#also fun fact. in one of the first drafts of the novel

[m00n-pr1sm]

Amy Dunne Character Analysis

Disclaimer

This analysis will be of Amy’s character from both the book and the movie, although the 2014 movie adaption takes greater precedence with only some additional details and quotes included from the book as it does delve deeper into Amy’s psyche and add further characterization. Thus some traits may be accentuated further than they are in the movie, not being completely faithful to either story. It’s an analysis of Amy in her totality across mediums, of course being entirely my opinion. There are of course adaptational differences but I will not include the major ones from the books (ex. her relationship with Hillary Hand). This is an analysis focusing primarily on Amy’s neuroses she demonstrates and the childhood links to them, it doesn’t cover in-depth the events nor themes of Gone Girl.

Amy Elliott Dunne, the ever enigmatic dual protagonist- antagonist of Gone Girl is one of the most iconic female villains in modern memory, and one of the paragons of the “good for her” trope in media, is, frankly, one of my favorite characters of all time. As such I have been dying to write a full analysis examining her neuroses and characterization. Beneath the cultural perception of just another “crazy psycho” for girls to claim “she did no wrong” or “she just like me fr!”, lies a fascinating character who is masterfully written and developed by Gillian Flynn, as well as perfectly portrayed by Rosamund Pike. Amy Dunne is a character with a deep, complex psychology that I will do my best to thoroughly explore in this analysis.

From Amy’s childhood we first see the emergence of a literal high ego ideal, Amazing Amy. Of course this is the children’s book series created by her parents with a fictionalized version of Amy being the eponymous protagonist. This was a version of herself that rectified her own personal failures. Amazing Amy became a prodigy at cello, when Amy quit at 10, Amazing Amy made varsity volleyball, Amy got cut freshman year. Even in the (at time) final book in the series, Amazing Amy got married, a task Amy had not yet done. The entire book series revolved around Amy always making the most virtuous, the most selfless, the most perfect decisions.

>”With me, regular, flawed, real Amy, jealous, as always, of the golden child.”

An interesting detail in the book that is omitted from the movie is Marybeth’s numerous miscarriages and stillbirths (which totaled 7). All of these girls were named Hope, until Amy was born. Amy expresses her jealousy towards them, as they were always seen as perfect without ever living; meanwhile Amy herself has to live life everyday knowing that she will never truly live up to the Hopes. That she has to try everyday to be the best she can be. Her very birth was mired in the expectation of a perfect child; given that she was practically a gift from the heavens to her parents.

This sets up Amy’s perfectionism, as the childhood experience of never living up to a projected ideal led her to want to be perfect (and as we’ll later see, the expectation that everyone else is too), to live life always through the gaze of another. Evidently this leads to a loss of one’s inner essence, one’s individuality and sense of self.

>“-I’d never really felt like a person, because I was always a product” (Book Quote)

Amy’s obsession with personas can be seen as emerging from this, as she adapts a personality depending on who she’s interacting with, as to always be the most appealing she can, she is Amazing Amy after all.

>”I’m not sure, exactly, how to be Dead Amy. I’m trying to figure out what that means for me, what I become for the next few months. Anyone, I suppose, except people I’ve already been: Amazing Amy. Preppy ’80s Girl. Ultimate-Frisbee Granola and Blushing Ingenue and Witty Hepburnian Sophisticate. Brainy Ironic Girl and Boho Babe (the latest version of Frisbee Granola). Cool Girl and Loved Wife and Unloved Wife and Vengeful Scorned Wife. Diary Amy.” (Book Quote)

This general attitude leads to people trying to impress her as she places herself as someone special and especially someone to keep around. She entices both the characters and viewers of the film through her manufactured charisma and enchantment. However, we’ll see this dramatically backfire in her relationship with Nick, just you wait!

For now we can focus on the beginning of their relationship as well as what I believe to be Amy’s view on romance.

I believe that Amy has an impossibly high standard of love, one that stems from her perfectionism and general inability to let down her guise of being amazing. Not to mention how her parents were a perfect match, Amy even referring to them as soul-mates.

>”They have no harsh edges with each other, no spiny conflicts, they ride through life like conjoined jellyfish—expanding and contracting instinctively, filling each other’s spaces liquidly. Making it look easy, the soul-mate thing.” (Book Quote)

In her childhood it’s implied that she was into romance novels, specifically Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, which obviously contributes to the idealization of romance, of a literal scripted love.

>”You were an alienated teen and only Elizabeth Bennet understood you”

I think this little quote is incredibly indicative; it establishes a sense of alienation, of Amy never quite fitting in and blending with others.

>”So many lessons and opportunities and advantages, and they never taught me how to be happy. I remember always being baffled by other children. I would be at a birthday party and watch the other kids giggling and making faces, and I would try to do that too, but I wouldn’t understand why. I would sit there with the tight elastic thread of the birthday hat parting the pudge of my underchin, with the grainy frosting of the cake bluing my teeth, and I would try to figure out why it was fun.” (Book Quote)

Back to the topic of romance, through these stories it allowed her to imagine her perfect romance: if Amy could find that one person that truly understood her, beyond the illusion, that then would constitute a perfect union of love. She does deep down (whether consciously or not) want to be loved for who she is; not the idealized, palatable, literal marketed version of herself. Thus she holds trust as a premium, expecting that if she does the Herculean task of unspooling and revealing herself to another, that the other person would love her no matter what.

>”Can you imagine, finally showing your true self to your spouse, your soul mate, and having him not like you?” (Book Quote)

However all of this culminates in an impossibly high standard of a lover, of a practically divine mythical love; where one loves totally and absolutely. Of course where this neurosis is most demonstrated is in Nick and Amy’s relationship.

Amy comments that after meeting Nick she finally felt like a person as he brought out a side of herself that hadn’t been seen, in her own words “a lightness and an ease”, something that Amy enjoyed. In her eyes they had the perfect relationship in the beginning, Nick was her compliment with the witty banter, with their inside jokes, and charm.

However this doesn’t just vanquish her childhood neuroses, through her desire to be seen as perfect, she modifies herself to be a “cool girl” for Nick, complying endlessly to standards to maintain this perception.

>” When I met Nick Dunne, I knew he wanted a cool girl and for him, I’ll admit, I was willing to try.”

Amy essentially became Nick’s image of a perfect girl, witty, fun, and most of all easy-going and forgiving.

Yet one cannot live forever in images and ideas; and as such, the real, true Amy emerged. The Amy that cares too much, that’s hard to get along with, that is a controlling perfectionist. She also tests Nick through the treasure hunts, weaving in little details about their relationship as to challenge Nick and hope that he remembers the things they do together as deeply as she does. Combined with the 2008 recession and declining health of Nick’s mother (the consequences of which will be explored later). As well as Nick’s growing dissatisfaction in the relationship (evidenced by his worsening performances in the treasure hunts, the cheating, using her for sex and ignoring her otherwise, etc). The illusion both Nick and Amy were living in crumbled; they couldn’t possibly sustain their relationship as they were both striving to fulfill reciprocating images for the other.

One of the biggest parts of her character is Amy’s elitism and entitlement, in which she thinks of herself as someone superior, someone that deserves to be loved absolutely for who she is, although only to people she considers worthy.

>”She’s easy to like. I’ve never understood why that’s considered a compliment—that just anyone could like you.” (Book Quote)

Once again this stems from her childhood, in a seemingly contradictory way, she also sees herself as special for being the one that survived from her mother’s attempts, as well as the fact that her birth was so tumultuous that she would be an only child. From this also stems her entitlement for love.

Amy actively looks down upon women she considers “average”, whom she sees as coming from mediocrity and continuously perpetuating that in their lives. She scoffs at them with her wealthy parents and NYC background until her marriage with Nick crumbles. Only then does she realize that she’s become the very woman she would previously disdain. A woman with a failing marriage, the loss of her previous wealth following the recession, and moving to a failed development in Missouri (What the hell’s in Missouri?) for Nick’s mother.

I truly believe this, combined with Nick’s infidelity, and most importantly the loss of her idyllic love culminated in the iconic Gone Girl plan.

>”Nick took and took from me until I no longer existed, that’s murder. Let the punishment fit the crime”.

Nick took Amy’s identity, her sense of self that she so generously revealed to him and rejected her. Implying that she would only be loved if played the role of the “cool girl”; stripping her of who she really was, losing herself in yet another persona. Although Amy admits she doesn’t really have a personality and lives through personas, she still has a semblance of self that she holds dear.

>”-made me realize that there was a Real Amy in there, and she was so much better, more interesting and complicated and challenging, than Cool Amy”. (Book Quote)

Worse yet, Nick had cheated on her with a “newer, younger, bouncer Cool Girl”, leaving Amy in the dust, surely damaging her pride.

But Amy truly fell in love with her idealized version of Nick, believing that she was responsible for shaping that version of Nick. That she deserved that man in his entirety, of course what gets Amy to come back to Nick is the Sharon Scheiber interview, in which he promises to make up with Amy in just the way that makes her think that Nick is the one person who gets her. He makes the little references to their inside jokes (2 fingers on the chin when they’re not bullshitting the other) and a reference to the end of the treasure hunt (always a contentious issue in their relationship). She’s reminded of who he was, that he was once perfect for her, who else could know how to appeal to her heart in just the right way? With the same passion and conviction she reverses the judgment on Nick, clawing her way back to him. She does so in an especially brutal manner, slashing Desi’s throat with a boxcutter right after he climaxes. Putting aside my enormous personal bias against Desi, he was technically an innocent man, taking a great risk in sheltering Amy. However it’s clear that Amy sees him as merely an asset and something to be disposed of once he serves his value, as another prop in her ever evolving masterplan; she did string him along for years through their letter correspondences. He was just another casualty in Amy’s search for idyllic love. She comes back dramatically, literally falling into Nick’s arms while still covered in Desi’s blood like a dress; fabricating an elaborate story about a love obsessed former boyfriend kidnapping and violating her. Despite the glaring holes in her whole story (If Amy’s marriage was as bad as she made it out to be, why did she go back to Nick so easily? How did she get access to a knife and kill him so seamlessly? Why didn’t Amy do anything when she discovered the stuff in Margo’s shed? etc), law enforcement, media, and the public all fully believe it, infatuated with the persona and narrative that Amy’s created for herself. In the end she traps Nick into the marriage and eventually, the family. The last shot of the film is a haunting recall to the beginning shot of the film, as Amy has both revealed and secured herself to be the master of the narrative, finally obtaining her perfect love, no matter what the cost may have been.

