the park, or in the library, and write a list.  count clouds.  describe all the colors that you see, and note patterns that arise.  sketch the cracks in the walls.  note the shape light makes when it enters a space.  talk about what the air tastes like, smells like.  what sounds are there?  even the white nose, break that down: air planes, fans, cicadas, anything.  remind yourself that you are sitting in the middle of a space brimming with detail.  remind yourself that you are not in nothingness and emptiness.  your world is fathomless.  it has potential.

drink cold water and try to eat something that isn’t processed.  it does not need to be fancy.  buy yourself an apple with the change between your couch cushions.  eat it outside.  if you’re someone who walks, walk somewhere afterwards, just to stretch your legs.  take your fucking meds.  remember that its a good thing that you are inside your body.  your body is a fantastic and endlessly intricate machine, and even though society has smacked a bunch of poisonous ideas on it, that doesn’t change its inherent worth and splendor.  take care of it.

read a novel.  underline your favorite lines, and write phrases that twist your heart inside your chest on the back of your hand with an ink pen.  read a novel like it’s poetry.  read poetry, something decadent but unpretentious.  watch a movie you haven’t seen before.  if there are free art galleries near you, walk through one.  take your time.  let yourself bask.  if there are patterns in what makes your soul ache, write those patterns down – marbles arches or soot crumbling bricks or dandelions or descriptions of dresses or whatever it is, write them down.

your chosen family is important.  remember, they picked you as much as you picked them.  the love has no obligation.  it is given freely and it is given from a place of compassion.  you are not a burden.  if you need to breathe, take a minute by yourself and just exist, but remember to go back to your people.  when they need you, listen and be gracious.  always be gracious.  the universe sometimes remembers things like that.

listen to new music.  link jump on youtube or related artist jump on spotify or ask the chap beside you in the cafe what their favorite band is, and listen to that.  listen to something that you don’t usually listen to.  we tend to tie up a lot of memory with music.  we are falling in love again.  the soundtrack needs to be specific to that.  

allow yourself to indulge in romantics.  press flowers in old books.  play movies with subtitles and mouth the words.  dance in your room.  wear something that makes you feel good, even if you wouldn’t wear it in public.  write your chosen family letters, even if you hand deliver them.  write poetry, even awful poetry.  revel in its awfulness.  eat dark chocolate and when your chosen family want to go out, try to go out with them sometimes, even if its just to the market.  

[whenimonthenightshift]

You deserve it

[whenimonthenightshift]

"To us who sought freedom"

I'm a dove without wings, you're a dove whose wings were burnt to ashes. You cry with your heart, I just have to learn to breathe again; and for the first time in months the snow didn't melt but burned away, you wanted to get help, I wanted to sit and wait to be rescued, I never felt like moving. Suddenly this time it's clear, it ruins the color blue and you wanted to believe, but me who looked at the ashes at the sky and felt nothing. We were the wild once, doves who looked like how rain smells. We sought freedom once. We wanted to be everywhere once and we will; and as the ashes fell from the sky we took our last breath pretending that it was not ashes settling upon our skin but that it was snow.

[whenimonthenightshift]

I stopped taking pictures over 3 years ago and I still regret that to this day.

[whenimonthenightshift]

September 2021: it was fall, It wasn't as cold but still perfer summer.

[whenimonthenightshift]

The red means I love you