#a week in the life of an author

[cygnetbrown]

My Sixth Week of My 12-Week Year

Here I am finishing week six and we’re at the mid-point of my 12-week year! Certain days of the week are developing routines that I am doing every week, Sundays I have been completing these valuations of the week and preparing the posts for my blog (Author Cygnet Brown) and Medium. (Medium is a paid reader site,) On Sundays and Mondays, I jump into my weekly projects. These projects include on…

[reallybadblackoutpoems]

book of song poems (1905) - james leander alter

"we stay silly"

[johnslittlespoon]

hii happy pride month, have a little 'you're a dog (i'm your man)' chapter four snippet as an apology for radio silence <33

“Did I wake you?” Gale asks, glancing at John apologetically, but John looks up from his effort to avoid muddy puddles to shake his head. Gale supposes it’s a silly question; John sleeps like a rock, dead to disturbances made by anything other than his own brain.

“Just my sixth sense,” John says, shrugging and shooting him a small smile. Gale snorts.

“You got a radar for me?” He teases, and John smiles wider, eyes crinkling.

“Built in,” he answers matter–of–factly, raising a hand and making a fist over the center of his chest before dropping it, returning his vigilant gaze to the uneven ground. Gale stares for a moment longer, floored not for the first time by John’s apparent obliviousness to the weight of his sentimentality.

Even knowing John how he does, it’s always unexpected coming from someone who a stranger might assume to be brazen and surface–level; John’s loud mouth and wandering hands do him no favours in that regard.

But Gale does know John, like an extension of himself half the time, and still he manages to render him speechless. The way his heart flutters as the sentiment hangs in the air makes Gale want to reach down his throat and squeeze it until it never beats again.

[veryrealauthorthings]

[troythecatfish]

“Man I hated Harry Potter even before JK Rowling showed herself to be what she is. The entirety of the Harry Potter franchise was about conformity and it was about the destruction of the outcast and there’s something just so gimmicky and like it’s one of those hidden evils that society will realize was totally evil like 500 years in the future or something.” -CM Kosemen

Source:

[belethlegwen]

The Rescue - Chp 53 - Still Dealing With The Sting

Good morning my lovelies and lurkers <3

The newest chapter of The Rescue is now live! Christmas and the Holiday season being what it is, I haven't had a ton of time (though, mostly energy has been the problem) to write, but I should still have something to go up in two weeks for you all :)

I hope you all have a lovely day and wonderful weekend! If I can get my ass up on time I'm thinking I'll catch The Boy and The Heron today as a step in helping me wind down a little. Honestly really excited to see it.

Enjoy the reading! Thank you all, as always, so much for the comments and kudos and shares <3 I apologize I haven't been able to respond to all the comments like I want to. My brain is deep in scrambled-egg territory.

Love you all, take care of yourselves and each other as best as you can!

~ Belle

[icewindandboringhorror]

a quite simple outfit, trying to use the little blue and white apron thing (which is actually a dress I think, that I just leave un-buttoned in the back and added an apron-like tie to lol)

[whinlatter]

author's note | chapter 7: caged 🪽

thank you for reading chapter seven of Beasts! this chapter, we see the fallout from the controversial punch, watch harry and ginny go through about ninety bottles of ink writing precisely one bazillion letters to one another (my loves), and fret as the residents of grimmauld place fight a losing battle with pixies that may or may not be a metaphor for our characters’ own multiplying traumas, chasing everyone around and refusing to be contained. pray for our babies, for no-one is thriving - let's chat chapter seven! (plus a sneak peek of chapter eight, which includes a letter from a character yet to make his Beasts debut...) 👀

✨ spoilers for this chapter below the cut  ✨

writing notes and headcanons:

vibes: this chapter, i wanted the vibes to be claustrophobic, tedium, all hogwarts, real focus on ginny and her restlessness and over-it-ness, her starting to write a lot, both to harry and to others, and her starting to push the boundaries and rebel now she's lost her sense of purpose in returning. (@pocket-lilacs brought up pandemic-era uni vibes of 'what is the point of studying when all this is going on' and that is exactly the energy here). the politics is more a backdrop to ginny's arc in this chapter, though the thicknesse trial has uncomfortable echoes for gin's own set of experiences, and i'm having so much fun but also banging my head up against the wall/grappling with turning up/turning down the volume on the different macro/micro plots in different chapters to try and get different effects and to follow ginny's own engagement with the Big Questions of the postwar wizarding world. scale is hard, who knew!

