storiesandcheesecake - Tumblr blog

[storiesandcheesecake]

Okay, can we please agree to not use the word ‘reek’ as a verb in any kind of Throbb Fanfiction. Because it HURTS.

(I love you, Fanfiction writers. Disregard my emotional outburst. You do you. ((Still hurts though)) )

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I love that. 💗💜💙

Draw korra being violently bi

Honestly how much more violently bi can you get then korra??

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storiesandcheesecake ha risposto al tuo post “I’m nursing a huge-fluffing(yesISayThatInRealLife) crush on your…”

@janiedean Whoop! You are literally a gift. MORE Dean&Cas Love!!! … I’m going to be useless for the next few days. THANK YOU. (Seriously, your writing is a gift and in all probability one of the nicest writing styles I’ve read yet. (And I’ve read a lot. Lot. LOT of FF)) just… ❤️ I’ll probably come back here as soon as I’ve drowned in your stories to sing your praises some more. ❤️��

dgjldsjl you’re way too nice to me but thank you ;______; mind that my spn era was like… 2007-2012 so I got better since then but hopefully it still holds up ;) ;) and you’re welcome it’s a pleasure to share :D

[storiesandcheesecake]

I’m nursing a huge-fluffing(yesISayThatInRealLife) crush on your writing. I came back to GOT because Arya is bamf, then I read some FFs and THEN I CLICKED ON ONE OF YOUR STORIES. I’m in love. You hooked me on throbb. I literally can’t. I spend the last two days reading EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR THROBB FF‘s... just. Seriously. I love angst with a HEA. But I’m kind of bad w/ reviews so... I worship your writing. Cook!Robb was just...❤️ Now on to read your Destiel~ Thank you for your stories🌹❤️

awwww man thank you ;________; sdjhgdsjkgh *is flattered* much glad to have hooked you up on throbb tho, I’m very proud of that ;) ;) that said SDJKFGHJDKS THAT’S A LOT TO READ IN TWO DAYS THANK YOU I’M WAY BEYOND FLATTERED ;____;

also, advice: if you wanna read deancas stuff you might want to check out my lj which hasn’t sadly been used since it died *sigh* but if you go under janie-tangerine.livejournal.com/tag and go under ship: dean/castiel you’re going to find way more than on ao3 since I haven’t imported all of it yet and the deancas stuff on lj is way better than the deancas stuff I have on ao3 because on ao3 I have just the last ones I wrote + the ones about jimmy or cas and so on and I actually did do some pretty popular-ish stuff back in the day so yeah you might wanna read there XD

[storiesandcheesecake]

Oh. OH. OUCH!... but very true. Always true. Oh dear chuck

[storiesandcheesecake]

That’s ... really heavenly... wanna do it naw!!!! 😍

For artists who have problems with perspective (furniture etc.) in indoor scenes like me - there’s an online programm called roomsketcher where you can design a house/roon and snap pictures of it using different perspectives.

It’s got an almost endless range of furniture, doors, windows, stairs etc and is easy to use. In addition to that, you don’t have to install anything and if you create an account (which is free) you can save and return to your houses.

Examples (all done by me):

Here’s an example for how you can use it

[storiesandcheesecake]

Hmmmmm....

Guide: Setting Your Story in an Unfamiliar Place

This is an updated re-post of a guide originally posted at the old version of WQA.

Writing about a place you’ve never been to can seem daunting, but with the right research, you can pull it off. Here are some tips:

Real, Present-Day Locations

1) Use Google to locate a visitor’s guide to your location. These are a great introduction to the location filled with general information such as climate, geography, local attractions, and maps. Most locations have on-line visitor’s guides, and some have guides that can be downloaded or sent away for at no charge. Example: New York Visitor Guide. Also, most towns and cities have web sites which provide information for tourists and residents. Just be sure not to make your character seem too touristy.

2) Do a search for “moving to [location]” or “I just moved to [location]” and see what comes up. Often you’ll find guides geared toward potential residents rather than tourists. You might also find articles about things potential residents should know before moving to the area, forum threads about moving to the location, and how-to guides. Example: search “Moving to New York,” or “I just moved to New York.”

3) Take a virtual tour of your location using Google Earth or Instant Google street view. You can also do a Google Image Search to find pictures of the location or look for video tours and “drone” footage of your location on YouTube. Example: “New York City drone footage.”

