maddilynmuse - Tumblr blog

maddilynmuse · 8 days ago

Text

Threads

Taylor hissed as he jerked his fingers back, yet another failed thread sparking and jerking on his spinning wheel. The thread had barely begun to wrap around his cone before it had begun to misbehave, and he thanked his lucky stars that the process was designed to fail early. He could only imagine the headache of an entire spool of thread evaporating itself only after spinning up half of it. The stinging tingle of his mana still numbed his fingers, his horns aching from all the hard effort he’d wasted. Perhaps a break would do him some good… Four failed attempts in a row would have taxed even his Master, even if the old, imperious grouch would never admit it. Master Gundarr’s shop was a well-stocked wonder to the non-magical eyes of most, but the clientele that actually had need of it had such a habit of looking down their nose at others that they’d often overlook things. The care and precision with which all of the materials were both stored and displayed, the colors and textures coordinated in a way that drew the eye from garment, to test cloth, to magic crystals and goo-gaws strung all over the place, all of these things were designed to make the imagination run wild. The equine faun’s efforts were thoroughly wasted on such displays of skill and wonder, as far as he and most of the clientele were concerned. Another low-mana twinge made his horns ache as the equine sat down on a stool, slowly massaging his temples and waiting for his stores to recharge. He could meditate, of course. If he was of a mind, he could clear his thoughts and guide himself through the process manually, deepening his overall reserves and bolstering his regeneration rate. Normally, he’d have done so immediately, but going from a full reserve to almost dry left his furred head full of cotton and his eyes heavy. If he closed them now, he’d simply fall asleep, and catch an absolute bollocking from Master Gundarr. Forgoing any kind of true rest, his mind drifted as he tried to relax. He still needed those thrice-damned spools of thread, but they’d do him no good at all if he got himself injured or blew up the spinning wheel from overuse, and then he’d really be in trouble. Aside from his Master likely throwing him out and disgracing him publicly for his failings, he’d have a difficult time trying to find any other work. Fauns like him were tainted by magic, unable to master and control it like the mages who made use of their services. Necessary though their talents were, the fauns themselves were considered dirty, filthy things. It likely didn’t help matters that fauns were all some sort of beast hybrid or demon. The sorcerers looked entirely human, and the warlocks occasionally had weird eyes or tattoos, but fauns? Inhuman. Monstrous. The country was barely a hundred years into legally recognizing his kind as people, as “fauns” instead of “abominations”, “monsters” and other such hysterical prattle. At least the previous generation had made enough progress to allow him and his kind to own property… with a “generous” donation to the state church and a sponsor who has no magic of any kind.

Mundane people were fine, honestly. He faced less discrimination from them than he did the mages. Whether they were sorcerer, born into their magical inheritance, or a warlock making bargains of every shade, mages were the kings and queens of the magical world. fauns were only there to enchant, inscribe, and make potions. Necessary services, to be sure, and their much larger stores of magical power made it an even bargain, but it was also bastard hard. Without Taylor’s massive store of energy, even successfully making a single spool of thread would be an all day adventure, let alone the catastrophe he was fighting with today. Truth be told, the spinning wheel and spindle in his Master’s shop was ancient. Perhaps he could finally convince Master Gundarr to order the new parts they’d been avoiding for months, maybe even get him to replace the magic crystal core that allowed them to power the stupid thing. Heaving a sigh, Taylor closed his eyes and rested his horns on the table in front of him. No, of course the Master wouldn’t requisition the replacement parts. That stubborn old elk would probably scold him for not treating his tools with the “appropriate care” and break out the old foot pedal conversion kit. Sure, it made the spinning wheel take four times as long to do any job at all, let alone that bastard sewing machine, but it would conveniently allow the Master to prolong buying any new parts while he painstakingly repaired the power crystal. The Master’s stinting priggishness was a matter of professional pride, as far as the old elk was concerned. Taylor’s nose crinkled in disgust at the mere thought of it. “The Master”… He hated calling his teacher that, but even thinking of him in any other way came with the risk of referring to Master Gundarr as something else, and that would come with dire consequences. Sure, Gundarr was the master, and he the apprentice, but the elk had been around for who knew how long. Some instinct in the back of Taylor’s mind told him that his master might have been old enough to have lived through the slavery and abuse of centuries past. He certainly spoke like he was centuries old, and with fauns one could never tell.

