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Also: even if we're "white", our ancestry in most cases is a mix of a lot of people. Being certain facial feautures, skin undertone, hair texture, body type, etc., we just don't look like the avarage english speaking white person, and that can end is comments in the vein of "what are you?" or some "racially ambiguous aesthethic" bs

"latino is not a race and some latinos are white" and "latinos are a racialized demographic in the english speaking world" are two statements that can coexist

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The best character development is when the antagonist doesn't even really change or redeem himself. Like no, he still sucks, he's just on our side now.

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“The Irish government is offering a €325 weekly basic income trial for artists which will last for three years. As part of the trial 2,000 artists will be randomly selected from all of the applicants. The government definition of artists is broad and covers any creative or interpretative expression, including: visual arts, theatre, literature, music, dance, opera, film, circus and architecture.

The trial hopes to minimise the loss of skill and experience from the arts sector whilst also recognising the value that artists contributes to society. In addition, the trial is aiming to prove that a basic income enables artists to focus on projects without their projects being impacted from the stress of needing to look for work in other sectors to sustain them. Artists who receive the payment are also free to obtain additional work if they please without affecting the payment, however the payment is taxed so additional work may change their tax rate…

The policy was announced by Ireland’s Minster for the Arts Catherine Martin who is a member of Ireland’s Green Party. The Green party are one of three parties in a coalition government in Ireland. When launching the policy Martin said,

“I believe that this scheme is the start of a fundamental change in the way Ireland supports and recognises her artists and arts community.”

Martin went on to say,

“This pilot scheme represents a groundbreaking opportunity for us to explore how the role of the artist in Irish society can be protected and nurtured so we can continue to be inspired by great art for generations to come.”” -via The Good News Hub, 4/30/22

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Between " Enemies to lovers" and " Friends to lovers", there should be an in between that concern " Two strangers with trauma/bad experiences and overall emotional wariness find out the other actually can be trusted, and is 100% "italicized oh" safe. "

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i swear it is physically impossible for me to read a mary oliver quote without immediately having to hold back tears. "you do not have to be good" and "someone i loved once gave me a box of darkness. it took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift" and "i don't want to end up having simply visited this world" and "to love what is mortal against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go" and "it is a serious thing / just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world" and oh fuck it's happening again

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Gringos are awake post Mate

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���I think there is a general misconception that you write poems because you “have something to say.” I think, actually, that you write poems because you have something echoing around in the bone-dome of your skull that you cannot say. Poetry allows us to hold many related tangential notions in very close orbit around each other at the same time. The “unsayable” thing at the center of the poem becomes visible to the poet and reader in the same way that dark matter becomes visible to the astrophysicist. You can’t see it, but by measure of its effect on the visible, it can become so precise a silhouette you can almost know it.”

— Rebecca Lindenberg, from Why Write Poetry?

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YA as a whole isn’t shitty y’all are just reading shitty books

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Writing Subplots

Who doesn’t love a good subplot? Some of my favorites books are the ones that have super interesting subplots because who doesn’t love hearing about that secondary character development arc or those lovely side characters with the inevitably doomed romance? What’s not to like? But, subplots can often be one of the hardest to write and the most misunderstood storytelling elements. They aren’t part of the main narrative thread, so they can’t overtake it, but they also need to have their own story arc separate from the main plot. It’s a delicate balance that can be kind hard to strike, because subplots aren’t just secondary plot-lines, they have to serve a narrative purpose and engage with the story’s central conflict. 

First, let us define some different kinds of subplots

Mirror Subplot: A subplot where a side character experiences a conflict that mirrors the protagonist’s main conflict and gives the protagonist the insight or motivation they need to resolve their own conflict.

Romantic Subplot: The protagonist’s relationship with a love interest complicates their journey to resolve the story’s central conflict.

Parallel Subplot: a subplot where something seemingly unrelated occurs at the same time as the main plot and then all of a sudden the two plots collide towards the end of the book.

Complicating Subplot: a subplot where a secondary character’s actions actively complicates the protagonist’s journey with the central conflict

Foil Subplot: a subplot where a secondary character experiences the same or a very similar conflict as the protag but wants to resolve that in a different way (this contracts or creates a “foil” that highlights the protagonists qualities and characteristics)

There are a lot more different kinds of subplots, but these are some of the most common, so here are some tips for writing subplots!

Is That Necessary? 

This is the first question we should ask ourselves anytime we add anything to our stories, but especially subplots. Sometimes, authors (meaning me) will get to the end of writing their first draft and realize that they are not anywhere close to their goal word count. To remedy this, they will just throw in a cute little subplot. Unfortunately, friends, this does not work. The best, effective subplots should be integral to a story’s central conflict. If you can remove your subplot from the story without their being a big impact on the central conflict, then the subplot doesn’t really serve a strong narrative purpose. We most often see this problem arise in romantic subplots. Authors will just throw in a romance or the dreaded love-triangle as a subplot for absolutely no reason. I’m the first person to admit I love a good romantic subplot, but I also like it to be there for a good reason. That is why the Hunger Games will never go out of my top five all time books/series because despite what a lot of people think the romantic subplot in that story is essential. Katniss and Peeta’s love story is the reason they both survive the Games which is the central conflict of the book. It works perfectly, and if you want a good example of a subplot done well, look no further.

Keep the SUB in Subplot

Honestly, sometimes the subplot really is better than the main plot. That’s not necessarily a good thing, but I think we have all read a book where the main plot just drags and you just can’t wait to get back to your favorite side characters and their little adventure. But, a good subplot shouldn’t steal the limelight from the main plot. It should enhance the main plot and maybe add a layer of complexity but never overshadow. Going back to my example for the day, the Hungers Games does a really good job of this. I read something once where someone said Katniss’s romance overshadows the Games and the Rebellion, and I was like, did we read the same book? If you go back and read the books, Katniss doesn’t think about her romance with Gale or Peeta all that much. She’s mostly thinking about her own survival and the survival of her family. Both of which relate directly to the main plot. We never forget about the romance in the book because it is important, but in my opinion, it never overshadows the main plot of the Games and the Rebellion even in the first book where it’s more heavily featured. 

But, Its Still A Plot

On the flip-side of that, even though the subplot shouldn’t overshadow the main plot, it still needs to follow its own narrative arc. This is where a lot of new author’s get lost. A subplot is way more than just a short conversation or a quick event that inconveniences or helps the protagonists. All your subplots need their own beginning, middle, and end. Make sure that you definitely developed all of your story’s subplots accordingly. That includes paying attention to all of your characters’ goals, motivations, and the conflict that they experience. Generally when I’m in the development stages of the subplot, I develop it the same way that I develop one of my main plots. While they do not necessarily need the same attention or development as your main plot, developing them with the same goals in mind will only help you in the long run!

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scuttling out of my cave to say one of the reason why a lot of feminist retellings or feminist media sucks is because a lot of supposedly feminist creators do not have any interest in feminism as a political viewpoint. corporate-sponsored Empowerment ™ feminism has done a phenomenal job of defanging the idea feminism within the greater public eye and has turned it into the vague and therefore worthless concept of making women ~Feel Good~ rather than an explicit fight for human rights. now we are getting people raised on this watered down concept producing art that is hmm, bad!

it's people trying to commentate on the patriarchy when their understanding of it is wildly incomplete or it's people trying to commentate on the patriarchy when they have very little issue with it to begin with

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obsessed with the way that gothic horror is about horror but never directly. it’s not horrific because there’s a haunted house and that’s scary, it’s horrific because the monster inside isn’t a monster, it’s your grief, your loss, your pride, your desire, your fear. the monster skulking in the shadows, the darkness at the edge of the woods, the haunted house that is too broken to be a home—those are manifestations of events that grabbed onto the fabric of time in a fit of abject horror and clamped down so tightly that they couldn’t keep moving forward toward resolution and eventual dissipation like they were supposed to. it’s all about the scared child and the mourning mother and the hunger in your gut and the little emptiness in your chest at the end of the day. those things are all little horrors but you can’t approach them directly to understand them, so gothic horror gives us these little metaphors and says “here play with these for a while and see what you find.” and all of those metaphors need someone to go back to childhood to release them. you have to care, and be curious and clever, and look for a way to heal the hurt. you have to be so achingly human to survive in gothic horror

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Do you have any advice for someone who wants to get into writing fantasy? I get stuck in my head that I'll never put out anything great like Stardust or Earthsea and that it's just not possible to ever write anything like that in the modern world, because the stories have already been told and no one cares what the next generation has to say. And while I know most writers think they're garbage and you'll always be your worst critic, I can't help but think it's impossible to create great fantasy, and even if you do, no one will ever read it because the new generation isn't Le Guin or Tolkien or you. I guess what I'm REALLY trying to ask is how do we continue fantasy as a genre with the new generations when it's so intrinsically tied to old and, in most cases, dead authors? Thanks Mr. Gaiman, and my fantasy lit professor loves you.

You take the torch, touch the magic and pass it on.

You don't try and write something big and important. You try to write something good.

Take the gift that Ursula Le Guin gave you in the Earthsea books. Write your book. Pass it on.

When I wrote Stardust I wanted to pay my own homage to writers I loved, like Hope Mirrlees, like Jack Vance, like Sylvia Townsend Warner, like James Branch Cabell, like Lord Dunsany. And I filled my fountain pen, because, I decided, the book I wanted to write tasted like a pen sort of a book, so I bought and filled the first fountain pen I'd had since my school days, and started to write. I wasn't trying to write an important book. I was trying to write a book that would keep people reading and give Charles Vess, who would be illustrating it, lots of wonderful things to draw.

One of my favourite things about Stardust and Sandman is that Susanna Clarke read them and decided that she wanted to do that, and felt the books had given her permission to write what needed to be written.

All literature, fantasy or otherwise, is a conversation with the dead and those who told their stories before we were here. They speak to us, we listen, and then we tell our own stories in response.

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i like to pretend i already died and asked god to send me back to earth so i can swim in lakes again and see mountains and get my heart broken and love my friends and cry so hard in the bathroom and go grocery shopping 1,000 more times. and that i promised i would never forget the miracle of being here

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A FAIRYTALE OF SKELETONS AND FLOWERS

GENRE: low fantasy // original fairytale // middle-grade(ish)

TYPE: short novel

STATUS: revisions

THEMES: it's just about grief and growing up really

SUMMARY:

Amarílis Flores was born a witch, skeleton marks all over her baby body, flowers blooming madly in her wake. This doesn't make her life very easy, as a mere gardeners' daughter, but she has a comfortable home at the back of the king's gardens and all the love and support her parents can offer her. Until the winter before her 13th birthday, when strange things start happening. Ashes are falling from the skies, a plague ravages the town, and then Mari's parents get kidnapped by a ghostly knight from the Kingdom of the Dead. Her life is in pieces, and her godfather--the only other witch in town--doesn't seem inclined to help her. Now, with the help of a vulture and her not-quite-developed powers, Mari must travel to the Kingdom of the Dead to rescue her parents and find out why Death is trying to end her world.