My Mission, Should I Choose To Accept It, Is To Find Peace With Exactly Who And What I Am. To Take Pride

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.”

“He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.”

J.K. Rowling

“Anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve.”

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.”

“I would like to be remembered as someone who did the best she could with the talent she had.”

John Green

“What is the point of being alive if you don’t at least try to do something remarkable?”

“If you don’t imagine, nothing ever happens at all.”

“At some point, you just pull off the Band-Aid, and it hurts, but then it’s over and you’re relieved.”

“In spite of it all, hope is not misguided.”

Ernest Hemingway

“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”

“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places.”

“The first and final thing you have to do in this world is to last it and not be smashed by it.”

“Live the full life of the mind, exhilarated by new ideas, intoxicated by the Romance of the unusual.” 

Marilyn Monroe

“Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.” 

Dalai Lama

“Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.”

Unknown

“What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it.”

“Happiness is not the absence of problems, it’s the ability to deal with them.”

“Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it.”

“Adventure may hurt you, but monotony will kill you.”

inspiration

Happy Fan Fiction Author Appreciation Day!

Have you ever experienced the joys of producing something so magnificent, so utterly beautiful, or magical, and yet the journey to get to that point was filled with such a rollercoaster of emotions that you may or may not wish to attempt such a fate again?  Such dealings always begin with the happiest of emotions, maybe in the heat of the moment when passions run high and swift to capture the heart then suddenly those sentiments cool, even just a tad, leaving the bearer despondent that somehow, they had misjudged the narrative of actions.  But just as quickly as those concerns flood the mind, the bearer is taken again into the throes of an ardent love affair, recaptured by beautiful prose, and ready to ride this wave of ecstasy as far it would take them.

Be forewarned that while the idea of creation may be very attractive indeed, the journey produced by such an incident could lead one to many days or weeks of discomfort, followed by months of painstaking planning, and execution.  It is a laborious condition, you may scream and cry, you may laugh and shed more tears, the pain may be excruciating at times, and then fizzle away once you’ve made a break through and birth new life where once one never existed.  

If those aspects appear as ones you could live with then by all means I’d encourage you to jump right in because the end result will be one of the most satisfying accomplishments of your life but if something was to go wrong, it could also break your heart in two.  Fears of acceptance, judgments over your handiwork, is it beautiful or is it ugly, a masterpiece of conception or flawed from the moment it was given consideration? Will it fit into the framework of your genus or become an outcast with a dead lineage?  So many trepidations to consider, but again, if the perfect outcome is a possibility, the consummation and fulfillment of a life-long dream attainable, maybe momentary pains are not so much a hindrance to writing a brilliant novel.

To all those tireless writers who battle through research, writers block, and sleepless nights.  New writers to seasoned veterans, occasional writers to non-stop.  Shorts to novels.  From concept to completion you make us laugh and cry.  Who fill in plot holes left by canon, or take us to new worlds we never knew possible.  We love you and Thank you for doing what you do!

@keichanz @nalufever @impracticaldemon @bearpluscat @katana-no-neko @thewritingstar @akitokihojo @cstormsinukagblog @lacyjaybird @bmarvels @dark0angel13 @thegemibaby @rosechi @rougescribe @mushi9 @i-write-fanfics-to-procrastinate @hazel-got-fanfiction @bakugou-loving-hours @shadyhydrathesnekqueen @doginshoe @phoenix-before-the-flame @lovelyluce @fairywithajetblackheart @phoneboxfairy @moeruhoshi @mautrino @snowflakekitty-133 @craftyshipper @seehunnybees @mwub @dyaz-stories @xfangheartx @sugarpolis @rayhneatess @kaychawrites @thewritingorchid @bladerivalen @lost-echo1 @caandleworks @brokenangelwings83 @yukimcffblog @superfreakerz @bearandbirdfan @millennial-star-gazer @a-god-of-calamity @xambedo @angelhartsblog @tsukinohimeusagi  I can’t possibly tag everyone, but just know if you are a Writer this is for you :) and yes feel free to tag others and share the love

allroundlostcause said: 

My best advice would be to read, a lot, because reading is your fuel. Read critically. Read good stuff and bad stuff and decide what is distinct about them. When you read a sentence you love, write it out, analyse it, and ask yourself why it’s so precious. DON’T skim read; if you find yourself doing that, you’re missing too much. Read out loud instead.

Write drabbles (short scenes which might never make it into your writing) to explore characters. Ask yourself questions about them that you don’t need answers for in the book. Think about them. Are they a cat person or a dog person? It’s not enough to have the answer, you also need to know why. What drives them? What makes their voice unique?

