Anybody else got that Evergiven sized writers block

“Where’s the next chapter?!” Well buddy you’re never gonna guess

What’s the comic sans trick?

#i feel like someone just asked me to eat dirt for my health

wingdings' true purpose as a font

Wingdings holy shit some of y'all are on a whole different level of galaxy wizard brain batshittery and I am in awe.

Exciting. When I don't want to see what I'm writing I just make the font color almost indistinguishable from the background color. (Do not do this.)

(I don't think the secret to the comic sans hack is comic sans itself; I think it's any deflation of being intimidated by your canvas.)

Hold on I need to go look something up immediately.

... you can't say that and not give the link.

Looks like you can even make it something other than kittens, by appending ?search=dinosaur (that's the example the page gives) to the end of the URL.

@andauril

sharing this here because you can can do bats

I saw a post talking about how Terry Pratchett only wrote 400 words a day, how that goal helped him write literally dozens of books before he died. So I reduced my own daily word goal. I went down from 1,000 to 200. With that 800-word wall taken down, I’ve been writing more. “I won’t get on tumblr/watch TV/draw/read until I hit my word goal” used to be something I said as self-restraint. And when I inevitably couldn’t cough up four pages in one sitting, I felt like garbage, and the pleasurable hobbies I had planned on felt like I was cheating myself when I just gave up. Now it’s something I say because I just have to finish this scene, just have to round out this conversation, can’t stop now, because I’m enjoying myself, I’m having an amazing time writing. Something that hasn’t been true of my original works since middle school. 

And sometimes I think, “Well, two hundred is technically less than four hundred.” And I have to stop myself, because - I am writing half as much as Terry Pratchett. Terry fucking Pratchett, who not only published regularly up until his death, but published books that were consistently good. 

And this has also been an immense help as a writer with ADHD, because I don’t feel bad when I take a break from writing - two hundred words works up quick, after all. If I take a break at 150, I have a whole day to write 50 more words, and I’ve rarely written less than 200 words and not felt the need to keep writing because I need to tie up a loose end anyways. 

Yes, sometimes, I do not produce a single thing worth keeping in those two hundred words. But it’s much easier to edit two hundred words of bad writing than it is to edit no writing at all.

This is the second time this post passes on my dash and it’s the best advice I ever got. I can’t write consistently in one go, it’s always about 50 words and then I get distracted and just have to do something else for a while. Do the math quickly: trying to write 2000 words a day takes a looooong time that way. So there were many days where I just didn’t even start writing, cause I wouldn’t reach my goal anyways and feel like a failure. Then I stumbled upon this post and I thought: hey, let’s give this a try. And it works! I set my goal between 200-400 words a day and that’s perfectly doable. Some days I get into the flow and I write a whole lot more. On other days, I struggle to get those 200 out but hey, at least I wrote 200 words and reached my goal. Whatever the outcome, t makes me feel good and accomplished. 

Writing takes practice, so even if it’s only 100 words a day, it’s better than nothing. If it worked for Terry Pratchett and me, than it can work for you too!

My own tags because I am particularly proud of them:

speculative fiction writers i am going to give you a really urgent piece of advice: don't say numbers. don't give your readers any numbers. how heavy is the sword? lots. how old is that city? plenty. how big is the fort? massive. how fast is the spaceship? not very, it's secondhand.

the minute you say a number your readers can check your math and you cannot do math better than your most autistic critic. i guarantee. don't let your readers do any math. when did something happen? awhile ago. how many bullets can that gun fire? trick question, it shoots lasers, and it shoots em HARD.

you are lying to people for fun. if you let them do math at you the lie collapses and it's no fun anymore.

YOU GET IT

The Mini Guide to Crafting Compelling Royal Characters for Fiction Writers

Creating royal characters can be both exciting and challenging. These regal figures often play pivotal roles in stories, capturing readers' imaginations with their power, privilege, and the weight of responsibility they carry. Whether you're writing historical fiction, fantasy, or contemporary novels featuring monarchs, this comprehensive (mini) guide will help you develop authentic, multi-dimensional royal characters that will resonate with your readers.

Understanding the Basics of Royalty

Before diving into character creation, it's essential to have a solid grasp of what royalty entails. Royalty typically refers to members of a ruling family, including kings, queens, princes, princesses, and other nobles within a monarchical system. These individuals are often born into their roles, though some may ascend to power through marriage or other means.

