Writing Process - Blog Posts

I’ve been publishing some stories on AO3 for like a year now, and I’m having trouble updating them. Not updating them gives me pressure because there are many people who like it and I feel bad for not updating for so long. I’m going through school and it’s consuming all my time. Also, I have trouble writing because of my perfectionism and belief that I’m not a good enough writer. I constantly compare myself to others, such as how long my story is and how many likes there are. It’s annoying and unhealthy.

I want to stop these habits and have a healthier mindset. Can I have some advice on how to do that please?

Can I also have advice on:

-What to do when you have writer’s block

-How to write the beginning of chapters

-How to stop striving so hard for perfection

Thank you to anyone who answers or likes! 😁💕

You are the air I need to breath. My body has grown dependent on you and you don’t even acknowledge my existence anymore. I’m suffocating without you. And you learned how to breathe without me.

theheartoftheplanet

Did I daydream this, or was there a website for writers with like. A ridiculous quantity of descriptive aid. Like I remember clicking on " inside a cinema " or something like that. Then, BAM. Here's a list of smell and sounds. I can't remember it for the life of me, but if someone else can, help a bitch out <3

writing diaries

so i picked a prompt and then just kinda wrote, i entered this kind of trance and then suddenly i came to with a chapter done. is this what flow is? did i just experience being in a flow state? without the weight of my own expectations and pressure, it was so much easier to get words out! i’m kind of excited to continue to work on this little story!

The holy texts

MASTERPOST (PT. 2)

If you like my blog, buy me a coffee☕ and find me on instagram! 📸

For romance writing prompts, plotting tips & more, check out: MASTERPOST PT. 1

⭐Dialogue

Writing Dialogue 101

Crying-Yelling Dialogue Prompts

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⛰️Words to Use Instead Of...

Synonyms for "Walk"

Synonyms for “feeling like”

Words To Use Instead of "Look"

Words to Use Instead Of...(beautiful, interesting, good, awesome, cute, shy)

Said is dead

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🔠Vocab Lists

Nervous Tension Vocab

Kiss Scene Vocab

Fight Scene Vocab

Haunted House Inspo & Vocab

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👁️‍🗨️Setting & Description

Common Scenery Description Tips

2012 School Setting Vibes - follower question

Describing Food in Writing

Describing Cuts, Bruises and Scrapes

Using Description and Setting Meaningfully

How Different Types of Death Feel

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🗡️Weapons & Fighting Series:

Writing Swords

Writing knives and daggers

Writing Weapons (3): Staffs, Spears and Polearms

Writing Weapons (4): Clubs, Maces, Axes, Slings and Arrows

Writing Weapons (5): Improvised Weapons

Writing Weapons (6): Magical Weapons and Warfare

Writing Weapons (7): Unarmed Combat

Writing Female Fighters

Writing Male Fighters

Writing Armour

Writing Group Fights

Writing Battles At Sea

Erotic Tension in Fight Scenes

Pacing for Fight Scenes

Writing a Siege Warfare

Different Genres, Different Fight Scenes.

Making Fight Scenes Sound Nicer

Fight Scenes For Disabled Characters

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🌎Worldbuilding

Constructing a Fictional Economy

Homosexuality in Historical Fiction

Writing Nine Circles of Hell

Writing Seven Levels of Heaven

Master List of Superpowers

Magic System Ideas 

A Guide to Writing Cozy Fantasy

Dark Fantasy How-To

Dark Fantasy Writing Prompts

Dark, Twisted Fairytale Prompts

Fantasy World Cultural Quirks 

Fantasy Nobel Ranks: A List

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🌠Symbolism in Writing

Plant Symbolisms 

Weather Symbolisms

Symbols of Death

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🪄Writing Magic

Writing Magicians - the basics

Writing Magic Systems

Magical Training Options for Your Characters

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📋Other!

List of Fantasy Subgenres

Beauty is Terror: A List

The Pirate's Glossary

Storyediting Questions to Ask

Writing Multiple WIPs Simultaneously

Idea Generation Exercises for the Writer

Book Title Ideas

Picking the Right Story For You

What If God Dies in Your Story 

International Slang, Slang, Slang!

10 Great Love Opening Lines 

How to Insult Like Shakespeare

Serial Killer Escape Manual

Best Picrew Character Generators for Your Characters!