Conclusion

Through a constant demand in Amy’s childhood emerges a need for perfection, simultaneously bringing about a sense of superiority and entitlement. The use of personas and façades facilitate this, painting Amy as the most amazing cool girl for whomever she’s performing for, to feed her need to be seen as perfect and desirable. Yet there emerges a psychological detachment from others; as the need to perform inevitably leads to an internal hollowness. However underneath all these layers there also lies the true Amy who has the deep unconscious desire of wanting to be loved absolutely, to have a perfect union of love where she can reveal herself fully and be loved for who she is truly.

>disclaimer for tumblr lol, this is not me trying to claim Amy was innocent I am fully aware that she’s a terribly entitled and narcissistic person but she can still be complex and have relatable desires & be a person even if she’s massively fucked up!!

[curiosity-killed]

curio's chaotic guide to corralling brain squirrels ✨for Capitalism✨

obligatory disclaimer: my only qualifications are having lived with Cocaine Squirrels In My Brain for my entire life and getting the fun experience of people regularly telling me "you can't have adhd, you're too organized/successful/put together" meanwhile i am regularly held captive by my brain zooming through deep dives on cicada facts at 1 AM on a work night

first off, the general overarching bits:

Come in at 70%. I tell this to literally everyone and am stealing it from my sister, but basically—don't come into your job at 100%. That 100% will be taken for granted by you and your coworkers and become the expectation, meaning when you have a day where the brain is holding you hostage or you're tired or hungover or for whatever other reason can only give 50%, it will be a crisis. Come in at 70%, so 50% isn't a huge deal and you can whip out the 100% for some special sparkle times.

Embrace the good bits. look, lbr. cocaine squirrels are not a great time, generally speaking, in a corporate 9-to-5 space. BUT sometimes there are perks. for instance, I am the person you want in a (corporate) emergency because the right pressure (and coffee and high BPM music) makes the squirrels band together and pull some damn good shit off in crunch time. whatever quirk you feel you can leverage, do it.

okay now more squirrel-corralling thoughts (am I doing this instead of my actual job? obviously.)

build a system of systems

okay i know if I say anything about a planner or to-do list, I will be shot on sight but. well. this is about planners and to do lists

I am a chronically aspirational planner user. I love the concept of planners. love to have such a tidy and organized way of going about life. And I can use planners—for about 1-3 months at a time, max.

what I've found works best for me is to have kind of a rotation of task tracking systems: sometimes my planner*, sometimes sticky notes plastered across my desk/wall, sometimes color-coded to do lists in an actual notebook, sometimes color-coded to do lists in my dry erase notebook, sometimes notes on my computer.

I don't think it super matters what you use so much as it matters to have things in place that you can swap to when your brain stops liking the one you're using

*this isn't an ad but I rlly like the Rocketbook planner specifically because it doesn't have a timeframe, so you don't have to worry about "wasting" it during the months you're not using it. just wipe it down and start fresh whenever it's back to being useful

agree to slightly more than you should (but watch out!)

if i have a normal workload, the effort it takes to make myself Do The Thing goes up by about 50% with a negative relationship to the quantity of work. ergo I am best off if I am just slightly overutilized—if I have about 9 hours of work to do rather than 8. That doesn't mean I always work a 9 hour day (because the squirrels and I fucking hate that) but it means there's just a little additional pressure to help make it easier for my brain to, y'know, execute.

THAT SAID, it is really easy to fuck this up. don't be like me and wind up basically doing an entire contract solo (that was supposed to be a 9-person team)!!! it's bad!

mostly i think this is trial and error, so figuring out the right balance for yourself will take getting it wrong some of the time.

the squirrels crave that novelty

this is also related to the first point, but I've found I get more done if I let myself bounce between projects/tasks more than probably makes sense to people who aren't possessed by manic rodents in their brain.

I try to break down tasks in a way that lets me cross something off (dopamine! or. something??) and lets me skip over to something different/novel as a break (e.g., today I need to copy edit a bunch, draft some appendices for a different project, and create an autopopulating tab for an internal project—so I copy edited one whole section, skipped over to the appendices to get a first pass down, hopped back to the next section of copy editing, and then switched to the internal project).

too much of this can feel like playing pinball with your brain, but giving myself the option to switch out into something different helps keep me from getting into the Dreaded Tedium Stage of things

flexibility and structure

this is going to depend some on your work structure, but use what flexibility you can. My work offers a flex schedule, meaning I can take a four hour break in the day as long as I make those hours up somewhere else. I don't. necessarily recommend?? taking a 4 hour break BUT sometimes the squirrels unionize and demand I vacuum the living room, and trying to ignore it and work will be infinitely slower and more exhausting than if I just get up and vacuum and then get back to work. other times, the squirrels stage a sit-in protest and i am stuck scrolling tumblr aimlessly or re-reading fanfic for no reason and then at 8 PM they decide they actually are willing to do The One Goddamn Task i absolutely must do.

it sucks and I genuinely really hate this part of ADHD, but the best option I've found is to sometimes let them win in the moment and come back to the challenge/ask at a better time (for instance, my energy/focus tends to be worst in the afternoon and much better in the evening, so it's easier for me to get something done in the evening than fighting squirrels all afternoon).

...and on the flipside, where you can impose some self-made structure, it can also help get the squirrels in line. calendar holds (i.e., putting an event on your calendar that's just for a task/project and turning on do not disturb for notifications) can help with this if you're able to stick with them (ime this is a skill that has to be built and practiced), organizing things by 'must do' vs 'quick wins' can help, etc. as with everything, it's a process, but finding a balance between where you can flex and where you can lean on structure to help you along has been beneficial to me

anyway idk if any of this is new or helpful but my personal squirrels have been sated and i do. unfortunately. actually need to work now kbye

[swan2swan]

Closing thoughts on the Chaos Theory Season 1 Novelisation:

It was, by far, the most insightful of all six books. Not because "oh it provided so much information that wasn't in the show", but because it had a lot of differences from the final version that made it to our screens. Some of which weren't just things like summarized dialogue, a cut line or two, or omitted scenes (though there were two whole adventures that we didn't see in the book, which ran at 140 pages to the second season's 144)...there were some actual story beats that changed.

Most notable was Darius apparently receiving Brooklynn's final message in the early drafts (though he does seem to see it for the first time at its proper moment, which probably suggests that they went back and forth on how to do it). Even in the message itself, Brooklynn calls out for Darius before the Allosaurus shows up, thinking she's hearing him. That's a more minor change, but it makes a difference.

The book also, notably, does not reveal Brooklynn at the end. There is no final scene with her and Ronnie. Part of me suspects that they actually didn't include the scene in the initial first season scripts, in order to keep it Fully Hush Hush (in the same way she was kept out of all the marketing and toy lines), but regardless, it's something impressive.

There are a few additional dinosaurs in scenes, and the Suchomimus on the docks of Louisiana was originally a Baryonyx (they probably got the Sucho model up and running in time to use it, and took her for a test drive on the docks). There are a few potential early-draft spoilers* included (Ben saying his girlfriend is Italian, Brooklynn freezing as she sees something besides the Allosaurus on the camera, Sammy connecting her falling out to the ranch) , and Ben's paranoia is pretty much nonexistent in the entire book, so overall, it very much feels like the first season was in production almost up until the deadline.

Which makes sense--the second season's book came out long after the show itself (*points again to the moratorium on Brooklynn's survival*), so it's quite probable that they've actually been working with a good schedule. All of this, I might add, is speculation, outside of whatever I'm citing. But the beautiful abstract picture you get from the lines that connect a show to its adaptation do paint a very beautiful picture here.

I will also note that the book is very solidly written: it feels much, much more like the Lost World novelization I read fifty times as a kid, or the Godzilla 1998 one. Those ruled, because they had to be adaptations that could keep people hooked on your product without YouTube clips or online picture galleries. Both Chaos Theory novelizations feel like those.

BONUS FACT: The novelization of The Lost World includes the deleted scenes of Ludlow's board meeting, Roland Tembo being recruited by Ajay (minus the sexual harassment and brownface), and the scene where Ludlow breaks the baby T. rex's leg (with more surprise and less alcohol). It's another window into how things change.

The first book does feel stronger than the second one, though, on account of the fact that it takes its time to describe some of the dinosaurs and scenes: the second book just says that a Suchomimus appears, while the first one leads off with Becklespinax's sail, colors, and fearsome appearance before introducing her by name.

They're good reads, if you can find them and pick them up. Just remember that the process is presumably just that Steve Behling was sent a bunch of scripts for the first season and had to adapt them, so you're not going to get a WHOLE new experience from it (though he does have some fun).

[topazadine]

How to Build a Sustainable Writing Habit Through SCIENCE (Fuck Off, NaNoWriMo)

This is a lightly edited repost from a previous post on my mostly-defunct blog, topazadine.com. I feel like it's an excellent thing to highlight now that everyone's wondering what the hell do to after NaNoWriMo showed their ass as anti-creative idiots.

I have never liked NaNoWriMo and think, frankly, that it is a garbage tool for new writers. If you've done it and enjoyed it, that's great, but overall, it is not the best way to build motivation. At all.

But why is NaNoWriMo so bad? (Other than the current controversy.)

It encourages younger writers to think of writing as something they do during the months of October through November. Not something they do all year round, day in and day out. People will prep for weeks to do a whole novel in one month and hinge all their writerly hopes on that one singular month.

We won't even get into the fact that November is the absolute shittiest month to try to get a novel done because the holidays are coming up, and many working-class people are busting their asses off to get extra hours in before Christmas.

Writing is something you do all. the. time. It is not bound by a singular month. It is not limited to a certain time of year. And when you are working to complete a draft, it doesn't matter season it is. What matters is that you get it done.

So let me show you something better. But first, why should you listen to me? And why is my method an improvement over a shitty organization's AI-riddled contest?

I wrote the first draft of my novel, Poesy (104,323 words) in 39 days.

