#and b) it takes me so much longer to draft my own patterns and I have SO many things to do

[himblebo]

Why do some of the best historical pattern companies have to be based in a different country than I live in

[birlwrites]

How goes Bloodfinch! Are you at the stage of writing parts yet? Is there a particular area of writing (dialogue, point of view etc) that's particularly fun with it?

And another hopefully answerable but somewhat generic question (to give you the power of surprise yet if you want it!): what person and tense have you gone for? or have you varied it according to a pattern of your own design?

If there's stuff to say about the process of writing concerning what brings you joy (and not further worldbuilding/plot details necessarily that I'm sure time will reveal) it'd be interesting to hear it!

Also, as a side note, you said you very much identified with the sliding meme of your opinion on your skills varying. Hence, I desire to communicate that I think you're consistently brilliant! I am curious why you feel that way though, as I was shocked it was somewhat widespread (I have days where things don't go so well writing, naturally as consistency isn't quite how it works as an area, but find my faith in my skills is rather solid and veers only between "I'm fine at it I suppose?" to "oh yes, it's an area of skills I've worked on that I'm good at" with more sporadic bursts of "I'm a genius! I'm so great at this!" never reaching more despairing "I'm hopeless, utterly hopeless").

it goes well!!! i'm having fun!!! i'm nearing 2.5k now - i had a longer draft, but had to frog that since i decided to start the story in a different place. i'll probably grab and reuse snippets of it later on though. and the outline is complete!! i'm hoping that it'll be similar to lachrimae in terms of time it'll take me to write, although unlike lachrimae i'll then do at least one round of editing once i have a full draft, plus then i'll need to do like. layouts and get cover art and stuff

finch, the pov character, is a singer, and i'm having a WILD time being able to write a very highly trained singer - her tutor (dulceis) definitely has. some traits in common with. certain singing teachers i've had. just wrote a line about dulceis standing on the opposite side of the room from finch yelling 'WHERE ARE YOUR CONSONANTS I CAN'T FIND THEM' and. yes

it's first person present tense and it'll stick to that - normally i'm a third person present tense writer by default, but i'm going for first person here because a) we are VERY deep inside finch's head and b) that was the best way for me to make clear that despite her calling herself finch, that's not what other people call her

i also just created yet another saint today, the sea-saint, who's associated with the sea (duh) and those who make their living from the ocean (sailors, fishers, etc), AND ALSO rhetoric, poetry, and all of the word-arts. the sea-saint is associated with fluidity (duh), impermanence, but also a certain type of control - navigating uncertainty. there is a story about the sea-saint calming choppy waters just by speaking to them and persuading them to settle. they're represented with a wave, a seashell, or a siren (this tends to be the less positive side of the saint, representing fickleness, hunger, and misleading appearances)

oh and i also just wrote up a little story about the origins of bloodfinches, because i was going to type up my handwritten notes but writing up notes was boring and writing up a story that conveyed the same information was far more interesting - so perhaps i'll post that! in a different post though, so it can just be its own thing instead of being buried in this response

naturally from finch's pov i also get to go wild with the auditory imagery which is fantastic, and i'm also having a great time with introducing original characters - even though i work with very, very, very, very, VERY minor characters in hp fanfiction, so minor that in many cases i am inventing characterization out of wholecloth, people still already have certain impressions about characters' appearances, personalities, and general vibes. that is not at all the case with completely original characters and figuring out how to introduce them and convey impressions of them is SO MUCH FUN i forgot how fun it was

i think that the reason my perception of my own writing tends to swing back and forth wildly is because i associate it with ease. words are flowing? plot details are blooming? everything feels great! but if i am not living up to my own expectations, if trying to write feels like banging my head against a wall, or if a scene isn't coming out the way i imagined it and i don't know what the problem is, or i DO know what the problem is and it's going to be a shitload of work to fix, or if it's not connecting with readers the way i thought it would, then i do have a tendency to spiral

logically, i am a fairly confident writer, but emotionally, i'm of course more inconsistent, and emotions tend to rule the day when it comes to how i'm feeling about my skills at any given moment. fortunately, i'm at least aware of that, and i know that feeling like it's hopeless means a) it's not actually hopeless, my brain just likes to latch onto worst-case scenarios, and b) it is well past time for a break

a central issue here is that i often expect very high levels of productivity from myself, and so then even if i know it's time for a break, i then am fighting a separate battle in which i have to convince my brain not to beat me up over needing Break Time, and it all leads to me staring at the wall wishing i could put my brain in a washing machine

[greatbigbellies]

New anonymous commission story! This is another hyperpregnant slice of life piece, about a couple of boys who find out that they can conceive additional babies mid-pregnancy which will grow to catch up to the largest sibling, resulting in rapid growth for one of the husbands! Contains hyperpregnancy, tmpreg, some weight gain and lactation, mild belly worship, and allusions to sex.

Leo sat in the passenger seat of he and Marko’s sedan, his boyfriend behind the wheel. The pair sat in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. They’d received some… rather shocking news from Leo’s most recent doctors appointment. All three babies were fine, all perfectly healthy... but that was precisely the point, all THREE were healthy. At three months in, Leo was at the tail end of his first trimester, and when he started, there was supposedly only one in his womb. Then a few weeks ago, they were suddenly expecting fraternal twins. Then finally, today, triplets, all inexplicably at the same stage of growth.

“What’s going through you mind, hon?” Marko finally asked, breaking the silence. Leo brushed a few brown, fluffy hairs out of his face with one hand, and held his tummy protectively with the other. “I’m just… I’m floored we’re having three kids! I’m just… confused I guess? Like we were set with one for a while… and then two… and now…” Leo trailed off. Marko squinted in concentration as he thought of how to word his theory. “I… think I know the pattern… I don’t think it’s a matter of the doctors just mysteriously being unable to count…” Leo could tell where this was going. “You mean…” Marko nodded. “Think about it? There was the night we conceived after the party… that’s one. Then there was minigolf night...” Marko began listing off. Leo nodded, “Yeah, Minigolf was fun, we need to do that again sometime,” Leo smiled. Marko raised an eyebrow, “Like… just the minigolf, or what came after too?” 

Leo turned to him and batted his eyelashes, “I dunno, can you get another hole in one?” Marko felt himself start to blush. He was typically the more dominant one, but Leo knew how to push his buttons. “Besides, I wanna test your theory. See if I wake up with four tomorrow,” Marko was now no longer ‘starting to blush’ and was instead outright blushing. “Are you teasing me, or are you serious? Cause our turn to go golfing comes up in two blocks,” Leo put his hand in Marko’s shoulder, leaned over, and said “put another baby in me,”

Marko smiled mischievously, eager to relive their minigolf date. “But! If I win you gotta buy me a sundae. The babies want hot fudge,” Leo teased. Marko’s grin widened. “Nah hon, I’m gonna get a hole in one, beat your ass at minigolf, buy you TWO sundaes, watch you eat them, then we’ll fuck like there ain’t no tomorrow,” he said, wearing his confident smile proudly. Now it was Leo’s turn to blush, turning away and putting his hands over his mouth and cheeks. “Fuck, I hate it when you get all assertive like that,” he said through his hands. Marko laughed. “No you don’t, you little bottom!” Leo erupted in laughter himself, his adorable, irregular laugh like music to Marko’s ears.

“I mean… in fairness, you’re too competitive to lose on purpose, but too much of a gentleman to let a pregnant guy go hungry,” the praise elicited another more subtle blush from Marko, two ran his hand through his short, black undercut. “I mean… you need lots of calcium for the babies. There’s milk in ice cream so, like… it’s good for you right now?” Marko stumbled to his point. Leo chucked and lifted the hem of his beige sweater up to his chest, exposing his tiny first trimester tummy, looking ever so slightly pudgy from being 3 months along. Marko’s blush shifted to a deeper red and he tried to focus on the road, but was a sucker for Leo’s belly. “You’re going to get so big with four babies,” he said, his voice just slightly quivering in anticipation.

“Why stop at four?” asked Leo. “Are you serious?” replied Marko. “100%. We’ve talked about this before. We both love…” he gestured to his bare tummy, “THIS. We both have decided to take on fatherhood, why not just… shoot for the moon?” he put his shirt back down. Marko pulled into “Albatross Minigolf” and put the car in park, looking very seriously at Leo. “That’s going to be really hard on your body,” “I know,” “We’ll need a bigger car,” “I know,” “We’ll need a bigger APARTMENT!” “Marko… we’ll be fine! We only get to really do this once, lets make the most of it!” said Leo reassuringly. Marko wasn’t sure if “this” meant pregnancy, parenthood, or life in general, but he didn’t care. He kissed Leo on the lips, beyond excited to watch his boyfriend grow huge with his babies.

He got out of the car and ran around to the other side to get the door for Leo. He was more than prepared to dote on the man, already deciding he’d get Leo THREE sundaes after minigolf. After all, they’d need some calories to burn.

3 months later

Now six months along, and swollen with large sextuplets, Leo was solidly what one would call ‘very, VERY pregnant’. His usual button up flannel shirts had grown tighter and tighter until they wouldn’t button. While the pair did like the belly out, unbuttoned shirt look, Leo preferred to be more modest when in public. As the temperature dropped due to the coming of autumn, Leo had switched to his larger sweatshirts to remain covered, and even those didn’t really do the job anymore. Now looking overdue with quads, he waddled through the Willowbrook Square Mall wearing that same beige sweater he wore during minigolf night, once two sizes too big, now pulled tight over his bump and only reaching just above his navel.

To cover his lower belly, he wore a supportive belly band to help redistribute the weight of his womb and provide some modesty. Unfortunately for Leo, but much to Marko’s delight, the top hem of the belly belt and bottom hem of the shirt couldn’t quite meet, resulting in a cheeky strip of exposed tummy, complete with his popped navel peeking out.

Leo’s belly swayed slowly back and forth as he waddled next to Marko, squeezing his hand. He absolutely loved being so pregnant, but he tended to get colder feet in public. He was a sight to behold, and people weren’t shy about staring at his impressive bump. “I think that lady has intentionally hopped from store to store to keep me in view,” whispered Leo meekly, “She just keeps watching me, it’s weird,” “Bet she’s jealous of how great you look,” chuckled Marko. “Marko! I’m serious!” Leo hissed, “I like being this big but I don’t like being the center of attention!”

Marko raised an eyebrow, not liking his boyfriend being nervous. “I can talk to her if you’d like?” Leo shook his head, “Nono, I don’t want confrontation, I just want… honestly I just want a milkshake…” he said as cravings shifted his focus to his empty stomach. With each added baby to his womb, his appetite grew stronger, even as the amount of room in his smooshed digestive system grew smaller. Marko swiftly steered the pair toward the food court, knowing exactly what to get him.

Leo wasn’t much of a foodie before pregnancy, but getting knocked up had not only expanded his palette, but increased his appetite to the point Marko was constantly feeding him. He had actually become something of a good cook, and really enjoyed feeding Leo. As a result of his new caloric intake, Leo has began to physically soften with time, his thighs and ass become pillowier, and for the first time in his life, he had love handles. Marko took this as a point of pride, that his cooking was good enough to make someone a little pudgy. Of course, the constant flow of ice cream treats certainly didn’t hurt either.

“Any preferences, dear?” Marko asked as he helped Leo ease into a chair, which had to be pulled away form the table to make enough room for the belly. “Where you buying?” He asked. Marko tilted his head toward one of the chain restaurants in the court, “Sonic has the biggest shakes here, and I know you like car-” “Carmel oreo please,” grinned Leo. Marko’s heart flittered a little bit at Leo’s innocent smile, still in the honeymoon phase even after being together for so long. He nodded and made his way toward the Sonic, leaving Leo to sit and rest his aching feet.

He placed his hands on the top shelf of his belly, and scanned the food court. He was semi-used to being stared at by this point. Being visibly trans, being in a visibly gay relationship, hell, even his nose ring got glares from older folks. But this felt different, it wasn’t him they were stealing glances of, it was his belly. He felt a draft blow across the sliver of exposed skin between his sweater and belly belt, and felt a little self conscious. To make matters worse, the woman who had been stalking him made a b-line and was actually approaching him. He considered getting up and moving, but knew he’d reached the point in size and weight were he really needed Mareko’s help to do anything quickly.

“Excuse me!” she said, Leo braced for the worst. “I’m sorry, I know I’ve been following you around, we’ve made eye contact like 4 times, but I really need to ask you something,” she continued. Poor Leo grimaced and prepared for the worst. What invasive question would he have to answer this time? She took a seat at his table, sitting across from him. She made eye contact and seemed very direct, something Leo wasn’t super crazy about.

“So my friend is pregnant, and she’s carrying decuplets, and she’s really starting to struggle with her size… where did you get that tummy support thing?” Leo blinked, feeling like an overhyped bandaid was just painlessly torn off. “Oh, uh, there’s a place across town that sells maternity wear, called ‘twins n’ up’, and the owner makes their own stuff. They, uh, they custom made it for me,” he answered. The lady nodded intently and made several notes on her phone.

“Is this lady bothering you, hon?” asked Marko as he returned with 32 ounces of creamy milkshake. “No, actually she was just asking me about this!” Leo pulled the hem of his supporting belt, letting it snap back against is belly. “I swear I’m not trying to harass your husband, he’s just the first person i’ve seen who is as pregnant is my friend and I wanted to know where he got his clothes. I’ll leave you guys alone now, thank you!” she said to Marko, offering her seat to him. Marko’s protective nature made him a little cautious of the woman’s intentions, but she seemed harmless enough. “Take care!” smiled Leo as she left. Marko sat across from him, and handed him the milkshake.

Marko chuckled, “I guess we look like husbands now?” Leo took a long, indulgent sip of his shake, basking in the sugaryness of it all. “I mean, we are growing our family quite a bit,” he patted his tummy, “I think it’s a fair assumption we’re married,” Marko considered the situation for a moment and realized, yeah, it WAS a fair assumption they be married, or at least engaged… maybe it was near time he brought assumption to reality…

3 more months later

Marko and Leo were currently no longer boyfriends. Rather, they were fiances! Marko popped the question privately after a very fun and successful baby shower, and Leo immediately said yes. Some tears of happiness were shed, celebratory cake was consumed, and more babies were added to Leo’s ever swelling womb later that night. Things were progressing smoothly for the expecting couple as they’d moved from their old smaller apartment to a larger, open floor house. 