Speaking of the irascible, ancient cervine, Taylor snapped fully to attention, his head leaping up from the table he was resting on as the downstairs wards hummed to life. Master Gundarr rose up from his basement apartment, head high, snout pointed almost into the air as his threadbare robes billowed behind him. The elk’s ossicones were a point of further arrogance and pride, naturally. They stored his magic, looked sleek and elegant, and did not cause him to snag and catch on anything around him. Watching his master elegantly stride up from the basement and sweep his skilled hands over the banister, Taylor was struck with the oddness of their kind. Mundane elk, the four-legged kind, had impressive, powerful antlers and lovely velvet, and horses had… well, no horns of any kind. He was sure that the mages knew why some fauns had horns and some had antlers, but if they did, they kept it firmly to themselves.

#not my writing #fantasy #writeblr #faun #creative writing #interesting #gotta love some weave #and different faun types!#love the detail about them only recently classified as human #feels so REAL with the discrimination #and meditating to restore magic is a trope I just like #ngl

29 notes · View notes

maddilynmuse · 11 days ago

Text

alright, I’m annoyed with the class that I’m taking. it’s about writing novels, and I thought it would have cool stuff about balancing your narrative and developing themes etc, but instead she spent the first class talking about how every book fits into the Hero’s Journey (the monomyth template). and I was somewhat of a contrarian, and said “can you give us examples of books that don’t fit into this template?” and she said “no. because all books fit.”

but I dunno man, I just finished reading this Korean book where the plot is just the character having a string of hookups and reflecting on them without changing in any way. I don’t know if it’s possible to contort that into the Hero’s Journey.

#story structure #I hope you find something of worth OP #writeblr #writing #hero’s journey #not every story needs to be the hero’s journey #you can have other things!#not that hero’s journey is bad #but only one kind of tale

17K notes · View notes

maddilynmuse · 11 days ago

Text

You can fight AI in indie publishing by leaving reviews.

Seriously.

Ai-generated garbage is flooding the self-publishing market. It works as a numbers game- put out ENOUGH fake crap and eventually someone’s aunt will buy them the ebook as an unwanted gift, and you’ll have made two dollars. This tactic works at SCALE, which means real independent titles are now a needle amongst a haystack of slop.

If you have read a book this year that has less than 5 reviews, your rating is an algorithmic spotlight on that needle.

A one sentence review helps. Really. A star rating helps if you really can’t think of anything to say, but if you can muster up even “I laughed at the part about the tabby cat” you are doing indie authors a favor like you cannot believe.

(Also if you left a review on one of my books this year I am kissing you so softly on your forehead and I adore you)

16K notes · View notes

maddilynmuse · 16 days ago

Text

House Fire

First off, let me clarify: not my house, but I WAS there.

I visited my lovely partner @dragonfuckerllc over the last few weeks. There were ups, downs, got some lovely New Year’s parties (even if too many in a row, lol), got sick after a hockey game, but were recovering and having some fun, just watching my personal favorite genre of show: Chaos Cooking (specifically, Worst Cooks in America).

Thank god.

We only had access to it from the upper rooms. Given how cold it was, we had the lil space heater running… and that is not the star of this story. Just a horrid little red herring. Smelled something burning, assumed some pet hair got caught in that. But the smell kept coming, the smoke alarm went off, and we found out something had caught fire in the basement… where we would’ve been if we were sleeping or watching tv downstairs or playing video games or basically anything else. So far as we can tell, a chair with a built in phone charger had a malfunction. Nothing plugged in, nothing on it, just… fire.

We got out in time, no one was hurt (except Maya, rest in piece, Tortoise shell kitty ❤️), but smoke filled the house. A lot was damaged. I’m back home safely now, and she has a place to stay, but…

Well. As I said, a lot was damaged.

