testosterdile

[testosterdile]

to write, you must write. to make art, you must make art. it doesn’t need to feel holy. i find that others expect too much of the process, like a magical euphoria

you can go through the motions like a piece of machinery. it will often be dull, draft work. again, again, and again.

but you must start. you may create something amateurish and ugly now or you may do so in five years from now -- but wouldn’t you prefer that it was now?

[testosterdile]

Outside the World We Dreamt We Built

AO3 LINK

Rating: T

Pairings: Soul/Maka, Tsubaki/Liz, and a whole lotta friendship

Summary:

“Hey, Soul?” Liz started. “Have you ever considered what you were going to do after this?” “The gala? Go back to Death City, I guess.” He flicked a rhythm on the can’s tab before bringing it to his lips. “Maybe try to bleach the image of Black Star’s bare chest from my brain.” “No, I meant,” she made a vague sweeping gesture in the air, cigarette ash dusting her jeans like freshly fallen snow. “All of this. Everything.”

Three years after the Battle on the Moon, the Shibusen kids go on a road trip and think about what comes next.

[testosterdile]

you COMMENT on fic? you comment on the story like it's worth something? oh! oh! love for reader! love for reader for One Thousand Years!!!!

[testosterdile]

''what if my writing isn't good eno--'' what if it's a reflection of your of your soul. what if it has a place in this world. what if you write it anyway

[testosterdile]

some people think writers are so eloquent and good with words, but the reality is that we can sit there with our fingers on the keyboard going, “what’s the word for non-sunlight lighting? Like, fake lighting?” and for ten minutes, all our brain will supply is “unofficial”, and we know that’s not the right word, but it’s the only word we can come up with…until finally it’s like our face got smashed into a brick wall and we remember the word we want is “artificial”.

[testosterdile]

Dirt Road through the Desert, 1969

Doris Thomas

[testosterdile]

you should contribute more fics to the cromaso tag i think (only if you want to, of course!)

I WOULD LOOOOVE TO ANON!! I haven't uploaded anything in a while but I've been cooking up a few things on and off in my spare time (this ask might actually give me the motivation to finish one of them...). Gosh I love this ship to death, and it makes me indescribably happy to see that there's an audience for my rare pair stuff! Thanks so much!

[testosterdile]

Literally cannot emphasize enough that my #1 writing advice is to stop being afraid. Stop being afraid of sounding too cringe, or too stupid, or too horrifying, or too horny, or too weird, or too much, or too little, or too you. You need to put your entire pussy into your art. Sure, it won't be to everyone's tastes, but if you keep yourself to the blandest tamest safest roads possible you will be of no one's tastes, not even yours.

[testosterdile]

curious to see something

[testosterdile]

And now the moment you've all been waiting for:

Chibiverb 2024 Sign-Ups are now open!

Please fill out the form provided if you wish to join in on this year's lil' Reverb – You may do so more than once if you wish to participate as both an artist and an author, or a beta and a volunteer writer, etc.

Please click here to sign up!

Sign-ups will stay open from now (Monday, June 3rd) until Friday, June 14th at 11:59pm EST.

All Artists! Please note that your sign up is also the first check in this year. Before the end of sign ups you must provide a rough draft of your idea in the sign-up form. For more detailed instructions please see the rules form or ask a mod for assistance.

Want more information on this year's Chibiverb? Check out our Rules and About pages, or feel free to send in an ask if you have any other questions. We'll be sure to post any new updates here when they come around, so you can follow us if that suits your fancy.

Otherwise, we look forward to seeing what you guys do for this here Revival! Cheers!

[testosterdile]

Hello Soul Eater fans!

We Reverb mods have awakened from our much needed slumber to pose a question to you all: "Reverb 2024?"

If you have any interest in participating in a Reverb Revival, please do us a favor and complete this survey by Friday, May 31st, and share with your SE buddies.

Have you come across this post and don't know what Reverb is? Be sure to check out our About page and give us a follow as we'll be sure to keep you updated on all things Reverb!