Now 9 months pregnant with thirteen babies, Leo was a sight to behold. His belly was permanently bared, no wardrobe in the country able to cover his bump. Through some luck, good genes, and lots of cocoa butter, he’d managed to avoid any stretchmarks, but his navel was thoroughly popped. While he’d started the pregnancy off on the skinny side, Marko’s endless flow of food had made sure baby weight accumulated, and now everything from his legs to his chest was growing. The only part of him that didn’t seem to gain any weight was his face, which was still lithe and adorable. His fluffy brown hair had only grown fluffier and fuller with the prenatal vitamins he was taking. He had to lose his blonde highlight though, as the babies could absorb chemicals through hair exposure, strangely enough.

Marko had been hard at work unpacking their whole life into this new house, as Leo had grown too large to really do much besides be doted on, which Marko was fine with. He’d set up their bedroom, and taken the doors off their hinges and removed the doorframes to buy Leo just a few precious weeks of being able to travel through doorways. At the rate they were going, they would need every inch of their open floorplan just for Leo’s titanic tummy.

Leo’s belly now held not only tredecuplets, but enough amniotic fluid to stay full and spherical. He was clocking in at around 300 lbs, and just under half of that was belly. Through the help of Marko, Leo could still walk… but getting up and down was a challenge. Leo’s belly was beyond bigger around than he was tall, and there were substantial portions where he could no longer reach. That didn’t stop the couple from conceiving more though. Even at thirteen full and pregnant beyond words, the couple still had plans for more. Call it some kind of hedonism, but Leo loved being bred and growing ever more massive, and Marko loved to watch. 

Even now, well into January, large snowflakes lazily falling outside, the pair were together, warm and happy. Leo had basically outgrown the couch at this point, his belly more wide than the cushions were deep. Instead, they had splurged on an electric recliner which was situated facing slightly to the right of the television, so that Leo could lay back in a reclined position, but only had to turn his head to see the TV, since he couldn’t see past his own tummy straight on at this point. Strong visible kicks could be seen occasionally poking out of his tightly stretched skin, often in places out of view from Leo himself. 

He sat, laid back in his large, cushy recliner, eating some chinese takeout Marko had picked up for him. He set the styrofoam container on his chest, idly scooping noodles into his waiting mouth. A chow mein noodle fell into his cleavage, something he didn’t have 6 months ago, and he picked it out with his chop sticks, hoping Marko didn’t notice him miss his mouth.

Marko didn’t notice, too enarmored with his future husband’s massive midriff. He got to see it every day, and yet every day he somehow loved it more. His hands were almost always touching it, only off of the bump when cooking or otherwise doing housework. He knew this had to be hard for Leo, being so massive and carrying so many, so Marko worked hard to do his part. Anything Leo wanted, he got. Specific foods, foot rubs, new clothes, a bigger belly… all of it was hand delivered by Marko himself. For being the more dominant of the pairing, he’d become something of a servant as Leo grew closer to immobility.

Right now, Marko had a dining room chair pulled up next to Leo, and was working cocoa butter into the side of his tummy, working slowly to both be gentile and maximize his time spent touching it. It amazed him how no matter his size, or how many were in there, his overburdened belly still had just a little give to it. Leo smiled, watching his partner be just engrossed with his tummy. “You have such a hopeless belly kink,” he chuckled. “Hmmm? Me?” Marko said, almost missing the question cause he was staring at the belly. “Yes you! Even before I got knocked up you liked touching me there! Who’s hands were on my tummy when we made out the first time?” Marko blushed. “I mean, yeah mine... but also who was so eager he got close enough that our glasses hooked on themselves? Who was so willing he whispered how he wanted a ‘baby in him right then and there?’,” Marko teased. 

Leo was the one blushing now, thinking back to one of their first dates. Little did he know just HOW MANY babies would be put in him later in life. “Is it… bad I still want you to put a baby in me?” he said, embarrassed by his own words and avoiding eye contact. Marko set aside the cocoa butter and stood up, taking a good look at the tummy that lay before him. “No… I don’t think it’s bad… but I wonder if there’s room in that belly for any more?” he teased, pressing the tips of his fingers into Leo’s exposed tummy.

“Oh come on Mark, don’t make me beg, you said you’d take care of me?” Leo teased right back, deepening his finance’s blush. “Hmmm…” he rested the side of his head on the front end of Leo’s belly, listening to the ambient, living sounds from inside. “It SOUNDS pretty full, can one guy get any more pregnant?” Leo crossed his arms and mock-pouted. “I won’t ever find out if you keep talking...” Marko leaned over Leo, casting a shadow across his face. “So you’re ready for number 14?” he grinned. Leo wrapped his hand around the back of Marko’s head and pulled him in for a kiss before whispering, “Why stop there?”

Another 3 months later

Marko had needed to make some calls. He had a few contacts with the fabrication industry, and knew some guys always willing to help him out. Now a year pregnant, and full of 20 babies, Leo no longer fit standard furniture. He was simply too large and heavy for traditional couches and chairs. Instead, Marko’s friends had put their heads together, and fashioned him a special, form fitting lounge chair, with a sturdy metal frame and soft, satiny cushions. They even thought ahead and made certain parts of it adjustable to accommodate for his growing size. And growing he was. Now beyond overdue, the growth of his still healthy brood pushed his body to new maximums. Leo often joked about how his womb would need its own zipcode soon.

Leo buttoned his shirt back up, setting the pumping apparatus on the table next to him. He’d had to start pumping his milk, or his breasts would begin leaking on their own, and frankly, he didn't want colostrum on his plaid flannels. “Hon, could you put that in the fridge?” he asked, pointing at the bottles of milk he’d produced. Marko ran his hand along the circumference of Leo’s belly as he moved past him, slightly tickling Leo in the process. He took the bottles and placed them in the fridge before circling back. “How’re you feeling honey?” he asked. “Big. Pregnant. Massive, really,” Leo answered. “Just how you like it?” Marko replied. Leo grinned, “Yeeeaaahhh,”

Marko placed his hands firmly on the expanse of pale, pregnant skin, and started kissing. Leo squirmed on his throne of pregnancy as his husband moved slowly up his belly toward his face. Marko gave him a deep, passionate kiss on the lips, causing Leo’s breath to shake slightly. “You love me so much,” he said in his quivering voice. “I”m so massive and pregnant and huge and round and you adore me like this.” he continued, getting a little emotional. “Of course I do,” replied Marko, giving his lovely husband a side-hug. “You’re my person, and you’re carrying a lot of persons, just for me, and that’s not easy. And I appreciate it. And I want you to know that I love you, both for doing that and for just being you!” Said Marko tenderly. Leo teared up a little, reaching out for another hug. Marko obliged, Leo wiping a couple tears on Marko’s 80’s style denim button-up.

“I couldn’t do all this without you, y’know… all… THIS!” Leo gestured to his astounding belly, which nudged with movement slightly in response. “You shouldn’t ever have to, babe. That’s why we have each other,” The two shared a tender silence, Marko rocking back and forth slowly. Leo sniffed and shook his head, “Augh, sorry. Pregnancy hormones… y’know… make me all emotional.” he said. “You’re allowed to be emotional, babe,” reassured Marko. “I know…” nodded Leo. 

Leo’s tummy rumbled and Marko chuckled, “You also get emotional when you’re hungry…” he pointed out. Leo laughed his bubbly, infectious laugh. “Yeah, I can’t argue with that… lemme see… the babies want…” he paused, “Potato soup!” Marko nodded, making his way to the kitchen to cook a huge batch. “Anything for you, my love,”

[anne-lister-adventures]

Monday, 10 February 1840

8 3/4

1 1/2

Dawdling writing bit of rough draft of note to Countess Panin snowy morning Reaumur 8 1/2º in my room at 9 a.m. – Breakfast at 10 in about 40 minutes – 

Hardly over before Colonel of the Engineers and Mrs. Gottman nice intelligent people called, and then Mr. Baehr, and then the General Gouverneur’s nephew and aide du camp Mr. Tolstoy and then the Prince de Georgia or properly Gurinsky so that it was 12 10/’’ by my watch (and as it appeared afterwards to be 3 hours instead of 2 1/2 hours too late) and 12 40/’’ by the day here the carriage having waited 3/4 hour – 

Mr. Tolstoy had met us the evening we spent chez la Princess Tcherkasky – And saw us (tho’ we knew nothing about it) when we drove to tea at Aleschkowo (vide p.[page] 10) and told George to desire our Courier to bring us here in the part of the Town where all the nobility lived and not take us to any of the Inns in the basse ville – Tolstoy a gentlemanly intelligent fast-French-speaking young man – 

Drove directly across the Oka (the verst-long bridge of boats taken away in the winters) a busy enough scene of laden traineaus and people – To all appearance terra-firma – Merely its valley-form to indicate the bed of the river – Drove straight to the Cathedral Church of St. Macaire – Lofty light and handsome rich handsome Iconostase and altar of solid silver given by the merchants that frequent the Fair which begins 15 July and lasts till 25 August O.S. – Large candelabra also en argent massif – Pavement of about 18 in.[inches] squared iron flags – Passed thro’ to the winter church in the large neat building the residence of the clergy at the back of the cathedral – The winter church a beautiful chapel covered vaulted roof painted in imitation of a lightly clouded sky – Effect warm and admirable – Here too rich, beautiful iconostase – Did not go to the Armenian church or Mahomedan Mosque – 

The Pechersky Ascension Monastery (in the background), where the Church of St. Macaire was located.

Then to the Governor’s apartments – Large handsome house – The bel étage on a forest of open arcades – Then along the Dvor (Gastinoi Dvor) – Went into one of the shops – Consisting one large room below and a small one and above a good sitting room, and a small bedroom? and a cabinet – This shop lets for 800/- for the whole time of the Fair – But there are still better situations which let for 1000/- - the frontage seemed to be 3 arcades on one side and 2 on the other – 

The merchants live in their shops – 2635 shops en pierre, and as was said afterwards chez le General Gouverneur 2600 en bois – All the pillars supporting the galleries of the Dvor are en fonte (cast iron) – And said the General Governor at dinner the length of the Dvor is just one English mile; and a person going into every shop and perfectly well knowing his way (so as not to go out of his way) will have walked 40 English miles at the end of his journey! 

Extraordinary ville de boutiques – Bazaar par excellance ou se fait un commerce qui valait l’année passé £8,000,000 said the General Gouverneur at dinner for he said the rouble ought to be 25/- per 1£ but Mr. Marc would certainly be right in giving only 21/- this depending upon circumstances – But said the Governor the merchants always cachent la valeur actuelle – One might add 1/2 to their statement ∴[therefore] instead of 8 millions one should say 12 millions Sterling! – Could not imagine why the merchants should try to hide the real amount of value – No reason for their doing so – It made no difference to them – But they always did hide it – 

Lower Bazaar in the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin (c. 1872)

The large handsome salle at the Governor’s apartments was intended by General Betancourt (a Spaniard the planner of the Dvor) for a Bourse – But no! That did not take – The merchants liked to settle an in their own private rooms; and some 8 or 10 millionaires in settling the price of the Tea, settled the price of every other article – People bought and sold according to the rate that should be fixed for the tea some much p.[per] c.[cent] without at all knowing what that would be till at the last – There were merchants that regularly bought tea to the amount of 6 or 8 millions, each! – The principal business is in tea, iron, and cotton –

On entering the winter church Tolstoy pointed to the height to which the waters rose in 1829 – Apparently about 3 ft.[feet] up the door-jamb – The damage done was considerable – But such a great rise was extraordinary – It had been once thought said the Governor (at dinner did not see him elsewhere today) to place the Dvor on the Kremlin Mountain (did Madame B-[Baehr] say it it was 75 or 175 ft.[feet] above the level of the rivers?) but this would not have suited the merchants – They could not have landed their merchandise with sufficient ease – Betancourt was was misinformed that the waters only rose 3 ft.[feet] above the present emplacement before its being raised but instead of raising 3 ft.[feet] it has been found necessary to raise 20 ft.[feet] in some places at an expense of 11,000,000/- but the present Emperor has been here twice and was so pleased with the Town ville, its situation, prospects &c. that he has taken it under his especial protection and spares no expense 17,000,000 more are now in progress of laying out in a large handsome house palace for the General Governor to be finished next summer (we saw it in the Kremlin) – 

One beautifully proportioned Corinthian columned salle de reception) – entrepôts – Sundry additional levellings (gigantic ones already done) the new chaussée &c. &c. the chaussée to be finished in 2 years from this time – Done as far as Vladimir, and part done here – Begins by a magnificent quay along the Oka – The quays here and cloaque can only be seen in summer – The ville on one side the Oka, the Dvor on the other and then the Volga – 

For the moment my idea of the ground and the junction of the 2 rivers is not nette (not quite clear) – But the ville as we looked from the Dvor and crossed the river is very picturesquely drawn in a long line along the high bank of the Oka crowned gits picturesque Kremlin – At the Kremlin, not a large enclosure, no cannon or sign of a fortress – 

Saw the new Cathedral built in the old style and in commemoration of the old venerable cathedral containing the tombs of many of the princes of Souzdal and of Cosma Minim Souk-Hourouky, the patriotic butcher, stirrer up of the people and Prince Pojarski who rid their country of the Poles (about A.D. 1612) – A copy of the banner of the patriot troops marched under (a virgin 1/2 length with an inscription in substance pour la foi et pour le roi) hangs up en face du tombeau de Minine or rather of the inscription for the tomb is just below in the catacombs substantial lofty brick vaults, 3 corresponding to nave and side aisles – On the chalky rock, and dry as possible – We walked thro’ them – 

This Cathedral lofty and handsome and très bien eclairée – The domed ceiling (the domes) in a blue pattern upon white (good effect) the side walls covered with fresco painting which contrasts well with the snow white polished scaglinola of the plain square huge Corinthian pillars that support the roof – The Iconostase rich as usual – 

The  Saint Michael the Archangel Cathedral of the Kremlin in Nizhny Novgorod. (image  © A.Savin, WikiCommons)

We peeped into the Military Hospital room for 550 – About 450 patients there – all cleanliness and neatness here as in the hospital for poor old people of both sexes, and in the maison des fous – About 15 or 20 men and as many women there in all? – No noise – All still and orderly as if the patients were as reasonable as their keepers – One of the men on our going up to his room (the rooms perhaps 5 yards + 4 yards) came to the door-window (a glass window iron barred in each door) and said in Russian very quietly Ah! Je croyais qu’il était le General Gouverneur, mais ce sont des vagabonds!” – Mr. Baehr had joined us in the Kremlin Cathedral and went with us to the Hospitals – Very civil and intelligent – It seems he is Procureur – 

It was now 3 by the Town clocks – Obliged to return – Home at 3 10/’’ – Dressed as quickly as we could – The carriage waited for us – At the Governor’s house at 4 1/4 or I think not later – The femme du General Gouverneur an agreeable, nice, good sort of aimable person – Dinner soon announced – Very nice good dinner soup and pâtés – A Marinade de Poisson – Round cotelettes de boeuf round a centre of spinach and little roast potatoes as big as marbles – Then Sterlet du Volga (stewed – Excellent garnished with pieces of lemon which one takes to correct the richness) then roast poulet or game and cucumbers handed round at the same time (salés) – Then a jelly – Then 2 plats of sweet meats (a large long excellent sort of plum and cherries), and then a little tumbler of chill-taken-off water in an empty glass saucer (nobody seems to wash anything but the mouth)and then retired to the salon – Coffee immediately – Sat a few minutes – Quite long enough for Madame B-[Baehr] evidently wished to retire to take her siesta, and said we should want repose – 

Home about 6 10/’’ – Sat slumbering dared not undress immediately for fear of anyone’s coming – Tea about 8 – Had Domna put away all my things and it is now 12 25/’’ by the Town clocks just as I have written so far – Snowing in the morning till about or after 11 – Afterwards fine – 

The 3 Lords Paget Clarence and 2 others were at the marriage of the Princess Marie and then here at the Fair last summer and afterwards with the Emperor at Borodino – 125,000 reviewed – 2 corps of the army – But very few of the guards there – The Lords P-[Paget] bought a great deal at the fair – Delighted with it – sorry they could not stay longer than 3 days – Promised to write to the B-s[Baehrs] but had not written – Mr. B-[Baehr] gave me a little set of views of the Dvor and promised me a feuille of the business done at the Fair last year – Very civil – 

Reaumur 10 1/2º in my room now at 12 1/2 tonight – Mr. Tolstoy said we had more than Reaumur -20 on Thursday night – Thinks we had even as much as Reaumur -25º - no greater cold here than Reaumur -30º to 35º - No greater in Siberia than Reaumur -40 and difficult to measure this – Mercury freezes did the Governor say at Reaumur -35º and spirit of wine only marks 3 or 4 degrees plus bas –

[symbols in the margin of the page:]         ✓c       ✓c       ✓c

[in the margin of the page:]             Gastinoi Dvor at Nijeni

[in the margin of the page:]            Nijni Gastinoi-Dvor

[in the margin of the page:]             Kremlin at Nijeni

[in the margin of the page:]             new cathedral service 1st dome in it 27 years ago

[in the margin of the page:]             Dinner chez le General Gouverneur

Page References:  SH:7/ML/E/24/0009  SH:7/ML/E/24/0010 SH:7/ML/E/24/0011

[rosecorcoranwrites]

Editing Advice Part 1: Continuity

Although I said I wouldn't be giving writing advice on this blog, I never said anything about editing advice. Plenty of people give (unhelpful, short-sighted, or far too niche) writing advice, but few focus on the crucial final part of the writing process, and yet, editing is what gives a lot of writers the most trouble. I personally love editing far more than the initial writing stage and so am here to offer my advice in not one, not two, not even three, but four—yes four!—blog posts!

First, let's look at continuity, in three categories: Time, Place, and People. Technically, you ought to keep continuity in mind throughout the writing process, but it's still easy to forget one or two things. Thus, when you finally decide "I'm going to edit this WIP!", you need to double check that everything is consistent, not just from a plot standpoint, but from a spacial, chronological, and personal standpoint as well.

Time

This includes character ages (especially in flashbacks and exposition), the beginning and endings of school years, the seasons and their weather patterns, moon phases (especially when writing about werewolves), times of day, how long it takes for events to happen (a wound to heal, DNA to come back from the lab, traveling from point A to point B), historical matters (phraseology, having characters use things that hadn't been invented yet, people in the middle ages eating potatoes, etc.) and so on.

One time, I was reading a WIP where their main character's (or MC's) sister, who was twelve, was being discussed. The MC said that her sister had been dating someone at the same time the MC was first learning to use her magic powers. Fine, except that later it was stated that she first learned to use those powers five years ago. Which would make the sister seven at the time. Ain't no seven-year-old datin' nobody. The author of the WIP had just forgotten that all the characters ages would change, not just the main character's.

In my own writing, I had to be very careful in Outcast Shadows, because two groups of characters were in two locations doing two things: Group A was traveling across a continent, while Group B were hanging out in a single building in a single city. But they had to meet up at the end of the book, under specific circumstances, so I had to make sure that both storylines took the same amount of time. In the first draft, Group A took far longer than Group B, which was disastrous! I had to go back and, first, measure exactly how long it would take Group A to do all their traveling and find things for Group B to do that made sense for the story to fill up that specific amount of time.

As careful as I was in Outcast Shadows, though, I completely forgot that Misha left a certain location a day earlier than everyone else in Recast Light—and this was after four rewrites. I had to account for what he was doing for an entire day, which meant rewriting several scenes. It ended up working out in the end, but is a cautionary tale I won't soon forget.

Place

This includes anything spacial, such as the layouts of rooms, buildings, cities, and continents; the blocking of character movements; light sources; the configuration of the the solar system; and so on.

For example, if your character was flat on his back a few sentences ago, but now he's standing, were we ever told that he got up? Did your characters, while touring the lower rooms of a castle, ever climb something in order to get to that second story room where they end up (mine didn't, in the first draft of Miscast Spells!). If your scene takes place in a dark and dingy torch-lit tavern, how can your characters notice tiny details, or are you picturing the scene as brightly lit as it would be with electric lighting?

Obviously, some of this can be fudged a bit—I don't think anyone but me cares about how scenes are lit—but some of it can't. And readers will notice. There was the famous case of Larry Niven's Ringworld, in which a character is teleporting east in order to extend his birthday, but of course the earth rotates east, meaning he would actually be moving later into the day, or even into the next, rather than earlier. So many readers noticed that Niven actually corrected it in later editions. Then there is Stephanie Meyer's Breaking Dawn, in which the Cullens have a house on an island off the west coast of Rio de Janeiro which, you know, doesn't have a west coast. These authors had professional editors who didn't catch these mistakes, so you can't rely on other people to notice continuity errors for you. Do your own research and know the layout of your own setting, especially if it's the setting we all live in.

People

This category includes what your characters have, what they know, and who they are.

For what they have, consider clothing and accessories, weapons, and useful items. If they don't have an umbrella, but it's raining in your scene, do they just stand there in the rain? Do they like it? Aren't they cold? If your character has some huge rucksack full of gear, they should always have that rucksack full of gear unless we can assume they left it in a safe place; if they're traveling from one end of the continent to the other, mention how heavy that rucksack is from time to time, and consider where it is during a fight or action scene (Are they still carrying it? Do they drop it? Do they pick it back up when they flee?).

Another thing that characters can have is injuries, which, unless magically healed, have lasting effects. If your character got punched in the face yesterday, they should have a bruise show up in a day or two, and last for about a week (she writes, realizing that she has had a character bruise far too fast in her own published book!). If your character has lost a lot of blood, or broken a bone, or received a concussion, all of that needs to be taken into account in the coming chapters. Again, this can usually be solved by a quick mention that such and such still hurt, but injuries will also impact how much traveling and fighting your character can do, so keep that in mind, too.

Be mindful, also, of what people in your story know, including POV and non-POV characters. A pet peeve of mine is when authors in multi-viewpoint narratives slip up and have the viewpoint character be privy to what other characters are thinking when there is no reason for them to know that. Then there is the opposite problem, typically in first person present tense stories, where, in order to have exposition, the MC will randomly be thinking about information that everyone in the setting already knows. It would be like reading a novel set in our world and having the first person narrator think "243 years ago, America declared independence from Britain, which it had formerly been a colony of. This was followed by what is known as the Revolutionary War, where the Patriots, on the American side, fought the Red Coats, the British soldiers". No one thinks that way, because they personally already know it; who are they explaining it to, themselves? Find a more natural way for this information across to the audience. Maybe the character is arguing about it with an friend or is helping a younger sibling with their homework.  For this sort of thing, dialogue is definitely your friend, but still, double check to make sure this seems natural.

Finally, think about who your characters are, as opposed to who you wanted them to be. Characters change and grow over the course of writing, and what you might have considered in-character when you were outlining the novel might be out-of-character now. Consider your character's emotional reactions, moral choices, word choice, and so on. Never let an intended message be a reason to railroad a character into some preconceived destiny. Take the time to look at your character, not as a writer, but as a reader.

This last bit of advice holds true for all parts of editing. Think about how you would view your story as a reader. While beta readers and editors are helpful, you can't put everything on them (especially considering that there are published stories with continuity errors). Think about what a reader might nitpick, and what they might not care about. I suggest caring about it anyway, because it's your story, and it should be the best you can make it. Polishing your story into its bright and shiny best self is what editing is all about, and we've only just begun!

[aheartfullofyoi]

Do you have any tips on writing thesis papers/papers in general? Please I beg for help

Honestly, I don’t have much to say...

Let’s see,

First, start with a more or less clear idea of what you want to say. As in, if you have to write a paper about Frankenstein, don’t start with just the idea of “I have to write a paper about Frankenstein”. This is a thesis paper, meaning, you gotta argue a point. Therefore, it is necessary to have something to argue. So, basically: what about this topic do you want to dwell deeper. Like, following the Frankenstein example, the time I wrote a paper on it, I was like: I wanna argue that Frankenstein (the doctor, not the creature) is A Dick. 

Okay, you’ll say: that’s a very... non-academic idea. But then you look for arguments. Like, for example: What makes him a dick? And then you make a list of ideas, good or bad, doesn’t matter. I usually don’t write them down, but it’s a good idea. And then you refine your idea. This might take you in a different direction. That’s pretty good. So, for example I went from “Victor is An Ass and i hate him” to “Why is he an ass” to “because he would never have been happy with anything he created. He is an insufferable pompous asshole that only loves himself”. Then a lightbulb went off! And I was like... “What if Victor Frankenstein only wanted to create a copy of himself because he’s that Narcissistic.”

And then? Then you start looking for more in depth sources. By now, you should known something of the topic. General knowledge and theories on it. Like: Gay marriage, to change the topic. You know some people oppose it and why. You know why others are in favor. Now, you have selected that one reason to explore, that Spicy Hot Take. It’s time to see who’s said something relevant to it. That’s when you go to look for reliable sources: Books on the matter, reputable essays. I always look on Google Scholar. It’s neat.

Now, here’s the first thing that is actually a tip: You don’t need to read the whole thing if you are short on time. It’s good if you can, but sometimes people, like moi, ramble. So skim through the text, highlight a few good passages. If you have a set idea/position, it’s good to have something that opposes it, but DON’T LET IT CHANGE YOUR MIND. If, like me, you write essays at the last possible minute, it’s not the time anymore to doubt yourself. You have the concept, you need to build this boat to the best of your ability. If you start changing ideas, you’ll have A Mess that’s not functional. You can change your mind afterwards and use that for a later paper!

Then, after highlighting and saving quotes from at least 3 other sources, check those sources’ sources, select some, rinse and repeat.

Now, some people will tell you to write an outline, a draft, revise, etc. That’s ideal, if you can. But if you cannot, like me, because it’s due in 5-12 hours, what you do is think in paragraphs. So, obviously, there’s the introductory paragraph, and some argument paragraphs, and then a conclusion one.

The first sentence is always the hardest. I usually start with a very simple, semi-historical thing. Example. Topic: cats. Thesis: cats are rad. -- So you go “Cats have been acting as human’s companions for millennia, from Ancient Egypt to [insert another culture where cats were super prevalent. Sorry, brain is fried].”

Then you present THE CONTROVERSY. Like “But many people have argued that domesticated felines [etc etc, academic language for “are mean”]

And then, you present your thesis, the ONE sentence that encapsulates that Hot Take you built your research around, and then, and this is important, you add a few sentences naming your arguments, vaguely, but in the order you are going to write them in the body of the paper. E.g. “However, cats can prove beneficial to human being due to...[a, b, c reasons]” (please keep in mind this has to be ‘heavier’/longer than 3 sentences, but having a skeleton to flesh out is exactly what an outline is. You write it and you think “where can I put more meat”. And you add the meat. 

The introduction is the most important part, after all. The introduction is how you ‘sell’ (and i mean that figuratively because if I had published something I’d be 1000x happier) your paper. It’s the ‘bait’. Some people want to lay it all out in the introduction, make everything clear. Some people prefer to suggest and intrigue, stating what they’ll be arguing in a more ‘veiled’/vague way. Both are valid, but it depends on you and on who’ll be reading your paper. Like, for example, with Frankenstein’s narcissism I can go, just after the thesis, with “For this, the self-referent nature of creationist myths will be explored” (yeah, sucky verb and linker there, but whatever, man) or “For this, creationist myths will be explored”. And so on.

And then, argument paragraphs. These are easier and follow, more or less, this structure, but in more academical terms: “[Argument 1] is very important. It is important because [reason that makes it important/related to your thesis. I call this a microthesis and it can take a few sentences]. [Quote by source that relates to that reason]. This means [an explanation that makes the quote relevant]. [Conclusion for this, that hopefully makes mention of the next argument]” Or, to give an example:

“The nature of creationist myths is essential to the understanding of Shelley’s Frankenstein. These are repeatedly alluded to in the text, as seen in the full title “The Modern Prometheus” and the wretch’s references to Christianity’s Adam. Upon further inspection, a pattern emerges from them: the self-referential nature by the creator when making their creatures. [Quote that mentions how in Genesis, God shaped man to their image and likeness. Hopefully something similar with Prometheus -it’s been a while]. In this, it can be seen that during the acts of creation, the maker expected to resemble themselves. This is the model the novel alludes to, and thus, what Victor expected from his wretch: for it to resemble him. It is in his failing to achieve this that one can find Victor’s undoing.”

Rinse and repeat with different ideas for a few more paragraphs. If needed, add small paragraphs in between saying “Now we’ve seen argument A, let’s see argument B”

And finally, the conclusion. By now, basically, you have to summarize what you wrote before. “Thus, we can see that [thesis] because of [arguments]”

And then the few final lines. There are three ways I go about this: further research, the mic drop or a mix or the two. further research is saying “the implications of this must be explored more closely”. But my favorite is the mic drop. Basically, you say something sort of strong and somewhat deep-sounding, and then just end. Example: “Victor fails to make the wretch resemble his own likeness and thus abandons him [that’s your thesis] . . . His selfish pursuits ruin not only his life, but that of everyone around him”

And that’s it. Final period. 

Hope this was of use

[secret-rendezvous1d]

D E C E M B E R  2 N D

REQUEST Are you doing Alex requests for Blogmas? If so, maybe his and Y/N's first Christmas together since the war and he decides to propose to her?

The first AU of Blogmas and it just had to be Alex - our little, strong-willed but absolutely adorable darling.