Insurance should reimburse some of it, but that will take time. Until then, here’s a Go Fund Me for her and her family…

And while I’m hardly the biggest victim here, if you want to toss me a few dollars, here’s my Kofi. Doesn’t offer much, mostly just a tip jar, but it’s there.

#house fire #crowdfunding #announcement #real life #go fund me #Kofi #love you hun #I’m glad we’re safe #I don’t expect much from this #but figured I’d try

17 notes · View notes

maddilynmuse · 19 days ago

Note

sincerest apologies if you've been asked and said something about this before, but i'm curious what your process for coming up with your characters is! the way the isat cast are written is so good and well rounded, they each really feel like a person. how do you develop them to that point! for that matter, was there any interesting Character behind the scenes development between comic!siffrin and game siffrin as their story changed and became more fleshed out? thank you so much if you decide to answer, and if you don't that's ok too and i hope you have a good day!

ok i feel like i have answered this before, but it's not in my #reference tag so you get a whole new answer!!!!!!

-figure out a Trope. a Fella full of Tropes. like omg thats a Fella who Likes Puns. take your Trope Fella thats your basis.

-give them a secret. or more. the secrets will drive their actions. this Fella has amnesia and also has abandonment issues. do not reveal the secrets until the Right Moment, but you should often allude to it

-with those two things you will get Rules. this is a Fella who likes Puns. they use puns to deflect. so if someone asks a question that is a little too close to home, they will ALWAYS DEFLECT.

-write them in so many situations. how would they react to this? what would they say here? how would they answer when someone asks about their favorite hobby? would they be honest about it? or are they lying about it? why?

-every situation theyre into should go back to the rules. even if you're the only one who knows it. just a sprinkle to make people go "huh that was a weird reaction...."

-that way, people experiencing the story again will be able to go "OH MY GOD... THAT WASNT A PUN OUT OF NOWHERE... THAT WAS A /DEFLECTION/" and they will love it.

-rules are here to be broken. but only for the best moments ever

-lastly, give them a hobby or two to make them seem like real people. be REAL specific about it. this girl doesnt just like romance books she likes MONSTER ROMANCE

#reference #character creation #oh I like these

2K notes · View notes

maddilynmuse · 24 days ago

Text

284 notes · View notes

maddilynmuse · 29 days ago

Text

Periodic rent-lowering-gunshots:

Fiction is not reality.

You can enjoy things in fiction that would be awful in the real world. Like playing a murderhobo in a game! In the real world, being or supporting a murderer-thief would be pretty damn awful, while in the game it's just good fun. Same with anything else you choose to do with the pixels on the screen, like kinks that don't affect anyone real, so they're okay in fiction, but would be pretty damn bad in real life.

No one else is responsible for your online experience. They are required not to harass you, but they are not and never will be obligated to not post about ships, kinks, or tropes you dislike just to avoid you seeing them. It's up to you to blacklist words or phrases, block tags, or even block users as needed to avoid seeing content that upsets you.

No one can force you to read anything against your consent. Any content you don't like seeing can be instantly avoided by closing out of the offending post/fic.

You are not owed an online experience free of discomfort.

Nothing that happens in your imagination can ever make you a bad person. Words you write or read about fictional characters will never make you a bad person.

The claim that media consumption influences real-life behavior is intellectually dishonest and serves only to excuse the behavior of real offenders.

Fiction is a safe way to explore horrifying or confusing concepts. Therapists agree that fiction, even (or especially) about taboo topics is a good coping mechanism, especially, but not exclusively, for trauma survivors. Fiction is to adults what play therapy is to children. This doesn't stop being true if the work in question is of a sexual nature.

Sex isn't an inherently worse or better motivation than anything else. A work written to create feelings of arousal isn't dirty, shameful, or in any way less pure than works written to entertain, provoke moral questions, or for other reasons. And worth noting is that multiple purposes can exist in the same story, especially fanfiction.

You aren't entitled to an explanation for why someone reads, writes, or otherwise enjoys certain works, kinks, tropes, ships, etc.

