#Blindthewind

[maguayans]

Trick or treat! 🍬🎃

Hey, hey, hey Minty! I hope you're doing well today. I pick...TREAT!🎃👀 Here are a few lines from Fair Waters:

Birds flew above the rocks where the body was still and sea-salted. They were loud, squawking mockery at the loss of human life—how foolish it was of them to dare disrespect and enrage the ocean.

[olimpias]

Last Line Tag

tagged by the lovely @blindthewind, thank you!!💖💖

my last lines are from a short story for writersnet’s mythology event. It’s called “The Fall of the Æsir” and it’s set in a viking world. I will do a wip intro for it eventually i suppose

That night Glum, furious with rage, stormed into the forest near the castle, where he sought out a clearing that he alone knew existed. "Hear, Odin!" he shouted into the wind that arose as soon as he spoke the name. "If thou wilt prove thy favour to me, bring death and destruction upon the Æsir, and upon their king Osgrim, the most treacherous of them all!"

With that he returned to the castle one last time, gathered up his belongings and disappeared from Ida by an unknown route.

Odin, who had heard the minister's words, said to himself: "The wretch is right about one thing: Ida has long since turned away from the right path. They may have been a good people of honest warriors and skilled craftsmen, but those days are long gone. And I think that these people must be stopped.”

Tagging: @macabretypewriter @wherewindysurgeswend @writerlywonders @absolute-nonsense-scribblings @euphoniouspandemonium @ryns-ramblings @regan-wickworre @aphaimaniis and anyone who wants to do this! :)

[witherednightmare]

Hi there! For the cities ask game: Buenos Aires (and why), San Francisco for both of your main WIPs, Kabul, and Barcelona? :D

Cities around the world writing ask game

Thank you so much for the questions! :D

Buenos Aires: which of your OCs would you go in a road trip with?

Hmmm... the first two ones that popped into my head were human Lenny and Olivia. It would be a damn mess but it’d contain a lot of messy fun! Lenny would volunteer to drive the car 24/7, and not let anyone else drive so he’s an extra plus. Another one to bring... human Remy! He just wants to go on a big adventure to get away from his royal life!

San Francisco: who of your OCs is the mom friend of the group?

Easy for Circus! Circus! - Lenny! A good mom friend, can sense your sad moods and will bring you your favorite music and food to cheer you up. Too bad he always puts himself last :’)

In Sacrifice he’s still the mom friend in the group of the animatronics. For the human group it’s hard to say. No one wants to take the responsibility for each other, and they haven’t really become friends yet. Maybe Mira?? But she’s shaking her head at this idea so I don’t really know, lmao.

Kabul: do you have a writing routine? which one?

Tbh, I don’t have one. I just sit down and try to write words, just let them flow without them making any sense yet. It’s not a real routine to watch tv while writing because it doesn’t really help me concentrate, lol. The only routine I have is to sit in the two same spots when I write.

Barcelona: what is your favorite trope?

Haven’t figured this out yet, I don’t want to concentrate on figuring this out while writing a rough draft (and because I don’t have any clue about tropes, lmao).

[author-a-holmes]

Yooo, for the writer asks: 1, 21, and 23? :O

Evening darling, thank you for the asks! ^_^

Answering asks 1, 21, and 23 from this ask list.

1. Is there a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason?

Yes, actually! Right now I'm holding off on completing my Stolen Stories.

In the previous ask I mentioned that I completed the first draft of Book One in my Stolen Stories series between May and October of 2020.

My plan was to continue with that series and write Book Two while doing the first round of edits on Book One, so that I'd be writing Book Three while sending Book One out to Alpha/Beta readers. There's a full 6 books planned for that series, so I wanted to overlap them all slightly, and then eventually publish Book One sort of around the time I started writing Book 4.

But...

When I started looking into the publishing side of actually being a self published author, the reality of the process kind of hit me a little harder than I expected.

The first time you do something, anything, you're bound to make mistakes. I only have to look back at my first story to know that and, for all my years of writing practice, I've never hit the publish button on a book.

And 'Stolen' is my baby, for lack of a better term. Stella Korazon and Reilly Mosswolf are the darlings of my heart. I'd die for them, I'd kill or them. I do not want to "practice" the art of publishing a book with their story.

