Tumgik
#thinking about it I think I've finished over 300 books this year so far
starkassembled · 1 year
Text
man, nothing is as nice as completing another series :D
1 note · View note
humblegoat · 4 months
Note
🎨🖌️ Artist wrapped 2️⃣0️⃣2️⃣3️⃣🎉: 1, 5,6, 7, 11, & 18
Love your stuff :3
Tysm!!!
How many works of art have you made this year? Oh gosh...So many. On top of art freelance being my full time job, I do my best to draw every day and post my work daily as well - though sometimes my daily sketches are WIPs that pop up again later as finished pieces, I'd have to say I'm still well over 300.
5. What work are you most proud of (regardless of likes/reblogs)? I'll choose a different one from my last answer, since like I said there, I've got a lot of favs!
Tumblr media
(con't under the cut)
I'm very proud of this piece done for a podcast called Ten Very Big Books, because I don't do a lot of still life, or semirealistic painting, but this ended up coming out really well despite it being out of my usual wheelhouse!
6. What work of yours has the most likes/reblogs/notes this year? My highest note count is actually by far the image of Juniper with the tigers that I shared in my last post; my second most popular is actually this character sketch commission for my good friend River!
Tumblr media
7. What work of yours got more feedback than you expected? I don't know if it got my MOST feedback, but the fervent attitude of the feedback for this piece really brightened my day:
Tumblr media
11. What pairing/character/subject did you create the most for this year? I was kinda low on ship art this year, come to think of it. By sheer volume, I believe my OC Loch was the leader. I spent almost two months just sketching him a whole bunch to stretch my design and repetition muscles.
Tumblr media
But the character I THOUGHT about the most was probably Juni, whom we've seen several times lol
18. What work of yours do you go back to admire again the most?
Tumblr media
This piece, I think! It was a very different process than I usually do for my digital paintings, but the softness and shapes really delighted me. Very happy with this one.
6 notes · View notes
prettylittlelyres · 5 months
Text
Ladies Don't Write Music - 13th November 2023 - update
I've just had a look at the average writing speed NaNoWriMo has calculated for me in November (not the same as my typing speed!), relative to the amount of words I've written so far, and I'm shocked to see what that means for the amount of time I've spent working on the book in November.
I've actually timed every session so far this month, which is something I've never thought to do before. I just love how easy NaNoWriMo makes it to time your sessions. It's just over an hour per day (21,685 words at 26 per minute). I've spent just under 14 hours hours writing in November, and we aren't quite halfway through yet.
I can't tell you how pleased I am with that rate. It's also very reassuring to know that if I put my mind to it, I can do a lot with just 30 minutes of writing per day (that would get me 780 words, but with time for stretching and thinking, I'd be happy with 500).
I got 1,1717 words down before I went to sleep on Sunday night, finished Chapter 11, and started Chapter 12. I really hurried to get the words on the page, because my eyes were closing, but I'm so pleased to find it's mostly coherent. I'm not fussed about proofreading when I'm writing the first and second drafts; it just needs to be legible and sensible (but it's also allowed to be silly), so I know what I've written.
On Saturday I had two short train rides between my nearest town and the next one, a lovely bike ride, and a midday meetup with my friends after a physiotherapy appointment. I also got my bike repaired and bought a new helmet, because my previous one was too old to be safe. Did you know it's good practice to replace your cycling helmet every five years? I didn't until recently (I found out from the bike technician at the auto repair shop). I wrote 300 words on the train, and another 200 before bed, but was quite worn out after all that, so that's all I wrote that day.
Today is Monday, and I've written 1787 words. Tomorrow, I want to write to the end of Chapter 12 if I can. In the meantime, I'm rather sleepy, so here's a celebratory excerpt!
I had always found it difficult to commit a new piece to memory; the urge to add a section or change a note never really went away. If I didn’t keep an eye on myself, I could easily play the same piece a dozen different ways. Creating something new was just as fun as showing off something that already existed, and that was what made it so hard to write a piece of music and consider it finished.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Johann swaying softly in time with the music, as if he were dancing in his own head, rather than mine, for a change.
As I came to the end of the sarabande, I made the last note into a trill, and emphasised the rallentando, to finish the piece as smoothly as I could.
Johann and Louisa clapped.
“Brava!” Johann said, “What do you call that?”
“Well, it’s a sarabande, obviously,” I said, my voice trembling, “It doesn’t have a name yet. I only wrote it very recently. and I wrote it for someone.”
