pastel-junkyard - Tumblr blog

[pastel-junkyard]

I'm still unlearning a lot of my internalized ableism, how does one go about describing things like FD without sounding judgemental or like it's "scary" like I'm sure I could say "He had a large burn scar on his jaw and neck" but can I say that a scar is "jagged" or would something less provocative, like say, "uneven" be more appropriate? Scars obviously aren't the only type of FD, just the one that came right to mind.

(sidenote: Looking at a list of FD and albinism is one apparently? I don't know why that never occurred to me before! I have two characters with albinism in my story! It's more a collection of short stories (maybe) but one of the protagonists of those stories has Albinism!)

Hi,

The more neutral you go, the better. "Jagged" sounds rough, I don't think that it would be a great choice. To me, "uneven" sounds okay, but from talking to other people with facial differences, I would say that "asymmetric" would be better. If it's a scar, then you can always go and just describe the actual shape as well. You can say that the scar is faded, or raised, or [insert color] too.

For how to get used to not describing it as "not scary", I genuinely just recommend looking at real people with facial differences. I think that the "scary" connotation is largely because people associate scars more with 70s horror villains who wore bloody makeup rather than actual human beings. Of course a person would think that that's scary if that's what they think of.

"Scary" stops being the default when you see how we really are and look like. We're just boring guys with patches of tight skin, suburban moms with raised lines that happen to be on our faces, annoying men on Tumblr whose muscles and nerves that don't move the same way yours do, or theater kids with skulls that formed differently than yours. So, regular people who have different facial features. Why would our features be scary, when ableds' aren't? It's not like people without facial differences all look the same. The more you get familiar with us the more bizarre the "scary" connotation will be. When you know how a burn scar actually looks like it's just hard to describe it as scary because that there's nothing to be scared of. It's literally just skin with different texture with sometimes different facial structure underneath it. Personally, I'm having a very hard time coming up with what others are actually scared of - IDK, maybe because I have seen and interacted with so many of my fellow people with FDs that I see them as friends and nice humans first. And I generally don't tend to be scared of either of these; maybe that's where my problem lays, idk.

What is here to judge either? People just look different from each other, disabled or not. When describing a character, don't judge them for not having a jaw the same way you're hopefully not judging someone for having a round face or a wide nose.

Albinism is a facial difference; other pigmentation conditions also can count, such as vitiligo, because they affect how the face looks like. If you need any helps with those characters, I recommend our #albinism representation tag.

I hope this helps

mod Sasza

[pastel-junkyard]

hey did you know??? that if you stop stretching and maintaining mobility in your body then it goes away?? things get tight and you can't move the way that you used to??? and when you decide to try getting a stretch routine going that the first week fucking sucks because you keep going 'damn i used to be able to do this no problem' and then you have to switch gears and be kind to yourself and just focus on getting better from here instead of berating yourself for dropping the good habits in the first place??? and your body never stops aging so you gotta keep taking care of it and sometimes you gotta take care of it extra in certain areas because of things that happened when you were younger and it's boring and sometimes hurts but it's so necessary???

i am yelling this at myself right now i am going through An Experience (trying to get into a routine of body maintenance again for my physical and mental health)

[pastel-junkyard]

“When I first heard it, from a dog trainer who knew her behavioral science, it was a stunning moment. I remember where I was standing, what block of Brooklyn’s streets. It was like holding a piece of polished obsidian in the hand, feeling its weight and irreducibility. And its fathomless blackness. Punishment is reinforcing to the punisher. Of course. It fit the science, and it also fit the hidden memories stored in a deeply buried, rusty lockbox inside me. The people who walked down the street arbitrarily compressing their dogs’ tracheas, to which the poor beasts could only submit in uncomprehending misery; the parents who slapped their crying toddlers for the crime of being tired or hungry: These were not aberrantly malevolent villains. They were not doing what they did because they thought it was right, or even because it worked very well. They were simply caught in the same feedback loop in which all behavior is made. Their spasms of delivering small torments relieved their frustration and gave the impression of momentum toward a solution. Most potently, it immediately stopped the behavior. No matter that the effect probably won’t last: the reinforcer—the silence or the cessation of the annoyance—was exquisitely timed. Now. Boy does that feel good.”

— Melissa Holbrook Pierson, The Secret History of Kindness (2015)

[pastel-junkyard]

[pastel-junkyard]

Inspired by @arrgh-whatever's post on helping ppl with BPD

Edit bc I forgot to add this: Being vulnerable means smth different for different ppl, something that could read as being vulnerable to you can read as just another Tuesday for someone else

[ID: a simply-drawn comic, narrated by a person coloured-in in pink.

