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heavyhead · 2 years

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100 good questions to ask your friends at 4:02 am when you can’t sleep (can also function as an asks list)

Are you bothered by your cosmic insignificance?

Do you mourn for a place or person you’ve never known?

Do you really think there is somebody for everybody?

Do you place any value in gender roles?

Do you have to be related to be family?

Are your platonic relationships just as valuable as romantic or family ones?

Are you in love? Do you want to be?

Do you think you can put love into categories (family, platonic, romantic, etc.) or is it just one general sensation?

Would you be happy with a life without romance?

Are you always going to be a little in love with somebody?

Would you change your appearance if you could?

Do you have the feeling you’ve lost something you might have had in another life - whether it be a person, a place, a world, a language, etc.?

Do you believe in reincarnation?

Would you want to be reincarnated?

Do you think you’re special, or just another person amongst billions? Can you be both?

Do theoretical ethical debates have any value? Is it important people discuss ethical dilemmas, e.g. the trolley problem?

Did you have imaginary friends? Do you still have them?

Are you religious? Do you think your religion is ‘correct’?

If you aren’t religious, do you wish you were? Why?

Do you want a grand adventure?

Do you have somebody, whether it be a friend or stranger, who you think you could have loved if the circumstances were different?

How long does it take you to fall in love with somebody?Is the sensation of ‘falling in love’ or ‘being in love’ better?

Is love about convenience or something more? Can it be about both?

Do you think you really understand your gender and sexuality?

How fluid is your concept of gender and sexuality?

What’s the most life-changing choice you’ve made so far?

Are you afraid of growing old?

Would you want to live forever? How about for a billion years, a million, a millennium, a century?

Do you believe in some form of god/s?

Are your choices fated or of your own free will?

Do you have a hunch about how you’re going to die?

Do you believe in star signs?

How old do you have to be to be considered an adult?

Was your childhood happy?

What are you missing from your life?

Have you ever met someone who had a very similar personality to your own? Did you get along?

Do opposites attract?

Is your life what you expected it would be five years ago?

Do you know what you want out of life?

What makes a person ‘good’? Are you a ‘good person’?

What fundamentally matters do you?

Is freewill an illusion?

Do you create art? How do you define art?

How often do you lie? Is all lying inherently bad? Are you generally truthful?

Do you want to be remembered after your death? What for?

Is true world peace ever possible?

Do you have to suffer to truly understand the human condition? What is the human condition? How can you really experience it?

Are you free? Will you ever be? Can anyone be truly free?

Do you hold yourself to higher standards than you hold others?

What do you expect from a friend or partner?

What question could you ask to find out the most about a person?

Do you justify all your beliefs or have you just inherited/absorbed some?

Which beliefs do you have that is most likely to be wrong?

Can human really understand the complete nature of the universe, space and time?

Is a conscious what makes someone a person?

What do you think about artificial intelligence?

Do you thinks humans are obsessed with escapism (books, video games, movies, etc.)? Are you looking for an escape? Do you think that’s a bad thing?

Are we eventually going to ‘run out’ of new combinations for music, art, language, etc.? Is there a limit to human creativity?

What do you think the next era of music will be like?

What do you think the next era of fashion will be like?

Do we live in tumultuous times, or do they just seem so strange because we’re living in them?

Would you want to meet a clone of yourself? Would you like them?

How confident are you, really?

How consistent is your perception of time?

What age should people be allowed to vote? Should children and teenagers be allowed to vote?

How do you feel about the idea ‘an eye for an eye’?

What’s the worse thing a person can be?

How do you feel about monogamy?

Can you be in love with someone and still fall in love with someone else?

What’s the tragedy of your life?

Would your life make a good play?

Should people be prosecuted for crimes that weren’t considered crimes at the time?

Would you fight for your country? Do you feel a sense of loyalty to your nation?

Do you believe in gender equality in every aspect?

Do we have a moral obligation to care for others? To what extent?

Do you crave approval and/or praise?

Is there comedy in all tragedy and tragedy in all comedy?