Key aspects to consider:

Wasn't me! (fun fact: if you use clear flex seal over spraypaint it makes it more difficult to take off)

This guy knows what he’s talking about. He’s one of the lead writers for Leverage and if you ever watch the series on DVD, do yourself a favor and listen to him talk about how the scripts got written. Some of the advice he has is stuff I use all the time: 1. Don’t introduce an important plot person or thing after the first half of the story. 2. Always tie up loose ends. 3. Introduce important things in the middle of unimportant things. 4. If you have to infodump, find an emotion to tie it to and it will seem less like infodump and more like a motive rant. Seriously this guy knows how to write.

Best trick I ever picked up. Seriously.

I have also learned this is great for [PICK A COOL NAME FOR A SHIP] and [LOOK UP THE FACTS ABOUT OXYGEN LEVELS] and [WHAT’S THE WORD] and [DOUBLECHECK CHARACTER’S EYE COLOR] and ALL KINDS OF THINGS.

Anything that isn’t critical in the moment, and could be filled in later while I’m currently trying to burn through writing pages that will be lost if I don’t get them out right now? Brackets.

This is seriously the best advice, and it really helps put it into perspective that the first draft is just that- a draft. There’s no reason to agonize over a particularly tricky bit of writing when you could just leave it in brackets and skip to the good parts, the parts you’ve visualized. I also use brackets for [fact-check this], [use a stronger verb], [is this in character?] and other notes as I write, just so I don’t forget what I want to work on when I go back and edit. 

Note the good sense of [brackets] not (parentheses).

Parentheses AKA round brackets can appear in fiction, usually as an afterthought in a character's thoughts or narration (as I saw them used just recently), but square brackets hardly ever do.

alright i am sick of yt to mp4 sites being shady and full of viruses and finding websites that seem to be working and then don't work (looking at you y232 (no hate, just frustrated))

so HERE'S HOW YOU DOWNLOAD YOUTUBE VIDEOS WITH VLC!! VLC FREAKIN RULES!!

the quality might be a little crummy but if you don't mind that, then shabam! video on your computer! then you can email it to yourself and have it on your phone too if you want! if you need a guide with pictures wikihow has you covered my friends

happy downloading and stay safe on the internet :D

if you want videos in their original quality and can handle a tiny bit of command line stuff, there's yt-dlp!

A recipe for finding your story's plot:

Ingredients:

Instructions:

I saw a post talking about how Terry Pratchett only wrote 400 words a day, how that goal helped him write literally dozens of books before he died. So I reduced my own daily word goal. I went down from 1,000 to 200. With that 800-word wall taken down, I’ve been writing more. “I won’t get on tumblr/watch TV/draw/read until I hit my word goal” used to be something I said as self-restraint. And when I inevitably couldn’t cough up four pages in one sitting, I felt like garbage, and the pleasurable hobbies I had planned on felt like I was cheating myself when I just gave up. Now it’s something I say because I just have to finish this scene, just have to round out this conversation, can’t stop now, because I’m enjoying myself, I’m having an amazing time writing. Something that hasn’t been true of my original works since middle school. 

And sometimes I think, “Well, two hundred is technically less than four hundred.” And I have to stop myself, because - I am writing half as much as Terry Pratchett. Terry fucking Pratchett, who not only published regularly up until his death, but published books that were consistently good. 

And this has also been an immense help as a writer with ADHD, because I don’t feel bad when I take a break from writing - two hundred words works up quick, after all. If I take a break at 150, I have a whole day to write 50 more words, and I’ve rarely written less than 200 words and not felt the need to keep writing because I need to tie up a loose end anyways. 

Yes, sometimes, I do not produce a single thing worth keeping in those two hundred words. But it’s much easier to edit two hundred words of bad writing than it is to edit no writing at all.

Blogs to Follow to Help Develop Your OC

On top of having this blog to encourage creating OCs, I also want to give people access to resources that can help you out in creating your OC! Here is a compilation of blogs to follow, as well as a few other links to help further your development!

I visit almost all of these blogs quite regularly, and I highly recommend going through these blogs for help and inspiration. These are just my personal recommendations, there are definitely more blogs out there you can dig for of course!