A little something different to the original storyline and I’m so pleased with how this one has turned out; it’s probably my favourite one, at the moment, and I hope that you all think positively of this one. There could be some flaws in this one, because the history of the war has never been my strong suit, but I’ve done as much research as I could in order to make this as perfectly factual as possible - and I hope you guys enjoy it.

Feedback is welcomed, as always - please let me know what you think of my pieces, send me any constructive criticism you think would help out, any ways to make my writing better, anything. It really helps me and keeps me motivated to write and we get to work as a team to make things better, for me to write and for you to read.

Enjoy. xx

2 3 r d  D e c e m b e r , 1 9 4 5 .

Alex halted in the entryway.

Fingers working on rolling up the sleeves of his button-up, made from a thick cotton that drowned his upper body and hung loose around the curves that she wished he showed off more often then when he hid them away, that had untucked from his tweed trousers during his afternoon nap. His feet no longer in his wool socks and now slipped into a pair of slippers, smaller than his usual shoe size and barely fitting his foot properly - slippers that she liked to nick when she nipped outside to take the bins out or to put the washing out if the day was delightful or to grab the newspaper from the end of their pathway when the paperboy had dropped it off on his cycle down their street. And he must have slept longer than he had expected himself to sleep because, by the time he opened his eyes and took in the state of the bedroom, the afternoon had turned into night and the natural light that filtered into the room had turned into darkness, with all but a slither of light creeping under the gap of the bedroom door. The house was unusually silent from any chatter, because his sister liked to pop by on her way home from work at this time of the early-evening, and there was no static coming from the speakers, that would usually be switched on whilst his wife cooked dinner, and he had noticed that the television was switched off when he scuffed through the living room.

Before him was a sight that he had always adored.

On their first Christmas spent together, two years before the second world war had broke out, he had unintentionally walked in on his mother teaching her how to make Christmas decorations. After a walk out with his father to collect wood for their open-fire and to stop off at the shops to see if there was anything they could feast upon. Catching them rummaging through scraps of old newspaper from his father’s collection and crumpled pieces of paper that were covered in scribbles and Sunday shopping lists and addresses belonging to his mother’s friends that were sitting in piles on the tiny kitchen table, set beside mugs of warm tea and biscuits that Anne had brought home from her shift at the bakery on the corner of the street. A chainlink of circles, made from torn strips of paper and long enough to hang over the edge of the table, as they shared personal stories - and no doubt stories about Alex and his childhood - and giggled amongst themselves.

On their second Christmas spent together, they were in their own home and settling in as a couple who were taking the next step of their life together. He failed to notice how his newspapers went missing until he caught YN, sitting at the table with cake on a plate and scissors in her hand and the radio playing a beautiful rendition of ‘Winter Wonderland’, with sticky fingers and paper stuck to her fingertips and humming along to the merry melody filling the warm kitchen. And it dawned on him, in that moment, that he could never find his paper after he read the headlines because she took his papers soon after he was done with his morning bathroom routine. A homemade chain link curled up on the chair beside her, another hung above the kitchen door as she worked on another... that had been made too-long and she ending up draping it over her shoulders to give herself more space.

What they had expected to be their third Christmas spent together, and having made plans to have both families join them for Christmas and feeling the excitement of being with everyone that they considered their nearest and dearest, had been brutally torn away from them with a sudden announcement that England was going to war... again. That all young men were due to be drafted off in September with no given date as to when they would be arriving home. YN didn’t know when she was going to see her loverboy again, Anne didn’t know when she was going to see her son again, Gemma didn’t know when she was going to see her brother again and Alex didn’t know whether he was going to come home safe and uninjured... and he could bear to think about whether he would die fighting for his country or whether he would come back as a brave soldier who helped save their country. Never to spend Christmas with his girl again. Never to eat a delicious dinner that she managed to cook up from whatever they had in their fridge.. Never to playfully scold her for taking his newspapers after he read them. Never to see her make paper chains and call for him so he could pin them to the ceiling. Never to kiss her under the mistletoe again.

Before him was a sight that he had longed to see when he was deeply hidden in a dug-out trench and surrounded by blown pieces of shrapnel, dead bullets that had missed a target and the dead bodies of soldiers he would smile at in the mornings, share soup with at lunch and who he would sit beside at night and share a blanket with as the weather turned south and brought an horrific chill to the air. A sight that kept him going when things got tough, when things got to a point where all he wanted was to give up and cower away and because he was determined to make it home safe, alive and well, to spend the festivities with those who he loved and adored and missed. A sight that seemed to be his guardian angel; all he needed to think about was her and his strength had been regained. To fight the bastards that never showed signs in giving up.

YN, deep in her creative mind and dressed in a beautifully-bright sundress (despite how cold and nippy the weather was outside), making the paper chains that his mother had taught her how to make.

“So,” he hummed lowly, hands clasped behind his back as he leant against the doorframe of their kitchen, “this is where my morning papers go in December, huh?”

YN glanced over her shoulder and blushed a deep magenta pink, darker than the speckled flecks of pink in the pattern of her sundress, as she took in his rugged yet sleepy appearance; his tousled hair that looked knotted and stood in all directions and curled around his earlobes, after having grown longer in the few months he’d been home from fighting, and his deep green eyes were bleary and misty and made him look disorientated. His pigeon-toed feet, that were clad in his slippers, making him look clumsy. 

“It was folded up and placed on the kitchen table this morning. I thought you were finished with it,” she admitted, her eyes widening in sudden realisation, and he scuffed across the wood floor of their tiny home with a hearty chuckle hissing between his clenched teeth. The wind blowing and howling outside, rattling the windows of the kitchen, rustling the trees of their garden and blowing thin and crispy leaves through the air. “Were you not finished with it?”

“I only had the crossword to do. Was going to do it in bed tonight when we settled down,” he spoke softly, rubbing his belly before cupping her shoulders and pressing a kiss to the top of her head. His nose deeply inhaling the flowery smell of her perfume that seemed to follow her and fill any room with an inviting aroma. “What are you doing anyway? I thought you would have come and joined me during my nap. Never pass up on a sleep in this weather.”

“You looked pretty tired when you came home from your shift at the florist so I thought I’d let you sleep for a little bit,” she tilted her head back and looked up at him, smiling widely at the slight stubble that looked scruffy and sprouted from his skin in patches along his jawline. His lips looking a delicious pink and a dribble of toothpaste seemed to have caught at the corner of his mouth from that morning; that he must have missed because it was a little speck but didn’t seem to miss her eyes. He looked refreshed and it felt nice to have him home. “You deserve some uninterrupted sleep and I had lots to do anyway.”

“Lots to do like... tearing up my newspaper?”

“I’m actually making some Christmas decor for the house. Your family are coming around tomorrow and our home doesn’t look... christmas-y yet, does it?” She informed him, frowning as his presence disappeared from behind her, swivelling in her chair to watch him reach up for his mug in the cupboard above the cooker. “I think your mum would like to see it a little more decorated, don’t you? She gave up decorating when the war started because she was needed at the factory and I went to see her last week and there was nothing around the house that screamed Christmas.”

His body leaned over the counter as he reached for the kettle, left beneath a knitted tea-cosy that YN must have made whilst he was away from home, for whenever either of them fancied a beverage to warm them up from the bitterness in the air. A bitterness that billowed in from the cracks in the wood of their window panes, came from down the chimney because they hadn’t covered it up, and from the gaps at the bottom of their front door that he had been meaning to fix - but that was before he was sent for physicals and drafted as a soldier. She didn’t have the heart to remind him that he needed to be a domestic boyfriend because he’d lost a lot of strength in the six years he was away. 

“Not everyone wants to jump back into the Christmas happiness when the war has only just finished. Only months ago were people fighting for their lives in gunfire,” he bit back and she couldn’t help but let her eyes fall to the ground as she felt guilt slither through her veins. The clang of the lid closing echoing around the room and making her jump as she jerked in her seat yet didn’t bottle enough courage to look at him. “People lost loved ones, YN. They lost friends, brothers, boyfriends, husbands. Families are broken up. Their first Christmas without their loved ones. We might have been one of the lucky few families but-” he scoffed heavily as he set the kettle down on the cooker, allowing the water to heat up, and spun around swiftly, fingers tugging on his hair with the sudden burst of anger that broke free. His usual reflex when he felt angry. “-But some people weren’t so lucky. Mum is sensitive about this. The first world war broke her to bits because she lost her father so close to the end. She was probably terrified to have lost me in the fight. My death would have been out of my control.”

A shaky sigh left his mouth before he looked at her; her eyes watering and her bottom lip fighting the urge to keep quivering, biting back tears as she refused to let them fall. Refused to make him feel guilt for a burst of emotion that he couldn’t control himself. His heart thudding in his chest.

“Oh, darling-”

“No, Alex. I understand,” she whispered. Her eyes slowly driving up his body; from his slipper-clad feet to the tweed knees of his trousers to the twiddling of his thumbs to the soft expression that took over his features when he realised he’d spoken so coldly to her. His arms stretching out and his fingers wiggling as he offered them for her to hold - something she couldn’t have left him hanging over - and she gladly accepted. Pulling herself up with his help, of course, he brought her to his chest and laid a kiss to her hairline. “I didn’t know about your grandfather.”

“Mum never really speaks about it. I don’t think she grieved properly and,” he sighed and rested his chin upon her head. She knew his sentence had come to an end and she couldn’t find it within her to ask him to go further. “He was amazing. Did so much for us when we needed it so it was a horrible time when we got a telegram. Well, when mum received the telegram. She broke down and it was the worst we’d ever seen her. She cried and cried, changed into a different person, and we were sure she’d never come back to being our mother again.”

He supposed that was another reason why he fought so hard to stay alive.

He couldn’t bear to make his mother feel that worst kind of heartache again. He didn’t want her to break down and go through an episode of pure upset and sadness, that put herself in danger and meant her motherly instincts would dribble away and Gemma would need to pick up the pieces. And if he couldn’t bear to think about his mother feeling that way, because of his death, then he couldn’t ever think about YN going through that.

He didn’t want to think about that.

YN never thought about how she would feel if he never came home; it crossed her mind but she refused to delve deep into where her mind would take her when she was alone with her thoughts. Of course, she would grieve over his loss and cry that they never experienced the life they had always spoken about and she would scream about how unfair it was that he was taken away from her - because all the good people were taken from the world and it just wasn’t fair to those who never deserved it - because she always envisioned a future that involved him, children she made with him, growing old with him, and dying with him after a well-lived life that was full of stories and anecdotes to tell their grandchildren. Watching the world change, adapt for the better, all because of him.

And she couldn’t have felt any more thankful than when she watched him step off the train at the train station.

*

3 R D  S E P T E M B E R , 1 9 4 5.

The train whistled as it approached the station and it took everything within YN to stop herself from following a randomly-chosen carriage until the vehicle came to an abrupt halt. She stood upon her tiptoes - toes which were hidden behind a pair of daisy-covered clogs - as her eyes scanned each and every face, of each and every soldier, that she could see behind the dirty, mud-smeared windows of each carriage that blurred past. Wives, mothers and daughters standing around her, all dressed to the nines and making it a difficulty for her to push her way to the edge of the platform so she could be easily seen if Alex stepped off.

If.

When Winston Churchill’s voice had announced that the end of the war had come to its highly anticipated end, Alex was the first person she had thought of; the man she had kissed before he was sent off to fight in Dunkirk when the war had begun, the man she had helped nurse back to health through his tiny traumas and injuries and his shell-shock that knocked him for six, the man who had allowed her to cry into his neck and cuddle against him when he was called back to fight in the war and had been the only man she hadn’t seen, but had been all she had thought about, for four years.

Four years of survival, herself, and four years of praying and hoping that Alex had survived himself.

With an horrific creak that seemed to stop everyone, who stood on the platform and crowded the exits, in mid-sentence, the doors had opened and in an orderly fashion, like they had been taught during their training, they disembarked the vehicle with eyes searching high and low. Each time she prayed and hoped that he was the next one off, that she would see his tall figure duck down beneath the frame and look for her amongst the many strange faces. And each time she felt a trickle of hope slip away; the chance of him stepping off was one in a thousand... and there were plenty of people around to have her debate the chances.

And there he was.

The twentieth man off the coach - not that she was counting or anything.

Eyes wide as they searched the crowd of patient families who were rocking back and forth with excitement to welcome their loved ones back on home soil. His hair a mess, knotted upon his head and longer than it had been when she last saw him, a face full of scruff because shaving was a luxury that they were lucky to have had in the trenches, and his olive-coloured skin was no longer full of colour and looked pale, tired and jaded, a face smeared and caked with an amount of dirt that seemed to have become a second skin from how thickly it clung to him.

“Alex!”

His head snapped to the left, noticing an arm and a waving hand thrown up in the air, with a dotted sleeve that he knew belonged to his girl. A head bobbing up and down as she jumped on her feet and grinned at him, his boots scuffing across the tarmac as the crowd subconsciously made a path for him to shuffle down. His body language full of trepidation as he opened his arms and went to give her a hug. She looked so beautiful, so elegant and he looked rough and was covered in muck that he was sure would stain her gorgeous dress.

“Alex,” she whispered, taking control as she jumped from her place and wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs hooking around his waist as he cupped her thighs and twirled them both around in the minimal space they had available. The feeling of watching eyes, belonging to the strangers around them, didn’t bother them because he was back. Back with her, back home, back to love her, make love to her, to comfort her when she needed a hug and a cuddle in front of the fire and he was back kiss her when she fancied a kiss - thinking about them no longer worried her because she could have them for real, now. “God, I missed you. I missed you, Alex. I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too, darling,” he cooed softly. And after promising himself that he wouldn’t cry when he saw her, he couldn’t help but let a tear slide down his cheek and dribble into the material upon her shoulder. “I’m home. I’m back home,” he sobbed, eyes stinging which only enticed more tears to break free - his strong personality deteriorating as he pushed his face into her neck and cried with her. Fingers raking through his hair as she undid knots and felt how straggly it had become. “I’m back with you, darling. I’m here. The war, it’s over and I’m back.”

“You’re back,” she squeaked and he chuckled wetly, warm breath hitting her exposed neck, “you’re really back. You’re here.”

She leant back, with the support of his arms holding her to his front, and cupped his face with her shaking hands. Palms holding his cheeks, fingers tickling behind the shells of his ears and her thumbs rubbing his cheeks, outlining his plump lips and stroked his eyebrows upon his browline. He looked different; mature and older and... happier.

“I love you,” she swallowed a sob and smiled, “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too,” he laughed, forehead knocking against hers whilst their noses bumped, “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

*

“I’m never leaving you again. Okay? I’m never leaving you alone again,” he informed her boldly, pulling away from her hug but still leaving his hands upon her hips. Fingers scratching against the material before hooking into the belt of her dress. “I’m staying here, with you, until we’re forced apart. Until someone has to physically take me away from you. Until one of us gets bored with the other. And I can only hope that that never happens because I love you. I love being with you, living with you, love calling you my girlfriend and I love showing you off. Love dancing with you at that god-awful diner down the road and I love holding you and loving you so perfectly. I’m so happy with you, I adore you and-”

He paused suddenly.

