Franz Kafka, Letters To Milena // Alain De Botton, Essays In Love // Eden Robinson, "Writing Prompts

I lived above a Domino’s and I can confirm they are demons! The back entrance of my house was the same as the back entrance to the shop. It consisted of an alleyway where the lights were always flickering (even if we had just changed the lightbulb). There was a stone building in the corner, without a roof, but the door was locked. Things I found in this alleyway include but are not limited to:  1) Two tarot cards 2) A red toy car ln which a three year old could ride around  3) Three dead birds, evenly spread over the length of the alley  4) A silver charm with a card tied to it, proclaiming it a ‘guardian angel’ (the day after the birds)  5) My own bike, but turned upside down The building was also right in front of a nunnery-turned-student-housing. There was an old couch in the front yard, but I never saw a single student go in or out. Next to it was a big old house with a pointy roof and curtained windows that looked less like a place for demons and more like a vampire home. I am fairly certain the birds and the guardian angel where the signs of some ongoing war. 

omg so yesterday i put a salt line on the pathway to our front door because i was fucking around and my brother was pretending to be a demon

and today we ordered pizza and the salt line was still there

and my brother went outside to sign for the pizza

and the pizzaman refused to step over the salt line, like he almost did and then he backed up and handed my bro the pizza and left; which is pretty ridiculous because it’s far from our door

so a heads up to everyone i’m pretty sure domino’s is actually run by demons??? kind of like how in men in black the post office is run by aliens

If you want a poem.

Reblog this, and I’ll send you one.

Here is an aesthetic for Noah, composer and murder suspect, by @thewriterandthestoryteller. I hope you like it! 

I have ephita! These small rodent-like creatures (except for their beak) have the ability to read the desires of other nearby creatures. That’s how they sense hungry predators! 

I have fjordans! They are somewhat like horses, but thinner and longer, with scales on their bellies and instead of manes. They can run incredibly fast! The little ‘wings’ on their legs help them decrease speed dramatically within seconds. Their nickname ‘cliffdiver’ stems from the fact that wild fjordans can be seen sprinting towards cliff endings. They will stop at the last moment, making it look like they are intending to jump.

 I have wren! I have mooncats (spoiler alert: they are nothing like cats)! I have coulags and sentri!  

I think the world needs more fantasy novels with completely made up animals. No more “horses.” No more “rabbits.” Deer can stay but ONLY if they’re weird. All wolves must have wings, NO exceptions. No more laziness, its time to Make Shit Up. I expect your heroes to be riding scaly civets with antlers by midnight. I demand a survey of wildlife in the nearby forest that leaves me with no idea what a single word you said meant. I want CREATURES WITH FUNKY NAMES THAT YOU MADE UP OUT OF YOUR OWN HEAD. I want to be UNABLE TO PRONOUNCE THEM. I want all of your RODENTS to be POISONOUS for NO REASON. I deeply desire GIANT BIRDS. I hereby sentence you to five hours on Wikipedia reading about the Carboniferous period and hydrothermal vents.

If you can’t be creative, at least reskin some dinosaurs. It’s time to decide what kind of man you are—the kind that would let his evil overlord ride a tyrannosaurus, or a coward.

I haven’t written in months. Mental health combined with a lost story ruined my joy in it. But today I’ve been writing again, and I can’t say how great it is to dive back into a story.  I really wanna vent about this new gang of desperate, lovable human beings. 

Thanks so so much, @siljehawthorne! This is the most perfect thing ever, I’m crying. The pictures, the coloring... it feels so much like Tungsten. I’m IN LOVE. Thanks so much again <3

OC Moodboard for @everywriterneedsfanart

Tungsten

Why do you study history

25 Writing Questions

Tagged by the amazing @ally-thorne. Thanks!

1. Is there a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason? Apart from a few vague ideas, I'm holding off two major ones at the moment. I don't want to let them interfere with my current WIP.

2. What work of yours, if any, are you embarrassed about existing? Not many, actually. I've written a lot of bad stuff, (I'm still writing a lot of bad stuff), but that's how a writers grows. What I ám embarrased about is that I've allowed some people back then to read those pieces. Grown up people. Who knew full well how awful it was.

