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[byjillianmaria]

Two Truths and a Lie

Tagged by @cwritesfiction!! Doing this for A Colder Home because that's the MO lately. Please note that this draft has gone through many changes and will likely go through many more, so some of these might not end up true in the final draft lol

[byjillianmaria]

Two Truths and a Lie

Tagged by @words-after-midnight and @possiblylisle to share two truths and a lie about a WIP or character! I'll post for It's in the Cards :)

If you want to play too @byjillianmaria @rokokokokolores @bardicbeetle

[byjillianmaria]

Heads Up Seven Up

Tagged by @words-after-midnight to share 7 (ish) lines!

How about some Dungeons and Dragons? (From It's in the Cards)

“Roll persuasion,” Jacen told them. “And don’t blow it,” Max added. “Don’t worry,” Elliott said, “the only thing I’m about to blow is—holy shit! Another 20! I swear, I’m not bullshitting, you know that’s bad luck. I want to kiss this nerd!” “Then congratulations,” Jacen said flatly. “You’re making out.”

Interested? @byjillianmaria @kaylinalexanderbooks @linkedsoul

[byjillianmaria]

Sure, I'll bite LOL! Have a line from A Colder Home.

“Um.” I say, eloquently.

Out of Context Line Tag

Tagged by @revenantlore like 4 minutes ago to share an out of context line. From It's in the Cards:

"Slut," Harper said reverently.

Interested? @byjillianmaria @loopyhoopywrites @kaylinalexanderbooks

[byjillianmaria]

Saturday Sunday Kiss Tag

Thank you @arwenschepers for the tag!!!

Rules : Share a scene with a kiss, platonic, familial, romantic, etc...

Have a smooch from A Colder Home!

Isobel is drifting closer. And maybe I am, too. This isn’t the lurid imagining I had in the closet, an over-fevered mind clutching at straws. This is something kinder. This is staring into an abyss and deciding to make our own light. It feels natural, when our lips meet. Isobel’s touch is gentle, a question. I grab her by the elbows and pull her in.

Tagging @linkedsoul and @eggletine!!

[byjillianmaria]

Saturday kiss tag

Thank you @thepeculiarbird !

Rules : Share a scene with a kiss, platonic, familial, romantic, etc...

Again, I choose a piece from The Game of Eleven. Not sure as what kind off kiss this counts:

Eva got on her feet, moving closer to his head before she crouched down again. She pressed a kiss to her fingers before resting them on his forehead. ‘Thank you,’ Eva whispered. She stood up and walked to Cynthia who was waiting a couple of meters away, at the bottom of the bridge.

I am tagging @byjillianmaria and @cwritesfiction

[byjillianmaria]

Heads-Up 7 Up

I got tagged by @cwritesfiction to share 7-ish lines!! I've been poking at A Colder Home lately, so have some from what will be draft #... I've honestly lost track at this point. This book may be the one to take me out

There's a very specific sort of awkward silence that ensues, when a joke about your dead dad doesn't land. It makes me wonder how you'd capture that tense energy on film. A wide shot that lingers, probably. Give the viewer plenty of time to see the discomfort on every face. Find a lens that makes you, in the center of the shot, appear smaller than you are. More fragile. Which is, for the record, unmitigated bullshit.

I'm tagging @aritany @glum-writes @arwenschepers!!

[byjillianmaria]

#this post inspired by yet another warning not to look into the sun#writeblr#elliott would totally do it#not immediately but they'd get curious and...how bad could it be? oh nope NOPE nope they shouldn't have done that#Veronica would do it but stealthily#like don't tell HER what to do#keller? eyes are done. he's totally looking.#jamie would be so tempted but wouldn't because she knows everyone is expecting her to do it. and she WONT

C I love your idiots so dearly

Which OC would look directly into the sun to see a solar eclipse after explicitly being told not to?

[byjillianmaria]

There's a bunch of adhd advice out there that's like "people with adhd tend to work better under deadlines due to the anxiety so here are ways to artificially induce a stress response in order to get you to get work done" and it's like well what if I don't want to be stressed out all the time in order to function

[byjillianmaria]

Character Voice Tag Game

I got tagged by @cwritesfiction!!! I'm gonna do it for MC's because that sounds fun.

Rules: I give you a phrase to rewrite in your OC's voice! Then you give a generic phrase to the people you tag!

If you're interested, @sarandipitywrites @rokokokokolores @em-dashes @bevsi @cerilndomace, your phrase is "I don't understand what you're saying."

My phrase: “I am not happy with you right now.”

Elizabeth: "I don't get it. Why would you do something like that?" Lydia: "Dude, what the hell? Not cool." Ashlyn: "Well. I didn't like that very much at all."

Bonus! WIP MCs!

Cleo: "Wow, okay. What? No, it's fine." Alya: "Listen, could you just... not do that, right now? I'm sorry, just... please."

[byjillianmaria]

Character Voice Tag Game

Tagged by @illarian-rambling (forever ago oops) and @arwenschepers!