How to Write Faster

My average writing experience:

"Alright I think I'm almost done actually-"

*Google doc grows second health bar and a choir starts singing in latin*

The life cycle of a chronically ill aspiring author

Aka: me rn 👁💧👄💧👁

Me: *on tumblr, minding my business*

My next chapter, sitting unfinished:

Reblog the writers’ fortune cookie for luck!

Me because my wally drabble now has 2000 words and I’m thinking about splitting it into 2 parts bc no ones gonna spend a full hour reading that shit

My average writing experience:

"Alright I think I'm almost done actually-"

*Google doc grows second health bar and a choir starts singing in latin*

I've been making a series I hope to post on YouTube. I won't go into detail but y'know I think it's cool. Anyway it's really just a me and a few friends project. I'm writing the scripts and doing the animation (yes it's animated) while also voice acting like 14 characters. My friend is voice acting the rest and will be helping with the editing. Anyway that's just exposition for the funny part of the post.

My friend was asking me where as this was going and I vaguely described the season 1 ending to them. They asked for specifics and stuff and I was just sitting there like, "Mx. do you think I know the specifics? I'm as in the dark as you are! I start writing and shit happens. Until we get to the one scene that inspired my writing trip I do not know shit until I edit it! We'll find out together! :)"

So yeah that's my writing process, what's yours? It's probably less chaaotic is what I would say if I didn't know what writers are like.

dreamy/physcedelic atmospheres, descriptions of cake omg, unlikeable narrators, flowery af prose, sexy skies, gritty alleyways with prowling raccoons, platonic love, sisterhood, isolated individuals who ramble about vague philosphical concepts and art,,,,,

attention writers

i’m very curious about this so reblog in the tags with the recurring things in your wips that make up your Writer Brand™

👹💁

Some truths about the publishing industry because I certainly got blindsided when going in. Now I'm so broken by this industry I struggle to encourage aspiring writers lmao

Writing Character Accents in Fiction

Hey there, thanks for the question! I speak English as a second language; most English speakers I encounter aren’t native (yes, including fictional people); thus, this is a concern I’ve explored personally when I write. 

I think the core principle regarding accent writing is this: it shouldn’t be distracting. 

For the same reasons why Stephen King prescribes the basic dialogue tag “said” rather than fancier alternatives like “whispered”, “shouted” or “screeched”, dialogue must be first and foremost easy to read. It must flow like a real conversation – the pace and tone are a lot more important than how specific words are being pronounced by the character. 

Focus on what effect the accent has:

Using adjectives to describe their voice in general. Different types of English (American, British, Australian, etc.) will give off a different vibe, also partly dependent on how your character speaks in general:

Lilting: Having a smooth rise and falling quality; sing-song like. Welsh accent is often described as singing. 

Posh: from a high social class. This is the term generally used to describe the upper-class British accent.

Nasal: this happens when the sound goes through somebody’s nose when they’re speaking. North American accents are more nasal than, say, British pronunciations. 

Brash: harsh, loud, indicative of sounding a little rude. 

Slur: speaking indistinctly; words merging into one another.

Using metaphors.

Her voice was cotton and fluffy clouds. 

When he spoke, the ‘r’s scratched the insides of his throat. 

Mentioning their accent with a brief example(s). 

“Would you like to drink some wine?” she said, though her Indian accent gave extra vibration to her ‘w’s and ‘r’s, making the words sound more like ‘vould you like to drrrink some vine’.

“I want some chocolate.” His syllables were choppy and ‘l’s rather flat, saying ‘cho-ko-lit’. 

Some Tips:

Don’t phonically spell out everything. Perhaps give a few examples in the beginning, but stick to standard English spellings. 

Pay attention to word choice, slang, and colloquialisms. 

An Australian person would say “tram”, not “trolley; “runners” instead of “sneakers”

A Canadian may refer to a “fire hall” – what Americans call a firehouse or fire station

If your character comes from a non-Enligsh background:

Use vocabulary from other languages. 

“What time was the exam, ah? Two o’clock? Jiayou!” → putting “ah” or “la” at the end of sentences + Jiayou means “break a leg” in Singlish. 

