#and you just have to suck it up as a writer and write not in the mindset of 'how many people will actually read this'

[infamous-if]

Hey Ames👋. Hope you're doing good, and the chronic pain isn't too bad. Is the pain you have due to writer's cramp, or something else? (Sry if that's too personal a question, I don't mean to pry). Either way, praying for you to get well soon (not cause I want you to slave over Chapter 4 so it can be published sooner, on the contrary, I got writer's cramp A LOT in the past, especially during high school so I know how much it sucks). Pls take it easy and don't forget to drink some water! Also, are you by any chance still doing Cast Q&A's? If not, no problem, I don't want you putting too much strain on yourself I'm happy just waiting for whatever you feel you can handle rn to be published. Take care!

Hi and thank you!! Don’t worry, the pain is an Amy thing not a Writing thing haha and thank you :)

I still am! I made the post in band tier the other day. Usually I keep that for the end of the month. The O POV should be up late tonight or tomorrow. I’ve fixed prologue and chapter 1 errors so I’m slowly combing through ch2 🫡 and have finished outlining ch 4&5 so I’m getting stuff done! just slower than usual (for now) haha

[bettsfic]

hi betts! i hope you're doing well. there's something i want to ask: what is it called when you start noticing that your writing is getting worse over time?

i was looking at some of the stuff i wrote back in 2019 and they were pretty good. 2021's writing was still okay but the ideas were less solidly formed, in 2023's writing there's a distinct lack in dialogue. and today i tried writing again and i couldn't even write complete sentences. honestly i've thought about quitting writing altogether but ugh! the muses will still whisper to me sometimes and i can't do anything about it but suffer in silence.

as a more experienced author, do you have any advice on how to deal with something like this? i really don't want to quit just yet.

have you tried rewriting? i think sometimes when you see yourself getting "worse" at writing you're actually just getting faster at it. especially since you're writing in fragments, to me that says you might be getting your ideas on the page with more rapidity. every single sentence is carved out of every word in your vocabulary, and as you get faster at that process, you end up relying on familiar sentence structures and imagery. over the years, i've coached a lot of writers who see themselves get "worse" but actually it just means a change in their process: the fast draft and the slow draft. you get through the first one, it sucks, you rewrite it from scratch. and because you've already processed the scene in your head, you can take your time with it on the second pass, in the same way an artist creates a sketch and then begins creating layers on top of it. as you improve as an artist, you build endurance to put down more layers, but your initial sketches may get sketchier.

if you're already a rewriter, it may be a cognitive issue. writing takes an insane amount of brain power, so if you're writing at a time of day where your brain's clocked out, done making words, your writing might reflect that. things like depression, stress, med changes...all of that that impact your writing.

and lastly, you may have hit a writing ceiling! when that happens, a good idea is to try some particular challenge to put you out of your comfort zone. changing up the style, voice, structure, anything that can help push you to the next skill level.

don't quit! sometimes "i think i'm worse at writing" is secretly an opportunity to change things up.

[aurinavenir]

Hi there<3 I have a question. I want to try writing, but I know it will suck so I don’t know how to start. I just want to finish a short story about anything. How do I start without giving up immediately?

