#sat advice

[catofoldstones]

She could feel the snow on her lashes, taste it on her lips. It was the taste of Winterfell. The taste of innocence. The taste of dreams. Sansa VII - ASOS

a couple of photos I took haha:

The way it’s written is so dreamy so I wanted to paint Winterfell as this castle in the clouds because, right now, that is exactly what it is for Sansa (and the rest of the Starklings). It feels like that far away place you can run to, for safety, for love, if in nothing but your dreams. I hope all of them come back home soon, it’s waiting, right behind the clouds, right behind their tired eyes.

Acrylic on canvas 6x8

[ismyteadoneyet]

"Long time no see." Douglas's soft Scottish brouge wraps its way around his speech. "A very long time." Sel's stony expression sends a trickle of apprehension down my spine. I'm not the only one who notices that he doesn't lower his blade. "Drop your weapon, Kingsmage," Douglas commands. Se's lip curls upward. "When I feel like it." - 'Bloodmarked' by Tracy Deonn, page 32

Okay this was MEANT to be them fighting. I WANTED to make an angry, intense Demon!Sel /vs/ Lark action scene you know. But no matter how angry I tried making them, they just turned all the more friendly rival-y lol. I also really really like the criminally few scenes we get of them actually talking to each other which, apparently, is only the one this quote is from lol because in literally every single one of the others, either one or the other is unconscious for various reasons so um

(proof that Demon!Sel vs Lark WAS THE PLAN AT ONE POINT and probably will come to reality once I get the hang of body proportions or when the battle happens in Oathbound, if it does lol)

The very aware reader of this post might also notice that I have actually moved onto a whole new page, from page 31 to 32 ! Reasons to celebrate, I think! Will I go crazy and jump another page next time? Only the ones keeping up with my unhinged shenanigans will know. Or if you follow the Legendborn tag. Hope y'all have a great Thursday/weekend, pals <3

[stilljuststardust]

Hey!! Do you have tips on how to manifest a text from someone who I haven’t seen for a very long time 🥲 What steps should I follow and how should I act ?

Have a good day <3

Hello love!

Remember that the law means you already have it, all you have to do is mentally persist that you have it and your reality will conform.

Don't wonder about how they're feeling about you, DECIDE how they're feeling.

They want to be your friend, talk to you, they think you're so intriguing, etc.

All manifestations are equal and therefore none is harder or easier than any other but personally I have to most ease with texts because they're so simple to visualize.

Remember to stay consistent in how you think about them, don't start imagining them doing stuff you don't want them to do (intrusive thoughts are fine I am referring to stuff like arguing with them in your head)

Hear there voice in your head saying what you want them to say.

It can be simple

"I've been thinking about you a lot"

Or

"hey, we haven't talked in awhile"

Accept these things as real parts of your reality.

As for methods I'd recommend SATS.

Its super simple, LITERALLY just visualize a notification from this person as your falling asleep. This is why I personally find manifesting texts so easy because it's so simple to visualize a notification it's just a white block with an app icon.

I cancelled practice this way one morning because I went back to sleep imagining a "practice is cancelled, enjoy your weekend" message. So easy.

It's really simple but if you'd like to hear more about it:

Favorite subs and affirmation tapes:

[lovingherwasgay]

it turns out eddie actually DOES have great personal experience to give chris advice on dating two girls at once. yikes. lmao. lol even.

[faaun]

my research partner and i are huddled in a blanket in paddington waiting for a too-late train i already miss you and you and you

[icantalk710]

Not too bad a day at the office yesterday--helps that we can use our patio in nice weather again 😌--leading into a decent arm day workout 💪🏽 (despite how long it took to get a bench for chest press work 😩)

[hyacinthusmemorial]

writing the third chapter and honestly I dont know how to make the story interesting, I am writing nonsense.

I think I will answer this publicly because writing advice is universally loved and adored (right?). This is more about motivation than mechanics. It's about telling a story rather than about grammar, POV, verb tense.