5 notes · View notes
cringeycal · 2 years
Text
Okay. I know i have not Been Here in a while but. I saw the boys. 1.5 years after getting obsessed, 1 year after getting the tickets, and 6 months after the hyperfixation loosened its grip. I've never had the experience of hyperfixating on real people before. I've been obsessed with music artists, but only for their music. I stood there in that massive outdoor venue and I looked at the little dudes on stage and I thought wow. They have inspired so much of my art and they brought me some of the best people I've ever known and they gave me music and laughter and connection while I was locked away from live in person social interaction for two years (I have recently been diagnosed with extrovert, tragically this means that I go bonkers if I don't meet at least one new person once a month or something). A band and their fans saved me from becoming a feral creek goblin. So yeah. It was a little overwhelming. I cried a lot. I had my best friend there with me who also got into their music but not like i did. She doesn't know about anything happening on here. She is the one who accidentally said seven second summer one day while attempting to multitask. So that's funny. Anyways it was one of the greatest nights of my life. I got a sweatshirt that cost all my limbs so now I can't even wear it. I thought frequently about @burstingsunrise (shit bro I just spent a fat minute wondering why @staticsounds wasn't coming up) and @clumsyclifford who are so special to me and have been for so long now. You guys are It. And I had @4thbrighteststar @calumthoodshands and @ladybugnoah to yell with over pm as I was breaking down. I love you guys a lot thank you for keeping me going. Hard to express all the feelings I have for so many people here. My third year of school that I finally finished a week ago today got exponentially worse with time and if you ever checked in on me in any way shape or form please know that I love you and you made a difference and it mattered. Even if you didn't realize you were helping me along, you were. Like when @bandsanitizer photoshopped my face onto thomas the tank engine (they'll never know I'm trans-portation). It's just so fucking crazy to me how much fun I've had with so many good people, even recently, when life has tried really hard to keep me away. Also I recently broke 300 followers so that's nuts. In celebration I will do a fishsos post for anyone who reads this far and can think of something I haven't already done. Peace out people!! stay healthy be nice drink water go outside read a book or something! (Read a fanfic).
25 notes · View notes
nialltlynch · 1 year
Text
kk 2022 reading roundup
total books read this year: 41!! (which is a lot. to me)
my goal, as it has been the past couple years, is at least two books per month. and. dear reader, in the interest of being truthful and fair, I did not meet my goal. july wasnt a great month for both for interpersonal reasons and also because I was coming down the high of having read the gideon the ninth and harrow the ninth. so like. everything kinda tasted like dirt yknow what I mean? I read ZERO books that month. other than that, I did read a bit more than I did last year so it's a win all around
overall I do feel like this was a bit weaker. the majority of the books were fine. interesting enough to finish but not really memorable once closed. not as many of them hit quite very hard BUT the ones that did were INSANEEEEEEEE which! fine! okay! not all books are going to be mind blowers but I think it made reading this year feel a little bit more like a slog than previous. blah. you win some you lose some.
that being said, im only counting books that ive finished but I did start far more books that I ended up not finishing. I mayyyyy come back to some because I might not have been in the right place but idk. im still a very picky reader I think.
random observations:
i overwhelmingly read women writers. this is not by design. kinda neat i guess
i purposely try to read a variety of authors instead of delving into one author's bibliography (except shirley jackson, who has my heart). maybe next year I'll try to read more deeply into author's I enjoy??? we shall see
im surprised that apparently my top genre for the year is horror? i think the bulk of that is because shirley jackson is labeled horror which i suppose i have to agree with though i never considered myself a horror enjoyer. I think id like to delve more into the genre next year but ummmm im squeamish and I get scared and start shaking all over very easy ((:
i should read longer books. ill admit seeing an ebook with 300+ pages and preemptively mentally checking out....... this habit will probably follow me into the new year unfortunately )):
anyway. here are my rambling nothing thoughts on my top 10 reads this year!
top 10:
Harrow the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir | easily one of the most succulent, juicy, mind searingly delicious things I've consumed in..... I don't even know how long. possibly ever. all my thoughts can be summed up as: ooga booga
Hangsaman - Shirley Jackson | ive read a lot of shirley jackson this year and I think ive read all her novels excepts one (the road through the wall). anyway. this fucking book. no one understands the tragedy of being a young woman quite like shirley jackson.
