Hi! I Missed Seeing You Around!

Before you put an author down for their grammar, punctuation, and overall ‘level’ of work, remember that:

Education is a privilege

Language is made up

grammatical and verbal entitlement is rooted in….. you can guess!

Education is a privilege!!

The only ‘bad writing’ is offensive or harmful writing!

autumn? i think you mean red (taylor’s version) season

y’know for me it straight up doesn’t even occur to me to unfollow someone when they stop posting whatever it is i followed them for. unless the thing they’re posting about now is somehow actually actively upsetting to me i just accept it as a part of my life now. i’ll just scroll past it like i’m driving a car and dodging an obstacle on the road. and that part of the road is my daily commute and the thing stays on the road forever and i swerve around it every day for months instead of ever taking the initiative to get it removed. it just adds flavor i guess

is there any flowers/plants that symbolize or relate to discomfort and dissatisfaction? im trying to draw something for an art project and i wanted to draw plants/flowers in it that hold symbolism to them

Hey kookoojellyfish! Most of these mean either directly, but allow potential association because neither discomfort nor dissastifaction exist as single meanings here.

agnus castus – coldness, indifference

aloe – bitterness and pain, bitterness, grief, religious superstition

balsam (red) – impatient resolved, touch me not

bee ophrys – error

belvedere – I declare against you

bindweed (great) – insinuation, importunity

burdock – importunity, touch me not

convolvulus (major) – extinguished hopes

corchorus – impatient of absence

eglantine – I wound to heal, poetry

geranium (fish) – disappointed expectations

henbane – imperfection, fault, for males to attract love from females

hogbean – defect

hortensia – you are cold, carelessness

humble plant – despondency

ice plant – your looks freeze me, rejected addresses

lint – I feel my obligations

love-lies-bleeding – hopeless not heartless, deserted love, desertion

meadow sweet – uselessness

mimosa – sensitiveness, sensitivity

ranunculus (wild) – ingratitude

sorrel (wild) – wit ill-timed

straw (a single, broken) – dissension, rupture of a contract

sweetbrier (european) – I wound to heal, poetry, imagination

tiger-flower – for once may pride befriend me, cruelty

Discomfort could be represented by poisonous plants in art. They don’t mean it, but they most certainly cause it.

– Mod Jana

Disclaimer

This blog is intended as writing advice only. This blog and its mods are not responsible for accidents, injuries or other consequences of using this advice for real world situations or in any way that said advice was not intended.

language is literally so beautiful like in english "i miss you" comes from being unable to locate someone in the field after battle, it's "i look for you but i can't find you" but the french "tu me manques" is also about absence but it's not something i do, it's something that happens to me, as in "you are something essential lacking inside me", in portuguese it's either "sinto a tua falta" as in "i feel your absence" or, from solitude you get "saudade de você" as in "i am lonely [of] you", and in spanish the word comes from stranger and it's something one does, "te extraño" as in "i am making a stranger out of you", and, and, and

Tips For Designing a Book Cover

Credit: https://dribbble.com/stories/2021/01/26/book-cover-design-101-how-to-design-a-cover-that-sells

1. Gather book cover design inspiration

Before you start designing, you should always gather visual inspiration first to help guide your cover’s overall look and feel. Gathering different book cover ideas will help you to understand what you’re drawn to, what works, and what doesn’t, so you can narrow down what you want to accomplish with your cover design. As a good rule of thumb, aim to collect between 10 - 20 pieces of visual inspiration.

Once you’ve gathered enough ideas, you should start to notice certain patterns of visuals, themes, imagery, and layouts that you’re drawn to. Keep this in mind throughout the next steps.

2.  Outline the book’s main themes

A book cover needs to support the themes the book explores. It also needs to support the mood of the book. What is the book about? Is it a serious exploration of modern society? Is it a fun, adventurous memoir all about finding yourself? A serious book should have a relatively serious cover, while a fun beach read needs an entirely different kind of aesthetic.