So Stolen, and it's sequels are currently on hold, and that's why I'm working on the Fey Touched novels right now. That's not to say I love Lizzy and Andric and Booker any less, but I have to split my mind into author and self-publisher. As an author, I love Fey Touched just as much as Stolen, but as a self-publisher a trilogy of 90k books failing is better than a 6-book series where each book is 140k+ failing.

Fey Touched is where I will hit publish for the first time and, hopefully, discover all the mistakes I'll inevitably make so that I can more effectively promote and market Stolen, when that monster of a series is ready for the world at large.

21. What do you think when you read over your older work?

That entirely depends on how old the work is :D

If it's something I've written within the last 1-5 years, then most of the time my reaction is something along the lines of;

"Oh wow, that's pretty good."

"Damn, that's an evocative line. Did I actually write this?"

"I FORGOT ABOUT THAT PART!!"

If, on the other hand, it's something like my first manuscript from when I was age 8 or 9, my reaction is usually something closer to;

"Oh no... that's... oh dear."

"Oh gods, please tell me I didn't say that..."

"Umm... That word doesn't mean what I thought it meant..."

"Bloody hell, I'm glad no one else will ever read this."

Having said that, @faelanvance takes great delight in digging through my old manuscripts and reading them back to me aloud for my ultimate mortification :D

23. Any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped your writing?

Probably too many to fit into a single tumblr post, honestly.

I'm constantly drawing from my own life experiences to put my readers into my characters positions. I can take pain and terror or Joy and Laughter from one set of experiences and then Copy/Paste it, for lack of a better term, into a different situation, but that direct knowledge lets me bring the descriptions to life for the reader. At least, I certainly hope it does!

As for specific situations that I feel have helped my writing... Let me just pick a couple.

(A) My Terrible Health

I mentioned in the previous ask that I was born with congenital talipes. Anyone can google it if they want more information, but it's also known as club foot. As a child, all this really meant to me was that I was constantly in and out of hospitals for operations and physiotherapy and that I wasn't physically able to run, jump, climb trees, or even walk long distances without my feet and legs hurting.

Also, because of the operations I spent a great deal of time in bed, or sitting in wheelchairs, while I recovered.

None of this is said in a negative light, in fact, in terms of my writing I'm rather grateful for all that free time to sit and think and imagine. I was and am a voracious reader. I was reading Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, and David Eddings' The Belgariad by myself at the age of 7 and 8. If I was only going to be allowed one book in hospital, I was going to make sure it was the longest book I could lay my grubby little hands on.

I could lay for hours on the children's ward while other patients yelled and fought over the single playstation or the jigsaw puzzles, and I could create entire worlds in my head. I could bring to life characters that could explore Middle Earth or go on adventures with Belgarath, and I only needed myself and my mind.

Books were a popular gift for me, because I was physically restricted, and then once I began picking up a pen, notebooks, journals, and fancy pens were quick to follow.

I think I would still have found writing, I can't imagine what my life would be like if I hadn't discovered this passion, but I'm not 100% sure I'd have discovered it as early as I did if I'd not been forced to stay still for so much of my childhood.

(B)

Another specific scenario that I feel really helped my confidence in my writing was my High School English teacher, Mr Reck.

I was bullied through most of my schooling, mostly for being on crutches, but this really didn't bother me. I just ignored them.

But one day we had been given a task in class, and I'd already finished, so as I usually did I pulled out my notebook and started writing a story while I waited or the next task.

One of the students thought to get me into trouble by telling Mr Reck that I wasn't doing the work. He came over, looked at my completed work, looked at what I was actually doing (writing an original story), and then told me that if I ever wanted someone to read over my writing and check it, I could always leave it on his desk during lunch... and then he calmly walked away.

This was, for 14-15 year old me, mind blowing.

I didn't care about the bullies, they really didn't bother me. I also wasn't self conscious about my writing, both my parents are and have always been strong supporters of my creative work. The reason this stood out to me at the time, and continues to stand out to me as one of the defining moments of my high school life was because it was the first time someone outside of my immediate family not only read my work, but thought it was good enough to actively encourage.

Mr Reck also got me into a writing workshop that year, that was only supposed to be available to graduating students. I've no idea how he managed it, but he did and I'll be forever grateful to him. I intend to add his name to the dedication page of the first book I publish, and I'm in the process right now of trying to track him down to send him a copy.