That’s an average of 2,647 words per day. It is also about twice as much as the typical person aims for during NaNoWriMo. I did not set out to get it done in any given time period, but I still completed way, way more than NaNoWriMo would require in just about the same amount of time (plus 9 days).

I didn't have a buddy group. I didn't have checkins. I just had me and my keyboard and my secret weapon, which I'll show you in a bit.

How is it possible to get so much more done without that external motivator?

Simple: I compete with myself.

You Need to Develop Intrinsic Motivation

What in the world is intrinsic motivation?

Intrinsic motivation is defined as the doing of an activity for its inherent satisfaction rather than for some separable consequence. When intrinsically motivated, a person is moved to act for the fun or challenge entailed rather than because of external products, pressures, or rewards. Frontiers in Neurobiotics

That is, in essence, what we do when we’re writing for fun; or, rather, it should be what we’re doing when we write for fun.

A lack of intrinsic motivation is why people who see novels as a get-rich-quick scheme tend to burn out when they realize that most writers make less than minimum wage. That's called extrinsic motivation, and it doesn't work well for things like writing, where there may not be any easily-defined goals or motivators. Most of us are not going to become rich from our writing.

Here's why extrinsic motivation is unhelpful:

Extrinsic motivation does not always work best; sometimes it can make us perform poorly at certain tasks. For instance, studies reveal that high stake rewards, like cash bonuses, can hinder cognitive capacity. This happens because they shift our focus away from the task and onto the outcome. We can become preoccupied with rewards and all the things that come with them, such as our social status, instead of just doing the work. Extrinsic rewards also tend to narrow our focus on a defined goal and reduce our ability to see other possibilities, hindering creativity. Studies find people perform worse on tasks requiring imagination and ingenuity when they are offered extrinsic rewards, such as higher pay. Nir and Far

And, well, note that "performing worse on tasks requiring imagination and ingenuity." Extrinsic motivation is literally the WORST motivator for writing specifically.

NaNoWriMo is extrinsic motivation, which is not anywhere near as powerful or sustaining as intrinsic motivation. You want to get the shiny achievement award, so you just bang out 50,000 words of slop because you want to say you did it.

You're not motivated by anything but the outcome. That does not a sustainable writing practice make.

But there’s something about intrinsic motivation I want to highlight, because it’s crucial to what I am about to show you: the challenge.

Sometimes writing is a total slog because we’re worrying about all the other things and not on the words themselves. We’re fussing about whether we will ever get published, if we’ve added enough tension in a certain part, if our mom is going to read our porn and realize what a freak they raised.

You cannot think about those things while actively writing.

Instead, you need to focus on the writing process itself. John Schinnerer, a psychologist and life coach, explains further:

Remember as you are in the process of achieving your goals that the enjoyment comes from the doing not the attaining. It is important to find contentment in the act of pursuing the goal while placing less weight on the actual fulfillment of the goal itself.  PsychCentral

So we know you need to find the challenge fun, and you need to focus on the act of putting the words on the page.

In other words, you need to make it a contest with yourself. Here’s how.

Use a Word Count Spreadsheet

Finally! We get to why I’m telling you this! It's free, it's easy, it can be done all year round.

A daily word count spreadsheet is an amazing way to stay motivated and to keep pushing yourself to write because you can literally see the wins rack up. Every day, the word count jumps significantly, which can be much more motivating than just “oh, I’m at 8,453 words.”

More importantly, you’ll start to want to beat your “high score” from the day before.

I’ve highlighted one of the cells so that you can see the simple formula that you need to set up: it’s just yesterday’s count minus today’s count.

Put that in one cell, then click and drag the bottom righthand corner of the cell, and it will populate the rest of the cells in that column with the adjusted formula (B4-B3, and so on).

This is very easy to create. All you have to do is copy-paste the wordcount from your document into your spreadsheet, make sure you have that super-simple formula, and you're done. I have severe dyscalculia and can still use it.

But you can see how much this really helped me:

Things started to really ramp up right at the end because I was getting so motivated by the word counts of the day previous. I wanted to beat yesterday’s high score and keep going.

At the beginning, I was writing maybe 1.9k words; by the end, I was an absolute demon, regularly breaking over 2.8k and then some. On the last day, when the rest of the family was in a post-Christmas hangover, my butt was glued to my chair, banging out those last few thousand words.

Psychologists and life coaches agree that self-competition, a type of intrinsic motivation, is one of the best ways to improve.

Michelle Gibbings, a workplace expert, explains:

When you compete with yourself, you don’t become fixated on what other people are doing; you set the direction and speed. You put yourself in the driver’s seat and control your progress, setting meaningful goals rather than focusing on the progress of others. Michelle Gibbings

Making a word count spreadsheet like this is the definition of setting your own speed and controlling your progress. You can decide on a threshold you always want to hit and then feel very satisfied when you go beyond that.

I set my threshold at 1.5k words every day so that I didn’t feel bummed out when I had an off day and couldn’t get a lot done, but I really wanted my average to be around 2k, so I’d periodically check how close I was to that. If I had a terrible day or was busy, then I’d want to make up for lost time and write more the next day so I kept my average.

Now, I live a life that is quite advantageous to consistent writing: I’m single, I’m childless, I work from home, and most of my hobbies are pretty low-key.

Your life doesn’t look like mine, and that’s totally okay.

There’s no need to match the speed I showed here.

What matters is that your schedule works for you, and that you are consistent.

If you’re a caretaker or have a strenuous job, then set your threshold at just 100 words and aim for an average of 500. However, you’ll be sad if your spreadsheet has a blank cell, so you’ll want to get down at least something, even if you only have 15 minutes to write.

Plus, it’s so encouraging to see the word count go up day by day: much more satisfying than just seeing it in tiny font at the bottom of a Word document or Google Doc.

Or getting some dumb t-shirt from an organization that is actively trying to murder creativity for commercial gain. (Oh, and they protected an actual pedophile from consequences for months on end while he continued to groom children. But that was last year's controversy.)

There’s another reason why this particular method works so well for writers, though.

Word Counts Banish the Urge to Edit

You know you shouldn’t, but you do it anyway. A single word here. A removed sentence there.

The first draft is just about getting everything out, not fixing everything that needs fixing. That part comes later during your five billion revisions where you tweak every single word.

Revising means you have less to work with, which means you have less development. You can get rid of anything that shouldn’t be there when you’ve gotten to that very satisfying “The End” page.

If you are motivated by the spreadsheet method, then you are screwing yourself over if you edit.

Your word count went down! It looks like you did less than you did! You’re losing! Best add more, and fast!

(I had to include my placeholder chapter names; it was obligatory.)

Use strikethrough! Now you know exactly what you’ll be getting rid of when you get to the end of your draft, but you’re not decimating your word count. I removed the entire beginning of the book; that scene is super cute, though, so I later turned it into its own one-shot on my AO3 page.

I prefer doing that because then, if you find that you actually wanted to keep that scene or move it elsewhere, all you have to do is copy-paste from the old version, remove the strikethrough, and you’re all good.

So that’s my tool. It’s really that simple.

But even though it’s so simple, it works wonders for your motivation and consistency, which are crucial for a good writer.

Are you going to give it a whirl? You may find it nervewracking at first, but I encourage you to sample this method, especially if you have a hard time getting motivated.

And if you enjoyed this article, maybe you'll consider purchasing my debut novel, 9 Years Yearning.

This is not the book I drafted last year; it is in fact a prequel of sorts to that first novel. However, it helps set the scene for Poesy (the sixth book in the Eirenic Verses) so that you'll be all prepped for the masterpiece.

9 Years Yearning is a coming of age romance that follows the life of two young soldiers as they go from sorta-enemies, to frenemies, to friends, and then finally to lovers. It is a short read; you can probably finish it in about 2 hours all the way through. Perfect for a weekend romp.

If you do read my book, please don't forget to leave a review!

Reviews are essential to success on Amazon as they boost visibility. (Yes, even bad ones.) Always leave reviews, no matter how short, to support indie authors!

[foyle-writes-things]

So hi! The name is Foyle! Or you can call me D.M. or Dez if you prefer, doesn't really matter to me lol.

As far as writing goes- I've been doing this for a hot minute (sent my first query letter at 15 f'in years old what pluck i had as a child lol), and among my works I can include:

A high fantasy novel

An Urban Fantasy YA Novel Based on Them Thar Greek Gods

And a few other Urban Fantasy Style Novels (because they are fun sue me)

However, more recently I've stepped into a space where sci-fi, hacking, technology, and crime/psychological-thriller all intersect.

Shoot me a note if you want to be on my tag list 🫡

You can follow me elsewhere:

And feel free to check out mywebsite:

-Tags-

TangledWires (for snippets)

foylefumbles (for my commentary and more)

tangledwires/Tanged Wires (for book update news and general TW ramblings)

WIPS UNDER THE CUT....

Tangled Wires Book 1 (STATUS UPDATE: PREORDER LINK LIVE-- Release Date 1/11/25!!!!!!!)

Raz knows two things, computers - and that people can't be trusted. However on the run, and with the head of the Russian mob seeking to put her back in a cage Raz must quickly decide if Emet Shultz of the FBI can be trusted, and if he can help her unlock the treacherous secrets of her past. As the past reveals itself, one thing becomes clear- nothing is as it seems, and sometimes lies are easier to stomach than the truth.

-WIPS-

Tangled Wires: Book 2 (Currently in Progress, 20k words)

*cackling*

Ethereal Mischief: Book one of the EM Trilogy (complete)

Summary: Okay, really. Who expects to be murdered on their birthday? Definitely not Althea; and especially not by a god straight out of mythology. Hades however, is real and hell bent on using Althea as a tool to fulfill his own desires. From her own identity to her mother’s death, Hades reveals that her entire life has been a carefully constructed lie. In a world where a broken promise can lead to a lifetime of debt, Althea must fight against those who seek to control her.

Divine Intervention: Book two of the EM Trilogy (also complete but first draft)

Summary: Dealing with the reality that mythology is NOT in fact myth was one thing. Dealing with the fact that her dead mother was NOT in fact dead- but a goddess, and very much alive was another. Now Althea has new problem. As real as the Greek God of pantheons has become, she is suddenly dragged into a deep feud between the Greek and Norse pantheon, when twin girls show up on her doorstep half dead and desperate to get home. Will Althea be able to help them? Or will helping them only push her further down the path to madness? 

Angels of Requiem (in progress, just a bby WIP)

;)

A World Apart (in progress) 

Summary: Ya Fantasy novel split between the lives of two young women in parallel dimensions (urban fantasy YA).

Legends of Taelaec (completed)

Summary: High fantasy story about young girls discovering who they truly are after the tragic and sudden death of their mother (high fantasy).

[zarvasace]

It’s “appreciate yourself” hours! Pick five pieces of writing/art that you’ve done that you love and talk about them! ❤️❤️❤️

Ahhhh okay, thank you!! 💜🌻 I finally have a free moment (aka work is slow) so I'm going to work on drafting this out :) I have far too much art I'm proud of—I'm at a stage in my progress right now where I think my art looks pretty awesome. So this list will be stuff from my Greatest Hits collection on AO3. In order of oldest to newest, I think:

incandescently happy

An LU post-adventure work, one of the first longer fics I posted. I released one chapter a day over the summer of 2022, so a lot of the notes have something about my day in them. It's about 30k all told.

I absolutely adored expanding on what the boys might do after the whole LU adventure happens (though I did forget about the fact that I think Time and Malon have a kid during this time!) This work features some proto-Shatterproof stuff, like Wind having a prosthetic leg and Four starting to specialize in crafting prosthetics/disability aids. I gave Hyrule longer hair and a job making maps for the royal family. Legend got another adventure but also started a magic garden/orchard, which pulls in more business than Ravio's stuff. Four and his grandpa adopted a single mother and her two kids. Man I went off with some of these headcanons. I've always considered writing more in this world, but I think it stands very well on its own. Maybe someday I might revisit and rewrite it with some of my new skills. :)

Rise and Shine and Fall

Whumptober 2022, focused entirely on LU! Guys this thing is almost 78k. I realize now that most people pre-plan or pre-write for things like Whumptober, but I wrote these one by one every day, which was extra-hard because I had both college classes and a day job at the time. I came up with some fun AUs, learned a lot about writing (especially whump), and proved to myself that I can do hard things like this!! I've adored doing daily challenges since, though I haven't done it in a while. I look forward to this year's whumptober though!

I really like the table of contents in the first chapter—it makes things easy to find. I know individual works are probably more accessible, but I was still getting to know AO3, and those big numbers are fun. XD I have a hard time picking favorites, because I really went off on these, but I'd say a couple of them are:

Chp 3, "Right Here" about Sky

Chp 7, "Proof of Life" about Four and Shadow

Chp 18, "I'm onwy a babey :(" about Wind

Chp 21, "6:13" about Hyrule and Time

Chp 26, "Silence is Golden" about Wild

Chp 31-32, "The Worst Thing About Earth" about Legend, but kind of more specifically the rewrite/expansion I did last year... haha...

The Marvelous Misadventures of Wind and His Merry Band or Maybe-Human Heroes

It's been a while since I updated this story (56k, 6/8 chapters), but it's constantly on my mind. I've started chapter 7 twice, and I know what I want to happen, but I am easily distracted by the siren call of some other whump fics. XD

I freaking love this story, though. I really want to finish it. It's kind of an... experiment? I guess? I want to get published someday, and I picture myself writing middle-grade novels. This story is sort of my attempt to hit that tone. Also I just love Wind so so so much. Let him be cool!!

Blood-Sucker's Guide to High School

56k Four Swords completed story! I wrote this in a frenzy of like two or three weeks, then took another two to edit. It takes plot points from a vampire novel I enjoyed and twists and applies them to a story about Shadow and the Four Swords manga boys. I'm very proud of what I accomplished here, and that it's a complete story! I think it worked out really well. I learned a lot about plotting and handling larger stories, and it helped that I had the half-remembered structure of an existing novel to use as training wheels.

I love the worldbuilding in this story! The premise is that Shadow is an evil soulless vampire from a (rather abusive, not that he sees it) family of the same, but then he gets the ability to walk in the sunshine. He's assigned to go to high school for a while to get a feast for the vampire gala, but meanwhile he's developing a conscience and getting very attached to these human boys. I think I did a good job. I love rereading this, every scene is just so fun! :)

Counterbalance

55k exactly of a stupid LU darks AU. This started life as a series of oneshots and then the plot progressively got more and more convoluted and I love these stupid boys so much. The plot is very much not tight, in contrast to Blood-Sucker's Guide, but I learned a lot about how I write and how I like to plan with this one, too.

The characters are stupid and the plot is just kinda silly and there is both a bathhouse scene AND a spa scene. Legend blows up multiple things, my lovely nasty little Dark Links need smacks and therapy, and Prince has a legitimately emotional moment at the end. I love how it turned out, it's like an ugly little stuffed animal I made and hug until the eyes pop out.

That's five but I would be extremely remiss if I did not also mention something from Shatterproof:

The Incredible Shrinking Chain

About 10k, this is entry 31/68 in my series Shatterproof, which is a close-canon AU in which each of the boys has a different physical disability. This series also plays into my publishing ambitions, because whatever I publish will very likely have some disability representation. I'm rather passionate about it, actually! Shatterproof is close to my heart, and I'm so honored that so many people seem to love it too. :) I need to work on the next entry again!!

This entry in particular is so much fun. In it, the whole Chain sans Four is stuck mouse-sized, and Four has to travel out to Twilight's castle with them to get Dusk to help break the curse. They all have to figure out how to navigate while tiny, and Four pulls some very silly stunts. I love them.

Anyway, there's my list!! I've written a lot over the last like two and a half years, and I'm so so glad that I get to be here and part of this community. The LU fandom as a whole (or at least the parts I've seen!) is so welcoming and positive and I try to give back where I can! I'm going to suggest looking through my bookmarks and ultimate rec list collection to find some new favorites from some very talented authors! :) (oof I need to update the collection soon!! I've been seeing some awesome stuff!)

[roach-works]

There is word going around that tumblr is moving to be a legacy project and will eventually be sunsetted. Ive been following your work for probably close to a decade, and id hate to lose track of you if tumblr goes down eventually. Is there anywhere else i can continue to follow and support you?

the sky has been falling on tumblr since forever, and yet i stick around. i don't know where else i'd actually enjoy, and im not interested in having a flood of people pitch me new alternatives. i know what i like, and i like tumblr, so ill probably ride this bizarre hellsite to the very last stop.

i might get a bluesky or a pillowfort eventually--if i do, i'll announce it. im finally going to have more time for creative work this winter, so it's possible i'll finally haul myself bitching and moaning on to instagram.

the boat boys series is getting another novel-length installment; in fact, the sequel to after the storm turned out to be three novels long, and so now the focus is on editing book two act one into publishing shape. it's probably going to be published like After the Storm, as a wordpress serial.

i've also recently finished the rough draft of my first solo novel, a coming of age superhero romcom. it's been pretty funny watching everyone start nano just as i typed The End on a story that took me a year and a half. anyway my goal this winter is to get the manuscript into decent shape and then hunt down an agent. if any agents have also been following my tumblr for a decade, hi, i love you, please save me.

after all that, im thinking ill either learn rug tufting or get really into furry porn. possibly both! gigantic neon monster penis could be a very fun subject for throw rugs.

anyway, i have a lot of cool stuff in motion im very excited to share, and ill find a way to let people know about it. thanks for sticking around!

[scribble-dee-vee]

Writeblr Intro circa 2024

Hi writeblr!! Sooo, I've been around here since about 2014. (Yes, I am ancient.) However, I've been dormant for the past 4-5 years. Blame college and a brief stint on Twitter. Now that I'm active again, I thought I should make an updated writeblr intro so ppl know my Deal. Basically, I want to engage with other folks who write fiction (esp original SF), and that's a little easier if I have a clear post that outlines what I do. Here to make connections and hear about your blorbos :)

About me

Hi, I'm Vee! They/them, 23, 💖 🤍 🧡

I do journalism/comms in western New York

My literary jam is feminist/adult SF and gothic lit (OG or modern) 🥀 ⚔️ 🌙

Enthusiastic about gay people, body horror, and sociopolitical allegories

I cook, run, play tabletop games, and occasionally draw. Other than that, I'm mostly writing (for work and for fun)

If you were on pre-2020 writeblr, you likely know me from my eight billion daily tag games. (I still like tag games and appreciate u for tagging me. I have also gained adult responsibilities and better mental health, so I respond very slowly now. <3)

Always happy to get asks or dms, tho as I've noted: I may reply slowly.

Sometimes open to beta read! I only read one longer project at a time, but it's always super fun :)

I tag very consistently – happy to tag triggers for followers/moots

Fun fact: I love mushroom hunting and worked as a mycology TA. #cottagecoreera 🍄 🧚‍♀️ 🌱

About my creative writing

I write,,,, feminist/adult SF with gothic leanings (surprise!)

Longform and short! Trying to do more short writing this year, and I'll likely share a bit on Tumblr. It's easier to clip a short story than a 150k novel, god bless.

The Aesthetic: moral g(r)ays, Victoriana, androids/cyborgs, Women™, monstrous femininity, incessant Hamlet/Frankenstein motifs, extremely boring socioeconomic worldbuilding, evil queens and/or dilfs, psychosexual witchcraft, probably a cat. Also, an ominous, plot-relevant letter laced with anthrax from your unhinged and brilliant ex-wife. Open if you dare.

Major projects

I'm going to be writing some short work this year, but these are the longer projects that I have going in the background. If I reblog blorbo-related text posts, they probably have something to do with these.

Let me know if you want to be added to any project-specific taglists 😎

Heart of Lead – Series

The big one

Perpetually evolving

Never ceasing

Pls send help I can't stop adding shit

5-book gothic fantasy epic that I'll definitely publish one day but probably no time soon! My bastard child, my wicked firstborn, my greatest love <3

Character-oriented political drama set in a pseudo-Victorian, dystopian oligarchy where everyone's heart is made out of metal. It's about coming of age and discovering queer identity in a world that is absolutely fucked. God is an extraterrestrial lesbian who gives ppl very traumatizing magic powers. There are cyborgs, shapeshifters, and morally gray women in STEM. It's tight as fuck idk what else what to tell u.

Book 1 is about achillean monarchists, and book 2 is about sapphic anarchists. There are only two genders, I guess.

At this point, I've drafted most of the books at least once. Working to refine a lot of raw material atm!

Tag: "heart of lead tag" or "hol tag"

Lost Letters – Book

Aka the current active HoL WIP, and book one in the revised series structure

Length: 80k as of now; around 120-140k when the first draft is finished, I presume.

Genre: adult fantasy, gothic, noir detective drama?? um?? If you want me to frame it in BookTok terms (why?) it's a dark academia villain x villain tragic romantasy. Hrgh.

Summary: Cyborg soldier goes to college, joins a shady socialite frat, and falls in love with the jilted heir-apparent to the throne. Hilarity ensues.

(By "hilarity," I mean a militant revolutionary faction and a tragedy of Greek proportions.)

POV characters: Charles (the cyborg), Dale (the heir), and Cecelia (Charles' sister, a junior detective, the love of my life and potentially the Chosen One???)

This book is twisty and dark and immensely fun to write.

I'm about halfway through the first full draft! Hoping to share snippets and vaguepost about my children here.

Tag: "lost letters tag" (also "hol tag," tho that one's less specific)

The Last of Mortal Tourists – Book

The next longform project on the docket!

Length: a standalone work that will hopefully fall on the shorter novel/novella spectrum.

Genre: literary SF, cyberqueer, psychological space quest

Summary: The consciousness of a dead coding genius, trapped inside a spaceship, seeks a new planet to sustain their sister, the last surviving human, after the destruction of Earth.

If you're here to get wildly philosophical about gender and the myth of essential self, this is the story for you! That's why I'm writing it, lol. 🏳️‍⚧️ 🚀 🤖

This one started out as a short story (100% finished) which I want to expand.

POV: Archer Alto, the coder. Spaceship? Human? Soul?

Supporting Cast: Pandora, the last human, and Abby, a holographic impression of Archer's childhood consciousness

Tag: "the last of mortal tourists tag" or "tlomt tag"

If you read all this way, you get a whole bouquet of flowers that are certainly NOT poisonous: 🌸 🌹 💐 🥀 🌺

<3

[duckprintspress]

An Interview with Tris Lawrence

Meet Tris Lawrence! Tris has been with Duck Prints Press since our very first anthology, Add Magic to Taste, and is the author of multiple novels, including seven books of the Welcome to Pine Hills University series. We’re currently crowdfunding the second book of that series, Missed Fortunes, so what better time is there to get to know this awesome author?

About Tris Lawrence

Tris Lawrence has been writing since she was a child, filling notebooks with the worlds, dreams, and voices from inside her head. She declared in sixth grade that she wanted to be a writer, promptly started drafting her first novel in seventh grade, and never looked back.

Tris has always been fascinated by the way people work: how their relationships fit together, how they interact socially, how they learn and discover. She has read avidly her entire life, devouring mysteries, romances, science fiction, and fantasy novels, and as an adult still loves all of these genres. Her favorite stories center on people who are learning or discovering new things, and coming-of-age stories top that list, which is how Pine Hills University came to be. She wants to share stories of people who are learning how to relate to each other, how to adult, how to college, and how to just be. She hopes to share stories about diverse characters with representation of everything she wishes she could have read growing up, and she hopes that these stories will touch the lives and hearts of those who read them.

When not writing, Tris is a wife, a mother (to two children, two cats, and a dog), a knitter, a system administrator, a black belt in taekwondo, an avid reader, and a music aficionado. Sleep, she claims, is optional.

Links: Bluesky | Dreamwidth | Facebook | Mastodon | Patreon | Pillowfort | Tumblr

An Interview with Tris

How did you pick the name you create under?

I’ve written in the past under multiple variations on my meatspace prior-to-marriage name, but that was always separate from my fandom identity. When I started the Welcome to PHU series, I made a conscious decision that I wanted to lean-into my fandom self. I’ve been tryslora online for over thirty years, and many of my friends called me Trys. The names are pronounced with a short I, so the shift from Trys to Tris was easy for me, and the surname Lawrence is another callback to the other half of my fandom name. The fact that my surname is also the (full given) name of the very favorite character of the first short story I ever had published is just a happy bonus.

When and why did you begin creating?

Oh. Goodness. Apparently my first short story was written in the first grade. I was in the resource room–taken out of my class for enrichment time so I didn’t get Bored since I was the only one in the class who could already read. They gave me a picture, and I wrote a story about a sad little boy whose parents were getting a divorce. The school called my parents, very concerned. Spoiler alert: my parents were NOT getting a divorce.

I started writing in earnest in seventh grade. I was already a voracious reader, and it seemed like the next step to start creating the kinds of stories I wanted to read. Sweet wistful romances. Stories where I could be the hero. As an only child, I’d been making up stories in my head all my life; putting them down on paper and sharing them was fun. And I quickly realized that writing was like breathing. I couldn’t stop. I filled notebooks. I started submitting short stories to markets (and being rejected) when I was fifteen. I wrote a serialized novel my senior year of high school and sold it in thirty issues to other kids in my high school. To be fair, I got the idea from a friend who started his serial the year earlier, and I wasn’t the only one. We were a whole little crew of writers in high school, and we beta read and encouraged each other.

Why I wrote changed over the years. At first, I just wanted to tell stories. The kinds of stories I had going in my head to entertain me when I was bored/alone/whatever. Then I started to need to write to tell stories that worked out problems in my head. Then I started creating the kinds of stories I really needed to read when I was a kid/teen/young adult. Which is what I’m still doing. In a way, everything I write is to tell younger-me that the future is different. Better. More expansive and diverse and accepting. That the world has words for things, and we are working toward change.

Are you a pantser, a planner, or a planster? What’s your process look like?

I am a plantser. I used to be a straight-up pantser, but when I started writing serialized novel-length works (first for fic, then original), I found that I needed some kind of structure to help keep me on schedule. My process involves a lot of random talking to myself on paper to spew ideas, then trying to form the ideas into a loose timeline of major events. Sometimes those events are tropes (like: “the only one bed moment should come relatively early”) or they could be something more plot-related. Once that’s done, I figure out how many chapters I want and put blank docs for those in my Scrivener file. Then I index card the first few, but which I mean make a 1-3 paragraph set of blathering to myself notes about high points that need to occur in the chapter. I can’t call it an outline. It’s not really specific. Sometimes it’s a quote I want to include and a note about who is interacting and why.

I can’t overtell the story when I’m planning or I won’t want to write it. Or I WILL write it, right then, instead of planning. So. Yeah. Plantsing is the way to go. And every time I approach the end of the chapters I’ve done index cards for, I do the next few. Somewhere in the last third, I find myself needing to do it for the rest, at which point I can roll on through and finish the story.

Which of your own creations is your favorite? Why?

Um. My true and absolute favorites are horror pieces for an old fandom that has a lot of conflict around it now, so I hesitate to point to those. They make me want to write modern horror, though. I miss horror. In current writing, I’d have to say “Delta” from He Bears the Cape of Stars. It’s hard to say why other than that Ellis is a character of my heart, and I was so so thrilled to be able to write a story that had a positive outcome for him. “Worldplay” in the anthology Game On! from Zombies Need Brains is a close second. I went into it with a goal it having a particular taste and feel to the words, and I achieved that. I also went into it with the goal of the main character never being gendered, and am really happy with how it reads. The fact that it is only 4,000 words long and everything fits so neatly within that amount of words gives me incredible joy. In terms of craft, I am intensely proud of this piece.

Do you like having background noise when you create? What do you listen to? Does it vary depending on the project, and if so, how?

I need music going, but it has to either be music I know and can ignore, or sometimes classical. And it does vary with the project, but I don’t make playlists specific to the book. I did listen to a LOT of pop punk while writing Rory’s book (Marked #2: Not Your Love Song) in the PHU ‘verse, because that fit with his band’s theme. What I can’t do is use headphones – if the music is right in my ears, it’s interruptive. I need it to be low and truly in the background, so it doesn’t draw my attention. Once upon a time I could write while watching TV (and I wrote a lot of early fic that way- t hat would be where a Deadliest Catch inspired fic came from!) but not any longer. It’s too distracting.

When you look at your “career” as a creator, what achievement would you most like to reach – what, if it happened or has already happened, would/did make you go “now – now I’m a success!”?

When I graduated high school, as part of our writeup under our picture, they asked for our life goal. Mine was “2 go 2 SF cons 4 free” because at that time, being invited to be the guest of honor at a convention was the best goal I could see. I’d still love for that to happen. But really, more than that, I just hope to hear someday that something I wrote meant something to a reader. That the book impacted them in a positive way. That would be a success.

If you could give one piece of advice to a new creator who came to you for help, what would that advice be?

All words are awesome words. There will be days where you hate everything you write, and that’s okay. Put them on paper anyway. Burn them later if you want, or edit them, or tuck them in a drawer to look at in a year. But write them. Give yourself that chance to grow. Remember that everyone starts at the beginning – no one is a pro from moment one. Keep at it, and those words will change as you learn. But never forget: every word you put on paper is incredible, because you did it. You wrote. Keep writing.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

You have to write your million words of shit. Which in my mind, I have turned it around to “All words are awesome words” whether you make one or a thousand, whether you keep them or cut them. The gist is: in order to improve, you have to write. You have to get it down on paper, and yeah, it may not work and it may get tossed in a drawer (or lost in a virtual file folder named “omgDoNotLook-this-is-awful.docx”), but the writing is how we learn.

Additionally, ALL words count. Original fiction. Fan fiction. Non-fiction. Blog posts. Carefully worded emails. Everything that makes you slow down and consider your word choice and seek a direction and find flow. It’s all important, and it’s all part of the learning process. Which is the flipside of writing that first million words of shit. Much like gaining a black belt in a martial art – achieving that goal isn’t the end of the journey, it’s the start. Keep going. Keep making words. Every single one is important, and we always have more to learn.

What’s the worst advice you’ve ever received?

That you are only a writer if you write every day, and that to be successful, it should be at the same time, in the same place. I get that it works for some people. In fact, it’s great advice for a lot of people! But for me, I internalized that as “if I miss a day, I’m a failure” or “if I can’t get into my home office, I’m a failure” and that meant I stopped writing.

I had to learn that zero days are okay. It’s how much you work, not necessarily having a strict schedule, and learning to roll with the changes in schedule is important, too. I started tracking my word count in a spreadsheet so I could see those ups and downs, and visualize my averages, even when half the days out of the year I wasn’t writing at all. In 2023 I started tracking time, as well, because I’ve been spending more and more time on authorial tasks that aren’t just the creation of new words – editing, social media, publication prep, buying supplies (business cards, etc.), conventions. Being able to see that I am still spending a lot of time on this career, even if I’m not making words, has helped me come to terms with times when I’m not writing.

What book or media franchise or other creator’s work do you always come back to? How many times have you rewatched/reread/reviewed it?

Roger Zelazny’s Amber series, and I honestly do not know how many times I’ve read it. My view of it has changed over the years, certainly. It still impacts me a lot when I think about it; there are so many spaces and so many ways to take inspiration from it. It was a perfect story for a lonely teen who wanted a way to believe in a life beyond where I was. I read it many times between the ’90s and ’00s because I got involved in playing an RPG based in the universe – diceless roleplaying with a heavy emphasis on character and story. It was perfect for me, and was something that kept me writing (for my characters) during the times when my children were young. The last time I read it was in 2017 so I could write a postscript canon-based story for a Yuletide prompt. That’s another one I’m very proud of from a craft perspective, because I feel like I did a good job of mimicking Zelazny’s style (but more modern).

Thank you for sharing, Tris!

If you’ve enjoyed this interview, why not check out our current crowdfunding campaign for Tris’s book Missed Fortunes?

[13tinysocks]

The other day I was watching a video essay about the problematics of “dark romance” and their authors (ex: colleen hoover etc) and also their popularity among book-tok girlies. Although the video was heavily focused on novels I couldn’t help but have in mind fanfics like SYG and specially YCYD

So my question is, Do you think there’s a difference between those dark romance book-took books and your fanfics? (Specially the portrayal of men and women in them) And if there is, what’s the difference? I know that your fanfics, specially YCYD, have constant warnings and disclaimers but that’s doesn’t change the fact that the fanfic is being consumed for satisfaction.

I don’t mean to sound rude, I loved the fanfics, and that’s precisely why I question the dynamics in them.

P.S. I love how immersive your writting is xo

I’ve thought of this often considering I’m rewriting ycyd for the publishing market. In such, making it much darker and uncomfortable as before with beloved characters I didn’t want to make them “too much”. Whereas with these different characters I’ve reared from my teet? Sure, let’s get more explicit.

I think booktok has an identity problem. It wants to be dark and nasty but also classically romantic. Yes my alpha boyfriend kills people but he’s nice to me and I’m also tiny and feeble and he’ll kill anyone who looks at me. Book took often writes abuse but so badly, so unrealistically, they don’t think it is abuse. They think it’s kink but if you view it from a kink perspective it’s watered down slop. The romance is lacking, too quick, cheesy and without chemistry.

Our fics admittedly suffer from the same things. Part of it I addressed the first paragraph, the other well, I was 18 and plain shit at writing.

I think saying “don’t write abuse where the abuser is abused and obviously in a bad headspace” (as many YouTubers who don’t really write on the subject or involved in kink at all tend to say) is dumb. I feel that rhetoric makes people who have actually been abused see themeselves less and less in media. Save for the cliche my mom is a drunk that puts her cigarettes out on me- abuse.

It’s often unsaid but in SOME cases of bad things happening, these things can turn later in life for the victim: into kinks and fetishes. I think this idea is under-explored in “dark” romance novels. Because they’re not really dark at all.

You can not like it. You can be disgusted by these victims but still- they exist. Even non-victims for whatever reason develop gross fetishes. It doesn’t automatically make them bad just- sexually deviant. So long as these people have safe and sane sex I don’t care. But dark romance shouldn’t be safe or sane in my opinion.

To me dark romance at its truest is exploring your kinks to the deepest, nastiest depths with zero regard for character safety or sanity.

Do not misread me. I am not advocating for cp. cp is abhorrent. I would never include such in my work.

I won’t deny it. Syg and ycyd are both stories with abusive dynamics. It is bad on purpose. Ycyd more so. Because if you truly want a horror and romance story in one well- the horror IS the romance. In ycyd’s novelization I want the characters clash and romance to be sickening. I want you to pray to god Dianne gets away from these men. Finds a nice girl in Colorado and rightly fucks off.

But at the same time. I don’t think my style of dark romance should be popular. It is gross! It is bad! But damn if it isn’t fun for those of us into that kind of thing.

Anyway, ycyd is doing very well in writing. I’ll be able to rewrite ho1cs latest chapter soon, the first draft was uttter shit. The job market is bad, im broke, happy Valentine’s Day, go get fisted everybody

[kittynugg]

haha yeah that's just average tumblr user exaggeration we do it all the ti-

*lacrimosa plays like the part where the meme is*

you werent kidding.

YOU WERENT KIDDING

okay so i've learned not to underestimate you leene ( @empressofsamoyeds )

lot of answers under the cut HHAQHKH

this is a fun one! okay so back in my glory days before the horrors (11-13 years old) i used to.. not know ao3 existed! i'd get my reading in on fanfiction.net reading exclusively the detroit: become human works of waywardwonder (also on ao3). this person was/is incredibly talented and writes novel-length fics so if you like dbh you'll probably like them because i FUCKING loved this person.

this person's works were incredibly inspiring to me, i wanted to write dbh fics of my own which i never ended up doing beside a draft i wrote directly on ao3 and gave up on and deleted because i didnt know what rich text OR html was

my NEXT shot at fanfiction i believe i wrote in either microsoft word or on grammarly when i was thirteen, i asked my like 16 year old friend at the time to beta read and they said it looked like something they'd write in middle school and regret in highschool and they were right

sooooooooooo i gave up again

then came a certain show by a certain zoophile who i had no fucking idea about at the time btw that was uh. a shocker. but i. had. HEADCANONS. al*stor was my SON. i gave him a backstory, a cute nickname, a wip i didnt finish..

and then i stopped caring about hazbin hotel because BAM INVADER ZIM BABY LOOK AT THAT LITTLE GUY GO LOOK AT THAT CHILD TRY TO DISSECT HIM i wrote SO MUCH and it was ALL uh

IT WAS ALL TERRIBLE

but this time i didnt give up! my friends encouraged and uplifted me and i discovered looking up "writing tips" on pinterest and i just kept getting better and now i regret writing that dbh fic.

okay so woefully the emoji does not work BUUUUUT I HAVE THE POWER OF THE INTERNET

roller skate

roller skate?

alright whatever. this is for the next chapter of a little dilemma which you should totally read guys. 👧👦🎠🖐👆 its pretty poorly done not very descriptive (THE EMOJIS NOT THE FIC I SWEAR!!) but im a dumb idiot sorry

why is that a roller ska-

OOH!! IOPIOH OOOH!

okay so this first one is a camp camp fic, in which david adopts max because that is the standard for camp camp fics, it's called Love Like You and it is my ALL-TIME FAVORITE. I LOVE IT

this right here, Can't Sleep (And it's Not Because I'm Touch-Starved) almost ties it despite being a oneshot. this is just a fic of ford being in denial about wanting to cuddle its beautiful its my comfort fic. in fact thats my all-time favorite oneshot and love like you is my all-time favorite multi-chapter

and finally, Oh, brother, we go deeper than the ink beneath the skin. it is a series of sickfics that isnt complete yet and you should pleaaseeee read it? please? i love it its stan and ford-centric and its so cute

i usually dont have any but rn i haveeeeeeeeeee seven, two were from roblox and the other five were from ao3

uhhh hmmm

i used to LOVE hello kitty when i was younger, i was a girl when i was younger if that explains it. i've had this old beat up greyed plushie of her for over ten years now i think? she is in my shelf of things that make me happy and when i finally get my gf shit its going to join her

PURELY writer's block. i belieeeeve the source is boredom or understimulation but i've found that when i just dont work on what i should be working on and start a whole new fic instead i can write like over 1,000 words in one day EASILY but otherwise i struggle to write over 500

okay so i do not ship, this is not even a pairing because stan and ford are canonically brothers but here is my headcanon

in ohbrotherwegodeeperthantheinkbeneaththeskin (goddamn its a long name its linked above) ford is mentioned to have a lamb plushie, and i played cult of the lamb with my brother as the goat so i hc that stan and ford had matching lamb and goat plushies as kids. stan lost his somewhere in the house and ford brought his with him to college, it sat in a box until after the show's events when stan revealed to their mother that "..hey ma.. it might seem crazy what im bout to say" and tells her about ford and both her favorite sons are alive and blah blah

and she HURRIES over to visit them and brings stan's old goat plushie she found somewhere ages ago and kept in good condition as something to remember her baby by

so the twins and their childhood plushies were reunited, and ford named them lambert and goatfrey after some lame shit (my headcanon names for the lamb and goat in cotl 🥺)

here's some art i did and sent to someone on anon so if you've seen this before you probably have but im not stealing it hffhuk dont hurt me

they cherish them

...

*cough*

*cricket sound effe-

no no alright three good things -my birthday is in ten days -i found out which store sells the teabags i used to drink in america (black tea obv hifuhukfh THEY BARELY SELL IT HERE) and im currently drinking iced tea -starting to believe that people actually like my writing

i do not use my notes app i used you as my notes app last night to remind myself to think of ideas for stan and mabel bonding (btw i failed) but the latest thing in my stupid opera flow thing wont let me open flow okay thanks opera. im sure its something about stan and ford

i believe ice machines is up there, also how much water could fill an adult's lungs. i dont thik it was for water i think i was just trying not to get put on any lists

if you feel like having a freakout or reaching for a bad coping mechanism, draw something instead! this has saved me from relapsing multiple times

i dont particularly have a dream-fic but i'd like rubyflakes to write more about stan and ford platonically cuddling

my solution is to get inspired by something else and forget about the first thing and make insane progress on the second thing in one day and feel like you did nothing despite all you did with the second thing because you didnt work on the first thing. it works wonders on the second thing

fucking spiders georg man that man is crazy

i get fucking giddy at any comments but the two types that make me the happiest are specific compliments on parts that they liked (leene i love you/p) or "UHFUHVKFVKHU I LOVED THIS SO MUCH IRHFKHFHJFVJF" (my type of comment that is how i comment)

bill bILL THAT FUCKING--

okay so when he's not being shipped with ford he's an objectively good character. i hate him a lot. -they do a good job at making a *cough* irredeemable villain. genuinely the shit bill does is wholly unforgivable. i do not give a fuck what happened to him i have no sympathy -hes silly!! okay so i do despise him but he is FUNNY at times, gotta give him credit where credit's due -he's rotting in therapy and i hope he stays there 😊😊

..ford

no not really

what the fuck who are you

i hve been scratching my neck like a crackhead waiting to open the birthday gift my friend sent me for five days now. ten more days

i hope that answers your question

you bastard making me work on MY writing/j

okay ehre you are its fir a little dilemma its 100 words they're playing on a see-saw :>

“I knew I could count on you!” Mabel chirped, grinning from ear to ear. She took Ford’s still frustratingly-tiny hand and pulled him toward the see-saw. 

Naturally, Ford climbed on like he had the first time, and gripped the railing tightly with one hand as he pushed off the ground and was lifted into the air. Such a simple action.. and yet it was more fun than he had on a daily basis as an adult. Even the second time! It just didn’t get old! “Whoo!” He cheered, reaching a hand toward the sky that cast a long shadow against the ground.

my brother's username was ___nugg idk if he wants me to share it but i like kitties so i went kittynugg. i hate it so much

this fucking idiot

he stinks

okay so i CANT ATTACH ANHY MORE IMAGES so im gonna continue in another post (future connor here, here's part two!)

[starzgaze]

hope you don't mind me ranting rq--

i constantly think about your yan!Hae-In and yan!Jinwoo ideas because they're so fun to mess around with.

bc what if the readers honest to god reaction to either of then confessing to then was "i don't feel the dame way.. you wanna see this cool bug i found?"

that OR the reader is a little freak of a poet and writes romance novels with concerningly detailed cannibalism scenes and is more interested in the shadow ants than either of them.

also i'm planning on writing a fic about the cannibal poet reader, but it's going to take a while because i'm shit at writing-

LMFAOO IDC IF U FLOOD MY INBOX ITS FINEEE more people to talk to anyway because im a bit of a pussy to talk straight up to my mutuals sigh

also thanks i actually have alot in my drafts its just most of them are unfinished and i have no idea if i should let them see the light of day or not... same with w.jc , chi, and sjw sick day fic LMFAOO uhhmm anyway!!

that's actually something i lovvee experienting with lowkey especially as someone who takes a big looong time to realize 'oh they liked me" and it's been fucking months since they confessed but anyqay I actually act like that most of the time it's pretty bad anywaaay this is funny as hell with yandere jinhae who's TRYING their best to make you swoon even if they're not the best with romance but you still don't... budge... bur hey you'll show them some cool colored bug you picked off the side walk! that's hopefully not a mutated monster that escaped a dungeon.

anyway more on the first idea this probably either ends really well or horribly depending on how both jinwoo and haein receives this ooooooorrr the circumstances really on how much they both value you but since im a freak for borderline this is insanity why are you writing this type of literature let's say that if you rejected then you have one swordswoman who accidentally fucks you up psychologically (I don't see haein someone who would do it willingly or deliberately gets enjoyment from it) but with jinwoo its a bit complicated to say because each person has a different take on how jinwoo perceives romance and how he processes feelings but since its my post im going with it's probably borderline fucked up if we consider the fact the more he levels up or grows the more apathetic or inhumane he becomes! im gonna abuse the hell out of this concept

but anywya with jinwoo u're probably gonna either get straight up kidnapped OR because you're lowkey desensitized and carefree that maybe kidnapping doesn't really have any affect on you then he might just sends weird eldritch horrors depictions of death and darkness when you're about to sleep so now you need a cute bug themes night light to sleep because no way you're letting some death incarnate screw up your sleeping schedule.

also those two as an attempt to maybe sway you might get into bugs or whatever little interests like jinwoo is having small consultations with beru or has him on standby everytime he spends time with you or haein overcoming her trauma (this takes place after jeju island) and learns and starts to love bugs just for you to reciprocate her feelings then these two quiz eachother on who knows more and what not it's literally amusing to see them debates over fuckinf caterpillars when you returned with take out because they insisted hanging out with you

anyway now on the latter I LOVE LOVE grotesque depictions of love especially like with murder OR cannibalism like how probably eating eachother is like a way of showing affection and how now your love will always be inside of them (literally) or something along the lines!! it's actually so cool how it's portrayed in media i need some suggestions actually anyway in the context of jinhae and mc being a poet uhmmm I'm not sure because i suck at making poems so im not the best on how to... make this work... i hate writing poems but I'll stick witj the theme of being a romance horror writer but not what you think of like colleen hoover or whomever the fuck wrote haunting adeline (god please i hope those books gets SMITED off the face of earth because this has stained dark romance to the point i dont even wanna acknowledge dark romance as a genre).

if you're a popular horror writer who specializes on creeping out your readers but still somehow delivers a good message or screwedd up message in between the lines of ripped boddies and intestines then jinhae has probably heard of you before like definitely.

like the themes of your books or poems to other people seems to be very disgusting or only written for the shock value but maybe to jinwoo or haein they have a whooole different meaning or one of your books/poems struck them really deep they got into a bit of a rabbit hole going through your collection as an author. i can definitely see both of them becoming fans and attending meet and greets.

oh my god a thought came to me and it's basically how would these two act in the internet if your name was beinf slandered like because your books or poems is not well perceived by all because you would occasionally write screwed up romance that you do not condone at all!! it's all for the sake of symbolism and experimentation with the material but anyway these two would have different reactions to this

for example haein seems to be the type to not be sooo like... like how do i explain this shes the type to have an anonymous account and goes to those forums to have actual discussions and tries to be civil as she can be when she tries to convert these haters why they should like you because i can't see her going as far to try to find this individual's address BUT but im just saying if ever that same hater was in the same dungeon raid as haein, there's no guarantee that haein will probably let them... die and say it was an accident.

anyway jinwoo is less interactive on the internet and is more of a lurker but he's probably the definitely the type to send ominous messages and then appear on their doorstep next morning or even minute if they're that unlucky LMFAO. another case of missing people otw!!

oh and i lowkey love the whooole idea of if you have a writer darling no matter how screwed or how fluffy their stories are the person or people who loves them will try to recreate this. yeaaah i can see this happening with jinwoo and haein and the tiny competition they have is who performed it better.

like for example if you written a poem about the elegant slashes of a sword on how it glides so easily through certain monsters, haein would try to replicate the feeling and explains to jinwoo that she obviously is better at portraying at this because she is a certified swordswoman or something along the lines and honestly jinwoo can't exactly argue against that because she's right but he won't admit it

then with paragraphs that depicts the most grueling experience of death and what not is something jinwoo is really familiar with and he's the type to copy it by doing it on random monsters he encounters in dungeons or even certain monarchs if they're that unlucky or jinwoo feels a biiit experimental LMFAO yeah okay what my brain is fried.

oh talking about darling being a horror romance writer, the moment jinwoo introduces his shadows or you find out about you become absolutely infatuated with them and the whoole idea like especially they're permanently serving death that's a pretty neat idea to you.

you start to write more and talk less to jinwoo and mooore to the shadows, it's pretty funny to see but you didn't notice the fact jinwoo is fuming in the background as he watches you get into in depth discussions with igris and bellion about their past lives and how you'll implement their experiences in a poem

yeha kay thats it my brain wugh dead bye uhm yeah talk to me more i love this sm thanks for food for thought

[wildcatfourteen]

how do you come up with such interesting composition? your pieces are always so captivating 💗

thank youuuuuuuuuu <33 and the truth is. idk. i am kinda just winging it and making a lot of adjustments as i go.... im not very orderly about it and have my thoughts kinda all over the place. heres some examples under the cut w what process pics i could find

direction process goes >>>

first did a pencil sketch for big shapes. was just placing stuff down. i wanted to make ref sheets for an art trade but didnt want to make a traditional type bc i hate drawing ppl standing full body (bc im bad at it 👍) also i did not have specific outfits in mind and was going more for a reference of the general vibe of the characters, so i just wanted a full body pose + face close up. to avoid having to show specific details. bc i was cheating. was originally going to have multiple text bubbles around for the character facts

did like two sketches digitally. messed around a LOT with placement. the little emote heads came out of me feeling like it was empty and boring on its own and they are fun to draw so why not include them. the multiple text bubbles seemed like a bad idea now so i took them out and just did one text wall.

i actually dont like the text wall now and think breaking it up wouldve been more fun visually but that would've required effort i didnt wanna put in LOL

^ i lost the pencil sketch for this one (i always do a pencil sketch) but it was actually just the two half body drawings at first with none of that shit at the bottom or the close ups until i was like fuckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk i gotta add smth around to make this look like theres stuff happening..... the idea was to draw the two main characters of the labb novel in some kinda comic format w panels around and i then. kept adding things until it seemed like i was getting somewhere. thats kind of my process for everything TT i think it helps to stay in a workshopping stage for longer if needed to get somewhere but i often get impatient LOL

im putting a stupid note abt this here bc im still annoyed at myself but in this novel, there was a bit about a crossword puzzle related to a murder case and i only thought of it afterwards that it would be kinda cool to put the sugar cubes in like a crossword puzzle formation....... why didnt i do that......

^ and heres some of the process for this one, but i lost a LOT of the steps for this. the beginning was totally different. the character wasnt as pathetic and scared looking at first but then i was like uhhhhh lets draw him that way :)

the first pencil draft was from a different perspective and it was gonna have a mirror composition to it kinda? but i wasn't able to make that look appealing so i deleted it. it still had the curtains tho but then i also included stuff with framed mirrors + other frames around

i decided to instead make the curtains be the focus of the whole piece to not make it so cluttered. character's pose was so different at first it was so bad i dont even wanna remember it. i took out the frames entirely bc i didnt think they added much to the piece in terms of the atmosphere. since like. the more i worked on it w the character's + the goat's expressions the more it gave a 'being hunted' feeling to it and portrait frames dont fit that vibe. which feels funny bc u look at it and thats all u can think abt but i wasnt even gunning for that when starting out. BE FLEXIBLE. TRUST THE PROCESS.