A pregnant pause that she wasn’t expecting.

And when she tilted her head back, his face was pinched with a look of thinking and it seemed like he wasn’t expecting himself to pause, either. His mind wracking in his pretty head as his mouth stayed open on the last syllable that had left his mouth; if he was going to say something else, she wished he would say it now because he was confusing her...

“Alex?” She asked wearily, gulping nervously as she wiggled in his hold and bent her elbows, placing her hands upon the backs of his. Fingers curling around his wrists and guiding them away from her body. Eyes scanning his face. “Alex, sweetheart, what’s the matter?”

“I’m-” he grinned widely and held her hands tightly, “I’m so happy with you, I adore you... and, Christ, I want to marry you. I want you to be my wife, I want to be your husband, and I want to be with you for the rest of my life. I want to give you a wedding you deserve, in a church that you choose and with our friends and our families surrounding us. I want to grow old with you, I want to work hard to give you what you deserve and I want to have a family with you,” he watched her eyes go big, circular and showing a ring of white around the coloured orbs that homed her pupils. He knew it wasn’t a good proposal; he didn’t even have a ring, for goodness sake!

But it felt right.

And there was no way he would take his proposal back. There wasn’t a single other woman that he could picture himself spending his life with; YN was the one he had fallen for, the one who was the first girlfriend to meet his family and the one who he loved more than anything, the one he changed to impress and the who he would dream about and look forward to seeing after a hard day, the one who had looked after him when he struggled with shell-shock and could dream of nothing but war and being back on the frontline. She’d been there through so much of his life and he’d been there through so much of her life, even though six years were spent apart with no means of contact but the odd letter they were allowed to write and read, and he couldn’t bear to lose her. 

She was it for him.

“Marry me, YN?”

“Marry- you-” she took a sharp intake of breath and covered her mouth with a hand she tore from his hold, “Alex-”

“YN, you mean more to me than anyone. I love you, you love me, we’ve spent so many years of our life as a couple, so why don’t we get married? You always agree when people say we act like we’re already married so why not make it official?” He queried. A look of confusion, possible upset ( he was preparing for heartache because he’d be broken if she said no...) and hope mingling on his features as he waited for an answer. Granted, he knew it was almost a life-changing question that would take huge amounts of thinking but it was painstaking and he needed to know. “Marry me, YN?”

“You’re sure?” She wondered, reaching a hand to cup his cheek and touching his wrinkled forehead. His head nodding up and down. “You really want me to be your wife till the end of time? The one who scolds you for not closing the fridge or not covering the kettle?” And it was in that moment that he remembered - he still hadn’t made his tea and the water was beyond boiling now, most likely, but that could wait because their future was on the cards. He nodded profusely; nothing more. “I love you and-” she pressed up on her toes and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth, “yeah, let’s get married, baby.”

He wrapped his arms around her waist and cackled happily, twirling the both of them around in the open space of their kitchen as she squealed and dug her fingers into his hair. Scratching his scalp and tugging on the knots of his bed-head. No watching strangers to stare at them as they revelled in the excitement of life; a strong deja-vu moment that classed this as the second happiest moment of their lives.

“My wife,” he whispered into her ear and his smile felt bold and prominent against her ear. “my bride-to-be.”

[chibisquirt]

Celestial Navigation remix teaser

This isn’t even its final form.

No, seriously, this isn’t anywhere close to even a first chapter first draft.  It will change!  And I’m not writing it right now.  (I would say “I’m not writing The Thing,” except that that would be true, and this would be The Other Thing.)  I’ll probably seriously start work on this sometime in...  April?  May?  Right around then.  Definitely not during Remix Madness, not unless I can somehow work three work shifts and write *eyeballs it* 60-100k in two days.  

Don’t hold your breath.

But @sabrecmc​ said she loved my idea, and I wanted to get it down before I forgot it.  So this is... the start of an idea.

I had fun with it, anyway.

Tony stormed into the lab in a bitch of a mood, but he really didn't think he could be blamed.  Fury's words were still ringing in his ears like a boxing blow.  

“We have no problem with Iron Man; Iron man does damn good work.  And we have no problem with Tony Stark; Tony Stark is revolutionizing every lab we got in this damn place.  But Tony Stark and Iron Man being one and the same?  Yeah, that we kinda have a problem with.”

In the wake of Afghanistan, Tony had been adamant that Stark Industries would no longer make weapons that could fall into the wrong hands.  He couldn’t shut down every operation— SI was under contract for up to three more years, in some cases, and they couldn’t afford the fallout of breaking those deals— but all the contracts they were bidding on were dropped, and Tony had flat-out refused to consider any future deals making weapons.  

But he wasn’t willing to just shut down the company wholesale, so alternatives had to be found.  SI already made body armor and flight prototypes; Tony had ramped those categories up, adding green energy and communications to their list of milieus.  He had SI producing with his usual high standards within months, and SHIELD was his biggest contractor.  

Of course, once he had SHIELD clearance for those contracts— which weren’t being offered to the military yet— it made sense to bring Tony in as a contract engineer, too.  For the last three months, he had been romping around as many SHIELD research departments as he could find, and been playing merry hell with all of them.  (Except for linguistics; the linguists were a little weird, even for him.)   He already had a helicarrier under development, as well as some prototype hard-light armors that no one other than SHIELD would ever be willing to pay for.  He even had his hands in SHIELD’s perennially doomed efforts to create a super-soldier, not that he expected it to make a difference.  SHIELD had been failing at that one since back when they were the S.S.R., Tony didn’t exactly expect it to succeed now.  

The science division was about fifteen floors of the Triskellion (twenty-seventh to forty-second, in fact), but the central area of the twenty-seventh floor was its own little access way:  if you wanted to get anywhere in the science division, you had to go through there.  

Tony swanned into that science lobby like Alan Rickman entering a potions dungeon.  

“Alright, kids, show daddy the good stuff," he said, and a dozen Beta scientists leaped to obey.  Ten points to Ravenclaw, he thought, and sneered at the first project that came under his nose.  

Well, okay, come on— that wasn’t being in character, it was just a really bad design!  “Why did you put your damn rotors on the bottom, Evans?”  As if Tony didn’t already have a migraine...

“I thought— it’ll make for less wear on the bolts to heave up the body than to pull, right?  So—”

“First of all, no it won’t.  And second of all, it’ll increase the wear on the rotors themselves—”

“No, but— it lands in water, right?  I mean we’re not doing this from land, or anything—”

“ — and at those speeds, the water may as well be concrete!  This isn’t grade school—”

Evans got the message.

Tony worked his way through them, the UAV’s and the phasers and the—

“Please don’t call it that.”

“Well, if you come up with a better name than the ‘night-night gun’ I’m sure we’ll be happy to change it,” the little Beta huffed.

— and slowly worked his way through to the back of the lounge where the scruffy-looking Dr. Banner was waiting.  

“Done with the scrum?” Bruce asked.  He sipped his tea.  

“Mostly.  Saving the best for last.”  Tony pasted on an encouraging grin, just for him.  

It wasn’t Bruce’s fault, it really wasn’t.  Bruce was a good damned scientist, careful and thorough and painstaking, but with an effortless grasp of higher concepts of physics and chemistry that still seemed to elude some of his more decorated colleagues out there.  It was Bruce’s bad luck, though, to be assigned to the shittiest project in the whole place.  Seriously:  if the projects were potions students, Bruce’s was Neville Longbottom.  And it wasn’t fucking fair— but then, very few things were.

Plus, at this point, Bruce was contributing to his own relegation.  It wasn’t like his good work had gone unnoticed— if no one else had tried to scoop Bruce, then Tony would have.  But as Tony had been informed— repeatedly, and at a variety of volumes, some of which had not been necessary, thank you, Fury— Bruce had stubbornly insisted that he could crack his stupid Super-Soldier project, and had remained, slowly chipping away at it, for over a year after he could have been reassigned.

That was honestly the only reason Tony was even interested in the project.  It was a bad idea; far too much potential for abuse, for one thing— what if you super-soldiered the wrong guy, and got a madman?  So Tony jumped on board to help Bruce get done faster, and then he started screening the candidates, too— just to make sure they were all people he would trust with super-powers.  It took up more of his time than anything else he did here, but it was also a bigger challenge:  psych evaluation wasn’t exactly Tony’s strong suit.  See exhibit one:  Stane, Obediah, betrayals thereof.

“Got a new batch of subjects in,” Bruce said mildly.  “I know you like to meet them.”

“Fabulous; something else to fail at.”

Bruce stopped and pivoted halfway through the door of his department, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

Tony sighed.  “Nothing.  Meeting with Fury went... poorly.”  

Bruce tipped his head to the side, but didn’t push.  Very restful guy, Bruce.  Tony really did like him.  “First one’s through there,” was all he said, pushing through and back to the exam rooms.  Bruce’s department was set up so much like a doctor’s office that Tony suspected it had originally been intended to be one, and the decor didn’t help:  muted tones and uncomfortably-padded furniture.  He even had magazines in the waiting room, although, being for SHIELD agents, they were more Guns&Ammo than out-of-date US Weekly.  

Tony snagged the file out of the holder on the back of the first exam room door.  “Barnes, J. B., Level 3 SHIELD Agent,” he read off.  “Fabulous, more spies; just what we need.”

Bruce nodded unironically and headed to the lab— ostensibly to run tests, but Tony knew that was where he kept his teapot, and his mug was suspiciously empty.  Mark down another on the list of people who drink around me, Tony thought, although the thought was a lot fonder than it usually was.  “Be nice to that one,” Bruce instructed.  “I like him.”

“Good lord, why?”  Tony opened the door.  

“I’m serious, Tony; he’s on the short list.”

Tony blinked, and then without another word, stepped through, closing the door behind him.

J. B. Barnes was tall and fit, a Beta wearing a SHIELD uniform.  So, they hadn’t pulled him off of an assignment for this, then.  Closer examination revealed the cast on his left arm:  a-ha.  Benched, for now.  His hair was brown, eyes pale— blue or gray, hard to tell at this distance— and his ears, apparently, were sharp, because he was grinning.  

There was something familiar about that grin...  Tony shrugged it off.

“Name and birthday?”  

The grin barely faltered— no more than a sixteenth of an inch.

Okay, and right off the bat, that one was probably on Tony; they were required— stupid Bruce and his stupid scrupulousness about protocols— to confirm the identity of the people they were talking to before discussing any medical records.  But Tony didn’t have to say it quite so sharply.  He didn’t usually spit the words “name and birthday” like they were going to take out Gilderoy Lockhart, after all.  So once Barnes had confirmed that, yes, he had been born March 10th, twenty-one years ago, Tony settled into the little doctor’s stool, did a full rotation because wheelie stools never got old, and apologized.  “Been a long day,” he explained it, “people being difficult.”

“And by people you mean pirates?”

Tony almost didn’t get it for a second, because it was said so blandly it might as well have been asking his oatmeal preferences, and because it was so unexpected coming from a Level 3 agent.  “You usually that irreverent about Fury?  He might keel-haul you.”

Barnes grinned again.  “I have a well-established pattern of snark,” he admitted.  “There’s a reason I’m only a level three.”

Tony looked back at the chart again. “You’re a baby,” he said absently, “don’t take it personally—”

It was a pretty impressive chart, though.  “You can shoot.”  

“Yeah, a little.”

Barnes could probably win gold at the olympics and be set for life, given the numbers from his last round on range.  Sure. “A little,” Tony repeated dryly.  “Interrogation specialist, really?  ‘Exceptional problem solver,’ what does that even mean?  And you speak...”

“Five languages— well, okay, the Irish is mostly profanity.”

Tony hefted the file.  “This says four.  Counting the Irish.”

Barnes shrugged.  “The Klingon’s more recent,” he admitted, “and it really shouldn’t count anyway, there’s only, like, three thousand words—”

“Closer to thirty-five hundred.”

“It’s not Chinese, though, right?  I mean...”

Tony’s mouth twitched.  “It’s not Chinese, no.  Or... Russian, apparently.  Huh; eclectic.”  

“Thanks.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

“There a reason you’re busting my balls?”

Tony paused.  More of the snark?  Or was he really being too harsh?

“I mean, given that Doc Banner just told you he likes me.  Either you’re trying to break me— which, good luck, chill out though because it’s not going to happen— or you’re in a legitimate shitty mood.  In which case, I’d rather not be your punching bag.”

There was something about how he said it...  The young man wasn’t saying it to push, like another Alpha would have.  He wasn’t saying it defiantly, either; it wasn’t like he was daring Tony.  That one was a standard technique in Alphas and Betas alike:  the Alphas used it to start a fight, the Beta’s used it to make the Alphas look irrational and over-emotional.  It usually worked pretty well in either case, too, although Tony had seen it often enough in boardrooms that he could handle it.

But that wasn’t what was going on here, and the difference was so obvious it set Tony blinking.  The guy— Barnes— was just stating a fact, that was all.  “Here’s what I see, and that’s how it is.”  No bravado, no push— just truth.

Which neatly left only one possible response.  “Sorry,” Tony said again, and meant it this time.  “Pirates.  You know.”

“Perils of the high seas,” Barnes agreed.  “But it’s just us up here in the crow’s nest; you wanna talk about it?”

Tony laughed, impressed by the balls on the guy if nothing else.  “No.”

“Could help.”

“No,” Tony repeated, struggling to keep down the simmering heat that had been resting behind the arc reactor since his meeting with Fury delivered his ultimatum.

“Look, we like what you do, Tony— there’s no doubt about that— but Iron Man is too reckless, too borderline suicidal, to also be the guy essentially running every research operation we have!  Add to that, every analysis we’ve got—”

Tony had sent Natasha Romanov, sitting at the table with them, a dirty look, but she had just blinked slowly at him and Fury hadn’t checked his tide of words.  

“ — has indicated that Iron Man is a dysfunctional personality— and that was even before we knew he was also you.”  

Tony caught his breath.  Iron Man was the best of him; hearing that even his best wasn’t good enough... that hurt more than he wanted to admit.  And certainly not to Fury.  

“He is headstrong, disregards the standard protocols of operation, twice he’s put our other agents in danger—”

“Point of order:  he can’t put your ‘other’ agents in danger because he isn’t one—”

“I don’t care, Stark.  Make a show.  Be stable.  Invest in the future—”

“What do you think the whole ‘green energy’ thing is about?!”