You need to know what your characters want, and which of those desires matters for your story, and which of those desires is going to get in the way. If they want to be good but they’re ultimately selfish, when will that trip them up? If they want to be reckless but they crave security, how is this going to prevent them from doing what they have to?

When you read, consider what makes a character feel rounded out, and study story structure. Well-written stories often have a solid structure under them which is almost invisible until you think critically; but it drives tension and movement.

Last but definitely not least, have fun. Why don’t you like your writing? If you’re new to it, then it will come, with loads of practice (most of which never goes anywhere) and learning to love the process itself, the creation of worlds. If you’re not having fun, and if you don’t value the process, and crave the practice, you will probably never throw yourself into it in the way you need to to really get amazing at it.

Who are you and why are doing awake this early on a Saturday? Thank you for the addition, is better than the original answer.

Another advice coming from this: Your current mood will affect your writing, being in a bad/sad mood won’t help when writing a happy scene, unless it comes from nostalgia.

L.-

“Girls want a Superman, but they walk past a Clark Kent every day”

You fuckin CLOWNS think you’re a CLARK KENT? Not on my fuckin watch. You dumb, headass motherfuckers are barely a Guy Gardner and you think you’re a CLARK KENT? The amount of disrespect is unreal.

Giveaway Contest: Thanks to the generosity of @harperperennial, we’re giving away all eight of the new, limited edition 2016-17 Harper Perennial Olive Editions! Won’t these look lovely on your shelf? :D To win these books, you must: 1) be following macrolit on Tumblr (yes, we will check. :P), and 2) reblog this post. We will randomly choose a winner on December 15, at which time we’ll start a new giveaway. And yes, Harper Perennial has agreed to make this an International giveaway! Easy, right? Good luck!

Happy International Women’s Day!

“The women we honor today teach us three very important lessons. One, that as women, we must stand up for ourselves. The second, as women, we must stand up for each other. And finally, as women, we must stand up for justice for all.” ― Michelle Obama

I’m looking forward to the day where I can be that cliche girl that studies and gets shit done in a coffee shop or library, with my head always in a book and daydreams filling my head. Just imagine. A cup of coffee to the left, books stacked high beside you, knowing you’ve accomplished so many things, and that feeling that you’re finally getting somewhere. And you’re okay for once in your life. You’re okay.

So.

As you might imagine, my inboxes have been flooded over the last few days.  My fic represents, for a lot of people, either their start in Avengers fandom, or the safe place they retreat to when the angst and infighting and shipwars got too intense.  Which I get, and I appreciate, and I’m so glad if my old fics can give people a little happiness, even after all this time.

But there’s a thread I keep picking up in comments, that kind of worries me.

That things that happened in the MCU have taken the fandom away from them.  That the way things happened in Endgame have left people distraught, or angry, or just grieving.  And a lot of people have worried that they’ve ‘lost’ these characters.

And look.

Look.

I say this as a fandom old.  I say this as someone who reads comics.  Who came from the Trek fandom.  Who’s lived through bad movie adaptations and subpar ghostwriters and writing staff changes that have destroyed tv shows before they had a chance to really fly.

Don’t let canon take anything away from you.

You can be disappointed in a thing.  You can have your heart broken by a writer.  You can hope against hope that something that means the world to you will be ‘true,’ but don’t let a corporation take your heroes away from you.

Every one of us has to pick and choose what we keep and what we leave behind.  But every single version of Captain America has been fanfiction since Jack Kirby and Joe Simon put their pens down.  He’s owned by a corporation, and they can decide what’s on screen, who gets paid to write him, who gets the big platform.  They get to decide canon.

But canon is meaningless.

Canon is a way to win an argument in a bar or in a schoolyard.  It’s knowing publication dates and issue numbers and who wrote what arc and when the reboots happened.  It exists.

But when I think of Hawkeye, canon is only part of the picture.  I do think of Matt Fraction’s run on the comics.  I do think of those early years, sneaking my brother’s issues of West Coast Avengers.  I think of the weird, wild, off beat run of Secret Avengers.  But I also think of @dr-kara’s art of him.  I think of fanfic long since deleted, that introduced me to the fandom tropes of Clint living in the vents.  I think of the Tumblr posts, diving deep into the psychology of trauma, into his place as the most human and the most pointless of the original six, into a thousand stupid memes.  Caw-caw, motherfucker.  I think of the comments I got, telling me he was OOC.  I think of the Hawkeye cosplayers I’ve met, including the one guy who was in full gear at Star Wars Celebration in Florida.  I asked him why, and he shrugged and said, ‘Clint would’ve.’  I agree with him.  