Panel 1: The pink person narrates: "So there's a lot of "signs your ex is a narcissist and how to deal with them" and it's not very accurate. So here's how to actually "deal" with a narcissist from someone with narcissistic personality disorder."

Panel 2: This panel has the heading: "1. Supply." The pink person narrates: "People with NPD have very fragile self-esteem, and supply is what keeps us from having a mental breakdown. Supply can be many things, but often attention and praise are effective. Stuff like "Wow! That's super cool!!" can go a long way." A person is shown saying this to another person, who smiles.

Panel 3: This panel has the heading: "2. Criticism." The pink person narrates: "Oh boy. So narcissists take things as personal very easily. It's because if anyone contradicts our delusions that we have built our entire self-image on, it feels like you are attacking us as a person." There is an example shown, where one person says "hey, you were a bit too rude back there," but the other person hears "You're an awful dick no-one likes." The alternative manner of phrasing is suggested as "Hey, you were a bit too rude. You're cool, but some people took it poorly." The second person in this example thinks "I'm still a cool person. It's not my fault, but I can do things to be better." The narrator continues, "We don't really understand the concept of a harmless mistake."

Panel 4: This panel has the heading: "3. Boundaries." The pink person narrates: "With narcissists, setting down strict boundaries is very important. 1. Knowing we have hurt you because you didn't set down boundaries can really upset and annoy us because the delusions that we can do no wrong and know you best get broken. 2. If you let us break boundaries, it can lead us to see you as "weak" and devalue you. Communication is key."

Panel 5: This panel has the heading: "4. Anger." The pink person narrates: "So people with NPD tend to be prone to anger. This is a defense mechanism, because to us, it's either facing the inaccuracies of our delusions and having a mental breakdown, or blaming something else. We do not mean to lash out; we just don't have the skills to cope properly. You can help by: 1. Letting us express out emotions without judgement; 2. giving us praise or attention; and 3. Distracting us from what angered us." Each example of how to help is accompanied by a small cartoon.

Panel 6: This panel has the heading: "5. Other NPD things!" The pink person narrates: "'Love bomb, devalue, discard' is actually: we are genuinely obsessed with you and want you to recognize us as cool, we lose that obsession and move on, we feel threatened in some way and lash out. We can't really handle being seen as vulnerable. We take sympathy and empathy as pity and pity as you telling us we're weak. Not acknowledging we're being vulnerable and acting as if nothing is wrong can be helpful in these situations. People with NPD have a very warped view of reality. We do not mean to hurt you and often do not realise we have. Remember, this won't work for everyone, and talking is very important."

/end ID]

Ty to @aromanticsky for the id

[pastel-junkyard]

Highlights from the conference room where they nominated contenders for Word of the Year 2023:

• They put Skibidi Toilet on the projector to explain what “skibidi” means.

• Baby Gronk was mentioned.

• We discussed the Rizzler.

• “Cunty” was nominated.

• “Enshittification” was suggested for EVERY category.

• “Blue Check” (like from Twitter) was briefly defined as “Someone who will not Shut The Fuck Up”

• The person writing notes briefly defined babygirl as “referencing [The Speaker]”. He is now being called babygirl in the linguist groupchats.

• MULTIPLE people raised their hand to say “I cannot stress this enough: ‘Babygirl’ refers to a GROWN MAN”

[pastel-junkyard]

Governess is not a “fall back” Job

There is this thing I encounter a lot online, where someone points out that as a member of the gentry, a woman can’t just get a job, and someone else says, “She could be a governess.” I don’t think she can.

We see some examples of governesses across Regency and Victorian novels. Jane Fairfax in Jane Austen’s Emma, Cynthia Kirkpatrick in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Wives & Daughters, Agnes Grey, in Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë, and of course, Jane Eyre in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë.

All of these girls are highly educated, most of them with the purpose of becoming a governess at some point. All of them, to the best of my memory, can play music and draw. Most speak French; Jane Fairfax can sing in Italian. They are “highly accomplished”.

Now let’s take a peek at Jane Austen’s heroines. Emma Woodhouse and Anne Elliot would meet those standards (and I’m not sure Emma can speak a second language). They also happen to be the most stable of heroines (Emma doesn’t even need to marry, Anne can just live with Lady Russell or Mary). Elinor and Marianne Dashwood also would probably qualify, and they might actually need to if something went wrong.