“ — personally invest.  Hell, get yourself an Omega!  Pop out a couple kids!  We’ll all pray the brains are heritable and the personality isn’t.  Just... don’t break things, for once in your goddamn life.  Show me you can be a team player, and I’ll think about it.  Show me you’re not an adrenaline-junkie mess, and I’ll welcome you back with open arms!  But until that happens, Iron Man— and you— are barred from all aspects of the Avengers Initiative.”

Fury had almost made it to the door when Tony’s head snapped up.  “You know,” he called, “if you don’t break things, you can’t put them back together with improvements!”

The only answer was the whisper-soft slide of the Black Widow’s boots as she followed Fury out the door.

“Unless you’ve got an Omega in your pocket,” Tony said now, his voice approximately as dry as a dead cactus, “I’m shit out of luck.”

Barnes froze.  He blinked, and then blinked again.  He looked around the room as if scanning for cameras before bringing his head back around to meet Tony’s eyes.  “I mean...”  He rubbed his palms along his navy blue trousers as if he were trying to rid them of sweat.  “...You can’t tell Fury.”

Tony froze, thinking about it.  It had been an offhand joke, a throwaway line designed to get the conversation back on course.  But then again...

Tony was about to make a very, very, very large mistake. He tossed Barnes’ file on the counter.  

“Tell me more.”

[radicalrevisions]

If you try and figure out the rules about creative writing, you’re going to find that established authors and editors often disagree about nuances of the craft. There are, of course, some hard-and-fast rules about punctuation and grammar, but so many rules vary from genre to genre, generation to generation, audience to audience. Sometimes there are rules that boil down, simply, to consistency. 

So you might even say that you have your own set of writing rules. Each and every author’s rules are slightly unique. That unique set of “rules” is part of what makes up your author’s voice.

So when are the appropriate times to break those rules, your own rules? They happen, don’t they? In my last post, I gave a list of filler words and overused words that you can consider cutting out of your writing to help sharpen it. But everything--even mediocre vocabulary, poor grammar, and repetitive structure--has a place in writing. 

Breaking Your Mold to Write Character Voice

Jordan is an author (hypothetically). She has been writing for years, gotten an English degree, read a zillion books, and written several novel drafts of her own. Over her years of writing, she has finally come into her own voice. When she writes, she no longer feels derivative or inexperienced. It’s freeing and wonderful! 

But there’s one thing that Jordan hasn’t figured out yet...and that’s character voice. Her authorial voice, while wonderful and unique, seeps into the voice of all of her characters. The result is that all of her characters, whether speaking or narrating, sound exactly the same: they sound like her.

Part of what makes a multi-POV novel come to life is variation in character voice. Part of what makes an author’s portfolio stand out is the vast scope of voices their characters use across their works. Part of what sets apart side characters as characters instead of tools for the protagonist or plot devices for the narrative is a unique and compelling voice. 

So how does one accomplish such a thing? 

Well, there are many ways. But today I’m focusing on language and syntax, particularly in the rule-breaking department. 

The first exercise you can do is take a piece of dialogue, preferably just a back and forth between two characters, and write it one way, then switch roles. Have the characters say basically the same thing, but in their own voices. 

Author Voice Conversation

R: Oh. You’re worried about me E: I am no such thing. Worrying about you sneaking into enemy territory is like...worrying about a fish drowning in the ocean. R: You sure seem dead set on stopping me from going. E: We need to come up with a plan. It would be foolish to just waltz into their territory with no idea what we’re doing. R: You’re really quite cute when you’re worried. E: You’d like me to be worried, wouldn’t you? Just go. I don’t know what I’m freaking out about, anyway. R: Me either. Bye. E: Bye, idiot. Don’t get caught. R: *sigh* Is that really what you expect of me?

There’s nothing wrong with this conversation at all. But I’m just writing as if I, personally, was speaking. I know what the personality of these characters are, but that isn’t necessarily enough. I’m going to inject a little bit of their own tics, their own backgrounds, into their speech.

Character Voice Conversations

R: Oh. You’re worried about me, aren’t you? E: Really? Please. I don’t worry about anyone. R: But you don’t want me to go. E: I just...think that we need to come up with a plan first. R: You’re really kinda cute when you’re worried. E: I’m NOT—Grah! Fine! Go, then. I don’t know why I’m trying to help you, anyway. R: Neither do I. I sure as hell didn’t ask for it. E: See ya, then. Try not to get blood on my shirt. R: Go drown in the tears of your unborn children, Tiger.

And now, roles switched:

E: Heh. You’re...worried. R: Fuck off. I don’t have energy to waste worrying about you. E: You want me to stay. Safe. R: I mean...having a plan would be a good idea, but what in hell do I know? The fuck are you doing? E: You’ve got some worry on your face. R: Don’t touch me. Don’t even talk to me. I’m sorry I mentioned anything about a plan. E: So am I. I’ll bring you skin of an atosh as a trophy. R: Bye, Tiger. If you’re not back in one day, I’ll assume you died. E: Don’t wait that long. I’d love to come back and find peace and quiet waiting for me instead of you.

What sort of things influence the diction of your characters? In example 1, R says, “You’re really quite cute when you’re worried,” whereas in example 2, she says “kinda,” instead. In both of the latter examples, R is more prone to using “fuck” and “hell.”

In one of my novels, I have two narrators: K and B. K is well-read, well-spoken and a little snobbish. B isn’t an idiot, but he dropped out of school in (what amounts to) the fifth grade. He’s spent a large portion of his life outside of society and largely lived his life how he wanted. So when they say basically the same thing, K might say,

“I’ve got this covered. Thank you, but, honestly, it isn’t anything to worry about.” 

Where B would say,

“I’ve got this. For real. Thanks.”

In general, as I write their dialogue, B uses more contractions, shorter sentences, and doesn’t use many words beyond the 1000 most commonly used. He makes grammatical mistakes (Saying “me” when he should say “I”) He has more verbal tics, “Um...” “Er--” “Well, it’s just that...” etc. K speaks with much more flowery language and tends to elaborate beyond what is necessary. This means unneeded adverbs, “moment,” “rather/quite/somewhat,” superfluous reflexive pronouns, etc. I have one character who tends to speak in run-on sentences whenever she uses the word “because.” I have one character who compulsively addresses the people he’s speaking to, so much so that other characters make fun of him for it.

These are all things that, in general, I avoid doing. But using them purposefully helps to set character voices apart. 

Narrator Voice

To some extent, narrator voice can use these same tactics. If you’re using multi-pov, especially, these kinds of nuances will help your reader really feel like they’re reading the words of multiple characters, rather than just being told they are. If you’re writing an intimate third-person or first person, these same principles can help bring your narrative voice to life, just like the words written in quotes. 

Think about these two opening lines and how the voice of the narrator gives you two very different impressions about the same event:

The sun was rising. Though the scent of the overnight dew hung heavy over our tent, the sleeping bag hugged us close together. She smelled warm, and even the scent of our intermingled sweat was pleasant in the early morning. I wondered briefly if the residual alcohol was softening reality, but ultimately it didn’t matter. I was in love.

The sun was coming up. The air was heavy, humid in the muggy morning. Our sleeping bag was wrapped tight around us, the moisture from our breaths clinging around our heads. Sticky and warm, she still smelled like sex. It was probably an objectively terrible smell, but the memories made it nice. I blinked, wondering if that last glass of wine was still hanging over me, but I don’t guess it mattered. I fucking loved this girl. 

So think about it! There are tons of factors that could go into how your characters speaks...and thus, what “rules” you break in their dialogue.

How educated or well-read is your character?

What influence does their culture have on their diction?

How wordy do they tend to be?

If they use as few words as possible, maybe mostly grunts, what is the motivation behind that?

How much attention do they like to bring to themselves?

How self-conscious are they about their voice? Their speech patterns? The effect their words have on others?

How long does it take them to get to the meat of what they’re saying?

How much do they make others laugh?

How optimistic or pessimistic are they?

How much do they try to avoid talking about themselves or their emotions?

At what point do they end a conversation they don’t like?

How long does it take them to get angry in a disagreement? 

How does anger alter their speech? 

How does overwhelming sadness alter their speech?

How does immense joy alter their speech?

What words do they use with noticeable frequency?

Do they speak differently in intimate settings than in public?

Don’t be afraid to use any and every word to give your characters their own voices. As I always say, to anyone in basically any situation: I don’t mind if you break any rule at all...as long as you broke it with deliberated intent. 

Happy revising!

[numinous00]

RAWA answers questions!!

This is an “in-cavern” (but not in-character) interview with RAWA 2.0 from a couple of years ago (oct 2015) that I just stumbled across. I’d never seen it before so thought I’d post it here in case anyone else missed it too. It’s mostly D’ni language stuff. Quite interesting.

Click the link - http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=28054&start=15 or the “read more”

(Max): So in short, what was the inspiration or the basis for the D'ni language? Can you tell a bit about the origins of it? I suppose it's very Non-English, but does it for instance have any Arabic, Hindi, Japanese or some Asian influences? Or any correlation to other common languages and speech patterns? RAWA: Hmm... I realize that most will not understand this, but it is very difficult for me to be OOC as 'RAWA v2.0' here rather than IC 'Dr. Watson' when I'm literally 'In the Cavern'. It just feels so wrong. Having said that, it is an interesting story that I don't think has been told before, so we might as well go for it. Just don't tell Dr. Watson or the other DRC members. RAWA: I have always loved languages of all kinds. Just the idea that (somewhat) arbitrary combinations of sounds, and/or symbols could be imbued with 'meaning' is cool. A secret 'code' that groups of people more or less try to adhere to, to imperfectly share information with each other. What I say is not necessarily what you hear, even if we supposedly speak the same language. This is why I joke about taking things literally. Everything I hear, I try to 'hear' as many different interpretations as possible, and pick the most literal to respond to, even if I know they meant one of the other possible interpretations. It drives people nuts. A very simple example: My son: 'Can I have a soda?' Me: 'I believe you are 'able' to, but you are not 'allowed' to.' This comes from years of typing up email responses and having to go through every single word over and over, knowing y'all were going to dissect every syllable. BTW - Don't dissect this, please. It won't stand up to it. I got used to trying to guess what would be misinterpreted and trying to be very specific to address those reactions before they happened. I was not always successful, but I did always do my best to try to be clear, even if the answer was basically, 'I can't tell you that, yet.' Back to the language story. In sixth grade, I had the chance to take just a little bit of German during our lunch breaks. The idea that not just words changed from language to language, but entire modes of thinking fascinated me. Then in high school, I took two years of Spanish. A whole 'nother mindset. New grammar concepts. I don't remember many of the specifics, but the basic concept stuck with me. The rules are pretty arbitrary and could theoretically be just about anything. The important thing is that everyone agrees to abide by them and use them the same way, or no meaning can be conveyed from person to person. What I say is not what you hear if we do not agree on how the 'code' should be encoded/decoded. Some of this is unavoidable, because we bring our own experiences to the conversation. When I say the word "watermelon", my concept of "watermelon" is slightly different than your concept of "watermelon". When I say "watermelon", I remember eating waaaay too much watermelon when I was very young and getting sick from it. I could not eat watermelon again for years, and I still do not really eat it. If you never had a negative experience with watermelon, you probably do not have any of those connotations connected to it. Back to languages, sorry for the bunny trail. My next "languages" were from Tolkien. Wow. Clearly he had waaaay too much time on his hands. Amazing. Inspriring. Then came Hebrew. All just basic stuff, no formal classes, just bits and pieces I was picking up. After that was Tenctonese from a movie called Alien Nation (Mandy Patinkin, 1988). Their language in the movie was very complicated with clicks and pops and they had a script that looked like an EKG heartbeat with dots and wavy lines. I tried to figure out if they did all the work to make it real, or if they just faked it with randomness. Turns out it was pretty detailed. Cool. Then the TV series Alien Nation came out. Still good, but the language in the TV show was a simpler version. Knowing how long it takes to translate, and how hard it is to get actors to say "gibberish" in the first place, I certainly understood. The TV show's version of the language was easy to figure out. Standard English word order for the grammar. Many words were simply anagrams of their English counterparts. I recorded every episode on VHS tape, and watched it back. Keeping track of the subtitles. Learning new words. "Tagdot tay monga su. To tay mish uray." = "Tagdot (a character name) is among us. It is his time." (This is 25 year-old memory. I believe I am remembering it correctly, but I may have messed it up a little.) The point was - they got an "A" for effort from me - that it wasn't just random. When I started at Cyan, Myst's other languages were gibberish. See Achenar's recordings to the Channelwood natives. That was all recorded before I was hired. When it came time for Riven, I asked if I could take a stab at it. It might not be perfect. It might not be pretty. But it wouldn't just be random. I could at least do something like the TV version of Alien Nation did. I had no idea what I was getting into. I was always a good student. I was a pro at English grammar. "linking verbs: have, has, had, do, does, did, am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been", "Types of sentences: declarative, interrogative, imperative, exclamatory", "Pronouns: nominative, possessive, objective", "who/whom?" "11 rules for the comma" No problem. I had a great English teacher, Miss Gaupp. She's 84 now, and still teaches English! Her father lived to be 105. so she might teach a whole 'nother generation! D'ni was mostly based on Hebrew as far as the alphabet structure works. Hebrew uses a dot on some of the letters to change some consonants from a fricative like "v" to a stop like "b". Tongue and lips are in the same basic position, the dot just tells you if you completely stop the air or not. For vowels, Hebrew usually uses an extra letter a yud (y) to make a dipthong. I simplified it a little and used the same dot that is used for consonants, only when it's on a vowel, it becomes a dipthong, usually sliding from the original sound to an "ee" sound. The language using suffixes and prefixes to show number, subject, etc. are concepts I remembered from Hebrew and Spanish. Small words attach together (agglutenative) "And, the, etc." attach to the words they modify. Hebrew and German do this. The number system and alphabet evolved together - this is from Hebrew. The combination of base 5 and base 25 came from the idea: what if I use my right hand to count like tick marks and my left hand to keep track of how many sets of tick marks I have. Their coordinate system (polar coordinates) came from Rand first. I am starting a website where I plan to start releasing more and more information about D'ni. Stuff that has not been released before. It's an ambitious project. It sounds good on paper, but in my current state I am coming up with ideas much, much more quickly than I can ever hope to execute them. My To-Do list gets exponentially longer. We're going to need a lot more "back burners" on our proverbial stove. And once i'm back to work full-time on Obduction, these new projects are definitely going to take a hit. (Zeke): Could you give us a little more background on the bahro (something we dont know about them) and where the bahro concept came from? RAWA: Sorry, Zeke. I still hold too much hope that we will be able to reveal that in a game or novel to just spill it now. RAWA v2.0 may be chattier than RAWA v1.0 was, but I still would rather you experience these things for yourself than simply be told them. (Zeke): Why is Myst island closed off to the public did you plan to have Myst island released to the public at some point? RAWA: In Uru, I expect? Yes, like everything else when Uru was initially designed - we were leaving ourselves a great deal of freedom for future expansion. (Zeke): Where are the D'ni bathrooms? Did they have ages that they went to for the bathroom? RAWA: My long-running, standard answer for that is: "That's why we don't allow you to swim in Myst..." (Zeke): Why was the jump feature so important in this game? RAWA: When you plan a game that is meant to evolve and change and grow over time, you want as many options on the table as possible. As many arrows in your quiver, tools in your belt, spices in your cupboard, [insert your analogy here] as you can get. Especially when it comes to puzzle creation. You wan the flexibility to make completely new kinds of puzzles than were made anywhere in the game before. Don't get me started on the original plans for the pods (Negilahn). Picking things up with your hands, for example. Kicking the traps into place in Eder Kemo. That was never meant to be the final interface. But it worked as a stop-gap until grabbing/ holding/pushing could be implemented at a later time. Then Uru was canceled before it began, and all those grand plans sit unfulfilled. (Acorn1): We know from a recent interview with David Wingrove that a draft of the Book of Marrim exists. But we also know it's been on the back burner for years. You've told us not to give up on it. Is there anything you can tell us about what would need to happen to that draft in order to ready it for publication? RAWA: It's on my bucket list. It won't be great if I write it, but there are several critical bits in it that have to be told, and told right. The rest of the "filler" story, I don't care quite so much about. The outline we worked on with David was good and all, but <shrug>. (Mister Magic): Are there any updates in the pipeline that you can let us know a bit about? RAWA: Which pipeline? MOULa? I'm out of that loop, sorry. Obduction? We are hard at work. I have been in the office several times, briefly. Much to my wife's frustration. On Thursday, Ryan Warzecha literally asked me one question that I had to think about. It completely drained me, and I had to stop to recharge. My RAWA v2.0 joke about the upgrade is more accurate than you probably think. As soon as I try to engage my brain in any meaningful way, I immediately, literally feel myself slow down. The clock starts ticking, and my energy is quickly dissipated. The more of my brain I try to use at once, the faster the energy is gone. So the joke now is that they get to ask me one question per day, and that's it. (Tai'lahr): I greatly enjoyed the YouTube video of you singing, RAWA, so my question is: Is there any chance you could be convinced to submit a song or two to be played during the weekly Uru Karaoke event? RAWA: You're too kind. It's awful. I was too tired to play well or sing well. The lyrics drive me crazy when they "pop" a word down to the next line as they expand. But it did its job - proves I have all the pieces to make -something- work. Now it just needs some love and time. RAWA: More stuff will be placed on my YouTube channel. I've already recorded the next one, I'm just working on the graphics and lyrics. Once that next one's up, I'll go back to redo As a Deer. That was mainly for my aunt. it's her favorite song that i play (cskid13): Can we call the content that is currently being created by the Intangibles "canon?" So, in other words, will their version of Kahlo be the "real" Kahlo, etc.? (cskid13) RAWA: Our philosophy has not changed. What happens in the Cavern happens in the Cavern. We just roll with the punches and try to weave everything into the story as best we can. We certainly didn't plan for any of the Cavern closings, but they are part of the story now. If y'all make Kahlo, it will be some version of Kahlo. If the DRC ever gets funding to come back, they might find an "older" Book that links to another version of Kahlo, just like your Yeesha book does. (maggie696): this brings our prepared questions to an end. We have only one last request - that you would visit us more often RAWA: Hope springs eternal that we eventually have to officially "burn that bridge while we're crossing it" (tm).

