Small Romance Things That Make Me Go FERAL

I hate the “Thoreau’s mom did his laundry” criticism so much, it drives me crazy.

Henry Thoreau did not go to Walden Pond because he thought it would be a fun adventure. He went into the woods because he was deeply depressed and burnt out. He was running from the horror of his brother and best friend recently dying in his arms, and the haunting memory of causing the Fairhaven Bay fire. His friend Ellery Channing literally gave him the ultimatum of either taking some time off to write and think, or else be institutionalized.

I think Thoreau’s mother saw her depressed son choosing to retreat into a small cabin in the woods, and was worried about him. Of course she did his laundry - just as Ralph Waldo Emerson probably brought him firewood and bread. These were not chores of obligation to support a “great” man, but services of love to help their deeply depressed 28yo son and friend.

And if you ask me, there’s a lesson in that - to “suck out the marrow of life” and “live deliberately,” one must also accept help offered from the people in your life who love you. There is no true transcendentalism or individualism without love and friendship behind it.

GUIDE: NAMING A TOWN OR CITY

This post was originally from a FAQ, but since the original link is now defunct, I am re-posting it here.

There are many things to keep in mind when naming the town or city in your novel:

1) Genre/Theme/Tone

It’s very important to consider the genre and theme of your story when choosing a town name. Take these names for example, each of which indicates the genre or theme of the story: King’s Landing (sounds fantastical) Cloud City (sounds futuristic) Silent Hill (sounds scary) Sweet Valley (sounds happy and upbeat) Bikini Bottom (sounds funny) Radiator Springs (sounds car-related) Halloween Town (sounds Halloween-related) Storybrooke (sounds fairytale-related) 2) Time/Place It’s also important to consider the time and place where your story takes place. For example, you wouldn’t use “Vista Gulch” as a name for a town in Victorian England. You probably wouldn’t use it for a town in modern day North Carolina, either. Vista is a Spanish word and would normally be found in places where Spanish names are common, like Spain, Central and South America, the southwest United States (including southern California), Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and Florida. 3) Size/Settlement Type An isolated town of 300 people probably won’t be Valley City, but a sprawling metropolis of 30 million could be called Windyville, because it could have started out as a small town and grew into a large city. 4) Geography Words like gulch, butte,and bayou tend to be regional terms. You probably wouldn’t find Berle’s Bayou in Idaho, or Windy Butte in Rhode Island. Words like mount, cape, and valley are dependent upon terrain. Most of the time, you won’t have a town named “mount” something unless there are hills or mountains nearby. You wouldn’t use “cape” unless the town was on a cape, which requires a large body of water. 5) History Is there a historical person or event that your town might be named after? The Simpsons’ hometown of Springfield is ironically named after its founder, Jebediah Springfield. Chattanooga, Tennessee is named after the Cherokee town that was there first. Nargothrond, in The Lord of the Rings, is an Elvish town with an Elvish name. 6) Combination of Words

person name + geographical term = Smithfield, Smith Creek

group name + geographical term = Pioneer Valley, Settlers’ Ridge

descriptive word + geographical term = Mystic Falls, Smoky Hill

person name + settlement type = Smithton, Claraville

landmark + settlement type = Bridgton, Beaconville

Word Lists

Types of Settlements

Geographical Features

Place Words

Common Suffixes

Other Descriptors

unbothered character dialogue + prompts ⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

@celestialwrites for more!!

♡ “breathing air that you contaminate deeply unsettles me.”

♡ constantly putting their feet on their superior’s desk/table.

♡ “please remind me why you are relevant.”

♡ always commenting at the worst moment possible.

♡ “life was far more peaceful when i thought you were dead.”

♡ when someone is yelling at them, the character pulls out a book and just starts reading.

♡ “i gave my last fuck two decades ago, you’re going to need a time machine to find it.”

♡ sees a dead body and just sighs, turns around and goes to the breakfast diner across the street.

♡ “if he opens his mouth again i’m calling the cops for a noise disturbance.”

♡ has one hobby that they get really prickly about if people interrupt or make fun of it.

♡ “when did you finally decide to be helpful?”