Rules: I give you a phrase to rewrite in your OC's voice! Then you give a generic phrase to the people you tag!

If you're interested @byjillianmaria, @revenantlore, @incandescent-creativity, your phrase would be "I am not happy with you right now."

"How do we get there?"

"Right. Okay." Elliott stared at the map on their phone, but—walking. They'd never followed a map to get somewhere by walking. They'd only ever used one in the car. "The first thing we have to do is...how do we get there?"

"How," Adrian asked, raking both hands over his face, "exactly are we supposed to get there?"

"I love the music you're listening to!"

Elliott stopped shuffling their cards, turning fully around. "Wait, what is that? I mean the music. It's good!"

"Who are you listening to?" Adrian approached, brown eyes wide with interest. "I don't think I've heard them before."

[byjillianmaria]

James baldwin’s the artists struggle for identity. Btw.

[byjillianmaria]

On Identity: The Truth

Content warnings: homophobia, transphobia, references to self harm and suicide.

I’ve been keeping secrets my whole life.

I’m 10 and I’m listening to my dad at the dinner table, who I know to be the most trustworthy person in the world. He talks about the legalization of marriage between two people of the same sex and asks us to consider the implications. Where do we draw the line in the sand? Legalizing gay marriage paves the way for legalizing pedophilia, after all. If a union between two men or two women isn’t disrespecting the sanctity of marriage, what’s next? Marriage between men and animals?

I’m 11 the first time I hear it: “It doesn’t matter how low I set the bar for you, you still can’t reach it.”

I’m confused and afraid—I’m trying so hard—but I hear it then, and again, and again, spoken low in disappointment, shouted with a vein popping in her forehead, cold like a fact, and it sinks in, bone deep.

I’m 12 with my first crush on a girl. I’m not confused, I know that’s what it is—I want to kiss my friend, and I already know not to talk about it. Never to talk about it. It isn’t safe.

I’m 13 and doubting. I throw myself into fitting in. I pick the right boys to like and I go overboard, and I do like them, I do, I do, I want them to like me, I want to be their friend. I want to be their equal, but that’s not quite how the story goes, so I settle for trying to hold hands with somebody I desperately crave respect from, but that’s wrong too, I learn. 

I’m 14 and convicted. How could this be wrong? I brush hands with a girl in choir and we meet eyes and I know. I watch a gay kiss on TV and I sob into my hands and I tell no one, no one, no one.

I’m 15 and I come out to my mom, haltingly, with the terminology that I have, because the thought of hiding forever—keeping quiet through one more dinner—kills me.

She tells me no. She tells me I’m wrong.

I look in her eyes and I understand: it’s not an option, and it never will be.

I’m 15 and I do my best to stop there.

It doesn’t work.

I’m 16 when I first hear my mom say that you can love someone and not approve of their lifestyle. I wonder what kind of love that is. I wonder how that kind of diluted, half-hearted, patronizing love can be enough for anyone. I wonder if she’s thought about how that feels, to be told that who you are—not by choice—is fundamentally wrong.

I’m 16 and a boyfriend is a shield. The right choice, so I make it, and it’s even almost fun. I love being his friend. I’m afraid of anything more.

I’m 17 and my youngest sibling whispers, “So am I.”

My heart breaks for the pain they’ll experience, as they too are taught, painstakingly, how to hate themself. Which parts of themself have to be kept hidden, which parts are shameful. They sit at that dinner table and hear the rhetoric that pushed me to the brink and over it, and I hope they’re stronger than I am.

They aren’t.

I’m 18 and my mom works at a college for the performing arts. I sit and curdle quietly while she talks about her genderqueer students. Misgenders them behind their backs. Deadnames used flippantly. She knows better, after all. She can be the expert on somebody else’s identity. They’re mentally ill, all of them. None of them are happy. They’re searching for something only God can provide.

I’m 19 and I come out as bisexual to the man I’m certain I’m going to marry, tearing the secret out like a bandage fused to skin. He tells me of course it’s fine, that he supports who I am. Of course people like me should have rights, of course. I laugh, relieved. Later, I find out this moment was almost a dealbreaker for him, and I wonder how much was ever real.

I’m 20 and I’m out. I’m 20 and I’m free. I’m 20 and I believe, because I’ve been told, that I am loved for who I am. All of who I am. I still flinch when I hear a car door slam.

I’m 21 and I’m searching for the connection to my womanhood. I’m searching for what makes a woman a woman. I’m reading gender theory and talking to friends around the world and wondering exactly what it is that I’m missing.

What does the rest of the world know that I don’t?

I’m 22 when my marriage ends because my body might not be attractive to my husband one day, and my parents email him in support and solidarity, expressing sympathy, and I’m not surprised.

I’m 22, and standing up for who I am has cost me everything. A spouse, two sets of parents, financial security, a city’s worth of community, more childhood friends than I can count. My parents tell me to go back in the closet so my ex-husband will love me. To them, his frustration is understandable, of course—by presenting androgynously, I’m betraying my marriage vows, after all.

I wonder, stunned into silence, where I promised to look like a woman.

I’m 23 when I come out to my parents for the third time; not as bisexual, not as trans, but as hurt. 

I lay out the pain of the last decade as succinctly as I can, hoping they’ll hear. When I assert that yes, to be in relationship with me, use of my name and pronouns is a requirement, my mother jokes, “Well, we don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

It’s not a joke.

I see the flash in her eyes, the instant regret as she laughs it off like it’s funny, but it isn’t.

The kid sitting at the dinner table knows it’s not a joke. The kid who listened to countless lectures on the morality of queerness knows it’s not a joke. The kid who stood with shaking hands and tried to bleed out the bad knows it’s not a joke. Years of casual bigotry taught me how to hate myself, which parts of myself I should cross out and ignore, which parts of myself I should be ashamed of.

I’m 23, and I have finally unlearned shame, and when I ask my parents to see me, the joke is that I’m a terrorist. I’m unreasonable.

The shock of it becomes a balm, later on.

Some jokes aren’t funny.

Some jokes aren’t jokes at all.

I’m 24 and I’m learning that it’s scary to be alone. Bigotry made me an orphan and made us strangers, and knowing that it’s the right choice to stand up for myself doesn’t make it any easier. I’m learning the only way out is through, if you’re not squeamish:

Cut off the part of yourself that’s 7 years old standing outside of their bedroom because the nightmare had teeth and claws and they are the heroes that will hold you close and make it warm again.

Amputate.

Cauterize.

Don’t let them see you bleed.

I’m learning that the wound takes a long, long time to close.

I’m 25 as I write this, and I am proud of who I am, even if I’m still bleeding. All of who I am. It’s taken a long time for me to let that person see the sun, but here we are, basking in the glow. Those wounds are healing. I am visible for everyone else who whispers, “So am I.”

Your sunshine will come. Your sunshine will come. 

Your sunshine will come.

[byjillianmaria]

[byjillianmaria]

just discovered spotify’s ‘daylist’ playlists and the names are so funny. pls reblog and put your daylist name in the tags !!!

[byjillianmaria]

Find the Word Tag

Tagged by @cwritesfiction to find the words sleep, wake, and dream!

Sleep

Alya’s ability to stay in the moment wavers from day to day. Her sleep is fragmented, her moods erratic.

Wake

Dinah stands at the edge of the treeline, eyes blank and expression slack. Slow and deliberate, she raises a hand, draws a thumb across her own throat. Blood pours in its wake like a sheet. In seconds, the neckline of her dress is soaked and red.

Dream

“After Mama died, I was having nightmares every night,” Kass continues. “One night, I dreamed that the two of us were in the kitchen together, and we were screaming at each other. I kept begging her to listen to me—to understand that she was going to die if she dug her heels in, if she kept ignoring what I was saying. And she just kept shouting back nonsense, like she didn’t hear me at all.” Kass’s fingertips drum the steps of the altar. Her gaze is distant. “And then, her face… changed,” she says. “I don’t know if I can really explain it. You know how people’s faces never look right in dreams? Well, hers lost some of that… that strangeness. She looked at me with this expression… half-exasperated, but fond, too. Love all mixed up in there. And she said, very clearly, ’Cher, how much longer are you going to keep doing this to yourself?’ And I remembered, all at once, that it was no good warning her—that this was a dream, she was already dead, and there was nothing I could do.”

I'm tagging @folatefangirl @em-dashes annnnd @lady-redshield-writes to find the words please, sweet and soft!

[byjillianmaria]

Find the Word Tag Game

Tagged by @loopyhoopywrites! I responded with excerpts from It's In the Cards, so some are mildly suggestive because despite everything, there is some spice in this book.

broken, in which Elliott needs to get out more

Since moving to Garfield Beach, the only new friend Elliott had made was Betsey, and that was less of a friendship and more of an adult adoption. Still, they wouldn’t sacrifice their new life. Their independence was worth it, even if it meant most of their socialization was with a woman who refused to replace her broken dishwasher until Mercury was out of retrograde.

whole, in which Veronica is a menace

“Is this a psychic thing?” Elliott asked. “Yes," Adrian replied. Veronica poked her head in from the door. “That’s not a psychic thing—that’s a sex thing!” His eyes went wide. “No?” “Yes.” A smile broke across her face, a mixture of pride and unbridled joy. “This whole time we thought you kept your room shut because you’re a neat freak, but it’s actually because you’re a freak in bed! And you haven't had anyone over lately...oh my god, you're doing this by yourself? I’m so proud. I mean, the effort.” “Please stop talking.”

together, in which we enter the storage room because it's a rom-com

No one saw them slip into the storage room, but Elliott hastily shut the door just in case. The second it clicked, they snapped together like magnets.

Interested? @revenantlore @byjillianmaria @izzyspussy - if so your words are sleep, wake, and dream.