jarfulloftears

[jarfulloftears]

Things I've Learned While Writing My Debut Novel ( PART 1 )

Planning and outlining your novel will take FOREVER but it is important that you do it, even if you've never done it before, being organized will help you so much.

Please be intentional with everything about your story.

By the time you make it out of the planning stages, you will look back, you might think ' wtf ' and start revising and planning again.

Writing is literally purging thoughts, revising and editing, and purging again.

Don't tell anyone " you want to write a book ", just write it, duh.

( ↖ Continued ) Don't write for anyone except yourself. No matter how attached or unattached you are to the work, there are still elements of yourself weaved into its expression. This piece of literature was created from your hands and it's important that you tell the story from any angle that pleases you. People- on the other hand, are fickle beings and will never be pleased. People will never 'just want' something. Don't put your worth or skills in the throes of external validation, approval or an applause. You'll have tell others what they like and they'll like it. ( That's how trends start, babe )

You will second guess yourself A LOT and it will be okay. Keep writing anyway.

When writing your novel you will get a million more ideas. Some of them divert from your original plan/outline for the body of work, some of them will be for other stories seeded in your brain, this will be okay too. Use what feels best for where you are, fuck the plan ( not really, but really )

Trust yourself. Can't trust yourself? Trust the novel. Trust the characters, trust they will be interesting enough to fulfill the plot. Trust that what you have to say is worth being said.

Your ideas only work if you do.

The time will literally pass anyway, WRITE THE BOOK.

God makes no mistakes. ( no, i will not elaborate. if you know you know... )

Writing and editing are two separate processes and cannot be done at the same time because you'll literally never finish any damn thing.

Nothing you write is ' too long ' if you're a #realreader #realwriter and you're making sure you say whatever it is you need to say effectively.

You could plan/outline the entire book and it's sequel and still get writer's block, this is normal. You could have a whole outline done and still get distracted. You could have a whole 10 chapters written and ready to go, you wake up one day and suddenly all of them disgust you. You can change your mind. You can get off track. You can get discouraged. You can get depressed. You can be anxious. You can be mad. You can be unsure of what you're doing or where to start at, it doesn't make a difference, just keep fucking going.

There's a billion gazillion books in the world... make it a billion gazillion and one.

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Me writing anything. THE BEST SHIP DYNAMIC!

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Pros of re-reading your own fic

a good time;

Has exactly the tropes you like and the characterization you want to read;

Gratification: yes you did finish a thing and yes you did do good;

just a very fun time all around.

Cons of re-reading your own fic:

Is that another TYpO

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goddamn it.

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also! while i'm here, i need my mooties to STOP with the self-deprecation pleaseeeee!!! writers and readers, you are all valued and loved and it's painful to see some of you talk down on yourselves like this :(

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HALLOWEEN SMUT FEST MASTERLIST 🎃👻

- GhostFace(Erik Killmonger)

-Purge(ErikKillmonger/DanielKaluuya)

- Punished(MethodMan)

- Split(KofiSiriboe)

- Vampire(JoeyBada$$)

- Haunted(Jordan Calloway)

- DoubleTrouble(MichaelBJordan/MichaelBJordan)

- BlackPanther(ChadwickBoseman)

- CollegeLove(TrevanteRhodes)

- WolfByNight(Aaron Pierre)

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edit as you write. use adverbs. use said. outline. or don’t. plot it. pants it. make a mary sue. who cares! just write whatever makes you happy. that’s all this is about. be happy in what you make.

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actually @ every fanfiction writer whether you wrote something that got thousands of reblogs and comments and became a staple in your fandom, or you wrote one fic and deleted it, or you write mutilchaptered fics that never get a final update, or write short fics, or long fics, or used to write and now you don’t, or you deleted/orphaned your works, or you only share with friends:

thank you.

sharing your writing is hard. and sometimes it’s thankless. sometimes it’s such a negative experience that I wonder how anyone does it at all. but you are needed; you are wanted. whether or not we properly acknowledge it, you are a vital part of fandom culture. thanks for sharing.

[jarfulloftears]

Something to repeat to yourself in the shower:

My stories are not for everyone. 

My stories will bore some readers. Some readers will hate them. Some won’t understand, won’t connect the dots, won’t relate to the characters. Some won’t because they can’t, some won’t because they don’t want to, but most won’t simple because my stories just aren’t for them.

My stories aren’t for everyone.

My stories are for me.

And they’re for the readers who will love them. They’re for the reader who have already loved them. For the readers who will see what I see in them and feel the characters and the world the way I do. They’re for the readers who wanted these stories before they even knew they existed. They’re for the readers they’ll make smile, the readers they’ll stick with, and the readers they’ll save.

And just because my stories aren’t for everyone doesn’t make them worth any less to the people they are for. 

Not everyone likes butterflies. Not everyone likes spiders. But the people who love those creatures more than anything else would lose a part of themselves if they didn’t exist. 

So no, my stories are not for everyone. But that doesn’t matter. 

Because they’re for someone, and to that someone, they’re irreplaceable.

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me everytime I read words like "reader blushed pink" in a fanfic

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Always the writer, never the reader.

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The thing people don’t realize about writing is that time spent just staring out the window is CRITICAL

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To my fellow writers.

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Fanfic writers, I am begging you- even with dialogue that is clearly attributed, start a new paragraph with each new speaker. The reader shouldn't have to wait until after the dialogue is spoken to understand who is saying it.

Even if it's one word?

Yes.

But it makes things so long!

Great! Your stories will be the king of scrolling, a feast of thumbs, and a gentle stroke across a phone screen.

This convention exists for a reason! Each new paragraph should be a new idea or a new speaker. It's a shortcut for our brains to know that we have jumped across a gap and into the unknown, and you as the writer are about to explain to me where we have jumped to, but at least I know we are somewhere different.

Please practice this! I see so many good fanfic I want to read but except for this huge, glaring issue and it becomes impossible to understand what is happening.