3. What order do you write in? Front of book to back? Chronological? Favorite scenes first? Something else? I mostly write from start to finish – not a chronological line per se, but the order in which I want my readers to read it. Sometimes I jot down little things for future scenes, but I don't fully write them till I reach the right point in the story.

4. Favorite character you’ve written? This is damn near impossible, but I think at least one of my favorites is Frank, a character from the only novel-lenght story I ever finished, called The Seasonschildren. He is gentle and stubborn in his beliefs and he tries so hard to fight in all the little ways for his great cause. He wants to keep all his loved ones safe, but he also feels so much pressure to keep all other people safe. I think he's one of the most human characters I've written, a balans of bad and good that turned out real well.

5. Character you were most surprised to end up writing? The Clockworker surprised me. He’s another characters from The Seasonschildren. The work is set partly during World War II, something I didn't expect to write in general, since I don't generally like war stories. He's not sympathetic and quite a bad father (though he tries, in his own way), and he doesn't grow in that aspect. He became a fascination to me.   

6. Something you would go back and change in your writing that it’s too late / complicated to change now If I am convinced it should be changed, I change it, no matter how much work it is (or I lose interest in the story altogether). Right now, I am considering wether or not I should get rid of one of the characters in my current WIP.

7. When asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write? I used to be embarrased (really embaressed, I actually hid the fact that I wrote completely till I was fourteen), but now I'm enthusiastic! Especially in college, where I am surrounded by people who love art and creativity, and who genuinly want to hear about it.

8. Favorite genre to write Fantasy and childrens literature will always have a special place in my heart.

9. What, if anything, do you do for inspiration? I mostly try to find places with a good view to sit, and I listen a lot of music that makes me feel things. Sometimes I rewatch scenes from movies or series.

10. Write in silence or with background music? Alone or with others? Silence and background music are both fine, it depends on my mood and what I am writing. I always write alone, thought I sometimes do so surrounded by others (during lectures, for example).

11. What aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing? The first story I wrote was this: 'Kees wanted a chicken. He did not get a chicken. He did get a cat. He plays with the cat.' My plotting stayed somewhat the same, but I'd say I'm more creative with words now.

12. Your weaknesses as an author? I'm not that good at plot, and I can never finish a single thing.

13. Your strengths as an author? I like playing with words, which I think strengtens my descriptions. And I can create likable characters (I hope).

14. Do you make playlists for your work? No.

15. Why did you start writing? Well, the first time I ever wrote a story I was four, so I don't know. But when it moved from something all kids do to something that felt special to me, I think it was the need to escape and the need to explore. I was eleven, I disliked my life and I wanted to go on adventures.  

16. Are there any characters who haunt you? I've got some characters that have been with me for years, even though I still haven't written their stories. And their are characters types I somehow always end up writing, like two young kids, a shy boy and an adventurious girl. They come around in my work in different forms fairly often.

17. If you could give your fledgling author self any advice, what would it be? I am still a fledgling author, but I would advise myself not to be ashamed so much, and just enjoy having a passion. Let go of that perfection.

18. Were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? What were they? I have this thing were I can copy a style pretty easily, but only just after reading it. It doesn't stick. I think my style is a combination of hundreds of books.

19. When it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, etc.? Endless lists, fifteen documents, drawing with colours and arrows.

20. Do you write in long sit-down sessions or in little spurts? Either, depending how much time I've got.

21. What do you think when you read over your older work? Most of it makes me cringe. I used to be horribly pretentious. But cringing means you've gotten better, right?

22. Are there subjects that make you uncomfortable to write? Among the things I actually want to write about, I mostly struggle with representing minorties that I do not belong do. I think it's hugely important to be diverse, but I' scared as hell of doing it wrong. So I tend to ask around a lot.

23. Any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped your writing? Maybe my dad? He loves fantasy and he's got a lot of swords, and he knows material arts. So I learned some usefull fighting techniques at young age and I could get easy information/access to swords.  

24. Have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story? I always do a lot of research, so now I know, among other things, how to built a clock, the etiquettes of duelling and ervything about being epileptic in 1800.

25. Copy / paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of.

Most of my scenes I only like in context of the full story, or because they sound nice (but I write in Dutch, so these are hard to translate). I guess I like this bit: 'Look, growing up with four brothers and sisters, you learn at a very young age that your toys are never yours. Sooner or later they are going to be broken by someone who shouldn't have had his hands on them in the first place. Same goes for your plans, mate. Someone will always fuck it up, no matter how many times you lock the door. You just gotta glue the arms were the legs are supposed to be and laugh about it.' I'll tag @sancta-silje, @gracebabcockwrites, @create-and-procrastinate, @dreamsofbooksandmonsters and @anightravensecho. Only if you guys want to!

Summer update

Tomorrow, I am leaving to enjoy a three week holiday, with a notebook, but without internet. I will be out of reach for a while, but do keep sending me messages and requests! Everything I have received so far has made me very happy, and I do believe it will continue that way :D. When I get back, I’ll start with the first in line. Have a great summer, everybody!

10 Questions

Thanks so much for tagging me, @authorisada! I've been gaining a lot of new followers lately (yay!), so this is a good moment to talk some more about my WIP ^^. 1. Tell me something you love about your current WIP(s). I enjoy the sense of discovery I feel when writing this story. It had been a while since I had written any fantasy, and only now I notice how much I have missed it. The adventure, the magic, the feeling that everything is possible... Plus I really love the 1800's, so doing all kind of research on that period is very inspiring.

2. Three of your characters are coming with you on a road trip. Who are they and why did you pick them? If I'm picking characters from Elementary, I'd choose Bismuth, Zinc and Mercury. Bismuth is a general sweetheart ánd very responsible, so he would take great care of us travelers. Zinc is an explorer from his toes to his fingertips. He would somehow feel exactly which road to take to find the prettiest and most lonesome places. And Mercury is just the kind of guy you need when you are lying on a car in the middle of the night, having eaten nothing but old sandwiches, looking at the stars, thinking about life.  

3. How do you name your characters? I either spend four weeks scrolling through every single page of behindthename.com without ever finding the right name and settling for the one I started with, or I know the name of my character immidiatly and without doubt. There's no in between.

4. Which relationship do you write more of—romantic or platonic? Platonic. You can prey the misfits-to-family-trope from my cold, dead hands.

5. Has your main character(s) gone through any major changes through the course of your WIP? I think Tungsten has become a lot stronger and more secure. Though he is and always will be introverted and shy, I think he and I both discovered with quite a bit of surprise that he has a core made of iron.

6. Which tropes, if you’re aware of any, are in your WIP? Well, there is the misfits-to-family trope that I mentioned earlier. There is also a pretty and dangerous women (more than one, actually), a main character with extraordinairy strong magic (though he seldomly uses it) and probably some real bad romance cliches (because I can't write love but I also feel the need to write gay stuff). And I'm sure there are a thousend more, but I'm trying.

7. Favorite hero from any book/movie/etc.? That's impossible! I've always loved Maggie, from Heart of Inkt, and Liesel (and Rudy, and Max, and I just really love this book) from The Bookthief. Cormoran Strike from The Cormoran Strike mysteries is also lovely.  

8. Favorite villain from any book/movie/etc.? Littlefinger from Game of Thrones is an absolutely horrifying and genius bad guy.

9. What’s your favorite part of the writing process? Editing, honestly. I love going over my work seventeen times, changes sentences over and over till they sound just right.

10. What makes your story different and compelling for readers? The characters, I think. I try to bring interesting, lovable characters with good intentions and many flaws. A friend once told me she could feel how much I cared in anything I wrote, and because of that, my work always felt warm. I thought that was very sweet and exactly what I am aiming for. I believe in mankind, as fucked up as it might be, and I hope I can make people fall in love with living and with humans just a little bit.

I don’t know who to tag, but the questions are great, so just fill them in if you feel like it!