Our Wives Under the Sea - Julia Armfield | this is one of those rare books where a confluence of things I love all come together AND it actually works out. just off the top of my head this book has (and executes WELL): floaty yet vivid prose. sea monsters. a healthy fear of the ocean. lesbians. mundane yet sublime body horror. unanswered mysteries. it's just!!! one of those things you hear about and you're like. there's no way this is actually that good right??? and true it has issues but I personally find the blemishes forgivable. I think my biggest problem is that it feels a bit drawn out but the vibes were so pitch perfect i can barely fault it for that. anyway. absolutely had a wonderful time reading this book. I went into it with relatively high expectations (especially for me) and left delighted and fed.
The Bird's Nest - Shirley Jackson | i went back and forth a lot about which jackson book was my favorite this year and it was really difficult because 1) they're all insanely good and exactly to my tastes and 2) this was the year i read the locked tomb so...... dsjkdsjkfd decisions man. ANYWAY the vibes in this book are off the charts
The Sundial - Shirley Jackson | ms jackson does it again!!! you would think that a book about a house that becomes a prison that symbolizes some form of control inhabited by a collection of delusional rich assholes would rank a lot higher since its so so so painfully quintessentially made for kk. it's also funny! I laughed out loud a few times and it was all in good fun. let me tell you. the only times I was laughing during her other books - say, idk, hill house - was at the absurdity of it all. the sundial was legitimately good fun.
Gideon the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir | DO NOT get it twisted. just because this is number 5 does NOT mean this book didnt make me absolutely insane feral. the difference between gtn and htn as far as my love is thin. razor silk spider web fucking thin. but theyre also completely different books so ughfdhfdjh okay. im not going to get into comparisons because who knows how we'll be at it. tamsyn muir is insane (affectionate with a twinge of awe.) i, a guy who sidestepped getting into A Certain Webcomic, have had a tab open for months now with fanfic for previously mentioned Webcomic (that i know next to nothing about) because im just so hungry for more tamsyn. gimme hands waaaarabslkdsb
Salt Slow - Julia Armfield | i read this before our wives under the sea and let me tell you... it set such high expectations. i obviously like her better when she's exploring subdued terror that slowly grows and grows and grows over time but she's very good at the fanciful and the deranged. she's contemplatively imaginative and the fact that she seems to also have a love for the ocean is just gravy for me. she wrote a fun little piece called the ocean is a lesbian. it was nice.
The Last House on Needless Street - Catriona Ward | this book is like one of those old timey anatomy diagrams to me in that i feel that really sums up the overall mood of the book AND also my feelings AND also conveniently describes how i read this book. this is an S-class concept with A-class writing which is delicious and delightful because it's both wonderful as a reader AND a writer. i was unnerved from the very first page and it was equally fun to luxuriate in that slow panic as a reader and to also unravel it through scrutiny as a writer. do you get what im trying to say? (i do feel presumptious referring to myself as a writer but this book really did make me remember why i love writing. so fuck it. I am a guy who writes aka writer)
Calling a Wolf a Wolf - Kaveh Akbar | im still very wet behind the ears insofar as my poetry knowledge goes and ill admit to not really. hmm. well, "getting it" sometimes. im learning! however. that being said. this collection. ooooof. i didn't feel like i had to stretch to grasp the concept. it ate my brain though thats for sure.
Devil House - John Darnielle | this book came to me at a very opportune time because I've been putting a lot of thought into the whole. true crime thing. still chewing tbh (got caught up in other stuff) but it definitely had a lasting effect
4 notes · View notes
juleworm · 10 months
Note
Hiii I saw your post about Punk 57 and the main reason i liked it because it basically took me a day to read. I went in knowing it reads like a Wattpad fic so I kinda just didn't really deep dive into anything and just read it for what it is. I cringed and the spicy parts and kinda skipped over those. But Misha is basically every guy I've ever had a thing for soo idk kinda had a soft spot for him. Hated ryen she was the worst. Idk I wasn't obsessed it wasn't my favorite idk why it's being hyped on social media but i liked it probably would not read again. I gave it a 3/5 on goodreads
hellooo!! thank you so much for letting me know! i genuinely was curious and i'm glad you didn't take it as an offense, haha.
i think i understand liking misha to an extent? i agree, ryen is rather insufferable LMAO but i can understand having a soft spot for misha. i just think he was so unnecessarily mean for no real good reason if that makes sense. he also had no reason to string ryen along like that, i think he should have been up front from the start. could've avoided a LOT of the major plot point dilemmas.