I think I've found him, I've just got to get the nerve up to send a private message to confirm!

If there are any teachers out there reading this though, please take note of this final story. I don't know that some teachers realise just how important one, single, non-family member showing a genuine interest in a students work can affect that students entire life.

[betwixtofficial]

Hello there! :D Here for the Underwing Challenge! So I gotta ask. I think you're one of the few writeblrs I regularly talk to who're actually a duo, so I'm really curious about how it works for you. What does planning look like? When it comes to actually writing, do you trade a doc back and forth, or does one person write one chapter while the other writes another, etc? Are some characters/plot points more Andi's than Leith's/vice-versa?

me,  Andi,  is the writer.    Leith developed half the characters and I need him to help with certain character development issues,   especially like,   deeper psychology stuff for his characters,  and like,   reactions  to events, etc.

We developed the world of Betwixt together,  over time.  There wasnt’ much in the way of formal planning, it was basically one or another of us saying   “hey!  what if this crazy thing happened”    and the other one going,   “it’s happening!”   and then we roleplayed it out and ended up wherever the characters led us. 

Leith isn’t nearly as involved in the writing process now as he has been in the past,   I still run things past him,  but he’s far busier now than he was.   He’s a really great writer too, but that’s not his focus.

So I guess really,  it’s mostly just me,  but  Leith is still a really important part of the writing process.

[emelkae]

All of those Halloween asks sound excellent, but I feel like I need to hear about Devil in particular. 8)

They are really cool, right? :D

Devil – which one of your oc’s would be the final girl in a horror movie?

That'd be Evelyn, mostly because she actually is the final girl in my one horror/scifi wip! And she's got all the final girl characteristics, come to think of it: brunette, young and thin, straight edge... She does not have a good time during the zombie apocalypse, but at least she lives.

[mary-is-writing]

OC Career game

Thanks for the tag @blindthewind!! I kinda only have Joel from TMOWS to do this with since Roberto already has a job, and my characters from WCB live in a fantasy world so a lot of these jobs don't even exist lol. Anyways, here is my take on Joel for this:

Rules: italize the jobs your oc would like to have and bold the ones your oc would hate

bus/taxi driver || game developer || janitorial staff/maid || web developer || fast food worker || nurse || management of a company || photographer || blogger || hypnotherapist || psychic || airline staff || scientist || musician || artist || writer || police/sheriff || military personnel || machinist || pharmacist || hotel worker (any position) || valet driver || sales worker || customer service rep (any company) || therapist/psychiatrist || veterinarian || zookeeper || debt collector || business owner || insurance representative || animal shelter worker

Leaving it as an open tag for anyone who wants to do it!!

[nikkywrites]

🧐 and 🔎? :D

Thank you for the ask! :D

🧐 Write an analysis of one of your characters, from a reader’s perspective.

Thanatos is such a sweetheart!! I just want to wrap him up in a hug.

🔎 What is something you learned when doing research for your WIP?

Some people said that Persephone was the daughter of Styx instead of Demeter! Might just be me, but I found that interesting.

[pens-swords-stuff]

Hi there! The Secret Admirer event sounds like a lot of fun! But I'm a little confused about one detail. Are you supposed to send an anon ask (hence the "secret" part), or do you send signed-in asks (and the "secret admirer" is really more of a "you won't know who will be sending you an ask until it happens")? Thanks! Really looking forward to sending asks out! :D

In response to this post.

Take a look at the FAQ here! There’s a question called  My assigned person’s askbox isn’t open! My assigned person has their anonymous turned off! that should answer it.

You bring up an excellent point though, I should separate that into different questions. Thanks! (EDIT: FAQ has been updated to be more clear!)

Essentially, it doesn’t really matter! You can do whichever you want. If you want to send it anonymously, that’s fine. If you want to send it with your name attached, also fine! The true secret admirer part is not knowing who you’re going to get until the day of.

The real story behind it is this: The very first time I ran this event back in 2019 (proud to say that this is the 3rd year of Writeblr Secret Admirer!), I did require all asks to be anonymous because hey, secret admirer event, right? 