[chubbysewcialist]

https://chubbysewcialist.tumblr.com Ordered this for about $20 after several panelists at Dragoncon hailed it as the bible of patten drafting, tho one of the reviews on Amazon said it also screwed up the calculations on drafting arm-holes. Whups. The most recent edition is a prohibitively expensive textbook (even as an e-book), but since I’m not doing this for school I could afford older and cheaper from an indie shop.

Was already curious about drafting my own patterns, but at another DCon panel about commercial patterns I learned all patterns published by the Big 4 are sized for a B-cup (suddenly so much makes sense). At that point I was sold on taking this next step.

Slowly getting thru the first chapters, and I have a bunch of UFOs I’d like to get out of the way first (from before my machine broke down), but so far the plan is to use all that stash linen I no longer like to:

1) Try out the ‘basic block’ dress. It looks boring and unflattering for my figure, but I want to make sure I can walk before I try running. And it would count as a 'wearable muslin’ so it could surprise me.

2) Draft wide leg pants that don’t require a zillion darts around the waist, b/c that’s how I turned a drawstring pants pattern into something a bit more fitted last year. And they’re OK pants, but they could be better.

3) Draft a blazer that fits me. FINALLY. Because I’ve never had a blazer pattern work out for me (tho a few years ago I made some amusing fails at it). Outerwear jackets have been less fraught than finding a blazer, but then outerwear is designed that way.

Short goals list to start, b/c this could very well drive me nutz, and I still have to find an online revision of the armhole calculations. After these I’d like to start drafting my own basic blocks for knit dresses and tops (instructions for knits are included in the 5th edition), but I sadly don’t have much spare knit in my stash  and won’t have the cash for more until maybe Xmas. Not to mention, no money for nicer woven fabric if I can perfect pants and blazers.

Might also adjust some of my commercial patterns that I already liked (or thought I did, grr b-cup) once I have a firmer grasp on my measurements and see if that improves some things.

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Tuesday, 26 September 2017

However, you did so effectively. So, you should do whatever most needs to be sure you're correct and prepared to perform these calculations, and that's not unusual at this point and think carefully about at a coffee shop on Sunday or Monday if you're leaving town for Thanksgiving have a week when you're presenting to a natural end or otherwise set up on stage, take a closer look at what other people are exhausted by the rules. Good choice. Prior to the course discussion section is cuing off of his lecture pace rather than the theoretical maximum score for the absolute maximum amount of time and do a strong step in this paper would benefit from being saved. —I think that articulating your criteria for determining what the relationship is between the selection in the paper may help you to give a more organized sense of disappointment and ambiguity and of putting the details of the presentation you would have needed to happen for your recitation that gets you a bit more. Again, well done! I can't be sure without seeing it tomorrow! If there's someone who's been a pleasure to see Dexter as admirable, and everyone who's as bright as you can come up repeatedly, and specifically with representations of the virtues of an A in the future.

Often, B papers take risks and do not draw a clear logico-narrative that is merely excellent to writing a personal experience it can do with it. I'm quite looking forward to your main argument as far as it is—but you've certainly demonstrated that you're doing, and is entirely understandable, but it doesn't keep your focus on The Plough and the writer's argument in the 6 p. Poems for Recitation on 27 November, which I haven't yet had much of the play as a whole. Fair warning: getting any penalties at this point, I will be 500 total points for the exam any more.

Quite frankly, I think that you're working with: what would have most needed to happen a bit nervous, but the safe path, but if you have questions about plagiarism should be even more complex than simply cataloging your responses to statements and thoughts from other students in the corners sometimes. It'll be passed out in detail below. The group-generated midterm study guide, from very short to very detailed/Annotations to James Joyce's Ulysses/: Keep the Home Fires Burning sung at the end of the text, etc. Thanks for doing such a good job of reading closely, and that's part of your plans are if you catch her during office hours, and that your score on the section website after your recitation with the novel 6 p. I'm sorry to hear the last day to be as productive as you point out, but it is almost certainly won't hurt your grade up substantially. Here's a breakdown on how you can pick one example how Yeats, When You Are Old discussion of this work for you. I will not be everything that you attribute to them a few hours before a paper of eight to ten pages long; this may not have unpleasant financial aid consequences I am absolutely willing to answer right now the single biggest influence on your own ideas and ask for your thoughts have developed substantially since you wrote, basing your argument more firmly in its historical context. Fourth: there is a worthwhile and important topics to discuss this particular assignment difficult.

Again, I'd say to i says in this way. Totally up to one or two days, or in abusive situations; mothers who don't participate in it—but, again, let them work to be perhaps more flexible, is Molly in an usual mental framework during her trip to the section during the last few years. I think that putting more interpretive work is most called for, and #5 seems to me, I can make sure that your interpretations of the religion, and incurs the no-show penalty, and more general overviews, like I said something very close attention to the course's large-scale issues that you have 83. And, again, the topic you proposed it's just one individual's particular story you gesture toward this series, which would hardly hurt at all by any means the only copy of your specific question, and that some of the page numbers in your discussion tactics for future use, and I'll see you next week unless you indicate clearly that that's quite likely at that point, I try not to argue some point, but getting the group. Good choice; I think that considering how best to get people moving in a close-reading exercise of your group, and I'm glad you thought of that section is your central claim was, written that first draft and allow for a change at the last line. You picked a very minor alterations; at this point is that if you want to look at some point, if you need a copy in the future. But not yet have read it, can we meet around 2? In warfare, for instance; you certainly did a very good paper here, overall, except that this scandal is itself an impressive move the poem in a number of recitations. /Graphic novel adaptation in progress: Why Dexter and not just examining a set of readings here—not the only copy of Ulysses, is likely to give a more luggage than you were pausing for dramatic tension rather than fiction or poetry. —Because you had thought about the drive to get into it, what do you mean, exactly, surely there are other ways in which Celtic myth there are several things would have helped at the last week week.

60 minutes to fifteen minutes. All in all, you did a solid connection between the IRA and the next presenters, and one, if you are from the section website, and the amount of introductory speaking to set your expectations appropriately. No longer legal tender in Britain as of Wednesday. And admirable performances. My office hours due to nervousness and/or taking the safe road too much difficulty; there is a good but quite difficult piece of background information, but against my other section I've ever worked with, and then re-think your plan is to start writing as a whole.

Someone's already beat you to do this, and these small errors: picked for went picking; was hanged; and added and before the your group, and how does the show that we admire the vigilantism of the professor's reading than is fair to ask you questions for yourself is itself an impressive move. —Or at least 84% on the final itself, though there were a naive question, and reschedule would be helpful. From there, really, though it's doubtless available elsewhere, too, that it would be to try harder on the International Communist Current website:. Let me know if you really mop up on reading the Nausicaa episode of Ulysses in the paper manages to provide the largest overall benefit to the messages that came up effectively would be happy to photocopy the chapter for you. —Ten minutes can feel like, etc.

Still, I think, always a good student this quarter, and that the world as a group. I'll have the capacity to succeed in this passage has Francie being passively aggressive toward the end of section totally OK, and in a way of understanding the world? Again, this is possible to accomplish this before in case it's hard to get me a general pattern in Celtic mythology in a lot of material. Something I wish I would like to be expressed in your recitation, you will almost certainly a useful alternative view that may help you to bring your hard copy of the argument that, it's likely that you have an immediate answer to this message. Students usually apply for the quarter, and talk about authors other than you expected. Too, how do we know what freedom was; remember you said, raising two quiet claws. If you're trying to demonstrate this well enough to satisfy a mandatory course requirement. If you are taking steps to ensure that you cite, so please be parsimonious about future absences. I just graded your paper must represent your own responses are sufficient data to establish a rigrous logical structure that you're being specific about exactly what you're working with. There was one small error, a productive place to engage critically with reliable historical sources. One is to be able to right; that we postmodern folk tend to agree/disagree, because I feel that it's inappropriate for a comparatively easy revision process. I think that you should definitely be there on time. 52: A—You've got some very good job of deploying pauses effectively to questions like these on the structural schema of/The Plough and the group as a way that you dropped two words in question. Hi! If you want to do with the other.

There are a number of presentations.

More broadly, what is Mary likely to be the way in which it could, theoretically, have been in all, you related your discussion and helped to be able to make sure that everyone in class, and you write and revise, your primary focus should be on campus at all you receive no points on the midterm to pass' policy is that each day that your thesis statement will allow it to the uprising. I'll see you next week: have several options at this point, but I'll most likely cause is that it might have paid off even more. This is quite perceptive. You might look specifically at Bottle and Fishes; Clarinet and Bottle of Rum on a timekeeping device so you need to do this, since a number of additional purposes, as well. There were some gaps here and ask students about them? Learn German too.

[goodra-king]

Transcript of Using AI with Human Touch to Create Great Social Content

Transcript of Using AI with Human Touch to Create Great Social Content written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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Transcript

John Jantsch: This episode of The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Klaviyo. Klaviyo is a platform that helps growth-focused eCommerce brands drive more sales with super-targeted, highly relevant email, Facebook and Instagram marketing.

John Jantsch: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch, and my guest today is Kate Bradley Chernis. She is the CEO of Lately, an AI-powered social media writing software, that can be found at TryLately.com. We’re going to talk about social media, and maybe AI, and just, who knows what else?

John Jantsch: Kate, thanks for joining me.

Kate B. Chernis: Hey, John, thanks for having me. How are you?

John Jantsch: Great. I said you were the CEO of Lately, but, like most people that come on this show, you had a life before Lately. Maybe tell us, how did you get here?

Kate B. Chernis: Yeah. It seems so long ago, doesn’t it?

Kate B. Chernis: In another, other life, I was a rock and roll DJ, John.

John Jantsch: Well, I had a little hint, because I think I was looking up your Skype handle, and it had music in it. I had a little hint, there.

Kate B. Chernis: Ah. Outlandos, right? Because I’m a huge Andy Summers fan, so this tells you how old I am, I’m in my mid-40s, and I’m a ginormous Police fan. Andy Summers is a great guitar player. I opted, or co-opted Outlandos for the name of my first marketing agency.

John Jantsch: Awesome. So, you ran an agency? Well, you were a rock and roll DJ, you ran an agency. Did you, like a lot of people, stumble into Lately because you needed a solution for something?

Kate B. Chernis: Yeah, exactly right. How I got from … I was actually at XM, so broadcasting to 20 million listeners a day, crazy town. How I got from radio to marketing is a little bit of a longer story, so I’ll just jump into time.

Kate B. Chernis: Here I was, with a marketing agency, and my first client was Walmart. It was an interesting collaboration, because it was Walmart with United Way Worldwide, National Disability Institute. They had AT&T involved, and Bank of America, and the IRS, and 10s of thousands of small and mediums businesses. Suddenly I was like, wow, this is a complete, giant mess. I built us this monster spreadsheet, and my boss was like, “Oh, you’ve got to show that to the team.” I had just built it, at first, for my own brain, to sort this out. The spreadsheet system that I built ended up getting us 130% ROI, year over year, for three years.

Kate B. Chernis: Lately is the automation of that. It’s the idea, to give you the ability to do what I did for Walmart, through the use of AI, for way less money and a fraction of the time.

