#ettawritesnstudies

[brutal-nemesis]

How do people use magic/abilities/special tech/etc. to improve the mundane parts of their everyday lives?

While not everyone can use magic, it still helps everyone out in daily life. Since spells can be stored in the class of minerals corresponding to their element, anyone can use enchanted mineral crystals to bring about various effects. Some of them are things we have here, like starting a fire for cooking or lighting up a room, and some of them are a little more ✨magical✨, like creating water that's at the perfect temperature for a bath or quickly defrosting frozen food (since ice magic is often used to keep food cold, though most places don't sell any pre-frozen food so it's more of a way to preserve ingredients you've bought or something you've made yourself).

These stones cannot activate automatically unless part of the spell on them sets criteria for activation such as light level, which costs extra, so most of the time someone needs to touch the crystal in order to give it energy and activate it. Certain ones should also be used with care and under adult supervision or serious injuries might occur!

People can buy these stones anywhere they would buy the associated goods, like crystals for preserving food and cooking at places such as butchers and produce sellers and crystals for lighting at places that sell furniture, and usually come in some kind of wooden holder so the crystal can be picked up without activating it.

[writeblrsupport]

@ettawritesnstudies is a fun writer with intriguing ideas, immersive writing and very lovely characters

[fictionadventurer]

Happy STS!

Are there any specific lyrics you associate with your characters?

I'm late in getting to this, but thank you for sending this ask! Most of my lyrics apply to Arateph characters from older stories, because I don't much listen to music while plotting stories these days.

Tanza: I always associate Casting Crowns' "One Step Away" with her storyline, especially the bridge, because it essentially is her story of leaving behind a life of thievery by taking up a new name: Lay down, lay down your old chains/Come now and take up your new name/Your best life up ahead now. I also associate a lot of lines from Billy Joel's "She's Always a Woman" with her.

Auren: The Band Perry's "Pioneer" is Auren's song, especially the bridge, which applies both to his early life as a controversial prince living under a "curse" of an assassination threat, and to his life a hundred years later as a resurrected figure trying to help bring virtue back to the political landscape of his planet.

I won't run when bullets chase me I won't rest where arms embrace me I will love when people hate me I won't hush, no you can't make me Send the dark but it won't break me You can try, but you can't change me Take my life, they will replace me I won't hush, no you can't make me

Marastel and Jemrauth: Auren's parents, the last king and queen of their planet before getting killed in a revolution, who were deeply in love with each other for decades and overcame ridiculous obstacles to get together and stay together. Even though I haven't finished a story with them, I've got a bunch of songs that apply to them because there are a lot of love songs. I associate "Keeper of the Stars" by Tracey Byrd to them, because Jemrauth's pet name for her means "beauty of the stars", and the song's about how grateful they are to be together. Even though the song is about God, I can't keep myself from viewing the Rend Collective song "My Lighthouse" through a romantic lens, because they're light to each other and can both say to each other "You are the peace in my troubled sea". Sugarland's "Stuck Like Glue" is another song about how a couple stays together despite trouble that I associate with them.

But the number one song lyrics I apply to them are from "The Dance" by Garth Brooks. These lines apply directly to Jemrauth looking back at his life after his kingdom fell to revolution.

Holding you I held everything For a moment wasn't I the king? If I'd only known how the king would fall Hey, who's to say You know I might have changed it all And now I'm glad I didn't know The way it all would end The way it all would go Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain But I'd have had to miss the dance

[incandescent-creativity]

Happy STS!

Do you work astronomy into any of your WIPs or the worldbuiding of any of your fantasy worlds?

I've had exactly one (1) thought about stars in my writing career, and it's the idea that the LORE Series elves have a myth around the stars as seeds scattered in the healthy dark soil of the night sky.

This would be because the elven culture is centered around plants and gardening! And therefore I have to tie everything back to it.

[queerlilchinchin]

Hey Hannah! I'm super out of the loop on writeblr recently thanks to school and life business. How have you been doing?

Etta! I can't tell you the big grin I got when I saw you refollow me! :D It's wonderful to see you again.

And no worries, I've been kind of all over the place, I'd honestly be surprised if anyone's been able to really keep up with me xD

So, I've been... not great, tbh. But creatively, I've been super active (as always). Tons of projects (again, as always) and tons of time poured into creative endeavors. :)

how's school? How's writing? What's new?

[ink-and-spite]

🧼 What you sing in the shower for the music ask

I unfortunately don’t sing in the shower as I don’t live alone 😭 but if I did it would probably be something with good long notes and with at least a little energy!

[spacetimewraithwrites-archive]

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever used as a bookmark?

["weird" writer questions]

I was gonna say a slice of cheese and then I remembered that was, in fact, not me, but a post I saw ages ago lmao

I don't think I've used anything too weird as a bookmark...receipts, scrap paper, that kind of thing. actually, you know what, I think I've used another book as a bookmark before 😭

[kckramer]

Happy STS! How many different genres do you write/have ideas for? Which one is your favorite?

Hello! That’s a great question! And oof. Depending on how you categorize genres, probably seven or eight different genres? I also do a lot of genre bending and cross genre stories, so it’s hard to count. As for my favorite… I don’t know 😅 if we go by pure numbers, then it would be fantasy, and that’s probably what I most frequently return to. Thanks for asking!

[talesofsorrowandofruin]

Trick or Treat!

🍬 Treat! :D I posted a disturbing excerpt from Like Snow on Hungry Graves earlier, so here's some less-disturbing trivia!

Konstantine is inspired by this post. I have so many ideas for what his dragon form looks like, but I haven't picked a final one yet.

Most of the characters are named after real people from Georgian history. It started as a handy way of making sure I used real Georgian names, then I decided I might as well stick with it :P Hariye is the only exception, because his name is fictional. Everyone else: Rusudan, Darejan, Ketevan, and Konstantine (whose alias Cheng Yin is borrowed from the main character of Goodbye My Princess). Elamirja is a funny case because he isn't from fantasy Georgia, but his name is adapted from El-Mirza.

Ji-hun, the villain of Houses Full of Deceit, originated as a minor character in LSOHG. Reiji very nearly also migrated over to HFOD (which would have added a whole lot of complications, because he and Ji-hun hate each other), but I decided Rusudan needs more than one second-in-command. Darejan can't cope with all that drama alone :P

Despite what Hariye thinks, he isn't the last surviving mer. At least two others will appear in book two.

Rusudan's group wear bracelets that will automatically kill them if they betray her.

Rusudan is inspired by Hua Cheng and Elamirja is inspired by He Xuan from Tian Guan Ci Fu.

Reiji's name is borrowed from a minor character in Death Note.

I spent ages on Wikipedia reading about the Mongol invasions of Georgia. I haven't found a way to work this information in yet, but Rusudan and Reiji met and began to work together during the fantasy equivalent of the Mongol invasions.

There is exactly one (1) human character in the main cast: Ketevan. Everyone else is a dragon (Konstantine and Reiji), undead (Rusudan), a mer (Hariye and Darejan), or an undead dragon (Elamirja).

Adding LSOHG's taglist: @whimsyqueen, @original-writing (Let me know if you want to be added to/removed from the taglist!)

[izloveshorses]

which cryptyd being do you believe in?

4. which cryptyd being do you believe in?

idk if i necessarily believe in any cryptid as much as i think they're fascinating, but if i had to pick... probably mothman. anything that happens in the appalachians is straaange i wouldn't be surprised if this was actually some freaky animal

[nikkywrites]

9 and 10 for the weird asks?

Of course. Thanks for the ask!

9. Do you believe in ghosts? This isn’t about writing I just wanna know

To an extent, yeah. I even have a couple (admittedly not that exciting) stories. I like them. When they’re not being awful, obviously.

The side door of my childhood house would open for no reason — summer or winter, windy or not. It wasn’t super frequent and I’d almost forget about it sometimes, but it was a once-every-few-weeks deal which was odd. It even unlocked itself to open, once. I always joked about it, that the ghost just wanted to see outside. And despite the inconvenience (my childhood dog would run off if given the chance, mostly in attempt to try to pick me up at the bus stop because he’d go with my mom semi-often) I was sort of fond of it.

The first night I spent at my grandparent’s house when they moved, once I was alone in a room, I heard a young girl asking for help. There were no children. None in the house (I was the youngest and a teenager) and I’ve never seen any kids at the neighbor’s. I’ve not heard or seen anything since.

10. Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you?

It can mean a few things. There’s the obvious, didn’t-finish haunting and yeah, I have that. Not terribly (perhaps the one thing my goldfish memory is good for), but it’s there. And then there’s… writing-emotion haunting. When something hits a little harder than you thought and when you step away, it’s still there. That’s… happened maybe once or twice, and for a very brief time.

[leave-her-a-tome]

Ahem.

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Glad to have yall here 💕💕

[writeblrsupport]

@ettawritesnstudies has some neat character artwork and I love learning about her non-writing projects too! (That pirate shirt 😍)

[writeblrfantasy]

Do you want to read a winter aesthetic fantasy novel about a spy falling in love with his arranged husband months before its release?

Look no further!

ORDER OF THE SUN advanced reader copies are now available! Get the book for free, early, in exchange for a review! The link is good until June!

boosts welcome!

orderverse taglist (lmk to be added/removed) @willowiswriting @ninazeniks @magic-is-something-we-create @ren-c-leyn @justwriteyoudummy @47crayons @yejidoesthings @ettawritesnstudies @faithfire-writes @a-forgotten-dusk @talesfromaurea @ashen-crest@thelaughingstag

GENERAL TAGLIST: @worldbuildng @muddshadow @nikkywrites @47crayons @directionoftime @chayscribbles @magic-is-something-we-create @rodentwrites @notwritinganyflufftoday

[incandescent-creativity]

General 4 for the ship question?

Answering for Ash n Willow because I’m writing LORE lately!

4. Were they each other’s first anything (kiss, relationship, etc.)?

Yes, Willow is Ash’s first wlw relationship! She’s only had one other partner before Willow, and they break up at some point.

And while Willow has had lots of relationships I think, Ash is the first one she wanted to Get Serious about. Her previous experience is more akin to the word “fling,” and I think she is a lil taken aback at the force of her feelings for Ash once they get together.

Romance Asks <3

[queerlilchinchin]

Happy STS!

Are there any specific lyrics you associate with your characters?

Specific lyrics, not really.

Specific songs, absolutely.