quidditch: by far the hardest part of this chapter to write was the quidditch scene. it was 3000 words long originally, and i had to go at it with a sledgehammer to bash it into bits, dump most of it, and then just keep the most important parts to fold into this much quicker, punchier scene. the worst part of writing is spending days crafting a section and in doing so learn that you don't need it lmao. so yeah that's why this chapter was a week late. this one was a nightmare but we got there in the end lmao

the forest detention: our first flashback to the war year at hogwarts! why haven't we had more? answers on a postcard, all will be revealed, including the context for the silver trio's forest detention, but for now will just say the fact that snape sent the gang into the forest with hagrid for detention after stealing the sword has a) always had me in a chokehold because all of the endless ginny/forest foreshadowing but also because i've never been satisfied with the explanation that the detention was just an obvious easy option. can't wait to share more !!!

harry and ginny: all i want to do is write more letters for those two. 'sneaking out of grounds, booze, leather gangs' - that was how @madammalkins23 summed it up beautifully, getting at the vibes i keep coming back to with both of these characters: the sirius-black-shaped elephant in the room, basically. escaping from hogwarts with buckbeak? the risk being what makes it all fun? harry fixing up the motorbike? fighting a war against grimmauld place and getting on the whiskey? the looming shadow of molly weasley? it's truly giving padfoot. the idea of harry and ginny in cahoots, as partners in crime, really kept me going when writing this chapter - like, what if harry for the first time did have another person in his life who was of the 'fuck it' school of thought? (i even went back and read that jkr short story of sirius and james on the motorbike lol). basically, the sirius echoes just sort of ended up writing themselves, as they always seem to do in this fic. when it comes to the letters, it's striking to me that in canon harry is very preoccupied with who does or doesn’t write to him - at the dursleys', but also after sirius' death ('It’s just hard,' Harry said finally, in a low voice, 'to realise he won’t write to me again.' - HBP). i've never really got fics that have harry as a non-loquacious letter writer in the post-war period, especially to ginny - harry seeks huge comfort and reassurance in getting letters from people who care about him, and channels his worries about people he's close to into letters, especially people he views as family (sirius, ginny). that harry and ginny would become a bit emotionally codependent through letters seemed in some sense a natural choice, basically, and although they're still being very avoidant, in some ways, i think they're building a foundation towards becoming each other's person in ways that's important. (i am putting together a sirius and ginny parallels meta playing with these ideas and character-trait overlap that i'll share hopefully soon, so stay tuned on that one)

why won’t ginny open up? by far the question i've been asked most this week! i am really really excited and happy about the arc i’ve got in store for ginny on this question, so don't want to reveal too much, but there have been some beautiful insightful guesses in the comments section about why ginny is struggling to come clean with harry or her family. here we see harry begin to see through gin's defences, a little bit, but also show his own blindspots that come from him not having asked the right questions or always probed about her interior life before now. i'm always so grateful and blown away by the trust readers have put in me to deliver on all these protracted question marks but this week especially i felt v glad for readers' compassion towards these characters and especially for ginny and hermione, as they fuck up and get it wrong and struggle yet still get grace in the comment section. both are on a journey, but i know more impatient readers could be sick of waiting for them to get there, so just to say i am really glad everyone is getting it and seeing where both characters are at with empathy and kindness, because ofc what they’re both doing is frustrating (and, when it comes to gin, harry is beginning to think so, too)

plus thicknesse: had a long chat with @saintsenara about ol thicknesse, because he's kind of a baffling figure - ex-auror who gets successfully imperiused, becomes minister and then goes on to actively commit horrific war crimes while under yaxley's control. what's fun about the trials, though, is that you can use them as a conduit to raise these big moral questions for postwar wizarding society - in thicknesse's case, it's questions about agency, free will, and culpability, in ways that has real implications for ginny's reflections on her own experiences. so cheers pius love u

harry's patronus: i am salivating at all of your theories for this one - obviously i'm saying nothing for now, but keep them guesses coming, i live for em! and if you guess right, i'll come up with some kind of prize lmao