I think of the first time a friend put a bow in my hands, and showed me how to shoot, wobbly and uneven, at a straw target all the way across the yard.

I think of the bruises that dotted my arms afterwards.

So canon can add new things.  Take bits away.  Make me think.  Make me hurt.

But nothing canon does will ever cause him to be different, not on any fundamental level.  Clint Barton started forming in my head when I was eight years old.  He belongs to Marvel, but the version I carry with me has a lot more sources than that.

Guys, this is a long way of saying: find your own version of the character.  Find what you need in a fandom.  And think of canon like that one fic that has a million kudos on AO3 and you just. Don’t.  Know.  Why.  That one fic, that everyone talks about, that you just can’t stand.

If canon doesn’t work for you, then discard it.  And move on.

But don’t let a corporation take a character you love away from you.

Don’t ever let that happen.

Giveaway Contest: We’re giving away ten vintage paperback classics by William Faulkner, Harper Lee, Alice Walker, George Orwell, Richard Wright, and others. Won’t these look lovely on your shelf? :D To win these classics, you must: 1) be following macrolit on Tumblr (yes, we will check. :P), and 2) reblog this post. We will randomly choose a winner on January 22, at which time we’ll start a new giveaway. And yes, we’ll ship to any country. Easy, right? Good luck!

Literature Asks

Quotes from literature to inspire you when writing!

“She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.” - J. D. Salinger, “A Girl I Knew”

“The curves of your lips rewrite history.” - Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it.” - Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“I took a photo of us mid-embrace. When I am old and alone, I will remember that I once held something truly beautiful.” - Joe Dunthorne, Submarine

“If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving one be me.” - W. H. Auden, “The More Loving One”

“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.” - John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“Who, being loved, is poor?” - Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance

“Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.” - Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

“The pieces I am, she gather them and gave them back to me in all the right order.” - Toni Morrison, Beloved

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you…I could walk through my garden forever.” - Alfred Tennyson

“I’m watching her talk. Watching her jaw move and collecting her words one by one as they spill from her lips. I don’t deserve them. Her warm memories. I’d like to paint them over the bare plaster walls of my soul, but everything I paint seems to peel.” - Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies

“I don’t want you to miss all the things that someone else can give you.” -  Jojo Moyes, Me Before You

“You can love someone so much… But you can never love people as much as you can miss them.” - John Green, An Abundance of Katherines

“If you expect nothing from somebody you are never disappointed.” -  Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“Just… isn’t giving up allowed sometimes? Isn’t it okay to say, ‘This really hurts, so I’m going to stop trying’?” - Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl

“I’m just so thankful for our little infinity.” - John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“I hope, or I could not live.” - H.G. Wells

“I hadn’t expected that a tiny glimmer of hope for the future could transform someone so utterly.” - Dai Sijie, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress: A Novel

“Your eyes are full of language.” - Anne Sexton, Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters 

“You were at the age where you could fall in love with a girl over an expression, over a gesture.” -  Junot Dìaz, This Is How You Lose Her

“You can pretend for a long time, but one day it all falls away and you are alone.” - Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea: A Novel

“I’ve never had a moment’s doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life.” - Ian McEwan, Atonement

“You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how.” - Margaret Mitchell, Gone With The Wind

“I like flaws. I think they make things interesting.” - Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever

“In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.” - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“He doesn’t want you to be real, and to think and to live. He doesn’t love you. But I love you. I want you to have your own thoughts and ideas and feelings, even when I hold you in my arms.” E.M. Forster, A Room With A View

“The more you love someone, he came to think, the harder it is to tell them. It surprised him that strangers didn’t stop each other on the street to say I love you.” - Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated

“Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.” -  Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“We can experience nothing but the present moment, live in no other second of time, and to understand this is as close as we can get to eternal life.” -  P.D. James, The Children of Men

“I know. I was there. I saw the great void in your soul, and you saw mine.” - Sebastian Faulks, Birdsong 

“Above, the starts shone hard and bright, sparks struck off the dark skin of the universe” - Stephen King

“The mouth is made for communication, and nothing is more articulate than a kiss.” - Jarod Kintz, It Occurred to Me

“If it weren’t for her, there would never have been an empty space, or the need to fill it” - Nicole Krause, The History of Love

“I look at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world…” - Frank O’Hara, Having a Coke With You

“It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight.” - Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita