You Don’t Suck At Lineart, You’re Just Not Familiar With Line Weight👍🏼!

How to write the passage of time

Time is a crucial element in writing that shapes the narrative. From linear progression, to flashbacks and foreshadowing, it gives you complete control of how your story unfolds.

Here are some tips to describe the passage of time to make your narratives more compelling.

Use the natural world

Describe the changing seasons

Show plant growth and death

Visualise the ebb and flow of tides

Describe the decomposition of flora and fauna

Describe the ways that landscapes change on long journeys

Use the weather to illustrate time jumps

Illustrate the affect that shifting shadows have on a location

Use heavenly bodies like stars, the rise and set of the sun, and phases of the moon

Describe physical activities

Show family gatherings and how they change over the years

Describe the process of finishing a creative pursuit

Create repetitive activities and routines

Have a character engage in an activity, like gardening, that visually changes

Have your characters learn a new skill

Write a change in location that requires a journey to get from point A to point B

Use your setting's seasonal celebrations to illustrate a time shift for individual characters and their world

Use sound

Describe the ticking of clocks

Have your characters' voice change with their age

Illustrate changing musical styles

Have your characters improve an audible skill like singing, swordplay, or learning a musical instrument

Show a character's conversational style changing as they grow

Use the sounds of nature, like leaves becoming brittle as they crunch underfoot, or rain turning into storms

Use silence to illustrate it getting late

Describe objects

Have food left out go mouldy

Illustrate buildings and settings being overtaken by nature

Show the lifecycle of a family heirloom

Describe textiles fading and degrading over time

Describe the freshness of paint; is it wet and glistening, or cracked and dry?

Illustrate technological change and advancement

Describe the repairs in a beloved object

Show a common object like a pencil to describe how it changes with use

Some of my writer’s block cures:

Handwrite. (If you already are, write in a different coloured pen.)

Write outside or at a different location.

Read.

Look up some writing prompts.

Take a break. Do something different. Comeback to it later.

Write something else. (A different WIP, a poem, a quick short story, etc.)

Find inspiring writing music playlists on YouTube. (Themed music, POV playlists, ambient music, etc.)

Do some character or story prompts/questions to get a better idea of who or what you’re writing.

Word sprints. Set a timer and write as much as you can. Not a lot of time to overthink things.

Set your own goals and deadlines.

Write another scene from your WIP. (You don’t have to write in order.) Write a scene you want to write, or the ending. (You can change it or scrap it if it doesn’t fit into your story later.)

Write a scene for your WIP that you will never post/add to your story. A prologue, a different P.O.V., how your characters would react in a situation that’s not in your story, a flashback, etc.

Write down a bunch of ideas. Things that could happen, thing that will never happen, good things, bad things.

Change the weather (in the story of course.)

Feel free to add your own.

I spent last night looking at Neocities sites and here are my takeaways:

There's a real push to keeping the internet weird, open and less corporate-driven -- info on bypassing paywalls, protecting your data, archiving web media and basic coding/tech literacy.

(I found one tutorial on how to make a pop up that detects whether someone has an ad blocker and suggests they install one if they don't! Love that.)

There's also resources on finding the kind of internet that isn't the default experience anymore - alternate search engines I hadn't even heard of, human-made link lists and webrings. (Webrings! Turns out they never went away!)

If any of that sounds interesting to you, by the way - sadgrl.online has a lot of it and is possibly the best thing on the internet????

The "90's web" aesthetic is really fun and nostalgic, but I particularly loved seeing some people bring the better parts of the "modern internet" into it. What if we had weird, eye-searing personal sites BUT with plaintext alternatives for accessibility purposes? CW for flashing lights and unreality triggers?

(Again sadgrl comes in with a lot of resources for making your website accessible.)

Most of all, I'm honestly emotional about all the sites I found that were like, "hi! I'm 14 and this is my website where I talk about stuff I like haha."

It's so good that so many kids and teens who never experienced the "old internet" are still finding stuff like this and making their own weird stuff! Not just because weird websites are more fun, but because these skills are being passed down.

Anyway it's great and who knows maybe I'll make my own site sometime to keep horror media recommendations or something.

Seven years after, I see you again 😚

Applying for jobs is a hell designed specifically to torment autistic people. Here is a well-paying task which you know in your heart and soul if they just gave you a desk and left you alone and allowed you to do it you would sit there and be more focused and enthusiastic and excellent at it than anyone else in the building. However, before they allow you to perform the task, you must pass through 3-4 opaque social crucibles where you must wear uncomfortable clothes and make eye contact while everyone expects you to lie, but not too much (no one is ever clear exactly how much lying is expected, “over” honesty is however penalized). You are being judged almost entirely on how well you understand these very specific and unclear rules that no one has explained. None of this has anything to do with your ability to perform the desired task.

How to make characters that start a story off dead feel real.

Name them- this is the bare minimum

Happy memories- what did this person mean to those they had relationships with? These little details contextualize your living characters and who they are as people.

Identity- who was this person outside of these relationships?

Agency- give them a last action related, but more personal simply dying. For example, taking a bullet, giving one last piece of advise, leaving a scar on their killer's face, telling a joke, or even just figuring out a plot to kill them and doing something about.

In conclusion, characters who start a story off dead should mean something besides making a reader's feel sympathy for another character. Death is a big deal, and neglecting this reality can mess with a reader's suspension of disbelief, even for characters the reader will never truly meet. Having bits and pieces of a dead character feels more real because it mimics that experience of getting to know a person through their family and friends or reading a diary of a person long dead.

both drawn to life books are free to read on archive.org?? and downloadable as pdf???? what!! YO HOLY SHIT

a coworker yesterday was asking me about these behind my chair, and gun to my head, if you asked me what was the single best drawing book of all time -- it'd be these. there's a reason i keep them in irl arm's length.

not to toot my horn but i get a lot of comments about "believable life"/body language in my drawings, and i owe that to this book. Walt Stanchfield -the author- was one of the main mentors to a ton of the rennaisance era disney animators (Glen Keane, Musker, Deja, etc). this guy understands both the kinectic sense of how bodies move and squish/stretch, and how people "act", and composition/silhouette, and is honestly just a thoroughly decent dude.

some screenshots!

take it.

do you know of any clothing brands that are for plus sized men? pretty much all the articles ive seen talking about "the BEST plus sized brands!!!" are basically exclusively womens clothing brands

So true!! I’m glad you asked! Here are some stores I found for plus sized men’s clothing!

bearskn

Chubstr

King Size

Gc2b - plus size binders!

ASOS

Big Boy Season 365

Boohoo Men’s

Bonobos

DXL

Target

Johnny Bigg

SHEIN Men’s

Limitless XL

Old Navy

Wrangler

Bad Rhino

Hot take: Actual literary analysis requires at least as much skill as writing itself, with less obvious measures of whether or not you’re shit at it, and nobody is allowed to do any more god damn litcrit until they learn what the terms “show, don’t tell” and “pacing” mean.