#Write Application for Leave

[jakeperalta]

how it feels sitting in my review meeting listening to my manager tell me she'd die if I left and I'm the star of the team and the amount of work I produce is insane and my quality of work is the best knowing full well that none of it matters because two months ago she gave me a 3 out of 5 rating and no pay rise

[amoremagnificentbastard]

Unfortunately, your girl has to take a break from fun writing in order to do some not-so-fun writing instead.

Hopefully that muck will be done by Tuesday and we can go back to my irregularly scheduled yelling and horny posting.

[astriiformes]

Finally managed to talk to another professor about serving as my faculty mentor for an undergraduate research project, which means that now I have less than a week for formulate my actual proposal if I want to get it funded for the fall

Cue just a little bit of internal screaming

[doctorwhoisadhd]

hmm thinking about the idea of love songs. i think the idea of what a love song is that we have in our culture is inherently a little bit flawed because we have the idea that any song written about romantic feelings is a love song and im thinking thats not exactly true because there is a difference between "romance" and "love". what i'm saying is not that love is a broader category and applies to things that are not romantic in nature. this is in fact true, but it's not what makes the important distinction here. the true distinction between "romance" and "love" is that romance is a societally defined type of interest in another person, whereas love is, essentially, a promise that you make when you build a relationship.

as such, what i call "love" here might be better defined as "care", as that implies more time and effort, but that's a different suitcase to unpack and largely unimportant to my point here, which is more about the societal conventions of what we call love songs. the point is, relationships can be built with other people, yes, but also animals, places, organizations, ideas, so on and so on, whereas romance requires another person, hence the difference between the ideas of "romance" and "love".

with that in mind, there are two types of songs we in western, english speaking, society call "love songs":

1) songs that are about a person's romantic interest in someone that is either definitively known to be unrequited (existing monogamous relationship, sexuality that doesn't align, etc) or simply not requited (aka romantic interest being unknown); and

2) songs about an existing relationship (keeping in mind my points about relationships not just being with people, but also places, things, etcetera) as is.

(some examples of the latter category: mountaintop by relient k, which defines the relationship in question as non-romantic; or i miss my mum by cavetown, which is - as the title implies - a song about the singer missing their mother.)

now, the thing that makes distinguishing these two difficult is the fact that songs about an existing relationship CAN be about wanting certain aspects of that relationship to change. in these cases, determining that a song is one or the other will hinge either on a) authorial intent or b) whether the song is more about what the singer wants (thereby implying #1) or the lack thereof in that relationship (which would imply #2).

to get back to the subject at hand: the term "love song", as we think of it, is an umbrella term that include both of these two categories, and i think that perhaps it is reductive to do so. with that in mind, i think perhaps it would be more appropriate for "love song" to mean only the latter, whereas the former is a category of its own. WHICH is not to say that the two can't overlap — just that if a song is about a person with whom the singer has no relationship, it cannot be considered a love song due to the fact that it is a song about infatuation, not love.

(another interesting wrinkle this provides is the fact that a song might start out in the first category and, as the writer develops a relationship with a person, might move into the second category as they write more.)

[beggingwolf]

tiredly and sadly googling "how to make writing feel good again"

[bluestjayy]

Maybe I'm just cursed 🤪

[qulizalfos]

"Bound"

Do you think heaven is a place Of clouds and pristine faith Or perhaps is it hanging between us like an oath, a curse A solemn ignorance of fate Do you think we were always doomed to fall  Or did I slip up on the way Maybe we could be suspended in absolution now If you told me what to say So you don't have to wear your new self like a shield. Ash settles so bitter and so close to home I know it's not real, but I wouldn't have minded Another day of keeping you close

posting another original and shitty poem before i can talk myself out of it uh who cheered!! explanation in tags if u want <3

[fencecollapsed]

do u guys wanna know my personal rules I use for building my character/story playlists?? no? I don't care you're getting them anyway <3

RULE ONE:

songs by the same artist cannot be listed back to back or even too close together. they've gotta be spaced out with other songs by different artists

RULE TWO:

no songs from musicals. musical songs feel too inextricable from the context they were written for and I feel weird using one to describe one of my own characters. even if it's a playlist FOR a musical character using a song from their musical feels like cheating to me

RULE THREE:

the order of the songs is based on sound flow. I'm looking for a listening experience that feels cohesive to me, so whenever I add a new song I rearrange the playlist to place it properly into the flow of sound. it's how the songs sound, not what they're about when it comes to order. it's hard to explain and I can't say if the order is cohesive to anyone who's not me but I just go with what feels right. if a song can't be fit nicely into the flow sound-wise it doesn't stay on the playlist even if it's good

RULE FOUR:

I make my playlists based on songs that remind me of the character or story, not what I think the character themself would listen to. lyrics are important! just one chunk of the lyrics fitting the character is not enough for the song to go in the playlist. if it's just a couple lines, or just the chorus, or just the bridge, but the rest of the song feels unapplicable, I can't add the song. it's gotta be more than that, at least half the lyrics have gotta be somewhat applicable

RULE FIVE:

"somewhat applicable" means that stretching is allowed to a reasonable degree. the song doesn't have to have a one-to-one exactly literal application to the character, I want room for my own interpretation. my playlist for my oc Zero has multiple songs about toxic relationships, because I find the wording used in those songs can be stretched to apply to his cult upbringing. I choose what's reasonable stretching and what's not <3

RULE SIX

if the song technically fits the rest of the criteria but I don't like it it doesn't go on the playlist this is for ME and I want songs that are GOOD

[pilotstreets]

guys im drafting up my first two week notice i've ever had to write 😬 im turning it in tomorrow and i'm really nervous but really excited. if anyone has tips on writing a two week notice and would like to share i would very much appreciate it kdhskfjskd

[timelord-of-the-moon]

......

[cobwebbed-crow]

In my opinion, a more useful way to phrase the common writing advice of "show don't tell" is "actions speak louder than words".

When I'm writing a story, I like to think about the mood I want to convey. Then I ask what I, as the author, can do to make my characters, setting plot ect. behave in a way that conveys that mood.

For example, if I'm writing a character who's angry, I don't ask myself "How can I show this characters' anger?" I ask myself "How would someone who's angry behave in this situation?"

I find that makes it easier to think of specific examples, which I can then narrow down and choose from based on my characters' personality traits, worldview(s), and past experiences.

Dialogue filters into this as well. It isn't just about what you're characters are saying, it's about how they behave when they're saying it. It's also about the things they aren't saying.

For example: maybe your protagonists husband only ever says that he loves her after he's hurt her or done something wrong. Maybe he only says it when he's drunk or when she says it first. Maybe he says it all the time. The words are the same (the emotions behind them might even be the same, too) but the patterns they establish, and the things they communicate are very different.

I've found this way of thinking also makes it easier to avoid the common shortcut of "showing" a characters emotions by relying soley on body language or environment to do the heavy lifting.

[zentriii]

why is it so fucking easy to lock in on writing fic rn I HAVE DEADLINES AND DUE DATES

[jadetheblade4]

Try not to email me once every two days about applying to your college especially after i already applied challenge IMPOSSIBLE

[collegeoflore]

nothing revives the urge to write like having a different urgent task you need to do instead