[tc-doherty]

@bluejay-in-flight

I'm not sure if this is going to be helpful to you and it's kind of ramble-y but! Here's what I have to say about me and first drafts, and some suggestions as to how to enjoy them more:

For me personally, I write because I love the act of writing so first drafts are super fun but editing is work and is more difficult for me

I don't plan a lot! I plan as little as possible in fact. Planning is work too, and writing is about having fun!

What I love about writing first drafts is the chaos and the creativity and the freedom to be super messy and super silly and slapdash, it's about discovering things about my characters and groping my way forward and seeing what I can come up with!

I personally love writing stuff that sucks LMAO I love writing trash. I am in love with the process of pure creative nonsense and writing things that no one is ever going to see and not having to be perfect or polished because that's what editing is for!

Although you like editing (at least more than writing a first draft) you said that you still struggle with perfectionism and I suppose you should try to figure out why that's the case.

I don't have very many pieces of writing advice but some of the ones that I do live by is "write it now, fix it later" and "it's always okay to write the stupidest possible version". The first draft only exists to get the story out there, and the editing exists to make it look like you knew what you were doing all along.

Do you share your first drafts with people? Would you be embarrassed for them to see something unpolished? If not then I think you should maybe try to find a way to be a little kinder with yourself. To cut yourself more slack. There's certainly something to be said for saving yourself effort down the line, but you're still going to have to edit it anyway so there's absolutely no reason to be perfect on the first draft

People who can plan out things and write good first drafts are incredible to me because I absolutely cannot live that life, but I also think I have a lot more fun overall even if it means I have to write 6 or 7 drafts of something before it's good

I also think that it's no good editing until you have the full story so getting caught up in perfectionism with the first draft - when the story is still being formed - is causing yourself to expend more effort on it because you don't actually know the changes that you're gonna need yet (again though, I don't plan anything so take that with a grain of salt)

So what can you do about it?

It's one thing to train yourself in discipline, that's something that's pretty well studied

BUT if you want to train yourself in a lack of discipline, I actually think that's not as easy. You can of course try to force yourself to write without editing but that might stress you out and make the experience not fun, which means you're significantly more likely to not do it again

So I would suggest trying to make it a game for yourself. Try to find the joy of writing something unpolished, in whatever way works for you. Maybe do some time based writing challenges? Like in the way that NaNoWriMo gets people past that because the time limit of one month forces you to keep going! but that might be a bit intense to start with because it is a full novel and a full month

If you could get some friends involved and do time challenges together maybe you could begin enjoying the process of just writing something as it first comes to mind, and you and your friends can have fun laughing about all of your silly writing afterwards

Or maybe you could find some people to RP with, because that's certainly a different kind of writing that doesn't allow you to get super bogged down because you're not doing all of the work

And I also highly recommend writing the absolute most self-indulgent nonsense possible that is purely for you and no one else is ever going to read it because that can be very freeing!

Some people also find it helpful to actually label something as "the dumb version" or "the bad version" because it gives them internal "excuses" to write something that isn't polished.

Well, I don't know if any of this will be helpful to you but I hope so! I know I use the words "fun" and "enjoy" a lot but I really think writing first drafts should be fun. I think writing should be fun! Because after all, we love writing don't we? Finding the particular joy in each stage of writing can go a long way to helping you get through it and help you really appreciate the entire process ^__^

[moodsandtenses]

Dracula's Guest: in which a business trip gets off to a rough start

Welcome back to Dracula Daily season! If you want to kick things off a little early this year, why not treat yourself to a read-through of Dracula’s Guest? Cut from the novel in the drafting process (ETA: the specifics of where exactly it fit into the plot of Dracula are a little fuzzy, for complicated reasons), and later published as a separate short story, it takes place today on April 30, also known as Walpurgis Nacht. The whole thing’s available here, thanks to Project Gutenberg.

Some further discussion of this absolute wild ride of a not-quite-canon side trip below:

Dracula’s patented “when in doubt, address the problem with Wolves” strategy gets off to an early start

We join Dracula’s guest - unnamed in the story, but pretty obviously Rough Draft Jonathan Harker - in Munich, on the first leg of his business trip to Transylvania. If this had been part of the finished book, it would have really front-loaded the tension, giving Jonathan a whole Vampire Sidequest to get involved in before he even gets to Transylvania. A few fun facts worth noting here: 

The Dracula Daily community has done a lot to rehabilitate Jonathan Harker’s reputation, restoring his place as a courageous, resourceful vampire hunter and countering the pop-culture image of him as a clueless naif that’s persisted since the early film adaptations. Rough Draft Jonathan, meanwhile…well, he really is a whole lot more Like That. The whole first chunk of “Dracula’s Guest” mostly consists of him cheerfully ignoring a SPECTACULAR parade of red flags: 

Whereupon he burst out into a long story in German and English, so mixed up that I could not quite understand exactly what he said, but roughly I gathered that long ago, hundreds of years, men had died there and been buried in their graves; and sounds were heard under the clay, and when the graves were opened, men and women were found rosy with life, and their mouths red with blood. And so, in haste to save their lives (aye, and their souls!—and here he crossed himself) those who were left fled away to other places, where the living lived, and the dead were dead and not—not something. He was evidently afraid to speak the last words. As he proceeded with his narration, he grew more and more excited. It seemed as if his imagination had got hold of him, and he ended in a perfect paroxysm of fear—white-faced, perspiring, trembling and looking round him, as if expecting that some dreadful presence would manifest itself there in the bright sunshine on the open plain. Finally, in an agony of desperation, he cried: “Walpurgis nacht!” and pointed to the carriage for me to get in. All my English blood rose at this, and, standing back, I said: “You are afraid, Johann—you are afraid. Go home; I shall return alone; the walk will do me good.” The carriage door was open. I took from the seat my oak walking-stick—which I always carry on my holiday excursions—and closed the door, pointing back to Munich, and said, “Go home, Johann—Walpurgis-nacht doesn’t concern Englishmen.”

Abandoned village plagued by rumors of the Un-Dead? Carriage driver crossing himself repeatedly and refusing to go near the place? Even the horses are panicking and trying to get away? Sounds like a lovely place for an afternoon stroll! Sorry, I’m simply too English for foreshadowing. 

(Maybe this is just what comes of being engaged to Mina Murray, goth girl extraordinaire, who will later display the same “when in doubt, make a beeline for the creepiest local ghost stories” approach to vacation planning in Whitby.)

The inscription on the tomb of the vampire that Jonathan 1.0 encounters - who might or might not be one of the Brides of Dracula - identifies her as “COUNTESS DOLINGEN OF GRATZ, IN STYRIA.” Styria is, of course, the setting of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 vampire novel Carmilla, suggesting a direct connection between the two stories that didn't make it into the final novel.

The tomb is also inscribed with a Russian translation of “The Dead Travel Fast,” the same line from the German gothic ballad Lenore that will later get quoted at Jonathan on his first encounter with Dracula himself. He just cannot get away from that quote (and the gothic heroine narrative parallels inherent therein). 

Jonathan is saved from his nearly-fatal encounter with Countess Dolingen by a very familiar wolf, before being rescued by a search party of soldiers (who are understandably pretty freaked out about the whole affair). The maître d’ of his hotel later reveals to him that he knew to send out a search party thanks to a quietly hilarious telegram from Dracula himself, who’s evidently decided to take proactive steps to protect his guest/investment/snack for later:

Bistritz. Be careful of my guest—his safety is most precious to me. Should aught happen to him, or if he be missed, spare nothing to find him and ensure his safety. He is English and therefore adventurous. There are often dangers from snow and wolves and night. Lose not a moment if you suspect harm to him. I answer your zeal with my fortune.—Dracula.

The whole story is obviously Not Canon as far as Dracula proper is concerned - and in particular, the more oblivious narrator here is a pretty far cry from the Jonathan we've all come to know and love over the past several time loops. But all the same, it's a fascinating look at what could have been, and furnishes some intriguing ingredients for Dracula-adjacent storytelling (thanks to that Carmilla connection in particular). And it is pretty funny to imagine Jonathan going through All That and then just cheerfully getting back to travel-blogging his trip for Mina like absolutely nothing happened. All like, “Well, that was terrifying! Anyway.”

[lavender-twilight23]

✨ Hi! I'm Madalyn, welcome to my blog!

I'm an avid movie lover, a big reader of fanfiction, and when I'm not in classes or doing homework, I'm religiously binge-writing fanfiction!

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Here is my AO3 dashboard and profile.

Right now, I write for the X-Men fandom! But I have written for a few other fandoms too, like Ted Lasso and Agents of SHIELD.

Here is the page to my full list of works.

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As for other creative stuff, I have 3 podcasts as well, all on Spotify, all of which either feature or are co-hosted by the lovely @amethystgoldenwind:

Film Podcast Name: Let's Check The Gate On...Films!

TV Show Podcast Name: Let's Check The Gate On...TV Shows!

Writing Podcast Name: Writers From Hell-vetica

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Random fun facts about me if you want them!

-I have an insane love of wolves– I have shirts, framed pictures, a mug, little figurines set up in my room/dorm, a crystal ball with a wolf suspended in it, etc.

-I occasionally do a hobby called rock balancing, which is exactly what it sounds like– balancing rocks! I'm not super advanced, typically three rocks max is what I do, but I've spent anywhere from 5 minutes to 3 hours making a balance! Here are some of my past balances:

-I love love love dressing up and Halloween is one of my favorite holidays because of that. I love comic cons and have been to three so far! The first one, I went as Bucky Barnes, the second, as Frodo Baggins, and the third, as Charles Xavier!

-I am in college for film, and my big career ambition is to someday work in the film industry as a screenwriter/director! I have written four feature-length screenplays over the years, one of which is on its sixth draft, and I have a limited fantasy TV series in the works! I also have 3 novel ideas I'm fleshing out, I self-published a fantasy novel when I was 11, I've taught a creative writing class to middle schoolers, and I have a poetry book on Amazon!

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And there's my intro! Asks are open, eyes are open, I’m ready to rock and roll! ❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🩷