Hi there! I'm always happy to answer questions! I have three suggestions based on my own experience that might be helpful: 1) On getting started: When I was around ten, my grandmother (a passionate writer and poet) encouraged me to write every day after I told her I wanted to write stories like the ones I loved reading but didn’t know where to start. She suggested starting small—maybe writing a hundred words on the computer or filling half an A4 page each day. The idea was to gradually increase the goal over time. If I wrote more, fantastic! If not, I still hit my target. The important thing was having something written down, and those little goals quickly started adding up. She always said, "success breeds success," and seeing my progress made me want to keep going! 2) On worrying about 'bad writing': First, It’s completely normal for your first attempt at something new not to be your best work—everyone starts somewhere. That’s what practice is for! No one’s first attempt at anything is going to be perfect, and that’s okay. Writing can be a fun and rewarding skill to practice, the important thing to remember is: don’t give up! Second, Jodi Picoult said: “You can always edit a bad page. You can't edit a blank page.” If you look at what you’ve written and think, "this isn’t great," don’t worry! Every writer feels that way about their first drafts in some way, shape or form. That’s what editing is for. The key is to get the basics down, no matter how simple, and then go back and refine it when you’re ready. There's something incredibly satisfying about looking back at your old work/drafts and seeing how much progress you've made! At the end of the day writing is all about rewriting—final pieces are simply the result of revising over and over, not something that was perfect from the start. 3) A writing tip that helps me maintain momentum: Try ending your writing session by leaving a sentence unfinished (though have an idea of how it ends). It might sound odd, but this technique worked for Ernest Hemingway, and it works for me too! I find it much easier to pick up where I left off because the unfinished sentence creates a natural momentum, making it easier to dive back in and continue. I hope these suggestions are helpful! Of course, these are just based on my own experiences, so feel free to take what works for you and leave the rest. I'm sure you have some amazing stories in you that are waiting to be told, and it would be a shame not to put them on paper! Give writing a shot and stick with it—you might just surprise yourself! Happy writing! :)

[persephryne]

Making Aegon a rapist was straight up bad and lazy writing.

Let me elaborate.

In the show, the first thing we learn about Aegon as an adult is that he is a rapist. We haven’t seen him yet but still we already know that he is an horrible despicable rapist, especially since Dyana is so young, which pretty much makes him a pedophile too. How could anyone root for a man like that ? And that’s where the problem begins.

Rhaenyra had already been established many times as the rightful heir to the throne in season 1. It has been made obvious that she would make a decent Queen too. In the meantime, it had already been shown that Aegon is not even a good person. He’s selfish, inconsiderate, a bully, and does not act like a prince at all. To put it plainly, he sucks big time and we as viewers already know it. Add what we saw in season 2, how reckless he gets, how he’s an alcoholic immature asshole, how he obviously knows nothing about strategics nor how to rule efficiently, or even how bad he is at high valyrian, and you can’t have anyone tell you in good faith that he would’ve been a better ruler than Rhaenyra.

However, had Aegon not been made a rapist, you would still feel for him even though he is not cut out to rule. Because he knows it too and tried to escape it and he was forced to attend his own coronation . Because this crown that he did not want does not fit him, even though he really tries to show that he is not as worthless as everyone seems to think and he just keeps failing. You would feel for him because the war ,that he has started when he was made an usurper by the people around him, has cost him his son’s life. Because the brother, who is partially responsible for his son’s death has now betrayed him and tried to kill him with dragonfire. Because the injuries he suffered make him look more and more like his father who never cared for him, never loved him and that he definitely hates. Which also probably why he tries so hard to make his mother proud of him and love him but he can’t and his main attempt has left him half-dead, half-burn. Not only that but his dragon, with whom he has the strongest bond known in Targaryen’s, history probably died during this futile attempt to prove himself. The only thing about his Targaryen’s heritage that he seems to care about has been destroyed all because he wanted to prove himself. Because he truly resents his Targaryen’s, his father’s heritage, it’s obvious, just as it is obvious that he didn’t want to marry his own sister but was forced to. It’s completely legitimate of him to want to distance himself as much as possible from everything that is Targaryen related. He is indeed more of an Hightower than a Targaryen, but can you really blame him for that ? Would you not try to fit somewhere else too, if you were in his place ? It’s all absolutely and undeniably tragic.

I wholeheartdely believe that, even if you would’ve root for Rheanyra to be Queen, you woud’ve probably still thought that Aegon, as bad as he is, did not deserves this much pain.

But because he is a rapist, well, he honestly does.

By not trusting the audience to see that Aegon is not a good person, nor a good a king, without having him comitting a literal crime, by making Aegon a rapist, the writers have annihilated any possibilities for an internal conflict regarding Aegon and Rhaenyra. The whole concept of « teams » just goes down the drain because of this lazy, manichaean, writing. And that, my friends, is bad writing at its peak.

