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“Either I was a puzzle to be solved or he just thought that once he got to know me better, he could still break through to some other place, some core where another person lived inside of me. […] I told him point-blank, so there would be no mistake: This person he wanted to know better did not exist; I was who I seemed to be from the outside. That would never change.”

— Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation (via antigonick)

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I almost forgot about the question of little magic. The little thing that you can’t explain how you do it, or what you do that makes the it so special.

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everything you love will lead you back to you

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writers say “kill your darlings,” but what they don’t tell you is you’ll mourn those darlings for the rest of your life and bring them back in a slightly altered form in your next project.

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my 10 holy grail pieces of writing advice for beginners

from an indie author who's published 4 books and written 20+, as well as 400k in fanfiction (who is also a professional beta reader who encounters the same issues in my clients' books over and over)

show don't tell is every bit as important as they say it is, no matter how sick you are of hearing about it. "the floor shifted beneath her feet" hits harder than "she felt sick with shock."

no head hopping. if you want to change pov mid scene, put a scene break. you can change it multiple times in the same scene! just put a break so your readers know you've changed pov.

if you have to infodump, do it through dialogue instead of exposition. your reader will feel like they're learning alongside the character, and it will flow naturally into your story.

never open your book with an exposition dump. instead, your opening scene should drop into the heart of the action with little to no context. raise questions to the reader and sprinkle in the answers bit by bit. let your reader discover the context slowly instead of holding their hand from the start. trust your reader; donn't overexplain the details. this is how you create a perfect hook.

every chapter should end on a cliffhanger. doesn't have to be major, can be as simple as ending a chapter mid conversation and picking it up immediately on the next one. tease your reader and make them need to turn the page.

every scene should subvert the character's expectations, as big as a plot twist or as small as a conversation having a surprising outcome. scenes that meet the character's expectations, such as a boring supply run, should be summarized.

arrive late and leave early to every scene. if you're character's at a party, open with them mid conversation instead of describing how they got dressed, left their house, arrived at the party, (because those things don't subvert their expectations). and when you're done with the reason for the scene is there, i.e. an important conversation, end it. once you've shown what you needed to show, get out, instead of describing your character commuting home (because it doesn't subvert expectations!)

epithets are the devil. "the blond man smiled--" you've lost me. use their name. use it often. don't be afraid of it. the reader won't get tired of it. it will serve you far better than epithets, especially if you have two people of the same pronouns interacting.

your character should always be working towards a goal, internal or external (i.e learning to love themself/killing the villain.) try to establish that goal as soon as possible in the reader's mind. the goal can change, the goal can evolve. as long as the reader knows the character isn't floating aimlessly through the world around them with no agency and no desire. that gets boring fast.

plan scenes that you know you'll have fun writing, instead of scenes that might seem cool in your head but you know you'll loathe every second of. besides the fact that your top priority in writing should be writing for only yourself and having fun, if you're just dragging through a scene you really hate, the scene will suffer for it, and readers can tell. the scenes i get the most praise on are always the scenes i had the most fun writing. an ideal outline shouldn't have parts that make you groan to look at. you'll thank yourself later.

happy writing :)

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Writing a novel is at once to remember and to imagine.

— Orhan Pamuk, "Memories of Distant Mountains: Illustrated Notebooks, 2009-2022." Translated by Ekin Oklap. (Knopf, November 26, 2024)

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#vw #golfmk1 #vwgolf #vwgolfmk1 #mk1 #dubmaxphotography #dubmaxpics (en Valle de Guadalupe, Baja California) https://www.instagram.com/p/Coby2cAOO4G/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Pumpkin Pie Recipe

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Or better yet, to leave my door and see them, and they just as happy to see me. Those days are gone.

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I yearn to scroll an app and only see the faces of real friends.

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Ivan Pokidyshev, Consolation (2023)

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When I have the apartment to myself, I’m outstandingly in debt to the outdoors. Finding company in her cookie dough living in the freezer; answering questions that can’t be asked in into the thin air between interviews.

I like myself more when I’m planning a joke to tell the leaves, on the edge of my seat and I can’t wait to find a good desk to purchase. I like myself more when my endeavors bear no fruit but the tree blossomed bloodstones over prairie dogs. I like myself more in ways that warrant a search party that sways counter to the winds. I like myself more when my tongue is covered in refuted pretzel salt and I rediscover fennel seeds, and while writing a poem forgetting if I ever knew what fennel looks like.

All the foods, data and individuality found again in the nectar of a wine glass, with legs to be savored the same as hers. An aspect I knock my head into when I spin the wheel to give a compliment.

Every Winter you become my Autumn day, and every Summer my snowball and thread. I’m savoring to install honey, slathered on the walls of a living room door handle in the hopes you’ve wanted the same all along.

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“I want you to do this with me for one month. One month. Write 10 observations a week and by the end of four weeks, you will have an answer. Because when someone writes about the rustic gutter and the water pouring through it onto the muddy grass, the real pours into the room. And it’s thrilling. We’re all enlivened by it. We don’t have to find more than the rustic gutter and the muddy grass and the pouring cold water.”

— Marie Howe, Marie Howe Reads at Boston University's 2016 Theopoetics Conference (GBH Forum Network, March 30, 2016) (via Wait-What?)

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I've been looking for love in the places I should've never stepped in,

in the places all wrong for my introverted arse,

in the places too bad for my flaky mental health,

in the places testing the patience of my moral code,

though I doubt that one is still intact,

I mean I sold my virtue to prove what? a point?

to whom? beats me, but I did nevertheless.

At least, I felt cool. For a tick. Then the high seized

and I went on a love-escapade to yet another place

in yet another attempt to prove something so silly

it doesn't deserve to be mentioned, besides being laughed at.

I've been looking for love that I've never met,

the kind I'm not familiar with apart from watching it on tv -

and I have been in therapy

I do know that love on the tv is far from the standart,

but as a child I had no one to set a proper example,

sometimes I even wonder wether I love my friends and family.

I do, right? Well, doesn't matter, never mind.

You see, the problem is rather simple -

I've been looking for love I'm not familiar with

in all the places that i should have never stepped in,

because I've been looking for a way-out from a dilemma

being a torturer of my very sick head and soul

together struggling to figure out an answer

to a rather intriguing question -

Do I even know how to love myself?

.

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