4) Look for blogs written by residents of your location by doing searches like “living in [location] blog” or “life in [location] blog.” Even reading a handful of random entries can give you a glimpse into what it’s really like to live in that place. Example: Tracy’s New York Life.

5) Look for webcams in the location. If you choose a few really good ones and monitor them at different times of day for several days or weeks, you can learn a little bit about weather, traffic, how many people are around, etc. Example: New York City webcams.

6) Take a look at local TV news and newspaper web sites. These can tell you a lot about life in a particular location. You can also learn about local businesses, politics, weather, and events. Example: New York TV News WABC

7) Look for books, movies, and TV shows that take place in your location. If you can find travelogues, even better. Example: List of Films Set in New York City

8) Watch a documentary about your location. These can sometimes be found on Netflix or Hulu, as well as on YouTube and Vimeo. Even just everday videos posted by regular people can be useful. Example: New York documentaries on Vimeo, “My Trip to New York City” videos on YouTube.

9) Use sites like Yelp, Google Reviews, or Citysearch to find places for your character to dine, shop, or hang out. Look for activities that are popular with the locals by searching Google for “what to do for fun in [city]” or “[city] night life.” You can also search for more specific things like, “best places to run in [city]” or “best places to go dancing in [city].”  

10) Learn about local real estate or find your character a home by using sites like Zillow and Realtor.com. Just don’t use the address or specific details of a real home in your story. Use what you find as inspiration instead.

11) Learn about the weather and climate using web sites like weather.com and Weather Underground. You can also look at the typical weather during months when your story takes place by looking at historic data. On Weather Underground, you can find it here:

Real, Historic Locations

1) Articles and other information about your location can be found with a quick Google search. For example: “Life in 1800s New York City.” 2) Videos, images, and documentaries are also available on sites like YouTube and Google, and you can also try Netflix and Hulu. For example: Youtube - “Life in 1800s New York City.”

3) Try the library or historical society. Most libraries should have history books pertaining to well known locations, but for more obscure locations, you might need to look for the area’s historical society and see if they have any book recommendations listed on their site. Your library might also be able to borrow books from a library in your setting’s location, so be sure to ask a librarian for help.

Imaginary Locations, Any Time Period

If you’re making up a location, sometimes it helps to choose a real location to model it after. For example, you might choose to base your fantasy novel’s setting on the Costa Rican rain forest. Just research that location, choose the details you want in your setting, and make up the rest. If you’re using a real setting like New York state, you can create a fictional city or town for your story’s setting. This allows you to make up the local details while preserving realistic regional details. Author Stephenie Meyer did this in New Moon, using several real Italian villages as a model for fictional Volterra. This gave her setting a realistic feel while allowing her the freedom to create other details that worked with her story.

————————————————————————————————— Writing Questions Answered is back, but the new blog will be a bit different. I’m still answering questions, but I won’t be answering every question that comes in. I’ll do the best I can to answer the ones that I feel offer a benefit to everyone else. You can read more about the new blog here. Ask box is open!

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Things every writer hears but that often don’t make sense without the actual context given here. 🌸

Write What You Know (Not Necessarily What You’ve Experienced)

I’ve recently written a post about the true meaning behind the quote “good writers borrow; great writers steal.” 

Well, another piece of writing advice has come under scrutiny lately, so I’m here to explain the meaning behind “write what you know.” 

“Write what you know” really means “write what you understand.”

Many people interpret “write what you know” to mean “write about what you have experienced for yourself,” but that’s obviously silly advice. If everyone followed it, libraries would be much, much smaller. Writing is about using your imagination to explore worlds of possibilities. Bits and pieces of your personal history will of course come into play, but they should always be presented in new and interesting ways. Otherwise, writers would be too bored to actually finish their stories.

When people you think you should probably trust tell you to “write what you know,” they aren’t telling you to fictionalise your own memoir. They’re telling you to write about the things that you understand. 

A novel may be a great series of lies, but there must be truth at the centre of it all and that truth is a direct result of, and in correlation to, the author’s understanding of their subject matter. 

For an author, this means a couple of things:

You should always be able to empathise with your characters. You should be able to tap into your emotions, your passions, your relationships to inform their emotions, their passions, their relationships. 

If you’re writing a scene about two people walking along the Seine at midnight unable to admit their true feelings for each other, you don’t need to have traveled to Paris or walked along the Seine or talked about the moon on the water when really all you wanted to say was that the same moonlight was making the other person look very pretty that night. 