and i agree, it took me about a day or a day and a half to read it as well. i think part of the issue for me was, like you said, it's written like a wattpad fanfic and had i known that, i probably would have been more patient and less scrutinizing with it. i don't think it lives up to the hype on social media; either that, or social media just isn't elaborating or reflecting better about what the book is and why they liked it, if they like it to embrace the cringe or whatever.
i didn't mind the spicy scenes that much, but there were definitely a few moments where it was... interesting to say the least hahah. i think i gave it a 2 when i first finished it because iirc i didn't mind the ending ( it's been a while though, i'm not sure if that was why or not or if the ending actually is good but i can't remember why else i rated it higher when i first finished it ) but i think i bumped it down to a 1.5 a few days later the more i thought about it.
i just felt like nothing really happened. it was like 300 pages of just vague plot and confusing characters and a really cool plot idea that just failed in execution. i mean the bullet point summary of pen pals for 7 years having a sudden fall out and then the trope of one of them knowing the other but not acting on it sounds so fucking cool and that's why i read it but something about the actual book and how it turned out just felt so... odd to me. i can't really place it.
i dunno. i think i should just admit that penelope douglas's writing style just doesn't agree with me for some reason. i liked credence well enough for it's characters; i LOVED kaleb, he's one of my favorite book characters ever as far as characters go, but i could never get over the plot and how it was all like... almost incest and they'd mention it every once in a while so it was sort of impossible to just forget about it. every scene with jake made my skin crawl. i feel like penelope is just rather overhyped in general for some reason.
i sort of want to read devil's night, have you read that series? i see people saying it's really good and that it's her best work, but after credence and punk 57 i'm... apprehensive at best hahah.
thanks again for the ask! really appreciate it!! :)
0 notes
Text
books books books books
[prev]
absolutely no preamble; I've been putting this off because I was trying to finish reading Ahmed faster than was physically possible before I posted this but now it's time to face reality
what have I been reading?
Book of Hours (Kevin Young) - I've been all high and mighty about not reading any books authored solely by men this year and then I completely forgot myself by reading this poetry collection. and I regret nothing; Young's reflections on loss of his father and birth of his son make for a mournful and meditative narrative that's a quick but compelling read. strongly recommend for folks who aren't super at ease reading poetry but want to change that, like myself.
Red at the Bone (Jacqueline Woodson) - sometimes I'm reminded that despite my obvious preference for speculative fiction, I'm not at all opposed to contemporary stories so long as the writing is simply exquisite. Woodson's work is sharp as ever, her prose poignant and poetic as she untangles the hurt and hope across three generations of a family shaken by an unexpected pregnancy.
The Kingdom of Copper (S.A. Chakraborty) - oh man oh my god you guys, this series does not stop and it CERTAINLY does not disappoint. I read 300 (!!!) pages of this book during one day of travel and did not once get sick of it, and A Certain Scene near the end made my cry uncontrollably. I'm going to be a little delayed getting to Empire of Gold because of my decision to dedicate June and July to new releases, and honestly that's okay with me - it would be a shame to run through a great thing too soon.
Children of Vengeance and Virtue (Tomi Adeyemi) - meanwhile, on the polar opposite end of the sequel scale... I'm gonna be real guys, I think I might have waited too long to read this. I remember Blood and Bone being a delightful, Avatar-inspired romp across Yoruba mythology - epic and massive, filled with intricate magic, a little messy in places but understandably so, given that it centered on teens tasked with fixing a very broken world. it was fun. this one was not fun. most of the book involves the narrative bending over backwards to keep Zélie and Amari constantly fighting, until Amari (spoiler alert) eventually decides to become a war criminal about it. Inan is still Inan, which is to say he's The Worst, and Zélie's new love interest is a shithead teenage mercenary whose hits all the worst "sexy dangerous bad boy" cliches. Tzain is the only one who's never done anything wrong, and that's because he was barely in this one. that's a big oof from me.
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within (Becky Chambers) - god, speaking of good things being over. this is possibly the coziest of Chambers' Wayfarers books yet, following five strangers of four different alien species stuck at one outer space truck stop thanks to an unexpected infrastructure failure. while stuck together they grapple with the usual bevy of themes Chambers explores in her books - culture, colonialism, community, connection, and what it means to be a person in a world with countless forms of personhood. it's a soft, understated end to a soft and understated series, and - surprise surprise - made me cry like a baby. also it's introduced my second favorite alien, an artsy, amiable, hedonistic lobster named Roveg who's simply a delight on all fronts.
what am I reading now?
Living A Feminist Life (Sara Ahmed) - oh man okay getting back into reading theory for fun is a slow and painful process and I cannot read this as quickly as I want but oh man. oh my god. Sara Ahmed your brain.
Sorrowland (Rivers Solomon) - the first new books of Hot Book Summer! I'm not very far in at all, but Sorrowland already has a vibe that feels very much in conversation with Octavia Butler's Parable books. and you know I love some Butler!
24 notes · View notes
af1899 · 3 years
Text
FEH - "The outside world...! So vast!" (+10 WIP Sophia mini-showcase and appreciation)
So, with the [Feh Pass] subscription, I've been auto battling as much as I could while doing whatever else and gather [Hero Feathers] to get all the [HM] I had yet to get, and it was absolutely worth it, although I've already spent like 300 out of my 900+ something [Stamina Bottles] in the [Forging Bonds] lmao, I have around 660 now.
But with the obtained [Hero Feathers] I merged up Tailtiu to +6 and...
Tumblr media
Poggers
I'm happy to have finished merging Sophia at long last which makes of her my eleventh fully merged project soon after New Year Eir, her build is pretty much done but I'd be delighted to give her more premium stuff she can use in the future and make more builds, as well as giving her the remaining [Dragonflowers (I)] but I'm so close to fully boost Sonya and then I have to boost OG and Legendary Julia because of the post-[CYL 2021] update. 🥴
But her current build does wonders already, true, she's not impervious to nearly everything as it is, but I can give her some team support and the like, she's still great on her own.
Now, onto appreciation talk which includes describing her a little and explaining why I like her. I did this in one of my previous posts but it's time to review the info we have about her and expand on it. As always, feel free to read on (long read ahead)...
About Sophia
She's a half-dragon, half-human girl with the power of foresight, she's a priestess residing in Arcadia, a village that houses manaketes that survived one of the most vicious wars from past lore (The Scouring) located in the southwestern desertic region (Nabata) in Elibe, the continent on which the sixth and seventh Fire Emblem games take place in, she's a playable [Shaman] in the former and makes a minor appearance as a NPC near the end of the latter. Her class makes of her one of the two playable dark magic users in Fire Emblem: Sword of Seals (the other is the guy you're most likely to get while pulling on red stones in FEH, a.k.a. Raigh), and she gains access to basic staves after promoting to [Druid].
In her support convo with Niime, it's revealed that Sophia's father was human, meaning that her mother was a dragon, but neither's identity is ever known to the player. But despite this, she never transforms into a dragon, most likely because she never had her own stone to contain those powers. Being half-dragon also allows her to live much longer, but not as purebred manaketes/dragons.
She's fully self-aware of her heritage and doesn't let that bother her, she accepts both halves of herself which make of her a whole person.
She's somewhat important around the half of the game's duration as she helps a gravely injured Cecilia to at least tend to her wounds while waiting for Roy's army to rescue them as they were both thrown into a prison under Bern's control (the kingdom invading the other countries during the events of the game).
Sophia displays a shy and gentle personality, showing clear astonishmnet yet in a calm way when witnessing what the outside world is like and what it has to offer (beyond the village she's been living for around a century), this is most evidenced in her support dialogues with Igrene. She even feels similarly when wearing a new set of clothes, such as those of Embla in the World of Zenith, anytime after she joins the Order of Heroes.
«As long as I am with you... I can go anywhere...even a new country...»
― Sophia
She also mentions she was raised to avoid outsiders, and in the same aforementioned support convo, it's mentioned why.
«I understand what he's saying... The Dragons' powers could easily destroy entire countries. If the outsiders found out, they would surely fight over it. I've seen many conflicts like that in my life...»
― Igrene
And it's understandable why she feels that way after being raised by the elder of the village to do as told for decades. But in the end, she wants to work towards a world of peace where both dragons and humans live together without a war ever spreading out, and befriend other people, she's appreciative of other's kindness.
So... why do I like her?
Because she's purple-haired and most of her design has purple and I love purple soooooo much, that's all you need to know. :)
...Kidding kidding, that's not actually it, but it's in part true that I find her aesthetic pleasing, partially due to my passion for this color:
Tumblr media
(Official artwork from FE6)
Her design is rather simple but so charming, clearly evidencing her shyness (see the way she holds her book and her facial expression), and feeling clean without going overboard on details.
Also, I find long, purple hair a rather rare yet dazzling sight, I always look at it in her artwork and remins me why I love her design.