Are you ever going to be satisfied?

When you are sad, do you listen to music that conveys your emotions or music that makes you happy?

Is your music organised by mood or sensation or do you just listen to everything at any time?

Would you marry a friend if they needed you to (e.g. for citizenship)?

Are you a deep person?

Given the chance to live your life on Mars, with no hope of returning to Earth but with the promise of scientific discovery and glory, would you take it?

Are you who people think you are?

Do you think you would be happier if you had been born a different gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, nationality or religion?

What’s your toxic trait? Are you trying to improve yourself and fix it?

Do you anger easily?

Are you a jealous person?

If you lost all your memories, would you have the same personality?

Given the chance to reset your life (with none of the knowledge you currently have), would you take it?

Is hate as strong as love? Who do you hate?

Do you speak multiple languages? Which do you dream in? What language would you want to learn?

Do you draw meaning from your dreams, or do you disregard them?

How would you describe yourself when you love? Do you love forcefully, unconditionally, gently, quietly, desperately?

Is unrequited love real love?

Is your perception of yourself similar or the same to how others perceive you?

Are you overly analytical?

Do you ever feel that you are really a terrible person, and only act good out of societal or some other obligation?

Do you believe in magic? Are you superstitious?

What belief do you have that isn’t logically grounded, but you still firmly believe in?

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heavyhead · 2 years

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Hi there! I've always wanted to be a published author as well and when i saw your post about your new book… I literally cried. You are living your dream and I am so proud. I have been writing a book myself and I just want to know what kind of process you went through to get your book published, if that's not any trouble. My parents have always told me that my writing will never be published and I want to prove them wrong. Anyways, thank you and have a lovely day! (Love your book

Hello! Thank you so so much - dreams DO come true! Don’t listen to your parents - they are very wrong.

No problem at all, I’ll give you the lowdown (and post this so everyone else can see what happened)

write your book! make sure it’s the best it can be. make sure it’s something you have a burning need to write about. make sure you’re in love with it.

if you want to be traditionally published, you will need a LITERARY AGENT. your agent is the person who will get your book into publishers’ hands, the person who draws up your publishing contracts and sorts out your money. they usually get 15% of your book earnings. i’d suggest buying the “writers’ and artists’ yearbook” if you’re in the UK or “writers’ market” if you’re in the US - they’ll give you listings of trustworthy and legitimate agents (untrustworthy agents might ask you for money = BIG NO NO). look them up online and apply to agents who want to represent the genre that you’re writing in. it’s no use sending a YA fantasy manuscript to an agent that only represents picture books, for example.

apply to as many agents as you can via email and/or post - usually they’ll want to see your first three chapters/10,000 words and a synopsis with a query letter. this is why you need to look them up online - look up their submission guidelines. research how to write a query letter - this is important as it’s what will grab the agent’s attention.

WITH LUCK AND PERSEVERANCE an agent will want to represent you. don’t be disheartened if you get lots of rejections. harry potter got 27 rejections or something. it’s important to note that agents mostly reject books because they don’t connect with the book/it’s not the right genre - NOT because it’s badly written or unpublishable.

SO! you have an agent. now your agent will hopefully help you to improve your book before sending your manuscript out to a long list of editors from a long list of publishing houses. this process can take any time between a few weeks and a couple of years. your book might not sell and you have to write another one for your agent to try again. publishing is weird.

BUT hopefully you get offered a deal from a publisher, and BOOM you have a publishing deal! your book will be in bookshops! you have done it!!!!

HOPE THIS HELPS! there are many other ways to get published but this was my way, and i think it’s the most traditional way. not at any point was i shown any discrimination because of my age! and the publishing world is full of wonderful, creative, enthusiastic people who you will love.

SO FINISH YOUR BOOK AND DO IT! BELIEVE! IT HAPPENS! DON’T LET ANYONE TELL YOU OTHERWISE!

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heavyhead · 2 years

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What makes a novel unputdownable and unforgettable?

