Writing Drabbles Isn't Enough I Need To SEE The Characters Do The Things

fuck dude I'm so sad tn . anyway jack doesn't know how to grieve ... both his parents died when he was too young to grieve ... he didn't understand that was how it worked yet . when jack lost his father, he just kept moving ... that's what he always told him to do. 'don't worry, my boy, don't worry. just keep moving. never stop moving, boy. you hear me?'

jack keeps moving. he moves and moves and moves until Davey stops him like a brick wall. one night, davey hugs him just right and jack dissolves. all of a sudden, davey feels tears soaking through his shirt, and feels jack sob. he hugs jack tighter . everything rushes back to jack. the warmth of his little bedroom, his dad's cooking. he never knew his mom, but his dad was better than jack thinks a mom could have ever been.

all of a sudden, jack realises that his father is gone. forever. he died almost 9 years ago.

and fuck, jack never stopped moving for long enough to realise.

most writing advice is good as long as you know why it is good, at which point it is also bad. the hardest thing (and most precious thing) about being an artist is that you gotta learn how to take critique. i don't mean "just shut up and accept that people hate your work," i mean you need to learn what the critique is saying and then figure out if it actually helps.

i usually tell people reading my work: "i'm collecting data, so everything is useful." i ask them where they put the book down, even though it's too long for most people to read in 1 sitting. i ask them what they thought of certain characters. i let them tell me it was really good but i like it more when they look a little stunned and say i forgot i was reading your book, which means they forgot i exist, which is very good news.

sometimes people i didn't ask will read my work and tell me i don't like it. and that is okay, you don't have to like it. but i look at the thing that they don't like and try to figure out if i care. i don't like that you don't capitalize. this one is common, and i have already thought about it. i do not care, it's because of chronic pain and frankly i like the little shape of small letters. you use teeth and ribs in all your work. actually that is very true. i don't know what's up with that. next time i will work to figure out a different word, thank you. you're whiny, go outside. someone said that to me recently and it made me laugh. i am on the whine-about-it website as an internet poet. you are in my native habitat, watching me perform a natural enrichment behavior. but i like the dip of whiny, how the word itself does "whine" (up/down, the sound out your nose on the y), but i don't know if i want to feel whiny. maybe next time i will work on it being melancholy, like what you would call a male writer's poetry.

repeated "good" advice clangs in a bell and doesn't hold a real shape, dilutes in the water. like sometimes you will hear "don't use said." you turn that around in your head and it bounces off the edges of your brain like it is a dvd screensaver. it isn't bad advice, but it feels wrong somehow, like saying easy choices are illegal! sometimes i will only use "said." sometimes i will just kick dialogue tags out to the trash. sometimes i make little love poems where the fact that i do not say "said" is very bad, and makes you feel bad in your body, because someone didn't say something. i am a contrary little shitbird, i guess.

but it is also good advice, actually. it is trying to say that "said" sometimes is clutter. it makes new writers think about the very-small words and very-small choices, because actually your work matters and wordchoice matters. "i know," you said. "i know," you sighed. "i know." we both know but neither of us use a dialogue tag, because we are in a contemporary lit piece.

it is too-small to say don't use said. but it is a big command, so it gets your attention. what are you relying on? what easy choices do you make? when you edit, do you choose the same thing? can you make a different choice? sometimes we need the blankness of said, how it slides into the background. sometimes we don't.

i usually say best advice is to read, but i also mean read books you don't like, because that will make you angry enough to write your own book. i also mean read good books, which will break your heart and remind you that you are a very small person and your voice is a seashell. i also mean you need to eat books because reading a book is a writer's version of studying.

my creative writing teacher in the 7th grade had a big red list of no! words and on it was SUNSET. RAZORS. LOVE. GALAXY. DEATH. BLOOD. PAIN. I liked that razor and love were tucked next to each other like birds, and found it funny that he believed we were too young to know the weight of razor in the context of pain. i hated him and his Grateful Dead belt, where the colored teddy bears held up his appraisal of us. i hated his no list. it is very good/bad advice. i wasn't old enough yet to know that when you are writing about death you are also writing about sunsets and when you write about love you are tucking yourself into a napkin that never stops folding.

back then my poetry was all bloody, dripped with agony when you picked it up. i didn't know there is nothing beautiful about a razor, nothing exciting about pain. i just understood sharpness, which he took to mean i understood nothing. i wrote the razor down and it wasn't easy, but it was necessary. that's what i'm saying - sometimes it's good advice, because it's not always necessary. and sometimes it is very bad advice, because writing about it is lifesaving.

