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[randomrecsknifedrawer]

6 Quick Writing Exercises to Wake Up Your Imagination

We all hit those blah writing days. Your fingers are ready, your doc is open... and your brain goes static. That’s where writing exercises come in — small creative boosts to shake off the dust and get back into your story flow. Here are six to try when your words feel stuck in traffic.

1. The 5-Minute Word Sprint

Pick a random word (use a generator or close your eyes and point at a book), set a 5-minute timer, and write anything involving that word. No stopping, no deleting.

2. Dialogue Without Context

Write a short convo between two people. No descriptions. No setting. Just back-and-forth lines.

3. Rewrite a Scene in Another Genre

Take a scene from your current story and flip the genre. Drama becomes comedy. Fantasy becomes sci-fi. Romance becomes horror.

4. Describe a Place Using the Five Senses — No Sight Allowed

Can’t mention what anything looks like. Only sound, touch, smell, taste, and intuition.

5. Character Swap POVs

Write a paragraph from the POV of a side character reacting to your main character. Bonus if the POV is brutally honest or completely wrong.

6. One Line Story Hooks

Write 3 one-sentence story starters that make you want to keep writing. (Example: “I woke up married to my enemy, and worse — he knew it before I did.”)

You don’t need to write a masterpiece every day. But showing up — even for a silly exercise — keeps the creative part of your brain warmed up. Try one of these before your next writing session, and see where it takes you. 🍒

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Get these ai writing assistants out of my face!!!! I don't care if my writing is bad at least it is mine!!!!

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write a new scene → realize it contradicts something from chapter 3 → fix chapter 3 → now chapter 7 makes no sense → cry → repeat

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Insult names to use instead of "idiot,"

None of these are actually meant to be hateful, if any of these have truely offensive meanings (such as the r word) that I was unaware of, please tell me so I can remove it! Tried to avoid cursing, but it contains some!

Jerk

Ass-hat

Dumb-dumb

Dummy

Doofus

Dork

Stupid

Moron

Fool

Nincompoop

Oaf

Ninny

Blockhead

Dunce

Imbecile

Jack-ass

Dope

Nit-wit

Numbskull

Simpleton

Twit

Birdbrain

Bonehead

Buffoon

Dullard

Half-wit

Knucklehead

Ignoramus

Dingbat

Dumbbell

Loser

Addlepate

Muttonhead

Goon

Pea Brain

Dull Pencil

Mole Rat

Turd

[randomrecsknifedrawer]

i have two personalities when im writing. one is "omg this is the easiest thing in the world. i just pumped out 3k words without any trouble" and my other one is "if i write another goddamn word im gonna throw my computer out the window and jump after omg why are they still talking"

[randomrecsknifedrawer]

sometimes writing feels like dragging your brain across gravel. but at least the gravel is sparkly. and covered in metaphors.

[randomrecsknifedrawer]

"Come home, Albatross" An albatross doesn’t have to land, but Stanley would have liked to.

Tags: Wings AU; Hurt no Comfort; Canon Divergence - A Tale of Two Stans; Flash Fic

was discussing wings/ avian aus over on discord, which reminded me that i wrote this a while ago! i might make more fics in the same vein of au later - i 💛 birds 5ever y��all

apologies for any mistakes - i wrote this in december, dudes. so long ago.... (it really wasn't, lmao (but it sure feels like it!))

ao3 version

original date published: 2024-12-28

Stanley’s wingspan was massive, with powerful wings larger and longer than his own body. It was one of the features of being an albatross - the kind of feathers that could carry you across seas for years and never need to drop you. Ford remembered, with a sickening, sinking feeling, how warm and secure it was, to be embraced by wings like those. How it had felt to have them wrap securely around you, hide you from the world in a warm blanket of gray and white, sturdy muscle and bone around you.

 But Stanley wasn’t going to hug him. Stanley was looking at him with something cold in his black, bird-like eyes, something almost defeated. He was looking at Ford with a tired, worn-down impassivity. He was looking at Ford like Stan had finally given up.

 Stanley used to dive into the water, cackling with excitement like a kid. Used to burst out of the waves, swirling in the air like a showman and laughing, scattering water with each leisurely beat of his wings. Grinning as he called out to Stanford, "Coming, Sixer?"

 “I’ll take your dumb book to the end of the world,” Stan said now, his eyes narrowing like he didn't even recognize Ford anymore, “But don’t ever contact me again.”

 An albatross could fly for years without ever landing, could sleep mid-air, could cross great distances in an incredibly short amount of time. Stanley had flown across the country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, just to get here. There was no one better at flying than his brother, no one more comfortable with the wind in his feathers, and that seemed to have only become more and more true in their decade distanced. All of these, Ford had reasoned, were why he contacted his brother.

 But looking at him now, Ford realized with a sinking despair, a grief already blooming and bubbling into his chest, that no matter the world, no matter winged or not, he would have called for his brother. He would have called for Stanley. Now he'd gotten what he wanted from Stanley. Now Ford was losing him again.

 “Thank you,” Ford said weakly, unable to bring anything else to words. 

 Words always failed when he needed them most, slipping through his fingers like grains of sand, leaving behind only the jagged edges of glass. Useless fancy or bite that can’t even keep the brother he didn’t want, always wanted.