For me it is when the author has managed to make me care, sometimes desperately and irrationally, about the characters and the stories they have to tell. I am concerned about them and emotionally invested in their ability to move forward despite the odds.

More than that, the best stories are the ones where I think - ‘That could happen to me’ – even if the story is set in space, in another dimension, in the future or the past, I am still able to put myself into the story.

Here are Nine Ways To Ensure An Unforgettable Read

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heavyhead · 2 years

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alacrity a-LACK-ra-tee cheerful willingness and promptness

anathema a-NATH-a-ma a thing or person cursed, banned, or reviled

anodyne AN-a-dine not likely to cause offence or disagreement and somewhat dull//anything that sooths or comforts

aphorism AFF-oar-ism a short, witty saying or concise principle

apostate ah-POSS-tate (also: apostasy) person who has left the fold or deserted the faith.

arrogate ARROW-gate to make an unreasonable claim

atavistic at-a-VIS-tic reverting to a primitive type

avuncular a-VUNC-you-lar “like an uncle”; benevolent

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heavyhead · 2 years

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thanks @jstor!

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heavyhead · 2 years

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vibrant words

immemorial (adj): originating in the distant past; very old.

visceral (adj): relating to deep inward feelings rather than to the intellect.

albatross (n): a very large oceanic bird related to the shearwaters, with long narrow wings.

encroach (v): advance gradually beyond usual or acceptable limits.

drift (n): a continuous slow movement from one place to another.

presence (n): the state or fact of existing, occurring, or being present in a place or thing.

vast (adj): of very great extent or quantity; immense.

soliloquy (n): an act of speaking one’s thoughts aloud when by oneself or regardless of any hearers, especially by a character in a play.

lagoon (n): a stretch of salt water separated from the sea by a low sandbank or coral reef.

mirrored (adj): having a surface like a mirror; reflective.

phoenix (n): a unique bird that lived for five or six centuries in the Arabian desert, after this time burning itself on a funeral pyre and rising from the ashes with renewed youth to live through another cycle.

inspiration (n): the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative.

saturation (n): the state or process that occurs when no more of something can be absorbed, combined with, or added.

luminous (adj): full of or shedding light; bright or shining, especially in the dark.

phosphorescence (n): light emitted after exposure to radiation, or produced by something that doesn’t produce flame or heat.

negligible (adj): so small or unimportant as to be not worth considering; insignificant.

arboreal (adj): relating to trees.

incandescent (adj): emitting light as a result of being heated.

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heavyhead · 2 years

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What sort of questions should I be asking my beta readers?

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR BETA READERS:

When I send out my chapter to be read over by my beta readers, I always include a set of questions typed out at the bottom, grouped into different categories such as: plot, pacing, character, setting, etc.

You might want to tailor the questions depending on the genre or which chapter it is. For example, if it’s the first chapter you’ll want to ask them about how well your story managed to hook them, or if they managed to easily get an idea of the world you’ve introduced them to. If it’s the climax you might want to ask if the action scenes are fluid, and if the plot twist/s were predictable or surprising.

Here’s some example questions that you could use:

Opening Chapter:

What is your first impression of the main character? Do you find them likable? Annoying? Boring?

After reading it for the first time, what is your first impression? Was it cohesive and compelling? Boring and confusing?

Did the first sentence/paragraph/page efficiently grab your attention and hook you in?

If you were to read this chapter in a bookstore/library would you be convinced to buy it? Or would you need to read further before deciding? Why or why not?

Did you get oriented fairly quickly at the beginning as to whose story it is, what’s going on, and where and when it’s taking place? If not, what were you confused about at the beginning?

Does the first chapter establish the main character efficiently? Do they feel believable?

Characters:

Could you clearly imagine what the characters looked like? If not, who?

Who was your favourite character and why? Has your favourite character changed? (if this hasn’t changed feel free to skip this question)

Are there any characters that you do not like? Why do you not like them? (Boring, annoying, problematic, etc.)

Was there ever a moment when you found yourself annoyed or frustrated by a character?

