Tag Archives: advice

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monstersinthecosmos:

Anyway so another thing I really like about fanfiction and one of the reasons I continue to defend it is that fandom can be an amazing and supportive community when you might not have any other outlets for feedback. I don’t know where I’d be as a writer if I hadn’t started sharing my work on FF.net.

Getting feedback on your work is so, so, so important to your growth as a creator of any kind, even when it’s only to teach yourself how to ignore it and trust your instincts. And I personally would not have had an audience if I hadn’t gotten into fic writing. All of the adults in my life stifled my creativity and I constantly felt like I had to censor myself. I couldn’t show anything to my English teacher without being sent to talk to the school shrink.

And LEMMIE TELL YOU how fucking disheartening it is for a young writer to be sent to the office and feel like you’re in trouble, only to get plopped down in front of the social worker’s desk and see your story picked apart there, complete with highlights and post-it’s. I was so close to letting everything I’d ever written just stagnate in my notebooks. 

Not everyone has a healthy support system at home and a lot of times fandom is the thing that’s going to push you and encourage you and don’t let anyone make you feel silly for taking advantage of that. 

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lobbygrl:

lazypacific:

“Imagine you’re at a party. A guy offers you a drink. You say no. He says ‘Come on, one drink!’ You say ‘no thanks.’ Later, he brings you a soda. ‘I know you said you didn’t want a drink, but I was getting one for myself and you looked thirsty.’ For you to refuse at this point makes you the asshole. He’s just being nice, right? Predators use the social contract and our own good hearts and fear of being rude against us. If you drink the drink, you’re teaching him that it just takes a little persistence on his part to overcome your ‘no.’ If you say ‘Really, I appreciate it, but no thanks’ and put the drink down and walk away from it, you’re the one who looks rude in that moment. But the fact is, you didn’t ask for the drink and you don’t want the drink and you don’t have to drink it just to make some guy feel validated.” —The Art of “No” (Jennifer P.)

I’ve never seen this post with the original caption before. I thought I loved it simply from the photography but the depth of the meaning behind it…. Wow.

Source: lazypacific

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monstersinthecosmos:

opmsmut:

berlynn-wohl:

worldwithinworld:

When you are writing a story and refer to a character by a physical trait, occupation, age, or any other attribute, rather than that character’s name, you are bringing the reader’s attention to that particular attribute. That can be used quite effectively to help your reader to focus on key details with just a few words. However, if the fact that the character is “the blond,” “the magician,” “the older woman,” etc. is not relevant to that moment in the story, this will only distract the reader from the purpose of the scene. 

If your only reason for referring to a character this way is to avoid using his or her name or a pronoun too much, don’t do it. You’re fixing a problem that actually isn’t one. Just go ahead and use the name or pronoun again. It’ll be good.

Using names or pronouns too much is a NON-PROBLEM – these words are “invisible” to readers. (I mean, you don’t worry about using the word “the” too much, do you?)

I have known many people who will hit the back button if a fic uses too many epithets. On the other hand, I’ve never heard anyone complain, “This author doesn’t refer to the characters by their occupation or hair color NEARLY enough!”

Just say “No” to epithets, kids.

Some advice for the writers in our fandom…

THIS.

THIS.

*SMASHES REBLOG BUTTON*

Seriously like. Overusing random attributes in writing pops off the page at me as much as BAD ADVERBS. I understand the temptation, especially when you’re writing same-sex situations and you need to keep distinguishing who’s who and whose limbs are whose when the pronouns alone can’t, but honestly like, it gets really cheesy really fast and it’s worth combing back over afterwards. Saying the person’s name 1000 times is less obnoxious, in my opinion!

Be careful! Slow down and work over it when you’re done to make sure you don’t do it too much! It’s so uncomfortable to read!

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butchstoothpick:

artist followers whose family members pay little to no attention to their work because they’re “used to it”: i love you and im so proud of how far youve come and how much youve put into your art and art style. youve come a long way and still have plenty of time to continue your artistic journey. other people not appreciating your efforts in no way reflects on you or your skills. may you continue to grow and thrive in peace. 🌸

My painting is not violent, it’s life that is violent. Even within the most beautiful landscape, in the trees, under the leaves, the insects are eating each other; violence is a part of life. We are born with a scream; we come into life with a scream and maybe love is a mosquito net between the fear of living and the fear of death.

Francis Bacon (via phytos)

(I don’t know if this is a legit quote, but it’s worth posting one of his most famous paintings with it, Figure with Meat., under a cut. Warning: graphic depiction of animal carcasses and the person depicted in the work is also deeply unsettling.)

According to Mary Louise Schumacher of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,

“Bacon appropriated the famous portrait [Velázquez’s portrait of Pope Innocent X], with its subject, enthroned and draped in satins and lace, his stare stern and full of authority. In Bacon’s version, animal carcasses hang at the pope’s back, creating a raw and disturbing Crucifixion-like composition. The pope’s hands, elegant and poised in Velázquez’s version, are rough hewn and gripping the church’s seat of authority in apparent terror. His mouth is held in a scream and black striations drip down from the pope’s nose to his neck. It’s as if Bacon picked up a wide house painting brush and brutishly dragged it over the face. The fresh meat recalls the lavish arrangements of fruits, meats and confections in 17th-century vanitas paintings, which usually carried subtle moralizing messages about the impermanence of life and the spiritual dangers of sensual pleasures. Sometimes, the food itself showed signs of being overripe or spoiled, to make the point. Bacon weds the imagery of salvation, worldly decadence, power and carnal sensuality, and he contrasts those things with his own far more palpable and existential view of damnation”.[2]

Source: blue-voids

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casinoangel:

Isnt it amazing how beautiful people are. Like just look at anyone and study them and their features and how their lips tort and eyes glisten and how their hair falls or sticks or lays. How their eyebrows flex and the way their arms fold, how expressive their hands are. The way their body moves and how their chest rises and falls so subtley with their pulse. People are beautiful even if we dont find them attractive. The fact that they’re a living being is unbelievably magnificent.

Buonasera. Lately it seems like my imagination is completely blank and I don’t really know what to do ’cause writing, singing… they are two of my greatest loves. How do I deal with inspiration? How do you do it? Hope you can give me some advice. Have a good night, Lestat.

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♛Ah, the creative blocks! They happen to us all. When I lose musical inspiration, I turn to listening to – or doing my own – variations on existing works.

image

I might try a song and sing it in another singer’s style. Have you ever heard of Richard Cheese & Lounge Against The Machine? Lounge applied to any other song, preferably one in a very different genre, is almost a guarantee of comic relief, and that can be the first crack in breaking through my creative block. 

Collaboration with others can help, too. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been creatively stifled, I’ll call my mortal band to meet at a karaoke place and we’ll just go through our favorites, works very well. 

But there are going to be times in your life where the muse won’t speak to you for no apparent reason, and other times when you can’t shut her up, ebbs and flows are normal. I hope your muse returns to you, post-haste *winks*