“I can’t believe that 4-year-olds have their own SNS accounts now.” → “SNS” is short for “social networking service”, a term used to refer to social media in Korea. This would a subtle difference – even though it isn’t technically Korean at all!

Transpose grammar from different languages. 

For example, in French, plural nouns take plural adjectives (whereas in English, you would speak of ‘white cars’, not ‘whites cars’).

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* . ───

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deepsea au so far

ok so, I've been having trouble with the premise of this au for quite a bit now. But I think I may have something I'm a little happy with! (yayyy) so erm let me know yalls thoughts on this ^U^ -shortly after president Jimble's election, Blingo was able to rise to power as a dictator, increasing tensions between nations -eventually this leads to threats of nuclear warfare so devastating that the government issues a program to evacuate as many people into recycled submarines and remain deep underwater -despite everything, the Smiling Friends charity is still up and running. Which makes sense, a lot of people need it now more than ever before. But it's not just that; in a way, the job of making people smile gives the four of them a sense of normalcy -one day their submarine gets stuck or lost (maybe both) regardless they're all stranded -but little do they all know, they aren't alone

The writing process seems counterintuitive to me. It makes more sense to start writing, then edit to make things fit. College teaches you that you should plan and do the opposite, organize first then write.

Is there a writing process that better fits neurodivergent brains? College makes me feel broken sometimes.

Day 44 (1:20) of rewriting my novel

Today I didn't log many words, but that's ok.

Today I continued my journey in writing Part Three in reverse. Instead of writing the long, boring car scene, I skip to the good part-making the plan to convince Governor Bunthun to help, only to have the plan ripped away violently from underneath the New Heroes. Classic storytelling, but interesting nonetheless.

I don't know why, but the idea of post-novel canon has been living in my head rent-free. Like, I think I know how I want the rest of the novel to go:

the Coalition grows in number,

they take Ir Nouzonif only to find that President Sluwfa has run off with the remaining two Old Heroes' magics,

Izi and Tagif go and stop President Sluwfa while Hota and Lozef remain to keep the remains of Ir Nouzonif stable,

and Izi and Tagif return and restore the Old Heroes, balancing Magic and bringing Meiste back to having a physical representation when They want it (don't ask.)

The outcome of all this is a couple things:

A bunch of power-hungry warlords control most of the Old Confederacy

The situation in Odapir is particularly dire, considering the country will have been in full-blown civil war for several weeks.

But, as of right now, I'm not sold on writing a sequel.

Writing process taglist: @oldfashionedidiot

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Worldbuilding has my brain ping-ponging around with ideas. I've gone from space pirates, to monarchies, to fleet creation. 14-year-old me would be so proud.

character design is hard because I want it to be complex but simple - why so hard

Make your own galaxy, I said. It'll be fun, I said.

aka I've been numbering sectors and solar systems for a couple days now

Tolkien is seen as this great inventory of worldbuilding, and my man was literally just taking mythology from other places and slapping new names on it.

I'm reading a Tolkien encyclopedia (yes, I am that type of nerd), and half of his mythology is just revised Norse myth and I am here for it.

In short, don't be afraid to take the stories that have been told for centuries and revise it into something new and fresh. That is what literature is all about.

love that I can crank out 2k words for a random word prompt but can’t write 200 words for my actual book

Here’s one of the alphabets I created for my sci-fi/fantasy world of Atelis.

This is the Core Language used by the four Core planets of the Raylosian Warrior Order (RWO). I based it off of several little symbols I’ve used for years. The first one was the “e” based off the family crest idea I had for my main character, Aisne Etorna. Because I hate the design (lol), I’ve scrapped it, but decided to flip it on its side to keep the idea there. The vibe is based of the A symbol I have for “Atelis.”

As this is the main language for the RWO, I wrote out the motto and the creed for the organization:

"The Raylosian Warrior Order" "Motto: On the authority of the great creator Raylos, the Raylosian Warrior Order protects and contains Crux Asteria’s magic in the pursuit of peace, knowledge, and freedom."

"Magic at our Core, Courage in our Hearts"

I had a lot of fun with this and ended up creating a second alphabet for the Cloranus Empire. I definitely might make more, but I at least wanted an alphabet! Worldbuilding is so much fun :)

(also if I made a couple mistakes, no I didn't lol)