19K notes · View notes

maddilynmuse · 29 days ago

Text

The Neurodivergent Writer’s Guide to Fun and Productivity

(Even when life beats you down)

Look, I’m a mom, I have ADHD, I’m a spoonie. To say that I don’t have heaps of energy to spare and I struggle with consistency is an understatement. For years, I tried to write consistently, but I couldn’t manage to keep up with habits I built and deadlines I set.

So fuck neurodivergent guides on building habits, fuck “eat the frog first”, fuck “it’s all in the grind”, and fuck “you just need time management”—here is how I manage to write often and a lot.

Focus on having fun, not on the outcome

This was the groundwork I had to lay before I could even start my streak. At an online writing conference, someone said: “If you push yourself and meet your goals, and you publish your book, but you haven’t enjoyed the process… What’s the point?” and hoo boy, that question hit me like a truck.

I was so caught up in the narrative of “You’ve got to show up for what’s important” and “Push through if you really want to get it done”. For a few years, I used to read all these productivity books about grinding your way to success, and along the way I started using the same language as they did. And I notice a lot of you do so, too.

But your brain doesn’t like to grind. No-one’s brain does, and especially no neurodivergent brain. If having to write gives you stress or if you put pressure on yourself for not writing (enough), your brain’s going to say: “Huh. Writing gives us stress, we’re going to try to avoid it in the future.”

So before I could even try to write regularly, I needed to teach my brain once again that writing is fun. I switched from countable goals like words or time to non-countable goals like “fun” and “flow”.

Rewire my brain: writing is fun and I’m good at it

I used everything I knew about neuroscience, psychology, and social sciences. These are some of the things I did before and during a writing session. Usually not all at once, and after a while I didn’t need these strategies anymore, although I sometimes go back to them when necessary.

I journalled all the negative thoughts I had around writing and try to reason them away, using arguments I knew in my heart were true. (The last part is the crux.) Imagine being supportive to a writer friend with crippling insecurities, only the friend is you.

Not setting any goals didn’t work for me—I still nurtured unwanted expectations. So I did set goals, but made them non-countable, like “have fun”, “get in the flow”, or “write”. Did I write? Yes. Success! Your brain doesn’t actually care about how high the goal is, it cares about meeting whatever goal you set.

I didn’t even track how many words I wrote. Not relevant.

I set an alarm for a short time (like 10 minutes) and forbade myself to exceed that time. The idea was that if I write until I run out of mojo, my brain learns that writing drains the mojo. If I write for 10 minutes and have fun, my brain learns that writing is fun and wants to do it again.

Reinforce the fact that writing makes you happy by rewarding your brain immediately afterwards. You know what works best for you: a walk, a golden sticker, chocolate, cuddle your dog, whatever makes you happy.

I conditioned myself to associate writing with specific stimuli: that album, that smell, that tea, that place. Any stimulus can work, so pick one you like. I consciously chose several stimuli so I could switch them up, and the conditioning stays active as long as I don’t muddle it with other associations.

Use a ritual to signal to your brain that Writing Time is about to begin to get into the zone easier and faster. I guess this is a kind of conditioning as well? Meditation, music, lighting a candle… Pick your stimulus and stick with it.

Specifically for rewiring my brain, I started a new WIP that had no emotional connotations attached to it, nor any pressure to get finished or, heaven forbid, meet quality norms. I don’t think these techniques above would have worked as well if I had applied them on writing my novel.

It wasn’t until I could confidently say I enjoyed writing again, that I could start building up a consistent habit. No more pushing myself.

I lowered my definition for success

When I say that nowadays I write every day, that’s literally it. I don’t set out to write 1,000 or 500 or 10 words every day (tried it, failed to keep up with it every time)—the only marker for success when it comes to my streak is to write at least one word, even on the days when my brain goes “naaahhh”. On those days, it suffices to send myself a text with a few keywords or a snippet. It’s not “success on a technicality (derogatory)”, because most of those snippets and ideas get used in actual stories later. And if they don’t, they don’t. It’s still writing. No writing is ever wasted.