hang on my dog was just having a nightmare. i heard that it is a rule not to write about dogs - in my creative writing mfa, my teacher rolled her eyes and said everyone writes a dead dog. the literature streets are littered in canine bodies. i watched the rise and fall of his ribs (there is that word again) and had to reach out and stop the bad dream. when he woke up he didn't recognize me, and he was afraid.

it is good/bad advice to say that poems and writing have to mean something. it is bad/good advice to say they're big feelings in small packages. it is better advice to say that when my dog saw where he was, he relaxed immediately, rubbed his face against me. someone on instagram would make fun of that moment by writing their "internet poetry" as a sentence that tumbles across a white page: outside it is sunset and my dog is still in a gutter, bleeding a galaxy out of his left paw. or maybe it would be: i woke the dog up/the dog forgot i loved him/and i saw the shape of a senseless/and impossible pain.

the dog is alive in this one, and he is happy. when i tell you i love you, i know what i said. write what you need to write, be gentle to yourself about it. the advice is only as good as far as it helps. the rest is just fencing. take stock of the boundaries, and then break them. there's always somewhere else you could be growing.

i love you, keep going.

Davey trying to sell newspapers

little miss “goes on a writing spree for a day or two, publishing a bunch of stuff, and then can’t write for nearly a week”

Cuddle Buddies 💕

They’re so important to me!! 😫🫂

WAHHHHH

i feel like every newsies fan headcanons every newsie as autistic or adhd (or both)

newsies cookies

hello tumblr. i go to a school and that school is happening to be doing newsies for this year’s musical!!

i’m planning to make cookies (mainly sugar) so if anyone has ideas for newsies themed cookies that’d be cool and i’d love to hear them <3

hi !

this is so random but can you write abt ralbert?? like literally anything ralbert, i need more fuel for headcannons :3

RALBERT!!!!!! I LOVE RALBERT!!!!!!!

teehee I wrote this in a moment of yearning, sorry it's so short :(

'Albert, seriously.' Race sounds exasperated, holding Albert's left hand gingerly with his own, holding a torn up shirt in the other.

'I'm sorry, okay?' Albert mumbles over his shoulder, away from Race. 'You don't have to wrap my hands.' He sucks in a breath as coarse fabric tightens against his bloodied knuckles.

'You don't have to get in fights protecting people who don't need protecting.' Race glances up at Albert under his cap, eyes hard and cold.

Albert stares back, trying to give his coldest look. But he winces when Race turns his hand over, so his knuckles are resting on Race's warm palm. The sensation hurts, but it's welcome. Race ties the fabric around Albert's wrist, and gently puts his hand down, picking up the other one, dripping blood on Albert's shorts.

'But he called you bad things.' Albert says quietly, scrunching his left hand up. 'He called Jack bad things. He called the newsies bad things.'

'That doesn't mean you should beat him up.' Race says sharply, pulling the fabric a little too taut around Albert's knuckles. 'We can protect ourselves.'

Albert looks away. 'But I care. About you and Jack and the newsies. How else am I meant to show that I care?'

Race ties the fabric around Albert's hand, finishing the wrap. He puts his other hand on top of Albert's, like a sandwich. 'You feel this, Albert? You feel my hands, and how warm they are? That means I care. Soft touches mean you care, not hurting ones.'

Albert bites his lip. Soft touches. When was the last time Albert felt a soft touch?

Race puts his hand up to Albert's cheek, rubs his thumb over the bump of an old scar. 'Soft touches mean I love you, Albert. Soft touches mean I love you no matter what you do or what happens.' He chuckles a little. 'That doesn't mean I condone you beating up Oscar Delancey for almost no reason.'

Albert smiles softly, before wrapping Race in a tight hug.

It feels nice.

Albert hasn't hugged or been hugged in probably years. He feels his insides melt with comfort as Race reciprocated the hug, rubbing Albert's back and tightening his grip around Albert's middle.

Soft touches mean I love you.

Hello! :D

I’m sending a message to a bunch of my mutuals, because I want you to know that you’re positively amazing! You were one of my first mutuals, and it’s such an honor to me! Your writing is absolutely inspiring and just so great, and I love interacting with you and reading your fics!!!

A reminder- never give up, because you’re a bright light in the darkness and every second this world has you in it is a blessing!!! <3

NAWWWWWW THANK YOU ANON!!!!!! i needed this :( and to anybody else who might need to hear it, you are truly appreciated and I love u ... from the bottom of my heart I really do .....