 And so for the second time in his life, Ford watched his brother take to the air, and fly away from him forever.

[randomrecsknifedrawer]

"just write a little every day" ok but what if i write nothing for 3 weeks and then suddenly type like i’m being hunted by god

[randomrecsknifedrawer]

hey uh new type of ao3 spam comment just dropped. (I know it's spam because the fic they left this comment on . doesn't have chapters. lmfao). Report this kinda comment as spam and don't take it personally it is literally recycled bullshit

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favorite thing ever is leaving this gif in Ao3 comment sections

because A: a shocking amount of people don't know abt the 'img src=' trick to add images into comment sections, and B: well over half of the authors seem to really enjoy the sentiment

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AO3 Tutorial: Basic Formatting

So, if you've ever posted anything on ao3, you will recognize this screen:

And today I am here to talk to you specifically about those two buttons on the right, which you might have missed at first glance.

By default, ao3 is in html mode. It's all in the title: any text you enter here in html will be translated to the appropriate formatting. It's useful if you want to do fancy stuff. However, that also means that if you want italics, bold text, or even just appropriate spacing after a paragraph break, you'll have to manually code that in. (If you ever copy/pasted your fic in and discovered afterwards that there was no spacing after any paragraph, the issue was probably that you used html formatting.)

If you just to copy/paste your fic and have all the formatting kept from your word doc, you ought to use rich text.

Which will also has a much more intuitive interface if you want to edit stuff.

But wait! I hear you say. When I use rich text, I get DOUBLE spacing after all my paragraphs, and it looks ugly as hell!

Rich text automatically adds a space after every paragraph breaks. Which is great, but that also means that if you're the kind of person to hit enter twice after every paragraph in your word doc, ao3 registers it as two different lines, so two different paragraph breaks.

To avoid that, don't add a physical space between your paragraphs. Instead, tinker with your text editor to have a space after each paragraph breaks.

(This is the button you're looking for on libreoffice. Your own text editor/google doc should have something similar.)

TL;DR:

Use rich text. Increase paragraph spacing. Stop hitting enter twice after each paragraph.

[randomrecsknifedrawer]

AO3 Tip for Author’s Notes on Multi Chapters

I definitely want to preface this by saying that this is not a complaint about other authors, because I’m not actually personally bothered by this as I’m reading a chapter. BUT! I also know that this was a thing that annoyed me when posting my own fics for a long time, and I couldn’t figure out how to get around it…until I finally did lol. So I figured I’d share for anyone else who’s in the same boat!

Y’know how when you post the first chapter of a multi chapter and add an author’s note to the beginning and/or end, that note then shows up on every following chapter? As I said, that used to drive me crazy! So here’s the fix for that in case anyone doesn’t already know.

Go about setting up your fic as you normally would, add the body of chapter 1, the summary, tags, rating, etc. But leave the beginning and ending author’s note spots blank! Preview the chapter, then save as draft. Once the fic is saved as a draft, you’ll see that chapter in a grayed out box since it hasn’t been posted yet. And as pictured below you then have the option to go back in and “Edit Chapter.” (Yeah I know that says chapter 2 but ignore that, it’s just the only draft I had to screen shot as an example lol)

When you edit that chapter specifically, that’s where it will allow you to put your authors notes on only chapter one and not include it on every chapter after it. And then for chapters 2-however long your fic is, obviously you don’t need to jump through those hoops. After that every authors note is automatically only going to show up on that chapter that you’re posting. Hope that helps! Happy writing and posting! 😁

[randomrecsknifedrawer]

okay but there is something disquieting about this urge to cast fan writers as altruists. they give us all this for free!! well, no.

they’re sharing

it’s a key difference in perception. fic isn’t given. it’s shared. it’s part of a fandom community— in which readers are also an integral part.

it’s probably inevitable mission creep from the increasingly transactional nature of the internet and fandom-as-consumerism, which was always gonna happen after corps worked out how much bank there is to make from those weirdo fan people

but like. fandom is sharing. i think we’ve lost that somewhere.

[randomrecsknifedrawer]

current fan creation landscape is kinda like if you went to a party with a homemade cake and everyone takes a slice and silently thumbs up at you with no attempt to start a conversation except for occasionally some guy sits in the corner with a tape recorder critiquing the cake as though he was a restaurant critic and another guy is handing the cake to an uber driver like "yeah i need you to find a restaurant that makes cake like this so i can have more of it" and the only person that's talked to you in 30 minutes is a very sweet little guy who was like "hey i liked your cake" and then ran away apologizing for bothering you the moment you said thank you.

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sometimes we (i) forgot

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How To Lock All of Your Fics At Once On Ao3

Someone has probably already done this but

For anyone looking to lock their works for only registered users over on Ao3 in light of the sudowrites scraping thing here is how you can lock all of your fics at once.

Log into Ao3 and go to your Profile, Works or Dashboard

At the top under you’re user name there are four buttons pick Edit Works

Second row of buttons on the right chose All and then hit Edit

Scroll down past all of your works and then keeps scrolling until you find Visibility  change it to Only Show to Registered User

(If a fic is over the tag limit you have to edit those down to make edit to the work.)

Hit Update All Works at the very bottom and you are done all of you fics should now have a little blue lock next to your user name on each fic.