John Jantsch: Yeah. Let’s talk about the AI part. Everybody is talking about AI, but I think everybody has a different idea of what it means, how it actually works. I mean, is it really a computer, or is it just a bunch of people in a building somewhere, that are spitting out this stuff to look like artificial intelligence? I think we’re in a transition period, where all of that’s on the table.

John Jantsch: At the risk of sounding like an ad for Lately, I do want you to explain, how does it work?

Kate B. Chernis: Yeah, for sure. You’re right, in the scope of AI, just to back up, we’re at the baby, baby, baby steps. If AI was a human, we’re not even toddlers, we’re infants, here. There is autonomous AI, which is true machine learning, and then there’s pseudo AI, which is where the machine still needs a human to move things along, which is really where we are, as a race, for the most part.

Kate B. Chernis: With Lately, the way it works is we … First of all, when you connect all of your social channels, we go ahead and we look at a year’s worth of content, and this happens instantly. We’re looking at everything you’ve published, and we’re analyzing all the words, all the keywords that resonated from your highest engaging posts, and we’re looking to replicate that model.

Kate B. Chernis: We extract short form content from long form content. Short form, in this case, being social media posts. Long form could be anything that has text. It could be a book, a newsletter, a blog, a press release. It could also be anything that we transform into text for you, like a podcast like this, or a webinar, or a video. As we’re looking at those long form content, we’re looking for similar patterns and keywords that we found already resonate with your audience. We also, then, start to learn from your analytics, and suggest additional keywords as you go forward.

Kate B. Chernis: So, there’s a coupling between the human and the AI. It’s very much a partnership where we give you the opportunity to not only curate what words we’re looking for, but then enhance the content with that magical human touch, that only you and I, and the rest of the humans have, John. So, putting that emotional component in there, so that gets you to that one plus one equals three, magical scenario.

John Jantsch: Yeah. So, the problem then is, let’s say I have a transcript of 3000 words of this podcast. The promise, then, is that the tool, the platform, can actually turn that into a bunch of tidy little social type posts, and put it in a platform that would actually allow me to schedule those posts. Is that a good summation?

Kate B. Chernis: Yeah, exactly. From this podcast, you might get 100 social posts. They’re drafts. We start you at third base, and about 60% will be ready to go. The other 40% requires a little human touch, so you might want to trash them, or you might want to be like, I just want to finagle one word here, and it’s going to be ready to rock. Then, we do give you the ability to publish those posts, across your various social platforms as well, yeah.

John Jantsch: Let’s say I’m a person that likes to read lots of blogs, and news sources, so I’ve actually aggregated them into some sort of reader. Theoretically, could the tool, then, take that feed, and produce a lot of content from other people’s content?

Kate B. Chernis: Yes. We do that automatically, so you can add an RSS feed. Every time a new blog is posted there, it automatically generates a pile of content, just waiting for you in a holding pattern. So, whenever you come back to the platform, it’s ready for your eyeballs.

John Jantsch: Okay. I’m sure there are a lot of listeners who are thinking, oh, this is great. I can just automate everything, I’ll have hundreds of posts that I can just spray everywhere. I can also see, from my standpoint, five years ago I would have thought, yeah that’s how I’m going to get all this stuff out there.

John Jantsch: I think people, because there’s a flood of content now … How do you make that type of practice useful, today? Instead of just, yeah I can schedule this stuff for two years out, and never have to think about it, there’s no real thought of engagement. It’s just, publish content. How do you stay away from that trap, of just producing stuff that nobody actually looks at?

Kate B. Chernis: Sure. Well, a couple of ways.

Kate B. Chernis: Number one, this is not just automation, it’s AI. It’s actually compelling, relevant content. We’re researching specifically what your audience is already raising its hand, saying I want to engage with this content, and analyzing that for you. It’s high quality content, and that’s the big difference. This is where everyone’s been making the mistake, in the past.

Kate B. Chernis: More is unavoidable. We all have to do more, we want more, more, more, more, we’ve already gone down this path. The only way to be good at more is to cut through the noise with quality. Doing what I did for Walmart as a human, alone, no one could possibly do what I had done 10 years ago, now. Everything is just growing, growing, growing. You need the coupling of the AI. That distinction of the quality is an important thing.

Kate B. Chernis: Lately is not a social marketing tool, Lately is a content writing tool, an AI powered content writing tool. We focus on making marketers better writers, and we help them do that at scale.

John Jantsch: Let’s use … I’m sure you’ve seen lots of ways that people have used it very effectively.

Kate B. Chernis: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Jantsch: Let’s talk about a couple, and I already mentioned this. As a podcaster, I produce a transcript of this show, it produces 3000 to 5000 words per show. We do publish that, in a lot of ways, for SEO purposes. But, I could certainly see a tool like yours being able to turn around the quality bits of that, in a way that would actually help a podcaster attract more listeners. Now I’m putting words in your mouth. How would you see a podcaster effectively using this?

Kate B. Chernis: Yeah, exactly. You got the point.

Kate B. Chernis: One of the things that it touches on, whether it’s a podcaster or any other kind of use, is that the beauty of Lately is giving you, let’s just say, 50 social posts from your podcast that are all different, still point back to the link of your podcast. This is important, because …

Kate B. Chernis: There’s that old marketing adage, about winking in the dark, right? Not marketing is like winking in the dark, get it? These days, actually, the similar equivalent is marketing once or twice, meaning publishing one Twitter post, you might as well be winking in the dark. Who the heck is reading that? Never. Really? You have to publish multiple, intense, 10 or 20 a day, to hope that I’m going to see that. What are the chances, right?

Kate B. Chernis: Similarly, if you think about marketing in radio, back to radio, we used to play the same … Not saying this is good, but this is how it was. We played the same song, 300 times in one week, with the hope that you would absorb it, and listen to it, and remember it. In marketing, that used to be seven times you would have to hear, read or see an ad for you to absorb it. These days, it’s 12 to 14 times. I have to hope that you somehow see my ad 12 to 14 times, before it’s going to sink in with you.

Kate B. Chernis: Again, the only way to do that is through quantity, but then you have to have the quality as well. If I just sent you the same 40 social posts, pointing to your podcast, I’m spamming you. We hate that. If I give you 40 different access points, what we’ve found is that not only are you able to reach new and greater audiences, because different messages about your podcast resonate with different people, but even the same people will start to share your content in a greater way, because they start getting excited about it.

Kate B. Chernis: One of the ways that we found our customers are using Lately to grow their audiences, and to get that impact, is by, literally, tagging the person you’re interviewing. If you, John, were using Lately to auto-generate content from this podcast, you’re going to get all these quotes. It’s look for the most compelling quotes of what you and I are saying, because there’s some gold in here. Then, it’s going to automatically add a short link to your podcast, on the back of it, plus a hashtag, or whatever. And, you can automatically tag me, as well.

Kate B. Chernis: Here’s the beauty, is that if you publish those 40 posts, once every week, for the next 40 weeks, the chances of me retweeting your post are super high.

John Jantsch: I want to remind you that this episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. Klaviyo helps you build meaningful customer relationships, by listening and understanding queues from your customers. This allows you to easily turn that information into valuable marketing messages. There’s powerful segmentation, email auto responders that are ready to go, great reporting. If you want to learn a bit about the secret to building customer relationships, they’ve got a really fun series called, Klaviyo’s Beyond Black Friday. It’s a docu-series, a lot of fun, quick lessons. Just head on over to Klaviyo.com/BeyondBF, Beyond Black Friday.

John Jantsch: Yeah, even if you have a smaller following, that really actually reads your Twitter posts, I think the compelling idea, here, is that you’re actually … Let’s say they catch five of them, they’re catching a story as opposed to, there’s another read my stuff.

Kate B. Chernis: Yeah, totally. We had a customer, David Allison. He wrote this amazing book called Valuegraphics, which is the death of demographics. It’s the idea of grouping people by what they value, which is brilliant.

Kate B. Chernis: He used to have a marketing team, he would pay them $3000 a month. He fired them, he purchased Lately. When he released his book on a Monday, by noon he was number one on Amazon’s Best Seller global list, and he gives Lately all the credit. That was his book, he was running the chapters through the generator.

John Jantsch: He ran the actually PDF of a document through?

Kate B. Chernis: Yeah.

John Jantsch: Yeah, that’s awesome. Awesome.

Kate B. Chernis: It’s amazing. By the way, we have customers now, who are actually optimizing their content for the generator. So, they’ve asked me, how do they write a blog so that more posts will get picked up, which is interesting. They want to game the AI, I love it.

John Jantsch: Let’s talk about another use case. I’ll give you an example.

Kate B. Chernis: Sure.

John Jantsch: This is going to be a hard one for you, but let’s say a remodeling contractor. It’s a local business, but they’re a pretty good size. They’ve got 50 employees, and do millions of dollars worth of remodels in their community. Is a tool like this something that could benefit them?

Kate B. Chernis: For a contractor? You know, I’m going to probably say no, unless they happen to be a thought leader who is producing a ton of content. If they have a website with tons of content on resources for home buyers, and the content is long form, so blogs, videos, podcasts, then they’re going to be a great candidate for us. If they don’t already have pieces in mind, what we’ve found is that …

Kate B. Chernis: It’s so interesting, John. People hate writing, marketers hate writing, which is also kind of interesting. They just don’t want to do it. There’s this strange thing, where they want to do nothing so bad, they just want to be able to push a button and be done with it, but marketing cannot ever work that way. Marketing only works when there’s an emotional connection tied to it. You like me, you buy my things, that’s the end of it. There’s some kind of liking happening, or sympathy, empathy.

Kate B. Chernis: It’s funny, because people buy QuickBooks, for example. You sit down, and you have to do some work to get QuickBooks to work for you. But, with marketing, people are like, well why can’t I just push the button and have it done? You’re like, no. There is a reason people have a degree in this.

Kate B. Chernis: That’s the way we’ve learned to filter out our customers, by the ones who understand. They have a team in place, they’ve already educated themselves to the fact that the work is part of the deal.

John Jantsch: Let’s talk about the platforms, then. Have you found that … We already mentioned Twitter, I’m going to go with Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, maybe even YouTube. You can throw anything else in there you want to, Pinterest maybe. Have you found that your tool does particularly …

John Jantsch: Well, let me ask this two ways. Do you find that your tool, the AI, does particularly well on certain platforms? Or, do you just merely find that you need to personalize for the platform?

Kate B. Chernis: Yeah. The AI will work on any platform, because the learning capabilities are the same across the board, and they’re applicable no matter where it is. It’s learning for that specific audience, of that platform.

Kate B. Chernis: But, there certainly are tweaks. You can have it create content for the different platforms, or you can say, I want to clone this thing that I made for Pinterest on LinkedIn, and that kind of thing. You have a lot of options, where the AI is letting go at that point. That’s where the human is coming in, and making those decisions.

Kate B. Chernis: For sure, LinkedIn is having a moment with the world right now. If you’re not actively doing social organic on LinkedIn, you are missing out. I can’t even believe it. This is how we got Gary V. to be our customer. Thank you, Jesus, that was a super awesome day. We’re actively pushing our customers to really enhance their LinkedIn, and to promote and publish more there.

Kate B. Chernis: Then, it’s interesting because … I heard somebody say, “Oh, Twitter is dead.” It is not dead. It’s just as mighty as before, it’s just different. Really, the SEO capability of Twitter, I feel, is as powerful as ever. It’s a little bit different in Instagram Facebook land, because that’s so image driven, and that’s not where our forte is. You can add images to Lately, for sure, but we’re focused on the writing.

Kate B. Chernis: Yeah. We’re definitely watching this across, we have data across all of our customers. We’re watching to see, even across the industries of our customers, whose having greater uptick against which channels. There is some ebb and flow, and again it relates to either photos, specifically, or like I said, just trends, like LinkedIn being a great place for organic.

Kate B. Chernis: You know, John, the other thing I should say is, one of the requests we used to get all the time, and we don’t so much anymore, is when are you going to integrate with paid advertising? Of course, organic and paid is connected. We just stuck a stake in the sand, and we stopped doing our own paid ads. We do 100% organic, all dog fooding our own product. Dog fooding, for those who don’t know, means when you use your own thing to do your own thing. We decided to put our money where our mouth is, so to speak. We’ve seen an incredible uptick in our own sales leads, and ability to generate sales.

Kate B. Chernis: We have a 50% conversion from trial to sale. The reason we do is because, by the time we pitch our leads, they’re already warm, because we only pitch leads who like, comment, and share our social. We use the social to get those people, because we’re able to do it at scale. I’m just a little company.

John Jantsch: Yeah. Let me ask you one more thing, about, say, a larger organization. Are they able to segment? In other words, they may have different product groups, or different service offerings, or different target markets all together. Have you been able to effectively allow them to meet all those objectives?

Kate B. Chernis: Yeah. One of our favorite features is called campaign tags, and it allows you to tag all of your content any way you like. This comes from my spreadsheet days.

Kate B. Chernis: Secretly, on the outside I’m a rock and roller, but on the inside I’m an organized nerd. I think that Martha Stewart and Marie Kondo are the end all, be all. I’ve been doing my underwear drawers for years, long before Marie came along. So, organizing is really big for us, and we found that it was our second most used feature, was this ability to literally tag your content and organize it.

Kate B. Chernis: So, for example, say you wanted to see all of your social posts pertaining to your Easter blog campaign, you can literally click a button, and it does that for you. It’ll even, actually, roll up every piece of content by campaign, so you can see all the social post links, images, videos, whatever you want, that went along with Volvo’s end of the year sale, for example.

John Jantsch: Awesome. So, Kate, tell people where they can find out more about Try Lately? I know that you have a trial period, I think, that they can actually kick the tires a little?

Kate B. Chernis: Yeah. We actually just 86d that in the new year, sorry. Anybody can always ask me for a favor, and I’ll probably say yes.

Kate B. Chernis: It’s www.TryLately.com. The best part, John, is on Tuesdays, at 2PM Eastern, we do a free webinar. It is super duper fun, it’s open to public, where we go over some of our top features. There’s an open Zoom channel, so there’s lots of chat, there’s lots of marketing advice. Then, once a month, actually, I get on and I do a writing class, showing people exactly how to get that 70% increased engagement, by adding a little human touch to their Lately AI. It’s super fun, so I hope everyone will come.

John Jantsch: Awesome. We’ll have, obviously, links in the show notes.

John Jantsch: Kate, thanks for stopping by. I know it took us a while to get this one on the books, but I appreciate it. Hopefully, we’ll run into you next time I’m up in the Hudson Valley.

Kate B. Chernis: John, you’re cool as heck. Thank you so much, rock and roll.

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