It was a logistical nightmare. Despite repeated reminders, requests, DMs, and asks to turn on anonymous asks beforehand, there were like 20 people that didn’t. My Valentine’s day was spent frantically fielding DMs and asks, acting as the in-between for several pairs of people asking me what to do since their assigned valentine’s anonymous wasn’t turned on, and me begging their person to turn anonymous on.

So yeah, lesson learned. Anonymous asks are an option, not a requirement.

I actually did have that “the secret part is not knowing who your admirer is until the day of :)” in the description of last year’s event, and I took it out this year because I was trying to cut down on the word count. Maybe I should add it back in.

Super glad that you’re excited for the event, hope you have fun!

Writeblr Secret Admirer: Come sign up to send and receive a lovely message on Valentine’s Day!

[avian-writes]

If you’re on writeblr and not following @blindthewind , what are you doing?

[blo0swing46]

Hi~ Here for the Underwing Challenge! Hope you're doing well! :D Simple one for today: What scene are you looking forward to tackling the most?

Hi! :D

Oooooo, this is a good question.

For Rage, it's a hard choice, but I'm going to have to go with this one chapter that I'm really nervous, but also really looking forward to writing.

I don't want to give too much away because spoilers, but it's meant to be really suspenseful and eerily out of place and I love it! There's new character "introductions" as well as a lot of lore that's thrown into the mix! Plus, I have a whole thing planned for it, and even if I don't get it done in time, I'm still really looking forward to working on it!

I'll talk about it more in detail under the cut, but spoiler warning:

Thanks for the question!

Context: In the chapter before this, Dillan gets freaked out and tries to leave the Trap World through a The Exit Portal (which was deemed unsafe after the Blackout). However, he is stopped by two older boys. While they talk, they are ambushed and one of the boys is shot by an arrow. Now, he's going back to try and figure out what exactly happened that night.

So, after returning to the Hollowed Room and finding nothing, him and his friend Rosa decide to return home. However, while teleporting, they are glitched into this creepy, abandoned warehouse-like place. In fear, they take shelter to try and figure out what's going on and quickly realize that they aren't alone, and that there might be more to the warehouse then they thought.

Ye! I love it because it's meant to completely throw people off guard and make them question a lot of stuff!

As for the project, I don't want to confirm anything, as I'm not even sure it would be possible for me to do, but I want to make a little demo game of that chapter to try and sprinkle in more lore, as well as just show it in another light!

Again thanks for the question!

[olimpias]

thank you so much @blindthewind!!💗💗 i made a new post bc the chain was getting pretty long!

lets see! maybe its not that much

Rules: Post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Send me an ask with the title that most intrigues you and I’ll post a little snippet of it or tell you something about it! And then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

autumn

cosmopolitan snippets

cosmopolitan excerpts

muse

outsiders

the fall of the Æsir story

thurs maidens poem

cosmopolitan

cosmopolitan helps

giacomo

jugglers of venice

heads-up first scene

saint sylvester

alex secret service

doll face intro snippet

ok idk if i can tag as many people...but ill try. @macabretypewriter @wherewindysurgeswend @aphaimaniis @writingbyjillian @writingamongther0ses @unholieds @magnoliaash @ortolon @euphoniouspandemonium @crowsandlace @solskorolevas @ashen-crest @ryns-ramblings @regan-wickworre @corkythewriteblr and anyone who wants to try!

[witherednightmareold]

Hi there! Here for the Underwing Challenge again! Thanks so much for yesterday's answer, and I hope your day's been awesome. :D So! Which of the animatronics is your favorite to write, which was your favorite to design, and which one is your favorite overall? If you can choose, of course, haha. ;)

Welcome back! Thank you so much for your question I got to answer, too. The asks are getting so much better! I hope your day has been awesome, too!

Which of the animatronics is your favorite to write?

I’ve been thinking about this questions since you’ve sent it in, and?? I still can’t choose? They all have their own little parts I love to write/explore! Lenny’s selflessness, Mimi’s charme, Remy’s absolute feral behavior, Mo’s controls, Nellie’s love to lick things with her oil covered tongue, Lin’s and Ren’s lack of any moral code, the Little Bots’ chanting and snickering... But I’d say.... Mimi and Lenny, so far. I’ve written them the most. It’s not set that they’re my favorites to write in the future.

Which was your favorite to design

Mimi, easily! Probably because she has the most set design out of everyone else. The designs of the others aren’t developed yet. I had a lot of fun to play around with Mimi’s clothes, hair, face, but I also had a pretty clear image of her after she was added as a character.

Which one is your favorite overall?

Lenny...? Too soft for him... His past, his happy-go-lucky attitude, his eccentric behavior... red hair and red eyes... He’s pretty much a comfort character for me :’) But also Mimi... just for being... Mimi... Still, can’t 100% decide, lol.

[afoolandathief]

Day 23 of the writeblr challenge - Tag a writeblr you love seeing on your dash

So @blindthewind made a post the other day that I thought did a great job putting into words the struggle with picking a single blog/WIP/OC for this part of the challenge. Granted, I did end up picking a WIP and an OC to give a shout-out to; but one of those is an actual published work, and the other is someone who is putting out a lot of content featuring that character. For a lot of us, I imagine it can be hard to share our work sometimes; whether that's because it's still in the drafting stages and not polished enough yet; we're afraid sharing too much could possibly scratch out the traditional publishing route; or we don't have the time, are too nervous, etc.

Also, I'm terrible with interacting with people online. Like I both want to, and I also get horrible, horrible anxiety over it (and yes, I work in media, it's a bad combo all the way around).

Anyway, in an ironic twist, I'm picking blindthewind to give a shout-out to for their post. Also, I was considering them anyway, since I've really enjoyed the commentary they've included on each of these challenge posts.

← Day 22 Day 24 →

[betwixtofficial]

Hi there! Back at it with an Underwing ask! :D You mention that Betwixt consists of an infinite different arcs and timelines. At the risk of making you pick your favorite child ... which is your favorite arc?

oh god.   this is painful, but not for the reasons you might think.    I’m not sure I could choose one.   There are several of them where really fascinating things happened.      Wynter and Luca leading different factions of survivors during a Zombie outbreak,   um,  the one where Rivet & Jaq have a daughter and she can’t get past her crappy childhood and can’t get past her need for revenge and tries to kill everyone that had a hand in it,  including outside of her own universe.    Or the one where Xavier had a vampire boyfriend.    There’s the one where Xavier and Alex were physically split and were being forced into arranged marriages.       Or the one where Xavier was sold off to a Billionaire on a tropical island and had to figure out how to escape.   The one where Jaq gets married to a wealthy art dealer twice his age,   the one where Skye and Jaq take a trip east to visit Skye’s mom.      Some of them are more far fetched than others. It’s just hard to remember everything that's happened to them all.

[bayalexison]

yeeeeeeeeeessss. 8) For the meta ask game: 2, 4, 21, and 24?

2. Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project

For Foul Play I'm currently writing the final arc at the moment and I have some fun moments plan for that. I admit though after writing FE3H fics instead of Foul Play for several months it's getting hard for me to get in the grove, but hopefully soon!

There's one original idea I've been tinkering for a bit called Devil's Game. It's basically a modern take on the Faust folklore where a young woman makes a deal with the "devil" out of desperation. I got the premise and a few characters thought of, but I still need to plan this out a lot more.

4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

So this is from Foul Play's Chapter 22 where Nanu gives the big reveal to Anabel and she doesn't take it well. I'm proud of this paragraph because Nanu feels horrible for keeping this secret to Anabel and after finally telling it to her he feels worse.

"As they watched Looker leave, Nanu sighed and lowered his head while Charlotte rested a hand on his shoulder. He rubbed his cheek where Anabel had given him one heck of a slap, still feeling the sting there.

He had been ashamed of himself for a long while, but now more than ever."

21. What other medium do you think your story would work well as? (film, webcomic, animated series?)

With Foul Play being a Pokemon fanfic, I think would work well as an anime series. Some of the characters like Nanu, Acerola, and Kukui already have English voices from the anime!

For Devil's Game, lol I haven't even gotten to the outline stage of it yet but probably a movie or TV series similar to the TV Show Lucifer. I haven't actually watched Lucifer but I've heard about it and it's a similar concept without the "mystery/crime of the day" episode going on.

24. Would you say your writing has changed over time?

I believe so. I think I varied my use of body language more instead of using the same ones over. I've been also varying sentence lengths to have my sentences get better rhythm and flow.

Meta Writing Ask here!