Earth in 50 million years future.

“Before the writers started working on the first season, I wrote a list of six things on the wall that every episode had to do.” - Mike Schur (x)

note to self: just because someone did the thing you were thinking about doing, and did it way better than you could ever hope to do, doesn’t mean it would be stupid or pointless to go ahead and try to still do the thing anyway. 

Also, when it comes to creative things? There really is no “better”.

Sure, someone might be more technically accomplished than you - you might not be able to colour as nicely or craft a sentence that rings as poetically - but art is only really secondarily about that. It’s firstmost about what you, uniquely, have to express, and how the precise way you express it might be what others need to relate to it - even if it’s less flashy, less “beautiful”, and gets fewer notes.

I promise you this: there are obscure fanfics with only a handful of notes that are the read-and-re-read favourites of someone too anxious to comment. There are drawings done by 14-year-olds in poorly-blended markers that are someone’s favourite because they spoke to something that nothing else did. There are covers of songs where your voice cracks and you cringe every time you hear it but someone thinks the way it cracked just at that moment added beauty to the song. There are angsty three-line poems you wrote at 4am that someone once called “pretentious emo trash” that are loved by someone else going through the same thing as you.

And I guarantee you, there is something unique about your art. Even if you’re “saying something someone else has said”. Even if you’re the thousandth person to take on the subject. Even if you feel like you’re not at all unique. You’re bound to express something, however subtle, that didn’t exist until then.

Art is about connection. And the more you create, the more chance you have of finding other people who experience the world the way you do.

“But the one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.“ via @neil-gaiman

The “word vomit” portion of writing is probably my least favorite part, but damn if I’m not impressed by how much I can write if I get out of my own head and stop caring about how everything sounds for five seconds. 

Oh my god it’s true

Truer post does not exist.

you ever start rereading your WIP to get in the mood and write more and you get so caught up that when you get to the end you’re like “bitch? where’s the rest?” and you realize you’re the bitch and you have to write it

I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT NUMBER 4 IS GREAT.

These are genius

I lost it at number 10

“the worst analogies” are the ones you use to write comedy pieces with. They work like a charm if you do them right.

#you say ‘worst analogies’ i say ‘heirs of douglas adams’

We read these aloud while slightly drunk in Ireland last summer, and it’s one of my favorite memories. I still can’t pick my favorite, as at lease five of these made me laugh so hard I cried.

When you have a good idea, start it before telling someone what you're going to do

If you want to share it, the energy you have for wanting to actually get the idea started will be gone as soon as you share it. Get the idea going and then share to get their input / feedback.

My screenwriting prof.

I felt like a lot of people needed to hear this. Including myself.

(via shaelinwrites)

How Long is this Fic Really?: A Guide

Word count in the HP Series: 

Word count in the LOTR Series:

This changed me

I’ve read/ am reading fic that are upwards to 150,000 - 200,000. You’re telling me that authors that write for fun are writing a full-length book for the fun of it? They have earned my respect 10 fold.

A friendly reminder.

My fic is already longer than most of these. What am I doing with my life?

dear white male writers: DO NOT DO THIS

These horrific, sexist, racist paragraphs - screenshotted and shared for posterity by James Smythe, to whom we are all indebted - are the work of one Liam O’Flynn, a writer and English teacher. Evidently, they come from his book Writing With Stardust: the Ultimate Descriptive Guide for students, parents, teachers, and lovers of English, and are intended as examples of good writing.

UM.

Dear white male writers: DO NOT DO THIS SHIT. IT IS SUPER GROSS AND FETISHISTIC AND ALSO TERRIBLE WRITING. THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS. 

Like I just. “Her virility-brown eyes -” WHAT DOES THIS EVEN MEAN? How can you have an “Amazonian figure” ON a “wafer-thin body” when “figure” is a word that describe’s a body’s shape, and Amazonian means pretty much the DIRECT FUCKING OPPOSITE of “wafer-thin” in the first place?  What the shitting fuck does ANY of this mean, apart from “I am only nebulously familiar with the concept of women and completely at a loss if I can’t compare their various bodyparts to jewels, animals and footstuffs”?

STOP 

GO TO WRITING JAIL

GO DIRECTLY TO WRITING JAIL, DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT $200

tag yourself i’m the two beryl-green jewels in the snow

if her ears frame her nose do they like, grow directly beside her nose? how does she see from them? 

*facepalm*

“ Writing With Stardust: the Ultimate Descriptive Guide for students, parents, teachers, and lovers of English “

lovers of english

oh my goddddddd

i can’t get over this fucking post

“I loved her nebulous, eden-green eyes which were a-sparkle with the ‘joie de vivre’. They were like two beryl-green jewels melted onto snow.”

1. what the fuck is joie de vivre

2. melted jewels?

3. beryl green

eden green:

WHICH ONE IS ITTTTTTTTT

@laughlikesomethingbroken “Joie de vivre” is a French phrase that literally translates to “joy of living”, while it IS one of those phrases that gets used in English in this context it is SO EXTRA AND UNNECESSARY OH MY GOD. Don’t use French to make yourself sound sophisticated when you’re NOT I don’t know where to even START. Curvilinear waist? Sugar candy-sweet? What the FUCK are seraph’s ears? Voguish clothes? What the everloving fuck is “constellation blue” supposed to mean??? Like forget the objectification, this writing is horrifying enough before we even get to the embedded sexism

seraph’s ears are ears that you can’t see bc they’re hidden behind her 6 wings

Oyster white teeth?

holy purple prose batman

Female writers do this too. Have you read a Mills and Boon novel? Have you read high school girls’ yaoi fanfics?

Uh oh, we were focusing too much on how a grown man is selling this shit and not enough shitting on teenage girls. Egalitarians here to put an end to that shit.

Guess what? I’ve read A LOT of Harlequin novels and a LOT of fanfic and I have never ever seen anything this horrible at description.

Also, none of those stories were trying to hold themselves up as high examples of the craft

Sometimes writing is like having an enormous lake in your head, and you want to get it out of your head and into a proper place for a lake so other people can come and go swimming and ride jet skis and stuff, except all you have to move the lake is a teaspoon. So you’re just sitting there frantically flinging water out of the lake with your teaspoon and telling people, “Guys, this lake is going to be so cool when it’s done,” but it will never be done. There is so much lake.

I didn’t really expect this to be relatable, but if you wanna reblog, go wild.

Rainbow Rowell, on writing Attachments

(via fanbows)

does anyone know why akashathekitty never finished secrets???

Because she’s lazy af, easily distracted and having problems concentrating.