The first thing to do is just write. Don't think about plot, don't think about characters, don't think too hard, just write. Sometimes you have to spew out absolute garbage to start writing gold. Start somewhere in the action, then describe the surroundings, then describe the character, why are they there, what about them is making them act this way. A fun tip: write what you want to read. I daydream all the time, I go on walks--long walks--I listen to music, and I just daydream. Usually, what you enjoy imagining, other people will too. Slip tidbits of your life in, they don't need to be blatant, just little pieces of yourself to add humanity to it.

The second thing is to have a goal in your writing. When I start writing a chapter, I always have an "idea" of what I need to accomplish according to an internal map of where my story is going. Then I just write (The first point) until I accomplish it. Another goal I have when writing a chapter is that I usually give myself a word count to accomplish. For me, my word count is 3,000 for a chapter minimum, unless its a prologue or epilogue. This word count encourages me to fill in gaps, describe scenes better, but it also keeps me in-line with pacing of action.

Third thing: re-rewrite it all. When I wrote Anele and Forgotten Age, I erased whole chapters, I trashed it (I kept it in a separate compilation document that is multiple chapters long). I went back to the blank page, I said, I can write this more subtly, I can write this more succinctly. I can write this better. Sometimes, you have absolutely NO IDEA what is going on until the characters have taken you to the end of it all, and you have to go back and write it all again BETTER. And sometimes, you have to write it all again.

And, one last thing: Allow yourself to be mediocre, accept mediocre. I have seen more people stop writing because they feel like they suck than any other reason. Put the shitty words to paper--it is absolutely the greatest thing a human can do. Everything we write is a written record that someone existed. And when I write, well, sometimes, sometimes its absolute garbage, and sometimes its fine, and sometimes I feel like there are spirits touching my fingers to the keyboard. No one is good 100% of the time, and that's okay.

I think you said you were a teen somewhere, I can't remember. When I was a teen, my mom told me I needed to "Hurry up and write my novel, so we can get out of here." She had complete and utter faith that I would write something brilliant one day, and she thought that it would save us both from a pretty shitty situation, but I didn't write anything long or brilliant because I just didn't have it in me yet. I had all these ideas, thoughts, concepts, but there was something missing. My mom ended up dying when I was seventeen, and she was sick for awhile. It's been nearly ten years now, but she shows up in my writing--she's a ghost in the background. Sometimes, we can't write our story until we figure out what's worth keeping alive, and that's okay. You don't need to experience tragedy to be a writer, but living experience is necessary. You don't have to know what it feels like to be stabbed to write about it, but you probably know what it feels like to be betrayed by someone. You may not know what its like to kiss someone, but you know what its like to love someone. Sometimes we can't write until there's life there, and like I said, that is okay.

This is a warning: don't treat novel writing like a career option because quite frankly, its not. I'm in nursing to support myself, but writing is my Netflix. Its free. Its fun. I get to make the show I want, and share it with people free of charge on AO3. Unless you have an incredible entrepreneurial spirit to you, writing for a career will eat your soul and your pocketbook. Unless you plan to be an English teacher, don't get a college degree in english (it is literally useless, Stephen King, Rick Riordan--they all had English degrees because they were teachers). The best thing about English is you can read books, and learn grammar, and write on your own and become proficient at it without a teacher telling you what to do or paying tuition or other fees other than library fees for all those books you didn't return. There are obvious exceptions: you have rich parents who let you live in their house and feed you, you have a strong entrepreneurial spirit and a trust fund, or you already signed a $14 million book deal with Disney Hyperion Books.

[thatsbelievable]

[yellowocaballero]

Styles of Storytelling Structure

OK love of God I'm so embarrassed that every post I make gets insane long. I tried to match this explanation up with the previous ask but it got so long, so this elaboration gets its own post. For reference, these tags are referencing this post. Read that one first if you want.

I hope I can find a way to explain this succinctly and non-judgmentally. I do mean it extremely nonjudgmentally. I write both kinds and they both have their own merits.

For me, there's two kinds of fanfic writing. I call 'em Fic Style and Novel Style. This isn't about tropes or content, but about how the author composes the story.

Novel style is the 'traditional' way of writing a story. It has a three act structure, rising action/climax/falling action, tight pacing, every scene does five plot/character/theme related things. It reads like a published short story or a book.

Fic style is often reliant on the source material to make complete sense, and its plot or characterization is usually scaffolded onto the main material. For many of these stories you use the pre-existing canon structure. The story isn't as structured or tightly written, scenes are more likely to be there for vibes, and there tends to be more worldbuilding and a slower pace in general. It's worth noting that fic style can often really resemble soap opera, comic books, long-running manga, Dr Who, etc. Anything serialized, meant to continue on for a long time with no definite end point.

(If you're a frequent flier, to give you some idea: New Wave and Good Luck Jake were novel style, Hope Etc and Listen 2 Ur Heart were fic style. Twilight on Owl Creek Bridge was novel/short story style, reel to reel was fic style.)

Neither is better or worse than the other. They can be both equally enjoyable. One of my favorite fics is 'a simple thing' by iridan and it's fic style. Case fics are more likely to be novel style [I suck at case fics]. Shortly, fic style is easier to write, more likely to be enjoyable, and harder to make very good. Novel style is really hard to write. Super hard.

This is because novel-style writing just requires more skills. You need to lock down story structure, plotting, tension, connecting physical/emotional/plot/theme, pairing story beats with character beats, and dealing with a lot of different plot threads at once. I think of it as braiding, kind of: weaving three character arcs, a plot arc, growth of character relationships, and development of the themes and messaging. A scene should ideally do all of these things at once. Everything needs to be perfectly matched together so it all moves as one. The longer the story is, the more content of all of this you have to deal with, and the more difficult it is to do well. You're just juggling more balls. I had to write one bad 100k story and another mediocre 100k story before I got to a kinda-good 100k story. Forget about how long it took me to get to a decent freaking 60k story. I wrote really enjoyable 60k fic style stories before an actually good 60k novel style story.

This is why skills have to scaffold. I think a lot of beginner writers are constantly trying to fight those level 60 boss fights at level 20 and they get frustrated when they lose. You have to figure out how to write decent dialogue and decent prose before putting together a good scene. Then you have to figure out how to string a series of scenes together in a way that makes sense. Then you have to figure out how to put those scenes in the right order to make some kind of coherent and interesting story with conflict and character arcs. Then you start tossing one ball in the air and figure out how to write those 20k short stories. Then you add more and more balls as your stories get longer and more complex. You have to develop a lot of different skills individually to put together a well-structured final product that's fun to read.

Stop getting so frustrated when you can't beat out a 60k story that's Barnes & Nobles worthy when you're a beginning writer! Stop dreaming big! I know how frustrating it is not being able to put what's in your head down on paper. It's not going to be perfect. Of course you're having issues writing longer things, you're still figuring out how to put longer things together.

Pick something to work on. Figure out what skills you still need to develop. Figure out how stories work and what makes a good story, and then try and build it yourself. You do not need to write a traditional novel style story to develop your skills in dialogue, prose, characterization, tone, tension, POV, etc. You can get that stuff down first. If you're interested in working on story structure and pacing you'll have to practice doing things traditionally. No, you're not going to be happy with it. Be proud of yourself that you improved and developed a skill. Be proud of yourself that you're writing. Writing is hard. It's fun, but hard. If you aren't having fun then you're just left with the hard.

Writing isn't about the finished product. It's not about if you wrote something that people enjoyed or said was good. It's about enjoying writing. Everything else happens naturally from there.

[pagerunner-j]

Short version of a long post I'm not gonna share: There are so many desperately bad takes going around DW fandom right now that I think I'm abandoning my own nitpickery about the plot out of sheer protest.

Snarkier version of that long post I'm not gonna share: Let some joy back into your lives, fuckers.

Toodles!

*disappears in a cloud of sparkles*

[icicleteeth]

Sometimes i step back and try to remember what it’s like to not have immediate heightened anxiety that the computer is going to blow up from overheating or crash at any moment the second it’s turned on. Wonder what that’s like!