♡ sees another character having a panic attack and asks them to quiet down so they can finish their crossword puzzle.

♡ “maybe if you were as tall as your ego you would have seen it.”

♡ other characters having to remind them to either pretend to care or not speak at all during important meetings/situations.

♡ “i could bring the heavens crashing down, remember that the next time you interrupt my coffee break.”

♡ being the key part of the team’s plan but will continuously sleep in.

REBLOG TO SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WRITERS!!<3

Joy Sullivan, “Solo“, Instructions for Traveling West

Ways I Show a Character Is Grieving 

They say "It’s fine, I’ve processed it" while clearly processing it through spreadsheets, sarcasm, or passive-aggressive emails.

They treat memories like landmines. They avoid certain songs, places, and foods like they bite and they kind of do.

They hoard weird things. A receipt. A voicemail. A cracked mug. Objects that wouldn’t matter to anyone else but now feel sacred.

They laugh at really inappropriate times. At funerals. In therapy. During serious conversations. It’s not funny, they just don’t know what else to do.

They forget things. Not just dates. Entire days. Their brain is buffering because it’s too full of everything they don’t want to feel.

They get too angry at tiny things. The pen runs out? Full mental breakdown. It’s never about the pen.

They say “they wouldn’t want me to be sad” as a way to guilt-trip themselves into pretending they’re not actively falling apart.

My favourite one is Creamy Caramel Latte🍮☕️

But I also like tea.. with some sugar🥰

Tips from a Beta Reading Writer

This one's for the scenes with multiple characters, and you're not sure how to keep everyone involved.

Writing group scenes is chaos. Someone’s talking, someone’s interrupting, someone’s zoning out thinking about breadsticks. And if you’re not careful, half your cast fades into the background like NPCs in a video game. I used to struggle with this so much—my characters would just exist in the scene without actually affecting it. But here’s what I've learned and have started implementing:

✨ Give everyone a job in the scene ✨

Not their literal job—like, not everyone needs to be solving a crime or casting spells. I mean: Why are they in this moment? What’s their role in the conversation?

My favourite examples are:

The Driver: Moves the convo forward. They have an agenda, they’re pushing the action.

The Instigator: Pokes the bear. Asks the messy questions. Stirring the pot like a chef on a mission.

The Voice of Reason: "Guys, maybe we don’t commit arson today?"

The Distracted One: Completely in their own world. Tuning out, doodling on a napkin, thinking about their ex.

The Observer: Not saying much, but noticing everything. (Quiet characters still have presence!)

The Wild Card: Who knows what they’ll do? Certainly not them. Probably about to make things worse.

If a character has no function, they’ll disappear. Give them something—even if it’s just a side comment, a reaction, or stealing fries off someone’s plate. Keep them interesting, and your readers will stay interested too.

basic things you should know about your main characters

how is their relationship with their family

what are their beliefs, if they have any

what is their motivation (preferably something unrelated to their love interest/romantic feelings)

who were they raised to be vs. who they became/are becoming

what are their plans for the future, if they have any

how they feel about themselves and how it affects their behaviour

how do they feel about things they cannot control

and last but not least: Why is This Character the Protagonist??

hi dhaaruni! i want to learn about radical feminism, could you rec some books/texts? thank you <3

YES.

Right-Wing Women, Woman Hating, and Letters From a War Zone by Andrea Dworkin

Are women human?, Only Words, and Toward a Feminist Theory of the State by Catharine A. MacKinnon

The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir

The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory by Marilyn Frye

Sexual Politics by Kate Millett

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan

Women, Race, & Class by Angela Davis

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Pérez

This Bridge Called My Back by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa

The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Global Sex Trade by Sheila Jeffreys

Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape by Susan Brownmiller

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism by Kathleen Stock

Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution by Adrienne Rich

The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf (it was published in 1990 before Wolf went cuckoo for cocoa puffs)

On Rape and Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility by Germaine Greer

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay (just never look at her Twitter if you haven't already since this book really is very good and her Twitter ensured I'm never reading another book of hers ever)

And thank you for enjoying my newsletter!!

the suffering never ends