What you need is to know what it is to take a walk in a place that is romantic no matter if romance is taking place there, to have wanted to say something but been too afraid to say it, to be filled with hope and fear and misery and joy all at the same time. 

You should always be able to feel the heart of the scene, instead of simply imagining it. 

If you can’t put yourself directly into your character’s shoes, they’ll wind up saying or doing something that won’t quite ring true.  

You should always be both interested in and knowledgable about the topics and settings that find their way into your stories. 

You don’t have to be an archaeologist to write an Indiana Jones novel, but a healthy fascination with people like T.E. Lawrence, Roy Chapman Andrews, and Gertrude Bell should probably come into play.

You should always not only be knowledgable about the topic you’re writing about, but care for it. You should be able to understand why Indy says “it belongs in a museum!!” You should understand why your characters feel passionate about whatever they’re engaging in, because you share some of that passion. (Even if you wouldn’t dream of digging around in a desert yourself.)

It’s okay if you don’t know very much about a topic when you first get an idea for a book, but after doing some research about it, you should connect to the material in some way. 

As long as you’re interested in a topic or place, you’re not breaking the “write what you know” rule by taking the time to understand something you hadn’t when you first imagined your story. 

What’s more: write the kind of story you enjoy reading.

That sounds a little obvious, but people try to write stories they wouldn’t actually enjoy reading themselves all of the time. 

If you love reading YA fantasy novels, but feel compelled to write the next Great Literary American Novel, you’re not writing the sort of story you’re familiar with–that you’re passionate about–and that will show on every single page. Those are two very different sort of books. If you love reading YA, exclusively read YA, but try to write the GLAN, you’re not writing what you know. You’re probably not even writing something you truly care about.

And if you find the story you’re writing dull and uninteresting, any reader will probably feel the same way. 

If someone has read your work and says something along the lines of “you should stick to writing what you know…” 

What they’re really saying is that something isn’t resonating as true. That somehow, it doesn’t feel quite real. That they don’t think the characters’ emotional reactions are what they’d be in real life. Or that Indiana Jones is supposed to be a renowned archaeologist, but he doesn’t seem to know much about archaeology??? 

When they say this, they’re not telling you to go get a degree in archaeology or that in order to write that romantic scene, you must fall in love with someone, walk along the Seine with them, and then write what about what you felt in that moment. 

They’re letting you know that there is a disconnect somewhere between you and the writing. That they can tell you haven’t put enough of yourself in this story. That the circles don’t overlap as much as they should in the venn diagram between the knowledge, emotions, and interests the story requires and the knowledge you possess, the emotions you’ve felt, and the interests you invest in. 

When somebody says “write what you know,” ask yourself:

if you’ve really done enough research on this topic–if you actually want to write about this topic enough to do the required research 

if there’s another emotional well you can draw from to understand how a character might be feeling, how they might react to a circumstance

if this book is one that you yourself would pick up from a library shelf. 

And make sure there’s a core of truth within those all those lies. 

[storiesandcheesecake]

Thank you. And yes, that was exactly what I meant. I will try. And Small things... I can do that.

You give hope (and hugs ;)) and it really means a lot. Thank you🌸

Hi Colubrina🐍 I love tumblr and I love how you have a kind word and support for everyone (💐Thank you for that💐) who writes you with a problem, but I always feel like I shouldn’t bother you cause you have a lot on your own plate. How do you share things with other people? You have to be so brave for that and I have the hardest time admitting something is wrong to anyone and that hurts others sometimes...but I’m so uncomfortable with it. Thanks for listening💐and for your stories, I love them🌼

Hello, darling.  PLEASE do not feel like you are bothering me.  You are not.   If I am overwhelmed I just wait to answer things (though, of course, you also shouldn’t ever ask me anything time crucial in case it DOES take me a few days to answer or tumblr eats it and I never get it.)

So… I’m assuming you mean who do I share emotional stuff, not writing stuff.  And, honestly, I’ve been juggling depression and anxiety so long that the basics of the stupid diseases are not really fraught for me anymore.  I legitimately think of them as equivalent to head colds.  Lousy, yes, but not really a big deal.   Sort of boring, really. So saying, “Ugh, I’m really depressed today” has about the same emotional wight for me as someone with, say, diabetes announcing their blood sugar is all over the place that day.

More personal or specific stuff? That’s a lot harder.   

But it really does help to have a friend who will listen.  And you risk getting hurt, of course, because betrayal only comes from people you’ve trusted.  But I would really encourage you to try to tell close friends when you are hurting. Even just a little thing. Start with, “Ugh, today sucks. I just feel lousy.” and let it go from there.  Sometimes even that is enough to help drain away the worst of it. And you learn which friends listen from openings like that without dumping all the reasons the day/week/month is bad on the table.

You’ve got this.  (((hugs)))

[storiesandcheesecake]

This is hilarious and I needed a cheer-me-up. This beauty did it.

Four Times Draco Malfoy Ordered Coffee and One Time Hermione Did The cliched coffee shop and college non-magical AU literally no one was asking for. ONE-SHOT

Thank you to @the-nerdiest-witch-bitch, @for-witchcraft-and-wizardry, @torrilin, and @moonlightmasquerade for beta reading at the drop of a hat.  They are the best.

[storiesandcheesecake]

I’ll try to remember that.

@freigeist13 you should as well :P luv you!

Reminder: Your friends really do love you. No they dont secretly hate you. No they dont just put up with you and think you’re annoying. Your friends truly love you and care about you as much as you do.

[storiesandcheesecake]

Oh, that acknowledgement made me laugh so hard. Stranger than Fanfiction is a gem of a book, especially considering that I normally don’t read anything set in ‘real life’, or close to it. Teenagers holding on to their childhood for one last time and realising, with the help of an unconventional fairy god mother (THAT is probably not a fitting description) that no one should take things at face value and that your own opinions matter - and that you have to take life and happiness into your own hands. And, if anybody needs a tumblr fix away from the lovely internet... this is the book for you. There are SO MANY themes in his writing that pick up matters we read about and comment on tumblr.... and all in a relatable, brilliant package. This book needs love. (And more physical copies cause I can’t get my hands on one)

❤️Also, Fanfiction writers, I love you. As much as I love the book I am still a default Fanfiction reader and if I have internet connection Fanfiction will always be my first choice for reading. ❤️

This is in the acknowledgements of Stranger Than Fanfiction (got my copy today).

Doesn’t seem to me that Chris hates fanfic writers at all. Of course it’s wrong to ever send him fics, those belong in fandom, but he obviously knows about them, and isn’t offended by them. Please stop hating on him.

And by all means, fic writers keep up the great work! We all appreciate it more than words can say. 💓

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I found the Malfoy Peacocks. Tivoli, Copenhagen.

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Summary of my life at sea

Siri not available

Neither am I

Because neither of us are connected to the internet!

[storiesandcheesecake]

Hullo

🌊So, a blog. I guess it was inevitable that I would have to start posting at some point. I used tumblr primarily as a way to cheer myself up, find people who gave me courage, get info about anything on my mind or to get a good laugh(because we all know half the stuff posted on tumblr is crack for the brain, right?)... and to stalk my favourite writers. I write too. That is probably the thing I prefer doing at any given point in time. I also read a lot, surf the internet for everything because knowledge is power and imagination is happiness. Stories, in any way that they are told, are my favourite thing on the universe. Books, FanFiction, TV-Series, Movies, Blogs. (You might classify me as a fangirl if you so choose. I certainly do.) I bake, because I enjoy the action of creating and because I like feeding my friends (not that they are hard to please. The only one who isn’t is my best friend and she’s a mean, mean person. She’s also absolutely lovely.) When the mood strikes me, I also go and create more lasting things. Sculptures, projects, things I might share on here as well. I might occasionally go over the top too. You’ll see. All of that, though, I can only do when I’m not working. Until last summer, school and exams kept me from my favourite pastimes, now it’s work. Work is... quite different from the usual nine to five or the university life that I might get into after 2018. I’m apprenticed in a shipping company and while that means I get to live my travel bug and see a lot of places around the world as a seafarer, it also means that free time for writing is rare and a functioning internet connection a pipe dream. I deal. That I now visit so many places though - and have a lot of experiences I wouldn’t mind sharing - means that this blog is going to go active ... slowly. „Stories And Cheesecake“ is me telling stories about everything. Experiences, other countries, my favourite fictional universes, thoughts that keep circling in my head and things I’ve been up to. Sometimes, I might post whole reports about a city I’ve visited... other times I might just share a quote. But that’s why it’s tumblr. There’s very little anyone can do wrong, I think. If you’re reading this, thank you. It’s nice to meet you. Now, having procrastinated enough as it is, I should get back to working. (If I can while a crane bangs containers around next to my cabin) I hope you have a good day! Good wind 🌊 Tia