[amethystina]

I just saw this on X (formerly known as twitter) and I immediately thought of you. And I don't know why I had the urge to send it to you, so here it is.

It describes perfectly how I feel about your writing. I usually don't read ongoing fics, but if I find one really intresting I read the first chapter to have a better understanding of it and save it for when it is finished. But with 'Who holds the devil', I felt like I couldn't stop reading. Like I physically couldn't stop reading, and it was all due to your writing. Everything you write about, every detail, every emotion, and every expression is written in the most unique and intresting way I have ever read.

The reason I sometimes prefer reading over watching things is because I have the ability to imagine what I am reading and emmerse myself completly in it when the writing is done well. And you don't just do it well, you do it INCREDIBLE.

In my personal experience, you are the first writer with which I like the long descriptions of things. Because when I read them, nothing feels too long or too much, it just feels perfect for the storytelling. And I only realise that there were a lot of words written after the fact, because everything just sails smoothly.

I don't know why I had the urge to send you this 😅, and I hope I didn't overwhelm you with my unstructured oversharing on here. But I just wanted to say, you are incredible and I hope you stay healthy and happy in the future (even if you suddenly decide to stop writing this fic, there is no pressure as you have already given us a lot).

Take care 💜

I am a little overwhelmed, not going to lie, but in a good way? In that way where I don't really know how to respond because I'm feeling so many things right now, but all of them good.

I've said it before but it will never not blow my mind when I hear just how much my writing seems to affect people. Because it doesn't feel all that glamorous to me, you know? When I'm sitting there, frowning at my document, trying to figure out what word goes where. Or when I'm trying to find the right rhythm and cadence to the sentences, and capture the right emotions and imagery to tell the story I can see playing out inside my head.

But I am, of course, incredibly flattered and also very proud to know that I can have such an impact. I started writing fanfics on a whim — because I wanted to write at least one before I died — and the art of writing (or whatever you want to call it) wasn't even something I reflected on at the time. Well, tbh, I can't say that I do that all that much now, either — I just write what I think sounds nice xD

Point being, even if I've always put a lot of effort into my writing, it never really occurred to me that I might end up being genuinely good at it. That felt like such an unobtainable goal that I never even considered it. And it's been pretty disorienting to be told that I am (but, again, in a good way).

Especially since I go against a lot of the common writing advice that you see floating around. I write a lot of words — some that are definitely not needed. I use adverbs, adjectives, and whatever the heck I want. I often do a lot of telling instead of showing. I repeat things and spell things out for the readers in a way that good writers shouldn't. I do a lot of hand-holding with my readers, taking them through every step of the character's thought process and reactions. I write detailed descriptions of what the characters are feeling instead of only showing it through their actions. The list goes on.

Like, if you look at what the writing advice says, I should be a terrible writer xD

But I'm glad that I'm not. I'm glad that I can write things that move people and that the stories I tell feel that engaging. And I love being able to share them and spread the joy. It's such a wonderful feeling to know that I've made a difference somehow, however small it may be.

So thank you so, so much for your kind words. Which feels wholly inadequate to convey just how grateful I am that you took the time to write and send this, but trust me when I say that it means a lot to me. I never thought I'd reach this point, with people reaching out to me just to tell me how much they love my writing. How wonderful is that? It leaves me utterly speechless sometimes.

How is this my life?

And so far I have no plans to stop writing Who Holds the Devil, don't worry. I can't promise it'll happen quickly what with everything that's going on in my life right now (like being officially diagnosed with burnout due to long Covid — yay me) but I'm way, way too stubborn to give up. And I also love the fic and the characters too much to stop xD I want to see this through to the end just as much as the rest of you.

So yeah. Thank you again for sending this — it made my day. And you take care, too 💜

[emmafallsinlove]

.

[goblins-and-gloves]

Angry at parents hour!

Undiagnosed autistic fuckers are delulu.

[roaringroa]

they should make a life where you don't have appointments, work, school and scheduled events every single day for months on end

[dailyquotes6563]

If pain must come, may it come quickly. Because I have a life to live, and I need to live it in the best way possible.

Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept