amewinterswriting

[amewinterswriting]

Do you have the Libby library app?

If not, download it to your phone, and under "Add library card" select the button to search for a library and start typing in "queer"...

Sign up with an email, no actual address required, and you are good to go 🏳️‍🌈

[amewinterswriting]

i think people get so used to their own creative work that they forget how amazing it is so i’m making this post as a reminder You are the only person capable of making art the exact way you make it. nobody else on earth can do that. there are always going to be those little habits and intricacies and details that simply cannot be replicated whether it’s in writing or painting or textiles and you make life all the better for it i love my friends’ art i love art from strangers im trying to love my own art I LOVE YOU!!! THE PERSON READING THIS!!!!!!! YOU ARE A PART OF THIS WORLD NEVER EVER STOP MAKING THINGS THAT CAN IMPACT IT

[amewinterswriting]

[amewinterswriting]

[amewinterswriting]

my creative writing prof also HATES fantasy. as in if she asks for an example of symbolism in a book, and you give something from a fantasy novel, she’ll ask for an example from a “non-commercial book” instead.

I dunno man, people can have preferences, but the second you discount the artistic merit of sci fi and fantasy I stop taking your opinion seriously. and there’s such a big culture in Canada of only valuing literary fiction, to the point where one of our biggest authors, Margaret Atwood, refused for a while to classify her books as sci fi or fantasy. she said they were “speculative fiction”, which is entirely separate and very highbrow (sarcasm).

and I could go on about how Octavia Butler and Ursula Le Guin wrote books every bit as intellectual (and honestly, even more so) than their literary counterparts, but I am also an enjoyer of schlock!! I think there’s artistic merit in animorphs, and in isekais where a japanese schoolgirl reincarnates into a magical spider who has to level up like it’s a video game! it’s like with everything, you can’t draw a clean line that separates ‘art’ from ‘non-art’ or even ‘lesser art’, and pretending you can do so just makes you look ignorant and goofy. in my opinion.

[amewinterswriting]

I’m watching The Sword in the Stone for the first time in decades and I’ve gotten to the part where Merlin is trying to get Arthur to lose his virginity to a squirrel.

[amewinterswriting]

You can write anywhere!

Write wherever you feel comfortable and creative. Lots of writing advice will tell you what to do with your space and how to be most creative. They'll try to tell you the best time of day or how clean your space needs to be. But only you know best what works for you.

Want to write in bed? Do it. At a cluttered desk at 3am? Push those doom piles aside! Under the dining room table during a family meal? I get it. We all need to hide in our own worlds once in a while. I even wrote a whole chapter in the corner of an outdoor superclub on vacation once.

All spaces are valid as long as you write!

[amewinterswriting]

this is your sign

[amewinterswriting]

Hey, random writing tip: Instead of having something be a ridiculously unlikely coincidence, you can make the thing happen due to who this particular character is as a person. Instead of getting stuck on "there's no logical reason to why that would happen", try to bend it into a case of "something like this would never happen to anybody but this specific fucker." Something that makes your reader chuckle and roll their eyes, going "well of course you would."

Why would the timid shy nerd be at a huge sketchy downtown black market bazaar? Well, she's got this beetle colony she's raising that needs a very specific kind of leaf for nest material, and there only place to get it is this one guy at the bazaar that sells that stuff. Why would the most femininely flamboyant guy ever known just happen to have downright encyclopedic knowledge about professional boxing? Well, there was this one time when he was down bad for this guy who was an aspiring professional boxer...

I know it sounds stupidly obvious when written out like this, but when you're up close to your writing, it's hard to see the forest for the trees. Some time ago I finished reading a book, where the whole plot hinges on character A, who is 100% certain that character B is dead, personally getting up and coming down from the top rooms of a castle, to the gates, at 3 am, to come look at some drunk who claims to be this guy who died 17 years ago. Why would A do that, if he's sure that B is dead?

Because he's a Warrior Guy from a culture of Loyalty And Honour, and hearing that someone's got the audacity to go about claiming to be his long-lost brother in battle, there is no other option than to immediately personally go down there to beat the ever-loving shit out of this guy. Who then turns out to actually be character B, after all.

[amewinterswriting]

PSA for fanfic writers

[amewinterswriting]

I've seen a lot of posts about the stress of not knowing what comes next when you're writing, but what about the opposite? What about when everything goes exactly to plan, and you're finally forced to face it?

Not knowing what comes next is a few hours/days of brainstorming before figuring out something cool

Knowing is "I've been planning this for literal years, but now that I have to actually type 'he's dead' I feel like I'm choking on my own spine"

...and those are two very different kinds of stress

[amewinterswriting]

WRITE IT ANYWAY!!! EVEN IF YOU DONT THINK YOURE GOOD ENOUGH!!! WRITE!!! IT!!!! ANYWAY!!!!!!!

[amewinterswriting]

may all the people who see this finish their current wip this year

[amewinterswriting]

every writer wants to create the next great masterpiece, but some of us are destined to write chaotic nonsense where the main character makes out with their sworn enemy while a building explodes in the background. and that’s okay.

[amewinterswriting]

writing? oh, i’m definitely writing. in my head. during the most inconvenient times. like in the shower or when i’m about to fall asleep. actual typing? no, no, we don’t do that here.

[amewinterswriting]

*me writing my own characters* omg get a room 🙄

*writes 3k more before they can get a room*

[amewinterswriting]