detention, career advice (and graves' apathy): back in the site of former detentions, ginny shows her remarkably sparse knowledge of wizarding careers in a scene that i hope shows her trying on for size different role models/authority figures and seeing which ones she feels most like. (i like the idea that ginny would actually be a bit interested in being an auror, if only she'd been in of age and able to benefit from kingsley's hiring amesty after the battle). having ginny hover over the idea of being an unspeakable was particularly important for me, because i like the idea of the dept of mysteries being quite a formative space for her (i feel like all i do is say 'wait and see!' but... i have things to do and say with this dimension i swear!) graves is like, do what you want, babe, i don't care. i'm here for the pension, frankly

michael corner: 'surprise bitch!' - michael corner, probably. do i think michael and ginny were mates after the breakup end of ootp? no i do not. but i have always been so struck that ginny and michael must have actually spent a lot of very intense time together during DH as die-hards in the DA (michael is the only character we hear whose torture by the carrows after attempting to rescue a younger student is described as particularly severe, which i think suggests his level of commitment to the cause). readers will recall my open disdain for michael corner up til this point - i have described him as the jack berger of hogwarts quidditch, for my satc fans - but i'm afraid to say i have now decided i quite like him and am excited for him to rock up in person real soon. i think he's a know it all softboi but with a goodie core. also as a writer there's something quite refreshing about bringing in a character who is an ex who probably can see through some of ginny's shit by virtue of having spent a lot of time with her but no longer needing to/caring about impressing her, placating her or keeping her on side lol

hermione: alaskanastro left a comment that summed this up: 'Man, Hermione is really just doubling down on the whole "I'm going to try desperately to control something in life to feel like I'm in control even if it's my friend's life" isn't she? Or at least trying to'. yep, that's what she's doing! we still don't know all that hermione's going through, but this hit the nail on the head fr. i feel bad that this fic is ginny pov at this stage in its arc, because i think ginny sees hermione in a particular way rn (their final conversation in this chapter really speaking to these tensions - ginny does not want to feel mothered, at least not by hermione...), but these two have a long way to go to get to a point of mutual understanding. wanna write a meta on their friendship soon, hopefully will get chance to before i finish chapter 8. but anyway - wonder what's going on with her and ron... hope we find out soon... hope someone tells us... :) :) :)

everything but the ghoul: the dumbest pun, but had to use this joke in a chapter where ginny skips school (everything but the girl's most famous song is called 'missing'... get it)

songs from the playlist for this chapter:

girls getting grouchy and teenage in their feelings is the big ol mood this week:

the middle of the world - nicholas brittell | sidelines by phoebe bridgers | difficult by gracie abrams | simulation swarm by big thief | crisis by elizabeth m. drummond | delete forever - grimes | chinese satellite (copycat killer version) by phoebe bridgers

i did promise a sneak peek didn't i...

From the desk of the MINISTER OF MAGIC Whitehall, London Dear Ginny,  I hope you’re well. I’d like to meet with you on Saturday the 12th of December at 11 o’clock. It’s important that we’re discreet. Please vanish this letter after reading. Sincerely, Kingsley

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

really channeled my inner yassified!howdy today via being practically comatose all day due to Migraine, then as soon as i woke up i demolished so many tacos in one sitting. he's just like me fr

[itcamefrombeneaththeblog]

The Fields Which Lay Silent

I buried my dreams like bodies,

Murdered,

Diluted,

Mistreated by shadows,

Posing as people,

Ripping away innocence,

All there is to see,

Numb darkness settles like thick fog,

Choking.

I buried my dreams like bodies,

Friends I lost along the way.

Like crosses growing

Out of screaming memory.

Some I put there, some tried to put me

In those graves where they put my dreams

In the fields of bodies burning,

The screaming has become silent.

Somehow, so much worse.

I buried my dreams like bodies,

Out in the back yard.

But dreams are persistant pieces of life.

Like seeds, they birthed anew,

Rising forth from ash and bone,

Blood covered roses.

And I'm there, aren't I?

That's where I lost myself,

Those dreams are me,

The person I thought I was meant to be,

Restored.

[sysig]

Reading moodboard #84430940 (Patreon)

[waywardtrek]

"this got so hot i had to stop, drop and roll goddamn" is one of my favourite ao3 comments i've ever gotten for a fic.

random person on the internet, please know i love you for this

[sskk-manifesto]

(´･ᴗ･ ` )

[thinkpink212]

♡ Taking Myself There ♡

The past few days had me wanting to gain overview over my life; specifically to look at where I am, where I desire to be, who I desire to become, all of it!

In short, for a moment I had lost track of what I wanted to do in life. I quit University 3.5 semesters in because I didn’t belive it could get me there the why I wanted & it was overall just the wrong time in my life. I lost friends, making me doubt everything even further. Covid hit, and life just sunk into more chaos. I left many people, including the person I was. With most of my family cut off, being homeless for months & staying places I wasn’t welcomed or felt entirely safe in — I’ve managed to turn my life around in such a short time. Physically, emotionally and mentally I am now ready again to fully commit to myself & the goals I’ve had since I could remember

I’ve managed to move into a place that feels like home.

I’ve managed to pass an exam I’ve been battling for 3 years.

I’ve made new friends, and met Incredible people

And most importantly, I’ve become the person I needed all those years ago. But she’s here now and now I feel ready to jump in with both feet.

My Goals have always fluctuated as I’ve never been a very ‘one goal’ orientated person. I’ve been a full time artist, worked in the receptionist world, retail & sales advisor. But all of those always felt like they lacked something or were more so a means to gain the financial stability that was needed for me to to what I truly wanted to do—

I’ve never been one that desired working, but when the work didn’t feel like work I was all on board! This goes for all things astrology, tarot readings, drawing & painting whatever I felt like creating. And most importantly, writing.

I have two main goals in this life

♡ Becoming A Publish Author

Ever since I could remember, I loved reading. I loved hearing stories and telling them! I’ve always been a very imaginative person, very creative, and I’m always told I’m great with words — and I believe it. I have tales I wish to share, tales I know will inspire more then I already have & tales to inspire myself to keep going. Nothing brings me mroe joy then when I am typing away, lost in my little worlds.

♡ Becoming Financially Secure

I do not need bilions but I know I’ll make more money then I’ll ever need. It’ll be enough money to never worry about unexpected expenses or those around me struggling. I’ll have more then enough to leave my future generations with financial security. I have known luxury, and I’ll know it again.

So now what? It’s simple really, I just need to do what I’ve always done — persist, and go after what I know is already mine. It’ll take determination, discipline, persistency, but also it’ll take for me to rest when rest needs to be had. Asking for help when help is needed.

Soon I’ll graduate and become a certified massage therapist — a job I already know is very fulfilling, and despite the physical and emotional taxation, it’s something I see myself doing while I write my stories & get closer to financial stability.

The idea of doing all of this brings me such internal peace and warmth.

The rest of the year will be a time of…

♡ Saving, living within my means and reminding myself that this is a sacrifice for a better tomorrow

♡ Making writing my all, just how it used to be. The stories are in my mind already, and many are created weekly, but focus and determination will get me there

♡ Knowing when to rest, because my sleep, sanity or overall health should not be compromised for something that can be resumed tomorrow.

♡ Continue to be my own peace, saying no more and focusing on this endeavor

I’ll be Enjoy the journey. It’ll take a while, and I know because I’ve inspired others to write. Friends, and my cousins have written and published their work (some are still not there but aren’t giving up) and seeing how long it took them, but their determination got them there, is inspirational. I planted a seed and now they all have trees and I’m so proud. Now it’s my turn to plant my seeds and watch them grow. I’m ready!

And I start today —

All updates will be made under #ThinkpinkJourney if you would like to follow along my journey to success

[lynaferns]

I got a comment on my BIOMáquina fic post starting with something like "I know this was posted on February but *starts saying a lot of nice things*" and that start got me a little confused but I think I know what they meant.

So this is a reminder that I don't care how old a post of mine is or a drawing of anything.

If you take your time to write a nice comment in any of my old works, you'll make my day.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Song of the Six Realms

a magical YA fantasy romance

follows a girl who’s an indentured musician at an entertainment house, with a talent for playing the qin

when her uncle (her only family) is killed, a Duke buys her contract with a promise to end her contract after one year - and reveals she might be the key to unlock the magical secrets tied to her uncle’s death

not to mention that he’s actually the Duke of Dreams, and she is whisked away to the Celestial Realm which is on the brink of disaster, plagued by demonic monsters