Wishing you all the best, Your Reverb mods

[testosterdile]

Writing Tips - Beating Perfectionism

1. Recognising writing perfectionism. It’s not usually as literal as “This isn’t 100% perfect and so it is the worst thing ever”, in my experience it usually sneaks up more subtly. Things like where you should probably be continuing on but if you don’t figure out how to word this paragraph better it’s just going to bug you the whole time, or where you’re growing demotivated because you don’t know how to describe the scene 100% exactly as you can imagine it in your head, or things along those lines where your desire to be exact can get in the way of progression. In isolated scenarios this is natural, but if it’s regularly and notably impacting your progress then there’s a more pressing issue

2. Write now, edit later. Easier said than done, which always infuriated me until I worked out how it translates into practice; you need to recognise what the purpose of this stage of the writing process is and when editing will hinder you more than help you. Anything up to and including your first draft is purely done for structural and creative purposes, and trying to impose perfection on a creative process will naturally stifle said creativity. Creativity demands the freedom of imperfection

3. Perfection is stagnant. We all know that we have to give our characters flaws and challenges to overcome since, otherwise, there’s no room for growth or conflict or plot, and it ends up being boring and predictable at best - and it’s just the same as your writing. Say you wrote the absolute perfect book; the perfect plot, the perfect characters, the perfect arcs, the perfect ending, etc etc. It’s an overnight bestseller and you’re discussed as a literary great for all time. Everyone, even those outside of your target demographic, call it the perfect book. Not only would that first require you to turn the perfect book into something objective, which is impossible, but it would also mean that you would either never write again, because you can never do better than your perfect book, or you’ll always write the exact same thing in the exact same way to ensure constant perfection. It’s repetitive, it’s boring, and all in all it’s just fearful behaviour meant to protect you from criticism that you aren’t used to, rather than allowing yourself to get acclimated to less than purely positive feedback

4. Faulty comparisons. Comparing your writing to that of a published author’s is great from an analytical perspective, but it can easily just become a case of “Their work is so much better, mine sucks, I’ll never be as good as them or as good as any ‘real’ writer”. You need to remember that you’re comparing a completely finished draft, which likely underwent at least three major edits and could have even had upwards of ten, to wherever it is you’re at. A surprising number of people compare their *first* draft to a finished product, which is insanity when you think of it that way; it seems so obvious from this perspective why your first attempt isn’t as good as their tenth. You also end up comparing your ability to describe the images in your head to their ability to craft a new image in your head; I guarantee you that the image the author came up with isn’t the one their readers have, and they’re kicking themselves for not being able to get it exactly as they themselves imagine it. Only the author knows what image they’re working off of; the readers don’t, and they can imagine their own variation which is just as amazing

5. Up close and too personal. Expanding on the last point, just in general it’s harder to describe something in coherent words than it is to process it when someone else prompts you to do so. You end up frustrated and going over it a gazillion times, even to the point where words don’t even look like words anymore. You’ve got this perfect vision of how the whole story is supposed to go, and when you very understandably can’t flawlessly translate every single minute detail to your satisfaction, it’s demotivating. You’re emotionally attached to this perfect version that can’t ever be fully articulated through any other medium. But on the other hand, when consuming other media that you didn’t have a hand in creating, you’re viewing it with perfectly fresh eyes; you have no ‘perfect ideal’ of how everything is supposed to look and feel and be, so the images the final product conjures up become that idealised version - its no wonder why it always feels like every writer except you can pull off their visions when your writing is the only one you have such rigorous preconceived notions of

6. That’s entertainment. Of course writing can be stressful and draining and frustrating and all other sorts of nasty things, but if overall you can’t say that you ultimately enjoy it, you’re not writing for the right reasons. You’ll never take true pride in your work if it only brings you misery. Take a step back, figure out what you can do to make things more fun for you - or at least less like a chore - and work from there

7. Write for yourself. One of the things that most gets to me when writing is “If this was found and read by someone I know, how would that feel?”, which has lead me on multiple occasions to backtrack and try to be less cringe or less weird or less preachy or whatever else. It’s harder to share your work with people you know whose opinions you care about and whose impressions of you have the potential of shifting based on this - sharing it to strangers whose opinions ultimately don’t matter and who you’ll never have to interact with again is somehow a lot less scary because their judgements won’t stick. But allowing the imaginary opinions of others to dictate not even your finished project, but your unmoderated creative process in general? Nobody is going to see this without your say so; this is not the time to be fussing over how others may perceive your writing. The only opinion that matters at this stage is your own

8. Redirection. Instead of focusing on quality, focusing on quantity has helped me to improve my perfectionism issues; it doesn’t matter if I write twenty paragraphs of complete BS so long as I’ve written twenty paragraphs or something that may or may not be useful later. I can still let myself feel accomplished regardless of quality, and if I later have to throw out whole chapters, so be it

9. That’s a problem for future me. A lot of people have no idea how to edit, or what to look for when they do so, so having a clear idea of what you want to edit by the time the editing session comes around is gonna be a game-changer once you’re supposed to be editing. Save the clear work for when you’re allocating time for it and you’ll have a much easier and more focused start to the editing process. It’ll be more motivating than staring blankly at the intimidating word count, at least

10. The application of applications. If all else fails and you’re still going back to edit what you’ve just wrote in some struggle for the perfect writing, there are apps and websites that you can use that physically prevent you from editing your work until you’re done with it. If nothing else, maybe it can help train you away from major edits as you go

[testosterdile]

this is going to have me on my hands and knees dry heaving

[testosterdile]

How much description is too much? Should there be a certain length?

The Right Amount of Description (Five Tips!)

1) The right amount of description is whatever amount creates a mental picture for the reader, which is your ultimate goal as a writer. Outside of that, it’s a matter of opinion. Some readers and writers like a lot of description, others prefer less. It’s up to you find the right balance beyond creating that mental image.

2) Consider what’s important to the story when you go to describe something. Descriptions should pull weight... they should mean something. They have to tell us something about the story or character, give us information to understand how the object will be used, or set the stage for the scene. Don’t describe a dead plant in the corner of the room unless it’s relevant somehow, like it tells us that no one has been home for a while. Details matter.

3) Don’t bother trying to find the “perfect description,” because no such thing exists. No matter how well you describe something, your reader isn’t going to imagine it exactly the way you do. That’s because we all come at things with a different set of knowledge and experience. What I imagine when you say “the big harry monster” will be different from what someone else imagines. Aim for creating a description that gets your reader in the right ballpark.

4) Sometimes less is more, because it’s much easier to annoy readers with too much description than with too little. Choose a few important details about the thing and focus on those.

5) Pretend you’re talking to a sketch artist, because the item you’re describing is lost and you need them to draw it so people can look for it. What features would you find important enough to mention? These are the details to focus on in your description. :) 

  ————————————————————————————————- Have a question? My inbox is always open, but please make sure to check my FAQ and post master lists first to make sure I haven’t already answered a similar question. :)

[testosterdile]

Something that's been knocking around in my head for a while: I think a lot of new writers get thrown off by their assumption that writing will be anything like reading. Reading is a dreamy, passive experience--scenes, dialogue, and description flow over you as you are taken under the writer's spell. Writing, on the other hand (with the exception, sometimes, of the first draft), is the laborious, almost mechanical-like task of putting narrative elements together so that the reader can lose themselves in your story. In short, reading and writing are very different experiences, and the assumption that they will be, or even should be, the same, is cause for much angst among new and experienced writers alike. It's a frustrating thing, because a love of reading is usually what gets people interested in writing in the first place. I've been writing for several decades and I still feel confounded by this clash--it's part of why I don't read much when I'm deep into my writing, and vice versa. And when I am writing, I constantly have to remind myself: Writing is not watching a magic show. Writing is figuring out how to smuggle the rabbit into the hat.

[testosterdile]

A cool thing about writing is that the better you get at it, the more you're aware of what you want out of it, which means it gets harder, which means you actually feel like you're getting worse.

And by "cool thing," I mean "what the fuck, man"

– Sam Sykes

[testosterdile]

PACING IS ABOUT LOAD BEARING WALLS.

*staples violently to my own forehead*