True, her neck in Zaza's take on Sophia in Fire Emblem Heroes bothered me a little, mostly because her neck is a little long as seen above, but not as slim as long as Zaza has drawn her (it's still a decent artwork and the artist has made some really nice pieces later, look at Emmeryn), the style also felt a little off to me. But her Resplendent upgrade made Sophia look more cute and still being the one we know, doning a brand new attire.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
(❶ Original by Zaza. | ❷ Resplendent by Miwabe Sakura)
But for me, it's pointless to be pretty if there's not a likeable personality behind the character in question, and Sophia has been proven to be really interesting, often a mysterious but shy girl, she's capable of kindness and finding comfort with outsiders like Kiran or Roy, when I see her, I always feel that she's so nice, never feeling bitterness towards any of her allies, just being shy due to how she's grown, but with a desire for friendship and peace pushing her forward, even slowly but surely, she's so lovely. 🥰
What's more, some of her quotes show she has a protective side, determined to stand up to help her allies but specially those she's close with, this eventually includes Kiran themselves.
Her voice in Fire Emblem Heroes is also really soothing, Wendee Lee has made such a delightful work giving new life to Sophia through her voice acting, there sure are differences between her work back in 2017 (Sophia is a launch unit, meaning she's been around ever since the game was live) and the work on the Resplendent in 2020, yet both are pretty consistent and equally pleasant to hear. But if I have to vouch for one or another, I give a point to the Resplendent voice acting, her voice can be heard with a little more depth and calmness to it than the original, which feels more natural.
And she's a dark magic practitioner but that doesn't make her evil at all, she's really pure actually. But I actually find dark magic most appealing out of any kind of weapon I have ever seen, the whole concept is cool, being always creepy and nefarious in nature, often portrayed in hues of black and dark purple.
And like, c'mon, this thing is amazing:
Tumblr media
I wish that [Apocalypse] was her PRF weapon in Fire Emblem Heroes but neither Raigh nor Bramimond who's its OG owner got it and just got random PRFs instead.
Anyway, in short, I adore Sophia and it always makes me happy to turn a seemingly weak unit into a tough to crack cookie, love for favorites sure can take them far.
"And... as a unit?"
I've been trying her mainly against the foes she has advantage with, but I've been also trying her against red/blue units and sometimes she does a nice job holding them at bay, she has low speed even after all this investment but with buffing it's somewhat usable.
Yet I prefer to focus on her strengths, not weaknesses, and she stands as a fairly good magic tank, with the few extras she enjoys as a launch unit and full demote plus Resplendent skin since around the first weeks of the [Feh Pass].
I actually tried her here some time after posting this because I didn't notice the [Limited Hero Battle] for today requires you use FE6 units, so I went with my faves in the game and it was rather easy. 🙂 But it still took a little thinking.
Tumblr media
"Who's the next +10 you have in mind?"
Hmm... actually gonna (at least try to) work on Lilina, another one of my Elibian favorites. I also have her Resplendent upgrade and could revamp her kit. 🤔
But she's currently +3 so her turn might take longer or someone's else may come before, Idk.
And then, hopefully someone I like out of the next potential Resplendent Heroes...!
2 notes · View notes
transarchivist · 4 years
Note
Do you have any podcast recommendations? I've listened to tma, wolf359, the penumbra podcast, and like...half of night vale. You seem like you'd know some good ones!
!!!
I Am In Eskew is an absolute all-time favorite of mine! It’s very firmly horror, but not tragedy. Think… WTNV but 1. on a personal scale, 2. actually terrifying, and 3. not benign. It follows David Ward, inhabitant of the city Eskew, as he chronicles some of the terrifying stuff that happens to him. Eventually, we hear from Riyo Dulae, a private investigator who’s been pulled into Eskew’s orbit. It uses place-as-horror in an astonishing way! It’s a finished product with 30 episodes and the ending is honestly amazing. I’ve listened to it several times. It’s very good. Listen to it. Please.
This got long, so the rest of the recommendations are under the cut, and in no particular order! (Eskew is absolutely my top recommendation lol) Particularly sad endings and ongoing series are specified.
Janus Descending is a finished and relatively short sci-fi horror series. It follows two xenoarcheologists (archeologists for aliens) as they inspect the site of an abandoned alien civilization. It’s told in inverse chronological order, alternating between Chel and Peter’s perspectives. Chel’s is chronological, while Peter’s is backwards. It’s an amazing format and keeps you suspended in the mystery up until the very end! It is a tragedy, though, and has a sad ending.
ars PARADOXICA is an audio drama about time-travel and the Cold War. The synopsis is this: scientist Sally Grissom accidentally creates time travel, is transported back to the Cold War, and is entwined with a clandestine branch of the US government. It’s 3 seasons long- and I will say that if you’re not good with differentiating voices I recommend either listening to it without stopping for a long period and/or reading along to transcripts. The plot is intricate but engaging and the large cast of characters each has their own unique personality. Plus: canon ace main character (as in she says she’s asexual! in canon!), a Jewish lesbian semi-main character, a mlm (bi?) man of color side-character, and several other characters of color.
Mabel is an ongoing horror podcast with elements of fae/fairy lore and the place-as-horror theme. It’s not as outright horror as TMA, Eskew, or Janus Descending, it’s much more atmospheric? It’s several seasons in, with the next season currently in production. It follows Anna Limon, who is an in-home caretaker, trying to contact Mabel Martin, the granddaughter of the woman Anna is caring for. It has lots of wlw, lots of moral ambiguity, beautiful prose, and lots and lots of fae. 
Zero Hours is a 7 episode long anthology series by the creators of Wolf 359. Each episode deals with “the end of the world - or at least something that feels like the end of the world.” There’s 99-year intervals between episode and it starts in the past and ends in the far future. It’s honestly stunning and was well worth listening to in it’s entirety when it dropped (and subsequently staying up past midnight). 
The Bright Sessions is… kinda urban fantasy? The official synopsis is that TBS is a “science fiction podcast that follows a group of therapy patients. But these are not your typical patients - each has a unique supernatural ability. The show documents their struggles and discoveries as well as the motivations of their mysterious therapist, Dr. Bright.” (I tried explaining but was having a tricky time) The characters are amazingly written and unique. (And no, it doesn’t fall into the “evil therapist” idea, in case you were worried) One of the main characters is gay (and it isn’t a throwaway line). It has good and realistic representation of mental illnesses: a main character as a panic/anxiety disorder, another has PTSD, another has depression, and so on. The main show is finished but there’s a spin off that’s being made. Specifically happy ending!
Alice Isn’t Dead is a horror podcast by the creators of Night Vale. It follows Keisha, a trucker, who is looking for her wife, Alice. Keisha encounters many strange things as she drives back and forth across America, including murderous almost-human monsters, places that are stuck out of time, and a nation spanning conspiracy. It encompasses the whole… atmosphere of middle-of-nowhere America perfectly. It’s a complete story with a novel form (haven’t had the pleasure of reading it, though). Main character is wlw, and Alice is not dead.
Limetown is a horror podcast. It follows reporter Lia Haddock as she investigates the mystery of Limetown- a town in Tennessee where over 300 people disappeared overnight, never to be heard from again. It’s finished…? I think the podcast is finished but a book and a Facebook miniseries are in development? Anyways. Sad ending. I loved the first season a lot, the second season is good too though!
The Adventure Zone isn’t an audio drama, instead it’s an actual-play show of Dungeons and Dragons (and D&D like systems). The McElroy brothers and their dad host it, and are frankly absolutely hilarious. TAZ: Balance is the first season and starts as a classic d&d game but turns into an amazing and heart wrenching story with beautiful prose and music. And also 69 jokes. TAZ:B is honestly one of the most emotionally impacting stories I’ve ever heard. It has an amazingly happy and hopeful ending. Includes: casual lgbt rep and a late game but major character is a trans woman! I’ve heard good things about the recently finished season TAZ: Amnesty, although I haven’t finished it. There’s a new season, TAZ: Graduation, that started recently, and I’ve enjoyed the handful of episodes I’ve listened to! Currently ongoing, but tragic endings aren’t something that’s expected.
I haven’t finished/caught up with these, but I’ve enjoyed them: Sayer (sci-fi. think menacing capitalist Night Vale in space, heard s3/s4 are really good), The Bridge (horror, alternate modern day. follows a watchpost on a bridge that crosses the Atlantic), The Orbiting Human Circus (from the people at WTNV. surreal fiction. hard to explain). I feel like there’s more but I can’t remember any atm. 
I’m also gonna point you towards @theradioghost‘s blog and her podcast recs tag. Her taste is amazing and I haven’t disliked a single show I’ve tried. (Also, check out her show, Midnight Radio! It’s the next thing on my to-listen list.)
82 notes · View notes
sometimesrosy · 4 years
Note
I am afraid of writing. I love writing, I've been doing it since I was.. 10? I'm about to be 24. I love it, I've had this huge story in my mind since I was 14 & I've tried writing it since then. The story is always chaging, it's obviously much more adult now, totally different from what it was. And yet, no matter how many drafts I've done since I was 14, I haven't finished a single one. I've never finished the 1st draft. I'm scared this will go on forever. I want to tell this story, why can't I?
This is one of the biggest secrets of writing, I think.
Writing is SCARY.
No matter how much experience you have. It’s SCARY. You might figure out coping skills to deal with the fear (and I think that’s why a lot of writers do turn to drugs and alcohol-- they’re self medicating the fear) but that doesn’t mean the fear goes away.
Because writing is like opening up your soul and putting it on the page for the world to see. Even if you don’t show them. 
I am, at this point in my life, educated up the wazoo, and actual teacher of writing and such, and have been writing for 35 years. I am a professional. I am ghostwriting for money, and that means I have to write to a strict schedule of at least 3k a day. 
When I’m on a roll, I can write 1200 to 1500 in a half hour. 
So that deadline sounds easy, doesn’t it? 
HA! No. I’ve learned I can trust myself to be able to reach it, true, but it’s hard EVERY SINGLE DAY.
I will spend almost an entire day getting the nerve up to write, until I can’t procrastinate anymore and end up bingewriting nonstop from 4-6 to get it done. 
I can write easily. SITTING DOWN TO WRITE? Not so easy. It’s ridiculous. I even know what I’m writing. It’s not hard. Two days ago I thought it was hard because I had to write about a sea rescue and I know nothing about sailing, storms, hypothermia or emergency protocols.  I struggle through it with lots of research to get over my fear and give me a solid base to write on. But then yesterday I finished and had to write romantic angst of a girl who was pining for her best friend who didn’t love her. (please understand i am very familiar with unrequited longing for your best friend, btdt. hated it.) But guess what? STILL TERRIFIED TO WRITE. Took me the same amount of time to get to the page.... but far less research. 
The trick about writing is not actually learning the rules of writing or storytelling or character development or what have you.
The trick about writing is to learn how to conquer the fear.
Maybe there are some people somewhere who are so sure of themselves that they never feel the fear or the insecurity or the pain of their history or the terrible demons in their heads that tell them they can’t do it... but I haven’t met them yet. 
When I was your age, I had a similar background. I’d been writing since I was 12, trying to write novels since I was 15 or so, and had not finished one thing. Now I didn’t have one story I’d been working on, but a million ideas, but still, nothing was ever finished. And I realized that I had to set myself the challenge of getting to the end of that book. I’d spent ten years or so learning how to write, now I had to belly up, face the fear, and WRITE IT. 
This was before the nanowrimo days, and three pages was a tremendous output for me. I set myself a schedule, and sat at my desk every day before work (I was a waitress then and started work in the afternoon, so I had time during the day... please note that I was a waitress specifically so I’d have time to write. it was a career choice i made then but it is by far not the only way to find time to write.) I wrote and kept track of my daily output to make sure I was keeping up with myself. I wrote at least one page a day. Sometimes as much as ten, (about 2500 words double spaced,) and by the end of the year, I’d written my first draft all the way to the end.
That book is still hidden in my trunk. BUT I finished it. And got to the end. And I didn’t do it by having a million ideas that I was afraid to commit to, but by sitting at the desk every day, and not giving up on it. 
I mean, finishing the first draft is not the end of finishing your novel either, but it’s the first step and you need to conquer it before you can get all the way done. 
One book I read that did help me is called Fearless Creating, by Eric Maisel. He talks about the various ways fear can get in the way of creating, and how there are different fears for different stages of the creative process. 
But whatever you do, if you want to write this story like you say you do, you have to face that fear down and write it anyway. Stop stalling. Stop looking for ways out or other things you have to focus on and apply butt to chair, and get writing. 
Whether you can only write 300 words a day (300x365=109,500 words=a novel) or can only write in the summers when you’re off of school, or are a weekend warrior who binges on saturdays and sundays, or have to get up at 6am to steal an hour of writing time before work, or you pound away at your computer before you go to sleep each night though you’re exhausted, or you turn cartoons for your toddlers so you can write, or you write while the dinner is in the oven, or you can only get the motivation up to do it during nanowrimo-- figure out what schedule/process/situation works for you and DO IT. 
Write even though you’re afraid, and sooner or later, you’ll have your novel done. Remember that your goal is DONE, not just writing without end, so you keep going for that The End. You can do it. 
find my writing stuff all collected here @rosy-writes
34 notes · View notes