[cluescorner]

I cannot imagine being a Damian stan right now. You've got both Zdarsky's bullshit (where he clearly doesn't give a shit about your boy) and The Boy Wonder (where Juni Ba clearly gives so many shits about your boy) coming out on the same day. The whiplash must be insane. I hope y'all get some nice warm soup for your efforts jfc

[lightbulb-warning]

i used to freehand comics all the time as a child and since the part i liked was the drawing part i would just draw panel after panel because i didn't want to stop drawing to think about icky icky words, plus the story TOTALLY still made perfect sense! to me! and noone else, but 'whoooo caaaaares omgggg its not like comics and sequantial art are a communicative meeediummmm lmaoooooo'. i spent my entire childhood telling myself stuff like "oh pfft I know this story by heart- ill SIMPLY remember the dialogue and write it later" ...and. I can't help but admire baby maiora's (call that a minora ba tm tsk) fucking audacity? hubris? confident wrongness? kid couldn't even remember to finish the comics in the first place? INCREDIBLE levels of unearned self assurance, wish that were me, genuinely- what an icon!!! anyway i think i have forever cursed myself

[adelinamoteru]

the problem with jason’s writing post resurrection is that like. you spend all this time while he was gone building up these batfam characters and their views and morals and way of interacting with each other and their world. and then you bring back this one character who’s been dead for however long, but an insanely long period of however long, and you’ve made it so his worldview has become drastically different than what he was being taught. then you dump the antagonist route completely and start trying to figure out how to bring him back into the fold.

but once again, you’ve spent around 15yrs expanding these characters separately from jason todd. so what do you do? you mold and reform what jason is meant to be post resurrection until he fits into those standards. its what makes sense to do. how can you justify the batfam characters doing an almost complete 180. maybe a 90. on their views purely because of one character? purely because of jason todd when nothing has set ever been able to set that change in motion beforehand? so now jason has to be the one to change. except the change completely contradicts all the beliefs he’s formed in his post resurrection plot-line.

and now jason todd as a character becomes bland. he becomes a victim to bad writing and character assassinations. he’s wishy washy. nobody knows what to do with him so his character and the characters he interacts with only continue to suffer as a result. everybody begins to stop taking him and his stances seriously. all because you’ll never remove him from the sources that led to the origin of jason todd.

a batfam character away from batfam? well now why would the writers ever think to do that!

[happy74827]

You ever just revisit your old fics (which unfortunately are public to the world) and you want to delete it so bad because it’s just painful to glance at, but at the same time, you know someone out there is emotionally attached to that fic and you just don’t have the heart to rip that away from them.

The true pain of a writer.

[supekitchen]

#Mother'sMilkStopBeingAHypocriticalCunt2024

[kittiegun]

the hatzgang are drawn with disgustingly big heads and im tired of hiding it.

seriously the shapes are so clashing and dont fit together at all (not to mention, inaccurate?? super inaccurate)

robert looks like a thumb. his head is shaped like a thumg LOOK AT THIS SHIT.

HIS FACE IS AN OVAL YOU ASSHEADS!!!

[gourmet-trash]

i know i'm not the first person to say this, but i've been seeing more of it than usual lately so it feels like it bears repeating:

don't put things like "this is so bad" or "i suck at summaries" or "sorry this is terrible" in your fic tags or summaries.

even if you FEEL like what you've written is bad, don't advertise that! even if you think your summary isn't good, don't call that out! you are convincing people that's the truth before they have even been given a chance to make that decision for themselves!

something i learned in a few public speaking courses/workshops i've been in over the years that i find oddly relevant to this topic is: do not apologize. specifically if you're giving a presentation and you say something incorrectly or you skip a data point - don't apologize! when you notice it, just calmly correct yourself or go back and cover the point you missed. you shouldn't say "sorry" if you can avoid it.

why? because people don't NOTICE that you've flubbed a lot of the time UNTIL YOU CALL IT OUT. they don't even think twice about it unless you make a big deal out of it. but when you make a big deal out of it, then it becomes A Thing. then that's something people remember about your presentation.

when you highlight that something is wrong or needs to be apologized for, you're putting that frame around the situation. saying "this is bad" out the gate primes someone to agree with you. saying "this is OOC" tells someone to be looking for the things that are OOC that they may not have really noticed at first.

i know for a lot of people who are new to writing, getting some positive feedback or a little validation on their work is the thing that makes you want to KEEP WRITING. but tags like "this is awful" make a lot of people automatically scroll past your story. you are depriving yourself of the opportunity to get that motivation if you're shoving your readers away before they ever show up! and you're steering away people who may genuinely enjoy your work by convincing them before they've even started reading that it isn't worth their time.

stop fucking doing that, little writerlings.

and if you're REALLY worried about it?? you're REALLY afraid people are going to hate what you wrote and leave flames in the comment box (i am so fucking old)?? make a burner account. post that shit anonymously. you might be surprised by the feedback you actually get.

[rat-rosemary]

Jesus is such a chill and fun character and his story had some really cool and intense scenes and art and themes (tho it's a bit gory, so I get it's not for everyone) but he got really bad luck with the fandom :[

Like, I get being hiperfixated on something, but that doesn't mean you get to be disrespectful of other fandoms right? And they're so weird about shipping and smut and etc....

Jesus I'm sorry you should be enjoying a thousand fanarts of old man yaoi and some incredible angst fics about your Daddy issues but your fandom is so weird about you and completely ignore cannon for their weird fanon headcannons :[

[white-nolse]

Ok, I woke up at like... 6am and saw something that pissed me off a lot, so of course I'm making a poll to get more info, so...

Reblogs are greatly appreciated!

[fatfemmefreaquency]

watching nanowrimo power torch their brand is… wild

i don’t even go here but i swear it’s like they woke up and said “hey how do we completely destroy customer trust in as little time as possible?” and then they just… did it

hey maybe if your main audience is artists don’t accept sponsorship from a corporation that directly plagiarizes those artists in order to fuck them over and make their careers disappear. that’s just common sense.

anyone with a brain could have seen how this would end, and yet

[themyscirah]

By the way, what character assassination were you talking about in the notes of my poll? I'm really curious

Was kind of talking around it there a bit intentionally but he really did dirty my boy Scrappy Doo : (

(Gunn wrote the live action scooby doo movies)

[cluescorner]

Arlecchino's whole deal is unbelievable

Arlecchino: Huh I wonder what's causing my weird powers? I can't really worry about that right now tho, I've gotta become King and then kill my "Mother".

*Kills Clervie and "Mother"*

Arlecchino: Huh I wonder why I was able to defeat a Fatui Harbinger when I'm like 17 or so? I can't really worry about that right now tho, I've gotta be in jail and become a Harbinger.

*Is in jail for a while and becomes a Harbinger*

Arlecchino: Huh I wonder why I am-

Pierro: Hey what's up hello, anyways you're descended from the Crimson Moon Dynasty of Khaenri'ah. I'm sure that this is a lot for you to take in so-

Arlecchino: Ok.

Pierro: ...You're just cool with that?

Arlecchino: IDK maybe? I can't really worry about that at the moment, I'm a father now. This orphanage full of children I love (who also are child soldiers and are not allowed to leave or else I'll execute them except maybe now I'm just gonna wipe their memories IDK I'm morally complex) isn't gonna run itself.

*Runs the orphanage/spy recruitment initiative*

Me, the fucking player: WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU ARE KHAENRI'AN? WHY WASN'T THIS BROUGHT UP IN YOUR FUCKING QUEST?? OR ANYTHING ELSE????

Arlecchino, talking to me through my phone: I honestly don't know why you care, I'm too busy to give a shit. Anyways, I'm gonna go fight fate itself I guess. I'm sure that I don't share any thematic parallels with any other Khaenri'an characters (particularly as it relates to acting and family angst) and that I haven't made the idea of 'curses' on Khaenri'ans and what they entail even more complicated than they already were. See ya.