A side note on high expectations, imposter syndrome, and perfectionism

Obviously, “Setting a ridiculously low goal” isn’t something I invented. I actually got it from those productivity books, only I never got it to work. I used to tell myself: “It’s okay if I don’t write for an hour, because my goal is to write for 20 minutes and if I happen to keep going for, say, an hour, that’s a bonus.” Right? So I set the goal for 20 minutes, wrote for 35 minutes, and instead of feeling like I exceeded my goal, I felt disappointed because apparently I was still hoping for the bonus scenario to happen. I didn’t know how to set a goal so low and believe it.

I think the trick to making it work this time lies more in the groundwork of training my brain to enjoy writing again than in the fact that my daily goal is ridiculously low. I believe I’m a writer, because I prove it to myself every day. Every success I hit reinforces the idea that I’m a writer. It’s an extra ward against imposter syndrome.

Knowing that I can still come up with a few lines of dialogue on the Really Bad Days—days when I struggle to brush my teeth, the day when I had a panic attack in the supermarket, or the day my kid got hit by a car—teaches me that I can write on the mere Bad-ish Days.

The more I do it, the more I do it

The irony is that setting a ridiculously low goal almost immediately led to writing more and more often. The most difficult step is to start a new habit. After just a few weeks, I noticed that I needed less time and energy to get into the zone. I no longer needed all the strategies I listed above.

Another perk I noticed, was an increased writing speed. After just a few months of writing every day, my average speed went from 600 words per hour to 1,500 wph, regularly exceeding 2,000 wph without any loss of quality.

Talking about quality: I could see myself becoming a better writer with every passing month. Writing better dialogue, interiority, chemistry, humour, descriptions, whatever: they all improved noticeably, and I wasn’t a bad writer to begin with.

The increased speed means I get more done with the same amount of energy spent. I used to write around 2,000-5,000 words per month, some months none at all. Nowadays I effortlessly write 30,000 words per month. I didn’t set out to write more, it’s just a nice perk.

Look, I’m not saying you should write every day if it doesn’t work for you. My point is: the more often you write, the easier it will be.

No pressure

Yes, I’m still working on my novel, but I’m not racing through it. I produce two or three chapters per month, and the rest of my time goes to short stories my brain keeps projecting on the inside of my eyelids when I’m trying to sleep. I might as well write them down, right?

These short stories started out as self-indulgence, and even now that I take them more seriously, they are still just for me. I don’t intend to ever publish them, no-one will ever read them, they can suck if they suck. The unintended consequence was that my short stories are some of my best writing, because there’s no pressure, it’s pure fun.

Does it make sense to spend, say, 90% of my output on stories no-one else will ever read? Wouldn’t it be better to spend all that creative energy and time on my novel? Well, yes. If you find the magic trick, let me know, because I haven’t found it yet. The short stories don’t cannibalize on the novel, because they require different mindsets. If I stopped writing the short stories, I wouldn’t produce more chapters. (I tried. Maybe in the future? Fingers crossed.)

Don’t wait for inspiration to hit

There’s a quote by Picasso: “Inspiration hits, but it has to find you working.” I strongly agree. Writing is not some mystical, muse-y gift, it’s a skill and inspiration does exist, but usually it’s brought on by doing the work. So just get started and inspiration will come to you.

Accountability and community

Having social factors in your toolbox is invaluable. I have an offline writing friend I take long walks with, I host a monthly writing club on Discord, and I have another group on Discord that holds me accountable every day. They all motivate me in different ways and it’s such a nice thing to share my successes with people who truly understand how hard it can be.

The productivity books taught me that if you want to make a big change in your life or attitude, surrounding yourself with people who already embody your ideal or your goal huuuugely helps. The fact that I have these productive people around me who also prioritize writing, makes it easier for me to stick to my own priorities.

Your toolbox

The idea is to have several techniques at your disposal to help you stay consistent. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket by focussing on just one technique. Keep all of them close, and if one stops working or doesn’t inspire you today, pivot and pick another one.

After a while, most “tools” run in the background once they are established. Things like surrounding myself with my writing friends, keeping up with my daily streak, and listening to the album I conditioned myself with don’t require any energy, and they still remain hugely beneficial.

Do you have any other techniques? I’d love to hear about them!

I hope this was useful. Happy writing!

#writing tools #writing advice #neurodivergent #advice #creative writing

6K notes · View notes