Could you relate to the main character? Did you empathise with their motivation or find yourself indifferent?

Were the characters goals/motivations clear and understandable?

Did you get confused about who’s who? Are there too many characters to keep track of? Are any of the names or characters too similar?

Do the characters feel three-dimensional or like cardboard cutouts?

How familiar have you become with the main characters? Without cheating could you name the four main characters? Can you remember their appearance? Can you remember their goal or motivation?

Dialogue:

Did the dialogue seem natural to you?

Was there ever a moment where you didn’t know who was talking?

Setting/world-building:

Were you able to visualize where and when the story is taking place?

Is the setting realistic and believable?

How well do you remember the setting? Without cheating, can you name four important settings?

Genre:

Did anything about the story seem cliche or tired to you? How so?

Did anything you read (character, setting, etc.) remind you of any others works? (Books, movies, etc.)

Plot/pacing/scenes:

Do you feel there were any unnecessary scenes/moments that deserved to be deleted or cut back?

Do the scenes flow naturally and comprehensively at an appropriate pace? Did you ever feel like they were jumping around the place?

Was there ever a moment where you attention started to lag, or the chapter begun to drag? Particular paragraph numbers would be very helpful.

Did you ever come across a sentence that took you out of the moment, or you had to reread to understand fully?

Was the writing style fluid and easy to read? Stilted? Purple prose-y? Awkward?

Did you notice any discrepancies or inconsistencies in facts, places, character details, plot, etc.?

Additional questions:

What three things did you like? What three things did you not like?

Can you try predicting any upcoming plot twists or outcomes?

Was there ever a moment when your suspension of disbelief was tested?

Is there anything you’d personally change about the story?

Was the twist expected or surprising? Do you feel that the foreshadowing was almost nonexistent, or heavy handed?

Feel free to tailor these to your needs or ignore some of them if you don’t think they’re useful. Basically, your questions are about finding out the information about how others perceive your own writing and how you can improve your story.

Have a question you want answered?

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heavyhead · 2 years

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Oblique Strategies (subtitled Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas) - created by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt and first published in 1975. Each card offers an aphorism intended to help artists (particularly musicians) break creative blocks by encouraging lateral thinking.

These cards evolved from our separate observations of the principles underlying what we are doing. Sometimes they were recognized in retrospect (intellect catching up with intuition), sometimes they were identified as they were happening, sometimes they were formulated. They can be used as a pack (a set of posibilities being continuously reviewed in the mind) or by drawing a single card from a shuffled pack when a dilemma occurs in a working situation. In this case the card is trusted even if it appropriateness is quite unclear. They are not final, as new ideas will present themselves, and others will become self-evident. - Brian Eno

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heavyhead · 2 years

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Hey guys! So, I realized I left out a ton of writers in the original post, so I decided to make a second part (the first part is here)! I hope you enjoy these inspirational quotes I collected and more writers and add them to your collection as well!

C.S. Lewis

“We are what we believe we are.”

“Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.”

George Orwell

“Happiness can exist only in acceptance.”

“Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

J.K. Rowling

“You sort of start thinking anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve.”

“The moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you.”

“If you want to see the true measure of a man, watch how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”

“What’s coming will come and we’ll just have to meet it when it does.”

“If you want to see the true measure of a man, watch how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”

“I think you have a moral responsibility when you’ve been given far more than you need, to do wise things with it and give intelligently.”

“It is our choices… that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.”

“It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.”

John Steinbeck

“A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.”

“A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.”

Emile Zola

“The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.”

“If I cannot overwhelm with my quality, I will overwhelm with my quantity.”

“If you ask me what I came into this life to do, I will tell you: I came to live out loud.”

“If you shut up truth, and bury it underground, it will but grow.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne

“Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.”

“Every individual has a place to fill in the world and is important in some respect whether he chooses to be so or not.”

“Our most intimate friend is not he to whom we show the worst, but the best of our nature.”

“Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”

Victor Hugo

“All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come.”

“Short as life is, we make it still shorter by the careless waste of time.”