Outline your book’s main themes and keep these at the front of your mind when deciding on the kind of imagery you’ll want to use on the cover.

3. Consider the genre

Different genres have different conventions when it comes to covers. Most fantasy books show protagonists with weapons or fantasy creatures. Romance books typically have the romantically involved characters on the cover. Contemporary books frequently feature cute, modern art. True crime books usually feature dark covers that hint at the crime.

To get a sense of what the genre expects, look to competing books. If they all follow a certain convention, you’ll likely want your cover to also fit that convention so that readers of that genre can immediately recognize it!

4. Use visual hierarchy

Visual hierarchy on a book cover is key. You need to make sure that the reader browsing the shelves sees the most important part of the cover first. For most books, this will be the title. But for certain bestselling authors, you might want to consider emphasizing their name so that it’s even more prominent than the title. That’s because fans of that author can immediately recognize that it’s one of their books.

In general, your hierarchy should place the title and cover graphics most prominently, followed by a subtitle (e.g. “a novel”), followed by the author’s name. There may also be endorsements or prizes to include on the cover, but those are usually placed less prominently than other elements.

5. Get rid of the clutter

Cluttered covers don’t work well when viewed at small sizes. Since a lot of book browsing happens online, covers are usually shrunk down to thumbnail size. If your book cover looks cluttered at thumbnail size, you will risk turning away potential readers.

Choose one focal element for your cover. This could be part of the image used on the cover, or it could be the title of the book. Once you know your focal point, you can design the rest of the cover to emphasize that point. Also make sure you leave plenty of white or blank space around that focal point.

6. Think in terms of thumbnails

When people are browsing Amazon or other online publishers such as Bookshop.org, they’re presented with a series of cover thumbnails. These are often pretty small—less than 200px high. That means that if your title isn’t prominent enough on the cover, it won’t be legible. It also means that if your cover has a ton of fine details that are important to its meaning, that will be lost in thumbnail size.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that you shouldn’t include those details on a cover, though. What it means is that you need to make sure that your cover still has a powerful impact at thumbnail size. Make your title legible at small sizes and ensure that the most prominent part of your graphics are recognizable (i.e., a mountain should be recognizable as a mountain, a person should be recognizable as a person, etc.).

7. Choose an appropriate font and color palette

Choosing a typeface for your book cover can be tricky. It needs to look great when viewed on the full-size cover, but it also needs to remain legible at small sizes on thumbnails.

For the most part, try to avoid any super detailed display or complex script typefaces. When searching for the perfect typeface, try it out both at large display sizes and at smaller body sizes to see if it’s still readable when displayed at 12px or 14px sizes.

Color palettes can be a book cover’s biggest asset—or biggest downfall. The right color palette draws the reader’s eye and gives them an idea of the tone and mood of the book, while the wrong colors risk confusing your audience. For example, neon colors typically indicate that a book will be fun to read and not too serious. Dark colors? This book could be serious or scary (depending on genre).

However, remember that color palettes are only one part of establishing a mood. You can, for example, create a scary mood with a pastel cover with the right visual elements (for instance, The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White has a pastel pink cover).

8. Don’t overlook the spine or back cover

While a book’s front cover gets all the glory, the spine and back cover are also important design elements. Spines, especially, are important when a reader is browsing bookstore shelves, where most books are arranged on shelves with only the spine showing. 

You also need to take into account that due to the way offset printers work, your front cover, back cover, and spine may not always align perfectly. By continuing the basic background design around the entire cover, you avoid the spine or back cover looking bad due to printing errors. This ensures that your entire book cover looks professional and consistent.

love when authors get so into the story they’re writing that they end up just being like yeah this is twice what i originally planned, gonna add a whole new story arc, gonna add a whole new book to the series

Returning to writing after a break is like having the old Windows startup sound playing on a loop in your head.