But Elizabeth Bennet, Catherine Morland, and Fanny Price? They are not at all qualified to be governesses. Which in Fanny’s case is actually super poor planning, since they don’t seem to know what exactly will be her lot in the future. Elizabeth kind of plays piano, not well, but cannot draw and doesn’t have the formal education people would be looking for: her manners are not of the fashionable world. Catherine and Fanny both cannot draw or play, though I believe both can actually speak French. 

If Fanny Price advertised herself for a governess, I think she’d fail. She’d certainly be beaten out by all the women actually trained for the job, like Jane Fairfax. She doesn’t have marketable skills! Which I think is the real point here. These women do not have options. They either marry someone rich enough to support them or they are a permanent dependant on their families. And especially for Fanny Price, there isn’t much family to fall back on either…

[pastel-junkyard]

This is a charity that's been recommended by many many Sudanese people. It is reputable and does actually help alleviate the suffering. Please please spread this and donate. There is a malnutrition crisis in the displacement camps.

[pastel-junkyard]

agnes grey x edward weston <3

after she sees him for the first time, rosalie asks what she thinks and she really says "nah, he's not as ugly as you said he is. but what i really noticed was how well he prayed and read; he's so earnest." *swoons*

nancy brown being the best wingwoman ever omfg

"i now saw that he could smile, and very pleasantly too" <3

agnes getting so flustered around mr. weston that she gets up to leave the instant he arrives at nancy's house, and then he urges her to stay and that he'll leave but then nancy begs them both to stay. then, still frazzled, agnes moves away to the window to observe mr. weston from afar so then he wants to leave again so she can be by the fire but then he notices how uncomfortable and embarrassed agnes is so he changes the subject to relieve her and aww

THE PRIMROSES!!!! so freaking iconic <3 but then agnes is, again, feeling super awkward and tries to speed-walk away but mr. weston is all "your young ladies don't care if you walk with them so don't trouble yourself to catch up" and so she walks with him :')

".....do you like flowers?" !!!!!!!

when mr. weston, agnes, and rosalie are walking together and agnes feels left out of the conversation, he makes an effort to draw her in and makes a remark specifically to her - this comes right after she admits to him that she feels like she cannot make friends and that she is unwanted in conversation. ofc rosalie butts in but he tried!

the fact that agnes is tormented with rosalie's plan to woo mr. weston not chiefly for herself, but for HIS sake

"no, thank you, i don't mind the rain." AGNES!!!!!!

AND THEN "one glance he gave, one little smile at parting—it was but for a moment; but therein i read, or thought i read, a meaning that kindled in my heart a brighter flame of hope than had ever yet arisen." !!!!!!!

the fact that rosalie & matilda keep agnes away from mr. weston during their scheme makes it clear that the two of them were OBVIOUSLY hitting it off & liked each other but were too oblivious to notice how the other felt and i just !!!!!

"and he asked after you again" omfg!!!! and the fact that rosalie doesn't want matilda to mention that he keeps asking about agnes speaks VOLUMES

agnes' poem is just - i simply cannot express how i feel about it i have no words

"i could think of him day and night; and i could feel that he was worthy to be thought of."

THE BLUEBELLS!!!!

when agnes tells mr. weston that she'll be leaving in a month the first thing he asks is "and you'll be happy to go?" and she's all "yes, but i'll miss some things" and he says "some things? what will you miss?" and she gets embarrassed and thinks, it's you, dammit! i'll miss YOU!!

"above all, that emphatic, yet gentle pressure of the hand, which seemed to say, 'trust me;' and many other things besides" this lady is so freaking smitten and such an overthinker and i love her!!

THE FACT THAT HE BOUGHT SNAP OMG AT THAT POINT THERE WAS NO GOING BACK SHE NEEDS TO MARRY HIM

"in what part of town do you live? i never could discover." uhm SIR!!!! he is just as smitten as her and i'm here for it!! and then he really says, "yes, i do like my new parish and have lots of plans for it, but the only thing i'm missing is a companion 👀" and aggy gets all flushed but she cannot possibly presume that he means what she hopes he means so she dodges him and says "well i'm sure you'll find the right lady for you at your parish" and ughgghhghg GIRL HE LOVES YOU C'MON!!

and bro when he says that he's been walking the beach and the town for the last month looking for her and asking around for her school it is just so FREAKING SWEET <3

"he even called me 'agnes:' the name had been timidly spoken at first, but, finding it gave no offence in any quarter, he seemed greatly to prefer that appellation to 'miss grey;' and so did i." !!!!!!!!!

"'you love me then?' said he, fervently pressing my hand. 'yes.'" AHHHHHHHHH i love them :')

[pastel-junkyard]

A'ight, what is it about Anne Brontë and Tenant of Wildfell Hall? I keep seeing stuff about how Anne is the unproblematic Brontë sister and that's what kept me away from her books lol

*kracks knuckles* All right. So, remember how the Brontë sisters wrote three novels simultaneously? Charlotte wrote The Professor, Emily wrote Wuthering Heights, and Anne wrote Agnes Grey. The two latter got picked up by publishers, but The Professor was rejected, so Charlotte finished up Jane Eyre and sent it to a publisher, who accepted it immediately and had it published before Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey got printed. All three of them wrote under pen names (Charlotte was Currer Bell, Anne was Acton Bell, and Emily was Ellis Bell), because they knew their novels were, say, a little controversial, and that if it was known they were women, their characters would be judged and immediately associated to their works. So needless to say, they were VERY supportive of each other, because they knew no one else would. (Their father was also supportive, but they published their novels without telling him at first but once they did, he was very encouraging, thankfully.)

It's easy to see why Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights would be considered controversial in their day (they still kind of are today given the Discourse(tm), lol). Agnes Grey, while it didn't do as well as JE and WH, was criticized for being a little too... let's say, honest about a governess' day-to-day life, when Anne wrote it drawing from her own experiences as a governess. The thing with Anne is that people find her stuff a little moralizing, but it was in her best interest to present Agnes as virtuous given how she made little secret of how poorly governesses could be treated, since it wasn't that rare they'd be accused of profiting from the families they were employed by, when there were abuse cases more often than not.

Then The Tenant of Wildfell Hall came out, and that's when criticism started to fly. May Sinclair (an early 20th century suffragist) would later write that the scene where Helen (the main character of the novel) slams her door to her husband's face had a reveberation that was heard throughout England. It's the story (in case you don't mind getting spoiled for a 150-year-old book) of a lady who marries a Victorian fuckboy called Huntington, ends up in an abusive household where her only comfort is her son, and once she realizes that her husband is becoming a bad influence on her child, she leaves him and manages to hide in a house that her brother is willing to rent to her, while she tries to earn a small living by painting. And people lost their shit, because according to them, Helen was a bad woman for leaving her husband, even though she did it to, you know, get her son out of a toxic environment. If Charlotte criticized anything about the novel, it's that she thought some aspects of Huntington were depicted too graphically, but they mostly had to do with his alcoholism and his adultery (this is important: those critcisms have nothing to do with Helen, or how Tenant is shade thrown at Charlotte and Emily's works). That might have been because Anne got some inspiration for Huntington from Branwell, their brother, who was also an alcoholic and got fired from his job as a tutor for having an affair with the lady of the house. Charlotte was pretty fed up with Branwell at that point, and while Emily was the one who got along with him best, they had some pretty big fights because she was in no way a pushover (so the belief that Charlotte and Emily idolized Branwell while Anne was the only one who saw through his BS is also, incidentally, BS).

So, why did Charlotte stop Tenant from being re-printed after Anne's death? Simply put, the criticism against it was getting worse, and people were defaming Anne's character because of it. Charlotte had had her own share of troubles with Jane Eyre - she dedicated the second edition to William Makepeace Thackeray (of Vanity Fair and Barry Lyndon fame) because he was her favorite author, without knowing his wife was institutionalized after suffering from severe post-partum depression. And that led, of course, to people speculating that Jane Eyre was semi-autobiographical, and that Charlotte was Thackeray's mistress. (I mean, it *is* semi-autobiographical, but Thackeray had nothing to do with it.) So she was understandably a little on edge, and while she edited Agnes Grey for a reprinting after Anne's death (given there were a lot of spelling mistakes and the like in the first printing), she asked for Tenant to not be reprinted to protect her sister's memory.

So no, Charlotte did not block Tenant from being as well-known as Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre because she was "jealous", or because she was mad that Anne was "throwing shade" at her and at Emily. She was protecting her sister's reputation, because she wasn't even alive anymore to speak for herself and mount any kind of defense, and that was while Charlotte's own reputation was under fire, after she had lost the two people who had supported her the most - Emily died in 1848, and Anne in 1849. To try to pit these sisters against each other, when two of them died far too young and the surviving one had to pick up the pieces and defend them against public opinion - it is simply distasteful, and it needs to stop.

[pastel-junkyard]

hey guys do the allos know that they can have qprs too? like do they know that being alloromantic doesn't mean they can't choose to be in a qpr anyway? because qprs aren't "romance-lite" for aros, they're an entirely separate kind of relationship that anyone can have. you can do this with fictional characters too. you can put characters that aren't aroace or are even canonically dating in qprs with each other just because you think that would be a cool way to play with their dynamic. it's actually very cool and you totally should.

[pastel-junkyard]

When the anti "LGBT propaganda" law passed in Russia, all of you were going insane and cared. Give Georgia the same energy. If you can have sympathy for our oppressors on the basis of them being queer, you should keep the same energy for us, if not more.

If this law passes, every Georgian queer person I know is so severely fucked, myself included. If you make jokes about "being illegal in several countries" you better fucking care about the countries you're apparently illegal in, or going to be illegal in.

Make sure to spread this around. This is important.

[pastel-junkyard]

What are your thoughts on the claim so often heard from Anne Brontë fans that Anne was "the only sensible Brontë sister," because she was the only one who didn't "romanticize" dark and dangerous men?

She was the only one who wrote Realist novels that had a clear message. I don’t think that Charlotte and Emily cared much about giving a message, and they were more influenced by Romanticism. Their characters are more heightened, more divorced from the reality.

Arthur Huntingdon cheats on his wife, drinks heavily and wants to accustom his five-year-old son to drinking. Heathcliff spends two decades making elaborate plans to destroy two families. Heathcliff also abuses animals, abuses his wife, and introduces a young boy to bad habits, but he does these things more deliberately and sadistically, he is much more divorced from real life, you are not super likely to meet Heathcliff in real life. Arthur Huntingdon is a monster from real life, you can accidentally marry him, I found The Tenant of Wildfell Hall to be the most terrifying Brontë novel I have read, by far.

Wuthering Heights doesn’t try to deliver a message, the authorial voice and preferences are less clear. I don’t think that the book romanticizes Heathcliff, but I also don’t think that it condemns him. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall does have some ambiguity in some aspects, I do think that it is an interesting book, I think the frame narrative is quite interesting and ambiguous; but that ambiguity doesn’t apply to Arthur Huntingdon’s character and to his marriage with the heroine. The book is clear on his actions being bad and him being trash, and consequently I find him to not be a super interesting character.

In short, I don’t think that Anne Brontë was “the sensible sister”. That’s such a crude, sexist and patronizing way of looking at this. I simply think that she was the one who wasn’t interested in writing a Gothic novel and the one who wanted to give a social message with her work. Her work isn’t better or worse than her sisters’, it is just different.

But even with their differences I think the Brontes as a whole are simply geniuses. I think The Tenant of Wildfell Hall might actually be my favorite Victorian novel after Wuthering Heights.

[pastel-junkyard]

Richard Braun appreciation post

[pastel-junkyard]

short ID in alt text and longer one below (it cuts out otherwise..)!

Did another one of these 😸 still learning how to draw powerchairs and all! it's fun :-)

previous drawings of the series; [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

[Image description: Digital drawing of multiple disabled characters, all in pastel blues and purples. In the top left is a long-haired man with a cane, leaning towards a Black girl in a powerchair, who's shyly looking away. Below them are two people; an older white trans woman with many vitiligo spots, and a young Black enby with visible goiter. They are discussing something while wearing face masks and gesturing with their hands. In the center of the image is a fat Black woman in a light pink hijab, smiling and doing a peace sign; she has an orthosis on her left leg with a cheetah pattern. On the right side of the image is a scene between three people; a dark-skinned Indian woman is elevating herself with her powerchair to take a picture of a Black girl using a similar wheelchair, and her girlfriend who is missing his right eye. They're both smiling and posing for the picture. Behind them, a white trans girl using crutches and a trans guy with achondroplasia are looking at each other lovingly. End image description.]

[pastel-junkyard]

If I had the Empty Lot, I thought I could do it. That’s… all I have…

[pastel-junkyard]

ADHD Tips for Writers, Take 2

Hiy'all, I’m back on my shit because my old “ADHD tips for writers” post is the like only post I still see in my notes at all times and there’s a few problems with it so I’d like a do-over plz

Anyways, the obligatory disclaimer: I find ADHD tips are super useful for writers whether they have ADHD or not, so feel free to read & use the tips in this post if you find they apply.

Respect your fatigue. Here’s the thing about ADHD. You get fatigued super easily. We know this. But when I say “respect your fatigue,” I only partly mean it as taking breaks when you’re tired. Before you decide you’re too burned out to write, weigh this: people who have ADHD wear themselves out MORE when they have nothing to mentally chew on. Sometimes respecting your fatigue means respecting that you need to paradoxically put in more effort to do your writing, because that will actually slow your fatigue down in the end. Try it, if it doesn’t work take a break.

Get ahold of the pressure level. Pressure is a tool for you to motivate yourself, you should NOT be under it at all times. How to do this? Adjust your goals, don’t marry your outline.

Set the right goals. Stressed by wordcount but can work by hour? Can’t focus for any stretch of time but can hyper-focus if you promise to get one scene done? And consider mix-and-matching. You can make a goal of getting a scene done in one day, but if that scene happens to go over 1k then it’s reasonable to quit. If you set a goal that is actually attainable, it’s safer to put pressure on it.

Confines begone. Seriously, don’t try to make yourself do things in a Stupidly Specific Way. You do NOT need to draft in submittable manuscript format. You DON’T need it to fit your outline exactly. It doesn’t need to fit a genre, it doesn’t need to appeal to a specific audience, it doesn’t need to be what it was in your head. If working with those things slows you down or makes you stressed, YEET.

Pavlov, Profit. I write on my bed with a scented candle while wearing a certain pair of pants. I use a specific playlist to cue me in to which WIP I’m working on. Maybe I pull out a specific stim toy I don’t use otherwise. I write at a certain time of day and look at certain pictures while I do it. I drink water with lemon in it when I don’t if I’m not writing. The words flow like a crystalline river and I don’t even know how.

No I’m serious I cannot emphasize enough how powerful Pavlov is, literally it is the BIGGEST hack of my life. You train your brain to identify what “writing mode” is and afterward if you just set up the trappings of “writing mode” brain goes “OH OK NOW WE WRITE.” I can’t even

Throw slumps off with word wars and writing sprints. As always, word of caution for those who have trouble with their self-expectations: if you can’t make the words sprint, that’s ok! This is super useful to me and others for kicking off a writing session, but if you struggle to focus for any length of time then don’t stress! But I do seriously recommend trying out word sprints at whatever time limit works for you, because after you’ve done it the words happen so. Much. Easier. I’ll personally rev up with 5 mins, 15 mins then 30 mins. That 30 gets into the “this might actively burn me out” territory, so be cautious. It really might not work for you.

Don’t underestimate minor changes. Font! Color! Screen blue-light! Using a different word processor! Tweak and change, hack the brain.

Journal about it. When I get stuck on a project, I will literally open a new file and just ramble into the file like I’m explaining the project to someone. It’s rubber duck decoding, except it exercises the same muscles you use to do the actual writing. Makes for a great warm-up or dust-off.

Identify if/when you need outside support. Sometimes you need to ramble to a friend in order to kick a slump, sometimes you need community support for a WIP through the whole process. It might change for each case.

External incentives generally don’t work. Honestly, I find external incentives don’t work for me point blank, let alone to get myself to write. Maybe you can drag yourself across the ground like that sad cat on a harness by promising yourself a bowl of ice cream, but you’re just not going to do your best work like that. You need to foster genuine motivators.

External motivators are different from incentives. If you’re writing because someone is waiting to read it, that’s not an incentive, it’s a motivator.

Internal motivators that can be useful: fostering excitement for WIP elements (not by saying “if I write x words I get to make another moodboard, more like going ahead with the moodboard and using it to increase ur excitement), making a bar chart of progress and watching it grow, de-pressurizing writing so much that it can be used as a wind-down.

Are you a pantser who lives in a constant state of writer’s block? No you’re not you’re not, you need to develop some sort of plan if you’re getting stuck constantly. It doesn’t need to be a super locked-in plan (I don’t recommend those in general), but using lighthouse planning or developing some guiding element is important.

Contrarian hack: have someone who isn’t a writer write the thing your’re stuck on for you. (Consider: have AI write it for you.) Read it. Dislike it and use the motivation to write yourself. Profit.

Struggling to get started because the WIP is too daunting? Don’t work on the whole WIP. Work on This Scene. This Scene too daunting? Work on This Small Part of This Scene. This Small Part too big? Work on the next sentence. Work on opening the WIP. Break the steps down as small as you need to.

SO. Be mindful of what you expect from yourself, do NOT let others decide how your process works, and do NOT hold yourself to any standard that inhibits you. Do what feels good both in the moment and after, because that is a good indicator you’re doing healthy, sustainable writing.