“Initiative is doing the right thing without being told.”

“There is nothing like a dream to create the future.”

“Try as you will, you cannot annihilate that eternal relic of the human heart, love.”

“Virtue has a veil, vice a mask.”

“Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.”

“Concision in style, precision in thought, decision in life.”

“The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.”

“Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace.”

“What would be ugly in a garden constitutes beauty in a mountain.”

“Pain is as diverse as man. One suffers as one can.”

“Our acts make or mar us, we are the children of our own deeds.”

“Do not let it be your aim to be something, but to be someone.”

“Many great actions are committed in small struggles.”

Edgar Allen Poe

“Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.””

James Joyce

“The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.”

“Mistakes are the portals of discovery.”

Geoffrey Chaucer

“Time and tide wait for no man.”

John Keats

“Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced.”

“There is nothing stable in the world; uproar’s your only music.”

“What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth.”

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever: its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness.”

E.E. Cummings

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”

“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.”

“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”

Jane Austen

“Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”

“We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.”

Arnold Bennett

“Your own mind is a sacred enclosure into which nothing harmful can enter except by your permission.”

“It is easier to go down a hill than up, but the view is from the top.”

“There can be no knowledge without emotion. We may be aware of a truth, yet until we have felt its force, it is not ours. To the cognition of the brain must be added the experience of the soul.”

William Makepeace Thackeray

“Follow your honest convictions and be strong.”

“I would rather make my name than inherit it.”

“There are many sham diamonds in this life which pass for real, and vice versa.”

“Do not be in a hurry to succeed. What would you have to live for afterwards? Better make the horizon your goal; it will always be ahead of you.”

Alfred Lord Tennyson

“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.”

“So many worlds, so much to do, so little done, such things to be.”

“Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, ‘It will be happier.’”

“Ring out the false, ring in the true.”

“No man ever got very high by pulling other people down. The intelligent merchant does not knock his competitors. The sensible worker does not knock those who work with him. Don’t knock your friends. Don’t knock your enemies. Don’t knock yourself.”

Emily Dickinson

“To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.”

“Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door.”

“Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.”

“I dwell in possibility.”

“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all.”

“The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.”

Lord Byron

“Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.”

“There is no instinct like that of the heart.”

“The heart will break, but broken live on.”

“Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life.”

“Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life. The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

“What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.”

“Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.”

“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”

“For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.”

“In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.”

“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.”

“Beauty without expression is boring.”

“The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.”

“What you are comes to you.”

“People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.”

“Every artist was first an amateur.”

“Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults.”

“We do not yet possess ourselves, and we know at the same time that we are much more.”

“Wherever the invitation of men or your own occasions lead you, speak the very truth, as your life and conscience teach it, and cheer the waiting, fainting hearts of men with new hope and new revelation.”

“There is more difference in the quality of our pleasures than in the amount.”

“The best effort of a fine person is felt after we have left their presence.”

“Why need I volumes, if one word suffice?”

“Always do what you are afraid to do.”

“He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.”

“We are always getting ready to live but never living.”

“Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle.”

“It is one of the beautiful compensations in this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.”

“Use what language you will, you can never say anything but what you are.”

“A more secret, sweet, and overpowering beauty appears to man when his heart and mind open to the sentiment of virtue.”

“Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.”

“Nothing external to you has any power over you.”

“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.”

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.”

“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”

“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”

“With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.”

“We must be our own before we can be another’s.”

“Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.”

“What we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us.”

“Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.”

“Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.”

“It is not length of life, but depth of life.”

“The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.”

“As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.”

“The only way to have a friend is to be one.”

“Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.”

“Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.”

“People only see what they are prepared to see.”

T.S. Eliot

“You are the music while the music lasts.”

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

Arthur Conan Doyle

“Any truth is better than indefinite doubt.”

“We can’t command our love, but we can our actions.”

“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”

Bram Stoker

“Despair has its own calms.”

“No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and dear to his heart and eye the morning can be.”

Credit for the header’s icon goes to Madebyoliver on Flaticon. Go check him out!

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